Star Wars Universe - why is military training so ineffective?

[Argyle King]

Why does military training seem so awful in the Star Wars universe?

To some extent, I get it. Stormtroopers are meant to be faceless hordes of cannon fodder. However, it's not a problem unique to Stormtroopers; in Rogue One, randomly tossing grenades turns out to be more effective than most of the characters actually trying to hit something.

A lot of the supposedly-trained military units in Star Wars seem to suck at their job. What's up with that?

 

[Morrus]

It's just the genre. Same as the nazis in Indiana Jones or Russian spies in James Bond. Named henchmen are a threat, but mooks are not.

 

[Tonguez]

lasers are notoriously bad weapons, they require huge energy charge to be effective, are subject to distortion, beam spread and even deflection against shiny surfaces (that explains Stormtrooper armour)

Light Sabres only work because the Star Wars universe has somehow achieved a means to generate a stable field 'sheath' to contain the high energy plasma. (it should also generate significant heat which explains why only Jedi can use them)

The Death Star lasers work due to the power core being the size of a small planet, handheld lasers guns don't have those benefits and Star Wars fighters would be better off using simple lead bullets

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Space wizards > space soldiers

 

[Mallus]

It might have something to do with anti-war/Vietnam zeitgeist around the time Lucas cooked up Star Wars.

I assume when Michael Bay gets his shot at a jingoistic Star Wars one-off, the space Navy Seals (err, ex-Imperials) it stars will be much, much better shots.

 

[Derren]

If they were as effective as their reputation no archaic sword wielder would get close to them.

 

[Ryujin]

If you look at "Rogue One", the Stormtroopers are incredibly deadly. Some people have opined that they have been less effective in other movies because they're dealing with heroes who are "strong with the force", which I presume means "incredibly and impossibly lucky."

There's also the factor that their blasters (they're not lasers for this obvious reason) fire a bolt that doesn't seem to be any faster than an arrow, as launched from a traditional bow. They would be better off with gunpowder weapons.

 

[Eltab]

There is a comment in one of the New Jedi Order novels, after the main character actually recieves a grazing hit (hole in sleeve) "These are NOT your mother's Stormtroopers!"

Star Wars weapons are supposed to look impressive, not be effective. They spray a lot of energy bolts that move slowly enough that bystanders can watch them cross the field of fire. Everybody holds their weapon at chest height (Artoo in the corridor fight, aboard Princess Leia's diplomatic courier, Original Movie).

I think it's a consequence of what Lucas thinks makes for a good show. In-universe, the fiction might be that Emperor Palpatine wants to scare the rabble into compliance - Sith feed on fear (and anger), after all.
If somebody else - Thrawn? - was Emperor, he might order marksmanship training for all Stormtroopers and create a sniper course for the best. So as to deal with a problem when it arises, instead of allowing it to run on through a movie trilogy.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Luke explained it in A New Hope, they cannot see out of the helmets.

Do we know how well they are trained? Marching and being conditioned to obey orders is not the same training as having live rounds shot at you during an obstacle course, don't know if I ever saw that kind of training in the movies, nor target practice (maybe the clones)? I would also think that as "pressed" troops that have their minds conditioned, may impact them in some way. Oh, no one aims, they all shoot from the hips, while most of the time running.

The other option: Template henchmen which comes down to cost, do you train or use data implant level 2, you just have so many points to build a character with.

 

[MARCVS AVRELIVS]

The Stormtroopers on the Death Star are purposefully inaccurate. (Leia: "They let us go. It was the only reason for the ease of our escape.") The plan was to make it look good, but the heroes had to escape to lead Vader back to their Rebel Base.

And here's an interesting article about modern warfare (https://jonathanturley.org/2011/01/10/gao-u-s-has-fired-250000-rounds-for-every-insurgent-killed/) that establishes that the US military... who we can assume is a baseline for trained military... has fired 250,000 rounds for each combatant killed. By that standard, Stormtroopers aren't doing too bad...