Lit GAVs Junkie Base- The technical discussions of the GFFA (Armored Cavalry thread)

True. If nothing else, they can shrug off a lot of damage, and that alone gives them great value. Particularly if they are deployed alongside other vehicles that can make up for their weaknesses and protect their flanks. Warfare is all about combined arms tactics after all, rather than creating a few things that handle everything.

In particular, they do have a natural partnership with AT-STs - the AT-ATs can smash fixed fortifications too tough for at-sts, and at-sts can protect the bigger walkers from maneuver units.

 

Well, it IS effective ... but it's not a weapon for symmetrical warfare. It's assumed to be practically indestructible in the face of what the Rebellion can throw at it, so it can afford to be slow, top-heavy, and a bit ungainly for the benefit of being a literal monster on the battlefield, breaking the morale of those it doesn't directly engage.

 

AT-AT hulls can't be any stronger than starship hulls, and the Rebels definitely have weapons that can destroy those. So if we think too hard about it, the AT-AT really doesn't make sense.

 

Did we ever see AT-ATs face X-Wings in combat? I doubt they would survive a well placed proton torpedo (and I think they get bombarded by Y-Wings in some comics) but I wonder how their armor would fare against starfighter or gunship cannons.

I think the older variant's armor shrugs off the Ghost's lasers in one Rebels episode.

 

Isard's Revenge has the Rogues using their X-wings' laser cannons to kill the AT-ATs. It's not even a battle, they just completely slaughter the walkers. They basically say "haha it's a good thing we're in our X-wings this time" and even say that they don't want to waste proton torpedoes on AT-ATs. So at least according to this book, X-wing lasers are much more powerful than snowspeeder lasers.

I think this depiction is way overpowered in favor of the X-wing, but even if it were toned down considerably, I think 4-6 torpedoes would probably be enough to knock out an AT-AT. And there's no reason why the Rebels or any other faction couldn't just load a bunch of torpedoes onto a gunship or bomber and use that to kill AT-ATs.

 

Last time I watched this, it did bring up one question. If you change the AT-AT's gait, can it reach higher speeds without looking ridiculous?
The way the AT-AT moves in the movie is good at slow speeds, as it keeps 3 feet on the ground at all times; giving it greater stability. The problem is once you reach higher speeds the legs end up moving too fast. Which ends up looking wrong for it's size and weight.

So how can it be made to work? Well, as EC Henry mentioned part of the solution is increasing the stride length. Mechanically, based of the Battlefront AT-AT, each leg could potentially have a maximum stride length of 12m. But it can't fully utilise this while walking, as the back legs would end up colliding with the front ones - it might also look a bit ridiculous.
The other part is changing how often its legs step forward. Currently each leg waits for the other three before it makes a step. This means a leg stepping forward has to cover the same distance, as a leg going backwards, in a lot less time (in my animation of the movie gait, it takes 10 frames to step forward and 30 to move backwards). So if we change it so that a leg only has to wait for one other leg to make a step, we can increase the speed of the AT-AT without having to increase how fast each leg moves forward, when it takes a step.

If you made it through that explanation, here's a roughish animation of how it would look moving at 30km/h (hopefully the clip works properly).

Like the movie version, I based the gait on an elephants. It's actually pretty similar to the AT-ATs normal gait, the main difference being that forward foot steps forward before the rear foot hits the ground, and that each leg only has to wait for one other before it takes a step. This keeps the legs stepping forward more frequently and at a more leisurely pace. It also allows the legs to take longer strides without hitting each other. In this animation the stride length is 8.4m, and it takes 1 second for them to move that distance, which should give a speed of 30.24km/h (hopefully I calculated all the speeds correctly).
Of course can't forget to show it at 60.48km/h

For comparison, here is a version using the movie gait, going at I believe 21.6km/h

 

Regarding AT-ATs facing X-Wings I just remembered that we actually got to see that in a canon story, "Blade Squadron - Kuat"!
I much prefer the portrayal here compared to Isard's Revenge, here are the relevant bits:

"Even more alarming was the fact that the X-Wing lasers weren't powerful enough to penetrate the walker's heavy armor in a single shot".
"The only way to knock off those walkers was with proton torpedoes"
"While the armored beasts' weapons could punch through most snubfighters, they were not as effective at tracking them at high speed"
"Moonsong lined up her shot and let loose a pair of torpedoes that lighted up an AT-AT crew compartment, and sent the walker toppling over onto a half built scout model"