Using the citizens, including women and children, as cover is a terrible idea and Optimus wouldn't do it. Neither would a real soldier.
Who here actually knows anything about the armed forces here? (raises hand as an actual member of the air force.) Sorry you're wrong, allowing civies to die for the greater good is something the armed forces have done thru out history. (during world war two, they broke the german's code but refused to evac cities ahead of time to prevent the germans from realizing their codes had been compromised.) Officers routinely decide who lives and dies. They do what they have to achieve their mission. This chivary code people have for comics and super heroes doesnt apply to real warfare. War is hell and people do whatever it takes to win.
No letting the all spark get taken and the world destroyed is a terrible idea, and which everythnig you suggested would basically given the decepticons victory. Your plans don't work because there was no communications.(which they had to go to the city to get the radios from Rhonda's pawn shop if nothing else.) You can't cordinate an offense if there isn't an exact location.(which is exactly why the cons took out the worlds communications because they couldn't fight humans head on. Having them picking us apart covertly is a way they could realistically win.)
Just to drove out into the middle of nowhere would have been a death sentence. Lennox and his crew had limited time to act and resources. A handful of soldiers with jeeps and guns with autobots would have been a slaughter as the Cons were stronger than the autobots in the first film. Air support was one of the few things that seemed to have any real effect on the Decepticons. They'd have no cover and if you went into a cave, you d have no option to retreat. Plus you’d have actually have known where a cave was before the bad guys found you. That’s an unacceptable risk, as you can’t just take a leap of faith like that with billions of lives at stake. If they had, how would the air force know where to go? Especially since the reinforcements was what saved their butts. In order bring the rain you need someone like Eps to call up to the jets and laser paint the targets.(they fought in the middle of a village in the beginning of the film with scorpanok. They needed to call for back up then too. They thought nothing of potentially using the village for cover then either.) He's a member of T.A.C.P.,a special forces division of the air force of guys who run around with army rangers to call in air strikes.He was their most valuable member for that reason. You cant effectively bomb the heck out of things without doing that first. Having people randomly fly around to help and hope they got there in time they'd horribly lost.
Stall tactics were the only real option. While if they really wanted get the allspark away from the decepticons they'd sent someone down into the sewers with it since the bigger bots would had trouble following and made it harder to track. Preferablly on a subway system. But not all cities have below ground subways. (mission city or Faux LA probably doesn't.) But it would made for a lousy finale watching sam ride the train thru the city and waiting underground till the miltary overran the Decepticons. Which why they were on the street instead of atleast hiding inside a warehouse or taken cover of some sort. They wanted to have a R.E.B.A.T.E. (Really Epic/Enormous Battle At The End)though so why we got what we got.
Ultimately if you want to insert maxium levels of who really should do so and so to win. The Decepticons should just bombarded the planet and killed everything from space with weapons of mass destruction (Im sure super advanced robots have bigger noise makers than us.May be some sort of nasty biological weapons for wasting organics.) or if none were availible just shove large asteroids from space toward earth since they were able to move thru space. Wipe everything out and search at your leisure. But again doesnt make for a very entertaining movie. It's sure an easy way to win if you re an alien race and you dont give a crap about the life on the planet you re invading.
Putting innocent civilians in harms way, knowingly, just isn't something soldiers or the Autobots would do.
Soldiers would as they did twice in said film. (Again they fought in a town again in revenge of the fallen.) They didn't go out of their way get civies killed as they evaced people in China before the fight started.(which Demolisher still broke out and killed people.) But you don't always get the luxury. Fate rarely picks a time of your choosing. Tactics are about taking advantage of anything you can. If civilian structures make for adequate cover, then you do so. (It happens plenty of the countless wars.) You don’t think with your emotions or follow some good guy code like you re some sort of Paladin. That sort of naïve thinking would just get more people killed.
The autobots didn’t actually pick where the fight happened. So it’s no blackmark against them how it went down. They were just supporting the soldiers, which were their best chance at survival. They clearly do try avoid fighting in heavily populated areas, as Prime made it a point to run away from the city to the forest so he could go all out in ROTF, but sometimes slag happens
They know several of the Decepticons can fly, and a city street is basically a canyon. That's like shooting fish in a barrel. Plus the civilian casualties is something the Autobots and the military would try to avoid.
Having buildings to fly thru actually is better than being out in the open. It makes it harder to approach. In a city there’s something take cover behind. I’m not sure how you reached that answer, because it’s simply not true. (if you’ve played any shooter game, having potential cover is always better than not.)
. Bumblebee and the soldiers there could have finished off Megatron before he thawed out. Then Bumblebee could have contacted the other Autobots, who were already on the way, for backup. Holding down a fort is a lot easier than playing keep away when the enemy has a serious tactical advantage over you
If the dam actually was a fort I’d agree with you. It however wasn’t. Megatron easily break out of it, and it was already compromised from Megatron and Frenzy being inside. Inside it there would have been no way to use air support against the Decepticons. There was very little weapons, cover inside it or room to move since it was a lab not an armed forces base. The Autobots couldn’t win a stand up fight against the Decepticons as their two biggest hitters were already there Starscream, and Megatron. (Blackout probably was too or very close by.) They’d been sitting ducks as Lennox said. ( Lennox had no idea where the other autobots were. So from that stand point based off what he knew staying was a bad idea.) Whether Prime and the gang would have beat the rest Cons there is debateable. They might have actually arrived at the dam shortly after the time bee took off.
Megatron withstand incredible amounts of damage. Having them shooting him might have actually sped up him unthawing. Prime was the only thing that remotely showed any impact on Megatron prior to him being hit by air strikes. Even after all the collective damage he took it wasn’t till the all spark overloaded him that he finally died.(even in RoTF he took stupid amounts of damage and still survived a beat down from powered up Prime.) Nothing they had would have probably done any serious damage to him and would have wasted their window to escape. Seeing everything Megatron can take, I wouldn’t have risked it either heh.
Ultimately I feel the soldiers and autobots made the only move that stood a chance at winning based on their cricumstances. While neither side fully exploited their tactical advantages (like the decepticons kept doing hit and run tactics despite winning their skrimishes.) but it’s a movie. I don’t expect it to do what makes the optimal sense because that doesn’t always make for the most entertainment. (such as melting down Megatron’s body at the end of the first film heh.) It entertained me just fine though either way.
"The question that once haunted my being has been answered. The future is not fixed, and my choices are my own. And yet, how ironic...for I now find that I have no choice at all! I am a warrior...let the battle be joined." —Dinobot
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