Land Tactics in Star Wars

Something that's been bugging me over the last few weeks, while I've been thinking about all things military for a fic I've been mulling over. Generals in the GFFA seem to be completely lacking in anything even remotely resembling tactical skill. You can take your pick from any number of examples. The Clones in AOTC advancing very slowly in skirmish order on a battefield dominated by heavy weapons and droids whose only effectiveness is in massed fire. Similarly, Revenge of the Sith has a number of examples of Clones charging headlong into a hale of fire from heavily armed and heavily armoured droids, and getting predictably cut down in their dozens. The Clone Wars movie shows massed formations of droids advancing across a narrow bridge towards clones behind solid cover. So naturally, they charge right down to meet them after a couple of volleys. What's even more galling is that if the Grand Army really does only number in the millions (no I don't want this to turn into another Clone numbers slugfest, but the point is relevant ), then they really can't afford to be throwing away soldiers, each of whom constitues a considerable investment of time and resources in such a reckless fashion. And don't even get me started on the trailers for The Old Republic, the Republicans enjoy the high ground, superior fire power, and surprise against an opponent dealing mostly in melee attacks, and charge impetuously down into glorious single combat. I've never seen the issue to quite the same extent in the EU; some, such as Zhan, Allston and Stackpole have usually been pretty good about this sort of thing in their work, so maybe it's just a problem with the visual media and 'rule of cool'. Is there any other explanation for the use of tactics that would gat any terrestial commander fired and court-matialled for gross incompetence?

 

Well, because military and government officals are grossly incompetants in star wars.

And While the denizens of the GFFA enjoy many technological advancements over us on 21st century Earth, in many ways they are more akin to 17th century earth, especially in the tactical competance department. Would also help if Lucas employerd a military advisor.



For the TOR trailer, it seems like that group of troopers was small, And while they did have the high ground, and coverd position. Remember what their Jedi ally did to Malagus and the Rockface he was standing in front of.

It is the hight of stupidity to allow a force user to focus their attention on you, in combat it is almost always lethal.

Since the armies of Earth don't fight Uber-chi weilding super warriors, we don't have to take fighting them into account.

 

Most of the time, the clones yell out phrases like "Flank 'em!" without actually doing so. It gives the appearance that they are a trained military, but without having to go through the trouble of creating plausible tactics for armies equipped with missile-craft, humongous mechs, artillery, tanks, sophisticated air and spacecraft, and fully automatic firearms. Not to mention grenades, mines, and the occasional supernatural demigod. It takes too much effort, so battles are reduced to zerg rushes.

 

While I agree that the ground tactics displayed in Star Wars have often appeared very weak, especially in TCW it's not really fair to expect too much. As Falor stated, it's not precisely clear what exactly proper tactical deployments would be, especially for large scale engagements when you throw in air support and precision turbolaser artillery and all the rest. Ground battles seem to work best when kept to a small scale with obvious objectives, like on Hoth. Several of the more militarily minded EU authors also favor this approach, focusing on commando actions.

There's also the in-universe fact that ultimately, ground combat in Star Wars should actually be very, very rare. There are really only a few types: insurgent guerrilla conflicts against occupying troops, special forces operations for specific objectives, and massive assaults to overwhelm planetary shield generators. Otherwise, if one side holds space above a planet, and there are no planetary shields, then you can precisely destroy from orbit any and all resistance. Set piece ground engagements should only happen in extraordinary cases, with unique circumstances to each one.

You can look at the movies and mostly see this. Hoth: planetary shield generator. Endor: commando action to destroy a shield generator (and the chosen tactics, or lack thereof, by the Empire actually has a lot to do with that fight). Geonosis: attempt to both rescue and capture politically significant VIPs that degenerated int a mass melee with the principle intent of preventing the Separatist ships from getting off-planet. Utapau: the need to capture or kill a significant VIP using an entire civilian populace as a hostage. Kashyyyk is the outlier, but we don't really see enough of that battle to know what's going on.

 

It's a space opera. Drama in battle is part of what makes it fun.

Hence why ground battles are fought using Napoleonic tactics and naval battles are fought in the style of the 18th century.

--Adm. Nick

 

I have always thought land battles were largely unexplored in the EU, and have wished for a good novel set around one. Jedi Trial tried to do way to much in detailing how land battles would work in the GFFA, dwelling on stupid details like how much water every soldier would need and the logistics behind getting those supplies to the army. That kind of stuff should be left to sourcebooks or something, not taking 10 pages in a novel to explain.

The NJO had some good land battles: Dantooine, Yleisa, the retaking of Courscant. I would love to have a novel about a Jedi and a group of NR or GA soldiers leading a guerrilla warfare campaign on a Yuuzhan Vong occupied world.

 

There are many types of drama, in the Clone Wars cartoon it is nepolionic,with broad sides.

In the movies and Novels it is world war 2 battlegroups with frigates, destroyers, carrier/battleships.


The semi realistic style dose work, as a dramatic moment. It is more difficult, but it dose work.

David Weber and John Ringo do it. It works in Mass Effect, with the cover system, and diffrent play style of, adept, Soilder, Sentinel.

It just takes knowledge.

 

We have all of this right now. We have air support and precision artillery, we just use projectiles instead of energy weapons. We do know for sure that two "line formations" walking towards each other like in the US Civil War is just terrible against accurate firearms. (we saw this in AOTC) Another bad example of tactics would be the Allies and Central Powers taking turns charging each other and being cut down en masse by entrenched machine guns in WWI. (we see this a lot in TCW)

Some people think the same thing right now, but it's been proven that you will always need a lot more than just air support to win a war. In fact, that is why it is called air "support". Bombarding from orbit is not always feasible, especially when civilians are involved. Even if it was, simply destroying everything is rarely the best strategy.

 

The technology doesn't match the tactics.

 

To echo Mechalich and Nick, for my part I can't say I expect realism that much when it comes to ground tactics, simply due to the technologies involved not being something that can really be paralleled over to modern warfare.

This doesn't mean things can't be done with a measure of realism, but like Mech said it would restrict storytelling options, so instead what we get is a more relativistic portrayal of space-age warfare that's designed more for dramatic effect than its contextual realism.

If I'm honest, I often feel the same way about the space combat, as in an age of near-instantaneous travel across the distances involved in an active battlefield, I doubt we'd get things like cruisers broadsiding each other; it simply makes for better film entertainment.

When it comes to the space side of things, it's the reason why I cry a little each time an existing pseudoscientific contrivance is done away with, since as unrealistic as the contrived rules that have been built up over the years might be, they're the small things that hold naval tactics in Star Wars together. Alas, each time Minos Cluster-to-Corporate Sector travel times get cut in half, it makes the notions of "local" piracy or "galactic" fleets something of a misnomer, since both would constantly be able to deploy anywhere within a few hours. It's the reason I'm glad the existence of hyperspace barrier outside the Unknown Regions has -- so far -- continued to be acknowledged.

In space, like down on the ground, it's simply one of those things in Star Wars where I suspend disbelief and just enjoy the story for what it is.

 

Beware of drawing too many parallels between our technologies and those of Star Wars. Just because they may look the same does not make them the same. Thermal detonators, to choose one simple example, are like no explosive device on Earth, creating as they do a precision sphere of destruction. Energy shielding is a wrinkle we simply do not possess (and has played a significant role in major Star Wars battles on many occasions). Our air support doesn't function like theirs does either. Repulsorlifts mean a ship or vehicle can perpetually hover above a position for as long as it needs to and yet they ships can accelerate to fighter speeds in an instant.

Additionally, the Star Wars galaxy has millions of settled planets, and they are very unequal. The median planetary economy has effectively zero contribution to the economy of the galaxy as a whole. A tiny grouping of major industrial, mining, and agricultural systems contribute the lion's share of the resources to the galactic economy. Most worlds are little more than points on the map along hyperspace lanes in the pure military calculus, and so destroying them is not a big deal. Essentially, yes you can't win a war on air power alone, but you sure can carpet bomb any given village or minor outpost out of existence, and that's what the average planet really counts as.

Look, I'm not saying ground combat (and to a much lesser extent space combat) in Star Wars isn't flawed, of course it is. This is a space fantasy, not a space military sim. Are there space operas that do it better, sure (Dread Empire's Fall comes to mind), but set piece battles are hard to make look right when you put them under the military microscope (Tom Clancy, who whatever his faults is probably the best military simulation novelist of our time, spends incredible portions of his time on research and is utilizing only existing tech and he'd surely be the first to admit he makes mistakes). The battles in Star Wars look like warfare and at least try to create the appearance of competence. That's better than most fantasy action vehicles.

 

Napoleonic tactics weren't simply human wave frontal attacks, though. Even with drama in mind, tactics like flanking, feints, hammer and anvil strikes, encirclement, and ambushes were all part of the battlefield doctrine of that age. Frankly, the last time two armies really just stood face to face and fought head to head until one side ran - and this tactic remained valid - was in Ancient Greece. One of the first things done in warfare was adapting an army to be quicker on the field.

And land battles happen pretty frequently because most civilized planets have extensive shield networks sitting in heavily-defended settlements. Any protracted battle, except maybe Coruscant, which could be starved out by blockading it cleverly (see Thrawn's tactic from Dark Force Rising), would require the commissioning of a field army.

Frankly, it wouldn't take much. Is Grievous zerg rushing you? Have your men pull back behind a wall of blaster repeaters. Use tank support. Call in air support. Is Grievous trying to stonewall your advancing army? Flank him - and actually do it, don't have CT-6969 scream it randomly before getting cut down by enemy fire while charging at their guns. Basic tactics. We don't need an elaborate discussion on the importance of asymmetric warfare or air superiority, but its just dumb to show two armies rushing at each other like a Greek phalanx without trying to employ any tactics at all, when their tech level would make straight-up frontal engagements inadvisable. The Battle of Geonosis is a big offender. Two armies equipped with fully auto weapons, battle mechs, and artillery, standing five feet away from each other with no cover, wearing bright armor. Keep in mind that these weapons are apparently able to hit things when fired from the hip, as our non-Force users can demonstrate, and things like radar and scanning technology are well-established. There's no excuse. It goes beyond a suspension of disbelief. Things like this treat viewers like morons.

 

kekekekeke.


No wonder the serpatists lost, they all follow ZAP BRANNIGAN'S school of tactics.

 

This topic very much interests me (as an Avalon Hill wargamer from way back) which is why I followed an artillery unit in KE. The trick is that to really get into land combat tactics, you've got to craft scenarios where aerial and orbital units are out of play, because they're too decisive otherwise. If you don't want to talk planetary shields all the time, then you've got to come up with story reasons for keeping those pieces out -- needing to take the objective intact, etc. That's not always very hard, but it's a consideration we don't have when writing about other kinds of combat.

 

Some of it has to be story-oriented, too - as a "general" rule, military commanders aren't going to be at the forefront of a battle. But can you really picture the Jedi sitting in a room on an orbiting spaceship or on a distant planet, instead of chopping droids in half and leading clonetroopers?

 

My theory follows the idea that technology advanced far too quickly for the tactics to adapt to match.
The invention of the machine gun in World War 1 was such an incredibly influential leap forward that it practically destroyed a good century's worth of combat tactics. Trench warfare was horribly obsolete, and with top of the line howitzers and first generation battle tanks all appearing over the span of just four years, the rules of war were irreversibly changed.

Now compare that to Star Wars. They have been in control of particle beam weaponry for thousands of years, and yet as we have seen thanks to the EU, technological advancements have been occurring on a regular basis every few years.

It would be like the industrial revolution never ended, it just sped up. Humans can't adapt as quickly as tech can progress, and with thousands of years of nonstop technical refinements, using battle tactics is rendered useless because some new weapon will invalidate them within a month. Basing all technology around a predetermined set of combat rules, I.E the Zerg Rush tactic, allows the GFFA to continue to produce technological marvels without compromising strategy.

Very poor strategy, mind you, but the only way they can keep even a semblance of order rather than mass chaos.

 

I will be glad to get away from the "jedi" general madness. In what way dose being a Jedi qualify you being a general? especially since they are peacekeepers in a sociaty that had not seen open warefare in 10 centuries.

 

Jedi also are portrayed as veritable renaissance men with knowledge about everything there is in the Galaxy. Perhaps warfare was one. I mean, in practical terms, every single one of them was a warrior, and they did do quite well (when the Plot didn't tie the Idiot Ball to their hands and make them Red Shirts).

 

If the jedi were brought on as tacticians, advisors, and elite warriors, I would totally agree wth the renaissance explination. But being a general is a bit more complex than that.

I suppose it's both a good and bad thing the clones are basicly programed to obey commands from superiors.

 

The only problem with what you said is that it is implied that armies, when confronted with technology, immediately revert to the lowest and most impractical strategy and tactics possible. The machine gun was paradigm-shifting in WWI, but compare the British and French armies being beaten back to the Marne River in 1914 to the Canadian Army during the Hundred Days. In the former, new technology drove the Allies back within sight of Paris. In the latter, 4 divisions of Canadians crushed 47 German divisions and drove them into the open country, up until the end of the war. The difference? New tactics, encompassing a greater reliance on combined arms, better, more fluid tactics, and the key strategic component of fresher troops. The point still stands that the Allies of 1914 and 1918 were fundamentally different. They adapted to new technology very, very quickly. In fact, trench warfare didn't really go out of style until Bltzkrieg came along, when Germany had organized tank divisions operating as heavy units, rather than infantry escorts, and were equipped with radar, giving them an early edge.

Zerg rushing would, in fact, be the absolute worst thing to do, because it takes advantage of no tactics, except strength in numbers, which is only truly useful on the open field, and even then, that can be contested (see: Battle of Cannae, older than feudalism example). The problem is that, if one side charges, human wave style, the other side need only exploit one technological innovation (using a hilltop, fortifications, armored vehicles, bombers, simply maneuvers etc.) to gain a very significant advantage almost immediately. It is very simply impractical. And the technological advances haven't been that huge. Star Wars is actually in a state of tech stasis. I mean, compare KOTOR to post-ROTJ. The vehicles are different, the weapons are different, but there's no paradigm-changing development that completely shifted the way war was fought. And it's not because technology is shifting too fast. Quite the opposite, in fact. Even the Vong didn't cause any permanent changes, besides maybe macro-level war planning.

On another note, I recently re-read the Stark Hyperspace War arc from Star Wars: Republic, and Tarkin's troops actually use a terrain advantage, firing on enemy troops from atop a cliff. It's not much, but it was one of the first instances in PT era Star Wars that I can remember where Republic officers fight asymmetrically.

 

You sure do use a lot of TVtropes jargon don't you? Just an observation.

Anyways, suppose instead that the Galaxy focused solely on one form of combat, and the millenia following were spent perfecting that sole form of warfare. That might also explain the reasons why we have seen similar combat styles thousands of years apart.

 

As an example of change in ground warfare, the KOTOR games mention that the proliferation of the limited-use "energy shields" causes a shift to melee weapons in their era - but they are virtually ignored by the Rebellion Era (with the exception of a certain unstoppable Rebel agent).
Full planetary shields undoubtedly have large energy requirements and extensive, time-consuming set-up that would mean that only wealthy, established worlds could afford to run them. They would have to keep it open most of the time unless they wished to have no trade or contact with the rest of the galaxy - conversely military outposts wouldn't be able to afford or justify a full shielding, relying on a local shield like during the Battle of Hoth... which protects against orbital fire, but not a physical ground assault.

 

Firstly, I wanted to change something in my previous post: German tanks had radio, not radar, as a prime advantage over early Allied tanks. My mistake. Realized it after the editing time was up.

Anyway, the energy shield shift is easily explainable. During the KOTOR era, Jedi are more common and more martially inclined (by this time, the Jedi have been fighting Sith and Mandalorians on and off for the past 50 years). Ordinary soldiers need some defense to ensure they don't get cut to ribbons five seconds in. Thus, they make energy-shields and cortosis-weave blades for melee confrontations with Jedi. Once Jedi decline and the Sith are wiped out, like after the New Sith Wars, and become a less martial order, the need for standard-issue anti-lightsaber gear is lessened.

As for shields...we're not really given a whole lot of information on logistics, but it's pretty safe to assume that any planet in the Core, Colonies, or Inner Rim would have access to shield technology, simply because a.) These planets are moderately-to-very wealthy; and b.) Numerous trade routes pass through these planets. Moreover, it would actually be in the best interest of the central government to have well-equipped frontier bases that can maintain its own defenses without relying on regular contact with HQ. The rebel base on Hoth is protected by a local shield because (in all likelihood) the rebels are poorer and probably lost a lot of their equipment fleeing Yavin. Remember that while the rebels might have had some leaders with very, very deep pockets, the Empire had planets shoveling in tax revenues that would annually eclipse anything that the rebels could shore up.

 

Planetary shield (and likewise planetary ion cannon and turbolaser level defenses) are very expensive, because to be truly comprehensive they have to cover the whole planet. Due to the reality of angular projection and so forth, to do that means putting massive generators all over the planet, which generally means having a fully settled planet (Vision of the Future discusses this, since the plot in that involves bringing down the shield generator that covers the capital region on Bothawui). That probably does mean the Core and the Colonies are fully equipped, along with much of the Inner Rim and strategically important worlds beyond that. It is also probable that, per Admiral Piett's words in Empire, some systems are equipped with weaker or more outdated shields that could be overwhelmed by modern weaponry from large capital ships.

Not that it really matters for a discussion of surface tactics though.

I do think that claiming all ground tactics are shown to be incompetent is overly simplistic. There are plenty of authors or artists who had demonstrated a competent grasp of ground tactics, and the movies themselves are fairly innovative. The Battle of the Grassy Plains shows how shield generators do change tactics (as the droids has to approach slowly and engage at point blank range because of them), the Battle of Hoth showcases a tactical innovation (the use of tow cables to bring down walkers), the Battle of Endor shows what happens when tactical doctrine is ignored (the Stormtroopers break formation and fail to defend their primary objective). Geonosis is the outlier, but it was an obvious clusterf--- and most of what we see is Lucas showing off various cool creations in short snippets of combat.

It seems like TCW is the big offender, and certainly there could be things done to improve it, but there have been at least attempts to show something like tactics (the two-part clone training episode to open the latest season is a good example). Also, the cartoon series is not interested or really even able to explain why certain choices are made from a military perspective (a novelist has more flexibility in this regard). The clones charging the bridge on Christopsis for example. Hypothetically, perhaps once they've reached a certain minimum range battle droids can adjust their fire for supreme accuracy, rendering cover irrelevant, and so it becomes necessary to blur the battle lines to create confusion in the ranks and prevent this. Not saying this happens, but there are possible justifications.

Ultimately Star Wars is not military science fiction or fantasy. Such settings are bound by strict rules as to what can and cannot happen. Witness Battletech with very strict technical matters involving weight, range, and heat, or Dread Empire's Fall, which outlines very carefully just what technologies are 'allowed' to exist in its universe and which ones are not. Star Wars is a much more inclusive universe full of crazy surprising things. It is always going to sacrifice accuracy on the altar of awesome. so far, I don't think such sacrifices have been too much to bear.

 

I think you mean ZAP BRANNIGAN'S BIG BOOK OF WAR

http://theinfosphere.org/images/0/02/Zapp_Brannigan%27s_Big_Book_of_War.png