Why is Star Wars military tech so poor?

[Dabat]

This was origionally posted in a thread in the Other Sci-fi forum as a responce to another post. But after reading it again, I felt it belonged here.

Star Wars military technology, lets face it, sucks. Their weapons are short ranges and inaccurate. Their ships have glaring structural and strategic weaknesses. And their 'Grand Army of the Republic' was a mere 1.25 million strong. i know all of you must have asked, like i have, how can such a technologically advanced culture have such poor military equipment?

One answer is: They simply lost it.

It's not all that ridiculous when you think about it. The Republic had been at peace for, what? Three thousand years now? Assuming an average generational cycle of 25 years, that is 120 generations since that last period of large scale relative non-peace through the galaxy.

Think of it from the point of view of the the people in the Republic, even a mere hundred years after the last major war. "We've been at peace a century, we don't even have any soldiers left serving who can remember the war. Do we really need five million soldiers per world, when four million will do?" Or "Do we really need this giant ship when we can build one that is three quarters as long, and almost as good for half the cost?"

Translate that out over a few more generations, and you are likely to see military grade equipment start to disapear entirely. After all, why pay more for two different types of equipment when you can save money and equip everyone with the same thing? After all, that level of equipment is all anyone ever can recall having needed. Over time you will see smaller and smaller planetary armies which will look more and more like police units. In several you will likely see the military disapear all together, or at the very least be folded in with local police forces.

I am not saying that is what had to have happened in Star Wars. But it does go a long way towards explaning the lack of any significant military in the end of the Old Republic. It would also explane some of the glaring flaws in some of their ships (Notably the Star Destroyer needing massed cannon fire to hit a 150 m long ship barely 3 km away, not being able to shoot behind itself, etc..). Remember the golden rule about technology. It doesn't have to be the best that ever existed, it just has to be better then what the other guy has. You and I have are able to sit back and comment on the whole of their reality, but if we were someone to be living in that reality, and suddenly see an ISD for the first time? I bet we'd surrender without a fight. It is doubtful our home system has any dedicated military ships other then fighters, and even if we do, they can't stand up to an ISD.

[2046]

What "glaring structural weaknesses" of ships are you referring to? Other than some of the rather adventurously-designed Munificent and the Nebulon-B, I'd say Star Wars vessels are generally quite solidly designed.

Certainly, they're no worse than the D-7 neck or B-type Warbird lower neck. And really, need we mention the Constitution?

[Dabat]

The Nebulon B was one of the ships I was thinking about, Every ship in the 'Star Destroyer' series (Acclimator-Imperial) Having their bridge in a nice big exposed protrusion so that fighters know just what to shoot at (because capitol ships can't accurately hit something that size, apparently). The exposed engines on nearly every military ship... those were all that came to mind when I wrote this.

And I never said trek was any better, I am commenting on a reason for the apparently poor military technology level of the Empire.

[l33telboi]

Because Star Wars is mainly about people and adventure in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy enviornment and not an über-realistic story where everything is calcuated and debated. And most of the authors treat it as such. Thus a tank won't look like a tank, it'll look strange and exotic, because let's face it - that's exactly what most people want.

In-universe explanation? There are none that I can think of. I generally just invoke SoD and tell myself "it's that way because that how things work in this verse."

[Dabat]

I am aware Star Wars is Science Fantasy and high adventure. I never faulted it for that. But I am not aware of any law saying I can not speculate a rational reason as to why their technology is at it's apparent level.

[l33telboi]

I am aware Star Wars is Science Fantasy and high adventure. I never faulted it for that. But I am not aware of any law saying I can not speculate a rational reason as to why their technology is at it's apparent level.

You're quite welcome to do so. I just stated what I thought.

To me it just isn't worth the bother.

[ILikeDeathNote]

The Star Destroyer is actually very well-designed; it's got thick structures everywhere and is very heavily armored. It's got an "exposed" bridge, but then again what doesn't in sci-fi, and there's only one convenient vector of attack on it, which just happens to be the Star Destroyer's heaviest firing arc.

But I'll say the thread is ended here:

Because Star Wars is mainly about people and adventure in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy enviornment and not an über-realistic story where everything is calcuated and debated. And most of the authors treat it as such. Thus a tank won't look like a tank, it'll look strange and exotic, because let's face it - that's exactly what most people want.

In-universe explanation? There are none that I can think of. I generally just invoke SoD and tell myself "it's that way because that how things work in this verse."

[Dabat]

Not being able to shoot behind you is a pretty glaring design error when it takes your ship a long time to turn around. So is not being able to shoot along it's C axis (That's a crystalographic term, I forget what up and down is in the X,Y,Z system) when figiting in space. There is far more to a good design then thick armor.

And I ask again, if there is no reason to ask why their tech is at the level it is, then why come to a site like this at all?

[Mike DiCenso]

Not being able to shoot behind you is a pretty glaring design error when it takes your ship a long time to turn around. So is not being able to shoot along it's C axis (That's a crystalographic term, I forget what up and down is in the X,Y,Z system) when figiting in space. There is far more to a good design then thick armor.

Usually in a 3-D Cartesian coordinate system, Z + is "Up", and Z- is down. You can find more on that here at Wikipedia's article.

And I ask again, if there is no reason to ask why their tech is at the level it is, then why come to a site like this at all?

I think you misunderstand l33telboi's philosphy here; SoD means "Suspension of Disbelief". He's excepting that there are some stupid things here and is looking past it to other issues. If you must find a a reason you can invoke any number of explanations; for example you can say that Star Wars technology is very stagnant; it has not changed much in a thousand years, and all they do for the most part is build bigger and more powerful versions of what they used previously. In the case of the Empire, you can also assume that the designers of the Imperial class star destroyers were overly confident that anyone would be able to field a serious threat (remember that for a long time the Rebellion was not much more some hidden bases and a handful of starfighter squadrons. Few, if any capital ships were in their inventory), and any exposed areas of the ship would be covered by it's fighter squadrons.
-Mike

[Airlocke_Jedi_Knight]

The three main purposes for an ISD are as follow:
1. Orbital Bombardment. This tactic was used to control and intimidate problematic government factions on potential supporters of the rebellion. The most resistance they had while doing this would be crap star fighters or very old, civilian commandeered military frigates. These would easily be taken care of by a squadron of ties and a couple volleys from the turbolasers. The ISDs were perfectly designed for this purpose.

2. Straight forward frontal assault. With massive amount of ties to take care of enemy starfighters and to run strafing patterns across the enemy capital ships, the ISDs were free to focus the entirety of their considerable(for the time) fire power on the enemies' command ships.

3. They were primarily used as command ships. They had high powered shields and thick armor and were therefore hard to destroy. They carried very reliable communications systems and had ample space to store several squadrons of ties about a dozen other support craft, along with dozens of landing craft and about 12, 000 storm troopers. They weren't so much battle ships as mobile command centers.

Does that work for a viable in universe explanation to explain why they were so poorly designed? They were designed to fulfill specific tasks, not be the most versatile ship in the world, well...galaxy.. Remember, they weren't needed to fight in full scale space battles against ships of egual fire power when they were first created.

[Mike DiCenso]

It's got an "exposed" bridge, but then again what doesn't in sci-fi

The Reimagined Battlestar Galactica has a bridge (the CIC) that is not located outside the main hull, but rather buried deep inside it. ;-)
-Mike

[Dabat]

Mike: I understand the SoB, but why come into a thread like this one just to say that? That's like me walking into a church just to say "I don't believe in God."

(P.S. thanks, I thought it was Z, but wasn't sure)

Airlocke: That is exactly my point. Despite the high tech level of the Wars universe, they had no experience building a ship that size, or much fighting against one for that matter. It was a very good ship, but not because it was a great design, it was a good ship because no one else had anything better.



Looking at the ISD (from the point of view of the people in Wars) it is pretty obvious it was built as an intimidation platform. The designers were likely very confidant, and they had every reason to be. They made the ISD the biggest toy on the block. For what it had to deal with when it was designed it was great. For intimidating a system like Naboo, who's combat space fleet consisted of a few squadron of dubeously military grade fighters, the ISD is unstopable. That doesn't mean it is a great design, however, just that no one else had anything better.

[Praeothmin]

Airlocke_Jedi_Knight, I think your explanation is valid, but it still doesn't excuse the fact that an ISD has absolutely no coverage behind it, and with engines so big you'd have to be a Stormtrooper to miss them...

And as for the Bridges, I had started a thread not too long ago on the very subject Dabat, and we pretty much agreed that the bridges on the SW vessels are really poorly placed, but also, as you pretty much all agreed to, in the SW universe, these ships are the most powerful, so before anyone in the universe can take advantage of those weaknesses, they're going to find themselves facing a squad of Tie fighters, or another, smaller support vessel.
Because don't forget that these vessels are rarely alone, they often have support crafts, and smaller support ships, just like the modern naval fleets, on which SW was based.

[l33telboi]

And I ask again, if there is no reason to ask why their tech is at the level it is, then why come to a site like this at all?

I mostly focus on the quantification part. What sort of technologies does one verse possess, how many ships do they have, how many soldiers, etc. For the most part I disregard the "Why?" part and just answer it with "Because." Figuring out why something is the way it is, is in my opinion far less interesting then finding out what is and what isn't. I’ve just come to accept by now that all verses will have their own strange quirks, and well, it’s just easier to not try and explain them but just assume they are what they are.

And then comes the part when you see how things from two different verses compare. Which ship would win in a fight, which one is faster, etc.

Mike: I understand the SoB, but why come into a thread like this one just to say that? That's like me walking into a church just to say "I don't believe in God."

Well, it doesn't hurt to remind people of it every now and then. ;)

[Dabat]

And I ask again, if there is no reason to ask why their tech is at the level it is, then why come to a site like this at all?

I mostly focus on the quantification part. What sort of technologies does one verse possess, how many ships do they have, how many soldiers, etc. For the most part I disregard the "Why?" part and just answer it with "Because." Figuring out why something is the way it is, is in my opinion far less interesting then finding out what is and what isn't. I’ve just come to accept by now that all verses will have their own strange quirks, and well, it’s just easier to not try and explain them but just assume they are what they are.

And then comes the part when you see how things from two different verses compare. Which ship would win in a fight, which one is faster, etc.

Ah, I am the opposite. The hows are interesting, but it is the 'why?' that motivate me.. Not so much the opposite exactly I guess, but once I know the 'how' I begin to wonder about the Why.