Science fiction AFVs

There is no evidence supporting your rather empty claim that the Martian fighting machines could generate the energy needed to penetrate an AT-ATs armor. Just because they are margionaly effective against 1950s AFVs does not mean a thing.

 

Danyel, reread my post! I did NOT claim that the Martian weapons could penetrate the armor of an AT-AT! Nor do I care for your tone. I just asked if anyone in the forum knew what kind of tanks they used in the movie.

 

I'm bringing this post back because I watched Empire Stikes Back again the other day, and it reminded me of this topic!

So I re-read it, which was a lot of fun, and came across this:

But when the snow speeders attack the AT-ATs you see the strikes from their lasers hitting a distance beyond the actual hull of the AT-AT. Surely that shows a shield in use?

 

no, thats just crap special affects

FNG

 

For for nearly thirty year old effects the orginal three still look pretty good. Where as the first two of the new ones looked creaky even on the big screen

 

Ok.

 

Well, after much research (mostly by talking to Star Wars fans) I have discovered that there are 3 possible conclusions:

1) The AT-ATs do have shields, but they either work patchily, or are relitively weak, desgined more to take the 'sting' out of the laser bolts than to completely delfect them

2) The AT-ATs have no shields, the 'laser strikes' are actually convential AAA fire from Imperial AT-AA vehicles. These vehicles are, of course, not shown in the films, but do appear in subsequent Star Wars novels. The order of 'canon' means that as the films do not contradict this, it could be true.

3) The AT-ATs have no shields, the 'laser strikes' are actually 'airburst' or 'proximity fused' laser bolts, either fired by the Rebels (no apparent reason why?) or by the Imperials (as AAA), or by both. 'airbust' laser bolts do not appear in the films, but do appear in subsequent Star Wars novels. The order of 'canon' means that as the films do not contradict this, it could be true.


Or, of course, it could be a slightly dodgy moment in the SFX. However, as there is a whole universe of 'real science' stuff based on what appears in the films, (as there is with Star Trek) this is not admissable evidence

Personally, I lean towards the 'weak shield' theory, as that seems to make the most sense judging from the film sequences.

 

Lets end the AT-AT debate.

Basically, they are invulnerable to any modern defense system. More or less.

Also, consider this:
When the Rebels chose Hoth as thier home base, they were reeling form a massive defeat and desperate. It's probaly only the nature of the inhospitibal planet that prevented the Empire from finding them at all ('Lord Vader, we know they are simple folk but honest to God, who the hell would hide on that giant ice cube!?!?'). Which helps explain why they were able to build an ion cannon and a power network.

Numerically and technologically the Rebellion should have failed, and nearly did several times between movies. The ships they had were insufficient to counter even a regular Star Destroyer (takes a squadron of X-wings, double firing proton torps, just to bring down the sheilds). The Empire built at least three Super Star Destroyers whose given sizes vary from 11 to 7 kilometers long. Either way, they're huge even compared to thier 1000-1500m long cousins.

The Empire had practically unlimited resources and stormtroopers were the best trained soldier in the galaxy (rumor that they were machines, based on thier emotions have been diproved by the way. but still...)

I think I'm done.

 

I prefer the effects of the old trilogy, they look far more real... The new trilogy is like watching a video game, everything looks silly... and the lightsaber fights look like sissy dancing moves

I think that a tactical nuke could take care of an AT-AT, as could an AA-6 or a HARM missile... The only thing we saw in the movie was blaster bolts being absorbed by the AT-AT... I suppose these lasers are nothing more than intense light and heat, so i imagine that AT-AT's armor is purely a very efficient heat conductor... A large projectile missile could probably penetrate it easily, that is if there were no shields on the thing Even so, with our technology today, we can produce an EMP which i think sounds like it would take out this theoretical 'shield'

If the empire were so advanced in Space, why did they build crappy TIE fighters? it defies all military logic, when you have that much more money and resources, yet you choose to produce weapons that are so blatanlty inferior to X-wings build from parts scrounged from junk heaps... bah. I guess its just a film

 

Actually except for the shields and proton torps X-wings and eyeballs (TIE Starfighters) are equally matched for speed and manuverability...in atmosphere where the wide wings shared by most TIE craft reduce it's mauoverability by easily half (even the dart shaped Interceptors- Darth Vader flew one)

No shield on TIEs was definately a bad call for the Empire and it wasn't untill the introduction of the TIE Defender (Shields, proton torp launcher and an ion cannon) that they really began coming out on top in dogfights. Capital ships were always thier strong point

And obviously a tactical nuke or EMP could bring down an AT-AT. Muke would vaporise it and the EMP would fry every system on it. So...if they had used the giant ion cannon on the AT-ATs.....

Still, lasers in that universe are very powerful compared to thier projectile weapons. Projectiles were relics of the Clone Wars (I think they might be the red shots in Episode III. green would be the turbolasers and blue the ion bolts)