Why does Star Wars Involve Land Vehicles?

[General Sun]

George Lucas is a genius, but tanks? AT-ATs? What in the world? Those are some of the clunkist, worst, least practicle weapons in the star wars world.

Speeder gunships, and those troop carriers (as seen in Clone Wars), can own anything on the ground. Having a huge armored walking on 4 legs... :wack What in the world man? Weaknesses all abound, no real advantages.

Is it just me or did George Lucas not think this through? I think that by the time of Star Wars, things like land vehicles, small fighters (automated turrets hello?), and open field large infantry battles would not exist.

I never understood why the droid army stood outside the gungan army in E1, why not just orbital bombard their shields to hell and then blow them up? I understand the need of infantry for things like assasination, security and urban occupation, but not open field battles.

Why did in E2 the troop carriers fly down, drop down tanks, and continue fighting? Why not just carry the tanks with them and fly like that? You have extra mobility and extra firepower...

[meh_cd]

It is a movie.

And wait until you see the Juggernaut - it has wheels. I'm sure that'll make your head explode.

[Carousel]

I see what you're getting at.

Remove the legs from the AT-AT and give it one of those hovering speeder things. Much better :happy

You really do have a point, but I think it was one of the major pitfalls of creating half of the movies in a different time with different effects available. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the movies, but I can't help but 'feel' (its the force) that Episode 1 occured AFTER epsiode 4, 5 and 6. :happy

[Tiwaz]

Originally posted by General_Sun@May 14 2005, 09:34 PM
George Lucas is a genius, but tanks? AT-ATs? What in the world? Those are some of the clunkist, worst, least practicle weapons in the star wars world.

Speeder gunships, and those troop carriers (as seen in Clone Wars), can own anything on the ground. Having a huge armored walking on 4 legs... :wack What in the world man? Weaknesses all abound, no real advantages.

Is it just me or did George Lucas not think this through? I think that by the time of Star Wars, things like land vehicles, small fighters (automated turrets hello?), and open field large infantry battles would not exist.

I never understood why the droid army stood outside the gungan army in E1, why not just orbital bombard their shields to hell and then blow them up? I understand the need of infantry for things like assasination, security and urban occupation, but not open field battles.

Why did in E2 the troop carriers fly down, drop down tanks, and continue fighting? Why not just carry the tanks with them and fly like that? You have extra mobility and extra firepower...

I should head to bed so I'm in perfect mood to theoretize stuff like this!

AT-AT... Weaknesses? Did you notice that rebel weapons weren't able to do a thing to AT-AT walkers? They had to be toppled to defeat them... Speeder took one hit from something and it was good as dead. Same pretty much with troop carriers which had much smaller weapons than tanks they carried.

So their armour compared to just about everything that can fly is immense. Same is true for all armour. Also it is generally cheaper to build land based crafts since they do not need as much energy as flying ones to operate.

Same reasons as real world has to have tanks. You can't come up with armour, firepower and staying ability of land based tank with any feasible idea for air vehicle. You can't have aircraft with same amount of armour around it as modern MBT so they will be more vulnerable when hit. Flying vehicles have also limited weapons array compared to land based units. And flying crafts tend to, fly... So they are not there as permanent force.

There you go. Now you can go back to movies and watch them for amusement. *wink*

[General Sun]

My head exploded.

Same reasons as real world has to have tanks. You can't come up with armour, firepower and staying ability of land based tank with any feasible idea for air vehicle. You can't have aircraft with same amount of armour around it as modern MBT so they will be more vulnerable when hit. Flying vehicles have also limited weapons array compared to land based units. And flying crafts tend to, fly... So they are not there as permanent force.

If you didn't know, in Star Wars, there's such things as repulsor lifts, with gives you hovering ability, allows you to deck a ship out with uber armor.

AT-AT... Weaknesses? Did you notice that rebel weapons weren't able to do a thing to AT-AT walkers? They had to be toppled to defeat them... Speeder took one hit from something and it was good as dead. Same pretty much with troop carriers which had much smaller weapons than tanks they carried.

There legs were their weaknesses. If they were flying and didn't have legs, then they woudln't have any weaknesses.

So their armour compared to just about everything that can fly is immense. Same is true for all armour. Also it is generally cheaper to build land based crafts since they do not need as much energy as flying ones to operate.

I don't understand how this follows. I don't think that weight is still a problem in the Star Wars world, that's something that's conquered long ago.

Remove the legs from the AT-AT and give it one of those hovering speeder things. Much better

Better yet, eliminate them all together and orbital bombard the hell out of the rebels!

[meh_cd]

Originally posted by General_Sun@May 14 2005, 09:57 PM
My head exploded.

:p

[General Sun]

I'm pretty sure that Juggernaut>AT-AT.

All it has to do is to roll next to it and PUSH!

[DougyM]

of course we all realise debating why a vehicle in a fantasy sci fi movie is not practicable is pointless dont we?

guys?


I mean... it realy scares me when i see people arguing as to why X should have duplex magnetic overflow toilets... so it wouldnt be buggered in X situation.... Its a film/game/book the guys that wrote them arent tactical weapon engineers.

[napoleonic]

Lucas maybe genius in term for imagination, but he is not physic and military genius, you can't expect him to be 'future military weapon' expert

in this case maybe I think star trek is more 'real'

[Bruticus the Steadfast]

The landspeeders in the first version of the movie looked horrible (anyone ever seen it..it has a orangeish tint under the craft..to cover the wheels :p)

Its kind of practical thing for Lucas to start with IMO. He dident have the technology or the money to make a bunch of floating crafts on land.

Maybe I am wrong lol.

[The True Roman]

I think theres battels like that in Star Wars is because there much more fun to watch. If they did things that made it uber easy for one side to win then it wouldn't be fun to watch. Like the Gungan battel with the Durids would of been boring as hell if all the trade Fed did is bumbard the shileds with orbital guns and wip out the gungans in like what 3 menits. And the facked that the Naboo Airforce was abel to take out the Orbital blockade with a handfull of fighters is utter :wub:. I mean when the Rebels took on the Death Star they had dozens of ships and there base wasn't under attack like the Nabooens. Man if i tryed to do something like that in Home World my ships would be utterly Destored.

[Lee1026]

star wars never made any realisic sense - give me a AK-47 and I will mow down a dozen jedi with out a single problem. that puny lightsaber won't be able to do anything against my bullets. apparently everyone in that world uses laser weapons - so why don't we armor everything with mirrors? if you insist on using infantry, a testudo with mirrors in the star wars world would be practically invincible.

AT-AT makes no sense what so ever - even a basic wheeled design will do much better. (how's luke gonna disable a tank shaped AT-AT?) wheeled stuff are also more energy efficent then legged designs, and they are generally much faster. not having to raise the legs help alot, as well as actually being able to keep your momentum. there is a reason why us humans design things that tend to use wheels, not legs.

But then there is lots of other things that don't any sense. Why in the world would anyone use cannons and dogfight with aircraft when they can use missiles? they are a whole lot easier to use, and extremely effective. meanwhile apperantly the entire star wars universe won't have a weapon that can can fire as fast as a machine gun. one of those operated by a computer will seriously ruin luke's day in that little X-wing. force or no force.

[EeSang]

The Lasers in Starwars is not super intense coherent light, it's superheated plasma, and building weapons primarally to defeat Jedi was pointless because there was only a couple thousand during the Old Republic around at a time. So that's a couple thousand in an ENTIRE galaxy. Make weapons just to defeat a very small minority? Is that practical?

Also, notice the material used in StarWars is not the material we use today, apparently durasteel and etc is super dense and whatnot. The armor on an AT-AT is enough to stop airspeeder blasters, but X-Wing lasers were supposed to be enough to take it down rather quickly. (read X-Wing: Isard's Revenge) Proton torpedoes probably knocked it down with only one shot. Anyways, to put repuslor lifts on it would require massive amounts of energy considering how heavily it was armored; and it was a trooper transport so put legs on it, save space in generators and repulsor lifts, and carry more infantry. Wheels would still make more sense...

Why in the world would anyone use cannons and dogfight with aircraft when they can use missiles?

Because you can carry only so many missiles, and in the novels most fighter craft used them whenever possible. Take a lesson from Vietnam, whats the point of having machine guns on fighters if we have missiles?

meanwhile apperantly the entire star wars universe won't have a weapon that can can fire as fast as a machine gun.

The entire StarWars universe isn't located entirely in the movies. E-Webs are tripod mounted laser "machine guns" and even they don't have sufficient firepower to get through an X-Wing's shields. The Imperials eventually developed the Lancer class cruiser which was designed to battle fightercraft with numerous quad laser cannons, and even Luke Skywalker wouldn't be able to defeat that alone.

I&#39;ll add more later if you have any other points to make or questions. I&#39;m sleepy <<;;

[wall]

One could ask the same question of modern warfare. Even with complete air superiority, it is necessary to use land vehicles to transport large numbers of troops and supplies over the long haul. Land vehicles are generally easier to maintain than an air force and cost less to build. More importantly, as it was pointed out earlier, they are necessary to occupy and hold territory, something that air units cannot do. As for why walkers instead of hovercraft... according to a Star Wars encyclopedia, it was to "frighten the locals with a machine of war that resembled a hulking beast" (or something along those lines... im paraphrasing from memory). Obviously, the primary role of these vehicles is to entertain the movie audience.

[Tiwaz]

Originally posted by General_Sun@May 14 2005, 09:57 PM
My head exploded.





If you didn&#39;t know, in Star Wars, there&#39;s such things as repulsor lifts, with gives you hovering ability, allows you to deck a ship out with uber armor.

AT-AT... Weaknesses? Did you notice that rebel weapons weren&#39;t able to do a thing to AT-AT walkers? They had to be toppled to defeat them... Speeder took one hit from something and it was good as dead. Same pretty much with troop carriers which had much smaller weapons than tanks they carried.

There legs were their weaknesses. If they were flying and didn&#39;t have legs, then they woudln&#39;t have any weaknesses.



I don&#39;t understand how this follows. I don&#39;t think that weight is still a problem in the Star Wars world, that&#39;s something that&#39;s conquered long ago.


Better yet, eliminate them all together and orbital bombard the hell out of the rebels&#33;

I&#39;m a sucker for these things... Oh well. Everyone must have a weakness I guess.

First... The notion about repulsorlift. Yes, the had those. And they took enormours amount of energy. To move something as heavily armoured as AT-AT in planetary gravity would mean huge use of energy. That would require huge powersource. That would mean it would be even bigger and would therefore be even more heavy if you don&#39;t make armour thinner (which would destroy the whole point) and again you would have to get bigger reactor. Catch my point? And how big would the repulsorlift system be to be able to lift it... That would take room as well from the hull and again force them to enlarge the structure and make another problem. (unlike in leg solution where part of machinery can be placed in the legs)

With leg solution you get high vantage point for guns in the "head" so they have better firing arc. With leg solution you can use smaller reactor since it only has to move ONE leg at the time while others use practically no energy. With leg solution you can travel in ANY solid terrain unlike with tracks or tires.

So like I told you, it would not be feasible to have flying craft able to fly in the athmosphere armoured as heavily as AT-AT. Weight is always there even in Star Wars.

[Rapax]

Well the obvious, very simple and unwanted answer is: it&#39;s a movie.
Star Wars is a mix between Sci-Fi and fantasy, it never wanted to be a realistic depiction of future warfare or anything like that, therefor one should not try to explain the combat in these films based on reality. AT-AT&#39;s may be a totally impracticle design but they look absolutely terrifying and intimidating when they appear in the movie, slowly making their way towards the base.
Having large field battles is equally impracticale and actually downright stupid but it just makes for a stunning visual experience.

So, don&#39;t wonder, live with it.

Oh and another thing, why do people start explaining these things based on physics and made up technologies? These things look like they do because someone designed them like that. They didn&#39;t say "oh it wouldn&#39;t be possible to have a flying craft with armor like that".

[Dangerchicken]

Yeah, each to their own&#33;

I never liked star wars because it never made sense to me, the at at&#39;s everyones been talking about and the whole death star thing, but everyones got their own tastes about these things&#33;

[General Sun]

Originally posted by Tiwaz@May 15 2005, 09:03 AM
With leg solution you get high vantage point for guns in the "head" so they have better firing arc. With leg solution you can use smaller reactor since it only has to move ONE leg at the time while others use practically no energy. With leg solution you can travel in ANY solid terrain unlike with tracks or tires.

So like I told you, it would not be feasible to have flying craft able to fly in the athmosphere armoured as heavily as AT-AT. Weight is always there even in Star Wars.

I don&#39;t think we&#39;re goign to get anywhere with this, we can argue all day long and neighter of us would be correct.

I&#39;ll accept the explaination that it&#39;s a movie and it&#39;s for "coolness". But I think that the coolness element would still be achievable without land vehicles.

I think that Star Wars is contradictory.

In KOTOR, if anyone plays that. When the heros escapes from Taris, they needed to get a Sith Access code to get them pass the Sith Automated cannons. Yet I see no such things 4000 years later...

[Lee1026]

Because you can carry only so many missiles, and in the novels most fighter craft used them whenever possible. Take a lesson from Vietnam, whats the point of having machine guns on fighters if we have missiles?

so why do we never see a single missile flying around? it would be effective. and a craft the size of the death star can hold millions of missiles. and yet they insisted on using slow, human operated laser batteries.

and building weapons primarally to defeat Jedi was pointless because there was only a couple thousand during the Old Republic around at a time.

true, true. but isn&#39;t a AK-47 rather useful against even the grunts anyway? ( they do have a faster rate of fire then the blasters) and as a added bonus they can get though shields, because apparently anything metal can get though shields. so therefore wouldn&#39;t a AK-47 be extremely effective when you are fighting anything involving shields? (the gaugan fight from 1 comes to mind)

To move something as heavily armoured as AT-AT in planetary gravity would mean huge use of energy.

not nessarily. hovering around requires a grand total of 0 watts. no work is being done on the object. it would require a lot of force, but work is force * distance. and in this case distance is 0 (on the y axis) on the x axis the force would be less then would be required with legs because this time you won&#39;t have to actually lift anything up.

With leg solution you get high vantage point for guns in the "head" so they have better firing arc. With leg solution you can use smaller reactor since it only has to move ONE leg at the time while others use practically no energy. With leg solution you can travel in ANY solid terrain unlike with tracks or tires.

actually wheels and threads take less power, not more. you don&#39;t have to lift anything up. and you can move really slowly. with wheels you can travel to a whole lot more places then with legs. legs can trip, they have to step on something fairly flat if they want to keep their balance. and worst of all there is a extremely high center of gravity, so it is very easy to send crashing down into the ground. the best solution would be to bombard the crap out of the rebels. if they throw up a shield use nuclear missiles. the second best way would be to use tanks. AT-ATs are just unpractical.

[AmericanMarine87]

can we just settle on star wars is cool? and land battles are some of the most entertaining battles? IE. Hoth