Tactical Stupidity in Science Fictions

[Enlightenment]

I'm not certain it was that decisive. The truce was clearly deterioriating at that point in time. The Shadows assassinated Kosh and were actively tipping the balance of power their way. The Vorlons were already gearing up their minions for a war footing, so a general interstellar war with billions of lives up for the big firework was inevitable.

Certainly the truce was going but having a Vorlon minion lob a few Nukes of Arbitrary Yield into the Shadow homeworld was taking the matter to a whole new level. A minor fleet skirmish and an assassination aren't exactly in the same league as a major bombing. Without Sheridan's provokation the Shadow war might very well have been fought according to the traditional rules: a nasty fight, but without the planet killers and xenocide viruses.

Sheridan stirred the hornets' nest to an unprecidented extent and put the existance of the entire galaxy at risk. The subsequent fallout created a world order dominated by Shadow minions where eace has not been known for at least two decades and the 'good guys' survive only by a thread. All of this resulted directly from his trip to Za'ha'dum.

If anything he should have been shot for crimes against civilization.

Sheridan's trip was clearly meant to be a tragic element, and a very well crafted one as well.

That's a rather odd way of putting it given that the entire B5 universe is an epic tragedy about the futility of life. There's nothing in that thing that isn't a tragic element.

(Kosh told him that he would die if he went to Zha'Ha'Dum, and he was alive in the part of the future he saw to marry Delenn)

Much of the blame should of course be placed at bonehead's feet for not having made it very clear that Sheridan's mistake was *going* to Za'ha'dum. Still doesn't change the fact that what he did was inexcusably bad, however.

[Master of Ossus]

Actually, you're right about the tragedy of the entire series. I should have said that it was another tragic sub-plot.

[Coyote]

Another really DUMB sci-fi blunder was the entire Cylon Empire.

Okay, these guys are ROBOTS, right? But do they have a network link to the ship computer? Do they keep each other informed through instantaneous communications? Do they coordinate movements or plug into the vehicles and pilot them directly? NO...!

They relay information by talking to each other with vocal communication! They push buttons and fly ships with joysticks! And here's the worse part--

-- the Galacticans STILL couldn't beat these guys. We should team up the Galactica with Voyager and call it a new show: "Lost Wandering Bastards".

[Patrick Degan]

Certainly the truce was going but having a Vorlon minion lob a few Nukes of Arbitrary Yield into the Shadow homeworld was taking the matter to a whole new level. A minor fleet skirmish and an assassination aren't exactly in the same league as a major bombing. Without Sheridan's provocation the Shadow war might very well have been fought according to the traditional rules: a nasty fight, but without the planet killers and xenocide viruses.

The Shadows were also threatening his own homeworld and his revolution against Clark. They were the enemy at the time and he had the means and opportunity to do maximum damage to the enemy.

Sheridan stirred the hornets' nest to an unprecidented extent and put the existance of the entire galaxy at risk. The subsequent fallout created a world order dominated by Shadow minions where eace has not been known for at least two decades and the 'good guys' survive only by a thread. All of this resulted directly from his trip to Za'ha'dum. If anything he should have been shot for crimes against civilization.

That, quite simply, is absurd. Sheridan's action has nothing whatsoever to do with the Vorlons deciding to commit wholesale xenocide. Indeed, the Shadows were attempting to avoid battle exactly because they had been forced to evacuate Z'ha'Dum prematurely. They were, in fact, attempting to go to ground again and this time using the races on the worlds they were placing their ships upon as living shields. The Vorlons decided to pull the trigger. They didn't have to, but they decided to do so anyway. They started destroying planets first, not the Shadows. There is no remotely logical equation by which Sheridan can conceivably be held responsible for the Vorlons deciding to wipe whole races out of existence to win a war against an enemy which was then in retreat.

[BioDroid]

Prove that the rebels on Hoth had ANY proton torpedoes, which seem to be given out only on per-use bases.

Prove that they didn't... (They had them at Yavin, They had them at Endor, why would they NOT have them at Hoth?

[Sea Skimmer]

Prove that the rebels on Hoth had ANY proton torpedoes, which seem to be given out only on per-use bases.

Prove that they didn't... (They had them at Yavin, They had them at Endor, why would they NOT have them at Hoth?

Yavin was a bigger and better established base, and they still had only enough to give each fighter two of them for an attack on the Death Star.

Endor was a major fleet action later in the war when the Rebels had greater resources.

[BioDroid]

Only if we apply creation math to the situation regarding the military forces at Hoth, I'm afraid. The tradtional maths I go by say that the Imperials had, at minimum, 58000 troops on six stardestroyers available to them.

Oh, only if we applied our fucking eyes. They ground attack consisted of a handfull of AT-AT's you idiot!

I'm afraid I'm not the one in denial, here. Six full mechanised regiments vs. one groundbase and a handful of X-wings. Work it out.

Except that the Empire only attacked with a handfull of AT-ATs Which I remind you that you wouldn't have had it any other way. The X-Wings would have made very short work of the attacking force. You can't have it both ways. Either the Empire was tactically deficient, or they attacked with the right sized force...whic is it?

Assuming it doesn't ram itself into the Rebels' own shield bubble at maximum burn.

So, when you drive your car (assuming you drive) do you always floor it and keep it floored? Ever hear of a throttle?

Naturally, there would have not been any troops in orbit on launch alert, and the stardestroyers would not be monitoring the ground battle in any way, shape, or form.

And your point here is?

Naturally, the stardestroyers would simply sit in a parking orbit and make no moves whatsoever to close the space around the planet. And while a few ships might be able to slip past a blockade line, most remain tightly bottled up. See the American Civil War as example.

Except that the Rebel Base complete with Ion Cannon would be left intact...what you'd have would be an amusing array of disabled Star Destroyers providing a minor obstacle course for the fleeing transports.

Unfortunately, X-wings need lots of room to manoeuver properly, simply due to the speeds they are capable of. Take away their speed and altitude advantages, and they become targets for the AT-AT guns.

Again, take your foot off the freakin' throttle and apply the common sense!

Yes, all nice and colourful. In a practical sense, meaningless. See Ulysees S. Grant.

Unsupported irrelavant speculation. The key is that from their perspective (Meaning the Borg on the orb ship) The assimilation of the past earth would have resulted in the nullification of the Federation from their point of view. All this talk about parralell timelines is a needless red herring nitpick.

[Imperial Federation]

Unsupported irrelavant speculation. The key is that from their perspective (Meaning the Borg on the orb ship) The assimilation of the past earth would have resulted in the nullification of the Federation from their point of view. All this talk about parralell timelines is a needless red herring nitpick.

That would work if they were individuals, but isn't it supposed to be a COLLECTIVE?
It would mean nothing for the Borg in the old universe, the Queen would simply experience the new universe of Borg victory, meaning that it's nothing more than her massive ego-trip, further proving Borg stupidity.

[BioDroid]

Which actually says nothing about the altitude the shield bubble extends to, I'm afraid. You're making an inference with no supporting evidence to back it. The rest of your point is meaningless; the speeds attained by X-wings on maximum burn result in turning arcs of many hundreds of kilometres. The X-wing design is optimised for space combat or fast attack runs from orbit against fixed ground targets; not tactical battlefield deployment against armoured formations within a tight operational volume.

Actually the supporting evidence is right in front of you. The Ion Cannon wouldn't need to fire until the transport was vulnerable to attack from the Tyrant. Since the Transport was heading directy at the Tyrant, and the Tyrant had not yet opened fire with any of it's ordinance, it is quite reasonable to assume that the transport was still within the shields are of protection. What are you basing your assumptions on?

You are the one baselessly assuming such a low flight ceiling (which is irrelevant anyway seing that there is nothing keeping an X-Wing from flying lower.)

As far as your X-Wing optimization goes, this is also groundless, and countered by the fact that the X-Wing was obviously designed to act as a fighter within an atmosphere as well as outside (Hence the wings). Your also assuming that an X-Wing flying at a lower velocity than "maxed out" (What is this fixation of yours about X-Wings not being able to fly at slower velocities....hint Jet fighters do it all the time, and if your really feeling obtuse there is mention of X-Wings having a throttle and accelerating and decelerating) is incapable of sufficient maneuverability to work within your "tight operational volume (without really knowing how tight this volume is.) Your also assuming that attacking a fixed ground target differs so significantly from a a slow moving (painfully small) ground assault that it's too inflexible to adapt. (I hope not, because if that were true, then our entire arsenal of ground attack fighters is in big trouble)

[BioDroid]

[quote="IRG CommandoJoe]Why do X-Wings have to move around like airplanes, never being able to stop and hover around like helicopters or Harriers? The same goes for the snowspeeders. Why did they have to swoop in and out of AT-AT legs and such? All Rebel starfighters in ANH and TESB were capable of hovering in one spot and moving very slowly when they took off. I don't see why they couldn't do it on the battlefield as well.

If they used X-Wings, they could have shot past the AT-AT's field of fire, turn around, and then hover behind or to the sides of them and knock 'em out with torps. However, the X-Wings should have not been used to stop the AT-ATs. Using proton torpedoes would have been a great way of attacking them, but given the situation, they shouldn't have wasted torps on an attack that was just slowing the inevitable. They were supposed to be conserving torps, so they made the right decision.

I don't know if there were any Y-Wings in Echo Base, but if there were, they could have used their ion cannons to disable at least the weapons on the AT-ATs using the hovering tactics described above. This would have made the snowspeeders' jobs of using tow cables much easier. If the AT-ATs could have been stopped from firing and moving at all with ion cannons, then they would have been completely halted and useless. Assuming the AT-ATs would even be standing, Rebel snowspeeders could get clear shots at the AT-ATs' "necks" and destroy them. If the AT-ATs toppled over, then the Rebels would have nothing to worry about.

Unless the AT-AT's armor was designed to repel ion cannon blasts, they would have been tons and tons of scrap metal. Does anyone know if AT-ATs can withstand ion cannons?[/quote]


I would just lie to quantify that I added proton torpedoes as a quick fix. I've also stated that according to EU, X-Wing lasers ARE effective against AT-AT armor. X-Wings would have been ideal to use for this reason alone. As for Y-Wings, they would probably work as well, especially since their lasers should be just as powerful as the X-Wings, and if they were older model Y-s their ion turrets would allow them to strafe(sp) the AT-ATs as they flew past them. My main point was that from all tactical considerations (Firepower, armor, shields, flight ceiling, top speed etc...) The T-47 was the worst choice they could have made.

[Master of Ossus]

I think we should also try to remember that proton torpedoes do not appear to be variable yield weapons. While walkers are not damaged by proximity explosions from them, X-Wings and unprotected rebel troopers would have been.

There is also no evidence that Y-Wings ion cannons would be capable of damaging an AT-AT. Walkers are almost certainly protected in some way against such weapons. Further, electrical damage from ion cannons can be repaired relatively quickly.

X-Wing cannons appear to be useful against walkers not because of their exceptional firepower, but because they can target portions of the walker that are not as well defended as others by virtue of the ability of an X-Wing to attack a walker from almost any direction. Thus, I don't see that their firepower is markedly greater than the weapons of a snowspeeder (which destroyed an AT-AT once the thing was crippled).

[BioDroid]

I think we should also try to remember that proton torpedoes do not appear to be variable yield weapons. While walkers are not damaged by proximity explosions from them, X-Wings and unprotected rebel troopers would have been.

And where do you get the information that AT-AT's are not damaged by proximity explosions from? If there's a group of relatively tightly packed walkers (ala Hoth) and you land a multi-megaton warhead in the midst of them, the very least I expect to happen is that the center one get's taken out and the rest of them get knocked off their feet. That's as good as a kill. As for the ground troops, in one of my earlier rants, I explained that they were completely unneccesary out ther (If the blast was far enough away, it wouldn't have mattered anyway.)

There is also no evidence that Y-Wings ion cannons would be capable of damaging an AT-AT. Walkers are almost certainly protected in some way against such weapons. Further, electrical damage from ion cannons can be repaired relatively quickly.

Actually, there's no evidence that they are not effected by those type of weapons. If they were going to design a vehicle that could withstand an ion cannon blast, I think they would have started with the ISD first don't you? It doesn't matter if the damage from an ion cannon can be repaired "relatively quickly" or not. It is still a period where the vehicle in question is immobilized and vulnerable. A time when the attacking forces can at their lesure (I know I spelled THAT wrong!) Can move in and destroy the vehicle at will! One minute of vulnerablity on the battle field = death.

X-Wing cannons appear to be useful against walkers not because of their exceptional firepower, but because they can target portions of the walker that are not as well defended as others by virtue of the ability of an X-Wing to attack a walker from almost any direction. Thus, I don't see that their firepower is markedly greater than the weapons of a snowspeeder (which destroyed an AT-AT once the thing was crippled).

Incorrect. In the X-Wing series of books, the X-Wings took out AT-AT's because of the superior firepower of their cannons, period!

[Master of Ossus]

I think we should also try to remember that proton torpedoes do not appear to be variable yield weapons. While walkers are not damaged by proximity explosions from them, X-Wings and unprotected rebel troopers would have been.

And where do you get the information that AT-AT's are not damaged by proximity explosions from? If there's a group of relatively tightly packed walkers (ala Hoth) and you land a multi-megaton warhead in the midst of them, the very least I expect to happen is that the center one get's taken out and the rest of them get knocked off their feet. That's as good as a kill. As for the ground troops, in one of my earlier rants, I explained that they were completely unneccesary out ther (If the blast was far enough away, it wouldn't have mattered anyway.)

Fool! How can anyone who proffessed to read the X-Wing books no know about this? In Isard's Revenge, they comment after they kill the walkers that they could have destroyed them all more easily with four torpedoes (one each), even though the walkers were in reasonably close proximity. This indicates that they would not be damaged by such proximity blasts. "The least you expect" is worth exactly as much as much as Agent Jay's skills in MIB.

There is also no evidence that Y-Wings ion cannons would be capable of damaging an AT-AT. Walkers are almost certainly protected in some way against such weapons. Further, electrical damage from ion cannons can be repaired relatively quickly.

Actually, there's no evidence that they are not effected by those type of weapons. If they were going to design a vehicle that could withstand an ion cannon blast, I think they would have started with the ISD first don't you? It doesn't matter if the damage from an ion cannon can be repaired "relatively quickly" or not. It is still a period where the vehicle in question is immobilized and vulnerable. A time when the attacking forces can at their lesure (I know I spelled THAT wrong!) Can move in and destroy the vehicle at will! One minute of vulnerablity on the battle field = death.

You are shifting burden of proof. You are trying to say that it is up to me to prove that the ion cannons would NOT work. In fact the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that it would. A reasonable degree of protection against ion weapons does not mean that a ship or vehicle is invincible. Obviously the defenses of the ISD were overwhelmed by the KDY Planet Defender. That does not mean that an AT-AT is completely unprotected against Jawa ion guns and Y-Wing ion cannons. Further, your assumption that it is either vulnerable or invulnerable is crappy, and is a common device used by rabid trekkies, warsies, B5ers, and fundamentalists.

Incorrect. In the X-Wing series of books, the X-Wings took out AT-AT's because of the superior firepower of their cannons, period!

Once again you subscribe to the "either it would get through or it would bounce off" theory. The AT-AT's were destroyed by continued fire, and shots selected to strike vulnerable areas of the walkers. That is similar to what was observed by the speeders, except that the T47's also had harpoons and tow cables, and so elected not to continue with blasters after their first few runs were ineffective. Note that a T47's firepower was great enough to utterly destroy a walker once it was free to get in an unchallenged shot to a critical area. That was done with a single dual cannon burst, and is consistent with what we know of X-Wing firepower when compared to AT-AT armor. Except that the AT-ATs destroyed by the X-Wings did not appear to explode quite so violently.

[Patrick Degan]

Very well, since you've decided to toss civility out the airlock...

Only if we apply creation math to the situation regarding the military forces at Hoth, I'm afraid. The tradtional maths I go by say that the Imperials had, at minimum, 58000 troops on six stardestroyers available to them.

Oh, only if we applied our fucking eyes. They ground attack consisted of a handfull of AT-AT's you idiot!

And the Star Wars Incredible Cross-Sections book gives us the troop compliment carried aboard each stardestroyer as 9700 per ship. Six times 9700. Work it out, moron.

I'm afraid I'm not the one in denial, here. Six full mechanised regiments vs. one groundbase and a handful of X-wings. Work it out.

Except that the Empire only attacked with a handfull of AT-ATs Which I remind you that you wouldn't have had it any other way. The X-Wings would have made very short work of the attacking force. You can't have it both ways. Either the Empire was tactically deficient, or they attacked with the right sized force...whic is it?[/quote]

And since the Rebels did not use the X-wings, which evidently were not suited for the combat conditions at hand, there is no second way to have it. I will remind you again: standard military procedure is to attack with a spearhead force in advance of the main body. That is Tactics 101.

Assuming it doesn't ram itself into the Rebels' own shield bubble at maximum burn.

So, when you drive your car (assuming you drive) do you always floor it and keep it floored? Ever hear of a throttle?[/quote]

Yep. Ever hear of presenting yourself as a very slow-moving target?

Naturally, there would have not been any troops in orbit on launch alert, and the stardestroyers would not be monitoring the ground battle in any way, shape, or form.

And your point here is?[/quote]

To point out that you have no point.

Naturally, the stardestroyers would simply sit in a parking orbit and make no moves whatsoever to close the space around the planet. And while a few ships might be able to slip past a blockade line, most remain tightly bottled up. See the American Civil War as example.

Except that the Rebel Base complete with Ion Cannon would be left intact...what you'd have would be an amusing array of disabled Star Destroyers providing a minor obstacle course for the fleeing transports.

The one stardestroyer was not disabled for any length of appreciable time, I'm afraid. Furthermore, Imperial stardestroyers are not totally knocked out of action if one control centre is rendered inoperative.

Unfortunately, X-wings need lots of room to manoeuver properly, simply due to the speeds they are capable of. Take away their speed and altitude advantages, and they become targets for the AT-AT guns.

Again, take your foot off the freakin' throttle and apply the common sense!

I'll spell it out for one more time. Slow. Moving. Targets. That is what an X-wing is if you take away its speed and altitude capabilities.

Yes, all nice and colourful. In a practical sense, meaningless. See Ulysees S. Grant.

Wow, counter a WWII General who valued his troops lives with a civil war general who couldn't adapt his troops tactics to the new technology and needlessly sent thousands of his own troops to their deaths in one of the bloodiest American wars ever...good one!

No, I counter a colourful bit of bluster intended to fire up soldiers' morale with how a war is actually fought and how soldiers are actually used in combat. War is not a movie. It is blood. And Ulysees S. Grant won, didn't he?

Let's try this for an excercise. What do you think would happen to a general who sent a light infantry platoon to defend against a tank platoon, using nothing more than small arms and the occasion inadeqate piece of artillery? He'd be courtmartialed. Despite your obvious attitude, the role of infantry is NOT to needlessly soak up fire from the opposing army. You never deploy a resource withought giving thought as to the resistance they would encounter. In this case, the only purpose the rebel troops served against the AT-AT's was cannon fodder. They were trying to defend against the attacks with rifles for crying out loud...hell their heavy emplacements weren't usefull against the damned things, what use was a blaster rifle going to be?

The role of the infantry is whatever is needed to advance the overall campaign or achieve the mission objective. Rikeen knew he was ordering his men to die, because it was necessary to slow the Imperial advance long enough for the evacuation to be carried out. Victory was not an option, and neither was surrender. Soldiers are often called upon to carry out impossible tasks for which the likely result is their deaths. I'm sorry if this gets in the way of your romantic notions of warfare and esprit d'corps, but that's brutal reality.

Speeders are more expendible in comparison to X-wings, which the Rebels needed for every engagement. Your proposal would have been akin to RAF Fighter Command deciding to sacrifice its every last Spitfire to defend Dunkirk in 1940. Furthermore, you concede that the X-wings were indispensible to the Rebellion, yet propose throwing them into a useless battle for a base which is going to be abandoned anyway.

Once again, apply the common sense, and read what I actually wrote. The X-Wings were going to waste anyway! There was no reason NOT to use them. My idea is to use a fighter that IS effective against the ground assault, has a defensive screen and a higher flight ceiling, rather than a small underarmed vessel with no shields, reduced firepower, and requires two pilots for every one, was easily shot down, and almost completely ineffectual against the enemy. Plus you never even bothered with the fact that the X-Wings that were supposed to carry the dead pilots out were left sitting in the snow for the Empire to confiscate and destroy! (Remember 2 X-Wings per shot down speeder) How does that constitute conservation? It was using the resources ON HAND to defend yourselves. Your version (and TESB version as well) would be akin to the RAF using BIPLANES to defend Dunkirk because the Spitfires were too expensive! And where does this all or nothing streak come from? A handfull of X-Wings would have been more than up to the task. What I'm simply advocating is using the best available tool for the job.

I did read what you wrote and found it ludicrous. The X-wings were the Rebellion's one means of being able to stand up in a firefight against TIEs or be able to carry out tactical strike missions from orbit against ground targets. Their production was considerably more limited than that of TIE fighters, which the Empire had in abundance and could produce in abundance. In those terms, the weapon becomes more important than individual soldiers because the weapon is the only means of effective fighting capacity.

If the X-wings cannot be employed as anything other than repulsorlift gun platforms, then they are also easily targetable and subject to destruction. That adds up to wasting valuable fighter craft in a needless battle.

Oh, and BTW, the British afforded very few fighters to the action in Dunkirk. Precisely because they were so precious. In case you forgot, the Battle of Britain was literally an "all or nothing" proposition, and the British needed ever last fighter they had left.

I suppose that's why we more or less followed that same strategy in Panama in 1990 despite knowing of the very limited forces available to Manuel Noriega. That's standard military operating procedure. Get it?

Again, it's not the point, your still talking about invading another country, holding land against resistance to the LANDING EFFORT and then moving the rest of the forces inland to engage the rest of the resistance. I'm telling you that here, the parable DOES NOT APPLY. 1. There was no resitance to the landing. 2. The enemy was already contained in a small area. 3. They didn't use 1 star destroyer's worth of capacity, much less what was available to attack with. Once again use your head and apply it to the situation. The Empire could have quickly klanded a much larger force, without resistance. According to your reasoning, they would have been holding back the rest of the AT-AT's for what? What targets needed an armored assault after the shields were down? What could not have been blasted from orbit at that time? THERE WAS NO REASON TO HOLD BACK ANY ARMOR DURING THE ASSAULT.[/quote]

In other words, it was sort of like the invasions of Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, in which 1. there was no resistance to the landing, 2. the enemy was already contained in a small area, and 3. the Americans didn't use the full capacity of the troops carried in the invasion transports. Yet they followed the same tactical doctrines because 1. simple prudence dictates assuming resistance to the landing, 2. defenders in a confined area will also be dug in like ticks, and 3. you have a secure source of reserves to draw upon.

I'm sorry if you cannot be bothered to understand military strategy.

The fastest attack route was the key to victory in this case; that being the path to the shield generator. Other routes around the base could well have been bloked by terrain which would have been very difficult for an AT AT to cover. In any case, the use of a spearhead force in advance of the main body is the strategically prudent move to make.

Prove it with anything other than idle speculation (Especially after seeing the wide open spaces around the shield generator, echo base, AND the Ion Cannon.[/quote]

I don't have to. The movie does so for me.

Attacking with anything less than an overwhelming force is an idiotic way of doing things.

Only if you don't care about clogging up the landing zone or magnifying your logistical problems in the process.

Without the Ion Cannon, it is very likely that none of the Transports would have been able to escape. By caving in the entrances to the hangars, not even the Millenium Falcon would have made it out. The key is, the Empire had far more resources available to it than it used. By centering in on one target (Hell even modern day battlefields show how tactically useless that is!) they ignored opportunities for other targets that would have ADVANCED THEIR AGENDA.

Oh? Which modern battlefields are those? Saipan? Okinawa? Inchon? Grenada? Kuwait? Funny, but modern day generals seem quite reluctant to scatter their forces all over hell's half-acre and risk losing control of the battle.

Instead, they took in a barely adequate force and barely managed their objective.

Within the half-hour of landing on the ground. Not bad for "barely managing the objective".

In doing so, they lost the opportunity to capture many of the very people they were after, and nearly risked gettting their hat handed to them. Only the Rebels' boneheaded decision to use T-47's instead of X-Wings allowed them to carry the day.

Since the X-wings were less valuable in tactical strike missions against armour and could not be employed properly as fighters within a shield bubble, you mean.

Losing two walkers is not losing 2/5ths of your entire force. The total body of Veers' spearhead batallion included considerably more personnel than the crews of two AT-ATs and you discounted the scout walkers entirely.

Because I can afford to discount the scout walker(s) (I only noticed the one.) I notice 5 AT-AT's He lost on to Antilles, One to Skywalker (possibly the only time a ground troop was effective against an AT-AT) The AT-ST lacked sufficient firepower to take out the generator, and lacked sufficient armor to withstand the attack. It was most likely taken out either by speeders or artillery.[/quote]

You're feeble attempt to duck the point fails miserably. Two AT-ATs, mathematically, did not constitute a full 2/5ths of Gen. Veers' sperhead batallion. Furthermore, you are really reaching to try to pronounce the fate of one scout-walker on your "guess" of what happened to it rather than what actually occurs in the movie.

Which is irrelevant to the situation at hand. If the objective is to prevent the Federation from being formed to oppose the Borg in the present, interfering in a parallel timeline does nothing whatsoever to alter that outcome. The Enterprise crew had little choice in the matter because they were dragged into the alternate timeline themselves and their only escape from a Borg universe was to proceed all the way through the time warp to 2061. Their subsequent intervention countering the Borg intervention was part of the pattern of events which unfolded into the creation of a Federation universe —their own.

Unsupported irrelavant speculation.

No, actual canon fact from the movie. This is, in point of fact, what we see occuring on the screen.

The key is that from their perspective (Meaning the Borg on the orb ship) The assimilation of the past Earth would have resulted in the nullification of the Federation from their point of view. All this talk about parralell timelines is a needless red herring nitpick.

Ah, now we get to the unsupported irrelevant speculation. I misunderstood and did not see that you were in fact prefacing your own argument. Unfortunately for you, since parallel timelines are central to Trek time travel, this point is far more than a red herring, no matter how much you dearly wish to ignore it.

[Patrick Degan]

Which actually says nothing about the altitude the shield bubble extends to, I'm afraid. You're making an inference with no supporting evidence to back it. The rest of your point is meaningless; the speeds attained by X-wings on maximum burn result in turning arcs of many hundreds of kilometres. The X-wing design is optimised for space combat or fast attack runs from orbit against fixed ground targets; not tactical battlefield deployment against armoured formations within a tight operational volume.

Actually the supporting evidence is right in front of you. The Ion Cannon wouldn't need to fire until the transport was vulnerable to attack from the Tyrant. Since the Transport was heading directy at the Tyrant, and the Tyrant had not yet opened fire with any of it's ordinance, it is quite reasonable to assume that the transport was still within the shields are of protection. What are you basing your assumptions on?

The alternative explanation is that the Rebels had to momentarily open the shield to allow the transport to rise into atmosphere. The accelerative capability of Star Wars ships is already well established in that they can lift from ground to orbit within seconds, not minutes. And your so-called "evidence" does not indicate the extent of the shield bubble, no matter how much you wish it did.

Where are the figures? Where are the display graphs? Where are there any measurements given by any Rebel or Imperial technician? Just where is there any canon evidence from the actual movie to support your contention?

You are the one baselessly assuming such a low flight ceiling (which is irrelevant anyway seing that there is nothing keeping an X-Wing from flying lower.)

Nothing except a lack of lift acting on the wings. I assume you do understand basic aerodynamics?

As far as your X-Wing optimization goes, this is also groundless, and countered by the fact that the X-Wing was obviously designed to act as a fighter within an atmosphere as well as outside (Hence the wings).

You really are determined to make a fool of yourself on this, aren't you?

Have you even bothered to notice the shape of the wings? How they are not curved to provide a lifting surface? How they do not provide sufficent surface area for sustained lift? How their primary function is for mounting the main pulse-cannons more than for any in-atmosphere flight function? The only way those things can stay in air is by running at high velocities or by the use of their repulsorlifts. As flying machines, they have even poorer glide characteristics than the F-102. And those large engine pods don't help in that schema.

Your also assuming that an X-Wing flying at a lower velocity than "maxed out" (What is this fixation of yours about X-Wings not being able to fly at slower velocities....hint Jet fighters do it all the time

But not on the attack, oh clueless one.

and if your really feeling obtuse there is mention of X-Wings having a throttle and accelerating and decelerating) is incapable of sufficient maneuverability to work within your "tight operational volume (without really knowing how tight this volume is.)

Yep. And there's also this little thing in aerodynamics called "stall". Happens when the craft drops below sufficent speed to maintain its lift.

As for "knowing the volume", that's covered under the formula for calculating the volume of a hemisphere.

Your also assuming that attacking a fixed ground target differs so significantly from a a slow moving (painfully small) ground assault that it's too inflexible to adapt. (I hope not, because if that were true, then our entire arsenal of ground attack fighters is in big trouble)

Our "entire arsenal of ground-attack fighters" are designed differently from our supersonic combat fighters. Or hadn't you noticed that? We don't use F-16s to strafe tanks because they'd overshoot the targets far too quickly for the pilots to get a lock on them. Which is why we use A-10s for such missions.

[BioDroid]

Fool! How can anyone who proffessed to read the X-Wing books no know about this? In Isard's Revenge, they comment after they kill the walkers that they could have destroyed them all more easily with four torpedoes (one each), even though the walkers were in reasonably close proximity. This indicates that they would not be damaged by such proximity blasts. "The least you expect" is worth exactly as much as much as Agent Jay's skills in MIB.

Relatively close proximity is not the same as relatively tightly packed. Their formation in Isard's Revenge wasn't even remotely close the nice "bowling Alley" formation that was used in TESB, you've not even come close to proving that they wouldn't be damaged, much less nocked down by a close proximity blast.

You are shifting burden of proof. You are trying to say that it is up to me to prove that the ion cannons would NOT work. In fact the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that it would. A reasonable degree of protection against ion weapons does not mean that a ship or vehicle is invincible. Obviously the defenses of the ISD were overwhelmed by the KDY Planet Defender. That does not mean that an AT-AT is completely unprotected against Jawa ion guns and Y-Wing ion cannons. Further, your assumption that it is either vulnerable or invulnerable is crappy, and is a common device used by rabid trekkies, warsies, B5ers, and fundamentalists.

Yes and Y-Wing ion cannon's ARE effective against unshielded capital ships. All I'm asking you to do is prove that an AT-AT is more defended than a capital ship. You are the one spouting unfounded speculation

Once again you subscribe to the "either it would get through or it would bounce off" theory. The AT-AT's were destroyed by continued fire, and shots selected to strike vulnerable areas of the walkers. That is similar to what was observed by the speeders, except that the T47's also had harpoons and tow cables, and so elected not to continue with blasters after their first few runs were ineffective. Note that a T47's firepower was great enough to utterly destroy a walker once it was free to get in an unchallenged shot to a critical area. That was done with a single dual cannon burst, and is consistent with what we know of X-Wing firepower when compared to AT-AT armor. Except that the AT-ATs destroyed by the X-Wings did not appear to explode quite so violently.

Yes, but you are completely ignoring the fact that the X-wing cannons were effective and you bring no proof forward other than your word that it was selective fire rather than increased firepower AS WAS STATED IN THE BOOKS.

[BioDroid]

And the Star Wars Incredible Cross-Sections book gives us the troop compliment carried aboard each stardestroyer as 9700 per ship. Six times 9700. Work it out, moron.

Yes and the task force attacking the rebels consisted of only five AT-AT's capable of carrying of carrying 40 troops each. Do the math!

And since the Rebels did not use the X-wings, which evidently were not suited for the combat conditions at hand, there is no second way to have it. I will remind you again: standard military procedure is to attack with a spearhead force in advance of the main body. That is Tactics 101.

I never said that the X-Wings weren't suited for the combat tactics at hand...that's your unfounded (and soundly rebuted) assumption remeber? Your assertion of the tactics (once again) DOES NOT APPLY TO THE SITUATION ASSHOLE. You've failed to answer EVERY FUCKING QUESTION i've posed to you, simply stating it's standard tactics, but giving no real answer. Take the fingers out of your ears listen and reply with something useful for a change. The main body that followed the attack consisted only of storm trooper transports, so there was no need to hold back the mecha GET IT MORON? Once the shields were down, the Empire was free to attack with everything else they had (Which they ALSO failed to do) Or did it not occur to you that the surving pilots were free to land their speeders, walk over to the X-Wings sitting in the snow and take off completely unmolested? This was no spearhead it was the main attack force.

Yep. Ever hear of presenting yourself as a very slow-moving target?

So now your only two options are extremely fast and sitting duck? Use some common sense fuckhead and think.

To point out that you have no point.

Actually your statement was completely irrelevant to the point at hand...stay on the subject here.

The one stardestroyer was not disabled for any length of appreciable time, I'm afraid. Furthermore, Imperial stardestroyers are not totally knocked out of action if one control centre is rendered inoperative.

So how long was the Star Destroyer knocked out of operation for? What's to keep the Ion Cannon from sustaining fire on it? Remember, the Ion Cannon fired two shots in a very short period of time. Furthermore, Ion Cannon take out ships systems, the bridge hit with the second blast was probably icing on the cake. If your system's are out it does not matter if you have personell sitting in another command center if the actual systems are off-line

I'll spell it out for one more time. Slow. Moving. Targets. That is what an X-wing is if you take away its speed and altitude capabilities.

And let me spell it out for you, there's space inbetween the throttle to varry your speeds. There's room around the firing arcs of the AT-AT's where you can slow down and speed up depending on the tactics of the situation. In otherwords as they are approaching from the fron (preferably at a higher altitude) They come in at a high throttle, as the pass the area of vulnerability, the slow down and begin pounding the shit out of the stupid slow moving armored platform incapable of returning fire.

No, I counter a colourful bit of bluster intended to fire up soldiers' morale with how a war is actually fought and how soldiers are actually used in combat. War is not a movie. It is blood. And Ulysees S. Grant won, didn't he?

Actually it's quite clear that you have no ideas on how war is fought...you seem to believe that it has something to do with sacrificing soldiers for no particular reason (like some sort of perverse blood offering to the god of war or something.) The one thing that is on every commander's mind is how to attain the objective with the MINIMAL AMOUNT OF CASUALTIES you idiot! Sure U.S. Grant was on the side that won the civil war...I got news for you, Patton was on the side that won WWII. (And I agree with you that in war, people die and that's unavoidable) If you'd like to get into a discussion of Civil War tactics vs. WWII and Modern Army tactics I'm game for that as well, but let's take that one off topic.

The role of the infantry is whatever is needed to advance the overall campaign or achieve the mission objective. Rikeen knew he was ordering his men to die, because it was necessary to slow the Imperial advance long enough for the evacuation to be carried out. Victory was not an option, and neither was surrender. Soldiers are often called upon to carry out impossible tasks for which the likely result is their deaths. I'm sorry if this gets in the way of your romantic notions of warfare and esprit d'corps, but that's brutal reality.

And how did the rebel troopers slow the advance....they didn't. Rikeen should have been courtmartialed for sending infantry troops out with rifles to combat AT-AT's (or didn't the streems of rebel troopers fleeing the AT-AT's give you a hint?) Once again, he sent troops who were underequipped to handle the situation out where that had no hope of affecting the enemy's forces. The rebel troopers would have better been spent defending the entrances to the base, using the entrances as a choke point to mow down snowtroopers who they DID stand a chance against...get it?

I did read what you wrote and found it ludicrous. The X-wings were the Rebellion's one means of being able to stand up in a firefight against TIEs or be able to carry out tactical strike missions from orbit against ground targets. Their production was considerably more limited than that of TIE fighters, which the Empire had in abundance and could produce in abundance. In those terms, the weapon becomes more important than individual soldiers because the weapon is the only means of effective fighting capacity.

Yet, once again, you ignore the fact that X-Wings were better use for the job. Here's another hint....without a pilot, an X-Wing is useless. You say that they were needed for more importnat targerts, but those targets were'nt part of that battlefield. Once again, you completely ignore the fact that the rebellion probably left a dozen X-Wings sitting out there on the snow for the empire to confiscate while sending their pilots to die in ineffectual speedercraft that required two pilots to man. Try arguing the point for a change.

If the X-wings cannot be employed as anything other than repulsorlift gun platforms, then they are also easily targetable and subject to destruction. That adds up to wasting valuable fighter craft in a needless battle.

Once again....think throttle...or just try thinking for a change. There's a HUGE range between balistic missile and sitting target.

Oh, and BTW, the British afforded very few fighters to the action in Dunkirk. Precisely because they were so precious. In case you forgot, the Battle of Britain was literally an "all or nothing" proposition, and the British needed ever last fighter they had left.

Irrelevant bullshit. It has nothing to do with the situation at hand.

In other words, it was sort of like the invasions of Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, in which 1. there was no resistance to the landing, 2. the enemy was already contained in a small area, and 3. the Americans didn't use the full capacity of the troops carried in the invasion transports. Yet they followed the same tactical doctrines because 1. simple prudence dictates assuming resistance to the landing, 2. defenders in a confined area will also be dug in like ticks, and 3. you have a secure source of reserves to draw upon.

Actually it's like neither of those or don't you bother reading what I'm fucking writing. Or is that your too dense to understand. Ineach case that your spouting, you're talking about having to secure a beachhead first. THIS DOES NOT APPLY!!! The Empire had an contested beachhead. Think D-Day without all those nasty german defenses sitting there. Just a nice empty beach where the Allies can unload as many troops as they can...then with their combined firepower they have to attack, not the entire bulk of Europe, but a crappy under-defended town a couple of miles away. A town with no hope of reenfocements arriving. That's the parable we're dealing with here.

I'm sorry if you cannot be bothered to understand military strategy.

You have no clue as to military strategy.

I don't have to. The movie does so for me.

In other words you can't. Because if you looked around at the movie, you'd realize how weak your position was.

Only if you don't care about clogging up the landing zone or magnifying your logistical problems in the process.

What landing zone? The Empire had unrestricte access to most of the planet, and the entire perimeter of the shield generator gave them a nic big landing zone to land multiple divisions from multiple Star Destroyers to engage multiple targets from multiple directions. As far as logistics go, in a short day long campaign, you're not worried about supply lines, reequiping your troops (and once the shield generator was taken down) re-enforcements. Your talk of logistics is garbage at best.

Oh? Which modern battlefields are those? Saipan? Okinawa? Inchon? Grenada? Kuwait? Funny, but modern day generals seem quite reluctant to scatter their forces all over hell's half-acre and risk losing control of the battle.

You're shitting me right? Let's talk Kuwait (a campaign I was involved with) You were aware that there were multiple thrusts involved right. Different units tasked with different objectives. That's how a modern battlefield is ran. You don't send the bulk of your forces after one freakin target (You may have one overall objective, but you have many many smaller objectives that fit nicely within the overall objective.) You also realize that a multipronged attack is a staple of military strategy (of course you do, after all you have such a detailed knowledge of tactics after all). Modern Day battlefield commanders realize that a division of forces is neccessary to achieve objectives.

Within the half-hour of landing on the ground. Not bad for "barely managing the objective".

With 2/5ths of the attacking force gone. As I said before, they would have suffered a complete loss if the rebels would would have taken their head out of their asses and used craft better suited for the job. With almost none of the overall objectives accomplished. Yeah, nice job.

Since the X-wings were less valuable in tactical strike missions against armour and could not be employed properly as fighters within a shield bubble, you mean.

Actually I think I've gone a long way in proving how valuable the X-wings would have been. Your half-assed attempts at rebuttal not withstanding.

You're feeble attempt to duck the point fails miserably. Two AT-ATs, mathematically, did not constitute a full 2/5ths of Gen. Veers' sperhead batallion. Furthermore, you are really reaching to try to pronounce the fate of one scout-walker on your "guess" of what happened to it rather than what actually occurs in the movie.

2 AT-AT's out of 5 = 2/5ths Do I have to teach you fucking math now? Okay, let's take your red hearing about the single scout walker. It is seen briefly during the fight, but as the battle progressed it is never seen again, particularly in the long shots. Unless you have reason to believe that the rebel artillery could not have taken it out, and unless you can pinpoint it in the scenes toward when the shield generator was taken out, then we can either assume it was destoyed (adding to General Veers losses) or retreated once it got an accurate battlefield assessment. (In which case it will slightly alter the equation depending if you want to classify it as a part of the strike force or not.) Either way, I can still discount the damned thing, because it was of no overall value to the strike mission.

No, actual canon fact from the movie. This is, in point of fact, what we see occuring on the screen.

What we see happening on the screen was that the Earth was completely assimilated.

Ah, now we get to the unsupported irrelevant speculation. I misunderstood and did not see that you were in fact prefacing your own argument. Unfortunately for you, since parallel timelines are central to Trek time travel, this point is far more than a red herring, no matter how much you dearly wish to ignore it.

And what I said was that your alternate timeline is an irrelevant red-herring nitpick. Since the entire thing takes place from the audiences perspective all this crap about parrelell time lines is irrelevant.


So let's get down to brass tacks here. Your primary argement consits of:

A.) The X-Wing is useless as a strike fighter because it either moves way to fast or way to slow. (refuted)

B.) The Imperial Attack on Hoth wasn't tactically stupid, because even though they had more firepower available to them, they still accomplished the mission. (Refuted)

C.) That Alternate timelines exist, so the borg couldn't hace gone back into the past and prevented the federation from forming. (pointless and irrelevant)

[BioDroid]

The alternative explanation is that the Rebels had to momentarily open the shield to allow the transport to rise into atmosphere. The accelerative capability of Star Wars ships is already well established in that they can lift from ground to orbit within seconds, not minutes. And your so-called "evidence" does not indicate the extent of the shield bubble, no matter how much you wish it did.

Where are the figures? Where are the display graphs? Where are there any measurements given by any Rebel or Imperial technician? Just where is there any canon evidence from the actual movie to support your contention?

I don't need graphs or techicians to tell me. The canon facts of the movie tell me. The ISD would have opened fire almost immediatly when the transport was vulnerable in order to bring it's shields down as quickly as possible to disable it. They already had ample warning that the Transport was heading toward them so there's no logical reason to believe that they werent already aiming their guns at them. Furthermore the Tyrant was already pointing its bow directly at the transport indicating that they had already lined up to shoot it with the maximum amount of cannons available. It had not opened fire yet, indicating that at the point the Ion Cannon fired, the transport was still under the protection of the shield. Since this was at high altitude. The burden of proof of a low altitude bubble is completely on you.

Nothing except a lack of lift acting on the wings. I assume you do understand basic aerodynamics?

Sure I do, I was in aviation for about four years. Can you tell me the stall speed of an X-Wing? I thought not. Depending on the strength of the repulsers it may be completely irrelevant.
Let me show your your ignorance...from the Database on http://www.starwars.com/databank/starsh ... index.html "Each engine has an aerodynamic S-foil mounted on it. The wings not only serve as stabilizer surfaces in air travel" On repulsorlift performance it goes on to read "the X-wing's Incom RDA repulsorlift drive adaptor provides an airspeed of 1,050 kilometers per hour." So glide and lift characteristics really don't play into it, as far as ungainly handling ability it also goes on to read..."The fighter handles nearly identical to a T-16 skyhopper in an atmosphere." Do I really need to go on?
You're shitting me again right? No matter what kind of attack you're talking about a fighter almost always slows down. Air-to-air, they balance thrust-vs-g's to optimize mobility. On ground attack, they slow down to line up onto the target. I think it is you that needs to get a clue, O' Brainless One!
See previous reply on repulserlifts
Great, now go ahead and tell me what the volume of the shielded area was. Go ahead, I'll wait. I would also like you to provide me where you got your measurements from as well

Carefull, your ignorance is showing again! I really can't believe you just said that...especially giving me the example with the F-16. Here we go then...

The F-16C/D is what is called a "multi-role fighter" Say it with me MULTI-ROLE-FIGHTER. It is capable of air-to-air and air-to-ground combat, including, yep you guesed it...killing tanks. While it normally does not do it with it's cannon (The F-16 cannon only carries 500 rnds) it uses a variety of other munitions to achieve the task including rockets, missiles, and advanced cluster munitions. It's more than capable of taking out tanks with the cannon if absolutely neccessary, because it has (repeat after me) a throttle....say it again THROTTLE.

You might also realize (thou I doubt it) that there are quite a few other strike aircraft capable of breaking the sound barrier that are also used against ground targets. The F-15E and the F/A-18 are also more than capable in this arena. While you're studying up on your tactics, you might also want to study up on aircraft tactics and capabilities as well.

[BioDroid]

My appologies for my lousy typing skills.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Hmm......now that I re-think the Battle of Hoth, I believe that the battle was the very first time Rebels encountered AT-ATs. Despite whatever the EU might say, I believe it was intended that the Rebels and AT-ATs met for the first time at Hoth. This explains their poor choice of weapons against them. Why else would they line up all of their soldiers and choose the craptacular T-47s over the X-Wings and Y-Wings? The older six-legged walkers at Geonosis (AT-SEs, AT-TEs...I forgot) were not invulnerable to blaster fire like the AT-ATs were, so maybe the Rebels didn't count on the AT-ATs as having that amazingly strong armor. And they said that their blasters had no effect whatsoever on the armor, and it was the leg armor with their most powerful anti-armor weapon present on the battlefield. If they had dealt with these vehicles before, they wouldn't have wasted their time taking potshots at it. I think the only conclusion that doesn't paint the Rebels as complete idiots is that they never encountered the AT-ATs before the Battle of Hoth. Or maybe the AT-ATs they encountered at Hoth had major armor upgrades over previously failed versions.

[BioDroid]

Hmm......now that I re-think the Battle of Hoth, I believe that the battle was the very first time Rebels encountered AT-ATs. Despite whatever the EU might say, I believe it was intended that the Rebels and AT-ATs met for the first time at Hoth. This explains their poor choice of weapons against them. Why else would they line up all of their soldiers and choose the craptacular T-47s over the X-Wings and Y-Wings? The older six-legged walkers at Geonosis (AT-SEs, AT-TEs...I forgot) were not invulnerable to blaster fire like the AT-ATs were, so maybe the Rebels didn't count on the AT-ATs as having that amazingly strong armor. And they said that their blasters had no effect whatsoever on the armor, and it was the leg armor with their most powerful anti-armor weapon present on the battlefield. If they had dealt with these vehicles before, they wouldn't have wasted their time taking potshots at it. I think the only conclusion that doesn't paint the Rebels as complete idiots is that they never encountered the AT-ATs before the Battle of Hoth. Or maybe the AT-ATs they encountered at Hoth had major armor upgrades over previously failed versions.

That could probably be the case I admit it, though it doesn't speak too well of the intelligence brought in by the former imperials who defected to the rebellion (and I do mean defected!)

This also doesn't speak well of General Rieekan who ordered infantry into the trenches against them. (Which I acknoledge wasn't part of my original bitch, but since it was brought up...) But I might be inclined to chalk it up to "We thought we could take the walkers out from a distance and they were just there to cover a possible infantry advance.

[Patrick Degan]

And the Star Wars Incredible Cross-Sections book gives us the troop compliment carried aboard each stardestroyer as 9700 per ship. Six times 9700. Work it out, moron.

Yes and the task force attacking the rebels consisted of only five AT-AT's capable of carrying of carrying 40 troops each. Do the math!

Five AT-ATs, plus personnel already deployed on foot and snow skimmer. Plus scout walkers. That also is part of the math, oh clueless imbecile.

I never said that the X-Wings weren't suited for the combat tactics at hand...that's your unfounded (and soundly rebuted) assumption remeber?

"Soundly rebutted?" Sorry, but "they are because they are because THEY ARE" is not a "sound rebuttal" of anything.

Your assertion of the tactics (once again) DOES NOT APPLY TO THE SITUATION ASSHOLE. You've failed to answer EVERY FUCKING QUESTION i've posed to you, simply stating it's standard tactics, but giving no real answer.

On the contrary, I've answered all your questions point-by-point. It's not my fault that you simply refuse to acknowledge answers which don't suit your fantasies. And you've yet to demonstrate how the rules of war do not apply to the situation at Hoth.

Take the fingers out of your ears listen and reply with something useful for a change. The main body that followed the attack consisted only of storm trooper transports, so there was no need to hold back the mecha GET IT MORON?

The main body following after the base's defences had been breached, you mean. Get it, imbecile?

Once the shields were down, the Empire was free to attack with everything else they had (Which they ALSO failed to do)

Given the complete collapse of the Rebel defences, it was not necessary to land the full complement of reinforcements. I pointed out that they were available if necessary.

Or did it not occur to you that the surving pilots were free to land their speeders, walk over to the X-Wings sitting in the snow and take off completely unmolested? This was no spearhead it was the main attack force.

As you wish...

So now your only two options are extremely fast and sitting duck? Use some common sense fuckhead and think.

The option of "extremely fast" is negated if the conditions do not permit it to be exercised. That's common sense, imbecile.

To point out that you have no point.

Actually your statement was completely irrelevant to the point at hand...stay on the subject here.[/quote]

You may wish to take your own advice.

So how long was the Star Destroyer knocked out of operation for? What's to keep the Ion Cannon from sustaining fire on it? Remember, the Ion Cannon fired two shots in a very short period of time. Furthermore, Ion Cannon take out ships systems, the bridge hit with the second blast was probably icing on the cake. If your system's are out it does not matter if you have personell sitting in another command center if the actual systems are off-line

Do you even know why backup control centres are incorporated into the design of a warship? Or how they can conceivably function if the main control centre is knocked out of action? Imperial stardestroyers aren't based upon centralised command and control, and unless all ship's systems are knocked out, the stardestroyer is still operational and combat capable.

I'll spell it out for one more time. Slow. Moving. Targets. That is what an X-wing is if you take away its speed and altitude capabilities.

And let me spell it out for you, there's space inbetween the throttle to varry your speeds. There's room around the firing arcs of the AT-AT's where you can slow down and speed up depending on the tactics of the situation. In otherwords as they are approaching from the fron (preferably at a higher altitude) They come in at a high throttle, as the pass the area of vulnerability, the slow down and begin pounding the shit out of the stupid slow moving armored platform incapable of returning fire.[/quote]

And I'll spell it out for further —cutting your throttle does not immediately negate your forward inertia. You are familiar with the concept of inertia, I trust, or are you ignorant of the laws of physics as well?

No, I counter a colourful bit of bluster intended to fire up soldiers' morale with how a war is actually fought and how soldiers are actually used in combat. War is not a movie. It is blood. And Ulysees S. Grant won, didn't he?

Actually it's quite clear that you have no ideas on how war is fought[/quote]

I know that it isn't fought according to colourful movie blusters or obsessive concern for the lives of individual soldiers.

you seem to believe that it has something to do with sacrificing soldiers for no particular reason (like some sort of perverse blood offering to the god of war or something.)

Your assertion is laughable on its face. I said that a commander will sacrifice soldiers as necessary to advance the overall campaign or achieve the mission objective. If it is necessary to order a body of men to their certain deaths in a hopeless situation as far as they are concerned, the commander will do it. That is the brutal calculus of war, whether you like the idea or not.

The one thing that is on every commander's mind is how to attain the objective with the MINIMAL AMOUNT OF CASUALTIES you idiot! Sure U.S. Grant was on the side that won the civil war...I got news for you, Patton was on the side that won WWII.

It may be on every commander's mind, but it is not the one and only thing on his mind. Grant fought his war on the theory that the North could stand greater losses than the South could. In the context of the situation, the strategy was feasible and effective.

If a general needs for an enemy advance to be delayed so that the bulk of his army may escape an otherwise hopeless situation, or have the time to fully prepare their defensive or offensive positions, and he deems it necessary to order a batallion of his men to defend a choke-point in the enemy's path even if it means the deaths of every last man in that batallion, he will do it.

The role of the infantry is whatever is needed to advance the overall campaign or achieve the mission objective. Rikeen knew he was ordering his men to die, because it was necessary to slow the Imperial advance long enough for the evacuation to be carried out. Victory was not an option, and neither was surrender. Soldiers are often called upon to carry out impossible tasks for which the likely result is their deaths. I'm sorry if this gets in the way of your romantic notions of warfare and esprit d'corps, but that's brutal reality.

And how did the rebel troopers slow the advance....they didn't. Rikeen should have been courtmartialed for sending infantry troops out with rifles to combat AT-AT's (or didn't the streems of rebel troopers fleeing the AT-AT's give you a hint?) Once again, he sent troops who were underequipped to handle the situation out where that had no hope of affecting the enemy's forces. The rebel troopers would have better been spent defending the entrances to the base, using the entrances as a choke point to mow down snowtroopers who they DID stand a chance against...get it?

Either the Empire overruns the base in ten minutes, or they eventually overrun it in a half hour during which the Rebels can evacuate personnel and materiel crucial to their war effort. Rikeen's men, backed with artillery and air support, bought time for the evacuations. As for "defending the entrances to the base", that works only if it doesn't occur to the Imperials to simply blast their way in at any point along the walls or the bunkers when they reach the base itself.

I did read what you wrote and found it ludicrous. The X-wings were the Rebellion's one means of being able to stand up in a firefight against TIEs or be able to carry out tactical strike missions from orbit against ground targets. Their production was considerably more limited than that of TIE fighters, which the Empire had in abundance and could produce in abundance. In those terms, the weapon becomes more important than individual soldiers because the weapon is the only means of effective fighting capacity.

Yet, once again, you ignore the fact that X-Wings were better use for the job.

Because you keep saying so over and over and over again? I don't think so.

Here's another hint....without a pilot, an X-Wing is useless. You say that they were needed for more importnat targerts, but those targets were'nt part of that battlefield.

Right. Those targets were part of any future battle the Rebels hoped to mount against the Empire, for which they would need every last fighter they could preserve. Echo Base was expendible the moment the Imperial task force entered the Hoth system, therefore it makes no sense risking vital military assets to defend a piece of ground the Rebels have no intention of hanging onto.

Once again, you completely ignore the fact that the rebellion probably left a dozen X-Wings sitting out there on the snow for the empire to confiscate while sending their pilots to die in ineffectual speedercraft that required two pilots to man. Try arguing the point for a change.

I am arguing the point. It is you who is trying so desperately to duck it. The snowspeeders had several advantages over X-wings in this combat: much smaller target cross-section, much tighter turning radius within a confined area, terrain-hugging capability, and much better camoflague with the environment. They were much faster than the walkers even if they can't possibly get up to the performance levels of an X-wing, and they are much more expendible than X-wings.

If the X-wings cannot be employed as anything other than repulsorlift gun platforms, then they are also easily targetable and subject to destruction. That adds up to wasting valuable fighter craft in a needless battle.

Once again....think throttle...or just try thinking for a change. There's a HUGE range between balistic missile and sitting target.[/quote]

Try thinking "inertia". Try thinking targetability.

Oh, and BTW, the British afforded very few fighters to the action in Dunkirk. Precisely because they were so precious. In case you forgot, the Battle of Britain was literally an "all or nothing" proposition, and the British needed ever last fighter they had left.

Irrelevant bullshit. It has nothing to do with the situation at hand.[/quote]

The analogy is quite clear. It demonstrates the wisdom of not sacrificing fighters you need for the overall war effort to defend a position which is indefensible and you have no intention of retaining in any case. It is your objection which is irrelevant bullshit.

In other words, it was sort of like the invasions of Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, in which 1. there was no resistance to the landing, 2. the enemy was already contained in a small area, and 3. the Americans didn't use the full capacity of the troops carried in the invasion transports. Yet they followed the same tactical doctrines because 1. simple prudence dictates assuming resistance to the landing, 2. defenders in a confined area will also be dug in like ticks, and 3. you have a secure source of reserves to draw upon.

Actually it's like neither of those

Again because you say so?

or don't you bother reading what I'm fucking writing.

On the contrary, I do. Admittedly, it's hard to keep from laughing.

Or is that your too dense to understand. Ineach case that your spouting, you're talking about having to secure a beachhead first. THIS DOES NOT APPLY!!! The Empire had an contested beachhead. Think D-Day without all those nasty german defenses sitting there. Just a nice empty beach where the Allies can unload as many troops as they can...then with their combined firepower they have to attack, not the entire bulk of Europe, but a crappy under-defended town a couple of miles away. A town with no hope of reenfocements arriving. That's the parable we're dealing with here.

And at Okinawa and Iwo, the Japanese similarly were confined within a small area and had no hope of reinforcement. And the United States commenced action by offloading a spearhead landing force ahead of the main body. It is your "what if" undefended Omaha Beach scenario which is the irrelevant bullshit here.

You have no clue as to military strategy.

Much more so than you, it appears.

I don't have to. The movie does so for me.

In other words you can't. Because if you looked around at the movie, you'd realize how weak your position was.[/quote]

Funny, but when I see The Empire Strikes Back, I see mountainous terrain surrounding the area of Echo Base and behind the Rebel defenders. It is you who is ignoring what's actually in the movie, punching bag.

Only if you don't care about clogging up the landing zone or magnifying your logistical problems in the process.

What landing zone? The Empire had unrestricte access to most of the planet, and the entire perimeter of the shield generator gave them a nic big landing zone to land multiple divisions from multiple Star Destroyers to engage multiple targets from multiple directions. As far as logistics go, in a short day long campaign, you're not worried about supply lines, reequiping your troops (and once the shield generator was taken down) re-enforcements. Your talk of logistics is garbage at best.[/quote]

But the objective of the landing was within a confined area on the planet surface. It makes no sense to send your troops to where the enemy isn't, now does it? Or have them trudge in over hundreds of kilometres and crossing mountains in the process. And only a fool of a general ignores logistics even on a day campaign. It is your talk which is garbage.

Oh? Which modern battlefields are those? Saipan? Okinawa? Inchon? Grenada? Kuwait? Funny, but modern day generals seem quite reluctant to scatter their forces all over hell's half-acre and risk losing control of the battle.

You're shitting me right? Let's talk Kuwait (a campaign I was involved with)[/quote]

Ah, a variation of the "appeal to authority" argument.

You were aware that there were multiple thrusts involved right. Different units tasked with different objectives. That's how a modern battlefield is ran. You don't send the bulk of your forces after one freakin target (You may have one overall objective, but you have many many smaller objectives that fit nicely within the overall objective.) You also realize that a multipronged attack is a staple of military strategy (of course you do, after all you have such a detailed knowledge of tactics after all). Modern Day battlefield commanders realize that a division of forces is neccessary to achieve objectives.

I'm also aware that the operations were confined within the proximity of the Saudi/Iraqi/Kuwaiti frontier. Norman Schwarzkopf did not send regiments to invade at Basra, nor did he have to. He had no military reason to scatter his forces all over the region, and the spearhead of his invasion was concentrated on the Saudi/Kuwait border, with the remainder acting as his supporting wing on the sweep. But he did not divide his army to operate at points many hundreds of kilometres apart in a broad circle surrounding Kuwait, now did he?

And I see you have no answer to the other examples I outlined. More ducking of the issue on your part.

Within the half-hour of landing on the ground. Not bad for "barely managing the objective".

With 2/5ths of the attacking force gone. As I said before, they would have suffered a complete loss if the rebels would would have taken their head out of their asses and used craft better suited for the job. With almost none of the overall objectives accomplished. Yeah, nice job.

Two walkers is not 2/5th of the overall spearhead batallion. It is two walkers. And the Imperials overran the base, with the Rebels managing only a partial evacuation of personnel and materiél.

I think I've gone a long way in proving how valuable the X-wings would have been. Your half-assed attempts at rebuttal not withstanding.

You've gone a long way to essentially say "the X-wings would have been more valuable because I SAY THEY WOULD!" It is your argument which has been half-assed, punching-bag.

Two AT-AT's out of 5 = 2/5ths Do I have to teach you fucking math now?

Two AT-ATs, plus an unknown number of scout walkers, plus ground troops on foot and snowskimmers. No, I don't think you can teach me anything about math given your own evident ignorance of the numbers.

Okay, let's take your red hearing about the single scout walker. It is seen briefly during the fight, but as the battle progressed it is never seen again, particularly in the long shots. Unless you have reason to believe that the rebel artillery could not have taken it out, and unless you can pinpoint it in the scenes toward when the shield generator was taken out, then we can either assume it was destoyed (adding to General Veers losses) or retreated once it got an accurate battlefield assessment.

Objection, assumes facts not in evidence.

(In which case it will slightly alter the equation depending if you want to classify it as a part of the strike force or not.) Either way, I can still discount the damned thing, because it was of no overall value to the strike mission.

As you wish...

No, actual canon fact from the movie. This is, in point of fact, what we see occuring on the screen.

What we see happening on the screen was that the Earth was completely assimilated.

In an alternate timeline the Enterprise was pulled into.

I said was that your alternate timeline is an irrelevant red-herring nitpick. Since the entire thing takes place from the audiences perspective all this crap about parrelell time lines is irrelevant.

The audience's viewpoint is subjective where it matches the viewpoint of Picard and the Enterprise crew at the moment. It is your denials of a central element to the reality of the Trek universe which is irrelevant.

So let's get down to brass tacks here. Your primary argement consits of:

A.) The X-Wing is useless as a strike fighter because it either moves way to fast or way to slow. (refuted)

Not refuted. I've pointed out parallels with modern strike fighters and how they are not used to strafe tanks due to their unsuitability. I've pointed out how a craft like the X-wing is not suited for slow-speed attack runs because of its design characteristics. Denial is not refutation.

B.) The Imperial Attack on Hoth wasn't tactically stupid, because even though they had more firepower available to them, they still accomplished the mission. (Refuted)

Not refuted. I've pointed out how standard military doctrine dictates the use of a spearhead force to probe and neutralise enemy defences and how the main body of troops are held in reserve to reinforce the landing if needed. Furthermore, in the movie, Gen. Veers succeeds in overruning the base defences and opening the way for the main landing led by Lord Vader. Again, denial is not refutation.

C.) That Alternate timelines exist, so the Borg couldn't hace gone back into the past and prevented the federation from forming. (pointless and irrelevant)

Very relevant. In the actual movie, we see the Enterprise being drawn into an alternate timeline in which the Borg had assimilated Earth due to being caught in the "temporal wake" of the Borg Sphere. The Earth was not assimilated in her past in the main timeline, and the Enterprise immediately moved through the still-open time warp to escape the alternate Borg universe. One more time, denial is not refutation.

[Patrick Degan]

The alternative explanation is that the Rebels had to momentarily open the shield to allow the transport to rise into atmosphere. The accelerative capability of Star Wars ships is already well established in that they can lift from ground to orbit within seconds, not minutes. And your so-called "evidence" does not indicate the extent of the shield bubble, no matter how much you wish it did.

Where are the figures? Where are the display graphs? Where are there any measurements given by any Rebel or Imperial technician? Just where is there any canon evidence from the actual movie to support your contention?

I don't need graphs or techicians to tell me. The canon facts of the movie tell me.

Translation: you have no evidence to back your position, so now you're going to try to bluster your way out of an untenable argument.

Nothing except a lack of lift acting on the wings. I assume you do understand basic aerodynamics?

Sure I do, I was in aviation for about four years. Can you tell me the stall speed of an X-Wing? I thought not. Depending on the strength of the repulsers it may be completely irrelevant.

"Depending upon the strength of the repulsers" —thank you for conceding the point, imbecile. A genuine aircraft does not need repulsorlifts to maintain flight attitude. And since you're now trying to put on airs about "being in aviation for four years" but not answering the technical points raised in the argument, I must assume that you do not know what you're talking about.

Let me show your your ignorance

Actually, it seems you're too busy showing us your own ignorance.

from the Database on http://www.starwars.com/databank/starsh ... index.html "Each engine has an aerodynamic S-foil mounted on it. The wings not only serve as stabilizer surfaces in air travel" On repulsorlift performance it goes on to read "the X-wing's Incom RDA repulsorlift drive adaptor provides an airspeed of 1,050 kilometers per hour." So glide and lift characteristics really don't play into it, as far as ungainly handling ability it also goes on to read..."The fighter handles nearly identical to a T-16 skyhopper in an atmosphere." Do I really need to go on?

All you're telling us is that the X-wing is not a genuine aircraft (as I've argued) and further concede the necessity of repulsorlifts to maintain flight. The laws of inertial motion and velocity still apply. Otherwise, the X-wing is little more than a floating gun platform and presenting itself as a target and a very large target at that.

But not on the attack, oh clueless one.

You're shitting me again right? No matter what kind of attack you're talking about a fighter almost always slows down. Air-to-air, they balance thrust-vs-g's to optimize mobility. On ground attack, they slow down to line up onto the target. I think it is you that needs to get a clue, O' Brainless One!

A fighter doesn't drop below its stall speed, though, does it, clueless one? A fighter can't just slow down and speed up like a car on the road, can it? It has to overcome its own inertia. Seems you're as ignorant of the basic laws of physics as you are of military strategy, your pathetic claims notwithstanding.

As for "knowing the volume", that's covered under the formula for calculating the volume of a hemisphere.

Great, now go ahead and tell me what the volume of the shielded area was. Go ahead, I'll wait. I would also like you to provide me where you got your measurements from as well

I can guess, but without reliable data, it would only be a guess. I'm not the one making presumptions as to the size of the shield bubble. You are. But we can know from the movie that the bubble must encompass a relatively limited area surrounding the base facility, and that it took Gen. Veers' AT-ATs only minutes from initial landing, moving at very slow speed, to reach firing range of the shield generator bunker.

Our "entire arsenal of ground-attack fighters" are designed differently from our supersonic combat fighters. Or hadn't you noticed that? We don't use F-16s to strafe tanks because they'd overshoot the targets far too quickly for the pilots to get a lock on them. Which is why we use A-10s for such missions.

Carefull, your ignorance is showing again![/quote]

More like your own, actually, but do go on.

I really can't believe you just said that...especially giving me the example with the F-16. Here we go then...

The F-16C/D is what is called a "multi-role fighter" Say it with me MULTI-ROLE-FIGHTER. It is capable of air-to-air and air-to-ground combat, including, yep you guesed it...killing tanks. While it normally does not do it with it's cannon (The F-16 cannon only carries 500 rnds) it uses a variety of other munitions to achieve the task including rockets, missiles, and advanced cluster munitions. It's more than capable of taking out tanks with the cannon if absolutely neccessary, because it has (repeat after me) a throttle....say it again THROTTLE.

Oh, I was just waiting for you to try to make that argument. How predictable you are. How very idiotic, as well.

The F-16s mission for ground attack is optimised for the destruction of hardened ground targets such as missile launchers, hardened command-and-control bunkers, radar installations. And while you could use an F-16 to strafe tanks, it is a wasteful misuse of an aircraft more suited to missions of greater tactical value.

This is why the A-10 was developed in the first place, because a smaller, subsonic attack plane was far more suited for the mission of close air support (CAS) than the F-16 or any similar fighter, as well as greatly expanding the USAFs capacity to engage in limited warfare.

Say that with me: CLOSE. AIR. SUPPORT. Sort of...well...like the mission the T47s at Hoth were carrying out.

While you're studying up on your tactics, you might also want to study up on aircraft tactics and capabilities as well.

It seems you're in far greater need of such study than I am.

[Sea Skimmer]

Oh, I was just waiting for you to try to make that argument. How predictable you are. How very idiotic, as well.

The F-16s mission for ground attack is optimised for the destruction of hardened ground targets such as missile launchers, hardened command-and-control bunkers, radar installations. And while you could use an F-16 to strafe tanks, it is a wasteful misuse of an aircraft more suited to missions of greater tactical value.

This is why the A-10 was developed in the first place, because a smaller, subsonic attack plane was far more suited for the mission of close air support (CAS) than the F-16 or any similar fighter, as well as greatly expanding the USAFs capacity to engage in limited warfare.

Say that with me: CLOSE. AIR. SUPPORT. Sort of...well...like the mission the T47s at Hoth were carrying out.

Enter the A-16…

An attempt to convert the F-16 into a ground attack aircraft that could replace the A-10. It carried a pod mounted GAU-8 among other things and was a complete disaster. One squadron was deployed in the gulf where they proved so completely useless that the project was abandon about a month after the war.

The cannon couldn't hit anything, the plane flew to fast to designate multiple Maverick targets on one pass, it lacked the ability to use a rough forward stripe for rapid turn around like the A-10s where and the dumb bomb capacity when combat loaded for gulf ranges left much to be desired.

[Patrick Degan]

Mr. Sea Skimmer obviously knows his military hardware in ways that self-proclaimed "aviation expert" Mr. Biodroid evidently does not.