Re: Star Wars Episode II

(remote potential for spoilers, although it's very vague)

----- Original Message -----
From: "B Lin" <lin@RxKinetix.com>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 9:49 AM
Subject: RE: Star Wars Episode II

> I think the neatest piece of equipment was a SW equivalent of a
helicopter
> gunship/troop transport - it carried a squad of troops, had two
spherical
manned
> turrets (one to each side) and a pair(?) of rotary missile launchers
in a
weapons
> bay on top.  Troops exited from two large doors (one to each side),
while
always
> up in the movie, seemed to either have large slot windows or actual
openings from
> which troops could fire.

It was essentially a SW Huey.

The part that I didn't get, on a lot of levels, was that the armies
depicted
in this movie seemed, in many ways, to be far more capable than the
ground
forces they had in the "later" movies.	The SW-Hueys were far more
nimble
and able to deposit infantry anywhere they wanted than the AT-ATs of
"Empire".  And the ground troops were able to throw heavy enough
missiles
that they were able to bring down full-blown starships.  In many ways,
the
technology and ground combat doctrines seemed far _more_ advanced in
this
movie than in "Empire".

OTOH, it isn't entirely impossible to reconcile this.  The SW-Hueys
obviously were quite vulnerable as troop transports to return fire -- at
several times during the movie they're destroyed utterly by relatively
small
shots.	OTOH, AT-ATs were able to shrug off even ground-based artillery
blasters.  So losing the mobility advantage in trade for being assured
of
getting your troops there in one piece makes sense.  Presumably, the
missile
weapons that brought down the TradeFed starship cores also are inferior
to
such artillery blasters, both in Rebel and Imperial hands, so the
AT-AT's
armor would presumably shrug these off as well.  (Which makes some
sense, as
the TradeFed vessels are converted freighters.)  If enemy close-support
units got too annoying, they could be shredded in droves by TIE fighter
support.  So ultimately, I guess it _does_ wind up all making sense
after
all.

PSB strikes again... :-D

On the other hand, I suspect that Episode 3 will probably go a long ways
towards reconciling a great deal of this by showing, as the descent of
the
Republic into the Empire days also displays some of the Imperial tactics
and
how the tactics used in Eps. 4-6 would stop the ones in Eps. 1-2 cold. 
(At
least, it'd better, or there's going to be a major plot hole left
open...)

E