9. Practical Mass Production Vs. Egomaniacal Engineering
Has anyone else ever stopped to realize how many ironic traits the Empire and the Nazi regime have in common? Of course, Lucas did draw inspiration for his antagonists from the history of the Third Reich, but it doesn't stop at uniforms and words like "Stormtrooper." During World War II, Germany would take several courses of action that would lead to some of the greatest military blunders in history. This all occurred because Hitler placed himself in charge over their armed forces. One of his greatest downfalls was obviously his ego, which extended to having complete control over his engineers. Ever wonder why the Germans had huge, monster tanks? Instead of being satisfied with a good design that then could be mass-produced and improved like the Americans and British, Germany was always seeking to build something bigger with more firepower. The result was that they lost. Constantly seeking to build bigger military weapons takes time, money, and resources all of which could be used towards the mass production and perfection of smaller weapons. For example, how many millions of Republic credits does an Imperial AT-AT walker cost and how completely unnecessary is a vehicle of that size on the battlefield? The Empire already has a fighting force a million times larger than any other in the galaxy, why does it need to waste time on things like Death Stars and Super Star Destroyers? Sure, the Tiger tanks were feared by all, but in the end they had problems due to size, cost, and guzzled too much fuel to keep running, and were left as solitary guns, used on the battlefield like mobile artillery.