Why aren't personal shields more common?

[LopEaredGaloot]

Some Thoughts:

1. Effective armor didn't happen because, they're not good guys! The
good guys don't wear armor so that you can see their faces and
have a psychological reaction to the terrible risks they are taking as
human beings. Shoot a masked/covered character and suddenly it's
not human. See the initial stormtrooper attack on the Tantive
which foolishly comes through the main hatch instead of the hull.
The fact that none of the Imperials are at all concerned with their
dead is also telling.

2. Even today we can barely replicate power armor on screen (Avatar)
and have none which is operational. Imagine miniaturizing that
down to human scale with an effect like Warhammer 40K

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs27/f/2008/ ... e_road.jpg

3. Effectively shielded or thick armor removes the cool factor of the
Jedi since now anyone can survive moderate blaster fire. At the
same time, one could suppose that the Light Saber was originally a
device to bypass heavy armor, just like the Katana succeeded the
Ken as a cleaver to cut through heavy mongolian cowhide
protection.

4. Samurai Jedi. Whether you believe a 1,000 years or a 1,000
generations have passed, apparently there hasn't been real war in
the Republic in a LONG time. Discouraging the building and
sustainment of heavy armies would, as with post civil war Japan,
allow the return of government authority with little effort or cost.

5. Robotic Moreau. At the same time, if you ARE making war, battle
droids are clearly superior in both manufacture/training time and
their ability to bear mission equipment package weight, internally
(50 kilos?), whether it be armor appliques/inserts, heavy weapons
or shield power generators. It is equally possible that these
systems, if disabled would still leave a fail-operative redundant
combat capacity compared to a shock sensitive human.
The great horrors inflicted by Droid Separatist armies which could
be destroyed but never killed could have made this logical 'upgrade'
to the human trooper seem suddenly repugnant but the comparitive
lack of development of lighter weight (human carry = 15-20 kilo
limit) systems would still be telling.
It should also be noted that there is no reason for robots not to
come with stabilized optics and armatures for weapons. Which,
together with a lack of fear, should imply the ability to score
pinpoint accurate shots on the move, destroying portable shields by
hitting the rim of the projector loop.
Finally, if destroyed themselves, a droid can be broken down into
constituent subassemblies (four limbs, a pelvis, a torso and a
head) which are simply plug'n'play reattached to other units which
need X module replaced to rapidly regenerate forces in a way that
makes the cost of shield units unnecessary for paid human troops
with limited combat careers anyway. A droid is your unpaid slave
for as long as you keep block-replacing those failed units and
theoretically you can even upgrade.
6. Clone Who? In the American Civil War there is a famous example
of a guy who stood up in a hail of _rifled musket_ fire and was hit
something like 50 times before his corpse hit the ground again.
That is actually compareable to some of the sheeted-fire looks of
the Geonosis fight and even the Tantive forced entry. At which
point, armor becomes, not a convenience but a necessity, for
everyone. Or you run into the 'untouchable hero' trope.
This devalidation of dramatic combat includes Jedi saber blocking.
IMO, to accurately show battle droid capabilities, you need a
Terminator like performance profile. To -deal with- those droids
and their heavy metal chassis plus autofire capabilities, the Jedi
and their sabers plus Force psionics make sense. _If_ you let them
use The Force to block blaster fire.
Obiwan is actually shown doing this, in one of the Clone Wars
cartoons. But this runs into two more problems: A. Differential
Jedi Force Shielding from regular style protection. B. If the droids
are that good, then even genetically engineered Mandalorians are
not going to be able to survive unless they are also Jedi gifted
Adepts. If you clone Jedi Knights as the more likely direction to go,
you have to accept massive carnage (rating problem) and the
realization that these Jedi have been reduced to common grunts
instead of elite officers.

To his credit, it's clear that Lucas and McQuarry were at least thinking about some of this-

http://www.originalprop.com/blog/wp-con ... ars-fr.jpg

But while it makes sense in an ultimate kind of way (the shields are large enough to function as pavise'), it is still too medieval for my tastes. Better a single anachronism (Jedi who carry and use Sabers as backups to primary ranged weapons) than a full blown retro-1,200s approach...


LEG

[Cykeisme]

It's an interesting point, regarding the Gungans' handheld riot shield-style shields. How come the troopers in Star Wars never use such gear?
Still, in real life there exist handheld ballistic shields that are proof against, say, 7.62x39 rounds from AKMs, but we don't see soldiers all carrying them around either..

[adam_grif]

It's an interesting point, regarding the Gungans' handheld riot shield-style shields. How come the troopers in Star Wars never use such gear?
Still, in real life there exist handheld ballistic shields that are proof against, say, 7.62x39 rounds from AKMs, but we don't see soldiers all carrying them around either..

We might, if they were lightweight and extremely effective like gungan shields appear to be. About 8 dudes with blaster/ shield combos would be able to wipe the floor with hundreds of droids save for flanking.

[hunter5]

It's an interesting point, regarding the Gungans' handheld riot shield-style shields. How come the troopers in Star Wars never use such gear?
Still, in real life there exist handheld ballistic shields that are proof against, say, 7.62x39 rounds from AKMs, but we don't see soldiers all carrying them around either..

More than likely the shields require some material only available on Naboo and thus far to expensive to produce on the galactic scale

[FrankManic]

I recall the Hapan Prince in the Courtship of Princess Leia had some form of hand-held or belt mounted shield device. It's been at least a decade since I read the book, but I recall that it only worked for a limited time and either generated a huge amount of heat or cut off the users air supply. Something along those lines.

I imagine it's probably anathema to point this out, but their are no personal shields in the Galactic Civil War era because of advances in special effects technology over the past twenty years. Some of the concept art for Storm Troopers does depict them using large physical shields shaped like Roman Scutums.

There may be credible in universe reasons. If you stick with the idea that technological development essentially reached it's ultimate potential tens of thousands of years BBY and has been in stasis since then you could attribute the lack of personal shields in the Galactic Civil War area to a variety of things. Perhaps the manufacturing capacity to produce them was largely destroyed during the Clone Wars. Perhaps they fell out of fashion in the thousands of years since KOTOR and while they're still within the technical capacity of galactic civilization, no one actually produces them.

There also seems to be a certain amount of cultural rooted inefficiency in the Star Wars universe. The design of Imperial/Human capitol ships, with large, exposed bridge sections, is absurd from a practical standpoint, and suggests that their may be a cultural reason for their construction. Perhaps a similar cultural reason exists for the lack of personal shielding. An Old Republic general thought they were cowardly and wrote them out of standard military doctrine. Or there is public concern over the health risks of shield exposure so they're largely banned.

Another explanation would be that the Kaminoans didn't equip the clones with personal shields. The GAR was, apparently, one of the larger and arguably the most effective military groups in recent history. They did just dandy without personal shields while beating down forces vastly larger than themselves. Other armies may have looked to the Clone's use of armor without shielding as an example of best practices.

[Simon_Jester]

Plus, at least for the old KotOR personal shields, they could only protect for a few shots before they burn out and become useless. That might be handy if you're a smuggler getting into a shoot-out at the bar every now and then, but not if you're out on an extended campaign in the middle of a battlefield.

Quite the contrary. A personal shield means that to put down an enemy soldier I have to shoot him two or three times, instead of once.

Unless he's standing out in the open, jumping up and down, waving his arms, and not shooting back, that greatly increases his survivability and the amount of damage he can do to me. Of course, the exception is against 'artillery' blasters heavy enough to burn out personal shields outright, and even there the shields would help against sidescatter or the like.

[Patroklos]

Some Thoughts:

1. Effective armor didn't happen because, they're not good guys! The
good guys don't wear armor so that you can see their faces and
have a psychological reaction to the terrible risks they are taking as
human beings. Shoot a masked/covered character and suddenly it's
not human. See the initial stormtrooper attack on the Tantive
which foolishly comes through the main hatch instead of the hull.
The fact that none of the Imperials are at all concerned with their
dead is also telling.

You can clearly see a stormtrooper checking up on one of his comrades just before Vader walks through the hatch.

[Kythnos]

Before I make my comment on this I want to add that it has been a very long time since I have watched the movie, and I refuse to do so again.

If my memory is not faulty

The Destroyer Droids had to stick the barrels of their guns outside of the Shield, implying that its protection would work in both directions. Where a Droid would always know where the shield was in relation to their weapon a human operator may waste a shot or 2. Which may both reduce the usefulness of that shield and prevent a shot that would remove the danger.

The Gungan shields might have a similar effect as I believe they only used their "grenades" to attack. Given the reduced ranges for Thrown weapons the shield buys them the needed time to close to within their range.

Sorry if I am wrong about either or both of those facts but thought I would add them since I did not see them listed.

[Imperial528]

Droideka shields are dangerous to living beings, since they attempt to disintegrate whatever touches the exterior, and they release large amounts of heat when active.

And I don't think the Gungans have guns.