If you ever watched the original trilogy of Star Wars, you'll remember the epic intro to the series, where a boarding party of Imperial Stormtroopers breach the Rebel ship and effortlessly mow down the Rebel guards with alarming accuracy and few casualties. But later on, primarily during the scenes taking place in the Death Star, the Stormtroopers are disgustingly poor shots, they have little to no sense of their surroundings (there is a memorably hilarious scene where a trooper hits his head on a door frame), and despite wearing powered armor, they die in like one or two shots.

Now if you are a diehard fan of the Clone Wars (the recent animated masterpiece series and the time period in general), you'll probably be aware of the 501st Legion, which can be identified as clone troopers with blue markings on their armor. The rest of the Grand Army of the Republic were legendary soldiers, but the 501st was the best of the best. They had elite training in all aspects, and they were created to serve under Anakin Skywalker.

After the Clone Wars, all of the Republic clone troopers served as the basis of the Empire's Stormtroopers, so they were all essentially the same, but as time passed, the Empire began adding more and more non-clone recruits, much to the ire of the clones. These recruits were poorly trained, and the ones that had even decent training were still terrible and expendable grunts.

Now after an incident on the Death Star (which you can see in full if you play Battlefront), Vader wasn't too happy with the 501st for letting such an incident happen, so he removed the 501st from the Death Star, which would end up protecting them from the epic destruction of the station. The 501st were then a special-ops marine corps, going on special assignments for the Empire; the attack on Leia's ship being one of them. The recruits were the ones that rapidly outnumbered the former clone troopers, and as such, the clones became minorities. Although never officially stated, it can be assumed that the rare moments in the films where a Stormtrooper scores a hit on one of the heroes was actually a clone trooper, not a recruit.

That was just an interesting chunk of trivia that I thought I'd share, because I just got finished watching some Star Wars after some games of Battlefront.

So thats why they cant aways hit something,and i fought the helmets are big.

Well after Kamino got destroyed that meant no more clones were in production, they also suffered from rapid aging, So as time went by more and more clones got replaced with citizens of the new galactic empire. Resulting in a once elite force, becoming a not so much of one. The big reason the Galactic Empire was so huge and vast it became quantity instead of quality. With the cloning facilities destroyed. Thus many troopers are just plain old galactic empire citizens without the advanced training the clones received. But if you also notice in the movies, episode 4 you notice when they first get that cruiser they are dead on shots, then you hear Obi say these blaster marks are too accurate for sand people only imperial storm troopers, then in the other movies you notice how each time the rebels/main characters escaped, they some how got tracking devices planted on their ship and so on, almost like they are allowed to escape. They could had been ordered to not hit the rebels allowing them to escape so they can be tracked to a base location, as for Luke Vader and the Emperor wanted him bad, princess leia was more of they knew she knew things, knew about places, bases, and knew she would lead the empire to those locations if they could track her. So all in all I have a feeling Vader and or the Emperor gave the order of shoot at them but do not kill them. Also notice the bigger battles like on hoth, or endor the storm troopers were not missing.

Stormtroopers ARE excellent soldiers that go through proper training.
It was a ridiculous plot thing, they couldnt just...show they are deadshots and snipe Luke or Han.
In their own right there was top notch military with many advanced elite squads, yes without Kamino training tho.
But they had to lose so the good guys can win. I'd love to see a movie where the Empire just...wins.
Like in TFU or SWTOR or BF2 where the Empire proves its military force truly is a force to fear and respect.

BoomBewm wrote:

So thats why they cant aways hit something,and i fought the helmets are big.

Well also, if you compare the clone trooper's Phase I helmet's visor with the standard Stormtroopers, the clones have considerably more visual space.

I also remember a quote from a Star Wars video game that explains that the blaster rifles that the Stormtroopers use, the E-11, has atrocious recoil and overheats easily, which is probably part of an attempt to explain their terrible accuracy.

donta1979 wrote:

Well after Kamino got destroyed that meant no more clones were in production, they also suffered from rapid aging, So as time went by more and more clones got replaced with citizens of the new galactic empire. Resulting in a once elite force, becoming a not so much of one. The big reason the Galactic Empire was so huge and vast it became quantity instead of quality. With the cloning facilities destroyed. Thus many troopers are just plain old galactic empire citizens without the advanced training the clones received.

My point exactly. The Empire essentially followed the military system employed by the Confederacy of Independent Systems, where they spam millions of cheap, inexpensive units with bad weaponry and even worse training in a swarm tactic. The reasons the clones weren't always winning is because strength in numbers is a tactic that sometimes guarantees victory, though the creativity of the clones and the strategical brilliance of the Jedi are probably what resulted in more Republic victories.


Edit by Torki
Merged double post

You want an honest answer? Because it would suck if the main characters got shot.

Stormtroopers are excellent soldiers, elitely trained, 100 % disciplined, some of the best equipment around. But whenever you have a scene with them, they can't hit shit, and this is pretty much solely because the people they're shooting at aren't supposed to die at that moment.

In other words, the protagonists have, for better or worse, plot armor vs. stormtroopers.

The reason they were cloned is because originally, when they were normal men/soldiers, whenever they tried to get their wives pregnant, they would misfire....

Zinitrad wrote:

You want an honest answer?  Because it would suck if the main characters got shot.

Stormtroopers are excellent soldiers, elitely trained, 100 % disciplined, some of the best equipment around.  But whenever you have a scene with them, they can't hit shit, and this is pretty much solely because the people they're shooting at aren't supposed to die at that moment.

In other words, the protagonists have, for better or worse, plot armor vs. stormtroopers.

I'm not talking in a film context. I'm talking about in the actuality of whether they should be able to hit their targets. If it wasn't for a film where we knew that the heroes were going to survive through, then the Stormtroopers should be able to easily dispatch the main characters. The video games and other media explain this whole thing very well, and it makes a lot of sense to me.

Well it's probably the opposite of plot armor, in which they get terrible shot, so the story can continue...
Imagine what happens if they shot the main chars within 10 minutes of the movie? Yeah...

I'd like to point out the dedication from them, wearing full combat armor in deserts, no T-shirts or star wars equivalent. there is no stormtrooper ever out of uniform! They don't even role up their sleeves, in deserts and in forests.

And coming from someone who has many pairs of white shoes, those armors have to be hard to keep clean.

From my movie experience, and that's about it.

In my opinion, the clones are way better trained and were more creative. Storm troopers equipment were not the best and the vision of their helmet made it hard to see. If we were talking movie context and they had better training then they should of shot more rebels solider throughout the movie instead of the main character.

@delta6020

You're absolutely right. The clones were extremely creative and efficient, and the Stormtroopers weren't. Not just because of their lamentable training, but because their weapons had high recoil and overheated easily (which doesn't make any sense, since the E-11 is a direct descendant of the DC-15s carbine, which performed well throughout the Clone Wars), their helmets were hard to see through, and their armor was clunky and uncomfortable.