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Cpl Kendall wrote:

Rochey wrote:Most modern weapons seem to be superior to a lot of sci-fi weapons in most respects. I think there's a discussion about this going on in the borg shields thread.

I think we can chalk that up to sci-fi writers and directors being ignorant of what real-life weapons are capable of and not listening to their military advisor (if they have one).

Yeah its not that hard to find someone with some military expertiese or hell watch the military channel that show future weapons is nice. I think a lot of authors just don't bother to do research. An author should do research in anything he writes even if its fanfic or just for fun.

The thing that really annoys me is how they portray armoured vehicles in most sci-fi. Either its non-existant (Trek), completely impractical (mecha) or just stupidly designed. How hard is it for people to simply look at an M1A1 and future it up a bit?

I think besides the AT-AT the walkers and other ground craft in Star Wars are pretty well designed. The AT-MT just looks awesome. Wished we could have seen it on screen.

Star Wars seems to be the exception among visual sci-fi in having fairly realistic ground combat. They've got artillery, armour, mechanised infantry, CAS, and their soldiers use something resembling fire-and-manoeuvre.

Aliens was pretty close to modern infantry tactics up until the dropship got wasted and they were forced inside. After that it kind of devolved into a melee with no discernable tactics.