A stormtrooper and a redshirt...

..engage in a duel. The stormtrooper fires, but all his shots miss.

The redshirt dies anyway.

LOL.

So it begs the question,

How did the Galactic Empire gain so much strength and size when its main infantry force had such atrocious marksmanship?

PM,
The only explanation is that the Galactic Empire won most of the battles using Napoleonic era line formations to create a mass of fire. Although the Empire forces are at a clear disadvantage in the narrow confines of spaceship hallways, on the open field their superior numbers negated their poor marksmanship.
Also, they could destroy entire planets if only they worked out the kinks in their prototype super-weapons. [/nerd mode]

To quote somebody from a different empire... "Quantity has a quality all it's own."

But in the first Star Wars when they come apron the sand crawler, Obi Wan says that it had to be Imperial Stormtroopers since only their blast points would be so precise.

He said so, but I never saw it in any of the movies.

Excellent observation OG! I chalk that one up to "script amnesia syndrome" by George Lucas.

Ya beat me to it, OG. And the answer to the puzzle is quite simple. It's what I call, selective accuracy. And the writer is the one who does the selecting. It's the reason the good guy wins all the gunfights.

A great example of selective accuracy is found in the early part of "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot". Clint Eastwood is posing as a preacher when two former partners in crime interrupt his sermon. The one guy has a Broom-handle Mauser and opens fire from no more than fifty feet away...and his shots go all over the wall. His spread is literally about half the distance to target. As he's reloading, Eastwood runs out of the church and gets maybe 75-100 yards of separation before the baddie shoots again. This time he puts two or three consecutive shots (it's been a while since I've seen the movie) into the wood fence post Eastwood is using to help him leap the fence. Selective accuracy.

If only stormtroopers have that kind of pinpoint accuracy, that doesn't mean ALL stormtroopers have that ability. In a backwater like Tatooine, you're not likely to find first-rate troops..much more likely to find the Empire's version of kitchen police...unless the first-rate troops happen to be in the neighborhood and somebody sends them there looking for some lost droids. Like maybe if they were on a Star Destroyer on orbit.

We're also assuming that it was shoulder fired small arms.

Well, they couldn't hit friggin' space wizards for crap because, well, duh, space wizards.

Add in that they never, ever actually aim. Waving a rifle from the waist in the general direction of a target usually generates negative results.

Plus the Star Wars galaxy is full of complete wuss worlds. "We have no Army or weapons to defend ourselves! Oh noes! How could it ever happen that a completely defenseless world would be thought of as an easy mark for even the most inefficient group with actual weapons?"

One doesn't have to be super competent to win - one only has to be better than the other guy.

The only two worlds to actively defend themselves against the Empire in the entire series of films were WookieWorld and the moon over Endor.

The Stormtroopers defeated the rebels in a firefight in the very first scene of the very first movie. As Dart said, you only have to be better than the other guy. Also, didn't that Asian force user in Rogue One say something to the effect that people strong in the force cause people shooting at them to muck up their aim? My memory is a little hazy on that, but it would certainly explain what was going on most of the time, although this did not seem to cause clones any particular difficulty in carrying out order 61 or whatever it was.

Most people's aim seems to go to hell when shooting at James Bond as well.

Unbeknownst to the common stormtrooper, their laser blasters have a Hero Deflector built in.

What about the "A - Team" ?

Supposed to be a crack team of special forces. Never actually hit anyone that I can remember ........

Andy

I tried watching an episode of the A-Team a few years ago and I stopped the DVD after about 10 minutes. The 80's cheese and campiness was in FULL force.

Masters of suppression.
They are so good, they never need to hit the baddies to make them give up. They are the true masters of firearms.

The Empire won their battles by having jedis kill the enemy jedis.

The stormtroopers are deadly accurate anything they shoot at Joe Average Rebel. We se this all the time in the movies - they slaughter the rebel troopers in general. It is only the Force-filled heroes who have a magic deflection shield which ensures that their aim is off all the time.

Force-filled heroes like C3PO, R2D2, Chewbacca, Han Solo, you mean?

A Stormtrooper thread deserves some Stormtroopers

Troops

Love how nerdy SimHQ can get. We rock!

Chewie I can't speak to. The driods are probably ignored as essentially non-threats unless specifically targetted by superiors by order.

Han on the other hand. Han's affinity for the Force has been debated often. Where'd he get his fabled luck, so well known years before he meets the old man, the kid, and the walking trash barrel?

That's the only real answer. Like most baddies they can slaughter extras by the thousands.

Hardly surprising that stormtroopers rarely hit anything. They’re using the notoriously short-ranged Sterling SMGs with the butt folded (and no magazine).

Except for their section support weapon guys. They have infantry-pattern Lewis guns, again with no magazine (check out the scene where Luke and Ben arrive in Mos Eisley in Episode IV).

Hypothetical battle:

An army of Star Wars stormtroopers vs. an army of the Padishah emperor's Sardaukaur? The latter is from the Dune universe in case you didn't know.

On the topic of Empire troopers not hitting anything with their guns: