PT Battle of Grassy Plains...

The trade federation assets were on the ground, they were not going to waste their army.

 

True. The royal cruiser even got past the blockade and it didn't seem to be because of much fancy flying. If that had been a blockade of Star Destroyers, I doubt it would have got very far.

 

Except for the minor fact that, in the movie, the droid control ship isn't shown to have anything heavier than point-defence lasers. It doesn't fire any turbolasers at the Royal Yacht, for instance.

 

I don't think that works as an explanation for "why no bombardment." If the TF didn't want to waste its assets, and had the capacity for orbital bombardment, then why even deploy your army to begin with? Just target from orbit when the army reaches the plains, fire, and leave the droids back snoozing in their transports.

I prefer the argument that the cruisers didn't have capacity for orbital bombardment, only interdiction, myself. But if you wanted to take a Chessmaster-y approach to it, you could argue that Palpatine has, again, orchestrated the entire battle, just as he manipulated the Clone War, as follows. (I'm not drawing on EU for this, just what we see in the PT).

Palpatine has several goals he needs to achieve out of this battle. First, he needs to ensure the Neimoidians' defeat, to stop them getting any stronger and ensuring further destabilisation of the Republic because they'll then be receptive to Dooku's entreaties to join his separatist cause. Second, Palpatine also needs to secure Anakin's safety and push him into his relationship with Padme to manipulate him. Third, he needs to get rid of Darth Maul since he's a potential threat and Palpatine is either cultivating or has already suborned Dooku by this point. Fourth, he needs to get rid of Qui-Gon who otherwise would be Anakin's father figure.

All of these goals are achieved by the battle. It allows Padme's troops to get in and launch their attack on the Droid Control Ship. It allows Darth Maul to confront Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. It keeps Anakin from being captured by the Trade Federation, and keeps him in play with Padme. Some of this might be Batman Gambit stuff, of course, but the way Palpatine's orchestrated events, no matter which way they turn out it's still a win for him. For example, Darth Maul: had he survived, he'd have terminated Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan both and left Anakin with no figure of attachment in the Jedi Order - one that would make Palpatine's attachment to him stronger and earlier.

 

While I agree with most of your post, I disagree with the last part about the Endor bunker. Unlike Hoth that had a coil set up to cover the area above the base, Endor had a dish set up pointing up to the sky. I infer from this that the cone we see on the map is projected from the dish, and therefore the bunker itself is not protected. The bunker could have had a second set of unseen coil type generators to protect the base, but since it is not shown, I can't assume there was a second set. Maybe a second shield to cover the base would have interfered with the shield being projected up to the Death Star? Can a shield be projected through another shield?

But the main point of my post was stating the films never show a large ship bombing, and that the TF battleships, at the time of TPM were probably not equipped for that. Though in ROTS, it looked like the TF battleships had more guns retrofitted onto them. But their main role are still carriers for ground forces and fighters.

 

I think the need for two shields is failing to observe Ockham's Razor ... the cone and the sphere around the Death Star as shown in the briefing are one contiguous shape, not two. In our own "reality", you don't have to be above a radar dish to get the HBO broadcast projecting from it, you can be sitting alongside it or on the ground half a mile or so away. Both are forms of electromagnetic energy? And there's support for the "one shield" from other events, too: the Rebels have to get clearance through the shield to get access to Endor at all, and Vader's report to the Emperor is that "a small Rebel force has penetrated the shield and landed on Endor." Besides which, even if the shield is projecting up directly from the dish, how is a capital ship going to hit it from orbit? Per ANH, only fighters have torpedoes capable of performing 90-degree turns

 

The Gungans should've summoned an army of flying dragons to murder the droids.

 

The AAT tanks would have shot them down.

 

They were cowards, not warmongers, they did not come equipped to bomb anything. They were shady businessmen with an army of mechaniks, there to make a profit. That early in the game, even if they were equipped, the last thing those goons would have been thinking was bombardment. Especially with their leaders on the ground.

 

The fleet used by the TF seemed more like a siege group rather than a battle group. Occupation was the goal, not annihilation.

Killing everyone doesn't get a treaty signed.

 

I have to disagree with you. First, there's no indication he wants the Neimoidians to be defeated. Why would he want a treaty signed which would legitimize the invasion and occupation if he wants the Neimoidians defeated. Second, I really don't think he's thinking about a relationship between Padme and Anakin just yet. In fact he knows almost nothing about the kid yet. It's only after Anakin blows up the Trade Federation control ship that Palpatine begins to take an interest in him. Third, While I wouldn't put it past Palpatine to have a backup plan should Maul be killed, I see no real reason why he needs to get rid of Maul now. Fourth, why would having Qui Gon around prevent Anakin from being turned? Would it have prevented Anakin from being turned? Who's to say that in the next 10-13 years that Qui Gon wouldn't have died thus problem solved? I think you're attributing more motivations than is necessary or than is backed up by evidence.

 

How many times was the word "Invasion" used in TPM?

 

SSS isn't that a question for the Trivia thread?

Killing everyone doesn't get a treaty signed.
=----

this

 

FREE POINTS!!!

GGrievous said I could post it in here, to see if any gamers notice.

 

Good one.

 

Two vulture droids would have decimated and scattered the Gungan army at nearly zero cost. Rocket powered machines vs. lizards that lob plasma balls a couple of hundred yards at a velocity of about 30 MPH? This is a no-brainier. It doesn't seem to me that the person that conceived of this scene bothered to consult anyone trained in battle tactics. Probably the in universe answer to what I'm saying is that the TF wasn't trained in warfare, but it seems likely to me that they would have at least gotten a few tips from HoloGoogle ™ before pressing the big silly red "deploy" button. (roger roger?)

...and BTW, if they turned the entire Gungan army into a smoking crater of terrible looking vaguely racist sounding CGI what would that be, a mile square? It would hardly make a scratch on the planetary supply of cutesy blue goo. That is unless the entire planetary supply was located right underneath that specific battle site within a few meters of the surface.

Also, if I were trying to get the Queen to sign the treaty, (like I wouldn't just kill her and forge her signature in the first place,) I would want to quickly destroy all resistance on the planet, including the only actual beings capable of putting up a fight.

Lead with bombardment, follow up with airstrikes, mop up with the Keystone Robots battle droids. I learned these basic tenants of battle tactics by the time I was 12 from an 8 bit gaming system.

 

you're forgetting that this is a planet that starves within a week without exports, despite that it has a planet core of water, but that's a different topic

 

Oh, I don't doubt there's a lot of Batman Gambit in there, as I said. This is only an available hypothesis if you put Palpatine right up the top of "sees the future, sees all outcomes, puts everything in place for his eventual benefit" scale of Chessmasters. Where exactly he falls on that scale is a matter of conjecture, since the movie (as opposed to some authors in the EU) doesn't really state how much of the Empire's rise is due to Palpatine's scheming and how much is just him taking advantage of situations as they arise.

 

Except you forgot that the Gungans have shields to protect them, just like echo base did. If the shields could repel heavy tank cannon fire, than weak starfighter guns won't cut it either. At best the Vulture Droids would have to land, convert to walker mode, and walk though the shields where they get hit by boobas. The TPM Vulture Droids seemed to lack missles that the later ROTS versions seem to have, since the TPM ones are never shown firing missles, and again the Gungan shields may block them anyway. So just like the Empire at Hoth, the TF had to use ground forces to march in and knock out the shield generators. Then charge them with the tanks and round the Gungan army up which is what happens. The TF was winning that battle until Anakin knocked out the control ship.

 

Don't forget the grain that they export.

 

and I just realised that I meant to say import instead of export

 

I just thought of something, Ozzel's line about bombardment doesn't seem to indicate bombardment from the SDs or from the TIE bombers, I guess he could mean either or, but the line isn't really clear about that.

 

I think you just have to go with the idea that ISD bombardment is being referred to, or else it starts to get really wiggy. If the shield is powerful enough to stop any bombardment, then how the heck do the AT-AT's lasers hit the shield generator, for example?

 

You just summed up everything I was about to say XD

Seriously you'd think that a society that could travel at lightspeed and construct lightsabers and stuff could do precision targeting for bombardments. In the real world we can't exactly hit something with 100% accuracy...it might miss directly by a little bit but it'll still destroy what was targeted. Now jump to a society WAAAAAAAY more advanced then today...shouldn't you be able to at least fire a laser beam, one that isn't affected by wind or gravity or anything, and be able to at least hit in the general area of where a bunch of hippie amphibians are walking in straight lines? And if they have a shield, then do what you said. Send in a few vultures. The Theed Hangar isn't in Padme's control yet, so no Naboo fighters can come and pick off the vultures. And if the vultures get knocked out...send in more. Have you seen how many vultures came out of a single Lucrehulk battleship?! Fly through the shield, shoot a little or target the shield generators on top of the giant faambas or whatever and then orbital bombard. You can orbital bombard in Battlefront I btw...and also if the Gungans can make a freaking shield generator that can deflect an AAT's fire, then why on earth are they still using slings and catapults?!

Honestly the only good part in TPM is when Maul appears and starts kicking the Jedis' rear ends.

 

Part of it is the See The Whites Of Their Eyes trope, first cousin to the phenomenon in Star Trek of ships conducting combat at ranges close enough to spit on one another. Hell, it seems impossible in Star Wars to target an ISD, with a superstructure one mile long, unless you can see it out the window.

On "why still slings and catapults when they can build shield generators" -- societies lagging in certain technological areas is a common historical phenomenon. The Roman Empire, for example, was great at civil engineering but a bunch of n00bs when it came to things like alchemy, i.e. the forerunner of chemistry. Their legions carried more metal than any other army before then, but they didn't greatly innovate on previous forms of weapons. They improved on agricultural tools they inherited from earlier societies but didn't get round to inventing the horse collar; that had to wait for medieval Europe. Going by the Gies (Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel) part of that was because Roman scientific thought emphasised what we might call applied science rather than the theoretical branches. In the Gungans' case, it seems a reasonable inference that the Gungans pushed ahead on shield technology because it was a part of their daily life, i.e. the underwater cities. They hadn't fought anybody in a serious way for a while, so there was no impetus to develop a more accurate blaster or more efficient weapon than the slings and heavy catapults they already had.