Why Star Wars Ground Battles Make No Sense
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
- On today's Star Wars Lore video, we look at the many ways Star Wars Ground Battles really make no sense.
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From the Battle of Geonosis in the Clone Wars, to the Second Battle of Yavin during the Galactic Civil War, and the Battle of Crait during the Sequel Trilogy, we'll examine the use (and lack of use) of Orbital Bombardments.
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politics dude....politics.
Hi dude made a video about what happened to Gee no cist on Star Wars Rebels where the planet was dead an there was only 1 bug with a queen egg for those of us who don't read the books an comics & yes I know I butchered the name of the planet but I think you get what I mean. ....
Intelligence gathering. One may want to download files, documents, maps, plans, and they may want some high profile prisoners to interrogate. Can't do that if everything is reduced to rubble.
You know why they did ground battle geonosis
BECAUSE PLOT
Also I’ll be watching you tonight I do love me some Minecraft nothing will beat it it’s such a great game that even Fortnite which people thought would outdo Minecraft fame lol
"I payed for the whole army I'm going to use the whole army"
Me when playing strategy
Paid*
I mean when you put it like that it does sound valid....
@Odin *pdai
@@Sabbatai-Zevi diap*
Oh my guy, orbital bombardment isn’t the issue. The issue is the standing completely out in the open and charges akin to those of ww1
It's even more like 18th century line battles.
they are called storm troopers for a reason
for the droids maybe but the clones were more big brain so they used cover more often
Joseph Stalin watch the Attack of the Clones and point out clones using cover. While this was definitely improved in the CW show there are still plenty of times when clones are completely out in the open standing still or charging the droids
@@commondognut it wasnt the clones, it was the jedi that ordered them to charge.if it was to the clones, they would have used their air superiority to beat up the clankers big time
As generals during the Iraq war said.
"You can drop as many bombs as you'd like. Shell them with artillery. But they'll somehow survive in pockets. That's where my marines come in."
😢
Not only that but if you want Intel than total destruction is a no go or you will destroy what you want to get ahold of.
its bizarrely true, if it wasnt ukraine would have lost on day 1
If that’s the case, you could do orbital bombardment and THEN send ground troops to comb through the wreckage and eliminate any survivors. Kinda like what happened at Mandalore
The purpose of the infantry is to close with and destroy the enemy. 🇺🇸
"We're just ground battles, we're meant to make sense"
"Not to me"
*N O T TO U S!!!*
Cant they just use shields. Like in that rebels episode and on hoth.
@@alikhamis3367 Shields are usually single place emplacements and they have to be dropped to fight back AND they can be collapsed by enough firepower being brought to bear.
@@alikhamis3367 Even if the shield itself is very powerful you can shoot the ground around the shield and eventually open a magma fissure that will seep pass the shield and might overwhelm it.
Some people get it. Bombard with 10 star destroyers. K so what? If the enemy has a shield generator and like 3 ion cannons your air force is fucked.
The mission isn't always just to destroy as many enemies and their stuff as possible regardless of fallout. A lot of times they are trying to recover intel, property, capture prisoners, and/or rescue prisoners. It's also hard to confirm whether you killed a VIP, destroyed valuable intel, or accidentally killed your own captured soldiers if you just bombed the crap out of everything. And many battles happen on inhabited planets with innocent people nearby on top of that.
Along with that, what if you dont want to destroy the planet, but occupy it. Why would you destroy the infrastructure that's already in place.
Bobby Burgle and to top it all off, there’s still laws (and morality) against such indiscriminate warfare and war crimes. Jedi’s leading role would also no doubt play a role in lessening the use of such tactics. Plus, in this tenuous civil war the Republic is fighting with the separatists, being so harsh and cold-hearted would only drive more systems to secession from the Republic, exacerbating the crisis no matter how you look at it.
Not to mention rhe republic was not just one government. Planets would probably deny bombarding cities because they would like to keep some buildings from being destroyed. Historical monuments and buildings that would cost million/billions to repair.
Just because a place means nothing to you, it means somthing to someone else to build it. However, their are sacrifices to be made to win a war. This is a plot issue with the starwars universe.
That too. And also there’s the threat of mutual destruction. If one side starts glassing parts planets or destroying entire battlefields, especially if it’s a city, then that will prompt the other side to react in kind. That sort of escalation is not good for anyone.
Such great discussion, I love this community lol
r2b2ct1 Exactly and factions like the republic can’t afford to get a bad reputation for that
*"made for children"*
"Master skywalker. There are too many of them, what are we going to do?"
*A s h o w m a d e f o r c h i l d r e n*
"This is going to be fun."
Lucas said he made it for Children, and from all the nostalgia tards out there I would agree.
i was not expecting engineer gaming
@@lisaruhm6681 this is where the fun begins
Space: The Ultimate High Ground
Trust the Awesomeness 😉
DizDiq obi wan wants to know your location
The high ground is actually a disadvantage in melee combat...
@@santiagofaiella1255 That is in large scale battles, in 1 on 1 combat with melee weapons the high ground is a disadvantage. Your arms are located on the upper half of your body, therefor if you are above your opponent, your weapon is futher away from them so you get less reach. You would likeky have to crouch just to be able to swing at your openent, while they can chop at your legs all day long.
@@scottthewaterwarrior History degree holder here. Most of the time the high ground was the preferred choice. Your archers/artillery can spot and fire from further away, forces would approach you slower, they'd have a worse firing angle, and they'd be more exhausted once they'd reached the top. There are a few exceptions such as Agincourt which had a multitude of geological features and England's longbow-dominant army composition that baited the French into an ambush. Had they not been so foolish they'd have flanked his army and burned his supply camp & baggage train with half their cavalry (which they started to, one of the reasons prisoners were all killed on the field) but also sent their infantry through the forests on the sides where they'd have not just the high ground but cover from arrow fire. Once the English retreated they could use infantry to dismantle the stakes, then charge the retreating English with their other half and catch them in a pincer move.
Grievous just wanted Ventress’s lightsaber .
Peter Pan you deserve more likes
@@Youngsquid97 I concur
most likely yes
Grievous would do anything for his collection
John Renardo Thanks 😁
I just tend to assume that unless stated otherwise, all planets have some form of planetary shield, even if it's not mentioned. For example, we know that Geonosis had planetary shields, because a major plot point in Rebels was the team recovering the core from one of them.
Well that and maybe orbital bombardment was seen as equivilent to nukes. Sure you can do it but its a big nono for an interstellar society.
@@uwesca6263 death star.
well probably it also depends on the planet size because you have to be stable at a certain hight above the planet and if the planet has a bit to much gravity your around trops would just feel a bit heavier but your ships aren't stable at the hight you would need them at
@@uwesca6263 true but the empire was also fine with destroying an emtire planet with the death star
I mean that's exactly what happens in the Empire Strikes Back with Hoth. Now it makes sense for the Empire to be willing to bombard the rebel base on Hoth since its not a populated area and there's only rebels there (and we already know the Empire is willing to destroy an entire planet). But other targets can be of much greater value. Its the same reason we don't use nukes at every opportunity.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery. "
-Napoleon Bonaparte
Shame Napoleon never met the VietCong
@Robert Boudreau in no universe did they have the "best" artillery though.
Not for starwars
@Daniel Scott Do you realize the losses the vietcong had compared to the US?
@@ihateeveryoneofyou
They also only won by default because the American public got tired of letting them get slaughtered like lambs (barring a few exceptions here or there)
Clone wars: is made for children
Also clone wars: Has some of the most gruesome deaths.
That’s so true lol
On Mortis Ahsoka was literally possessed and then killed by a fucking big ass blade
@@coledavis5212 and Cursed
A guy gets cut in half by a metal door
I think the first season was more for kids
Clone Wars was made for children?
When I was a kid I loved the series because it was a war on a galactic scale where basically everyone gets screwed in the end...
Well the empire couldn't cause they had to maintain a good image, remember they tried to constantly act as the good guys, and tried to pass off the Rebel alliance as just terrorists. Also the Republic could not as it might cause the senate to loose faith in them, as orbital bombing is super cruel. The CIS was being manuplated by palps, so their main purpose wasn't just pure domination by eradication, but instead to create conflict, and what better way to create conflict by holding ground battles rather than just destroying planets.
Like the Canadian government
The CIS is a republick too so they would loose faith too
but CIS was good to ( the real good guys)
@@itssimon500 both the CIS and the Republic had good guys, like padme and her seperatist homie. But overall, the main forces controlling both CIS and GAR were evil.
@@lordgaroro technically dooku was in control of the cis and he had relatively noble ideals if he had eventually succeeded in overthrowing Palpatine we could have seen one of the most peaceful Era in the galaxy rather than imperial rule
Hears "maybe shouldn't bomb the crap out of the civilians"
*Laughs in Warhammer 40K*
Austin Miller civilians no such thing just soldiers who aren’t on the front line yet
EXTERMINATUS TIME!
Austin Miller civilians? I don’t know what this is. Did you perhaps mean Acceptable Casualties?
Der Doctor same difference
Justin B no the penal Legions are cannon fodder
After World War 1 and the introduction of aerial combat, there were some military commanders who predicted that all future large-scale warfare would be conducted through long-range bombing raids, and that the age of infantry was over, today some nations have the technological ability to strike anywhere on the face of the planet with ICBMs and cruise missiles, and yet the use of infantry remains a persistent part of warfare.
The objective of warfare isn't to simply destroy your opponent, if it was all modern warfare would be conducted with nuclear weapons as a first resort, which is also a factor against the use of orbital bombardment. Despite the proliferation of not only nuclear weapons, but unspeakably deadly biological weapons, we don't (often) see their use due to the principle of mutually assured destruction, which is essentially a gentleman's agreement that the potential consequences of both sides using such weapons far outweigh any possible benefits.
The objective of most international warfare is to either capture and hold territory, or to defend your own territory against an enemy force trying to the same thing, and the only way that you can do that is with boots on the ground. No matter how much you bomb a location into submission, if you don't capture and hold it, the enemy will always be able to return -even to a pile of ashes- and plant their flag on top of the ruins. And if you sufficiently bomb a location into such a degree of desolation that the enemy have no desire to return, then you too have no use for that location either. You may consider that this is a viable tactic for purely military targets, but generally speaking military targets are very rarely in complete isolation, but more often nearby cities, ports, factories or other such civilian areas.
I understand that you are very knowledgeable about Star Wars, but it would seem to me that you have a typical civilian understanding of warfare and the motivations behind large scale combat, such things are incredibly complex and nuanced. But then I guess we are also talking about science fiction here.
Great points. But Star Wars is more like science fantasy than fiction. Like space wizards with pew pew lasers
DJRobSunset It’s a mix of both kinda. Like with all the cool star fighters and capital ships and advanced weapons and technology and then we have the fantasy side with the sith and Jedi, it fits together very well. Oh and btw blasters don’t shoot lasers, they shoot bolts plasma..
I mean you are right most factions good or bad wouldn't want to just destroy cities because of political and also economic ramifications. In situations like Yavin 4, Hoth, Creat and Naboo grassland we are dealing with almost empty planets/locations with no desirable infrastructure so orbital bombing would be a very viable option. Planetary shields would be the main reason orbital bombardment isn't more widely used but it should be attempted more than we see.
@@DJRobSunset All science fiction is fantasy, and Star Wars is more intellectually honest and scientifically accurate than its long time rival.
WW1 proved chemical weapons are shit so why they even bother pursuing their use makes no sense to me. Instantaneous lead poisoning is still the best way.
I was expecting a bit of commentary on the way a lot of clone troopers didn't take cover. A lot of battles in clone wars had the look of like a civil war fusillade as lines of troops exchanged fire standing right across from one another.
IKR, it's like the US civil war all over again
Well, as much as Plo Koon would disagree, clones were mostly expendable. Troopers were, at least.
yeah just clone troopers and battle droids firing down a narrow corridor and standing there to get shot and die
I noticed that even the mandolorians did it too, and they also just got into a head on melee for no reason with clones
all down a narrow corridor where no one was taking any cover
I always took it as no one had fought a war in thousands of years, they didn't real know how to fight eachother effectively. It also works with the napoleonic navy battles we see with the star ships (heavy armament on the sides of ships shooting at eachother)
Lore wise I imagine they could tank some hits with their armor, even if that's not what we see. If the armor wasn't at all effective why would they be wearing it? That, combined with the fact that we know they have to used higher power but lower fire rate plasma at long range, and I can see how some battles could go back to looking like the age of the musket,
Star Wars: "What do you think about complete planetary annihilation?"
WarHammer 40K: "Yes"
The Space Marine game intro shows really neatly how it works in 40k: A Forge world is under attack-> Let the planet fall? Negative Strategic Value absolute -> Exterminatus? Negative Strategic Value absolute -> Liberation Fleet? Affirmative Contacting Ultramarine Chapter
@@Typohnename1 actually it deducts it poorly, exterminatus is the absolutely last resort only used in the most desperate circumstances, ie.: tyranids over run the place, chaos is winning, ork waaaghs
@@Dragl1d3 It WAS an ork waaagh (admittedly not a large one)
@@alejandrotuazon4831 I know it was but the planet wasn't definetly lost yet
Even the Imperium of Man is surprisingly reluctant to slag planets. Only Lord Militants, Chapter Masters and Inquisitors have the authority to pronounce Exterminatus on a world. Even then they only do it as an absolute last resort.
I think this is odd, since it would actually be a very good offensive strategy that any practically minded Inquisitor should consider as their first option for an enemy world... provided, of course, that it is an Inquisitor representing a murderously totalitarian regime with an expressed policy of completely eradicating everything and everyone deemed tainted by the Xeno or Heretic. Which, luckily, he is.
As an example; consider something that would be either the equivalent of a 50km diameter iron asteroid impacting a Terra-like world at, say, 20km/s. The immediate ~300km diameter crater, earthquakes and megatsunamis are all bad, but possibly survivable given enough distance to the impact site(s). What is a big issue, however, is that inside of about 100 minutes, the ejecta that gets thrown up from the impact site, will rain down again all across the planet. Very little of that ejecta will ever reach the surface, though - instead burning up in the atmosphere and turning its kinetic energy into heat. Unfortunately for the planet, there is nowhere for that heat to go. Atmospheric temperature to quickly shoots up to ~7000K, before that heat is gradually spent on creating rock vapor and boiling away the top 300m or so of oceans (yes, it can radiate out to space too, but radiation is a comparatively slow process).
Importantly though: It wouldn't actually destroy the atmosphere permanently! Virtually nothing escapes, and no oxygen or nitrogen is destroyed. Within only a couple of years, the planet would cool enough for whatever oceans had boiled off to start raining back down. In a couple of decades the planet would be possible to seed and settle again. On the time scale of the IoM, that seems like a very manageable and practical way of getting rid of a stubborn enemy stronghold, and something you only need a single cruiser to do as long as your fleet has cleared the space around the planet. But I guess that wouldn't leave a whole lot for the SPESS MEHREENS to do.
(It is, however, possible for something in the deep sea to survive in this case. If our intrepid Inquisitor deemed the taint to run so deep as to require a more thorough sterilization, they would need a bigger impactor (or equivalent), and the planet would take correspondingly longer to cool down).
Me here in Germany wants to going to bed
Eck: Oh I dont Think so
DEUTSCHLAND
Same😅
Und ich hab morgen noch Schule 😂😂
@@ryandinh6065 Ehre
Same haha
Grüße!
May have been said already
Palpatine wanted the Jedi Temple intact so he could raid the archives and the vaults, destroying it would have been a waste
Also, he wanted to live in it as his personal palace. They say the Grand Master's bedroom is exquisite and full of artwork.
I'm surprised that Thrawn's bombardment of Atallon wasn't mentioned.
Also, straight up bombing the temple would have generated sympathy for the Jedi by making them casualties of the war.
Right survivors would be hard to make out as traitors when thousands died heroes literally yesterday
It would have risked tipping ol' Sheev's hand too early, I think. Orders and the use of a capital ships batteries tend to get recorded. Additionally, I think the Jedi Temple probably would have been shielded or something. It's a major landmark in a time of war. They'd probably have put some thought into protecting it.
The jedi were merely a religion to most people across the galaxy. The temple being bombed wouldn't have garnered much support they didn't already have.
@@Messothelioma It's one thing for some religious people to get blown away, it's another for people who are seen as war heroes and commanders, including children, to be obliterated by hostile invaders.
@@Kjf365 that's the thing, like I said, most people across the galaxy weren't directly involved in the war, remember it was clones vs droids. The civilian casualties were mostly those who were bombed provoking the battles we saw, not exactly many were there first hand to witness, that is why they were legends. Remember Anakin's mom did not let him go because the jedi had some known high nobility, they were nothing more than men in robes to her. She just wanted her son to have a better life. The rebels didn't really form until long after the temple had been abandoned. The jedi were not (with very few exceptions) a traveling circus, they were not using their powers openly (those who did usually didn't make it very long). The chances you would see force powers in the star wars universe is realistically that of you seeing aliens in real life.
"Am I wrong to think Palpatine should have just ordered the CIS to blow up the Jedi Temple?"
Well, he probably didn't want the galaxy's last memory of the Jedi to be their going out heroically as martyrs.
Also, his ultimate seizure of power was supposed to be justified by a Jedi insurrection. That's probably a lot easier to swallow if the Jedi are still a galaxy spanning order than if it's "the Jedi. The Jedi... Wait, you mean those three guys? Didn't they used to have a temple or something?"
The jedis could have been taken by surprise if the cis had attacked their temple, but nowhere near as much as with the clones
yep. plus there are so many valuables inside the jedi temple. no one should want to destroy those
Boring thing
If lucas thought of that..
Also there was a Sith temple beneath
Palpatine just wanted to turn it into his palace
Geonosis was a proving ground for the clone army, heavy equipment and tactics. Bombardment would have been more efficient however it appears the goal was to battle-harden the initial wave of clone troopers to develop their level of experience. The siege on Umbara was the best Clone Wars operation in the series. Why didn’t they develop the Republic Commando unit rather than the Bad Batch team. The RCs are much more interesting.
Not under General Krell's command. Especially when he purposely sabotaged the clones' effort to takeover the planet. His goal was to deliberately wipe out as many clone troopers as possible under the guise of KIA.
Delta squad FTW!
Geonosis was a disaster. Showed the clone commandos how worthless their Jedi generals were. The Jedi lost alot of the first impression respect during that battle from both elite and standard clones.
I think Filoni and others at Lucasfilm are probably scared of doing RCs in any meaningful capacity because they know they would have eventually do Delta Squad at some point. Its a tough one but I hope someone step ups and that Lucasfilm green lights it.
They have different mission sets
Think about it, why would you go into a battle over a planet and its resources, just to obliterate all of it to collect the skeleton of the world after?
We fight for ideology, pride, but most importantly resources.
yeah there is no point fighting over an irradiated glassed hellscape.
It was not about "obliterate the planet" versus "no bombs at all". Limited, targeted bombing could pave the way for a ground assault, or support it by taking out enemy bases or artillery.
Chrirugical orbital bombardment are possible too.
In the RC Hard Contact novel. An acclamator does a really precise strike which cover the Omega Squad assault of an enemy base.
And it doesn’t obliterate much more than just dirts.
@FISHYFREAK 12
Depends on the civilization.
space has all the resources a planet does, and lot and lots more by volume, and if your already traveling space that easily, its easier to mine from than on a planet with pesky gravity and bugs and stuff.
Finn: Eckhartsladder don’t worry.........THEY’LL USE THE FORCE!
*In Han Solo's voice:* That's not how the Force works!
Beat me to it lol
*Chewbacca noises*
Ricky Breckenridge Han: Oh really you’re cold!?
JK Network you misspelled fn2187
There is another very important reason why they didn't use air superiority and orbital bombardment, and didn't just destroy the droid factories from orbit at Geonosis. (the same for the rest of the Clone War, actually)
Because both sides of the conflict were secretly controlled by the same guy! He wanted a drawn out conflict to further his own plans, so a quick and easy victory was not his goal. He wanted both sides to exhaust each other, so that he can more easily take over after the war.
Maybe the attacker wants to avoid damaging the settlements or sometimes the ecosystems on the ground. And in the first battle of geonosis, the hives of the bugs probably are integrated with their factories, and a bombardment on the factories would likely kill the bugs as well, something the republic senate would have considered as a massacre of civilians and a war crime
True, but it would be possible for the destroyers to target and destroy the control ships before they could make it into the atmosphere. To be fair, the entire droid army could have been simply pulverized from space with a few well-aimed volleys spotted by ground troops, and then the clone army on the ground could mop up surviving droids and destroy the factories themselves. It wasn't like the droid and clone armies were fighting at close range, there was enough distance that bombardment could have possibly destroyed the entire force of droids and their ships in seconds.
@@samuelschuler6032 it could very well be the case that orbital bombardment weapons have blast radii well in excess of 100km, making any ground spotted bombardment that you suggest suicidal. Adide from that orbital bombardment of any kind might well be looked down upon by the general public. In that case, it tends to have the nasty side effect of losing the public opinion of whichever side used it. Both the republic and the CIS portrayed themselves as the good guys to their own people and supporters, in which case losing the public opinion on your own side might have very well lost them the war before it was even well on the way.
Things like why was x tactic not used in situations like this really tend to be tricky and depend on far more than just tactical effectiveness. They tend to depend on politics as well
Wessel van Daele very good counter explanation, as stuff like that can be seen today too
@@wesselvandaele4267 Exactly my thoughts as well.
And as far as the Droid ships from Geonosis are concerned; the energy levels involved with turbolaser fire, as well as the reactors of these ships going critical when destroyed, would have irreparably damaged the planet and all life there on including the innocent.
@@wesselvandaele4267 No because in the wiki it list the damage output in the gigatons but when you actually see a turbo laser hitting something it's hardly that powerful. Turbo lasers do the same amount of damage as large cruise missile or a rail gun round. It would be 500m at most and that's the heavy turbo lasers.
Palpatine would probably have known about the Sith artifacts kept in/under the Jedi temple. I doubt he would have risked their destruction.
There's also the fact that Coruscant had a lot of planetary shields in place in case such an attack were to occur.
He also turned the temple into his palace, why would he blow up his own home?
@@olsta1306 Nah man, he can just make a new and bigger one. Like he did in Legends.
Also, there probably was a lot of useful knowledge in the Jedi libraries. After killing virtually all of the Jedi masters, he probably wasn't expecting the last newbie to get him, otherwise he might have had a contingency plan to blow up the temple.
@@GAdmThrawn then he'd lose all the sith artifacts & knowledge the temple holds. That'd be like taking over Las Vegas & blowing up all the casinos, it makes no sense
Eckharts: Ground battles don't make sense!
Death Star: Thats... why I'm here
Local shields like on hoth would force ground invasions. I would assume most large citys and important strateigic resources like droid factories had local shields that could withstand any bombardment.
Once you have ground forces in battle you certainly would not wish to bomb your own forces
Thrawn used a jedi to enhance the accuracy of the turbo laser crews during thier bombardments
Ah yes, good old Joruus C’Baoth, clone of Jorus C’Baoth, continuing the time honored tradition of a person’s clone name having an extra vowel, like Luuke Skywalker.
Khaffit but what if there are civilians or u dont want / have time?
@@Ilikeavocados123 the empire doesn't give a shit about civillians, see what happened at Jedha for example
Orbital bombardment is not a military tactic it is a terror tactic
Tarkin likely used it frequently to force capitulation
Thrawn prefered precison tactics to terror which is why he rarely resorted to iit and the Republic shied away from it
ps I barely know star wars so idk the attribute of the shields there but there s no shield that justify a massive ground invasion
anti energy type shield -> missiles go through -> continue to bombard
anti physical shield -> energy weapons go through - continue to bombard
anti all type shield -> the invasion force/ships don't go through it anyway and it needs to be drained/destroyed/disabled before anything else. and that would be done though a small stealth commando team or spies/traitors.
If it's a sustainable local shield which you can't get through no matter what then just siege the place until they have no more resources. Furthermore if you re as cruel as the mongols then pillage and wipe out all settlements around the fortified locations, how they dealt with several European castles which were to costly to take.
Or try to blow it up from underground if possible. Even blow up the planet if necessary
in any case a massive ground invasion is not worth it or suicide
Dathomir, grievous just likes the thrill of the fight let’s be honest
Historically speaking that does check out.
@@zigzaghyena It's an older trope sir, but it checks out.
zingtea XD
Plus due to their unique abilities, it is probably best to wipe them out personally rather than risk any of them escaping and/or surviving
Jackson Sailer i mean he fucked the Nightsisters up anyways it’s not like droid lives matter
Having the CIS bomb the Jedi temple would have garnered public sympathy for the Jedi. The opposite effect of what Palpatine was trying to do to them.
Palpatine was also interested in the archives
I'm not being mean but sympathy or not dead is dead.
PA pared not all Jedi would have been killed and as stated above palpatine wanted the knowledge within the temple.
@@kekboy5127 True the knowledge would have been the big loss there. Not every Jedi was killed in Anakin's attack either it was just to break the organization's spine. The optics of a separatist attack would have probably been better than the full fledged 501st massacre although as you said it would have destroyed the intel.
Exactly. Palp didnt just want the Jedi gone, he wanted them disgraced and wiped from the collective memory of the galaxy, meaning he could only go forward with the plot of making it look like the Jedi led a coup against a democratically elected government in wartime.
I just assumed the advanced battle tech in Star Wars has some kind of “Minovsky Effect” similar to the mobile suit Gundam universe. Basically anything that uses advanced energy fusion produces super particles that expand into the surrounding atmosphere and interferes with communications, targeting, and long-range combat, making close-range combat unavoidable where precession is important.
Figured that’s why usually only the most brilliant or ruthless tacticians in Star Wars could pull off a long-range bombardment successfully.
Great observation! Makes a lot of sense.
they make no sense because thousands of years ago, some General drank the stupid juice, and that trait been passed down
TheRed Hawk Whoa... A talking hawk
Halfway through reading Twilight Company and the battles so far seem fairly realistic
Also, I’d guess that to do a precise orbital bombardment you need to be dangerously low
Finally, on Dathomir the Nightwitch Base was quite far underground and Talzin, Grievous’ target, could probably escape further down if he tried a bombardment
And for imprecise ones the planet itself is worth more than the resources to take it.
"Is there a reason besides aesthetics and drama for ground invasion instead of orbital bombardment?"
2, actually.
While the crews of Thrawn and Pallaeon were capable of precision bombardment, there are references that orbital strikes were not known for accuracy (one such instance is where C'baoth makes a comment about that in HttE), making the destruction of large areas possible, but also leaving many survivors that can then retreat into hiding unless you saturate the area (and cause potentially unwanted collateral damage. Even so, ensuring there were no survivors would be a difficult task in the aftermath). A ground invasion is able to cut off access to paths to retreat and ensure the enemy is completely wiped out (not that the Empire is ever presented as being very good at this -we need more instances of the Empire being an actual capable entity in its position as "the big bad"). Also, bear in mind, while numerous, the number of Star Destroyers was indeed limited -being a Star Destroyer captain was a mark of prestige. We don't often see bombardment (with accuracy) depicted on anything smaller than an Imperial Star Destroyer., and most ships in a standard fleet were other designs.
So ground invasions were more useful in ensuring the complete destruction of the target (without destroying everything else nearby), and in ensuring the capture/elimination of the enemies on the ground.
...whether they were run practically and competently is another issue (in general the Empire was impractical, incompetent and inefficient).
Yeah, given how inaccurate the Star Destroyers seem to be (Look at the start of Episode 4 as an example, a ton of shots miss the Blockade Runner even at that close a range) and it's easy to imagine orbital bombardment would cause widespread devastation (similar to Carpet bombing in WW2) rather than being precision weapons like a GPS guided bomb. In those situations a ground assault may be more beneficial, especially if there is an objective (or high value target) you needed to obtain.
And that's without assuming the planet has any defensive measures in the form of ion cannons, anti-ship weapons, or shielding.
@@telperinquarcurufinyelde1597 True, but if they dig in you can also drop from orbit behind their fortifications and attack from the rear where they haven't got facing guns and defensive barriers.
And you can also bypass the fortifications completely and starve them out, or use ground launched precision strikes which are less destructive than an orbital bombardment.
@@mattd6931 Anti-air is demonstrably a thing in the far-far-away. Several clone wars episodes show LAATs getting mulched by large concentrations of AAA; "just drop behind them" won't work if half your manpower gets vaporized after atmospheric entry.
@@Derpy-qg9hn If your Army cares about casualties, that's certainly a valid point.
But I don't think a loss of easily replacable clones was a big concern, given how they threw them into the slaughter time and time again, and after the Empire came into power, they definitely didn't care about a few million casualties (as seen in Solo where they are throwing wave after wave of ground troops into a massacre.)
The other point about those clone wars episodes is they never show any support for the LAATs. For example, the Empire would have sent in Tie Bombers to take out some of those AAA guns prior to the orbital drop, not because they were concerned about the losses, but because it would make taking the objectives quicker and easier, and remove the risk of fouling the LZ with a destroyed dropship.
...As empires tend to be. Seriously, people talk about the "collapse of the Roman Empire," but the Roman Empire was collapsing before it was even reformed into an empire.
I always thought of orbital bombardment in situations like full war like the clone wars or during rebellions to be it like nukes in civ. Sure, you could just spam nukes on your enemy's cites, but then there will be nothing for you to claim without spending even more resources trying to fix it all and make it workable. All those cities, resources and -Slave labour- people wasted.
Plus your public opinion goes SPLAT when you start dropping nukes. Also just saying that civ III is still the best
Exactly, Ide imagine that it would only be used when the war gets desperate like with japan in ww2
When Japan was nuked it was still a secret project so I doubt the nukes had the same stigma at the time. If I'm not mistaken, Einstein didn't realize how horrible has equation could be till after the nuke was dropped, then regretted coming up with it.
I’ll point out, the nuke was an bad alternative for a horrible option. You either kill millions or hundreds of thousands.
@@zekedia2223 so? Killing million or billion isn't a problem when you are a galactic Spaning empire
Your answer to why the Jedi didn’t do orbital bombardment on the factories with their Acclamator fleet that was present:
“Meanwhile, the Republic army's goal was to capture the Separatists leadership and as much of the Geonosian droid foundries intact as possible in order to uncover the depths of the Separatist conspiracy, precluding the indiscriminate use of starship weapons. The resulting battle would mostly consist of ground combat then,” - Wookiepedia
Out of the 12 Acclamtors that made up the Jedi assault fleet, most of them were either on the atmosphere, or in orbit around Geonosis, which is more than enough to take out some unarmed core ships and lightly armed Hardcell transports. So I don’t understand why the Jedi didn’t engage the Separatist fleet as it was escaping the system.
Lack of military experience
Jacob Thomas Urquilla honestly true. 1000 years of peace is not a good thing if the Jedi are to act like soldiers instead of peacekeepers. War corrupted the Jedi, who knew nothing of war for centuries.
Yeah, centuries of peace aren’t really good. Look at korea. When the Japanese tried invading Korea after the Sengoku Jidai, the Korean forces were no match. They only won due to having Admiral Yi, Being supported by China, and the guy who first started the invasion of Korea dying.
I'm guessing anti ship weapons, but they just forgot to show a bit more attention to detail. Ships that come into range can easily be bombarded back and ground based weapons isn't as limited by weight, bulk or power as a ship based weapon would be and can be hidden anywhere, in a mountain, under the city, a tiny hole in the middle of a desert, etc...
The ion cannon the Rebels had on Hoth comes to mind. It shut down an ISD in one volley. While supplying cover fire for the evacuation.
They had magnipulse Cannon
Meanwhile in Warhammer...
"Sir, somebody appears to be flipping us off on the ground!"
*"Prepare the fleet! Burn this heresy!"*
Starwars: *has ground battles*
Eckhart: *It’s treason then.*
This logic is what congress had about the middle east and boy were they wrong.
True, though I'm not sure the objective was always conventional defeat, but rather societal destabilization at the behest if Israel.
The US could have sat off and flattened every city in Iraq without breaking a sweat. Of course, the world press and public opinion would have ended up isolating the US. So you do things the hard way to avoid that. And there is a lot more prestige in capturing something relatively intact (so that you can use it later) rather than just capturing a big pile of rubble. Why fight for something to begin with if all you wanted to do was blow it up? If you just want it destroyed then you don't send the troops. Seems to cover most of these battles. They were trying to capture facilities, not just wipe it out and leave.
Iraq wasn't an actual threat to the United States whereas the rebels/ new republic was an absolute threat to their very survival. In such a case there would absolutely be a case for full scale bombardment from space, artillery, and air. Never forget the United States DID nuke Japan... Twice.
PA pared which killed less people than the fire bombings and an invasion would have killed. They were also showing off the nukes to scare the Soviets from trying to invade the rest of Europe.
@@kekboy5127 No argument there I'm saying it was a good decision to use the nuclear option as opposed to only ground forces as in star wars.
@The one and only exotic Butters I completely agree it was ultimately the better choice. I am fully in support of the nuking/orbital bombardment of the Japanese/ Rebel alliance.
Oh yeah, let's just compare the morals in reality to Star Wars with the Dark Side, stations that can destroy planets or moons, and basically evil for the sake of it, lol.
"Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Easy for the bad guys to lay waste to everything from orbit than it is for the good guys. If you want any of the resources/infrastructure, or prisoners, then landing troops is the way to go. Some limited precision orbital strikes could still be possible in many cases though.
The shields are typically "energy shields". The capital ships and AT-ATs couldn't shoot through it, but the walkers could walk through it.
ironically, nuking the site from orbit makes it really difficult to be sure you destroyed your target. It makes it really hard to send in troops afterwards to confirm destruction
so if they're energy shields then just drop solid projectiles through it, there's still no need for a ground assault
But in Aliens they had already had boots on the ground, to detect and identify what the situation was! (And fortunately it was just a single, small, area.) Unlike in star wars, the aliens had no ability to hit back against ships in orbit (well, aside from...)
@@21Arrozito i think shield stop fast moving objects to in the TV show they show clones slow rolling EMP grenades to take out the shield droid one person rolls to fast it bounced off
If what's in the shows and movies are cannon, then I suppose that their weapons are simply far too inaccurate to destroy targets without demolishing everything on the same hemisphere.
he has started to bring the christian minecraft servers back
its a pathway ah screw it
Christian Minecraft servers are a pathway to many censored swears some may consider to be unnatural.
J Sc I would like to learn this server
Your Answer: respectable rules of war dude, just like how it is against the rules in our current society to drop a nuclear bomb to end conflicts, the same thing for star wars governments, and as I recall didn't they have a shield during the battle, and the Jedi leading the army means no nukes, they are a bunch of softies after all
The Empire made death stars, why would they care about bombardement?
I'd nuke the hell out of an army of robots. It's practically the only instance where there's no moral issue
@@hafor2846 Because the Death star was meant to scare people into not fighting. They weren't planning to blow up every planet.
Grievous def shouldn't care about rules of war.
@@daefaron thats the most inefficient way to scare people... I mean... They could have made hundreds of multipurpose star destroyers for a similar price instead of a single planet destroying moon
"Ozzel exits hyperspace too close so the Rebels are able to raise shields" always sounds like Vader's excuse to the Emperor. After all if the Imperial forces dropped further away... Rebels would have even more time. The Empire knew the droid vanished, so Rebels are alerted, evacuation prep was underway already, so jumping in close and establishing blockade ASAP was far more useful than trying to sneak from afar (esp. as a sensible Rebel thing to do would be to maintain patrols out there)...
You're are not taking into the view of the Imperials. No one in the Empire was aware the Alliance was trying to retreat from Hoth. The reason for this logic is that they viewed the Alliance best attacks was the ability to conduct hit and run attacks with their fighters which needed a base for long term operations since the Alliance Navy couldn't risk giving themselves away. Hence why Vadar just preferred to bombard Hoth given the first chance and only chance to do it. It makes the most tactical sense, why invade the planet when we can just bomb it with the fleet?
Nebula vs. Pelleaon
Resurgent vs. MC 85
Bellator vs. Resurgent
Starhawk vs. Nebula
Nebula+Endurance vs. Resurgent
Who would win? #StarshipVersus #AskEck
Nebula vs. Pelleaon
The Pelleaon - it's at least a couple of generations more advanced than a Nebula.
Resurgent vs. MC 85
The Resurgent - the MC-85 might be bigger and tougher, but the Resurgent has an insanely large array of weapons, while the MC-85 is way less heavily armed than a MC-80 and that
was more lightly armed than an ISD I. So the fire power difference here makes all the difference.
Bellator vs. Resurgent
Bellator - (probably) because it most likely has more fire power and stronger shields due to sheer size.
Starhawk vs. Nebula
Nebula - Starhawks might be a bit better than ISD IIs but they're built with basically the same technology going into them. The Nebula's were the result of a long development program to design ships to eat ISD IIs alive in combat.
Nebula+Endurance vs. Resurgent
The last one is a toss up, the Resurgence probably has more firep ower, but the Nebula's shields are insanely powerful and between the Nebula and Endurance there's a significant fighter advantage (184 vs 144) and they're better fighters in general with a lot of heavy fire power to attack the resurgent with.
I think that the CIS might have had a more valid reason than other factions for ground invasions. That being their armies being much more disposable than others. And taking into consideration it may be taxing energy wise for a capital ship to do orbital bombardment, it may be more cost effective for them to land troops instead. This is mostly reliant on how often a capital ship would have to refuel/rearm due to orbital bombardment.
Tbh they could end up leaving with more soldiers than they landed with if they set up factories
Well you brought up a good point about planetary shields but also sometimes militaries want to take control of a base or strong hold, or gather intelligence about future planned tactics or other base locations. That's not very effective if the base or strong hold has been completely destroyed.
Just on the intro haven’t even heard what he has to say it but I can tell this is a good
And there's the 1000 other reasons why it does make sense
1. John Williams music
2nd Battle of geonosis should have gone like this:
Fleet appears at the system, they move into position
Obi Wan: let’s soften them up a little, admiral, begin orbital bombardment
Yularen: very good sir, all batteries fire at will
(Bombardment starts and later stops, they then go down to the surface as usual before suddenly coming under attack)
A clone: I thought we bomber the hell out of these bugs?!?
Obi Wan: the geonosians live underground! Our bombardment wasn’t that effective! Get the tanks down now!
Then the rest of the episode as usual
Artillery is a powerful tool, but I think you are overestimating its power, especially against fortifications.
Consider the Western Front of World War I, where millions of tons of artillery rounds were used over several years against the trench lines without being able to break them. In the World War II Pacific Theater, US battleships would give islands what they called "the Spruance Haircut" (so named because it would seem to have cut down every tree on the island) and troops would still have to engage in massive ground assaults to actually clear the Japanese defenders out. Turbolasers don't appear to be any more powerful or accurate than those examples' cannons.
Finally, someone understands. You would need to blow a chunk of the whole ass planet off in order to damage any defenses. Since the beginning of time, military officials have dreamed of being able to end wars without putting troops on the ground. Zeppelins, bombers, artillery, and even nukes were all meant to “break the enemy” without ground assault. It almost never worked. Look at Stalingrad, Berlin, or Leningrad. These battles had artillery decimate the land, chopping the city into dust, yet the defenses held. Things like this don’t just go away due to space artillery.
Yes, but that's more on the stupidity of the people in charge of building these ships. Why Equip them with cannons that are only as strong as ww2 artillery? Why not rapid fire high yield nuke cannons to glass whole continents in a Salvo?
@@destroyer1667 prolly because they want the planet intact, I mean, if you want to glass a planet that’s what the death star is meant to do.
@@EXPLODERMAN9000 well, most of the time, glassing everything isn't really needed. But there's no reason to not just nuke the military installations that are far away from civilian locations anyway. Even if they are close, with how many Warcrimes have been committed in the clone wars show alone, I don't think anyone would be concerned about that.
@@destroyer1667 but that requires that you have all intel of military instillations, and guerrilla warfare is still a thing
This is basically the American doctrine with war- Don't get your hands dirty, just call in an air strike and annihilate the enemy position. That's really what they needed to do here, don't waste troops to get slaughtered on an open field, just launch some turbolaser barrages or tactical nukes or just mortar strikes and blow the enemy (also lacking cover) to bits. Hoth at least addressed this with the ground based shield, and in many cases there could be too many ground based defenses to safely stay on station and offer air support. But as you said, that's clearly not the case at the Battle of Geonosis.
yeah because infantry isn't a ressource you can use as much as you want. At some point there won't be an infantry anymore if you throw all your soldiers. Also soldiers are people so it's pretty understantable from the US perspective why they use this strategy. And Honestly most countries are doing the same but because the US is the most powerful nation it gets more attention than the rest of them.
Hoth was not a really a battle it was " holding the ennemy as long as you can to retreat safely " while Geonosis was a huge disaster because it has a 1000 years there hasn't been any major conflit in the galaxy. the Jedi can excused as well because of this as well as the fact they were peacekeepers and not soldiers.
Don't you realise that you basically have to send infantry in after the bombardment. Artillery really isn't the be all and end all. It softens up in general and can cripple when concentrated. But it hardly ever eliminates
*A series made for children*
"It's treason then."
"Why didn't Gandalf just get the eagles to take the ring straight to Mount Doom?"
Because then there would be no story or those ground battles you love so much.
your comment still misses the point.
@@SkyForceOne2 I think you missed the point.
But the ring thing is actually explained in the lore of LOTR.
@@DerDoctor69 Yes they need to stick a ring to a hobbit and then used the Eagles to carry it to Mount Doom. End of story.
Wedge Wizard
Let’s see... fly in open sky on a big bird while holding a ring that alerts everything to us... where there’s dragons and the lesser dragon like things, not to mention whatever the orcs have for air
I'm sure that Palpatine would've really liked to give the Jedi Temple an "accident", but there're also a ton of things he'd like to collect from there too.
A reason they have ground battles is because they need a ground team to retake/take over bases that they don’t want to destroy
Hm yes
The Star Wars here is made out of ground battles
There's a amazing example of this in star wars rebels... Grand Admiral Thrawn engaged the rebel cell Phoenix Squadron on chopper base.... they had a small shield generator but it was old so it quickly over heated but before it did that Thrawn ceased the bombing and sent down transports and walkers....
He couldn’t have known that it was about to collapse, I mean all they could see was a shield over the base from orbit where to him it made sense to go under the shield and capture the phoenix officers which was far more important to him then just blowing them sky high. Other wise it’s just a bit of good tv.
Awesome video. For Dathomere though, Grevious couldn’t bomb the base since Dooku’s voodoo doll was in there. Bombing the witches would kill Dooku and lose the war for the separatists.
I believe the droid factories were shielded as shown in clone wars, also you can see the geonosian AA-Guns ripping acclamators apart that go too low.
I'm waiting for a star wars version of the Geneva convention to get released and see if orbital bombardment is a war crime or not. Besides that it hasn't stopped the republic from commiting a few war crimes themselves
That would be cool. It's like why they use laser and not bullets. Slugthrowers were considered crude to them.
@@kennethjuarez5384 doesn't the standard issue Republic rifles use high velocity bolts as ammo?
Consider that in some of those battles the primary objective was to retrieve someone or something that is on the ground, like wanting to arrest Gunray (TPM), rescue Obi Wan (AOTC), trying to arrest Dooku (also AOTC), capturing the chancellor (ROTS), Darth Vader wanting to capture the Millenium Falcon in the battle of Hoth, etc...
The rescue portion of the battle of Geonosis made up a relatively small part of a much larger event. After the Jedi were secure, ships in orbit could have easily started picking off TradeFed core ships before the left the ground.
@@hazmatt3250 Who is to say they didn't. The movies don't cover everything. We don't see anyone head off to pee during the movies either.
@@hazmatt3250 I agree to some extend. The battle of Geonosis was particullary chaotic, mainly because there wasn't a fully stablished plan rather than "I'll gather the Jedi, you go for the clones and we'll meet there". A blockade should also have been made by the Republic in orbit so nobody could go in or out the planet, but still a ground battle was inevitable.
@@flickinggamer I think they didn't, if they had blockaded the planet's orbit it's most likely that the separatist leaders and Dooku would have been captured.
flickinggamer I mean an orbital strike is a pretty important part of a battle I would think. Sure it doesn’t cover it in the movies but there’s also a bunch of other media out there that would probably cover it one way or another.
That last argument is completely irrelevant to the topic though. An understood part of biology vs. a tactic in war are two very different things, one which would probably deserve screen time/some sort of coverage, and one that everyone knows probably happens
Might be able to swing a cultural explanation, sort of along the same lines as 17th to 19th century European military conduct and what was and was not considered to be acceptable military strategy.
That is sometimes like saying why not use nukes for all battles. Um that's a last resort tactic.
I mean... yeah they had cultural reasons to fight like that but that style of fighting had many advantages. Mostly in how keeping commanders alive allowed for large scale Surrender
The battle of Umbara definitely needed a few orbital bombardments. The land assault was necessary, but the Umbarans had a few strongholds that needed some good ol’ space elbow grease.
Side note on 3:44, instead of bombing the shields couldn’t they have bombed the shield gate? Obviously ramming it with a star destroyer worked fine but it was surprising none of the ships bombed the gate to assist their fighters
Anthony Jones They could have directly attacked the shield gate, but I reckon that only the Profundity would have the firepower to crack it open and it was occupied with firing back at the two ISDs for the majority of the battle.
Ryan Yeah I assumed that too, but watching it back it looked like it wasn’t doing much firing at all. If the Profundity, the 2 Nebulon-Bs and the Y-wing squadrons targeted one point I think they’d be able to break it
John Henken When the star destroyer crashed into it, it looked like the shield went down completely, but maybe I’m wrong 🤷🏻♂️
Just do what Anikin did in the 2D clone wars show...go under the shield😂😂
@@anthonyjones8707 That also involved an entire ISD smashing into the shield though. I do think the gate was the generator, but even if not I can buy the ISD overloading the shield
There were some cases where orbital bombardment would make things easier but there were a few things holding that tactic back.
- For Yavin 4, the Empire didn't bombard it because the rebels were rushing to get out of there and hide which would leave some potential intel, and the base wouldn't be going anywhere so the focused on eliminating the remaining rebels. The First Order did the exact opposite which in turn destroyed intel and let the enemy escape.
- In the Clone Wars I believe that the Jedi Code prevented many of the Jedi Generals from wanting to perform such an act, an act that would possible aid the CIS in gaining allies. For the CIS there is not much to stop them from committing to orbital bombardment, hell doing so would help Palpatine to be granted more government powers against the "evil" separatists, other than that they are in a war and trying to claim territory. How long would a planet remain obedient to those who just bombed them? How useful would burnt farmland be? Why spend resources building a new outpost when you can take over the one that is already there?
I'm not against the video, yes there are plenty of occasions where bombardment would help win the battles. I'm just nit-picking.
...but the Empire was going to fire a Planet-killing weapon on Yavin IV, wha pt do you mean the Empire didn’t bombard it?
@@CaptainCoolzCT- I guess you can say bombardment was the empires endgame...
@@CaptainCoolzCT- The battle AFTER the Death Star was destroyed. Rebel tactics are to hit and run, and since the Empire knew the Rebel base was on Yavin IV now they needed to get the heck out of there. The Empire retaliated by sending a fleet to Yavin IV to try and capture/kill any Rebel stragglers they could as well as recover intel to find other Rebel allies and cells.
Star Gazer2 oh, I thought you meant the initial attack instead of the fight in BF2 2017 where the Rebels are just trying to escape after the Death Star while also disposing of all intel left behind.
@@CaptainCoolzCT- Yes, and the Empire tried to stop them and recover any said intel but failed, only get useless bits. You'll notice that the First Order in episode 8 failed outright by bombarding the base first, destroying any intel left behind, and giving the Resistance plenty of time to form up and escape.
"A show made ultimately for children"
All those clones and prisoners who get shot in the face,burned,executed: I agree with this
Palpatine didnt just destroy the jedi temple from orbit because it was a key part of turning anakin to the dark side.
He needed the younglings to survive, so anakin could kill them.
Also, I would be surprised if coruscant didnt have planetary shields.
Coruscant does have a shield, its what kept the CIS fleet in orbit at the start of ep 3, they trapped them inside it.
Meta-reason: rule of cool. For the same reason that fighters etc are useful at all (more realistically, a star destroyer would have the armaments to melt a thousand fighters and bombers with precision).
But, of course, we should have some kind of explanation if we're gonna nerd about it. In most cases we can explain it. I would start by assuming most capital ships are actually not that good at targeting in general (they're meant to destroy pretty large ships), and shooting through atmopshere would be even worse.
That rules out most tactical applications unless you have specialized weaponry. In most other cases, you're just destroying your own prize, so it's not worth doing unless you're on a strategic raid.
That's kind of a lesson from world war 2. Terror bombardment usually just backfires; strategic destruction is only useful in a very long-run conflict; tactical destruction requires precision.
Obliteration of course works. But it has very limited utility, and is often done by idiots instead. Most of the effect is that your own people will be disgusted by you, and that no sane person would surrender to your non-existent mercy. This would be a common issue: given how demilitarized the galaxy is, presumably there'll be very little patience for such brutality.
The last main set would be large-scale tactical, such as clearing a landing zone or dismantling a fortress. This would probably the most legitimate. However, such forts likely would have shield generators to prevent just that. And when we're talking the size of planets, it's unlikely that all of it is properly defended.
When we conclude it's rarely worthwile, this leads us to one more consideration. When such usage is common, you develop special ships for it (gunboats, basically). When it's rare, you never design that ship. In those rare cases where you need it, you just use general-purpose bombers: they can get the job done. Which in turn further reduces incentive to build a specialized ship for it.
Noone is gonna read you're comment man, why type all that?
All of these are good points.
sorsocksfake Thousands of fighters and bombers? Idk know about that one chief.. Also they are useful for the same reason aircraft carriers are useful, try to stay out of range of enemy ships and launch fighters and bombers so they can do all the damage and cripple its defenses and then the capital ship moves in and takes it out if the fighters and bombers haven’t already. While we’re at it one of the reasons why ship combat takes place so close is because unguided weapons are very ineffective at long range so then missiles and torpedoes are the logical weapon right? Well it’s gonna take them a few minuets to hit the ship at ranges like that and as soon as the ship detects the missiles or torpedoes it could just make a short hyperspace jump to avoid them and obviously the missiles or torpedoes wouldn’t be able to track it while it’s in hyperspace. Getting the ship close to the enemy ship will get it in effective range of missiles and turbolasers so it will be very exposed so the best option is to launch fighters and bombers, have them get in close and launch their armaments and takedown the enemy ships defenses and any enemy fighters, crippling the enemy ship which allows you’re capital ship to get in close and finish it off. It’s a lot easier to shoot at a giant capital ship then a bunch of small fighters and bombers as well.
Ignore Excrement Gaming. Plenty of nerds here reading all that. I for one.
These thoughts and considerations will make fine additions to my collections.
@@cancelanime1507
(sry, very late response)
Cheers, but you kinda answer your own question here :). The problem you describe is true for mach-based weapons. Even a mach-10 "bullet" would take 30 seconds to cross 100 km.
Lasers are a game-changer. They cross 100 km in 0.0003 seconds, 0.3ms. Even a full earth-distance takes a mere 0.04 seconds.
It's a flashlight that kills you.
Lacking an atmosphere or horizon to hide behind, ships therefore use "shields" to block lasers. But that's an investment. Arguably, fighters/bombers are defined as ships too small to have a (meaningful) shield.
Capital ships will be able to fend them off. Else, you wouldn't build capital ships.
But again the answer is meta: it is supposed to be our own world, dressed up in a space costume. It works intuitively. That's what matters. Star Wars isn't a science manual describing what advanced technology would be like, it's an awesome movie based on *our own* world.
A good half of your points can be negated when you remember that Palpatine wanted the war to look like a genuine struggle to gain control over the senate.
Nobody:
Every single RUclips ad: Mike Bloomberg
(I’m not trying to get political)
I don't know who he is, but I am sick of him.
Only for 4.25% of the world population :P
@Dmitry The Kebob Remover So... every politician?
He’s racist af too
@@arfcaptainvoid1188 Nah, he's more like the opposite of that, trying to buy his way to the top, that's why he spams that many ads.
Geonosis had a large cave system. Orbital bombardment wouldn't have been effective.
Nate Avery yup, underrated point
1. In the battle of Hoth, Vader knew Luke was his son. Using an orbital bombardment would have made it much more likely that Luke would’ve been killed than it would be with a ground attack. 2. Throughout the vast majority of the clone wars, separatists and the republic were trying to get as many planets as possible to be on their side. Orbital bombardment would result in more deaths of the local population than ground attacks would.
"Your feelings for these ground battles are not real."
"THEY ARE REAL TO ME!!"
For a lot of battles the capital ships were constantly being fired upon by other capital ships or fighters, keeping them occupied. Also it is possible that this could kill civilians in the process so it is technically a war-crime so it is morally corrupt too.
The reason why The republic didn’t use orbital bombardments It’s because dark Sidious had control A.k.a. Palpa teen and Also
Cough cough port armor
*Force chokes you* I find your lack of grammar correctness disturbing!
@@palpatinethesenatehog7086 Palpa teen
@@goodmind4940 Hahaha sounds like a heart condition!
Kamil Kluczewski Cough I find your face disgusting Palpa teen
“Palpa teen” “port armor”
One way to make this make more sense: Planetary bombardment is both expensive and very risky, as you need to use a special, disposable/consumable thing (i.e. refit your guns with parts that wear out very quickly or use some special substance in place of whatever normally passes for ammo on a plasma "laser" turret) in order to make your capital ships' weapons shoot that far with that accuracy. Even then, power of the weapon might be reduced (or at least easier to block with shields), to where shields in general are quite effective for their generators' size. Let us also say that even after all this, the power use of the weapons skyrocket, to the point where the bombarding capital ship will more often then not have to outright turn off its engines and shields just to fire consistently, unless it is a vessel explicitly designed for bombardment with the necessary over-generation of power (or a special bombardment weapon that gets around these limitations).
If we make these assumptions, then not only do you need the necessary and expensive stuff needed to actually perform bombardment, but you need to make sure you have TOTAL control of the situation. Because nothing is worse then getting into bombardment mode only for an enemy fleet to jump out right next to your mostly engines-off, unshielded fleet that is already stressing its power systems to the limit to ensure that their damage reaches the surface. In the event that they need to actually swap out weapon parts and not just use some special gas as ammo or something, then they are also caught such that they can not actually use any weapon set up in "bombardment mode" against whoever is now threatening them until they swap the parts back out (since one of my assumptions above is that the long range bombardment setup is weaker to shields than normal fire).
Why do I suggest these things? Well, think about it. The weapons have a seemingly set range in normal combat. Why wouldn't it take something special to actually shoot far enough (and through a whole atmosphere) while still delivering accuracy and payload?
Under these assumptions, the absolute worst of the scenarios you mentioned could just be explained as "they were literally too cheap to give the guy bombardment "ammo." And as such, the poor nutcase had no choice but to send in a whole bunch of droids instead." Or, you know, Palpatine manipulations. Cause he doesn't just like to puppet-master for his goals. Its his hobby too. Once he got to his ideal empire in some alternate universe where everything went right for him, he would just continue puppet-mastering stuff as a hobby, all the way up to the day where there is nothing more that can be done to preserve his body and mind, and in some greatly aged delerium, he is hallucinating and performing a literal puppet show while his next-of-Sith is just sighing and going about his business.
...You know, the mental image of that alone is well worth me typing that all out.
Maybe its just a really frowned upon practice, like the galaxy seems to be at war alot so maybe theres some kind of an unspoken agreement that causing more damage to planets than needed with an orbital bombardment is just not cool (but the again the death star is a thing so idk)
Just like how we don't launch nukes at each other when we get grumpy #MAD
A ground attack in the Battle of Kashyyyk (Clone Wars/Order 66) makes sense as there were valuable hyperspace routes mapped out within the city the Droids attack, along with a refinery according to original Battlefront 2.
I think the ground battle was a test of the clones' effectiveness.
Yes it was a vetting of the Clone army.
A very bloody and wasteful test.
@@rorowang7872 most battles are.
I feel like if they had orbitaly bombarded the night sisters, Count Dooku would’ve died by way of the voodoo magic, because we don’t know how far in deep those caverns went, and if grievous wasn’t there to personally kill her then she could’ve kept using the magic to kill Dooku
If I remember correctly, Grevious wanted to kill Ventress personally in his typical fashion. We see the same when he wants to choose the tactically worse situation just so he can personally battle his enemy. The invasion of Dathomir was a ground invasion on purpose despite the tactics.
Also dathomir is kinda like vietnam, no real centers to bombard just tons of mostly empty jungle. No point at bombarding it, just get infantry down. And if you have expendavle droids, even better
Love your content but, do you think you could make it clearer when you switch from canon to legends? Thanks for everything you do
"Damn sir, we just turned the entire Jedi into vapor, and bored a hole from the spire down to the undercity. Guess we shouldn't have let a B1 do a B2 job...."
#AskEck
What if the jedi had led the droid army instead of the clone army?
Now i need answer to this!
CIS clones vs Republic droids
This screams something to look into! Not only would it result in a lot less casualties (the better generals were CIS anyway, and Jedi could just throw endless droids at them), but it would be far better at painting a picture of "evil jedi massacring brave troopers" that Palpatine would be able to use against them.
I agree, this is worth consideration. Not sure if it is worth a dedicated video, but certainly consideration. #AskEck
Ultimately the corporations that chiefly contributed to the CIS military already had the designs and infrastructure to produce droid forces, and it was the Republic that was both militarily and economically unprepared for an interstellar war. Still... lets play with it.
Jedi leading battle-droids... I have to wonder how useful the Jedi would have been as leaders for droids. Rather than good leaders, I think the Jedi would be dangerous weapons against the Clones - precognition augmented by surface-level mind-reading, at least. Master Rancisis could have demoralized them with Battle-meditation and left the droids to fight directly... then again, the Jedi would desire to capture their organic enemies rather than slaughter them. Unless the Clones were highly resistant to capture or even suicidal in such a situation, the Republic would soon have a mass-POW problem. While some Jedi might be swayed to darker behaviour by the act of fighting and killing organic enemies in battle I think many would begin to object to the war. The pro-peace Senators of Alderaan, Chandrilla, Naboo, etc may have found more support for their moral stance if the enemy fielded mostly organic troops.
On the PR front, the corrupt Republic was frequently painted as evil for implementing a secretly produced slave-army. Were the CIS to do so would turn a huge morality point the other way. 'The Republic might be corrupt, but at least it doesnt use slave-armies to fight its wars.' or somesuch. A large part of the reason planets and systems left the Republic for the CIS was due to the overwhelming evidence of corruption and double-standards. The Clone army classed as slavery had no real counter argument, merely the excuse of 'we have no choice against CIS aggression' which is weak at best - GAR attacked first with the First Battle of Geonosis.
Slavery had long been outlawed, yet the Hutts and many other crime syndicates perpetuated the slave-trade almost unopposed while the Republic little more than police its own territory with moderate to poor results. Even though morally the same as slavery, 'indentured servitude' was disturbingly common throughout Republic territory.
"they're capable of orbital bombardment"
I dunno, they aren't even able to distinguish between what's up and what's down even with bigass windows around the bridge so I'm not sure they'd be able to aim at the ground or press a button
I think Spaceships have LIDARS.
The only good excuse I can come up with is that planetary atmospheres mean ships have to get relatively close to the ground to shoot effectively, but doing so puts them in range of very heavy planetary defense cannons that can easily outgun and destroy even capital ships. Or maybe capital ship shields don't work in atmospheres and even not-so-heavy guns can take them out.
I vaguely remember a Clone Wars episode where the Republic had to infiltrate a CIS-occupied city and destroy the anti-air guns to allow the orbiting capital ships to enter the atmosphere and provide fire support.
shields are less effective in atmosphere (this is noted mostly with fighters however so, who knows about large ships)
They need to add a "dial-a-yield" kinetic bombardment weapon. Simple solid metal rod with a shield on it and a small drive. Adjust the speed of the drive, adjust the yield of the weapon. Would have worked awesome on Geonosis.
Yes the good old Rod from God. This is a technology we have now.
Strangely, they exist (at least in Legends) but lack the dial-a-yield ability.
starwars.fandom.com/wiki/De-Orbiting_Kinetic_Anti-emplacement_Weapon
The best thing to see once you've gotten home is a new eckharts ladder video
Bombing a shield, if it is smaller like the Hoth Base shield, will eventually overload the generator. At least with a Star Destroyer, because it can output a huge amount of turbolaser fire. (And yes, I know that turbolasers decrease in power as they enter atmosphere)
Palpatine wanted the knowledge in the Jedi archives.
I would guess I’m the case of the empire that they underestimated their opponents and treated battles as practice for their troops
In short:
The best usages of aerial bombardment is to target and destroy anything it sees. And then to forget about it.
In long:
If the intent to attack a planet (or city, town, village, house) is to (eventually) seize control and use it within your coalition (confederacy, empire, republic, etc), keeping the damage minimal will allow for the continuance of normal day-to-day operations with the local populace. Keeping as much of the infrastructure intact and in relative good condition allows it to be restored to its proper form quickly with little impact on the lives of those subjugated, and keeping the basic necessities running may in fact turn many over to your side by showing that you care for the populace.
Additionally, the cost expenditure of rebuilding or repairing large amounts of infrastructure and basic necessity systems (such as running water or sewage treatment) would require more specialized personnel (engineers etc) and security to manage those operations, not to mention the increased monetary expenditure. And while those systems are down, the local populace suffers and is more likely to retaliate/revolt (or try to), requiring you to (perhaps) use more lethal force than initially desired to try to quell the unrest, which only sends you further down the rabbit hole.
Keep in mind, also, that there is most likely a local insurgency already established to do everything and anything they can to prevent your ability to restore and/or increase the living conditions of those of the local populace, because if you fail, they win eventually. There is still no clear definitive answer to combating local insurgencies outside of full cooperation of the local population that does not have ties to the insurgency. That requires winning the hearts and minds of the people as quickly as possible.
As reference to present day usage of aerial attacks during invasions, the initial surge into Iraq during the 2003 - 2004 opening year saw much of the local necessary-living infrastructure damaged or destroyed by Coalition air forces. The intent was to prevent Saddam’s regime from utilizing those necessities in their defense against Coalition ground/air forces as the invasion was underway.
The outcome, however, was a lengthy occupation, faulty and/or uncompleted rebuilding/restoration projects, $2.4 trillion expended far as 2017, the rise of locally armed, independent, and capable militias, an insurgency which claimed just shy of 5,000 Coalition forces lives + shy of 25,000 civilian lives, and a corrupt and mistrusted local/federal government/defense system which aided in the rise of a most violent terrorist organization.
I agree, while to an extent ground forces are always going to be necessary for occupation, taking resources, and avoiding collateral damage; there are so many occasions in star wars that an orbital bombardment, scorched earth bombing runs, and artillery barrages seem like an obvious answer
I disagree, u cant win a war if you dont have boots on ground. Even If u destroy the planet, others will fight
I know right plus just using orbital attacks don'ts mean you won the war plus idk maybe because theirs always a chance the planet is destroyed completely lol the video is still cool but for gets how powerful their weapons are
@Berzerk Llama but didnt we invade Japan? We had boots on ground. Then after the bomb we were still there
@Berzerk Llama Actually multiple factors came together for japans surrender. The Japanese didn't surrender after the firebombings, they didn't entirely intend to surrender after the nukes. Communist, atheist Russia was one major factor in forcing japans hand. They feared for the life of the emperor, and what the communist's would do to him, and placed their eggs in the Allied basket, or the american, basket, hoping they would at least spare him. Not saying the nukes weren't a major factor however.
bo3996 bo3996 I agree. They tried it in World War Two with the Flying Tigers, lead by Claire Chennault, but that failed epically.
he's not arguing that you need to *never ever ever* invade on foot. But you can exterminate 99% of the enemy, *then* invade.
“We’re all nerd here, this will get nerdy...” yeah Eck, that’s why we’re here lol thank goodness someone with editing skills and a smooth voice has the same interest as myself and everyone who agrees 👍🏼
Nice video, I want to offer some of my insight in this topic. If I may...
As the Empire, orbital bombardment pose 2 main issues:
First, most times was a not very propaganda friendly technique. Bombarding planet capitals with enough army to seriously engage your forces is not a very good idea. We can take as a quick example the US decision in WWII not to select the Japanese imperial palace as a target for atomic attacks. Since they knew that possibly then Japan would not surrender and would fight to the death. And this is just one example of many in history. Which can happen on planets that openly oppose the empire and are defending their independence. That is why the empire performs more "manual" tactics like those briefly seen in SOLO to subdue planets.
Second. The rebellion was a serious threat to the empire (duh). His organization was extraordinarily effective against unsuspecting Imperial officials. In fact in legends there is a short series of comics that talks about this "orbital bombardment tactic".
Whenever Imperial fleets found a base or nucleus of what they called "dissidents," they bombed it. Without contemplation and to the foundations. Then they would send a couple of squads to see if there was anything left worthwhile. Virtually none of the rebel bases had access to shields. Only the most important ones that we can see in the movies. And this was done CONSTANTLY.
This of course did not stop the appearance of more numerous and new rebel cells.
They realized then that in reality they did not know anything about these dissidents and it became a priority to take prisoners and capture data. Especially as attacks on vital Imperial targets, desertions, and spies among Imperial ranks were becoming more frequent.
So many officers seeking promotion and merit began to carry out costly invasions and ground attacks in search of this information.
This was a small step in changing tactics. That it was not widely accepted in the Imperial leadership and was considered by many to be an unnecessary and ridiculous waste of resources.
But this was joined by another factor.
Possibly what caused orbital bombardment to take a backseat as a primary tactic.
Many of the gunners tasked with carrying out these bombing raids dealt with severe regret and depression. Since ending thousands of lives by pressing 4 buttons, continuously, takes its toll on anyone with a minimum of conscience.
Some of these artillerymen renounced the empire and indirectly joined the rebellion as independent agents hindering the imperial command. The comics talk about one of them.
When it was intended to leave survivors, lighter imperial bombardments were made, which then allowed ground troops to attack without much resistance. This gunner always carried out bombing runs at full power, ensuring that no survivors were ever found.
Thanks to him, many high-ranking Imperial officers were punished for incompetence or directly executed by Darth Vader, when he was around. For it was becoming more and more urgent to get Intel of the rising tide of anti-imperial sentiment. The empire was forced to open an investigation to find out why their bombings left no survivors. That even, as I have anticipated, involved Darth Vader who smelled something suspicious. Although in the end he finds the anti-imperial agent.
In conclusion, the insubordination of Imperial personnel regarding this tactic, the impact on Imperial troop morale, Rebel activists publicly protesting the morality of the strategy, the need for Rebel data and prisoners, and pressure from COMPNOR to avoid promoting nationalist ideas and a "revenge" or "fight to the death" mentality. They made it an option that little by little was replaced by a good ground strategy. Or as support for ground units along with fighter squadrons.
Thanks for your time and attention.
No bombardment, however good, can leave no survivors. There are always survivors, there is always need for Infantry to clear the place up. Take The Middle East or The Somme for example...
@@LeChevalierAnglais I agree. I was referring to the probability of leaving survivors. There is going to be always infantry moving in. But one thing is to secure the area or to engage.
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