Assault Vehicle Deployment

Okay, Imperial assault vehicles are encapsulated in a heat-resistant cocoonlike wrapping that protects them during atmospheric insertion.

The assault vehicles in question are AT-ATs, AT-STs and MT-ATs, as well as Floating Fortresses and Juggernauts. As they undoubtedly tumbling through the sky, is it possible they have repulsors or something that not only prevents free-fall spinning, but eventually hovers them down?


What I want to know are two things:

1. How do they land gently if they scream toward the ground like meteors?

2. How do they return to the orbiting ships?

 

AT-ATs and AT-STs are deployed from orbit in landing barges that drop them on the planet then return to the mother ship. Presumably, the reverse occurs when they return to the ship.

This method is shown in the PC game Force Commander, and the Rogue Squadron comic "Mandatory Retirement" (in a background shot of AT-ATs being loaded into one in the hangars).

 

I had thought that they were INITIALLY sent down in dropships?

 

The MT-ATs are dropped down in protective cocoons that have a sort of gel that protects them from impact.
I imagine that the AT-ATs are brought down in a similar fasion, or have a repulsor life drop ship that they come down in.

 

If i recall correctly more than just the MT-AT walkers are show as using the encapsuled freefall form of landing...though its about 2 hours away...so i can't really look it up...

 

Dark Troopers, MT-ATs, and Probe Droids are deployed in said pods. Anything else, I don't know.

AT-STs and AT-ATs are deployed in barges, as was stated, though I don't know that they can't also be deployed in pods, though I am inclined to disagree.

Juggernauts and Floating Fortresses in pods? Now that's just silly!

How would AT-STs, AT-ATs, Juggernauts, and Floating Fortresses disembark from a pod embedded in the ground? They don't have high powered repulsorlifts, like a probe droid, and they don't have spider-like legs, like a MT-AT.

AT-STs and AT-ATs would trip trying to get out of thier own craters.

Juggernauts wouldn't be able to get enough tracktion, since they have wheels.

Floating Fortresses wouldn't be able to get high enough to get over the lip of the crater.

As such, I am inclined to believe that not all Imperial ground craft are shot down to the planet in pods.

 

This is a key question because, though you see these assault vehicles in the books at various times, you don't actually know how they "got" to the surface from orbit.

Transport barges makes sense, if that is correct. So on that note, these things would have to be enormous, wouldn't they? Recalling how Impstars hold 20 AT-ATs and 30 AT-STs, I wonder how many barges they have?

Incidenatlly, anyone with the Jedi Outcast game will know in later starges about that Imp ship you sometimes come across this tall pod, with four scout walkers within.

Funny how not a single novel ever actually mentioned this, huh?

 

Egads, the entire Star Wars universe will implode!

 

It's quite likely that most assault vehicles can be deployed and recovered using landing barges, but that the pods are a nice fast way of getting them to the surface. If a landing barge can recover a bunch of AT-ATs then it will be able to deploy them (all it needs to do is brake).

The pods would need some form of repulsor to decelerate before landing though - nothing inside would stand a chance otherwise, regardless of how much padding they had. Hence probably no crater.

 

Excellence:
Transport barges makes sense, if that is correct. So on that note, these things would have to be enormous, wouldn't they? Recalling how Impstars hold 20 AT-ATs and 30 AT-STs, I wonder how many barges they have?

ISD's have to make room for 9000+ stormies, 6 squads of TIE craft, and all the other goodies that make an ISD an ISD. So a barge could probably hold more than 20 AT-AT's and 30 AT-ST's even if it's smaller than the ISD's.

As for the barges themselves, I have no clue as to any info about them. I imagine them as similar to the TF barges we saw in TPM.

Here's my question: What kind of ground mech does the NR use?

 

The AT-AT barges were in Force Commander. They can also carry AT-STs. There is also a larger barge model, and the pic can be found in the Tech. Commentaries.