Nukes at Naboo and Endor

[Stravo]

I was thinking about this the other day. The Battle of Naboo had a few thousand Gungans facing off against the Droid Army. The theater shields that Gungans had deflected any bombardments yet much like Dune shields slow objects get through - hence the Droids can march right on through the shield.

Now it occurred to me - if you strapped on a multi kiloton device (child's play in terms of minituarization and availability due to SW tech) to the back of one of the droids and as it walks through the shield it cooks off end of Gungan Army as we know it. Droid casualties minimal. Why wasn't a nuke used at all in the battle. Even when the shields goes down, the droids could have pulled back and a nuclear tipped shell is loaded in the tanks and BAM. End of Gungan army.

So thoughts of Jar Jar dying in a crispy blast wave of nuclear fire like in Sarah Connor's dream in T2 aside why not?

AND

Battle of Endor. Key charges are placed in the generator room to blow it up. Why wasn't a nasty ass super nuke just plopped down right outside the bunker and BLAM, hole the size of Montanna blown into the shield facility. The rebel commadoes were carrying quite a bit in those big packs, plus you had Chewbacca. Surely they could have all carried the parts of some uber weapon that could have laid waste to that entire facility. So why no Nukes?

And even during the battle of Endor, the Empire could have launched a few baby nukes into the forest blasting the area around the bunker scouring it clean while they sit back and enjoy the smell of barbequing Ewoks.

Why is there a distinct lack of nukes in Wars when at their tech level you could probably make baby nukes the size of baseballs and little to no fall out?

[Elheru Aran]

Collateral damage. You risk eliminating your own forces. Lando Calrissian was able to bring down a Coruscant skyscraper with four thermal detonators, something that would require significant demolitions work today.

As for the use of heavy explosives, you have a point; however, it may be that beyond a certain yield, they simply aren't efficient/safe enough.

[Stravo]

Collateral damage. You risk eliminating your own forces. Lando Calrissian was able to bring down a Coruscant skyscraper with four thermal detonators, something that would require significant demolitions work today.

As for the use of heavy explosives, you have a point; however, it may be that beyond a certain yield, they simply aren't efficient/safe enough.

What collateral damage would you receive nuking the Gungans in an open field? Some trees, grass, maybe a hill? And I would assume the droids wouldn't be so stupid as to get in close enough so that a tactical nuke would damage them when it went off.

Same on Endor. The Imperial troops are in a Bunker complex. They sit tight and they lob a few nukes out side into the dense tree line where teh Ewoks are retreating to and you have no need of sending troops and light scout vehicles into the unknown. Surely the Empire wouldn't give a shit if they blasted a few sqaure kilometers of trees?

[Ar-Adunakhor]

Collateral damage. You risk eliminating your own forces. Lando Calrissian was able to bring down a Coruscant skyscraper with four thermal detonators, something that would require significant demolitions work today.

As for the use of heavy explosives, you have a point; however, it may be that beyond a certain yield, they simply aren't efficient/safe enough.

What collateral damage would you receive nuking the Gungans in an open field? Some trees, grass, maybe a hill? And I would assume the droids wouldn't be so stupid as to get in close enough so that a tactical nuke would damage them when it went off.

Same on Endor. The Imperial troops are in a Bunker complex. They sit tight and they lob a few nukes out side into the dense tree line where teh Ewoks are retreating to and you have no need of sending troops and light scout vehicles into the unknown. Surely the Empire wouldn't give a shit if they blasted a few sqaure kilometers of trees?

Well, those key charges you mentioned earlier were fairly small and generated an enormous explosion which destroyed the whole projector dish. This could, perhaps, be explained by the loss of all the power regulation due to the charges, and then the dish just blew itself up I suppose. Pretty shoddy engineering I would think... no backup systems or automatic kills if the main control goes out. Think what would have happened if some tech crossed his wires.

So it seems that either those charges were amazingly high yeild already and still had to be placed inside the bunker to work their magic, or even small explosions (much less nukes) would have been dangerous to use around the dish.

As for the Gungans, I seriously doubt one droid would have been able to make it close enough to get through the shield. It is one thing to wait behind your shield in order to catch the droid human-wave attack piecemeal but quite another to just let one droid with a bomb strapped to him walk up to you. If you really wanted to get one in there you could try sending a wave of 1000 or 2000 droids with the big nukes strapped to them in, but that would defeat the purpose of cheap droid armies would it not? You must remember, those things were amazingly cheap, and you could probably produce a metric fuckton of them for the price of the nukes you would use.

In addition, they might have wanted to take prisoners and hold them in order to persuade the queen to sign away her planet, or perhaps get information on any other armies that might be amassing. I will have to defer to someone who knows more about the objectives of the droid army in that battle on that count.

[Stravo]

Just to be clear I didn't mean a single droid walking up to them, I meant the first wave would have a few of them with a device triggered to go off when they got past the shield.

[nightmare]

Now it occurred to me - if you strapped on a multi kiloton device (child's play in terms of minituarization and availability due to SW tech) to the back of one of the droids and as it walks through the shield it cooks off end of Gungan Army as we know it. Droid casualties minimal. Why wasn't a nuke used at all in the battle. Even when the shields goes down, the droids could have pulled back and a nuclear tipped shell is loaded in the tanks and BAM. End of Gungan army.

The Trade Federation wasn't exactly a great military at this point. If ever. The droids appeared to be in charge of the assault (OOM-9) and they probably made do with what they had at hand.

Battle of Endor. Key charges are placed in the generator room to blow it up. Why wasn't a nasty ass super nuke just plopped down right outside the bunker and BLAM, hole the size of Montanna blown into the shield facility. The rebel commadoes were carrying quite a bit in those big packs, plus you had Chewbacca. Surely they could have all carried the parts of some uber weapon that could have laid waste to that entire facility. So why no Nukes?

Proton charges are shaped charge nukes, actually, although not in the traditional sense of nuke. I would guess that Han didn't want to waste using any on the bunker door. That bunker was very strong, it would certainly take some uber weapon to blast it all. I might point out that commandos generally do exactly that, key strikes, and don't place bigass nukes.

And even during the battle of Endor, the Empire could have launched a few baby nukes into the forest blasting the area around the bunker scouring it clean while they sit back and enjoy the smell of barbequing Ewoks.

Palpatine talking to Luke indicates he meant to capture Luke's friends. When the Ewoks attacked, the imperials already had troops deployed in the area. Nuking at this point would not only be against the Emperor's orders, it would also be intentional friendly fire.

Why is there a distinct lack of nukes in Wars when at their tech level you could probably make baby nukes the size of baseballs and little to no fall out?

They have such devices. We haven't seen them used onscreen in the movies, but they are carried around - stormie thermal detonators, rebel proton charges.

[apocolypse]

I was thinking about this the other day. The Battle of Naboo had a few thousand Gungans facing off against the Droid Army. The theater shields that Gungans had deflected any bombardments yet much like Dune shields slow objects get through - hence the Droids can march right on through the shield.

Now it occurred to me - if you strapped on a multi kiloton device (child's play in terms of minituarization and availability due to SW tech) to the back of one of the droids and as it walks through the shield it cooks off end of Gungan Army as we know it. Droid casualties minimal. Why wasn't a nuke used at all in the battle. Even when the shields goes down, the droids could have pulled back and a nuclear tipped shell is loaded in the tanks and BAM. End of Gungan army.

I'm not quite sure the TF wanted to kill the Gungan army off though. Sidious ordered the TF to wipe them out, but we see the Gungans surrendering and the droids accepting the surrender. So it would seem as though either the TF didn't want to kill the Gungans after all, or they at least didn't want to kill them right away. Not sure if this has been elaborated on or not though.

[NecronLord]

If in doubt, say 'in-character stupidity' neither the Trade Federation, nor the Empire's forces on Endor are exactly known for their genius tactics. Or indeed, for being even a shadow of competant. In fact, both groups were such grabasstic incompetants that they'd need bounty hunters and homing becons to find their own asses.

[Stravo]

If in doubt, say 'in-character stupidity' neither the Trade Federation, nor the Empire's forces on Endor are exactly known for their genius tactics. Or indeed, for being even a shadow of competant. In fact, both groups were such grabasstic incompetants that they'd need bounty hunters and homing becons to find their own asses.

The Droid army also could have used chemical weapons with impunity being a mechanical force and had chemical ladened shells explode against the Gungan shields and with the way the shields work the gas would have simply descended down on the Gungans and killed them. *Smiles at vision of gasping dying Jar Jar*

Same with the Imperials on Endor. Button up the AT-ST's and the rest are in bunkers. Let out the gas and you have a bunch of dead rebels and Ewoks.

[NecronLord]

The Droid army also could have used chemical weapons with impunity being a mechanical force and had chemical ladened shells explode against the Gungan shields and with the way the shields work the gas would have simply descended down on the Gungans and killed them. *Smiles at vision of gasping dying Jar Jar*

Same with the Imperials on Endor. Button up the AT-ST's and the rest are in bunkers. Let out the gas and you have a bunch of dead rebels and Ewoks.

Yes. There are so many ways the Impies could have won at Endor, even just doing something really basic like clearing a goodly area around thier facility to deny enemies cover would have made that ground battle a cakewalk. Simply put, they're just morons. If it's good enough to dismiss Lt. Cmdr Data, as one, it's good enough to dismiss Imperials. Trying to find some over-complex excuse is giving them more credit than they deserve.

[Adrian Laguna]

Slaughtering the Gungans would have been bad PR for the TF. Very bad PR, I can just picture the spin. "This radioactive crater here, is the site were the TF brutally suppresed a demonstration by the primitive Gungans." Hell, if the Republic feels like really spinning the shit out of it, they could call it a "peaceful demonstration". I mean, who is going to prove otherwise? All the evidence has been vaporized. Aside from the Droid Army's recording devices, which might be dismissed as a blatant fabrication.

[NecronLord]

Slaughtering the Gungans would have been bad PR for the TF. Very bad PR, I can just picture the spin. "This radioactive crater here, is the site were the TF brutally suppresed a demonstration by the native and primitive Gungans."

Wheras trashing their city, invading a peaceful planet, and carting the population off to concentration camps is good PR.

[Adrian Laguna]

They wanted to put pressure on the Republic. However, if you put too much pressure then they would get outrage as a response. Outrage is really bad when they've got the Navy and you've got shit.

[frogcurry]

The empire has the excuse that any intelligent defensive planning might have been noticed by any Rebel agents, and they wouldn't have walked into the Endor trap.

The droid army... lacks any excuse.

[NecronLord]

The empire has the excuse that any intelligent defensive planning might have been noticed by any Rebel agents, and they wouldn't have walked into the Endor trap.

Except they don't even have cleared areas around the landing pad and main entrance. Again, it's easier to just stop making excuses for these guys and call them what they are.

And there are very few excuses for the moronic deployment of the Trade Federation. Remember the scene where they all disembark from their transports, in close order, in line of sight of the enemy?

[Noble Ire]

It is pretty well established that the TF forces at Naboo, or at least the Neimodians in charge, were quite foolish in regards to combat. Technically, they probably didn't even need to bother with the Droid Army at all, let alone nukes. Even if the theater shields could repel fighter attack, they did have a battleship in orbit with turbolasers. They could have simply smashed the lot from orbit, either battering down the shields, or destabilizing the ground around them until the protective fields collapsed.

I think, however, that the Imperial Garrison might be different. Certainly, they weren't the brightest of fellows, and clearing the area around the bases would have been prudent, but I don't see why exactly everyone is assumin gthat they were armed with any nukes or easily-deployable chemical weaponry. I mean, there was likely plenty of it in the fleet of above, but why would one necessarily outfit a base that is already under a nigh-indestructible shield, with a nearby garrison fleet, on a world populated by stone age primatives, with an excessive amount of WMDs?

[Elmca]

They wanted to put pressure on the Republic. However, if you put too much pressure then they would get outrage as a response. Outrage is really bad when they've got the Navy and you've got shit.

Assuming the TF didn't want the bad publicity, they could've easily substituted some kind of knock-out gas canisters. Obviously, Gungans can hold their breath for a while, but they wore no protective gear. Something that is absorbed through the skin would've worked just fine.

Gas should be standard on battle droids. Give each one a canister or two of some chemical agent. Won't work on Jedi or Clone troopers, but it would work well against planetary defense forces like the Naboo.

[Shadowtraveler]

About Naboo: I can't believe that this is even being brought up. The Trade Federation's entire arguement was that they were blockading Naboo in respone to the taxation of certain major trade routes. Who would honestly believe that using nukes on the planet would help their cause in any way?

[PREDATOR490]

The empire has the excuse that any intelligent defensive planning might have been noticed by any Rebel agents, and they wouldn't have walked into the Endor trap.

Except they don't even have cleared areas around the landing pad and main entrance. Again, it's easier to just stop making excuses for these guys and call them what they are.

Cleared areas would make it easier for infiltrators to spy since they can get a decent look at the site without getting too close, while it prevents infiltration alot easier, it defeats the point of trying to keep the area covered up and the ability to hide additional forces. The harder it is for infiltrators to get in, the less likely the Rebels will try and COULD call off the upcoming attack to fight another day. Even if Luke etc. were to die, its going to be the lives of a few vs. the very existance and future of the Rebellion.

Clearing the area around the secret entrance would utterly remove the point of a secret entrance if it stands out.

Using heavy ordanance is a lethal weapon which would kill the Rebels, killing the Rebels is quick and frankly would be smart, however as Palpatine shows, the idea at Endor wasnt just to beat them but to utterly press the point home to everyone around the galaxy who would dare try to oppose the Empire. One of the flaws of the Empire was always the attempt to push the political buttons rather than do the job right. Perhaps this is from Palpatine since he was such an effective senator he went for the political games.

Its pretty much a foregone conclusion that some remnants of the Rebellion would remain even after the battle of Endor which means some prisoners who can be tortured would go some way towards achieving that goal.
Not to mention the sheer amount of arrogance that many Imperials had when it came to the Rebels. They prefer to gloat when they should just finish it... however isnt this the flaw in most, if not all the bad guys ?

If they use an explosive, they are going to potentially damage the shield generator and take the "fun" out of beating the Rebels in a one to one kind of concept, this was the Emperors "finest" being beaten by furry bears. They have to rekindle their "pride" somehow.
To them the battle was already won, the ground forces probably assume the fleet will handle the Rebels in orbit while the guys in orbit are counting on the ground units to keep the DS shield online.

Overall, the Emperor and the Imperial officers made some critical arrogant errors. Even if the Emperor ORDERED them to do what they did, it shouldnt take a genious, let alone ADMIRALS, to figure out your backing a dog into a corner where they have no other choice but to come out fighting. Something which the Rebels ultimately did.

They assumed the Rebels would just take the beating OR try to run.
They assumed the ground based generator was safe .
They assumed that a small group of Rebel soldiers was outmatched and had NO chance of getting in.
They made no attempt at trying to guess what the Rebels would do if they noticed the fleet wasnt firing at them or that having an Imperial fleet provides an avenue of cover from the Death Star weapon.
Sure, the Imperial Fleet is great and they could kill the Rebels easy, but in relevance to their orders, the Imperial Fleet is at a heavy disadvantage with an enemy who has to choose between the rock and a hard place... no foresight to guess which they are going to choose...

If you want to get a good portrayal of an effective Empire the best place is to DIY in EAW or somesuch

Not much else to do in regards to the Empire, its a dead horse, long since been picked clean.

And there are very few excuses for the moronic deployment of the Trade Federation. Remember the scene where they all disembark from their transports, in close order, in line of sight of the enemy?

I suspect that was meant to convey the idea of those old battles with swords and somesuch.
Armies face off with each other then attacked... what place this has when its droids... no idea but the only viable excuse here is that the TF droids/masters had some sense of this "concept" wether by programing or personal liberty.

Its pretty much the same concept as the Empire, the bad guys assume that they are going to win because of factors which are in their favour. Through luck, chance and arrogance those factors change resulting in the utter downfall of the unlucky.

Using heavy weapons on the Gungans would be expensive because it destroys or damages the planet which might be of some use, not only this, using heavy weapons leaves a massive crater of evidence that the TF have been doing the illegal.

By using droids they can be cleaned up with no loss of life while cleaning up the bodies of the fallen Gungans and drum up any excuse they wanted to spout. No evidence, no foul.

[Stravo]

About Naboo: I can't believe that this is even being brought up. The Trade Federation's entire arguement was that they were blockading Naboo in respone to the taxation of certain major trade routes. Who would honestly believe that using nukes on the planet would help their cause in any way?

You mean like trying to kill the Queen of the Naboo in the hangar bay? Or carrying out a planetray invasion? And why is nuking the Gungan any worse than killing them in combat with guns and bombs? They're dead no matter how you look at it. One clean blast and you can even deny there ever was a battle.

And in the end Sidious said it best "Wipe them out. All of them." I can't think of a better way of carrying that out than with cleansing nuclear fire.

Also on Noble Ire's point about "Why would they have WMD's in a heavily secured base?" Maybe because they were the Emperor's finest legion and knew the rebels were coming in the first place. What better way to guarantee victory?

[Admiral Johnason]

For Naboo, you would have to deal with fallout and radioactive land close to Theed, which would cost a pretty penny to clean up plus the possibility of causing a major human rights incident. One could argue that the cost of clean up and damage control simply outweighed the cost of sending replaceable droids in wave attacks.

For Endor, the Empire woudl run the risk of harming their own facility, damaging one of the best Imperial legions in the army and causing enviromental damage to a sanctuary moon (prehaps the Emperor still had a soft spot for teddy bears.) I have no idea why the Rebels wouldn't send in a bomber squadron when the attack force arrived and just plaster the base with hundreds of ion bombs.

[The Original Nex]

Now it occurred to me - if you strapped on a multi kiloton device (child's play in terms of minituarization and availability due to SW tech) to the back of one of the droids and as it walks through the shield it cooks off end of Gungan Army as we know it. Droid casualties minimal. Why wasn't a nuke used at all in the battle. Even when the shields goes down, the droids could have pulled back and a nuclear tipped shell is loaded in the tanks and BAM. End of Gungan army.

Well, they could have, but they didn't really need to. This is similar to asking the question "Why didn't the Empire use AT-ATs at the Battle of Endor?" As far as the Trade Feds were concerned there was no need to obliterate the entire Gungan force with high powered explosives when they were able to so easily overwhelm them with their infantry and armor. Because of the final outcome of the Battle of Naboo ends with the TF's defeat it's easy to forget that the Droid Army routed the Gungan Grand Army easily enough without any sort of high yield explosive.

[NecronLord]

Cleared areas would make it easier for infiltrators to spy

Irrelevant. No one could land a ground force on the planet without the permission of the controller on the Excecutor. Saboteurs are the only concern they had, and only because Palpatine arranged for them to be allowed to land.

What's more, if you clear the area, you can see them as easily as they can see you. Then you can use your Imperial Superior Firepower™ on them. Removing the cover, remember?

less likely the Rebels will try and COULD call off the upcoming attack to fight another day.

"Communications ship, jam them." They didn't need to send a confirmation signal to the fleet - note that the fleet was already coming before the shield was down - or any such, so it'd be easy. In fact, I'd be astounded if the Imperials weren't jamming them.

Clearing the area around the secret entrance would utterly remove the point of a secret entrance if it stands out.

Dude, there was no point in the secret entrance. And you ignored my point that they didn't even clear an area around the main fucking entrance either. These clowns define inept.

Using heavy ordanance is a lethal weapon which would kill the Rebels, killing the Rebels is quick and frankly would be smart, however as Palpatine shows, the idea at Endor wasnt just to beat them but to utterly press the point home to everyone around the galaxy who would dare try to oppose the Empire. One of the flaws of the Empire was always the attempt to push the political buttons rather than do the job right. Perhaps this is from Palpatine since he was such an effective senator he went for the political games.

Palpatine's even stupider than ever if we presume he micromanages his troops so much that he orders them not to clear fields of fire...

They prefer to gloat when they should just finish it... however isnt this the flaw in most, if not all the bad guys ?

Not really. Palpy was quite happy to hold them with interdictors and blast them with the superlaser. While that's gloating, it's still 'finishing it'

If they use an explosive,

You establish clear fields of fire before building the base. Or at least before bringing it online.

they are going to potentially damage the shield generator and take the "fun" out of beating the Rebels

So what you're doing, is defending them from the charge of stupidity by calling them stupid? I think you've got turned around somehow in trying to save the Empire's dignity or something.

I suspect that was meant to convey the idea of those old battles with swords and somesuch.

Of course they were. By the director. When the TRADE FED did this IN CHARACTER, it's called stupidity.

[PREDATOR490]

You mean like trying to kill the Queen of the Naboo in the hangar bay? Or carrying out a planetray invasion? And why is nuking the Gungan any worse than killing them in combat with guns and bombs? They're dead no matter how you look at it. One clean blast and you can even deny there ever was a battle.

Killing the Queen could be put down to a "misunderstanding" or "hoax" or an "accident with droid programming"
The invasion was supposed to be justified if the Queen signed the treaty which they were sure she would do. Killing the Queen leaves a greater chance that someone will sign the document.

Nuking the Gungans would leave evidence of such, the TF are massively more powerful than the Gungans and its alot easier to spin a story if you make it look like you have lost men rather than a single utter extermination of the enemy who couldnt have touched you interms of military.

TF: "We lost a massive army of droids in a unjustified attack by the Gungans"
Galaxy: "Wheres your proof ?"
TF: Hands them the battle recordings of all the droids minus anything incriminating, add some faked stuff like the Gungans firing first and you have propaganda that can be presented and actually be playing true... it WAS the Gungans that mobilised the army first, they activated their shields first indicating hostile intent.

Since the Gungans are going to be all wiped out, and Naboo has signed the treaty, they can say the Gungans were upset, or deny that they had attacked the Gungans first. Since the Naboo have obvious misgivings between the Gungans the TF could claim they were defending the Naboo against a Gungan army.

That is alot more likely to be swallowed than the Trade Federation handing them a recording of the DCS raining down fire onto an otherwise unprepared and inferior force. It also strongly implicates the TF in the fact that they had deliberatly placed the DCS in that position and were locked onto the Gungan army. Use of heavy weapons also suggest the TF were going there prepared for a slaughter.

Its going to be alot harder to pass off a slaughter to the crowd than an act of "self defense" where the Gungans appear to be making the hostile move on a planet where the Naboo and Gungans have a history of dislike.

[Alex Moon]

Considering that the Old Republic had to hire a bounty hunter to train it's army, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of expertise at ground combat around. For police/security work, chemical and large scale nukes would be useless.

It's also plausible that both sides simply refrained from large scale chem/nuke attacks in order to maintain supporters.