Space Vikings from Norway are no longer bound by the Geneva Convention
February 2, 2025 10:56 PM   Subscribe

Have you ever wondered how the battle for Helms Deep would have panned out if the defending forces had been 500 infantry troops from the Australian Army? Or idly speculated what might have happened if the Imperial invasion of the planet Hoth had been met by a mechanised Arctic warfare battalion from Norway?

Coral Sea RC (CSRC) is an Australian youtuber with an obvious background in the Australian military who clearly likes to ponder such things and then make straight faced and highly detailed videos about them. Self-described as 'entirely satirical military edutainment'.
posted by tim_in_oz (13 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
The Battle for Helm's Deep was almost comical, while the Imperial assault was less so. However, the line about Space Vikings from Norway not being bound by the Geneva Convention is probably the best line I'll hear all day. An interesting bit of wankery.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 4:00 AM on February 3


Sounds like someone saw that old SNL sketch about What If Napoleon Had a B-52 at the Battle of Waterloo and ran with it.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:42 AM on February 3


There's another set of youtubers that use DCS to ask how many mudhens you'd need to defeat the IJN fleet attacking Pearl Harbor or whether one [modern ship class] could singlehandedly win [ww2 battle].
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:19 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]


Love these, especially the Enemy/Friendly/Terrain analysis.

I thought that the Helm's Deep one was more convincing than the Hoth one.

He makes the assumptions that Star Wars weapons and armour aren't particularly effective, and that the AT-AT's height makes them vulnerable. It could be that stormtrooper armour is bulletproof, even if it's not blasterproof: I don't remember ever seeing it break under any kinetic shock. I believe AT-ATs have some kind of electromagnetic shield, though not full deflector screens. The Clone Wars had low-built tanks with shields as seen on Naboo: I don't think that decades later the Empire would have worse armored vehicles. It's possible that a civilization capable of interstellar flight has a sufficient technological advantage to defeat even Norwegian troops in an Arctic environment.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:03 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]


Yeah I would also assume that the weapons we see in star wars came about because modern/real world bullets are ineffective. Explosions can still injure stormtroopers via impact force but those armors are surely bulletproof.
posted by numaner at 9:47 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]


> a civilization capable of interstellar flight

But incapable of making paper & pens? Maybe they invented the printer, were so pissed off by "PC Load Letter" messages that they launched a Butlerian Jihad against them & paper was collateral damage?
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 11:37 AM on February 3


star wars armor doesn't have to deal with modern weapons because it took place a long time ago
posted by onya at 1:05 AM on February 4


The Star Wars universe does have physical projectile weapons, such as the Cycler Rifle used by the Tuskens.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:20 AM on February 4


Thinking about it, another way to approach it would be to analyse 21st century firearms by the way they work in movies. E.g. you can shelter against bullets by hiding behind a car door. If you're shot in a non-vital place like the shoulder, you just wince, bandage it up, and keep fighting.

Though if you assume that both E-11 Blasters and NATO 5.56mm rifle rounds are as ineffective as they appear in movies, you might fight the Battle of Hoth with no casualties at all...
posted by TheophileEscargot at 2:09 AM on February 4


I mean, if we're beanplating extensively, the obvious stated difference between the blasters and conventional weapons is a 500 shot magazine vs 30. I imagine the imperial blasters are not much more damaging than modern conventional firearms because that's already damaging enough. The designers decided that soldiers not having to reload as often or carry so much ammunition was the better tradeoff between energy per shot and number of shots.

In universe, the stormtrooper armor's weakness is that the joints are unarmoredm so it's likely that they wouldn't be immune to fragmentation weaponry, but bullets would have to get lucky or be well aimed to hit an unarmored spot.

I'm much more skeptical that AT-ATs would be at all vulnerable to modern shells. Likely, the weakest point of those would be the ice beneath them and the only hope would to make them lose footing and tip over.
posted by Zalzidrax at 10:54 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]


Maaaany years ago there was a post here about someone on a fiction subreddit who had mused about what would have happened if an US army regiment (or smaller team, anyway) had been time-transported in Roman times. Would the superior technology of a small team have kept the superior numbers of the Romans at bay? Redditers loved it and went "you write that, we'll buy it" and he went on for at least a couple of chapters. Can't immediately find it now but someone here on the blue may remember it.
posted by MessageInABottle at 12:56 PM on February 4


Found it - it was supposed to become a film!
posted by MessageInABottle at 1:30 PM on February 4


A little more on that .
posted by ckoerner at 7:03 PM on February 4


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