sonofccn wrote:Regarding Jaffa suppression fire:
In the grand majority of cases when an SG team was pinned down the Jaffas in question enjoyed a superority of numbers, in some cases by quite a margine, allowing them both greater endurance to combat attrition as well as the ability to overlay competing fields of fire. Obviously in a head to head mano-e-mano match up this would not be the case.
That they miss is already taken into account. They still roughly aim in the right direction and Necronmongers move in packs, so one Necromonger being missed will simply and generally translate into a fellow taken down. It's basically napoleonian tactics here, and is not limited to open areas since we've seen Necromongers behave the same way in city streets.
The staves still retain the greater firing range and overall damage. As seen in Children of the Gods, Teal'c used a staff to shoot at a DG (the DG tanked the shots btw). That while the DG was attacking from the skies. The range was definitely beyond 70 yards and this would have nothing to do with Teal'c ability to aim well since the point here is abou the weapon's observed range.
The heavier staves would be complete murder here. Greater range, greater firepower with noticeable area of effect.
Further as the episode "The Warrior", from SG-1 season 5, shows an above average Jaffa would only hit a suspended, non moving tree trunk two out of three times at "sixty or seventy yards". Factor in battle conditions, possible reduced visibility, and any physical obstruction of the enviroment and that will likely go down further.
Limited to a semi-auto rate of fire I do not see the majority of such a hypothetical match going well for the Jaffa.
These limits apply to Necromongers as well, they don't benefit from super sight, and their guns are limited to semi-auto rates of fire as well. Necromongers' guns don't even have an ironsight, nor do the Necromongers ever attempt to really aim like one would use a handgun or a rifle for an accurate shot.
Regarding Grenades:
The issue is the equivilent to a Regiment commander knowing where the one guy in a thousand is, getting word to that person and sending him where he'll do the most good inside a hectic and ever shifting battlefield. All while hoping said guy isn't killed by a Lensor team, is sent to an area which has already been overrun or the wrong place entirely due to fog of War.
If anything, the equivalent of the regiment commander would be the one carrying those, or his second would.
Even assuming he reaches the proper target in time picking the grenade up if he gets killed requires the surronding Jaffa have sufficent tactical awareness to realize there is a grenade needing to be picked up and that they can disengage themselves from the Necromongers in order to retrieve it.
Claiming that Jaffa would not have the sufficient tactical awareness to pick a rather big round grenade is really dumbing them down beyond farce. Even an ape would pick a useful stick if it would see it.
That some may be too excited or else to think about doing it is something else.
Regarding Necromonger fighters:
The ability to survive impacting a fighter not established as noticably weaker than a Death Glider I would argue is impressive.
I disagree. Those aircrafts hardly look solid at all. They're largely made of tubes, rather nimble and frail looking, sporting two large curved frontal wings.
As to how often or how valid of use such an ability would be Necromonger flight tactics appear to be simply to close as close as possible to their enemy and destroy them without concern for their own safety.
In a nutshell Necromonger fighters are simply going to fly themselves straight into Death Gliders formations who will have to either disperse, scattering them and making them easier prey, or try to get into a hectic, messy dog fight with a group who don't care and may be intentionally trying to collide with you.
DG pilots are courageous enough if needed. Observe the battle of Antartica and see how they waited the last moment to disengage to avoid crashing into F-302s.
Besides, the Helion fighters could shoot down Necromonger fighters but the amount of damage done was hardly impressive, meaning that Necromonger fighters could only survive impacts causing
less damage than what Helion guns caused.
This, in the end, doesn't really speak well of the sturdiness of Helion aircrafts.
OTOH, ramming being a tactic used by Necromongers largely influences the way they'll fight in the air; it's more fiendish, but also makes their flight path more predictable by necessity.
It's hard to tell who would get the upper hand.
Also, Necromonger fighters use weapons which need to be charged before firing. That's rather terrible, and they don't seem to benefit from some special tracking system; they utterly missed a Helion fighter flying right in front over a distance which would indeed be 70 yards, funny eh?
I wish Twohy had thought these a bit more: charging weapons for guided plasma would have been very nice (like in Starfox 64) and would nicely explain the superiority and advantage of those crafts, but he seems to have suffered some brain farts.
The salvos aren't particularly fast either, actually extremely slow in comparison to the plasma cannons (heavy staves) used on DGs.
We will have to agree to disagree since I don't recall the Death Glider being particularly more impressive in performance than the fighters in Chronicles of Riddick. All of them had WW2 type flight performance.
They're similar. "Human" reflexes are what they are and both types of fighters have been used in rather classical ways.
The thing is, Death Gliders have a closed canopy and a capacity for fast reentry, submarine high speed movement and deep space travel.
How this plays out in favour of the Jaffa pilots, I'm not sure though.
Regarding Jaffa Armor:
Off the top of my head the only guys I remember tanking human fire in the series, other than Kull warriors, were Aphosis Serpent Guards who were elite like units. Your bog Jaffa always seemed to fail quite effectively to good old lead.
I simply wouldn't put a lot of faith in the chainmail regardless if you want to call being killed by an ax plot fiat or not.
Those Jaffa were not more elite than those mowed down all along the series.
This is a side point anyway. These chainmails won't offer any relevant protection against Necromonger guns.
Regarding an individual Necromonger soldier's skill:
Judging from the battle scenes from Helios your rank and file Necromonger is more disciplined and determined than your bog standard Jaffa and appear well acquainted and effective with their weapons.
There's little material to judge the discipline or determination. Jaffa are equally disciplined, obedient and determined. They believe they serve gods and it's not a rare thing that even survivors haven't even seen the System Lords in their whole entire life.
Also Necromongers don't appear more effective with their weapons, I'm not sure where you get that impression without pointing to a specific scene so I can judge by myself.
They likely lack individual initiative, other than a general kill the non believer vibe, and are clearly viewed as a resource to be expended but then so are Jaffa.
Yes, both are. Yu might treat his Jaffa bit better though.
Over all I'd call this particular comparison a wash. Neither faction truly employs a Modern Western style military ethos which values or places emphasis on the individual contribution.
Indeed, Jaffa are cannon fodder.