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Captain Seafort wrote:
The 2nd Death Star was approximately six months into its construction at the time of the battle (begun during Shadows of the Empire). The Imps were in the process of scouting the surrounding area (the patrol the Rebel force bumbed into). The effectiveness of Imperial equipment would have been seriously reduced by the forest they were fighting in and the Ewoks natural camoflage (BTW they didn't have air support). Palpatine's claim of "an entire Legion of by best troops" must be suspect given that they fought in a forest with white armour - no attempt at camoflage (by contrast the clonetroopers fighting on Kashyyyk in RotS did use camoflage.) Despite all these disadantages they were winning until Chewie nicked the AT-ST.

Which entirely solidifies my point. You're saying that they built a huge superweapon around a moon without knowing anything about the moon's surface? That they fought poorly with no camoflage?

This is supposed to be aboust stupid characters in sci-fi. Thank you for corroborating my point that the Imperials in Return of the Jedi were stupid beyond words.

Your source for these numbers please? We never saw more than a couple of dozen stormies at once, partially because they scattered through the forest after the Ewoks, partially because the majority of them were at the front door believing the battle to be a diversion.

Like I said, I assume that a legion in Star Wars talk means a division in military terminology. I'm still waiting for you to acknowledge that a modern military force can be beaten by a bunch of teddy bears throwing rocks.

I believe that if a foot-wide rock is thrown (not dropped but thrown) at a man's head, it doesn't matter whether he's wearing a helmet or not, it will ruin his whole day.

I ask you again: you seriously believe that an advanced military force numbering in the thousands (we're assuming that they wouldn't guard a very important facility with anything less than a division, though as you pointed out the Imperials were mind bogglingly stupid) can be beaten by throwing rocks at them?

Can you envision a scenario in which the US 10th Mountain Division could be beaten by throwing rocks at them? Didn't think so.

Ok, the bit about not wearing camoflauge neatly fits into my idea that they were the best legion in political terms, they likely had very little combat experience.

Also the empire had numerous points against them;
Ewoks had a numerical advantage.
They had pre prepared traps.
They had rebel comandoes assisting them.
They had the advantadge of surprise.
They were in the middle of the forrest.(one of the worst places for a gun fight)
One of their vehicles had been captured.
They likely had little experience.

And they were still winning untill the rebel commandoes captured the AT-ST.

The Jaffa from Stargate SG-1. They couldn't hit a barn if they tried. They also were chainmail armor. I wonder how many Jaffa died in the 10 years of Stargate SG-1.

JudgeKing wrote:The Jaffa from Stargate SG-1. They couldn't hit a barn if they tried. They also were chainmail armor. I wonder how many Jaffa died in the 10 years of Stargate SG-1.

The Jaffa's incompetance fits into the story nicely. They were meant mainly to strike fear into primitive people. And most of the time they engaged in combat it was with Jaffa serving other Goa'uld and they were equally matched.

Yes. The staff weapons, for example, were intended to scare their targets more than be the most absolutely effective weapons, as the purpose of the Jaffa was domination and not actually doing as much damage as possible. Remember that there were not really many threats on Goa'uld hegemony up until earth humans started poking around and stirring up trouble.

They even made this point in an SG-1 episode once. O'Neil presented a bunch of rebel Jaffa with P-90s. When they disparaged them, he had their best guy shoot a target with a staff weapon, then had Carter do the same with her P-90. The Human weapon was more accurate in single shot mode, had more firepower in automatic mode. As O'Neil said holding both "This is a weapon of intimidation... This is a weapon of WAR."

I remember that. The P-90 destoryed the log in a few seconds the Jaffa needed like 3 shots and then didnt do as much damage as the P-90.

IIRC, the jaffa fired three but only hit with two shots...
It would be pretty hard to hit anything with those.

I know you guys got off the topic of Star Wars some but since I used to command a Storm Trooper guild in Star Wars Galaxies I'd just like to point out something called the 'Hero Effect' or is it Affect? It happens in every single movie and show. Basically its you can't rate the enemy, be it Orcs, Stormtroopers, or Jem'Hadar by how they perform in battle against the main characters.

Look at the assault on Echo Base. The Empire did a full frontal military attack against an enemy well entrenched and desperate. Not to mention the rebel's main base of operations. They in turn suffered extremely little casualties outside of what Luke did to them. Even counting him they didn't suffer too much.

A full frontal attack today would be disasterous under even the best circumstances. Reason we don't do that.

Another example is when the Empire took Tantive IV (Corette in Episode IV). Another full frontal assault through a bottle neck into an entrenced desperate enemy with very few casaulties. Storm Troopers are far superior than their rebel counterparts.

Far as the 'best' troops go the Imperial Crimson Royal Guard were the best. Followed by the Royal Guard, and then the 501st. I don't think the 501st was on Endor so I would say the Emperor was bluffing.

And as for TIE Fighters they are designed to be cheap and do swarm tactics. The average life span of a TIE Fighter Pilot is six weeks. They are politically brain washed to give their life for the Empire and swarm and destroy the enemy by superior numbers. The rebels can't do that because they don't have a population of trillions to draft from so they went for each pilot survivabilty and the most power packed into every fighter. Reason one X-Wing can kill one TIE Fighter of equal skill. That's also why the rebels made Rogue Squadron, Wraith Squadron and other groups like that to do small hit and fade tactics whereas the Empire only have one interceptor squadron that does similiar.

The Empire does have its own fighters designed for roles like the rebel ones are designed for. The TIE Advance (Vader's) and TIE Defender are two examples.

Exactly, you can't expect the heroes to get killed. There'd be no show if you did that.

Starfleet.

let's face it, they're the military, and although there are worse militaries in scifi, they're all commanded by megalomaniacs with names that end in "the (adjective)".

now, if Kirk was in command, at least the space branch of Starfleet operations would rock, just because their enemies would be too confused by his Corbomite and overwhelmed by the Ego Rayâ„¢, and the enemy ground forces might all be too pregnant to fight, but that's still only a minor improvement.

Starfleet can't seem to be able to decide wether they're a civillian or military fleet. What they should do is split Starfleet into a military division and a science division.

In all fairness to Starfleet, all of the fancy armor and tanks and machine guns are pretty much irrelavent when you've got a ship with pinpoint weapons in orbit overhead. The way I see it, Starfleet has never really needed to create a viable army division, since one or two starships can wipe out even the best ground army in minutes. But on the rare occasions when they have to fight without orbital support (e.g. AR-558) they're really not prepared for it.

Oh, and while we're discussing incompetent armies, there's always the Trade Federation battle droids; don't even get me started on those...

I always wondered why Worf didn't bombed the surface where the Jem'Hadar troops had landed

Having a starship in orbit is a major help, but it does not mean a ground army becomes irrelavent. Can a starship take an enemy city intact? Can it sieze military outposts without destroying valuable intelegence inside? Can it take and hold a position on the ground?
This is like saying that because we have bombers, ground forces are irrrelevent. After all, a bomber could level cities, right?