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Remember the high-res picture I posted of the big Rebel automatic weapon a little while ago? Here's another new picture of a Rebel infantry weapon. Not as high-res, but still enough to determine a few things. It has a very large aperture; much larger than normal Imperial weapons. Any ideas as to what it is?

Hmm. With an aperture that wide, it could be a grenade launcher of some type. I take it that that's at Hoth. Is it seen firing?

A Mortar maybe?

It's no mortar, it fires level.


I would suggest some sort of energy weapon analog to an RPG. Very slow firing rate, poor ammo capacity, but fires a big nasty bolt. Would also explain the spring things on the tripod we saw on the last picture.

Thermal Det launcher for sure. a projectile launcher of *some* kind, anyway. Unless my eyes decieve me, Take a look at the sight on the front, not unlike the sight for an M-203 grenade launcher or a Mk-19 40mm AGMG (automatic grenade machine gun, my personal favorite weapon EVER) Definately whatever it fires, it is a lobbed projectile of some kind. High arc and all.

It bares a superficial resemblance to the rocketlauncher weapons Kyle Katarn as used in the Jedi Knight games

..it's a tube with some doohickeys

Howedar wrote:It's no mortar, it fires level.


I would suggest some sort of energy weapon analog to an RPG. Very slow firing rate, poor ammo capacity, but fires a big nasty bolt. Would also explain the spring things on the tripod we saw on the last picture.

This isn't the same weapon as in Wong's previous picture.

It strongly resebles a grenade laucher. I don't know the spcification nuber of the hand held grenade laucher used in the U.S. Army, but it is strikingly similar looking.

Kyle Katan's grenade laucher was a "rail detonator" (not the mortar gun, that thing looked totally different). It's projectiles were more than simple grenades. They would either detonate whehn hitting, or could programmed to stick at thier target before exploding.

Since we don't know what it looks like in its firing configuration, it's also possible that something attaches at that aperture. This might be only one part of a larger weapon.

But as it is there, it looks like a mortar to me. Since many of the prop weapons were actually constructed out of real-life weapons or weapon replicas, perhaps if somebody can identify the underlying piece here we'd have more insight into how it operates in-universe.

It looks like it has a tripod. If it is a mortar, it would only be able to elevate to maybe 50 degrees. More likely a grenade launcher sorta thing.

My vote would be for a blaster cannon of some sort. There's no evidence of it using solid ammo from ints construction..

I would say it is either a grenade laucher like the M-79 or a miniature rocket launcher.

Darwin wrote:My vote would be for a blaster cannon of some sort. There's no evidence of it using solid ammo from ints construction..

With a barrel of that size, it would need a larger power supply then it can hold imo.
I would also take the guess of it being a mini-rocket/grenade launcher.~Jason

It doesn't seem to have a magazine sufficiently large to hold more than a couple of grenades that size at the MOST. I think it's an anti-armor blaster weapon, of some sort, or perhaps a grenade-launcher analogue that is designed to fire energy blasts.

In ROTJ during the barge scene, one of Jabba's guards uses a weapon that looks like it has about that size aperture. It's the blaster that hooked onto the railing.

Master of Ossus wrote:It doesn't seem to have a magazine sufficiently large to hold more than a couple of grenades that size at the MOST. I think it's an anti-armor blaster weapon, of some sort, or perhaps a grenade-launcher analogue that is designed to fire energy blasts.

*cough*

The weapon in use (foreground trooper; other men in the background are using rifles).



Still not entirely clear what it is, although it seems pretty clear that it would be really unpleasant to take a hit from the thing.

Another shot of the weapon in use (this time during a futile defense action inside Echo Base that was filmed but never shown onscreen). This was probably the video accompanying the "Imperial troops have entered the base! Imperial troops have entered the- *bzzzzzt*" scene.

Is that guy firing a weapon mounted on a tripod from the shoulder? Whisky Tango Foxtrot...



As a side note, I'm glad they didn't show this part. I found the movie to be just fine hearing that troops had entered but not seeing it. Didn't know where they were and stuff, I found it marginally suspenseful (inasmuch as we already knew everyone would get out fine).

Looks like he just got blowed up. I think it is a crew served weapon (3 people would be perfect: ammo guy, weapon firer, cover fire guy.)

Judging by the double sight, bore size, and how it is being used I think it might be some kind of long range heavy blaster bazooka. Of course that doesn't explain why they would bring it to stop he Snowtroopers unless it has some kind of "flak burst" effect like a turbolaser. That's pretty impressive for a truck axel

I'm not sure that it has a tripod, unlike the other gun from the other thread.

Anyway, from the scene I wonder if they might have detected the Imperials burning through one of the blast doors and decided to give them a little surprise by taking a heavy bazooka and firing at the door just as they were breaking through. That would crisp a lot of the snowtroopers on the other side, while creating a big explosion in the tunnel.

Actually, one other possibility comes to mind. Perhaps it's an ion cannon. The Jawa ionization blasters had really big apertures too.

I think it's a pipe attached to some kind of box.

Seriously, though, I'm going to agree that it might be some kind ion cannon (maybe a DEMP gun?) or a heavy blaster.

Weren't there quite a few German and Allied machine guns in WWII that had very wide apperatures? What reason was that for, specifically, because I was reminded of them by this.