I mean tanks in a universe like star wars are inherently going to suffer. Air superiority is no joke and whats a tank gonna do to to a laser barrage from orbit or weapons on starfighters that can punch through capital ships.
I think you're being unfair to the AT-OP, the infantry can rapidly deploy from the open sides and basically be used as a mobile fire base with Clones shooting from its back. Also in real combat infantry survivability for the infantry means you can bail out rapidly. THE AT-OT makes certain that the clones can escape.
... no. Starfighters are so much better. Though honestly, if we looked at all this logically... You'd just find some sort of way to target well enough from orbit that you'd rarely have large all-out land battles. Personally, in the battles that would happen... I think a good dropship (or maybe even drop pods, jet troopers...) Would be most important, fighters next.
Golden Rule of Tank Warfare: ALWAYS support your tanks. Otherwise: Total Failure and embarrassment. Also, doesn't anyone use combined-arms Warfare training at all?!
the droids do, atleast they did in legends, and in the movies (going so far as to specifically design their tanks to have expendable droid infantry riding on them, and doing so in combat)
fulcrum 29 until WW1, the different divisions of the militaries worked on their own for the most part, and communicated only to inform one another of where they were or what they were going to do to not kill one another. Then someone, forgot who said “Hey, you know how the trenches is difficult because when artillery starts, the enemy hides and then when it stops they come out and gun down our troops before they can breach? What if we coordinate the artillery and infantry, have the artillery barrage align so it hits a safe but close distance from the infantry, that way the enemy never has a chance to get back out into defensive formation before our infantry gets there. They either stay outside and die to artillery or run inside and forsake defenses, allowing our boys to get there without being gunned down”. That is known as a ‘creeping barrage’ because it moves with the infantry and it was the first combined arms in recent history. Since then combined arms have become a de facto in most armies. Tanks roll in to defend infantry with armor and firepower while infantry moves around disabling anything that might destroy the tank. Ground units support air units to claim dominance of the skies, which then leads to air units dropping bombs on the enemies.
The AT-TE is probably the second worst fictional tank after the Leman Russ. It has a high silhouette, poor crew ergonomics, driver, commander, and main gunner are far too exposed, and it carries two full sections within it, meaning that losing an AT-TE has a good chance of killing more than half the platoon. A far more effective design option would be a repulsorlift or tracked vehicle with a fully enclosed rotating turret and hand-holds for infantry to ride desant.
@@nicholaswalsh4462 so basically Ut-AT, those are literally my favorite fictional tank cuz the armament looks like they put some sort of more heavy tx 130 cannons on the repulsorlift at te (looks amzing) sort of like a tx 130 At-te hybrid. Wish they had more screen time tho
Lord Solar Matthius in the early war the french tank corps has every statistical advantage to the germans. they had ~3/2 tanks and the mainstays such as the R35, S35 and H39 were more than capable against the early panzers. not to mention the psychological impact the Char’s had which can be compared to the impact the tiger and king tiger had on americans in the late war.
The German tanks typically sucked against the French tanks, but the Germans were far more coordinated and had better communication technologies in their tanks than the French had. That goes for the entire French army which decided to continue using suicide runners instead of running radio lines like everyone else did in WW2. So naturally their performance suffered for it. This wasn't entirely the fault of the French army as our modern political turmoil ain't got nothin on inter-war France.
@@roguegen5536 The French idea on tanks was outdated too, instead of making dedicated tank divisions they spread them out among the infantry. To a certain degree they were right, infantry support tanks were widely used in ww2 but dedicated tank killers like the pz3 (which saw limited action in the fall of France) is what turned out to be the right call. The "mbt" of the German army, the pz4 started with a low velocity mortar as it's main gun, only when facing the t34's they were forced to upgrade it to an anti tank gun.
The reason the AT-OT had an open top was so that infantry could quickly dismount or shoot over the top while being protected from small arms fire. Also, as much as it couldn't take a lot of hits, it still had several laser cannons for use specifically against infantry, I'd argue that the AT-OT actually was a relatively good IFV
'Worked flawlessly together' he said, showing an image of several hundred clones standing in an open field (Under fire), with tanks walking between them, as if that is not a tactical disaster the second some CIS commander reinvents the maxim machine gun! Let alone real field artillery! (Seriously, whoever was in charge of that must've thought he was commanding battle droids, why in heavens weren't those clones embarked, digging trenches/foxholes, or even riding on top of their walkers soviet style!)
@@isaacsaunders6860 jedi were primarily peacekeepers, not soldiers. They didn't have the training or mindset to be field commanders. Nor were they used to working alongside non force sensitives. They often forgot that their troops couldn't match them in agility or skill. Anakin early in the war was the perfect example of that. Especially in space.
@@daleford8621 During their attack on the Malevolence, Anakin lost nearly half of his Y-Wing squadron because he forgot that the clone pilots simply couldn't pull off the extreme maneuvers that a Jedi can.
Well the deep battle tactics by the USSR were quite effective and they won the war, I don't know why you compare it with the Jedis sending clones into the open field against the enemy droid armies superior in number, the myth of the Asian hordes It's not real.
theres a RPS system going on in starwars fast moving Rebel forces are countered by the massive hoards of Droids (my logic states that they just dont have enough guns to beat the droids) the massive hoards of Droids are in turn countered by the heavy armour and massive guns of the Republic and the Empire and finally the slow and heavy Empire are defeated by the nimble strike forces of the Rebel Alliance
the droids counter the republic tactics too though. mass droids includes massed droid tanks and mass droid AT weapons. the clone wars and the movies show these weapons eaisly counter republic tanks. the CIS has the best army in star wars, they only lost because it was easier for palps to control a post-war republic in they way he wanted than a post-war CIS.
"Despise infantry if you must. Crush them underfoot, by all means. But do not ignore them. Battlefields are littered with the wreckage of Titans whose crews ignored infantry." these words were intended for Titan Princeps and there crews but it works just as well for any super heavy machines of war.
Hence why a Legio Titanica always had Skitarii one and around a God-Machine. Infantry make big vehicles very vulnerable hence why you need infantry to counter them Artillery beats infantry Infantry beats tanks Tanks beat artillery. Combined Arms Warfare requires all three. Artillery keep enemy infantry pinned down, which allows your own tanks to move forward. Once they start raining HE on enemy artillery your infantry can then break cover and prevent any enemy units from killing your tanks. APCs, Mechanized, and motorized units enhance this three way system by adding faster/protected means for infantry to stay with the tanks. Add in self propelled artillery and you have a very mobile force.
i liked the saber tanks from the older games. They were fast and carried missiles, heavy lasers canon, shieds and a medium laser canon turret. It's successor the 2m repulsor tank pretty much improved the former greatly with the added bonus of being faster. Shame the empire didn't use them as much but then again 90% of star wars villain armies have the most incompetent leaders that rather do evil for the sake of evil.
Ja it is pretty good, but the thing that bugs me about it is that it doesn't have a rotating turret. You have to physically turn the vehicle all the way around to hit targets. Which is bad if thr enemy has lots of anti tank weapons. So in my opinion it should have one of those
@@ShadowMaster1171 Ja but he's still very exposed up there and I believe that's an anti Infantry weapon, not something to replace a fully rotating turret.
IMHO,i mostly agree with you. At-te was an excellent vehicle not because it was especially heavily armed or protected,but because it was designed with combined arms warfare in mind. Crew of the vehicle had an unprecedented level of situational awareness,and infantry could rely on an incredibly close level of armored support,all of this due to being integrated into the same c3 network,and basically working as parts of logistics infrastructure for each other. This meant that the entire battlegroup worked very tightly and organicaly,could operate in pretty much any conditions,and could rapidly react to any kind of threat. Having more firepower was a good solution to the shortcomings of GAR's doctrine and equipment, especially against the enemy that relied on overwhelming in general,but i think there were much better ways to implement this addition. First of all,artillery is criminally underused in star wars. It allows an army to bring firepower against the enemy without overcrowding your frontline,making it much more vulnerable and risking higher casualties,while also having minimal risk of retaliation from the target being fired at. Because of this,weapons capable of indirect fire are an integral part of any kind of industrial or combined arms war. I think that republic should've used something like AT-DP or Imperial SPMA for indirect fire missions,or even developed some new kind of self-propelled artillery on the chassis of AT-OT or even AT-TE itself(you get an AV-7 and slap it into the open top of the AT-OT=heavy artillery,while AT-APs work as light artillery/assault guns). Having this kind of weapon integrated into its existing C3 network would've amplified levels of firepower of any clone battlegroup by an order of magnitude and allowed them to utilise their troops way more efficiently. The problem of insufficient level of protection/firepower of AT-TE itself could have been easily solved by modifying existing and reliable chassis. All you really need to do is cover its frontal glass panel and turret gunner with some armor,which can be done with a simple field modification kit,and any replacement or modernised vehicles could be designed with the use of existing components or infrastructure capacity in mind,such as being able to be carried by LAAT/C or using same walker legs or transmission as AT-TE
The AT-OT makes a certain kind of sense on Felucia where Acklay were everywhere and anywhere, so quick bail outs and using the tank top sides and defensive walls with 20+ guns behind them might prove useful (as ackley attack more indivudually than the arachnids in Starship Troopers, before anyone goes there). Also, look at the front: guns pointed down with a slightly downward sloped cockpit, nothing upward. Something about Felucia as a jungle world stands out; it's a JUNGLE WORLD. All manner of deadly creatures might walk the surface, so elevation would be advantageous. That said, 20+ pairs of eyes with guns that can quickly unload off the sides or out the hatch like a D-Day Higgin's boat (or rappel if necessary) when battle began would make sense; when things are calm, wildlife would be sitting and lurking in wait to defend themselves or take advantage of passerby's. During the chaos of battle, such creatures would hide and stay hidden until sometime of peace had passed. Look at that scene during Order 66; Aayla Secura is walking with a single platoon of clone soldiers NEARBY with everyone else on either repulsor infantry patrol craft or some form of tank lifted off the surface. A Jedi Master who would have a radius of sensory around her would provide a safe-zone to perform standard foot patrols at slow pace, but everyone else would be at risk...she can't be everywhere at once. That said, the point of a patrol is to keep eyes and hears about you, not to be protected under a layer of hull that blocks all sensory input. The AT-OT also acts as a sort of mobile guard tower; while 90% of the occupants can dismount and engage an enemy, the rest can setup atop the craft from behind cover and provide supporting fire and call out targets. The AT-OT is an issue for snipers, but look at the jungle canopy; too high and dense to allow a terrestrial prone position for sniping as the flora are as tall as 10-20 story buildings and packed together. Many of them bend at their tops providing a degree of visible canopy cover from aircraft, meaning that the occupants of the AT-OT would be looking for incoming droids and natural threats through tree lines and in between tall patches of flora. Nature protected the AT-OT on Felucia, and I'd imagine that only on such worlds like Felucia or Florum would they be deployed for this very reason. The AT-OT served a niche purpose in warfare...But it wasn't useless. The UT-AT was a bit more so as the rear guns only angled upward, so if in the rear of a deployment and flanked, it was screwed. The top gun was lowered and AT-TE styled, so no issue there, but the paired chin-mounted cannons were "Line of Sight" weaponry. This was a flaw with the canon SPHA-T that made it inflexible in combat as while it could alter fire along the Y-axis, the X-axis was unknown to it, and so the massive centipede-legged tank would have to fully reposition which was time wasted and troops lost. At UT-AT was good for large assaults in lined formations where they could produce a wall of fire with their various motile guns covering as their chin-cannons did the main damage; this would allow their armor and offense to pair as a defense. Ki Adi Mundi's strategy to expose one on a narrow bridge with minimal maneuverability to position its main guns served one purpose; once destroyed, it made for good cover that the clone Marines could rally behind if pushed back. That bridge needed AT-UTs along the sides in line formation to pummel the opposing side while leaving a gap for infantry to push through with heavy weapons to take out enemy vehicles. Once the bridge was taken, proper vehicles could then move across while the AT-UTs could then be picked up and repositioned by LAAT/c's for further similar offensives. ^^^MY POINT?!! Each vehicle had it's flaws, but also strengths if used properly for their designs. The strategies we see were off, so the vehicle's image suffers for it. The AT-TE was multipurpose, the AT-OT was single purpose transport, the AT-UT had the purpose of lining up as if soldiers in the 17th Century but as artillery... Did we see that? No. The Jedi are not tacticians; the battles got no amount of lengthy screen time; the books that break this all down to specs don't describe every detail of every vehicle (fans spot half of it on their own, hence the need for RU-vid videos)...We as fans have to come up with the scenarios and plug the holes that 2-3 hours of run time can't fill in any realistic manner, whether done properly or not. I like the AT-OT, but I wouldn't bring it to Tatooine (environmental exposure, Tusken raiders, rock ledges for sniping) anymore than I'd line up UT-AT's at Geonosis (lots of cover with highly mobile local infantry that move faster than the turrets can swivel) when they'd work perfectly on Hoth and Crait crossing over trenches in offensive/defensive lines acting as mobile cover (WW1).
With the open transports it's not entirely true. In patrols etc. the infantry sometimes could use an open field of vision, so the open top walker works as a walking fortification, offering protection from below and a better vantage point.
I mean a large window and one good shot from a dwarf spider kills it and the massive driver cannon is exposed. What were they thinking. A lot of flaws on all of them. I hate all republic vehicles anyways. Besides a few.
At least it was still a feasable tank without the Mass Driver, and could be a makeshift heavy troop transport and medical bay if damaged in combat, and it cant get tripped, and it can climb walls
@@gravytube4099 yeah but if you watched the clone wars movie on teth, a staph or a dwarf spider can shoot the rocks causing the legs to dismount and the window and boom goes the dynamite and therefore the second one if it wasn't a certain Jedi.
@@aurathedraak7909 Juggernauts are epic, z80 headhunters need more love, and ARC 170s are just a staple. I also love the Venators (solely for their looks i think since they werent that good combat wise, but the Venators looked better than any other capital ship ive seen)
@@luckymango1963 sorry but the venators are flawed in so many ways, unlike the cis ships those are better in weapons and holds more droids, etc and a small invasion fleet can take a planet in one day, one fleet= thousands of droids, armor and starfighters. and the clones? they can hold 30 starfighters (various) a few thousand clones a few Laats and so on.
Well, their heavy tanks may have had issues, but what about there more medium and swifter moving vehicles, like the AT-RT? After all, Windu and a squad of Clones once used them to outspeed and overwhelm a squad of Separatist Tanks during the Battle of Ryloth.
Good question ..........good thing in my alternative universe we still use AT-TE's and other clone Wars era vehicles but there more armored and highly advanced
@@zexalbrony4799 who doesn't like the clone Wars it was the best of all......................... lucky for me it still goes on though were fighting a full wide scale Galactic war with an unknown enemy
@@temporalclonecaptain219 so you desided to completely redesign the clone wars stuff. that stuff is more flawed than anything the empire used... or perhaps you missed their all flaws?
The Atte is my favorite sw vehicle behind the laat but its hella flawed. Gunner is quite exposed and the pilot has a massive transparent cockpit window. Take those out and it becomes a sitting duck
This video has a fundamental misunderstanding of what a tank is. SPHATs are assault gun carriages(that function better as air defense artillery pieces). They’re not tanks. They’re not designed to be used as tanks. They don’t need an infantry screen because they’re not designed to see direct combat. They’re designed to provide heavy direct fire support from a distance.
And ATTE's behave more akin to an IFV, with how it is supposed to carry Infantry as well as providing fire support. Sure it has a big gun, but that does not make it a tank - for that it would need to be able to lead an armoured charge into an enemy formation, when tactically speaking this platform is designed for Infantry support and transportation, which tank tactics do not support. This is why the IRL merkava tank is a poor MBT, because it's not designed to be used as a full on MBT due to its own provisions for troop transport.
@@AdotLOM I would still call it a tank because A. IFV's are usually lightly armored and mobile. They also fight infantry but do not nessisarily carry infantry. The AT TE is anything but that. Secondly, thick plated armor, main cannon that us indirect fire capable, as well as 6 different heavy laser cannons (4 front and 2 back) means it boats and overwhelming amount of firepower. It is essentially a tank with APC characteristics on the side.
I may be mixing up the names, but if it's the one I'm thinking, then having a beam that doesn't arc seems like it could have issues unless its on wholly flat terrain. As far as I can tell, it would best be used as anti air rather than artillery.
The SPHAT is too big to act as an Assault Gun in my opinion, its way too big and Assault Guns were meant for fast support for the Infantry and for Urban combat or Ambush situations, now in the modern day Assault Guns have been replaced with MBTs, however the point here is that the SPHAT is way too big to be an effective Assault Gun. It's far more suited to act as somekind of command center (Though even than, I would much rather replace this thing all togheter)
@@geetslys If you really think about it, the only real reason the CIS are the bad guys is because of their cooperation with the sith. Aside from the sith, the CIS were neglected planets that were fed up with the republic. Notice how after Order 66 and the formation of the galactic empire, the imperials are now the bad guys. Many rebels were ex separatists. My take is that if you are aligned with the darkside, you're automatically the antagonist regardless of whether or not your cause is just. I don't think thats really fair.
The entire Republic military was disconnected. Republic tanks were generally poorly designed as well as poorly used. Republic Starfighters and Warships were similarly ill-designed and ill-used.
@Haxk I fully agree on both points. The fact that the Venator, a ship designed for long ranged capital Grade firepower and launching fighters, was forced to operate solo, speaks volumes about the Incompetence of the Republics leadership.
@Haxk there is a very easy way that the Republic could have fixed the navy and that was to build proper task forces. Arquitens, Carracks, Consulars, and Venators working closely together, with the smaller ships providing anti-starfighter protection while the Venators took their heavy DBY-827 turbolasers and pounded CIS capital ships from long range. But that would also require intelligent people running the Navy, so probably not likely.
@@nicholaswalsh4462 the one thing I think you might be forgetting, was that the republic and cis were both being controlled by Palpatine. They were being deliberately manipulated and mismanaged to draw out the war to weaken both sides for his eventual takeover of the galaxy.
@@daleford8621 actually I'm not forgetting that. Every military debacle and blunder made by the CIS and GAR make sense when you take the manipulation of Palpatine into consideration. However, when looked at objectively from a rational perspective and ignoring the Olympian Hacking that is Palpatine, there are clear failings that are evidently NOT the fault of Palpatine. The B-1, Droideka, CC9979, MTT, AAT, and many other CIS combat systems were developed in the decades before the war as more reliable security for corporate assets. For the GAR, all of their equipment was designed not by the Republic but by the Kaminoans. We don't have any solid confirmation that Palpatine had any involvement in those processes. What we do know is that Palpatine manipulated Corporate leaders and planetary governors into forming a breakaway state and then manipulated the military leadership of both sides to make militarily illogical deployment decisions and battlefield actions. So while it is fair to say that Palpatine's manipulation explains the blunders and debacles of the war, it does NOT explain the poorly designed equipment whose design process was done in secret on Rothana and overseen by Kamino and Rothana.
G'day, So fun fact the tank in the first shot of this video that the imperials are using is a modified British Stormer SAM which fires the incredibly powerful HVM-II. But for this video the AT-TE always reminded me of say an M10 Achilles but with a crap tonne of point defence weapons to go with it's 17 pdr AT gun, just a thought. I guess being a video on heavy armor it's no surprise to not see light tanks on this list? Hmm you put the narcs comment twice I guess nobody is making good joke comments atm.
@@ONEIL311 why bother with the 4 troopers, the only benefit organics are given in star wars is ceativity, thus they are only useful as part of the command structure. at most you have 2 troopers per squad (sergeant and corporal), i wouldn't have any troopers in my squads and have them at platoon level command and higher (and then due to haveing overwhelming numbers, assign platoons to jobs squads would be tasked with, and companies to tasks platoons would be tasked with). thus you get the greater numbers, and physical strength of droids (and superior reaction speeds, armour and accuracy. depending on the model), with the less predictable and more adaptable command structure of organics.
As the republic transformed to the empire, its troops began facing a challenge not even the biggest, most powerful warships and walkers could match: plotarmor.
Yet again it does leave it vulnerable to any weapons systems with a Top attack mode (Something like the Javelin) or any droids that can hit its sides or under belly witb anti tank weapons. I never really liked that walker anyway. If it's meant to be transport than why not just ask Combat Pioneers to clear a path and maybe replace those legs with tracks, wheels or perhaps hover equipment. I mean you also have to consider secondary factors. How reliable is the vehicle? How often does it break down? Can it be repaired on the field or does it need a workshop? I know this thing was designed to be used behind friendly lines, but if that were the case, wouldn't you want something faster for logistics? Why use a slow walker to begin with? There's trucks or repulsor craft, or just anything that can transport troops without needing that much complicated maintenance and manufacturing skill to mass produce. And as for thr ever present problem of roads... If there is a lack of that than Combat Engineers may be able to clear a path for you and than build a somewhat solid road using lots of gravel or perhaps just plain dirt to create a clear path. This vehicle I feel is way over designed for a troops transport and because of the fact it is slow, it'll take an eternity to arrive anywhere really.
The maus was never completed, but it would have been terrible. The Tiger 2 would be a better example. The most powerful tank of the time, but over engineered by an already resource strapped German war machine.
very heavy tanks have proven to be effective in combat, their issues stem from logisitics and exploitation. the extra weight puts more strain on their parts, reduceing reliability and strategic mobility. the Tiger tank was just as fast as a medium sherman tank and first saw combat in 1942 where it was effectively a super heavy tank), but due to its weight even the most reliable varients had issues with fuel consuption and parts reliability, slowing down strategic mobility. soviet heavy tanks were just as, if not more heavy than german vehicles in ww2, but are remembered to be much more useful. simply due to the fact the soviets had the tank numbers to not require their heavies to do jobs they were incapable of doing (exploitation).
AT-TEs were one of, if not the best heavy walker of all Star Wars, but the bad use of these great machines was what truly hurt them at the beginning, cause the AT-TE could basically beat almost every CIS tank (outside the Super Tank because of their shields)
The SPHA is like a Paladin SPG except it’s can only shoot straight, which defeats the entire purpose of having artillery which is meant for indirect fire. The Kaminoans were pretty short sited when it came to warfare tbh.
Compare with the imperial guard and tau. Disney Canon took the GAR a step backwards where's the saber tank and juggernaut? Why only walkers? The empire in canon a tracked pick up truck, in legends they had a few models of gravity tanks.
This made me think back to Han Solo movie where they had the muddy battlefield, they could've made the battle more interesting by showing the "alien" or non-human enemies that they were fighting just to show the Empires xenophobia or lack of humanity as well. Also, at some point they could've had more wide shots of battlefields showing these tanks lol just random thoughts
You know how many clone and Jedi casualties could have been avoided had the Republic used conventional tanks on the ground and considered the Z axis in space combat?
Ja I agree, more conventional vehicles would be a better alternative in almost every way. Especially maintenance and ease of production since you don't have to create all this complex walker parts, not to mention potential transmission problems.
The at-te design wise makes sense only if you have air superiority because its so slow it needs laats to get from combat to combat It will take days to get it to the frontline by itself Other than that pretty good but rly useless without dropships you cant use it in an assault the enemy will locate its position and outflank it like tiger tank in ww2 Also it makes a big target vor air to ground attacks Wise CIS commander would use staps or droidekas to flank them or Use bombers or artillery bombardement to blow them up
0:18 what era is that cause that picture has galactic empire star destroyers, HAVW A6 juggernaut which the clones used, and first order storm troopers.
Considering neither the AT-TE nor the SPHA and SPMA walkers were tanks, they don't fit for this video. The vehicles that should be addressed are the TX-130 Sabre-class Fighter Tanks, the Juggernaut tanks, and the A5-RX tanks and from what I've seen, all of those vehicles had good tactics behind them.
AT TE always just on the episode of the rebels it shows that the clone AT TE far more durable and if then AT AT didn't fell on the AT TE it would have probably continued to function.
I'm sure there was ALOT of friendly fire I mean some of these battles were literal hell on planets that were hostile in themselves someone got stepped on or run over it would be impossible to avoid it
What I can't understand is why use walkers. They have anti gravity tech, i.e. speeders, so why not use that in small tanks - like the wraith from Halo. Why these huge walkers, or at least cover the walkers(AT-AT) with smaller, faster tanks like the mentioned Wraiths of the Covenant from Halo.
Sounds more like the Republic was using the SPHA-T wrong. It's use is in its name, artillery, not a tank. So it should be far back in the rear, well protected from enemy infantry and tanks/walkers, out of range of anything but other artillery and aircraft, bombarding the enemy front with long range fire and taking out the targets that tanks/walkers can't destroy themselves. As opposed to how they were used on Geonosis, directly in the front like a tank.
I'm kind of disappointed the AT-XT didn't get any mention in here. Sure it's a tad older in terms of material, but it was a big deal back in the early days of the clone wars
