Science fiction AFVs

Wasp-type Battlemech

 

That's right, Ebar. You'll recall that Lord Vader told Admiral Piett to "make preparations to land our troops *beyond* their energy field..."

And that is what they did.

 

What strikes me about the Imperial Navy weaponry is that all of it is terribly large and resource-slurping without neccesity. As someone mentioned, you can build a whole armoured division out of the resources it takes to build one AT-AT, and yet more to build a Death Star; why not collect nukes till you can achieve the same planet-destroying effect? It just isn't strategically wise to build enormous things; as warfare of the past has proven, quantity is more important than size and quality is a whole different matter. These huge machines just never needed to be built at all!

About the AT-AT's destruction, Luke took it out by just slashing at the belly with his glowing knife. So the easiest way to bring down the vehicle is to get underneath it (easy because of the room between the legs, an attempt to squash you would bring it off balance, and you could just dig in and wait for it to pass) and fire up. Surely some things in the Rebel armory have more cutting power than a simple light saber, and thus they could disable the AT-AT in mid-motion, shaking up the whole thing.

In any case, I'd still favor the idea of thousands of blasting tanks accompanied by heavy APCs dropping the same amount of troops over a larger area, over that of a few AT-ATs with their complicated machinery. After all, if one is lost you've lost a considerable part of your force.

 

Yea when you put it that way, the AT-ATs are kinda like sturdier Tsar tanks.

 

You need to read my post again.

Roel, you need to read the entire thread again.

 

I read the entire thread Danyel. The only reasons I can find to build huge walking weapons, in the entire thread, are its effect on morale and its practical invulnerability. The rest of it is just defence of the vehicle against the arguments others brought in about bringing it down.

About the stunning sight of a huge monster like the AT-AT walking at you, it is equally awe-inspiring to see a field full of tanks rolling at you firing from all barrels. The fire they provide may be less powerful, but when you face entrenched infantry it is not penetrating or explosive power you need but a wide field of ploughing fire. Tanks, with smaller barrels but in amazing quantities, would provide just such power as it is needed to overcome bases like Echo Hoth. Therefore, while their effect on enemy morale however substantial may be less than that an AT-AT would have, its real effect on the enemy's troops and positions would be at least as devastating and thus more psychological breakdown is not necessary.

About the invulnerability of Walkers weighing 2500 tons, nothing is entirely indestructible as can be seen from the movie. The problem is, however, that when you destroy an AT-AT you have destroyed a considerable part of the invading force while if you take the same effort in firepower out on hundreds of tanks you're likely to destroy only a small piece of it. If the defending force gets smart or lucky, it will be much easier for them to despatch an enemy who attacks in few vehicles than one who attacks in many; the eggs-in-one-basket remark.

And I still haven't heard an argument against the fact that Luke's glowing knife could take down a walker and that therefore ordinary infantry weapons should be able to do so as well.

 

Luke's glowing knife happened to be able to cut through all known materials. Also, if you read the entire thread like you claimed, then you would note that we said the Walker was incapable of waging war on its own. Like any real world vehicle, it is designed to fit the larger frame of an army.

Tactical Strengths and Weaknesses

'Plagiarized' from http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/index.html

 

Okay, I'll admit I missed part of that post for some reason, probably I unintentionally overlooked it or something. Anyway, it does provide reason for the building of Walkers but it does NOT provide reason why the same tasks can't be carried out by smaller vehicles in greater quantities. The only thing is the shield, but as you mentioned the AT-ATs were dropped within the shield's radius, so why couldn't an ordinary unit be dropped there, no matter what propelled it?

For the long-range purpose of the AT-AT I would like to remark that a vehicle or group of vehicles with a lower silhouette would be visible much later by the target itself and would therefore require less range. And I would also like to add another weakness to the list: engine power. Anything that can propel 2500 tons in the extremely inefficient mode of movement that is walking must be a nuclear power plant connected to huge engine systems, and to make the weight rest on the legs reliably the transfer system has to be enormously solid. My point is not that this increases weight, but rather that the vehicle would be very easily destroyed by weapons that aim at disabling or detonating whatever runs oin nuclear power.

And sorry, I wasn't aware that the light knife was able to cut any known material, you beat me three times on knowledge of this subject. I never was very interested in Star Wars anyways, not thinking much of the movies myself. But then it makes me wonder - why can't they set up 'nets' of this material, and whatever moves through will be cut to pieces? It works just like the shield, and judging the size of a glowing knife's battery it shouldn't take exessive amounts of energy.

 

Another cool sci-fi AFV, is that spider from Wild Wild West.

 

Oh, yes, when I saw it I immediately wondered whether they had actually built that thing for the movie or if it was all just CGI. It looked awesome and so entirely useless! Any man with a rifle could just shoot the driver off. See the Elephaunts in LOTR: ROTK.

 

Because Lightsabres are long lost technology from the days of the Old Republic, when the elitist and arrogant Jedi Order reigned supreme.

 

If you see Star Wars 1, you will see light sabers cutting through blast doors as though they were cheese.

He is good, isn't he!
With Star Wars as with Shermans, Danyel has an impressive array of Knowledge!

 

Side effect from owning every Starwars tech journal/guide ever published.

 

Has anyone ever seen "The Animatrix?" It is a set of Japanses animations that broaden the world of "The Matrix." In it, you see the humans fighting aganist massive armies of robots, with some interesting armored vehicles involved. Like in "Matrix Revolution," they have armored walkers with machine guns and jump jets. The walkers are almost as useless as the ones in "Revolution." They fight aganist heavily armored targets using only maching guns, no missles or rockets.

If anyone has ever seen this, there are more vehicles to discuss.

 

As much as I have damned the AT-AT as impractical compared the Matrix walker it is one rock solid piece of miltary kit. As with chocolates the soft centre should be surrounded with something a bit more resilient.

 

You shouldn't see the walkers used in the Matrix Revolutions as armoured vehicles. They're just weapon carriers, including a direct system to link the firing mechanism to its user and the user to his weapons for aiming and firing quickly. It's impractical, heavy, and it really should have had armour; its only use is to stand tall and scare people, but of course robots aren't people and can't be scared.

Danyel: any technology, if it still exists, can be analyzed and copied. All the Rebels have to do is study the glowing knife like a lavalamp and copy the technology for their own purposes.

 

The fact that sentinels prefer to use their melee attack when they can be retrofitted with missiles which have better accuracy and firepower strikes me as odd. It seems to me that the machines don't mind the ridiculous kill:death ratio that the humans can achieve despite their hopelessly impractical machines.

 

If the sentinels dispersed & attacked en masse instead of circling round & round without doing anything their losses would have been much much lower.

Dispersed forces can to some extent nullify firepower...

 

Maybe their trying to be sporting and give the humans a chance! A bit like those Red Ind...(sorry) Native Americans who rode round in circles to give the cowboys as many chances as possible to shoot them.


Side Note: The whole ride round the cowboys does have some basis in fact but they only made a few loops before they turned and charged in from every angle and, in the friendliest way possible, put everyone to the tomahawk.

 

I need to correct you about something, Roel: Luke's lightsaber did NOT destroy the walker. He cut the lock on a belly hatch (apparently one used for maintenance of some sort), which then opened. Luke quickly threw a demolition charge into the walker, which blew up rather spectacularly.