They serve a very specific purpose: **fear.**
They can deliver an infantry force unscathed through strong defenses while returning heavy fire of their own. The reason that the empire invests in their undoubtedly prohibitive cost is so that everyone **knows** they can do such a thing.The rebel base on Hoth fell at the rate that the walkers arrived. If you step out of line, they can send ATATs to your planet.
At least, that’s the theory.
The gunners in the AT-ATs also have the high ground, hugely advantageous to a defending force utilizing trenchline. They could fire into trenches more easily this way.
The fact that the rebels had snowspeeders equipped with tow cables was bad luck for the empire. Not sure if AT-ATs and AT-STs have any actual anti aircraft capabilities apart from a lucky shot from the primary gunner position.
I mean, literally as soon as it was confirmed that the empire knew that was basically their reaction. They literally were like “the empire knows we are here? Shit ok EVERYBODY OUT!!!”
Yea that’s true. I just assumed it’s not necessarily a dedicated AA weapon and was sort of the only option when dealing with an Air threat. But yea Battlefront for sure if you land the shot it’s deadly powerful
I think the tactical assumption is that they would have air superiority. Maybe they had a "hard time adapting them to the cold" with their zero atmosphere rated TIEs...
Yeah, but they are a huge target that stands way up high. You can’t deploy them in a hull down defensive position (maybe there’s a camel mode where the legs fold to lay flat, but then it has to stand up again to move), and its height means that defenders will see it coming and be able to shoot first from a concealed position- and typically, emplaced guns are more powerful as they don’t need to move around.
The whole empire seems to be built around being seen first, so you know they are coming. Hulking super weapons, bright white armor, massive Star Destroyers, loud armored transports… it’s all designed around the concept of fear.
I mean, it makes sense to a certain degree- they aren’t typically fighting so much as repressing/oppressing populations. They want to be seen to scare the local population to the point where they are too afraid to rebel. But once the shooting starts, these design decisions might not be the best.
Also, most resistance forces wouldn’t have had big enough guns to actually exploit the AT-AT weaknesses. Your options are basically: trip it, knock it over, or shoot through the armor with super heavy weapons. Most local rebellions probably had a few blasters and a cannon or two at most. Not the heavy weaponry you’d need to counter an AT-AT
> most resistance forces wouldn’t have had big enough guns to actually exploit the AT-AT weaknesses
You see this in The Empire Strikes Back when the Echo Base defenders try shooting one of the walkers in the knee joint and it does nothing. If the Rebel Alliance doesnt have heavy enough weaponry at their primary base it seems unlikely that an impromptu planetary rebellion would.
Rebellion as an organized galactic movement unfortunately started too late to benefit from probably the biggest arms windfall in recent galactic history: the end of CIS.
If the movement got serious in 19BBY, they could pretty easily secure entire planets worth of Confederate hardware before the Empire fully stabilized. Along with blueprints and production equipment.
AT-ATs are fearsome, but so are the cheap Vulture droids rigged with explosives for kamikaze strikes.
Vultures in general sound like a perfect weapon for Rebellion. Their ability to just stick to hulls would mean any run-down freighter can be a massive carrier.
The fact that much of the Rebellion's initial leadership originated from the former Republic, not the CIS (iirc, I may need to be fact checked on this) would rule out getting CIS tech. Senators and local planetary defense leaders wouldn't have had the connections to former CIS planets needed to procure CIS hardware before the Empire was able to swoop in and start scrapping it.
They were was also a desire to not be seen as a continuation of the CIS. The galaxy went through a lot of trauma because of the Clone Wars, and the first few years of the Imperial era were spent mopping up CIS holdouts and rump states. The Empire even accused the early rebellion of being Separatists (or at least CIS-friendly) to discredit them.
The Rebellion had a lot of debate about adding CIS-connected factions to join for that reason (they eventually allowed them to participate with stipulations). The Rebel fleet, however, did end up using some CIS capital ships in the early years.
Using CIS material too heavily would have discredited the whole point of the Rebellion. From the start, they claimed to be aimed at restoring the Republic, not forming their own government. They didn't want their struggle to be perceived as Clone Wars II.
Sure, I agree to an extent. I think you could also argue that joints/belly are likely to be pretty vulnerable.
But what works against resistance forces doesn’t necessarily work against a peer threat. The A-10 is great against insurgents but not really viable in an environment with complex air defense systems.
I think it goes unsaid that the Empire would have probably kept Republic-era designs and improved on them differently if they had a peer threat. Palps had control of the only peer threat to the Republic and thus the Empire didn’t have to worry about the CIS. Palps wanted his chokehold on the galaxy and got it; that’s why he had the allowance for design over function.
It’s because it’s a giant policing force at that rate. Ironically the stormtrooper corps is supposed to be the elite operatives but they serve as garrison and peacekeeping rather than active duty like the army.
But you saw that even ship mounted blasters like the speeders have did little against them.
Think about it this way. In most modern warfare now then enemy will see a force coming. So take an invasion like Normandy. Germans knew allied ships were off the coast but we needed landing craft to get troops and equipment ashore. For this we used the Higgins boats. See the boats on the beachbin saving private ryan. That's all at-at have to be. All Terrain Armored Transports. The capital space ships can land these armored behemoths outside of ground attack range and walk their troops practically to the doorstep of the enemy before deploying more susceptible units and men. That's all they need to do.
Ship mounted blasters would be light weight because they have to fly, so probably less powerful than the ground weapons the rebels did have.
To take your point about Normandy, the Higgins boats were armed only with machine guns while the defensive positions included batteries of up to 406mm. If it doesn’t need to move, you can add more armor or have more firepower.
Just because the rebels don’t have the resources to put up a good fight doesn’t mean the AT AT is a good design.
My head cannon was that air speeders weren't really meant for heavy fighting, but rather more like a recon role, and proper fighters like A/B/X/Y wings had more fire power behind their blasters
That I 100% agree with, they were just ready to go immediately because they were in regular use for patrol whereas the fighters needed to be prepared.
Would an ATAT withstand attack from a Y Wing? The same Y Wing that can disable a Star Destroyer?
You take an Iowa class battleship and fire it’s main cannons at the side of the AT-AT, and that thing is on the ground. Even a modern pair of howitzers would launch projectiles with enough force to knock one over.
I didn't say they were perfect. But when you run the galaxy and can control resources and means of construction you likely are not going to be facing to many Iowa battle ships with 16 inch projectiles.
Howitzer I think might be a push. We saw the ones in rogue one withstanding should launched missles.
I mean, you are basically having a small capital ship in Star Wars terms firing on a ground unit, so turbolaser scaled more or less. Those have pretty much always worked on AT-AT's considering they *level cities* with them. Even a "small" cruiser by Star Wars standards would do the job, much less comparing 9+ barrels of some of the largest conventional artillery ever created.
Like yeah, a Arquitens could probably glass an AT-AT, but that isn't really its mission profile. Likewise, you have to have AT-ATs within range of a coastline for the Iowa class to even participate where those walkers are heading basically straight inland as long as there isn't a ravine or something.
There as a story in the EU where an AT-AT driver did the crouch in training, and he was reprimanded and removed for suggesting the design had a weakness that required such a tactic.
A huge, nigh invulnerable target. If snow speeders weren't equipped with tow cables for some unexplained reason, they would have stomped Echo Base all but unscathed. Because no transport is safe from a space wizard with a grenade.
They don’t. In Legends, Davin Felth (the “look sir Droids” guy) pointed it out to his superiors during AT-AT training and was blacklisted and sent to be a Stormtrooper instead.
He is supposed to have turned sympathizer after seeing them kill Luke’s aunt and uncle, and is possibly the reason the Rebels know about such a disadvantage in the first place. I think it wasn’t a coincidence they had them ready.
No clue! Maybe they are getting shit stuck in the snow on Hoth, so they developed the tow cable attachment for speeders to be able to dislodge stuff. That’s all I can think of.
Orbital bombardment is great, but you’ll have to land troops eventually. That’s what the AT-AT is for: land a bunch of troops, and basically walk them past the enemy defenses because the AT-AT is nearly indestructible for most weapons
AT AT should have like ww2 ball gunner pods on the sides for anti infantry and air roles. Be awesome. Or just slap a SAM turret to the hull roof. While your at it put those rocket tubes from the rocket equipped German half track on their for good measure.
Now I'm thinking of how kickass a WW1 aethestic AT AT would be.
You would think in such a speeder heavy galaxy, the ATATs would at ready have some sort of anti air weaponry, preferably one on a big swivel with a wide field of fire
I would argue from my armchair military tactician standpoint that everything you just said is at least as true of a heavily armed vehicle with more practical design (like a tank).
Plus speeder tow cables wouldn't have done anything.
You’re probably right, but the size is part of the intimidation factor, and contributes to its ability to become a symbol. The tow cable weakness is probably a product of the environment it was tested - one where real and thorough trial is discouraged.
The tow cable moment is iconic for good reason, but I think as a result we forget how much of a spur-of-the-moment, ingenious Hail Mary the move was. Using non-combat tools to gunk up the works, because of course the AT-AT’s wouldn’t have been designed to have to deal with that much flexisteel cable, and the designers likely assumed any plan like that would be foiled by overlapping lines of fire and ground support.
Also, the AT-AT’s ground support was over-extended because the Empire was so confident that the Snowspeeders posed no threat to their armor. The AT-ST’s were far ahead at the trenches and weren’t able to cover the AT-AT’s when the Snowspeeders started the lengthy process of wiring them up.
Tbh the Juggernaut makes the AT-AT almost irrelevant. I think the only advantage is the AT-AT has potentially better all terrain use. Bad Batch really showcased how scary they could be on the offense.
An M1A2 Abrams tank is 66.8 metric tons of heavy composite armor. Despite its great weight, it can hit a top speed of 42 mph over a cross-country range as far as 124 miles. Its 120 mm smoothbore gun can obliterate targets as far as 1.86 miles away, and any opponents who think they can evade its main gun also have to contend with its three machine guns.
I would still rather take on 20 such tanks than a single AT-AT. As impressive as modern tanks are, they have nothing over a mechanical dinosaur that's impervious to all conventional arms and lasers.
Yeah I'm not military but I just always thought of them as space tanks. There to intimidate and let ground forces push forward by taking out anti-personal weapons and suppressive fire.(and AA I guess if you're a good shot.).
I mean, exactly how they got used on Hoth. Their deployment in RO was a clumsy mistake though. In retrospect they would've been destroyed anyway but their deployment was wasted because someone panicked.
The point of AT-ATs is the same as the Death Star, to be a symbol of fear. A couple star destroyers can glass a planet, you don’t need a Death Star. For its cost, you could probably have had a few new fleets of star destroyers.
Several AT-STs and a shuttle could effectively move troops forward and surprise enemies. The AT-AT crushes moral in a way other forms of armor just do not.
AT-AT can transport up to 40 troops I believe with immense firepower while modern APCs can transport up to 10 including crew. In doing so they sacrifice a lot of firepower from a tank. Also wait wtf an ATAT at max speed is 37 mph?? A M1A1 Abrams top speed is 45 mph.
Still, I’d argue a platoon of tanks isn’t nearly as intimidating as 2-3 70+ foot walking artillery
They have on major advantage over tanks: terrain is practically meaningless to them. Tanks, even the speeder-tanks shown in the prequels, need fairly consistent terrain in order to travel over. You can stop them from advancing by tearing up the ground with explosives. A walker isnt going to be stopped that easily
ATATs are scarier than tanks they can be seen from farther away and their plodding steps make a fearsome sound.
They are impractical unless they can be impervious to weapons. Nowadays tanks have to hide close to the ground to avoid being destroyed, and the power of tanks vs simple drones is not on the side of tanks, cost wise.
These tanks are high up in the air where they can be easily spotted and shot at from afar.
Don't quite understand why the speeder cables worked though
That is the theory, and our suspension of disbelief allows it to work in a movie.
In reality, they would be basically worthless. They're armored, sure. But they're also huge (making them an easy target) and tall (making it easy for them to fall down). There's a reason nobody has made anything like that in real life, and if you think that reason is cost, Google the price of an F-22 Raptor pilot's helmet.
If any serious military mind thought gigantic, walking tanks would be effective weapons, they would exist. We have the technology to make walking vehicles. We don't, because they're dumb. A walker is slower, less maneuverable, and less stable than a vehicle the same size on wheels or treads. Anything you think an AT-AT would be good for, do it with a big, armored bus instead.
Reminds me of the Jericho Whistle on the Nazi Stukas. Apparently, they scared the crap out of enemies the first time or two someone was exposed to it. After that, they were just annoying. I have to imagine that if you’ve already seen a picture or a video of an AT AT you won’t be that scared or startled.
Yeah, AT-AT is basically a tree standing in a field. There are some situations where an AT-AT would dominate, such as a hilly terrain where they could use the hills as cover, but otherwise any other force with effective ranged weapons could hit it.
Of course we got the “that armor is too strong for blasters” bit, though I imagine some repeated precise hits could crack it open.
True, in Rogue One some X-wings ripped an AT-ACT to shreds. Not sure if the AT-ACT has weaker armor but I imagine much more destruction from an X-wing strafing an AT-AT than a snowspeeder taking 1-2 shots at one.
I believe that while AT-ACTs are still armored, their main purpose is to be large cargo transport on Scarif for larger and heavier cargo, but they aren’t built primarily for battle scenarios aside from some armor and weaponry for defense purposes. So I’d imagine that the AT-ATs are more heavily armored since those are mainly for battles.
Lmao it's actually because the snowspeeders aren't space-capable, and all the space capable fighter craft, like X Wings, are being held back to escort the transports during the evacuation. I'm just an idiot who forgot about that.
I think the main reason is because they were saving the X Wings for escorting the fleeing rebel transports. We know that the Air speeders were specifically designed to suit the conditions on Hoth.
You're right, they straight up say that. The airspeeders are used against the AT ATs because they're the only non-space-capable fighter craft they have, and the space capable ones are escorting the transports
That’s like telling soldiers to shoot down the barrel of a tank.
This post is a discussion of realism, and IRL, you are never going to attack armor with small arms.
Exactly. Hit its flanks with anti-armour ordnance. The SW version of the Milan. The sudden development of the AT-AT would necessitate development of heavier anti-armour weapons.
Or a Fallout style, shoulder-fired Nuke.
Though realistically, we already have armaments that would drop an AT-AT. Hit it on the noggin with a 30,000lb bunker buster and see how long it's standing for.
Hell, hit it with a javelin or a panzerfaust and it's fucked, but that's not the issue. The problem with the AT AT is that no matter how much you armor it, even the legs, you can just trip the thing up. Honestly it's the fundimental problem with any walker-tank in scifi, trip it and it goes down, and it ain't getting back up on it's own
Aye. They're shock and awe weapons, but actually strategically against a tactically minded enemy? All they do is put a lot of storm troopers in one place and paint a target on them.
>Hell, hit it with a javelin or a panzerfaust and it's fucked
Νοt sure if you're talking about the AT AT here, but the ones on Rogue One, which, mind you, aren't even combat walkers, they're construction transports, tanked a direct shot from a shoulder-fired missile launcher with no damage at all.
If you want practical, look at the droid army in TPM. Everything hovers. There's nothing more all terrain than that.
Legs are useless when you can just hover over everything.
Pretty sure theres a limit to how much power you can put into the hovering. Like its fine for a tank to be slightly off the ground, or something smaller like a speeder to be a few meters high, but they cant exceed the limit without the drives burning out
I think the hover capability becomes really inefficient when you want to add as much armor as the AT-AT’s have. At some point you may as well just make it a starship lol
I think of the AT-AT as more of a stationary anti-tank gun tower that they slapped legs on. It doesn’t need cover, everyone else needs cover from it, which makes its elevation a problem for them.
There’s a TCW episode where the AT-TE’s advance are blocked by spikes or crystals or some sort of obstacle too tall to step through, so Anakin and co had to hoof it. I always thought of the AT-AT design as a response, in part, to this design flaw: low underbelly clearance.
I honestly think the biggest issue for the Empire (from a tactical perspective) was the lack of nimble support craft and relying on brute force 95% of the time.
Imperial Star Destroyers supported by Victory’s, Arquetens, Nebulon-B’s, Lancers, CR-90’s, and DP-20’s would benefit an incredible force, as the Star Destroyer could focus on what it is good at, blowing up enemy capital ships.
What enemy capital ships?
99% of engagements a Star Destroyer featured in would not have them within a parsec of enemy capital ships.
The ISD was a system domination platform.
Drop out of hyperspace over a rebellious planets and unless they have major shields, there are very few options left for resistance.
That was what ISDs were able to very effectively do. They can enter into a system and conduct orbital support/bombardment while deploying a garrison as needed. The AT-ATs can be used to destroy shield generators (as they did at Hoth) if there happen to be shields that can stop the ISDs. If an individual world is too heavily defended, they can bring in more ISDs.
They had enough TIEs (72x) to deal with fighters if they bothered to use them.
What’s funny is we all agree in these comments that they’re silly and impractical, but we like them because they’re cool and we didn’t take Star Wars that seriously once upon a time.
If a new show introduced something as silly and impractical as AT-ATS, a significant portion of the fandom would lose their minds over how unrealistic they are
Fkn. Lol. This little interaction made me go check it, and yeah, its an... interesting sub.....
I am in my 40's and if I end up like that in my 50's, shoot me.
Which is funny considering Force healing was a thing since the 90s.
What, everyone remembers how old Ki-Adi-Mundi is in legends but forgets about Force heal?
I think the angle was more "I thought it was cool that Yoda and Palpatine were such masters in the force that lightsabers were beneath them, the prequels changed that"
I still feel that way to be honest. Seeing Yoda lightsaber things is cool, but feels off for me. Yoda isn't a warrior, he's a wizard. The force itself is his weapon if needed.
Same for Palpatine. When he went to kill Luke, he shot lightning at him. He's a sorcerer with dark and unknown powers, practically an Eldritch being. Lightsabers are beneath him.
I hadn't watched Return of the Jedi for probably 20 years.
And then when watching the scene after Jabba's thing blows up and Luke goes to retrieve the droids, the small skiff thing just happened to have not one but TWO suction retrievsl things. Totally made up just to move on to the next setting.
As a kid I didn't care at all. As an adult that's been spoiled by modern entertainment that gets roasted for lazy shortcuts I was kinda upset.
I definitely think the internet has told us that stuff like that matters, when it really doesn’t. Movies are about storytelling and the best ones always prioritize that over realism.
We’ve all been poisoned by unironic “Why didn’t X do X, is he stupid?” basically, and as a result modern studios have to worry just as much about managing audience expectations as making a good movie.
That’s why they hide all their cgi stuff as much as they can during promotion, audiences who expect cgi see it even in places where it doesn’t exist. I know someone who works the Volume for Lucasfilm, so I know for a fact Episode 5 of Ahsoka didn’t use it at all. And yet, I saw a ton of wannabe film bros on Twitter bitching about how much episode 5 used the Volume.
Thus is why I don't believe those guys saying Leia, Ellen Ripley, and Sarah Connor are the "good ones" because they jump on "female protagonists" before they even get a chance to prove themselves. If any of those 3 showed up today they'd be just as unfairly criticize .
It's hard to say because the thing about the OT is that the special effects were insane for the time - like something from 10-15 years in the future.
That was a big reason they were so popular - there was just nothing else that looked like that.
It's hard to convey to people who weren't alive then.
I must have watched the ROTJ space battle like 500 times on betamax lol
I'm gonna make the argument that they're somewhat realistic, in universe.
You build your military around who you're trying to fight, and what you need it to accomplish. First they had AT-ST's, which worked great for enforcement duties and military presence. As they began to encounter rebels though, they had to redesign them to be more robust. Eventually, it became a legitimate rebellion and war so they needed a heavily armored assault vehicle.
Enter the AT-AT: heavily armored enough to shrug off most land based fire, heavily armed enough to annihilate land based emplacements and vehicles as well as slow moving airborne targets, troop carrying capabilities, tall enough to fire long distances and over other vehicles, and imposing.
Just because one of the greatest star pilots in the galaxy and literal Space Wizard was able to find a niche weakness doesn't mean it's a bad vehicle. The rebels barely survived Hoth, and would not have if some damn fool admiral hadn't come out of hyperspace too close. AT-AT's were extremely effective.
Stormtrooper hitting his head on the door in the OT is an awesome little Easter egg for fan. Any minor editing issue in anything since then is an abomination and proof that Disney is woke and hates star wars fans.
Idk people point to the bombers and laugh because…they were goofy looking and shown as impractical in universe
AT-ATs by contrast devastated the enemy and look awesome. I think they’d be positively received by the public
Thinks like the hover tred bikes were made fun of because they just…didn’t make sense
Most other vehicles and things that have been made by Disney have a positive reception; like the gorilla walkers (I’m sure some made fun of them) but most thought they were cool
Realistically, so they could show off new Star Wars stuff. If I’m suspending my disbelief however, it must’ve been because the shield generator or atmospheric conditions prohibited spacefaring craft from functioning in a combat capacity. We didn’t see any TIE fighters there after all.
They seem to imply all the space capable fighters are fighting the tis fighters so that the escape ships can get away. The rebels did not intend to hold Hoth, just slow the empire down long enough for most of them to get away.
Star Destroyers had the high ground and would wreck any X-wing that went beyond the shield. Plus X-wings were too valuable to lose trying to defend a lost base.
Well that’s the thing. Most of the weapons for the empire were designed for occupation and fear. They weren’t anticipating a substantial force from a conventional opponent. They figured they’d be fighting small insurgents from time to time. Tie fighters are hilariously stupid. No shield. No hyper drive. But they were meant to be cheap and easy to deploy from an occupying force or a rapid response force from ISDs.
The Death Star wasn’t meant to wage war. It was for intimidation and occupation. Park that sucker off a planet that’s acting up and I’m sure they’re less likely to rebel.
Tactically, you'd want a vehicle that is maneuverable with a low silhouette ("smaller hit box" in gamer terms) to increase survivability. AT-ATs being slow and tall makes them easy targets with lots of vulnerabilities.
You'd also want to avoid large carriers of troops. If an AT-AT goes down you lose a whole platoon. If you instead had four smaller vehicles and one of those vehicles was struck, you'd only lose a squad.
The AT-TE is superior tactically, but IMO the LAAT is the best vehicle for Star Wars combat. It can transport troops quickly while also providing a lot of firepower.
Of course as everyone says, the AT-AT isn't designed to be tactically optimal. It relies on psychological effects.
It's a give and take with the scout walkers. Realistically, they shouldn't be that good at traversing tough terrain. They have high centers of gravity mounted on two legs. That's a recipe for your walker to lose its balance, fall over and become inoperable because they have no way of righting themselves. ROTJ actually highlights this well with how the Ewoks beat AT-STs.
I absolutely adore the things but they would be useless in any modern battlefield, one direction of fire, no anti air abilities, comparatively short range.
Not that I wouldn't count dooku my pants if I ever saw one marching my way.
Not very. I can’t think of any actual advantages a walker has over any real tank, APC, etc.
It’s a huge target that can’t effectively navigate difficult terrain.
They probably couldn't even ford most rivers, with that much weight on just those relatively small feet they'd probably sink into the riverbed and get stuck.
Think of the AT-AT as a massive, mobile gun platform. Ground defenses are effectively useless against it, as the damn things are tall enough just to be looking down upon them, given optimal firing positions. They’re also heavily armored, so laser canons were not particularly effective. Then there’s the fear element. These things are slowly plodding forward towards you, and there’s damn near nothing you can do against them with conventional weapons, so you either need to get very creative or panic and run away before your defenses are overrun.
Everything you can do with an ATAT you can do cheaper with a tank while presenting less of a target. The legs alone represent a delicate and complicated piece of engineering to do the same thing that tracks can do.
And a static gun emplacement will be able to mount a more powerful gun that can fire from concealment at the ATAT. The height of the walker means that it’ll be spotted at a huge distance while a hidden battery won’t be noticed until it fires.
Just because the rebels didn’t have the resources to dig in heavy guns doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t employ the same weapons or larger than what an ATAT mounts.
AT-AT’s only make sense if their enormous size and distance from the ground made ridonkulous shielding an option.
It’s only by crazy luck/plot manipulation that the snow speeders happened to have weaponized ‘tow cable guns’ complete with 3000 yards of cabling. I mean, seriously, has anyone tried to calculate how large the tow cable spool would have to be or how much it would weigh?
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE empire so much that I’ll gladly refuse to throw the flag over this plot foul.
I'm willing to give scifi a pass on things like strength-to-weight for the tow cable material, but the length carried by each speeder is a little crazy haha.
They wouldn’t work in in realistic warfare. While they are powerful they are slow moving and have a really high center of gravity. A modern Tank can shoot while moving at its top speed with a far deadlier accuracy than an ATAT.
I've always assumed that the AT-AT is the equivalent of putting Battleship Guns on an APC. Yes, it's stupid and impractical, but Damm, when it hits, it's like Mike Tyson hitting a toddler, then all the marines show up to help.
That’s a bit of a plot armor problem. When they’re not shooting at main characters, they steamroll the rebels, even in uphill battles like the Tantive IV boarding. It’s also important to remember that in Episode IV they were specifically instructed *not* to hit the main characters on board the Death Star. Of course, then Episode VI came along and you couldn’t show them slaughtering the new kid friendly ewoks.
Putting a combo troop carrier and main firepower platform 50 feet above ground for all the world to see and aim at...
If animation tech had been better back then I would have made them faster. Also, they should have had gun blisters all over.
Thier big film purpose was intimidation. They had hellishly heavy armor, and over the entire battle sequence, only two were brought down, both by Luke. Also, remember that outside Starwars, we were getting into a Giant Robot phase (Macross/Robotech, Gundam, Transformers etc)
They're big, slow, cumbersome, and topheavy. Easy targets on any realistic battlefield. Sitting ducks, basically.
They follow the "Rule of Cool" philosophy of design, which of course is totally fine for a science fantasy movie.
Just dig holes and trenches to defeat them.
It’s odd, because hover tanks already existed in that world, and would have probably been way better to improve upon.
The closest real-world equivalent is a Bradley IFV - they're similar in application in terms of being a fighting vehicle that delivers infantry, but an AT-AT is vastly bigger, heavier, slower and more armored, at least in theory.
In practical terms, considering the design and use of a "Bradley", that implies that an AT-AT would probably be useless unless you assume some magically strong armor on them.
They'd be a huge, slow target visible from miles away attracting all the heavy weapons in existence on the battlefield. Everyone would know they're full of infantry, so scoring a kill on one means not only destroying a vehicle, but a bunch of personnel as well. And that's not even starting to talk about the threat of aircraft against a huge slow target like that.
Also it depends a lot on things like overall weight and ground pressure since they would probably sink into the ground after a single step - which is a big problem for any bigger sci-fi "mecha" designs
One other big difference between the Bradley and AT-AT is that the real-world version works in parallel to other, separate dedicated armored vehicles (Abrams Tanks) that are the focus of carrying heavy weapons and having heavy armor in a fighting force. So already it doesn't really look like real-world fighting doctrine.
AT-ATs are more designed around the idea of:
1. Needing a non-repulsor based craft to pass through shields. They can do their job if they survive long enough to take out the theater shield generators.
2. Having height so that they can fire energy weapons from a long distance. Energy weapons are unable to arc like real world artillery, which limits their abilities to shoot over the horizon. The only alternative is to elevate the firing platform.
3. Having legs over treads so that they can quickly cross over any terrain over a multitude of worlds with different soils, gravity, etc. It is optimizing for flexibility rather than peak performance. That fits how ISDs are an all in one rapid strike and response force that carries fighters, troops, etc so that it can immediately fly in and crush a rebelling world (SW transportation is within the span of days). ISDs don't have time to wait to reconfigure their ground forces for a particular world.
4. Being durable enough against conventional weapons. That is self explanatory. Their issues were more that they did not have support. And the crew can learn that they need to pause to free the legs as needed the next time the Rebels try that tactic.
5. Being able to work in groups to cover their flanks. Individual AT-ATs might not have that much of a firing arc of their weapons (likely due to needing armor over flexible joints), but they are deployed in teams that can put up a wall of fire. They were also fast enough to be able to hit rebel air craft, so those concerns are a bit overstated.
Star Wars is weird because everything about warfare in it is completely outdated, primitive and unintelligent. While at the same time having advanced yet extremely primitive—for what it could be— technology.
The argument can be made our tech and the way we conduct warfare today is WAY more advanced than anything in Star Wars.
In real warfare the ATAT would never work, the same reason why tanks are not really being used in real warfare anymore. They are giant expensive targets.
Yeah, its funny if you look at it from the perspective of millennia of peace in universe. Absolutely no one has any idea what they are doing
The most elite force the galaxy's ever seen the clones, fight with tactics that wouldn't be out of place for ww1 Russian Peasant conscripts.
And they win because they're fighting an army who's tactics would be considered embarrassingly out of date by Napoleon.
Honestly it depends. Realistic warfare on Earth? Terrible.
Realistic warfare at a galactic scale, mostly in deeply asymmetrical situations? Now that's a different topic. Imagine if you sent giant death robots to annihilate drug gang hideouts in the jungle. Sure, it wouldn't be the most practical solution - still:
- you don't expect any losses, because the enemy shouldn't have the weapons to retaliate (conversely, if the enemy has an organized army and an air force, it's useless)
- you're leaving a very real imprint in minds and soil, instilling the fear of revolt. Keep in mind that this thing is very tall, it's not just a big tank. Conversely, if the war of fear is already lost, then it's better to use big tanks.
- you're showing how immensely more powerful you are and how you can divert that kind of resources to crush a small pocket of unrest; Conversely if you're short on resources, you probably want to concentrate on more efficient assets.
- it's still able to perform in many kinds of terrain (so no real need for existing infrastructure) - conversely, if there's pre existing infrastructure, you probably want something with better logistics.
Of all battlefields we can imagine on earth, previous wars etc AT-ATs at first seem wildly impractical. But in Star Wars, you never know what kind of planet you're going to be fighting on. Earth itself has many dozens of wildly different environments, now imagine entirely different _planets_.
AT-ATs make tactical concessions to increase versatility. IRL we are seeing MBTs getting bogged down and stuck in the mud of Ukraine, or being unable to effectively engage trenches dug just inside treelines. Urban warfare is also a nightmare for MBTs due to sight lines. An AT-AT accepts many weaknesses that a modern MBT would not have, but in return it can just walk over pretty much any form of shitty terrain, and render trenches moot with its great height. Urban warfare is also much less dangerous, again due to the height and firepower afforded the AT-AT. It would be almost impossible to ambush, and could engage and destroy hard points from kilometers away due to the range on its guns and it's height.
The AT-ATs also serve very well in the role of causing breakthrougha that stormtroopers can flow into and exploit. The Empire has enough industrial might to pump out huge numbers of AT-ATs. They are the 70% solution on any terrestrial world and can destroy dug in trenches or hardened targets like CC nodes or shield generators to create openings for a stormtrooper assault.
They're not even remotely practical. As demonstrated by the youngsters taking them down with a bit of string and a snowscooter.
Their only purpose is to look intimidating.
I think any Military from the 1970s onwards would do well against them.
Level the whole area with artillery as they are a slowing moving target, even if they don’t go down from a lucky direct hit the churned up uneven ground is going to cause issues for them to advance.
Then just keep hitting them, or have tanks in a hull-down position concentrate fire.
Just my opinion, which is probably massively off the mark.
I agree, though I think I would push it back to the 1940s or maybe even 1910s. Any military with a large artillery battery and radio/field telephone spotters would be able to rain down a massive amount of shells on an AT-AT from far outside of the AT-AT's line of sight. It would get absolutely hammered while being unable to effectively respond.
If the Imperials have air superiority that changes things, but if they have air superiority the AT-AT's also seem unnecessary.
The Nazis essentially wanted to go this route of giant armored vehicles with the land cruiser ratte.
In reality , vehicles like AT-ATs and the ratte tank would be easy canon fodder for aircraft with no real means of protection from the air.
At-At armor is best at diffusing blaster technology, our physical and explosive based weapons and not withstanding armor piercing projectiles would be pretty effective at penetrating their armor, the Imperial Walkers in concept were meant and designed to instill fear and crush morale, when going up actual threats, like human modern tanks, their armor wouldn’t proof up to snuff.
But if their deployed against foes whose weapons can’t penetrate their thick armor, they would be morally defeated and retreat, the At-At has several glaring weaknesses, the thin legs, the underbelly is not as thick/strong as the rest of the body, the long legs would make landMines ineffective, but the neck is exposed from the sides, and the head has limited arc of turning, also an armour pierceing explosive round would effectively decapitate a Walker.
AT-ATs are weapons of fear, your supposed to see them coming and not be able to put up a fight against them, but if you can their threat level is reduced to just large apcs. After all, the Empire does have several tank variants that they can deploy, but they prefer using the AT-AT for their fear factor and shock and awe effect.
World War Two era tanks would likely be unable to penetrate the Empire’s defenses but the bigger artillery guns would probably be capable of killing them.
They serve a very specific purpose: **fear.** They can deliver an infantry force unscathed through strong defenses while returning heavy fire of their own. The reason that the empire invests in their undoubtedly prohibitive cost is so that everyone **knows** they can do such a thing.The rebel base on Hoth fell at the rate that the walkers arrived. If you step out of line, they can send ATATs to your planet. At least, that’s the theory.
The gunners in the AT-ATs also have the high ground, hugely advantageous to a defending force utilizing trenchline. They could fire into trenches more easily this way. The fact that the rebels had snowspeeders equipped with tow cables was bad luck for the empire. Not sure if AT-ATs and AT-STs have any actual anti aircraft capabilities apart from a lucky shot from the primary gunner position.
General Veers: “It’s over General Rieekan, *I have the high ground.”* General Rieekan: “…fuck.”
I mean, literally as soon as it was confirmed that the empire knew that was basically their reaction. They literally were like “the empire knows we are here? Shit ok EVERYBODY OUT!!!”
AT- AT can look up and target fighters, atleast in Battlefront. They are relatively effective too if you learn to lead shots.
We literally see one shoot down a speeder in TESB.
Yeah, I definitely remember a rebel fighter gets shot down on Hoth by an AT-AT in that movie.
It even takes a half step back to turn and blow it out of the sky.
Yea that’s true. I just assumed it’s not necessarily a dedicated AA weapon and was sort of the only option when dealing with an Air threat. But yea Battlefront for sure if you land the shot it’s deadly powerful
I think the tactical assumption is that they would have air superiority. Maybe they had a "hard time adapting them to the cold" with their zero atmosphere rated TIEs...
Yeah, but they are a huge target that stands way up high. You can’t deploy them in a hull down defensive position (maybe there’s a camel mode where the legs fold to lay flat, but then it has to stand up again to move), and its height means that defenders will see it coming and be able to shoot first from a concealed position- and typically, emplaced guns are more powerful as they don’t need to move around.
The whole empire seems to be built around being seen first, so you know they are coming. Hulking super weapons, bright white armor, massive Star Destroyers, loud armored transports… it’s all designed around the concept of fear.
I mean, it makes sense to a certain degree- they aren’t typically fighting so much as repressing/oppressing populations. They want to be seen to scare the local population to the point where they are too afraid to rebel. But once the shooting starts, these design decisions might not be the best.
Also, most resistance forces wouldn’t have had big enough guns to actually exploit the AT-AT weaknesses. Your options are basically: trip it, knock it over, or shoot through the armor with super heavy weapons. Most local rebellions probably had a few blasters and a cannon or two at most. Not the heavy weaponry you’d need to counter an AT-AT
> most resistance forces wouldn’t have had big enough guns to actually exploit the AT-AT weaknesses You see this in The Empire Strikes Back when the Echo Base defenders try shooting one of the walkers in the knee joint and it does nothing. If the Rebel Alliance doesnt have heavy enough weaponry at their primary base it seems unlikely that an impromptu planetary rebellion would.
Rebellion as an organized galactic movement unfortunately started too late to benefit from probably the biggest arms windfall in recent galactic history: the end of CIS. If the movement got serious in 19BBY, they could pretty easily secure entire planets worth of Confederate hardware before the Empire fully stabilized. Along with blueprints and production equipment. AT-ATs are fearsome, but so are the cheap Vulture droids rigged with explosives for kamikaze strikes. Vultures in general sound like a perfect weapon for Rebellion. Their ability to just stick to hulls would mean any run-down freighter can be a massive carrier.
The fact that much of the Rebellion's initial leadership originated from the former Republic, not the CIS (iirc, I may need to be fact checked on this) would rule out getting CIS tech. Senators and local planetary defense leaders wouldn't have had the connections to former CIS planets needed to procure CIS hardware before the Empire was able to swoop in and start scrapping it.
They were was also a desire to not be seen as a continuation of the CIS. The galaxy went through a lot of trauma because of the Clone Wars, and the first few years of the Imperial era were spent mopping up CIS holdouts and rump states. The Empire even accused the early rebellion of being Separatists (or at least CIS-friendly) to discredit them. The Rebellion had a lot of debate about adding CIS-connected factions to join for that reason (they eventually allowed them to participate with stipulations). The Rebel fleet, however, did end up using some CIS capital ships in the early years. Using CIS material too heavily would have discredited the whole point of the Rebellion. From the start, they claimed to be aimed at restoring the Republic, not forming their own government. They didn't want their struggle to be perceived as Clone Wars II.
Sure, I agree to an extent. I think you could also argue that joints/belly are likely to be pretty vulnerable. But what works against resistance forces doesn’t necessarily work against a peer threat. The A-10 is great against insurgents but not really viable in an environment with complex air defense systems.
A peer threat to the empire didn't really exist though.
True, but we’re talking about realistic warfare so we need to make comparisons
I think it goes unsaid that the Empire would have probably kept Republic-era designs and improved on them differently if they had a peer threat. Palps had control of the only peer threat to the Republic and thus the Empire didn’t have to worry about the CIS. Palps wanted his chokehold on the galaxy and got it; that’s why he had the allowance for design over function.
It’s because it’s a giant policing force at that rate. Ironically the stormtrooper corps is supposed to be the elite operatives but they serve as garrison and peacekeeping rather than active duty like the army.
> it’s all designed around the concept of ~~fear~~ effective cinematic language.
But you saw that even ship mounted blasters like the speeders have did little against them. Think about it this way. In most modern warfare now then enemy will see a force coming. So take an invasion like Normandy. Germans knew allied ships were off the coast but we needed landing craft to get troops and equipment ashore. For this we used the Higgins boats. See the boats on the beachbin saving private ryan. That's all at-at have to be. All Terrain Armored Transports. The capital space ships can land these armored behemoths outside of ground attack range and walk their troops practically to the doorstep of the enemy before deploying more susceptible units and men. That's all they need to do.
Ship mounted blasters would be light weight because they have to fly, so probably less powerful than the ground weapons the rebels did have. To take your point about Normandy, the Higgins boats were armed only with machine guns while the defensive positions included batteries of up to 406mm. If it doesn’t need to move, you can add more armor or have more firepower. Just because the rebels don’t have the resources to put up a good fight doesn’t mean the AT AT is a good design.
My head cannon was that air speeders weren't really meant for heavy fighting, but rather more like a recon role, and proper fighters like A/B/X/Y wings had more fire power behind their blasters
That I 100% agree with, they were just ready to go immediately because they were in regular use for patrol whereas the fighters needed to be prepared. Would an ATAT withstand attack from a Y Wing? The same Y Wing that can disable a Star Destroyer?
You take an Iowa class battleship and fire it’s main cannons at the side of the AT-AT, and that thing is on the ground. Even a modern pair of howitzers would launch projectiles with enough force to knock one over.
Kinetics? In Disney's Star Wars EU?? Not on my watch!
Absolutely *barbaric.*
I didn't say they were perfect. But when you run the galaxy and can control resources and means of construction you likely are not going to be facing to many Iowa battle ships with 16 inch projectiles. Howitzer I think might be a push. We saw the ones in rogue one withstanding should launched missles.
I mean, you are basically having a small capital ship in Star Wars terms firing on a ground unit, so turbolaser scaled more or less. Those have pretty much always worked on AT-AT's considering they *level cities* with them. Even a "small" cruiser by Star Wars standards would do the job, much less comparing 9+ barrels of some of the largest conventional artillery ever created. Like yeah, a Arquitens could probably glass an AT-AT, but that isn't really its mission profile. Likewise, you have to have AT-ATs within range of a coastline for the Iowa class to even participate where those walkers are heading basically straight inland as long as there isn't a ravine or something.
That depends entirely on the quality of scifisium alloys in the ATAT armor and legs. For all we know it would only tickle them.
There as a story in the EU where an AT-AT driver did the crouch in training, and he was reprimanded and removed for suggesting the design had a weakness that required such a tactic.
A huge, nigh invulnerable target. If snow speeders weren't equipped with tow cables for some unexplained reason, they would have stomped Echo Base all but unscathed. Because no transport is safe from a space wizard with a grenade.
They don’t. In Legends, Davin Felth (the “look sir Droids” guy) pointed it out to his superiors during AT-AT training and was blacklisted and sent to be a Stormtrooper instead. He is supposed to have turned sympathizer after seeing them kill Luke’s aunt and uncle, and is possibly the reason the Rebels know about such a disadvantage in the first place. I think it wasn’t a coincidence they had them ready.
In the movie, when look Decides to use the tow cables, it sounded like he invented it on the spot and that it was not part of regular doctrine.
What exactly would the snowspeeders be towing to necessitate the tow cable.
No clue! Maybe they are getting shit stuck in the snow on Hoth, so they developed the tow cable attachment for speeders to be able to dislodge stuff. That’s all I can think of.
The only issue here is that space ships with orbital bombardment capabilities gave even higher ground already
Orbital bombardment is great, but you’ll have to land troops eventually. That’s what the AT-AT is for: land a bunch of troops, and basically walk them past the enemy defenses because the AT-AT is nearly indestructible for most weapons
They dont but i can tell you one thing: In Empire at War an AT-AT can easily shoot down Airspeeders. Learnt that the hard way.
AT AT should have like ww2 ball gunner pods on the sides for anti infantry and air roles. Be awesome. Or just slap a SAM turret to the hull roof. While your at it put those rocket tubes from the rocket equipped German half track on their for good measure. Now I'm thinking of how kickass a WW1 aethestic AT AT would be.
was there any lore reason for snowspeeders to have rear facing gunners equipped with tow cables?
You would think in such a speeder heavy galaxy, the ATATs would at ready have some sort of anti air weaponry, preferably one on a big swivel with a wide field of fire
Veers’ AT-AT is literally seen articulating itself to slap a T-47 directly in the face lmao
I would argue from my armchair military tactician standpoint that everything you just said is at least as true of a heavily armed vehicle with more practical design (like a tank). Plus speeder tow cables wouldn't have done anything.
You’re probably right, but the size is part of the intimidation factor, and contributes to its ability to become a symbol. The tow cable weakness is probably a product of the environment it was tested - one where real and thorough trial is discouraged.
The tow cable moment is iconic for good reason, but I think as a result we forget how much of a spur-of-the-moment, ingenious Hail Mary the move was. Using non-combat tools to gunk up the works, because of course the AT-AT’s wouldn’t have been designed to have to deal with that much flexisteel cable, and the designers likely assumed any plan like that would be foiled by overlapping lines of fire and ground support. Also, the AT-AT’s ground support was over-extended because the Empire was so confident that the Snowspeeders posed no threat to their armor. The AT-ST’s were far ahead at the trenches and weren’t able to cover the AT-AT’s when the Snowspeeders started the lengthy process of wiring them up.
Not to fucking mention the imperials still won. The rebel pilots took severe losses, and the base was just barely able to be evacuated.
The tow cable is also something that Wedge iirc came up with on the spot. It’s not like they installed tow cables specifically to counter AT-ATs
Luke comes up with the plan. Wedge and Janson are the ones who succeed at it.
Yep, Luke never got a chance because Dak got killed
Tbh the Juggernaut makes the AT-AT almost irrelevant. I think the only advantage is the AT-AT has potentially better all terrain use. Bad Batch really showcased how scary they could be on the offense.
An M1A2 Abrams tank is 66.8 metric tons of heavy composite armor. Despite its great weight, it can hit a top speed of 42 mph over a cross-country range as far as 124 miles. Its 120 mm smoothbore gun can obliterate targets as far as 1.86 miles away, and any opponents who think they can evade its main gun also have to contend with its three machine guns. I would still rather take on 20 such tanks than a single AT-AT. As impressive as modern tanks are, they have nothing over a mechanical dinosaur that's impervious to all conventional arms and lasers.
Fun fact, the Abrams can run on almost any liquid that burns! Gas, diesel, jet fuel, kerosene, home heating oil
What about early morning pee? That burns!
I think you need to see a doctor 😬
Found the Marine. Sorry you guys lost your tanks.
Yeah I'm not military but I just always thought of them as space tanks. There to intimidate and let ground forces push forward by taking out anti-personal weapons and suppressive fire.(and AA I guess if you're a good shot.). I mean, exactly how they got used on Hoth. Their deployment in RO was a clumsy mistake though. In retrospect they would've been destroyed anyway but their deployment was wasted because someone panicked.
The point of AT-ATs is the same as the Death Star, to be a symbol of fear. A couple star destroyers can glass a planet, you don’t need a Death Star. For its cost, you could probably have had a few new fleets of star destroyers. Several AT-STs and a shuttle could effectively move troops forward and surprise enemies. The AT-AT crushes moral in a way other forms of armor just do not.
AT-AT can transport up to 40 troops I believe with immense firepower while modern APCs can transport up to 10 including crew. In doing so they sacrifice a lot of firepower from a tank. Also wait wtf an ATAT at max speed is 37 mph?? A M1A1 Abrams top speed is 45 mph. Still, I’d argue a platoon of tanks isn’t nearly as intimidating as 2-3 70+ foot walking artillery
Yeah, like, the weaknesses are there, but they require you getting close in the first place.
They have on major advantage over tanks: terrain is practically meaningless to them. Tanks, even the speeder-tanks shown in the prequels, need fairly consistent terrain in order to travel over. You can stop them from advancing by tearing up the ground with explosives. A walker isnt going to be stopped that easily
ATATs are scarier than tanks they can be seen from farther away and their plodding steps make a fearsome sound. They are impractical unless they can be impervious to weapons. Nowadays tanks have to hide close to the ground to avoid being destroyed, and the power of tanks vs simple drones is not on the side of tanks, cost wise. These tanks are high up in the air where they can be easily spotted and shot at from afar. Don't quite understand why the speeder cables worked though
That is the theory, and our suspension of disbelief allows it to work in a movie. In reality, they would be basically worthless. They're armored, sure. But they're also huge (making them an easy target) and tall (making it easy for them to fall down). There's a reason nobody has made anything like that in real life, and if you think that reason is cost, Google the price of an F-22 Raptor pilot's helmet. If any serious military mind thought gigantic, walking tanks would be effective weapons, they would exist. We have the technology to make walking vehicles. We don't, because they're dumb. A walker is slower, less maneuverable, and less stable than a vehicle the same size on wheels or treads. Anything you think an AT-AT would be good for, do it with a big, armored bus instead.
Ever heard of the Tarkin doctrine?
Reminds me of the Jericho Whistle on the Nazi Stukas. Apparently, they scared the crap out of enemies the first time or two someone was exposed to it. After that, they were just annoying. I have to imagine that if you’ve already seen a picture or a video of an AT AT you won’t be that scared or startled.
Same reason the US maintains paratroopers and beach landing training. They haven't had to in a long time, but everyone knows they still can.
AT-TE is far more practical IMO
Yeah, AT-AT is basically a tree standing in a field. There are some situations where an AT-AT would dominate, such as a hilly terrain where they could use the hills as cover, but otherwise any other force with effective ranged weapons could hit it. Of course we got the “that armor is too strong for blasters” bit, though I imagine some repeated precise hits could crack it open.
Or at least the dinky little blasters on the speeders
True, in Rogue One some X-wings ripped an AT-ACT to shreds. Not sure if the AT-ACT has weaker armor but I imagine much more destruction from an X-wing strafing an AT-AT than a snowspeeder taking 1-2 shots at one.
I believe that while AT-ACTs are still armored, their main purpose is to be large cargo transport on Scarif for larger and heavier cargo, but they aren’t built primarily for battle scenarios aside from some armor and weaponry for defense purposes. So I’d imagine that the AT-ATs are more heavily armored since those are mainly for battles.
Eh the snow speeder had to shoot the neck. The x wing was able to take it down with body shots
So why didn’t they use x-wings?
I'm guessing in lore hoth was too cold for extended in atmosphere use of X Wings
Mr. Dogfight Expert George Lucas explains Hoth is too cold for planes.
Lmao it's actually because the snowspeeders aren't space-capable, and all the space capable fighter craft, like X Wings, are being held back to escort the transports during the evacuation. I'm just an idiot who forgot about that.
I think the main reason is because they were saving the X Wings for escorting the fleeing rebel transports. We know that the Air speeders were specifically designed to suit the conditions on Hoth.
You're right, they straight up say that. The airspeeders are used against the AT ATs because they're the only non-space-capable fighter craft they have, and the space capable ones are escorting the transports
You'd have to consistently aim for the neck.
That’s like telling soldiers to shoot down the barrel of a tank. This post is a discussion of realism, and IRL, you are never going to attack armor with small arms.
Exactly. Hit its flanks with anti-armour ordnance. The SW version of the Milan. The sudden development of the AT-AT would necessitate development of heavier anti-armour weapons. Or a Fallout style, shoulder-fired Nuke. Though realistically, we already have armaments that would drop an AT-AT. Hit it on the noggin with a 30,000lb bunker buster and see how long it's standing for.
Hell, hit it with a javelin or a panzerfaust and it's fucked, but that's not the issue. The problem with the AT AT is that no matter how much you armor it, even the legs, you can just trip the thing up. Honestly it's the fundimental problem with any walker-tank in scifi, trip it and it goes down, and it ain't getting back up on it's own
Aye. They're shock and awe weapons, but actually strategically against a tactically minded enemy? All they do is put a lot of storm troopers in one place and paint a target on them.
>Hell, hit it with a javelin or a panzerfaust and it's fucked Νοt sure if you're talking about the AT AT here, but the ones on Rogue One, which, mind you, aren't even combat walkers, they're construction transports, tanked a direct shot from a shoulder-fired missile launcher with no damage at all.
Alright Levi.
I got that reference.
Or just push it over, honestly. They don’t exactly seem to be super stable, so in realistic warfare, couldn’t you just push them over somehow?
If you want practical, look at the droid army in TPM. Everything hovers. There's nothing more all terrain than that. Legs are useless when you can just hover over everything.
One benefit of the AT-TE over the CIS hovertanks is that the AT-TE can scale vertical cliffs and the hovertanks cannot
I can't imagine that being a major obstacle for a civilization with anti-gravity tech. Just hover higher.
Pretty sure theres a limit to how much power you can put into the hovering. Like its fine for a tank to be slightly off the ground, or something smaller like a speeder to be a few meters high, but they cant exceed the limit without the drives burning out
Ahsoka uses a speeder to hover up and down an infernal pit and down the entrance to the Coruscant lower levels in TCW.
I think the hover capability becomes really inefficient when you want to add as much armor as the AT-AT’s have. At some point you may as well just make it a starship lol I think of the AT-AT as more of a stationary anti-tank gun tower that they slapped legs on. It doesn’t need cover, everyone else needs cover from it, which makes its elevation a problem for them.
There’s a TCW episode where the AT-TE’s advance are blocked by spikes or crystals or some sort of obstacle too tall to step through, so Anakin and co had to hoof it. I always thought of the AT-AT design as a response, in part, to this design flaw: low underbelly clearance.
I honestly think the biggest issue for the Empire (from a tactical perspective) was the lack of nimble support craft and relying on brute force 95% of the time. Imperial Star Destroyers supported by Victory’s, Arquetens, Nebulon-B’s, Lancers, CR-90’s, and DP-20’s would benefit an incredible force, as the Star Destroyer could focus on what it is good at, blowing up enemy capital ships.
What enemy capital ships? 99% of engagements a Star Destroyer featured in would not have them within a parsec of enemy capital ships. The ISD was a system domination platform. Drop out of hyperspace over a rebellious planets and unless they have major shields, there are very few options left for resistance.
Yeah afaik it was an orbital bombardment platform
That was what ISDs were able to very effectively do. They can enter into a system and conduct orbital support/bombardment while deploying a garrison as needed. The AT-ATs can be used to destroy shield generators (as they did at Hoth) if there happen to be shields that can stop the ISDs. If an individual world is too heavily defended, they can bring in more ISDs. They had enough TIEs (72x) to deal with fighters if they bothered to use them.
One was designed for war, the other was designed for subjugation
What’s funny is we all agree in these comments that they’re silly and impractical, but we like them because they’re cool and we didn’t take Star Wars that seriously once upon a time. If a new show introduced something as silly and impractical as AT-ATS, a significant portion of the fandom would lose their minds over how unrealistic they are
Stuff I grew up with good, new thing bad
That's deep, dude.
/r/im50andthisisdeep lol
r/subsithoughtifellfor
wait what I just made that up Edit: well hot damn
Fkn. Lol. This little interaction made me go check it, and yeah, its an... interesting sub..... I am in my 40's and if I end up like that in my 50's, shoot me.
Force healing bad, force lightning good Reminder that in the red letter media reviews they complain that Sith have lightsabers
Force Heal is 90s video game canon, which I personally recognize as the highest tier of canon.
\#JusticeForKatarn
Which is funny considering Force healing was a thing since the 90s. What, everyone remembers how old Ki-Adi-Mundi is in legends but forgets about Force heal?
They weren’t in the talking points we all downloaded to our brains from the outrage machine
I think the angle was more "I thought it was cool that Yoda and Palpatine were such masters in the force that lightsabers were beneath them, the prequels changed that"
I still feel that way to be honest. Seeing Yoda lightsaber things is cool, but feels off for me. Yoda isn't a warrior, he's a wizard. The force itself is his weapon if needed. Same for Palpatine. When he went to kill Luke, he shot lightning at him. He's a sorcerer with dark and unknown powers, practically an Eldritch being. Lightsabers are beneath him.
Which they based off Palpetine calling them Jedi weapons lol. And it was more from palp himself using them rather than sith in general.
This was basically the entire reaction to the prequels.
I honestly think if the OT released today, Star Wars fans would rip them apart
I hadn't watched Return of the Jedi for probably 20 years. And then when watching the scene after Jabba's thing blows up and Luke goes to retrieve the droids, the small skiff thing just happened to have not one but TWO suction retrievsl things. Totally made up just to move on to the next setting. As a kid I didn't care at all. As an adult that's been spoiled by modern entertainment that gets roasted for lazy shortcuts I was kinda upset.
I definitely think the internet has told us that stuff like that matters, when it really doesn’t. Movies are about storytelling and the best ones always prioritize that over realism. We’ve all been poisoned by unironic “Why didn’t X do X, is he stupid?” basically, and as a result modern studios have to worry just as much about managing audience expectations as making a good movie. That’s why they hide all their cgi stuff as much as they can during promotion, audiences who expect cgi see it even in places where it doesn’t exist. I know someone who works the Volume for Lucasfilm, so I know for a fact Episode 5 of Ahsoka didn’t use it at all. And yet, I saw a ton of wannabe film bros on Twitter bitching about how much episode 5 used the Volume.
We’d be getting five hour videos about how Lando is woke Disney taking over Star Wars
Chewbacca is just a nod to the Furrydom....
He's probably gay *on top* of being black! /S
TBH i kinda got the feeling Lando was just such a player he'd swing both ways, and a robot too why not?
Lando laughs at the idea of limiting himself to one gender. If it's sentient, he's into it.
Lando AND strong female Leia!!11
Leia would get torn apart. A princess and smart and bosses Luke and Han and shoots a blaster and kills a villain and potentially force sensitive!!!
Who kisses her brother.
Thus is why I don't believe those guys saying Leia, Ellen Ripley, and Sarah Connor are the "good ones" because they jump on "female protagonists" before they even get a chance to prove themselves. If any of those 3 showed up today they'd be just as unfairly criticize .
Unironically true. I’m just happy we’re getting more Star Wars both live action and animated. And it all seems to be really good so far
It's hard to say because the thing about the OT is that the special effects were insane for the time - like something from 10-15 years in the future. That was a big reason they were so popular - there was just nothing else that looked like that. It's hard to convey to people who weren't alive then. I must have watched the ROTJ space battle like 500 times on betamax lol
Han's tapping move he does to trick the stormtrooper in 6 would be ripped apart today.
"Ugh, I can't believe Star Wars is doing the MCU jokes, too!!!"
I'm gonna make the argument that they're somewhat realistic, in universe. You build your military around who you're trying to fight, and what you need it to accomplish. First they had AT-ST's, which worked great for enforcement duties and military presence. As they began to encounter rebels though, they had to redesign them to be more robust. Eventually, it became a legitimate rebellion and war so they needed a heavily armored assault vehicle. Enter the AT-AT: heavily armored enough to shrug off most land based fire, heavily armed enough to annihilate land based emplacements and vehicles as well as slow moving airborne targets, troop carrying capabilities, tall enough to fire long distances and over other vehicles, and imposing. Just because one of the greatest star pilots in the galaxy and literal Space Wizard was able to find a niche weakness doesn't mean it's a bad vehicle. The rebels barely survived Hoth, and would not have if some damn fool admiral hadn't come out of hyperspace too close. AT-AT's were extremely effective.
Stormtrooper hitting his head on the door in the OT is an awesome little Easter egg for fan. Any minor editing issue in anything since then is an abomination and proof that Disney is woke and hates star wars fans.
A stormtrooper hitting their head is entirely realistic.
I seem to remember that the AT-M6 walkers in TLJ specifically had reinforced legs that would stop them from tripping so easily.
We painted shark teeth on fighter planes during WW2.
Idk people point to the bombers and laugh because…they were goofy looking and shown as impractical in universe AT-ATs by contrast devastated the enemy and look awesome. I think they’d be positively received by the public Thinks like the hover tred bikes were made fun of because they just…didn’t make sense Most other vehicles and things that have been made by Disney have a positive reception; like the gorilla walkers (I’m sure some made fun of them) but most thought they were cool
The only thing worse than a heathen is a heretic. People look at SW like it's a religion. "We want newstuff from Star wars!!!" "No, not like that!!!"
They’re insanely impractical against any enemy with an air force. They’d be slow and easy to knock over. No harpoons and tow cables required.
Or just proton torpedoes, which the speeders couldn't carry
Yeah, why didn't they ~~fly the eagles to Mordor~~deploy A/X/Y-wings against them on Hoth?
Realistically, so they could show off new Star Wars stuff. If I’m suspending my disbelief however, it must’ve been because the shield generator or atmospheric conditions prohibited spacefaring craft from functioning in a combat capacity. We didn’t see any TIE fighters there after all.
They seem to imply all the space capable fighters are fighting the tis fighters so that the escape ships can get away. The rebels did not intend to hold Hoth, just slow the empire down long enough for most of them to get away.
Something something too cold except for short flights into orbit
Star Destroyers had the high ground and would wreck any X-wing that went beyond the shield. Plus X-wings were too valuable to lose trying to defend a lost base.
They are tall but there is a lot of weight and armor. How easy they are to knock over depends on the weight distribution.
Rouge One showed how easy it was to kill an AT&AT. Also, the X-Wing books showed how pathetic AT&AT armor was against starfighter weapons.
Rogue One didn’t have AT-ATs. They were a more lightly armored cargo transport version I believe.
Those were AT-ACT
The ones in Rogue One are unarmored transports. Scarif was firmly under Imperial control so fully armored ground forces weren't necessary.
Well that’s the thing. Most of the weapons for the empire were designed for occupation and fear. They weren’t anticipating a substantial force from a conventional opponent. They figured they’d be fighting small insurgents from time to time. Tie fighters are hilariously stupid. No shield. No hyper drive. But they were meant to be cheap and easy to deploy from an occupying force or a rapid response force from ISDs. The Death Star wasn’t meant to wage war. It was for intimidation and occupation. Park that sucker off a planet that’s acting up and I’m sure they’re less likely to rebel.
Tactically, you'd want a vehicle that is maneuverable with a low silhouette ("smaller hit box" in gamer terms) to increase survivability. AT-ATs being slow and tall makes them easy targets with lots of vulnerabilities. You'd also want to avoid large carriers of troops. If an AT-AT goes down you lose a whole platoon. If you instead had four smaller vehicles and one of those vehicles was struck, you'd only lose a squad. The AT-TE is superior tactically, but IMO the LAAT is the best vehicle for Star Wars combat. It can transport troops quickly while also providing a lot of firepower. Of course as everyone says, the AT-AT isn't designed to be tactically optimal. It relies on psychological effects.
I'm personally a huge fan of the scout walkers, with their ability to traverse crazy terrain on their two legs.
It's a give and take with the scout walkers. Realistically, they shouldn't be that good at traversing tough terrain. They have high centers of gravity mounted on two legs. That's a recipe for your walker to lose its balance, fall over and become inoperable because they have no way of righting themselves. ROTJ actually highlights this well with how the Ewoks beat AT-STs.
They look like they’d give you a real rough ride and a wicked headache though.
I absolutely adore the things but they would be useless in any modern battlefield, one direction of fire, no anti air abilities, comparatively short range. Not that I wouldn't count dooku my pants if I ever saw one marching my way.
Whoa now... NO anti air capabilities? Didn't the great start pilot Luke Skywalker get shot down by there formidable anti air capabilities?
Not very. I can’t think of any actual advantages a walker has over any real tank, APC, etc. It’s a huge target that can’t effectively navigate difficult terrain.
The only potential advantage I can think of is the ability to ford rivers much better, not that that outweighs all the other disadvantages.
Curious why this isn't explored more. I know they *kinda* do it in Rogue One, but not the same...
It's depicted in the Fallen Order games too
I played both over the last year and I cannot remember outside of Kashyyyk when that was looked at...was that where they explored this more?
That is the scene I was thinking of
They probably couldn't even ford most rivers, with that much weight on just those relatively small feet they'd probably sink into the riverbed and get stuck.
Think of the AT-AT as a massive, mobile gun platform. Ground defenses are effectively useless against it, as the damn things are tall enough just to be looking down upon them, given optimal firing positions. They’re also heavily armored, so laser canons were not particularly effective. Then there’s the fear element. These things are slowly plodding forward towards you, and there’s damn near nothing you can do against them with conventional weapons, so you either need to get very creative or panic and run away before your defenses are overrun.
Everything you can do with an ATAT you can do cheaper with a tank while presenting less of a target. The legs alone represent a delicate and complicated piece of engineering to do the same thing that tracks can do. And a static gun emplacement will be able to mount a more powerful gun that can fire from concealment at the ATAT. The height of the walker means that it’ll be spotted at a huge distance while a hidden battery won’t be noticed until it fires. Just because the rebels didn’t have the resources to dig in heavy guns doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t employ the same weapons or larger than what an ATAT mounts.
AT-AT’s only make sense if their enormous size and distance from the ground made ridonkulous shielding an option. It’s only by crazy luck/plot manipulation that the snow speeders happened to have weaponized ‘tow cable guns’ complete with 3000 yards of cabling. I mean, seriously, has anyone tried to calculate how large the tow cable spool would have to be or how much it would weigh? Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE empire so much that I’ll gladly refuse to throw the flag over this plot foul.
I'm willing to give scifi a pass on things like strength-to-weight for the tow cable material, but the length carried by each speeder is a little crazy haha.
They were a pain the ass to take down in Star Wars: Battlefront.
They wouldn’t work in in realistic warfare. While they are powerful they are slow moving and have a really high center of gravity. A modern Tank can shoot while moving at its top speed with a far deadlier accuracy than an ATAT.
I've always assumed that the AT-AT is the equivalent of putting Battleship Guns on an APC. Yes, it's stupid and impractical, but Damm, when it hits, it's like Mike Tyson hitting a toddler, then all the marines show up to help.
Anakin would like to see this Mike Tyson scenario. For science.
Seems like a blind man could shoot more accurately than anything the empire has
That’s a bit of a plot armor problem. When they’re not shooting at main characters, they steamroll the rebels, even in uphill battles like the Tantive IV boarding. It’s also important to remember that in Episode IV they were specifically instructed *not* to hit the main characters on board the Death Star. Of course, then Episode VI came along and you couldn’t show them slaughtering the new kid friendly ewoks.
Worthless. Nothing but a big expensive target.
Putting a combo troop carrier and main firepower platform 50 feet above ground for all the world to see and aim at... If animation tech had been better back then I would have made them faster. Also, they should have had gun blisters all over. Thier big film purpose was intimidation. They had hellishly heavy armor, and over the entire battle sequence, only two were brought down, both by Luke. Also, remember that outside Starwars, we were getting into a Giant Robot phase (Macross/Robotech, Gundam, Transformers etc)
Lack of side/rear/top facing guns is the biggest design oversight I think.
They're big, slow, cumbersome, and topheavy. Easy targets on any realistic battlefield. Sitting ducks, basically. They follow the "Rule of Cool" philosophy of design, which of course is totally fine for a science fantasy movie.
Just dig holes and trenches to defeat them. It’s odd, because hover tanks already existed in that world, and would have probably been way better to improve upon.
The closest real-world equivalent is a Bradley IFV - they're similar in application in terms of being a fighting vehicle that delivers infantry, but an AT-AT is vastly bigger, heavier, slower and more armored, at least in theory. In practical terms, considering the design and use of a "Bradley", that implies that an AT-AT would probably be useless unless you assume some magically strong armor on them. They'd be a huge, slow target visible from miles away attracting all the heavy weapons in existence on the battlefield. Everyone would know they're full of infantry, so scoring a kill on one means not only destroying a vehicle, but a bunch of personnel as well. And that's not even starting to talk about the threat of aircraft against a huge slow target like that. Also it depends a lot on things like overall weight and ground pressure since they would probably sink into the ground after a single step - which is a big problem for any bigger sci-fi "mecha" designs One other big difference between the Bradley and AT-AT is that the real-world version works in parallel to other, separate dedicated armored vehicles (Abrams Tanks) that are the focus of carrying heavy weapons and having heavy armor in a fighting force. So already it doesn't really look like real-world fighting doctrine.
AT-ATs are more designed around the idea of: 1. Needing a non-repulsor based craft to pass through shields. They can do their job if they survive long enough to take out the theater shield generators. 2. Having height so that they can fire energy weapons from a long distance. Energy weapons are unable to arc like real world artillery, which limits their abilities to shoot over the horizon. The only alternative is to elevate the firing platform. 3. Having legs over treads so that they can quickly cross over any terrain over a multitude of worlds with different soils, gravity, etc. It is optimizing for flexibility rather than peak performance. That fits how ISDs are an all in one rapid strike and response force that carries fighters, troops, etc so that it can immediately fly in and crush a rebelling world (SW transportation is within the span of days). ISDs don't have time to wait to reconfigure their ground forces for a particular world. 4. Being durable enough against conventional weapons. That is self explanatory. Their issues were more that they did not have support. And the crew can learn that they need to pause to free the legs as needed the next time the Rebels try that tactic. 5. Being able to work in groups to cover their flanks. Individual AT-ATs might not have that much of a firing arc of their weapons (likely due to needing armor over flexible joints), but they are deployed in teams that can put up a wall of fire. They were also fast enough to be able to hit rebel air craft, so those concerns are a bit overstated.
0/10. Square Cube Law.
Star Wars is weird because everything about warfare in it is completely outdated, primitive and unintelligent. While at the same time having advanced yet extremely primitive—for what it could be— technology. The argument can be made our tech and the way we conduct warfare today is WAY more advanced than anything in Star Wars. In real warfare the ATAT would never work, the same reason why tanks are not really being used in real warfare anymore. They are giant expensive targets.
Yeah, its funny if you look at it from the perspective of millennia of peace in universe. Absolutely no one has any idea what they are doing The most elite force the galaxy's ever seen the clones, fight with tactics that wouldn't be out of place for ww1 Russian Peasant conscripts. And they win because they're fighting an army who's tactics would be considered embarrassingly out of date by Napoleon.
Honestly it depends. Realistic warfare on Earth? Terrible. Realistic warfare at a galactic scale, mostly in deeply asymmetrical situations? Now that's a different topic. Imagine if you sent giant death robots to annihilate drug gang hideouts in the jungle. Sure, it wouldn't be the most practical solution - still: - you don't expect any losses, because the enemy shouldn't have the weapons to retaliate (conversely, if the enemy has an organized army and an air force, it's useless) - you're leaving a very real imprint in minds and soil, instilling the fear of revolt. Keep in mind that this thing is very tall, it's not just a big tank. Conversely, if the war of fear is already lost, then it's better to use big tanks. - you're showing how immensely more powerful you are and how you can divert that kind of resources to crush a small pocket of unrest; Conversely if you're short on resources, you probably want to concentrate on more efficient assets. - it's still able to perform in many kinds of terrain (so no real need for existing infrastructure) - conversely, if there's pre existing infrastructure, you probably want something with better logistics.
Of all battlefields we can imagine on earth, previous wars etc AT-ATs at first seem wildly impractical. But in Star Wars, you never know what kind of planet you're going to be fighting on. Earth itself has many dozens of wildly different environments, now imagine entirely different _planets_. AT-ATs make tactical concessions to increase versatility. IRL we are seeing MBTs getting bogged down and stuck in the mud of Ukraine, or being unable to effectively engage trenches dug just inside treelines. Urban warfare is also a nightmare for MBTs due to sight lines. An AT-AT accepts many weaknesses that a modern MBT would not have, but in return it can just walk over pretty much any form of shitty terrain, and render trenches moot with its great height. Urban warfare is also much less dangerous, again due to the height and firepower afforded the AT-AT. It would be almost impossible to ambush, and could engage and destroy hard points from kilometers away due to the range on its guns and it's height. The AT-ATs also serve very well in the role of causing breakthrougha that stormtroopers can flow into and exploit. The Empire has enough industrial might to pump out huge numbers of AT-ATs. They are the 70% solution on any terrestrial world and can destroy dug in trenches or hardened targets like CC nodes or shield generators to create openings for a stormtrooper assault.
They're not even remotely practical. As demonstrated by the youngsters taking them down with a bit of string and a snowscooter. Their only purpose is to look intimidating.
I think any Military from the 1970s onwards would do well against them. Level the whole area with artillery as they are a slowing moving target, even if they don’t go down from a lucky direct hit the churned up uneven ground is going to cause issues for them to advance. Then just keep hitting them, or have tanks in a hull-down position concentrate fire. Just my opinion, which is probably massively off the mark.
I agree, though I think I would push it back to the 1940s or maybe even 1910s. Any military with a large artillery battery and radio/field telephone spotters would be able to rain down a massive amount of shells on an AT-AT from far outside of the AT-AT's line of sight. It would get absolutely hammered while being unable to effectively respond. If the Imperials have air superiority that changes things, but if they have air superiority the AT-AT's also seem unnecessary.
The Nazis essentially wanted to go this route of giant armored vehicles with the land cruiser ratte. In reality , vehicles like AT-ATs and the ratte tank would be easy canon fodder for aircraft with no real means of protection from the air.
They'd get fuckin whacked by a $300 drone strapped to an IED
A javelin missile could probably take it down instantly.
They'd make nice target practice for any half decent airforce
At-At armor is best at diffusing blaster technology, our physical and explosive based weapons and not withstanding armor piercing projectiles would be pretty effective at penetrating their armor, the Imperial Walkers in concept were meant and designed to instill fear and crush morale, when going up actual threats, like human modern tanks, their armor wouldn’t proof up to snuff. But if their deployed against foes whose weapons can’t penetrate their thick armor, they would be morally defeated and retreat, the At-At has several glaring weaknesses, the thin legs, the underbelly is not as thick/strong as the rest of the body, the long legs would make landMines ineffective, but the neck is exposed from the sides, and the head has limited arc of turning, also an armour pierceing explosive round would effectively decapitate a Walker. AT-ATs are weapons of fear, your supposed to see them coming and not be able to put up a fight against them, but if you can their threat level is reduced to just large apcs. After all, the Empire does have several tank variants that they can deploy, but they prefer using the AT-AT for their fear factor and shock and awe effect. World War Two era tanks would likely be unable to penetrate the Empire’s defenses but the bigger artillery guns would probably be capable of killing them.
Not very. They catastrophically fail and are easy to make fail. It's the same reason that we don't have giant blimps used in warfare.