Most effective ground vehicle?

[Ritterin Sophia]

The speeders the Alliance sent out- what were they, what were they for? They're fast, agile, moderately tough (one manages to take a hit well enough to limp to a survivable landing rather than blow up), and they have what look like respectably big guns. They sound like tank hunters to me.

It's a modified cargo hauler, the T-47 uses the tow cable to latch on to containers with built-in repulsorlift systems. In other words a technical.

[Simon_Jester]

No actually mecha legs are substantially more susceptible to malfunction than treads or a repulsorlift system, since the legs have much more complex moving parts causing friction. And that height 'advantage' is a huge detriment when the opposing faction can field actual starfighters rather than jury rigged commercial speeders, as evidenced in numerous EU sources where X-Wing easily take them down.

Point taken. The AT-ATs didn't have to travel very far, so perhaps they were meant for such missions; short range against poorly armed opponents.

The presence of dedicated AT-AT hauler shuttles (which must be enormously expensive and take up a lot of room) suggests that they're meant to be air-mobile, so short range is likely.

As for "poorly armed," it seems like nothing but starfighter-grade weapons can really take them down by normal means. If they're intended as long range artillery/sniper platforms with a decent escort (including some worthwhile AA weapons), then they might make a fairly good showing against a well armed opponent.

The speeders the Alliance sent out- what were they, what were they for? They're fast, agile, moderately tough (one manages to take a hit well enough to limp to a survivable landing rather than blow up), and they have what look like respectably big guns. They sound like tank hunters to me.

It's a modified cargo hauler, the T-47 uses the tow cable to latch on to containers with built-in repulsorlift systems. In other words a technical.

Yes, but what did they intend them to do? They started out as cargo haulers, yes, but so did the UH-1 Iroquois. That didn't stop them from being converted into fairly effective gunships.

Looking at what a militarized snowspeeder can do (take hits from AT-AT secondary weapons without being disintegrated, for instance), I think ECR's characterization of them as tank hunters is reasonable. They may not have been meant as tank hunters when they came out of the factory, but they certainly were by the time the Rebel mechanics were finished with them.

[nightmare]

While sw.com still had the "ask the Jedi council" feature, later renamed "questions and answers", the AT-AT neck shot was one of the questions answered. It's probably still somewhere on sw.com, but don't see how you could navigate to it anymore. I don't recall the specifics of it anymore, but it amounted to the AT-AT in question already being damaged and blowing up from its own powerplant, not so much that the neck blast was a kill shot.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

"That armor is too strong for blasters. Rouge group, use your HARPOONS and tow cables and go for the legs. That may be our only chance of stopping them."
So the shields can stop blaster fire, but not fucking harpoons? And don't give me particle/ray shields unless you are going to suggest that no one anticipated someone might shoot a missile or rocket at them.

Oh yeah and apparently Luke is immune to these shields as well.

While we do see that shields need to be lowered to allow fighters through hangars, we do have examples of craft landing on shielded ships or otherwise going through particle shielding (the Millenium Falcon sitting on the ISD and the X-Wings attacking the Death Star in ANH). Particle shielding doesn't seem to be a "block everything" defense. However, I don't know how you'd rationalise Luke going through the shielding. Leaving the belly unshielded is stupid, since it appears to be unarmoured and is exposed due to the vehicle's height. The only way I could think is that the shielding is a different kind that isn't harmful to people, which seems rather unsatisfactory as an explanation unless we go with the AT-ATs as transports idea, which I hate.

How do you interpret the blaster bolts flaring out as they near the AT-ATs, though?

[Connor MacLeod]

I take exception to this crap as well. If the X-Wings had SOOOO much more powerful weapons than the air speeders, then why the fuck didn't they just have them float there and fire at the walkers. Why even bother with the speeders? If X-Wings could have just obliterated the walkers with ease as the EU proclaims, then why didn't they just take two or three and make some strafing runs on giant metal dinosaurs that Luke can run and keep up with? Oh that's right, because the EU is bullshit.

I can think of alot of reasons why the X-wings are more powerful than the snowspeeders. Xwings are generally more massive, which means they not only have more potential for power generation (demonstrated by acceleration figures for the ion engines - hell most fighters already are using only a tiny fraction of their powerplant for weaponry as it is) Mass also has the obvious benefits with regards to things like cooling systems (they're big enough to stick in more cooling systems. Its already a semi-established fact that fighter scale cooling units arent as good as the ones on capital ships, so I dont see why a speeder's should be as good/better than a starfighter.) and recoil (a barrage of 1 kt bolt is going to pack a hell of alot of momentum, and the engines and sheer mass of the X-wing favor it in this regard.)

It could also simply be a mere "cost/benefit" analysis. Those snowspeeders obviously are simpler vehicles to maintain and operate than the X-wings are. I see no reason to assume a tradeoff in effectiveness for ease of maintenance would be a *bad* thing - it's not as if they were emphasizing maximum defenses (else they could have gone for something like tanks and LAAT-style gunships don't you think?) especially considering the situation I recall on the Ice Base (just established, and also the victim of its latest supply convoy being destroyed in the Radio Drama so, probably running on shortages as well.)

And while it bugs me they didn't use the X-wings to assault the walkers, its not totally implausible for them to have done so. They're in the midst of an evacuation and they have to prepare both escape craft and the fighter escorts for the transports. With finite crews and so many tasks its unlikely they can simply do everything at once, and they have to choose between having X-wings available.

Edit: and shields on AT-ATs.. the big case of that being mentioned is the physicla effects (Same as the case for TIEs actually being shielded in the movies - the SFX flashes and such suggest it). Of course this also dpeends on what "kind" of shields they argue - there are lots of kinds of shields and saying its shielded against one kind of attack (blasters) doesn't mean its shielded against other kinds. Shields can also vary in volume and geometry to a tremendous degree - some will look "bubble like" or project some distance away without neccesarily harming a person, while others can be surface effect or nearly skintight - it's not an either/or situation (and there are evidently ways to make shielding safe - people under theater and planetary shields aren't harmed or affected by ray OR particle shielding...)

[General Brock]

How do you interpret the blaster bolts flaring out as they near the AT-ATs, though?

Most hits just seem to disappear.

Perhaps there is an 'invisible' component as has been suggested and the flare-ups are just part of the bolt being partially deflected back on itself. There was also speculation that energy shields can be integral to the material of the armour surface itself. Hybrid armour might cause flares if it had already dissipated a few hits and wasn't as efficient anymore.

[Shroom Man 777]

You know I wonder how well the attack on Hoth could've gone if instead of using slow plodding mechas that have to walk with their feet (and walk carefully on ice/snow/ground since their feet exert higher pressure on the ground), they actually used tracked/wheeled vehicles like the Juggernaut instead. When you're raiding the enemy and preventing him from escaping, turns out you'd need not only decisive firepower but also something they call "speed" as well or else if you take your sweet ass time then the enemy's going to be able to fuel his starfighters, power up his ion cannon, and mount a daring escape after your legged mechas trip and fall on their own shears the enemy's friggin' harpoons? Man, mechas.

[General Brock]

Tracked and wheeled vehicles don't do great in snow and sometimes worse on ice, and can be stopped by simple pit traps and trench barriers. Of course that's applying Earth 21st century standards.

The Walker has the advantage of being able to step over things and shoot overtop things; its even tall enough that a hole large enough to catch a tank could be taken in stride rather than trip.

It also would have made for a too-conventional looking battle scene.

[Shroom Man 777]

Tracked and wheeled vehicles don't do great in snow and sometimes worse on ice, and can be stopped by simple pit traps and trench barriers. Of course that's applying Earth 21st century standards.

Um, no? Because a gundamATAT's feet actually exert more pressure on the ground, whereas a tracked tank spreads its weight and distributes it over its track, then the AT-AT's foots are going to be doing WORSE on snow? This is why tanks have awesome off-road capabilities precisely because of their tracks? And tanks were actually invented to overcome the trenches used in World War 1, which had lots of trenches being used in the kind of warfare they called... trench warfare?

The Walker has the advantage of being able to step over things and shoot overtop things; its even tall enough that a hole large enough to catch a tank could be taken in stride rather than trip.

The walker has the advantage of having a bigass profile that allows the enemies to see it. Sure Simon Jester says that it can "snipe" enemies with its tall profile, but then if the AT-AT is supposed to snipe enemies by using its tall profile, why is its weapons mounted ON THE BOTTOM OF ITS HEAD instead of high on its back on an elevated periscoping turret?


The enemy can see the AT-AT's hunchback over the horizon, before the AT-AT's "sniper artillery layzors" can see the enemy. Because the "sniper artillery layzors" are actually mounted at the bottom of its head.

The only advantage of the AT-AT's tall profile is not to let its line of sight guns see (and shoot) the enemy first, but to let its HUNCHBACK get seen (and shot at) by the enemy first! Which is a bigass disadvantage typical with all mecha scum. LOL!

And it turns out that modern tanks are not at all inconvenienced by giant holes whereas the only vehicle we've ever seen tripping and falling on its own ass was the fatty AT-AT mechanimu?

It also would have made for a too-conventional looking battle scene.

Maybe we could've had Juggernauts instead, and then the Juggernauts could've transformed into AT-ATs? Or maybe variable TIE-fighters that transform into AT-STs? No, variable technology is stupid. I think the AT-ATs should've had swords instead, to deflect Rebel blaster fire as it came down from orbit liek a friggin gundam.

[Sea Skimmer]

Tracked and wheeled vehicles don't do great in snow and sometimes worse on ice

The world speed record for a large tracked vehicle was set on ice, at 120mph. Ask the Germans how much snow stopped Russian tanks. Of course this doesn’t even matter unless you really think something walking can’t slip on ice! Never mind wheeled stuff sliding around if it tries to turn to stop. The AT-ATs on Hoth moved extremely slowly, and only lifted one leg at a time. This is not a great demonstration of mobility when taking place on a flat and highly compacted snow field, not even a truly solid sheet of ice. Tanks would have torn across that surface at nearly top speed and had no trouble doing it, the slight compaction of the snow would ensure ample traction.

and can be stopped by simple pit traps and trench barriers.

So can a mech, its obstacle surmounting ability is limited by how far it can independently move its legs in distance and height. It cannot just step over anything it wishes without limits. Note the distance between front footsteps. Thats how big a gap it can span, and the demonstrated capability on an AT-AT to move its legs independently while not poor, it nothing impressive either. A tank can cross a trench about equal to 40% of its own track length, and it can hold itself on a 40 degree side slope. It can also ascend and descend around a 60% max slope while still being able to stop and hold in place. An AT-AT would be very hard pressed to match any of these figures. How well do you think a walker is really going to climb out of a hole? Or get up after it falls down into one? It may not be able to at all in many instances and its certainly not going to jump stuff.

The AT-AT would not be easily stopped by traditional anti tank barriers, because it is a massive machine. If you build a tracked vehicle of the same scale it would very easily have superior mobility. If you had a trenching machine anything like that scale it would be almost trival to dig a anti walker ditch too big for it to pass. Even modern construction equipment really wouldn’t really need that long to do the job on Hoth across a valley a few kilometers wide at most. The Rebels however had no apparent heavy combat engineering equipment nor any relatively heavy ground defense weapons so they just got overrun.

The fact that one tripped and fell over suggests the Empire really needs to work on the user interface. A properly designed mecha would have cameras looking down, and stability and leg resistance measuring gear that would have warned the crew of the trouble.

[Shroom Man 777]

And, really, if Luke tried his hand grenade shit on a tank he would've been smeared by the treads, man. Man. I mean, he would've seen those treads coming and the snow would've turned a bit yellow... and then very red. A tank is even better at running people over than mecha scum is at stepping on people! Even a crappy Gundam would've done the job better than an AT-AT (but a tank would've been totally the best).

A vehicle, be it legged or tracked, the size of an AT-AT would require a trench the size of a Grand Canyon to be stopped. But a giant AT-AT-sized tank would resolve this since there can be giant AT-AT-sized tank-variants that can lay bridges. A giant AT-AT-sized tank would be able to cross a giant AT-AT-sized tank variant bridge layer's bridges because it doesn't have legs, thus its center of gravity is lower and more stable. An AT-AT on the other hand, due to its higher center of gravity, would have greater chances off tipping over and falling - and also because of its stupid mecha legs, it'll be goddamn slow in crossing the bridge and because of its stupid mecha legs the pressure its feet exert on the bridge will be higher than that of a tank's tracks (which will spread out the weight). Also, a giant AT-At-sized tank can easily be converted into a giant AT-AT-sized tank variant that can lay bridges.

Can you imagine an AT-AT modified to lay bridges? How can that work?

But then again, someone did say that AT-AT's had tiny repuslor lifts to decrease its weight and ground pressure. Maybe with this repulsor lift, the AT-AT can use it to jump across the Grand Canyon? Haw haw!

[General Brock]

Whoops.

I was thinking of a news story about an Abrams that drove into a pit trap early in the Iraq war, and had to be towed out, and the difficulty some tanks in WWII had in the winter, before better treads were introduced.

Obviously I'm not up to date or knowledgeable about tank development and capability.

Most of the smaller AT-STs got wiped out; maybe the Hoth defenses were designed to defeat a conventional assault and Veers decided Walkers could catch them off guard.

[Stark]

The presence of dedicated AT-AT hauler shuttles (which must be enormously expensive and take up a lot of room) suggests that they're meant to be air-mobile, so short range is likely.

Champ, the shuttles are to move the AT-ATs down from orbit. They're 'air mobile' insofar as they're intended to walk through a shield and blow up the generator during a siege and you can't walk down from space.

[Sea Skimmer]

Can you imagine an AT-AT modified to lay bridges? How can that work?

If it can ‘kneel’ then it might be able to slide a bridge off a rack on the roof and onto the ground, while walking backwards to drop it down. Then it could advance forward again. Not the best solution, but it would work on gaps of a modest span (relative to the size of the AT-AT) given a very strong bridge which doesn’t mind being dropped like that. I doubt the Empire would have trouble building such a bridge at all.

I tend to suspect though that the Empire just relies on some kind of dedicated combat engineering droid to bulldoze and blast ramps in anti walker ditches for it, with a dedicated bridge vehicle used if a gap is too deep for ramps to work or time does not allow to construct them. After all we don’t expect normal tanks to bridge wide gaps, we have specialist vehicles based on tank hulls for that. Most modern tanks can cross a ditch about 3 meters wide. The Empire would not have deployed anything like this on Hoth because they could have use a telescope in orbit to SEE that the Rebels had no anti tank obstructions. Sensors like ground penetrated radar from space could have also revealed a lack of anti walker landmines, removing the need to deploy any kind of breacher-mineplow vehicle. A walker wouldn't be crippled as easily as a tank by hitting a mine (it'd be more like a wheeled AFV hitting a mine, you get slowed down but can still move some on good terrain or roads) but they'd still be a major threat.

If you wanted to make a dedicated AT-AT bridge walker, then the way to do it would be to cut down the AT-AT leg height (while using the same joints for commonality), cut the body height in half (no need to hold troops), delete the head (no real point to major weapons), and you could just have a normal style folding bridge on the top of the thing that deploys about the same as a tank launched bridge. The Attack of the Clones AT-TE would work better though as a basis, since its already low to the ground with a fairly long low body ideal for hauling a very long bridge (I'd want a 100 meter bridge minimal in Star Wars since people likely have bulldozers the size of skyscrapers). So you’d need fewer modifications to make it into a bridge walker. This helps control cost and eases the maintenance load of a Imperial giant fucking walker battalion.

Most of the smaller AT-STs got wiped out; maybe the Hoth defenses were designed to defeat a conventional assault and Veers decided Walkers could catch them off guard.

The scale of the little Rebel gun turrets we see is certainly more in line with the AT-ST then an AT-ST so they likely did just get destroyed. The AT-ST is basically a scout, so its armor and shields are probably only oriented towards defeating man portable weapons. If it gets blown up by a fixed turret then mission is accomplished, it found the enemy! Now send in the AT-AT swarm.

I think the rebels just didn’t have the resources or preparation time to afford a defense against such large armored vehicles, and didn't even want to try. After all you wouldn’t expect a modern insurgency to hold off a direct assault by M1 Abrams tanks, that’s just not how insurgents fight. They ambush and run. A stand up ground battle is a doomed mission, the Empire can keep sending men and machines until they win. So no reason exists to devote more resources to the ground fight then are required for a basic covering force. The rebels defenses were good enough to defeat a fast moving attack, forcing the use of slow moving if very hard to destroy AT-ATs to defeat them. Escape was the main objective, not defeating Imperial armor.

[General Brock]

Veers knew he could expect expect a delaying action from a weaker opponent, not an attempt to win. OK. Hmmm. Missed/forgot the obvious again.

A few of years ago, I agreed with the tankers, then never gave the debate another thought. Then I sided with the AT-AT as best SW vehicle, right off the cuff.... It would be too easy to give in and let the tracks and wheels rule; one more try then.

SW is fantasy sci-fi and real-life precedents only apply as a touchpoint, not a hard guideline. SW tanks could easily exceed any Earth equivalents in performance and my comparing them so closely was clearly a mistake. Earth experience in mecha are limited to fantasy; there is an AT-ST sized Japanese toy, which doesn't walk so much as shuffle, so clearly Earthlings know more about tanks than mecha, and as much about mecha as they do interstellar drives.

1. The SW ground forces have four forms of mechanized propulsion; wheels, tracks, mecha and repulsorlift, all of which are depicted in use as effective. Wheels and tracks aren't depicted as failing in their limited outings, but the other forms are still widely used despite their drawbacks. A prolonged peace that may have dulled military senses may account for this. However, it may also imply that whatever the natural advantages of one form of locomotion over another, SW tech allows them all to be relatively competitive in terms of capability.

2. This competitiveness can only be circumscribed by two factors; (I) Right tool for the job; (II) Economics. (II) will tend to influence (I) more than the other way.

3. Therefore, this is not a straight 'versus' argument and I was wrong to pursue that.


What makes the AT-AT such a great vehicle and perhaps the best? Its not the best at anything but looking good and passable at everything else, while the competition is not as well-rounded. While non-mecha have their strengths, terms of achieving results, somewhat overkill is still quite dead but one has to get to the party first.


1. The AT-AT is designed first for psychological effect. A tank is just a tank, and even when its a big tank, its still just a tank. Spot a Walker, and it can't be confused with any other military force but the Empire. Apart from looking like a very big dinosaur, it is clearly a mechanical dinosaur, and plays on the anti-mechanical sentiment that requires robots such as C3PO to look so obviously mechanical and R2D2 to 'talk' without a voice synthesizer. To us, the AT-AT looks awesome and cool, to SW denizens it looks unnaturally terrifying, a macabre mockery of life. Its perfect for leading an assault and occupation according to the Tarkin Doctrine.

2. Legs are the most flexible form of ground locomotion. Even with the greater speed or stablility of treads and wheels, SW robotics are good enough to overcome whatever shortcomings legs 'should' have. Rarely on screen are the means of propulsion destroyed by conventional means, and an explosion needed to knock down a walker could arguably just as easily disable a more conventional vehicle. There was no on-screen indication that being in a downed walker is not survivable. There are also indications that the best and most sophisticated SW robotics are not invested in walkers, and only the minimum requirements are met in this area.

3. Not surprisingly nearly every Star Destroyer ground compliment is composed of walkers instead of large vehicles utilizing tracks, wheels or repulsors. Navy ground forces can then function passably in a broader spectrum of environments with the least cost, as opposed to having vehicles specialized to excel in a narrower set of environmental variables and not in another, or having a breadth of vehicles covering every environment but no depth of force in any one. With AT-ATs, no worries about grounding repulsorlifts, or spare sets of wheels, tracks and other add-ons to enable tanks to match their environment.

For example, Echo Base had been established for about a year, but the snowspeeders were just being adapted to the cold and tauntauns had to be used. AT-ATs apparently needed only a short amount of preparation and were ready to go the moment the fleet arrived in-system. While the Rebels were short supplied, a star destroyer isn't a floating warehouse and factory shop. 'All terrain, all weather' wheels and tracks may be possible, but the perfect tank also can't be too expensive to risk losing. A tank close to the ground is also closer to a thermal sink; this might cause problems. Jacking it up only increases the risk of rollover. Walker robotics do not appear to be the best robotics the SW universe can deliver, but they work.

4. The Imperial Navy delivers Tarkin's Doctrine of Fear, but not every problem can be resolved into a crater from orbit. No one star destroyer can carry the numbers of conventional armoured vehicles a dedicated ground assault ship can. There also has to be room left over for troop shuttles, fighters, and bombers. Therefore, concentrated yet still flexible power rapidly applied is needed to compensate for a lack of numerical depth and endurance. Reason (3) makes a few very large tanks inflexible, but a few walkers with folding legs are an acceptable solution. If anything more is needed, then the Army and its fuller spectrum of ground vehicles is ferried in.

5. The absence of large-scale wars allows military walkers, by default of their reasonable and common use by the Navy, become commonly manufactured and deployed ground vehicles. If the only way the tracks and wheels of non-Imperial forces can counter AT-ATs is to build better tracks and wheels, the AT-AT can be seen as a successful design. However, the Empire faces no such threat on such a scale. Although a few bigger walkers than AT-ATs were made, more sophistcated tanks were apparently not needed.

6. The AT-AT carries the weapons and armour needed to be effective as a troop carrier, not a tank or anti-aircraft platform. Therefore its not necessary for it to have the punch and protection of those vehicles nor do those jobs. AT-ATs towered over and were effective against fixed light emplacements, infantry and other non-hardened defenses found at Echo Base. If there were any mines or pits, the AT-ATs never found them (a tank IFV covering more ground with its body could not have avoided them). The full force of Rebel firepower couldn't down an AT-AT head on, so sniping at its hump over the horizon just tells an AT-AT or its support teams where to go next. AT-AT low-slung guns did what they were supposed to, suppress infantry threats at ground level, with the added bonus of elevation and flexibility to pick off low-flying aircraft and serve as ranged artillery. Gun mounts below the head also make it more difficult for aircraft or snipers to pick them off from above. A surprise first shot will not be a disarming one, and the hump seems more like an invitation to premature attack than a serious strategic weakness. Only after the Empire stalled were walkers given body emplacements so they could augment their support units in defending themselves.

7. Walkers were probably the only ground assault vehicles Vader has with him. This perhaps explains his rage at Admiral Ozzel for spoiling any chance of covert finesse from his Clone Wars experience or other subterfuge. Vader doesn't have enough ships for a seamless blockade, or time to wait for backup, and has no choice but to commit to a quick assault before the rebels can retreat. Veers need only disable the theatre shield so orbital weapons and troop transports can reach the surface. Only two AT-ATs survived to destroy the generator, but rebel-inflicted casualties were all 'lucky' results of unconventional attacks.

Any speculation that the star destroyers of Death Squadron could field sufficient numbers of more conventional vehicles on Hoth for similar or better results is just that, speculation. Tracked and wheeled craft adapted for an environment can be more successful than a generalist mecha design and is only common sense.

Walkers are the Empire's decisive edge in ground campaigns, because their unique locomotion, transportability, and durability allows flexible deployment in addition to, or the absence of, more conventional mechanized armoured units. This makes the AT-AT the most effective ground vehicle, the right tool for the job at that particular point in the conflict, and a platform that has not exhausted its potential for improvement.

[General Brock]

I almost forgot John Deere's Timberjack Walking Machine in my earth examples. Its just not a military mecha.

[Shroom Man 777]

You're insane.

However, it may also imply that whatever the natural advantages of one form of locomotion over another, SW tech allows them all to be relatively competitive in terms of capability.

Did Star Wars tech allow the AT-AT to walk any faster than the miserably slow pace they proceeded at? Did Star Wars tech allow the AT-AT to avoid getting tripped over by a piece of rope?

While non-mecha have their strengths, terms of achieving results, somewhat overkill is still quite dead but one has to get to the party first.

The AT-AT can't reach the party first because it is miserably slow because of its legs.

. Legs are the most flexible form of ground locomotion. Even with the greater speed or stablility of treads and wheels, SW robotics are good enough to overcome whatever shortcomings legs 'should' have. Rarely on screen are the means of propulsion destroyed by conventional means, and an explosion needed to knock down a walker could arguably just as easily disable a more conventional vehicle. There was no on-screen indication that being in a downed walker is not survivable. There are also indications that the best and most sophisticated SW robotics are not invested in walkers, and only the minimum requirements are met in this area.

Tracks are better.

Did SW robotics make the AT-AT any faster in ESB? Did SW robotics make the AT-AT immune from being tripped by a piece of rope? A downed walker may be survivable, but it's still a downed and combat-ineffective vehicle. It's inefficient.

Also, actually a tank will be more survivable than an AT-AT or a mecha. Since the tracks are a stabler platform and can bear weight more effectively, you can put more armor on the tank than the mecha.

Hell, tracks can bear more weight effectively than wheels too. There's a reason why we don't see massive 70 ton tanks that use wheels.

Not surprisingly nearly every Star Destroyer ground compliment is composed of walkers instead of large vehicles utilizing tracks, wheels or repulsors. Navy ground forces can then function passably in a broader spectrum of environments with the least cost, as opposed to having vehicles specialized to excel in a narrower set of environmental variables and not in another, or having a breadth of vehicles covering every environment but no depth of force in any one. With AT-ATs, no worries about grounding repulsorlifts, or spare sets of wheels, tracks and other add-ons to enable tanks to match their environment.

Bullshit. So the AT-AT is immune from maintenance, and don't need add-ons or fixes for their stupid legs whenever it breaks down? The AT-AT's already shitty against rough environment precisely because its feet concentrate pressure on the ground - whereas tracks would spread the pressure out - so an AT-AT would be performing worse on soft ground than a tank.

PS - this is why when you're trapped in quicksand, you try to spread your arms and legs and try to float by spreading your weight - because if you just stand there, your weight becomes concentrated on just your stupid mecha feet and you SINK

Also: The AT-AT legs occupy useless space. A tank with similar mass to the AT-AT would not be as tall as the AT-AT because it won't have any tall-ass giant giraffe legs to stand on. An AT-AT-sized tank would be as tall as an AT-At in kneeling position. If it was sensibly designed, the tank would even have a LOWER profile than a kneeling AT-AT.

For example, Echo Base had been established for about a year, but the snowspeeders were just being adapted to the cold and tauntauns had to be used. AT-ATs apparently needed only a short amount of preparation and were ready to go the moment the fleet arrived in-system. While the Rebels were short supplied, a star destroyer isn't a floating warehouse and factory shop. 'All terrain, all weather' wheels and tracks may be possible, but the perfect tank also can't be too expensive to risk losing. A tank close to the ground is also closer to a thermal sink; this might cause problems. Jacking it up only increases the risk of rollover. Walker robotics do not appear to be the best robotics the SW universe can deliver, but they work.

You're talking about tank rollover when you're trying to defend fucking giant tall AT-ATs that TRIPPED AND FELL on a piece of rope?

Just because the Rebels were having problems fixing their shitty second-hand bargain bin vehicles doesn't mean tanks would have the same problems. Why would the AT-AT be exempt from adverse weather conditions? Because of LOL LEGS? So legs now automatically give us +1 environmental protection, but -1 in speed and -1 in falling over its ass?

Reason (3) makes a few very large tanks inflexible, but a few walkers with folding legs are an acceptable solution. If anything more is needed, then the Army and its fuller spectrum of ground vehicles is ferried in.

A tank on the same weight class as an AT-AT would actually be more flexible, because it doesn't have legs and would thus have a smaller vertical profile and thus conserve space easier. To make itself smaller, an AT-AT has to fold its tall legs. A tank, on the other hand, won't even have any legs to begin with.

The AT-AT carries the weapons and armour needed to be effective as a troop carrier, not a tank or anti-aircraft platform.

How can it be an effective troop carrier when it WALKS SO SLOW, thus increasing the travel time of the troops its carrying? Not only that, but to deploy its troops it has to either kneel down or the troops have to rope down. That's inefficient and stupid.

Therefore its not necessary for it to have the punch and protection of those vehicles nor do those jobs. AT-ATs towered over and were effective against fixed light emplacements, infantry and other non-hardened defenses found at Echo Base. If there were any mines or pits, the AT-ATs never found them (a tank IFV covering more ground with its body could not have avoided them).

No. Just pieces of rope that tripped the crappy AT-ATs up and made them fall on their asses.

The full force of Rebel firepower couldn't down an AT-AT head on, so sniping at its hump over the horizon just tells an AT-AT or its support teams where to go next. AT-AT low-slung guns did what they were supposed to, suppress infantry threats at ground level, with the added bonus of elevation and flexibility to pick off low-flying aircraft and serve as ranged artillery. Gun mounts below the head also make it more difficult for aircraft or snipers to pick them off from above. A surprise first shot will not be a disarming one, and the hump seems more like an invitation to premature attack than a serious strategic weakness. Only after the Empire stalled were walkers given body emplacements so they could augment their support units in defending themselves.

A tank would have superior armor coverage, because it can bear and distribute weight better with its tracks compared to legs, and because a tank can be 'compacted' with a smaller surface area (thus increasing armor thickness) compared to an AT-AT that's HUEG for the sake of HUEG.

Also, the use of missiles would allow the tank to engage from beyond the line of sight.

And a turret would give a tank 360 degree coverage with a single main gun. How can an AT-AT engage an enemy that's shooting its ass? Can its head rotate like the fucking Exorcist and shoot back? No, its head can't even swivel properly. It probably needs fucking butt-guns to defend its butt, and that wastes space and weight and armor.


The AT-AT is a bullshit vehicle. It's only advantage is A.) It's big and slow B.) It makes lots of noise C.) It's tall so the enemy can see it, and exchange fire with stupid line-of-sight weaponry D.) It's got line of sight weaponry that limits its range to the line of sight, and does not have beyond LOS weapons, so it must be stupidly TALL to have decent range E.) It's fucking tall, which makes it a huge target F.) It is used against enemies without serious anti-armor capability like shitty rebels, and against enemies with serious anti-armor capability it would be dead meat.

Screw it. Your argument even says that the AT-At is good because it faces no serious enemies. So, what if it faces serious enemies, then? It gets fucked. Serious anti-tank weapons would make the AT-AT's "awesome terror-inspiring Tarkin size" into a giant target, a giant bullseye. The AT-AT's crappy legs would make it a SLOW target too! A SLOW and BIG target! An easy target. The fact that it uses legs means that it's also got weight issues. It's lack of turret limits the coverage of its weapons. It's also restricted to line of sight engagements - so what if the enemy uses beyond-LOS missiles or projectiles? A bunch of Hailfire drones would fuck an AT-AT up!

Walkers were probably the only ground assault vehicles Vader has with him. This perhaps explains his rage at Admiral Ozzel for spoiling any chance of covert finesse from his Clone Wars experience or other subterfuge. Vader doesn't have enough ships for a seamless blockade, or time to wait for backup, and has no choice but to commit to a quick assault before the rebels can retreat. Veers need only disable the theatre shield so orbital weapons and troop transports can reach the surface. Only two AT-ATs survived to destroy the generator, but rebel-inflicted casualties were all 'lucky' results of unconventional attacks.

Rebel-inflicted casualties were all DEAD AT-ATs that got DESTROYED as a result of their SHIT design that made them vulnerable to attacks that would be ineffective against conventional vehicles. The AT-ATs also precluded Vader from committing a "quick assault before the rebels can retreat" precisely because the AT-ATs are fucking slow.

Walkers are the Empire's decisive edge in ground campaigns, because their unique locomotion, transportability, and durability allows flexible deployment in addition to, or the absence of, more conventional mechanized armoured units. This makes the AT-AT the most effective ground vehicle, the right tool for the job at that particular point in the conflict, and a platform that has not exhausted its potential for improvement.

Walkers are the Empire's crappy blunt edge in ground campaigns, because of their slow locomotion, bulky useless size, and the fact that their legs disallow them from carrying more armor (while something like tracks allows weight to be spread out on the ground) allows inflexible deployment and INEFFECTIVE deployment in the absence of more conventional mechanized armored unit. This makes the AT-AT the most ineffective ground vehicle because it was so slow, allowing the Rebels to escape, and is the wrong tool for the job at that particular point in the conflict (a right tool would've been a QUICK tool).

It is a platform that has not exhausted its potential for improvement because it's a shitty vehicle that can be improved in a hundred thousand million different ways. It's potential for improvement will NEVER be exhausted, because it's so crappy that amputating its feet and replacing them with rollerblades can be considered an improvement. There's lots of room for improvement - like a room big enough to fit an AT-AT in.

[Connor MacLeod]

I think the rebels just didn’t have the resources or preparation time to afford a defense against such large armored vehicles, and didn't even want to try. After all you wouldn’t expect a modern insurgency to hold off a direct assault by M1 Abrams tanks, that’s just not how insurgents fight. They ambush and run. A stand up ground battle is a doomed mission, the Empire can keep sending men and machines until they win. So no reason exists to devote more resources to the ground fight then are required for a basic covering force. The rebels defenses were good enough to defeat a fast moving attack, forcing the use of slow moving if very hard to destroy AT-ATs to defeat them. Escape was the main objective, not defeating Imperial armor.

I think they could have tried, they probably just didn't have the time or resources as you said. The radio drama notes they'd lost a convoy jus tprior to the events of TESB and that was a huge loss to them (another group of fighters, technicians, etc.) So its likely the defenses weren't as complete despite the base being declared operational.

I'd guess the defense they might go for is some sort of deployable munition against AT-ATs, perhaps from the Speeders (which is why the thing had explosives onboard?) or some osrt of missile launcher, Big guns to take on the AT ATs porbably would have been costly, noticable, and harder to maintain than those tiny guns, but missiles are pretty easy to come by (They'd only need something like they used in ROTJ to destroy the bunker complex to take down an AT AT anyhow.) Or worst case, they'd deploy starfighters against the AT-ATs if they'd had more than a couple squadrons and more techs and time.

That's the best rationale I can come up for with what we saw.

As far as the AT-AT goes, I figure the purpose of the thing is to basically: have big guns and blow the shit out of stuff from a long way away with beams, as well as intimidating the fuck out of the enemy.

Now, we know the AT-At is supposed to carry a ton of firepower, and that trait alone is going to dictate certain requirements - size and mass to absorb the recoil, as well as size to handle the guns and power generation requirements. So that menas a big, heavy gun. Using beams does have some advantages over projectiles, since energy weapons can't be intercepted or shot down, and generally strike faster (at closer ranges like this that can be a big advantage) and you can carry more shots. So to exploit range you'd need elevation, which means putting the thing up high despite the disadvantages that has (And height isnt as important when your enemy can potentially spot you from orbit anyhow, nevermind that they want visibility however silly that may be.). In short, it becomes a longer legged and somewhat more mobile mini-SPHA-T.. or something similar.

That design pretty much caters to the role it was used for. Going slow gives you more time to bombard the fuck out of the enemy with your powerful guns, which demoralizes them further and gives them more time to contemplate their fates. AT ATs don't carry any "close in" guns of any kind, which seems to point at them not being meant as a transport either - I'd guess they either carry the troops for scouting (via speeder bikes) or defensive purposes, or they are meant to deploy them after they get close to mop up.

Is the AT AT the "best" vehicle? Nope, since it has all the flaws of being a walker. But for its purpose, it probably works well enough in its role and given the situation th GE usually faces.

[Simon_Jester]

The walker has the advantage of having a bigass profile that allows the enemies to see it. Sure Simon Jester says that it can "snipe" enemies with its tall profile, but then if the AT-AT is supposed to snipe enemies by using its tall profile, why is its weapons mounted ON THE BOTTOM OF ITS HEAD instead of high on its back on an elevated periscoping turret?

Because it's designed to be used when you're ten or twenty kilometers from the enemy, and all the enemies are pointing in the same direction?

I think the idea is to use it from so far away that standard antitank blaster weapons are outside their effective range against it. Unless the enemy has AT-AT weight guns of their own, of course, in which case you're screwed.

The only advantage of the AT-AT's tall profile is not to let its line of sight guns see (and shoot) the enemy first, but to let its HUNCHBACK get seen (and shot at) by the enemy first! Which is a bigass disadvantage typical with all mecha scum. LOL!

Well, to be fair, both. It can shoot from farther away than something shorter (like an AT-TE) could, and be shot from farther away. But it has bigger guns than most other ground-based platforms, so it may have a longer effective range against armored targets than its opposition.

MAY, I said. I'm not saying it's a really great idea. I'm saying that that's the closest I can come up with to a rational attack doctrine for these monsters.

Maybe we could've had Juggernauts instead, and then the Juggernauts could've transformed into AT-ATs? Or maybe variable TIE-fighters that transform into AT-STs? No, variable technology is stupid. I think the AT-ATs should've had swords instead, to deflect Rebel blaster fire as it came down from orbit liek a friggin gundam.

Now, now, AT-ATs came out before gundams were cool.

A vehicle, be it legged or tracked, the size of an AT-AT would require a trench the size of a Grand Canyon to be stopped.

Ah... Shroomy? Have you ever SEEN the Grand Canyon? That thing is ridiculous, it would swallow up an AT-AT without a burp. Hell, some places it would swallow a star destroyer without a burp. At least one of the little bitty Victory-class ones.

Can you imagine an AT-AT modified to lay bridges? How can that work?

...It turns around and dumps the bridge out the back?

Yes, that was a joke. Have fun.

The presence of dedicated AT-AT hauler shuttles (which must be enormously expensive and take up a lot of room) suggests that they're meant to be air-mobile, so short range is likely.

Champ, the shuttles are to move the AT-ATs down from orbit. They're 'air mobile' insofar as they're intended to walk through a shield and blow up the generator during a siege and you can't walk down from space.

Stark, if they're meant to be used more than once, the shuttles have to be able to pick them up, not just drop them off. A shuttle that can pick up AT-ATs and carry them to an orbiting starship can also be used to pick up AT-ATs and drop them off on the other side of a continent.

[Sea Skimmer]

I think they could have tried, they probably just didn't have the time or resources as you said. The radio drama notes they'd lost a convoy jus tprior to the events of TESB and that was a huge loss to them (another group of fighters, technicians, etc.) So its likely the defenses weren't as complete despite the base being declared operational.

Probably not completed, but I doubt they would have ever invested in more then a few heavy weapons. They could however had had a lot more effective of a defense if they’d have any kind of obstacle. You could just dig a shallow ditch, then fill it with hot water from a mobile nuclear reactor (trivial Star Wars tech) and melt the ditch into the required scale. This assumes that terrain really was a glacier, but given that Hoth is all ice it seems safe to assume the snow pack will be at least 20 feet deep everywhere. That would be good enough.

Then the Empire might have brought out its assault bridges, but that’d still take more time to deploy and present a concentrated target. Even you can’t kill an AT-AT; you could blow up the bridge it’s trying to use, unless the Empire has shield generating bridges. It’d be an interesting trick to make that work though.

I'd guess the defense they might go for is some sort of deployable munition against AT-ATs, perhaps from the Speeders (which is why the thing had explosives onboard?) or some osrt of missile launcher, Big guns to take on the AT ATs porbably would have been costly, noticable, and harder to maintain than those tiny guns, but missiles are pretty easy to come by (They'd only need something like they used in ROTJ to destroy the bunker complex to take down an AT AT anyhow.) Or worst case, they'd deploy starfighters against the AT-ATs if they'd had more than a couple squadrons and more techs and time.

I would imagine star fighters are the primary heavy anti armor weapon they have, because they can’t afford or easily obtain heavy ground weapons in sufficient numbers to cover a large frontage. Some kind of missile or anti tank blaster should be within reason for them to have, but for whatever reason they didn’t have it or much

Course none of this yet explain why they didn’t have any overhead cover or more basic preparations like smoke pots to cover the final retreat. Not to mention they didn’t even bury or dig trenches for the power cables for all those blaster turrets! That suggests they may have only had a very few, and had to set them up on the fly on whatever axis the Imperial advance appeared, and had not even had time to construct multiple prepared alternative positions (we expect a modern unit today, tanks or infantry, to dig in pretty well in 12-24 hours). Sheet metal covered in ice filled sandbags will save you from an awful lot, the rebel defenses would have been obliterated by a modern mortar battery.

The Rebels must have been on Hoth from only days or weeks at the time they were attacked to be so weakly prepared. An small detachment may have begun cutting tunnels and doing foundation work for installing the power generator, shield generator and ion cannon far in advance, the signatures of such work would be minimal, but the main force can’t have been around long. Otherwise they wouldn’t have still been doing such trivial tasks as hand emplacing ground sensors, and would have had vastly better holes dig in the ice to defend from.

That's the best rationale I can come up for with what we saw.

As far as the AT-AT goes, I figure the purpose of the thing is to basically: have big guns and blow the shit out of stuff from a long way away with beams, as well as intimidating the fuck out of the enemy.

You know what I think its purpose is? Pork barrel military contract for tribal-political allies. In this vital Imperial role its ability to be giant and three times as expensive as conventional armor is a valuable asset. The Empire is a dictatorship ruled by a guy who is somewhat blatantly a evil dark lord of the Sith and openly a dictator. He might have his Sith powers to aid him, but its very clear the Emperor required normal human political intrigue to maintain and expand his power. Clearly if he didn’t need to do the stuff that the likes of Saddam and Hitler had to do to retain power, he wouldn’t have needed to disband the Senate or rely on a Death Star either.

Like any dictatorship, political power and above all reliability rank above anything else, especially military efficiency (the Death Star is a perfect tool of power centralization, and hardly an efficient platform for anything given its observed overkill factor). Good militaries breed successful coups, so shoot everyone smart or send them to the ass end of the Empire. Or else focus everyone on a major war to the death (not an option for the Empire unless the Vong show up early) So the AT-AT and some of the other Imperial walkers are probably just one in an endless stream of plush contracts sent the way of the Emperors main business and political allies to keep them loyal.

Justifying it on ‘intimidation is a nice face saving, but it can’t remove anything from the many horrendous features of the AT-AT, like the inability to quickly deploy or recover its infantry and utter lack of any bottom or rearward visibility. That got two of the things destroyed, and while you might excuse the tow cables as a WTF kind of thing, Luke running up behind one and sabotaging it via an actual hatch is absurd. This on a broad open vegetation free ice field too, as far from close terrain as you can get. I guess no one thought that with a 40 snow troopers onboard they should actually be able to fight in any remotely effective way. That’s besides the plain lack of mutually supporting tactics

The Clone Wars AT-TE would only partly predate the need for pork barreling, and it was a much more practical design if still flawed anyway. At least it can effectively serve as an APC, and it has all around fire capability.

The AT-AT may well have been designed with intimidation in mind, but this is all and all a worthless trait. If you have unstoppable killing machines, the enemy need only be killed by them some and they’ll fear them all the same. The enemy will not fear an AT-AT if he can regularly destroy them with one man tank hunters.

Now, we know the AT-At is supposed to carry a ton of firepower, and that trait alone is going to dictate certain requirements - size and mass to absorb the recoil, as well as size to handle the guns and power generation requirements.

Yeah all the more reason not to demand that everything important and all that weight be up high on legs, which is inefficient at best. Though given how much volume is given over to carrying infantry, who fight on the ground, its clear firepower is a secondary consideration.

So that menas a big, heavy gun. Using beams does have some advantages over projectiles, since energy weapons can't be intercepted or shot down, and generally strike faster (at closer ranges like this that can be a big advantage) and you can carry more shots. So to exploit range you'd need elevation, which means putting the thing up high despite the disadvantages that has (And height isnt as important when your enemy can potentially spot you from orbit anyhow, nevermind that they want visibility however silly that may be.). In short, it becomes a longer legged and somewhat more mobile mini-SPHA-T.. or something similar.

It would make far more sense to place a weapons mast on a SPHA-T style low slung hull, or better yet on a tank. That way on a side slope you can just tilt the mast to remain level, and you could actually use it as a counterweight. This would require just one joint, which can be on the roof of the tank and shrouded from direct fire. In fact the world has things sort of like this.

Jewistani M60 mobile guard tower


Super M113 TOW launcher



Sketch designs also exist for 120mm gun armed tank destroyers that would have the entire gun raise about a meter and a half to fire over berms. It’s very easy to see how this could scale up given several hundred to several thousand tons as an AT-AT weighs and anything like the technology needed for its legs.


An AT-AT sized vehicle with a weapons mast would also have a hell of a lot mobility by simply by virtue of being able to lower the mast down and keep moving (how quick does an AT-AT do a belly crawl?). Then it could fit through and across something more like normal tunnels and bridges, and deal with worse roads. Also go under crap like power lines you might not always want to destroy. This is rather important, because while an AT-AT could have excellent strategic mobility via airlift, to be useful in its demonstrated tactical assault role it needs to be able to find a path it can traverse from the drop zone to firing range of the enemy shield generator or power plant. The local topography could make that an inherently impossible task if mobility is bad enough.

The Rebels were nice enough defend wide open valleys, not everyone will. Likewise the rebels once more lacked the combat engineering capability to do so much as revet the power generator despite its highly exposed location. Piling up 1000 ton boulders (another of those things absurd to do today, but easy in Star Wars) held together with ice would have done something. Beats doing nothing. I think this goes back to the Rebels simply not having a very serious ground defense plan except against small scale surprise raids. The plan may have become even worse for loss of that convoy, but I really doubt it was ever going to be good.

That design pretty much caters to the role it was used for. Going slow gives you more time to bombard the fuck out of the enemy with your powerful guns, which demoralizes them further and gives them more time to contemplate their fates. AT ATs don't carry any "close in" guns of any kind, which seems to point at them not being meant as a transport either - I'd guess they either carry the troops for scouting (via speeder bikes) or defensive purposes, or they are meant to deploy them after they get close to mop up.

Its pretty repeated in canon that they carry troops, if they did not then the configuration would make even less sense then it does already. Why not put the guns on a turret in the roof then if a hull penetration can be accepted?

The lack of close in armament is bad; the lack of close in visibility is absurd for something that big, and rather fatal. It would have only taken a simple video camera or hatch in the rear to spot Luke, and start throwing frag grenades at him. It’d want that if my giant war machine was slower then a running man. We kind of figured out it was better to have machine faster then man around 1917 or so.

[Shroom Man 777]

Because it's designed to be used when you're ten or twenty kilometers from the enemy, and all the enemies are pointing in the same direction?

I think the idea is to use it from so far away that standard antitank blaster weapons are outside their effective range against it. Unless the enemy has AT-AT weight guns of their own, of course, in which case you're screwed.

AT-AT weight guns could be mounted on turrets, on wheels or tracks, and then they could easily serve in a "tank destroyer" role against any AT-AT that sticks its head over the horizon. The fact that an AT-AT's hump will be visible before its chin guns get in the line of sight...

Fine, as some specialized platform for firing at the enemy with line of sight weapons from long distance - sure, the AT-AT can do that job. But as an, uh, ALL-TERRAIN vehicle that acts as an ARMORED-TRANSPORT... it's a pretty lousy vehicle.

Well, to be fair, both. It can shoot from farther away than something shorter (like an AT-TE) could, and be shot from farther away. But it has bigger guns than most other ground-based platforms, so it may have a longer effective range against armored targets than its opposition.

MAY, I said. I'm not saying it's a really great idea. I'm saying that that's the closest I can come up with to a rational attack doctrine for these monsters.

Well, that is the most sensible thing for a vehicle that's complete nonsense.

Now, now, AT-ATs came out before gundams were cool.

Now, the question is, did they come before those Japanese animus with robots combining to form Voltes 5?

Ah... Shroomy? Have you ever SEEN the Grand Canyon? That thing is ridiculous, it would swallow up an AT-AT without a burp. Hell, some places it would swallow a star destroyer without a burp. At least one of the little bitty Victory-class ones.

There are some parts where Evel Kenievel can jump across on his motorbike too.

Can you imagine an AT-AT modified to lay bridges? How can that work?

...It turns around and dumps the bridge out the back?

Yes, that was a joke. Have fun.

[Simon_Jester]

Fine, as some specialized platform for firing at the enemy with line of sight weapons from long distance - sure, the AT-AT can do that job. But as an, uh, ALL-TERRAIN vehicle that acts as an ARMORED-TRANSPORT... it's a pretty lousy vehicle.

Now, see, this is where things get funny. This is the part where parallels between the Galactic Empire and Nazi Germany come into play.

You see, Veers and his team design this massively armored mobile gun platform that's designed to stand off and fry the enemy from extreme range (sort of a next-generation SPHA-T concept). At this point, it may have looked like a very tall SPHA-T, with the gun on top, eliminating the "hump" you noticed. And this would actually make SENSE, more or less.

Then Palpatine wanders by, takes one look at the mock-up and says "I like it. Make it a troop transport."

Now, they don't want to get impaled or neck-crushed or lightninged to death, so they can't exactly say "no." But the entire design concept is totally wrong for a troop transport. They're fucked.

But they are by golly Imperial professionals, so they man and/or woman up and do the best job they can. They fatten up the body to add room for a troop compartment, at the price of creating the "hump." They make some other modifications, try and figure out a way for troops to deploy from the monstrosity when its torso is hanging tens of meters in the air, and hope the thing doesn't take fifty percent casualties on its first combat deployment.

Which it does.

Now, the question is, did they come before those Japanese animus with robots combining to form Voltes 5?

Yes. Empire Strikes Back was 1980, and I believe Voltron first appeared in Japan in 1981, if Wikipedia is to be trusted. In the US it came out years later.

With a few exceptions (Gigantor née Tetsugin-28 or whatever, which aired in the US so long ago that my gray-bearded father has fond childhood memories of it), I'm pretty sure giant robot anime didn't make it to the US in a big way until the mid-1980s.

Can you imagine an AT-AT modified to lay bridges? How can that work?

...It turns around and dumps the bridge out the back?
Yes, that was a joke. Have fun.

Shroomy... you... you just passed up the chance to do a gag about a bridge-crapping AT-AT.

...Are you OK, man? Do we need to call a doctor or something?

[Shroom Man 777]

But you already DID the gag first!

That's a terrible visual though. The AT-AT would have to turn around to take a dump at the Grand Canyon - what the fuck is the turning radius of the AT-AT? Either that or it has to WALK BACKWARDS while pointing its butt at the Grand Canyon. It's not too outlandish though, if the legs can walk backwards and if there are rearview mirrors or a secondary butt cockpit. A COCKPIT! Near the butt! But of course!

(there, that is my gag)

(GAG! Get it! Haha!)

But man, AT-AT bridging equipment. Ridiculous!

[Srelex]

But you already DID the gag first!

That's a terrible visual though. The AT-AT would have to turn around to take a dump at the Grand Canyon - what the fuck is the turning radius of the AT-AT? Either that or it has to WALK BACKWARDS while pointing its butt at the Grand Canyon. It's not too outlandish though, if the legs can walk backwards and if there are rearview mirrors or a secondary butt cockpit. A COCKPIT! Near the butt! But of course!

(there, that is my gag)

(GAG! Get it! Haha!)

But man, AT-AT bridging equipment. Ridiculous!

For some reason I have the image of an AT-AT galloping towards the canyon and leaping over it, western-cliché style.

[Simon_Jester]

Not a good idea. Mythbusters tried this with the bus in Speed, but an AT-AT would have the same problem. Getting up to fifty or sixty miles an hour just isn't enough to jump canyons that are hundreds of feet across.

Unless, of course, your AT-ATs come with auxiliary repulsorlifts, in which case they can comically moonwalk across the canyon.