What’s the point of the armour the stormtroopers wear in Star Wars? It never seems to actually do anything.

And I would add to that, the armour worn in pretty much every medieval and medieval-derived show on Netflix? I mean, every arrow seems to go right through it, and every stab or hit seems to result in a armour-wearer succumbing immediately to his dramatic end.

I would think in both instances, the characters in question would fare better with no armour at all, as it would make them lighter, more fleet-footed, and so far more likely to avoid getting hit by whatever weapon in the first place.

A bit like Han Solo.

Fair point, even the Ewoks managed to cut a swathe through them using pebbles and sticks.

It de-humanises them to make them scary….until you learn that they can’t shoot straight

The armour is a psychological boost for the pawns on order of the kings, to make them feel less apprehensive about going into dying in battle.

mashr

Member

It de-humanises them to make them scary

Aye, this. And probably also helps with indoctrination, much easier to get people to shoot a teddy bear to death if he’s used to thinking of himself as part of a faceless army. Seems pretty likely that most stormtroopers will never actually get shot at.

There’s also all sorts of interesting psychology about armour and risk taking.

If Vader had spent less time swanning about feeling the force and more time on building a decent firearms training facility then the universe would have been a very different place.

It means you only need to pay ten extras and re position them in the different shots so it looks like there’s more
Also how would Daniel Craig have done his unaccredited cameo in the force awakens without the armour to hide behind?

It also serves to act as packaging to keep the lumps of meat together to make it easier to send pack to their families.

The uniformed oppressor I would imagine. Also easier to tell who the baddies are.

As for mediaeval armour – I recall a series about the Mongols and how they wore silk which would wrap around the arrow as it entered the body and could be used to help remove it whereas armour wasn’t strong enough to withstand an arrow strike and its movement meant that the arrow got moved around inside the body until the arrow shaft snapped. Read up on the Battle of Agincourt for further reasons for the unsuitability of armour.

@mechanicaldope:

A) They’re clones (aren’t they?), so they have no family;
and
B) After the two Death Star explosions, I can’t imagine there would have been much meat left.

Well, they were cloned from Temuera Morrison who’s more of a blunt object kinda guy than precision marksman. The armour would probably work pretty well against flying bar stools.

What’s the point of the armour the stormtroopers wear in Star Wars? It never seems to actually do anything.

You can’t know it’s useless unless you’ve run a controlled experiment, and the Empire probably won’t co-operate. A New Hope it let Luke and co slaughter dozens of storm troopers on a U Rating because it didn’t look like actual people were suffering horrific burns from directed energy weapons.

I would think in both instances, the characters in question would fare better with no armour at all

Well, the real world arrived at that conclusion eventually. They invented armour, then bigger and bigger weapons to get through it, at which point someone realised it was pointless. So perhaps the armour that the stormtroopers wear requires the use of stronger blasters, which might be harder to get.

But the real point is artistic as described above. It dehumanises them.

They aren’t all clones anyway – well they are in IV, V and VI but Flynn isn’t in TFA.

They invented armour, then bigger and bigger weapons to get through it, at which point someone realised it was pointless

I guess nobody told these guys.

It’s quite obvious that stormtrooper armour is designed to deflect modern, high energy weapons.
The designers clearly never conisdered armed conflict with primitive weapons being used against stormtroopers.
This is similar to what happened to the US war machine in Vietnam.

Well, the real world arrived at that conclusion eventually. They invented armour, then bigger and bigger weapons to get through it, at which point someone realised it was pointless.

Whilst it looks like directed energy weapons defeat the stormtrooper armor too, in real life soldiers (from rich countries) have large amounts of armour dependent upon role and likely things that will be killing them dead. Of course bigger guns and bombs will still kill you, but you get some protection – similar to a bike helmet.

It de-humanises them to make

….. the body count more palatable for family viewing.

makes continuity easier when you’ve got hordes of extras to wrangle too.

I guess nobody told these guys.

This guy would tell them.

Read up on the Battle of Agincourt for further reasons for the unsuitability of armour.

Unsuitable because of its weight when trying to move in a quagmire. Plate armour is actually quite effective against arrow strike until you get really close up. The only vulnerable bits on a fully armoured knight were his arse, his eyes and his arm pits. That’s one of the reasons why it gradually replaced chain mail, which, to an arrow, is just so many holes held together with wire.

It de-humanises them to make them scary….until you learn that they can’t shoot straight

They’re actually better than average shots. The only time they couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo was when Han, Luke and Leia were escaping the Death Star.

As Leia says after they get away, they were allowed to escape. She’d been tortured and had her home planet destroyed but still wouldn’t revel the location of the rebel base. They could have killed her any time they wanted, but they let her escape to follow her to the base.

So there 😉

/Nerd

hols2

Member

Well, they were cloned from Temuera Morrison

Nah, initially they were all clones but that’s long gone by the time of the first trilogy. Probably they realised the dangers of Stormtrooper Blight.

Probably they realised the dangers of Stormtrooper Blight

LOL. I’m totally going to try and convince my son (who is an absolute star wars nerd and asks me stuff like ‘who is your favourite clone trooper?’) that was a real thing in one of the novels.

It stops you hurting your head when you bang it on a door jam.

If Vader had spent less time swanning about feeling the force and more time on building a decent firearms training facility then the universe would have been a very different place.

Darth Vader was a bit busy

Darth Vader from Fife