[OT] More George Lucas bashing.

[Hugh Manatee]

They had the shield generators focused over the base and the weapons platform that could disable a whole ISDII for several minutes. Now logic says you could have immolated the areas around the shield turning the planet into uninhabitable slag with a boiling atmosphere but that would have been a boring plot device and I think vader wanted most of them alive so they HAD to invade the base under the shield.

IMO the AT-AT(elephant) walkers were cool, but just a flawed design, like most of the imperial crap(IE fighters without shields, the shoot here buttons, the blindspot behind a star destroyer ect, they just don't give a crap about the safety of their troops they just want big guns for cheap. I'm thinking that hydraulics are bound to be cheaper then an antigrav nit and may require less power to opperate). For one thing the guns only cover about 180 degrees or less in front of the thing, if they had put a turret on top, maybe a few SAM launchers, guns in the back, a few on the sides, and a few underneath(like the one that drops out of the falcon when they escape tatooine in Ep4) it could be a dam near unnaproachable walking fortress.

They were however covered by the AT-ST(chicken) walkers, so their exposed rears would have been covered save for the retarded marksmanship of the imperial gunners they should have been fine. And they did route the rebels from the base.

[Suicide Junkie]

You could still just drop bombs on them. Slow stuff goes through the shield as witness the ground invasion, then Blammo.

Another very easy way would be to have a ground-hugging tank roll in, and deploy a nuke. Everything on the surface gets slagged, in particular turrets and shields, and then you can take prisoners from inside the base to interrogate.

Or sit back and siege them for a little while... big shields must take a ton of power to operate, and you only have to threaten to fire to force them to keep it up.

Or, why not fire back with a similar weapon. Disable the base systems, then slag the defenses, then you win.

[Suicide Junkie]

BTW, if the ATs are too heavy, then legs are an extremely bad idea for propulsion. Treads would be tougher, faster, have more traction and spread the weight better over weak surfaces (such as ice).

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Really, the only place walkers are better are in really rough terrain.

[Barnacle Bill]

narf poit chez BOOM said:
Really, the only place walkers are better are in really rough terrain.

Then only if the walkers are much more nimble than portrayed in SW...

[Spectarofdeath]

The rebels should have just deployed a minefield around the base, think a bouncing betty with mini proton torps. Luke alone, not even having gone to dagobah yet was able to take one out ON HIS OWN!! If Vader wanted prisoners he should have gotten his big metallic a$$ down there and went anakin on them all. And don't try to say he couldn't have done that, no jedi to oppose him but luke, and even if they knew he was coming I seriously doubt they could have stopped him.

[Atrocities]

why is this thread still alive?