Stormtroopers Bad Shots?

[Swamprat_Jedi_Knight]

I took this out of another one of my forum responces, but it was on a second page and slightly off the subject, so I thought it would be passed over, and I felt it was an interesting topic.

I'm sick and tired of hearing how Stormtroopers are such bad shots. When Obi-Wan-Kenobi is showing Luke the lightsaber he says," Not as random or as clumbsy as a blaster, but a more elegant weapon of a more civilized age." There is Cannon that tells us that blasters are not an easy weapon to master, because they have horrible accuracy. Han is obviuosly a good shot, but he has a modified pistol blaster and he usually aims with the sights at eye level, whereas the Stormtroopers (and most everyone else that use a blaster) shoot it from the hip. Chewey has a bowcaster, and I'm not sure how that works or how he shoots it. Leia, Lando, and Luke pop quite a few Stormtroopers, but how could main characters win a battle 100 to 1 if they never hit anything. That would would make a boring movie if nobody hit anything. So obviously the grossly outnumbered good guys will mow down the bad guys with seemingly superior accuracy, or they would never win. And if Lucas portrayed Stormtroopers as highly trained soldiers, he could never have justified a handful of people making it off of a starship with a couple thousand skilled soldiers there.

I know that at times they are stupid and act foolishly, and do miss open shots frequently, but are they as bad as we have made them out to be?

I would like to hear people's opinions on this.

[threeP0]

You also have to remember that the Stormtroopers probably can't see very good out of those helmets. I am sure the glass in the part where you can see out of it fogs up when they get hot, too.

[Smeghead]

Also, if you've played any of the Dark Forces games, the Stormie rifles in there are highly inaccurate.

[Rogue_0009]

The Stormies that shot up the sandcrawler were off Vader's flagship so they're probably some of the best in the army. But on the death star they needed as many troops as they could get so they were mostly rookies

[threeP0]

Dark Forces games? Not to get off the subject alot, but what system are those games for? I really need to start keeping up with Star Wars gaming more!

[Philby]

Remember, the Stormtroopers are aiming at the heroes of the movie... you can't kill them...

They would be well trained but maybe the underlying theme is mass production? Get as many as you can. The blaster is good, but perhaps not as refined or good as it could be because they need a lot of them quick or something.

threeP0: Have you been living under a rock....?
style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif

Dark Forces is basically a SW version of Doom. You play Kyle Katarn. The latest game has been released recently, Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast. Go to the Lucasarts website and download the demos, they are good games.

[Leia]

Hey, they got Leia in the shoulder, didn't they?

[Wolfe_13]

How many shots did it take them before they actually hit something though?

[Master Jason]

You would think that since they were soldiers that they would have extensive training with the blasters. Maybe they just sucked under fire.

[Wolfe_13]

True, I'm thinking that after quite a while of clonning that the clones would continuously become more stupid. That reminds me of Space Balls when Dark Helment told the troopers to comb the desert. They combed it allright. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/exclamation.gif :sly:

[longingfor2005]

Why is it the clone soldiers in AOTC could shoot with pinpoint accuracy but strotroopers couldnt shoot the broad side of a barn at point blank range. Dont get me wrong i know they are clones of an uber bounty hunter and the stormtroopers are just soldiers but still !!!!!!!

[Leia]

It's because the clones were good guys, and the stormtroopers were bad guys, duh! style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif lol, the good guys are always good shots. The better to take the bad guys out! We can't have a bunch of good guys dying all over the place, can we??

[AlanRJ]

Stormtroopers are more effective as a policing force rather than as an army. When they are called in to fight off an opponent that fights back then they falter. It may be due to poor training or poor weapons. When they kicked the Rebellions ass in EBS, they relied more on heavy weaponry (ie the ATAT's).

Conflict on a whole, even in real life history sometimes does favour the rebels. Take the Vietnam war for example. The Americans had to have been the superior force. They had the best training, the best weapons and should have outnumbered the VietCong but yet they proved ineffective against them. The same could be said for the Stormtroopers and the rebellion.

[Polunis]

I think this is a conspiracy; GL makes the bad guys lousy shots, so that discriminates against my kind. I am very offended. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/devil.gif

I know how inaccurate the Stormtrooper rifles are (and yes, I love the Dark Forces Games), but I could still mow down hordes of punks with it; perhaps the reason why the Stormtroopers are so lousy is that they don't use rapid-fire. Rapid-fire can make up for inaccuracy. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/devil.gif

[AlanRJ]

Rapid fire may make up for inaccuracy, but it may take 10 or 20 shots before you hit a target. This is an eternity for someone skilled with a blaster (ie Han Solo) to mow you down.

[Trilogist]

And we can't discount Fate from all this. Certain people were being shot at, that were going to play crucial roles later on, i.e. the droids in ANH caught in the crossfire in the corridor. The Will of the Force makes the unusual happen. It's the Force, man. It's way out.

[AlanRJ]

Nope, stormtroopers are lousy shooters, always have been, always will be. Its the order of the Galaxy, not the Force.

[QuigonWindu]

If Jango Fett is such a great shot then why are his clones such lousy shots. It doesn't make sense.

[RollaFett]

A few thoughts on this matter...I love anything Fett, but we are never led to believe that Jango is a great shot. Thus, why should those cloned from him be great shots? But if they are, they are only great shots intitially. In AOTC, the clonetroopers kick arse. We haven't seen EP3 yet, but whatever clonetrooper action we see will most likely be still be from the batch directly cloned from Jango. Who knows where they get the DNA from once Jango is killed. So, when we see them in the OT, they're not so good. Wolfe_13 makes a valid point on this. Has anyone ever seen the movie 'Multiplicity'? It has Michael Keaton in it and he is having trouble findng time to do things in his life, well he runs into some cloning doctor and his problems are solved. But he begins cloning the clones. Immediately, there are noticable deficiancies with the cloned clones. It's like photocopying a copy. The copy will not be as good as the original, tghus copies made from the copy will become more and more deficiant. Am I making any sense? Basically,my belief is that after Jangos death, the Kaminoans begin to use the DNA of a clone to create more clones. With that, quality suffers. Any thoughts?

[RollaFett]

One other thing just popped into my head...in ANH when Luke and Leia are on the ledge and getting ready to swing across the chasm beneath, the stormtroopers are above them firing away and they all get killed. Think about that, he stormtroopers were positioned above them! That's the ideal position for attack. You always want higher ground, yet they still failed. Pathetic. Those sonuva*****es couldn't hit Jabba the Hutt if he was sitting on top of them.

[Queen 'Onna]

What can we say they have bad aim.

[Polunis]

Originally posted by GollaFett@July 21 2002 - 19:39
One other thing just popped into my head...in ANH when Luke and Leia are on the ledge and getting ready to swing across the chasm beneath, the stormtroopers are above them firing away and they all get killed. Think about that, he stormtroopers were positioned above them! That's the ideal position for attack. You always want higher ground, yet they still failed. Pathetic. Those sonuva*****es couldn't hit Jabba the Hutt if he was sitting on top of them.
Yes, you have found how ridiculous that scene is. I bet I could take them out with a with a fork while they continue to shoot and miss. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif

[Saranac]

I can see Stormtroopers missing alot, but cmon they miss almost every shot in the movies.

Not once is Han or Luke hit especially when Luke was standing out in the open after Obi-Wan's death.

[CieSharp]

Originally posted by longingfor2005@June 14 2002 - 05:36
Why is it the clone soldiers in AOTC could shoot with pinpoint accuracy but strotroopers couldnt shoot the broad side of a barn at point blank range. Dont get me wrong i know they are clones of an uber bounty hunter and the stormtroopers are just soldiers but still !!!!!!!
First of all, it is not clearly established that the Stormtroopers of Episodes 4-6 are clones. The commonly held belief is that they are all conscripts.

Clonetroopers were replicas of Jango Fett and were taught combat by Jango Fett himself (I assume he taught the high ranking clonetroopers, who passed on the skills to the grunts). This was very time consuming and very expensive. Those skinny Kaminoans aren't making clonetroopers for free, after all.

Once there was no serious opposition, Palpatine kicked back, stopped making clonetroopers, and opted for galaxy-wide conscription.

[Saranac]

Actually I think at the end of the Clone Wars the clone machines were destroyed I think......

So Palpatine didn't stop clone making.

Anyways it took 3-5 years to make one clone.
But they made some in 1 year.

[Mann]

Maybe becasue it AotC there was more than two or three people they were aiming at. I mean, theres a difference with shooting someone running away, then shooting at a group of people or droids that are equally as dumb.

[Mann]

Oh and just Casue Jango's good, doesn't make the others good. The Kaminoans have there own training programs.

[Phantomised Menace]

I agree, just because you're a clone of a great marksman doesn't make you as good as him just because you're cloned from him. And because the kaminoans don't look aggressive/ war-type of guys I think they aren't that good in aiming at things so their training program isn't as good as it could be. ???

[AlanRJ]

Another thing you have to remember is that Jango Fett had years of experience behind him. It is one thing to be trained up fully in something, another to put it into practice. If you put that into your own world and take yourself and another person. if both of you do the same job and both of you have the exact same training but you have had 5 years of experience in the job, who is going to be the most competent.

You, obviously.