So an Imperial-class Star Destroyer (Star Wars) crash lands on Earth..........

[Totoro Man]

The TIEs were never said to have sheilds. They don't get shot down by anything because of HOW they are deployed. The swoop down from space/high altitude after the area has been scanned and targets aquired by the Lambada or other craft and taking out any Artillery/AA weapons which is standard warfare moves and they are the Empire who literally has taken over thousands of okanets. They also have TIE bombers with the ability to wreck any WW 2 underground bases considerably as they did futuristic bunkers from other planets. Also after said bombing run they can still land ATs and other Land Machines to sweep up the rest knowing that no back up is getting their in time to stop them.

Answer this. How are they shooting down an enemy they don't know is coming, can see every weapon/vehicle they have, and strike with weapons that hit like missles without running out of ammo and taking out all of their defenses before ANY alarm is even sounded?

Or are we going off the ridiculous assumption that the Imperials always fly blind into a fully prepared battlefield where hundreds of Planes, Tanks, Artillery are ready and just looking into the sky for hours on end waiting to fire on the first thing that moves. Because that is what good strategic minds do when outnumbered by the Thousands. Just blindly fly into a Battle where they already have planes in the Air and Artillery geared up in the exact position to open fire when they drop from space at any place in the world.

The Allies will never get past or come up with a way to stop the Imperials from scanning and dropping from space and obliterating their targets across the world day or night and leaving without suffering any loses to their side.

How are they shooting down an enemy they don't know is coming

by 1944 there was a pretty large, and complex network for detecting aircraft in Western Europe. the British had one. the Germans had one too. they were constantly looking for enemy aircraft. there were radar stations, acoustical detection networks, people searching the sky with binoculars, search lights. anything that was important had somebody watching out for enemy aircraft. people were trained to recognize the sound of particular types of engines and give people a warning. between June of 1944 and 1945 the skies over Europe were among the most closely monitored skies in the history of the world up to that point. you're proposing that even when people are actively searching for enemy aircraft 24/7 because of an existing threat that they can't possibly detect a new one?

keep in mind that all Imperial weapons fire in a straight line. so, if nothing else, people will eventually figure out that somebody got attacked from a specific direction. those giant green energy bolts that people said would leave people completely demoralized? those are going to make the presence of the Empire highly visible.

look, you can't have complete secrecy and an effective reign of terror at the same time. you have to pick one or the other.

I guess the Imperial deflector shield can actively stop anybody from getting within visual range of the Star Destroyer so as to prevent people from looking at it. well, okay... maybe the shield will simply make the vehicles that come nearby explode and crash instantly. while that is going on the Imperial crew can actively jam any and all radio signals, telephone lines, and telegraphs to make sure that it's impossible for people to say anything. then they can make sure to instantly spot and murder anybody who may have casually seen them, so that they don't report it back to the local authorities. gotta watch out for those motorcycle recon patrols, bicyclists, and pedestrians too. then they'll send out Stormtroopers to collect all of the burned out vehicles and dead bodies to help keep it even more secret. and, since nobody could possibly notice large numbers of people and vehicles simply disappearing within a 30 mile circle... the Imperial secret is completely safe! there's no way people could possibly see a stranded space ship sitting on the ground that's nearly 2 kilometers long.

at any rate... while all the Star Destroyer is effortlessly destroying everything within a 30 mile radius and collecting all of those charred vehicles and carcasses... then they'll send up cargo transports to recon the planet... these transports are also perfectly suited for ground attack and reconnaissance. even though these shuttles are about 70 feet long and 70 feet tall and 50 feet wide while in flight.... nobody will see them! even though it's been proven that it takes them over 30 minutes to leave the atmosphere at top speed... NOBODY will ever notice them because they move so fast. oh, and they are invisible to radar... for REASONS. even though we have no feats to back this up. these shuttles will then emit a powerful radioactive energy that will blind people and erase their memory in case they just happened to see something.

[Totoro Man]

assuming that the Star Destroyer is stationed near Beauvais (which I arbitrarily picked based on the OP). they would be within visual range of about a half dozen full strength German flak regiments, a German fighter squadron with about 160 aircraft available out of 260. after June this area was brought under attack by P-47s on June 6th and June 7th, B-24s on June 11th, B17s on June 13th, and P-51s on August 25th. this entire are was being repeatedly subjected to recon flights, medium altitude bomber flights, and low level ground attack missions constantly. between June 8th and June 13th the Allies sent at LEAST 100+ aircraft to attack German targets. so, if people are already searching this area for a German presence and are creating detailed maps... why would they fail to notice something the size of a village that looks completely alien?

this discounts the German presence entirely - which had a fully operational squadron stationed near the city in the form of Jagdgeschwader 1. are we then to assume, for the sake of keeping the Imperial presence secret, that the location of the Star Destroyer is to be completely unknown to the hundreds of Allied and German pilots flying in the area? are none of the service vehicles and ground troops garrisoned in the area (and getting attacked by the Allies) going to be able to locate this massive spaceship or the shuttles and fighters that take off from inside of it and fly across the globe? these are people who are specifically trained to locate unknown aircraft and shoot them down. somehow they NOT going to notice strange new aircraft in the area... because that would interfere with the Empire's ability to stay completely secret and untouchable?

if the Empire immediately sets about destroying these German garrison forces and airfields then their presence becomes known immediately... instead of having to wait a couple of days for German or Allied aircraft to discover them by accident.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauva...g_World_War_II
https://ww2.dk/Airfields%20-%20France.pdf

and Beauvais was a relatively mild sector at this time. (which is part of why I picked it). putting the Star Destroyer in another location only increases the speed with which it gets detected.

[Totoro Man]

Beauvais to Paris (Imperial location).jpg

let's suppose that the Star Destroyer is located inside of the red square near the top left-hand corner of this map. it also brings into sharp relief the difficulties that this Star Destroyer would have reaching Paris. remember, that the line-of-sight weapons on the Star Destroyer top out at about 30 miles, which means that they can't actually damage Paris because the earth is round. if the Germans blow every bridge on the river Oise then the Imperial ground forces have no options to attack Paris except to use aircraft. now, if they don't put troops inside of the city it will NEVER surrender. the Empire has a mere 9,000 stormtroopers (or so) and a handful of AT-ATs, AT-STs, and ground transports to pacify about 2,000,000 French civilians and thousands of German troops. if the bridges along the Oise are destroyed then those bridges have to be repaired OR the river needs to be forded. with a discharge rate of roughly 30,000 pounds per second the AT-STs aren't going to be able to pull that off. even the AT-ATs might have difficulty. and the Oise is a fraction of the trouble that the Seine river would provide!

if they miraculously capture Paris (and that would take a miracle) then any secrecy they might have enjoyed is gone forever. inside of Paris they won't have the luxury of the Star Destroyer's deflector shields. hours of labor and dozens upon dozens of flights will be required to keep these troops provisioned. and, unlike real-world bombers, TIE bombers don't have any feats for delivering supplies. so, then they're stuck with those 8 over-burdened shuttles that are apparently supposed to carry the lion's share of the fighting to achieve an Imperial victory. they don't have any spare pilots. they get 400 aircraft service personnel and several hundred repair droids. and that's it. that leaves an average of 4 skilled technicians (either droid or humanoid) for each aircraft. which is running a pretty lean and tightly run outfit, by the way) if one of the 144 assigned pilots is lot it could take months to get a badly trained replacement to fill their shoes.

now, if the Star Destroyer is to magically know when earthlings might try to repair bridges in Arras (over 90 miles away from their location), wouldn't it be just as easy for human beings (with an established infrastructure and communications network) to spot the Empire building replacement bridges with the clear intention of conquering Paris? (the Star Destroyer is given two years worth of provisions. they aren't given engineers, materials, and all of the other resources required to build new bridges from scratch)

at any rate, what would stop the humans from blowing up these bridges themselves? sure, the Empire could post guards, and spot approaching hostile aircraft and intercept them... but what about artillery? what about sappers and demolitions teams sneaking along the ground? if these sensors couldn't detect two droids in the desert... why are we supposed to believe that the Empire automatically knows when people are trying to blow up bridges between 20-to-50 miles away?

[Captain Smith]

I will trade my plastic suit for Brie, Foie Gras and fine wine! Not like some troopers didn't change sides. My blaster for Camembert.

[big_adventure]

Also, people are vastly overselling GFFA tech. They have blasters and hyperdrives, but don't have AI (outside of droids, but those are a joke compared to our AI), they don't have impressive computing tech, they don't have efficient man-portable communications, their sensors are a joke, they have laughable targeting tech... GFFA is sort of intentionally bad at that stuff in keeping with the "wild west in space" vibe that Lucas gave the series.

[Harbinger19]

A244B7DE-8A79-4BDB-A775-DB5DAA9670E5.jpg

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4NfcVcdtTYo

Probably late to the party but people were asking for armor and firepower feats earlier in the thread; this does a fairly good job of demonstrating AT-AT armor scaling from CW era AAT firepower.

[StupidMoniker]

assuming that the Star Destroyer is stationed near Beauvais (which I arbitrarily picked based on the OP).

Given the OP (specifically between the borders of Belgium, Germany, and France) I would say they pretty much have to be in Luxembourg.

[big_adventure]

Given the OP (specifically between the borders of Belgium, Germany, and France) I would say they pretty much have to be in Luxembourg.

Just like the Empire - choosing a tax haven.

[Totoro Man]

Given the OP (specifically between the borders of Belgium, Germany, and France) I would say they pretty much have to be in Luxembourg.

LOL. well, thanks for correcting me on that. I clearly missed that part!

ouch. this is both a little bit better and profoundly worse.

by setting them near Beauvais on a large plain that at least gave the Star Destroyer a mostly unrestricted 360-degree field of fire to defend themselves. it would also have made it extremely difficult for potential enemies to have their air power and ground forces to approach the Star Destroyer unmolested. now, based on their specific location in Luxembourg their max range for ship-borne weapons could be as little as two miles depending on where they are, and which direction they are facing.

it also changes their options for secretly moving supplies and/or getting ambushed. in this case, the odds of both happening go up considerably. it means that it would take even longer to move troops and supplies with their ground transports. although, with those snaking mountain roads and forests it would be easier for the Empire to conceal their movements... but the opportunities to get ambushed increase exponentially. if they don't insist on using those shuttles as combat assets, their shuttles are their greatest asset for projecting power. they can actually move troops faster to any point in the country than what the nations of the world could do at that time. granted, the fact that they can only move 5% of their troops at a time is still a huge disadvantage... but it means that they could capture and hold targets faster while they fly in reinforcements.

the other problem is, that since Imperial weapons are generally line of sight, if their adversaries open fire with long ranged artillery from the reverse side of a slope the ship can't retaliate unless they sound out aircraft. that would take several minutes to happen.

the location also places a LOT more restrictions on the potential use of AT-ATs. at least when they were at Beauvais the AT-ATs could pretty much roam the countryside until they reached rivers. Luxembourg has lots of rivers, forests, and mountains which could really ruin an AT-ATs ability to move quickly and offensively. now they'll be stuck to some obvious areas that would have already been thoroughly mapped, reconnoitered by the Germans, and would make them even more vulnerable to ambush and attack. this would clearly mean that the AT-STs and ground troops would carry most of the burden of potential ground combat.

one good aspect of this scenario is that it's not under constant aerial observation. so, if the Empire wanted to keep their presence a secret from the Allies this would be pretty easy. even then, with the size of the ship, they would still get discovered by everybody within a couple of weeks. the Allies were still sending hundreds of bombers to attack Germany every week... so, they'd get discovered eventually. it would be absolutely impossible for them to conceal their presence from Germany, though. in this case, the smartest short-term move would be to immediately set up an alliance with Germany. offer to defend Luxembourg and intercept Allied bombers in exchange for help in gathering resources. they would be close to German coal and iron mining territory, if they offered to help Germany the Germans would be pretty keen to help keep them supplied and provide them with as much protection as they can. maybe Germany wouldn't last two more years of fighting... but, it would at least give the Star Destroyer some options. their presence in Luxembourg would also make the Battle of the Bulge a bit more of a viable idea... and even that was simply to try and get the Allies to negotiate a conditional surrender.

however, if people insist that this one stranded ship can still conquer the world... well, their prospects look even bleaker now than they did when I put them at Beauvais.

I don't think one Star Destroyer could change the outcome of WW2. Germany would still lose. but the presence of the Empire could drag the war on for another couple of months or so... before the Allies start dropping atomic bombs on Germany. at that point, the Imperial troops could have to choose to align themselves with the United States in exchange for selling tech information and secrets in order to survive.

there is simply no way one capital ship from Star Wars is changing the German prospects for certain defeat. and they still can't conquer the world. not with their tiny resources.