Which science fiction universe has the worst tactics?

[Stark]

Frankly, in the movie that's BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS. Almost everything they say about the bugs and the conduct of the war is obviously false (like being surprised by large and powerful bugs on the surface of a planet that THROWS ASTEROIDS AT FTL, assuming you believe that ever happened).

[Srelex]

Complaining about the tactics in Starship Troopers is like complaining about not accurately representing airline procedure in Airplane!

[Imperial Overlord]

It has the Draka dropping paratroopers in Georgia. That's not exactly bad tactics, but merely extreme stupidity. I was just pointing out that it's an exception from Baen's general level of quality when it comes to things military.
-fgalkin

Not really. There were a number of really bad paratrooper drops in the real WW2. And stupidity describes most Ringoverse stuff accurately. Remove Drake and the quality of Baen military SF drops through the floor.

[Temujin]

Yeah, definately Starship Troopers. No intermediate weapons between shitty assault rifle and nuclear rocket launcher. And the hilarity of needing a new Skymarshal before somebody thought that maybe, just maybe, they should try air support.
This bothered me, even as a 14 year old. And why no armor? That was because the MI in the books were hypercompetent and supposdely "made armor obsolete", what is the movie's excsuse?

My pet theory has always been they're actually using the war as a means of curbing overpopulation.

If they are, than they're using war as a means of culling out the stupid members of their population.

[Jim Raynor]

I've brought this up before: Any question about what the worst scifi military is is answered by the Signs aliens. They melt like the Wicked Witch when they touch water, yet they invade a planet that's mostly covered by water. Completely unarmed and even naked. At one point Mel Gibson's son declares "They're good problem solvers!" because they tried to find a way to go around a door barricaded with wood. If they were good problem solvers they'd be able to breach a farmer's house.

My favorite explanation was that it was the alien equivalent of Jackass.

[adam_grif]

How about Mass Effect? Too stupid to blockade chokepoints, too stupid to get out of the way when a giant spaceship drives through them, and such poor fleet control slow-moving projectiles butcher them even at long visual range.

This one is contentious, since there's that dichtotomy between codex and cutscene. As it reads in the codex, their tactics are largely sound (although some of the weapons everyone uses are dumb), but according to the ending cutscene, well...

The creators have basically declared that cutscene noncanon.

But they still managed to fuck up the ME2 ending cutscene as well.

This is the article on general alliance doctrine:

While competent, Alliance soldiers are neither as professional as the turians nor as skilled as the asari. Their strengths lie in fire support, flexibility, and speed. They make up for lack of numbers with sophisticated technical support (V.I.s, drones, artillery, electronic warfare) and emphasis on mobility and individual initiative.

Their doctrine is not based on absorbing and dishing out heavy shocks like the turians and krogan. Rather, they bypass enemy strong points and launch deep into their rear, cutting supply lines and destroying headquarters and support units, leaving enemies to "wither on the vine".

On defensive, the human military is a rapid reaction force that lives by Sun Tzu's maxim, "He who tries to defend everything defends nothing." Garrisons are intended for scouting rather than combat, avoiding engagement to observe and report on invaders using drones.

The token garrisons of human colonies make it easy for alien powers to secure them, for which the Alliance media criticizes the military. However, the powerful fleets stationed at phase gate nexuses such as Arcturus are just a few hours or days from any colony within their sphere of responsibility. In the event of an attack, they respond with an overwhelming force.

Tactics for space combat and ground assaults here.

[Temujin]

I've brought this up before: Any question about what the worst scifi military is is answered by the Signs aliens. They melt like the Wicked Witch when they touch water, yet they invade a planet that's mostly covered by water. Completely unarmed and even naked. At one point Mel Gibson's son declares "They're good problem solvers!" because they tried to find a way to go around a door barricaded with wood. If they were good problem solvers they'd be able to breach a farmer's house.

My favorite explanation was that it was the alien equivalent of Jackass.

Yeah I don't think they were a military either. Probably more like some alien special ed kids being left unsupervised and having access to the transporter units. Or they could just be alien teenagers / college kids drunk and high off their asses and though it would be a good idea to come to fuck with the local galactic hicks.

[Kuroji]

I am never going to be able to watch Signs again without hearing the theme to Jackass in my head whenever there's a scene with aliens in it. Thanks so much for that.

But yeah, it probably was just that. If they were committed to anything they would have probably worn some suits which were waterproof. Or noticed when they breathed in the air and went 'humidity?! IT'S BURNING MY LUNGS!'.

[folti78]

Star Trek and movie Starship Troopers, probably, althoubh Battletech should also probably get a mention due to the silliness of mechs.

I give an honorable mention to Narn infantry tactics in Babylon 5, episode Severed Dreams. In Garibaldi's words: "Nuts!". I can't believe JMS defended them by making a comparison to Omaha beach at Normandy. Too bad he didn't realize the huge difference in the tactical situation.

To be fair, Narns are always portrayed in the series as ridiculous soldiers, from their harebrained war plans, to things like very rare and expensive warships sacrificing themselves for a freighter full of civillians, to their ground tactics. It's no surprise they lost the war.

However, this actually makes sense given the problems of real-world militaries which have originated as guerilla forces, and shouldn't be held against B5. The other series I mentioned don't have that excuse.

Plus the Narns were more of an armed militia recruited from the station's civilian Narn population and refugees (the station was off-limits to non-EA military forces during the Narn - Centauri war, except when Sheridan did otherwise in The Fall of Night), to supplement the stations security forces after the purge of Nightwatch. It's very likely that they never received any military training* and were too young to fight in the previous guerilla war against the Centaury. And itching to show the world they are as good as a fighter as their freedom fighter fathers' were.

* IIRC It's never mentioned whether the Narn Regimes military forces uses conscription or they are an all volunteer forces. Even if they have conscription, it's questionable whether they teach too much tactics to the conscripts.

[Razor One]

I've brought this up before: Any question about what the worst scifi military is is answered by the Signs aliens. They melt like the Wicked Witch when they touch water, yet they invade a planet that's mostly covered by water. Completely unarmed and even naked. At one point Mel Gibson's son declares "They're good problem solvers!" because they tried to find a way to go around a door barricaded with wood. If they were good problem solvers they'd be able to breach a farmer's house.

My favorite explanation was that it was the alien equivalent of Jackass.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

The Imperial Stormptroopers in the battle on Endor got curbstomped by Ewoks with surprise on their side, The Narns ignored tactics for reasons that make sense in-universe, The Federation are bad by any standard you can care to name...

But at least they never tried to invade a planet covered with toxic gas and liquids without protective gear, naked, and without weapons, where the native population had an overwhelming and overpowering advantage in numbers.

The Signs Aliens are officially Too Dumb To Live.

Now I need to go get the Jackass theme out of my head.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Weberverse, and Baen universes in general are usually the best in terms of tactics, which makes perfect sense. Except Stirling. God help his Draka series, because nothing on this earth can.

That's not at all fair to Stirling. It's fair to criticize his tech (and I do) but the only book of the Draka series to actually feature much in the way of tactics was Marching Through Georgia and that didn't display massive incompetence. If you're going to bring the tech into, we can dig up Shep's critiques of Posleen verse tactics and weapon development and try to figure out which one sucks more.

It has the Draka dropping paratroopers in Georgia. That's not exactly bad tactics, but merely extreme stupidity. I was just pointing out that it's an exception from Baen's general level of quality when it comes to things military.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Not having read any of the Draka books, I have to ask. Which Georgia do they paradrop into, and why is this bad?

[Imperial Overlord]

The one next to Russia and it's bad because they should have died. The mission is to seize and hold terrain for use by heavier spearheads that will be attacking. It's less because even the guys who order it think it'll be tough even for crack troops and the main character who is the paratrooper leader thinks its a suicide mission.

[Jade Falcon]

One that always struck me in the David Lynch Dune was when Arrakeen was attacked by the Harkonnen/Sardauker forces, more of the Atreides troops seemed to be carrying flags than weapons.

However much it was criticised for the low budget and ridiculous costumes, at least the Sci-Fi channel version, when the Fremen were attacking the Harkonnens and the Emperor showed that they had air support, neutralising the Harkonnen forces on the ground.

[Simon_Jester]

As much as I love WH40K I find their tactics (especially tabletop game-wise) to be downright unbelievable. Any sci-fi verse where melee weapons are a vital part of combat without some hand wavum (a la Dune shields) flies in the face of how warfare has advanced in the last 300 years. Ranges increase all the time to the point where you don't even see your attacker yet routinely they close to melee range where combat is decided. And the melee weapons used are axes and swords - albiet cool versions of axes and swords. Mind you, again, I LOVE the setting so I ignore it but every now and then I just have to wonder where the OTH combat and lethality of weapons 30,000 years ahead of us is.

There's a lot of handwavium in the setting, though, I will say that. A big part of the resurgence of hand to hand combat seems to be because:
-As fgalkin says, armor technology has outrun basic weapon technology, to the point where weapons light enough to use as standard small arms are not reliably effective against high-end opponents.
-To make matters worse, some 40k opponents are so absurdly tough that the only way to kill them is to blast them to bits with multiple antitank weapon hits or to hack their head off with a chainsaw. If they're smart enough to stay under cover, that means closing in with that chainsaw.
-There's a lot of close combat in built-up areas, where even today fighting can descend to hand to hand.

Indeed it does, and I like it for this (as the book is utter shite).

Eh?

Not really. There were a number of really bad paratrooper drops in the real WW2. And stupidity describes most Ringoverse stuff accurately. Remove Drake and the quality of Baen military SF drops through the floor.

Well, let's see. Their major military SF writers are... what, Weber, Drake, Ringo, and Flint? Maybe one or two others I'm not familiar with.

Flint I can see being bad, though no specific examples charge into my mind. Weber isn't exactly stellar, but is he bad?

[The Romulan Republic]

Star Trek's infamous Klingon and Jem'Hadar charges also, unfortunately make sense in-universe, given how they routinely succeed against Feddie personnel. Of course, just how this degeneration came about is another matter entirely, which puts Star Trek way over the edge of suspension of disbelief.

Actually, while those charges are far more effective than they should be even given the generally poor equipment of Federation forces (Voyager has a hand phaser fired on wide-beam in Season One), have you ever actually seen one succeed? AR-whatever was a Federation victory. So was the Klingon boarding of DS9. In fact, I cannot think of a single time such a charge has actually won a battle against foes with functioning ranged weapons, except for one case in Voyager which was a holodeck simulation, and can therefore possibly be put down to poor AI on the part of the defending holograms, though its been a while since I saw it.

I would also note that I just viewed a clip of Way of the Warrior (when the Klingons attack Deep Space 9) on Youtube and it confirmed my recollection of the battle: specifically, a number of the Klingons who boarded did have guns, and most of the on-screen Federation/Bajoran casualties the boarders inflicted were the result of a gun shot.

There is no excuse, even in-universe, for those charges.

[Uraniun235]

-To make matters worse, some 40k opponents are so absurdly tough that the only way to kill them is to blast them to bits with multiple antitank weapon hits or to hack their head off with a chainsaw. If they're smart enough to stay under cover, that means closing in with that chainsaw.

Of course, that only works because the chainsaw is itself absurdly powerful.

[Coyote]

IIRC It's never mentioned whether the Narn Regimes military forces uses conscription or they are an all volunteer forces. Even if they have conscription, it's questionable whether they teach too much tactics to the conscripts.

I think it is volunteer. In one episode, an ongoing feud between a young Centauri troublemaker and a young Narn troublemaker erupts into race-baiting and violence that disturbs station operations; Sheridan leans on the Ambassadors to calm their people or get them off the station. G'Kar chews out the young Narn in question, and tells him that "if you are so eager to kill Centauri, then I suggest you go home and join the miltary!".

But I agree, the Narn military does seem to be a guerrilla army that grew up and figured that what worked for small bands of partisans would also work for a grown-up force, too.

[dragon]

Another reason for melee weapons in WH40K is that usally there are so many enemy like the orks or tryninds that no matter how much they fire the enemy will close to melee range. After all look what happened to that brit unit they got to do a bayonet charge.

The fearless Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders stormed rebel positions after being ambushed and pinned down.

Despite being outnumbered five to one, they suffered only three minor wounds in the hand-to-hand fighting near the city of Amara.

[Meest]

I just hate when they say this is "blades work" or some other crap like that, especially the whole in so close guns are useless which makes no sense. If a space marine is swinging a sword at some guys with his back turned why wouldn't his squadmates fire into his back. "It was too late for guns he was in their midst!" is just so lame especially when the marines put away their guns to go into melee when no mention of low on ammo.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I just hate when they say this is "blades work" or some other crap like that, especially the whole in so close guns are useless which makes no sense. If a space marine is swinging a sword at some guys with his back turned why wouldn't his squadmates fire into his back. "It was too late for guns he was in their midst!" is just so lame especially when the marines put away their guns to go into melee when no mention of low on ammo.

That's not how it works, though.

The majority of Space Marines are (relatively) regular dudes with bolters and a combat knife/bayonet. They go around shooting stuff much like any other soldier. They are then supported by (or support themselves, depending upon operational and tactical planning) heavy weapons dudes and "assault" dudes who do have the chainswords. Said assault marines wield the swords and their pistols ambidextrously and fight with both in harmony; there is no "put away gun, draw sword instead" melodrama involved. They also aren't armies of one (no more than any other Space Marine, at least); they fight as cohesive units as part of larger operations (i.e., supporting those regular dudes with bolters).

For example: Tactical dudes with bolters advance; encounter heavily entrenched enemy infantry. Tactical dudes pinned by heavy weapons fire. Assault dudes jump in with their jump-packs; shred already-engaged heavy weapons with chainsaws. Tactical dudes free to advance now; take trenches, cover assault dudes, and continue their little "bounding overwatch" routine.

[Ford Prefect]

Weber isn't exactly stellar, but is he bad?

Yes.

[SAMAS]

I just hate when they say this is "blades work" or some other crap like that, especially the whole in so close guns are useless which makes no sense. If a space marine is swinging a sword at some guys with his back turned why wouldn't his squadmates fire into his back. "It was too late for guns he was in their midst!" is just so lame especially when the marines put away their guns to go into melee when no mention of low on ammo.

40K Rulefluff states that point-blank shooting does occur in 40K close combat (example, the DoW 1 (and maybe 2) intro. It's just that the rules don't count it separately from the sword/made/rifle butt/etc... swings.

[Kuroji]

However much it was criticised for the low budget and ridiculous costumes, at least the Sci-Fi channel version, when the Fremen were attacking the Harkonnens and the Emperor showed that they had air support, neutralising the Harkonnen forces on the ground.

Well, sure. The thing is, in the Lynch version, they knocked down the shield wall and that made the sandstorm come into an area where it normally couldn't. There's no way they could fly in those conditions, and shields are useless in sandstorms because of all the static electricity. Basically in that version they used the sandworms to wreak havoc and absorb the heaviest firepower, while they fired at the emperor's forces more or less with impunity.

[Ghost Rider]

However much it was criticised for the low budget and ridiculous costumes, at least the Sci-Fi channel version, when the Fremen were attacking the Harkonnens and the Emperor showed that they had air support, neutralising the Harkonnen forces on the ground.

Well, sure. The thing is, in the Lynch version, they knocked down the shield wall and that made the sandstorm come into an area where it normally couldn't. There's no way they could fly in those conditions, and shields are useless in sandstorms because of all the static electricity. Basically in that version they used the sandworms to wreak havoc and absorb the heaviest firepower, while they fired at the emperor's forces more or less with impunity.

Actually that is pretty much how the book described it and justified why there was no huge air/ground war then.

[weemadando]

At one point Mel Gibson's son declares "They're good problem solvers!" because they tried to find a way to go around a door barricaded with wood. If they were good problem solvers they'd be able to breach a farmer's house.

Of course "They're good [FUCKING] problem solvers", at somepoint they've clearly mastered interstellar fucking travel!

But no - apparently a door is a bigger obstacle than that.