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The Empire really should’ve won the galactic civil war but the nepotism and obsession with loyalty screwed them over

It would make sense from the Empire’s perspective. They get the chance to weed out supposed traitors before they even have a chance to be fully trained. I imagine the Mimban campaign had a high desertion rate because of it.

Andor: “They gave me a choice - jail, the army, or apologizing to Darth Vader and the emperor. Now of course, if I knew there was a war going on on Mimban, I probably would've apologized.”

All of the imperial military is expendable to the Empire many are more than willing to sign up to replace the losses. The drawn out battle campaigns maybe are done on purpose to create fear of similar battles happening on there own planets

Interesting, in a deleted scene for Solo the character really uses his charms to not only mis call an officer for his rank but behaving in such a manner that it is awonder he didn't get executed on the spot. He apperantly had a bad tendency for damaging his ships for low gains and got sent to Mimbaan soon after, he still kept some of his attitude on the Rebellion but actually took more responsibilities for the resources and troops under his command.

Yeah the empire really sent a lot of people to their deaths, I bet many left and went to join in the rebellion. Love your content.

I just had a thought, what if the trench warfare is simply continued on from the clone wars directly. It's interesting how they clone unit was referred to as the mud jumpers with the advise to "keep your heads down". It sounds like they were in the trenches since very early in the clone wars. Which makes sense based on how thin the clones were spread very thin they would have been more likely to encounter this kind of stalemate than the much larger forces the empire could muster. No one has bothered to reevaluate the situation and the empire is uninterested in investing the units required to break the stalemate but can end the battle because it would make them look weak at a time where the illusion of power was most important. It could even be a sort of recruitment tool having active conflicts no matter how small is just enough truth to breath credibility into propaganda

the only reason I think the empire would purposely try to waste lives like that would be some sort of Sith "slow-cooked darkside nexus" kinda plan. it feels more likely that it's mostly corruption and incompetence that kept that war going like it did.

Perhaps the trench warfare was not because the empire wasnt able to win, but because they didnt need too. Why waste resources attacking and taking the whole planet when you only needed the stuff underground, If you run out of stuff to mine, throw a couple thousand troops at the enemy. Advance, secure and strip the area, then repeat.

Interesting idea. I've also heard the theory that Mimban campaign in Solo was primarily due to a terrible Imperial general who wasn't replaced (because the more competent generals were busy elsewhere).

The Empire was definitely threatened by Clone Wars veterans

I am reminded of "The Storm" episode of ATLA in which it is explained that Zuko's exile is a result of him speaking out against a war general who planned to send a division of new recruits against a hardened enemy battalion as a diversion for another, more experienced division to attack from another angle, with no expectation for any of the new recruits to survive.

While the Empire has the technological advantage, the Mimbam Resistance had home field advantage.

Well you can't have a war economy without war. There are only so many pirates and rebels to fight in space. Your armored infantry also needs some practice. If you follow the "Palpatine knew about the Vongs" theory, then it would make sense to expose your army to grueling violent CQC in mud so that they are ready for violence on a pure level.

Trench warfare is effective. Not matter what time. Also palatine had the army and the stormtrooper core. However as the timeframe came closer to 0bby the stormtrooper core got larger and larger to rival the army. And after 0bby it only got larger. Palpating wanted a force that looked intimidating and completely loyal to him. A lot of army troopers especially in the early years of the empire were recruited from defense forces around the galaxy

I really like the idea that in the time when rebellions were all single-planet affairs without any coordination, Palpatine was exploiting them as a sort of controlled opposition. Drawing any disloyal elements into the open and giving conscripted soldiers (be they outright "undesirables" or just people who don't have any more important use to the Empire than as infantry) with enemies to be fighting indefinitely so that they won't have time to get into anything potentially seditious.

I have a question: Why the Dreamers, the reorganized Partisans, did launch a raid against Coruscant? To be exact, why Saw never did such a thing when he was in charge of the Partisans?

It could be similar to in the Legion of the Damned books series by William C. Dietz. Where the troops get sent to hellish worlds with hostile populations as a form of training. In order to give them combat experience, see who survives and where they're best suited.

Another significant factor in the campaign for Mimban Is the nature of the native opposition. While these surface dwelling native population of Mimbanese would eventually become cowed servile laborers, The subterranean dwelling Coynite Warrior tribes were far more dangerous persistent and inaccessible to artillery, Air strike, or Infantry counterattack. (Legends: Splinter of the mind's eye.) Imagine if the VC tunnel complexes of Vietnam were elevated to the level of the minds of Moria.

The Republic: helped the Mimbanese with Rex and Jar-Jar Empire + Han Solo: trench warfare and killing allies for a God damn metal (did Jar-Jar Bincks command the Empire's enemies!?)

Maybe not getting rid of undesirables, but the fact that the Empire was using their more expendable units (demoted, injured and criminals) in the Mimban campaign is definitely evidence of just how desperate the fighting was getting.

Awesome! I literally commented about this on the previous mimban video. It’s sweet to get some validity even though I don’t know for sure if he saw my comment about it in the other mimban video.

These videos basically everyday help me get through work, great stuff man!

Another Great useful video! Very informative. Thank You. Be Safe out there folks ~ Peace & Health to Us All.

Very interesting answers to the posters question. Nice one Alan 👍 Love that screen saver too 😊

Finally! Ive been waiting to see if u would talk about this! Awesome video!!!!! 😄😄😄❤❤❤❤

Very enjoyable. Thanks to you and your team. From your friends across the pond 🇬🇧

If you read the visual guide you'll notice that it's mostly washouts or penal postings from other branches, but not prisoners. So it's certainly people the empire didn't value and might as well use.

I have two ideas, either Mimbam was important enough to continue combat operations but not important enough to commit serious resources to so it became a mud pit (both literally and metaphorically) where the empire dumped manpower but nothing more to maintain combat or the empire treated Mimbam like Eastern Front in Germany during WW2. An unspoken threat for any failure to do ones duty.

God I love this channel. I'm slowly watching every. Single. Piece. All over again.

Allen do you write these with your team or on your own? Just curious. This is brilliant and needed to think about our current world - as others in the comments have noted.

Perhaps the troops on Minbar were a mixed bunch, with either regulars and penal units .as seen in some WH40K IG battalion, with a penal unit assigned to them. Surely the more specialized soldiers, as mechs, artillery & supports were regs, with some "indesiderables" as cannon fodder .

i love how he compares star wars battles to real events going on today and throughout history !

Binging your videos because of a bad case of food poisoning. Thanks for the much needed distraction

Thank you for once more weave political commitary smoothly in a Star War video. Most might not realize it but you still put the thought in peoples head. Great video as always.

After the battles of 1914, 1915, 1916 and 1917 war weariness set in and in 1917 there took place the mutinies in the French and Russian armies, the collapse of morale in the Italian army. In Belgium and France, the Armies of the British and German Empires there was widespread out breaks of "LIVE AND LIVE" amongst the front-line infantry at platoon and even company level. "We have an arrangement with Fritz ... nobody fires between 0800 hours and 1630 hours .... we have been shot at every hour God gives .... now we get shot at by arrangement, and we prefer it that way" ... officer of the 8th Infantry Battalion, (1st Division) Australian Imperial Force.

I like to imagine this was a dumping ground for clones in the early uears of the empire, as it eould make a ton of sense to me because it would be pretty easy to hide from the senate and remove the need to do amything for retirement

in a previous video, you said it felt strange to use trench warfare in the future, but I saw the other day that some old research done by the GDR saw that, a properly made trench reduced casualties from artillery up to 80%, which is pretty good when armies don't fight that directly anymore

Who knew? Making prison for profit would would be a problem.... 😮

I dont think it was about removing undesirables. I really see two parallels that are plausible, one is very realistic when you think about it and the other is reasonable considering Palpatines MO. Palpatine has always been a methodical planner, he knew seperatist elements would go to ground and hide looking for an opportunity to strike deep and hard. so he allow terrible battles like mimbam to incubate in order to bird dog the remaining seperatist and rebel cells. Its bat poop crazy but its Palpatine and tarkin we are talking about. The other is as clones were being phased out, they were being replaced by low quality conscripts. Even if their are volunteers, they probably had only a couple weeks, at most, of training. The mimbaneese were not only better trained, but were used to fighting elite clone units who were just fundamentally built different. Fighting veterans on the defense against unproven commanders and infantry groups usually leads to very high casualties.

9:04 since this is the only time we see the AT-DT(I think), I’d imagine their also throwing away old/unfavorable equipment as well

Mimbam is the Bakhmut of the Star Wars galaxy. Armor divisions don’t do so well in swamps or in cities.

The clones unknowingly prepared the mimbanese for their fight against the empire.

Your theory makes sense

That awkward moment you recognize your workplace in a GT video 😂

1:22 as cool as it looks, twirling your blaster AFTER EVERY SINGLE SHOT in such a target-rich environment is ridiculous 😂 imagine if a WWI soldier stood on top of the trench, pulled out a couple of Weblys and started doing the Robocop twirl with each shot 😅

I hope he realizes trench warfare is still part of military strategy today

The Mimbanese liked to hide in the mud and then strike unsuspecting soldiers so maybe they dug trenches to defend themselves from that tactic when resting because they couldn't use that tactic effectively.

Solo final sew planet with swamp mountains and Beaches

Reminds me a bit of the sven hassell books

Mudhole! Slimy! My home this is

9:05, yes, i would call it wagnar

As someone who lives in a swamp, mud is simply a condition of dirt. Swamps is a biome of wetland.

Swamps are wetlands with trees or woody foliage etc, they cut down the trees leaving just mud

Always assume incompetence before maliciousness, both in reality and fiction.

I wouldn't let my penal unit anywhere near Mimban. It's too swampy, I like to keep mine dry.

What is the song that plays around 12:00? Sounds so familiar

It most likely comes down to, you have a tone of well trained men, and a few lame duck in the mix, send the well trained to more stable sectors so you can keep them, send the lame ducks to high casualty areas, if they die no great loss, if the make it now you turned a duck into an eagle

So this would be the Empire’s Istvaan 3? Sounds about right.

I think it makes sense to some degree. We know there were proper stormtroopers at Mimban for a start, and obviously the resources were key to the Imperial machine, but surely even the empire would pull out after taking the kind of losses they took at Mimban? I suspect there was a genuine attempt to take Mimban, but the worst of the worst, those who wouldn't hold up well under intensive labour conditions like Narkina 5, were sent to Mimban in what is effectively a role as a distraction and ultimately execution, serving the empire as cannon fodder while achieving the same goal.

Sounds like the ten year "Battle of Repleetah" from the Wing Commander universe.

PLEASE DO MORE TACTICS

In Solo, Han comments out loud that the Empire is actually invading someone's planet, not restoring peace and justice to the galaxy. Immediately labelled as a trouble-maker.

I just realized you use the same music as grian😂

Is there a possibility that the empire on did this to give some of their soldiers more combat experience? Any thoughts? Its a very small possibility and it doesnt sound like a thing most Imperial leadership would actual come up with, but idk its not impossible. The naval doctrine was favored more but it doesnt hurt to consider, though there are better ways maybe.

I don’t think it was official, but the longer the campaign went on. It just became a convenient place to put people who didn’t fit in.

Well now I am going to watch the Solo movie again.

My first thought when I heard, you can't trust prisoner soldiers "Those guys need a good old Commissar from Warhammer 40k"

The difference between mud wasteland and swamp is the environment. Beautiful plants and animals thrive and some only exist in swamps. A muddy wasteland of mining fields is a disaster in comparison

"Penitentiary" From being penitent, able to be rehabilitated. Boy, did the US prison system sure turn that meaning around...

Hey GT love the video's and have been watching for 2 years now. But I've never seen something that more recently has been touched on in the background of Star Wars. That is were the Separatist movement wrong? As in some ways if I try to scale their politics and faction as a whole I see that, they do happen to have some good points and predictions for that of the G.A.R. and some wrong ones for sure. But with the rise of the Empire and the aftermath of it Between Andor and Mando season 3 Episode 6. We get to see perspectives of the average Separatist citizen with the case of Mando season 3 and in Andor we as the fans are found cheering for a former Separatist citizen. I find this extremely interesting and have been wondering what's your opinion on it GT? As well as others opinions? I wanna hear it.

YOUR EMPEROR NEEDS YOU! Is this 40k or Star Wars ?

Something i always wondered about was what happened to the other half of Mauls original lightsaber he fell down the shalt with the one half, but it looks like he just dropped it did the jedi just pick it up...

Seems odd that an Empire spanning most of the known galaxy with a population in the Trillions at the least would suffer from manpower shortages when they have thousands of inhabited worlds to recruit/conscript from.

Remind me plz what show these scenes are from. I've never seen them.

11:00 The small groups of convicts do pave the way for artillery which is a specialized troop, but they also have varying methods depending on which is most suitable for the terrain or logistical situation. The system put in place by the Russian Infantry in general is hierarchal. There are four troop layers- top down : Specialized, Line, Assault, & “Disposable”. The latter is the one that is sent out in small reconnaissance groups of three to five men. They are to charge head on and make contact with the enemy, tire them out while exposing weak points. The ones of the group who survive are then expected to dig in for the assault troops to have a staging ground in preparation to infiltrate the enemy weak points. Once the enemy’s position is stormed and taken by the assault troops, the line troops come in as substitutes and occupy it. All while this cycle is occurring there are blocking detachments within the specialized troops who are positioned a ways far from the frontline with heavy, scoped weaponry ready to fire upon hesitant “disposables”.

I think it was a mix of both. Not up to snuff to be a stormtrooper but good enough for the reg Imperial army?

Well in the French African batallions (penal units), the soldiers used to be dress in white...to attrack ennemy fire. In the Soviet penal batallions, the men were use as human demining devise (advice the movie Dear Elsa, very good movie about such unit). That's where I think Gen Tech is wrong: on Mimban, it wasn't infantery supported by armore...but armors followed by infantry (very deadly job), so yeah we might think that it was a "trash" for undesirable, or at least, very disposable elements.

Wow

I think it was like sending a general to the Eastern front of WWII as a demotion.

How come solo's Storm trooper uniform covered his face

Don't be strolling in the bayou after dark now

From the real-world: "McNamara's Morons." A project that ran through the last years of the Vietnam war. Soldiers with sub-90 IQ's were being sent directly into combat zones with little to no training beyond Basic Training. "Here is your new rifle [sight it in later] and ammo...go stand with those other guys and shoot the same direction they are. If you run out of ammo, raise your hand and someone will bring you more." Many were sent into 'meat-grinder' situations where the Commanders knew they would die. That was the point, of course, killing off 'inferior soldiers'. The draft was in full swing, but there were so many loop-holes available that the only ones being chosen were 'too dumb to take deferments'. Many of these Soldiers couldn't read or write at adult levels and needed help signing up. I enlisted in 1976 and met a few examples of such soldiers.

Based on the resources available on the planet, and the ecological impact that resource extraction had on minban during the clone wars I wouldn't be surprised if this "imperial campaign" was a completely new one, following the local forces of the local inhabitants coordinating an overthrow of the imperial forces when their forces were thin (af-ter-all the docile populous isn't going to fight back). Mimban forces took control of imperial industrial areas and defences on the planet including shields. During the wait for a response mimban forces probably built a series of bunkers (or cleaned out old clone wars ones) for additional defences. The empire probably started retaliations with orbital bombardment, to bomb the courage out of them... And it failed (see a ton of historical examples of failed bombing campaigns designed to demoralise instead of strategically attack). With the major population centres and resource extraction centres (many of which would be one and the same due to it being much easier to recruite local manual labour) protected be shields, bunkers, or the resources themselves (with anti-air/space craft weaponry) the only solution would be a ground invasion. However, if the empire was smart... Which is usually a 50/50 situation, they would have deployed a special force units (elite storm trooper crops) in drop ships to take and hold the resource areas. Untill reinforcements could be deployed. After which, after taking back their industry they could throw the political bone into the Frey, declare Mimban a free world "jolly well done", while the empire kept control over the industry. Continued mining coupled with unofficial imperial embargoes in the indipendent world would soon see it's populous, tired, hungry, sick etc. Crawl back to the warm embrace of papa palpatine and soon the political forces of minban would capitulate, or go I to a civil war - with the empire backing one side over the other. Unfortunately, this seems to be the "stupid" side of the 50/50. The empire wanted to make an example of Mimban, so they sent the might of the imperial army there as well as several star destroyers. The problem with that is that all of a sudden, imperial forces have to take hold of heavily defended population areas and resources (defended by shields, thick blaster resistant bunkers, anti StarCraft weaponry, and locals who know the lay of the land). Once they've fought up the these shields they can pass through them, but in doing so loose their air support, so then it's a grueling street by street, structure by structure fight with only the mobile infantry that wasn't exploded by anti StarCraft weapons, mines, or trapped in sink holes (and let's face it, the swampy conditions of the world didn't help, with kit needing constant maintenance meaning that some of the empires most high tech equipment was rendered useless as more simple, easy to fix easy to clean equipment was needed). The campaig could have gone on for 1-2 years by the time of Solo, but either way the entrenched nature of the war (an insult to imperial efficiency and a resource drain itsekf) did became a way, unintentionally, for certain parts of the imperial millitary and navy to deal with individuals or units who were problematic - send them to mimban, then after another year or two they'll either be dead, discharged, or return a glorious hero if the empire who'll have nothing but prais for the officers who sent them there to attain their glory. Whatever the case I think mimban also shows one of the weekensses the empire was starting to encounter as it grew in size - planetary conquest of worlds which weren't previously members of the republic, worlds subdued at the end of the clone wars, or "colony worlds" with only a small handful of population centres which could "easily" be captured was difficult. The forces and resources needed to take back a planet with billions was immense, and considering that mimban was just a side campaign for the empire which had its fingers in too many pies and plans the empire was starting to strain.

"Trouble-makers" can be useful because "trouble-makers" are by nature willing to take greater risks and probably endure greater hardship. "Being a problem" means "bucking the status quo" which translates to behaviors of self-reliance and quick situational adaptation because the status quo will not come to a "trouble-makers" aid. Strategically sprinkled among the numerous platoons, a lone trouble-maker is possibly more useful than a collective of them because at its heart..."trouble-makers" have excellent survivor skill and possibly make good low level leaders. If these individuals die, it is still a problem solved...a win-win.

2 minutes in I was like no own a saber ad? I hope they didn’t get shut down for profiting off dead Jedi and then 5 seconds later you talked about them. I was like fewf

9:23 Uh... why is there Terminator in my Star Wars?

What are trench warfare scenes from?

In the legends lore they had dedicated penal battalions

To me it seemed more like an in-between. The Empire definitely didn't want to send their best to a muddy meat-grinder, but if they really just wanted a whole bunch of people dead they'd execute them en-mass. So I think Mimban was basically the place where they sent troops who were considered "less valuable." If they survived, cool, if not, meh.

I always viewed the campaign as a general trying to make a big deal out of something small, so as to make a name for their self.

The clone war was to exhaust the people from fighting

I think it was a mix.

Whilst I definitely agree the Empire did remove undesirables, I'm not sure I think this campaign wouldn't be how. They wouldn't have to do it this way anyway. That being said, they most definitely were throwing lives away on campaigns like this.

Swamps aren't much better than mud, but there are a ton of plants and animals that can survive and thrive in a swamp, and those can all be used for food, produce, medicine, etc... Mud is just mud.

I honestly don’t believe that the Empire was simply throwing away lives on Mimban, as you have specifically described. Key word here is ‘undesirable’; what is considered ‘desirable’ to Palpatine? Because I honestly don’t believe that Palpatine simply threw prisoners/criminals into penal battalions, but instead fanatic loyalists who’ll make the Empire look bad (insert clip of officer being blown up) & very smart individuals who’ll care about the people more than the Galactic Empire. Just because they have an armored division doesn’t mean they have mixed sub groups, such as multiple three to maybe five person penal squads & similar sized, maybe larger, loyal fanatics or smart & caring groups, maybe mixed to deliberately prevent effective teamwork, lead by an extremely stupid & overly fanatic officer (insert clip of the same officer blowing up). Now, I wouldn’t suggest this unless I have a similar thought process of weeding out individuals who’re a threat to the bigger picture. The key difference is that I would weed out individuals who’re a threat to public safety, who’re refusing to learn from their own mistakes, thus in order to save lives, I’ll snuff out the more dangerous individual, regardless if its intentional or not…

Letting an insurgency or small scale conflict linger on to let your green troops see the elephant isn't the worst idea. On the other hand, shoving your troops into a meatgrinder can easily make them reconsider who they should be shooting at. As I recall, over fifty French divisions mutinied by the end of WWI. I can't blame them; their generals made Grant look like a humanitarian. At least he was effective. And the Soviets were so bad entire armies of their own people joined the Wehrmacht to fight them.

The campaign on minbaum was designed to keep exutive power over the Senate, Wich was still a problem for Palpatine. He would wipe away the Senate later(episode 4)

The Germans in WWII did that with the Eastern Front, my grandfather who was a American soldier who was captured in North Africa, said that a carton of cigarettes could get a guard send to the eastenn front.