Bolo MK. xxxiii at the Battle of Hoth

[paladin]

The Empire lands a single mark 33 Bolo on Hoth to attack Rebel base. What would happen next?

[Howedar]

Doesn't affect the outcome of the battle in the least. Bolos lack the firepower necessary to destroy the Rebel transports, and maybe the fighters.

Actually, if they can move much faster than the AT-ATs, they may be able to destroy the Rebel equipment before they can escape. I don't think they could though.

[Sea Skimmer]

I don’t think there would be a significantly different outcome.

[consequences]

Depending on its missile loadout, it could probably cause horrific casualties to the defenders in short order. A FAE or a low yield airburst nuke would have killed just about every rebel on the defensive line, as would conventional artillery with a little more time. They had ZERO overhead cover available. This would have let it zip in and squat on the transport field, killing anyone who tried to evac, after taking out the shield generator and Ion cannon.

[Shinova]

BOLOs are supposed to have GT firepower, are they?

[Typhonis 1]

there main gun is a hellbore fires a bolt of pure anti protons at the target.It also has anti personel weapons including infinite repeaters that fire 20mm du slugs

[Uraniun235]

there main gun is a hellbore fires a bolt of pure anti protons at the target.

Uh, no.

Where did you hear such blatant disinformation?

Shinova: Uh, supposedly there's a line about the Mk. 34 Hellrails which says they only shoot once a minute... and they have something like 65/75 megaton/second firepower, which works out to a few gigatons per bolt. I never saw the "once a minute" quote myself, so I can't say if that's true.

Besides, that's the Mark 34, which is a) designed for anti-capship work, and b) designed in such a manner that it can't fire it's Hellrails horizontally. This thread is about the Mk. 33.

The 33 has three 200cm Hellbores (which are each 5 or 7 MT a second, IIRC), 4 240cm howitzers (which fire very rapidly), with a secondary armament of 14 20cm Hellbores, 10 40cm BL mortars, and a heavy VLS missile system which has an ungodly number of missiles. It also has flechette launchers, the specs of which I can't quite remember and don't feel like looking up.

The transports, being from SW, probably could easily take a 33 going at it's shields. But I doubt you could say the same for unshielded ships and fighters. Besides, the Bolo can keep up a heavy enough barrage of nuclear fire to make sure that people going outside *near* the transports or fighters will die... until it gets there, that is, when the multitude of AP devices a Bolo carries will also come to bear.

The most effective use of the Bolo would be to rush in, secure the area, prevent people from getting to the transports and fighters (and maybe destroying/damaging them, if it can get to them before their shields go up) and then let Imperial troops go in to secure the base.

[SylasGaunt]

Well I didn't see anything in the defenses that would be able to hold off a Mk. 33, particularly since it's so much faster than the AT-ATs.

Sprint Speed: 500 kilometers/hour

200 cm. Hellbore: 5 or 6 megatons/sec depending on variant

20 cm. Hellbores: 400 kiloton/sec

And hellbores fire plasma bolts, I dunno where that anti-proton think comes from (though they do use anti-matter in a HEAT style warhead)

Heavy VLS: A Bolo IIRC roughly 1/3 the mass of a Mk. 33 and with a standard VLS system (the 'heavy' designation refers to number of launch cells or reloads) was able to carry ~1000 missiles

240 cm. Howitzers: RoF of 2 rounds/sec

40 cm. Mortars: A bolo can land a shell within 10 meters of it's target even at extended range and top speed.

AP weapons: 12 25 megajoule lasers, and an unknown number of flechette dischargers which shotgun out 500 depleted uranium slivers at 3 kilometers/sec.

[Typhonis 1]

My bad it was from a Bolo story and the Hellbore fires bolts of Ions at the target

[Omega-13]

Not sure what sort of missle systems the 33 has, but if it has earth penetrator warheads, it could cause caverns to collapse for miles, the rebels would never get off the planet

[The Nomad]

AP weapons: 12 25 megajoule lasers

You mean that the lasers are powered by M/AM annihilation ?
And of course you mean 25 megawatt lasers, don't you ?

[SylasGaunt]

AP weapons: 12 25 megajoule lasers

You mean that the lasers are powered by M/AM annihilation ?
And of course you mean 25 megawatt lasers, don't you ?

Eh? Bolo's don't use anti-matter for anything except a specific kind of missile warhead.

And yes. It's listed as 25 megajoule but later down a tenth-second pulse is said to deliver 2.5 million watts to the target so it works out to 25 megawatt.

[Sea Skimmer]

The Bolo can’t use most of its weapons if there as powerful as some here are claiming. The goal is to capture Skywalker among others, this is the EMPIRE landing the Bolo, tossing around multimegaton weaponry or collapsing the base is not an option.

[Uraniun235]

The Bolo can’t use most of its weapons if there as powerful as some here are claiming. The goal is to capture Skywalker among others, this is the EMPIRE landing the Bolo, tossing around multimegaton weaponry or collapsing the base is not an option.

On the contrary, the Hellbores are extremely focused weaponry (useful for pegging landspeeders out of the air, as well as smashing unshielded fighters/transports), and kiloton nukes airbursted shouldn't collapse the base.

Capturing Skywalker was a foolish goal anyway.

[consequences]

There was no way that the Imperials who were originally attacking could have guaranteed Skywalker's survival anyway. A single half second delay from his flight controls could have had him splattered across the landscape, as could a fraction of a degree change in the direction of the bolt that hit his airspeeder.
"I will never issue the order 'He must be Taken Alive', instead, I shall say 'Try to take him alive if its reasonably practical'-paraphrase from the Evil Overlord list