The tactics and vehicles used in Star Wars ground battles often look cool but don’t really make a lot of sense. The AT-AT walkers in The Empire Strikes Back, most notably, defy all logic. It’s imposing to see them approach, and it’s a great scene, but why are they so slow? All it does is make them vulnerable to artillery and snow speeders. It’s a problem exhibited by all the walkers in Star Wars, the Clone Wars era AT-TE is also painfully slow. It’s often joked that the AT-AT must have a “gallop” mode, but that would probably look quite silly (as seen in Robot Chicken) and the AT-TE’s obvious lack of gallop mode probably indicates that other walkers can’t do it either (except the AT-RT I guess). For that matter, why are the walkers often so high up? The AT-AT is usually called (and suggested in the film) a transport, its name is an acronym for ‘All Terrain Armoured Transport’. But disembarking from that height, and in a battle no less, has got to be really difficult, right? And if the relevant factions want their vehicles to be “All Terrain” (and they mean all terrain, the AT-TE can walk on asteroids and up walls), why don’t they just use the fast-moving hover tanks? I’ve seen a few people say that the walkers are used in response to energy shields. Fast-moving objects and, it’s been suggested by fans, active Repulsorlifts (hover vehicles) can’t move through the shields – shields deflect Repulsorlifts. I buy that this would be the case (fast-moving objects are routinely shown to be blocked by shielding). But I don’t think it fully explains the use of walkers. Surely, the in-universe engineers can devise a better solution to energy shields, than a tank which can be overtaken on foot! Off the top of my head, they could make hover tanks with retractable wheels. Despite this, I maintain that Star Wars walkers do make sense within the context of Star Wars technology generally. To explain this, I think, we need to talk first about Star Wars armour and then about lasers!

There is, in Star Wars, a recurring tendency for characters and troops to wear full body armour that, just really stands out. They don’t have a complete disregard for camouflage. Some of the Clones on Geonosis (2^nd battle) and Kashyyyk have camouflage, but usually, the Clones wear white armour or worse, brightly coloured armour. The Stormtroopers are the same. I’d assume, therefore, that Star Wars armour makes that up by being really good. But it isn’t! It’s usually shown – excluding Mandalorian Beskar – to be useless. They even joke about it in Rebels, when Rex starts complaining that Plastoid Stormtrooper armour is terrible. And Clone armour doesn’t do much better. In Solo, as well, it’s briefly commented that an armoured blast vest won’t protect you from a direct hit. (You know I hope this talk of useless armour isn’t getting macabre or anything). And if this brightly coloured armour is useless, why do Star Wars characters insist on using it? I’m going to try and answer that with another detour.

Star Wars lasers aren’t very good. They move slowly, as pointed out by some fans, and are apparently quite inaccurate (given the oft-derided aim of Stormtroopers, whom Obi-wan describes as crack shots). The blaster is a “clumsy and arrogant” weapon indeed! So clumsy and slow-moving that Jedi can deflect lasers/blaster bolts with swords. Apart from suggesting that these aren’t actually lasers but plasma or something, this would seem to be another mystery. Projectile firearms do exist in Star Wars – they’re called slugthrowers – and they might be more dangerous than blasters. I vaguely recall a comic in which, at Vader’s own request, Tarkin hunts him using slugthrowers because Vader won’t be able to deflect the projectiles so easily (presumably because they move faster). The fact that slugthrowers are so seldom used, however, may explain the armour mystery. I reckon that Star Wars armour is very good at protecting the wearer from physical objects (except maybe Stormtrooper armour) – to the extent that projectile weapons aren’t used. Only the slow-moving, easily dodged and highly inaccurate blaster bolts can punch (melt?) through it. Blasters are clumsy and arrogant, but necessary to beat armour. They also seem to have a low rate of fire (presumably because of overheating). All of which reduces the need for concealment and speed (like how soldiers historically wore bright colours), and suddenly having a slow-moving tank on legs doesn’t seem so problematic.

Returning then to walkers, a slow vehicle is more excusable when you allow for blasters being terrible. An inaccurate, slow-moving and low rate of blaster fire means that they won’t get hit that much anyway. It becomes even more excusable when you consider that the walkers themselves have very good armour, strong enough for anything but the most powerful weapons. Luke even says so in Empire, that’s why they have to trip the AT-ATs up. The walkers in Clone Wars are also very tough, though not quite as much. In short, walkers won’t get hit that much and when they do, they can usually withstand it. All that, and they can move through energy shields without any difficulty. But even if a slow-moving vehicle is excusable, it is not necessarily desirable (outside of the energy shield walls that is). Three thoughts occur to me.

First, I reckon this armour is very heavy. Too heavy even for a hover vehicle (the Separatist AAT hover tanks seem to have pretty weak armour) and perhaps too heavy for wheels (which could get stuck in the mud). So, walkers are ‘all terrain’ partially in the sense that they’re not encumbered by the weight of their own obscenely tough armour causing them to sink into the soil or snow. Second, the walkers are often shown to have very powerful blaster cannons. During the Ryloth arc of Clone Wars, for instance, a separatist cannon on legs (sort of a walker) shoots a Republic Cruiser out of the sky. The AAT hover tanks, by contrast, seem to have comparatively weaker cannons – that require multiple hits on a walker (which is presumably why AATs also have torpedo tubes). Despite this, the AATs still experience considerable recoil, enough to slightly push the vehicle backwards. It follows then, that blaster cannons strong enough to punch through the heavy armour of a walker or capital ship, may cause far too much recoil to mount on a hover tank. It would send them flying. The really powerful cannons need the grounded stability of a slow-moving but all-terrain walker on legs. The cannons are probably quite heavy as well. To that extent, the walkers should be regarded more as armoured transport-artillery hybrids than as front-line tanks. Third, I reckon that blaster bolts speed up as they move (like rocket-propelled plasma or something). This allows them to be used for air defence at longer ranges. That is, blaster bolts move slowly at close/battlefield range but quickly at long/aerial ranges (again probs thanks to rockets in the cartridges). This is why the Clones are shown to be capable of shooting down fighters with handheld blasters, despite the blaster bolts normally being slow enough to dodge and deflect. This would mean that the really powerful walker cannons, too powerful to put on a fast hover tank, are also effective air defence cannons. One of the AT-Ats in Empire is even shown blasting a rebel snow speeder. (This should give the walkers an extra level of protection).

In short, Star Wars walkers make sense (at least I think so). The clumsiness and arrogance of blasters matched against the heavy armour and effective air defence abilities of a walker, reduce – without eliminating – the importance of speed. The advantage of a powerful but destabilising cannon and the ability to move through energy shields unhindered, meanwhile, makes up for the resulting slowness. I don’t have an explanation for how they disembark from the AT-ATs though… that’ll just be a difficult, I guess. Bye-all!!

-Dexter