Tactical Stupidity in Science Fictions

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman · Post by **Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman** » 2002-07-26 05:43am

Some sci-fi battles can be just laughably stupid when compared to real-world military doctrines. Examples are:

Mobile Infantry in SST movie: Charging en masse & strafing at close range against enemies who don't even have ranged weapon (Bug Warriors, but even the Tanker's flame only have limited range.). Anyway, real world army would have Main Battle Tanks, Cavalry/Infantry Fighting Vehicles, APCs, Scout Jeeps, Artillery support, & close-air support (helicopters, A-10 Warthogs, etc). Klendathu will just be another cakewalk.

Klingons: Charging with >ugh< *swords* after abandoning their ranged weapons. 'Nuff said.

Jem Ha'dar: Same with Klingons, plus screams. The correct UT translations would be, "We're here! Shoot us!!"

Other examples, anyone??

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-07-26 06:22am

Star Trek: Leaving a perfectly good space craft to enter a hostile enviornment with hostile forces. And having nothing to protect oneself but a notoriusly inaccurate beam weapon, that has to be walked to it's target to hit it 90% of the time.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-07-26 08:51am

The enemies also have the notoriously innacurate beam weapon

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-07-26 05:48pm

The Borg- send one cube and only one cube. Lose said cube. Repeat. If they would just send a few cubes they would have taken Earth and very likely finished off the Federation.

[/quote]

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2002-07-26 05:53pm

"Flee? In our moment of triumph? I think you greatly overestimate their chances."

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2002-07-26 06:01pm

To be fair even if Tarkin had left Palpy would have killed him anyway so he had nothing to gain.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2002-07-26 06:04pm

Crazy_Vasey wrote:To be fair even if Tarkin had left Palpy would have killed him anyway so he had nothing to gain.

Nah, I don't think so.

*Imagines the DS firing full blast at Palpy's cloaked shuttle*

Akm72 · Post by **Akm72** » 2002-07-26 06:23pm

"Flee? In our moment of triumph? I think you greatly overestimate their chances."

Tarkin was right, when he said it. The risk to the station was very low, they were putting out enough high-power jamming to blind all the sensors on the X-wing, and common sense dictated that no human pilot had any realistic chance of getting a direct hit. Tarkin couldn't have been expected to know that Luke was 'strong in the force' and had the guidence of the disembodied Kenobi, and that Han would take Vader out of the fight.

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2002-07-26 06:41pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:
Crazy_Vasey wrote:To be fair even if Tarkin had left Palpy would have killed him anyway so he had nothing to gain.
Nah, I don't think so.

*Imagines the DS firing full blast at Palpy's cloaked shuttle*

The DS was gonna die anyway, they were inside Yavins gravity well and couldn't have escaped if they wanted to. Tarkin could escape onboard a shuttle but how long would he last after that debacle? Vader would have been pissed at him for making him defend the station alone virtually and Palpy would have just been plain pissed off.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-07-26 08:15pm

Vasey you mean they could not hop to lightspeed?

Oh and remeber he says SHIP

Not Shuttle prehaps meaning oh Tarkin of much ego prehaps had somthing a little bigger than what Vadar could have strifed in his TIE Advanced

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-07-26 09:02pm

More examples of tactical stupidity in sci-fi:

Aliens: I've gone over this in other threads, but once again, they armed with AP rounds against an enemy with no body armour, they changed their minds and disarmed rather than heading back to the APC to rearm, they left the dropship sitting in an unsecured area with the door open for hours and no one guarding the entrance, they didn't leave a single crewman on the Suvaco to rescue them or call for backup if he monitored the first dropship being destroyed, and they chose to make their stand in a building which they weren't familiar with but the aliens were, and where all combat would occur at extreme close quarters so that the tactical advantage of their ranged weaponry would be nullified (instead of finding an elevated position out in the open, setting up a perimeter with the sentry guns, and picking off approaching aliens from range).
The Fifth Element: the survival of humanity is at stake, and they send one man because they don't want a high profile operation. Why the fuck not? The survival of the human race is at stake and you don't want to make waves? Naturally, their lone warrior finds himself vastly outnumbered (duh).
Battlestar Galactica: the entire plot hinges upon the most incredible stupidity ever witnessed: the Colonial military's refusal to go to battle stations even when they see a wall of enemy fighters heading toward their position.
Star Trek 2: Kirk didn't raise his shields. 'Nuff said. His tactical "genius" was in overcoming his own monumental stupidity, and I don't think that counts. I like Kirk, but he suffered the mother of all brain farts in ST2.
Any TNG space combat incident: "Do not return fire; we don't want to appear hostile". Another big hit: "Do not raise shields; we don't want to take any provocative action."
Terminator: you are SkyNet. Your goal is not conquest, not expansion, but simply, the total extermination of humanity, so that you can replace the biosystem with a machine world. Do you use chemical and biological weapons to exterminate them en masse? Of course not. Instead, you shoot them one at a time with line-of-sight beam weapons, and you round them up in processing camps for "orderly disposal", thus giving them a completely unnecessary lease on life. Worse yet, you make the humans work in ths camps, thus giving them opportunities to examine your technology.
Babylon5: EA fighters and even capships can get close enough to Minbari warships to ram them, as we saw in "In the Beginning". A nuclear detonation at a range of many hundreds of metres will destroy a Minbari warship. Does it take a genius to see what's wrong here? Fine; assume that their sensors are completely useless. If that's the case, then accept it, mount nukes on manually guided missiles (or suicide bombers; hell, if they'll do it for Islam, they'll do it for the survival of all humanity), and fry up some Minbari warships for breakfast. But nooooo, they don't change their tactics or their weapons at all, even though they obviously aren't working.

I'm sure there's more; this is undoubtedly a rich vein to mine.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-07-26 09:44pm

Stormbringer wrote:The Borg- send one cube and only one cube. Lose said cube. Repeat. If they would just send a few cubes they would have taken Earth and very likely finished off the Federation.

[/quote]

Maybe they treat their cube like shampoo? Rinse and repeat. Then again, maybe they're just stupid.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-07-26 09:49pm

Starship troopers: against an enemy that lacks weapons at long range, you make a little fortress with big gaps between troopers? Then you go on the offensive to allow the enemy to close the distance faster?

B5: Mike, it gets worse, ships in the Earth Minbari war (of the Omega class) DID ram Minbari ships, when presumably they would have been equipped with nuclear weapons. They just didn't set 'em off!

I do like how ranged weapons are NEVER used to their fullest ability in Sci-fi. Hand-to-hand fighting abounds from small corridors to DS9 to even the forests of Endor.

RayCav of ASVS · Post by **RayCav of ASVS** » 2002-07-26 10:11pm

You need to recheck your name:)

RayCav of ASVS · Post by **RayCav of ASVS** » 2002-07-26 10:15pm

Mr Bean wrote:Vasey you mean they could not hop to lightspeed?

Oh and remeber he says SHIP Not Shuttle prehaps meaning oh Tarkin of much ego prehaps had somthing a little bigger than what Vadar could have strifed in his TIE Advanced

Most EU sources say the DS had hangar space for up to 4 Loranor Strike Cruisers. Perhaps one of them was a personal ship of Tarkin?

(According to X-Wing vs. TIE, the ISD-I Alecto is Tarkin's personal starship)

RayCav of ASVS · Post by **RayCav of ASVS** » 2002-07-26 10:29pm

BTech: The Clans have a super-ridged set of rules as to how warfare will be fought. Entire battles have been shifted because of this. Furthermore, the Clans employed ammo-based weapons against their first invasions of the Inner Sphere. While more destructive than beam weapons, the Clans soon found themselves in one hell of a logistical nightmare that helped turn the tide in favor of the Inner Sphere.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2002-07-26 11:10pm

More of a strategic fuckup, but still noteworthy for occurring in an otherwise excellent military:

Book SST: To defeat the bugs, the Humans make a beeline straight for Klendathu and dump insufficient numbers of troops onto the planet with no clear objectives, no line of supplies, and an operational time limit of a few hours at most (the MI had no spare batteries or ammo!)

To be fair, this was a plot-point by Heinlein to make a better story. But it's still a noteworthy brain failure.

X-Wing Series by Stackpole: In an absolutely ludicrous move by Ysanne Isard, she has Coruscant defended by only a handful of Star Destroyers and a few dozen Golan defense platforms. What a joke! I realize that she wanted the New Republic to capture the planet (an awful idea in itself!), but if I was Ackbar, I'd be smelling a rat.

"It's a trap!"

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2002-07-27 02:59pm

South Park: Operation Get Behind the Darkies

LordChaos · Post by **LordChaos** » 2002-07-27 03:07pm

Darth Wong wrote:The Fifth Element: the survival of humanity is at stake, and they send one man because they don't want a high profile operation. Why the fuck not? The survival of the human race is at stake and you don't want to make waves? Naturally, their lone warrior finds himself vastly outnumbered (duh).

gotta agree there. the survival of the race is at stake, I'll send an entire light infintry division if I have the logistic capacity.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-07-27 03:10pm

LordChaos wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:The Fifth Element: the survival of humanity is at stake, and they send one man because they don't want a high profile operation. Why the fuck not? The survival of the human race is at stake and you don't want to make waves? Naturally, their lone warrior finds himself vastly outnumbered (duh).
gotta agree there. the survival of the race is at stake, I'll send an entire light infintry division if I have the logistic capacity.

They do that in Golden Eye, too, but that isn't really Sci-fi. It made no sense in James Bond, and it makes no sense in Fifth Element. The only movie it actually did make SOME sense in was MIB (GREAT movie).

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2002-07-27 08:04pm

Master of Ossus wrote:They do that in Golden Eye, too, but that isn't really Sci-fi. It made no sense in James Bond, and it makes no sense in Fifth Element.

Force Recon was in the area. They just didn't know where the dish was at the time, and they were probably afraid that Trevelyan would be cranky if they sent them in right off the bat.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-07-27 08:09pm

Why were all of them hiding, then? In the same place? Where their view was almost exaclty the same as the next person's? With little time before something really BAD was gonna happen

? I forgive them because it's James Bond. I would not tolerate that in a SW or ST movie. I hate B&B.

Shadow WarChief · Post by **Shadow WarChief** » 2002-07-28 03:00am

Transformers: The Movie

The Tactical Blunder: The Attack on Autobot City

The Leader to blame: G1 Megatron aka Blunder-tron and Bedpan.

Lusankya · Post by **Lusankya** » 2002-07-28 10:32am

Darth Wong wrote:
The Fifth Element: the survival of humanity is at stake, and they send one man because they don't want a high profile operation. Why the fuck not? The survival of the human race is at stake and you don't want to make waves? Naturally, their lone warrior finds himself vastly outnumbered (duh).

Well, the lone warrior is Bruce Willis, so they could be justified in sending just one man in. Their only mistake was in ever thinking it could be a covert operation.

Doomriser · Post by **Doomriser** » 2002-07-28 12:41pm

RayCav of ASVS wrote:
Mr Bean wrote:Vasey you mean they could not hop to lightspeed?

Oh and remeber he says SHIP Not Shuttle prehaps meaning oh Tarkin of much ego prehaps had somthing a little bigger than what Vadar could have strifed in his TIE Advanced
Most EU sources say the DS had hangar space for up to 4 Loranor Strike Cruisers. Perhaps one of them was a personal ship of Tarkin?

(According to X-Wing vs. TIE, the ISD-I Alecto is Tarkin's personal starship)

Actually, the DS1 carried (or had room for) _thousands_ of capital ships. (Deep space mobile base was the DS' secondary role, after all). See Saxton's page on the DS for more info.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Tactical Stupidity in Science Fictions

Tactical Stupidity in Science Fictions

UMm, COlin....