1 hour ago, TauntaunScout said:

PS: I think it ended in 1918, with 21 years between them, but I'm not getting into counting the months so I could be wrong.

Yes, armistice for WWI was November 1918

The span of time between WWI and WWII is a pretty good approximation for the span of time between CW and GCW, 21 years to 22.

EDIT: Ah, acc'd to Wookieepedia, only 19 years between Order 66 and Battle of Yavin. Still, close enough!

3 hours ago, Thalandar said:

That's NOT a good example. The M16 was a POS when it came out, and the M16A3 is a much better weapon, which is my point.

The rifle was fine. It was the ammo that was crap combined with a lack of proper maintenance (no training and insufficient cleaning kits issued).

The fundamental differences between M16 and the A3 are minimal - new muzzle device, rails, etc. they still function the same. The guts are the same.

Real world comparisons are not really valid for Star Wars technology progression. They were still using pretty similar gear thousands of years prior to the the start of the clone wars.

Meanwhile we are trying to compare that to the real world 20th century, in which every aspect of life was transformed in a matter of decades

1 hour ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Real world comparisons are not really valid for Star Wars technology progression.

But they’re fun!

6 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Real world comparisons are not really valid for Star Wars technology progression. They were still using pretty similar gear thousands of years prior to the the start of the clone wars.

Meanwhile we are trying to compare that to the real world 20th century, in which every aspect of life was transformed in a matter of decades

So why would a high tech society NOT progress at all? That doesn't make sense. the Galactic Empire era was a time of massive military research and development

They put it into capital ships and planet-busting lasers.

Anyway, I think the differences you're asking for are way too granular to be represented in the game, and not sexy enough for writers and game developers to give a flip about. In real life, like, a 5% increase in ammo efficiency so you're able to put rounds down range with a slight increase in accuracy and lower rate of failures, that's really important. In Star Wars, nobody gives a flip if they learned to refine the tibanna gas that much better that you get say, 550 shots instead of 500 shots. Video games give you all the ammo you want any way and rarely stopped to care about the tech.

The Empire did a lot of R&D but they also did a very radical organization and doctrine paradigm shift, moving from the Clone Army as kind of an elite high cost force highly reliant on their large backlog of pre-ordered warships (and especially the lighter fighters and ground vehicles they carried) to fight these critical battles against Separatist fortress-worlds and high value targets to a galaxy spanning occupational force which needed big showy equalizer ships to keep people in line, and just need oodles of bodies for security in an otherwise "peace-time" period for like 20 years. Stormtrooper armor is still pretty good, but because they need to arm so many guys (no longer with a one-size fits all army) they move to the E-10 and E-11 rifles which are a little cheaper, a little less reliable, but still perfectly serviceable in a well trained soldier's hands. And Legion basically lacks the granularity besides the dice colors, surges and keywords to go into any more improvements they may have had. Like, the E-11 could be way more energy efficient than a DC-15A carbine but that's not really a thing Legion deals with.

And yes, like, some civilian or even military model stuff has been around a LONG TIME in Star Wars. I think at various points it's been stated the YT-1300 was produced for like a century or more before being considered "out of date". The A280 is basically a space AK, it's not only reliable as all get-out, but it was developed for PDFs about the end of the Clone Wars and the rebels keep buying them up on the black market or making copies. Much like the real-life AK-47, officially adopted by the soviets in 1949, still manufactured and used in various forms today.

27 minutes ago, Thalandar said:

So why would a high tech society NOT progress at all? That doesn't make sense. the Galactic Empire era was a time of massive military research and development

Because Star Wars doesn't make sense. The technology follows the 'rule of cool'.

It's not hard sci-fi it's fantasy

Imperial Roman Legionary:

-Highly effective mass produced segment plate armor.

-A variety of highly specialized weapons that when used together make him the premier infantryman in the world in his time.

-Incredible infrastructure system to rapidly move him and his fellow legionaries where they need to go.

Fast forward a few centuries

Late Roman Legionary

-Gear has been replaced with cheaper, generalist equipment.

-Infrastructure has broken down.

-Goths and Visigoths and Huns oh my...

The real world does not consist of ever-improving tech trees. Corners are cut and cheap becomes the word of the day.

Another example:

Select fire infantry rifle with detachable magazine that Germany could have had in WW1 but instead went with:

Another thing to remember is that the Republic had a very different mission from the empire. The republic wanted to take and hold worlds or retake worlds under the control of the separatists. They needed populations and resources intact to continue their war effort. That means more ground action and less orbital destruction raining down. The galactic empire cared more about keeping their controlled worlds under their thumb. That meant that the threat of star destroyers sitting in orbit ready to wipe cities out completely became the new MO.

People often have skewed perspectives on military technology because in real life the last 100 years saw a huge leap forward in terms of technology. However, this is not the norm for human history, which usually sees military technology be almost completely stagnant for upwards of a thousand years. And going by how things are progressing today, we may be beginning a new period of stagnation going by how improvements have become far less revolutionary, with huge efforts only yielding small advantages.

We have had no meaningful advancement in small arms since WW2 and the widespread use of self-loading firearms. And the technology to create self-loading weapons existed back the late 1800s, it just hadn't had the kinks for mass production worked out yet. Artillery are the same thing really. We've just taken the same cannons we had in WW2 and given them slightly better targeting systems. But going from hitting to within 50 meters of a target to 10 meters of a target is fairly meaningless when your blast radius is 100 meters.

Now take Aircraft. WW2, a period of 6 years, saw us go from biplanes driven by prop engines to the first Jet aircraft. That was a bigger technological leap than we've made in the last 40 years in terms of aviation technology. We have nothing more advanced than jet engines. Just continued refinements that only give very tiny improvements bit by bit. Even stealth aircraft are relatively ancient technology today, and terribly inefficient from a cost-effectiveness standpoint.

Just to put some food for thought out there. The fighting in the Ukraine is still seeing a lot of use of the Mosin Nagant rifle. A rifle that was designed in 1891. A rifle whose ammunition is still mass produced for a variety of firearms still in active service. A design that has been in service for 128+ years. The Syrian Civil War has a large amount of Stg44s being used by the combatants because a large stockpile of those made there way from post-war Germany into the middle east.

Ak-47 pattern rifles will probably be used for centuries, if not millennia, into the future. And not just new production runs, those firearms will physically survive for hundreds to thousands of years if even given only rudimentary care and assuming they aren't in continual use. Their parts are that robust. About the only thing that would wear out on occasion would be the springs.

Unless we see a revolution in small arms technology, like rifle sized railguns that can be made with similar cost and better performance to modern firearms, we're going to have a long period of weapon stagnation in the future.

6 hours ago, BadMotivator said:

Unless we see a revolution in small arms technology, like rifle sized railguns that can be made with similar cost and better performance to modern firearms, we're going to have a long period of weapon stagnation in the future.

Your kidding right? Small arms weapon technology has grown leaps and bounds in the last 50 years, nothing stagnate about the field. But, you know what do I know? I only have 12 years infantry experience and another 15 years in the small arms industry (plus a masters in military history). Please, no one take my word for for it. Its not like I m an expert in the field....oh, wait.

14 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Real world comparisons are not really valid for Star Wars technology progression. They were still using pretty similar gear thousands of years prior to the the start of the clone wars.

Meanwhile we are trying to compare that to the real world 20th century, in which every aspect of life was transformed in a matter of decades

First order drummed up being able to track ships through hysperspace in a short time....also suddenly they have new super dreadnoughts now.

I also accept that this nonsense was down to the garbage that comes with TLJ though too.

8 minutes ago, Thalandar said:

Your kidding right? Small arms weapon technology has grown leaps and bounds in the last 50 years, nothing stagnate about the field. But, you know what do I know? I only have 12 years infantry experience and another 15 years in the small arms industry (plus a masters in military history). Please, no one take my word for for it. Its not like I m an expert in the field....oh, wait.

Interesting and I am not for a second contesting you know your stuff.

A soldier in 1989 vs now with just small arms(not the support and comms that he would also have) what makes him so much better? Wouldnt a man with an M16 have just as much chance vs a man with a modern Assault Rifle...or small margins of an advantage in certain circumstances maybe?

Its a genuine question not trying to say you are wrong.

5

17 hours ago, Thalandar said:

That's NOT a good example. The M16 was a POS when it came out, and the M16A3 is a much better weapon, which is my point. the improvements in body armor alone make the 50s soldier lacking compared to today. the LAW is silly compared to the AT-4. Not to mention the quality of the ammunition from the 1950's to today. I 1950's to 1960's soldier is vastly inferior to a 2019 soldier.

And that's my point. i'll give you the whole bread for battle thing about the clones, but the fact is they were all breed from the same gene pool. I dont by into that making them better. Better in training, maybe, equipment no way. And the empire spends a lot on weapons development and research. Scout troopers, death trooper, dark troopers, shoretroopers.

The M16 is pretty much your only example, and that was a design that was rushed into the field, and thus was developed over time to make up for deficiencies that could have been addressed before issue. Compare an FN FAL from the time to one in use today. No real difference. Even the AKs of the 1950s aren't too far behind even a modern Russian AK-12/15, and a really fair match up to an AK-74M. Taking it back to Star Wars, the biggest advancement in SA over the past few decades have been allowing them to be easily customized and making them smaller and lighter. SW weapons already seem to be easily customized, and most were pretty light and handy anyway.

17 hours ago, Thalandar said:

WW1 ended 1917 WW2 began 1939. What do you know exactly 22 years later and ever aspect of warfare from tactics to infantry weapons to tanks and airplanes changed dramatically.

Uh, no. 1918, as previously stated. And no, not every aspect of war changed. The British still used a lot of the same small arms and many of the same naval vessels, as well as slightly updated uniforms, gas masks, helmets, etc. They were also far from alone. The French used even more of the same small arms they had used in 14-18, and some of the same tanks. The Germans were still using a lot of Gew 98s and MG08/15s early war, and they even had pre-dreadnought battleships still in service, firing some of the opening shots of the war at the Poles. The US, despite adopting the M1 years before, still had a lot of troops armed with M1903s and M1917s, and we, of course, were still carrying M1911s as our standard sidearm, with the same (modernized) helmets as in the Great War. And this doesn't even try to look at the Russians, Japanese, or Chinese.

13 minutes ago, Thalandar said:

Your kidding right? Small arms weapon technology has grown leaps and bounds in the last 50 years, nothing stagnate about the field. But, you know what do I know? I only have 12 years infantry experience and another 15 years in the small arms industry (plus a masters in military history). Please, no one take my word for for it. Its not like I m an expert in the field....oh, wait.

In some ways it has, it others it hasn't. The FN MAG is still the standard GPMG after all this time, and the German MG3 is only slightly different than the MG42. The basics behind our ammunition aren't all that different, with most changes occurring in the civilian industry, an industry not likely to have a ton of advancement under an Authoritarian Empire. If you equipped a modern infantry squad with 1950s weapons (be they AR-10s, FALs, AKs, or even M1 Carbines) they're not as hopelessly behind as some would think. ****, without going intending to get into the Caliber Wars, they might be better off.

And for an expert, you're missing a lot of facts. Modern military service doesn't make you an expert on historical military practices; I've got 8 years service under my belt as well, and that doesn't help me understand Napoleon III's troops at more than a basic level. Same with working in the firearms industry. Lastly, congrats on your masters. Working on mine now. Be curious to know what your thesis was on. That said, a Masters doesn't make you infallible, as your posts have shown.

1 hour ago, Thalandar said:

Your kidding right? Small arms weapon technology has grown leaps and bounds in the last 50 years, nothing stagnate about the field. But, you know what do I know? I only have 12 years infantry experience and another 15 years in the small arms industry (plus a masters in military history). Please, no one take my word for for it. Its not like I m an expert in the field....oh, wait.

So, in which ways did it make huge leaps? Because all I can think of, are things that would be more like finetuning stuff, or some mechanical neat things. Nothing revolutionary.

And like others said... Don't compare real life with Star Wars. It's fiction. If stuff is better or not is completely up to the writer and what he wants to accomplish. ****, in legends they used the same stuff with other looks 4000 years prior to the movies.

Edit: H. E. L. L. Is censored? Really?

4 hours ago, Thalandar said:

Your kidding right? Small arms weapon technology has grown leaps and bounds in the last 50 years, nothing stagnate about the field. But, you know what do I know? I only have 12 years infantry experience and another 15 years in the small arms industry (plus a masters in military history). Please, no one take my word for for it. Its not like I m an expert in the field....oh, wait.

Well... I don't know about leaps and bounds. More like tentative steps and shuffling from side to side. We are still using a .50 HMG that was designed in 1918. Yes we can now mount it in a remote controlled turret and it has had improvements over the years, but the end result is still that it dumps a bunch of metal downrange. Same with the AR-15/M-16. Minor improvements have been made that make it more reliable, accurate, easy to maintain but the end result is still putting .223/5.56 bullets downrange and hitting man sized targets. We have even moved backwards in development! All those fancy new piston driven ARs that came out a few years back that everyone was acting like Aliens from the future had just gifted to the world? That was just putting an old idea back into practice. Leaps and bounds would imply that the weapon's capabilities have been expanded in some way. When in reality all we have done is refine some of the features of the weapons.

4 hours ago, VAYASAN said:

Interesting and I am not for a second contesting you know your stuff.

A soldier in 1989 vs now with just small arms(not the support and comms that he would also have) what makes him so much better? Wouldnt a man with an M16 have just as much chance vs a man with a modern Assault Rifle...or small margins of an advantage in certain circumstances maybe?

Its a genuine question not trying to say you are wrong.

Ok, so yes the m16 and the m16a3 are very similar. Advances in metallurgy, polymers and manufacturing processing alone make the m16a3 a better, more accurate, more reliable weapon, however. Additions in availability it optics, and night vision, gives a major advantage to the standard 2019 soldier, where as these were not typically issued in 1989.

Ammunition manufacturing, materials and quality control is better than in 1989.

Improved body armor (iba) is much better, lighter and more flexible and now standard issue. A typical 1989 soldier has no access to similair protection ( that i know of, based on conversations with soldiers that served during that time).

A modern us army squad has access 1 or 2 m249 SAWs, m203 grenade lauchers, and at 4 anti tank weapons.

Tactics and doctrine are being changed constantly.

I can see some valid arguements about the difference in Clone war to Galactic Empire. Just not sold on the idea that a Clone War era army not being at a disadvantage against galactic empire era.

Think about the Soviet purges in their military. They had a massive restructuring of their army that left them weaker and replaced experienced officers with political zealots. In rogue one we see the empire execute an entire high level research team because one was a traitor.

As for M-16 vs M-16A3, the advantages other than reliability (which is a very debatable topic that I don't want to touch with a 10 foot pole) are really not noticeable in field conditions. Better metallurgy isn't something that matters for shooting at the enemy. Polymer stocks and grips reduce weight but already existed or had alternatives (Bakelite, aluminum, fiberglass) going back to the 50s or even 40s.

Again, I think the issue isn't one of advancement over time but rather change in goals. The empire wants to accomplish something very different with its troops than the republic did.

2 minutes ago, Thalandar said:

I can see some valid arguements about the difference in Clone war to Galactic Empire. Just not sold on the idea that a Clone War era army not being at a disadvantage against galactic empire era.

The fact that clone soldiers were bred and genetically engineered for battle and also trained from birth? vs. an army of regular people recruited as adults and then trained in standard fashion.

There's also the difference in doctrine. The Empire doesn't value individuals in the rank and file soldiery so they are given sub optimal gear (millions of soldiers to equip across multiple star systems and all that). The special forces receive the best gear and training (which is reflected in the stats and keywords of Death Troopers and Scout Troopers compared to Phase 1 Clone Troopers). So if you really want to get pedantic about a fantasy space opera (which WE DO on these forums) you can argue that there has been technological progression, but also an accompanying change in doctrine that results in worse gear and training for the rank and file.

I see an awful lot of comparison to guns from ‘89 considering that a more accurate time jump would be ‘99.

How much have guns improved since then?

11 minutes ago, Thalandar said:

I can see some valid arguements about the difference in Clone war to Galactic Empire. Just not sold on the idea that a Clone War era army not being at a disadvantage against galactic empire era.

In universe: it depends on the needs of the story. Does a trio of former Clone Troopers need to win a fight in an aged AT-TE against three AT-ATs? Then they will (admittedly with some help). Which is why applying real world logic doesn't always work.

Regardless of your beliefs regarding technologies, a battle on the table don't have to be perfectly in universe, otherwise special characters like Vader would be limited to one per battle, not one per army, and the rules wouldn't allow for Rebels vs Rebels or Empire vs Empire.

Yeah, way too much granularity here. Listen, there are multiple guns which have worked perfectly fine for over a century. They still make Colt Single-Action Army for instance. You're too focused on a "realistic" level of advancement which isn't modeled by Legion.

You get a guy with an M16 in 1964, and a guy now with an M16A4 and tell them to put bullets down range, the effect on the target is the same - they get hit with the same sized hunk of metal. The modern guy is probably a bit more accurate, because of over 50 years of materials refinements, but the principles are the same. The Empire needs to supply a lot of stormtroopers though, so they get a weapon which is a downgrade from the kinds of models used by Clones in the previous war. Budget cuts, y'know. Because Stormtroopers have precise and surges, if the Empire bothered to pay the cash to give them all DC-15As (or upgrade to their spec-ops guns like E-11D), Stormies would be better shots than clones. Depending on how you want to look at it, the DLT-19 is an improvement to, The DC-15 used by Clones isn't as effective against armor (2 surge potentials vs all 2x7/8 faces the Stormtroopers can make count).

For someone caught up in realism, you're also forgetting logistics. The Empire has improved it's armor production. Stormtrooper armor is as effective as clone armor in game - only now they make it for all their soldiers, who are no longer the same universal size, and are probably more abundant than clones with - from the game's perspective - no loss in quality. That's pretty good. Rebels are basically using late Clone Wars era arms (which is totally backed up by reality, again, there are plenty of underfunded insurgencies now crawling with AK-47s or local clones, making use of cold war era surplus which was lying around) so naturally they don't make a lot of "advancement" in arms tech, their most advanced **** is also in spacecraft by recruiting a lot of technical minded species with a history of shipwrighting.

51 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

The fact that clone soldiers were bred and genetically engineered for battle and also trained from birth? vs. an army of regular people recruited as adults and then trained in standard fashion.

Not even that, depending on where some storm troopers were trained they effectively did it as fast as they possibly could to train someone and then just throw them out there because the Empire NEEDED bodies, not overly effective troops. Not when they were mostly there for intimidation and dealing with relatively minor threats like pirates that stood no real chance against even a decent Imperial force.

10

1 hour ago, Thalandar said:

Ok, so yes the m16 and the m16a3 are very similar. Advances in metallurgy, polymers and manufacturing processing alone make the m16a3 a better, more accurate, more reliable weapon, however. Additions in availability it optics, and night vision, gives a major advantage to the standard 2019 soldier, where as these were not typically issued in 1989.

Ammunition manufacturing, materials and quality control is better than in 1989.

Improved body armor (iba) is much better, lighter and more flexible and now standard issue. A typical 1989 soldier has no access to similair protection ( that i know of, based on conversations with soldiers that served during that time).

A modern us army squad has access 1 or 2 m249 SAWs, m203 grenade lauchers, and at 4 anti tank weapons.

Funny that you completely ignored all other eras besides this one.

Having shot military grade ammo from the 50s through stuff made last year, there really isn't all that much of a difference. 2 MOA to 4 MOA might matter to a ranger shooter, but won't matter in a large scale battle, especially if the guys with the inferior ammo have better training, weapons, and skill.

Guys might not have had the same level of body armor in the late 80s as they do today, nor the same quality of night vision, but that's nearly 30 years, and with relatively new technology. My first deployment was in 07, and I had PVS-7s, which were introduced in 85, pretty close to the time frame we're looking at. Body armor was certainly around in the 80s, and while Ranger Body Armor is heavy and uncomfortable compared to modern E-SAPI plates, the potential for protection is pretty similar, with exceptions being made for armor piercing rounds. Sure, the availability of these items has gotten greater over the past 3+ decades, but they were again new items at our starting point, where such tech wouldn't be in the Star Wars galaxy.

So, let's look at this from a different perspective and one that doesn't require lots of historical reference and digging for the average person. In 1991 it was largely thought that force-on-force action i.e 2 big armies fighting a large conventional war, was dead. This was for 2 reasons, 1) the collapse of the Soviet Union and 2) the comically lopsided victory by coalition forces in the first Gulf War. It's important to note that at the time of the first Gulf War, Iraq had the 5th largest military in the world and, even though the United States wasn't alone, it also wasn't using it's full strength and it wiped the Iraqi Army and Air Force, suffering relatively minimal casualties in the process (the conflict was more intense than most think, but still pretty tame compared to battles in previous wars). Then you have a period of relative peace for a pretty long time. The conflicts that arose were mostly a large power fighting a smaller power or an insurgency and rarely if ever really delved into traditional force-on-force fighting with large formations sweeping movements and heavy use of integrated combined arms.

-

This actually somewhat mirrors the Star Wars universe in the in the post Clone Wars -> Galactic Civil war period. The major threat (separatists) had been defeated and there wasn't a large challenge for the Galactic Empire to fight. Mostly just small insurrections and pirates and no large organized threats.

-

Now, lets look at the technology. In 1991 the main battle tank of the US Army was the M1 Abrams. Right now, the main battle tank of the US Army is the M1 Abrams. In 1991 US Army mechanized infantry rode to battle in M2 Bradleys and cavalry in M3 Bradleys. right now, those are still the vehicles used by those particular formations. The primary small arms was the M16, still the primary small arm today and the one in use since Vietnam. The primary Squad Automatic Weapon was the M249 and that's still the case today. The primary attack helicopter was the AH-64 Apache and the primary transport helicopter was the UH-60 Blackhawk, both still in use today. The CH47 Chinook, a helicopter used in Vietnam is still the preferred heavy lift helicopter of the US Army.

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It's not that none of these platforms have seen advances in the last 28 years, they have, but none of those advances have really changed the fundamental role of any of these platforms and if the US Army of today picked a fight with the Operation Desert Storm US Army, they wouldn't exactly run them over. They'd still have enough technology over them to win, but it wouldn't be a blowout.

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The point is pretty self-explanatory, military technology always plateaus when there's no major threat. And, both in the case of modern insurgents and the various rebel factions in Star Wars, the opponents these large militaries are facing don't have the money or resources to put out equipment that forms a major threat, so the impetus to put out new innovations in major combat platforms is limited to non-existent.