ST V SW, and a few imbetween.

[Lord Relvenous]

Also, how much weight does stormtrooper armor add? And if a Borg drone and a stromtrooper were engaged in hand-to-hand combat, would the Borg have enough dexterity in his arms to track the stormtrooper, grab him, and keep ahold of him as he applied the force needed to send a stromtrooper across the room? I don't think so becasue stormtroopers, unlike many redshirts, are trained in hand-to-hand combat, which would imply training of how to break and avoid holds.

[bz249]

Also, how much weight does stormtrooper armor add? And if a Borg drone and a stromtrooper were engaged in hand-to-hand combat, would the Borg have enough dexterity in his arms to track the stormtrooper, grab him, and keep ahold of him as he applied the force needed to send a stromtrooper across the room? I don't think so becasue stormtroopers, unlike many redshirts, are trained in hand-to-hand combat, which would imply training of how to break and avoid holds.

If we forget about the little gadgets like blaster carbines and thermal detonators and the Borg can engage a strormtrooper in hand to hand combat then... Haven't got stormtroopers some blade weapons? If yes I would say it is the similar to the infamous match between a Klingon vs a Borg and the former demonstrated to win in such a situation.

[NecronLord]

Also, how much weight does stormtrooper armor add?

Who knows? They don't seem seriously encumbered by it.

And if a Borg drone and a stromtrooper were engaged in hand-to-hand combat, would the Borg have enough dexterity in his arms to track the stormtrooper, grab him, and keep ahold of him as he applied the force needed to send a stromtrooper across the room? I don't think so becasue stormtroopers, unlike many redshirts, are trained in hand-to-hand combat, which would imply training of how to break and avoid holds.

It's conceivable, but more often, the stormtrooper's likely to back away and keep shooting. I wouldn't generally bet on the borg.

[PeZook]

It makes sense for Stormtroopers to be equipeed with utility knives at the very least, which means they automatically have an advantage over a strong but unarmed opponent in hand-to-hand. But, this whole tangent is moot anyway - the blaster carbine is short enough and has a large enough ammo capacity that HtH combat simply won't happen unless the engagement has already been won by the Borg. Hell, even if the Borg turn out to be superior (by overwhelming numbers, for example) Stormtroopers can fall back easily without sacrificing much combat effectiveness, thanks to their discipline and proper weapons.

[Master_Baerne]

The point, good sir, being that it is very, very difficult to take out Imperial Stormtroopers in hand to hand combat, unless you happen to have a lightsaber.

Ah, but their necks are unprotected, so theoretically, one could just break the trooper's neck!
If one would somehow survive the heavy suppressive fire that being laid down said trooper and his mates that is...

Have the Borg ever been seen breaking someone's neck?

And then there's the hundred other Stormtroopers just sitting there waiting to take his place if you break his neck...

It's a lose-lose situation. If you kill enought Stormies, the Empire sends a Star Destroyer to reolve the conflict. If you don't, they kill you.

[MagnusTheReD]

It's a lose-lose situation. If you kill enought Stormies, the Empire sends a Star Destroyer to reolve the conflict. If you don't, they kill you.

It was a stupid match up to begin with.
It basically reduces itself to "Dudes with firearms VS Dudes without firearms".
And it takes a special kind of stupid to bet on the dudes without firearms...

[Master_Baerne]

The point, good sir, being that it is very, very difficult to take out Imperial Stormtroopers in hand to hand combat, unless you happen to have a lightsaber.

And my point is that an Imperial Stormtrooper is wearing Stormtrooper armor doesn't mean that he is immune to all physical attacks as evidenced in ROTJ. If you think a Stormtrooper is going to have an easy time fighting hand to hand with a Borg drone just because he's wearing his armor, you're as deluded as the Trekkies that think Stormtrooper armor sucks because it doesn't make someone immune to things like force and momentum.

You're missing the essential purpose of Stormtrooper armor, which is to defend against shell fragments and poison gas. The reason they carry blaster rifles instead of, say, bat'leths is so they don't have to fight in hand to hand.
But yes, I agree that being in a suit of Stormie armor does not render you completely invulnerable to physical attacks. It does help quite a bit, but it's not perfect.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

You're missing the essential purpose of Stormtrooper armor, which is to defend against shell fragments and poison gas. The reason they carry blaster rifles instead of, say, bat'leths is so they don't have to fight in hand to hand.

Thanks for moving the goalposts. The fact that Stormtroopers are trained to fight with firearms is completely irrelevant to the fact the effectiveness of their armor is dramatically reduced if they are forced into hand to hand combat with an opponent such as a borg drone.

But yes, I agree that being in a suit of Stormie armor does not render you completely invulnerable to physical attacks. It does help quite a bit, but it's not perfect.

Concession accepted.

[Feil]

Didn't the Borg have some sort of wrist-mounted gun that fired little blobs of green glowie in a few episodes?

[Starglider]

Didn't the Borg have some sort of wrist-mounted gun that fired little blobs of green glowie in a few episodes?

Only in 'Descent', which weren't part of the main borg collective, and in non-canon spin-off materials (i.e. Voyager Elite Force - they had to give the borg wrist blasters otherwise the Borg levels would've been a complete turkey shoot).

[NecronLord]

Only in 'Descent', which weren't part of the main borg collective, and in non-canon spin-off materials (i.e. Voyager Elite Force - they had to give the borg wrist blasters otherwise the Borg levels would've been a complete turkey shoot).

Sadly, you're incorrect.

Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One, was equipped with such a device, wrist-mounted and seems to have always been equipped with it. It seems likely that they do have them.

But the only time Seven actually fired it was when her ship crashed and she was cut off from the collective. The rest of the time, the borg appear to be too stupid to use the weapons they apparently do have. It appears their glorious collective network is wired up for maximum possible latency or something.

[Master_Baerne]

[quote="Pint0 Xtreme"][quote="Master_Baerne"]You're missing the essential purpose of Stormtrooper armor, which is to defend against shell fragments and poison gas. The reason they carry blaster rifles instead of, say, bat'leths is so they don't have to fight in hand to hand./quote]

Thanks for moving the goalposts. The fact that Stormtroopers are trained to fight with firearms is completely irrelevant to the fact the effectiveness of their armor is dramatically reduced if they are forced into hand to hand combat with an opponent such as a borg drone.[quote]

Okay. Sorry, for moving the goalposts; my point is that the Borg are unlikely to penetrate stormtrooper armor, and that them getting close enough to try is equally unlikely. I think we agree?

[Starglider]

Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One, was equipped with such a device, wrist-mounted and seems to have always been equipped with it. It seems likely that they do have them.

I saw the episode when it first aired, but not since, and I forgot that detail - sorry. This does make rationalising the non-appearance of wrist blasters in First Contact pretty hard. I suppose they could need specialist parts that weren't available on the Ent-E and couldn't be easily replicated, but that's a weak rationalisation given how easily they seemed to make all the rest of their tech out of available parts (plus if they'd had an ounce of real adaptivity, rather than just technobabble tricks, they could've just incorporated Federation phaser emitters and stunned attacking crew).

But the only time Seven actually fired it was when her ship crashed and she was cut off from the collective. The rest of the time, the borg appear to be too stupid to use the weapons they apparently do have.

The only obvious reason I can see would be that they don't want to damage potential drones; AFAIK the things don't have a stun setting, though there's no real reason why not given how common and low-tech stun weapons are in the ST galaxy. That doesn't work as a reason for why they don't use them for suppressive fire (probably too creative for the Borg anyway) or when they're losing drones left, right and centre due to ranged attacks.

[Lord Relvenous]

I too concede the point that stormtrooper armor is not a suit of invulerability, and that in some cases (neck snapping, body throwing) helps very little. I did, however, discuss HtH becasue to discuss full capabilities is silly, the Borg get ass-raped by blaster fire, and the mention of the Borg throwing red shirts across the room.

Even if the Borg did posses and use wrist-blasters, would they use them as effectively as stormtroopers with blaster carbines? For some reason, the whole shambling about, not understanding the concept of cover, and inability to process mass fire tactics makes this seem unlikely.

[Starglider]

Even if the Borg did posses and use wrist-blasters, would they use them as effectively as stormtroopers with blaster carbines?

Of course not. Plus they have the standard Trek lack of heavy weapons and armour support. This is why I didn't bother mentioning the wrist-blasters in the Borg vs Gungans thread; even if the Borg had them and used them, it wouldn't make a lot of difference (other than perhaps the Gungans not breaking out in laughter when they saw the Borg infantry advancing).

[Feil]

Maybe their server has really bad lag and they can't hit anything more than two meters away anyway, so they just decided not to use them....

Or maybe they're just Space Zombies. Which is more likely.

[OmegaGuy]

Well one theory I always had was that they always seem to freak out whenever someone damages the insides of one of their ships (all the drones in the area immediately start attacking anyone who fires a phaser at a wall or ceiling), so maybe they don't use them on their own ships because they don't want stray fire to damage their own ship.

However that doesn't explain why they don't use them in other situations.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Okay. Sorry, for moving the goalposts; my point is that the Borg are unlikely to penetrate stormtrooper armor, and that them getting close enough to try is equally unlikely. I think we agree?

Of course. I would love to see a fight between a group of Borg drones and a group of Stormtroopers purely for the amusement factor of seeing the Borg blown to bits by Stormtroopers.

[ShadowSonic]

What about Stormtroopers versus the Descent Borg? The ones with the built-in disruptors and just wanted to kill you, rather than assimilate you?

[Cao Cao]

What about Stormtroopers versus the Descent Borg? The ones with the built-in disruptors and just wanted to kill you, rather than assimilate you?

Those Borg have lousy wrist-mounted disruptors that must be horrible to aim with. Plus they're undisciplined, reacting to a comrade's death with undue amounts of emotion. Which is fine against Redshirts, but when faced with Stormtroopers who do not falter even if the guy right next to them is blasted, they wouldn't stand a chance.

[Starglider]

Those Borg have lousy wrist-mounted disruptors that must be horrible to aim with.

That mounting would suck for humans, but it's quite plausible for cyborgs. If you can measure joint angles precisely then a one meter articulated separation between the barrel and the targeting sensor (optical scanner eye replacement, presumably) doesn't matter, particularly if the weapon has low or no recoil and the limb is mechanically enhanced with high-precision actuators and/or stabilisation systems.

Plus they're undisciplined, reacting to a comrade's death with undue amounts of emotion. Which is fine against Redshirts, but when faced with Stormtroopers who do not falter even if the guy right next to them is blasted, they wouldn't stand a chance.

Yes, they still die horribly, particularly given that their personal shields seem to work using phaser-specific technobabble (thus phasers working for a few shots before they 'adapt' to the frequency) and would likely be useless against SW weapons (even if they could 'adapt' to blasters, an E-Web should easily be able to brute-force them anyway).

[Master_Baerne]

Okay. Sorry, for moving the goalposts; my point is that the Borg are unlikely to penetrate stormtrooper armor, and that them getting close enough to try is equally unlikely. I think we agree?

Of course. I would love to see a fight between a group of Borg drones and a group of Stormtroopers purely for the amusement factor of seeing the Borg blown to bits by Stormtroopers.

Right, then. Funny how arguments can break out between people who, when push comes to shove, agreed with each other in the first place.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Right, then. Funny how arguments can break out between people who, when push comes to shove, agreed with each other in the first place.

Uh... you know what? Forget it. If you can't tell the difference between the original argument about Stormtrooper armor effectiveness in hand to hand combat with a Borg drone and something totally irrelevant, such as Stormtrooper armor effectiveness in ranged combat, then I'm not going to even bother explaining how wrong your statement was.

[Feil]

Yes, they still die horribly, particularly given that their personal shields seem to work using phaser-specific technobabble (thus phasers working for a few shots before they 'adapt' to the frequency) and would likely be useless against SW weapons (even if they could 'adapt' to blasters, an E-Web should easily be able to brute-force them anyway).

Or blasters set to full power, presumably. Isn't there a quote somewhere about one set to maximum being used to blast through the sealed hatch of Leia's space ship in A New Hope?

[Starglider]

Isn't there a quote somewhere about one set to maximum being used to blast through the sealed hatch of Leia's space ship in A New Hope?

I assumed that was either a breeching charge or a specialised heavy weapon on the TIE boarding craft. Blasters blow big chunks out of cheap concrete easily, but SW spacecraft materials are really tough. But it's possible I suppose. Would anyone who has the novelisation like to confirm?