Clone troopers replace marines in Aliens

[Mr Bean]

Lastly they can attack on a single vector thereby neutralizing the usefullness of 3 sentry guns.

While Vastly Incease the Usefulness of FULL AUTO

[Sea Skimmer]

Really bad idea.

That plan would work, expect they don't have sufficient ammunition to beat off the attack. Even at close quarters with the aliens "lined up wall to wall" and bullets likely punching through one and into another they did no have enough ammunition to kill all of the warriors.

How so? They had many hundreds of rounds of ammo in addition to grenades, flamethrowers, and sentry guns with a thousand rounds of combined ammo.

2000 rounds in the Sentry guns and 200 for their rifles. The sentry guns, despite having overlapping targets attacking on a single axis, expended basically all of there ammunition and still left the aliens with more then enough warriors to over run them. In the open the performance would be much worst.

It doesn’t matter what range they shoot them at, they don't have enough ammunition to stop them all, several people ran out of ammunition and even with bolt action weapons you'd use up 50 rounds per gun in a matter of minutes. However by take the shots at long range there going to have lower accuracy and take down even fewer targets.

In the open, the Aliens would be dispersed and would be much harder targets to hit. The effect of grenades would also be lessened.

And they would be able to take potshots from hundreds of metres away, instead of having them drop through the ceiling right on top of them.

Full auto weapons are more effective against tightly grouped targets at close range. The tightly grouped Aliens present excellent targets and allowed for the best use of ammunition. Taking long range pot shots against very fast targets moving in broken terrain in high winds with a weapon without a correcting sight is just going to use up more ammunition and give you fewer kills.

Furthermore the Marines would have no way of channeling the attackers and might find them selves unable to cope with so many dispersed targets even if they had enough ammunition. Once overrun, there could be no escape and there would be no doors to seal to buy time. They'd simply die.

In case you missed the film, they DID all die. And most of the deceased did not run out of ammo first. Out in the open, the aliens must overrun them after fighting through their defensive fire for hundreds of metres. In the building, the aliens overran them WITHOUT having to fight through defensive fire for even 10 metres.

They did however run the sentry guns through over 1900 rounds, and still had swarms of warriors left. They had the whole of 200 rifles rounds. One of the four with rifles did run out, and the motion tracker showed as many aliens still approaching after Ripley and Hicks escaped as where seen approaching before the battle started. Eating through more then ¼ of there rifle ammo, likely more like ½-3/4 and several grenade all against closely spaced targets did not make a significant dent in the Alien force. The marines lack the firepower and ammunition to win in the open.

In addition four rifles can provide poor all round coverage at best, and we already know the sentry guns have nowhere near enough ammunition for the job even with the best of targets.

I guess while I was busy missing the film where everyone died, you miss the version where four people did escape to get off the planet.

[Darth Wong]

2000 rounds in the Sentry guns and 200 for their rifles. The sentry guns, despite having overlapping targets attacking on a single axis, expended basically all of there ammunition and still left the aliens with more then enough warriors to over run them. In the open the performance would be much worst.

How many aliens did those sentry guns really kill? They couldn't possibly have had more than 150 soldiers to begin with, and that assumes zero attrition from the first battle, zero losses from the colonists, and 100% successful implantation and incubation. I didn't see that many aliens in the corridors; it seems to me that the sentry guns were firing at twitching bodies most of the time.

It doesn't matter what range they shoot them at, they don't have enough ammunition to stop them all, several people ran out of ammunition and even with bolt action weapons you'd use up 50 rounds per gun in a matter of minutes. However by take the shots at long range there going to have lower accuracy and take down even fewer targets.

But the aliens don't know that, do they? All they'd know is that they can't even get within a few hundred metres of them without being killed. They were discouraged and gave up on their frontal assault after taking losses from the sentry guns; what makes you think they wouldn't so the same out in the open, particularly when there's no sneaky way of dropping on top of them?

Full auto weapons are more effective against tightly grouped targets at close range. The tightly grouped Aliens present excellent targets and allowed for the best use of ammunition. Taking long range pot shots against very fast targets moving in broken terrain in high winds with a weapon without a correcting sight is just going to use up more ammunition and give you fewer kills.

I don't recall that these things were that fast. They didn't seem any faster than people on foot, and they're frankly not that bright. Look at how long it took for them to figure out that the corridors were a bad idea.

As for the corridors being the best use of ammunition, I don't know if that's true. Those guns chewed through their ammo pretty fast and didn't get too many kills. Most of their bullets were undoubtedly striking carcasses.

They did however run the sentry guns through over 1900 rounds, and still had swarms of warriors left. They had the whole of 200 rifles rounds. One of the four with rifles did run out, and the motion tracker showed as many aliens still approaching after Ripley and Hicks escaped as where seen approaching before the battle started. Eating through more then ¼ of there rifle ammo, likely more like ½-3/4 and several grenade all against closely spaced targets did not make a significant dent in the Alien force. The marines lack the firepower and ammunition to win in the open.

Huh? They ate up their ammo because they were firing on full-auto in the panic of being overrun! At 300 metres, they would be squeezing off individual shots. Trained soldiers against mindless beasts at long range is a far better bet than relying on desperate full-auto fire from a limited ammo supply while being overrun at close range.

In addition four rifles can provide poor all round coverage at best, and we already know the sentry guns have nowhere near enough ammunition for the job even with the best of targets.

I was under the impression that four men with rifles can actually hold off a rather large group of undisciplined attackers, to say nothing of beasts with nothing but claws for weapons. Get high ground and take shots. Are these ideal conditions? No. But they're a hell of a lot better than they are for the aliens, who are trying to overcome a 500 metre range deficit.

I guess while I was busy missing the film where everyone died, you miss the version where four people did escape to get off the planet.

Oh, sorry. Perhaps I should have been more literal, in case you would nitpick? OK, virtually the entire force was wiped out except for the two character-shielded people, the little girl who cannot die because of Hollywood convention, and the android that the aliens aren't interested in anyway. And of those, Ripley marched into Alien Central and deserved to die for her stupidity, Newt was captured by the aliens and should have died too, and Hicks took an acid bath. Realistically, Hicks is the only one who should have made it out of there alive. And given the fact that they ended up crawling through ductwork to escape, it was sheer dumb luck that even a single person got away. This was hardly a good plan.

[Seele]

One thing about staying in the open that I noticed is that how long does anybody think they would be able to stay out there? Not long enough to stay out there and pick off all attacking Xenomorphs even if they did have alot of ammo but they only had what they could salvage. A rescue wasn't expected for at least 17 days, and LV-426 was a rather harsh envionment. The marines couldn't stay out there indefently with no supplies, little ammo, low visabilty and with 2 "civilians" and 1 comotose Lt. Gorman. Making a stand at least at the colony was more viable IMHO.

[Darth Wong]

One thing about staying in the open that I noticed is that how long does anybody think they would be able to stay out there? Not long enough to stay out there and pick off all attacking Xenomorphs even if they did have alot of ammo but they only had what they could salvage. A rescue wasn't expected for at least 17 days, and LV-426 was a rather harsh envionment. The marines couldn't stay out there indefently with no supplies, little ammo, low visabilty and with 2 "civilians" and 1 comotose Lt. Gorman. Making a stand at least at the colony was more viable IMHO.

Yeah, right. The aliens know the layout better than they do, and they'd already broken in there once before, remember? If in doubt, duplicate somebody else's failure?

[neoolong]

How many aliens did those sentry guns really kill? They couldn't possibly have had more than 150 soldiers to begin with, and that assumes zero attrition from the first battle, zero losses from the colonists, and 100% successful implantation and incubation.

At most they had 154 fully adult warriors. This is based off of the population sign shown though, assuming it's accurate, and the 4 colonists who either died, chest bursted, had the queen, and Newt. You're right that they must have had less though. Including, what you have mentioned, and the fact that not all may have hatched, seen from the one woman at least who chest bursted while the marines were there.

It seems that the sentry guns are based on movement and can't distinguish living matter from stuff moving, remember they tested it by throwing something into the corridor. So the guns will be wasting ammunition just shooting anything that moves, a large part probably writhing bodies.

Seele, why couldn't they survive? If they manage to find a position and kill the max 154, that's it. What, is the queen going to come for them? After that if they need supply they can just make trips to the town. Besides, aren't you forgetting that they probably still would have had someone go to the communcations tower to get the other drop ship?

[Darth Wong]

Ah yes, the drop ship is another advantage for being out in the open. They can move as a defensible unit toward the communications tower rather than sending one guy out by himself and praying that the aliens leave him alone. Think about how they basically put their entire chances of survival on that bet.

[Darth Wong]

Actually, all this talk of ammo capacity has me thinking that this is actually another advantage of clonetroopers in this little "force substitution" scenario which kicked off this thread. Blasters generally seem to have a much larger ammo capacity than modern guns for any given size. And if they had a single T-21 with a portable generator to replace each sentry gun (which seems reasonable, given the similar sizes), they would have VAST ammo capacity; more than enough to effortlessly wipe out a thousand alien attackers over open ground, never mind 100-150 (especially when the weapon is so powerful that you can hit the ground next to the alien and still kill it).

[Alyeska]

Actually, all this talk of ammo capacity has me thinking that this is actually another advantage of clonetroopers in this little "force substitution" scenario which kicked off this thread. Blasters generally seem to have a much larger ammo capacity than modern guns for any given size. And if they had a single T-21 with a portable generator to replace each sentry gun (which seems reasonable, given the similar sizes), they would have VAST ammo capacity; more than enough to effortlessly wipe out a thousand alien attackers over open ground, never mind 100-150 (especially when the weapon is so powerful that you can hit the ground next to the alien and still kill it).

Well there were a couple of problems with the Marines ammo. They had 100 round clips but had to surrender all of them. Only a handful of marines had clips hidden away. Looking at the size of the clips a single marine can easily carry a half dozen clips and thats 600 rounds, 700 with the gun itself. Factor in 5 grenades that the gun can hold with another 10 or so grenades on the marine. The Smart Guns have 1000 some rounds, its just Vasquez and Drake were a little to eager on the full auto bursts.

Had Goreman not been in charge, the Marines would have taken far fewer losses and Sargent Apone would have managed to get them out of there.

[Darth Wong]

Had Goreman not been in charge, the Marines would have taken far fewer losses and Sargent Apone would have managed to get them out of there.

It's actually amazing how many "if only" scenarios you could concoct for the Marines in that movie. If only they didn't bring AP ammo. If only Goreman told them to pull back and re-arm rather than surrendering all of their ammo and then continuing to advance anyway. If only the idiot pilot of the dropship hadn't left the hatch open in an unsecured area. If only they weren't complete idiots and they left at least one person up on the Suvaco.

James Cameron said the idea was to show how technologically superior soldiers could be brought to ground by primitive beasts, but he really just showed how a string of inconceivably bad decisions could cause disaster.

[Kuja]

James Cameron said the idea was to show how technologically superior soldiers could be brought to ground by primitive beasts, but he really just showed how a string of inconceivably bad decisions could cause disaster.

Well...bad decisions can always bring down superior soldiers.

[weemadando]

Had Goreman not been in charge, the Marines would have taken far fewer losses and Sargent Apone would have managed to get them out of there.

It's actually amazing how many "if only" scenarios you could concoct for the Marines in that movie. If only they didn't bring AP ammo. If only Goreman told them to pull back and re-arm rather than surrendering all of their ammo and then continuing to advance anyway. If only the idiot pilot of the dropship hadn't left the hatch open in an unsecured area. If only they weren't complete idiots and they left at least one person up on the Suvaco.

James Cameron said the idea was to show how technologically superior soldiers could be brought to ground by primitive beasts, but he really just showed how a string of inconceivably bad decisions could cause disaster.

I read an essay on the movie Aliens that can to the conclusion that the entire movie was just a Vietnam war analogy. I can see what he's talking about.

Doesn't make it any less of a cool film though.

[Kuja]

I read an essay on the movie Aliens that can to the conclusion that the entire movie was just a Vietnam war analogy. I can see what he's talking about.

Doesn't make it any less of a cool film though.

Huh. Never thought of it that way, but it makes sense.

[neoolong]

I read an essay on the movie Aliens that can to the conclusion that the entire movie was just a Vietnam war analogy. I can see what he's talking about.

Doesn't make it any less of a cool film though.

Directors rarely put in as much depth into their movies as many people think. Though in this case I can kind of see it.

[Alyeska]

Had Goreman not been in charge, the Marines would have taken far fewer losses and Sargent Apone would have managed to get them out of there.

It's actually amazing how many "if only" scenarios you could concoct for the Marines in that movie. If only they didn't bring AP ammo. If only Goreman told them to pull back and re-arm rather than surrendering all of their ammo and then continuing to advance anyway. If only the idiot pilot of the dropship hadn't left the hatch open in an unsecured area. If only they weren't complete idiots and they left at least one person up on the Suvaco.

James Cameron said the idea was to show how technologically superior soldiers could be brought to ground by primitive beasts, but he really just showed how a string of inconceivably bad decisions could cause disaster.

Actually the single largest thing had to do with Burke. According to the novel he manipulated Goreman into commanding the Marines. Thus we know the faliure of the Marines lays on both the fresh LT and Burke. Had Burke not put together the force, or had Goreman been competent the whole thing would have gone better. Its not just a "if only". The Colonial Marines demonstarted fair capability and military discipline. And I say this with "authority" because I asked IXJac in detail about this given that he is a member of the Canadian military, specifically in the infantry. He has the most practical experience to judge this and his conclussion was that Burke was a fresh LT and had "commander in the sky" snydrome (in Vietnam many commanders tried micromanaging their soldiers from a distance only to get their men killed) while the rest of the marines were more or less accurately protrayed as marines.

[Sea Skimmer]

Actually, all this talk of ammo capacity has me thinking that this is actually another advantage of clonetroopers in this little "force substitution" scenario which kicked off this thread. Blasters generally seem to have a much larger ammo capacity than modern guns for any given size. And if they had a single T-21 with a portable generator to replace each sentry gun (which seems reasonable, given the similar sizes), they would have VAST ammo capacity; more than enough to effortlessly wipe out a thousand alien attackers over open ground, never mind 100-150 (especially when the weapon is so powerful that you can hit the ground next to the alien and still kill it).

The real Clone trooper advantage is there standard hyperspace transport can carry 16,000 men, a wing of gunships and cargo carriers and a regiment each of heavy artillery and armor.

[NecronLord]

Actually, all this talk of ammo capacity has me thinking that this is actually another advantage of clonetroopers in this little "force substitution" scenario which kicked off this thread. Blasters generally seem to have a much larger ammo capacity than modern guns for any given size. And if they had a single T-21 with a portable generator to replace each sentry gun (which seems reasonable, given the similar sizes), they would have VAST ammo capacity; more than enough to effortlessly wipe out a thousand alien attackers over open ground, never mind 100-150 (especially when the weapon is so powerful that you can hit the ground next to the alien and still kill it).

The real Clone trooper advantage is there standard hyperspace transport can carry 16,000 men, a wing of gunships and cargo carriers and a regiment each of heavy artillery and armor.

It was assumed in the first post that they had equal numbers. If they had an acclamator they could just BDZ the place.

[neoolong]

Actually, all this talk of ammo capacity has me thinking that this is actually another advantage of clonetroopers in this little "force substitution" scenario which kicked off this thread. Blasters generally seem to have a much larger ammo capacity than modern guns for any given size. And if they had a single T-21 with a portable generator to replace each sentry gun (which seems reasonable, given the similar sizes), they would have VAST ammo capacity; more than enough to effortlessly wipe out a thousand alien attackers over open ground, never mind 100-150 (especially when the weapon is so powerful that you can hit the ground next to the alien and still kill it).

The real Clone trooper advantage is there standard hyperspace transport can carry 16,000 men, a wing of gunships and cargo carriers and a regiment each of heavy artillery and armor.

It was assumed in the first post that they had equal numbers. If they had an acclamator they could just BDZ the place.

No, they couldn't just BDZ the place. The mission was to find out what had happened to the colonists. They wouldn't just go in and nuke the place as their first option. They had to go down to see what happened first.

[Guest]

The Colonial Marines really couldn't stay outside because they lacked a sufficient light source that would have illuminated enough area to track incoming aliens. We learned early in the film that you can't detect the aliens with infrared gear. Without any light sources besides maybe few flares, how would the Marines be able to target the aliens until they were right on top of them? In that situation there would have been a good chance for friendly fire casualties as well.

As far as the number of aliens is concerned, there could have been more aliens in hibernation in the alien ship that was on the planet as well. How else would have all of the colonists been captured if there weren't other aliens? I believe the colonists could have killed the one or two aliens that came from the infected colonists. There was quite a bit of acid damage in the colony that the Marines discovered.

[Darth Wong]

The Colonial Marines really couldn't stay outside because they lacked a sufficient light source that would have illuminated enough area to track incoming aliens. We learned early in the film that you can't detect the aliens with infrared gear. Without any light sources besides maybe few flares, how would the Marines be able to target the aliens until they were right on top of them? In that situation there would have been a good chance for friendly fire casualties as well.

They don't have light-amp goggles? We have those today; it would seem pretty goofy if they didn't have any.

As far as the number of aliens is concerned, there could have been more aliens in hibernation in the alien ship that was on the planet as well. How else would have all of the colonists been captured if there weren't other aliens?

There were probably big piles of face-huggers, but a face-hugger isn't a warrior. The colonists were not captured; they were attacked by face-huggers. Probably a lot of them before anyone realized what happened. The first few get impregnated, and then they send a bunch of people to figure out what happened. They get nailed, and don't report back in. The scenario makes sense. Remember that they went inside the ship in the first movie, and all they saw were eggs.

[Vympel]

Some questions on the Marines predicament in Aliens- some already having been mentioned:

1: Why was the dropship landed? Why was the hatch open?

2: Why were the Marines critically undersupplied when they went into the atmosphere processor? Each pulse rifle had 99 rounds, and when they gave up their ammo, each of these pulse rifle toting marines were rendered NON-COMBATANTS. Except for the ... two IIRC with incinerators, one guy toting a PISTOL, and one antique shotugn, and Vasquez and Drake with the smart guns, the majority of the platoon were useless.

3: Why didn't the sarge suggest a return to the APC for a rearm? He knew the Lt was green, and NCOs do know shit.

[Knife]

Some questions on the Marines predicament in Aliens- some already having been mentioned:

1: Why was the dropship landed? Why was the hatch open?

2: Why were the Marines critically undersupplied when they went into the atmosphere processor? Each pulse rifle had 99 rounds, and when they gave up their ammo, each of these pulse rifle toting marines were rendered NON-COMBATANTS. Except for the ... two IIRC with incinerators, one guy toting a PISTOL, and one antique shotugn, and Vasquez and Drake with the smart guns, the majority of the platoon were useless.

3: Why didn't the sarge suggest a return to the APC for a rearm? He knew the Lt was green, and NCOs do know shit.

The easy answer is plot, but that doesn't fly well here.

1. The only thing I can think of is that the Lt. was to green and overconfident in his peoples abilities. Without searching the whole complex and securing a perimiter, he declared it secure and moved operations to the control room. When he did this, IMHO he also declared the LZ secure and had the assualt ship on stand by. With his imcompetence shown in the movie, this would be a likely senerio.

2. Keep in mind that the Grunts thought that this was a NEO type operation and didn't take the threat of a bug seriously. They went to the processor with the intend of taking a bunch of civilians and evacing them out of there utilizing the assualt ship.

3. Apone, I think, just wanted this op overwith and like his troops didn't take the threat seriously. Probably thought the colonists saw a cockroche and the whole lot of them holed up in the proccessor for safty. Or to sum it up in a word, complacentcy.

[neoolong]

Some questions on the Marines predicament in Aliens- some already having been mentioned:

1: Why was the dropship landed? Why was the hatch open?

The co-pilot went to the bathroom or something and left the hatch open.

2: Why were the Marines critically undersupplied when they went into the atmosphere processor? Each pulse rifle had 99 rounds, and when they gave up their ammo, each of these pulse rifle toting marines were rendered NON-COMBATANTS. Except for the ... two IIRC with incinerators, one guy toting a PISTOL, and one antique shotugn, and Vasquez and Drake with the smart guns, the majority of the platoon were useless.

Because Gorman is an idiot. They should have gone back and resupplied. The colonists weren't going anywhere.

3: Why didn't the sarge suggest a return to the APC for a rearm? He knew the Lt was green, and NCOs do know shit.

I don't know, perhaps he was just following orders. But Apone seemed smarter than that. Chalk it up to it being a movie.

[neoolong]

Oh yeah, the drop ship was probably landed in case of the need for a quick extraction. And I doubt it had enough fuel to constantly circle the area during the whole mission.

[Guest]

The Colonial Marines really couldn't stay outside because they lacked a sufficient light source that would have illuminated enough area to track incoming aliens. We learned early in the film that you can't detect the aliens with infrared gear. Without any light sources besides maybe few flares, how would the Marines be able to target the aliens until they were right on top of them? In that situation there would have been a good chance for friendly fire casualties as well.

They don't have light-amp goggles? We have those today; it would seem pretty goofy if they didn't have any.

If the Marines had those they could have targeted the aliens in the open at night. I don't remember them having equipment like that though. They may have had a shoulder mounted lamp though. I don't think that would be as effective.

As far as the number of aliens is concerned, there could have been more aliens in hibernation in the alien ship that was on the planet as well. How else would have all of the colonists been captured if there weren't other aliens?

There were probably big piles of face-huggers, but a face-hugger isn't a warrior. The colonists were not captured; they were attacked by face-huggers. Probably a lot of them before anyone realized what happened. The first few get impregnated, and then they send a bunch of people to figure out what happened. They get nailed, and don't report back in. The scenario makes sense. Remember that they went inside the ship in the first movie, and all they saw were eggs.

Well, remember in Alien one of the crewmembers in the alien ship saw an alien (not a xenomorph) corpse? There were aliens on that ship that were killed by the facehuggers. If that is the case, there had to be xenomorphs in hibernation on that ship somewhere. Where did all of those eggs come from if not from a queen?