The Stormtrooper Effect - revisited

[Daetrin[Admin]]

I'm sure we've all seen articles and posts about "The Stormtrooper Effect" about how it seems stormtroopers have poor aim.  I'd like to put that tired meme to bed, as it's simply not true.

 

Consider:

- The rebels lost all but 3 pilots (Wedge, Luke, and a Y-Wing) attacking the Death Star in A New Hope.  All others were lost in ship-to-ship combat.
- Han barely escaped by the skin of his teeth at the start of Empire Strikes Back and is caught easily enough in the end.

- The rebels weren't doing too hot in Return of the Jedi until the Death Star got blown up.  They were otherwise losing. A lot.

 

As you all know, my alter ego is a stormtrooper. Below are my thoughts from the perspective of TK-8020.  This was originally posted in 2008.

 

--

OK, I just have to defend our guys in black and white.

 

First off, I was there in docking bay 94. Our orders were to stop the ship. The only reason that scruffy Correlian lived was because we weren't aiming for him. If we killed him and the ship got away we'd be toast, so everyone aimed for things like the insystem flight controls to keep them from taking off, or to cripple them so they couldn't run in case they did get off. That was the priority. Yeah, a few of us bought it, but not everyone had the opportunity to run for cover & there was a pretty powerful laser cannon swinging our way...I like to think we were able to soften up at least the lateral controls. My buds in orbit said it wasn't maneuvering all that well and they barely escaped.

 

Now I wasn't on the Death Star when all that hullaballoo went on (though I was earlier), but I talked to another of my buds who was, and he said that Vader had issued orders that those prisoners were not to be killed and to let them get away. So all that running around escaping bit you hear about? Well let me tell you they were only supposed to keep up enough fire to keep them running, not to kill them. At any cost. And the ship escaping? Same thing, he was in the docking bay (what a coincidence - both of us doing the same thing) and he told me that they were told just to aim to miss, e.g. let them get away. Why? Vader's idea. Dumb move if you ask me. So us guys in white did an outstanding job when you understand what was going on.

 

And the TIE pilots? Again, they kicked some major butt. Only three rebel ships plus that freighter got away - the rest destroyed in ship-to-ship combat. Yeah, our TIE guys don't get nearly enough credit as they deserve.

 

Endor? Jeesh, I never hear the end of it. Listen, those guys were all ROADs (retired on active duty) and guys out of basic. Apparently, the higher ups thought Endor duty was pretty low risk what with all the other hardware around, and it was just after holiday. Most of them were pretty toasted if you know what I mean. And my cousin who's in intelligence and watched some of the classified security tapes told me that they were very much outnumbered, more so than the general public was led to believe. As if a small band or so locals could defeat troopers. As if. There were a lot more of those little fur coats around and a lot of them bought it before our troops were overwhelmed. Dirty little secret the rebels didn't want to reveal - made them look much tougher than they really were. Remember that we were one base, and they were a whole planet of those little buggers. Eventually numbers win out.

 

OK long story short. We've gotten a lot of flack about our ability to aim, and some writers and what-not have tried to lump us in with the sorry suckers of other military forces, but the reality of the situation is that we are the elite, and don't go down as easily as we're made out to be.

 

TK/TD-8020

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Always a good read.

 

Here is your original post from November 2006, it's in a the archives

 

[Sly11[Admin]]

I'm with Glen, I smile when i read this article.

[jkno]

[BAZINGA[TK]]

My go to defence.  Bart