Battle of the Questionable Tanks (40K vs SW)

[NecronLord]

By pulling the LAAT design out of the archives, frankly. Starfighters with multi-kiloton lasers and 4,100g acceleration are ridiculously overengineered for use on the ground.

Archives?

[Adam Reynolds]

But as cannon is concerned it does not work well in space combat either. When is the last time TIE's won an engagement in cannon by using this tactic?

TIEs did well enough over the Death Star. Even though they lost the battle, their overall performance was actually quite effective in dogfights. Their problem was that there just plain weren't enough fighters, because Vader wanted to solve the problem himself.

Over Endor, on the other hand, they did just plain loose. Though they were let down by the fact that the Empire sent in their fighters unsupported, while the Rebel Alliance closely coordinated fighter attacks with fire from capital ships.

The underlying problem Imperial fighters faced was that nearly every Rebel pilot, especially at Endor, was a combat veteran. I doubt one could say the same about Imperial ones. Kills ratios would thus skew heavily towards the Rebels, regardless of the quality of their respective fighters.

[Jedi Commisar]

Archives?

Okay those are cool what are they?

[Lord Revan]

They're some kind of gunships from the Rebels series.

[Me2005]

By pulling the LAAT design out of the archives, frankly. Starfighters with multi-kiloton lasers and 4,100g acceleration are ridiculously overengineered for use on the ground.

Archives?
*snip*

Ah, see, now that is what they should have done to reuse TIE parts and pilots as a ground vehicle. Forget even trying to fight on the ground with it, make a helicopter-equivalent.

[NecronLord]

They are Imperial Patrol Transports, They're basically miniature, lighter armed LAATs, they're seemingly less well armed. They were also used by police in the Clone Wars. Perhaps they're not rated for full-scale war.

See them here

The full scale imperial LAAT, the Imperial Dropship Transport, has also snuck back into canon in the (lol how selective that nu-EU is, such quality control) browser game Star Wars: Commander

Canon wookiepedia page



It's imported from the Legends-EU version from The Force Unleashed games:



Which certainly looks like it carries LAAT firepower.

[NecronLord]

Ding Ding!

Round two:



Replace the TIE Crawler with a NR-N99 Persuader-class droid enforcer.

[Purple]

Same answer really. That thing is huge. It has no lateral turning ability for its main armament. And the three track design yields it self extremely poorly to mobility as any rotation is going to be heavily effected by having to drag the middle track. On the plus side this thing does seem to pack enough firepower to at least make an ambush style attack possible.

[SilverDragonRed]

The Leman Russ is still going to have greater than the Persuader thanks to how low those guns are on the craft. Most of the few situations that would favor the Persuader is when it is ambushing the opponent.

[Sea Skimmer]

Same answer really. That thing is huge. It has no lateral turning ability for its main armament. And the three track design yields it self extremely poorly to mobility as any rotation is going to be heavily effected by having to drag the middle track.

If it had adjustable suspension it'd be able to turn okay. But its vertical obstruction climbing ability would be almost nothing. In an ambush I'd figure the huge exposed guns would be easily shot off or wrecked by explosions.

[Adam Reynolds]

Same answer really. That thing is huge. It has no lateral turning ability for its main armament. And the three track design yields it self extremely poorly to mobility as any rotation is going to be heavily effected by having to drag the middle track.

If it had adjustable suspension it'd be able to turn okay. But its vertical obstruction climbing ability would be almost nothing. In an ambush I'd figure the huge exposed guns would be easily shot off or wrecked by explosions.

It has been awhile since I saw it, but I believe the behind the scenes footage for AOTC showed those tanks climbing/jumping a fairly significant obstruction and before running over clone troopers.

Though with any sense of realism, obviously the design is crap.

[Purple]

Climbing and jumping is not at odds with such a design. IIRC a tracked vehicle with decent suspension can drive over obstacles something like 1/2 of its own ground clearance and up 45 degree slopes. Combine that with a speed and you can indeed get some rather large jumps.

The issue with this thing is that there is no way it's going to have adjustable suspension to any meaningful degree thanks to that large central hull that's so low to the ground. And with that being so it's going to have the turning radius of a big rig truck. Well unless those side arms can actually drop down and suspend the entire weight of the vehicle on those tiny side tracks. But I would not trust that mechanism to achieve that without catastrophic failure.

[Sea Skimmer]

Climbing and jumping is not at odds with such a design. IIRC a tracked vehicle with decent suspension can drive over obstacles something like 1/2 of its own ground clearance and up 45 degree slopes. Combine that with a speed and you can indeed get some rather large jumps.

Not when the track slopes backwards! It'd simply get the nose stuck on contact with a good curb.

60% slope climb is considered normal for modern armored vehicles, though this assumes a paved slope, the best I've seen anything tracked rated for is 70%, and a 40% side slope, but again, the tracks have to be angled forward, not backwards. Jumping would require an immense amount of power and traction, it'd have little to do with the suspension except being able to avoid breaking said suspension on landing.

[Purple]

A good point. I neglected to think about the track angle. Come to think of it it's not just the track but the hull as well. Modern tanks tend to have a sloped bottom front that slides over obstacles instead of slamming into them.

[wautd]

Same answer really. That thing is huge. It has no lateral turning ability for its main armament. And the three track design yields it self extremely poorly to mobility as any rotation is going to be heavily effected by having to drag the middle track. On the plus side this thing does seem to pack enough firepower to at least make an ambush style attack possible.

At least it's gun are a wee bit higher than that TIE abomination, meaning that it has less chance to have it's line of fire blocked by the tiniest hilly slope, street curb or rock that's on the way
Gods, such a stupid design that TIE tank. I'd see the LR simply drive over it assuming it's as blind as a bat as well.

[Purple]

At least its guns are moderately protected from incoming fire at angles where it can't see the enemy, let alone fire back. The droid tank basically has its guns completely exposed. One good HE shell is going to disarm it instantly.