Stormtroopers vs. US Army Special Forces

Kuciwalker · Post by **Kuciwalker** » 2006-12-22 01:59pm

catch: they are both armed with paintball guns

Who wins? Are the special sensors in a stormie's suit more than a match for the camo (or lack thereof)? How does stormtrooper training compare to the normal training for a professional military force?

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2006-12-22 02:09pm

I beleive that Stormtrooper helmets have thermal imaging features, that should trump the US Army troops camo unless their in a jungle.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-22 02:21pm

Removing the weapons as a factor would really help the real-life troops, and render the stormtrooper armour essentially useless except for the helmet comm and imaging systems.

Deathstalker · Post by **Deathstalker** » 2006-12-22 03:09pm

SF troops also have access to radios and various imiaging equipment. It would come down to who sees the other first, then it comes down to who has more experience.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-22 03:12pm

Who gets home field advantage? If the stormtroopers get to choose the battlefield, they can simply pick an extremely harsh environment in which the real-life special forces guys would be fucked.

Deathstalker · Post by **Deathstalker** » 2006-12-22 03:21pm

Really, there are too many variables to predict the outcome. Are the stormies and SF guys just out of training? Are they battle hardened veterans.
Mike mentioned terrain and environment. Is it airless, which gives advantage to Stormies, or a desert or jungle which evens things?

Kuciwalker · Post by **Kuciwalker** » 2006-12-22 07:15pm

They're playing in a generic paintball field, or whatever you call it. A squad of stormtroopers and a squad of US troops (or SAS or whatever) got together for a good game. Basic foresty terrain, on Earth or an Earthlike world. And they've each seen several years of service already.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2006-12-23 01:56am

I'll go ahead and give it to the US troops.

#1 - With everyone using paintpall guns, the ability of Stormtrooper armor to resist damage is rendered moot.

#2 - While it doesn't look terribly heavy, that armor isn't weightless and does inhibit mobility to at least some extent.

#3 - While sensors do give the Stormtroopers the advantage in detecting their opponents, the glaring white color of their armor also helps said opponents to detect them in return.

#4 - Stormtroopers aren't as bad as they're commonly made out to be, but the quality of ground combat tactics in Star Wars has always been a mixed bag at best.

Now if you gave the Stormies that camo green armor we saw on Wookieworld in Episode 3, that's a whole different story. Then they can use their sensors to detect the other team while also being able to actually hide and spring an ambush.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-23 11:40am

Kuciwalker wrote:They're playing in a generic paintball field, or whatever you call it. A squad of stormtroopers and a squad of US troops (or SAS or whatever) got together for a good game. Basic foresty terrain, on Earth or an Earthlike world. And they've each seen several years of service already.

Well, this scenario takes away two of the stormtroopers' biggest advantages (better body armour and protection from harsh climates) so it's pretty loaded in favour of the real-life troops. Maybe you should also specify that the stormtroopers have their hands tied behind their backs while you're at it, just to make the one-sided scenario complete.

Post by **RogueIce** » 2006-12-23 07:49pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Kuciwalker wrote:They're playing in a generic paintball field, or whatever you call it. A squad of stormtroopers and a squad of US troops (or SAS or whatever) got together for a good game. Basic foresty terrain, on Earth or an Earthlike world. And they've each seen several years of service already.
Well, this scenario takes away two of the stormtroopers' biggest advantages (better body armour and protection from harsh climates) so it's pretty loaded in favour of the real-life troops. Maybe you should also specify that the stormtroopers have their hands tied behind their backs while you're at it, just to make the one-sided scenario complete.

I suppose, to be fair, he is wondering how stormtrooper training would stack up to real-life soldier training, as he put in his OP.

Anyway, as to the armor, would it be possible they could camo anyway? Break some branches, maybe smear up the armor with any mud/dirt they can find (how dirty would it stay?).

If nothing else, dig in real deep to some woods, wait for the SF troops to wander by (with the sensors I'd imagine they can be dug in pretty far back), and spring out behind them.

Kuciwalker · Post by **Kuciwalker** » 2006-12-23 08:23pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Kuciwalker wrote:They're playing in a generic paintball field, or whatever you call it. A squad of stormtroopers and a squad of US troops (or SAS or whatever) got together for a good game. Basic foresty terrain, on Earth or an Earthlike world. And they've each seen several years of service already.
Well, this scenario takes away two of the stormtroopers' biggest advantages (better body armour and protection from harsh climates) so it's pretty loaded in favour of the real-life troops. Maybe you should also specify that the stormtroopers have their hands tied behind their backs while you're at it, just to make the one-sided scenario complete.

How is it one-sided? Rather, it puts them on a more even footing.

I think it's actually still slanted towards stormies (ignoring training, since I don't know which is better), because of the sensors and radios.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2006-12-23 08:59pm

Kuciwalker wrote: How is it one-sided? Rather, it puts them on a more even footing.

And a scenario that puts on an even footing two opponents of which one is hopelessly superior to the other is NOT one-sided how, exactly?

Kuciwalker · Post by **Kuciwalker** » 2006-12-23 10:37pm

It's fucking paintball. Aren't I so mean to the poor stormtroopers

Cos Dashit · Post by **Cos Dashit** » 2006-12-23 10:37pm

How big is a "generic" paintball field, and do they have those jumbo blow-up obstacles or what? A large field with natural obstacles such as trees or boulders would favor the Stormtroopers, given their headsets. But anything smaller than a football field would probably hinder tactics, and definitely hinder mobility. It would then, as Deathstalker said, come down to who sees each other first.

Kuciwalker · Post by **Kuciwalker** » 2006-12-23 10:42pm

Paintball isn't just about who sees who first, especially given that the guns aren't exceptionally accurate.

The paintball field I go to is about 3/4 the length and width of a football field (a very rough estimate). And it's forested with a wooden fort thin in the center (just some walls) and randomly strewn cover in the form of low hills, piles of logs, etc. It's sloped, with one team starting below the fort and the other above. Of course, they can vary a ton.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2006-12-23 10:47pm

If it's just about training, there's nothing wrong with giving different infantry paintball guns and letting them go at it to see who can hit who. But in that case you may as well put them all in shirts and shorts, otherwise it's more about which advantages of their armor the terrain does or does not negate.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2006-12-24 01:46am

The problem with a "generic" paintball field is that it is tiny, it removes things like fire support and manuever outside of individual movements. Basically while it is a "team" event it is much more tied into personal short range skills and "twitch" shooting. The stormies probably wind up with the win solely because they can see through the obstacles and have more relaible man to man comm than US SF. Still its close enough to a draw based on personal experience and average stormie versus average SF troop from any western army does almost blance out the imaging skill mostly due to reaction speed and natural sense of aim (I'm not saying stormies can't hit something I'm saying SF guys can hit shit 25yds away while sleep walking).

Post by **RogueIce** » 2006-12-24 02:19am

If we're doing this to see who has better training and tactics, it might be better to give them something like MILES gear or the like, rather than paintballs. Since, all the times I ever used paintball guns, unless you were really close it was a matter of luck whether you hit anyone.

Regularly equipped, even if stormtrooper training totally sucked, the advanatges of firepower and their armor's resistence to modern weapons would be overwhelming. I doubt many people are going to dispute that (assuming it's strictly a troops vs troops scenario, so no fire support).

I suppose the question asked here is, can stormtrooper training, tactics, imaging/sensor equipment, and superior comms, beat a modern day military force that has weaponry equal to their own. Or at least that's my read of the OP.

000 · Post by **000** » 2006-12-24 10:55am

Stormies are primarily marines; that's why they wear white armor most of the time.

I would think, especially given what we know from RotS, that they can swap out their shipboard armor for camouflaged duds when the need arises.

At any rate, if you're trying to determine how well the training of the two groups stack up against one another, it might be best to equip both teams in the same manner-- probably with whatever the standard paintball gear is.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-26 01:06am

You can't divorce training from equipment. Soldiers train on their particular equipment. Give them totally alien equipment and a lot of their training becomes obsolete. If soldiers don't do that well with equipment that is very much different from their own, that doesn't necessarily mean their training is inferior.

Besides, even if we ignore the training issue, the particular use of paintball would give a hefty advantage to US Special Forces soldiers, who are likely to have tried playing paintball at some time in the past on a recreational basis. Paintball guns aren't like real guns; their range is pitiful, the projectile velocity is a joke, and the ability to accurately fire (for example) a SW blaster wouldn't do much to help you shoot a paintball gun accurately.

Simply accounting for projectile drop is something that stormtroopers would not be accustomed to, but that wouldn't mean their training is weak because that skill is rendered unnecessary with blasters. It would only come into play when dealing with grenade launchers.

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2006-12-26 01:42am

I thought the white armour of the stormtroopers make them like beacons in the forest... Whereas if the US army uses stalking tactics and camouflage, they could sneak up on the stormtroopers.

Ritterin Sophia · Post by **Ritterin Sophia** » 2006-12-26 11:27am

Darth Wong wrote:Simply accounting for projectile drop is something that stormtroopers would not be accustomed to, but that wouldn't mean their training is weak because that skill is rendered unnecessary with blasters. It would only come into play when dealing with grenade launchers.

They might be accustomed to it, the Empire has at least two heavy repeating slugthrowers, probably as replacements for blasters in the case of an environment which impedes the use of blaster weapons. But this is merely speculation.

Lord Insanity · Post by **Lord Insanity** » 2006-12-27 10:04am

Fingolfin_Noldor Wrote:

I thought the white armour of the stormtroopers make them like beacons in the forest... Whereas if the US army uses stalking tactics and camouflage, they could sneak up on the stormtroopers.

I am guessing if Scout-troopers could fire on Leia in ROTJ and she (as well as the "cameraman") still couldn't see them in heavily forested conditions, that Stormtroopers would not stick out as badly as people think.

Cos Dashit · Post by **Cos Dashit** » 2006-12-27 07:11pm

A drop in the velocity would put the Stormtroopers at a disadvantage when shooting, yes; but aren't their reflexes top-notch? Couldn't they dodge the paintballs more easily than the SF?

Of course, this all comes down to what specific type of paintball gun they are using. Rental? Angel? Can they use automatic, three-shot, two-shot, or what?

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2006-12-27 09:43pm

Stormtroopers and Clonetroopers are trained from birth, but they're still general infantry.
Shouldn't this be "Stormtroopers vs" US Army infantry" or "ARC Troopers vs US Army Special Forces" or something?

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:I thought the white armour of the stormtroopers make them like beacons in the forest... Whereas if the US army uses stalking tactics and camouflage, they could sneak up on the stormtroopers.

Well, that depends on what sort of sensors the stormies have in their helmets. As was stated earlier, they might render camouflage moot.