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I've been giving this some thought lately; exactly what role do these serve?

The role of IFV is covered by the MTT, and neither can carry troops so comparisons to Republic and Imperial Walkers fail.

The MBT is covered by the Corporate Alliance Tnak Droid. Medium and Light Tanks are the GAT Hovertank and AAT respectively.

So what are they?

How about self propelled artillary. The Hailfire droid worked in this capacity at the Battle of Geonosis, launching missiles at oncomig ground troops and also acting as an AA gun against the LAATs. The Homing Spider Droid is specifically stated to have excellent arial coverage and good targeting abilities. perhaps this is an anti fighter platform. While both lack the scale and power of the SPAT, the Republic SPAT is designed to keep starships out of combat, not serve agaisnt air fighters or ground troops.

So could they be artillary?

your right about the Hailfire droid, it seemd to be a combination AA/rocket artillary

As for the spider droid, it was never seen targeting any of the gunships, or firing on an angle that could have hit them. they were firing on the clone army so they probably aren't anti-aircraft weapons (That role already being covered by the Hailfire droids) they seemed more like tanks to me, because they were advancing and firing along with the rest of the Droid army. Not to mention, AAT's are never actually seen on Geonosis, so they may have replaced them entirely (At least with that part of the confederacy's army)

The Hailfire droids are similar to modern MLRS. The spider droids are analogous to tanks.

Darksider wrote:your right about the Hailfire droid, it seemd to be a combination AA/rocket artillary

As for the spider droid, it was never seen targeting any of the gunships, or firing on an angle that could have hit them. they were firing on the clone army so they probably aren't anti-aircraft weapons (That role already being covered by the Hailfire droids) they seemed more like tanks to me, because they were advancing and firing along with the rest of the Droid army. Not to mention, AAT's are never actually seen on Geonosis, so they may have replaced them entirely (At least with that part of the confederacy's army)

ICS shows lines of AATs boarding a core ship at Geonosis.

Ender wrote: The role of IFV is covered by the MTT, and neither can carry troops so comparisons to Republic and Imperial Walkers fail.

Don´t forget, that this is a repulsor-vehicle and that those have problems Walkers don´t.

The MBT is covered by the Corporate Alliance Tnak Droid. Medium and Light Tanks are the GAT Hovertank and AAT respectively.

What are those? They seem to be EU, while in the movie the spider-droids served as MBT. But that wouldn´t be a problem, since we have different military forces joinded together on the side of the seperatists (Compare it with the US and the USSR fighting Nazi-Germany, the US had, well, their tanks and the USSR had T-34 or JSFs).

Darth Wong wrote:The Hailfire droids are similar to modern MLRS. The spider droids are analogous to tanks.

Hailfires are analogous to an ITV, not MLRS. There rockets appear to be designed to destroy point armored targets with semi direct fire from the front lines, rather then blanketing an area from twenty klicks back.

The MTT's and ATT's had been loaded onto the transporters already. The crappy spider driod's where most likely being expended as the least valuable units to cover the ships withdraw. There's no sense in wasting your best units for a suicidal covering mission. Atl east some of the Hailfire driod's already driving around but more where likely committed to provide air defence once again to protect the escaping ships whose shields and evidently weapons where off line.

Sea Skimmer wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:The Hailfire droids are similar to modern MLRS. The spider droids are analogous to tanks.

Hailfires are analogous to an ITV, not MLRS. There rockets appear to be designed to destroy point armored targets with semi direct fire from the front lines, rather then blanketing an area from twenty klicks back.

Fair enough; I guess I was influenced by their appearance.

Darth Wong wrote: Fair enough; I guess I was influenced by their appearance.

I'd expect better from someone who is often faced by rapid fanwhores using names and appearances of things to define their power.

Role is most important and they seem to be tank destroyer and possibly anti aircraft units. If those missiles are duel role, which seems unlikely given that they didn't shoot down the pesky swarms of gunships, they'd be very close to the ADATS system. ADATS is a lightly armored duel role missile system, the weapons can engage both tanks and aircraft and has a bunch of ready rounds. You might be familiar with it since only Canada uses the thing.

What are you guys saying for those of us not familiar with military acronyms?

Damnit Sea Skimmer, I was going to bring up ADATS!

Back before the forum existed, I sent an email to Lord Wong saying the Hailfire had ADATS written all over it. I wonder if he remembers?

So I beat both you and Sea Skimmer, Howedar

In this picture, the Hailfire droids appear to have been acting in an anti-aircraft role in the beginning scenes of the battle, firing on the gunships as they evacuated the arena. (the column of droids on the left, moving up the road are fairly clearly Hailfires, this is more evident when it's in motion. There's always the possibility that there were other units in the formation, but they aren't readily visible).
They appeared to be firing blaster-style bolts, rather than rockets. These bolts were effective, as they downed at least one gunship (though it is possible there were extenuating circumstances, natch).

I believe the literature lists them as having an anti-personnel blaster, whether or not this is the same as the anti-air craft blaster isn't clear.

And, of course, Mike commented on this same ability of the Hailfires on this page.

Robert Treder wrote:In this picture, the Hailfire droids appear to have been acting in an anti-aircraft role in the beginning scenes of the battle, firing on the gunships as they evacuated the arena. (the column of droids on the left, moving up the road are fairly clearly Hailfires, this is more evident when it's in motion. There's always the possibility that there were other units in the formation, but they aren't readily visible).
They appeared to be firing blaster-style bolts, rather than rockets. These bolts were effective, as they downed at least one gunship (though it is possible there were extenuating circumstances, natch).

Randomly spraying machine gun fire into the sky is a thing normally done by all vehicles when under air attack. Your notice most tanks still have a 12.7mm machine gun on the roof for just that. That however does not make the vehicle anymore of a dedicated anti aircraft unit then the next vehicle spraying fire into the sky.

The bolts didn't shoot down anything that I can tell, the only gunship we saw shot down by blaster fire appear to be hit by a much larger bolt which was most likely coming from a starship or the Geonosian gun batteries mentioned in the script. They'd already flown past the Hailfires in any case.

Back before the forum existed, I sent an email to Lord Wong saying the Hailfire had ADATS written all over it. I wonder if he remembers?

Dont be so proud, where still lacking a case of it shooting at aircraft. ADATS is a primarily anti aircraft unit which happens to use shaped charges in its missiles which lets them kill tanks. Of course the missiles also cost ten times more then your average heavy ATGM and the launchers are never deployed in that role but that's another story. Meanwhile Hailfire would seem to be an anti armor weapon first and possibly an anti aircraft unit second. Though basically everything says no to that, and given the way the gunships torn through them I'd think they'd launch if there was even a slight chance of a hit.

What are you guys saying for those of us not familiar with military acronyms?

ADATS: Air Defence/Anti-tank System, built by Oerlikon-Aerspace. It is an optically tracking laser guided missile system with eight missiles ready to fire, a surveillance radar is also mounted. Maximum SAM range is 10 kilometers; the missile can hit ground targets at eight kilometers. Canada operates the thing mounted on M113's chassis. The US Army bought a few of them for trails and planned to buy more but rejected the system, they where sold back to Canada as I recall. Thailand has a single shelter mount without radar but canceled further procurement due to the high cost.

Picture here

ITV: Improved TOW Vehicle. It is a twin TOW missile launcher on an M113 chassis. The launchers raises up on a hammerhead mount so that it can shoot targets while keeping the hull behind cover and with the crew under armor. earlier M113's mounted TOW launchers where single shot jobs which required the gunner to be standing out of his hatch. Not good when the Russian artillery starts raining down. The same launcher can also be found on the Marines LAV series, and the Army Stryker.



Picture here

This one shows it with the launcher lowered

FTeik wrote:

Ender wrote:The MBT is covered by the Corporate Alliance Tnak Droid. Medium and Light Tanks are the GAT Hovertank and AAT respectively.

What are those? They seem to be EU, while in the movie the spider-droids served as MBT.

The CA tanks were cut from the movie (you can see them in the animatic of the battle on the DVD or in AOTC VD, hte GAT Tank is from the Clone Wars video game.

Sea Skimmer wrote:This one shows it with the launcher lowered

Broken link. Try this.

Ender wrote:

FTeik wrote:

Ender wrote:The MBT is covered by the Corporate Alliance Tnak Droid. Medium and Light Tanks are the GAT Hovertank and AAT respectively.

What are those? They seem to be EU, while in the movie the spider-droids served as MBT.

The CA tanks were cut from the movie (you can see them in the animatic of the battle on the DVD or in AOTC VD, hte GAT Tank is from the Clone Wars video game.

Tracked?

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Tracked?

Yes, they were tracked. If you have the Episode 2 VD. Look on page 50, there's a picture of it there.

I think the Hailfire is an Anti- Tank Strike Vehicle. (Similar in role to an anti- tank helicopter.) It is very effective against armored targets, but it cannot stay on a battlefield too long (ammunition and armor problems).
I would classify the larger spider droids (Homing Spider Droids?) as MBTs (maybe produced solely for the Techno Union) and the smaller ones (Dwarf Spider Droids?) as IFVs or Infantry Support Platforms.

Is it possible that we did not see the TF tanks because they were purchased from elsewhere? I mean Geonosis seemed to produce droid weapons for sale while the TF tank seemed to be a normal tank manned by droids.

Sea Skimmer wrote:Randomly spraying machine gun fire into the sky is a thing normally done by all vehicles when under air attack. Your notice most tanks still have a 12.7mm machine gun on the roof for just that. That however does not make the vehicle anymore of a dedicated anti aircraft unit then the next vehicle spraying fire into the sky.

You're right; I remembered the gunship being shot down much earlier than it actually was. So what we see in those pictures is probably the anti-personnel blaster the literature mentions, and it doesn't have a good chance of damaging the LAATs.