Tactical Stupidity in Science Fictions

[RayCav of ASVS]

Vasey you mean they could not hop to lightspeed?

Oh and remeber he says SHIP Not Shuttle prehaps meaning oh Tarkin of much ego prehaps had somthing a little bigger than what Vadar could have strifed in his TIE Advanced

Most EU sources say the DS had hangar space for up to 4 Loranor Strike Cruisers. Perhaps one of them was a personal ship of Tarkin?

(According to X-Wing vs. TIE, the ISD-I Alecto is Tarkin's personal starship)

Actually, the DS1 carried (or had room for) _thousands_ of capital ships. (Deep space mobile base was the DS' secondary role, after all). See Saxton's page on the DS for more info.

I'm just stating what EU/official sources claim. Just because you have a station the size of a moon, and just because you CAN build a hangar to accomodate thousands of captial ships, doesn't mean that they actually BOTHERED to do so.

[Crazy_Vasey]

Vasey you mean they could not hop to lightspeed?

Oh and remeber he says SHIP Not Shuttle prehaps meaning oh Tarkin of much ego prehaps had somthing a little bigger than what Vadar could have strifed in his TIE Advanced

Yeah they couldn't have jumped, too close to a gravity well I'd imagine.

And does it really matter if Vader could shoot it down? He would have been executed for incompetence just like Ozzel and Needa if he made contact with Imperial forces again and even if he went into hiding he wouldn't have been able to stay hidden long if Vader went after him with the Imperial fleet.

[Crossover_Maniac]

The Phantom Menace: Imprisoning Naboo pilots next to the spacecraft instead of a sercure facility away from the hanger bay; not using orbital bombardment to destroy the Gungan army.

[Darth Wong]

Also from TPM: not evacuating the Viceroy. Sending thousands of blockade ships away and leaving just one ship in orbit.

[Shadow]

Yeah they couldn't have jumped, too close to a gravity well I'd imagine.

And does it really matter if Vader could shoot it down? He would have been executed for incompetence just like Ozzel and Needa if he made contact with Imperial forces again and even if he went into hiding he wouldn't have been able to stay hidden long if Vader went after him with the Imperial fleet.

They would execute a Grand Moff?

[phongn]

B5: Mike, it gets worse, ships in the Earth Minbari war (of the Omega class) DID ram Minbari ships, when presumably they would have been equipped with nuclear weapons. They just didn't set 'em off!

The scene in question had a Nova ram a Sharlin, not an Omega, which came after the war.

It is odd how EarthForce never really used nuclear missiles - the Minbari (like most sci-fi races) seemed to lack antimissile CIWS (though they did and could swat down starfighters unless faced with overwhelming numbers, like at Earth).

[Master of Ossus]

B5: Mike, it gets worse, ships in the Earth Minbari war (of the Omega class) DID ram Minbari ships, when presumably they would have been equipped with nuclear weapons. They just didn't set 'em off!

The scene in question had a Nova ram a Sharlin, not an Omega, which came after the war.

It is odd how EarthForce never really used nuclear missiles - the Minbari (like most sci-fi races) seemed to lack antimissile CIWS (though they did and could swat down starfighters unless faced with overwhelming numbers, like at Earth).

You are quite right. It was a Nova that rammed the Sharlin, but did not appear to think of arming its nuclear payload, before hand.

BTW, even in the Battle of the Line, I think the Sharlins did a pretty good job of downing virtually all of their attackers.

[Darth Wong]

BTW, even in the Battle of the Line, I think the Sharlins did a pretty good job of downing virtually all of their attackers.

Yeah, but at what range? One Starfury rammed through a Sharlin's dorsal fin, and Sinclair got much closer than the 2 megaton nuke's range before they snagged him.

[Omega-13]

BTW, even in the Battle of the Line, I think the Sharlins did a pretty good job of downing virtually all of their attackers.

Yeah, but at what range? One Starfury rammed through a Sharlin's dorsal fin, and Sinclair got much closer than the 2 megaton nuke's range before they snagged him.

interceptor batteries don't activate until the enemy ships are within hundreds of km, much like we saw when the Earth Force ships tried to retake B5, it seems perhaps that the slow speed of the interceptors are their limiting factor,

[Master of Ossus]

BTW, even in the Battle of the Line, I think the Sharlins did a pretty good job of downing virtually all of their attackers.

Yeah, but at what range? One Starfury rammed through a Sharlin's dorsal fin, and Sinclair got much closer than the 2 megaton nuke's range before they snagged him.

I know, there are always some exceptions that get through. At the risk of an Imperial Smackdown (TM) I was not claiming that the Sharlins were invulnerable to fighter attacks, I was just stating that the Sharlins appeared to take insignificant damage, even when faced with tens of thousands of small ships. You're right, there were some Starfuries that got through, but I think that the Sharlin's abilities to defend itself were impressive. I also do not know why Earth was not detonating nuclear weapons in orbit, or why they did not even attempt to create a minefield to protect Earth from the Minbari attack, especially since they seemed to have forgotten about Earth. To me, that was stupidity, as was the Nova commander's willingness to die, but his unwillingness to arm his nuclear payload, first.

[Omega-13]

BTW, even in the Battle of the Line, I think the Sharlins did a pretty good job of downing virtually all of their attackers.

Yeah, but at what range? One Starfury rammed through a Sharlin's dorsal fin, and Sinclair got much closer than the 2 megaton nuke's range before they snagged him.

I know, there are always some exceptions that get through. At the risk of an Imperial Smackdown (TM) I was not claiming that the Sharlins were invulnerable to fighter attacks, I was just stating that the Sharlins appeared to take insignificant damage, even when faced with tens of thousands of small ships. You're right, there were some Starfuries that got through, but I think that the Sharlin's abilities to defend itself were impressive. I also do not know why Earth was not detonating nuclear weapons in orbit, or why they did not even attempt to create a minefield to protect Earth from the Minbari attack, especially since they seemed to have forgotten about Earth. To me, that was stupidity, as was the Nova commander's willingness to die, but his unwillingness to arm his nuclear payload, first.

why don't they just open jump points inside the large minbari ships? like 5'ers say they would do vs the empire

[Master of Ossus]

Omega-13, Earth Force jump engines were not accurate enough to target a single ship. Even the Minbari could only target jump points to within a few hundred yards--enough to disrupt a formation, but not destroy an Earth Force cruiser with any certainty. As an aside, the Minbari would never have had to use this tactic against a single ship. They would only have used this to break up a fleet of ships and then destroy them. Indeed, because their ships could so easily defeat EA ships one-on-one, or even when badly outnumbered, this tactic would have been stupid HAD they used it on the EA.

[Omega-13]

Omega-13, Earth Force jump engines were not accurate enough to target a single ship. Even the Minbari could only target jump points to within a few hundred yards--enough to disrupt a formation, but not destroy an Earth Force cruiser with any certainty. As an aside, the Minbari would never have had to use this tactic against a single ship. They would only have used this to break up a fleet of ships and then destroy them. Indeed, because their ships could so easily defeat EA ships one-on-one, or even when badly outnumbered, this tactic would have been stupid HAD they used it on the EA.

the EA, had the technology, they had no chance, in a last ditch effort, they still refused to use it, they couldn't target individual ships, but they could atleast try and get a lucky hit in, or just disrupt the Minbari Fleet

[Master of Ossus]

Or, as I have tried to say, just plant them on fighters/other ships and try to ram the Minbari. It would be more effective than what they did, especially since Nuclear weapons did not need to be in contact with the Minbari ships to destroy them (they just had to be pretty close), so the suicide ships would not actually have to ram the Minbari, just get as close as they could and then detonate the weapons.

[Omega-13]

I'll tell ya something I don't understand, why doesn't the EA use lasers for interceptors? instead of slow moving energy bolts? especially with a range of only a few hundred km

THEL has a range of thousands of kilometers, destroyed a satalite in high orbit (a variation of THEL, not the actual system)

[Crazy_Vasey]

Yeah they couldn't have jumped, too close to a gravity well I'd imagine.

And does it really matter if Vader could shoot it down? He would have been executed for incompetence just like Ozzel and Needa if he made contact with Imperial forces again and even if he went into hiding he wouldn't have been able to stay hidden long if Vader went after him with the Imperial fleet.

They would execute a Grand Moff?

For losing the death star, yes.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Sending thousands of blockade ships away and leaving just one ship in orbit.

Well, maintaining a thousand-ship blockade would be very expensive, and if you've already conquered the planet, why bother?

[Subnormal]

I'd figure I would add to this discussion some other tactical failures all relating to starwars ANH. The first one is dealing with the amount of Imperial Tie fighters, the question is why didn't they send more out to defend the death star. It's pretty much common scense that if you are being attacked you would use all the forces at your dispossal instead of one or two small Tie fighter groups. The second, is why the hell didn't the Y-wings shoot back, they have a turret mounted on their cockpit, and yet they don't turn it around and defend against Vader and the other Ties. The Y-wing pilot could of just let the Astromech droid fly the Y-wing while he operated the Turret. The blasters on the turret should of been sufficient enough to destroy a Tie fighter, as the Ties have no shields, why the lead Y-wing was paying attention to the exhaust port, the remaining two could of been covering his ass with their turrets. Also why wouldn't the empire send at least a few Star Destroyers as an escort to the Death Star, if the death star was vulnerable to small fighters the Star Destroyers could of intercepted them and blow them to bits. The Empire should of known the rebels were going to put up a fight, or logically abandon Yavin 4. And its also logical to say that when a group abandon a planet they either go in one group for protection, or spread out and go multiple directions so at least a few have a chance. Now if the Empire had a small battle fleet of ISDs standing by they would of A. Stopped the X and Y wings from reaching the Death Star. B. Destroyed any fleeing rebel ships from the planet.
C. be used as back up incase the DS is destroyed.
D. It is also logical that it is better to capture your enemy especially rebels, as they could be subjected to mind probes and spill their guts about other rebel locations, or be publicly executed as an example. So the ISDs could of just sent AT ATs and an assault force to take the rebel base, with ease. They could also bombard the planet with the ISDs before this assault, thought the rebels may have had a planetary shield.

[Patrick Degan]

You really could generate a whole book out of the tactical and strategic blunders committed in SF. Some from my own catalogue:

•Star Trek: Deep Space Nine —Sisko allows continual Jem'hadar reinforcements to simply flow through the wormhole for weeks before making any movement whatsoever to close off that avenue of attack from the Gamma Quadrant. He waits until war is breaking out to even address the problem of shutting off the wormhole and, because of his devotion to the Prophets, hits upon the complicated plan to mine the space around the wormhole instead of simply collapsing it altogether. Sisko further compounds his stupidity by breaking one of the cardinal rules of warfare by not destroying DS9 on the retreat to deny it to the enemy, giving Dukat and Weyoun's scientists months of opportunity to crack the computer programme controlling the mines. The only reason the Federation didn't lose the Dominion War, in my view, is that the Dominion were even more tactically inept than Starfleet.

I'd have volunteered in a second to have sat on the trial board for Sisko's court-martial for extreme incompetence.

•Star Trek: The Next Generation: "The Best Of Both Worlds (2) (by way of the Deep Space Nine pilot "Emissary") —Admiral Hanson sends his ships in ones and twos to make strafing runs on the Borg cubeship instead of massing his available firepower. Instead, his scraped-together fleet was picked off one by one like clay pigeons. Hansen is thankfully spared the indignity of court-martial by virtue of being dead and thus having played his role in the ongoing drama of evolutionary selection.

•Star Trek III: The Search For Spock —only a dozen crew on a Bird of Prey, with some on the surface of Genesis, and Kruge is going to beam over the balance of his remaining crew to take over the Enterprise, which unknown to him has been set to self-detonate. Why bother with beaming down to Genesis to coax Kruge into beaming down himself and counting on somehow tricking your way back up to his ship? Why not simply beam right over to the Bird of Prey, shoot Maltz and Kruge, and take over the Klingon ship directly? The boarding party on the Enterprise will certainly never be able to make it back to the transporter room before the ship blows up and you can beam up the two Vulcans on the surface and leave Kruge's remaining two guards to snuff it with the planet. Another demonstration of how much Kirk's tactical abilities had atrophied while behind that desk at Fleet HQ.

•Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Peak Performance" —Picard really should have been court-martialed for incompetence on this one; ignoring a prospective threat simply because he arrogantly assumes that it's nothing more than another sensor ghost cooked up by Lt. Worf and as a result leaves his ship wide open to attack and heavy damage. For that matter, we really should question what Picard and Sirna Kohlrami using for brainmatter in the first place. A complicated scheme requiring the disabling of the Enterprise's main weapons' grid in favour of the "modified pulse-beams" for use in the mock combat. Why not simply modulate the ship's phasers to fire at very low power against the shields? That was the procedure followed in the disasterous M5 combat trial of a century earlier. At the very least, Commodore Robert Wesley wasn't left completely defenceless when that exercise when horribly wrong.

•Battlestar Galactica: "The Living Legend (2)" —desiring the whole glory for bringing about the destruction of the Galactica fleet for himself, Baltar fails to inform the base commander on Gomoray of the threat of two battlestars in his sector and, of course, fails to confer with that unit to coordinate the attack. A united assault by the ground and basestar squadrons would certainly have overwhelmed the two battlestars and have meant the end for the last surviving remnant of the Twelve Colonies fleeing the Cylon Tyranny. To Baltar's credit, he did have the brainwave to conceive of attacking the then-undefended refugee ships to force Adama to pull away one of his battlestars from Gomoray and thus divide his forces, only to be vetoed by Lucifer's insistence to defend the life of Imperious Leader, then trapped on Gomoray. And according to the novelisation of this episode, Imperious Leader's own basestar was in orbit on the far side of Gomoray, which would certainly have given Baltar all the firepower he needed to finish the Galactica and Pegasus.

•Space: 1999: "The War Game" —my favourite episode of the series featuring the Alphans being subjected to an illusionary war in which their base is devestated and half their people killed as a deterrent by telepathic aliens who really don't want guests dropping in on their perfect world. Nevertheless, though illusory, the situation seems real enough, unfolds in a realistic manner, and Commander Koenig lets himself get caught flatfooted when he does not launch all of his laser-armed Eagles at once. Instead, he leaves one flight still on the ground while his first flight goes out to intercept the initial Hawk strike force which is just a diversion. As a result, one ship is blown up trying to clear the pad, two are blown up on their pads, and a fourth is left trapped on a jammed deck-lift while the base is pounded half to rubble by a second enemy attack wing. Not the most egregious tactical error in SF, but one no U.S. Air Force TAC general during the Cold War days would ever have allowed to get past him. To be fair, their sensors registered only three ships to begin with, but in defence overkill is always the best policy —a rule always followed by John Koenig's predecessor on UFO, the brave but insane Commander Straker.

[Howedar]

ROTJ: Han & co not just tossing some friggin thermal detonators into the shield generator to disable it (not necessarily destroy it, but at least start the job), then plant the charges.

[Patrick Degan]

•Star Blazers (a.k.a. Uchu Senkan Yamato) —because of Capt. Avatar's squeamishness about using the very powerful, long range superweapon at his command, the wave-motion gun, to "destory life on other worlds", he twice jeapordises his mission to get to Iscandar by refusing to employ the WMG against the Gamilon bases on Pluto and Balan. As a result, his ship is almost shot down before it even has the chance to leave the solar system, he has to fight a needless battle in the Oort Cloud beyond Pluto's orbit, and again the Star Force are forced to fight a needless battle at Balan which nearly gets the ship destroyed when they fall into Gen. Lysis' simple but potentially effective brute-force trap, and they must fight a second needless battle to get past Lysis at the Rainbow Star Cluster. By contrast, Capt. Wildstar had no problem employing the WMG against the forces of the Comet Empire when needed.

•Star Blazers —the Earth Defence Fleet is annihilated at Saturn by the Comet Empire citadel when Capt. Gideon decides upon a suicidal frontal assault with his ships after they've expended their wave-motion guns blowing away the citadel's outer shield/drivefield layer, sending them into a death-charge against a massive missile barrage. His best bet would have been to have his ships fall back to Jupiter to buy time to recharge the wave-motion guns for a second shot when they have a chance to intercept the citadel on its course toward Earth.

•Babylon 5: "Movements Of Fire And Shadow" —were it not for the Drakh stage-managing affairs behind the scenes, the ISA really should have lost this war with the Centauri. President Sheridan is unwilling to unleash his military forces to hit colonies and supply points to cripple the Centauri's capacity to sustain their military in the field; instead trying to employ a similar strategy which resulted in the defeat of the United States in Vietnam, of "drawing a line" to keep the enemy forces contained (how feasible this may be in a space war I leave others to speculate on). The structure of the Alliance does not allow for a strong central command and control, which permits the Narn and Drazi to stupidly throw a third of their fleets in a frontal assault upon Centauri Prime which may well have failed disasterously had not the Regent deliberately stripped away the defence screen protecting the homeworld, and would have weakened the overall force-balance avaialble to the ISA to conduct the war. The ISA win only because it suited the Drakh for them to do so, which means in reality the ISA lost the war against an enemy they never suspected they were really fighting.

[Sea Skimmer]

Well, maintaining a thousand-ship blockade would be very expensive, and if you've already conquered the planet, why bother?

Perhaps a thousands or even a 100 ships would be excessive, but a driod control ships broadcast range is only 16500 kilometers, with only one control ship large areas of the planet would have no operational at all!

ROTJ: Han & co not just tossing some friggin thermal detonators into the shield generator to disable it (not necessarily destroy it, but at least start the job), then plant the charges. {/Quote]

Because the resulting blast would likely kill them..

[Straha]

BTech: The Clans have a super-ridged set of rules as to how warfare will be fought. Entire battles have been shifted because of this. Furthermore, the Clans employed ammo-based weapons against their first invasions of the Inner Sphere. While more destructive than beam weapons, the Clans soon found themselves in one hell of a logistical nightmare that helped turn the tide in favor of the Inner Sphere.

Come on, that was not the worst blunder of btech. That would have to be shared jointly b y the kuritas and the davions for not pulling back the heirs to the throne when the invasion was in it's second or third wave.

Honorable mention: Smoke Jaguars for not being able to defend themselves, or attack when they had superior firepower, technology, and were equipped for the fight when SL2 was pulling of it's "trial of annihalation."

[Typhonis 1]

The Martians not sending a probe to find out if Earth bacteria were harmful to them

[Smiling Bandit]

• Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Peak Performance" —Picard really should have been court-martialed for incompetence on this one; ignoring a prospective threat simply because he arrogantly assumes that it's nothing more than another sensor ghost cooked up by Lt. Worf and as a result leaves his ship wide open to attack and heavy damage. For that matter, we really should question what Picard and Sirna Kohlrami using for brainmatter in the first place. A complicated scheme requiring the disabling of the Enterprise's main weapons' grid in favour of the "modified pulse-beams" for use in the mock combat. Why not simply modulate the ship's phasers to fire at very low power against the shields?

To be fair, the illusion was convincing - the original ship illusion precisely imitated the interloper. And the orders and plans almost certainly came from Starfleet. Picard's big mistake was, essentially, not fighting against it hard enough.