Borbarad
Advocatus Diaboli
Originally posted by Hewhoknowsall
And Nai, not having communications/knoledge of the earth is NOT equivilant to not having your limbs. If so, then that means the the empire can't beat a planet hundreds of years behind it without them, which is pathetic.
Are you really that dense?
1)
Once more. Stuff you have taken away from the Imperials:
- HQ that would normally be dropped from the orbit
- support personal
- repulsorlift vehicles
- electronic jamming
- air support
In short: You've taken away much of the technology that would be a deciding factor in a war. Now you conclude that the Empire must either be able to win - despite of that facts - or they must suck somehow.
Again: By taking away the above mentioned items from them, you have crippled them to a far lesser efficiency when it comes down to ground-assault. In fact you only left them with the less efficient vehicles out of there own portfolio, you limit them in regard to tactics, give them no intelligence and - due to lack of fast scouting vessels (speederbikes = 750 kph) you limit their ability to gather information. Aside of that you assume that a great part of the army would walk over the battlefield which is not Imperial standard. And you assumed that they would start at some remote location where ESB makes it pretty clear that they will drop off right next to the desired target. Facts.
2)
So after stealing most of the efficiency from the Imperial troops, one could assume that we're now facing a ground-battle here. As shown in previous posts, the Empire would - despite of the disadvantages you handed in for them - curbstomp any conventional ground force in the world. What do you do? You assume that the Imperial would be nuked.
So essentially, this thread should be named "can limited Imperial forces survive sustained bombardment with nuclear weapons" - and it should not be labeled as some kind of VS fight, because you don't want a fight to happen. Apparently, you want to have the Imperials disappearing in the white flashing light of a Nuclear explosion, correct?
And this two points this entire thread into a farce.
@DarthTruculent:
A Star Destoyer of that size would be a prime target for all ICBMs and SLBMs for the U.S., Britain and Russia. That's close to what over 10,000 warheads coming at the SD. You may think what can a nuke do to a SD? Well, each warhead has an approxamate 100 kiloton yield give or take. One warhead can destroy a city the size of of New York, LA, San Francisco etc etc. Now a SD can't stop 10,000 warheads and even it's shields would fail and take serious damage - not enough to destroy though, but the radiation fallout would prevent landings temporarily. It would buy Earth enough time to mobilize it's forces.
I wonder why you are incapable of reading and thinking yet still assume you can enforce your stupid ideas on us. Small fact: To nuke a star-destroyer, you would first need to have weapons that are designed for hitting a target in space. There is a reason why ICBMs are InterContinental and Ballistic and why SLBMs are also Ballistic. They are not designed to be directly shot at a target - much less at a target that resides in a stable orbit [30,000 kilometres above the surface] and can accelerate with up to 3000G (which means it can move far faster than every rocket you can shoot at it).
Yet even assuming that they could aim those weapons at an ISD. The conventional nuclear warhead would unleash energy against the shields that is roughly the equivalent of that a starfighter in the SW universe can unleash in 10 seconds of sustained fire. If you'd ever played one of the SW Fighter games (X-Wing vs TIE-Fighter and so on) you would know that it literally takes hours to take down a Stardestroyer with nothing but small scale laser canons. In fact it should be outright impossible. Just as a small lesson in physics: The Executors shields are capable - established by canon sources - to absorb the energy output of our sun. Yet it's reactor produces twice as much energy as our sun does.
And you think you can take those things out with any conventional weapon? Lmao. Which means that - even in the case they would be able to hit a target and space (and they are not) they would cause no harm.
Tactical nukes on the battlefield would be plausible and special forces raids are a certainty. My friend the Ranger said the attack on the shield generator on Endor was a joke. His team would have had the charges set in under two minutes and disappeared back into the forest. He said the flaw of that mission was that it was conducted during the day time - not night.
Let me get this straight. Your Ranger friend would break through blastdoors that can't be cracked with the over-the-top technology that exists in the SW universe (I wonder why). Then he would sneak through a facility guarded by 500+ stormtroopers and run back into the forrest. Unseen. Sure thing, pal.
Suffice to say that night in general doesn't affect those scanner-equipped, nightvision-optics wearing, target computer assisted soldiers known as stormtroopers, which would be guarding the facility.
And tactical nukes on the battlefield are so plausible since they are used in every war fought in modern times right? Oh. Let me check: Last nuclear weapon I've seen in a war was dropped 1945, correct? Yeah.
FYI:
ICBM is not a cruise missile - it carries up to twelve nuclear warheads.
SLBM is like an ICBM but launched from a submarine.
FYI: The "B" means "ballistic" which descripes the following effect: Those weapons go high up in the air and then back to the ground where there stationary targets are located. I don't think that a Stardestroyer would qualify as "ground-target" or "stationary". I hope you've got the point now.
Both do have a range of over 5000 miles so a strike from 30 km away is not and I repeat impossible.
I wonder what you haven't understood about nuclear weapons here:
a) No country would use those as weapon of choice - they would be used as a last resort and not as primary option.
b) Those weapons perform ballistic flights. In case you're not aware of the concept, I'll explain it again: They move up, then they fly, then they drop down again. Such a weapon - shot from Cuba - would almost fly 10 minutes to hit the USA. Now imagine the Imperial Army not having to assume walking speed (because of footsoldiers) but instead travel on the ground with at least 60 kph (speed of AT-ATs) with most vehicles used being repulsorcrafts (200-750 kph fast). If you nuke them with a weapon that would need 10 minutes until it impacts, most of the forces would be far away from the impact position, before the bomb goes off.