What if the Empire invaded modern day Earth?

[Connor MacLeod]

FYI, Connor, you were person E in the above quote. Your position is good about the whole Death Star / hypermatter thing.

Alright.

But, I don't find any numbers plausible for Star Wars numbers; I'm agnostic on the subject. Of course, as I pointed out several pages ago, I do not have to provide my own numbers to punch holes in someone else's numbers - demanding that I do is misplacing the burden of proof.

Not when you have made claims in this thread. EX: Page 2 of the thread. Nor have you actually outlined any of oyur criticisms of Mike's "calcs" in any great detail beyond "I find them flawed and dislike them."

Finally, I'm not sure where the hell you get my own authority out of this. Here's my positions again:

Look, if I make a claim on this board or anywhere, and someone challenges me on it, I anticipate that I will be expected to go ot whatever length is needed to rpove it. That may involve quoting sources (books, websites whatever.) It may involve doing claculations, or explaining the steps in the method. Anything. People will not think like me nor neccesarily comprehend what I am saying (or may not agree based on the fact I said ti alone) so more work must be done. What you have done is make a bunch of assertions but that is IT. If you were stating an opinion that is one thing, but you're arguing so it's clearly not an opinion.

Edit: If you want an example of what I am speaking of, press me on the X-wing acceleration issue for Yavin and specify how much evidence will be neccesary to back up the point. (screen grabs of the movies showing the timing? a video of the events from start to finish? links to the SW wiki? a screenshot of the page from the EU material showing how large Yavin is? Etc. Just bear in mind that demands for evidence can and will be a double edged sword.)

1) 1,000 g acceleration for X-Wings is bullshit because there isn't any evidence whatsoever to support it. Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, however.

Actually I gather he inferred it from a contuous timing of the Battle of Yavin at the end of the movies. That seems to last around 10 minutes or so (from start to finish) Now, that still doesn't make it sound, but its a valid inference from the evidence (although the scene may not be continuous, it may actually be multiple scene cuts occupying the same timeframe, which means that the travel time to the DS was longer) but its not going to change the acceleration figure dramatically (maybe cut it to a bit less than half at worst.)

As far as the distance? It's given in the WEG source material. It's long been canonical, unless you can think of something in the movies which is meant to disprove it.

2) Assuming the Death Star tech scales down linearly with volume may or may not be true. Given that apparently nobody has demonstrated it makes me lean toward it not being true, but given our ignorance of hypermatter as well as other Star Wars universe engineering difficulties, it could be.

Ok.

3) The main site's asteroid calculations have mistakes a high school student would have been sharply marked down for. Adding on to that, their huge number of assumptions means they hold no weight. This doesn't necessarily mean they are wrong - see the fallacy fallacy.

Again, you havne't shown this. You basically said "I dont like the methodology" but left it at that. Other people (as already noted) have done similar calcs in a similar way and I know for a fact they can and do interact (Mike and Brian both know curtis quite well, for the record, so there's sharing there. ) Hell, Mike even gave Turbolaser commentaries (Brian young's own TL site) a home. I also know once that Greg (CmdrWilkens) had his own turbolaser calcs somewhere from the ASVS days.

It's fine if you disagree with the methodology, but actually having PROVEN it wrong when you haven't actually done so is another story.

As far as the TL stuff goes, Mike is more than aware of the other calcs, and to my knowledge he does not dispute the validity of the other calcs.

[Serafina]

Ammo can be carried on truck transports. The US forces can establish a forward base where more fuel can be transported in.

Of course it can. You are ignoring the point: It's slower, more expensive and more vulnerable than doing so by rail. Forward bases do not change that.

Which goes both ways.

It doesn't. Because the imperials already have their supplies there.

I didn't make the claim.

Really? You never said: "And maybe we DO have enough trucks"? Sounds like a claim to me.

Paint 500,000 stormtrooper armors, 100 AT-ATs (well, maybe not them since AT-ATs are easy to spot even with camouflage) and 1000 AT-STs? Where are they going to get that much paint?

Should not be too difficult, just raid a city.
Even if they don't bother, that's no advantage for earth troops, since camouflage won't defeat Storm Trooper sensors.

Did you even read my post?

Yes i did. It was utterly ignorant, just like all your posts. And also stupid.#

South America is livable, has cities, ports, railroads, rainforests with lots of potential food and water and such. Antarctica is uninhabited by humans other than a few researchers that occasionally go there to do reaserch.

Food and water are the least concern to a modern army. At the point where you can't supply those, you were already screwed long before anyway.

"a very limited number"?

Ooh, arguing semantics on a tangential point.

Ok, design=/=production...and?

And? Design is not really defined by industrial capacity.

I didn't claim that we could mass produce ICBMS as easily as we mass produced sherman tanks, but it wouldn't take years to simply start a production line if we really needed to start producing non nuclear ICBMs.

Their production line is more complicated, fool. Get some understanding of the english language and the real world.

1. Prove that they can detect them.
2. Having to move around constantly at night when you're trying to sleep would have quite a bit of an effect on morale, wouldn't it?

We can detect them today, it's called radar. And did you ever heard of guard posts? Heck, any modern army has to be prepared to move at night.

Actually, I searched Shylka on google.

No you didn't. So did i, and it instantly turns up an answer.

Then why bring it up?

Again, you are a moron. Ever heard of combined arms?

You haven't proven that it does.

See above. It's also heat-seaking.

Ewoks are not wild animals, btw.

So? They were seen as such by the imperials, like we would see chimps.

"Nothing can scratch the imperial force" - bullshit. What about a 50 caliber bullet to the head?

Their force, not individual soldiers, retard. A few snipers can't stop an army, nor damage it seriously.

"we can fuck you over whenever we want" - maybe, until they run out of fuel.

Oooh, the fuel issue again

Strawman.

Hardly, since you were talking about snipers all the time.

You know that there's more than simply "large ports" and "fishing ports", right?

Of course there is. But you can only use the large ports. Everything else is irrelevant.

Which would put to shame the "zomg imperials give USA blaster to try and reverse engineer and USA is happy and leaves them alone!" idea, doesn't it?

Idiot. That's not the same as sending millions of soldiers to their death.

Is this seriously coming from the same poster that talked about the tie fighters easily subduing our armed forces and that they only need the tie fighters to "win"?

Moron. We are talking about order of magnitude differences here, and about terror tactics. That was the main point of strategic bombing in WWII as well, breaking the germans will to fight. It did not work there, because they saw some chance to win. Such a chance does not exist, nor would it be perceived, by the earth against the imperials. Mostly because they have no actual reason to fight them at all.

The Rebel Alliance was capable of (and did, and won) threatening the Empire, and yet the two sides went to war for quite a while.

As i said, you do not grasp basic politics.

What about US Navy Seals and other special ops forces? And why would the locals even be willing to help out? Leaving conscripts to go about hinting guerrillas would cause mass desertions and "deaths".

Oooh, special forces wanking
The imperials have a very efficient motivation tool: "Do what we want or we kill your families".

[Star Wars 888]

Of course it can. You are ignoring the point: It's slower, more expensive and more vulnerable than doing so by rail. Forward bases do not change that.

I still don't understand you're point. I already knew that a supply line without railroads and instead using trucks would be more expensive and vulnerable. I didn't claim otherwise.

It doesn't. Because the imperials already have their supplies there.

Much of which they cannot renew.

Really? You never said: "And maybe we DO have enough trucks"? Sounds like a claim to me.

Did you read the phrase that I was responding to in that part of the post?

Should not be too difficult, just raid a city.

And then find a bunch of paint and get stormtroopers to paint their armor. That would take a while.

Even if they don't bother, that's no advantage for earth troops, since camouflage won't defeat Storm Trooper sensors.

IDK if it was you with whom I was discussing those assassin dudes killing a bunch of stormtroopers with, but whoever I was discussing that with claimed that the assassins (who used pre industrial age technology) avoided the sensors because they were "really good at sneaking" or something.

Yes i did. It was utterly ignorant, just like all your posts. And also stupid.#

Yet your rebuttal actually stated what I stated in my post.

Food and water are the least concern to a modern army.

Not in the Antarctica scenario.

At the point where you can't supply those, you were already screwed long before anyway.

You're contradicting with your original assertion.

Ooh, arguing semantics on a tangential point.

Your post was vague by "limited number".

And? Design is not really defined by industrial capacity.

Ok, design is not really defined by industrial capacity...and?

Their production line is more complicated, fool. Get some understanding of the english language and the real world.

Of course, you don't bother to actually, say, elaborate.

We can detect them today, it's called radar. And did you ever heard of guard posts? Heck, any modern army has to be prepared to move at night.

Good point on the radar statement, but ROFL at how guard posts are supposed to guard against missiles.

No you didn't. So did i, and it instantly turns up an answer.

Yet the results didn't seem to explain what it really was and what its purpose was.

Again, you are a moron. Ever heard of combined arms?

Which the invasion force has little of.

See above. It's also heat-seaking.

Yet it was also reserved for shock troopers, which aren't in this scenario.

So? They were seen as such by the imperials, like we would see chimps.

You act as though imperials were some sort of superior, higher life form

Their force, not individual soldiers, retard. A few snipers can't stop an army, nor damage it seriously.

Actually it can damage an army that's as short on logistics as the invasion force is, and I didn't claim that snipers could stop an army.

Oooh, the fuel issue again

Upset that you can't counter it?

Hardly, since you were talking about snipers all the time.

Yet I didn't claim that snipers could stop an army.

Of course there is. But you can only use the large ports. Everything else is irrelevant.

Says who?

Idiot. That's not the same as sending millions of soldiers to their death.

Yet if the imperials build orbital space stations and a moon base like you with your imperial-wanking claim, more than millions would die.

Moron. We are talking about order of magnitude differences here, and about terror tactics. That was the main point of strategic bombing in WWII as well, breaking the germans will to fight. It did not work there, because they saw some chance to win. Such a chance does not exist, nor would it be perceived, by the earth against the imperials. Mostly because they have no actual reason to fight them at all.

Actually, if your claim of them building orbital space stations and moon bases is correct, humanity's freedom would be at stake.

As i said, you do not grasp basic politics.

Says who?

Oooh, special forces wanking

Oooh, imperial wanking

The imperials have a very efficient motivation tool: "Do what we want or we kill your families".

How will they possibly carry out that threat? PR problems, manpower problems, finding said family problems, stormtroopers actually obeying that problems and such would happen.

[Serafina]

I still don't understand you're point. I already knew that a supply line without railroads and instead using trucks would be more expensive and vulnerable. I didn't claim otherwise.

The point, idiot, is that earth can only supply a very limited number of troops since their supply lines will be very limited.

Much of which they cannot renew.

'They have more than enough supplies as per you OP.

And then find a bunch of paint and get stormtroopers to paint their armor. That would take a while.

A couple of days at most.

IDK if it was you with whom I was discussing those assassin dudes killing a bunch of stormtroopers with, but whoever I was discussing that with claimed that the assassins (who used pre industrial age technology) avoided the sensors because they were "really good at sneaking" or something.

Star Wars asssassins. Not modern earth asssassins.

Not in the Antarctica scenario.

Ignoring (or more likely not getting) my point. Food is only a small part of the supply line and the one most easily supplied.

You're contradicting with your original assertion.

Bullshit. When you can not even supply food, your supply line was so sparse that you can also not supply ammo, fuel, parts etc. Which means your army is screwed anyway.

Your post was vague by "limited number".

As i said, you are arguing semantics on an unimportant points. A classical red herring.

Ok, design is not really defined by industrial capacity...and?

And you were talking about industrial capacity. In other words, that was a non sequitur.

Good point on the radar statement, but ROFL at how guard posts are supposed to guard against missiles.

Yes they are. Because i was talking about always keeping soldiers at the radar with a shifts system.

Yet the results didn't seem to explain what it really was and what its purpose was.

Oh, really?Second hit from above, and it's obviously neither a river nor a town.

Which the invasion force has little of.

AS per you saying so.

Yet it was also reserved for shock troopers, which aren't in this scenario.

They only need a tiny number of those launchers compared to the size of the whole army to defeat all of earths airforces.
Oh, wait, your OP was retared. Basically, it's "let's take half a million guys with only assault rifles and 500 tanks, but no jeeps, artillery, support vehicles, IFVs, command vehicles, support drones, trucks, machine guns, rifles or any other equipement." In other words, a totally moronic force composition.

You act as though imperials were some sort of superior, higher life form

They certainly saw themselves as such compared to ewoks.

Actually it can damage an army that's as short on logistics as the invasion force is, and I didn't claim that snipers could stop an army.

*yawn* Nice backpedalling, wanker.

Upset that you can't counter it?

I did. Others did. Your OP did.

Says who?

Military experts. Logistics experts. A basic understanding of these matters.

Yet if the imperials build orbital space stations and a moon base like you with your imperial-wanking claim, more than millions would die.

And they know that how? And the imperials would not use those if they keep quiet. The USA also lived with the USSR and China having nukes.

Actually, if your claim of them building orbital space stations and moon bases is correct, humanity's freedom would be at stake.

See above.

Says who?

A person who knows at least basic politics. But hey, let's see if you can find someone who agress with your "resistance at all costs"-bullshit.

Oooh, imperial wanking

Where? Special forces are good guerillias, but they still can't defeat armies.

How will they possibly carry out that threat? PR problems, manpower problems, finding said family problems, stormtroopers actually obeying that problems and such would happen.

March in a village. Round up the children and women. Tell the men to go and kill those guerillias. You only need a couple of stormtroopers for that.

[Batman]

...What freaking PR problems? Yeah, they'll look like bad guys. BFD. I mean that TOTALLY nixes that tactic which is why it never ever worked in the real world. Oh wait.

[Lord Insanity]

IDK about that. Although their operational ceiling is far greater than that of any space craft we currently have, if we use the 1200 kph (not mph), missiles may be able to catch up with them before they can ascend beyond the missile's range. Although that would bring in the question as to how durable the tie fighters are.

In The Empire Strikes Back we see TIE fighters chase the Falcon from Cloud City into space in a matter of minutes at most. Even if we assume Bespin only has the escape velocity of Earth, (instead of the gas giant it is) that means a TIE can at least duplicate the feat of a real Space Shuttle. At the end of the solid rocket boost stage (about 2 minutes after lift-off) a shuttle is going almost 5000 kph. The 1200 kph figure for TIEs is contradicted by the movie and is therefore wrong. Even the 9000 kph figure might be too slow for escaping a gas giant as fast as we see happen in the movie. It is important to note that a TIE does this as effortlessly as we fly real airplanes today and there is no reason to assume they can't do this multiple times on one "fuel" charge. A TIE can reach any point on the planet in minutes by virtue of being able to go orbital. In one hour the TIEs could completely destroy every significant military asset on Earth and there would be nothing we could do about it. While the ground force would have no way of conquering the now mostly defenseless planet they wouldn't have too. No one would risk the chance that the TIEs still have a few hours of operational "fuel" left.

[Surlethe]

To show acceleration, you must demonstrate distance, time, and initial and ending speeds.

Uniform acceleration over the distance given and between v1 and v2 is the lower-limit assumption, because otherwise at some point you will be accelerating at a rate greater than that given by uniform acceleration (c.f. mean value theorem). Note that this does not account for duration of acceleration; it may be that the x-wings are capable of great accelerations for short bursts and then inertial for a long period thereafter.

Edit: re. the towers, it would make sense for them to be traveling relatively slowly; low momentum means greater ability to accelerate, so they can correct course if they're hit, e.g. When they're running down the trench, how fast are they going as measured by trench wall features?

[Batman]

@Lord Insanity
Been brought up many times and blithely IGNORED many times before by moron888.
Canon speed figures for Wars fighters-ignored.
The fact that they can reach escape velocity in under a minute-ignored.
The fact that they have interplanetary range and go up to and back down from high fractional c velocities-ignored.
Fact that they have KT level firepower and will continue to do so for a long time even with a small fraction of a similarly ludicrously small fuel load-ignored.
The TIEs completely ruin his delusion that Earth can actually fight back effectively and might even convince Earth to simply accept Imperial domintations of the americas so he blithely ignores all points proving they do and clings to his idiotic 1200kph figure and whines 'TIE endurance is undetermined' when the entirety of canon says he'1 full of it. 1200kph means 20 minutes to LEO. TIEs reach escape velocity in less than one and as mentioned Wars fighters (or Wars CAPITAL SHIPS for that matter) have straight line accelerations measured in thousands of gs.
But since all this ruins his already abysmally stupid scenario (the OP force mix makes no sense, either it was designed by a planner considerably stupider than the chair I'm sitting on or ROB pulled its various elements together at random) he just deals with it by NOT dealing with it despite having been shown-endlessly-why his 1200kph figure and the 'lol low fuel for TIEs) is hogwash.
The express purpose of this thread seems to be to show that Earth could defeat an Imperial invasion and he'll see to it that we can no matter how much canon information he has to ignore or how much he has to nerf the ALREADY idiotically put together Imperial forces or wank Earth's abilities (thereby ironically enough taking away our own real chance to win, namely nukes).

ANH-9 seconds for the Falcon to go to space.
ANH-21-23 seconds from liftoff to the first space shot where the X-Wings were well away from Yavin 4, less than a minute to the Death Star's 'magnetic field', about a minute and a half until they begin engaging the Death Star's defenses

[Batman]

ANH-21-23 seconds from liftoff to the first space shot where the X-Wings were well away from Yavin 4,

Bullshit, there was a scene cut and no urgency. See any of my like 10,000 posts about this.

The evidence for that scene cut affecting the sequence being realtime being? We know it was its was 30 min to range when they cut from the Alliance briefing room to Tarkin and Vader, they cut back to Yavin 4, and by the time we get to the post-launch CIC scene it's 15 minutes to range. Nothing says the time passed post launch as opposed to prior to it.

[Surlethe]

So for a lower limit on acceleration take 30 min as the time they took to go from Yavin IV to the DS, eh?

[Batman]

Ghetto edit:
But no doubt you're going to argue there was no urgency to Han trying to get away from Tattooine in ANH where the Falcon is in space in 9 seconds or Luke getting away from Hoth in ESB were he was spacegoing in under a second (which WAS one I left out because it was clearly a scene cut that involved SOME time having passed).
28 seconds for the first transport cum escort from Hoth to get past the Star Destroyers. But they were probably hanging around making fun of the Imperials too. It's not like they were trying to run away or something.
1:08 for the Falcon to be trying to run away from an ISD and its TIEs with Hoth nowhere to bee seen.
Dagobah 'landing'-0:47 from orbit to grounding.
Dagobah departure-20 seconds. 25 If you want to go with him swinging off to space as opposed to already obviously having beaten escape velocity.

[Batman]

So for a lower limit on acceleration take 30 min as the time they took to go from Yavin IV to the DS, eh?

30 minutes minus the time that passed from that comment to them actually launching, but for a seriously conventional one, yes.

[Lord Insanity]

Do you know what escape velocity is?

TIP: the space shuttle can not achieve Earth escape velocity.

Well I thought shuttles were originally designed to be able to go around the moon like the apollo capsules. Obviously NASA considers it far to risky to use the shuttle in that manner and maybe that capability never materialized in the final design. Maybe whatever I read that about the shuttle several years ago was some worthless propaganda, I don't know. Regardless of whether the shuttle can achieve escape velocity, that doesn't change the fact that we can safely assume a TIE can do at least what a shuttle does. If anything that makes the 1200kph figure for TIEs even more laughably wrong.

@ Batman. Yes I know '888 has had the numbers pointed out to him but I didn't see anyone point out the actual movie scene that involved TIEs specifically. That way he can't go "but that's not a TIE" or "that's not from the movie." Any further usage of the 1200 kph figure on his part is flat out dishonest trolling and can no longer be given any benefit of the doubt.

[Batman]

The evidence for that scene cut affecting the sequence being realtime being?

The characters don't act like they are in any kind of rush. I've said this about 50,000 times in this thread already. Why would they stop and chat - several times - if they were mere minutes away from certain doom?

Why WOULDN'T they if doom WERE certain? If there's nothing you can do why NOT waste time facing an enemy you can't do beans about anyway?
The point is they DIDN'T think they were doomed. They thought they had a chance to take the DS out, even if it was a very small one.

Luke stops to talk to Han. He stops and talks with Leia. He walk and talks with Biggs. They stop to chat with the leader. He stops to have a brief chat with the droid tech.
In the background, there's no urgency at all - you see several pilots just lingering around chatting. There's ships sitting there without guys working on them or getting in them.

Maybe because they know there'll be PLENTY OF TIME to get to the DS thanks to the ACTUAL CANON ACCELERATIONS?

a) They had time to spare; the launch didn't happen with the Death Star already there and coming right at them. The DS arrived in the system and found the X-Wings already in space, ready to go. The presentation in the movie is dramatic, not literal.

Violation of board rules.

Look, by now we all know you don't like Star Wars and it's your right no to. Simply stay out of discussions involving Star Wars. You do NOT get to redefine Wars canon no matter how much it offends your precious feelings about what PROPER SciFi SHOULD be like. UNTIL AND UNLESS THE MOVIES ACTUALLY CONTRADICT them the ICS numbers STAND.
You don't LIKE the Wars numbers, FINE. DON'T DEBATE WARS.

[Surlethe]

Maybe because they know there'll be PLENTY OF TIME to get to the DS thanks to the ACTUAL CANON ACCELERATIONS?

Dude, that's a circular argument.

[Batman]

The point is they DIDN'T think they were doomed. They thought they had a chance to take the DS out, even if it was a very small one.

They all would have been dead if Luke got into position just five seconds later! Or, if the Death Star fired here at the same speed they fired at Alderaan.

As evidenced by?
Alderaan was a single apparently moonless Earth-size planet. Yavin was a gas giant with apparently plently of moons to get in the way.

They cut it extremely closely.

As evidenced by-your say-so.

Maybe because they know there'll be PLENTY OF TIME to get to the DS thanks to the ACTUAL CANON ACCELERATIONS?

The movie disagrees. They survived thanks to pure luck at the last second.

I'm awaiting the calculations.

Violation of board rules.

That's fucking retarded. I guess there's actual yellow letters flying through the galaxy far far away too?

Concession accepted.
Look you can DISAGREE with Wars canon policy all you like. In case you haven't noticed a noticeable majority of the board population hates a good majority of the canon EU. Doesn't change the fact that FOR A VERSUS DEBATE canon rules apply. You work within canon or you get out. Nobody's MAKING you debate this.

Look, by now we all know you don't like Star Wars and it's your right no to.

Oh sure, questioning quack science is the same as hating the movies. This is a perfect example of the twisted world you Warsies live in. Movies aren't judged by their writing, or their acting, or anything like that. It is based solely upon how furiously you can masturbate to doctored firepower calcs.

Thanks for proving my point. You either don't understand, or what I'm continually considering to be more likely willfully ignoring SoD.
NO, THE PERFORMANCE OF TECHNOLOGY IN THOSE MOVIES IS NOT JUDGED BY THAT. That's what SoD is all about. A GT event happened, it happened.
You want to claim the firepower isn't there , SHOW it isn't. NOT whine the show's creators never meant for it to, it was never about the numbers but the story, SHOW THE CALCULATIONS ARE WRONG.

I pity you lot, I really do.

You could always, you know, LEAVE.

Simply stay out of discussions involving Star Wars. You do NOT get to redefine Wars canon no matter how much it offends your precious feelings about what PROPER SciFi SHOULD be like.

Uh huh. Can't beat the arguments? Just jump to irrelevant ad-hominems and screech GTFO.

'I' have REPEATEDLY shown evidence for CANON Star Wars performance (as have others before me). YOU have essentially ignored them because you don't LIKE them.
I don't particularly care how much Star Wars canon affronts your sense of what SHOULD be canon, it IS canon. Wars ships DO have 4 figure c accelerations on BOTH the starfighter and capship (for the asinine Wars definition) capship level, TT level firepower for a Clone Wars era troop transport...

[Batman]

As evidenced by?

Thanks for proving my point. You either don't understand, or what I'm continually considering to be more likely willfully ignoring SoD.

You don't even know what suspension of disbelief is. Tip: it doesn't mean Biblical literalism.

This is relevant how, exactly?

You want to claim the firepower isn't there , SHOW it isn't.

You want to claim that God isn't there. SHOW it isn't.

That would be a convincing argument if there WEREN'T tons of evidence for there BEING 4 figure c accelerations for starships (including capital ships), preposterous numbers for turbolaser firepower and reactor power output (and frankly Wars is pretty tame where that is concerned compared to other franchises). I'm not asking you to prove a negative .
SHOW THE ICS NUMBERS ARE WRONG.

NOT whine the show's creators never meant for it to, it was never about the numbers but the story, SHOW THE CALCULATIONS ARE WRONG.

"YOU DISAGREE WITH MY IDOL'S NUMBERS YOU JUST HATE STAR WARS GTFO"

Actually, that's a pretty accurate summation of what we'd think of somebody who BLITHELY ASSUMED THE NUMBERS ARE WRONG without EVER proving any evidence for it , yes.
{quote]
"Actually, I like the movie for a whole pile of qualities it has, but that has nothing to do with the calcs."
"STOP WHINING ABOUT THE CREATOR'S INTENT"
You Warsies watch a different set of movies than the rest of us, and then respond to a whole different argument than the rest of us.

No we don't, at least not around here. A TT is a TT is a TT. Either a franchise's weapon has that firepower or it doesn't.

'I' have REPEATEDLY shown evidence for CANON Star Wars performance (as have others before me). YOU have essentially ignored them because you don't LIKE them.

The difference is I watched the movies George Lucas made. You watched the movies Mike Wong and Curtis Saxton made.
Oh wait, they didn't make any movies.

Which is irrelevant. Show how the movies CONTRADICT the ICS numbers.

[PeZook]

Ancient armies were able to travel more than 400 kilometers (albeit with difficulty) without the use of railroads.

You realize it's really hard no to laugh at you, right? Travelling somewhere is one thing ; I could hike 400 kilometres in a week or so. It's when you want to be fighting a half million man sci-fi army at the end that things start to get hard.

Now, your OP said the Imperials start "in the middle of South America".

We can determine the middle in several ways:

By running two lines between extreme points of the continent, like so:



Or (more likely within the spirit of your OP), we chose a point that lies the furthest away from any shore, or the "geographical centre": that's a town called Chapada dos Guimaraes, located here.

The coordinates are -15° 26' 48.71", -55° 44' 33.66", if anybody wants to find it by themselves.

Let's take a look at the terrain: the Imperials start right in the middle of the province of Mato Grosso. They only have 400 kilometres to go towards the border with Bolivia ; There's only four large paved roads leading into the province, and no railway lines. The nearest large port town (for a certain value of large...) is Santos, Brazil, nearly 1700 kilometres away by road.

So...the Imperials are instantly in control of a province by virtue of *poof* appearing there, control all the roads leading into it, and the nearest port with significant loading/offloading facilities is 1700 kilometres away. Nearest railways terminus? Corumba, 674 kilometre by road. And it's a single line, easily cut, with limited capacity.

A WWII leg infantry division consumed about 100 tonnes of various supplies on the march, 200 tonnes when engaged in combat. So...it would need 20 trucks of various kinds (actually more, since cargo doesn't perfectly fit every available bit of space) to reach it daily, 40 when it comes in contact with Stormies.

Over 500 kilometres (to ease calcs), with an average marching speed of 30kmph, it's a 16 hour drive one way. Igoring loading and unloading time (big concession!), you'd need to run about 60 trucks daily just to march the leg division from the railway terminus in Corumba. The number goes up rapidly if stormies decide to cut MT-060, which they can do with trivial ease (the distance goes up 2x if you can't use that road)

On the other hand, stormies never have to go further than about 150 kilometres from their supply dump in order to maintain control of the roads going into the province. If we assume a Stormie division has the same requirements as one composed of Earthlings (not unreasonable: they need the same amount of food and water, their ammo and batteries are about the size and weight of ours, except they get more bang out of them), they'll be able to get away with using around five trucks (since one convoy could do two trips in a single day) outside of combat.

Of course, one light Earth division is going to get brutally massacred by the stormies in defensive positions. Armored divisions have orders of magnitude higher supply requirements.

Logistical costs of Iraq stemming from underdeveloped railway lines is part of the reason why that war is costing the US so much. Every bit of supplies, every litre of oil, spare tank engine or set of tracks will have to be trucked to the forward depots and then trucked again to the tank. These trucks need fuel, too: eventually, you have to run trucks to refuel the trucks which refuel the trucks that run the supplies. Costs skyrocket, vast snaking truck convoys clog up the roads, a single mechanical breakdown can hold up an entire army and one TIE fighter can annihilate your entire supply collumn in one strike.

I didn't claim that it wouldn't be costly.

There is a hard limit on the amount of force you can supply over a pipeline ; After that, throwing money and trucks at the problem only makes it worse. You'd be literally throwing men into the meat grinder a few divisions at a time.

Or maybe we DO have enough trucks.

It was just a possiblity, you will probably have enough organic transport to march a division or two. Sustaining them in combat is another thing entirely, of course.

They'd have AT-ATs to transport supplies. However, the invasion force would have a big of a logistical problem, if not more, than, say, the USA.

No, they wouldn't: Stormies would have a vastly shorter supply line with less stuff to move around compared to heavy units. And if AT-ATs are expected to move their supplies around, this means they have fuel to march tends of thousands of kilometres, which is excellent if you limit your ambitions.

Stormtrooper armor is generally white though. That makes it rather easy to spot them. Not exactly the ideal camouflage color for a forest terrain.

Camouflage armor is readily available with minimal preparation ; Yoda received his orders to go to Kashyyk hours before his departure, and his entire force was outfitted with camouflaged armor.

Yet if they are to set up this little empire that you claim they could, they'd still have to expand.

Since their entire supply dump is already in theatre, and their entire force is light infantry, they could do it with significantly more ease than a heavy, armored force that would have to be shipped into the theatre.

IDK about that. Although their operational ceiling is far greater than that of any space craft we currently have, if we use the 1200 kph (not mph), missiles may be able to catch up with them before they can ascend beyond the missile's range. Although that would bring in the question as to how durable the tie fighters are.

Which missiles? If they strike an invasion force from orbit, they'd need to be engaged by SM-3s, which are not deployed in large numbers and are designed to deal with ballistic targets. By the time other systems could engage, the ships would already be under attack with laser guns, and probably on fire. They'd strike the escorts simultaneously, while another group kills the transports. Before land-based or carrier-based aircraft could be vectored in for an intercept, the entire force would be on fire and out of action.

The problem is that modern ships are simply not laid out to handle attacks by orbital spacecraft ; Their defences and sensors are simply not oriented properly for that kind of threat.

Actually, there's a really big difference between the two analogies and it isn't proportional, basically, your Antarctica to South America invasion force logistics analogy was flawed.

You still don't get it...it was an analogy. Supposed to illustrate a point. Of course it's not identical!

That would depend on what "large" would be.

More than one or two replicas.

Yet industrial capabilities seem to scale linearly or possibly even faster than the resources required of producing new products does.

First, it doesn't work that way with hi-tech products, second, design times are only getting longer.

Sherman tanks were mass produced a year after a prototype was developed.

Sherman tanks are not re-entry vehicles, you can't ignore the entire prototype development phase, and you need to run the cycle several times for each ICBM type you want to rearm.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/New_Ame ... ngers.html

http://gizmodo.com/5518192/non+nuclear- ... 30-minutes

These very articles say it took the Navy a decade to develop and deploy non-nuclear warheads for some of its Tridents. The Minuteman force is still entirely nuclear, so you'd need to run the cycle for them as well (the warheads are completely different).

How does it feel to shoot yourself in the foot like that?

The invasion force wouldn't always be mobile. They'd have to take breaks, and AT-ATs aren't exactly hard targets to spot (stormtroopers and AT-STs would likely hang around the AT-ATs because the AT-ATs would provide defense and would be carrying the supplies. Unescorted AT-ATs can also be vulnerable due to their relatively vulnerable underbellies and "necks").

Heh...you think a "mobile target" is one that is always moving? Jesus christ...

Doesn't matter if they're slow ; They'd be impossible to track with enough accuracy to fire Tomahawks at them. The missiles would only come into play once the Imperials have a presence in a country they chose to take over.

Weren't we talking about a counter-invasion?

Yes, we were. It's not my fault you can't understand simple concepts. Let me spell it out for you again: the invasion force would only become vulnerable to cruise missiles if it settled down and conquered a territorry, and even then only fixed targets like structures, bridges, etc could be struck at all. Without GPS (wiped out by TIEs in the first 10 minutes of the war), you'd be unable to track combat units well enough.

What's that?

Other people already handled that question.

What did I miss?

Everything. Like the fact I never claimed stormtroopers could survive direct hits by artillery shells.

Did typical stormtroopers have radio jamming equipment? In FOTJ: Allies the Mandos and GA troopers laying siege the Jedi Temple had to bring in specialized jamming equipment, implying that jamming equipment isn't standard fare for typical Star Wars infantry.

So...the Mandos and GA troops required to use EW equipment, so they called for some and got it. This is supposed to be evidence SW armies don't conduct EW?

It's like saying a Soviet armored unit couldn't do electronic warfare because it had a specialized detachment to handle it, rather than equipping every tank for EW. Come on!

According to Wookieepedia the PLX-2M's tracking system works by tracking the gravity distortion fields that repulsorlifts make. We don't use repulsorlifts at the moment.

No, according to Wookiepedia, it has a dual guidance system. Also, according to the same page, the missiles are universal, cutting the number of required launchers by half.

So...your half a million man army doesn't have one launcher per batallion?

Except that it was a relatively huge ewok force coming rather quickly, and yet none of the stormtroopers seemed to even be suspicious or notice it.

And, in that case, wouldn't stormtroopers with their sensors mistake snipers for wild animals?

Ewoks were primitive savages native to the forests of Endor. Humans are not native to the rainforest, and they have guns, so they'd be treated seriously.

Yet the Chinese army did not pose any real threat to the US mainland at that time.

Neither does this force. At the time.

The US could destroy China utterly with neither China nor Russia being able to retaliate. At all.

???

What, is it too hard to understand? The US had crippling nuclear superiority over Russia at the time. They could've wiped China out.

Well, to be honest I didn't specify where in Brazil the invasion force starts off in, but are you saying that the Brazilian military has no national guard or some other emergency force?

As Serafina said, national guard or emergency volunteers would be just swept aside.

To world sovereignty.

Yes, that's what I meant.

Why would the invasion force do that if they want to avoid a war?

For fuck's sake, I was talking about deterrence! They have the capability to do so, therefore making the world wary of pissing them off or otherwise menacing them.

The "New World Order" is viewed pretty negatively by most people.

Negatiely enough to accept hundreds of thousands of casualties?

Bowing down to the invasion force would pretty much be surrendering to an invasion force that the world could defeat if they tried hard enough.

The question is not "could we defeat it if we took enormous costs to do so", it's "does it pay to fight them?"

The US could've defeated the USSR if it tried "hard enough". The price was just too high to even try.

Possibly, but the nation that the invasion force could set up might still be a threat.

And, again, how is it different from any other advanced nation? Several nations are a threat to the US ; The world just lives with the idea.

I'm not an expert in snipers, but although they may need to be transported, I doubt that they need vehicles to carry their ammo for them.

If I didn't know better, I'd think you are deliberately getting me to explain simple concepts at length.

Again: you need heavy weapons to kill stromtroopers. You need large amounts of heavy weapons to do so in any appreciable numbers. Because of that, you need vehicles to move them and their ammo.

Fair enough, but they're light scouts from Star Wars. Star Wars is supposed to be (and is in most cases) very advanced.

Yeah, so? Cavemen would be able to set up a trap to take out an HMMWV, it doesn't mean it's not an advanced vehicle.

Because surely the USA would broadcast their military movements to the press.

They obviously wouldn't announce it, but they couldn't hide it, either. Besides, all the Imperials would have to do is know the force is unloading somewhere in South America, and then do a single TIE flyby to know where.

"high speed" - 1200 kph isn't that fast compared to the max speeds of modern day missiles and jet fighters.

The right missiles need to be in the right place on the right platform in order to engage ; The fact TIEs can swoop in from orbit at will makes this impossible.

Since when are they going to be invading fishing ports?

We were talking about guarding ports that could unload heavy equipment and supplies ; My point is that there aren't many ports in South America that can do that, and they'r easy to identify.

Because stormtroopers are still limited by human range and accuracy, and would be outnumbered. Attrition would wear them down.

How is "being limited by human range and accuracy" going to stop them from hitting and crippling LCACs trying to deliver tanks to shore?

If the USA succeeds, they get access to a lot of Star Wars era tech and possibly Star Wars era engineers and scientists.

And in exchange, they cripple their economy and suffer hundreds of thousands of casualties. Hardly a good deal when you can just trade for the gear.

The Germans had lost air superiority by the later parts of WW2.

Aaand...again, you have no idea what I'm talking about. The Germans lost air superiority a year and a half before the end of the war, and they still managed to put up a fight.

Because one stormtrooper gets killed? Since when did Vader care?

No, because deliberately killing somebody's soldier means war, and wrecking all that stuff is trivial for the Empire. If they wanted to send a message, that's what they'd do.

A threat to democracy, communism, and pretty much any other political system other than a totalitarian (although communism and totalitarianism often times overlap)

Yes, and? They're a threat. Lots of nations are a threat to each other. If the nation threatening you is powerful, the answer is usually to not fuck with it, rather than trying to destroy it at all costs.

Yet in this case they're dealing with a dictatorship that could actually be a threat to them.

So they will deal with them grudgindly, rather than with a smile. Grudgingly and very, very carefully.

They'd have multiple generations, and they would get a huge technological advantage over the rest of the world. Long term they would be a significant threat, hence why it wouldn't make much sense for the Earth to leave them alone.

Actually, it would make a lot of sense, because technology disseminates. The gap would be closing with each year the Imperials trained people and developed infastructure. Possibly, we could eventually go to war with them without being slaughtered en masse.

To be honest, I'll have to go back and check.

Please do.

Good point; what is the laundry list you came up with?

*sigh*

Marcos, the Shash, Pinochet.

That's debatable.

It's virtually a given, actually, since they'd be mingling all the time with locals.

And local troops won't be as formidable of stormtroopers would.

Yeah, so? They'd be good enough, and they're repleceable.

Guerrilla tactics can also whittle down the target's resources, and in this case they are not renewable in the short term.

Unless of course your enemy doesn't play by your rules and uses expendable resources to fight the guerillas.

In this section of the post we were talking about paper maps.

We were talking about locating ports. Paper maps were just one proposed mean to do that.

Maybe a humvee would get badly damaged by that, but what about an APC or bradley (I don't think that it's a good idea to test that in practice, so unless if somebody has the mathematical calculations for the energy behind those swinging logs it's hard to tell).

What about an APC or Bradley? Since AT-STs are clearly not an armored infantry transport, it's completely irrelevant.

Do you know what escape velocity is?

TIP: the space shuttle can not achieve Earth escape velocity.

Which is, um, why Batman's estimate a ridiculously conservative number? I don't get what you're trying to do here ; Since the TIEs not only achieved orbit when pursuing the Falcon, but effortlessly broke it with sheer engine power alone, it means they have tremendous delta-v. If Bespin is similar to Jupiter, that's at least 59.5 km/s achieved in minutes. And the pilots were obviously not worried about running out of fuel even then.

IDK if it was you with whom I was discussing those assassin dudes killing a bunch of stormtroopers with, but whoever I was discussing that with claimed that the assassins (who used pre industrial age technology) avoided the sensors because they were "really good at sneaking" or something.

You know, you should stop harping about that situation: Noghri warriors managed to kill stormies because, you know, Vader marched straight into their village and thus they could, well...do the obvious thing and hide amongst civilians?

You cold very well ask how a rag-tag bunch of Polish partisans could kill Kutschera, since the SS was so well armed and dangerous...this must mean Nazi soldiers sucked, right? Or perhaps the partisans simply decided the time and place of the engagement because the Germans couldn't just shoot every civilian in a five block radius?

[Shroom Man 777]

How old is this guy anyway?

[Batman]

You don't even know what suspension of disbelief is. Tip: it doesn't mean Biblical literalism.

This is relevant how, exactly?

When you bring up a phrase, you should at least know what it actually means. Suspension of disbelief does not mean everything we see on screen is the literal truth

Yes it does. (Well, mostly, we make allowances for OBVIOUS filming gaffes like visible microphones etc)

That would be a convincing argument if there WEREN'T tons of evidence for there BEING 4 figure c accelerations for starships

Because YOU say so. (btw, I think you meant 'g', not 'c')

I obviously did, what with c being a figure of speed, not acceleration and no, because LFL say so. The ICS figures have been presented in this thread numerous times and nothing in the movies CONTRADICTS them. Even IN the movies starships routinely go orbital in under a minute.
If you don't like the rules the game is played by, you can always opt NOT TO PLAY.

No we don't, at least not around here. A TT is a TT is a TT.

What the hell is a TT? You mean 'teraton'? Even the wankiest numbers on the main site don't commit to that.

I'm not using the main site. I'm using LFL's official canon policy. And TT happens to be the official shorthand for teraton. You know, KT, MT, GT, TT, PT...

Either a franchise's weapon has that firepower or it doesn't.

Star Wars doesn't. Deal with it. Case closed.

The ICSes say they do and nothing in the movies contradicts that. Simply downscaling from the Death Star would get them 3-5 orders of magnitude MORE firepower than what official material grants them.
Look you obviously don't LIKE Star Wars. You BY YOUR OWN ADMITTANCE essentially don't really KNOW Star Wars. How about you stay out of Star Wars debates then.

And before you go 'wah wah main site' again, Mike HIMSELF has about nineteen millions times ADMITTED the thing is hopelessly out of date.

Thanks for fixing my quoting boo-boos regardless.

[Bounty]

Look you obviously don't LIKE Star Wars.

Why do you keep saying that? What stops anyone from liking the story but disagreeing with a technical analysis?

[Star Wars 888]

Ancient armies were able to travel more than 400 kilometers (albeit with difficulty) without the use of railroads.

You realize it's really hard no to laugh at you, right? Travelling somewhere is one thing ; I could hike 400 kilometres in a week or so. It's when you want to be fighting a half million man sci-fi army at the end that things start to get hard.

Now, your OP said the Imperials start "in the middle of South America".

We can determine the middle in several ways:

By running two lines between extreme points of the continent, like so:



Or (more likely within the spirit of your OP), we chose a point that lies the furthest away from any shore, or the "geographical centre": that's a town called Chapada dos Guimaraes, located here.

The coordinates are -15° 26' 48.71", -55° 44' 33.66", if anybody wants to find it by themselves.

Let's take a look at the terrain: the Imperials start right in the middle of the province of Mato Grosso. They only have 400 kilometres to go towards the border with Bolivia ; There's only four large paved roads leading into the province, and no railway lines. The nearest large port town (for a certain value of large...) is Santos, Brazil, nearly 1700 kilometres away by road.

So...the Imperials are instantly in control of a province by virtue of *poof* appearing there, control all the roads leading into it, and the nearest port with significant loading/offloading facilities is 1700 kilometres away. Nearest railways terminus? Corumba, 674 kilometre by road. And it's a single line, easily cut, with limited capacity.

A WWII leg infantry division consumed about 100 tonnes of various supplies on the march, 200 tonnes when engaged in combat. So...it would need 20 trucks of various kinds (actually more, since cargo doesn't perfectly fit every available bit of space) to reach it daily, 40 when it comes in contact with Stormies.

Over 500 kilometres (to ease calcs), with an average marching speed of 30kmph, it's a 16 hour drive one way. Igoring loading and unloading time (big concession!), you'd need to run about 60 trucks daily just to march the leg division from the railway terminus in Corumba. The number goes up rapidly if stormies decide to cut MT-060, which they can do with trivial ease (the distance goes up 2x if you can't use that road)

On the other hand, stormies never have to go further than about 150 kilometres from their supply dump in order to maintain control of the roads going into the province. If we assume a Stormie division has the same requirements as one composed of Earthlings (not unreasonable: they need the same amount of food and water, their ammo and batteries are about the size and weight of ours, except they get more bang out of them), they'll be able to get away with using around five trucks (since one convoy could do two trips in a single day) outside of combat.

Of course, one light Earth division is going to get brutally massacred by the stormies in defensive positions. Armored divisions have orders of magnitude higher supply requirements.

And I'll say it again; I did not claim that the USA or any other country could invade the imperial invasion force with ease. Of course it would be a large war mobilization comparable to WW2.

There is a hard limit on the amount of force you can supply over a pipeline ; After that, throwing money and trucks at the problem only makes it worse. You'd be literally throwing men into the meat grinder a few divisions at a time.

See above.

It was just a possiblity, you will probably have enough organic transport to march a division or two. Sustaining them in combat is another thing entirely, of course.

"in combat" - They won't be in much combat other than perhaps tie fighters. I'll admit that tie fighters would be a big problem, although how big of a problem they would be still hasn't been quantified. How fast are they in atmosphere and how durable they are is still debatable.

No, they wouldn't: Stormies would have a vastly shorter supply line with less stuff to move around compared to heavy units. And if AT-ATs are expected to move their supplies around, this means they have fuel to march tends of thousands of kilometres, which is excellent if you limit your ambitions.

Their operational range would be small though; with that plan they'd only have the capabilities of invading Brazil and nearby South American countries. They can't really threaten an invasion of the USA.

Camouflage armor is readily available with minimal preparation ; Yoda received his orders to go to Kashyyk hours before his departure, and his entire force was outfitted with camouflaged armor.

Who's to say that those weren't clone troopers specialized for fighting in jungles?

Since their entire supply dump is already in theatre, and their entire force is light infantry, they could do it with significantly more ease than a heavy, armored force that would have to be shipped into the theatre.

Perhaps, depending on how large their empire would be.

Which missiles? If they strike an invasion force from orbit, they'd need to be engaged by SM-3s, which are not deployed in large numbers and are designed to deal with ballistic targets. By the time other systems could engage, the ships would already be under attack with laser guns, and probably on fire. They'd strike the escorts simultaneously, while another group kills the transports. Before land-based or carrier-based aircraft could be vectored in for an intercept, the entire force would be on fire and out of action.

The problem is that modern ships are simply not laid out to handle attacks by orbital spacecraft ; Their defences and sensors are simply not oriented properly for that kind of threat.

Since when can they attack from orbit? Others have proposed that, but those who did failed to prove that tie fighters have that large of an effective range capable of hitting moving targets.

You still don't get it...it was an analogy. Supposed to illustrate a point. Of course it's not identical!

Analogies are generally roughly proportional to the thing they're describing.

More than one or two replicas.

Except that more than one replica of those ships exist, and said replicas were not made with the backing of trillions of dollars.

First, it doesn't work that way with hi-tech products, second, design times are only getting longer.

They won't need to design non nuclear ICBMS; the USA and other countries already have them!

Sherman tanks are not re-entry vehicles, you can't ignore the entire prototype development phase, and you need to run the cycle several times for each ICBM type you want to rearm.

They don't need to develop a prototype for non nuclear ICBMS; the USA and other countries already have them!

These very articles say it took the Navy a decade to develop and deploy non-nuclear warheads for some of its Tridents. The Minuteman force is still entirely nuclear, so you'd need to run the cycle for them as well (the warheads are completely different).

How does it feel to shoot yourself in the foot like that?

Whether or not it took a decade to develop them, they already did, and wouldn't need to develop them during this scenario.

Heh...you think a "mobile target" is one that is always moving? Jesus christ...

*sigh* Strawman.

Yes, we were. It's not my fault you can't understand simple concepts. Let me spell it out for you again: the invasion force would only become vulnerable to cruise missiles if it settled down and conquered a territorry, and even then only fixed targets like structures, bridges, etc could be struck at all. Without GPS (wiped out by TIEs in the first 10 minutes of the war), you'd be unable to track combat units well enough.

Except that you admitted that said missiles would work once the imperials were established and thus often times stationary and more vulnerable to missiles. By established the imperials would have successfully invaded a South American country, and hence it would be a counter invasion for the USA or other countries to invade the invasion force.

Other people already handled that question.



Everything. Like the fact I never claimed stormtroopers could survive direct hits by artillery shells.

I didn't claim that you claimed that stormtroopers could survive direct hits by artillery shells. I was making that claim, showing that stormtroopers would be vulnerable to artillery.

So...the Mandos and GA troops required to use EW equipment, so they called for some and got it. This is supposed to be evidence SW armies don't conduct EW?

It's like saying a Soviet armored unit couldn't do electronic warfare because it had a specialized detachment to handle it, rather than equipping every tank for EW. Come on!

They had to get specialized equipment. Being in the middle of Coruscant and being funded by a Galactic government, it wouldn't be that hard for them to do that. However, in this case the imperial invasion force does not have the ability to simply call on any items that they don't have with them and want to get, because they're on Earth, not a Star Wars planet.

No, according to Wookiepedia, it has a dual guidance system. Also, according to the same page, the missiles are universal, cutting the number of required launchers by half.

So...your half a million man army doesn't have one launcher per batallion?

Yet according to Wookieepedia they were reserved for shock troopers.

Ewoks were primitive savages native to the forests of Endor. Humans are not native to the rainforest, and they have guns, so they'd be treated seriously.

To be honest, I'm not sure that the imperials would treat us seriously. Many of them didn't view the Rebels seriously, even though the Rebel Alliance was organized, had Star Wars technology and was probably larger than the USA.

Neither does this force. At the time.

Nor does China pose any significant threat to the USA at this time either, or at any time in the near future.

What, is it too hard to understand? The US had crippling nuclear superiority over Russia at the time. They could've wiped China out.

Upon further examination, I'll concede that the USA probably won't nuke the invasion force at the get go; a) the OP in this thread rules that out and b) there would be civilians in the area.

As Serafina said, national guard or emergency volunteers would be just swept aside.

Perhaps, but they would still slow the imperials down.

Yes, that's what I meant.

Sovereignty, especially in such a large scale, would be a very big deal to us.

For fuck's sake, I was talking about deterrence! They have the capability to do so, therefore making the world wary of pissing them off or otherwise menacing them.

Actually, I'm not sure about 100 tie fighters making a successful air raid on the USA. They'd be targeted at by every AA weapon within range. Again, this would depend largely on their still unquantified speed and durability.

Negatiely enough to accept hundreds of thousands of casualties?

Actually, possibly; sovereignty would be very important.

The question is not "could we defeat it if we took enormous costs to do so", it's "does it pay to fight them?"

The US could've defeated the USSR if it tried "hard enough". The price was just too high to even try.

Actually, the USA could hardly have defeated the USSR. The two were comparable on military terms, and MAD would make a full scale invasion almost impossible.

And, again, how is it different from any other advanced nation? Several nations are a threat to the US ; The world just lives with the idea.

What nations are a threat to the USA?

Russia - the Cold War's over. Although tensions aren't completely gone, Russia is democratic, which sort of negates the main thing that caused the tensions between the USA and the USSR.

China - China is too dependent economically on the USA (and vice versa) to invade us, although there's a possibility that they may surpass us someday, but that doesn't necessarily make them a threat to us.

North Korea - not a threat. South Korea would most likely beat them in a war, and North Korea has almost no chance of invading the USA.

Iran - not a threat either.

Terrorist groups - although possibly threats, they aren't a threat to the USA's existence.

If I didn't know better, I'd think you are deliberately getting me to explain simple concepts at length.

Again: you need heavy weapons to kill stromtroopers. You need large amounts of heavy weapons to do so in any appreciable numbers. Because of that, you need vehicles to move them and their ammo.

"large amounts" is often a vague term. How much ammo per person? Hundreds? Thousands?

Yeah, so? Cavemen would be able to set up a trap to take out an HMMWV, it doesn't mean it's not an advanced vehicle.

Except that the technological difference between an AT-ST and Ewoks is technically greater than the difference between a humvee and cavemen.

They obviously wouldn't announce it, but they couldn't hide it, either. Besides, all the Imperials would have to do is know the force is unloading somewhere in South America, and then do a single TIE flyby to know where.

Actually, IDK about that and how good at scouting tie fighters are.

The right missiles need to be in the right place on the right platform in order to engage ; The fact TIEs can swoop in from orbit at will makes this impossible.

Couldn't they simply bring AA with each company?

We were talking about guarding ports that could unload heavy equipment and supplies ; My point is that there aren't many ports in South America that can do that, and they'r easy to identify.

Since you seem to know more about logistics than me, how large would a port have to be to do that?

How is "being limited by human range and accuracy" going to stop them from hitting and crippling LCACs trying to deliver tanks to shore?

Actually, it would hinder them from doing that.

And in exchange, they cripple their economy and suffer hundreds of thousands of casualties. Hardly a good deal when you can just trade for the gear.

They were willing to "cripple their economy" (although it didn't cripple their economy)for WW2.

Aaand...again, you have no idea what I'm talking about. The Germans lost air superiority a year and a half before the end of the war, and they still managed to put up a fight.

Sure; they put up a fight, but were almost always on the retreat by that time.

No, because deliberately killing somebody's soldier means war, and wrecking all that stuff is trivial for the Empire. If they wanted to send a message, that's what they'd do.

If one stormtrooper goes missing, since when would they assume that it would because of an attack? The stormtrooper could simply have gotten lost or something.

Yes, and? They're a threat. Lots of nations are a threat to each other. If the nation threatening you is powerful, the answer is usually to not fuck with it, rather than trying to destroy it at all costs.

Which is surely why Rome decided to wage war with Carthage.

So they will deal with them grudgindly, rather than with a smile. Grudgingly and very, very carefully.

To leave them alone would in this case be very foolish to do.

Actually, it would make a lot of sense, because technology disseminates. The gap would be closing with each year the Imperials trained people and developed infastructure. Possibly, we could eventually go to war with them without being slaughtered en masse.

Star Wars technology is thousands of years ahead of us. Some of it may be infinitely ahead of us. The technology they have in this scenario is probably closer than that though; probably hundreds of years ahead of us or maybe even less. However, it would still take a while for technology that advanced to transfer to us.

Please do.

Yeah, I'll read it when I get the chance.

*sigh*

Marcos, the Shash, Pinochet.

Didn't the USA stop supporting a lot of the dictators after a while?

It's virtually a given, actually, since they'd be mingling all the time with locals.

Sorry; what was this part of the post about again?

Yeah, so? They'd be good enough, and they're repleceable.

Unless of course your enemy doesn't play by your rules and uses expendable resources to fight the guerillas.

I'm not sure if conscripts would be good enough to put down a guerrilla movement within any short amount of time, especially a guerrilla movement supported by external forces.

We were talking about locating ports. Paper maps were just one proposed mean to do that.

Wasn't that part of the post about locating satellites?

What about an APC or Bradley? Since AT-STs are clearly not an armored infantry transport, it's completely irrelevant.

AT-ST stands for all terrain scout transport, right?

You know, you should stop harping about that situation: Noghri warriors managed to kill stormies because, you know, Vader marched straight into their village and thus they could, well...do the obvious thing and hide amongst civilians?

You cold very well ask how a rag-tag bunch of Polish partisans could kill Kutschera, since the SS was so well armed and dangerous...this must mean Nazi soldiers sucked, right? Or perhaps the partisans simply decided the time and place of the engagement because the Germans couldn't just shoot every civilian in a five block radius?

Are you saying that the stormtroopers couldn't simply locate a 'civilian' coming too close to them with their sensors and even simply their eyes? It makes the idea that stormtroopers have uber advanced sensors a little sketchy.

[Batman]

I obviously did, what with c being a figure of speed, not acceleration and no, because LFL say so. The ICS figures have been presented in this thread numerous times and nothing in the movies CONTRADICTS them. Even IN the movies starships routinely go orbital in under a minute.

Nitpick: they don't go orbital any more than I'm orbital right now. They shoot off in a straight line, just ignoring gravity. In an orbit, you move on a curved path.

You damn certain knew what I meant but conceeded.

ANYWAY, nothing we see actually demonstrates that acceleration!

Err-pretty much EVERYTHING we see does? ANH. 9 seconds for the Falcon from surface to space.

I just scaled the X-Wing acceleration at Yavin, based on actual observations, and unless I screwed it up, I got a good number: 2g.

Horseradish. At 2g they'd need three minutes to leave the atmosphere alone, leave alone travel to the Death Star in time to matter.
Not that that is relevant for a Vs. ICSs. No contradictory evidence from higher canon.

We know the final speed is zero

We most certainly do not. We know their RELATIVE speed to the DS is close to zero. Their ABSOLUTE (for want of a better term) speed is unknown.

1000g isn't.

It is, unfortunately for you, canon, with NOTHING in higher canon CONTRADICTING it.

1-10g puts all the observed speeds - hundreds of miles per hour in the trench run and general tactical combat - in the realm of reasonability.

Reasonability doesn't figure into it. You can either show the canon numbers to be false or you can't.

The only thing it doesn't explain, which 1000g did (based on a convo I had with Surlethe, don't remember how much was in this thread and how much was private) is the very short combat ranges we typically see. With 1000g, even if strictly one direction, you have a high probability of dodging turbolaser bolts at ranges much longer than we see on screen,

Why? Turbolasers are lightspeed weapons (well by and large) so how would you dodge them (I mean intentionally?) It's not like you'd have all that much of warning time. You have to NOTICE somebody fired a turbolaser at you from, say, a lightsecond away. You have all of ONE SECOND to NOTICE, REACT and order evasive action, which in turn is going to be slowed down by your ship's ability to MOVE fast enough (hint-Wars ships AREN'T that fast).

even ignoring the awful targetting and slow ass turrets Star Wars has.

Which you base on-let me guess, ANH. Don't comment on Wars targeting when you self-admittedly essentially don't KNOW Wars.

But, there's plenty of other reasons for short range combat, so the high acceleration isn't required.

It is nevertheless THERE. You do KNOT get to ignore canon material because you don't like it.

It could be explained by their sensor limitations (those of the naked eye!), or their turret limitations (how fast can the troopers hand crank it),

Why would they need to? Why would the DS be reduced to using the Mk Eyeball for targeting? Why is any of that relevant as the movie EXPLCITLY SAYS those turrets were designed to deal with CAPITAL SHIPS?

And TT happens to be the official shorthand for teraton. You know, KT, MT, GT, TT, PT...

Huh. I guess I'm just used to the SI units and abbreviations, it looked really weird to me.

TT IS the SI shorthand for teraton you know.

The ICSes say they do and nothing in the movies contradicts that. Simply downscaling from the Death Star would get them 3-5 orders of magnitude MORE firepower than what official material grants them.

Assuming power scales linearly with volume, which we've gone over in this thread. I'll admit it is possible, but I'm not convinced it actually applies.

I couldn't possibly care less what you're convinced of. LFL gave us canon firepower figures for Wars ships ALL of which are FAR LOWER than what you get by simply downscaling from the DS1. Until you show those numbers to be WRONG, they STAND in a Vs context.
You're obviously unhappy with the Wars numbers. I don't see why but you're entitled to. START A THREAD IN PURE WARS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT IT. Do NOT mess up other people's threads when they ARE debating a Wars Vs USING the official board rules.
Regardless of wether or not you like them, THE CANON NUMBERS FOR WARS ARE.

(In addition to strange hypermatter physics, the Death Star might have to be refueled from an external source in between shots. I know we didn't see that, but we didn't see anything they did in between letting Leia go and arriving at Yavin. They could have stopped in at a base and refueled, we don't know.)

As a matter of fact yes we do, YOU don't. That'd be the you not knowing beans about the EU part.

You BY YOUR OWN ADMITTANCE essentially don't really KNOW Star Wars.

I've seen all six films several times. Of course, those were the ones George Lucas made and sold on tapes and dvd, not the ones in your head.

And we all know there's no such thing as the EU. Oh wait. If you personally feel Star Wars starts and stops at the movies, I have no problem with that, I personally gave up on the EU novels two thirds or thereabouts through the NJO, but in a VS debate you do NOT get to ignore EU stuff just because you don't like it or think it isn't REALLY Star Wars. Until further notice, everything LFL says is Star Wars (excepting, unsurprisingly, Infinities) IS Star Wars.

And before you go 'wah wah main site' again, Mike HIMSELF has about nineteen millions times ADMITTED the thing is hopelessly out of date.

Hey, if people would stop saying "READ THE MAIN SITE" and shit like that, I wouldn't care about it.

Yeah. It's not like that's mainly about Wars vs Trek rather than the main site being reliable information for Wars.

Thanks for fixing my quoting boo-boos regardless.

Yea, just remember to preview these long posts. You don't want to know how many times I've typed "[quite]" and only caught it after previewing.[/quote]

[Samuel]

Why? Turbolasers are lightspeed weapons (well by and large) so how would you dodge them (I mean intentionally?) It's not like you'd have all that much of warning time. You have to NOTICE somebody fired a turbolaser at you from, say, a lightsecond away. You have all of ONE SECOND to NOTICE, REACT and order evasive action, which in turn is going to be slowed down by your ship's ability to MOVE fast enough (hint-Wars ships AREN'T that fast).

You don't dodge lightspeed weapons by avoiding the bolt. You dodge them by making sure that the turbolaser is not pointed at you, which is possible if you can move significantly faster than the turret can turn and track you.

You need to be going very fast and be very close to the gun batteries for this to work, but it is doable.

Or classic "constant motion so an enemy has to spread out their beam to hit you", but that requires larger distances.

[Xess]

Why? Turbolasers are lightspeed weapons (well by and large) so how would you dodge them (I mean intentionally?) It's not like you'd have all that much of warning time. You have to NOTICE somebody fired a turbolaser at you from, say, a lightsecond away. You have all of ONE SECOND to NOTICE, REACT and order evasive action, which in turn is going to be slowed down by your ship's ability to MOVE fast enough (hint-Wars ships AREN'T that fast).

You don't dodge lightspeed weapons by avoiding the bolt. You dodge them by making sure that the turbolaser is not pointed at you, which is possible if you can move significantly faster than the turret can turn and track you.

You need to be going very fast and be very close to the gun batteries for this to work, but it is doable.

Or classic "constant motion so an enemy has to spread out their beam to hit you", but that requires larger distances.

Turbolasers are obviously not lightspeed weapons anyway. The superlaser was close but no other weapon SW is.