Hey everyone, Daniel from Spacedock here.
We just finished rewatching one of my favourite films, the original Starship Troopers, directed
by Paul Verhoeven.
The film features a planetary assault, launched against the Arachnid Homeworld of Klendathu,
and as part of the film’s fantastic satirical overtones, the invasion is portrayed as being
comically poorly planned and incredibly overconfident, and for entertainment purposes I’m now going
to explain everything wrong with the plan in excruciating detail.
So, they know exactly where the planet they want to attack is, it’s on the opposite
side of the galaxy from Earth, but they have a Battlestation nearby called the Ticonderoga,
which they are using as a staging ground.
The Fleet they assemble to attack the planet is large, but comprised entirely of the same
class of warship, described only as a ‘Corvette Transport’.
These ships are ostensibly assault craft, dedicated almost entirely to the deployment
of troops, and carrying only limited weapons systems.
Though some of the ships seem to have been refitted with large flat-top launch bays for
wings of bombers.
Though this fleet composition may seem foolish, it does make some sense as they believe the
bugs to be incapable of engaging spacecraft.
It seems that no reconnaissance of any kind has been performed prior to this attack, but
they do have some kind of nebulous intelligence report claiming that what seem to be bugs
with surface-to-space acid weapons, are in fact incapable of damaging or even targeting
human warships.
This intel proves to be spectacularly false a few seconds after the Earth ships arrive,
and the fleet immediately loses numerous ships.
Thanks to the ridiculously tight formation adopted by the humans, the damaged and destroyed
vessels begin to slam into eachother and cause mass-collisions with tens of thousands of
casualties.
The humans then deploy a huge wave of infantry dropships, and send them straight toward the
planet’s surface without performing any kind of bombing attack or orbital bombardment
to clear the landing zone.
Because no effort was made to destroy the bug acid weapons near the landing zone, they
proceed to destroy dozens of dropships during the approach.
At this point the fleet in orbit is in such chaos that they can’t deploy any more waves
to support the troops they just dropped, but in spite of this they don’t order the first
wave to abort.
When the remaining dropships finally land, it becomes apparent that nobody thought armoured
vehicles, heavy weapons, air support, surface reconnaissance or artillery would be needed
for this attack, and instead they simply charge all their troops in scattered formation toward
the enemy.
To their credit, the human infantry units immediately see the tactical significance
of the Bugs anti-space weapons, and destroy them, though the second wave cannot be deployed
at this point so this only really lowers the threat to the scattered human fleet.
The humans then split their weakened infantry force into two columns, and separately charge
them into about a thousand 9-foot tall, arachnid killing machines, this plays out about as
well as you would expect.
Earlier in the film we see that briefings are publicly broadcast which indicate a specific
weak spot in an arachnid’s nerve stem which allows a rifle to kill the creature in a single
burst, in spite of this apparently well-known vulnerability, every human solider in this
attack fires wildly at almost every square inch of the creatures, except this weak spot,
as a result it seems to take three or four soldiers working together to bring down a
single foe through concentrated fire.
We now learn that while the humans didn’t deploy heavy weapons or tanks in their first
wave, they did bring a war reporter and camera crew, who attempt to record a live news report
from the front lines, and are quickly eviscerated, potentially even causing the death of numerous
troopers who couldn’t withdraw because they had to defend them.
After what’s left of the human ground force is finally evacuated from the planet, we learn
that over 100,000 military personnel were lost in the first hour of the Klendathu attack.
After this cataclysmic display of strategic stupidity, the commander of the human military
resigns in disgrace, and is replaced.
The new commander declares that a bold and innovative new strategy is needed for the
next invasion, so as to not repeat the mistakes of Klendathu.
Judging by the rest of the film, this new strategy seems to involve performing a single
bombing run, establishing an outpost in hostile territory which seems to be constructed out
of tarpaulins and corrugated steel, and then holding that outpost for approximately 14
seconds before losing it in a similar massacre.
So, I guess the message of this video is, if you ever find yourself conducting a planetary
invasion, don’t use Starship Troopers as a guideline.
This is Daniel from Spacedock, signing off.