Shroom Man 777 wrote:
Ugh. Are you saying that a lumbering, shitty, clumsy mech that walks one step at a time was the Empire's fastest vehicle available on Hoth at the time? Jesus Christ.
The Juggernauts were retconned in and weren't seen at the trench line. Perhaps someone forgot to pack the snow tires and chains.
Repulsorcraft are practically aircraft. Do we see the speeders at Hoth ground out? Wheels and treads can be block or stuck - AND SO CAN LEGS! What the hell did you see Luke do to that AT-AT?
Luke was operating within the theatre shield, and did not have to pass through the perimeter.
If one is outfitting an army to fight a ground war, treads and wheels are the better technology. If one is outfitting a space fleet with ground forces to quell an ill-armed rebellion, what do walkers offer at all when wheels and treads are ALREADY the better technology for ground warfare?
Perhaps it has to do with the civilian economy. Repulsors and walking robotics appear to be the most widely used technologies compared to wheels or treads. It might be more expensive to use primitive technologies if there is no extensive manufacturing and working knowledge base built up around them. Wheels and treads may be primitive, but aren't exactly simple either; they can be extremely sophisticated. A mech might be comparatively simpler and easier to produce, use and maintain to do the same work. R2s wheels certainly get the droid about where no little wheels should, but if this mobility can be translated cost-effectively on a Juggernaught scale, is unclear.
Besides, the ground war was pretty much over and the Imperial Fleet was the centrepiece of the OT. Walkers offer a visible and effective presence that tanks do not. The Empire relied on intimidation to prevent rebellion before it started; deploying machines dedicated to destruction alone would almost have been an admission of failure to ever restore peace and order.
No they didn't. The Rebels escaped because the AT-ATs were slow as shit.
Rebels escaped because Ozzel jumped out of lightspeed to soon, prompting a hastened evacuation that still suffered tremendous losses.
How the fuck can legged vehicles be more transportable and flexible for RAPID REACTION? The AT-ATs are fuck slow, wheeled or tracked vehicles can move faster. How can they be more transportable? The legs make the AT-AT ridiculously tall, forcing it to kneel down when in storage. Tracks and wheels DON'T make vehicles ridiculously tall, so tracked and wheeled vehicles DON'T have to kneel down inconveniently like a bloody AT-AT.
AT-ATs are some 50m tall, the Juggernaught 30m. Its a safe bet the Juggernaught carries heck of a lot more mass for less of a height effect. The mass of a treaded vehicle could be even greater, to withstand the rigors of moving its own weight around. I don't know that much about tanks, but they turn by braking or decelerating one tread as the other rotates to drag the body in the direction of the turn. Wheeled vehicles can't do that well, so have a larger turning radius (well, ours can't'; SW vehicles could get around that, with stronger materials and greater power avalable).
If an AT-AT is simply far more nimble for the size, and could probably turn on the spot as easily as any other large quadruped without tearing up the terrain or itself the way a larger treaded tank would. There is no doubt that a fleet of far smaller vehicles would be more efficient, and the Imperial ground forces have them, should Star Destroyer negotiation tactics fail.
What the fuck are you talking about? A tank with tracks will spread its weight out on soft terrain more effectively than a vehicle with legs - this applies in all weight classes. This is why the largest modern all-terrain ground warfare vehicles are tanks with treads/tracks, because even wheels are not as effective in soft terrain.
After a certain point, mass just gets in its own way. A 50m tall tank would be incredibly inefficient at getting around, especially on soft terrain. Sure, one can be built to be a little faster and tougher than an AT-AT - but what exactly would be the point of that, given that there is no corresponding opposition worth the expense?
Jesus Christ. Transporting and landing large and heavy war machines? A tank would just roll right off the transport craft immediately upon lowering the landing ramp. Whereas, as you already stated, an AT-AT is NOT transportable because when it's being transported it has to KNEEL ITS ASS DOWN! It has to do that when it disembarks or carries soldiers, it has to do that when it is in transport! A tank does not have to fucking kneel down, ever.
With working robotics, the AT-AT just gets up and goes. If it slows down enough, troops can be dropped on the go, like from a low-flying helicopter, whereas a tank has to stop to debark troops. Luke climbed up to an AT-AT with ease; presumably troops can debark just as easily as long as they are mindful of the feet.
As for obstacles, tanks were DESIGNED to overcome trenches that LEGGED INFANTRY were fucked with - that legged cavalry were fucked with.
Tanks are designed to approach defenses such as trenches and shoot the defenders, only crossing them if possible to do so without getting stuck. Living legged infantry and calvary died trying to do that because they tended to get shot or blown up well before getting there, lacking the armour of the tank. Overcoming obstacles is secondary to the tank's primary function of delivering fire while impervious to opposing weaponry. If legged units impervious to damage could do the job and were freely available, they would be used.
"ROBOTICS LOL" somehow disappears the innate difficulty of working with legged vehicles?
It does in Star Wars. We only know mechs as cartoons or incredibly awkward robots. SW robotics is advanced to the point where it is as cheap and ubiquitous as tread on earth, while repulsors sub for wheels. Does it make sense? Honestly, not really, but then a lot of things that don't make sense on the surface have their own rationale when looked at more closely, even if one still doesn't agree with the results.
Could it just be that the Imperials did their modification in space, prior to landing? I mean, the Imperials did have bloody Snowtroopers on hand so they already were optimizing for winter war. Or that the Rebels were just shitty and under-supplied? Or both? And NOT some magic attributes that you ascribe to legged vehicles?
Certainly. Its also possible that the armour used on AT-AT legs also inherently provides protection from the elements and for whatever reason not possible to be used on wheels or treads. Keeping spare stormtrooper kit for different conditions is probably standard for Star Destroyers.
WHAT mobility bonus? Treads and tracks are better over rough, soft and uneven terrain - and they're FASTER than stupid one-step-at-a-time legs. Height bonus? There's a reason why tanks, modern ones, are designed to have the smallest/shortest vertical profile - because height advantage basically translates to "I'M A GIANT VISIBLE TARGET" advantage, which is a DIS-advantage.
The walker says 'THE EMPIRE IS HERE' with the subtext 'watcha going to do, barve?'. Properly supported as part of a well-planned action, AT-ATs apparently did quite well.
No it wouldn't. If the terrain was firm enough to support walker feet, it would've supported Juggernaut wheels or tracks. And the Rebel speeders would NOT have been able to kill Juggernauts with fucking rope.
Also, Juggernaut missiles would've allowed it to engage in beyond visual range.
Riding a donkey would've gotten soldiers faster and fresher than running. But that doesn't mean a donkey is a better solution to a wheeled/track vehicle. The AT-AT is a donkey. A giant donkey. Which is why it sucks giant donkey balls.
Yet the Jugggernaughts didn't make it to the trench line and blast the generator. Missiles take up storage space and once used up can't be quickly replaced. I'm not sure what the ceiling was for the theatre shield, but in theory cruise missiles would have be better anyway. In any case the same volume of space devoted to blaster ammo usually translates into more shots, which can be more useful than limited ability to engage over the horizon.
The OTHER lucky shot involved Luke going UNDER the undefended belly of the stupid AT-AT and climbing up and grenading the thing in the gut - something that would not have happened to a tank.
Its a problem of size and speed. A Juggernauugt would either be moving to fast to catch, or, there would be a dramatic action scene of Luke jumping on the tank's back or side, perhaps deflecting blaster fire with his sabre, while cutting a hole in a hatch to toss in the grenade. Had the walkers not been slowed by the icy terrain, Luke would have had a far more difficult time as he barely had any Force training.
So an AT-AT sucks at beating incoming enemies right IN FRONT of it! Oh man!
Flying enemies, at least. Very few snowspeeders seemed to survive the battle, however.
The kind of warfare where the enemy can't reliably fight back because they're shit, thus allowing the stupidest and most worthless vehicles to be usable in battle - and where the stupid vehicles still get casualties, despite the weakness of the enemy.
Assymetrical warfare done well can mean casualties on the superior forces. Walkers were not felled by any conventional attacks, but two wildly unconventional ones and a kamikaze.
And what if the enemy was NOT as weak as the Rebels? For all your talk of mobility, flexibility and bullshit - it turns out that the AT-AT is highly specialized for WEAK DEFENSELESS BULLSHIT enemies who CAN'T FIGHT BACK! Man! Oh man! Talk about highly specialized shit.
A war weapon that can't even be used in a proper war, and that relies on the fact that the enemy can't fight properly, is a shit weapon.
What enemy not as weak as the rebels? The Rebels couldn't even field tank-killers let alone present air or space parity at their own HQ but rival factions within the Empire to Palpatine chose collaboration over open rebellion. Weapons are 'right tool for the job' items. Walkers can be used in a 'proper war' as such were in the Prequel Trilogy - in support of wheels and treads suited to the task of fighting bonna-fide main battle vehicles. In the absence of such a war, but the potential for isolated rebellions across the galaxy, a big war army is second to a galaxy spanning navy and attendant occupation forces.
Then Operation Hoth Freedom was a complete botch up, by Imperial standards. Their recon element was discovered, thus allowing the Rebels to begin escape preparations. The Imps came out at lightspeed too soon, which was more shit. And THEN the only vehicle they had for the ground assault were shitty vehicles that could barely do the job too! Man.
The official story was that Hoth was a resounding success with the resources on hand meeting need on demand.
With enough credits, the Empire could probably build a treaded battle tank that could shoot spiderwebs and swing building from building in Coruscant like a giant M1 Abrams mated with Spiderman.
Eeek! Don't be posting stuff like that when there is another Star Wars kiddie show in the works. Something might come of it. Poor treadwell droids are just waiting for their moment in the sun.
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