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

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Again it's almost as if people are doubling down on the bad arguments (pssst, they don't just have AT-ATs.

(double pssst, the Star Destroyer is a thing)

(triple pssst, energy weapons >>> WW2 era armor)

[Totoro Man]

I know lots of people here are saying "The Battle favors the Imperials since they get to choose where and when to strike."

but... the Empire doesn't REALLY get to choose when and where they will strike because they are stranded on the ground at a known location. anything that they attempt to do will logically follow basic economic and logistical necessity. namely, they will have to try and set up a logistics network to provide for themselves.

these guys still need to breath, eat, drink and sleep.

that means that they're going to need to think long-term and go out and get supplies. when they bring those supplies back they are going to be returning to the EXACT SAME spot that they left from.

seriously, does nobody see how this presents a huge, insurmountable tactical problem for the Empire?

their options for travel are going to become clearly known. bipedal or quadripedal walkers and heavy-duty multi-wheeled vehicles. the other option is aircraft that are NOT so fast as to be completely untouchable by ALL of the standard weaponry of the period. (okay, so maybe Wookiepedia shouldn't be considered a solid source for traveling speeds.... but it's abundantly clear that everything in SW has to travel slower on planets than it does in outerspace. and for much of their ground forces, the travel speeds are merely competitive with, not completely superior to... the travel speeds of earth's ground forces)

[Totoro Man]

when most Rumblers look at things like "9,700 stormtroopers" they probably just see numbers... presumably they have weapons that never run out of ammo... they just need to cool down and recharge.

but I'm seeing a completely insurmountable problem based on my real-world professional experiences.

these guys still need to breath, eat, drink and sleep.

sure, it's just a silly space opera fantasy... but when we talk about these guys fighting in the context of WW2 europe then they have to start playing by at least a handful of real-world rules. if this is "war" then we need to remember the old phrase "an army marches on it's stomach". so... how do they get their food and water?

the grim reality is that they don't have enough transports to sustain themselves UNLESS they start stockpiling immediately. it's not merely the abstract notion of how much weight they can carry. we also have to consider the load factor of what is being carried. (aka the density of what is being carried). foodstuffs take up a LOT of space. and at this time water can be carried in a couple of different ways. it might be stored in 4.8 gallon cans or 50-gallon drums.

assuming everybody on the ship needs 1.5 gallons of water a day... we're looking at either 1400 drums of water or 14,625 cans EVERY FRIGGIN DAY! that takes time to get. this would take a pretty large crew. so, practically speaking, you have to send out all EIGHT of your shuttle transports with 160 people on it. you'd have get 20-to-40 guys to guard the perimeter while the remaining 120 laborers and admin people start getting supplies, moving things into position for loading, etc. then they need to wait for the 15 ground transports to show up with 150 more guys to help out more. for safe measure, you'd probably have to send out all of your scout walkers too, in case they get ambitious and start attacking with tanks and stuff. at some point, the laborers are going to get dead-tired, and so you have to send them back and bring in a second shift of people. because the 150 guys that were helping protect the perimeter take over for the 120 guys that are tired.

theoretically, these shuttles could carry the weight of 80 tons of water... but they can't carry the VOLUME of 80 tons of water. those cargo bays don't look much bigger than a two or three standard export containers slapped together. if that's the case, then at best they could carry about 400 drums. then there is the matter that you have to be able to safely get them up and down the ramp when they get back to the Star Destroyer. they would have to make four flights just to get the daily water ration back to the people who need it. once the water is done, then you'd have to go back and grab all of your people.

essentially you would need to put several hundred people out in a very predictable location, for hours on end, getting supplies. let me tell you, that when you're moving large volumes of cargo you are NOT operating at peak combat efficiency. those laborers are completely unprotected - because they're not going to be able to work at a sustainable pace wearing battle armor. this leaves them vulnerable to all sorts of long range trajectory weapons like mortars, or even machine guns being fired up at angles (yeah, that's a thing. you can fire machine guns up in the air so that the bullets arc down on area targets... something that unarmed Imperial workers will have NO defense against).

if they're wearing armor then that doubles the water ration from 1.5 gallons to 3 gallons a day. that means that they'll get worn out faster, so instead of two or three shifts you might need five or six... factoring in for variations in human endurance. so now, instead of needing 1400 drums of water they'll need 2800 drums. that bumps up the number of required water-run sorties to seven.

and the guys need to be left on location until they get all of the water they need.

and that's just for the water! worse than that, this is assuming that the water is already drinkable and just laying about in ready-made easily-portable containers!

likewise, if we assume that the crew needs to consume 117,000 pounds of food a day... for the food it's probably going to require as much as ten times as many flights. for the majority of edible items at this time, you couldn't stack it too high or you would crush the food and make it inedible or impossible to prepare.

that's assuming that NOBODY on planet earth is paying any attention to all of this activity and will do absolutely nothing to stop it.

the reason all of this is important is because if the Imperials don't immediately start stockpiling resources... when their two years of provisions are gone they are completely dead. they will barely be able to keep up with replenishing their food and water... to say nothing of other essentials like hygiene products, blankets, clothing, etc.

since the Star Destroyer is presumably full to maximum capacity that means they have to keep their new provisions OUTSIDE. if they keep getting their future stockpile of rations destroyed... that's not gonna bode well for them in the future.

okay, so maybe it's because my day job specifically deals with logistics that I find it impossible to suspend my disbelief and give this solitary Star Destroyer the win.

I've seen how much time, space, and effort it takes to move 50, 100, or 1000 tons of cargo. it's a lot! there are hundreds of cooperative people involved in making that happen even under the best and most peaceful of circumstances (and that's just including the truckers and porters that put things into the cargo transports directly. if we include all of the dispatchers, shippers, and order pickers that goes up into the thousands).

if the Imperials choose to pick a fight with an entire planet there will be no cooperation or help. they'll have to strip their vessel crew of people and have them working on the outside to help bring in their supplies. they'll be getting attacked constantly while they go out to steal these supplies. they'll have to go out further each time. and, in every case, they'll have to go back to the exact same spot... the Star Destroyer where everybody in the world will know where they are and they can't move.

you guys really can't see how dangerous this could get for Imperial ground forces?

[Totoro Man]

sure, if ALL you guys think about is just the 'stand up and fight' aspect of this scenario... then the Star Destroyer will do great. but the problem here is that there is nothing on the planet that can move that Star Destroyer from it's location. it's stranded there. if that thing could get up and fly around... most of the arguments in favor of the Imperial Star Destroyer curb-stomping the planet might be true. but it would take years and years for them to do it. and they would STILL have to make friends with one major nation in order to set up all of their logistical needs in advance. they simply don't have enough people to capture and HOLD the ground that they've theoretically conquered.

they won't be able to replace their wounded, or sick. two years worth of provisions presumably only includes ordinary "consumables". ordinarily this would NOT include things like clothes, medical supplies, spare armor, mechanical parts, or replacement weapons.

look at Japan when they went to war with China in 1937. they had complete organization and technical superiority over Nationalist China. however, China refused to surrender. in fact, Chinese leadership even said something like "Japan will run out of blood before China runs out of land". this will be true of this stranded Imperial Star Destroyer as well. sure, they can kill a lot of earthlings in the process... but ultimately they are doomed to fail because earth will KEEP producing more people and resources to come against them. they won't be able to do the same.

[Totoro Man]

it seriously does not matter if Star Wars weapons are qualitatively superior to what Earth has to offer in 1944. if this solitary stranded Star Destroyer that can't fly chooses to fight the entire world... they die.

wars are decided by a lot of things... but if super weapons alone were enough... you would think that Nazi Germany would have actually WON World War 2. we all know that is NOT how things turned out.

[Darth Drizzle]

I will add more tomorrow but I think you missed that Star Destroyers come with 2 Years worth of food standard.

Also it doesn't matter if the SD cant move as Nothing can get past its sheilds, and it can still fire it's long range weapons at anything that comes into firing range.

Plus the Transporter ships have Sheilds and the TIE fighters can get out of reach of any weaponry before anything hits them by flying into high atmosphere within the SD safety range.

And again whatever large force assembles gets bombed out from up high, and any Artillery that is set up.gets blowm away long before they can target anything. Then the heavy ATs and multiple vehicles are strategically dropped and wipe away any remaining forces before any Allies back up arrives.

Rinse, repeat, until the Allies surrender which would be long before any food or water gathering is necessary.

[The Drunkard Kid]

Honestly, is there anything on a planet that is out of range of a Star Destroyer with its long range sensors intact?

[big_adventure]

I will add more tomorrow but I think you missed that Star Destroyers come with 2 Years worth of food standard.

Also it doesn't matter if the SD cant move as Nothing can get past its sheilds, and it can still fire it's long range weapons at anything that comes into firing range.

Plus the Transporter ships have Sheilds and the TIE fighters can get out of reach of any weaponry before anything hits them by flying into high atmosphere within the SD safety range.

And again whatever large force assembles gets bombed out from up high, and any Artillery that is set up.gets blowm away long before they can target anything. Then the heavy ATs and multiple vehicles are strategically dropped and wipe away any remaining forces before any Allies back up arrives.

Rinse, repeat, until the Allies surrender which would be long before any food or water gathering is necessary.

Humans at this time have the capability to construct artillery pieces that can fire well over 100km. Germany did that in WWI - the Paris Gun could fire 130 or so KM. There are also literally thousands of bombers on station in Europe, and glide bombs or even early missiles. This is why the AT-ATs, for example, are dead - they have no feats at all for resisting damage from heavy artillery and bombs. This effect will prevent the SD from building anything near their site. The ship is safe-ish, but going outside is a death sentence. And even THAT - nukes are just around the corner here, and nothing I've seen suggests that SDs are nuke-proof. They take surface damage from fighter weapons. Even if they can't annihilate the entire ship, all they have to do is smash up the launch bay (or the shield generater) and the fight is done. Without air cover, they die very quickly.

Even the TIE fighters, if they have to fly out of the SD (and they do) will be funneling straight through an easy-to-spot location that the Earth forces can simply target with AA fire. They will be impressive early, but then they will start losing ships every single sortie. TIE Fighters are made of tissue and tin foil. Every time they try to launch, they will be flying through a field of AA, and it can be very precisely targeted since the launch point cannot change at all.

The shock and awe of the Empire forces would be big - their appearance would be terrifying at first, but they will start losing material fast, and they can't replace any of it. Humans are really good at making war. Sacrificing a hundred thousand lives to gain an advantage is very much par for the course.

Another massive problem for the Empire is that they completely lack the ability to project durable power. They don't have a mobile transport to support fighters, they don't have mobile vessels that can bunk troops, and they only have 9700 soldiers. They cannot come into a capital city and occupy it. They do not have close to the men.

They are going to lose troops, vehicles and weapons, and each item lost is technology that will be studied and duplicated/replicated/imitated by their "hosts."

The Empire was an oppressive force in SW, but don't forget, they didn't actually have to build any of that. Palps just took the existing republic, killed its protectors (the Jedi) or forced them into hiding, and then used highly mobile, overwhelming force to enforce compliance. Here, they aren't mobile and aren't really overwhelming, plus they are going against millions of trained, battle-hardened soldiers, not already-compliant populations who have no war experience and no weapons. We've seen tiny bands of criminals stay ahead of the Empire for generations. The Rebellion was a rag-tag group of losers who managed to resist for ages.

Honestly, is there anything on a planet that is out of range of a Star Destroyer with its long range sensors intact?

Yes, because they only carry line of sight weapons, so range to ground targets is stupidly short, given that they are on the ground.

Do SD's have feats for even firing on the ground? They have no feats for landing on planets or functioning there AFAIK.

[Totoro Man]

I will add more tomorrow but I think you missed that Star Destroyers come with 2 Years worth of food standard.

Also it doesn't matter if the SD cant move as Nothing can get past its sheilds, and it can still fire it's long range weapons at anything that comes into firing range.

Plus the Transporter ships have Sheilds and the TIE fighters can get out of reach of any weaponry before anything hits them by flying into high atmosphere within the SD safety range.

And again whatever large force assembles gets bombed out from up high, and any Artillery that is set up.gets blowm away long before they can target anything. Then the heavy ATs and multiple vehicles are strategically dropped and wipe away any remaining forces before any Allies back up arrives.

Rinse, repeat, until the Allies surrender which would be long before any food or water gathering is necessary.

it absolutely matters that the Star Destroyer can't move.

if the Star Destroyer is grounded those 9000+ Stormtroopers have the motor transport ability to move a mere 500 troops at a time!

this means that those Stormtroopers will have to wait their turn to get transported to their objectives or WALK THERE ON FOOT. given that after weeks of marching 30 miles a day the German army was starting to sustain casualties from Russia simply from fatigue should be ominous.

this is NOT the superior mobility that people think it is. it would be one thing if they could actively move ALL of those Stormtroopers to and from their objectives quickly at the same time... but they can't. we're generously talking about a mere 5% of their ground forces being able to move all at once.

certainly, they could go out and steal vehicles (which is what everybody did back then)... but Stormtroopers driving stolen trucks and vehicles will be just as vulnerable inside of those vehicles as ordinary human beings would be.

now, consider that some of the most spectacular foot marches in history didn't move that fast compared to what vehicles can do. Alexander the Great was able to march 15,000 troops roughly 170 miles in 3 days. that's an amazing accomplishment.

now, the Imperials can cut down on the amount of time it takes to move their forces by using those transports. but it would take 18-to-20 round trips to do that.

in this amount of time, any major adversary they're going up against could have plausibly moved over 120,000 troops the same distance in roughly three days... because they have hundreds of ai8rplanes, thousands of trucks. oh, and they have railroads.

let's be really generous and assume that the Stormtroopers can march all day and night in one continuous movement as Zhang Zizhong and his troops did at Taierzhuang. in March of 1938: that puts them at marching on foot for an incredible 90 miles in 24 hours. the kicker here is that they did this march to support an established defensive garrison. they still had to rest six hours before they could actually fight again.

in order to make THAT happen, you'd have to use your transports to carry either food and supplies OR soldiers. but you can't do BOTH at the same time. if you try to split the difference then you're forced to make even more trips.

I never, even once, forgot that they have 2 years worth of food. that's their biggest problem! if they wage war on the entire planet, while stuck in one spot, that two years worth of food might be all they will ever get to eat.

[Totoro Man]

when we're talking about less than 50,000 Stormtroopers being able to subdue over hundreds of millions of people across the planet with over 2,000,000,000 people... that seems insanely optimistic.

it assumes that it's impossible for there to be ANY Imperial casualties. if they try to take over the world we're talking about odds of over 40,000 to 1 against them. maybe a Jedi or a Mandolorian could handle those odds... but most Stormtroopers can't. not if we're going by demonstrated feats.

we've seen multiple Stormtroopers get killed by large rocks, big sticks, and ordinary flamethrowers, for crying out loud.

if a legion of the Empire's best troopers can get taken out by Ewoks with one-sided prep time why are we assuming that Earth in 1944 would be capable of equaling or surpassing that?

[Totoro Man]

while I realize that some people keep mentioning missiles... missiles are not mentioned in the OP.

so, the Star Destroyer doesn't get them.

although, honestly, missiles in the SW universe are never shown as being long-range, stand-off weapons to deal with beyond visual range targets. EVERYTHING in Star Wars tends to focus on attacking via line-of-sight with projectiles that travel in a straight line.

this means that the Star Destroyer, resting in one place, is limited to line of sight attacks... which generally tops out at 5-to-7 miles. they won't be able to threaten the world nearly as much as some people think.

[Darth Drizzle]

How are the Imperial Forces losing anything?

Again, the Star Destroyer is untouchable, and nearly anything coming close to it is getting blasted away as they would be detected by sensors/radar and taken out(the weapons are high enough on the ship to shoot ground forces easily). This creates a safe zone for Imperial Forces.

There would be NO catastrophic loses by the Imperials as they would see or know the location of every Enemy unit via the SD sensors/radar or their own targeting systems/sensors/radar that all of their Aerial vehicles have besides the TIE Interceptors which are far faster than any WW2 era Aerial vehicles even in Atmosphere.

No ATs or other Land machines would be taken out as they are dropped after the Untouchable Aerial units bomb the mission zone tagets like Artillery positions and Tank squads that can't hide from sensors/radar into oblivion, then the Ground forces arrive in Sheilded Transports and deploy the Overwhelming ATs and other large various crafts that clean up the rest. Then before ANY back up arrives they get picked up and taken to safety without losing a single unit.

Under NO circumstance would their be Artillery freely firing on a single AT, or WW2 era planes shredding TIE fighters in air battles, or Stormtroopers being gunned down while outnumbered by thousands in a shoot out. None of those scenarios will ever take place as there is literally zero ways the Allies can force that to happen.

The World would be reacting to the Imperials as they take out targets with bombing runs that they can't stop at all and scared out of their minds because the reach of their attacks is essentially limitless (as they can go to space and come down anywhere in the world and wipe out a high priority base and disappear before a counter attack can even begin). So with zero knowledge on what they are going to attack next and No Way to attack their base at the Star Destroyer what offensive plans are they coming up with besides "I hope they don't attack this base as we load up thousands of troops/planes/vehicles for an Assualt even though they have radar/sensors/Aerial scouts that can spot us at anytime and wipe out a good chunk of our Denfenses with 1 bombing run which they have done multiple times already". That is the best planning they could do.

Edit: I don't know what missles people are talking about on a Star Destroyer but TIE BOMBERS do have very powerful bombs they drop on targets that blow away Sheilded bunkers and underground facilities.

Also why would they have to kill 3 million people? Once they show that they can attack anyone/anywhere/anytime without losing a single unit the Allies would ask for a truce or surrender to the Imperials who didn't come here to kill the whole planet.

And the Star Destroyer isn't taking over the world by itself, it's a Untouchable Safe Haven for it's forces as they spread out and take out strategic bases and force the world to ask for a truce. The Imperials would win via the Atmoic Bomb strategy. Which is a showing of force as they take out anyone they attack witn impunity and showing that a prolonged war would only increase the death numbers for the Allies into the millions for no reason. The Allies would negotiate before millions are killed senselessly.

[The Drunkard Kid]

Like, Earth forces start to put up AA defenses around the Star Destroyer and Imperial Forces would clearly see them with their vastly superior sensors and send out a squadron of TIE fighters to annihilate them and then spend a few days blowing up power plants in the countries that attacked them as retaliation.

Heck, they don't even need to necessarily return immediately to the SD since WW2 era Earth has no way to reliably track them or catch up to them if they decide to blow up a few small towns across a few continents, loot their grocery stores, then camp out on the top of Mt. Everest or something, rinse and repeat, ad nauseum.

[Captain Smith]

IIRC, the Walkers couldn't deal with little tiny fliers roping them like calves at the 4H children's events. Thus, from feats, they are not dealing with hundreds of fighters. A grenade blows them up.

Humans at this time have the capability to construct artillery pieces that can fire well over 100km. Germany did that in WWI

As an aside, in Turtledove's Lizard WWII books, one of their grounded starships was blown up by a long range German gun. Their antimissile defenses tracked it and then were useless as they were designed for fragile missiles, not heavy metal.

Where is the info that the Star Destroyer holds enough nuclear level bombs to significantly degrade the productive power of the world?

The troopers and that two legged walker against the Ewoks answers the infantry question. Nor do the Walkers have anything to deal with indirect fire weapons, not enough of them to deal with 3000 Tigers and T-34s. Aerially scattered mines around the perimeter of the ship stops them cold.

If the ship landed in 1990's, Europe about a thousand tactical nukes could glass a perimeter around it. Jets of those days would take out any atmospheric craft.

The point that Rebel fighters could strafe Empire Antiaircraft guns successfully doesn't point to superior defenses.

[Totoro Man]

the supposed victory of the Empire via untouchable terror bombings overlooks a pretty important detail. they only have TWELVE OF THEM! worse still, the TIE bombers demonstrated feats don't really back up the idea that they could level entire cities.

this also ignores the 100+ year old historical precedent that aerial bombardment CAN'T win a war. it never has. it never will. you need troops on the ground to capture and hold territory before you can rightfully claim a victory.

you could check out Haken Gustavsson's "Sino-Japanese Air War 1937-1942: The Longest Struggle". or you could read Richard Overy's "The Bombers and the Bombed" or "The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945".

then there's books like "Bombers and Bombsights" by George K Williams. then there's Joel S.A. Hayward's "Stopped at Stalingrad: the Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East". and, you could also look at Rene Martel's "French Strategic and Tactical Bombardment Forces of World War I".

each one of these books demonstrates that even with complete aerial superiority... that not even HUNDREDS of practically unopposed bombers could force a nation to capitulate.