You know, I've occasionally said that this pair of lines was a good example of exactly how sarcastic Obi-Wan could be:
Quote:
Luke: Sand people. Look: bantha tracks, gaffi sticks. But I've never heard of them hitting anything this big.
Ben: No. The tracks are two by two. Sand people always go single file to disguise their numbers. Look at the blast patterns. Only imperial stormtroopers are this [snicker] precise.
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Sand people shoot hand-maintained sniper rifles, and have to be crack shots. Doubly-so in a desert wasteland. "Shoot what little prey shows up or starve." And sand people look reasonably well fed, if little else.
Then again, the Empire's doctrine at the time was "bigger, cheaper, faster". Stormtrooper gear was definitely of the "cheaper, faster" variety. And every piece of Imperial hardware at the time that tried for all three had a massive, exploitable flaw.
Stormtrooper armor that restricts vision and mobility, but offers little-to-no effective protection from either blaster fire or blunt force (Ewoks). Plus, hand weapons that appear to have less accuracy than early smooth-bore muskets.
The Death Stars with accessible reactors and open-to-space heating ducts rather than active coolant-exchange and surface radiators, which any PC hardware enthusiast will tell you is no more vulnerable to proton torpedo attacks from snub fighters than the rest of the case, no matter how big or small.)
The Star Destroyers (Victory, Imperial and Super classes) with their bridge shield emitters underneath the communication towers. Destroy one, you compromise the other, rendering the ships immediately vulnerable to "decapitation". Plus, the apparent lack of a secondary control site and emergency chain of command in case the bridge facilities suffer a massive enough casulty, is quite the oversight.
Lack of shields on imperial fighter craft considered "disposable" means for a highly Darwinian training regimen (and considerable turnaround) among pilots in the imperial navy, and the corresponding morale problems.
AT-AT transports and AT-ST scouts that are vulnerable to catastrophic tripping... etc.