Imperial Guard superior to SW armies?

[PainRack]

Geonosis was on one hand, one of the most ludricious movie fights we would see(the most ludricous tactical line up would be the droid bikers of the 5 minute Clone War shorts).

But on the other hand, Geonsosis also display the sheer combat readiness of the Clone Army. I went through this before, but an army that took only hours to load up its heavy equipment and mobilise manpower, get to the combat theatre, plan an invasion with miminal intelligence and preparation and then systematically smash the Seperatist air/space defences, the C3 system and force an ground invasion within hours is extremely impressive.

Very few armies right now has that kind of response time, and that only if they had been premobilised or have prepositioned equipment in place. To be able to actually plan and stage the kind of airstrikes, raids and assault that they did within hours, with miminal intelligence aside from that provided by the Jedi is amazing. There may have been knowledge of Geonosis defences(Anakin approach, the quasi canon assault on the DCS by the Jedi during Mace Windu intervention), but the Clone Army would still had only hours to plan the ATO, assault and etc.

[Shroom Man 777]

Wasn't the generalissimo decider commander-in-chief of that clone military also the same guy secretly pulling the strings of the enemy roboto army and orchestrating that galactic conflict on a metaphorical chessboard from behind the scenes, seeding the respective military-industrial complexes of both factions with his pawns, and coincided this very first battle with his own election as head of the republic's political body as a culmination of a decades long scheme for gaining real ultimate unlimited power to make cultural benefit the glorious Sith Lords?

Another example of an impromptu really rapid rushing response raiding military action, in this case where both factions weren't actually controlled by the same prune man, would be... Hoth.

[PainRack]

Wasn't the generalissimo decider commander-in-chief of that clone military also the same guy secretly pulling the strings of the enemy roboto army and orchestrating that galactic conflict on a metaphorical chessboard from behind the scenes, seeding the respective military-industrial complexes of both factions with his pawns, and coincided this very first battle with his own election as head of the republic's political body as a culmination of a decades long scheme for gaining real ultimate unlimited power to make cultural benefit the glorious Sith Lords?

Another example of an impromptu really rapid rushing response raiding military action, in this case where both factions weren't actually controlled by the same prune man, would be... Hoth.

Back then, I threw the possibility that Palpatine had the Clone Army mobilise for an exercise, one that we see during Obiwan stay on Kamino, which mobilised the army sufficiently that it could deploy rapipdly to Geonosis.

However, their ability to plan and execute such a complex action still remains the same though.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

I personally don't believe any analysis can be properly done without knowing the respective militaries objectives in a hypothetical war. Ground tactics are adapted to the strategic situation, rules of war (if any), traditional doctrines, weapons capability, morale, etc. There are too many factors to just say X Military vs Y Military. If a scenario were put out between the two you'd need to hash exactly why they were fighting, what the objectives where, and what constraints. Essentially your METL (Mission essential task list) and strategic and tactical METT-TC (Mission, Enemy Troops, Troops (friendly) and supplies available, Terrain and Weather - Time and Civilian considerations). Without those you have no war no conflict.

I personally believe that the GE with it's superior firepower and strategic and tactical manoeuvrability would win regardless of the conflict it was thrown in. Generally in a normal "war" (Territorial or Resource) technology that is superior wins the battle. On the other hand if it were a "soft" war (trying to take over a population, ideological, or occupation) technological differences would matter less however I believe that the GE lower xenophobia and religious fanaticism would win the day.

[SpaceMarine93]

I am currently planning a WH40K VS Star Wars epic crossover fic on the same scale as Stravo's Starcrossed. Can anyone please provide an overall summary on the advantages and disadvantages of the two forces and make the final judgment which one is ultimately better?

[Batman]

As you apparently have blithely ignored all the reasons brought up in this thread outlining why matters aren't quite that simple, let me sum up the consensus for you-no.

[PainRack]

I am currently planning a WH40K VS Star Wars epic crossover fic on the same scale as Stravo's Starcrossed. Can anyone please provide an overall summary on the advantages and disadvantages of the two forces and make the final judgment which one is ultimately better?

As already explained, its isn't that easy... especially if you don't define the timeline, the situation facing the factions and contact.

The Imperium has more forces armed, but the decentralised nature of her government along with slow speed means that reserves may or may not arrive years, months, weeks or days after a distress call is sent out. However, this isn't as huge a problem as it sounds because important worlds like hive worlds, forge worlds and etc have large standing forces that will bog down any invasion into a crawl.

If you grant both sides perfect intelligence and the ability to plan, say, a Cold War that turned hot scenario, the Galactic Empire will ultimately win any prolonged war due to its strategic advantages. Taking a year to plan a crusade and invade planets, relatively slow response time and limited reserves means that the Imperium can never inflict as much damage to the Republic/GE as the SW faction can. especially if they adopt raiding tactics similar to Warlord Zsinj or the Rebellion, where hit and run on worlds were common. But that's extremely far-fetched and ignores the sheer kind of shit that the Imperium can do. A crusade force backed with Space marines to take out Kuat....... exterminatus on Coruscant.....

[Simon_Jester]

Also, any attempt by Star Wars invaders to penetrate the 40k Milky Way should run into serious problems with all the other stuff in the 40k setting. Orks and Tyranids they can deal with, but Chaos? How many Imperial commanders- hell, how many of Palpatine's Force-using adepts- would fall to Chaos corruption? How many problems would that make for them?

What the hell is Palpatine going to do if he sends Darth Vader on a fact-finding expedition into the 40k galaxy and gets back a Daemon Prince of Khorne, howling for his blood?

Have you thought any of this through?

[Ryan Thunder]

What the hell is Palpatine going to do if he sends Darth Vader on a fact-finding expedition into the 40k galaxy and gets back a Daemon Prince of Khorne, howling for his blood?

That actually sounds pretty cool.

[Shroom Man 777]

The day a Jedi snapped and killed a village full of alien females and children was the defining moment of his fall into the Dark Side. For an Inquisitor (or a Sanctioned Psyker, Space Marine, Imperial Guardsman, PDF trooper, peasant soldier, underhive septic tank cleaner, or mustache barber) of the Imperium of Man, it was Tuesday.

I am currently planning a WH40K VS Star Wars epic crossover fic on the same scale as Stravo's Starcrossed. Can anyone please provide an overall summary on the advantages and disadvantages of the two forces and make the final judgment which one is ultimately better?

If you want your story to be awesome and in keeping and honoring both 40k and SW's inherent awesomeness (okay, this is a long shot, but the awesomeness of whatever awesome is left in both franchises, barring 99% of the shit in the EU or shit like CS Grotto or whatever), then you might want to try and expose yourself some more to the material you wish to write about. While asking for advice from other guise who are more well-read and spend their time making per-paragraph breakdowns and computations of weapons yields from novels is all good, it would be better if you yourself developed a more concrete understanding of the materials, and so you can more confidently write it by yourself too, and not solely depend on the say so of other guise.

Back then, I threw the possibility that Palpatine had the Clone Army mobilise for an exercise, one that we see during Obiwan stay on Kamino, which mobilised the army sufficiently that it could deploy rapipdly to Geonosis.

However, their ability to plan and execute such a complex action still remains the same though.

I kind of think of it like Operation Iraqi Freedom. The initial campaign was awesome, and Shock and Awe and all that, and American forces showed their might and speed and strength and tactical and strategic whiz-bang awesome.

But what if George Bush was also secretly Saddam Hussein, and was secretly consulting (via vague shadowy hologram) extensively with the commanders of the Iraqi military and issuing orders to them while he also issued orders to the US military, the awesomeness of the US campaign might be taken down a notch. That's what Geneosis was.

How impromptu was the Geneosis attack though? Was it solely a "rescue the Jedi" operation, cobbled together only when Anakin and Obi-Wan and Amidala got kidnapped? Or was the Clone Army and the Republic's commanders already, beforehand, meticulously planning a strategic attack on a CIS infrastructural forge world, and this so happened to coincide with the while Anakin-Obi-Wan-Amidala-Gladiator-Fight debacle?

How well executed was the Geneosis attack? We see Clone soldiers (with armor behind them) running across a desert, charging straight towards a charging horde of droid infantry and droid armor and all that stuff. But how well-coordinated were the defenders? Was the shortness of the battle and the quickness of the enemy's retreat because of awsum Republic Commando Clone Army tacticool badassery? Or was it because Geneosis was not a military stronghold, but just a bigass factory, and when tanks and soldiers attack a factory, the factory workers would generally try to get the fuck out of dodge?

Still say that Hoth is more demonstrative of an impromptu rapid reaction assault with a complete blind unplanned scenario where the commander of both armies isn't the same person orchestrating everything for his grand conspiracy.
(Yeah, Hoth wasn't as tacticool awsum, but them's the breaks)

[Simon_Jester]

I am currently planning a WH40K VS Star Wars epic crossover fic on the same scale as Stravo's Starcrossed. Can anyone please provide an overall summary on the advantages and disadvantages of the two forces and make the final judgment which one is ultimately better?

If you want your story to be awesome and in keeping and honoring both 40k and SW's inherent awesomeness (okay, this is a long shot, but the awesomeness of whatever awesome is left in both franchises, barring 99% of the shit in the EU or shit like CS Grotto or whatever), then you might want to try and expose yourself some more to the material you wish to write about. While asking for advice from other guise who are more well-read and spend their time making per-paragraph breakdowns and computations of weapons yields from novels is all good, it would be better if you yourself developed a more concrete understanding of the materials, and so you can more confidently write it by yourself too, and not solely depend on the say so of other guise.

Shroom speaks the truth. You must ask yourself, Indrick: if we know all these things about these settings which you do not know, why don't we simply write the Massive Crossover Story ourselves?

(Hint: some of us have)

What are you bringing to the table here, if you're so unfamiliar with the characters and behavior of the factions involved?

[Shroom Man 777]

He will bring numerous beacons allowing for multiple simultaneous and devastating defensive deep strikes. The Codex Astartes names this maneuver Steel Rain.

[DrMckay]

I can see it now:

Imperial Guard Commisar: "For the Emperor!"

Stormtrooper Officer: "For the glory of the Empire!"

Commisar: "Heretic!

Stormie officer: "You Rebel scum!"


Commissar: *BLAM* "Your false Emperor won't save you now!" (Gets stepped on by AT-AT)

[PainRack]

How impromptu was the Geneosis attack though? Was it solely a "rescue the Jedi" operation, cobbled together only when Anakin and Obi-Wan and Amidala got kidnapped? Or was the Clone Army and the Republic's commanders already, beforehand, meticulously planning a strategic attack on a CIS infrastructural forge world, and this so happened to coincide with the while Anakin-Obi-Wan-Amidala-Gladiator-Fight debacle?

For that to actually happen, the Clone Army must had already created a plan that just nicely fitted the defences of Geonosis and etc to happen..... and is so up to date that it included the Trade Federation armies/starships that had arrived on Geonosis just shortly before.

No, while Palpatine might be able to manipulate the strategic/political timing, and Count Dooku may be able to ensure complete surprise, the actual capabilities of the Clone Army still remains the same. A con trick still requires the conman to have the requisite sleight of hand needed.

How well executed was the Geneosis attack? We see Clone soldiers (with armor behind them) running across a desert, charging straight towards a charging horde of droid infantry and droid armor and all that stuff.

Again, the actual operational capabilities is quite unimaginable. No army in the world can plan, organise an attack in just hours, executing it just out from transit. Its only in the last Operation Iraqi freedom that the US armed forces demonstrated the capability to actually plan and execute an airstrike within hours.

But how well-coordinated were the defenders? Was the shortness of the battle and the quickness of the enemy's retreat because of awsum Republic Commando Clone Army tacticool badassery? Or was it because Geneosis was not a military stronghold, but just a bigass factory, and when tanks and soldiers attack a factory, the factory workers would generally try to get the fuck out of dodge?

Geonosis still had space defences, airbases and etc, all of which ITW stated were disabled during the Clones opening attack. This opened the scales for a ground invasion and the space/ground interdiction seen in the movie and novelisation.

Still say that Hoth is more demonstrative of an impromptu rapid reaction assault with a complete blind unplanned scenario where the commander of both armies isn't the same person orchestrating everything for his grand conspiracy.
(Yeah, Hoth wasn't as tacticool awsum, but them's the breaks)

Hoth itself is quite impressive on the Rebels side actually. Hoth base was relatively new and the defences unfinished, one component of the defence, the airspeeder was operationally ready only days before the attack itself. The Rebels then completed evacuation of the headquarters of the Rebellion with significant numbers of staff personnel and etc in days again, which just shows again the speed of how the Rebellion works.

The Empire demonstrated its armor capabilities because the AT-AT simply shrugged off all conventional firepower the Rebels had, and the EU suggest that only the heavy equipment like the Loronar mobile turbolaser battery, a weapon that can served in anti starship operations would work effectively against the AT-AT. The strength of the AT-AT, even against physical deformity is shown when the AT-AT crashed. The Rebels defences were also strong enough to disable the AT-STs and some other ground vehicles that were present in the assault... The Assault on Hoth sourcebook depicts that the Empire ran into thick defences that slowed the mobile scout elements. Yet, the Empire ground assault was sufficient to overwhelm the kilometers wide defences within hours, including the use of stormtroopers to overrun the innards of the fort.

The Empire ultimately failed because the Rebels managed to run the space blockade the Empire set up, even though more than half of the transports failed to run the gauntlet. Not because their ground attack was a "failure" as you seem to imply.

[Shroom Man 777]

For that to actually happen, the Clone Army must had already created a plan that just nicely fitted the defences of Geonosis and etc to happen..... and is so up to date that it included the Trade Federation armies/starships that had arrived on Geonosis just shortly before.

No, while Palpatine might be able to manipulate the strategic/political timing, and Count Dooku may be able to ensure complete surprise, the actual capabilities of the Clone Army still remains the same. A con trick still requires the conman to have the requisite sleight of hand needed.

How up to date would it have to be? Just how recently did the TF armies and starships arrive on Geonosis? Were the TF armies and starships just recently arrived at Geonosis? I thought the TF armies were already there for quite some time because, uh, that's where they were being built.

How well executed was the Geneosis attack? We see Clone soldiers (with armor behind them) running across a desert, charging straight towards a charging horde of droid infantry and droid armor and all that stuff.

Again, the actual operational capabilities is quite unimaginable. No army in the world can plan, organise an attack in just hours, executing it just out from transit. Its only in the last Operation Iraqi freedom that the US armed forces demonstrated the capability to actually plan and execute an airstrike within hours.

Well, it is the friggin future. If, if, the Clone Army just MacGuyvered their plan in the hours after Obi-Wan got captured, then how "seamless" was their attack? You might say "they did it awesomely in a span of hours", but that "awesomely" might actually be a poorly coordinated affair with all sorts of mishaps like Clones charging towards droid tanks, and other kind of stuff involved when the battlefield gets messy.

Yeah, even if there were all sorts of friendly fire incidents or Clone armies landing on the wrong area because they only had hours of prep time, the attack on Geneosis would still be an awesome feat of speed and mobilization.

If the Clone army only had hours to prepare.

If the Clone army had already been planning this assault for a while, and if they already had information on Geonosis' preexisting defenses, and if those TF assets ships and armies were already on-world for quite some time (rather than arriving shortly before/after Anakin and Obi-Wan themselves got on-world), then the Clone attack would be less miraculous, though still an impressive attack.

I still think it's the latter. I mean, Palpatine practically planned for this to happen. The first major battle of the Clone Wars, coinciding with his ascension into Chancellor, while his own right hand man Dooku was on Geonosis itself blowing smoke up the TF's ass, heh.

I don't deny that the Clone Army didn't demonstrate impressive combat feats - the ability to travel the galaxy in hours, and deploy orbital assets and land troops on the ground in minutes, these are all awesome. I just dispute your assumption that the Clone Army just MacGuyvered their plan of attack in hours, that this was a surprise for them and that they had to do this all impromptu, since I think this was a cleverly constructed premeditated thing by Palpatine.

Hoth itself is quite impressive on the Rebels side actually. Hoth base was relatively new and the defences unfinished, one component of the defence, the airspeeder was operationally ready only days before the attack itself. The Rebels then completed evacuation of the headquarters of the Rebellion with significant numbers of staff personnel and etc in days again, which just shows again the speed of how the Rebellion works.

No disagreements on that. They were fricking fast.

The Empire demonstrated its armor capabilities because the AT-AT simply shrugged off all conventional firepower the Rebels had, and the EU suggest that only the heavy equipment like the Loronar mobile turbolaser battery, a weapon that can served in anti starship operations would work effectively against the AT-AT. The strength of the AT-AT, even against physical deformity is shown when the AT-AT crashed. The Rebels defences were also strong enough to disable the AT-STs and some other ground vehicles that were present in the assault... The Assault on Hoth sourcebook depicts that the Empire ran into thick defences that slowed the mobile scout elements. Yet, the Empire ground assault was sufficient to overwhelm the kilometers wide defences within hours, including the use of stormtroopers to overrun the innards of the fort.

The conventional firepower the Rebels had were a bunch of guys in trenches, a few big cannons, and a bunch of aircraft that only managed to damage the AT-AT because of their frickin harpoons.

The Empire ultimately failed because the Rebels managed to run the space blockade the Empire set up, even though more than half of the transports failed to run the gauntlet. Not because their ground attack was a "failure" as you seem to imply.

The ground attack failed to destroy the Rebel base or capture them in a timely fashion, and hence it was a failure? If the ground attack was faster, the Rebels wouldn't have managed to run through the space blockade by virtue of getting their asses beat back down planetside?

It just seemed contrasting to Geonosis. In Geo, we see within hours/minutes countless huge ass spaceships and lots and lots of troops and armor and aircraft dominating the battlefield and beating ass and destroying a large enemy conventional military force and generally ruining shit. In Hoth, we see a bunch of lumbering bigass walkers and stormtroopers get delayed by some guys in trenches, some cannons, and some aircraft with winches, and the enemy managed to escape because the Imps were too slow or the Rebels were too fast or some point in between.

I guess it was still impressive. The Imps entered the system, dropped troops on the ground, and such within hours, which is pretty fast. And unlike Geonosis, they didn't have advanced information on the planet's layout (the main info they got on Hoth was from that droid that Luke shot), and the attack wasn't part of Palpatine's machinations wherein he manipulated both sides.

[Simon_Jester]

I still think it's the latter. I mean, Palpatine practically planned for this to happen. The first major battle of the Clone Wars, coinciding with his ascension into Chancellor, while his own right hand man Dooku was on Geonosis itself blowing smoke up the TF's ass, heh.

Dooku had perfectly good reasons to be on Geonosis- it's almost the capital of the separatist movement, with lots of important CIS people coming and going, and some (the Geonosians) permanently living there. Where else would he spend most of his time when he's holding meetings or just relaxing between trips out into the galaxy to make trouble?

So I could totally see Dooku's presence as being a coincidence. Also, the battle of Geonosis was partly caused by a coincidence itself. If Obi-Wan hadn't happened to go to Kamino at the particular time which he did (discovering a clone army which the Republic as a whole didn't know about before) and just happen to track Boba Fett and his dad to Geonosis afterwards, the battle would not have happened at that time.

So there'd have to be a lot of things going according to plan for Palpatine to have arranged the fight ahead of time.

-Obi-Wan has to work out the location of Kamino, which Dooku took steps to keep secret from the Jedi.
-Obi-Wan has to go to Kamino and find a link he can trace to Geonosis- there probably aren't many of them, aside from occasionally people like Jango Fett going back and forth.
-Obi-Wan has to succeed in doing this without, say, killing Jango Fett or being killed by him during their fights on Kamino and in space.
-While Obi-Wan is on Geonosis spying around, the Republic has to move very quickly to take control of the clone army and bring it to the battle very quickly, in a matter of hours or days. That part Palpatine could arrange, but it adds another layer of complexity.

Also, a number of things could go wrong. Take an easy example. If the clones were training and planning for an attack on Geonosis ahead of time for weeks or months, well, Jango Fett was right there on Kamino shortly before the war started. He might get tipped off and go back to Geonosis to tell people "Uh, yeah, that huge army of clones you had made of me? I'm flattered, but... they're plotting an attack on the planet you're standing on. Thought you should know." That could blow the whole thing- Dooku might have been in on the scheme, but the rest of the people on Geonosis weren't.

I don't deny that the Clone Army didn't demonstrate impressive combat feats - the ability to travel the galaxy in hours, and deploy orbital assets and land troops on the ground in minutes, these are all awesome. I just dispute your assumption that the Clone Army just MacGuyvered their plan of attack in hours, that this was a surprise for them and that they had to do this all impromptu, since I think this was a cleverly constructed premeditated thing by Palpatine.

Maybe they already had some intelligence and information on the planet, but had to MacGyver a lot of the details? And from the sound of it, the Republic didn't know all that much about Geonosis; it's nature as a CIS center sure surprised the Jedi. Then again, the clones might have known more.

[PainRack]

How up to date would it have to be? Just how recently did the TF armies and starships arrive on Geonosis? Were the TF armies and starships just recently arrived at Geonosis? I thought the TF armies were already there for quite some time because, uh, that's where they were being built.

Errr..... no. Please provide a source for your contention. The novelisation made it clear that the Trade Federation were there to sign the treaty to join the seperatists, based on promises from Count Dooku. The Trade Federation navy in orbit was caught offguard primarily because they were unarmed transports/etc sent in for refit and to transport the armies offworld. The starships were new.

The armies were there of course, but the production speed of Geonosis means that you can't rely on data months before to tell you the scale or location of said armies.

Well, it is the friggin future. If, if, the Clone Army just MacGuyvered their plan in the hours after Obi-Wan got captured, then how "seamless" was their attack? You might say "they did it awesomely in a span of hours", but that "awesomely" might actually be a poorly coordinated affair with all sorts of mishaps like Clones charging towards droid tanks, and other kind of stuff involved when the battlefield gets messy.

Yeah, even if there were all sorts of friendly fire incidents or Clone armies landing on the wrong area because they only had hours of prep time, the attack on Geneosis would still be an awesome feat of speed and mobilization.

Again, ITW and other sources tell us that the GAAR disabled Geonosian space and aerial defences with surgical strikes, followed up with ground assaults that disabled the Seperatists C3 installations.

Granted, there is some canonicity issues, because the Clone Wars video games had Mace Windu disabling the orbital defences prior to his entry, but the ground aerial bases were still disabled by the Clone forces definitely via a mixture of orbital and aerial strikes.

I don't deny that the Clone Army didn't demonstrate impressive combat feats - the ability to travel the galaxy in hours, and deploy orbital assets and land troops on the ground in minutes, these are all awesome. I just dispute your assumption that the Clone Army just MacGuyvered their plan of attack in hours, that this was a surprise for them and that they had to do this all impromptu, since I think this was a cleverly constructed premeditated thing by Palpatine.

And? Who would had provided the intelligence to the Clone Army to allow them to pull off the plan? We know from the Clone Wars video game that the assault had Jedi input, wouldn't they be suspcious of how the Clones had all this miraclous, up to date intelligence on Geonosis?

The Jedi themselves were caught off guard by the revelation of the droid armies on Geonosis, and the scale of their armies was clear in Mace Windu tactics. You're essentially suggesting that the Jedi won't be suspicious of how the Clones had more up to date intelligence, and a plan to attack Geonosis than their own haphazard plans.

The conventional firepower the Rebels had were a bunch of guys in trenches, a few big cannons, and a bunch of aircraft that only managed to damage the AT-AT because of their frickin harpoons.

Sigh. I wish I still have the Battle of Hoth sourcebook, but kilometer wide defences backed up by large amounts of conventional AT vehicles, found and descripted in EGWVT is NOT a weak defence. Simply throw in artillery throwing shells and you have the equivalent of say... an Imperial Guard Siege regiment defending a fortified base. Afterall, there's the Planetary gun(Ion Cannon), localised void shield,

The ground attack failed to destroy the Rebel base or capture them in a timely fashion, and hence it was a failure? If the ground attack was faster, the Rebels wouldn't have managed to run through the space blockade by virtue of getting their asses beat back down planetside?

The Empire over-run the entire defence in a couple of hours, including from detection, landing and crossing the tens of kilometers(a HUGE underestimation, since they actually crossed a ridge, but hey, official EU crap) and overtaking a kilometers thick defences, overruning the base and exposed landing field and engaging the covered hangers, large enough to carry 30 Rebel transports in less than an hour, and this is SLOW?

Seriously. The cavern battle itself is kilometers wide and the Rebels failed to evacuate everyone, there were a running series of underground battles, including the unleashing of trapped wampa on the snowtroopers and the Rebel defence of the kilometers base lasted minutes at best and you're complaining that this is slow? There's a huge problem in pinning down the timing due to the use of jump cuts to the MF scene but Princess Leia decision to abandon the command post and head for the transports was semi-simulatenous with the landing of Darth vader assault force.She headed away from the buried passageway, reached the Milleniuim Falcon, and the snowtroopers had reached the covered hangerways to threaten Han escape. The distance between Vader assault force and the base isn't established, but Battlegrounds established that Vader still had to push through existing surface defences. Then there was the whole wampa stuff and etc, which happened before Leia escape and .... the timeframe can't be longer than an hour and it probably much faster because hey, how long would leia take to run from her command post to the Millenium Falcon?

It just seemed contrasting to Geonosis. In Geo, we see within hours/minutes countless huge ass spaceships and lots and lots of troops and armor and aircraft dominating the battlefield and beating ass and destroying a large enemy conventional military force and generally ruining shit. In Hoth, we see a bunch of lumbering bigass walkers and stormtroopers get delayed by some guys in trenches, some cannons, and some aircraft with winches, and the enemy managed to escape because the Imps were too slow or the Rebels were too fast or some point in between.

I guess it was still impressive. The Imps entered the system, dropped troops on the ground, and such within hours, which is pretty fast. And unlike Geonosis, they didn't have advanced information on the planet's layout (the main info they got on Hoth was from that droid that Luke shot), and the attack wasn't part of Palpatine's machinations wherein he manipulated both sides.

Its..... ludricious. The entire assault took hours, and this included the long, slow ass transit from the Empire landing zone, crossing a mountain ridge to the base itself. The kilometers thick defence, with conventional defences were thick enough to take out Blizzard Force mobile scout elements and left the AT-AT unsupported, yet, they were still strong enough to reach and destroy the shield generator, allowing Vader assault force to land directly on the base in teeth of a crumbling ASAT defences. Which then promptly overwhelmed the inside of Echo base and come close to capturing Princess Leia in less than an hour, but you think that this is slow.... I wonder what you would had thought of the operation to capture Osama or Saddam Hussein.....

[Shroom Man 777]

Errr..... no. Please provide a source for your contention. The novelisation made it clear that the Trade Federation were there to sign the treaty to join the seperatists, based on promises from Count Dooku. The Trade Federation navy in orbit was caught offguard primarily because they were unarmed transports/etc sent in for refit and to transport the armies offworld. The starships were new.

The armies were there of course, but the production speed of Geonosis means that you can't rely on data months before to tell you the scale or location of said armies.

Well, I know that the Nemoidians and Nute Gunrays were visiting fairly recently. I didn't know their starfleet was also there just recently. I just assumed that there were a bunch of balls-ships hanging around Geonosis for a while.

And? Who would had provided the intelligence to the Clone Army to allow them to pull off the plan? We know from the Clone Wars video game that the assault had Jedi input, wouldn't they be suspcious of how the Clones had all this miraclous, up to date intelligence on Geonosis?

The Jedi themselves were caught off guard by the revelation of the droid armies on Geonosis, and the scale of their armies was clear in Mace Windu tactics. You're essentially suggesting that the Jedi won't be suspicious of how the Clones had more up to date intelligence, and a plan to attack Geonosis than their own haphazard plans.

Yeah, I guess the Jedi would be surprised that the giant clone army capable of waging galactic war, which they never noticed before and whose existence was just revealed to them hours before battle, would have superior information on the giant droid army being built for waging galactic war on a forge world also revealed to them just hours before the battle.

Maybe you could chalk it up to other non-Jedi intelligence assets doing the info gathering for the Clones. Eh.

If they didn't have miraculous up to date intelligence on Geonosis, this meant they just attacked the planet within hours, with no prior information at all beforehand, and with no planning, and pulled off an awesome victory. Yeah, I can see why you emphasize this as a crowning feat of some awe on part of SW. It's, like, freaking unbelievable.

Sigh. I wish I still have the Battle of Hoth sourcebook, but kilometer wide defences backed up by large amounts of conventional AT vehicles, found and descripted in EGWVT is NOT a weak defence. Simply throw in artillery throwing shells and you have the equivalent of say... an Imperial Guard Siege regiment defending a fortified base. Afterall, there's the Planetary gun(Ion Cannon), localised void shield,

Ye-ah. I didn't really see it as Space Stalingrad. Sure, there was a shield and a big gun that went pew-pew at the ISDs in space, but the ground combat in the movie was just some guys in a ditch getting exploded by some robots trudging towards them getting tripped by some aircraft with ropes going woosh and stuff. I was not aware of the EU's interesting backstory on that.

The Empire over-run the entire defence in a couple of hours, including from detection, landing and crossing the tens of kilometers(a HUGE underestimation, since they actually crossed a ridge, but hey, official EU crap) and overtaking a kilometers thick defences, overruning the base and exposed landing field and engaging the covered hangers, large enough to carry 30 Rebel transports in less than an hour, and this is SLOW?

Seriously. The cavern battle itself is kilometers wide and the Rebels failed to evacuate everyone, there were a running series of underground battles, including the unleashing of trapped wampa on the snowtroopers and the Rebel defence of the kilometers base lasted minutes at best and you're complaining that this is slow? There's a huge problem in pinning down the timing due to the use of jump cuts to the MF scene but Princess Leia decision to abandon the command post and head for the transports was semi-simulatenous with the landing of Darth vader assault force.She headed away from the buried passageway, reached the Milleniuim Falcon, and the snowtroopers had reached the covered hangerways to threaten Han escape. The distance between Vader assault force and the base isn't established, but Battlegrounds established that Vader still had to push through existing surface defences. Then there was the whole wampa stuff and etc, which happened before Leia escape and .... the timeframe can't be longer than an hour and it probably much faster because hey, how long would leia take to run from her command post to the Millenium Falcon?

Dunno, mang. Like, I guess I'd probably agree with you if I knew that like the Rebel trenches were kilometers long and the snowtroopers had epic knife fights against hordes of released rampaging monsters in the vast abyssal frostbitten catacombs of Hoth and such and such, and not just the bunch of guys getting blown up in a trench, and Luke running around, and some AT-ATs tripping, and then the Millennium Falcon's escape and X-Wings flying and escaping the blockade.

I thought Hoth was just some grimy outpost that, except the shield and the pew-pew space gun, was puny and had just a bunch of ragtags setting up shop before getting booted by some stormtroopers. I had no idea there were battles against swarms of mutated yetis.

Its..... ludricious. The entire assault took hours, and this included the long, slow ass transit from the Empire landing zone, crossing a mountain ridge to the base itself. The kilometers thick defence, with conventional defences were thick enough to take out Blizzard Force mobile scout elements and left the AT-AT unsupported, yet, they were still strong enough to reach and destroy the shield generator, allowing Vader assault force to land directly on the base in teeth of a crumbling ASAT defences. Which then promptly overwhelmed the inside of Echo base and come close to capturing Princess Leia in less than an hour, but you think that this is slow.... I wonder what you would had thought of the operation to capture Osama or Saddam Hussein.....

Well, I might change my mind on the operation to capture Osama or Saddam Hussein if, like, someone told me something that I had no knowledge of previously, like that when they were going into the hole to pull Saddam out, US Special Forces actually had to have knife fights with evil jihadist djinn unleashed by some Republican Guards rubbing on some magic lamps, or that the CNN reports neglected to mention the interesting backstory of how Osama's compound was actually surrounded by the Great Wall of China or something.

[Connor MacLeod]

I wanted to get back to Gunhead but I wanted to note some things:

They never intended a ground assault. The novelization and radio drama make it clear that Ozzel's actions had pretty much fucked up theirs trategy (which seemed to be a long range stealth bombardment followed by quick deployment directly onto the force to mop up)

Also, going by the ITW:OT book the Hoth battle had a crossing of 30 km (under the shield.. or at least from North Rdige to the Rebel positions) and maybe another 10-20 km from the landing zone. Accroding to SWTC the At AT was making a blistering 9 km/h. That's 3.5 KM hr over the 30 km distance, and another 1-2 hours or so from the landing zone to North Ridge (not including all the zig zagging they did, and the loss of 3 walkers on the approach due to terrain because they were trying to impress Vader)

In the end they disabled/destroyed only 17 out of 30 escaping transports (although IIRC most senior officers got away) and all the freighters carrying gear. But at the same time Luke, Han, and Leia (Vader's objectives and the whole point of the pursuit) got away. Between this and the slow advance and the fact they lost AT-ATs to the tow cable tripping, it's at best a partial victory (although from Vader's POv - the only one that mattered - it was a complete failure.) I keep thinking that using the Juggernaut tanks would have been a far better choice than AT-ATs. Or hell, any wheeled/tracked vehicles would have been better.

[Connor MacLeod]

One more thing:

Geonosis was on one hand, one of the most ludricious movie fights we would see(the most ludricous tactical line up would be the droid bikers of the 5 minute Clone War shorts).

Some of the TV series stuff has been pretty ludicrous, and we haven't even seen the full series yet.

But on the other hand, Geonsosis also display the sheer combat readiness of the Clone Army. I went through this before, but an army that took only hours to load up its heavy equipment and mobilise manpower, get to the combat theatre, plan an invasion with miminal intelligence and preparation and then systematically smash the Seperatist air/space defences, the C3 system and force an ground invasion within hours is extremely impressive.

Um, where was it ever stated that they had to load up all the gear onto starships and such? How much preparation was involved for the invasion on Geonosis? I'd like to know a source (or sources) preferrably with page numbers. And possibly quotes if I don't have access to the material, because nothing I have seen suggested that and I was always under the impression it was basically ready to deploy (especially given how the Kaminoans kept emphasizing th first batch was ready for delivery. Something isn't ready for delivery if its not in the proper packaging, so to speak.)

Very few armies right now has that kind of response time, and that only if they had been premobilised or have prepositioned equipment in place. To be able to actually plan and stage the kind of airstrikes, raids and assault that they did within hours, with miminal intelligence aside from that provided by the Jedi is amazing. There may have been knowledge of Geonosis defences(Anakin approach, the quasi canon assault on the DCS by the Jedi during Mace Windu intervention), but the Clone Army would still had only hours to plan the ATO, assault and etc.

With greater than 50% casaulties? They deployed at least 192,000 troops (although there were more Acclamators there, and depending on your sources some people have suggested more troops). Hard Contact at the beginning specified 72,000 or so troops fit for deployment, 12,000 seriously wounded, and 8000 lightly wounded. That in turn suggests some 100,000 died in the assault, unless you have better information to the contrary.

Let's not forget they were greatly helped by the fact The Separatists weren't even expecting a war. I mean technically, the Republic gave them no warning, the Separatists had no reason to expect an enemy attack force to exist, much less to appear, etc. So that gave them a HUGE military advantage (for one thing they were able to near-totally cripple the GEonosian airforce.) THere was also the fact the Separatists had virtually no heavy vehicles of their own (only about a million troops and some light artillery) Are you trying to suggest Geonosis represents some sort of standard, based on all that?

[Simon_Jester]

And? Who would had provided the intelligence to the Clone Army to allow them to pull off the plan? We know from the Clone Wars video game that the assault had Jedi input, wouldn't they be suspcious of how the Clones had all this miraclous, up to date intelligence on Geonosis?

The Jedi themselves were caught off guard by the revelation of the droid armies on Geonosis, and the scale of their armies was clear in Mace Windu tactics. You're essentially suggesting that the Jedi won't be suspicious of how the Clones had more up to date intelligence, and a plan to attack Geonosis than their own haphazard plans.

They... might not. Remember, the Jedi are mystics and warriors first and generals a very distant second.\

When Jedi affect the outcome of a planet-sized war, it's often by doing pretty simple things: acting as commandoes and launching a decapitation strike, negotiating to bring a third party into the war on one side or the other, retrieving a powerful weapon or neutralizing a powerful enemy weapon.

So their own grasp of operational planning and stuff may not be particularly refined, certainly not when it comes to managing planet-wide campaigns. If the clones are at all clever about presenting what they know, it may simply look to the Jedi as if the clones are themselves extremely competent and good at improvising a plan on short notice from the available information, not that they've been quietly planning the operation for weeks on the basis of that same information.

What I think would really threaten to blow it is that Jango has easy access to the clones, that they are presumably at least somewhat... loyalish to him, and that he'd be pretty likely to tip someone off that the clone army is organizing an attack on Geonosis, or at least ask awkward questions about that.

The conventional firepower the Rebels had were a bunch of guys in trenches, a few big cannons, and a bunch of aircraft that only managed to damage the AT-AT because of their frickin harpoons.

Sigh. I wish I still have the Battle of Hoth sourcebook, but kilometer wide defences backed up by large amounts of conventional AT vehicles, found and descripted in EGWVT is NOT a weak defence.

Most of that is off-screen; all we ever see is one trench line backed by direct fire beam weapons in fixed turret mounts.

I'm dubious that the rebels have the manpower or time on planet to dig massively thick defenses a la the Hindenburg line (which is what 'kilometer thick' defenses look like).

I'd take the presentations in the games with a grain of salt, if I were you.

Dunno, mang. Like, I guess I'd probably agree with you if I knew that like the Rebel trenches were kilometers long and the snowtroopers had epic knife fights against hordes of released rampaging monsters in the vast abyssal frostbitten catacombs of Hoth and such and such, and not just the bunch of guys getting blown up in a trench, and Luke running around, and some AT-ATs tripping, and then the Millennium Falcon's escape and X-Wings flying and escaping the blockade.

I thought Hoth was just some grimy outpost that, except the shield and the pew-pew space gun, was puny and had just a bunch of ragtags setting up shop before getting booted by some stormtroopers. I had no idea there were battles against swarms of mutated yetis.

Frankly, I like it better Shroom's way- it's more in keeping thematically with the way the movies present the Rebellion. The problem is that every stinking video game on Star Wars does its own version of the Battle of Hoth, and usually makes these big extravaganzas out of them, and when you add up all the extravaganzas you 'find out' that Hoth was actually a battle between fifty jillion AT-ATs and stormtroopers fighting radioactive yeti and whatnot because everything a game designer thinks it's cool to put in a Hoth level becomes canon.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

For anyone here to be of any help on the technical/tactical side and if you want actually quantify the combat as opposed to leaving battle results to personal fiat to make it fair and exciting I highly suggest you propose a scenario. From my point of view an incursion of the IoM into SWG would make the most sense. That way you could leave it purely IoM vs SW without any wierd delving into the craziness of the warp. You could even give the IoM some slight advantages because the warp of SWG is going to be far less chaotic (no pun intended) and therefore warp travel will be faster, easier, and far simpler to navigate. Psykers would be able to use their abilities to the full without the risk of attracting chaos entities. SW into IoM galaxy while cool would pretty much end up with the first ISD to enter IoM space being taken over by chaos, the technology quickly spreading to the choas faction the demons who took the ship over belonged to (double points if it's tzeench) and the IoM along with pretty much every other enemy of the chaos demon in question, falling within the next millennium. You could always say somehow SW shields or neutronium or whatever act as a natural barrier to the perils of the warp but there's a butt ton of other fluff you'd have to manipulate to make it work. That still doesn't leave out the looming threat of chaos corrupting a senior officer and flying to some warp tainted world and copying the tech or hell just possessing the damn ship (see grey knights book 1 with the possessed STC titan). Additionally the IoM galaxy seems pretty "full" of either, orks, man, tyrranids, necrons, or chaos, not to mention the eldar who might pop out of a forge world and say "Gee this techs way above ours and o look, they have no defense against psykers. Eldar rise again!". SWG is much "emptier" in the sense that there are regions of space that are still unexplored, populations that are isolated, planets that have yet to be populated and so on.

[PainRack]

Um, where was it ever stated that they had to load up all the gear onto starships and such? How much preparation was involved for the invasion on Geonosis? I'd like to know a source (or sources) preferrably with page numbers. And possibly quotes if I don't have access to the material, because nothing I have seen suggested that and I was always under the impression it was basically ready to deploy (especially given how the Kaminoans kept emphasizing th first batch was ready for delivery. Something isn't ready for delivery if its not in the proper packaging, so to speak.)

An army ready for delivery is not the same as one that's ready to fight immediately. A US MEF is also ready to deploy to any operational theatre to fight on arrival, but it will still take a month for its prepositioned stocks, manpower and etc to arrive and be outfitted.

With greater than 50% casaulties? They deployed at least 192,000 troops (although there were more Acclamators there, and depending on your sources some people have suggested more troops). Hard Contact at the beginning specified 72,000 or so troops fit for deployment, 12,000 seriously wounded, and 8000 lightly wounded. That in turn suggests some 100,000 died in the assault, unless you have better information to the contrary.

When attacking a droid army of a million? We know the Seperatists manage to load and escape with millions of droids.. While the CIS were caught off caught and simply unable to deploy those armies, choosing to escape with them instead, the number of armies escaping show us the scale of the opposition that the Clone Army was facing.

Let's not forget they were greatly helped by the fact The Separatists weren't even expecting a war. I mean technically, the Republic gave them no warning, the Separatists had no reason to expect an enemy attack force to exist, much less to appear, etc. So that gave them a HUGE military advantage (for one thing they were able to near-totally cripple the GEonosian airforce.) THere was also the fact the Separatists had virtually no heavy vehicles of their own (only about a million troops and some light artillery) Are you trying to suggest Geonosis represents some sort of standard, based on all that?

Excuse me... I'm suggesting Geonosis represented the speed of the Clone Army in deploying into a theatre. They planned and executed an operation in hours. THAT was what I'm using the example for.

Again. They went in with miminal intelligence and were able to execute an ATO that crippled the Geonosian airforce in the opening phase of their assault, as stated in ITW. The sheer speed and scale of the staffwork involved is one that no army right now has.

They... might not. Remember, the Jedi are mystics and warriors first and generals a very distant second.\

When Jedi affect the outcome of a planet-sized war, it's often by doing pretty simple things: acting as commandoes and launching a decapitation strike, negotiating to bring a third party into the war on one side or the other, retrieving a powerful weapon or neutralizing a powerful enemy weapon.

So their own grasp of operational planning and stuff may not be particularly refined, certainly not when it comes to managing planet-wide campaigns. If the clones are at all clever about presenting what they know, it may simply look to the Jedi as if the clones are themselves extremely competent and good at improvising a plan on short notice from the available information, not that they've been quietly planning the operation for weeks on the basis of that same information.

I'm sorry, but this simply doesn't fly. You're suggesting that the Jedi won't be surprised that the Clones have more accurate intelligence on the scale of the droid armies they're facing than the Jedi do. Remember, Mace Windu himself was caught off guard by the number of droid opposition.
Why wouldn't the Jedi take notice?

Most of that is off-screen; all we ever see is one trench line backed by direct fire beam weapons in fixed turret mounts.

I'm dubious that the rebels have the manpower or time on planet to dig massively thick defenses a la the Hindenburg line (which is what 'kilometer thick' defenses look like).

I'd take the presentations in the games with a grain of salt, if I were you.

Errr.... Kilometer thick defences just refer to the "depth" involved. It really isn't that difficult to build up a series of trench lines, emplace AT-guns and etc . The army manuals now give us two to three days to dig a similar series of lines and you just need a bit more time to link up the companies/battalions defences, build up brigade and emplace brigade assets...... no idea what this would be like in snow and freezing conditions but a week is more than plausible.
If anything, building the base and the ion cannon, including the reactor should had taken more time.

[Simon_Jester]

You have a good point, PainRack.

I figured more along the lines of them just not having the assets to dig in that much- not enough physical boots on the ground, not enough rifles, entrenching tools, or heavy equipment to dig multiple mile-line trenches in a short span of time. But they were clearly there for months, so if they had the manpower and weren't having trouble feeding them all, I guess it could be done. Conditions on Hoth's surface during the day aren't inconsistent with getting work done, after all.

[Connor MacLeod]

An army ready for delivery is not the same as one that's ready to fight immediately. A US MEF is also ready to deploy to any operational theatre to fight on arrival, but it will still take a month for its prepositioned stocks, manpower and etc to arrive and be outfitted.

I notice you completely ignored my request for sources/proof as to the deployment state of the forces they deployed to Geonosis. so let me ask again, where is the evidence as to the status of the Clone forces deployed to Geonosis prior to the battle? You're making the claim, you back it up.

When attacking a droid army of a million? We know the Seperatists manage to load and escape with millions of droids.. While the CIS were caught off caught and simply unable to deploy those armies, choosing to escape with them instead, the number of armies escaping show us the scale of the opposition that the Clone Army was facing.

So you're saying they took over 50% casualties against an enemy they achieved complete surprise against, they had near-total air superiority against (nto to mention kicking the ass of in space), and was seeking to escape? You claim that's impressive proof of deployment speed. To me, it looks like they rushed into the battle without preparation or planning (which basically fits with the whole "Jedi are not warriors" bit) and suffered massive casualties as a result. Apparently all that planning they executed to take out the hangar facilities left them a bit lacking in the "actually fighting on the ground" department.

Excuse me... I'm suggesting Geonosis represented the speed of the Clone Army in deploying into a theatre. They planned and executed an operation in hours. THAT was what I'm using the example for.

Again. They went in with miminal intelligence and were able to execute an ATO that crippled the Geonosian airforce in the opening phase of their assault, as stated in ITW. The sheer speed and scale of the staffwork involved is one that no army right now has.

If all your trying to say is "Star Wars can move its ships across the galaxy really fast" - big shock, we knew that. My example about the massive casualties beingf replaced on an hourly basis certainly implies that too, yet it's not something you exactly want to proclaim from the rooftops, is it? And you are referring to the Hangars that were taken out by Acclamators and Clone commandos? How exactly were those located again? (bearing in mind that despite this the ICS mentions thousands of fighters being deployed to break the blockade in orbit.)