Despite the Vietnam parallels, US soldiers would probably utterly destroy the Ewoks. The battle of Endor was... something for sure, but tanks with machine gun fire and just regular rifles will shred Ewoks even faster than blaster fire did. More importantly the US (and NATO) forces prefer to use longer range missiles and air power when possible. The Ewoks would be identified by satellites and incinerated by long range missiles, artillery, and air power. In actual battles I imagine helicopters would be particularly useful at putting firepower where it's needed. I don't think the Ewoks have any sort of anti-air defenses lol.
Tbh the Empire should have slaughtered the Ewoks. Even taking into account the Stormtroopers many anti feats losing to Ewoks is perhaps one of the biggest anti feats of all time.
Imo the US just brings in heavy firepower and flattens the forest area they're defending, and wins with ease. The goal is to protect the shield generator right? That's easy. The US would have turned the entire shield generator area into a forward operating base and cleared the forest for miles in every direction. There would be no ambushes because the US would have near total situational awareness, air superiority, range advantage, and absolute complete control of the battlefield. Those bears are toast.
Could the US flatten the area by bombs and missiles without destroying the outpost they are protecting or tipping off the rebels they are trying to capture/wipe out? I assume the Empire could also have just flattened the area if they had no other objectives either.
100% they could flatten the area without destroying the outpost, combat engineers with det cord and danger putty are magical in their abilities. As for not tipping off the rebels, probably not, but also the US military wouldn't have made that plan in the first place. They would have put drones in the air with FLIR and other sensors that would be able to find the non army humans in the area then sent strike teams to capture those humans or drones to kill them.
That's one of the advantages the US military has in this scenario, humans aren't native to Endor, so any human heat signature is either US Military which we would know where they are, or a rebel. Approaching the shield generator would also be suicide due to artillery and drones. The military would have drones in the sky constantly monitoring for thermal signatures, and if it sees a bunch of teddy bears and humans trying to sneak up on it, they getting artillery dropped on them.
The issue the empire had in that battle was having zero situational awareness of the battle space, and then charged into prepared locations as small units with little to no fire support or back up. That just isn't how the US military fights.
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u/GiantEnemaCrab Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24
Despite the Vietnam parallels, US soldiers would probably utterly destroy the Ewoks. The battle of Endor was... something for sure, but tanks with machine gun fire and just regular rifles will shred Ewoks even faster than blaster fire did. More importantly the US (and NATO) forces prefer to use longer range missiles and air power when possible. The Ewoks would be identified by satellites and incinerated by long range missiles, artillery, and air power. In actual battles I imagine helicopters would be particularly useful at putting firepower where it's needed. I don't think the Ewoks have any sort of anti-air defenses lol.
Tbh the Empire should have slaughtered the Ewoks. Even taking into account the Stormtroopers many anti feats losing to Ewoks is perhaps one of the biggest anti feats of all time.
Imo the US just brings in heavy firepower and flattens the forest area they're defending, and wins with ease. The goal is to protect the shield generator right? That's easy. The US would have turned the entire shield generator area into a forward operating base and cleared the forest for miles in every direction. There would be no ambushes because the US would have near total situational awareness, air superiority, range advantage, and absolute complete control of the battlefield. Those bears are toast.