Seems to be off nicely. I don't like Glentract's bum rush, he'll take the hill, but it'll be costly. Lord Darkstar has evaded the most serious obstacle (the marsh) and explained why he would, so he will sustain fewer casualties from the actual attack, the flanking maneuver will be difficult though, I don't know how he would pull it off.
www.stardestroyer.net has a weapons evaluation page or two. It also effectively describes everything in SW (In heavy detail).
Anyways, for the battle at Obroa Skai, the location will be as follows:
The storm trooper group will be holed up in a fort in the desert area of the planet. Normally, this would not be an area of significance. However, the central computer has been safeguarded by an AI, who is powered and maintained in a bunker below this remote location. To gain access to the planet and thus secure the mainframe, this outpost must be destroyed.
The fortification itself is solid duracrete, manufactured off planet and built on site by human settlers. It consists of an outer wall with crenellations and murder holes, along with slits for for defenders to fire with minimal exposure. On the four corners are small towers with small turbolaser turrets, and situated in the front (Where the only entrance is in the form of two heavy doors) are a pair of e-web repeating blasters.
Inside is a redoubt, which is a smaller building, roughly two stories high, with one automatic turret on top (Certainly not enough to fire over the outer wall, of course) and a strong single door which leads to the entrance of the bunker. However, the entrance itself is covered with a shield, which is in turn fueled by a generator on the opposite side of the building as the front entrance, up on a plateau roughly a mile back.
The forces deployed are as follows:
The Main Fortress
- 20 precision marksman, with an equal number of spotters.
- A full artillery team, manning the turbolasers. About fifty people total.
- Wall defenders, which start off initially at about a hundred.
- 2 individuals manning the e-webs.
- 50 troopers using the slits to fire from.
- 18 troopers manning the murderholes (Most up front)
- 100 troopers stationed inside the outer wall, ready to fill the ranks of the first group of wall defenders as they fall, though their primary goal is to hold the door or walls should they be breached.
- 40 troopers with speeders, serving as an extremely light cavalry unit. (They deploy from the secondary base holding the generator on first sight of the attacking forces)
Troops deployed at the Secondary Base:
- 100 troopers holding traditional rifles and carbines, defending the bunker from within. Note that the bunker is a building roughly the size of a small plane hangar and has only one entrance. It's walls are as thick as the main fortress and can withstand a lot of punishment. The troopers, upon hearing about an attack, will try and hold the main entrance with their lives.
Lastly, your forces will be roughly two miles from the main entrance, in between two mountains in high ground. Initially, you will not be visible due to the angle and the shade. However, to advance forward, you will need to consider the terrain: the mountain never comes closer than 1.8 miles of the main fortress itself. It does spread out like the letter C, quasi-encircling the main entrance (west side) and the north side to some part. The south is a dune sea, and the north is a steep cliff. Also note that the secondary base or bunker is on the far east, opposite you entirely, and is up on a plateau.
Alright, if that was overkill let me know.
Originally posted by Illustrious
The Position on Kamino is a difficult one. Raging seas surround the only landing dock for as far as the eye can see. A storm in brewing overhead, pounding heavy rain onto the vast ocean. The heavens have poured their fury onto the landing dock, making any mass deployment difficult. The Kaminos are inside, tucked within their own well-defended cloning facility.The base is massive, with many levels. The only open landing bay is at the lowest level, and the attackers must fight their way towards the top. Surveillance is set up throughout the entire building, and well-defended space-age doors are set up at equal intervals at each floor. There are ten levels to the cloning facility, and there are a total of 700 stormtrooper guards dispatched on patrol, guarding the location from any intruders. These guards have employee elevators that can not be used by attackers and can reach any barricaded door within minutes.
The job is simple, how to infiltrate the building, navigate to the top floor, and take out all 700 of the guards.
Hey judges, Duron and Kressh, what do they get? 😛
Originally posted by Illustrious
The Position on Kamino is a difficult one. Raging seas surround the only landing dock for as far as the eye can see. A storm in brewing overhead, pounding heavy rain onto the vast ocean. The heavens have poured their fury onto the landing dock, making any mass deployment difficult. The Kaminos are inside, tucked within their own well-defended cloning facility.The base is massive, with many levels. The only open landing bay is at the lowest level, and the attackers must fight their way towards the top. Surveillance is set up throughout the entire building, and well-defended space-age doors are set up at equal intervals at each floor. There are ten levels to the cloning facility, and there are a total of 700 stormtrooper guards dispatched on patrol, guarding the location from any intruders. These guards have employee elevators that can not be used by attackers and can reach any barricaded door within minutes.
The job is simple, how to infiltrate the building, navigate to the top floor, and take out all 700 of the guards.
Hmmm. My basic plan is going to be to send Ludo and his Men through the bottom level, while Kyp adn about 100 Mavericks go from the top and wait for a maneuver. Ludo will go through the levels with his force and the rest of Kyp's force, he and the Mavericks will be sensing ahead adn the Sith Apprentices will keep to the shadows and attempt to stay undected.
After the first level is cleared, the men with Ludo will go through the place rampaging, staying behind cover at every chance. After they get to the second to top level, Kyp and his men wil charge in and they will encase the remaining defenders in one place.
well the reason that I said that Marka, Ulic and Traya could use the cloak move is since each NJO jedi was taught the technique, if it can be taught, my three sith would likely know it. Also, you can cloak more than one person with it, in Dark Onslaught (the very start of the Vong invasion), Jaina cloaked both herself and Jacen (Jacne wasn't using the force at that time, the looser), with no apparent effort. Also, remember that during that book Anakin was 15, Jaina and Jacen are a little more than a year older than him so they are either 16 or 17, yet she had no trouble cloaking two people, also, she was able to hide them as they passed through scanners and as people were activetly hunting for them, this was also in the middle of a busy street so she would have had to hide them from hundreds of people. It would be easier for my sith since the stormtroopers will not be activetly searching for them, they do not know that they are there.
About surrounding the fort, I think that you are over-estimating the time that it would take for this to happen. Each sith would take their armies, and stay in the jungle, making them harder to see. Then since the fort would not be all that large (it only houses 500 people, no reason for it to be larger than 10 blocks), they could all move around it. And stepping on a sitck would not give them away, first, they are hidden and quite a ways from the enemy, so they would not hear a stick snapping, also, even if they did, they could just think that it was an animal, remember the stormtroopers are not that bright.
As to how I am going to get in close, well I was going to have all my troops move forward until they are right at the fringe of the jungle, still hidden, but just barely. Then I will have 50 Krath Elite from Ulic's party seperate just slightly so that I have an army at all four cardinal positions (north, south, east, and west), those 50 Krath will move to the south west, then they charge forward, getting the troopers inside the fort to attack them. Once they have the troopers attention, the east army would charge forward, dividing the troopers inside the base. 30 seconds later, the rest of the people charge so that the fort troopers are completely distracted and unsure of where to shoot (this happens all the time in battle when people come at you from all directions). Hope that answers that question.
I would not have my snipers providing fire from the outset, like you said that would give us away, however once we have attacked then they start to fire. About explosives, while if they do have them, I think that some of my troopers would be able to see them and disable the ones in the jungle. Those surrounding the base would be destroyed by a 'destroy droid' from one of the sith. If they did have grenades, their exploding would be the trigger for the rest of us to attack.
I will not make a contingency plan for this battle, however thanks for the idea and I will try to make one in the future.
Also, even if it is just Kreia and her sith apprentices that can get that close, it would still be a devastating rear assualt. Remember, with just a wave of her hand Traya was able to kill 20 or so sith assassins (cut scene in KotOR II). So she would be able to hold her own and like I asid, the stormtroopers that were in the fort will be caught between the hammer and the anvil and die a quick and painful death.
Oh and one more thing, when my sith are inside the fort, the ones that cannot jump that high will be down on the ground, shooting any of the enemy that comes to close to the edge or within sight.
On a different note, what can I do with the risk card?
God from the machine, "Deus Ex Machina". Literally. It refers to certain old plays, when they would lower a god(s) via a crank during a scene where the divine deity would solve the seemingly unsolvable dilemma. It also applies to scenes were seemingly ridiculous odds are overcome via sudden insights or characters who appear out of nowhere and solve problems ridiculously easy.
It's also Latin, which means it pwns by default.
Originally posted by Deus Ex
The main problem I have with this scenario is Yoda. For one, Yoda demonstrated telekinesis, yes. But look how he was every time he did it- stationary, eyes closed, and concentrating. He would be totally vulnerable for some time. I find it a bit of a stretch to say that Yoda can just rip these up without him or his defenders under heavy fire (Since he is an enemy general and will no doubt be a priority target for the defending forces.) This just begs for trouble.Second problem I have is the idea that Yoda will just rip the walls apart (While being stationary, concentrating, and reaching out with the Force). I'm not doubting that he can do it, but it won't be a five second ordeal. He will need EXCESSIVE cover, and quite frankly I don't think he'll find it. If the storm troopers think the jedi is up to something, they'll be raining fire on his position and chucking thermal detonators like it's their job. (Which it is.)
And the third problem I have is with Yoda leading a charge. Even if the wall is torn down, the stormtroopers will be especially desperate and he will present a fine target. Since there will be nothing to hide from (just a bumrush en masse) the attacking team will sustain casualties, and Yoda will spend too much time dodging shots to make leeway. To be frank, he isn't a frontline general and he doesn't function as such.
Based on this, Yoda will not be able to quickly take out the e-web and the snipers, and this will cost you initially. And because you did not have the troopers form a defensive line and otherwise do anything strategically effective (Such as cover fire), they will basically be rained down upon by the defenders. Snipers and the vicious e-web will take their toll, and Yoda will be in peril.
So yeah, you'll probably take the hill, but at what cost?
I had to cut down your quote to let this post fit. This post is an attempt to answer the difficulties you had with my strategy. A rebuttal so to speak.
Janus, you didn't mention Joruus being able to simply take over the entire base in a about a second with minds control. Anyway, there were a few things said that I did wrong that I fell I can prove otherwise.
For the first paragraph. Yes, every time we have seen Yoda use telekinesis, he has been standing still with his eyes closed. That shouldn't be much of a problem though. Two things,
First, meat shield. The losses caused by the meat shield won't be much higher than if they just stood anywhere else, for reasons I will explain in a moment. The clones have armor, which, seen in ep2, can take stop small amounts of fire. A direct hit can still kill a clone though, but direct hit will be rare in this situation. This leads to my next point.
The Essential Guide to Weapons says that the optimal range of an E-web is 200 meters. After this distance, its luck before skill, until 500 meters, at which time the beam is ineffective. My forces, starting 200 meters away, will be about 40 meters out of the maximum optimal range E-web because of the slope.
Yoda can simply rip the spines out of the ground and throw them at the E-web, or Joruus can take over the mind of the E-web gunner. I will go with the second one because I have a reference from a book. Either method will take about a second. The clones, shocked by having their heavy weapon turned against them, will be mowed down. I will show where Joruus has been shown to demonstrate this level of mind control in the next paragraph.
The snipers would still be a threat. Although I don't have the actual numbers for the maximum range for sniper weapons, I am pretty sure that it is well over 200 meters, and it doesn't look like I need to convince you of this. They won't be a problem. Joruus, with a meat shield of clones, will simply take over their minds and have them assault them main fortress. He has demonstrated the ability to control 37,000 minds at one time, even with some of the minds up to eight times father away than these snipers. It only took him a second or two of concentration to do this.
The snipers will then be used to attack their own forces. They are within the optimal range of a blaster rifle(100 meters), so they will be under attack from the clones, but not until the clones realize that they are under attack by their own forces will they fire upon them. The shock effect of having supposedly 100 percent loyal forces turn against you will be shocking, giving the snipers some added time.
So by this time, I have probably lost no more than 50 troops. After having their snipers turned against them and their E-web mow them down, they will have lost many, many troops.
If we attribute half of the kills against my force(at most fifty, probably closer to 20 since the snipers only had a second or two, as did the E-web.) That means the snipers killed somewhere in the area of 15 troops in 2 second. This means that ten snipers can kill 7.5 troops per second. If you feel this number is to high, also realize that they are now shooting at about half the distance, but we will leave that to make up for the margin of error. For all ten of the snipers to be killed will take something around 12 to 15 seconds to kill any of the snipers, thus lowering the number of kills per second to less than 7.5.
You would probably argue that 15 seconds is far to long, but remember that at the same time the E-web is giving them hell.
15 seconds * 7.5 kills per second = 112.5
According to this, the Snipers will be able to kill 112.5 clones before any of them die. Before the last of them is killed, it will probably be around 140.
The E-web has a standard five man crew(see Essential Guide to Weapons.) Joruss will be controlling all five of these minds. They will mow down the enemy Clones like you won't believe. If the gunner is killed, any one of the other four mind-controlled Clones can continue to operate the gun because the need for five crew members is for transporting the gun. Once it is operational, more crew only increases the efficiency.
The E-web can be expected to kill over a hundred Clones do to three things.
Five crew members which allow for gunner redundancy, the 10 Snipers shooting them, and Yoda, who is no loner under a threat, will be throwing the spines at the enemy Clones.
Yoda does have the ability to throw things bigger than the spines at massive speeds. In the attack against the Jedi Temple, in the ROTS game a little while after the movie stops showing the scene(but doesn't make any indication for it not happening) Obi-wan is almost crushed by a falling pillar. Yoda grabs the pillar and tosses it away. Also in the game. A user with lesser force capability(Obi-wan), is able to throw a large rock pillar through the Temple Door.
The above paragraph also shows that Yoda can rip apart the pieces of the wall and throw them at the fortress. This will eliminate the wall and cause major damage to the fortress. Yoda will only throw the spines after all the Snipers have been killed.
Yoda and Joruus will be safe behind their meat shields from Clone fire because(reference: Essential Guide to Weapons) says that the optimal range of a blaster rifle is 100 meters. That means that the 100 meters is the UPPER limit of a skilled gunner being able to hit their target.
The MAXIMUM range is 300 meters for a blaster rifle. Beyond this the shot will be ineffective, especially against troops in armor. My forces are very close to the UPPER limit of a shots effectiveness. The Clones in the fortress will be unable to do much, if any damage to my forces for two reasons.
One, my forces are well out of the range where skill comes into play for hitting your target, and the beam will be very weak at the near 300 meters distance my forces a positioned, allowing their armor to stop everything except possibly a direct hit into a area that is already damaged by previous fire. The chance of this happening is very low.
The pieces of the enemy forces that are not destroyed by the spines and thrown rocks will be slaughtered. They will have at most 225 troops with which to resist. Since I believe it was said that their fortress leads into a cave, with the front of their fortress left they may retreat into their, in which case, Yoda and Joruus either collapse the entrance or they are cornered in it by my forces and killed.
If they attempt to make a stand, then that won't prove to be much of resistance either. Yoda can push pieces of what will not be a very damaged fortress or Joruus can take over some more of their minds and have them kill each other until one is left who will commit suicide at Joruus' order.
My forces can also move up the hill, firing at the clones on their up. They will move in waves of 300 up the hill with eight the rest of the forces moving to within one hundred meters of the base of the hill to give cover fire. This entire procedure should result in the loss of no more than 80 Clones. Remember that their are 3000 Clones and Storm Troopers one hundred meters from the base up the hill sending a storm of energy beams at it. They won't be able to kill all the clones, but that is over ten to one on the cover fire level. The enemy Clones will be crushed.
well the reason that I said that Marka, Ulic and Traya could use the cloak move is since each NJO jedi was taught the technique, if it can be taught, my three sith would likely know it. Also, you can cloak more than one person with it, in Dark Onslaught (the very start of the Vong invasion), Jaina cloaked both herself and Jacen (Jacne wasn't using the force at that time, the looser), with no apparent effort. Also, remember that during that book Anakin was 15, Jaina and Jacen are a little more than a year older than him so they are either 16 or 17, yet she had no trouble cloaking two people, also, she was able to hide them as they passed through scanners and as people were activetly hunting for them, this was also in the middle of a busy street so she would have had to hide them from hundreds of people. It would be easier for my sith since the stormtroopers will not be activetly searching for them, they do not know that they are there.
Well, this still doesn't prove that anyone outside of the NJO crew can use it. If they were taught the technique, it had to come from either Luke or Kyle most likely, and there isn't any statement where this is common knowledge, either in the OT, PT, or even the KOTOR era. If it was, there would have been some evidence of it. But there is none. And because of this, we cannot jump to conclusions. Neither Ragnos, Kreia, nor Ulic have displayed the ability, nor have their contemporaries. Therefore, I see no reason to believe they can do it.
About surrounding the fort, I think that you are over-estimating the time that it would take for this to happen. Each sith would take their armies, and stay in the jungle, making them harder to see. Then since the fort would not be all that large (it only houses 500 people, no reason for it to be larger than 10 blocks), they could all move around it. And stepping on a sitck would not give them away, first, they are hidden and quite a ways from the enemy, so they would not hear a stick snapping, also, even if they did, they could just think that it was an animal, remember the stormtroopers are not that bright.
First off, the jungle/swamp is an extremely treacherous environment. If you don't believe me, go call a Vietnam vet. Ask them how long it would take to move over a hundred to two hundred men to encircle a fortified position manned by alert professional guards. It's dicey at best; suicide at worst. And stepping on a stick might be exaggerating, yes, but can you prove to me that you can manuever those forces in that manner without being detected at all? You don't think that a bunch of cloaked troops moving through foliage makes some kind of trace? ANd about the stormtroopers, they're not doctorates, but saying their not that smart and can't shoot and all this is a bit of a stretch. They are the standing army of the Galactic Empire; if they couldn't defend a position on par with an average soldier, the empire would have fallen long ago. You can blow up a million planets, but if you can't field any decent troops you cannot hold the galaxy together under your grip.
As to how I am going to get in close, well I was going to have all my troops move forward until they are right at the fringe of the jungle, still hidden, but just barely. Then I will have 50 Krath Elite from Ulic's party seperate just slightly so that I have an army at all four cardinal positions (north, south, east, and west), those 50 Krath will move to the south west, then they charge forward, getting the troopers inside the fort to attack them. Once they have the troopers attention, the east army would charge forward, dividing the troopers inside the base. 30 seconds later, the rest of the people charge so that the fort troopers are completely distracted and unsure of where to shoot (this happens all the time in battle when people come at you from all directions). Hope that answers that question.
This is a lot harder to do than it is to say. The latter half seems good, but the former idea of manuevering hordes of troops on the fringe of the jungle undetected is problematic. Hell, getting six guys through the jungle without tripping traps and readying them into firing positions isn't a cakewalk. This would be a nightmare.
I would not have my snipers providing fire from the outset, like you said that would give us away, however once we have attacked then they start to fire. About explosives, while if they do have them, I think that some of my troopers would be able to see them and disable the ones in the jungle. Those surrounding the base would be destroyed by a 'destroy droid' from one of the sith. If they did have grenades, their exploding would be the trigger for the rest of us to attack.
First, snipers hide, using the background to their advantage. They take precision shots at priority targets, and never stay in the same place after a shot or two. Snipers aren't of much use in actual outright combat, but they can instead take on the role of Marksman (Who uses precision fire to aid his unit or group) but this isn't the deadliest tactic in the world. A marksman is more like Jackson in Saving Private Ryan, while an actual sniper is like Jude Law's character in Enemy at the Gates.
Second, if your troopers can identify every explosive and disable them while remaining undetected in a jungle environment, they must be -good-. And by good I mean super-freakin-human, cuz that is a rough ass chore in a less deadly environment.
Third, who had destroy droid? How is destroy droid gonna work for conventional explosives? You can't just assume Ulic or Kreia or Ragnos has this; you gotta give us something to go on. Again, burden of proof.
Also, even if it is just Kreia and her sith apprentices that can get that close, it would still be a devastating rear assualt. Remember, with just a wave of her hand Traya was able to kill 20 or so sith assassins (cut scene in KotOR II). So she would be able to hold her own and like I asid, the stormtroopers that were in the fort will be caught between the hammer and the anvil and die a quick and painful death.
I agree with this mostly. Kreia's strike team would be the death of the defenders. But it wasn't a wave of her hand really in KOTOR II- it just blacks out. For all we know she flashed them.
Oh and one more thing, when my sith are inside the fort, the ones that cannot jump that high will be down on the ground, shooting any of the enemy that comes to close to the edge or within sight.
Okay.
Overall, it wasn't a bad plan, but it relied on too many unknowns. You could have had a much simpler plan by using your ground troops to converge fire on the front of the base, have Ragnos and Ulic and their ilk wreack havoc on another front, and then have Kreia and her assassins leap the wall and slaughter everything inside.
Nice rebuttal, Glentract. Just two things:
1- I hate it when people argue numbers. It's a ridiculous tactic no matter who does it. Keep in mind that when you are arguing numbers (Like how many clones can theoretically be killed in a few seconds using a blaster rifle, etc.) it never really convinces me. There are so many variables its ridiculous to even consider such a break down. However, the information regarding the maximum ranges and such was very effective in convincing me of your chances (and I knew all of it beforehand, still keep in mind that the burden of proof rests on the debater... nice job btw)
2- Episode III game is NOT a convincing source. Sorry. I won't accept anything that is that clearly out of the loop. As for novels, comics, and movies, Yoda hasn't shown the ability to lift beyond perhaps a small bus. This doesn't preclude that he can't lift more, but it doesn't neccessarily prove that he can either. But i believe with the insufficient range on behalf of the defenders this won't be too much of a problem.
However, I'd like to make a point of not liking Joruus or Ragnos' overwhelming advantages. Particularly, there will come a point when abilities like these will clash, and it'll be a screaming match all the way.