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The premise is that one can jam the entire spectrum of wireless communication channels, rendering most wireless communication devices useless. By doing this, the battle droids will loose their control signal and be rendered inoperable. This tactic was first shown in Outbound Flight; the droids in both Outbound Flight and The Phantom Menace we rendered inoperable once the control ship was jammed/destroyed.

The one downside to this strategy is both sides cannot use wireless communiction devices. Thrawn mentioned that Chiss have trained to coordinate using non-wireless communications. The droid control ship also attempts to use laser line-of-sight communications to connect to the droids; it is implied that this method is slow and can only reach a limited number of droids.

Since a majority of Trade Federation Forces are Battle Droids, it seems that this strategy would render the Trade Federation mostly defenseless. While one would loose their communication abilities, it seems like they would have an easier time fighting the disabled droids and the less than capable Trade Federation non-droid forces.

Whether or not this strategy could work seems to be irrelevant as Thrawn successfully uses it during Outbound Flight (Legends).

There are a few caveats to this theory:

a.) The premise of this was based on a strategy used by Thrawn in the non-canon book Outbound Flight. It is very possible that this strategy is no longer applicable.

b.) This also assumes that the Trade Federation were using Battle Droids that were similar to those used during the Naboo Crisis, ones that utilized a central control unit.

C.) This Strategy could not be used during the Clone Wars

Why is full-spectrum jamming not used by those fighting against the Trade Federation?

Josafoot
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  • I believe the later models of droid were not centrally controlled. Or are you talking only about the originals? – Adamant May 24 '17 at 20:32
  • I thought I put that in the caveat section. I believe it was AFTER the Naboo Crisis that Droids were removed from central control units. – Josafoot May 24 '17 at 21:52
  • Full spectrum jamming would disrupt droid comms, but would also necessarily disrupt republic comms as well. Also depends what spectrums the droid armies are using, what effective range the jamming has, etc. – Tim May 25 '17 at 03:53
  • This presupposes that the communications are based on some kind of electromagnetic transmission similar to the technology we have available in real life, which can be jammed. For all we know the droid's communications are via some kind quantum entanglement device or another technology which cannot be "jammed" in this sense. –  May 25 '17 at 04:19
  • @Nathan, The strategy was shown to have worked in Outbound Flight (Legends). Also, while their comm's would be out, their enemies would also be defenseless. – Josafoot May 25 '17 at 16:24
  • @Tim, The range of Jamming is an interesting one. I believe that the Battle Thrawn uses the strategy was a "naval" battle with ranges or Kilometers. – Josafoot May 25 '17 at 16:24
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    This assumes there aren't successful anti-signal-jamming counter-measures. – PoloHoleSet May 25 '17 at 16:28
  • @PoloHoleSet I believe their strategy was to encrypt multiple channels, if the enemy jammed the signal, they would simply jump to one of the other signals. Thrawn responds by jamming all channels. – Josafoot May 25 '17 at 16:39
  • @Josafoot - that's more redundancy vs. jamming the jamming, so to speak. I do like the question, though, don't get me wrong. – PoloHoleSet May 25 '17 at 16:43
  • @PoloHoleSet, I see. I believe Thrawn addresses that the Chiss ships have much stronger communication system's and therefore, jamming systems. If the Trade Federation Attempted to Jam the Jam, the Chiss systems would just overpower them. Maybe the Trade Federation would have to resort Strawberry jamming? – Josafoot May 25 '17 at 16:46
  • Or "jam" in the funk-sense, instead of fruit topping. – PoloHoleSet May 25 '17 at 16:47
  • @Josafoot I'm pretty sure Outbound Flight is no longer canon material, so I don't think it's a good basis for comparison to events in the movies. –  May 25 '17 at 21:28
  • @Nathan, That is true, I did mention that in the original post. Perhaps it is no longer viable. – Josafoot May 30 '17 at 17:16

2 Answers2

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From the OP:

The premise is that one can jam the entire spectrum of wireless communication channels, rendering most wireless communication devices useless.

The Trade Federation would not use radio or any other part of the electromagnetic spectrum when they can use hyperspace communications.

Consider the benefits of using hyperspace communications over radio signals.

  1. From what we have seen in the movies, hyperspace communications appears to be a point-to-point communication between any two devices in the galaxy. Since it is point to point, the Trade Federation can communicate directly with each droid. (This might be why I have never seen any mention of a galaxy-wide internet equivalent in Star Wars. Why set up internet relays, routers, and backbone signal carriers and all the other infrastructure of an internet when you can have point-to-point communication between any two devices?) This might also be why hyperspace signals are useful for homing beacons attached to ships like the Millennium Falcon.
  2. It is instantaneous. No lag time involved in the much slower go-only-as-fast-as-photons radio signals.
  3. Hyperspace signals can go through planets, unlike radio signals.

Maybe jamming hyperspace signals is just not an option.

There is the example of Luke telling Leia to jam the signals from the stormtroopers on the speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi. The whole ability to jam signals isn't mentioned much besides this one example in the entire canon Star Wars saga. (If anybody can find other examples of jamming in canon sources, please post them in the comments. Thanks.) My out-of-universe explanation for the speeder bike scene is that the script writers didn't think through the implications of point-to-point hyperspace communications.

RichS
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  • The idea of using Hyperspace communications makes sense; however, this strategy was shown to be possible during Outbound Flight. Thrawn orders a full spectrum jamming and the droid ships are rendered incapacitated during the battle. – Josafoot May 25 '17 at 16:27
  • As part of the Legends/Expanded Universe material "Outbound Flight" isn't canon with the events of the movies, so it could just be an oversight in the book. –  May 25 '17 at 21:34
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They couldn't before, and it no longer worked after

Per your second caveat, the battle droids were indeed made more autonomous following the Battle for Naboo, and no longer required the droid control ship. As far as jamming, we do have examples in canon, so we know it should have been possible. As to why it wasn't used during the battle, there are a couple of reasons:

  1. The battle was fought simultaneously from above and below. Supposing they had the technology to perform the jam, it would have likely been under control of the droid army, which means they had to take back the city in order to access it.

  2. They probably just don't have the technology, or at least not readily available at the strength needed. Naboo was a peaceful world, shown by how little of a standing army they had and how easy they were to take over. There's no reason to believe they had the technology locally and readily available to jam the signal from the droid control ship.

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