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Also if your gonna build a Rebel base of a reasonable size you'll probably wanna shield it, Putting op a shield over a populated area will undoubtedly raise many questions from the local populous.

Batman wrote:You know where WEAPONS are. That doesn't mean you know they are INSURRECTION weapons.

If you can detect the type of weapon, then you can differentiate between rifles (which ordinary citizens would have) and IEDs (which insurgents like to use). IEDs have a much larger charge than you would find in any rifle bullet, so yes, the ability to track and identify weapons and explosives would make a huge difference.

That's not to say that I support the idea of successfully occupying a huge hostile planet with a small force, but you are seriously overstating your case.

Not to mention did you notice how big the thing was?

Perhaps you could pull it off near a city but its just not worth the risk. At least with a place like Hoth you can control how and when anyone gets there and HOW they get there. That way you can see to it that a new recruit, and possible spy, might know he is at a rebel base but unless he can get to a location beacon or some other place a newbie would stand out, how is he suppose to even know where he is? AKA yes I'm at the base but have no idea where it is..........assuming he can even make a transmission without being noticed. Remember how fast the noticed the Probe Droid when it was transmitting.

Batman wrote: Okay, let's try individual insurgents. City-tons of people who can potentially give you away. Desolate wilderness-not a single soul. Which one is safer, again?

The former, as there are a few people who know who you are, and few even inside your circle who knows who everyone is. In your eggs in one basket camp you know who everyone is cos.. well they're in the camp.

There's a hell of a lot LESS chance one of their own who needs access to long range communications will than one out of millions to trillions of civilians with ready access to public communications will. are you really this dense?

Well considering I've said time and time again you're not all lumped together and so no one civilian can give you away, I think it's you who's dense. How many more times do I have to type it before you read it. Or are you ignoring it intentionally.

As to access to long range communication, I'm not sure I see where the problem is. Are you suggesting it's not possible for an Imperial spy to carry out long range communication with ease? I wonder how many droids could do it for a start.

Hoth (which, I note, wasn't the ONLY rebel base) alone had Snowspeeders, X-Wings, light artillery, a heavy planetary ion cannon, theater shield generator, medium transports-care to hide those in a city?

Well most of that stuff would be unnecessary wouldn't it. Why would you need a shield or Ion Cannon when you're trying to blend in? That's just silly. Considering I'm talking not about not being found rather than trying to defend yourself once found (or more accurately buying time to run away). As to hiding transports, you'd hide them in plain sight. The X-wings etc would be kept with the capital ships. I'm not saying there wouldn't be other bases, merely surmising as to why they don't hide most of their people in insurgent/terrorist cell type groups in the general population. Pretty much answered by Publius.

No, and obviously neither are you. it's easier to hide the AWAY from the cities ALTOGETHER. There IS such a thing as EMPTY WILDERNESS, you know.

Interesting how you dodge your previous comments. I said " The bigger the city and the more people, the easier it is to hide" and you said that's not true for large numbers of individuals. So I ask again, do you stand by your statement that it's not easier to hide a large number of people in a larger city than a smaller one? We were comparing Baghdad to an Imperial city not to empty wilderness.

Not my fault you don't grasp basic logical concepts.

When unable to defend a point, spout pointless dribble.. ah I see I'll try to learn from your example.

You spend an awful lot of time on not making that case.

Yes because I ask some simple question and get a multi-stage breakdown of it challenging meaningless crap, which if not responded to results in your saying I have no case. I take pleasure in stymieing your attempts at creating an issue where there is none.

When you bring up a point and then say you can't be arsed to debate it, that's a concession. Learn to live with it. Learn to quote while you're at it.

No, when you ask a question that tends to mean you aren't defending a position, you're attempting to be informed. And my previous method tends not to end up as a confusing mess like yours did last time you fucked it up. Without even previewing it obviously.

And that means you are in a position do do something about that how?

What the fuck? If we're talking about either the US or the Empire, both are in a position to do something about it. Where do you pull this shit from?

When it wouldn't, especially not by the factor you mentioned, thanks to them not having the manpower to do much of anything about it.

Bullshit, they have the manpower to confiscate weapons if they know where the fuck they are. The problem is finding them because this technology doesn't exist.

You continue arguing you're right a lot for someone who just stated an opinion. Guess what hotshot, when you claim your opinion is correct, you ARE making a case.

Yes see the problem is you find it hard to tell the difference between an opinion and a fact. You keep trying to get me to prove the unprovable and then have a wank when I can't because I'm theorising on something that doesn't exist.

You claim something exists, YOU prove it. If you have no proof, the default assumption IS it doesn't exist. Sounds like evidence of absence to me.

You're fucked in the head, seriously. I did not claim something existed. I theorised that weapon detecting technology (that I pulled out my arse as an example) would be of great help to the US. You're claiming the very fact that such a statement can't be proven (as the technology was made up) that it's proof the theory is wrong. Which is bullshit. Interesting also that Wong came to the same conclusion, so he doesn't know the rules either?

Aquatain wrote:Also if your gonna build a Rebel base of a reasonable size you'll probably wanna shield it, Putting op a shield over a populated area will undoubtedly raise many questions from the local populous.

That's partly my point. I was wondering why some of the bases on out of the way planets aren't instead replaced by terrorist cell type infrastructure in population centres. You're not building a base (in this instance) and so don't need shields etc. You're hiding people and small arms. That question was answered by Publius when he pointed out they have planetary weapon detecting tech. Or at least I'm assuming that's part of the answer.

Ohh i bet they had thousands of "terrorist cells" all over the galaxy, but the rebels also (unlike terrorists) needs space to storage Starfighters, transports and a multitude of other rather large equipment .. that means storage area, which bring us back to shields and means of self defence.

PayBack wrote:

Batman wrote: Okay, let's try individual insurgents. City-tons of people who can potentially give you away. Desolate wilderness-not a single soul. Which one is safer, again?

The former, as there are a few people who know who you are, and few even inside your circle who knows who everyone is. In your eggs in one basket camp you know who everyone is cos.. well they're in the camp.

Ah, but as per you we're not talking about a camp anymore, we're talking about individual insurgent cells. So how is one of those hiding out in the desert where there's NOBODY to give them away any more endangered than one hiding in a city where there's tons of people who might give them away by accident?
And IF we are still talking about a camp how pray tell are you going to hide it in the middle of a metropolis?

There's a hell of a lot LESS chance one of their own who needs access to long range communications will than one out of millions to trillions of civilians with ready access to public communications will. are you really this dense?

Well considering I've said time and time again you're not all lumped together and so no one civilian can give you away, I think it's you who's dense. How many more times do I have to type it before you read it. Or are you ignoring it intentionally.

I am, because it's irrelevant. This isn't about hiding small terrorist cells (which is STILL easier in the desert than in a big city), it's about hiding a BASE. Which is IMPOSSIBLE to do in an urban environment.

As to access to long range communication, I'm not sure I see where the problem is. Are you suggesting it's not possible for an Imperial spy to carry out long range communication with ease? I wonder how many droids could do it for a start.

Yes. Every Valendamned citizen in a megaplex who might see something suspicious having access to a phone is definitely no different from a supposed spy in the midst of the Rebel base having to get access to an FTL comm. :rollseyes:

Hoth (which, I note, wasn't the ONLY rebel base) alone had Snowspeeders, X-Wings, light artillery, a heavy planetary ion cannon, theater shield generator, medium transports-care to hide those in a city?

Well most of that stuff would be unnecessary wouldn't it. Why would you need a shield or Ion Cannon when you're trying to blend in?

They WEREN'T trying to blend in, hotshot.

That's just silly. Considering I'm talking not about not being found rather than trying to defend yourself once found (or more accurately buying time to run away). As to hiding transports, you'd hide them in plain sight.

Because we know a)the Empire operated X-Wings by the truckload, b)the Rebels always had legal fronts they could work through and c) you know what, you're just full of it. You CAN'T hide them in plain sight.

The X-wings etc would be kept with the capital ships.

And those would be kept where? Would that be the secret remote bases I've been talking about all along? The ones this silly argument is all about?

No, and obviously neither are you. it's easier to hide the AWAY from the cities ALTOGETHER. There IS such a thing as EMPTY WILDERNESS, you know.

Interesting how you dodge your previous comments. I said " The bigger the city and the more people, the easier it is to hide" and you said that's not true for large numbers of individuals. So I ask again, do you stand by your statement that it's not easier to hide a large number of people in a larger city than a smaller one?

And again, I never said that.

We were comparing Baghdad to an Imperial city not to empty wilderness.

Yes we were.

Not my fault you don't grasp basic logical concepts.

When unable to defend a point, spout pointless dribble.. ah I see I'll try to learn from your example.

You seem to have learned that lesson a lot earlier than I supposedly did.

You spend an awful lot of time on not making that case.

Yes because I ask some simple question and get a multi-stage breakdown of it challenging meaningless crap, which if not responded to results in your saying I have no case. I take pleasure in stymieing your attempts at creating an issue where there is none.

See above.

When you bring up a point and then say you can't be arsed to debate it, that's a concession. Learn to live with it. Learn to quote while you're at it.

No, when you ask a question that tends to mean you aren't defending a position, you're attempting to be informed.

Too bad you didn't stop at asking questions but maintained you were RIGHT, and asked me to prove your position WRONG. You WERE defending a position.

And my previous method tends not to end up as a confusing mess like yours did last time you fucked it up.

When you can't even be bothered to bring up the points in the order they were made. Yeah, right.

And that means you are in a position do do something about that how?

What the fuck? If we're talking about either the US or the Empire, both are in a position to do something about it. Where do you pull this shit from?

The fact that the US do NOT have the manpower to do something about it.

When it wouldn't, especially not by the factor you mentioned, thanks to them not having the manpower to do much of anything about it.

Bullshit, they have the manpower to confiscate weapons if they know where the fuck they are.

Says you. They have to do them razzias ON TOP of everything else they're doing right now.

The problem is finding them because this technology doesn't exist.

The problem is the US don't have a fraction of the manpower needed to handle Iraq even if it had been handled properly.

You continue arguing you're right a lot for someone who just stated an opinion. Guess what hotshot, when you claim your opinion is correct, you ARE making a case.

es see the problem is you find it hard to tell the difference between an opinion and a fact. You keep trying to get me to prove the unprovable and then have a wank when I can't because I'm theorising on something that doesn't exist.

An opinion you insist on restating.

You claim something exists, YOU prove it. If you have no proof, the default assumption IS it doesn't exist. Sounds like evidence of absence to me.

You're fucked in the head, seriously. I did not claim something existed. I theorised that weapon detecting technology (that I pulled out my arse as an example) would be of great help to the US.You're claiming the very fact that such a statement can't be proven(as the technology was made up) that it's proof the theory is wrong.

Nice try. Semantics whoring apparently comes naturally to you.
Evidence of absence=absence of evidence is about EVIDENCE, not theories (should be painfully obvious from the wording but oh well). There is no evidence for the US having that capability (Duh). Yes, that theory IS wrong.

Which is bullshit. Interesting also that Wong came to the same conclusion, so he doesn't know the rules either?

Curious how he never actually did that.

What the is Batman on about?

Am I missing something or did he at some point start arguing (with himself) about whether it's better to hide Rebel military bases in big cities or small cities?

...when there are literally millions of fucking completely uninhabited planets to hide out in the galaxy?

Batman wrote:

You claim something exists, YOU prove it. If you have no proof, the default assumption IS it doesn't exist. Sounds like evidence of absence to me.

You're fucked in the head, seriously. I did not claim something existed. I theorised that weapon detecting technology (that I pulled out my arse as an example) would be of great help to the US.You're claiming the very fact that such a statement can't be proven(as the technology was made up) that it's proof the theory is wrong.

Nice try. Semantics whoring apparently comes naturally to you.
Evidence of absence=absence of evidence is about EVIDENCE, not theories (should be painfully obvious from the wording but oh well). There is no evidence for the US having that capability (Duh). Yes, that theory IS wrong.

Goddamn, you're a fucking moron. He is NOT theorizing that such a technology actually exists! He is just saying that if it DID exist, it would have a certain impact. This is like saying that IF we had warp drive, we could go to Mars in less than an hour. You can't refute that statement by saying there is no evidence for the existence of warp drive, you blithering idiot.

@Cyke:
Tell that to PayBack, he's the one arguing the Rebels would be better off hiding their bases within cities.

Darth Wong wrote:

Batman wrote:

You're fucked in the head, seriously. I did not claim something existed. I theorised that weapon detecting technology (that I pulled out my arse as an example) would be of great help to the US.You're claiming the very fact that such a statement can't be proven(as the technology was made up) that it's proof the theory is wrong.

Nice try. Semantics whoring apparently comes naturally to you.
Evidence of absence=absence of evidence is about EVIDENCE, not theories (should be painfully obvious from the wording but oh well). There is no evidence for the US having that capability (Duh). Yes, that theory IS wrong.

Goddamn, you're a fucking moron. He is NOT theorizing that such a technology actually exists! He is just saying that if it DID exist, it would have a certain impact. This is like saying that IF we had warp drive, we could go to Mars in less than an hour. You can't refute that statement by saying there is no evidence for the existence of warp drive, you blithering idiot.

Conceeded, as that's not what I was trying to argue (regardless of the horrible job I made of doing so). My beef was with PayBack, as I understood it, saying that absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence, period, which if I understand the rules of these fora, it does, or at least should.
That clearly doesn't apply to hypothetical scenarios which presuppose a certain set of evidence to begin with within the scope of the scenario.

Batman wrote:Conceeded, as that's not what I was trying to argue (regardless of the horrible job I made of doing so). My beef was with PayBack, as I understood it, saying that absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence, period, which if I understand the rules of these fora, it does, or at least should.

Given that the whole subject only came up because of your idiotic assumption that he was arguing such technology actually existed in real-life, I hardly think you have any grounds for continuing to pretend that you're in the right on this one. You are defending your mistake out of stubborn pride. Nothing more.

I'm very much afraid I'll have to conceed that, too.

Howedar wrote:D-Day saw about 1.5 million troops ashore in the first month, trying to retake territory with a friendly population. That's for one front of a war on one continent. A million troops for an entire system pales into insignificance.

Just to play devil's advocate, a million troops on a single troopship is an extremely tempting target. Given the scale of Imperial resources, the Empire could easily split the difference with larger numbers of combat transports.

Furthermore, stuffing a million troops isn't going to do much good if they can't easily deploy due to limited frontage, although the use of LAATs or the equivalent would counteract this point.

Tell that to PayBack, he's the one arguing the Rebels would be better off hiding their bases within cities.

Won't a better argument against that be the fact that Imperial power would similarly be concentrated in the city? If any Imperial response was waged against a Rebel base in the outback, it would be easily noticeable and evac could begin. In the cities, any concentration of Imperial power would be more rapid and harder to notice amongst "normal" patrols.

Ditto for surveillance and the like. Even if we ignore the normal security checks such as holocams, security fields which can monitor droids and the like, any covert surveillance of Rebel activity would be harder to notice by Rebel counter-intelligence, simply due to the wave of humanity as well as the "normal" activity of Imperial power.

The Imperials aren't adverse to burning a city down just to kill a bunch of rebels I think, given the long list of atrocities they are known for.

I recall there was one Rebellion comic arc where eventually, the local guerillas joined the Rebel Alliance after it became too hot to run the campaign.

It also should be known that worlds like Toprawa had the entire population punished for helping the Rebels.

The Rebels would be putting the local population at risk by indulging in such tactics. Effective they may be in this era, but likely the city will be destroyed along with its population if need be. Mon Calamari lost 3 cities as a result.

Considering the mass slaughter caused by the (admittedly planned) Clone Wars, I could easily see an Imperial military commander, particularly a Clone Wars veteran, trying and succeeding with convincing himself that you have to crack a few eggs to make a galactic omlette. I have a suspicion that the Empire and Old Republic put a lot less value on individual life than we do, too; this isn't surprising, considering their galaxy's massive population. The evidence would seem to support it, as well (the Republic's wishy-washy response to the Naboo incident, the later BDZ strikes during the Clone Wars on both (?) sides, etc.).

I am loathe to accept the EU's characterization of Imperials as mindless, hateful thugs, not only because it's boring, but because it's completely illogical to think that millions upon millions of naval commanders, many of whom served valiantly in the Clone Wars against a threat they probably believed was a real danger to the galaxy, would just suddenly turn into cackling meglomaniacs because of a logo swap and some paint scheme changes. Hell, look at Admiral Piett or Captain Needa (who actually was a veteran of the Clone Wars, IIRC); neither one of them seemed to fit the EU's idiotic stereotype of the Imperial officer.

That's not to say that all Imperials were misunderstood but good men- Tarkin, for example, was very obviously a bastard (blowing up a planet just for your own jollies or jettisoning a man from an airlock for a snide comment is more than a little insane), but one also notes that Tarkin was a close friend of Palpatine's, perhaps indicating exactly why he was able to get into such a position of power.

regarding larger troop ship capabilities:

WOTC Revised core rulebook fro the SW RPG, page 234 wrote: The success of the vessel (acclamator) in the early days of the Clone Wars prompted the Republic to order a thousand more from RHE, which by that time had begun designing bigger and better variations, along the lines of battleships and destroyers.

The implication there seems to be that Rothana began building much bigger troop transports (multi-mile ones, possibly.)

Connor MacLeod wrote:regarding larger troop ship capabilities:

WOTC Revised core rulebook fro the SW RPG, page 234 wrote: The success of the vessel (acclamator) in the early days of the Clone Wars prompted the Republic to order a thousand more from RHE, which by that time had begun designing bigger and better variations, along the lines of battleships and destroyers.

The implication there seems to be that Rothana began building much bigger troop transports (multi-mile ones, possibly.)

I wonder if they ever got round as KDY took full absolute control after all that flurry of orders. Then we had the Venator and that was the principle warship used for transporting of troops as we noted in the movies.

Or off screen...

Connor MacLeod wrote:regarding larger troop ship capabilities:

WOTC Revised core rulebook fro the SW RPG, page 234 wrote: The success of the vessel (acclamator) in the early days of the Clone Wars prompted the Republic to order a thousand more from RHE, which by that time had begun designing bigger and better variations, along the lines of battleships and destroyers.

The implication there seems to be that Rothana began building much bigger troop transports (multi-mile ones, possibly.)

That's odd..... I always viewed that quote as meaning Rothana built larger Accalamators as dedicated battleships and destroyers......

Looks like I need a paradigm shift

Batman wrote:I'm very much afraid I'll have to conceed that, too.

Ironically I have more spare time at work than I do on weekends so haven't had time to invest in this discussion over the last two days until now. Though not with any great enthusiasm as it seemed to grow out of proportion, so can we call this ended?

I suppose it would be cheaper to ship troops in a fewer number of large transports, but as was stated, it's not a good idea to put so many eggs in one basket.

However, what about moving troops around outside of combat? Perhaps there are transports larger than Acclamators and Venators, but are not as well armed and shielded..?

As for combat insertions, from RotS it looks like Venators (aircraft-carriers-cum-destroyers) were used to transport troops directly into combat situations!

Batman wrote:@Cyke:
Tell that to PayBack, he's the one arguing the Rebels would be better off hiding their bases within cities.

Oh.. my bad!

Well when talking about transports I did mean for transporting to areas where space superiority was held and little danger of attack.

From a previous post it seems it would only take a ship a few K's long to hold a million. The TF battleships could carry 100,000 passengers (not sure they mean droids), and I suspect that could be increased considerably if it didn't also carry so much freight and was still an unconverted freighter.

PayBack wrote:Well when talking about transports I did mean for transporting to areas where space superiority was held and little danger of attack.

From a previous post it seems it would only take a ship a few K's long to hold a million. The TF battleships could carry 100,000 passengers (not sure they mean droids), and I suspect that could be increased considerably if it didn't also carry so much freight and was still an unconverted freighter.

Aren't there already EU liners which conceivably could carry billions?

PainRack wrote:Aren't there already EU liners which conceivably could carry billions?

As this author wrote on 23 Jan 07:

Publius wrote:As it happens, XaLEv's calculated figure of 5.4 m^3 per soldier would mean that a LH-1740 control core could (in theory) accommodate in excess of 12 million soldiers (Attack of the Clones Incredible Cross-Sections states that the LH-1740 has some 66 million cubic meters of cargo space, to say nothing of its berthing spaces for 60,000 "trade representatives"). A Rendili StarDrive container train like IFA Black Ice, with its 100 million cubic meters or so of cargo space, could carry around 19 millions, while a Loronar field secured container vessel (FSCV), which is known from the Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition to transport as much as 5.36 billion cubic meters of cargo, could accommodate 993 millions or so.

It is within the Galactic Empire's technological capacity to transport nearly a billion people with one FSCV (although not necessarily practicable or practical). With a fleet of ships, the Empire could relocate the entire sapient population of a civilized world.

Brilliant, thanks for that. It's actually surprising how small a vessel could move a million.