Modern Armies Superior to Star Wars on Ground...

[Adrian Laguna]

...or so claims lee1026, a guy I'm currently debating in another forum.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.ph ... 30605&st=0

The debate is a thread hijack so it doesn't start for a while and takes some more time to pick-up momentum.

I'm currently doing a pretty good job of beating back his arguments. Thanks to StarDestroyer.net, Star Wars Technical Commentaries, various other places on the internet, and a forum member that doesn't want to be named ("I don't want to get 'credit' for any mistakes" he says).

I really would like some feedback on my skills as a debater. It would really be appreaciated. You are also welcome to deconstruct his arguments if you want.

There is onething that would be most usefull: a quantification on the strength of AT-ST armour based on the scene where it got smashed by those trees in RotJ.

[Vympel]

On the AT-ST- it's a scout. There's no point in quantifying its armor- you want to look at strength of Star Wars armor, look at the AT-AT. Arguing the AT-ST is like talking about how tough a Hummvee is.

[Vympel]

fine then - how about in AOTC where all the shots that hit the ground just kicked up a little bit of dirt and nothing else? that sounds a little weaker then a gernade, no? they have barely the power of a pistol shot.

This guy's an idiot. Refer him to Han's blaster in Docking Bay 94. Refer him to the holes in the wall next to Luke's head on Bespin- both from Boba Fett's gun and from Stormtroopers. Refer him to vaporizing a metal grate. Refer him to blowing open the Detention Block door. All of those are much more than a modern fire arm of comparable size could hope to achieve. Blasters have multiple power settings.

but we know that the guns on a AT-ST is much stronger then the guns on a TIE fighter (because the TIE fighter can get off 2 dozen shots by the AT-ST can get off one) and so it is not exactly unlikely for a anti-aircraft missile to tear a X-wing to shreds.

WHAT THE FUCK? IS THIS GUY ON CRACK?

really? from the RTOJ it looked like they fire at roughly the rate of a musket. A bradly, (which is quite close to filling the same role) will fight much better then that, while the abram will just tear them to shreds, plain and simple. and even a humvee will probably mow them down. their armor isn't much to boast of. given that they get knocked out by trees.

This guy's a fucking liar and a troll. Musket rate of fire for AT-STs?

interestingly enough in the book for ROTS, there is this bit about Skywalker destroying a shield generater with his fighter. and it is quite clearly on the hull.

The shields around the generator must've been down, dumbass. If this were the case, Ackbar's order in the RotJ novelization that Rebel fighters might stand a chance of damaging Imperial ships if the Rebel capital ships could knock down the shields would make no sense. And also TPM, where the Trade Federation battleship was impervious to attack by Naboo fighters, would make no sense. What, is Anakin's fighter some sort of super fighter, capable of penetrating capital grade shields when none others before or after could?

it was the CIS flagship, and it is described as huge and insanely armored. it haven't been pounded that heavily by then. and from what I have read, it sure didn't look like it burned though the hull.

He's full of crap. The battle had been going for hours by then, according to the novelization. The generator he hit was the hangar shield generator, nothing more. It's main shield generators are recessed in the hull, like all other ships. Mon Calamari cruisers, etc etc

You're doing good mate.

[Enforcer Talen]

anyone else glad the clonies finally starting using cover and concealment this episode?

[Trytostaydead]

anyone else glad the clonies finally starting using cover and concealment this episode?

LOL. Yeah, instead of running across open ground.

[Elfdart]

Maybe they learned a lesson. I also noticed that different ranks no longer have different colored helmets, which should be a giant SHOOT ME, I'M AN OFFICER! sign.

[Ender]

There is onething that would be most usefull: a quantification on the strength of AT-ST armour based on the scene where it got smashed by those trees in RotJ.

By virtue of the armor being designed to protect against energy weapons, it would be poor against high momentum attacks. Of course that cuts both ways, it means our armor would be crap at stopping blaster bolts.

Refer him to the old AT-AT firepower calcs here (hit the archives, it was by Darth Psybod IIRC). 16 KT per bolt minimum.

[Cykeisme]

There's just too much painful ignorance on that thread. I couldn't read on beyond the second page... argh.

[Ender]

fine then - how about in AOTC where all the shots that hit the ground just kicked up a little bit of dirt and nothing else? that sounds a little weaker then a gernade, no? they have barely the power of a pistol shot.

Aside from what Vymp said, point out that a directed energy burst will, y virtue of being, ya know, DIRECTED, not cause a large fireball and will instead do a lot of melting to the sand with a little vaporization. That is totally consistant with what we see in the arena.

but we know that the guns on a AT-ST is much stronger then the guns on a TIE fighter (because the TIE fighter can get off 2 dozen shots by the AT-ST can get off one) and so it is not exactly unlikely for a anti-aircraft missile to tear a X-wing to shreds.

RoF does not equal firepower. I have no idea what this guy is talking about, Brian Youn calced the AT-ST guns in the low MJ range in the TLC; AOTC asteroid scene shows figther weapons are low KT. In short, he's a tit.

really? from the RTOJ it looked like they fire at roughly the rate of a musket. A bradly, (which is quite close to filling the same role) will fight much better then that, while the abram will just tear them to shreds, plain and simple. and even a humvee will probably mow them down. their armor isn't much to boast of. given that they get knocked out by trees.

Musket rate of fire was several minutes, hence the Napoleonic tactics. The AT-ST fires every couple of seconds leasurely picking off Ewoks.

Now that said, yes, a Tank would own an AT-ST. But the point to make there is that they are comparing a light scout to an MBT. Meanwhile, an AT-AT or AT-TE would own an Abrams, and they ae troop carriers.

interestingly enough in the book for ROTS, there is this bit about Skywalker destroying a shield generater with his fighter. and it is quite clearly on the hull.

The projector yes. But logically, the shields have to be down to hit the projector. We have seen this flickering under heavy fire before in ROTJ.

it was the CIS flagship, and it is described as huge and insanely armored. it haven't been pounded that heavily by then. and from what I have read, it sure didn't look like it burned though the hull.

Flagship yes, and the heavy armor is mentioned, but not huge. In fact Grevious was using a weaker ship to hide in plain sight. Further, Grievous says they have been fighting for hours.

Keep it going.

[Adrian Laguna]

The stupidity continues:

The fact that the visual effect doesn't match what is expected doesn't counter the fact that they are seen producing much more damage elsewhere. The dirt on that part of Geonosis was very compact, the AT-TEs didn't even leave marks as they advanced through the feild. So lifting-up even a little dirt is quite impressive, while a hand-gun would probably not move sufficient material to create a visible puff. Besides you're missing the fact that blasters aren't kinetic energy weapons; a modern cutting laser will kill you, but just leave a tiny bit of smoke if it hits ground.

actually kenetic weapons have far less impact on the ground - a pistol shot will kill you, while it won't even leave a bit of smoke on the ground.

the dirt may be dense, but the blaster is a energy weapon. those by heats up the areas around which they hit - by difinition. when dirt heats up it vaporizes and creates a shockwave, which is not seen. also not seen are the effects of the gas being heated around the ground, gas expands when heated creating a good sized shockwave, and that effect isn't seen either. the only explanation left is that there is not much energy in that thing.

also, remember the openning battle scene in ANH? the people who died in that battle have their corpses intact, as would be expected from a duel involving pistols. if it involved in RPGs instead, the scene would be alot more messy then they have shown.

If you watch the actual scene you can see that this weapon exhibitis a fire rate that is much faster than that of a modern MBT.

true, true, but they don't that much damage - the bulidings are still standing afterwards, and the bulidings look like they are made out rocks. a 120mm shot later the building would be history. So those shots are roughly as powerful as a RPG, since the effects are rather similar. and I think that RPGs can be shot pretty fast.

A 120mm shot destroying a building, and a building that it didn't hit directly no less. That's rich.

[Aaron]

Just a little bit of info on the musket rate of fire. During the Penisula Wars good British troops fired three rounds a minute, really good troops fired four rounds a minute. The AT-ST's at Endor fired several rounds every few seconds. So he's on dope. Or he's lying.

[Master of Ossus]

actually kenetic weapons have far less impact on the ground - a pistol shot will kill you, while it won't even leave a bit of smoke on the ground.

What does he mean by "smoke?" I can easily take him out and show him the effects of a pistol on dirt. Contrary to what seems to be his belief, a bullet does displace dirt sufficiently to send clumps and fine grains of it into the air. This is in no way comparable to the effects of blasters, which vaporize soft-ball sized volumes of metal walls (ESB), rip torso-sized chunks from concrete walls (ANH), and can be used to literally clear paths through metal walls and bulkheads large enough for infantry to move through (ANH novelization).

the dirt may be dense, but the blaster is a energy weapon. those by heats up the areas around which they hit - by difinition. when dirt heats up it vaporizes and creates a shockwave, which is not seen.

That would only be true if the dirt were hit by an absolutely huge amount of energy, since shockwaves require considerable overpressure to be visible, and for it to be struck so quickly that the ground did not have time to absorb the force of the overpressure.

Even if we grant his ridiculous assertions, firepower against dirt is not as relevant for the purposes of this comparison as firepower against things like metal, bodies, and armor. In all of those categories, SW troops clearly outgun their modern counterparts. Their body armor is also hugely more effective, if EU accounts are to be believed (see Lightsabers).

also not seen are the effects of the gas being heated around the ground, gas expands when heated creating a good sized shockwave, and that effect isn't seen either. the only explanation left is that there is not much energy in that thing.

This, again, is only true if the ground did not absorb the force of the expansion of gas, and we have no way of knowing the mechanism of blaster fire against dirt. More importantly, it does nothing to disprove the examples of blaster fire vaporizing chunks of metal the size of softballs, blowing torso-sized chunks from concrete structures, or blasting holes large enough to allow infantry to move through them in metal bulkheads.

also, remember the openning battle scene in ANH? the people who died in that battle have their corpses intact, as would be expected from a duel involving pistols. if it involved in RPGs instead, the scene would be alot more messy then they have shown.

Yes because everyone loves charging into a starship with weapons capable of tearing through the hull and bulkheads.

Why doesn't he compare the effectiveness of weapons fire in terrestrial, non-volatile environments, where blasters almost invariably rip modern small-arms fire to shreds?

Also remember the tremendous advantages of stormtrooper armor, which by EU accounts would be all but impervious to small-arms fire, provide NBC protection, and assist troops in identifying targets and enemy positions and coordinating movements, even in the presence of smoke and haze?

true, true, but they don't that much damage - the bulidings are still standing afterwards, and the bulidings look like they are made out rocks.

Those buildings do not look like they are "made out of rocks" (unless he means "marble"). This is but the first of his many factual mistakes in this portion of the post.

a 120mm shot later the building would be history.

Even if the 120mm shell actually HIT the building then it would probably survive, barring a hit on a load-bearing wall. That shot tore through an MBT's frontal armor, and it was carried on a light-speeder.

So those shots are roughly as powerful as a RPG, since the effects are rather similar. and I think that RPGs can be shot pretty fast.

An RPG has nowhere near the RoF of that weapon, and even if it did then I'd love to see an RPG that was sufficiently powerful to rip through the frontal armor of an MBT at that range. When the Gungans are fighting the TF army later in TPM, there's a shot where a Gungan energy ball actually does take out the frontal armor of an AAT, and you can SEE how thick the armor is. The Episode I Sourcebook reveals that the tank is designed to be able to crash through "heavy walls with impunity," and explains that the nose is essentially entirely armor. Few (if any) modern tanks can perform in such a role without special modification, and even then not in a manner that could be described as being "with impunity." It is no stretch to claim that an AAT's frontal armor is stronger than that of modern MBT's.

[Master of Ossus]

BTW, you may take time to gloat on the superiority of SW amphibious movements to those of modern armies. RotS revealed that droid armies can cross water with virtual impunity. Armored "spider walkers" simply walked through under the water (battle droids do the same in the TPM novelization, when they clean out the Gungan cities), and the droid army had armored vehicles which could simply skim across the surface of it. Modern amphibious tanks look absolutely clumsy, in comparison, and the amphibious capabilities of even dedicated assault craft pale in comparison with the observed actions in SW.

[Darth Wong]

A Republic Army can be deployed anywhere in the galaxy in less than a day, and anywhere on a planet in a matter of minutes. They have armoured, shielded gunships which could effortlessly cut modern MBTs in half. They can deploy armoured ground vehicles by air-drop and have them combat-capable within seconds of hitting the ground. Their ground troops wear fully enclosed body armour with NBC protection. Even the piddly gun on a goddamned Naboo speeder can blow a man-sized chunk out of a tank's armour.

One would have to be on many different varieties of powerful crack to think that modern armies have anything comparable to these abilities. Apache helicopter gunships can be brought down by small-arms fire, the Army's idea of rapid-deployment armour is the Stryker, it takes months to deploy a large force on the ground, modern soldiers only have body armour over a very limited area, and no RPG would fuck up those TradeFed tanks the way the little Naboo speeder gun did.

[Adrian Laguna]

Thanks a lot for the help. I quoted or ripped-off (meaning that I gave you credit but didn't mention what part of the my post is from you) arguments from you posts, hope you don't mind.

Only Enforcer Talen has responded to my request of "...feedback on my skills as a debater. It would really be appreaciated." Thanks for the compliment Talen. I would appreciate some more specific feedback though, and recomendations on how to improve. If everything is fine as is then: I'M PERFECT!! HURRAY!!

I suspect that soon lee1026 will come back with more bizarre unsuported claims. Stay tuned...

[Vympel]

I noticed the quick deployment of the Republic Army again (after AotC) in RotS- notice that Obi-Wan's fleet stays in orbit of Coruscant, while he takes his Eta-2 out of the hangar, to a ring-hyperdrive unit and makes for Utapau. He then stays there, and tells his astromech to tell Cody to bring the cavalry. It's quite possible that the fighter returned to Coruscant by that time.

[Adrian Laguna]

He is back with some interesting arguments:

You say that the corpses in the opening battle of ANH where relatively intact. I would suppose that this gives us a good idea of the strength of SW weapons because nobody was wearing armour that we would reasonably assume absorbed part of energy in the bolts, and we all saw that the insides of the victims had damage comparable to that of a pistol rolleyes.gif . Seriously if we see blasters cause more destruction than modern firearms can and then we see corpses that look 'relatively intact' on the outside then we can logically conclude that since blaters send most of their energy straight into the target their insides probably look like charcoal.

judging by the fact that all of the bodys are still in one piece the weapons had no where near the power of a RPG, I can say for sure that a RPG battle will end far more messy then that. and look at when Han shoots greedo in ANH - the body does look like it was just hit with a pistol. (I would take a screen shot, but I don't know how)
Another way to show the weakness of the blasters and other SW weapons in the battle of Hoth from ESB - most of the early battle takes place in the snow. when anything with lots of energy hits snow it have a tendency to melt or evapolrate - but we see little of that. and all of it's other propertys sure look like it's just snow.

the tank is designed to be able to crash through "heavy walls with impunity," and explains that the nose is essentially entirely armor.

I think that the fact that they can get knocked out by gungans just shows how weak they are. use your head here - the gungans are not very advanced. they need to throw their weapons as their only way of getting it to their oppenents, and they need to use huge beasts as the only means of transportation. this means that napoleon is slightly more advanced then them, hell even ceasar is more advanced then them - he at least know about bow and arrow. and so anything they throw won't be more advanced then a molotov cocktail. and so anything that get knocked out by them scores 10 out of 10 for incompetence.

Even the piddly gun on a goddamned Naboo speeder can blow a man-sized chunk out of a tank's armour.

odd, because trees falling down will destroy stuff those guns will not. and a bradley can take a tree falling down on it with out noticing anything.

He has been going on about those trees for quite a while now, it is quite annoying. I've tried to tell him that those trees would have squashed a Humvee (and most likely a Bradeley) the same way. I tried pointing out the fact that one of the trees smashed against a granade launcher (possibly setting off a granade). Is there anything else that I could add as I repeat my old points?
In case any of you are wondering, all his comparisons of Blasters to RPGs are from the fact that I stated that a blaster has roughly the firepower of a handgranade. Never did I say that it was comparable to a Rocket Propelled Granade, that is a strawman attack isn't it?

[Stark]

What a fucking moron. The Gungans have submarines, water shields, theatre shields, super-explosive marbles... and they're Napolean era!

He's harping about the lack of damage when blasts hit the ground in various scenes: just keep pulling the opposite examples. Bespin walls, Docking bay 94, the detention room, etc. If blasters are so weak, why is the concrete exploding? His theory is based on specifically misinterpreting specific examples and ignoring others. As has been pointed out, blasters don't blow up like grenades when they hit things, they transfer heat. In Hoth, they never show you any blast point properly, so there's no way of knowing how deep the crater was, etc.

Get him to prove AT-STs are as armoured as the TF tanks in TPM. Use screenshots: the AT-ST hull is just a sheet of metal, but when the tanks get breached, there's a substantial amount of armour there. Actually, getting him to prove any of his bullshit statements (like the one equating TIE and AT-ST guns solely on RoF) would be fun.

If you said blasters had roughly the firepower of handgrenades, and he's now acting like you said that they ACT like grenades, he's misrepresenting you. Blasters don't have an omnidirectional explosion like grenades do.

[Master of Ossus]

judging by the fact that all of the bodys are still in one piece the weapons had no where near the power of a RPG, I can say for sure that a RPG battle will end far more messy then that.

Right, because we all know how much people love unleashing weapons capable of vaporizing chunks of metal in a volatile starship boarding action. Does this idiot think that the Coast Guard totes around RPG's and LAW's when they board small ships?

and look at when Han shoots greedo in ANH - the body does look like it was just hit with a pistol. (I would take a screen shot, but I don't know how)

Does this idiot not understand the concept of variable yields, or the fact that SW blaster fire VAPORIZES significant quantities of metal?

Another way to show the weakness of the blasters and other SW weapons in the battle of Hoth from ESB - most of the early battle takes place in the snow. when anything with lots of energy hits snow it have a tendency to melt or evapolrate - but we see little of that. and all of it's other propertys sure look like it's just snow.

Ask him how he thinks that this:
happened unless blasters can deliver firepower greater than that of RPG's.

All of his arguments basically boil down to: "Some SW blaster fire does not demonstrate high firepower, thus all of is crappy." What he does not understand is that the upper-limits on blaster firepower are very high, and since blasters are known to have variable settings it makes perfect sense that there would be some discrepencies.

I think that the fact that they can get knocked out by gungans just shows how weak they are. use your head here - the gungans are not very advanced.

The Gungans have personal submarines that have crush depths into the thousands of feet, and can set up cities underwater using forcefields to maintain breathable air while being selectively permeable to sentient beings. The Gungans have theater shields that are creature-portable, and can withstand the collective firepower of dozens of tanks.

Hey, look, an Apache helicopter can be taken out by some losers firing small-arms designed in the 1940's. I guess Apache's aren't very advanced.

Incidentally, I notice how he completely dodged the fact that no modern MBT could match the AAT's ability to go through heavy walls with impunity. Also, have him LOOK at how thick the frontal armor of the AAT is. Can he seriously argue that a modern RPG would go through that?

And incidentally, it is hugely unfair to be complaining that SW blaster fire isn't as good as RPG's. SW blasters and blaster carbines should be compared to SMALL ARMS when attempting to figure out whether or not a modern army could take out a SW one. Modern small arms cannot do this:



nor this:



The repeating blaster on the speeder should be compared to a light-vehicle mounted, repeating weapon on a modern vehicle. The closest comparison would be the .50 caliber machine guns mounted on Humvees. Can he seriously argue that such a weapon could tear through the observed thickness of the armor on an AAT? Even the Bradley cannons would have great difficulty punching through that thickness of IRON, much less modern armor plate.

they need to throw their weapons as their only way of getting it to their oppenents, and they need to use huge beasts as the only means of transportation. this means that napoleon is slightly more advanced then them, hell even ceasar is more advanced then them - he at least know about bow and arrow.

The atlatl delivers much greater stopping power than a bow and arrow (that's why the Spanish conquistadors were afraid of that weapon and not afraid of bows--the atlatl could penetrate their breast plates at 10 meters. A bow and arrow could not). Regardless, only a fucking moron believes that a group that can erect mobile energy shields, construct cities underwater, build personal submarines with a crush depth of thousands of meters, and which possesses javelins capable of delivering an electric charge over a distance of a half meter is less advanced than a Napoleonic army. The Gungans are an UNDERWATER CIVILIZATION. Their land-based capabilities are limited by the fact that they weren't allowed to move about on the land for hundreds of years, and so developed few vehicles for doing so. Only a moron concludes from this evidence that they're less developed than Napoleonic armies.

and so anything they throw won't be more advanced then a molotov cocktail. and so anything that get knocked out by them scores 10 out of 10 for incompetence.

In case he hadn't noticed, the Trade Federation overran the Grand Army of the Gungans quite easily after they brought the shields down and were allowed to bring their combat vehicles into the battle.

Even the piddly gun on a goddamned Naboo speeder can blow a man-sized chunk out of a tank's armour.

odd, because trees falling down will destroy stuff those guns will not. and a bradley can take a tree falling down on it with out noticing anything.

I love the way he moves from "a light vehicle can be taken out by slamming two tree trunks weighing as much as a dozen tons each into it" to "A heavy vehicle's frontal armor can be defeated by an identical attack, nevermind the fact that the same vehicle can crash through 'heavy walls with impunity.'"

And about those trees, a Bradley is an armored personnel carrier, while an AT-ST is a scout transport. Why don't we just point out how an AT-AT can withstand weapons fire that would kill a modern infantry-man and use that to conclude the superiority of SW weapons?

In case any of you are wondering, all his comparisons of Blasters to RPGs are from the fact that I stated that a blaster has roughly the firepower of a handgranade. Never did I say that it was comparable to a Rocket Propelled Granade, that is a strawman attack isn't it?

It is, but moreover it is a laughable comparison. If he's arguing that their weapons aren't quite as good as RPG's then he's already lost the debate because he's admitted that their weapons are more powerful than modern small-arms. When you think about it, he simply CANNOT argue when you force him to compare things which play similar roles in the various armies.

A light-speeder with a mounted blaster can penetrate the thick frontal armor of a SW tank. A .50 caliber weapon mounted on a Humvee could never have accomplished the same deed.

A blaster blew a thick metal door apart in ANH. It was mentioned in the dialogue that blasters could destroy doors several times, and attempted by Han and Luke (which would've succeeded except for exotic shielding that modern armored vehicles do not have). An M16A2 could not have done the same thing.

A SW armor vehicle in ESB unleashed kiloton-level firepower when it nailed the Rebel power generator from a distance of over 17 kilometers. A modern Bradley is simply put to shame by that effort.

The standard-issue body armor worn by stormtroopers can withstand a spear thrown so powerfully that the accelerative/decelerative forces nearly forced him to lose consciousness. Modern body armor, worn by MP's, would've been defeated effortlessly by such an attack.

Stormtrooper armor offers complete protection from NBC attacks. Modern soldiers have to carry specialized, very uncomfortable gear to gain ANY protection from such attacks, and even then they could never survive in hard-vacuum, high-radiation environments.

No intelligent points can be made to respond to any of these, and simply pointing out that the abilities of SW weapons are limited (ie. "blasters aren't quite as good as modern RPG's") is not a legitimate response to the argument that a modern army would be outgunned at every level if it opposed a SW army.

If the guy is just desperate for a sci-fi army that would get killed by a modern one, he need look no further than ST, whose troops have no NBC protection, body armor, heavy weapons, combined-arms tactics, or even grenades with which to fight back. If he's intent on arguing that SW ground armies would lose to a modern one, he has no case.

Edit: Disclaimer: Pics shamelessly stolen and reposted from Mike Wong.

[Darth Wong]

Obviously, this asshat is either too stupid or too dishonest to realize that when you have weapons with power settings and they demonstrate high firepower in one scene and relatively low firepower in the next scene, they were obviously set lower in the second scene. Instead, he seems to conclude that scene B makes scene A cease to exist.

[wilfulton]

I won't conjecture as to whether aforementioned clown is stupid or not. In my experience, a guy like this is not going to simply give up and concede that he is wrong. He is going to be right and that's the only thing he cares about, is that he is right.

As an aside, the Stupidity Field in Star Munchkin gives a +4 to attack for human characters only.

[Adrian Laguna]

I think that Rapax (not the guy who claims Modern Armies > Star Wars) just handed me my ass. I gave a list of each and every Stormtrooper engagement in order to prove that they are competent marksmen. His reply:

1)Tantative IV boarding action - Stormtroopers show accuracy that would be expected from a trained soldiers (such as US Marines) in such a situation.

I think we had that covered? As they are shooting at expendable generic rebel soldiers, obviously they're gonna succeed. It's like the guy in Star Trek that no one's ever seen before but who will accompany the main characters on a dangerous mission. Someone's gotta die.

2)Murdered Jawas - Nothing actually shown, but it is reasonable to believe that Obi-Wan knows what 'precise shooting' is.

Obi-Wan's assessment, in light of general stormtrooper performance shown in the movie, can be wonderfully regarded as irony

3)Docking Bay 94 - Pretty accurate fire considering it was moving target that was firing back, what I would expect from a trained group of soldiers. Han was quite lucky to be so close to the Falcon's entrance ramp, though.

Sure, Han was standing there for a moment with a surprised look on his face and singlehandly turned the landing bay into debris while a squad of stormtroopers quickly huddled into cover frantically shooting and hitting anything but the target. I don't know what you find pretty accurate about it but it's one example of how Stormtroopers can't kill the main characters.

4)Death Star Detention Block - Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and Luke were all taking cover behind some columns and firing back, the Stormtroopers were still probably trying to kill them. Nothing I saw leads me to believe they have bad aim.

Why yes, it's incredibly hard to simply shoot down a narrow corridor. At the beginning it worked perfectly, but now somehow it doesn't. Again it's the golden rule that the generic henchmen can't kill the main characters.

5)Death Star - Stormtroopers under orders not to kill them. They manage to do this without being too obvious about it, seeing as many of the misses were very close.

That's quite interesting. Whenever they miss at other points, it's bad luck but now that they, apparently, do it on purpose, they do an excellent job. Talk about point of view, eh?

6)Hoth - The Stormtroopers only got a very short window to shoot Han and Leia as they crossed a hallway. It was rather unlikely for either of them to be hit.

Wouldn't that be Snowtroopers then? Either way it's irrelevant since they don't really get a chance as you said.

7)Cloud City - I'm not quite sure what to make of this battle. It is quite similar to movies with modern weapons were the heroes take cover and the bad guys almost hit them, or the heroes always duck just in time. It is also possible that the Imperials were trying to capture them or herd them towards the Millenium Falcon so that Vader could tractor beam them into his Destroyer.

Yes, you seem to stumble over your own argument on this one.

Battle of Hoth (actually Endor) - We barely got to see anything in this battle. For example there where at least a dozen Rebel soldiers which aren't shown fighting. In any case up untill Chewbacca hijacked one of the AT-STs the Rebels and Ewoks were suffering heavy casualties and starting to retreat despite having advantages in numbers, knowledge of terrain and surprise. (from Novelization, not contradicted by movie). As the Ewoks begin to seize the iniciative with Chewie's help, we see a Stormtrooper hit R2-D2. Then either the same Trooper or a different one almost* hits Leia. Both of this shots were from a distance of 20-30 meters and quite difficult, especially the second one since it was quite clearly a quick snap shot.
*I have watched the scene very carefully in slow-motion. It is hard to tell but the shot most likely hit the wall next to Leia and she was wounded by the explosion or a molten peice of metal. This is supported by the amount of time it took Leia to react to the shot.

Yes, supposedly it's the emperor's "Elite Legion" which makes the whole thing an even bigger farce than it already is.
Pretty much the only thing that the imperial troops have going for them are the AT-ST's and even they are worthless as they are taken out by the most primitive weapons imaginable. One "slips" over a few logs (which is a pretty strong argument against combat vehicles on legs), another gets crushed by two falling logs (which puts its hull integrity somewhere between a wooden shack and a volkswagen beetle) and the third one is hijacked because it's piloted by two masterminds who open their hatch in the middle of combat.
I won't go into further details with your assessment as you turn simple plot devices (leia and r2d2 getting hit) into solid evidence for...well for something.

I imagine some of you might be thinking, "This is what left you speechless and unable to reply?" Well yes, I can't think of a way to reply other than reiterate my arguments and end-up looking like an idiot. So the plan is that my next post would go something like this:
"In all honesty I don't know how to reply to that. However the folks over at StarDestroyer.net do..."
BTW - It is only an 'appeal to authority fallacy' if I use an authority's opinion or argument as being superior to that of somebody else merely because of their position. In other words, if I admit that the argument I'm using is from someone that knows more than me, then it's not a fallacy, right?

[Firefox]

So you didn't try to explain to him that the DS troops were ordered to shoot to miss?

[Adrian Laguna]

I'm still at a loss for words regarding everything else. It's worse than when one has a reply in the mind but has trouble turning it into words. I'm drawing a blank.

[Master of Ossus]

Just explain the concept of suspension of disbelief, and that if he's going to totally ignore it then he's obviously not willing or not capable of holding a rational discussion on the subject, and that further discussion is therefore impossible.