21 replies to this topic

[Polymorphyne]

Okay, I think it would be fun to discuss the worse plans/battleplans/tactical errors made in the history of the multiverse (i.e. all sci-fi settings etc)
In no particular order, here are some real facepalm moments.

1# Star Wars- The Exhaust Port

So, the empire wanted to use fear to seize control of an unruly galaxy that was rife with rebellion. For this purpose they created a superweapon, repurposed from a design initially intended for blowing up large asteroids or moons for mining. This weapon was a superlaser mounted on a mobile battle station called the Death Star.



Now, the designers allowed a serious design flaw- an exhaust port, basically a tunnel leading directly from the outside of the ship to its reactor core, wide enough for a pair of photon torpedoes to fit down.
Combined with small gaps in its shields- small enough for fighter craft to slip through... this was a serious mistake.


Of course, the rebel alliance found out about this, and promptly used x-wing and y-wing fighters to attack it, sending a pair of photon torpedoes down the exhaust port and direct to the reactor.



Now really. A battle station the size of a moon, capable of destroying planets, crewed by many thousands of personnel, and that took a ludicrous amount of resources to build- destroyed just like that by an x-wing.
You have to ask- couldn't they have put a grate over that exhaust port? Or just built a few smaller exhaust ports? put a bend in the port that a missile cant navigate? Maybe the exhaust port was a deliberate act of sabotage in its design process?

2# Starship Troopers Orbital Fleet Tactics
Okay, so in starship troopers, they have an impressive fleet- despite the fact they seem to rely on their infantry for almost everything.

Now, they seem to insist on a fairly close order battle formation for their ships, which does have advantages..... except when carrying out orbital assaults.

When carrying out orbital assaults on two bug planets, they maintained this close formation as they deployed their infantry via dropship- presumably to make it easy for the dropships to all land in the same place... even when the plasma bugs started firing into orbit.


With the ships in such incredibly close formation, it was a turkey shoot. As ships got hit, they broke up or lost control., and other ships were too close and too slow to maneuvre to avoid ramming into each other.


So because of their insistence, they took severe casualties, loosing a huge amount of their ships and personel to a bunch of bugs on the ground. Then, they refused to change those tactics.

Also, they deployed their infantry UNSUPPORTED on the ground. They had aircraft, bombers, warships capable of orbital and missile strikes...... and they didn't use these huge advantages. So the infantry got slaughtered.

3# Star Trek- Complete Lunacy.

Its a common scene in star trek- the away team is on a strange world, and BAM! a redshirt dies, whether its by phaser, exotic energy weapon, gun, alien monster, thrown spear, arrow..... all kinds of things.
Now this would be considered a normal risk of doing bussiness... except apparently in the star trek universe personal shield technology is not only capable of preventing these deaths easily, but is commonplace and readily obtainable. Why don't they use these in alot of these episodes? Lazyness? Stupidity? Uncharacteristic Contempt for human life? They want the red shirts to die so Kirk can console and then shag their widows?


Also, a running theme in star trek is the following situation- Star trek officer is unarmed in enemy territory. He grapples/fights with an armed enemy. He defeats and disarms said enemy.... and then leaves said enemies weapon lying there instead of arming himself with it.

[Cruiser]

Its not really news that Hollywood makes plot twists that defies logic in order to further the plot. They've always done that, and they will most likely continue doing it.

[Polymorphyne]

I know, its just a fun thing to discuss

[Bluey]

LOL I have seen worse give me a moment

[Bluey]

Using 18 years old tanks without Armor piercing rounds.*Original design was 60 years old*


Agaisnt these monsters *japanese mechs* which equipt with autorifles firing bullets same size as tanks.


I heard they deployed around 3 tank battalions and 2 teams of elite mobile suit hunters
Only one guy returned to base without a tank.5 vs several hundread.Tanks won but lol

Edited by Bluey, 27 February 2012 - 05:15 AM.

[KJ Crow]

Ok, that was Hollywood and yes, just imagine how short some films would be without those obvious weaknesses written in!

Check out this link about the USS William D. Porter for not only a lack of planning, but in many cases, the complete absence of 'a clue'!

http://www.usshancoc...es/willie-d.htm

for those that want the summarised version..... from launch-

1) Pulling out of dock to rendezvous with the fleet, they trashed another ship dragging their anchor across its deck
2) Caused a fleet wide panic when accidentally using live depth charges during a training drill
3)During a subsequent training session they accidentally launched a live torpedo at the ship carrying the president and then stuck by the issued order for radio silence and tried to warn the ship by signal lamps
4) After being reassigned to Alaska they went without incident until they managed to launch an artillary strike on their commanding officers garden
5) Finally returning to active duty they were finally sunk by a kamikaze plane that they had already shot down!

Originally was told about this on cracked.com and found a slightly less comedic account on wikipedia

[Kenyon Burguess]

the whole terrible plot of the reavers from firefly. a planet full of raiding maniacs left to their own devices by an evil empire who would rather chase a psychic girl around to hide their secret than just wipe the reavers out and glass the planet. they can destroy the entire browncoat movement across the galaxy but not finish off a single planet full of crazies.

[Korbyn McColl]

I still have to go with dumping absurd amounts of money into building the Maginot Line and then leaving the border with Belgium almost completely undefended despite knowing that's exactly where your enemy hit you last time as being pretty much the dumbest strategic move ever.

[ethnic minority]

Bluey, on 27 February 2012 - 05:11 AM, said:

Using 18 years old tanks without Armor piercing rounds.*Original design was 60 years old*


Agaisnt these monsters *japanese mechs* which equipt with autorifles firing bullets same size as tanks.


I heard they deployed around 3 tank battalions and 2 teams of elite mobile suit hunters
Only one guy returned to base without a tank.5 vs several hundread.Tanks won but lol

Yeah but the guys with the tanks then made their own giant robots, and then beat the invaders with giant robots + tanks. The better lesson is to never go up against the guy that's 20 times your size in manpower and resources, even if you have giant robots and a solar death ray... and colony drops... and newtypes

Also that battle was awesome, taking tanks against overpowered japanese mecha is manly enough to defy logic. I may or may not have shed a tear.

[Paladin1]

Devil Man, on 27 February 2012 - 06:03 AM, said:

I still have to go with dumping absurd amounts of money into building the Maginot Line and then leaving the border with Belgium almost completely undefended despite knowing that's exactly where your enemy hit you last time as being pretty much the dumbest strategic move ever.

Building the Maginot line, in and of itself, wasn't stupid. Not defending the Ardennes was the stupid part. The Allied plan was actually fairly sound when considered in the light of known history at that point, as no one thought it possible for armored forces to operate in a heavy forest such as the Ardennes. Poland should have been a warning to the possibility, but military planners aren't the types to change a strategy on the basis of a single battle, especially at this point in time.

[Polymorphyne]

4# Independence Day- Blowing up the Alien Mothership.

So, its the movie Independence day. The earth is invaded, huge city sized ships hover over our cities....


And then they do this, obliterating most of our large cities..



However, hope is not lost. Will Smith, who is somehow an air force pilot/astronaut reject, and member of the aplty named Black Knights wing, finally leads a counterattack on the alien fleet, with the help of a nerdy guy who really doesn't like nuclear weapons.


The plan? fly a captured alien fightercraft aboard the enemy mothership, upload a virus that would disable the enemy fleets shields, and then detonate a small nuke inside said mothership.

The flaws in the plan?
1# The alien mothership is the size of a godamn moon. A small nuke like that should not be able to do much to it, even from inside. They must have some really bad chain reaction design flaw going on in there.
2# The alien mothership is the size of a godamn moon, and in close orbit with our planet. Assuming that cool alien tech stops its mere presence in orbit from making the earth earthquake and tidal waving civilisation into the dust- what happens when you blow it up? Prepare for a rain of debris that makes the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs look like a party.

4# WW2 Germany- A really big tank

Okay, so the war was getting real serious for germany, and Hitler was getting even more out of control and desperate. They plunged a crapload of money and resources into various zany super weapons that would make comic book villains roll their eyes.
Some of the silliest of these designs, were their new super heavy tanks.
First, we have the most famous of these- the Maus.

The Panzer VIII Maus is the heaviest fully enclosed and armoured vehicle ever built. It was completed in late 1944, but only two hulls and one turret were completed before the soviets overran the testing grounds.
The complete vehicle was 10 metres long, almost 4 metres wide and almost 4 metres tall. It weighed in at 200 metric tonnes.
It was armed with a 128 mm gun, and a co-axial 75 mm gun.
The design faced severe problems- it was difficult to find an engine that could shift the thing, and it was ludicrously heavy.
There were almost no bridges in the entire world that could bear the weight of this tank crossing it, so they planned on having it snorkel across rivers in pairs, one going through the river/under the water, the other providing power via cables.
Actual attemps to cross a river in one ended in the loss of the tank apparently.
Hitler wanted 150 of these to be built.

5#-WW2 Germany- a really, REALLY big tank.
The Maus... was an interesting design. Its even understandable and may have been useful in some situations.
But Nazi germany was a mad, desperate place at the time.
And hitler wanted something bigger. Madder.
Say hello to... the Landdkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte.
Here is an artists impression.


Designe in 1942 by Krupp with Hitlers enthusiastic approval, the P.1000 was to be the largest tank ever designed, making the Maus look like a toy.
It was going to be armoured with 9 inches of armour, and armed with Naval Artillery Guns, and would weigh in at a ludicrous 1000 tons.
For stability, it was going to be equipped with 3 1.2 metre wide tracks on each side of the tank, but would have destroyed any road (or other surface) that is traversed, and would have been incapable of using bridges. Its sheer height would have however made river fording fairly easy.

Its armament was to be:
2 280 mm Naval Guns
1 128 mm Hull mounted Gun
8 20mm Flak Guns
2 15mm mgs

This tank design was cancelled by Speer- Germanies Minister of Armaments, as there just wasnt enough material in germany to build such a stupid thing.
Obviously, this design would have been destroyed by the americans before germany could finish it, and would have been supremely vulnerable to having the crap bombed out of it from the air.

6# WW2 Germany- Seriously Hitler, enough with the huge tanks.

You would think the E-1000 would be the last word in ridiculously stupidly big tanks- but it wasn't. They wanted a bigger version of the P. 1000, and so designed a self propelled artillery piece that just goes beyond ridiculous. This was to be the P. 1500 Monster.


The idea was to make the biggest self propelled artillery tank ever made- the Monster was to have an 800 mm Gun. This has all of the same problems as the Ratte, except its bigger and has a huge artillery gun.
Here is the shell that the gun would have used, in front of a russian t-34.

[Exilyth]

http://en.wikipedia....itary_disasters
That, together with a grain of salt, should take care of the 'in history' part.

[GDL Irishwarrior]

Not thinking of any movie in particular here, but I'm sure we can come up with a movie (Many of the Star Wars movies come to mind) that has this situation:

In a sci-fi movie, the good guys manage to get on the villian's spaceship. The bad guys find out, and proceed to repeatedly send small groups of mooks to get slaughtered by our heroes. Eventually, the bad guy runs out of henchmen, and decides to engage in one-on-one combat with the main hero (who will inevitably win).

What the bad guy should do is quite simple: use the ship's computer systems to seal the good guys into a certain area of the ship (maybe while they are distracted by one of those groups of mooks), then vent the atmosphere in that area for a few hours. Seeing as this sort of thing is the basis of damage control in space combat, this should be entirely doable. No oxygen + possible decompression = no more heroes. Oh, sure there'll probably be some friendly casualties - but that's what reserves are for.

Edited by GDL Irishwarrior, 27 February 2012 - 02:25 PM.

[Zakatak]

Geist Null, on 27 February 2012 - 05:50 AM, said:

the whole terrible plot of the reavers from firefly. a planet full of raiding maniacs left to their own devices by an evil empire who would rather chase a psychic girl around to hide their secret than just wipe the reavers out and glass the planet. they can destroy the entire browncoat movement across the galaxy but not finish off a single planet full of crazies.

Nitpick correction: Firefly takes place in one solar system. The 'verse is just a "super system" with 5 different stars, and all 200+ planets terraformed and gravity changed to suit human life. There is no FTL in Firefly. I don't think the Alliance has the ability to glass anything, really. Tech in the 'verse is pretty lowly.

Edited by Zakatak, 27 February 2012 - 02:51 PM.

[Jack Gammel]

Paladin1, on 27 February 2012 - 06:19 AM, said:

Building the Maginot line, in and of itself, wasn't stupid. Not defending the Ardennes was the stupid part. The Allied plan was actually fairly sound when considered in the light of known history at that point, as no one thought it possible for armored forces to operate in a heavy forest such as the Ardennes. Poland should have been a warning to the possibility, but military planners aren't the types to change a strategy on the basis of a single battle, especially at this point in time.

Well yes, but the French High Command was mostly made up of old men from WWI. I think that this particular decision on the part of the French government should rank in this poll. And nobody really understood or appreciated the strengths (or weaknesses) of German armored tactics at this time. Poland was never exactly a good example, its military being woefully primitive and having to fight on two fronts at the same time. The first real "test" of Guderian's theories was the actual invasion of France.

Anyway, so far as sci-fi goes I'm going to put my money on any attempt by the Japanese government to stop Godzilla. None of their plans ever work. Ever!

Edited by Jack Gammel, 27 February 2012 - 04:04 PM.

[pursang]

Starfleet officers wearing personal shields? I don't think so - the Borg maybe, but not Starfleet. And if you're thinking about STO, that's not exactly canonical evidence.

[SeDevri]

Ok, an how this one got past the rest of you i'll never know...unless it just means you all have good taste in movies.

28 Weeks Later: If you've seen this movie then you know what i mean. So it starts out with a military force moving in and clearing out any remaining infected in a city, then rounding up survivors and dumping them in said city under martial law. Now up to this point i'm like, "ok ya this makes sense". Well its just about the time that thought flashes through my head that the stupid **** starts happening. I can't quite remember which happens first(I'm sure this is due to the huge effort of will it took to simply stop watching at the time), the group of young childern who try and sneak into a secure military zone to find out whats going on(get this, they get spotted by a sniper and he just lets them go, doesn't even report it as i recall), or when the military docs find an infected person, who apparently is fighting the plauge off, leave her in a room completely alone with her husband who(predictably) gets infected kills her then manages to start infecting everyone and starting the whole dumb **** process again........the hole plot ****** me off.

I'm sure i'll think of more to post later.

[kameren]

28 Weeks Later: If you've seen this movie then you know what i mean. So it starts out with a military force moving in and clearing out any remaining infected in a city, then rounding up survivors and dumping them in said city under martial law. Now up to this point i'm like, "ok ya this makes sense". Well its just about the time that thought flashes through my head that the stupid **** starts happening. I can't quite remember which happens first(I'm sure this is due to the huge effort of will it took to simply stop watching at the time), the group of young childern who try and sneak into a secure military zone to find out whats going on(get this, they get spotted by a sniper and he just lets them go, doesn't even report it as i recall), or when the military docs find an infected person, who apparently is fighting the plauge off, leave her in a room completely alone with her husband who(predictably) gets infected kills her then manages to start infecting everyone and starting the whole dumb **** process again........the hole plot ****** me off.

the sniper did report the childrent leaving the city calls them pups when they do. the doctor did not leave the husband in the room with the infected woman he was told too wait too go in and he broke into the room. though the plan of lock everyone in one room and seal it so no one could leave was stupid.

[Stripes]

The Two Most Epic Fails In History Of "Pop-Fi" - DeathStar and complete lack of any fraggin vacuum suits in almost any franchise

[Alaskan Viking]

Any hideous plan devised by General Douglas Haig....