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Imperial /k/ommando Thread: No Lightsabers Allowed Edition Stormtrooper 01/01/2020 (Wed) 17:53:32 No.1504
Time to talk about blasters, slugthrowers, and other non-lightsaber weapons and designs. Which is the most practical, powerful or aesthetically pleasing? What would you take with you when the Day of the Rebellion comes and SHTF? Superweapons are also allowed but only the weapon, all fleet discussion goes in the ship thread.
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>>1505 >The Mandalorian's sniper rifle is also cool. Its the amban pulse blaster from the Holiday Special...
What is the most practical weapon to kill a force user? I was thinking flamethrower or other toxic chemicals sprayers, then buckshots. They can't throw back fire and pellets with lightsabers, can they?
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>>1604 Slugthrowers loaded with cortosis bullets.
>>1604 Definitely area-effect weapons, since that damnable danger sense can allow them to anticipate where you're aiming. Flame or chemical throwers, maybe mines if you have prep time.
>>1604 Gas, and a room built with cortosis alloy. >flamethrowers >chemical spray The problem with those is that most competent force users would be fully capable of either dodging or deflecting it.
>>1610 Then how do you get the Jedi into the room? And how do you stop them from Force-bullshitting open the door to your rumpus room inb4 use a wooden door once you have them in there? The more I think about it, the more it seems like Lucas' oh so tragic ;_; Order 66 was actually the most reliable way to kill the most Jedi, short of saturation bombing wherever they happen to be.
>>1684 >>1610 iirc in the Thrawn duology Luke is trapped in a room venting atmosphere by pirates. his light-saber was trapped within metal bars protruding from the walls that were arranged in such a way as to render the lightsaber immobile he managed to escape by triggering an explosion with blaster packs but the trap definitely would have killed him otherwise
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What's Lando's P9S based blaster called? >>1725 The blaster pack thing was in some RPGs, though I don't know if they came before or after it.
https://designedby3d.com/shop/lando-calrissian-blaster/ Acoording to this site, an X-8 Blaster. I'm actually not seeing anything official confirming it.
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I'm fond of the DC-15A because of its first person view in Battlefront. The glowing red and fins around the muzzle get me. Though in game it's only about as good as the other rifles it's nothing like its own carbine variant or the E-11. It's a high effort, high results weapon, bulky but bearing greater range and firepower. It reminds me of battle rifles. The DC-15S, on the other hand, is a dull design.
>>1604 >practical weapon Probably a slugthrower, though Jedi reflexes may allow them to dodge rounds fired at them. Really the only to kill Jedi is too overwhelm them or take away their ability to tap into the Force (ysalamiri, clouding their senses with the dark side i.e. Order 66). You can also get them if they are distracted enough, but most Jedi require multiple people coordinating with each other effectively, and depending on their power level even that wouldn't be enough.
>>1604 Order 66.
>>1604 Acting like a human being.
>>1604 We had a discussion about this in some of the lightsaber threads. Flamethrowers and shotguns are good picks, but don't forget about sonic blasters or the acid sprayers used by the voxyn. Normal slugthrowers are also great, but they have the drawback of more limited ammo than blasters. I think the overall best option is either a pulse cannon or the Imperial heavy repeating blaster rifle because you can use them against normal troops with success too. I also theorized 3 new options. Anybody who read any of my posts on the old board knows how much I can write about this stuff, but here they are in relative brief: >Suicide bomber droids Droids with suicide vests would crush Jedi, especially droidekas in ball mode. You'd have to remove most of their protection and armament to be able to afford to use droidekas this way, but trading an entire squad of stripped-down droidekas for even just 1 Jedi is a resounding victory for the droideka users. And Maker forbid the droideka users own a Star Forge. >New pulse cannon This modified version of the pulse cannon has each pulse explode like a miniature concussion rifle shot. It would completely eliminate the ability of almost all lightsaber loadouts to block blasters due to the volumetric damage. This is essentially the blaster version of explosive rounds, which is great because of more ammo. I thought of naming it the excel cannon. The name is taken from Extreme-G with the thought of turning "excel" into a backronym. Excel could stand for EXplosive Coherent Envelopes of Lightning on the basis of being ball lightning or some such. The most powerful general purpose battle droid I can think of is a droideka equipped with this. >Bug swarms I didn't post on Pigfarmerchan about this, unlike the other two. It's brand new for this incarnation of the board. Swarms of bugs have great potential against Jedi because they're very low cost, hard to hit with a saber, and can carry diseases and poisons. These toxic agents will have to contend with Jedi healers, who are very good at what they do, but they can only do so much if the patient isn't delivered to them quickly enough. AoE powers such as Repulse or Scream can dispatch bug swarms, but they're cheap enough that your supply of bugs will probably outlast the Jedi's supply of mana as long as you send them in small to moderately-sized groups. A competent Beast Trick user or a user of drone bugs will wreak utter havoc with this. Maybe I'll start up a new saber thread at some point too.
Why is are the uniforms of the rebel troopers so ugly? I can't think of any other troops from any of the movies that look so shit, not even within the rest of the rebel forces.
What tools are used for discipline in the Star wars universe? Why are there no force paddles?
>>2106 Well they are called Rebel Scum for a reason.
>>2106 I always assumed that this style belonged to some Aldeeranian paramilitary group or some sort of mercs hired on to protect the Tantive IV, but that's just a theory
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>>2111 >Rebel troopers of various units spread across the galaxy were often equipped with uniforms bearing a striking resemblance to the uniforms of the Alderaanian armed forces. Alliance sympathizers within the Alderaanian government helped fund, train and equip many militant groups outside the Alderaan system.[8] The unadmitted military support of the Alliance was to such an extent that it helped shape the look of Rebel troopers for years to come. Even after the Destruction of Alderaan in 0 BBY, and perhaps because of it, many Rebel units began showing up in uniforms greatly inspired by the former Alderaanian armed forces.[source?] Much of the uniforms and equipment came from the Galactic Republic's Planetary Security Forces.[1] Though in my headcanon I'd place far more emphasis in the last sentence than in the rest of the paragraph's focus on Alderaan's influence. Presumably planetary uniforms were frequently similar to Alderaan's. It's mainly this uniform which looks weak, the forest camo is already an improvement and the Hoth uniform is cool in its way, particularly with goggles in use.
>>2111 >>2113 (((Alderaanian influence)))
>>2106 I like that look tbh.
>>2106 I think if it was just the outfits it would look okay, but the helmets are too bulky to look good.
>>2113 Essential Guide to Warfare does put the most emphasis on that last bit. It's a common uniform type.
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>>2165 Yeah, honestly that's my maon problem with them too. It looks much better when they are just a bit smaller, like in this joke edit here.
>>2191 That does look a lot better. If it could be lowered and the black part could act as a visor I'd like them quite a bit.
>>2199 Maybe that was the original plan, judging by the rebel "honor guards" but the costume designers couldn't get it to work?
>>2206 Could be. They'd look kind of cool with their visors down. Since they're just big ugly helmets as-is, though, I'm not a fan.
I don't know how many people are going to read this, but I thought there should be some sort of theory going on to try to get the board some more posters until Jim gets caught giving total control of 8kun to reddit mods or dancing to Ariana Grande in a tutu or something else that would prompt an exodus here. Also I'm locked in because of Corona-chan's rampage and have nothing better to do. For as much as we need to have a new space thread and other threads, nobody ever had this on the old board, so we should use this thread as a general clearinghouse for everything involving land battles. We had a brief detour in the ship thread on the old board about land vehicles. It was mostly about why the Rebels use tanks and the Empire mostly uses walkers. I came to the conclusion that it was partly because Imperial arms companies wanted to milk the Empire for as much money as possible because walkers are high-maintenance, and the Empire wanted to send a message to the Rebels that they can afford to splurge on walkers and still have much larger armies. But there may be other reasons. Tanks will generally fail in cities, forests, mountains or anywhere else that isn't open and largely flat, while walkers do better in places with terrain that tanks find difficult to negotiate. The Empire is situated in the heavily urbanized Core Worlds, while the Rebels are stuck on the outskirts of civilization making limited forays into Imperial territory. That means walkers are better for the kind of terrain Imperial armies occupy and vice versa. But there's the strategic aspect of it as well, and I don't know if that belongs in here. It involves when and how land battles would even take place to begin with. Whoever has control of the local space will usually either bomb the planet into submission or they'll be up against planetary shields and batteries that they can't get through. The only exception to this is when only some of the planet is covered by shields or planetary batteries, which is rarely the case on major worlds, when the planet has little to no civilization to speak of and troops can be landed with no hassle, or when only a certain part of a neutral planet has anything worth having, which is also quite rare. So the only way most planets would ever see troops landed would be in cases like a fugitive Jedi hiding out there rather than legions of tanks and walkers slugging it out. Planetary assaults are commonly depicted as short-term affairs, but historical sieges lasted for years or even decades, and sieges are the best analogy for attacking a shielded planet. It takes enormous resources to take and hold a planet. There's also the problem of how standing armies got started to begin with. We know that there was no standing army in the Republic prior to the Clone Army, but the KotOR era depicts the Republic as having a standing army. It may be that the Mandalorian threat of that era prompted the swift raising of an inevitably inexperienced army, which would explain why they were sitting gizka in the face of the Mandalorian assault and had to have Revan rescue them. If this was the case, the Ruusan Reformation would have reset the Republic to having no standing army. Of course, the Republic relied on the Jedi for protection, but as Mace Windu pointed out, they're peacekeepers and not soldiers. The Jedi's combination of their powers and superior diplomatic skills can suppress minor threats with ease, and the overall strategic situation is more favorable to limited land battles anyway, and the smaller the battle, the more each individual's performance matters. This explains why the Jedi were so dominant for so long, and therefore why it's so uncommon to find people using slugthrowers or anything else that's good against Jedi when by all rights everybody should be using them or at least have a special cache of /k/'s favorites handy - the Jedi benefit on both the tactical and strategic level. But they become less useful if a major war has already broken out simply because there aren't enough of them. The most powerful Jedi can easily decimate even the best mundane soldier unless they're up against an overwhelmingly large army without support. But the Jedi can grow complacent and lose power, and according to my reckoning, the best way to verify that this has happened is the mere existence of an army.
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>>2806 Good post anon, just so you know I still occasionally read the board so know that your contribution isn't in vain. I really liked you thoughts on walkers. Alot of the Empire's military doctrine is focused on maintaining and holding on to a vast amount of territory. Having your military rely purely on tread vehicles where they may have to operate on worlds with differing levels of development with vastly different terrains is just as suicidal as relying purely on walkers. I would also like to note that the Empire also had tank units (the TX-130 Sabre tank) in addition to their more famous walker units as well. The Republic always had a standing army, from the time of Xim the Despot, to the Pius Dea Crusades all the way to the New Sith Wars, until the Ruusan Declaration and even that was a technicality. >reset the Republic to having no standing army That's not entirely true, it is more accurate to say that the Declaration decentralized the Republic military. The Republic had the Judicials and the Jedi, but the also had more localized Planetary Security Forces that would ally with the Judicials/Jedi whenever there was a threat too big for them to handle. Depending on the world in question they could have a sizable local military and while there were upper limits of ship classes imposed on them by Ruusan, they got around this by having them be luxury ships that could be rapidly refitted during times of war. Many officers that served in the Republic Navy during the Clone Wars (Yularen, Tarkin, and Jace Dallin) got their start in these small regional militaries as they were seen as more competent than the Judicials at the time. As for why slugthrowers aren't common, is down to logistics. A blaster's power pack has the capability to fire hundreds of bolts before having to be replaced, while firearms have to deal with the physical dimensions of each cartridge. The average soldier would be carrying hundreds-thousands of bolts per pack rather than 60 rounds worth of magazines. Also, there are very few Jedi, even during the time of the prequels. 10,000 Jedi exist in a galaxy filled with trillions of sentient beings. I think that most militaries would see that equipping slugthrowers would be a case of crippling overspecialization especially since you are much more likely to fight someone who uses blasters and you would just handicap yourself. And even with blasters, there are still tactics for engaging and defeating Jedi.
>>2812 >Having your military rely purely on tread vehicles where they may have to operate on worlds with differing levels of development with vastly different terrains is just as suicidal as relying purely on walkers. This is true, but it's understandable that the Rebels only have tanks because they can't afford walkers. It would have been interesting to see the Rebels build some kind of super-tank to compete with an AT-AT, or at least to have them do that after they become the New Republic and have more money. The TR-MB might have done this with some modifications, and some discarded dialogue suggests that at some point during FoCom's development it was intended to be armed, but this was taken out for whatever reason. >TX-130 Sabre The fighter tank is probably my favorite Imperial land vehicle. I use it almost to the exclusion of walkers in EaW when playing the Empire and almost to the exclusion of everything else in Battlefront. But it's probably the only example of an Imperial vehicle that isn't a total money-grab. This may have been because it's a holdover from the Old Republic, but I honestly don't see much difference in the day-to-day operations of the Republic and the Empire. I want to see what the Chiss version of it would look like. >The average soldier would be carrying hundreds-thousands of bolts per pack rather than 60 rounds worth of magazines. This is why you don't see present-day slugthrowers being used, but much more advanced slugthrowers with higher ammo capacities such as the flechette rifle have been conceptualized, so this isn't by itself enough to explain the scarcity of slugthrowers. Also, blasters are actually worse than slugthrowers in some respects. Blasters are much less stealthy and by some accounts less resistant to hostile environmental conditions. In this way, blasters have some of the same problems as walkers. This tells us that there has to be some other reason slugthrowers are so rare. For as much as galactic civilization is urbanized, there's no shortage of untamed worlds. The best solution to this seems to be to posit that land battles in general are incredibly rare, or at least they were until Geonosis. >Depending on the world in question they could have a sizable local military and while there were upper limits of ship classes imposed on them by Ruusan, they got around this by having them be luxury ships that could be rapidly refitted during times of war. This is how the Mon Cals got their reputation, so it's not terribly surprising that others would do it. This has also been done by actual countries. The aircraft cruiser has been used to get around treaties prohibiting aircraft carriers. Helicopter carriers are also being used for this purpose by the Japanese navy because the treaty prohibiting them from having an offensive military only covers carriers that carry fixed-wing aircraft. Helicopters have much shorter ranges and are therefore construed as a purely defensive vehicle. Of course, even though you won't see a helicopter carrier's rotorcraft attacking inland cities, it can easily be used to attack coastal cities. But even with the presence of turnkey militaries, you still have to actually turn the key, and the only way people seem to do that is when the Jedi are weak.
>>2806 Is slug throwers being good against Jedi a notable thing in the EU? Seems pretty retarded that the Force couldn't be used to block bullets. If they too fast for that, then then it would have to be assumed that the blaster bolts actually go as slow as shown in movies, which would be even more stupid.
>>2819 With slugthrowers I think it's more like it's effective against lightsabers since if a jedi tries to deflect the projectile it will just turn into molten metal and splash their face. I think when fighting jedi it's better to use a variety of weapons and tactics like flame throwers and such.
>>2820 The Jedi could just use the Force to stop the bullets. Surely it can't be harder than how Vader (pretty effortlessly) stopped blaster shots with his glove when he couldn't be arsed to whip out his glowstick. Peashooters being good against Jedi feels like another of those "me clever, me use me logic in this space themed fantasy" idiocies that aren't actually smart in either the context of reality or the fictional setting. You know, like figuring out that hitting something while going really fast delivers plenty of energy, and retroactively making everyone involved in space battles retarded in the previous continuity.
Another thing to consider is the psychological power of walkers. A tank is already intimidating with its size and noise but a walker strikes fear in an even more primal manner. By being tall and anthropomorphic, they give the enemy the feeling of facing a giant, as if it were not a machine but another sentient, much more powerful than himself. The noise, too, is even greater. I could feel this myself when facing AT-STs on Dark Forces games when I was younger. And this ties in perfectly to the Empire's use of fear as an instrument of control.
>>2819 >>2822 It's entirely possible to use the Protection power to deflect slugs, but you'll run out of juice eventually. It still makes sense to use slugthrowers against Jedi because it takes a lot more effort to block something with Protection than it does to use the saber. >then it would have to be assumed that the blaster bolts actually go as slow as shown Blaster bolts aren't lasers. Near as anybody can tell, they're spun plasmoids which actually do travel as quickly as you see - which is to say, comparable to slugs. They may be described as lasers, but it's commonly held that this is some sort of slang because blaster bolts obviously don't behave like lasers.
I could live without the new CSS, but it's either this or go to Disneyshit boards, which isn't an option. I'd probably change my flag to the Rakatan Empire if all the flags from the old board were brought back because it looks better with this background. But some things occurred to me that deserved to get posted. >>2827 I forgot to mention: The other way to solve this problem is to just use a regular sword to block bullets and give it shielding so it can deal with blasters. >>2823 IG-88 in Shadows of the Empire was more intimidating than any walker. Speaking of which, if we're going to just use this thread to talk all about land battles, we should have some battle droid and assassin droid talk. But that may be a very short discussion because nothing's ever going to beat the SOTE gladiator droid. Even droidekas and MagnaGuards would be hard pressed to not get fucked up by that beast.
>>2868 You can turn off the CSS in the settings above. I'm personally fine with or without it. I just wish the font could be changed to aurebesh or high republic font.
>>2823 AT-ATs seem to have poorly armored legs. A harpoon not intended as a weapon can penetrate them. A real anti-tank weapon should go right through them by that standard.
>>2873 The harpoon didn't go in. It just impacted on the surface. A big problem with designing walkers is protecting the legs enough, but the AT-AT's legs stood up to Rebel turrets on Hoth and I doubt the tow cable would have worked more than once. AT-AT drivers would have either had the sense to stop moving if they got entangled by a tow cable or they'd start using very small and cheap helper droids equipped with plasma torches to burn through the cable. Modified training remotes are by far the best option for getting rid of tow cables because the price is right and they're much harder to hit than countermeasures installed directly on the legs of an AT-AT, which would have to be duplicated several times at great expense to get total leg coverage. You could also mount the AT-AHT's side turrets and pack probe droids to take out both speeders and boarders. Probots are decently durable against rifles when they're not set to self-destruct. Side turrets and probe droids could also shoot down missiles aimed at the walker's legs. It's notable that many walker designs aren't susceptible to tow cables. AT-STs and AT-PTs can be tripped with a cable, but are much harder to entangle because they have very thin legs that can easily get out of tow cables. They're also much less protected in general because they're scouts and not frontline fighting vehicles, so a serious military would generally just blast them. Walker designs from franchises that are intended to be more grounded also aren't terribly susceptible to tow cables. A Tachikoma would never be tripped up by a cable, and spider tanks in general have enough spare legs not to worry too much if they lose a couple. But as cool as it is to see walkers that are more plausible, nobody can deny that the AT-AT is an awe-inspiring presence in a way that spider tanks usually aren't. So why not make it stand up better under scrutiny by actually putting the Transport part of its designation to use? The AT-AT is said to be able to carry 2 AT-STs, but I can't recall any instances of the AT-AT being shown carrying anything but stormtroopers. You can easily sub in some helper droids for a few of the usual passengers and still carry a decent party. It might even be able to carry a couple of TIE fighters. The AT-AT could get a lot closer to being plausible if writers would depict it as a land-based carrier which happens to be well-armed, which is what its name actually suggests, rather than the walking tank that it's usually depicted as. The AT-AT should be the land-based version of the assault carrier or aircraft cruiser, which makes sense because the Star Destroyer is the space-based version. If anybody here was going to write something set in an era that contains AT-ATs, I'm sure we could have a lot of fun coming up with various loadouts for the AT-AT.
>>2883 >The harpoon didn't go in. It just impacted on the surface. Do you know how harpoons and armor work? If the harpoon is powerful enough to not just dent but go clean into the leg, the armor is insufficient to stop an anti-tank weapon from doing the same.
>>2885 the Harpoon is a kinetic weapon, outside of the AT-TE's main gun or Hailfire's missiles, I'm not aware of any kinetic weapon that could serve as an anti-tank weapon. Blaster rounds do nothing to the legs as shown on Hoth. You could make the argument that the rebels should obviously start using kinetic anti-tank weapons, but unlike blasters, kinetic anti-tank weapons need dedicated ammo, not use a power supply and exotic gases that can be used by pretty much any weapon with minor changes. This complicates supply lines pretty heavily as now one needs to obtain in some fashion, either a kinetic gun and a steady source of ammunition or make them oneself. Taking that into consideration, the "obvious" weakness of an AT-AT, that the legs are weak to kinetic weapons, is rather hard to actually exploit due to challenges in logistics and how star wars generally avoids kinetic weaponry.
>>2883 >loadouts for the AT-AT I'd cram in as many AT-PTs as I can. A handful of them can do most of what an equivalent infantry complement would do but in many cases better. How many can fit, 4? In spare space I'd leave a recon droid.
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>>2883 I think that while the AT-AT can store AT-STs inside it, it mostly doesn't because the AT-STs can keep up and would be covering the walkers aft and sides. People shit on the AT-AT all the time, but they don't remember that it isn't operating alone usually alongside other Army walkers/vehicles.
>>2813 >This is why you don't see present-day slugthrowers being used, but much more advanced slugthrowers with higher ammo capacities such as the flechette rifle have been conceptualized, so this isn't by itself enough to explain the scarcity of slugthrowers. I'll admit to not knowing a whole ton on this topic, but my best assumption would be storage and cost. From what I understand, flechettes are generally larger than bullets, and obviously are much larger than blaster packs. Because of that, I would assume that you would have to carry pounds and pounds of flechettes to get anywhere near the amount of shots provided by a single blaster pack. In addition to them taking up much more space, I would assume that producing 100 flechettes would be more expensive than 1 blaster pack, for what would end up accomplishing the same goal in all but the most specific of scenarios. That's not to say that flechettes or slugthrowers in general wouldn't have their uses, they definitely do, but the general idea would be why pay more to produce and store something that's going to do the same thing as a much cheaper alternative. And even in the case if Jedi-hunting, it could be argued that it would still be less expensive to arm 100 men with blasters and have them take their chances for what would cost much less than 100 men with slugthrowers. And when you get to thinking past an individual scale, and on larger scales like that, you get higher rates of success with larger groups with slightly inferior weaponry than with much smaller groups armed with slightly superior weapony.
>>2822 >The Jedi could just use the Force to stop the bullets. Sure, he can, but if you live your whole life training to deflect blaster bolts, and then, while you're in the middle of deflecting blaster bolts from a couple of guys, another guy comes and shoots a slugthrower at you, your first reaction is going to be to try to block it like a blaster.
Why nobody ever lasgun type weapons? Blasters are so slow in comparison and even liable to be deflected. Lasgun types are just a crack in the air and hit the target, there is even less space to shots going random like those stormtrooper blaster rolled. The only laser we see in action was the DS superlaser, all the rest are plasma guns.
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>>3784 The disruptor rifle from the Jedi Knight games worked like that.
>>3788 Right! Forgot about that one Now i remembered... fucking rodians!

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