Adam Reynolds wrote:While this is a reasonable justification, it doesn't make sense in light of the fact that the Republic used AT-TEs during the entirety of the Clone Wars, while the CIS used a bizarre mix of equally complex designs. The Republic standardized on something horribly inefficient while the CIS went with an ever changing mix that wasn't much better, which was the fatal flaw in WW2 German armored design.
In terms of military procurement, the CIS was severely handicapped by the fact that it didn't really have a unified command structure- it was a
confederacy of factions and corporate interests. These interests included groups like the "Techno Union" and "Intergalactic Banking Clan," and honestly you wouldn't really expect such organizations to have well-balanced, diverse military forces designed to shoot it out with heavy armor and entrenched defenses in major planetary battles.
So while they had plenty of heavy metal and industrial capability, they couldn't really standardize on a single efficient design for anything. Not without having to retool much of their existing industrial base. The closest they came to that was in the infantry battledroid designs, which were fairly standardized.
IThough one thing that is rather odd in any case is the fact that SW combat vehicles almost never move faster than human running or walking speed. The idea of motorized ground units is something that no one seems to adopt. While the AT-AT is stated to be capable of moving 60 km/hr, we never see any indciation of this sort of thing nor an indication of how it would do so. The AT-TE is even worse, with it regularly being used in a role in which it walks at the same speed as advancing infantry, even on Geonosis, which is the sort of open battlefield that armor is supposed to dominate.
Theater shielding may have a lot to do with this. The Republic and Empire seem to plan their doctrine around the idea of having space superiority most of the time- of being able to pick and choose what worlds they fight over.
In that context, major ground operations tend to be fought on the strategic offensive for the Republic (by contrast, the CIS used masses of droids to try and 'tie up' Republic forces in such ground actions, as I understand it.
The main reason to use ground vehicles and
not hovermobile ones, so far as I can tell, is to assault through a theater shield. Theater shields are only installed around key targets. And if you're committed to doing that, you're inevitably stuck trying to break into a concentrated, prepared defense a la Kursk. At which point, you're probably not going to advance much faster than infantry pace anyway, if nothing else because of the hazard of mines and other ambush defenses.
So on the occasions when the Republic/Empire actually needs a heavy ground vehicle, what they
really need is a super infantry tank, and its plodding speed isn't a major disadvantage.
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