Iowa vs AT-AT

[Bastard]

SCENARIO: A single Iowa WWII battleship is patrolling 10 miles just off a coast somewhere in Europe. Its moving at a cruising speed of 15 knots. On the coast, moving towards the shore line in search of American landing boats, 8 AT-AT's patrol. Both see each other at the exact same time, and begin evasive manouvers and return fire on one another.

What happens?

[HRogge]

WOW, a direct COPY of a spacebattles thread...

[Smiling Bandit]

I suppose it would be a draw... who fires first? One blast from the ATAT wil hole and do enormous damage, if not outright destroy the IOWA. One good sized shell from the battleship hitting the ATAT dead on would knock it over, I expect. The ATAT wins for sheer accuracy, though.

[Tsyroc]

Does the Iowa get to Harpoon them?

Or, better yet, nuke their ass with a Tomahawk.

Probably too close for the Tomahawk and the Harpoon isn't going to do jack against something that can take the kind of hits AT ATs have been shown taking.

Guess its up to the guys with the guns. Hope they're feeling lucky

[TrailerParkJawa]

Would the shells from a 16" gun have enough kinetic energy to knock and AT-AT over ? I think thats a good question.

If there is terrain like hills in between the AT-AT's and the IOWA the battleship would have time to use its UAV's to direct fire before the AT-AT's can respond. Of coure you said they see each other at the same time, so that would not work unless the IOWA can get out of sight.

I think 8 AT-AT's firing at once would be able to seriously damage if not outright destroy the IOWA. There is just to much seperation between technologies.

[Omega-13]

I think this is my thread at spacebattles

[Akm72]

The Iowa is much slower to the draw in this duel. The AT-AT rotates the head, a short pause to line up the sights while the commander says something along the lines of; "Target the battleship, maximum fire power", then the Iowa is toast.
It will just take too long for the Iowa to spot the walkers, rotate the turrets onto the right bearing, fire the first ranging shot at the walkers, then the correction shot (if necessary), and finally fire a full salvo. As there are EIGHT walkers, even if the Iowa manages to knock over one, the remaining 7 will take out the Iowa within a couple of seconds.

[Manji]

The Iowa can win this.

The battle starts at 10 miles. That is approximately 16 km. The range of an AT-AT's heavy guns is 17 km. Therefore the AT-ATs in this scenario are firing at a target which is at the fringe of their range. However, they are well within range of the Iowa's main (16 inch) guns. (Whose range is given as 41,622 yards when fired with the normal 660 pound propelling charge. This is about 23.5 miles (38 km) - over twice the range of an AT-AT.) The muzzel velocity is 2,690 feet per second.

The 16 inch guns fire two types of projectile:

A 1,900 pound (0.9 metric ton) high-cap shore bombardment shell.

A 2,700 pound (1.2 ton) armor-piercing shell.

The AP round can penetrate up to 32 feet of reinforced concrete.

At maximum range, it can penetrate 14.5 inches (36.8 cm) of horizontal armor. An impact at this maximum range will be with an angle of fall of 53.25 degrees and a striking velocity of 1,686 feet per second.

At point blank range, impacting with a velocity of 2,500 feet per second, it can penetrate 32.62 inches (83 cm) of vertical armor.

There are nine 16 inch guns in all, mounted in three triple turrets (3 guns per turret). The guns within a turret can be elavated independantly. The refire rate is two rounds per minute per gun, giving a total refire rate of 18 rounds per minute over all nine guns, equalling one round every 3.3 seconds. (Realistically, a continuous fire rate like this is unlikely, since it only applies if each gun is being fired singly one after the other at 3.3 second intervals. More likely are combinations, such as full broadsides, or turret broadsides (all guns in a turret firing simultaneously).

Oh yeah, it would take more than a few hits from the AT-ATs to put the Iowa out of action. The Yamato and Musashi (ships which the Iowa-class were designed to counter) absorbed ungodly amounts of punishment before going down. In the Yamato's case, she absorbed 18 torpedoes and 40 bombs before succumbing. The ship kept fighting, and also kept underway, kept ploughing forward, while taking torpedo after torpedo and bomb after bomb after bomb.

The Iowa is fully capable of winning this if the captain and crew are halfway competent.

[NecronLord]

Oh yeah, it would take more than a few hits from the AT-ATs to put the Iowa out of action.

NO It would take one, the AT-AT shot a sheilded sheild generator with armour many times more dense than anything the US has, other than possibly georg w bush, It's a fantasy to think that a technology over 25,000 years more advanced than us can't sink a pitifil american battleship

she absorbed 18 torpedoes and 40 bombs

and you think that 8 AT-AT's cant do that much damage to a primative battleship, get real

[Manji]

You are an idiot - WATCH THE FUCKING MOVIE.

The AT-AT guns sent up little puffs of steam from the snow.

The AT-AT guns caused lightly-constructed snowspeeders to crash, sometimes fragmenting, sometimes burning, but not always (Luke's). If that had been a battleship shell from the Iowa, the snowspeeder would have been turned into a fine mist.

The firepower of an AT-AT's guns is PATHETIC.

[Master of Ossus]

The AT-AT's would win easily. The Iowa's weapons don't have thermonuclear-yield explosives. It would be unable to harm the AT-AT's, and certainly not en masse.

[NecronLord]

You are an idiot - WATCH THE FUCKING MOVIE.

The AT-AT guns sent up little puffs of steam from the snow.

The AT-AT guns caused lightly-constructed snowspeeders to crash, sometimes fragmenting, sometimes burning, but not always (Luke's). If that had been a battleship shell from the Iowa, the snowspeeder would have been turned into a fine mist.

The firepower of an AT-AT's guns is PATHETIC.

Power settings, Power settings power settings power settings
When Veers wanted to destroy something more formidably armoured he said;
"Target, Maximum Firepower"
Indicating that the guns had not been on Maxmim firepower, and were possibly on minimum firepower. Prehaps the Imperials were not wasing power on vaporising large chunks of ground when they didn't need to? Or prehaps they did not see the need to use full power of piffling snowspeeders?
I may remind you that when veers blows up the power generator there is a large explosion and the power generator is blown to a fine mist, minus possibly a few small fragments.

[NecronLord]

Correction
full power on piffling snowspeeders

also, a battleship shell from the iowa probably wouldn't even HIT a snowspeeder. And how exactly do you know about the construction meathods of the rebels? For all you know the snowspeeders are made of materials many thousands of times stronger than steel.

[Manji]

AT-ATs require thermonuclear weapons to take out?

Which part of your ass did you pull this out of?

Imperial walkers are so fucking unstable that just about anything makes them explode violently - including falling over.

In one of the books, a snowspeeder rammed an AT-AT and destroyed it. Given the speeds we saw in ESB for snowspeeders (a few hundred mph at best) and their probable weight (less than a ton), it's obvious that a 1.2 ton projectile moving at mach 2.2 would be far more destructive than the impact of a snowspeeder.

One direct hit from a 16 inch Iowa gun would tear an AT-AT to pieces.

[Manji]

Correction
full power on piffling snowspeeders

also, a battleship shell from the iowa probably wouldn't even HIT a snowspeeder. And how exactly do you know about the construction meathods of the rebels? For all you know the snowspeeders are made of materials many thousands of times stronger than steel.

When the AT-AT stepped on Lukes snowspeeder, the observed effect for the speeder was similar to what happens to a coke can when a person steps on it.

*Splat*

If the speeder was constructed of "materials many thousands of times stronger than steel" that would not have happened.

[NecronLord]

AT-ATs require thermonuclear weapons to take out?

Which part of your ass did you pull this out of?

Imperial walkers are so fucking unstable that just about anything makes them explode violently - including falling over.

In one of the books, a snowspeeder rammed an AT-AT and destroyed it. Given the speeds we saw in ESB for snowspeeders (a few hundred mph at best) and their probable weight (less than a ton), it's obvious that a 1.2 ton projectile moving at mach 2.2 would be far more destructive than the impact of a snowspeeder.

One direct hit from a 16 inch Iowa gun would tear an AT-AT to pieces.

Combat speed may be a few hundred at best. If they are ramming they would undoubtably not be going slow enough to aim, and in theory they could be going MANY times faster. And please tell me how you work out what a speeder weighs? For all you know they weigh Fifty tons. They are repulsor vehicles and can have an extremely large mass.


They are so fucking unstable? thats odd, they seem to push through a thick jungle in Dark force rising without falling over or exploding.

While the Iowa is firing its rangins shots and trying to taget the AT-ATs they are going to demonstrate the targeting ability they demonstrate in the films (when they hit with one shot a moving object a few meterslong) and blow it out of the water.

[NecronLord]

Correction
full power on piffling snowspeeders

also, a battleship shell from the iowa probably wouldn't even HIT a snowspeeder. And how exactly do you know about the construction meathods of the rebels? For all you know the snowspeeders are made of materials many thousands of times stronger than steel.

When the AT-AT stepped on Lukes snowspeeder, the observed effect for the speeder was similar to what happens to a coke can when a person steps on it.

*Splat*

If the speeder was constructed of "materials many thousands of times stronger than steel" that would not have happened.

Not if the AT-AT was also made of similar materials then the relative difference would be the same. And the snowspeeder would still go splat.
The AT-AT is almost certainly VERY VERY heavy. The Snowspeeder is almost certainly not Designed to be stepped on. An F-16 or similar craft would also go splat, Except it wouldn't survive the crash as well.

[Renewed_Valour1]

While the Iowa is firing its rangins shots and trying to taget the AT-ATs they are going to demonstrate the targeting ability they demonstrate in the films (when they hit with one shot a moving object a few meterslong) and blow it out of the water.

You do realize that in the time that it took the AT-ATs to breach the Rebel Defenses an Iowa would have all ready reduced all the defenses to a series of very large craters in her first few salvoes. Rather then the AT-ATs which melted some smoke.

[consequences]

yes, but the imperials weren't using full firepower because they wanted what, oh yeah, prisoners!

[Jack Lain]

There are 8 AT AT and one IOWA.
IOWA loses. Even if it takes out one AT AT, they still lose. 7 full power hits? Come on, there is no way a sea going vessel is going to stay afloat. One shot below the water line or even to the deck and its over.
This whole scenario is an Imp win.

This does not even consider that the original poster said WWII, so perhaps in this event, the ship does not even have nukes?
It won't happen. Imps win again. The US Navy is on the bottom.

-Jack.

[Master of Ossus]

If we assume that proton torpedoes have thermonuclear yields then we can assume that they require thermonuclear blasts to knock down. In Isard's Revenge, an X-Wing pilot comments that they could have taken out four AT-AT's with four proton torpedoes (one per walker). If we believe that AT-AT's cannot withstand much smaller weapons, then this is inconsistent. That statement implied that one thermonuclear blast could destroy an AT-AT, but that it could not destroy other walkers in relatively close proximity. That is where I got my figure about what yields are required to destroy a walker.

[NecronLord]

While the Iowa is firing its rangins shots and trying to taget the AT-ATs they are going to demonstrate the targeting ability they demonstrate in the films (when they hit with one shot a moving object a few meterslong) and blow it out of the water.

You do realize that in the time that it took the AT-ATs to breach the Rebel Defenses an Iowa would have all ready reduced all the defenses to a series of very large craters in her first few salvoes. Rather then the AT-ATs which melted some smoke.

No Hoth is an Ice planet, therefore an Iowa is useless. Again how do you know that, If it weren't protecting from orbital bombardment that energy feild would easily stop anything the Iowa could throw at it. Also please explain how you melt smoke. See when the AT-AT's fire at the sheild generator for a more realistic demonstration of their firepower.

[Graeme Dice]

If the speeder was constructed of "materials many thousands of times stronger than steel" that would not have happened.

AT-AT's weigh somewhere near 2,000 tons. Just how strong do you think SW materials are?

[Howedar]

Iowa can win this if the commander is smart.

[Mr. B]

When the AT-AT stepped on Lukes snowspeeder, the observed effect for the speeder was similar to what happens to a coke can when a person steps on it.

*Splat*

If the speeder was constructed of "materials many thousands of times stronger than steel" that would not have happened.

And if it was it proves the power of the AT-AT.