The AAT reminds me of a lot of early tanks; a one man turret with a commander who’s overworked as they have to act as spotter, commander and gunner, a load of machine gunners and a powerful anti-fortification weapon that’s low down and often in an inconvenient mounting that stops it being used in a hull down position.
To be fair, it isn't really designed to fight from a hull down position. Early tanks were also not designed for that. Rather, the AAT is designed to fight alongside swarms of battle droids that inexorably march to victory, heedless of casualties.
I'm not sure the overwork on the commander would have initially been an issue. While sold for organic use it was clearly designed for droids, who were initially linked to a massive computer in orbit to provide enormous processing power. Once the b1s became reliant on internal processing the issues would have skyrocketed.
To me remembers a soviet/russian tank like the first versions of T 72... because all that rounded shapes and auto loading mechanisms and the turret also.
@davidjordan697 something to note about the aat, and star wars designs ingeneral is that there is no reason one of the other gunners can't assist thr main gun in target acquisition or aiming. Irl tanks can do this. For example the Americans designed a series of tanks in the 70s with gunners in the Hull controlling the weapons of the turret where only a commander sat. (ie 1 man turret that was in effect multi-crew). Furthermore, according to Canon and legends sourced the battle droids continued to be linked in a network to each other and central control computers though out the clone wars. They only weren't connected when sufficiently jammed, but the cis had better electronic warfare kit than the Republic, if the Republic had electronic warfare dominance than the droids were likely already losing.
As a War Thunder player: A competent crew would make the AAT an absolute menace. The armament is insane. The shell tubes are like 6 howitzers firing HEAT rounds all aimed by a stabilized hull that can adjust pitch in any direction (like the irl Strv 103). It's more mobile than most walkers (in most practical situations) so it can flank enemies. Hell, you can get the full war thunder experience by having a small proble droid hover above the vehicle providing a third person view and smart smart targeting sensors that show where you're aiming at without the need to look down the sights. Some very simple cheap modifications can make all this possible. If I were a warlord, rebel or any sort of outer rim freelancer I'd want my hands on one.
The AAT fills me with nostalgia for Episode I and the Battle of Nabboo. The entire climax blew me away as a kid, kicked off with an "Open Fire" from the Droid Captain and the Gungans trusting their shields to hold off the fire from these, now iconic, vehicles
@@LoneWolf20213 If the CIS would have up gunned the vehicle to pack a heavier punch and put some additional armor on its weak points it would have been a far better tank than it was though. If only they'd have just retrofitted the design...
This is exactly what I've been wanting to see. I'm in the process of designing and scratch building my concept for a rebel ground attack vehicle, this has given me some food for thought.
The C-9979 has to be one of the most efficient frigates in star wars. Every part of the ship does or stores something and in such a way that everything can be automatically and quickly deployed out the front bay. And it looks so cool.
Honestly the Trade Federation and CIS had a pretty bad ass army. I just love the scenes of the C-9979s off loading MTT after MTT and then the MTTs just deploying row after row of B1s. One of the more satisfying armies to watch deploy. Also, big CIS fan, Robots are more humane than Sentient Clones with shortened life spans. Literally goes against humanity to do so. But nobody ever questioned that hahaha
@@imadequate3376 CIS was developing tech so fast that Palpatine had to personally step in several times to destroy inovations that would have resulted in the Republic loosing and screwing up his plans. The B3 battle droid was one such creation that was not only extremely resilient to lightsabers it was also had a much better AI than what was being fielded. Windu encountered one and was almost killed by it. Then there was the Scorpenek annihilator droids that could kill an entire company of clones as a single unit. If it wasn't for Palpatine the Republic's aversion to advancements in AI and robotics would have lost them the war, cause cloning was retarded levels of expensive and stupid slow.
@@Nidhoggrr nobody mentions the B3 Ultras. Things had lightsaber resistant armor. When a bunch of industrialists band together to build an army crazy things happen
I loved this breakdown! Always enjoyed the design of the AAT, and wish it was shown as anything more than a slow setpiece for the main characters to destroy. But like you said, doesn't matter how thick its armor is when its facing plot based weaponry
Sound design for the Separatists in the clone wars trilogy was hard af, the droids had badass voices, the way the one guy says “viceroy,” their blaster and engine sounds, very hot…
@@zacharyweaver276 In the phantom menace, after the gungan shield is destroyed the tanks all charge and you can see them firing the anti personnel tubes as they advance. It's easy to miss though.
The secondary canon location makes more sense if the "arms" were already a part of the design for the rangefinders. If you have to stick two big armored spaced-off rangefinders on the tank might as well add some (relatively) light firepower.
2:10 note that repulsor lift vehicles would get to their top speeds more often than legged, wheeled or tracked vehicles. As they treat all terrain below their lift cealing as smooth, flat, hard roads.
Not to mention he finishes it off with a backflip off about a 15 foot height and sticks the landing by just tanking the impact on his knees. He must’ve got lessons from Anakin.
@@holeshotshane5692 not to mention the outfit he was wearing in that episode that featured the captured AAT does seem to predate what the Rebels on Hoth would be wearing, or at least the rebels in general.
It looks like the barrel has what I've heard described as a floating barrel design, similar to the Barrett .50 cal antimaterial rifle. In that rifle, the barrel moves backwards with the bolt carrier group to spread the recoil force over a larger area and heavier mass, resulting in recoil being imparted to the user in a slower and more controllable manner. It also allows the use of multiple recoil springs, one around the barrel and at least one for the bolt carrier group itself. Now the AAT most likely doesn't have what we would consider a traditional bolt carrier group (and it doesn't have a station for anyone to manually load shells so it has to be an auto-loading cannon) so there probably aren't any recoil springs or equivalents behind that, but it does look like the barrel itself has some sort of recoil dampening tech and is free-floating.
@@shanoncg everything I know about guns comes from Brandon Herrera, Forgotten Weapons and Kentucky Ballistics. I've never shot a gun in my life. I'm just drawing comparisons and making logical guesses.
It's noted that the cannon is a blaster cannon, so it doesn't have regular projectiles, only plasma bolts. And so can't be manually loaded. Also plenty of ww2 cannons recoiled like the aat without haveing a 'floating barrel'.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 so there's 3 things I want to note - first, Meta says it's a physical projectile encased in an energy shell; second, I already said everything I know about guns and military equipment comes from watching 3 specific gun channels on TH-cam, none of which cover military vehicles; and third, I was comparing it to the only thing I knew anything about which appeared to be similar, which was the Barrett .50 cal.
This is an awesome breakdown. I can see several ways a Confederacy that had retreated into the Unknown Regions and rebuilt could improve on the design, mixed with new technologies developed in exile as well as stuff developed during the war. Imagine an AAT with six laser cannon turrets, four forward two rear, on the main body, plus at least one more on the underside, an upgraded main gun, and something similar to the weapons used by the SuperTanks. Not to mention a vehicle-scale defense shield. The Empire would have a mass psychotic breakdown, and the former worlds of the CIS would be wondering if they weren't having a mass hallucination or something.
0:01 I was always a little perplexed by the fact that the battle droids would talk to each other. It is even stranger that this droid officer is issuing an order to his troops. So let’s get this straight, the Trade Federation has a control center in orbit, without which the droids will literally stop walking, or even standing. So there is someone (or some computer) on in orbit issuing a command to this officer to issue a verbal command to the other droids, then that same order is sent remotely to the droids to carry out the commands. This is ludicrous.
Real world thats great but in a movie the audience generally needs to know whats going on and that is done thru dialouge. Sometimes you just gotta suspend disbelief and not put so much thought into a minor detail lol
Well the gold marked oom command droids are not under the control of the Central control computer, only linked to it (like later cis B1s of all kinds were) The droid actually sends the command to the ccc as a recommation. The order is voiced because the corperate leadership were scared of rebeling droid commanders or just ones that were hacked into. The meta reason is lucas though it looked cooler to ahve the droids talk commands rather than showing nonverbal communication only.
@@UnholyWrath3277 Also good for the audience thinking they are Star Wars type droids which all seem to communicate in auditory means, Does help make the droid army feel more like setting proper droids rather than just being Terminators with a different exterior.
This is still the most iconic Star wars tank for me. Thanks to episode 1 and the big number of them we saw there. And this tank is my favorite place on the battlefield in SW BF2. It sounds so good and has all it's three weapons. Everything you need to dominate a battlefield 👍 Great video.
Could you do a video where you pick the best ships that could be converted into bounty hunter ships or one for military and so on? I've watched so many of your videos and I now have a small fleet of ships i would convert into my own personal bounty hunting ship. Keep up the great work man!
it wouldn't make sense, the rebels' guerrilla philosophy is to strike fast with full impact and then leave the battlefield before more reinforcements arrive.
@@neofulcrum5013 While that is true... why try to modify/retrofit a heavy tank originally designed to fight head-on and support a direct assault by a large ground army, when you could spend time improving already fast vehicles (landspeeders, spacecraft like X-Wings, Y-Wings etc.) which could carry almost the same amount of firepower and destroy the same targets meant for heavy cannons and while already being capable of moving quickly to evade enemy fire and retreat? I can see the Rebellion rolling out AAT's and other Clone Wars era heavy vehicles that were still functional AFTER the Emperor died and they began re-capturing the galaxy at large, but I don't see them spending the little resources they have on this at the height of the Empire's power where their ability to escape safely after striking important targets determined how sustainable their operations were.
Because aircraft are extremely vulnerable to air defenses. And significantly more expensive. Hell the aat crewed by B1s can easily shoot down star fighters, just picture dedicated air defenses. The aat is 'slow' compared to other vehicles on roads, but in mud, soil, ice, sand it will guaranteed be faster than all non-repulsor vehicles. Now add modern tech to it (its already 10 years old by the start of the clone wars) and it'll be even faster while still being cheap.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 You're right on them being more expensive, although air-defenses (like dedicated blaster turrets) would be less common than explosive or armor-piercing weaponry. And chances are the Rebel fighter craft will be deployed to strike at more vulnerable imperial targets, or there would be saboteurs in advance to disable or delay the activation of AA weaponry. Whereas it's harder to make sure the enemy doesn't have anti-armor rockets stashed away somewhere to protect tanks. Also AAT's CAN take down starfighters, but not easily. The average Imperial soldier or heavy cannons mounted on an AT-ST isn't likely to take down an X-Wing flying at high-speed. As for the repulsor argument, by the Imperial era repulsor-lift vehicles like landspeeders were incredibly common and available to nearly everyone. And the Rebels can basically give those things the "Technical" treatment and stick big guns on it if they need heavy firepower for a mission.
What are the V-shaped fighters in the video clips with the Lucrehulk in the first couple minutes? They look really cool, and I've never seen them before.
They reissued and recolored the tank a lot. Only the 1999 Episode 1 version has the ejector seat battle damage, though. (which affected later versions of it, because the turret gun was made to flip out of the way of the ejected canopy). All versions until the final (?) release had a flip around damaged "driver" droid molded inside.
The AAT is that wonderful mix of simplicity and a bit of genuinely good design, dragged down by the people using it. It would have probably been a nightmare if the clones had made a habit of capturing tanks, rather than just blowing them up.
I never knew the bottom part could separate at least it explains how they load the bottom Ammo But yeah that's snifty I never knew the bottom part could separate And I grew up seeing thistank all the time
That concept art looks vaguely like the MAF Gunship from the first original Battlefront game. They might have based the design off the concept and turned it into the CIS equivalent of the LAAT gunship. It looked closer to the Droid Gunship but I think the game came before Ep. III so this is my best assumption
I have grown to largely dislike the prequels over time, but this tank design is great and I recall being somewhat obsessed with them when I was a kid. Its just a cool design, and probably the closest thing to a conventional tank we have ever seen in Star wars. I wish we had seen more of them.
When you think about it, the AAT reminds me a lot of the Russian T-34 Main Battle Tank. They weren't particularly good by themselves and were often outgunned by german tanks. However, because they were cheap as piss and easy to mass produce, the Russians produced thousands of them during the course of WW2. Conversely, the AT-TE compares more similarly to the German Tiger or Tiger 2 tank, as it was significantly heavier, more heavily armoured and had a much more scary turret. Equally, their tactics are also similar, with the AAT often being deployed in large battalions used to overwhelm the enemy and provide support to the infantry, whereas the Tiger was often designed to travel alone with infantry support or in far smaller groups.
3:32 the absurdity of having multiple droids pilot an armored vehicle, when having a tank droid would be better in every conceivable way, is only compounded by the vehicle not having a sensor suite that can plug right into the droid, so in order to see the droid must expose itself to enemy fire.
Remember, if the droids are coming for you with AATs, just bring out the AT-TEs and other Republic tanks, strong enough to take out the clankers and their toys
@@arkos1719 they all got destroyed in one way or another, so that's in a doubt if they actually were as good or even better, because they were all destroyed before they could do much damage
@@arkos1719 it actually is. We've seen AT-TEs fall from what is basically mountains and still survive. Then we have the fact that we've also seen many Republican vehicles survive way longer than even the biggest ships the CIS has. The SPHA is a walker that is able to take down entire starships, like the Munificent and a core ship. We saw that in Attack of the clones and in Revenge Of the Sith. One single SPHA can take out an entire Munificent in one shot
@@arkos1719 it actually can't be said. It takes several AATs several direct hits to take down an AT-TE, while and AT-TE can take down all CIS vehicles in one shot, except for the super tank, that got destroyed by tiny grenades, placed on a bridge, and even an AT-TE can survive that. Even an AT-RT survives grenades. That's something i know since i play Star Wars games a lot. Only high yield explosives like nukes or missiles with a similar yield of explosives of the moab, mother of all bombs, are are even capable if taking out an AT-TE. Not even the best tanks from our world can take on an AT-TE in single combat. Many armored vehicles gets destroyed by explosive weapons over a certain yield. C4 might work on some, but other grenades and rockets aren't really able to destroy the most heavily armored of military vehicles. Some missiles aren't able to take out heavily armored vehicles. You need cruise missiles, tactical missiles or even ballistic missiles to even be able to take out a heavily armored vehicle like the AT-TE. Armor piercing might work, if they're made for the heavy stuff. Cruise missiles can take heavily armored vehicles, but not destroy them. It all depends on what missiles you use, and Star Wars isn't really known for it's use of tactical or ballistic missiles. They barely use cruise missiles. It's mostly torpedoes and a few missiles that at most shatter to release droids or shrapnel. They do use flak guns too, but that's not too often. More often than not, it's just torpedoes, one type of missile, rockets and grenades, which isn't really enough to destroy heavy tanks like the AT-TE or AT-AT. Ion weapons work too, but it's not much use for ion weapons, other than on large scale space battles and in any space battles. Or against droids
6:50 2 Baktoid engineers on their lunch break: #1 "hey, you know that new tank we've been working on?" #2 "yeah, what about it?" #1 "where do you think the weakest part of it is?" #2 "the front" #1 ". . . . you're joking right?" #2 ". . . . no? why would I?" #1 " . . . . how did you ever become a combat vehicle engineer?" #2 "I don't understand the question."
The Trade Federation AAT had two cockpit cannons, while the later CIS AAT didn't. In Star Wars Battlefront 2, they color swap the model, but the Lego sets get it right.
Actually the cis ones do have the cockpit cannons. Dave filoni just didn't bother modeling them, this was stated in an interview (alongside things like the clone wars reduceing the size of landing craft, etc. The inaccuracies were part stylistic and partly to save cost and time on things they thought would not get as much attention).
I think the design of the AAT is one of the best in sci-fi, especially if you remove the cartoon-plot designed weaknesses. For starters, if you have access to the incredible hover tech of Star Wars it makes sense to use it over legs or tracks. The deployments we see for the most part is a combination of urban warfare and variable rough offroad conditions. A tank that can ignore this for the most part is great. The speed of 55km/h is actually perfect. While faster is great for traversing a planet, when in combat it is usually plenty, especially in urban or rough terrain. It is also more of a light tank compared to the republic vehicles, and considering it’s firepower that is all an AAT needs to be. It does not need to be a behemoth, especially in a Galactic war where “good enough” tanks are far better than “kicks ass” tanks by sheer virtue of economics. Speaking of economics: It is pretty cheap, easy to transport, relatively small and it does everything you would want from it in the average combat. This makes it perfect for a large scale fight, especially with droids behind the wheel. This is a bit weird since if you are going to put droids in there then using a dedicated droid brain instead of a bunch of random droids is far more efficient. However the design would technically let you produce tanks that can be manned by organics, and since the CIS is technically a rebellion against the Republic it would have made sense to have organic crews and soldiers supplement the Droids (and would make sense from Palpatine’s perspective as it would make it harder for aliens to hide behind “but it was the droids that did it not us”). Which brings me to what I would do to improve it: - remove the foot-mounted launchers. They add a lot of cost, maintenance and their low position makes them hard to use. Having support units with these weapons would be more efficient, and you can equip some AAT’s with a missile rack up top if need be. It also means the AAT becomes a lot lighter and has better maneuverability and speed. - put some armor in that nose! The front should be the most armored piece and the most resilient. Similarly other weak spots need more armor. The shell trap beneath the turret is angled to be visible from the front and if a simple grenade can destroy it (somehow rolling up but not off) then a regular grenade launcher or rocketlauncher definitely would. It’s a needless weakness. - dedicated droid brains. The cost of a dedicated droid/droidbrain to operate it would be minuscule to the total cost of the tank, but likely improve it’s capabilities many times. - better protection for the commanders. Like the hatch swinging forwards so it offers protection for a commander, a slightly elevated hatch so you can add periscopes around the hatch perimeter so it does not need to poke it’s head out and potentially netting to catch grenades and at least minimize the loss of a tank to just the commander. - changing the co-axial weapons to be droid-brain operated ball-turrets. Even just a droid head attached to the ball turret and having it look around and turn the gun would massively improve the situational awareness and ability to stave off infantry from multiple directions at once, rather than being forced to aim the main gun and/or chassis at targets to fire at them. You can still have a button that forces the guns forwards and use them as they do now should the droidbrain attached be damaged or destroyed. This would make the tank fit better in its role. It becomes even cheaper, loses weight making it more easy to maneuver and faster (assuming you don’t put something else in there, I’d use it as supply storage area), easier to produce and for those times you need the launchers you can have them mounted higher (perhaps on the arms of the hardpoints that hold the co-ax guns) and aim with more accuracy if not just bring a more specialized vehicle. It would make the tank a far better analogue to the B1. A B1 is cheap but if it hits you, you are going to be in trouble. And you can build many many more to throw at your enemy. So too this tank. Cheap, functional for most general combat, well designed.
If there's something like "armored assault tank", is there something like "unarmored assault tank"? Isn't being "armored" one of the conditions to even call vehicle a tank?
Yeah it was able to shoot down an N-1 starfighter though it is worth mentioning that it did so with the starfighter at it's most vulnerable state, just after take off. This being the same for literally every aircraft. weather in star wars or IRL, being low and slow is playing with death.
I find it interesting that this tank has pilots at all, considering that they could’ve made it run on just one droid program. Maybe it was originally designed for organic pilots?
Yes, atleast for the trade federation (and units commanded by general grievous who used the same org). It is noted this is the most common organisation, but some cis units used different organisations. Basically a droid regiment is made up of 5 'battalions', 1 vanguard battalion with a vanguard tank company (a squadron of 18 AATs or other tanks, and 11 MTTs) and 4 regular battalions (a squadron of 24 AATs or other tanks, and 7 PACs) each MTT/PAC carries 2 platoons of battle droid infantry. So an AAT is either in a vanguard squadron (18 tanks) or a regular squadron (24 tanks). Tank troops (platoons) are never given a size, but we can assume its 3 (based on the fact they are sledom shown with just 4 or 5, its useually 3 or 6+). A vanguard squadron thus is likely made up of a command troop of 3 tanks and then 5 troops of 3 tanks, with a regular squadron haveing an aditonal 2 troops (for an hq troop and 7 reg troops)
The AAT is a solid battle tank for a droid army. Unlike humans, with the fleshy brains that quickly suffer from overstimulation, computers can multitask quite well with appropriate programming.
Despite how inefficient the design is, it’s still leagues more practical than most “tanks” in Star Wars. I mean, how hard is it to design a heavily armored vehicle with a cannon **and** an enclosed turret? To be fair, most of the AAT’s (and most other “tanklike” vehicles in SW) shortcomings come from a cartoonish misrepresentation of how they function in real life, like hatches not having locking mechanisms, or being easily lifted open despite being multiple inches thick.
I feel like a tank of this design also reflects a seeming lack of good personal long ranged infantry AT weapons. There is no Proton Torpedo Javelin for example.
This reminds me of people using the word "year" and "anniversary" in the same sentence. Or people saying SSD/HDD drive. I'd like to see a UAT or unarmoured assault tank.
6:00
You mean 10k more then the saber tank
should be in Mech Wars - SWB2 battle droid #ELS
The AAT reminds me of a lot of early tanks; a one man turret with a commander who’s overworked as they have to act as spotter, commander and gunner, a load of machine gunners and a powerful anti-fortification weapon that’s low down and often in an inconvenient mounting that stops it being used in a hull down position.
To be fair, it isn't really designed to fight from a hull down position. Early tanks were also not designed for that. Rather, the AAT is designed to fight alongside swarms of battle droids that inexorably march to victory, heedless of casualties.
I'm not sure the overwork on the commander would have initially been an issue. While sold for organic use it was clearly designed for droids, who were initially linked to a massive computer in orbit to provide enormous processing power. Once the b1s became reliant on internal processing the issues would have skyrocketed.
To me remembers a soviet/russian tank like the first versions of T 72... because all that rounded shapes and auto loading mechanisms and the turret also.
Not just initially linked, they are always linked, even after they got their individual brains.
@davidjordan697 something to note about the aat, and star wars designs ingeneral is that there is no reason one of the other gunners can't assist thr main gun in target acquisition or aiming.
Irl tanks can do this. For example the Americans designed a series of tanks in the 70s with gunners in the Hull controlling the weapons of the turret where only a commander sat. (ie 1 man turret that was in effect multi-crew).
Furthermore, according to Canon and legends sourced the battle droids continued to be linked in a network to each other and central control computers though out the clone wars. They only weren't connected when sufficiently jammed, but the cis had better electronic warfare kit than the Republic, if the Republic had electronic warfare dominance than the droids were likely already losing.
As a War Thunder player: A competent crew would make the AAT an absolute menace. The armament is insane. The shell tubes are like 6 howitzers firing HEAT rounds all aimed by a stabilized hull that can adjust pitch in any direction (like the irl Strv 103). It's more mobile than most walkers (in most practical situations) so it can flank enemies. Hell, you can get the full war thunder experience by having a small proble droid hover above the vehicle providing a third person view and smart smart targeting sensors that show where you're aiming at without the need to look down the sights. Some very simple cheap modifications can make all this possible. If I were a warlord, rebel or any sort of outer rim freelancer I'd want my hands on one.
A star wars war thunder could be cool
The AAT fills me with nostalgia for Episode I and the Battle of Nabboo. The entire climax blew me away as a kid, kicked off with an "Open Fire" from the Droid Captain and the Gungans trusting their shields to hold off the fire from these, now iconic, vehicles
That's why it's still my favorite prequel movie. That and the naboo starfighter.
OOM-9, The most underrated Prequel antagonist.
@@minicle426 He was the Boba Fett of the prequels. 😜
@@Nintendoggy he had more lines then boba if i remember correctly
@@minicle426 Who was that
3:45
“And hopefully close that hatch before some Clone sunk a 3-pointer with a thermal detonator”
Best thing I’ve heard all day
I like the AAT due to how it's presence in a battlefield is nothing to scoff at, and if it fused with the saber tank, it would be perfect
Plus the implications of it just existing is pretty scary. Just the idea of mega corporations having tanks, spooky
Isnt it a stupid design for the CIS
@@Pub4si capability wise yes, but purpose wise no
i love the aat, but its shame it never gets to shine properly because they're always getting crumped by plot weapons and armour
@@LoneWolf20213 If the CIS would have up gunned the vehicle to pack a heavier punch and put some additional armor on its weak points it would have been a far better tank than it was though. If only they'd have just retrofitted the design...
This is exactly what I've been wanting to see. I'm in the process of designing and scratch building my concept for a rebel ground attack vehicle, this has given me some food for thought.
The C-9979 has to be one of the most efficient frigates in star wars. Every part of the ship does or stores something and in such a way that everything can be automatically and quickly deployed out the front bay.
And it looks so cool.
It's more of a corvette than a frigate.
Honestly the Trade Federation and CIS had a pretty bad ass army.
I just love the scenes of the C-9979s off loading MTT after MTT and then the MTTs just deploying row after row of B1s. One of the more satisfying armies to watch deploy.
Also, big CIS fan, Robots are more humane than Sentient Clones with shortened life spans. Literally goes against humanity to do so. But nobody ever questioned that hahaha
@@imadequate3376 CIS was developing tech so fast that Palpatine had to personally step in several times to destroy inovations that would have resulted in the Republic loosing and screwing up his plans.
The B3 battle droid was one such creation that was not only extremely resilient to lightsabers it was also had a much better AI than what was being fielded. Windu encountered one and was almost killed by it.
Then there was the Scorpenek annihilator droids that could kill an entire company of clones as a single unit.
If it wasn't for Palpatine the Republic's aversion to advancements in AI and robotics would have lost them the war, cause cloning was retarded levels of expensive and stupid slow.
@@Nidhoggrr nobody mentions the B3 Ultras. Things had lightsaber resistant armor. When a bunch of industrialists band together to build an army crazy things happen
@@imadequate3376 ??? I just did in my comment.
“And quickly close the hatch invade a clone got a 3 pointer with a thermal detonator”
Good line
Favorite scene from phantom menace is just the sound effects and scene of the AATs just hammering the Gungan sheilds.
The book with cutaway photos was literally the coolest thing, i loved them so much!
I loved this breakdown! Always enjoyed the design of the AAT, and wish it was shown as anything more than a slow setpiece for the main characters to destroy. But like you said, doesn't matter how thick its armor is when its facing plot based weaponry
Sound design for the Separatists in the clone wars trilogy was hard af, the droids had badass voices, the way the one guy says “viceroy,” their blaster and engine sounds, very hot…
Most people forget, that the holes in the bottom are actually torpedo tubes
wait what? really?
Yeah, my favorite detail has always been the scorched paint clearly indicating some kind of violent exhaust from the launch.
Sadly I don't think we ever see them used
@@zacharyweaver276 In the phantom menace, after the gungan shield is destroyed the tanks all charge and you can see them firing the anti personnel tubes as they advance. It's easy to miss though.
The secondary canon location makes more sense if the "arms" were already a part of the design for the rangefinders. If you have to stick two big armored spaced-off rangefinders on the tank might as well add some (relatively) light firepower.
That opening Salvo is just always so pleasing to watch and listen to
2:10 note that repulsor lift vehicles would get to their top speeds more often than legged, wheeled or tracked vehicles. As they treat all terrain below their lift cealing as smooth, flat, hard roads.
0:01 Literally the best scene in Episode One, back then the battle droids sounded cool.
I love how you redo your old videos with new info.
I never realized how agile Rex is. That was some gymnastics level shit how he climbed that captured ATT.
Not to mention he finishes it off with a backflip off about a 15 foot height and sticks the landing by just tanking the impact on his knees. He must’ve got lessons from Anakin.
@@donovanchau3483 right? makes me wonder just how motion limiting the clone armor is.
@@holeshotshane5692 not to mention the outfit he was wearing in that episode that featured the captured AAT does seem to predate what the Rebels on Hoth would be wearing, or at least the rebels in general.
I don’t want to be that guy but dudes, this is an animated show, sometimes things are kind of exaggerated like the movements or else
It looks like the barrel has what I've heard described as a floating barrel design, similar to the Barrett .50 cal antimaterial rifle. In that rifle, the barrel moves backwards with the bolt carrier group to spread the recoil force over a larger area and heavier mass, resulting in recoil being imparted to the user in a slower and more controllable manner. It also allows the use of multiple recoil springs, one around the barrel and at least one for the bolt carrier group itself. Now the AAT most likely doesn't have what we would consider a traditional bolt carrier group (and it doesn't have a station for anyone to manually load shells so it has to be an auto-loading cannon) so there probably aren't any recoil springs or equivalents behind that, but it does look like the barrel itself has some sort of recoil dampening tech and is free-floating.
Well said, ita rare to see a comment from someone who actually knows what they're talking about
@@shanoncg everything I know about guns comes from Brandon Herrera, Forgotten Weapons and Kentucky Ballistics. I've never shot a gun in my life. I'm just drawing comparisons and making logical guesses.
It's noted that the cannon is a blaster cannon, so it doesn't have regular projectiles, only plasma bolts. And so can't be manually loaded.
Also plenty of ww2 cannons recoiled like the aat without haveing a 'floating barrel'.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 so there's 3 things I want to note - first, Meta says it's a physical projectile encased in an energy shell; second, I already said everything I know about guns and military equipment comes from watching 3 specific gun channels on TH-cam, none of which cover military vehicles; and third, I was comparing it to the only thing I knew anything about which appeared to be similar, which was the Barrett .50 cal.
the sound it makes when the aat is shooting the gungan shields is really cool
This is an awesome breakdown. I can see several ways a Confederacy that had retreated into the Unknown Regions and rebuilt could improve on the design, mixed with new technologies developed in exile as well as stuff developed during the war. Imagine an AAT with six laser cannon turrets, four forward two rear, on the main body, plus at least one more on the underside, an upgraded main gun, and something similar to the weapons used by the SuperTanks. Not to mention a vehicle-scale defense shield. The Empire would have a mass psychotic breakdown, and the former worlds of the CIS would be wondering if they weren't having a mass hallucination or something.
0:01 I was always a little perplexed by the fact that the battle droids would talk to each other. It is even stranger that this droid officer is issuing an order to his troops. So let’s get this straight, the Trade Federation has a control center in orbit, without which the droids will literally stop walking, or even standing. So there is someone (or some computer) on in orbit issuing a command to this officer to issue a verbal command to the other droids, then that same order is sent remotely to the droids to carry out the commands. This is ludicrous.
Real world thats great but in a movie the audience generally needs to know whats going on and that is done thru dialouge. Sometimes you just gotta suspend disbelief and not put so much thought into a minor detail lol
Well the gold marked oom command droids are not under the control of the Central control computer, only linked to it (like later cis B1s of all kinds were)
The droid actually sends the command to the ccc as a recommation. The order is voiced because the corperate leadership were scared of rebeling droid commanders or just ones that were hacked into.
The meta reason is lucas though it looked cooler to ahve the droids talk commands rather than showing nonverbal communication only.
@@UnholyWrath3277 Also good for the audience thinking they are Star Wars type droids which all seem to communicate in auditory means, Does help make the droid army feel more like setting proper droids rather than just being Terminators with a different exterior.
Movies
This is still the most iconic Star wars tank for me. Thanks to episode 1 and the big number of them we saw there.
And this tank is my favorite place on the battlefield in SW BF2. It sounds so good and has all it's three weapons. Everything you need to dominate a battlefield 👍
Great video.
Could you do a video where you pick the best ships that could be converted into bounty hunter ships or one for military and so on? I've watched so many of your videos and I now have a small fleet of ships i would convert into my own personal bounty hunting ship. Keep up the great work man!
I Remember this tank from the PS2 Battle front 2 video game and playing as the CIS army in Galactic Conquest
Best sciency/analytical star wars content of all time. Keep it up, dude!
The AAT is one of my favorite ground vehicles along with the AT-TE and the juggernaut, I love a lot of the designs and tactics of the CIS.
Every time I see this, I think of when Anakin and Bera used one to sneak into the Separatist base on Alaris Prime.
I wish the rebels used this tank more with some modifications.
it wouldn't make sense, the rebels' guerrilla philosophy is to strike fast with full impact and then leave the battlefield before more reinforcements arrive.
@@titaiao with modifications this can move faster
@@neofulcrum5013 While that is true... why try to modify/retrofit a heavy tank originally designed to fight head-on and support a direct assault by a large ground army, when you could spend time improving already fast vehicles (landspeeders, spacecraft like X-Wings, Y-Wings etc.) which could carry almost the same amount of firepower and destroy the same targets meant for heavy cannons and while already being capable of moving quickly to evade enemy fire and retreat? I can see the Rebellion rolling out AAT's and other Clone Wars era heavy vehicles that were still functional AFTER the Emperor died and they began re-capturing the galaxy at large, but I don't see them spending the little resources they have on this at the height of the Empire's power where their ability to escape safely after striking important targets determined how sustainable their operations were.
Because aircraft are extremely vulnerable to air defenses. And significantly more expensive.
Hell the aat crewed by B1s can easily shoot down star fighters, just picture dedicated air defenses.
The aat is 'slow' compared to other vehicles on roads, but in mud, soil, ice, sand it will guaranteed be faster than all non-repulsor vehicles.
Now add modern tech to it (its already 10 years old by the start of the clone wars) and it'll be even faster while still being cheap.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 You're right on them being more expensive, although air-defenses (like dedicated blaster turrets) would be less common than explosive or armor-piercing weaponry. And chances are the Rebel fighter craft will be deployed to strike at more vulnerable imperial targets, or there would be saboteurs in advance to disable or delay the activation of AA weaponry. Whereas it's harder to make sure the enemy doesn't have anti-armor rockets stashed away somewhere to protect tanks. Also AAT's CAN take down starfighters, but not easily. The average Imperial soldier or heavy cannons mounted on an AT-ST isn't likely to take down an X-Wing flying at high-speed. As for the repulsor argument, by the Imperial era repulsor-lift vehicles like landspeeders were incredibly common and available to nearly everyone. And the Rebels can basically give those things the "Technical" treatment and stick big guns on it if they need heavy firepower for a mission.
Would love to see a show on what would of happened. If the Separatists had won, would we still get storm troopers or new types of clankers
What are the V-shaped fighters in the video clips with the Lucrehulk in the first couple minutes? They look really cool, and I've never seen them before.
I think they are Old Republic era fighters.
And now one on one of my favorite tanks? Metanerdz is on a roll lately.
I always wondered why they call it the AAT. By definition of T (Tank), it's supposed to be armored and for assault. That's the point of the tank.
I’m looking forward to this in-depth unit.😊
As a kid, I remember getting an AAT toy in a dark brown color with Geonosis as the background planet.
They reissued and recolored the tank a lot. Only the 1999 Episode 1 version has the ejector seat battle damage, though. (which affected later versions of it, because the turret gun was made to flip out of the way of the ejected canopy). All versions until the final (?) release had a flip around damaged "driver" droid molded inside.
7:28 that is actually an amazing detail I never paid attention to !
The AAT is that wonderful mix of simplicity and a bit of genuinely good design, dragged down by the people using it. It would have probably been a nightmare if the clones had made a habit of capturing tanks, rather than just blowing them up.
My favorite Tank of the Star Wars!
I always thought that the main gun was a mass driver but the secondary guns were blaster cannons.
I never knew the bottom part could separate at least it explains how they load the bottom Ammo But yeah that's snifty I never knew the bottom part could separate And I grew up seeing thistank all the time
That concept art looks vaguely like the MAF Gunship from the first original Battlefront game.
They might have based the design off the concept and turned it into the CIS equivalent of the LAAT gunship. It looked closer to the Droid Gunship but I think the game came before Ep. III so this is my best assumption
The MAF is what the hmp was Orginally going to look like.
They did indeed go bakc to episode 1's gunship aat design and modify it.
Man, this tank is held in high regard in the universe, but it is such a nightmare of a design.
I never understood why the droid vehicles weren't droids themselves.
Yes! One of my favorite vehicles!
I have grown to largely dislike the prequels over time, but this tank design is great and I recall being somewhat obsessed with them when I was a kid. Its just a cool design, and probably the closest thing to a conventional tank we have ever seen in Star wars. I wish we had seen more of them.
When you think about it, the AAT reminds me a lot of the Russian T-34 Main Battle Tank. They weren't particularly good by themselves and were often outgunned by german tanks. However, because they were cheap as piss and easy to mass produce, the Russians produced thousands of them during the course of WW2. Conversely, the AT-TE compares more similarly to the German Tiger or Tiger 2 tank, as it was significantly heavier, more heavily armoured and had a much more scary turret. Equally, their tactics are also similar, with the AAT often being deployed in large battalions used to overwhelm the enemy and provide support to the infantry, whereas the Tiger was often designed to travel alone with infantry support or in far smaller groups.
"... close the hatch before a clone landed a 3 pointer with a thermal detonator."
I just imagined a clone yelling "Cody!" lol
3:32 the absurdity of having multiple droids pilot an armored vehicle, when having a tank droid would be better in every conceivable way, is only compounded by the vehicle not having a sensor suite that can plug right into the droid, so in order to see the droid must expose itself to enemy fire.
Always a good weekend when getting some great content from my fav SW creator. :)
Walking into battle on a vertical wall. Guess that’s where anakin got the notion he could take the high ground
I need a supercut of B1s with monotone, unsettling voices like in E1. That's what the opening made me think.
Remember, if the droids are coming for you with AATs, just bring out the AT-TEs and other Republic tanks, strong enough to take out the clankers and their toys
@@arkos1719 they all got destroyed in one way or another, so that's in a doubt if they actually were as good or even better, because they were all destroyed before they could do much damage
@@arkos1719 hail fires are easy to destroy. They're not that big of a threat really
@@arkos1719 it actually is. We've seen AT-TEs fall from what is basically mountains and still survive. Then we have the fact that we've also seen many Republican vehicles survive way longer than even the biggest ships the CIS has. The SPHA is a walker that is able to take down entire starships, like the Munificent and a core ship. We saw that in Attack of the clones and in Revenge Of the Sith. One single SPHA can take out an entire Munificent in one shot
@@arkos1719 it actually can't be said. It takes several AATs several direct hits to take down an AT-TE, while and AT-TE can take down all CIS vehicles in one shot, except for the super tank, that got destroyed by tiny grenades, placed on a bridge, and even an AT-TE can survive that. Even an AT-RT survives grenades. That's something i know since i play Star Wars games a lot. Only high yield explosives like nukes or missiles with a similar yield of explosives of the moab, mother of all bombs, are are even capable if taking out an AT-TE. Not even the best tanks from our world can take on an AT-TE in single combat. Many armored vehicles gets destroyed by explosive weapons over a certain yield. C4 might work on some, but other grenades and rockets aren't really able to destroy the most heavily armored of military vehicles. Some missiles aren't able to take out heavily armored vehicles. You need cruise missiles, tactical missiles or even ballistic missiles to even be able to take out a heavily armored vehicle like the AT-TE. Armor piercing might work, if they're made for the heavy stuff. Cruise missiles can take heavily armored vehicles, but not destroy them. It all depends on what missiles you use, and Star Wars isn't really known for it's use of tactical or ballistic missiles. They barely use cruise missiles. It's mostly torpedoes and a few missiles that at most shatter to release droids or shrapnel. They do use flak guns too, but that's not too often. More often than not, it's just torpedoes, one type of missile, rockets and grenades, which isn't really enough to destroy heavy tanks like the AT-TE or AT-AT. Ion weapons work too, but it's not much use for ion weapons, other than on large scale space battles and in any space battles. Or against droids
Myself and a few others would have loved to have a cockpit view in Battlefront 2
I want an AAT sooooooo bad. Best looking tank in all of Star Wars
6:50
2 Baktoid engineers on their lunch break:
#1 "hey, you know that new tank we've been working on?"
#2 "yeah, what about it?"
#1 "where do you think the weakest part of it is?"
#2 "the front"
#1 ". . . . you're joking right?"
#2 ". . . . no? why would I?"
#1 " . . . . how did you ever become a combat vehicle engineer?"
#2 "I don't understand the question."
Its like a T-54 and a WWI tank were thrown together. I really love it.
Much prefer the ATT in the original colors
I never understand why there have to be smaller droid's inside this tank, it wouldve been so much beter to just have a full tank droid.
Still sad the tubes weren't ever used in Clone Wars.
The Trade Federation AAT had two cockpit cannons, while the later CIS AAT didn't. In Star Wars Battlefront 2, they color swap the model, but the Lego sets get it right.
Actually the cis ones do have the cockpit cannons.
Dave filoni just didn't bother modeling them, this was stated in an interview (alongside things like the clone wars reduceing the size of landing craft, etc. The inaccuracies were part stylistic and partly to save cost and time on things they thought would not get as much attention).
@@matthiuskoenig3378 But The Clone Wars is where the CIS AATs show up. Where else do they show up...?
This tank hits super hard
I always figured the charging issue was it had a limit hence why that one commander tried to ram the tough plant life.
That was just an example of B1 incompetence.
I think the design of the AAT is one of the best in sci-fi, especially if you remove the cartoon-plot designed weaknesses.
For starters, if you have access to the incredible hover tech of Star Wars it makes sense to use it over legs or tracks. The deployments we see for the most part is a combination of urban warfare and variable rough offroad conditions. A tank that can ignore this for the most part is great.
The speed of 55km/h is actually perfect. While faster is great for traversing a planet, when in combat it is usually plenty, especially in urban or rough terrain.
It is also more of a light tank compared to the republic vehicles, and considering it’s firepower that is all an AAT needs to be. It does not need to be a behemoth, especially in a Galactic war where “good enough” tanks are far better than “kicks ass” tanks by sheer virtue of economics. Speaking of economics:
It is pretty cheap, easy to transport, relatively small and it does everything you would want from it in the average combat. This makes it perfect for a large scale fight, especially with droids behind the wheel. This is a bit weird since if you are going to put droids in there then using a dedicated droid brain instead of a bunch of random droids is far more efficient. However the design would technically let you produce tanks that can be manned by organics, and since the CIS is technically a rebellion against the Republic it would have made sense to have organic crews and soldiers supplement the Droids (and would make sense from Palpatine’s perspective as it would make it harder for aliens to hide behind “but it was the droids that did it not us”).
Which brings me to what I would do to improve it:
- remove the foot-mounted launchers. They add a lot of cost, maintenance and their low position makes them hard to use. Having support units with these weapons would be more efficient, and you can equip some AAT’s with a missile rack up top if need be. It also means the AAT becomes a lot lighter and has better maneuverability and speed.
- put some armor in that nose! The front should be the most armored piece and the most resilient. Similarly other weak spots need more armor. The shell trap beneath the turret is angled to be visible from the front and if a simple grenade can destroy it (somehow rolling up but not off) then a regular grenade launcher or rocketlauncher definitely would. It’s a needless weakness.
- dedicated droid brains. The cost of a dedicated droid/droidbrain to operate it would be minuscule to the total cost of the tank, but likely improve it’s capabilities many times.
- better protection for the commanders. Like the hatch swinging forwards so it offers protection for a commander, a slightly elevated hatch so you can add periscopes around the hatch perimeter so it does not need to poke it’s head out and potentially netting to catch grenades and at least minimize the loss of a tank to just the commander.
- changing the co-axial weapons to be droid-brain operated ball-turrets. Even just a droid head attached to the ball turret and having it look around and turn the gun would massively improve the situational awareness and ability to stave off infantry from multiple directions at once, rather than being forced to aim the main gun and/or chassis at targets to fire at them. You can still have a button that forces the guns forwards and use them as they do now should the droidbrain attached be damaged or destroyed.
This would make the tank fit better in its role. It becomes even cheaper, loses weight making it more easy to maneuver and faster (assuming you don’t put something else in there, I’d use it as supply storage area), easier to produce and for those times you need the launchers you can have them mounted higher (perhaps on the arms of the hardpoints that hold the co-ax guns) and aim with more accuracy if not just bring a more specialized vehicle.
It would make the tank a far better analogue to the B1. A B1 is cheap but if it hits you, you are going to be in trouble. And you can build many many more to throw at your enemy. So too this tank. Cheap, functional for most general combat, well designed.
If there's something like "armored assault tank", is there something like "unarmored assault tank"? Isn't being "armored" one of the conditions to even call vehicle a tank?
THE DOWUTIN SPECIES WOULD BE A GOOD UNDERRATED BREAKDOWN VIDEO.
Best SW Lore channel period! Super detailed vids! 👌 Amazing content dude!
5:51 I’m beginning to think that this tank was not designed with a droid crew in mind 😂.
Yeah it was able to shoot down an N-1 starfighter though it is worth mentioning that it did so with the starfighter at it's most vulnerable state, just after take off. This being the same for literally every aircraft. weather in star wars or IRL, being low and slow is playing with death.
that is how P-51D pilots killed ME-262s in the second world war, wait for them to be landing and pounce.
Still have the original lego set from 20some years ago, one of my favorite vehicles
0:00 cream worthy sound design holy fuuu
I’ve been waiting for this
The fact that the ATTE's frontal armor is literally just glass makes it hard to believe it is the superior vehicle.
I find it interesting that this tank has pilots at all, considering that they could’ve made it run on just one droid program. Maybe it was originally designed for organic pilots?
Do a video on the star wars planet dathameir.
Damm nice work
My favorite Separatist vehicle.
I absolutely love your videos as I'm writing my own starwars mass battle game. Is there any data on the unit size of the AAT?
Yes, atleast for the trade federation (and units commanded by general grievous who used the same org). It is noted this is the most common organisation, but some cis units used different organisations.
Basically a droid regiment is made up of 5 'battalions', 1 vanguard battalion with a vanguard tank company (a squadron of 18 AATs or other tanks, and 11 MTTs) and 4 regular battalions (a squadron of 24 AATs or other tanks, and 7 PACs) each MTT/PAC carries 2 platoons of battle droid infantry.
So an AAT is either in a vanguard squadron (18 tanks) or a regular squadron (24 tanks). Tank troops (platoons) are never given a size, but we can assume its 3 (based on the fact they are sledom shown with just 4 or 5, its useually 3 or 6+).
A vanguard squadron thus is likely made up of a command troop of 3 tanks and then 5 troops of 3 tanks, with a regular squadron haveing an aditonal 2 troops (for an hq troop and 7 reg troops)
11:58 it doesn’t make sense that they would scrap all the Venators either, yet, here we are.
Yeah I thought that but idk what to do with it
Woot my 3rd favourite tank
what are 1 and 2
Are you going to be remaking a lot of your older videos? Because I had a lot of them saved on a playlist and can no longer watch them
To a video on the star wars planet falushia.
Hate the Trade Federation's guts, but can't deny they had one hell of a great heavy assault vehicle.
It's lower top speed makes sense if you look at it as an infantry support tank.
most beautiful vehicle ever made
Wait wheres that saber tank render from I've never seen it before
The AAT is a solid battle tank for a droid army. Unlike humans, with the fleshy brains that quickly suffer from overstimulation, computers can multitask quite well with appropriate programming.
The AAT is my most favorite separatist tank.
I'm glad someone finds all this info somewhere so I don't have to go read it all.
need more vehicle breakdowns!!!!!!!!!!
Despite how inefficient the design is, it’s still leagues more practical than most “tanks” in Star Wars. I mean, how hard is it to design a heavily armored vehicle with a cannon **and** an enclosed turret?
To be fair, most of the AAT’s (and most other “tanklike” vehicles in SW) shortcomings come from a cartoonish misrepresentation of how they function in real life, like hatches not having locking mechanisms, or being easily lifted open despite being multiple inches thick.
Where did you attain that clear view of the AAT in Battlefront II?
My favorite star wars vehicle
I feel like a tank of this design also reflects a seeming lack of good personal long ranged infantry AT weapons. There is no Proton Torpedo Javelin for example.
Hey does anyone know the name of the animation at 0:30? It looks quite cool, but I don't know where to look...
It’s a trailer for Star Wars eclipse. A cool little video
@@michaelmerther2300 Sweet! Thanks a ton!
This reminds me of people using the word "year" and "anniversary" in the same sentence.
Or people saying SSD/HDD drive.
I'd like to see a UAT or unarmoured assault tank.
Cis tanks should have won most battles when used the gar walker looked useless in tank warfare
Do a video on the star wars planet kashyyyk.
If the models are the same size, I'd be tempted to use them in place of 40k Tau Vehicles.