Most Inept Military in Anime

[That NOS Guy]

Yes folks, you read it, weigh your not so humble opinion in on the worst anime in Anime. As a bit of a ground rule however, since this is a Macross board, let's not even involve Gundam here because everybody would jump on the "OMG Gundam sucks" truck.

Anyway, my vote goes to Starship Troo- err, I mean Blue Gender. You'd think that if Mankind was advanced anough to develop a massive space station, tactical exo-skeletons, and ther funny little items that they'd realize they could drop a farting asteriod and freeze out the blue while they sit pretty in 2nd Earth.

But that's just me, any other takers?

-NOS

Who has a feeling this is gonna get ugly

[GobotFool]

*stands by with fire extinguisher to put out flames* Flame war sense tingling

[GreenGuy42]

Whoops.... actually..

MAcross. Sorry guys..

I'd place the Zentran at the TOP of the list.

One battlefortess? Plot points aside, BOARD THE DAMN THING IF YOU WANT IT SO BADLY!

I still love the series, though.

Edited July 14, 2004 by GreenGuy42

[NERV]

something about this thread seems kinda pointless, i mean are we talking abotu the dumbest military? weakest? most arrogant?

id say the military in the animatrix was the dumbest, who the hell would thinkt hat blockign the sun could be a good idea to kill ur enemy without killing urself too? if the machines hadnt retaliated and enslaved humans they wudve just died anyway no sun = no plants = no food = starve to death cuz apparently even with all the technology they werent able to populate in space

in evangelion the military was completely useless, they didnt have any weapons that cud relly destroy the angels

as much as i would love to get into gundam wing, ill stay away from gundam

and how would not dropping an asteroid make the blue gender military dumb? second earth wasnt even big enough to start an ice age if it fell so how wud they manange to move an asteroid? and even if they did, it wouldnt matter because the blue can survive on nonorganic matter so they arent gonna lose their food source and who is to say that the cold would kill off the blue?

[GobotFool]

Whoops.... actually..

MAcross. Sorry guys..

I'd place the Zentran at the TOP of the list.

One battlefortess? Plot points aside, BOARD THE DAMN THING IF YOU WANT IT SO BADLY!

I still love the series, though.

Let us not forget the UN from Macross Zero, have we seen anyone other than Shin and Focker make a single kill?

[Graham]

Referring to Blue Gender, I don't think it is known whether the Blue are suceptable to extreme cold or not, so this tactic may or may not have worked. Even if it did work, it may have only forced the Blue into temporary hibernation, so when the weather returns to normal, so do the Blue.

Also, IIRC the Blue were spread all over Earth not just in one location, so you would probably need to drop a lot of asteroids all over Earth, not just one asteroid in order to achieve a significant global drop in temperature, i.e. a new Ice Age. Anyways, the humans on 2nd Earth probably didn't to wreak that much damage on Earth

As for most inept anime military I know you said no Gundam, but I can't help it I'm gonna have to go with the UC Universe Feddie & Zion forces. I mean if an annoying angsty teenage brat with no training is better than the best Feddie & Zion pilots, that says a lot about the quality of their military forces And we're not talking about one isolated incident, the same scenario repeates itself in MSG, Z, ZZ, F91 & V (& SEED even tho that's AU)

Graham

[Gaijin]

Not anime but both GI Joe and Cobra couldn't hit squat while running towards each other everyday.

[Graham]

Also not Anime, but the A-Team have to be the worst shots ever.

Graham

[KingNor]

Not anime but both GI Joe and Cobra couldn't hit squat while running towards each other everyday.

they could hit, and blow up the man shaped cobra robots. but shooting the man shaped men NEXT to the robots wasn't possible.

i'm thinking those battles were just a front for a g.i. joe coalition with cobra. something smells foul.

i'd put both autobot and dicepticon militarys way high up on the "ineffective" scale. 3million years of war and still no clear winners.

[Commander McBride]

Well, if you're gonna go into non-anime, the Empire has to be way up on the list....

[valk1j]

Not anime but both GI Joe and Cobra couldn't hit squat while running towards each other everyday. 

How about the autobots and decepticons, same thing going on there like GI Joe. All that technology, firepower, but no fatalities. These guys couldn't hit much of anything. At least in GI Joe there were no name Joes and Cobras getting shot down and parachuting away. Weird there was never mention of captives, with all these parachutes, and nobody ever went back for these no names. I guess they were just executed for not having codenames, because the only way to live in GI Joe was to have a codename.

Edit: KingNor beat me to it. Not anime but red shirt federation guys from Star Trek, or maybe all the federation during Kirks time.

Edited July 14, 2004 by valk1j

[Pat S]

id say the military in the animatrix was the dumbest, who the hell would thinkt hat blockign the sun could be a good idea to kill ur enemy without killing urself too? if the machines hadnt retaliated and enslaved humans they wudve just died anyway no sun = no plants = no food = starve to death cuz apparently even with all the technology they werent able to populate in space

If the machines and their weapons relied heavily on the sun, and a majority could be wiped out by blocking it out, then it makes sense to do so. Humans could survive by growing plants with lightbulbs. It might mean that the majority of the human race would be wiped out, but some would survive rather than if the machines won, no one would survive.

The only reason that the humans did survive, was because the machines kept them around.

[ewilen]

Well, if you're gonna go into non-anime, the Empire has to be way up on the list....

Cylons are at least as bad. Terrible shots...probably because their eyes are always bouncing back and forth.

[Max Jenius]

id say the military in the animatrix was the dumbest, who the hell would thinkt hat blockign the sun could be a good idea to kill ur enemy without killing urself too? if the machines hadnt retaliated and enslaved humans they wudve just died anyway no sun = no plants = no food = starve to death cuz apparently even with all the technology they werent able to populate in space

If the machines and their weapons relied heavily on the sun, and a majority could be wiped out by blocking it out, then it makes sense to do so. Humans could survive by growing plants with lightbulbs. It might mean that the majority of the human race would be wiped out, but some would survive rather than if the machines won, no one would survive.

The only reason that the humans did survive, was because the machines kept them around.

plus, we learned to make that snot stuff

[Noyhauser]

If you think about it, the only true "victory" the Empire ever had was blowing up defenceless Alderran in Episode IV. They couldn't even crush the Rebels on Hoth, leaving tonnes of them to escape.

[Graham]

Safest place to be in the world?

Smack bang in the middle of a 5-way firefight between GI Joe, Cobra, Autobots, Decepticons & the A-Team, cus you just know you ain't going be hit no matter how many rounds are flying

Graham

[UN Spacy]

What about the freaking Earth Defense Fleet? Without the Starforce (and the Argo) Earth would have been destroyed by the Desslock and the Gamilons, Zordar and the Comet Empire, etc.

They're so freaking useless (sorta....you gotta give credit to the Andromeda crew), no wonder the big shots of the EDF kept sweating bullets.

[Max Jenius]

Safest place to be in the world?

Smack bang in the middle of a 5-way firefight between GI Joe, Cobra, Autobots, Decepticons & the A-Team, cus you just know you ain't going be hit no matter how many rounds are flying

Graham

Plus, its amazing Han was able to hit anything with his limp-wristed blaster style

[valk1j]

This is fun. How about the Voltron teams, when would these guys figure out that they had to merge ASAP when the big baddy showed up. How many times when in Lion form did they get it handed to them, and then form up and beat the Robo-beast or whatever they were called.

As for Matrix, come on you have to load those damn APU manually by sending out people with carts. How come they didn't have an EMP in Zion?

[1st Border Red Devil]

I gotta go with Mars Base from Mospeada. Talk about getting the ultimate sucker punch during the 3rd Earth Recapture Mission.

[Skull Leader]

I won't bring in gundams specifically, but let's be honest.... the UC feddie army has to count among the worst animated militaries ever..... for being the supposed "good guys", they're extraordinarily arrogant, they always underestimate their foes. They turn a blind eye and provide minimal support to those who WIN conflicts (a.k.a. White Base, Albion, etc)

Admittedly, the Zeon forces had their fair share of Zakus destroyed, but VERY rarely do you see a GM land a solid hit on any Zeon forces... despite how cool they look I think they're even worse than Cannon-Fodder VF-1s.

There's my opinion and vote for the most inept military in anime history

Universal Century- Earth Federation Army

-The army that had all the right tools, but none of the right people.

[Druna Skass]

All the guys who've ever lost to the Robotech Defence Force...

[Druna Skass]

Though for the most inept I'd give that to the Earth Alliance, specificaly the Atlantic Federation. They threw away one of the most powerful ships in their fleet, not mention one of their most epirienced warship crews. Then they let some facist buisness tycoon run OMNI. And before the series even began, early in the war the threw away their elite Mobius Zero unit when they decided to use a Cyclopes system on the Moon and not tell any to get the hell out of dodge.

[LePoseur]

id say the military in the animatrix was the dumbest, who the hell would thinkt hat blockign the sun could be a good idea to kill ur enemy without killing urself too? if the machines hadnt retaliated and enslaved humans they wudve just died anyway no sun = no plants = no food = starve to death cuz apparently even with all the technology they werent able to populate in space

If the machines and their weapons relied heavily on the sun, and a majority could be wiped out by blocking it out, then it makes sense to do so. Humans could survive by growing plants with lightbulbs. It might mean that the majority of the human race would be wiped out, but some would survive rather than if the machines won, no one would survive.

The only reason that the humans did survive, was because the machines kept them around.

While I think I understand what they (the directors) were going for, the scene in Revolutions when Neo and Trinity fly above the clouds served to undercut the whole "Big Bad Genius Machines" that were in the story. You mean to tell be they can't just float up a couple of blimps lined with solar cells to draw power from? No microwave transmissions from satellites? Hell, they are robots, why not just live in orbit? Bah... I actually thought the trilogy wasn't that bad (lots of missteps, but no more than many other movies) but this one scene really drove home how much I dislike movies based on faulty premise

Sure the Human army was stupid... but what accounts for the craptastic way in which the machines countered it?

[Blaine23]

Gotta go with the Space Army in Macross 7.

They were so incapable of stopping the enemy that a rock band had to step in.

Not bashing the show... but damn, that's a useless military.

[Wes]

The military in Nadesco was pretty sad.

[Graham]

While not anime, the most Inept military in a live action movie has to by the Mobile Infantry (MI) in the craptastic Paul Verhoven directed Starship Troopers movie. From a military standpoint, that movie had so many things wrong with it that it is just laughable. I could write a long list, but instead to save me half an hour of typing I'll just quote from this site which lists most of the stuff that's wrong with the movie: -

"Verhoeven et al decided to leave out the powered armor, the MI into a fairly conventional force, recognizable to any member of today's armed forces -- except of, course, for the complete lack of artillery, mechanized transport, armored fighting vehicles, squad-level automatic weapons and indirect fire weapons such as mortars, other squad-level support systems, or combat medical units. Tactics consist of running towards the enemy in a big mob, running away from the enemy in a big mob, and walking from point A to point B in a big mob. (I especially like the scene where the MIs form a big circle around a Bug, with fellow troopers in their line of fire, and shoot at the Bug in the center -- I guess they are not as picky about friendly fire casualties in the 22nd century.) A supposedly elite unit, the MIs would have a hard time defeating a unit of Campfire Girls, let alone the Bugs.

Second, the Navy isn't any smarter -- they appear to be fundamentally incapable of preventing their ships from running into each other. On more than one occasion we see ships packed in such tight formations that when a ship is hit and falls out of its assigned spot, the result is the space fleet equivalent of a multi-car pileup. Wet Navy folk are traditionally very concerned with running their ships into things -- especially each other -- and spend a lot of time practicing so that it doesn't happen. It still occasionally does happen, but they take great pains to minize the likelihood, in part by spreading the formation out sufficiently. I can't think of any reason why their 22nd century space Navy descendants would view things any differently. Depicting them in a formation guaranteed to cause collisions is, at best, sloppy and lazy, and at worst stupid in the extreme.

Note that there was a scene in the book where there was a collision of this sort, but it occurred when a highly complex, over-ambitious maneuver, attempted to gain the advantage of surprise, went awry. Verhoeven's Navy, on the other hand, was engaged in a maneuver about as complicated as a lane change.

Between the Navy and the Army, I spent the entire movie thinking that if this is the best the Federation can do, the Bugs deserve to win.

Third, the characters engage in the sort of showboating that would get real military personnel court-martialed in a heartbeat. I am thinking specifically of Carmen's little shuttle trip inside the framework of the ring station; it was a neat effect in the last Star Wars flick, but even a fantasy like Jedi portrayed it as a dangerous move undertaken in desperation, rather than something to be done because you were feeling especially perky that day".

Graham

[GobotFool]

Man graham that is funny stuff, best rip on SST I've read in a long time!

[Pat S]

While I think I understand what they (the directors) were going for, the scene in Revolutions when Neo and Trinity fly above the clouds served to undercut the whole "Big Bad Genius Machines" that were in the story. You mean to tell be they can't just float up a couple of blimps lined with solar cells to draw power from? No microwave transmissions from satellites? Hell, they are robots, why not just live in orbit? Bah... I actually thought the trilogy wasn't that bad (lots of missteps, but no more than many other movies) but this one scene really drove home how much I dislike movies based on faulty premise

Sure the Human army was stupid... but what accounts for the craptastic way in which the machines countered it?

I can't even begin to defend the movies. At the end of Reloaded I thought the big revelation that Neo had that made him go into a coma after miraculously stopping the squids was that they were inside another matrix in the "real world", and that his coma was him finally getting out into the actual "real world". This would have helped explain the humans as batteries thing. That never happened, and I laughed in disbelief at how horrible the 3rd movie was.

I will say that it seemed to me that going above the clouds knocked out all electrical systems in the hover ship. It seems like a bad place to be if you were a machine, some sort of EMP effect. Also it would be hard to get anything above there without having several lightning strikes too. But, since one of the Wachowski "siblings" was having a sex change crisis during the last 2 movies, that sort of explains things for me, oh well...

[~Duo~Trenten]

Nonanime

any of series of power rangers. the bad guys come on they all had hundreds of monster, andriods and robots and such but only sent on at a time. what the hell is wrong with you. Hey i got a great idea since the last guy didnt work and the guy before that didnt lets still keep sending one person when we could send hundreds.

Thats why i hate it now got very old and repetitive

Anime

Dragon ball Z, and GT

any or all modern type military. when you have people like vegeta and goku who needs a army.

[Gaijin]

Safest place to be in the world?

Smack bang in the middle of a 5-way firefight between GI Joe, Cobra, Autobots, Decepticons & the A-Team, cus you just know you ain't going be hit no matter how many rounds are flying

Graham

LOL

[F-ZeroOne]

Also not anime, but perhaps more on-topic than most: the most inept military has got to be the Japanese Ground Self Defence Force, in every Godzilla movie ever made.

I thought it was very nice of them to lend some real tanks for filming the last Godzilla X MechaGodzilla, after being shown getting generally stomped, crushed, and melted for 50 years...!

[Blaine23]

I can't even begin to defend the movies. At the end of Reloaded I thought the big revelation that Neo had that made him go into a coma after miraculously stopping the squids was that they were inside another matrix in the "real world", and that his coma was him finally getting out into the actual "real world". This would have helped explain the humans as batteries thing. That never happened, and I laughed in disbelief at how horrible the 3rd movie was.

I will say that it seemed to me that going above the clouds knocked out all electrical systems in the hover ship. It seems like a bad place to be if you were a machine, some sort of EMP effect. Also it would be hard to get anything above there without having several lightning strikes too. But, since one of the Wachowski "siblings" was having a sex change crisis during the last 2 movies, that sort of explains things for me, oh well...

How does the sex change explain anything? It's not as though he made Neo realize he's really a woman trapped inside a man's body, trapped inside the matrix.

Nah... it has nothing to do with gender changing... it's just bad moviemaking. Men, women, and even RuPaul can do it with ease.

[That NOS Guy]

Well Grahm, I was thinking asteriod impact a la Char's Counterattack (gasp, a Gundam reference) which y'know, kills everything. The Blue are insect therefore really can't survive in a cold zone, given their mutation factor if it was a gradual drop I can dig it, but a sudden freeze would kick the crap out of them.

If you're not gonna drop an asteriod, at least get some OWPs up and blast their hives from orbit, then clean up, like sensible people do.

Oh, and yeah the military from the Animatrix was really gay.

[bsu legato]

I'd have to say that as far as inept militaries go, nothing beats the good ole' Robotech Defense Force. Under their watch, the earth gets invaded not once, not twice, but THREE times. Good job, guys.