Units that should never have been made

[Eviscerator]

IIRC the whole Covie-Human war was a religious one and they glassed the planet ALWAYS after they finished with the humans. Off hand i cannot recall why they send troops down at all unless there is some forerunner artifact involved. Been a pretty long time since i read the novels, its gettig foggy.

[Marcus Aurelius]

It's a different matter to prioritize than to completely forget about air defense. If you know for certain that the enemy is always going to glass your planet, any suborbital defenses are of course useless. But if there is a chance of ground combat, you should allocate some resources to atmospheric combat as well, since the atmosphere kind of sits between the ground and orbit... Allocating resources to ground combat assets and forgetting air defense is the stupidest thing you can do. Either you have balanced planetary defense forces or you don't. Half-assed measures are no measures at all.

Isn't that precisely what the Covenant did? Glassing planets if they lost on the ground?

If I remember correctly, yes. (I have not read any Halo novels and my wife plays the games ). However, from a strategic point of view, if you can play time and cause casualties to your enemy it might still be worth fighting on the ground, depending on the casualty ratios. Of course it would be much better if you could at least contest orbital superiority at some point. Without that possibility the ground fighting can only serve the purpose of a strategic delay action.

[FSTargetDrone]

Very poor but possible arguements could be.

1. Humans have no way to modify the gyros used in the APU unit and adding any armor upsets the system. Hell the machines could have designed this flaw into the APU system so that armor could not be added.

We've had the "flaws were designed into the device" angle when discussing this topic before. I find it absurd that people who can operate large hoverships can't jury-rig some basic armor protection on their walking machines. If the weight of some added-on armor is such an issue, remove one of the weapons and put the ammo for the remaining weapon on the other side. They already have great looping ammo belts (that are uncomfortable close to the ground as it is...), so just re-rout it over the rear of the machine to the ammo tank.

2. Insufficient technology to add cameras to the outside of the APU. Armor doesnt do much good if it creates huge blindspots for the driver which allows enemies to attack easily. One positive point in the APU is by virtue of the open cockpit the driver has an excellent field of vision for everything except directly behind them.

The gunners on the hoverships use remote sensors to "see" the squids so they can engage them with the ships' (turreted) weapons. This shouldn't be beyond the ability of the humans to come up with something a lot simpler for the APUs. But they don't even need that. Put up some simple metal structure in front of the pilot that he could at least lean forward and duck behind if necessary.

There is no good reason for the APUs to have near-total exposed operator positions unless they only ever intend to fight an enemy that is using a handful of small water balloons. As things stand in the movies (apparently the APUs cockpits were enclosed in the Animatrix), the APU pilots are exposed not only to physical attacks by the squids, they are exposed to shell splinters and all kinds of other debris that will naturally be flying around during a pitched battle.

What we really do not know is how much the humans of Zion built and how much they "salvaged" IE found where it was left for them to find by the Machines. We do not even know how well the humans understand the gear. They may know how to use it very well with no real ability to anything beyond very basic maintenance or repairs.

So then the humans can improvise. Which they apparently don't.

Maybe the "humans are stupid" position some have taken is correct after all, now that I think about it. They don't even issue helmets to the APU operators. Helmets are among the most basic of protection one can give to one's troops, but apparently their front-line APU operators don't warrant such consideration:



(edited for clarity)

[Thanas]

Man, the strategy was totally stupid there. You got rocket launchers - why not use them against that large swarming mess? A few rocket launchers there and you can block that passage almost indefinitely with APU support.

[FSTargetDrone]

Man, the strategy was totally stupid there. You got rocket launchers - why not use them against that large swarming mess? A few rocket launchers there and you can block that passage almost indefinitely with APU support.

The people with the rocket launchers actually showed some sense by popping up only to aim and fire, then moving to a new position. The APUs aren't exactly fleet of foot during the battle and some of them are knocked off the platforms anyway. It seems like AA gunners on old naval ships had more protection in their armored tubs with some shielding as compared to these clowns in the movie who stagger along in their walking machines. So I still fail to see the point of having the APUs as mobile units at all.

It's a goofy battle for all kinds of reasons.

Why the mass of squids ever held back at all (like in the moments before they finally swarmed Mifune) seems really strange to me. They are going to take losses either way (which seems irrelevant, given their tactics in the first place which depend on masses of machines and nothing other than melee attacks), so why don't they just plow on through the APUs and be done with it? I don't see how the squids scattering their numbers a bit more (to present more targets instead of great clumps) would be any worse than what they end up with.

[Wing Commander MAD]

If memory servs the Covenant only bothered with ground operations when there was something they wanted, otherwise they just glassed the planet. Then again, they've also glassed the planet, aside from where what they want is like at Reach, though that bit from the novels might change with the new game. Keep in mind these are games, and that the developers are probably only going to bother with what they need for gameplay. I'm still rather fond of the idea that what we see in the games from the UNSC is all air mobile stuff, I'm not sure if there is a way to rationalize Covenant stuff. The only time we would have probably seen the regular armor is in Halo Wars, which I imagine kept the warthogs and scorpions since those would be expected by now by the fans. All other times we're on an alien planet with only a single ship (not as far as I know dedicated for ground ops) or on an Earth that already had the shit kicked out of it and is occupied. The only exception being the few levels in Halo 2, and parts of ODST. Though I kinda get the feeling the only new non architectural art assets for it were the Engineers/Engineer Pods and the protagonists (which probably reused or modified existing assets from Halo 3), it basically being an expansion pack for Halo 3 that MS wanted to sell for full price. In that respect I'm not surprised we didn't see a more fully fleshed out and more sensibly designed aresenal from Halo, unless you really want to believe that two interstellar empires both only had a handful of vehicles, weapons, etc. in existance. Using that logic, we could conclude the Galatic Empire only had AT-ATs and AT-STs (maybe a few other vehicles if you account for the EU).

[Black Admiral]

It's a different matter to prioritize than to completely forget about air defense. If you know for certain that the enemy is always going to glass your planet, any suborbital defenses are of course useless. But if there is a chance of ground combat, you should allocate some resources to atmospheric combat as well, since the atmosphere kind of sits between the ground and orbit... Allocating resources to ground combat assets and forgetting air defense is the stupidest thing you can do. Either you have balanced planetary defense forces or you don't. Half-assed measures are no measures at all.

Isn't that precisely what the Covenant did? Glassing planets if they lost on the ground?

Actually, they glassed the planets anyway, and usually didn't bother to even land ground forces. They only landed ground troops if there were Forerunner artefacts or other items on a given planet they wanted to retrieve (for instance, Charybdis IX, not having anything the Covenant wanted to retrieve on it, was glassed without any efforts at invasion).

EDIT - And as for the suggestion of trying to deny the Covenant airspace control via bigger and nastier ADA, it wouldn't work. They'd simply use their lighter warships for CAS, which they've done before.

[Jim Raynor]

It's a goofy battle for all kinds of reasons.

Why the mass of squids ever held back at all (like in the moments before they finally swarmed Mifune) seems really strange to me. They are going to take losses either way (which seems irrelevant, given their tactics in the first place which depend on masses of machines and nothing other than melee attacks), so why don't they just plow on through the APUs and be done with it? I don't see how the squids scattering their numbers a bit more (to present more targets instead of great clumps) would be any worse than what they end up with.

They weren't just holding back, they were deliberately circling around the perimeter doing jack shit. I think somebody put it best when he said that the squids must have been programmed with Centipede as their primary battle tactic.

Man that battle was ass.

[FSTargetDrone]

They weren't just holding back, they were deliberately circling around the perimeter doing jack shit. I think somebody put it best when he said that the squids must have been programmed with Centipede as their primary battle tactic.

Man that battle was ass.

Heh. And you can see this most blatantly at about the 2:00 mark in the above clip when they are conveniently arcing over Mifune's APU en masse.

One thing to the credit of the APUs, or at least their guns. They sure can maintain continuous fire for quite awhile! The SFX team should have at least given the gun barrels a nice orange glow.

[Ford Prefect]

(apparently the APUs cockpits were enclosed in the Animatrix)

The APU's that appear in the past battlscenes in The Second Reneissance are only vaguely related the APUs of the actual films. The TSR APUs could were not just enclosed, they could move and fire their weapons simultaneously, and could even fly.

[Bilbo]

Very poor but possible arguements could be.

1. Humans have no way to modify the gyros used in the APU unit and adding any armor upsets the system. Hell the machines could have designed this flaw into the APU system so that armor could not be added.

We've had the "flaws were designed into the device" angle when discussing this topic before. I find it absurd that people who can operate large hoverships can't jury-rig some basic armor protection on their walking machines. If the weight of some added-on armor is such an issue, remove one of the weapons and put the ammo for the remaining weapon on the other side. They already have great looping ammo belts (that are uncomfortable close to the ground as it is...), so just re-rout it over the rear of the machine to the ammo tank.

2. Insufficient technology to add cameras to the outside of the APU. Armor doesnt do much good if it creates huge blindspots for the driver which allows enemies to attack easily. One positive point in the APU is by virtue of the open cockpit the driver has an excellent field of vision for everything except directly behind them.

The gunners on the hoverships use remote sensors to "see" the squids so they can engage them with the ships' (turreted) weapons. This shouldn't be beyond the ability of the humans to come up with something a lot simpler for the APUs. But they don't even need that. Put up some simple metal structure in front of the pilot that he could at least lean forward and duck behind if necessary.

There is no good reason for the APUs to have near-total exposed operator positions unless they only ever intend to fight an enemy that is using a handful of small water balloons. As things stand in the movies (apparently the APUs cockpits were enclosed in the Animatrix), the APU pilots are exposed not only to physical attacks by the squids, they are exposed to shell splinters and all kinds of other debris that will naturally be flying around during a pitched battle.

What we really do not know is how much the humans of Zion built and how much they "salvaged" IE found where it was left for them to find by the Machines. We do not even know how well the humans understand the gear. They may know how to use it very well with no real ability to anything beyond very basic maintenance or repairs.

So then the humans can improvise. Which they apparently don't.

Maybe the "humans are stupid" position some have taken is correct after all, now that I think about it. They don't even issue helmets to the APU operators. Helmets are among the most basic of protection one can give to one's troops, but apparently their front-line APU operators don't warrant such consideration:



(edited for clarity)

Being able to use a piece of equipment in no way means one knows how it works or how to repair it. I can drive a car quite well, but my repair ability is limited to putting the spare on when it gets a flat, adding wiper fluid, and putting on new wiper blades.

We do not know if humanity built the hovercraft or the APUs or if they were all left fully intact by the Machines to find them. Sure they use cameras on their hovercraft. But to put them on the APUs first requires you to either have several dozen of them to spare, or the materials to build them, and the know how to actually do it.

I see nothing in the show that ever suggests humanity had either. Their home looks quite frankly like a shithole and everything looks worn down and about to fall apart. In the second movie we see a ship lost because a railing collapses. Doesnt say much for their maintenance cycle that something as basic as that fails even if its cause a hobbles on it a bit hard due to a crippled leg.

[FSTargetDrone]

Being able to use a piece of equipment in no way means one knows how it works or how to repair it. I can drive a car quite well, but my repair ability is limited to putting the spare on when it gets a flat, adding wiper fluid, and putting on new wiper blades.

You as an individual might not know how to repair a device, but don't you think it's likely that some of the humans who are born into or brought into the Real World can't learn how modify existing equipment? And I'm not even talking about designing, engineering and building complicated machinery from scratch. I'm talking about welding some metal bars or simple plate over the cockpits of existing equipment. This is a group of people who are facing death if they can't adapt. Their motivation to adapt and learn about what they have (assuming they were "given" the technology by the Machines at all) is high, to say the least.

We do not know if humanity built the hovercraft or the APUs or if they were all left fully intact by the Machines to find them. Sure they use cameras on their hovercraft. But to put them on the APUs first requires you to either have several dozen of them to spare, or the materials to build them, and the know how to actually do it.

I submit that humans built the Hovercraft. Neo saw this after being brought into the Nebuchadnezzar:



(Incidentally, there is an "r" in the film at the end of the word, it just doesn't fit on the screen until the camera pans right)

Note that I already said they didn't need fancy remote sensors on the APUs. They do fairly well enough aiming the weapons and hitting the targets using their naked eyes and the guns' tracers (regardless of the superior numbers they face). But those APU pilots need some kind of frontal protection at the very least. That should not be hard to do. Granted, I am making certain assumptions, but I don't think they are unwarranted. These are people who can write a computer program, upload it into their minds and learn how to fly a helicopter in moments. Welding some flame-cut plate together to form simple armor with some vision slits is trivial compared to that.

I see nothing in the show that ever suggests humanity had either. Their home looks quite frankly like a shithole and everything looks worn down and about to fall apart. In the second movie we see a ship lost because a railing collapses. Doesnt say much for their maintenance cycle that something as basic as that fails even if its cause a hobbles on it a bit hard due to a crippled leg.

Keeping things clean and pristine isn't going to be a primary concern. In our real world, machines break when they aren't maintained, even though we know how to maintain them. The railing's failure is not indicative of humans being able to repair their ships' and other devices' vital systems and components in general. People die from mundane, easily preventable accidents all the time.

[Bilbo]

They can use a program written to teach them how to do stuff. Nothing tells us that they actually wrote the program. The only programming we ever see them do is when they talk about hacking into the Matrix.

I remember the plaque you posted the picture of, so the ship was not built by them. Which means it was left for them to find by the Machines or it was built by the Machines and that plaque put on it to hide its origins.

I do admit we do not know enough about their technology to be sure. But some of the things they do are so damn stupid that one has to hope that its due to the Machines making sure they do not have the ability to improve on the design.

Another thought. For all we know the final assault on each iteration of Zion is the first last and only time the APU is ever used in combat. Also the poeple of Zion had no idea there were so many Machines. They all shit themselves when they learned of the number of Squiddies. Lack of experience and a completely misunderstanding of scale may be why they thought the APU was fine as is. Still doesnt explain not giving people helmets.

As for people dying of accidents. Zions ships are its top of the line military. Something like that should get a very careful inspection every time it comes into port. Its not like Zion doesnt have an overabundance of people who seem to be doing nothing. Indicates how incompetent they are that such a basic danger was missed long enough for it to kill them.

[Darth Wong]

I still find it very difficult to believe that the humans could not scrounge up even some protective "armor" to weld onto the cockpit frame of the APUs ...

Very poor but possible arguements could be.

1. Humans have no way to modify the gyros used in the APU unit and adding any armor upsets the system. Hell the machines could have designed this flaw into the APU system so that armor could not be added.

2. Insufficient technology to add cameras to the outside of the APU. Armor doesnt do much good if it creates huge blindspots for the driver which allows enemies to attack easily. One positive point in the APU is by virtue of the open cockpit the driver has an excellent field of vision for everything except directly behind them.

What we really do not know is how much the humans of Zion built and how much they "salvaged" IE found where it was left for them to find by the Machines. We do not even know how well the humans understand the gear. They may know how to use it very well with no real ability to anything beyond very basic maintenance or repairs.

Nice try, but ...

1) If the control systems on the APU were that bad, it would lose balance from the weight distribution change when you reload its ammo.

2) OK, so use some kind of transparent canopy. Even ordinary Lexan would be a huge improvement over air, which is its existing armour system.

3) The humans spend time in a simulation of the late 1990s. They should be capable of acquiring the knowledge necessary to understand technology up to the modern day.

[Srelex]

Could it also be that they simply decided that a canopy may not be much good anyway against the machines, which apparently made short work of fully armored Mark I APUs? Of course, that doesn't address the bullet shell thing and whatnot, but maybe their designers are just plain lazy...

[Darth Wong]

Imperial Walkers from The Empire Strikes Back. Even if you handwave away the inferiority of walkers in general, even for a walking machine they are a bad design. Tall enough to be unstable; the Rebels clearly knew about that, so it's an in-universe flaw. Only 4 legs so destroying one would cripple it. A weak neck ( therefore one getting blown up by a shot there; another canon flaw ). All the weapons concentrated in the head; this, on a machine that must have atrocious turning speed.

Those flaws are mostly explained if we simply assume it was intended for fire support at a distance rather than standalone close-in fighting. It was obviously never built for standalone close-in fighting. It's more a function of the terribly written EU material that people think every Imperial ground battle would have involved these things rushing into close action against enemy forces. In the actual movies, we only saw them in action once, and their mission was to simply get in range to hammer the base with artillery. Plus, they had support from smaller walkers running escort.

As an aside, I find flaws like that believable. Tyrannies have a tendency to build things because some high official liked the idea, not because they are a good idea or well engineered. Like the unworkable Nazi supertanks and so forth. I expect some Moff or the Emperor looked at the proposal and said more or less "Looks big and scary! Build it!" Who's going to tell them no?

It still implies that someone had to design it in the first place. As I said, it makes more sense if you simply assume its role is different from what most EU authors have traditionally assumed it to be. For that matter, there was really no indication in the original movie that it was intended to be a troop carrier; the inside of the main body was always implied to be mostly filled with machinery and equipment until the supplementary materials came out stating that it's basically an empty box in there. Why the fuck would someone build a troop carrier where the personnel compartment is so high above the ground?

[Darth Wong]

Could it also be that they simply decided that a canopy may not be much good anyway against the machines, which apparently made short work of fully armored Mark I APUs? Of course, that doesn't address the bullet shell thing and whatnot, but maybe their designers are just plain lazy...

An anti-tank missile can make short work of a heavily armoured tank, but that doesn't mean we just give up and have people running around in open-top dune buggies. Armour is not about invincibility; it's about altering the odds.

[Bilbo]

I still find it very difficult to believe that the humans could not scrounge up even some protective "armor" to weld onto the cockpit frame of the APUs ...

Very poor but possible arguements could be.

1. Humans have no way to modify the gyros used in the APU unit and adding any armor upsets the system. Hell the machines could have designed this flaw into the APU system so that armor could not be added.

2. Insufficient technology to add cameras to the outside of the APU. Armor doesnt do much good if it creates huge blindspots for the driver which allows enemies to attack easily. One positive point in the APU is by virtue of the open cockpit the driver has an excellent field of vision for everything except directly behind them.

What we really do not know is how much the humans of Zion built and how much they "salvaged" IE found where it was left for them to find by the Machines. We do not even know how well the humans understand the gear. They may know how to use it very well with no real ability to anything beyond very basic maintenance or repairs.

Nice try, but ...

1) If the control systems on the APU were that bad, it would lose balance from the weight distribution change when you reload its ammo.

2) OK, so use some kind of transparent canopy. Even ordinary Lexan would be a huge improvement over air, which is its existing armour system.

3) The humans spend time in a simulation of the late 1990s. They should be capable of acquiring the knowledge necessary to understand technology up to the modern day.

1. Very true. Good point.

2. Assuming of course that the material is available. To defend against the Machines we see the infantry grinding black powder for rockets. Doesnt say much for the material available.

3. Yes, but still requires the material to be available and the ships, APUs, etc to be designed to be maintained. How many parts on cars today are pull and replace when just 20 years ago the same part could be completely disassembled and repaired by a mechanic.

It all comes down to everything be supplied by the Machines and the Machines had no interest in leaving anything behind that might let Zion win the war. Afte 5 iterations of Zion I am sure the machines know exactly what can and cannot be left around for humanity to use.

[FSTargetDrone]

They can use a program written to teach them how to do stuff. Nothing tells us that they actually wrote the program. The only programming we ever see them do is when they talk about hacking into the Matrix.

I remember the plaque you posted the picture of, so the ship was not built by them. Which means it was left for them to find by the Machines or it was built by the Machines and that plaque put on it to hide its origins.

I do admit we do not know enough about their technology to be sure. But some of the things they do are so damn stupid that one has to hope that its due to the Machines making sure they do not have the ability to improve on the design.

Why do we keep assuming that the ships, the APUs and the computer programs are all Machine-designed? To what end? Why bother with all of that when the goal of the Machines is to destroy Zion and its inhabitants? The only humans the Machines cares about keeping alive are the humans it uses as a power source, right? And once those human batteries are expended, they are dumped and replaced by newborns.

The truly confusing thing about the machines is their method of attack. They possess better weapons than Squids. At no point in the Zion battle to they do anything other than melee attacks, IIRC. Previously, they are seen in the tunnels using those thrown devices. Why didn't they drop those things down the hole in the roof first? And during the actual attack, they spend quite a bit of time farting around and above the APUs. Those squids are basically disposable anyway, so just hit those APUs from all directions as soon as Zion is filled with enough of them. Instead they stream around in great twisting loops.

I am taking the plaque in the ship at face value because I haven't seen any other evidence in the movies that the ship was built by the Machines. We either believe what we see or we don't. I choose to accept the plaque as "true" inasmuch as it commemorates the construction of the ship (and presumable other ships have similar plaques) by humans. Maybe not the humans alive at the time of the movies, but by some humans, at some point in the past.

Another thought. For all we know the final assault on each iteration of Zion is the first last and only time the APU is ever used in combat. Also the poeple of Zion had no idea there were so many Machines. They all shit themselves when they learned of the number of Squiddies. Lack of experience and a completely misunderstanding of scale may be why they thought the APU was fine as is. Still doesnt explain not giving people helmets.

As for people dying of accidents. Zions ships are its top of the line military. Something like that should get a very careful inspection every time it comes into port. Its not like Zion doesnt have an overabundance of people who seem to be doing nothing. Indicates how incompetent they are that such a basic danger was missed long enough for it to kill them.

Remember, this is a top of the line "military" that doesn't issue its primary ground forces helmets. Someone died in one of the ships because of a broken railing. It turned out to be devastating for that particular ship, but rusty catwalks may come secondary to making sure the engines and weapons are running properly.

The humans encountered Squids many times before they made the final assault on Zion. They aren't unknown quantities. An attack on Zion was not unanticipated. Those APUs should have been prepped well ahead of time for attack by those known Squids. Instead, those slow-moving walking machines that have trouble walking and firing at the same time are rendered useless much too easily because their operators are totally exposed, unprotected and easily killed. Those APUs could have been rendered useless by facing other humans with sniper rifles. It's inconceivable that they weren't better protected against known enemies that are known to be far more dangerous.

[Eviscerator]

They can use a program written to teach them how to do stuff. Nothing tells us that they actually wrote the program. The only programming we ever see them do is when they talk about hacking into the Matrix.

I do admit we do not know enough about their technology to be sure. But some of the things they do are so damn stupid that one has to hope that its due to the Machines making sure they do not have the ability to improve on the design.

Another thought. For all we know the final assault on each iteration of Zion is the first last and only time the APU is ever used in combat. Also the poeple of Zion had no idea there were so many Machines. They all shit themselves when they learned of the number of Squiddies. Lack of experience and a completely misunderstanding of scale may be why they thought the APU was fine as is. Still doesnt explain not giving people helmets.
.

The Matrix is not logical. . For some strange reason after info is delivered that they have
1)Discovered Zion's location and are doing drilling operations
2) One sentinel for every person in Zion is massing for the attack : which means about 250K +/-

The first thing the Council/Morpheus decide to do is hold a big rave party instead of marshalling every man jack into preparing for the assault. Neo even finds time to get his ashes hauled.

The APU was only seen in combat in revolutions but if one peers closely at reloaded, an APU is seen on the dock training its weapons on the bay doors and it only lowers them after the doors close. We can infer from this that the APU was designed or intended from the beginning as an complementary unit to defend the city. However it still doesnt explain why with multiple known reports on abilities of Sentinels, numbers expected etc they do not address said flaws of APUs.

[FSTargetDrone]

The APU was only seen in combat in revolutions but if one peers closely at reloaded, an APU is seen on the dock training its weapons on the bay doors and it only lowers them after the doors close. We can infer from this that the APU was designed or intended from the beginning as an complementary unit to defend the city. However it still doesnt explain why with multiple known reports on abilities of Sentinels, numbers expected etc they do not address said flaws of APUs.

Looking at Reloaded again at the Zion/Hovercraft scenes... There are also large, turreted, remotely-operated guns (with big ammo belt chutes) arrayed outside of the doors as well. I'd forgotten all about those.

Also, on one of the large gears that close the gates, you can see what looks like, "Zion Foundry (or "Foundries") cast into the gear itself. That clearly implies there is (or was) a foundry inside the city.

People are also seen welding and doing what appears to be other repair work inside Zion in the second film. Large cranes are moving things around as well. These humans can fix things.

[Bilbo]

They can use a program written to teach them how to do stuff. Nothing tells us that they actually wrote the program. The only programming we ever see them do is when they talk about hacking into the Matrix.

I do admit we do not know enough about their technology to be sure. But some of the things they do are so damn stupid that one has to hope that its due to the Machines making sure they do not have the ability to improve on the design.

Another thought. For all we know the final assault on each iteration of Zion is the first last and only time the APU is ever used in combat. Also the poeple of Zion had no idea there were so many Machines. They all shit themselves when they learned of the number of Squiddies. Lack of experience and a completely misunderstanding of scale may be why they thought the APU was fine as is. Still doesnt explain not giving people helmets.
.

The Matrix is not logical. . For some strange reason after info is delivered that they have
1)Discovered Zion's location and are doing drilling operations
2) One sentinel for every person in Zion is massing for the attack : which means about 250K +/-

The first thing the Council/Morpheus decide to do is hold a big rave party instead of marshalling every man jack into preparing for the assault. Neo even finds time to get his ashes hauled.

The APU was only seen in combat in revolutions but if one peers closely at reloaded, an APU is seen on the dock training its weapons on the bay doors and it only lowers them after the doors close. We can infer from this that the APU was designed or intended from the beginning as an complementary unit to defend the city. However it still doesnt explain why with multiple known reports on abilities of Sentinels, numbers expected etc they do not address said flaws of APUs.

Why they didnt upgrade the APUs based on how they knew Sentinels fought is unexplained. Lack of material, just plain stupid, limited knowledge, none of it makes sense.

The number question is better answered. No one had a clue there were so many Sentinels and the time between when they learn of the 250K and the attack can be measured in days. In that short a time period there is really oh so much you can do.

Yes I remember the teaser shot of the APU from Reloaded. Having one stand there trying to look badass doesnt mean they have ever actually used one in battle. Considering everything that the Architect has ever said it would be illogical for the Machines to actually attack Zion before they planned to attack it. Since "The One" was so important to restoring balance in the Matrix the Machines would have had to always be very careful they did not kill him before he could merge with the source yadda yadda yadda.

A nice twist in the movies would have been one of Zion's ships at some point coming across an old iteration of Zion. Considering how the Machines attacked, giant digger and all I doubt they were able to reuse the same Zion. At the end of the 3rd movie one could easily expect that a whole new unoccupied but fully stocked Zion was waiting for "The One" and his merry band of chosen unplugged.

[FSTargetDrone]

Why they didnt upgrade the APUs based on how they knew Sentinels fought is unexplained. Lack of material, just plain stupid, limited knowledge, none of it makes sense.

That's for sure. And the more you think about, the stranger it seems.

The one big head-scratcher for me is why why WHY didn't the Squids use any explosives inside Zion?

[Eviscerator]

Why they didnt upgrade the APUs based on how they knew Sentinels fought is unexplained. Lack of material, just plain stupid, limited knowledge, none of it makes sense.

The number question is better answered. No one had a clue there were so many Sentinels and the time between when they learn of the 250K and the attack can be measured in days. In that short a time period there is really oh so much you can do.

Yes I remember the teaser shot of the APU from Reloaded. Having one stand there trying to look badass doesnt mean they have ever actually used one in battle. Considering everything that the Architect has ever said it would be illogical for the Machines to actually attack Zion before they planned to attack it. .

I must be missing the chapter in Civil Defense procedures that reads
1) First things to do upon reciving information of impending genocidal enemy's attack
a) HAVE BIG RAVE PARTY
b) Get ya ashes hauled.

Everybody at the big Captain's powwow saw the recon data from the Osiris, and if they couldn't count Morpheus showed up to tell them "one for each of us" Zion holds about 350 +/- people, and that amount of people if marshalled together and working in not-so-close concert can do wonders in a few days. Like preparing fallback positions beforehand and not doing it on a half-baked basis? Cmdr Locke and his staff are shown in some form of command center monitoring the boring process and status reports are coming in. It's not like the ETA of the Machines wasnt predictable.

As already stated previously, stuff is designed with an end use/purpose in mind, even if it never gets used for its intended purpose. There is no modern operator-controlled piece of heavy equipment without SOME form of protection for the operator. (correct me if im wrong). The only explanation left is that the design artists in THE REAL WORLD (Hollywood) wanted some really dramatic shots

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The one big head-scratcher for me is why why WHY didn't the Squids use any explosives inside Zion?

The Machines must be reading from a playbook that says "In battle you should give the enemy a fighting chance and let him kill some of your units for shit and giggles"

Instead of the normal military playbook that says "Fair play is i bring all of my people home. Fuck the others. "