The Stormtroopers in the OT suck because they are not entirely Clones anymore.

In the Prequels the Clone Troopers were very good because they were elite and were all Jango Fett Clones, aside from a small number of different templates, but according to Star Wars Battlefront 2 the StormTroopers in the OT were largely just human conscripts and a few clones, just basically young 18 year old boys and men like Luke Skywalker (sans the force powers) that were poor farm boys or towns people with families that they loved and had never been away from home before for very long, now they are forced to wear heavy suits and helmets that are nearly impossible to see out of and fight a bunch of Rebels and regular everyday people and they suck at it.

No wonder they can barely hit anything Obi-Wan's reference to the StormTroopers being precise shooters is likely only from seeing them in action during the Clone Wars, the human conscipts also freak out when suprised in ANH by Han Solo and run away like cowards instead of blasting him (when Han chases after them screaming it is pathetic that an entire squad of elite troopers retreats in horror) and only fight back because they are cornered and have to keep themselves from being killed, they also probably suffer from Shell Shock something which Clone Troopers probably would not, its also likely that combat training was reduced afer the Separitists were defeated and the Clones and Human Conscripts were just taught to shoot and do basic military drills and movements, the Empire used them as mere Cannon Fodder anyway because of their great numbers and ease of forced conscriptment in replenishing their numbers quickly.

I guess the Empire spending too much Credits on Death Star funding forced them to abandon the Clone Army because both are costly (Count Dooku probably funded the first batch anyway) two death stars is going to be pricey and Darth Vader isnt going to chip in and use his own fortune to fund the Clone army or a technological terror that he has contempt for anyway.

 

Well, they're still a bunch of Fascist Fanatics that are drilled constantly in idealogy and marksmanship. So, I wouldn't say that they're entirely failures. Frankly, there's nothing limiting them to being drawn from people born after the war either or the Empire would have 20 years of aging clones.

 

The suck because they can't kill the good guys, for plot reasons.

 

Unless of course the good guys don't have names in the credits, in which case Stormtroopers are in fact fairly competent.

 

The point is that Boys with only a few years or months of training make lousy StormTroopers, like in Platoon when the experienced guys meet the Newbies for the first time and realize how by the book and unadaptable they are and cannot stand to be with them as they draw fire and are pathetic in fights, thats probably how the aging Clones felt about the human conscripts.

You seem to be the resident expert here Charlemagne19, so name a book or case in point as your proof and i will conceed my point but i still think of them as being crappy fighters, Clones raised from infancy to be soldiers and warriors? That there is a different set of apples.

 

This is at best, extremely unlikely. The Stormtrooper Corps were the élite of the armed forces Empire, and consequently would have acces to the most advanced technology and the most well trained soldiers. The notion that the Empire would conscript and herd into battle barely trained civilians is an unfortunate relic of the Bantam days. The Empire has no need to do this. To my knowledge, Battlefront 2 merely states that after the uprising on Kamino, the Emperor deemed it necessary to widen the template base of the Stormtroopers, hence the recruiting, not goad conscripts into battle.

The Stormtroopers on the Death Star were placed in a very difficult position, they had orders to allow the Falcon and its crew to escape. You yourself mention the Stormtroopers were élite troops. Élite troops are not cannon fodder. Regardless, why would the Empire conscript its soldiers when there was the superior alternative of cloning them?

The construction of the Death Stars very likely had little to no effect on the economic situation of the Empire. To hold that as true would be to indulge in the grossest minimalism.

P.S Is there any information regarding the division and evolution of the Grand Army of the Republic into the Stormtrooper Corps and Imperial Army? That is, aside from Battlefront 2 ? It's a topic that gets hardly any attention.

 

Resident Expert advice here. In actuality, Stormtroopers are ridiculously dangerous by real world standards. It's important to remember in Star Wars: A New Hope that the Stormtroopers we encounter on the Death Star are being ordered to let our Heroes get away so that Darth Vader can track them back to their base, thus they're missing on purpose. In the attack on the Tantive IV and Echo Base, they do quite well. Now, no one can really justify the Teddy Bear attack but I maintain there was only a few squadrons fighting all those stone agers and a crack team of Rebel Troopers so it shouldn't be THAT embarrassing (but it still is).

The Stormtroopers of the Empire basically get a lot of experience fast thanks to the Empire's "aggressive" policies and Carida seems to actually use the trainees in life fire exercises by sending them against living people. So, Kyle Katarn didn't become a Full Stormtrooper until he'd actually been on missions that involved him killing people. This is stated to be the case for TIE pilots as well, which is more than a little surprising. However, the Empire seems fairly clear that they want people ready and willing to pull the trigger.

While there's only so much that drills and the like can do, Stormtroopers are an Elite branch equivalent to Delta Force or the Green Berets. While the ARCs and other Jango Clones may be better by virtue of their superior training, let's not forget that we have some ridiculously lethal people in the real world as well. The Stormtroopers aren't infantry but "lifers" and chosen from a ridiculously large recruiting pool.

As things like the Jawa Massacre and Lars Homestead slaughter show, the Stormtroopers don't always fight people that are able to fight back but they clock a ridiculous amount of field experience.

I swear, I think Dark Horse likes to pretend the Imperial Infantry doesn't exist.

But you're right that the Empire doesn't recruit a bunch of barely trained conscripts and send them out into the field. That's COMPFORCE. Which pretty much is what amounts to the Hitler Youth Brigades. The Empire just sends these guys out into the field with guns and a bunch of flags and let's them get slaughtered. The Army, on the other hand, insists on everyone maintaining the highest training standards and they're willing to kill you if you don't live up to it.

The Empire wants every able body it can get but it won't tolerate failure.

 

Let's not forget that the Ewoks were all ferocious and uber-strong killing machines. Yeah, that's right. It's totally justifiable, I say.

That's true, but Delta Force and the Green Berets don't fight in Hoth or Endor sized units. A better comparison for the stormtroopers might be the US Marine Corps, or the Islamic Revolution's Guards Corps Ground Forces, or maybe the Army Rangers.

 

The Marine Corps is the closest analogue, though I'm inclined to give the Stormtroopers slightly more exotic training as part and parcel of their mission products. We've seen the Stormtroopers able to work in large scale army units but also able to work in extremely small groups as well.

Plus, they bear a role similarity to the Waffen-SS (since the SA sorta floundered in real life)

 

Are you a Marine yourself Charlemagne19? You seem to know a lot about the military and Marine Corps in particular, i myself would only join the Air Force however, i only want military training at its lightest level because i actually want a good education first, of course at 40 i am too old to join but if i could i would join the Air Force, they are not about killing people and fighting, they are more professional and technical, my father did it and loved it during Vietnam in West Germany, he dodged the chaos and applied and got duty in West Germany and really loved the Air Force, great discipline and education and great travel, let Marine and Dog Faces fight and die like the macho idiots that they are while smarter service men choose a less violent branch and live easy.

 

Maybe they are all clones of Tag and Bink now?

 

I think Charlemagne19 is on the right track...Stormtroopers were hardcore deadly, when persons not integral to the plot are present. They are like Marines, but with better training...like, better than the Israeli Special Forces kind of thing. The Israeli Special Forces are probably the single deadliest warriors on the planet, better than the SEALs or Green Berets...but Stormtroopers are better. They are composed of the best of the best from candidates through out the galaxy. Obi-Wan, in ANH, says Stormtroopers are the only ones who can shoot that precise...he would know, wouldn't he? A Clone War vet, who fought side by side with and then against Jango Clones. And, I might point out, that the only reason they were able to execute Order 66 at all was because they had the element of surprise, pound for pound, the Jedi would have slaughtered them. But, lets actually look at those Clones, shall we? Their host, managed to last about six seconds against Mace Windu in the Geonosian arena, once they finally had each other's full attention...A padawan manages to take down multiple Clones in ROTS before being cut down, as Bail Organa arrives, Yoda manages to decapitate two of them, sensing their subterfuge and reacts faster than they can...Then, we have Boba Fett, who, from a film standpoint, gets beaten by a relatively untrained Jedi, who he had trapped in his zip line already! Boba is defeated AFTER he restrains Luke's movements with his cable. Not exactly a brilliant ending to his film appearance. We don't actually see that the Clones are vastly superior at all...their Jedi kills were because they shot them from behind, not because they were supersoldiers.

Stormtroopers are the best human non-force wielding soldiers around, period.

 

No, I'm not a marine. The closest I've come is my brother being in the Navy.

Stormtroopers are the best human non-force wielding soldiers around, period.


Not quite. Close, though.

One thing to realize is that there is considerable variance amongst the quality of the Stormtrooper corps. Stormtroopers are, by and large, ridiculously good at their job. Kyle Katarn, General Madine, The 501st Imperial Fighting Group, and the like are all pretty much the deadly *****s that the Rebellion really wishes to God that they never see on the battlefield. They are elites even amongst the Stormtroopers (not even getting into the Force Sensitive Royal Guard and Sovereign Protectors who could eat Stormtrooper squadrons for breakfast).

On the other hand, it was the ANH Novelization right that talked about how the local Stormtroopers on Tatooine were different from Vaders. We also have Davin Fleth whom I severely doubt would have passed most of the tests required of regular Imperial Infantry even if he was an excellent Walker Pilot. The minimum requirements are extremely high during the height of the Empire but George Lucas' bizarre cloning story indicates that there were cases where people who didn't get into the armor on sheer merit.

And After the Emperor's death, Stormies are just whoever you could pile in the Armor.

Edit: Let's also not forget that while the Stormtroopers are not MOSTLY clones. There's still A LOT of clones amongst them. You have plenty of Clone Templates amongst the Imperial Officer core. Hell, it's possible we'll be seeing Janek Sunber clones soon enough, which is mighty freaky.

 

Pax Empirica indicates that the Corps was at least 60% clones, probably more. Even if you have only 10% recruits, that's still millions of recruits in a force designed to subjugate a galaxy.

It's in Pax Empirica that the stormtroopers are specifically called genetic marines, and in the new Death Star novel, a stormtrooper is referred to in the list of characters as an "Imperial Marine". Or was that a Death Star trooper?

 

Didn't Insider 96 say that the stormtrooper corps was 1/3rd clones?

 

Yes, that's only on Kashyyk.

 

The guy was referring to the stormtrooper corps in general. OYou can't retcon it that way.

If he meant the Kashyyk taskforce, he would have said the Kshyyyk task force.

 

And then it's just been retconned away.

 

My personal preference for having the Stormtroopers made up almost entirely of clones aside, I think its very likely that the great majority of the Corps were mae up of clones. After all why would the Empire recruit, if it can churn out ready-made soldiers.

 

Recruits are cheaper and pretty capable, for one thing. And for everyone's information it's Kashyyyk.

 

Stormtroopers, compared to todays military, are like taking the elite people of the snipers, force recon, green barrets, navy seals, para jumpers, and sticking them in their or platoon and saying go do what you do best, kill. To me that seems to be what stormtroopers consist of. Its like taking the best assassian out of every branch and sticking them in their own unit and they are unstopable,like ninjas. But seen because of the white armor.

 

You're forgetting the variation; under the Empire, there was something of a meritocracy. SotME provides evidence that smaller-scale projects got less able stormtroopers (as does the ANH novelisation, as pointed out by Charles earlier; but in SotME, it's even more explicit). This suggests that the Empire isn't stupid enough to waste a lot of training; they find a use for their washouts, 'grading' the stormtroopers according to training and skills, sending them to projects of an appropriate level. Logic suggests that the higher the likelihood of Rebel attack, the more skilled the stormtroopers; the higher the rank of the official, the more skilled their stormtroopers; the more valuable the project to the Emperor, the more skilled the stormtroopers.

But even the best apparently aren't up to Ewoks.

 

The stormtroopers don't suck, it's just that movie wise, they aren't supposed to shoot at the main characters. Anything else, such as the Tantive IV takeover, and the Jawa Sandcrawler, and the killing of Owen and Beru, shows us that stormtroopers mean business.