Okay, I'll hit all the examples:
dave98472 wrote:
Shadow of Malevolence (S1, Ep3)
- One squadron of Y-Wing bombers (less than a dozen) sent to destroy Separatist flagship’s bridge
And? Destroying the bridge = destroying ship? If you're thinking shields, recall we've seen numerous examples of canon and official shield piercing technologies.
Cloak of Darkness (S1, Ep9)
- Boarding ships, use only their wedge shape to boar through the hull of Republic cruisers with ease and release troops
- Thermal charges on cruisers generators completely disable ship
How does a ship deliberately designed for hull penetration invalidate anything on the website? You do realize ships hulls aren't uniformly armored, right?
And thermal charges on generators or part of the reactor system? how is that problematic? If you fuck up the systems on a reactor (say the power routing, storage, or the cooling systems.) it is probably going to do Bad Things to the reactor. Again, how is this contradictory since energy just does not magically disappear.
Lair of Grievous (S1, Ep10)
- Grievous’ pistol cleanly slices holes in Jedi Nahdar Vebb, no other thermal damage
Which is what some kinds of bullets do forms some pistols. How is this neccesarily a problem? And how many holes?
Nevermind blasters can have more than one kind of potential damage mechanism at work to improve lethality.
Trespass (S1, Ep15)
- Clonetrooper armor penetrated by hand-thrown spears
composition and momentum of the spears? What kind of head?
Besides even if we accept this sa true, so what? That just tells us clonetrooper armor plating is perhaps modular. Either different size/thickness of plates (trading protection for mobility and light weight) or armor can be optimized against different kinds of attacks (better against projectiles instead of blasters, or maybe explosions/shrapnel rather than high momentum attacks like a knife thrust, etc.)
Blue Shadow Virus (S1, Ep17)
- Clone troopers infected by Blue Shadow virus despite wearing helmets, they later remove helmets possibly indicating helmets have no effect at screening viruses
You mean that magical virus that seemed able to move around in a non-gaseous manner under its own power?
Besides I'm pretty sure on the Malevolence arc we saw clonetroopers operating in vaccuum (escape pod and shit)
Storm over Ryloth (S1, Ep19)
- Republic cruisers heavily damaged by droid fighters ramming them
- Admiral Yularen desperately calls for fighter support during combat, indicating that the fighters are a significant threat
- Republic strategy is heavily reliant of bombers, not cruiser mounted turbo-laser guns – Marg Sabl closure maneuver
1st - we don't know how many fighters hit, what they may release on detonation (they exploded on impact), or even if they had been deliberately rigged as kamikaze ships (warheads, etc.)
2nd and 3rd - This is hardly new, since we saw the same things in the movies. The matter is never whether "fighters are useless" or "fighters are useful", its the degree and manner of danger they represent. The fact that fighters and capital ships are used equally (including battleships) indicates while attack craft can be a useful component, they are not by themselves decisive in the same sense that aircraft and missiles rendered battleships and other large warships obsolete.
Brain Invaders (S2, Ep 8 )
- Table used as cover for blasterfire from clonetroopers
A table that is a good 2-3 inches thick and made of unknown material but presumably metal (due to sparks). Melting or vaping it could require hundreds of kilojoules, but a great deal of that depends on setting and firing mode (is it more thermal, or is it going for mechanical/explosive damage like a grenade? The latter can do considerable damage for very little energy, and won't necceasarily react the same way to all materials.)
Besides, we've seen blaster fire do considerable explosive damage (blowing apart droid heads in a single shot, like in the episode where the renegade trooper/farmer is attacked by droids.)
Grievous Intrigue (S2, Ep9)
- Numerous boarding procedures are shown, at airlocks, however only hand weapons were used, no specialized anti-personnel stations, etc.
Um, well the first example was a Jedi ordering his troops to the escape pods to deal with Grievous personally, and we didnt even see much of that either or the circumstances since it happeneda t the very beginning and was a few minutes. I don't see how you can make sweeping generalizations there.
The second one I can recall (Grievous boarding Obi-Wan's ship) had Obi-Wan wanting to hold grievous as a diversion, so they want him to board rathre than trying to keep him off.
In any event we know canonically that such defenses exist. We've seen internal guns inside Tradfed battleships (inside the hanger - TPM), we've seen sections of the deathstar that had automated defenses (ANH), and we know that gas attacks and forcefield defenses will be used (TPM and ROTS). I really don't see what this is supposed to "prove".
Death Trap (S2, Ep20)
- Shots fired from a blaster stolen from a clonetrooper at a reactor command console lead to the destruction of a Republic cruiser
Um what does the command console control exactly? If it was for the cooling system that very well may have fucked up the settings, which may lead to all sorts of Bad Things happening in the reactor (What happens if the cooling system is operating at less than optimal levels? What if there's a sudden spike or surge in the reactor or increase in power and the cooling system can't compensate? Etc etc..)
There were a few that I just can’t place right now. I will look into it more:
- Clonetrooper’s standard weapons (not only Grievous’s pistol) blowing clean hole in flesh/armor, no thermal damage
There's no blood. That suggests cauterization happens with the flesh. I don't know what "thermal damage" you expect.
Besides as I noted above with the table, thermal effects aren't the only (or neccesarily most desirable) damage mechanism (blasters blowing things apart without neccesarily melting them.)
- I seem to recall ALL space combat being performed at, by the standards posted on Mr. Wong’s site, would be close range. But then again, I’m not sure if I have a discerning enough eye to make this judgment.
What does range matter? The nature of battle (often fighting around fixed territory like planets) as well as the nature fo technology (hyperdrive) means that combat can occur at virtually any arbitrary range chosen. We know hyperdrives can excute INSANELY precise jumps into battle.
Some of these are obviously nitpicks and directly contradicted by canon, like the stormtrooper’s weapons having thermal effects and penetrating a table as was clearly demonstrated by the “slight blaster malfunction”
in the Ep4 detention center and I’ll concede that the space combat range is contradicted by the dialogue/visuals in the Endor space battle in Ep6. Also, there are somethings that really don't seem to fit with the general 'theme' of SW that I'd be willing to dismiss out of hand like Boba Fett's single-handed destruction of the Republic cruiser by shooting a console (gosh, even the Enterprise wasn't that bad). But I am wondering whether some of these episodes might contradict some conclusions about Imperial military efficacy as demonstrated on Mr. Wong’s website, specifically:
What contradictions? We dont go by specific examples, we go by the bulk of the evidence, modified by the hierarchy of sources. One example, even a higher source, does not neccesarily or automatically invalidate the bulk of evidence existing. SW canon has long made it a policy of retconning even seeming contradictions without completely tossing away the source.
Clonetrooper armor --> Stormtrooper armor
- Vulnerable to spear, unlike described on website
- Does not have self-contained life support system, vulnerable to biological weapons
Actually ST armor has shown weaknesses to spears before in comics, and other sources. That just tells us something we knew already - like RL body armor, you can customize it to different levels of protection and/or mobility depending on circumstance. Hardly shocking. While you always want to have the best possible protection, any soldier can tell you that carrying a heavy load in combat, especially for prolonged periods, is damn uncomfortable or even painful. Armour is a big part of that weight in modern combat gear.
Republic/Separatist cruisers --> Imperial Star Destroyers
- Vulnerable to weapons fire from bombers, some battles depend primarily upon fighter/bombers
Imperial STar destroyers aren't totally immune from fighter attacks either. It depends wholly on circumstance and the nature of "vulnerability". Being able to be threatend by a ship does not mean they can singlehandedly destroy it.
- Can sustain damage from physical impacts: ramming, boarding vessels, etc.
Big deal. Imperial ships can too. Depends entirely on where hit, quantity of attacks, and so on. Not that either boarding attacks or the droid kamikaze's neccesarily rely on pure KE/momentum to achieve their ends.
- Not normally using specialized anti-personnel weapons (E-Web) to defend against boarding parties.
The example you cited had two examples where the invading force was deliberately allowed inside without much if any resistance, independent of any other considerations. I don't see what this proves.
The real reason I’m posting is to ask you guys basically what you think of all this not to be confrontational. I’m open to criticism, corrections, opinions, etc.
I dont see that thi sis a big deal. I know that certian folks make a huge deal about the "contradictions" imposed by the Clone Wars series, but those sorts really don't give a damn about consistency anyhow - they'll twist anything around into an excuse to suit their ends.
