Canonically, the Trade Federation was very much a Lowest Bidder operatio n, and everything was made with Disposibility as an explicit specification to cut costs. Explains a lot, doesn't it?
not too mention most of their equipment was not meant to be seen as military use but to be later repurposed into military equipment. so they could build a military without officially building a military
@@Yawyna124 they didnt pay for them with credits though. The species that makes them accepts payment in rare meats. Something a trade federation has no issue aquiring.
I liked the AAT in the Clone Wars tank game. Sure its got a massive blind spot in its rear. But at least its fun to drive. The AAT was originally designed for organics to use. It was just cheaper for droids to man it as it can allow organic commanders to use as well.
It's technically ablative armour. I fucking love it.. So the deal is that the AAT was designed for living personnel. Thats why it was designed the way it is. You touched on this in an earlier video concerning large mechs. If your mech is "human" sized it can use human equipment because the scale is the same. Thats why this abomination has no droid brain. It was never designed to be autonomous. It required people, and when the trade union and others started using them, they had to assign droids. As you stated, a terrible vehicle and also it takes up four droids which would most likely be better used somewhere else. In all honesty though, this ISN'T a hover craft. A repulsor field can be stabilized, whereas a cushion of air can not. They just never bothered in the Star Wars universe because they played it for comedy. Your other concerns are all valid as hell though. Why are the launchers down there, why is that massive gun so high and to the rear? Again, because it looks cool, and for no other damn reason.
@@robertharris6092 Heheheheh. Poor tactics on the part of the commanders is no reflection of the utility of the units. Those droids are capable of so much more. They just didn't bother because they were following the overwhelming force docterine. Just keep throwing men (droids) into the fire until you win.
That’s why the seps invested in droid walkers and tanks like the Hailfire droid, homing spider droid, NR-N99 tank droid and the octuptarra tri-droid. All of which can squish the squishies.
I think the original purpose of those droids weren't made for military roles. I know the Hailfure droid was original designed for riot control and debt collection.
The droid compartments and escape hatches are so organics can use the tank _when it's captured by irregular forces_ on a occupied planet. … Wait… that's not a design feature that was specified, was it? But that many hatches are necessary so that a ion grenade can be popped in the crew compartment from any side. And the front hatch is for the droids to escape from, when infantry get too close to the rear, as the anti-personnel guns only cover the front and the main cannon can't angle to hit infantry below a certain range that approach from the rear. It is so screwed in any built up area - okay not the best place for any tank, but 360° anti-personnel coverage is generally considered useful. Bonus *negative points* for the commander not having a remote weapons station to aim the commanders "machine gun".
Can't the side-guns rotate to fire to the rear. The tank can then turn a bit to create a field of rear fire while the main Canon continues to bombard forward targets.
fun fact: lasers actually do have recoil, it's just so minor you cant detect it without highly sensitive sensors, and lasers do in fact impart a force when hitting a solid object, there is a conceptual idea for interstellar ships to use solar sails for this very purpose. AAT tries to run over squisy, squishy lies down and hover tank just hover over him harmlessly, squishy proceeds to plant sticky explosive on the underside of the tank, squishy runs off and tank goes boom. AAT trise to fire missile at republic scum vehicle, therte is a rock in front of AAT, AAT goes boom. AAT loads missile, clone sniper sees missile in tube so sniper shoots missile thru big hole. AAT goes boom, another 6 AAT's that happen to be to close to eachother also go boom fron chainreaction, exept for the one to the far left... because it had droids hanging on the outside going "WEEE!!" that effectively functioned as ablative armor.
Eeeeh. First situation is a theoretical weakness of literally any vehicle with enough ground clearance to go over a person. If someone wants to go under something without falling under the wheels, then by golly, they'll find a way. There's really no advantage to doing this above trying to get into a blindspot-- which the AAT has a relatively massive one-- unless you're going for a "pretend you're a dead body" strategy, which, again, works on any vehicle that has the ground clearance to pass over a man-sized target cleanly. Running up to it in order to get ran over requires you run in front of something hostile to you that has 8 small guns, 1 artillery piece, and 6 missile batteries, which is a terrible prospect for almost anything in existence, not to mention the potential of actually getting hit by it, which would not be fun. As for "but getting into its blindspot requires getting through zoning infantry!", well, yes, but so does getting in front of it to collapse to the ground and place sticky explosives on it. Per the second: this isn't particularly an issue considering they have multiple tubes along the breadth of the vehicles wide base. While if wouldn't be able to shoot missiles while shooting from a trench because of their low mounting, it's also likely they're not shooting them into man-sized obstructions considering they'd be be able to notice them, considering that entities have the ability to see all parts of the tank in front of them. The bigger weakness of the missiles is their likely incredibly distant convergence point due to how widely spread they are. That last situation is more an argument *for* having the missile tubes low on a tank because "low and forward facing, embedded in armor" is the antithesis of a sniper being able to effectively perform anti-materiel duties. It would be a lot easier to perform anti-materiel maneuvers on an AAT with the missile tubes positioned high, where snipers and, indeed, everything else, have a better vantage point on them. If you didn't know "Lower than man level and directly in front of a vehicle with 6 missile tubes, at least 8 guns, and 1 artillery piece" is exactly where a sniper does not want to be. The missiles would be generally fairly well shielded from most angles of attack sitting at the back of the tubes. The effectiveness of such an attack might not be too great anyway; the armor of those tubes would also have to be fairly substantial, considering it is not a recoilless system, and it is an area that repeatedly absorbs back-blast, meaning it probably has at least *some* protection from chain-firing/munitions exploding, leading to it exploding mostly out the front, through the big, wide tube that leads to the open atmosphere. As for SCS's "pinballing them around"... that would really only work if the same mechanisms that keep them from tipping over, absorbing their own recoil, and that move them suddenly stop failing while at the same time the tank stays above ground. Bear in mind, they have to absorb the full recoil of the missile's booster motors every time they fire one, along with that of the heavy gun which does apparently produce substantial recoil. While getting struck with a shell would require them reset their gun's alignment on their enemy, that is the same case for any self-propelled guns that might be able to take enemy artillery fire without getting outright destroyed, albeit to a lesser degree.
And you didn’t even get into how high of a profile this tank has or how limited the main gun’s elevation is. Roughly the entire rear half of the vehicle is a permanent blind spot where even the main turret can’t turn and fire at you.
Funnily enough, that's actually where the gun has the BEST fire arc. You don't have that ridiculously tall crew compartment to block your depression. Theoretically, to maximize the gun's effectiveness you'd hide the majority of this things body and just poke the main gun over the top of whatever wall/ hill you're hull down behind facing the front of the tank away from your kill box.. That said, this thing was purpose build for Civil war era tactics, you line up in nice neat rows and blast each other on a nice flat field. The dumbest strategy short of ignoring logistics. In that particular role and setup, it's not the worst thing lucas could have shat out. On a different note, these things aren't slow. In the games they could book it really damn fast, and were a hell of a lot of fun in the Battlefront games, and the Clone Wars game in MP. If a decent commander or general was given these and told to use them, they'd use them in salt the earth blitzkrieg raids, you roll up on someone's property, remove them and that property, and go on your merry way somewhere else before a more reasonable armored unit came to show you the error of you tank's design.
@@orangedream267 To be fair also even if they had generally inferior equipment, if the CIS trounced The Republic utterly in one area, it was logistics.
@@allthenewsordeath5772 funnily enough, not much was really inferior. Droids were just dumb because lolfunneh. In reality the CIS should have utterly mopped the floor with the Republic. Especially considering the good bits of equipment. Like the CIS gunship, and the buzz droid fighter.
The design problem of the gun barrel acting as a lever arm is hilariously illustrated in Phantom Menace, when Jar Jar Binks inadvertently pulls an AAT off-course (and plowing into the ground) just by hanging off of it I don't know how much a skinny Gungan weighs, but I'm sure it should take more than that to overbalance any decently designed tank
@@andreykardashov6343 just had a look at the scene, they did indeed barrel of monkeys a little bit at the end there 🤣🤣 The tank had already most stabilised again by that point, so I'd still say it was Jar Jar alone who tipped it Poor AAT's can't get a break 🤷♂️
What I love about AOTC's droid designs is that they kind of made logical improvements over all droids in TPM. E.g. the B2 Super battle droid or all forms of tank droids seem to respond to all the faults you see in episode one.
Its important to note the trade fexeration isnt supposed to have an actual military. Theyre a rebelion. Not a legitimate govornment. Their equipment befote the war broke out was meant for use against rebelions and pirates and for tax colection. Not waging war.
This thing feels like the Trade Federation hired some Soviet tank designers who escaped the Great Purge. Front hatch? T-34. Troops riding on the outside? T-34. Multiple guns/turrets? T-35. The rest of it is just bad design pure and simple. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the commentary, and whole heartedly agree!
I think a soviet tank designer would do a far better job. The T-34 was a good tank for its job. Provided the tank was blown a part but who cares if there's a T-34 that went boom there's 30 more right behind it.
After playing this thing a lot in battlefront 2, the main cannon is the most useful part. Compared with the TX-130 The fact it actually has a primary cannon. The AAT basically has a 105mm vs the TX-130 which has basically the equivalent of 2 40mms that are fixed into the hull like a tank destroyer without tank destroying capability. The AAT could 100% be streamlined, remove the rockets and the 4 secondary guns, lower the profile and instead have a higher power gun with a coaxial, since its autoloaded you could remove 1 crew man, gunner, driver, commander (reason to separate the commander and gunner is to keep crew work load down and you could still give the commander a mounted mg to play with). The tactics of the tanks are actually pretty good in the clone wars show, as they show them moving at platoon strength (of course the droid operators are really dumb and die anyway). But they show that the guns firepower is significant enough to destroy AT-TEs (a also very flawed vehicle that could use its own redesign) in only a few hits. They even show a real tank tactic in the show where the AATs target the lead vehicle and the rear vehicle to trap their enemies in a kill box.
Aah yes, the tank made by the Trade Federation. The very same Trade Federation whose army is made as cheap as they can. And yes, I recall watching the clone Wrecker pushing three off a cliff. At the same time.
And assuming you did retrofit it with a droid brain you'd still need something to repair it. Then again you could just use regular repair droids and just shit them out the back and keep the battle droids as more infantry. It's kind of like why the US military don't use auto loaders in their tanks while the soviets were using them in every tank since the T-64. To have a loader do grunt work and have an extra hand when things go tits up.
@@Leadlobotamist A new droid brain type also puts an extra load on the control ship and/or infrastructure. Not ideal for peacetime when they are trying to keep costs down.
We'll, an old Chief of mine told me about you. He accused you of being me (not a complement in my mind), but I'm assuming that if you spend enough time at sea we all sound alike. And I love your channel, so I'll buy him a drink anyway. Great concept; keep up the good work and I'll spread the word (for whatever that's worth).
Apparently the gunsight is good enough to acquire starfighters taking off from the hanger in Theed, that's a plus because most times tankers can only hunker down and pray the giant metal death bird leaves them alone.
@@347Jimmy not even a comparison. Its a mandalorian tank vs something made to be used by a non military force for fighting pirates, rebels, and tax collection that values quantity over quality to the extreme.
@@robertharris6092 they're good reasons why one would expect it to be a vastly superior tank And it is I wasn't trying to make a fair comparison, I was offering a contender for "the best tank in Star Wars"
I'd love to see you rant about Gundam vessels and technologies, not the mechs themselves but things like their space cruisers, 'starfighters' and an actual flying tank. Yes the turret, with its main gun that is in a casemate, comes off the chassis and just flies like an aircraft for a brief period of time.
Not gonna lie, I didn’t even know the side guns were manned by two other droids, nor that it had 3 compartment to enter. I thought it had two compartments, and the disk in the front was just a bit of extra armor for direct shots. I though that the driver also had control of the secondary weapons because it made sense for self defense. Like “Oh they trying to flank, let me just turn the tank to face them and keep the armor on them while the main cannon keeps on primary target.” But damn so much wasted space lowers armor amount, and the hatch there is just extra wasted armor space. Not gonna before I know these two things I thought the AAT was not the best Star Wars tank, but still an overall good tank for what it was made to do, but now, damn.
For a second I almost wanted to point out that the repulsor fields do actually let it crush things beneath it, but then I remembered the scene in phantom menace where Qui-Gon saved Binks by rolling under the transport thing (I forgot what it was called) but there ARE instances in lore where it applies force on anything beneath it. So... YET ANOTHER inconsistency lol
Warhammer is meant to be over the top to be perfectly fair. Baneblade: fucking fortress Leman Russ tank: British MK4 on steroids. Titans: WALKING CATHEDRALS OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION
The variants that are just Self propelled guns/weapon platforms are where the frame is useful if ever, but because they don't have to be in direct line of fire. It looks cool at least lol.
MBTs dont need to be seen. The leopard 1 was purely designed to be unseen and fast with a potwnt gun. And its one of the most effective tanks in history.
Its basically the product of: we want the cannon fodder to be extremely valuable and useful to the army forces And the product of: "Hey jerry arent you meant to be designing a tank?" "Nah i dont feel like it, let the droids do it"
This guy is like Gordon Ramsay but for spaceships, I love it. Also could you consider tearing apart the tie fighter line please, while bearing in mind the training resources invested into the pilots?
The AAT is my favorite Star Wars land vehicle. It looks like a tank. It isn't some ungainly walking thing, it isn't some floating brick. It is sleek and has a top mounted turret with a main gun and 365 degree rotation. Yes I agree it is a stupid design, but it looks awesome. I think a Mk. II would be amazing. Ditch the rocket launchers & fixed forward blasters, put the arm cannons on ball mounts for more degrees of motion, add deflector shields, and give the commander a pintle mounted blaster cannon. Maybe adjust the design in a few places, but I love these tanks.
You obviously missed the turbotank. Now that thing was a meat grinder. The empire only discontinued it because it was more efficient than "shock and awe" which didn't follow their doctrine.
@@andreykardashov6343 you mean the reskinned Republic Juggernaut? That thing is massive and would eat artillery for breakfast lunch and dinner. Not to mention it seems they're lacking in much offensive firepower. Theyre big transports, not tanks
@@sgtNACHO yes it would eat that artillery and just keep going. Also, have you checked the cruising speed on that thing? It's biggest weapon is its own mass. Like the big boss said, for squashing meatbags.
@@andreykardashov6343 i dont think ramming is the best weapon in a universe with extremely deadly spacecraft and speeders. In Mandalorian Season 2 they were shown as incredibly vulnerable, in Rogue One it was also quite vulnerable to be taken out by a few rebels and a robot. The only time they are ever shown to be worth anything is to drive onto a beach and shoot some rockets. It is very cool looking, always enjoy seeing one, but they're pretty much pointless. APCs arent used anymore because we have helicopter dropships and IFVs.
Tanks are for crushing Squishies? I thought they were mostly for getting big boomy canons right where you need them to blast the squishies out of their holes no matter what kind of protest they give you. Also note the pattern in the missile tubes in the front. They can't shoot too closely. In the game Battle for Naboo AAT's had a huge weakness you were encouraged to take advantage of. If you got close enough to get under the main barrel's arc, then you were too close for it's missiles to properly deploy. In other words if you get right up to these things then they can't do spit. You can jump right in front of it, start dancing and all it can do is try and fail to run you over or try to run by itself so it can get into range to kill you. Bit of a design flaw that.
If you want a really fraking stupid science fiction transport to analyse, I suggest the Land Raider of Warhammer 40k. A massive transport with a ramp that opens _forward_ , exposing the insides to all manner of fire!
After seeing this and your dissection of the Razor Crest, I'd like to see you tackle two other ships please. Moff Gideon's light cruiser from The Mandalorian and the U.S.S. Cygnus from The Black Hole. Thank you for the vids sir ^^.
And the turret at the back has near zero gun depression in the forewards arc... so the main gun is most effective when pointed anywhere the tank (and other weapons) isn't pointed...
Technically speaking, I think the tank was originally designed with human pilots in mind. As the Clone Wars progressed the Sepis began to invest more and more into autonomous droid tanks. ^^
There's 1 important factor that makes that backset turret not *so* unreasonable: storability. Not only does the barrel not extend past the front of the tank but lined up ass to face the tank footprints actually overlap, with the back part of the turret sitting above the front part of the pancake. Crews can even still enter the rear hatch when stored like this. It's all about what the vehicle was designed for. The trade federation's primary intent was intimidation, not effective combat, so they opted for quantity over quality. Hence the shit tons of battle droids and lots of tanks with big guns and missile launchers. The battle line formation makes sense there too. Show up at a planet, unpack all your toys in a line facing the enemy city, palace, what have you, and intimidate them into submission with the size of your force, all while hoping they don't look too closely at it. Add that to how cheap they are and it makes sense you'd get a low cost, poorly armored, heavily armed system that stacks in storage and can be used by shitty battle droids *OR* any organics they choose to sell the weapon to.
That's because they aren't lasers. They are called that as a holdover name wise for the older laser weapons that were used before blasters. Blasters are infact based on partical beam technology. A real life comparison. The term "rifle" is a weapon the orginally referred to the old flintlock weapons that had rifling. The term is still used in modern rifles... which admitily still have rifling... ok perhaps a better example might be blue prints, but you get my point.
Ok, so the primary armament has limited traverse and low mounting position granting limited visibility, the secondary armament is mounted in the main turret, it's ridiculously tall and easy to tip over, and the antipersonnell machine guns are fixed. .... so this thing is the star wars hovertank equivalent of the M-3 Lee.
You didn't mention my favorite dumbass design flaw for the AAT MK-1. That giant scoop on the front comes off. Not only does it come off, but you have to take it off in order to reload the rockets, and it's basically impossible to do it in the field. So once you've fired your six rockets into the slight hill in front of you, you have to drag the entire tank back into space so they can take the whole scoop off with a big crane and reload six more shots.
The positive thing about their shape is they can be stored amazingly space efficient in CC-9979 Dropships, as one tank basically drives half the way under the tank in front.
Ground warfare designs in Star Wars have always been a bit weird... Original trilogy: Giant robot camels and chickens. Disney trilogy: Giant robot gorillas and a superlaser siege gun that makes the WW2 Schwerer Gustav railway gun look practical. Legends: Tie fighters on tracks and aquatic AT-AT "swimmers." Prequel trilogy: Giant robot spiders, crabs and snails. So yeah...a giant floating steam iron with guns strapped onto it isn't that unusual.
Every time something in Star Wars mentions a “laser” replace it with “plasma” things make a LOT more sense that way. Unlike most of the equipment designs.
@john smith Death Ray wouldnt be scientifically accurate. They arent rays. They are bolts. Blaster bolts are explicitly and exclusively particle beams. Wtf do you think is going to happen if you stick your head inside the gigantic fucking particle cannon buried under Switzerland rn? And besides, its a hell of a lot more scientific than the bullshit pseudo-science Star Trek makes up to justify its constant use of macguffins in EVERY FUCKING EPISODE MY GOD VOYAGER WAS SHITE! Edit: th-cam.com/video/AEPM-Bqc8fQ/w-d-xo.html&t
The amusing thing is the tank is far more likely to die when shot from the front, not the sides. The front has at least 12 shot traps I can count from just the stills in the video alone.
Ooo, if we're doing tanks now then I HAVE to recommend the 40k BaneBlade. Meters thick armor, Weapons for days, and if you count the turret it has 3 stories. Truly the most awe inspiring mobile fortress in 40k (and thats not even going into the different variants, one of which has a main gun to combat those 100ft tall bipedal walkers with city destroying weapons!)
@@Destroyer_V0 hehehe bane blades are without a doubt awesome even by Warhammer standard. I would like to introduce keith laumer bolo. Tanks that are so big (mark 25 and up) that they could run a bane blade over. Armed with space cruiser grade weapons (that can fight ships in low orbit) enough turrets to make said bane blade green with envy while packing enough fire power to make a hive think twice. With a weight so great that they actually had to install "limited" antigravity devices just to kept them from carving new canyons in the ground. With a crew of one. Controlled by AI that is. How to put it. As loyal as the Death Korps of Krieg, as honorable as the Cadians, and as uncorrupted as the Mordian iron guard.
@@danielm.595 Well I don't think the 300 mm hell bore cannons are that strong. But the mark 33 hell rail might be that strong I mean these things fire power is measured in the megatons Edit went and double checked. Hell bore cannons topped out at 200mm with 5MTs of fire power The hell rail was 300mm with a peak of 12MTs for 1.2 second or a substained pulse 1.2 MTs for 12 second
With a few upgrades this can be one of the best tanks in Star Wars. Most sci-fi tanks are over the top big and over the top heavy with over the top weapons and would realistically only be useful in somewhat developed worlds with specific terrain features. Something like a river delta or the moon's soft surface would make most sci-fi tanks useless. And you want to log these heavy, big tanks across the stars to your destination? Are you crazy? This tank however? Its design lets you stack it by placing one upside down, most tanks of that size can be destroyed by a single hit from any anti-tank weapon so making it overly protected isnt useful and its repulsors make it useful for most worlds that you encounter. Upgrades would include removing the rocketlaunchers, this cheapens the vehicle and makes it lighter while losing little firepower outside of a few edge-case scenario's, but in those scenarios the reduced cost let you bring more tanks so its a win either way. Second, droid brain. We see the fighters come with a dedicated droid brain, and if its absolutely necessary you can build a few free-standing B1 droid brains to man the turrets. This leaves more space inside for power generation, ammo storage and armor. Speaking of turrets, those two side-turrets should be able to pivot left and right on top of up and down. As for the big turret, assuming the repulsors can also attract to stabilize the vehicle during uphill movement then the turret being that far back lets you absorb more recoil, besides that the long barrel already seems to absorb most of the recoil. Add some anchorpoints for droids at the back for transport (they hang in those transports anyway) and solid anchor handholds at the front for transport before battle is joined and this tank is done. This makes for an excellent Star Wars light tank: cheap(er), lighter, easily stackable and stored, can traverse almost any planet regardless of how developed it is and has a lot of solid firepower. Especially as a support vehicle it has great uses while still being capable enough as a frontline combattant or scouting tank that packs a punch similar to the Centauro family of combat vehicles.
It was made by a bunch of corporate guys that had their droids meant to resemble their own skeletons. So I would not be shocked if it was supposed to resemble some aquatic thing that they were afraid of. The skirt launchers, style does not fix substance. The fixed cannons make sense if this thing cannot get much ground clearance and it needs to clear an obstacle. The wing guns should have had better mounts so they can fire everywhere, yes. One bit that bothers me is this thing seems a bit, tall. One question of the overview. Do not Abrams and similar current tanks have areas for troops to ride on the outside if necessary?
tbf.. That was not just "a clone" but a Geneticaly defective clone taht made him, because fucking stupid plot reassons, way more physicaly strong then any other clone.. or even most other species.. ever(i fucking hate the idea of the bad abtch)
This is still my favorite star wars vehicle by terms of appearance. One thing to note about the hovel part (yes, that lower arch was actually made out of a shovel blade in the miniature) is that it could come off and be replaced in one go, when it ran out of missiles.
Future Droid tanks will become droids themselves. The lore around the tank hints toward the a machine that was designed to be piloted and sold to other species and planets.
It's still one of my favorite tank designs, and it's good by Star Wars standards. Certainly better than Republic walkers, one of which has a cabinet protected by glass, while the other one is just open, so you can snipe the pilot. Also, my Battlefront 2005 experience tells me that these things love to flip over in every possible direction when you drive or turn too fast.
This is why I have been so disappointed that there is not an instant kill mechanic if you blast a rocket into it's holes. In the games those things are damn near indestructible unless you also use a tank
Funny you should mention the Clone Wars, because the tank that appears in the show is the AAT MK-2 and they fix several of the problems you mention in that model. They opt to get rid of the extra guns in favor of a Coaxial Lazer mounted beside the main cannon on the turret. This let's them drop the crew down to two. (or three, when you add a communications specialist) They also ditch the stupid missile launchers on the scoop. These changes make the AAT a cheap and efficient light tank. The CIS primarily uses the AAT as a command vehicle for it's organic officers or T series Tactical Droids. It's basically the only crewed Tank in the CIS as well, so it's got it's Niche.
"Why doesn't it have a built in droid brain?" it gets worse, there is precedent for that. ALL of the Trade Federation's fighter-ships do EXACTLY this. The AAT seems like they didn't want to bother with developing a droid tank, so they just bought a fleet of off-the-shelf regular tanks and stuck infantry droids in them.
Maybe it was cheaper to stick cheap infantry droids in a cheap tank rather than a verbobrain in a cheap tank? Although tbf one of the Vulture droid tactics was to literally kamikaze into the target so… idk maybe redesigning and outfitting the tanks with them would have been more trouble than it was worth. Of course it could also be that the organic portions of the CIS military also used the model so they never had a reason to fully commit to a redesign. Idk
Some AAT variants used the hatch on the front to mount a manned heavy repeater like a star wars MG60 to clean up infantry trying to lob droid poppers near the tank
I feel this could be improved by making it a kinda larger vehicle so it's no longer a tank but rather an IFV. Pull the bottom launchers off, and kinda wrap the bottom armour/repulsorlifts into that big negative space below the turret, and even if you don't add a sealed compartment for infantry they can kinda crouch behind the front armour. It's not a great solution but it cuts down the massive footprint this this has, so it's less cumbersome and allows it to be used outside of big open fields.
It was used like that later, especially in the clone wars show but this is the gen 1 model, when the trade federation used droids in LINE FORMATIONS. THEY DEPLOYED THEM STRAIGHT TO THE BATTLEFIELD IN LOW BATTERY/STORAGE MODE SO THE DROIDS HAD TO WAKE UP AND WHERE CONTROLLED FROM A SINGLE SPACESHIP WHICH IF DESTROYED WOULD SHUT DOWN THEM ALL. Idiots the lot of them. The only sensible droid from phantom menace era is the IG series droids. Or as they are known better "the tax man".
@@jebbus132 i mean.. in defence of the Trade federation.. they never planned on actualy fighting a war at that point, they used their Droids as Security forces and to intimindate planets. not ever actualy fight a major war with And everything they do was designed specificaly to be as cheap as possible. the AAT was designed for organic operators, and the Trade federation put droids in it as it was cheaper that way then to redesign or aquire a fully Droid brained tank, the Battle Droids had no motivators, thus where cheaper to produce, with the drawback of a Central controll signal being required. The later models had either a partial motivator, which woudl allow them to execute the last recieved command and slight autonomy, and evne alter full (altough cheap) motivators which allowed them to act fully autonomous with verbal commands being enough. HOWEVEr the CiS(and trade federation) being cheap as always, never botehrd performing regular maintanance on the droids, like deleting their Memory units... Thus the regular rank and field Droids became "chatty" and stupid as we know them from TCW. same with the Low power mode, it was cheaper, and more space efficent, to store them in the MTTs disabled, and deploy them far enough away form the enemy(under tank support, and dong forget the MTT cannons are pretty strong as well)that they arent under imidiat threat then to deploy them already active, they obviously changed that later as that tactic works against regular militias and planetary defence/police forces, btu not against a Trained clone army. most of EP1s "weird shit" in terms of droids can be explained by the Trade Federation being cheap as heck in terms of their "army" and the fact they where used in a fashion they arent realy "meant" to be used
Another thing about that front hatch, the GAR and other Militias used this against them, they literally jumped up on the tank, opened the hatch, and threw in a couple grenades.
everytime I hear you say, "And Then" or "But wait, There's More!" I keep seeing the Hellsing Abridged version of Alucard during the invasion of london pointing out all the souls he's got saved up to attack with, or some such. meh, it's literally the guy saying those exact words and everything around it got drowned out in my memory.
I imagine the Trade Federation built these for cheap as for most of their existence, as they only needed to deal with debtors rather than proper militaries, then sold their surplus to the Separatists who didn't have proper dedicated tank production when they were first getting started.
i imagine the tank can adjust the repulsor to be higher or lower relative to the ground. i think an in universe reason it is flawed is that the trade federation just wanted a really cheap army based around droids, didn't really care about the armor, just wanted guns, and the droids had to work with existing infrastructure, rather than being a separate droid brain. The interior accessibility could also be for maintenance? Sometimes cheaper is better when its not intended to face planets with strong military forces. Many worlds, like naboo may not have standing armies.
Ironically the version used in the CGI kids show had fewer weakpoints in the front hull. Still had the boom tubes, but the little heat vent at the front and the two "Hull machineguns" were gone, replaced with a nice curved front The flat part at the front's also almost entirely gone. The armature mounted guns were doubles instead.
Playing this in Battlefront 2, I can testify that all of the problems you bring up actually come up in the game. This thing is glass to rockets. Those missile launchers at the bottom will often fire directly into the smallest obstruction. When going over anything but flat terrain the vehicle will cantilever backwards, smashing the turret into the ground often with enough force to inflict fall damage and finally, it slips and slides to all hell, regularly over cliffs, bridges and ledges. What you forgot to mention is the parallax on those side guns and even (less so) on the missile launcher being extended as far as possible from the center line of the tank and fixed. There is only one vehicle that is actually worse than this in the game and that is the alliance AAC. Combine the slipping and sliding, hitting the ground with weapons, even worse armor and the parallax with entirely ineffective weapons. The AAC has these little cat-ear missile pods in place of the turret. Sound normal right? Well the rockets it fires don't seem to have warheads because they only cause any damage to infantry and only on a direct hit. They're basically blunt weapons. Anyway these, thus, need to be used with the accuracy of a normal gun to be effective. Well.... they can't do that. You see, the rockets aren't guided OR dumbfire. They are randomfire. As soon as they leave the launcher, they pick a random direction to fly off in. You can and are even likely to hit your own tank with your tank mounted rocket launcher, firing directly at the enemy. Naturally, the best weapons are the ones as likely to hit you as your enemy. SO, what about it's other weapons? It's got 2 basically machine gun blasters on the very bottom, even lower than the rocket holes on the AAT because they are actually hanging off the bottom. So multiply the obstruction x2 and then, when you add in parallax, it is actually impossible to hit infantry in waste high cover. Okay, so these blasters are at least good at dealing with mass infantry in the open right? Nope because even if you hit an enemy they don't do much. While most tanks in the game had one-hit kills on infantry with their primary blaster, the AAC took around 8 hits if I remember correctly. The anti-guns were actually better at dealing with infantry. Speaking of which, the anti-tank guns were at least decent minus the fact that they too were hanging off the bottom of the tank and had the same aiming issues. Overall, I generally would get more kills and less deaths as an infantry grunt than if I went as a tank pilot.
It also looks like it has some unnecessary shot traps in places. Those two lasers that jut out of the sides have those tube things that would direct shots back upwards into the laser mounts if they got hit the right way, for example.
There was a series called the bad batch where a squad of clone troopers attached two AAT tanks with some sort of rope thing and pushed one over the edge of a cliff which pulled the other with it because you know... no friction.. The big scoop ram thing is the magazine for the projectiles btw it can detach.
the rocket argument issue actually happens in Battlefront 2, they need to be fired on flat ground, also the reason they are crewed by droids is the AAT is intended to be both used by droid and organic crew, believe it or not there were a significant portion of non clone organics fighting on both sides of the clone wars although you make a point in the sense having a drop in brain kit to run it by itself with the option of a B series or organic crew would be a neat concept
The thing about almost all tech from the republic vs CIS times is they were purposefully made to be semi effective but overall bad designs to drag out the war but ensure the republic wouldn't lose the war, it's why pretty much everything was scrapped and replaced when the Empire came in
In defense of the AAT, it was originally pitched as a much more similar vehicle to the wave serpent or tau gunships from 40k, it was much more of a gunship than a tank. Then i have no clue what happened to make it a simple hover tank. Also, laser weapons in star wars fire plasma, the laser part refers to what energizes the gasses. Also, you need to keep in mind that despite all its weak spots, this tank had mobility on its side, sure it could go at 55 km/h (pretty average) compared to its saber tank counterpart 200 km/h, but it could still move in all directions even when firing its main gun of wich recoil wasn't that much, so that is another point in favor of this tank. Its still a terrible design, but for how cheap it was, i think it makes sense as, again, the AAT only costed 75.000 credits.
I should mention, the star wars universe uses plasma weapons, which is why it imparts kinetic force. It's not just hot light it's superheated (usually magnatised) gas
At least in WWII Era, infantry did ride on the outside of tanks as ad hoc way to have mounted infantry. They would deploy on foot as they got to the battlefield, and would not be on the tank in combat unless the unit got ambushed.
Seems the AAT was designed to totally kill the crew commanding the hover tank. Gee even Southern Cross in Macross/Robotech did a better battle tank in the 1980s. But those have open cockpits, so bad too.
Canonically, the Trade Federation was very much a Lowest Bidder operatio n, and everything was made with Disposibility as an explicit specification to cut costs. Explains a lot, doesn't it?
not too mention most of their equipment was not meant to be seen as military use but to be later repurposed into military equipment.
so they could build a military without officially building a military
Depeeeends. Droideka were a very high ticket item that were used.
Yeah but some of the stuff they do just leads to more costs instead of less so it's even stupider.
@@Yawyna124 they didnt pay for them with credits though. The species that makes them accepts payment in rare meats. Something a trade federation has no issue aquiring.
@@alephkasai9384 like?
I liked the AAT in the Clone Wars tank game. Sure its got a massive blind spot in its rear. But at least its fun to drive. The AAT was originally designed for organics to use. It was just cheaper for droids to man it as it can allow organic commanders to use as well.
Man, I don't hear nearly enough people talk about that game.
I’ve never heard of it
Sounds fun
What clone wars tank game!?
@@eyesofstatic9641 the game is literally called Star Wars Clone Wars.
@@barrybend7189 gotcha thanks man
It's technically ablative armour. I fucking love it..
So the deal is that the AAT was designed for living personnel. Thats why it was designed the way it is. You touched on this in an earlier video concerning large mechs. If your mech is "human" sized it can use human equipment because the scale is the same. Thats why this abomination has no droid brain. It was never designed to be autonomous. It required people, and when the trade union and others started using them, they had to assign droids. As you stated, a terrible vehicle and also it takes up four droids which would most likely be better used somewhere else.
In all honesty though, this ISN'T a hover craft. A repulsor field can be stabilized, whereas a cushion of air can not. They just never bothered in the Star Wars universe because they played it for comedy.
Your other concerns are all valid as hell though. Why are the launchers down there, why is that massive gun so high and to the rear? Again, because it looks cool, and for no other damn reason.
Then again when it was bouncing around its because something either overpowered its repulsor system or its stabilizers were damaged.
How would 4 droids be used beter somewhere else? They literaly just march in a straight line in colums of 50+ shooting at the enemy.
@@robertharris6092 Heheheheh. Poor tactics on the part of the commanders is no reflection of the utility of the units. Those droids are capable of so much more. They just didn't bother because they were following the overwhelming force docterine. Just keep throwing men (droids) into the fire until you win.
@@robertharris6092 they could have given them grenades
@@RomstarOrion theyre b1s. Theyre incredibly stupid and incredibly cheap.
That’s why the seps invested in droid walkers and tanks like the Hailfire droid, homing spider droid, NR-N99 tank droid and the octuptarra tri-droid. All of which can squish the squishies.
All of those vehicles are self-driving too, aren't they?
@@347Jimmy droid brained yes
And let's face it, the droid gunship is basically the ultimate CIS battlefield weapon and can do everything the AAT does.
I think the original purpose of those droids weren't made for military roles. I know the Hailfure droid was original designed for riot control and debt collection.
@@ximthedespot4673 Hailfires on riot control would be ungodly levels of effective lol
As for debt collection, idk about you but I'd be paying
Jeebus
The droid compartments and escape hatches are so organics can use the tank _when it's captured by irregular forces_ on a occupied planet.
… Wait… that's not a design feature that was specified, was it?
But that many hatches are necessary so that a ion grenade can be popped in the crew compartment from any side.
And the front hatch is for the droids to escape from, when infantry get too close to the rear, as the anti-personnel guns only cover the front and the main cannon can't angle to hit infantry below a certain range that approach from the rear.
It is so screwed in any built up area - okay not the best place for any tank, but 360° anti-personnel coverage is generally considered useful.
Bonus *negative points* for the commander not having a remote weapons station to aim the commanders "machine gun".
I honestly think one of the main design philosophies behind this thing was "You can _never_ have too much egress"
Can't the side-guns rotate to fire to the rear. The tank can then turn a bit to create a field of rear fire while the main Canon continues to bombard forward targets.
@@corruptangel6793 probably, if it had a competent crew
It's basically an oversized Dalek without the blob. Even the weak point is in the same place.
fun fact: lasers actually do have recoil, it's just so minor you cant detect it without highly sensitive sensors, and lasers do in fact impart a force when hitting a solid object, there is a conceptual idea for interstellar ships to use solar sails for this very purpose.
AAT tries to run over squisy, squishy lies down and hover tank just hover over him harmlessly, squishy proceeds to plant sticky explosive on the underside of the tank, squishy runs off and tank goes boom.
AAT trise to fire missile at republic scum vehicle, therte is a rock in front of AAT, AAT goes boom.
AAT loads missile, clone sniper sees missile in tube so sniper shoots missile thru big hole. AAT goes boom, another 6 AAT's that happen to be to close to eachother also go boom fron chainreaction, exept for the one to the far left... because it had droids hanging on the outside going "WEEE!!" that effectively functioned as ablative armor.
WHEEEEEE
Eeeeh.
First situation is a theoretical weakness of literally any vehicle with enough ground clearance to go over a person. If someone wants to go under something without falling under the wheels, then by golly, they'll find a way. There's really no advantage to doing this above trying to get into a blindspot-- which the AAT has a relatively massive one-- unless you're going for a "pretend you're a dead body" strategy, which, again, works on any vehicle that has the ground clearance to pass over a man-sized target cleanly. Running up to it in order to get ran over requires you run in front of something hostile to you that has 8 small guns, 1 artillery piece, and 6 missile batteries, which is a terrible prospect for almost anything in existence, not to mention the potential of actually getting hit by it, which would not be fun. As for "but getting into its blindspot requires getting through zoning infantry!", well, yes, but so does getting in front of it to collapse to the ground and place sticky explosives on it.
Per the second: this isn't particularly an issue considering they have multiple tubes along the breadth of the vehicles wide base. While if wouldn't be able to shoot missiles while shooting from a trench because of their low mounting, it's also likely they're not shooting them into man-sized obstructions considering they'd be be able to notice them, considering that entities have the ability to see all parts of the tank in front of them. The bigger weakness of the missiles is their likely incredibly distant convergence point due to how widely spread they are.
That last situation is more an argument *for* having the missile tubes low on a tank because "low and forward facing, embedded in armor" is the antithesis of a sniper being able to effectively perform anti-materiel duties. It would be a lot easier to perform anti-materiel maneuvers on an AAT with the missile tubes positioned high, where snipers and, indeed, everything else, have a better vantage point on them. If you didn't know "Lower than man level and directly in front of a vehicle with 6 missile tubes, at least 8 guns, and 1 artillery piece" is exactly where a sniper does not want to be. The missiles would be generally fairly well shielded from most angles of attack sitting at the back of the tubes. The effectiveness of such an attack might not be too great anyway; the armor of those tubes would also have to be fairly substantial, considering it is not a recoilless system, and it is an area that repeatedly absorbs back-blast, meaning it probably has at least *some* protection from chain-firing/munitions exploding, leading to it exploding mostly out the front, through the big, wide tube that leads to the open atmosphere.
As for SCS's "pinballing them around"... that would really only work if the same mechanisms that keep them from tipping over, absorbing their own recoil, and that move them suddenly stop failing while at the same time the tank stays above ground. Bear in mind, they have to absorb the full recoil of the missile's booster motors every time they fire one, along with that of the heavy gun which does apparently produce substantial recoil. While getting struck with a shell would require them reset their gun's alignment on their enemy, that is the same case for any self-propelled guns that might be able to take enemy artillery fire without getting outright destroyed, albeit to a lesser degree.
Also in most cases(including this one) star wars lasers aren't actual lasers, just look at it and try to say that it's actual laser
AAT = BOOMer tank.
@@Yawyna124 A humie literally pulled not one, but three of these useless things over a cliff.
But ok.
Dedicated anti-Ewok launchers. The single most specialized weapons for the single most important operation: Exterminatus.
And you didn’t even get into how high of a profile this tank has or how limited the main gun’s elevation is. Roughly the entire rear half of the vehicle is a permanent blind spot where even the main turret can’t turn and fire at you.
Funnily enough, that's actually where the gun has the BEST fire arc. You don't have that ridiculously tall crew compartment to block your depression. Theoretically, to maximize the gun's effectiveness you'd hide the majority of this things body and just poke the main gun over the top of whatever wall/ hill you're hull down behind facing the front of the tank away from your kill box.. That said, this thing was purpose build for Civil war era tactics, you line up in nice neat rows and blast each other on a nice flat field. The dumbest strategy short of ignoring logistics. In that particular role and setup, it's not the worst thing lucas could have shat out. On a different note, these things aren't slow. In the games they could book it really damn fast, and were a hell of a lot of fun in the Battlefront games, and the Clone Wars game in MP. If a decent commander or general was given these and told to use them, they'd use them in salt the earth blitzkrieg raids, you roll up on someone's property, remove them and that property, and go on your merry way somewhere else before a more reasonable armored unit came to show you the error of you tank's design.
The main gun has great elevation, it shoot down a starfighter in the phantom menace, it has terrible gun depression though.
@@orangedream267
To be fair also even if they had generally inferior equipment, if the CIS trounced The Republic utterly in one area, it was logistics.
@@allthenewsordeath5772 funnily enough, not much was really inferior. Droids were just dumb because lolfunneh. In reality the CIS should have utterly mopped the floor with the Republic. Especially considering the good bits of equipment. Like the CIS gunship, and the buzz droid fighter.
@@orangedream267 the B1s were very dumb. And incedibly cheap.
The design problem of the gun barrel acting as a lever arm is hilariously illustrated in Phantom Menace, when Jar Jar Binks inadvertently pulls an AAT off-course (and plowing into the ground) just by hanging off of it
I don't know how much a skinny Gungan weighs, but I'm sure it should take more than that to overbalance any decently designed tank
Technically there were two Gungans hanging off it as his second-in-command followed him.
@@andreykardashov6343 did the other Gungan ever touch the tank?
I only seem to remember him riding alongside
@@347Jimmy not the tank itself. He hung off of JarJar which is why in the end they fell together.
Think barrel of monkeys
@@andreykardashov6343 just had a look at the scene, they did indeed barrel of monkeys a little bit at the end there 🤣🤣
The tank had already most stabilised again by that point, so I'd still say it was Jar Jar alone who tipped it
Poor AAT's can't get a break 🤷♂️
What I love about AOTC's droid designs is that they kind of made logical improvements over all droids in TPM. E.g. the B2 Super battle droid or all forms of tank droids seem to respond to all the faults you see in episode one.
Its important to note the trade fexeration isnt supposed to have an actual military. Theyre a rebelion. Not a legitimate govornment. Their equipment befote the war broke out was meant for use against rebelions and pirates and for tax colection. Not waging war.
This thing feels like the Trade Federation hired some Soviet tank designers who escaped the Great Purge. Front hatch? T-34. Troops riding on the outside? T-34. Multiple guns/turrets? T-35. The rest of it is just bad design pure and simple. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the commentary, and whole heartedly agree!
Exactly!. You read my mind.
well, technically your right about the t-34 it's still a Much more sensible design (especially the 85mm version) THEN THIS THING.
@@IronWarhorsesFun also slopes
But the T-34's driver hatch is a strong spot! /s
I think a soviet tank designer would do a far better job. The T-34 was a good tank for its job. Provided the tank was blown a part but who cares if there's a T-34 that went boom there's 30 more right behind it.
After playing this thing a lot in battlefront 2, the main cannon is the most useful part. Compared with the TX-130 The fact it actually has a primary cannon. The AAT basically has a 105mm vs the TX-130 which has basically the equivalent of 2 40mms that are fixed into the hull like a tank destroyer without tank destroying capability.
The AAT could 100% be streamlined, remove the rockets and the 4 secondary guns, lower the profile and instead have a higher power gun with a coaxial, since its autoloaded you could remove 1 crew man, gunner, driver, commander (reason to separate the commander and gunner is to keep crew work load down and you could still give the commander a mounted mg to play with).
The tactics of the tanks are actually pretty good in the clone wars show, as they show them moving at platoon strength (of course the droid operators are really dumb and die anyway). But they show that the guns firepower is significant enough to destroy AT-TEs (a also very flawed vehicle that could use its own redesign) in only a few hits. They even show a real tank tactic in the show where the AATs target the lead vehicle and the rear vehicle to trap their enemies in a kill box.
Aah yes, the tank made by the Trade Federation. The very same Trade Federation whose army is made as cheap as they can. And yes, I recall watching the clone Wrecker pushing three off a cliff. At the same time.
To be fair, any time the bad batch was involved, all of the droid forces were inexplicably turned into unmoving cardboard cutouts by the writers...
droid crew: because the tanks were designed for the secondary market, and not to exclusively be crewed by droids.
And assuming you did retrofit it with a droid brain you'd still need something to repair it. Then again you could just use regular repair droids and just shit them out the back and keep the battle droids as more infantry.
It's kind of like why the US military don't use auto loaders in their tanks while the soviets were using them in every tank since the T-64. To have a loader do grunt work and have an extra hand when things go tits up.
@@Leadlobotamist A new droid brain type also puts an extra load on the control ship and/or infrastructure. Not ideal for peacetime when they are trying to keep costs down.
We'll, an old Chief of mine told me about you.
He accused you of being me (not a complement in my mind), but I'm assuming that if you spend enough time at sea we all sound alike. And I love your channel, so I'll buy him a drink anyway.
Great concept; keep up the good work and I'll spread the word (for whatever that's worth).
That's awesome. Welcome to the mad house :).
Apparently the gunsight is good enough to acquire starfighters taking off from the hanger in Theed, that's a plus because most times tankers can only hunker down and pray the giant metal death bird leaves them alone.
I remember reading that apparently ground attack kill numbers were really much lower then previously claimed.
Talking about the droids hanging on the outside reminded me of "I am ablative armor. Life is boring, then briefly exciting, then over."
Is this really a bad tank?
"Roger, roger."
I LOVE THAT LINE!! From a tanker (DAT) to a squid. Squishing squishy's is why tanks exist.
Even us bobbers know that :).
I would suggest that, merely by virtue of having an actual turret, that this is still perhaps the best tank in Star Wars, despite it's short comings.
I find your argument acceptable.
The Canderous tanks from Empire At War had a twin gunned turret, with shield penetrating mass driver cannons
I'd love to see one battle an AAT
@@347Jimmy not even a comparison. Its a mandalorian tank vs something made to be used by a non military force for fighting pirates, rebels, and tax collection that values quantity over quality to the extreme.
@@robertharris6092 they're good reasons why one would expect it to be a vastly superior tank
And it is
I wasn't trying to make a fair comparison, I was offering a contender for "the best tank in Star Wars"
I'd love to see you rant about Gundam vessels and technologies, not the mechs themselves but things like their space cruisers, 'starfighters' and an actual flying tank. Yes the turret, with its main gun that is in a casemate, comes off the chassis and just flies like an aircraft for a brief period of time.
Dopps are the ugliest fightercraft in any fictional universe...and yet I still fuckin love em
Not gonna lie, I didn’t even know the side guns were manned by two other droids, nor that it had 3 compartment to enter.
I thought it had two compartments, and the disk in the front was just a bit of extra armor for direct shots.
I though that the driver also had control of the secondary weapons because it made sense for self defense. Like “Oh they trying to flank, let me just turn the tank to face them and keep the armor on them while the main cannon keeps on primary target.”
But damn so much wasted space lowers armor amount, and the hatch there is just extra wasted armor space.
Not gonna before I know these two things I thought the AAT was not the best Star Wars tank, but still an overall good tank for what it was made to do, but now, damn.
For a second I almost wanted to point out that the repulsor fields do actually let it crush things beneath it, but then I remembered the scene in phantom menace where Qui-Gon saved Binks by rolling under the transport thing (I forgot what it was called) but there ARE instances in lore where it applies force on anything beneath it. So... YET ANOTHER inconsistency lol
Pretty sure the AAT is built for export. Thus the crew survivability features. It's meant for use by lifeforms as well as droids.
Love it. You need to turn your critical eye to the 40K vehicles, would love to see someone point out the silliness that is GW designers.
Warhammer is meant to be over the top to be perfectly fair.
Baneblade: fucking fortress
Leman Russ tank: British MK4 on steroids.
Titans: WALKING CATHEDRALS OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION
The idea of this stepping on people is hillarious. You've earned your subscription.
If the Gungans had been able to field a handful of Stug IV's, the battle would have been over in an hour.
Tankers call squishies "crunchies" apparently the bones snapping is easier to hear than the squishing.
"It's technically ablative armor..."
Literally describing the entirety of the CIS
The variants that are just Self propelled guns/weapon platforms are where the frame is useful if ever, but because they don't have to be in direct line of fire. It looks cool at least lol.
MBTs dont need to be seen. The leopard 1 was purely designed to be unseen and fast with a potwnt gun. And its one of the most effective tanks in history.
Its basically the product of: we want the cannon fodder to be extremely valuable and useful to the army forces
And the product of:
"Hey jerry arent you meant to be designing a tank?"
"Nah i dont feel like it, let the droids do it"
This guy is like Gordon Ramsay but for spaceships, I love it. Also could you consider tearing apart the tie fighter line please, while bearing in mind the training resources invested into the pilots?
The AAT is my favorite Star Wars land vehicle. It looks like a tank. It isn't some ungainly walking thing, it isn't some floating brick. It is sleek and has a top mounted turret with a main gun and 365 degree rotation. Yes I agree it is a stupid design, but it looks awesome. I think a Mk. II would be amazing. Ditch the rocket launchers & fixed forward blasters, put the arm cannons on ball mounts for more degrees of motion, add deflector shields, and give the commander a pintle mounted blaster cannon. Maybe adjust the design in a few places, but I love these tanks.
You obviously missed the turbotank. Now that thing was a meat grinder. The empire only discontinued it because it was more efficient than "shock and awe" which didn't follow their doctrine.
@@andreykardashov6343 you mean the reskinned Republic Juggernaut? That thing is massive and would eat artillery for breakfast lunch and dinner. Not to mention it seems they're lacking in much offensive firepower. Theyre big transports, not tanks
@@sgtNACHO yes it would eat that artillery and just keep going. Also, have you checked the cruising speed on that thing? It's biggest weapon is its own mass. Like the big boss said, for squashing meatbags.
@@andreykardashov6343 i dont think ramming is the best weapon in a universe with extremely deadly spacecraft and speeders. In Mandalorian Season 2 they were shown as incredibly vulnerable, in Rogue One it was also quite vulnerable to be taken out by a few rebels and a robot.
The only time they are ever shown to be worth anything is to drive onto a beach and shoot some rockets.
It is very cool looking, always enjoy seeing one, but they're pretty much pointless. APCs arent used anymore because we have helicopter dropships and IFVs.
“Squishing squishies is why tanks exist!!”
HK-47 approves of this message 😂
Loves him some squished meat bags
Tanks are for crushing Squishies? I thought they were mostly for getting big boomy canons right where you need them to blast the squishies out of their holes no matter what kind of protest they give you.
Also note the pattern in the missile tubes in the front. They can't shoot too closely. In the game Battle for Naboo AAT's had a huge weakness you were encouraged to take advantage of. If you got close enough to get under the main barrel's arc, then you were too close for it's missiles to properly deploy. In other words if you get right up to these things then they can't do spit. You can jump right in front of it, start dancing and all it can do is try and fail to run you over or try to run by itself so it can get into range to kill you.
Bit of a design flaw that.
Back in ww1 they were trench crossers
If you want a really fraking stupid science fiction transport to analyse, I suggest the Land Raider of Warhammer 40k. A massive transport with a ramp that opens _forward_ , exposing the insides to all manner of fire!
After seeing this and your dissection of the Razor Crest, I'd like to see you tackle two other ships please. Moff Gideon's light cruiser from The Mandalorian and the U.S.S. Cygnus from The Black Hole. Thank you for the vids sir ^^.
Both are on the list :).
@@SacredCowShipyards That is quite the shock as its not often one comes across another with knowledge of the Cygnus.
It has dysfunctional droids and a flying greenhouse up against a black hole. It was gonna happen.
@@SacredCowShipyards Also the spot of Disney's most brutal murder
And the turret at the back has near zero gun depression in the forewards arc... so the main gun is most effective when pointed anywhere the tank (and other weapons) isn't pointed...
Technically speaking, I think the tank was originally designed with human pilots in mind. As the Clone Wars progressed the Sepis began to invest more and more into autonomous droid tanks. ^^
So remove the missile launchers, and install a droid brain to remove the doors and droids, and switch them for armor and we Gucci in most areas.
There's 1 important factor that makes that backset turret not *so* unreasonable: storability. Not only does the barrel not extend past the front of the tank but lined up ass to face the tank footprints actually overlap, with the back part of the turret sitting above the front part of the pancake. Crews can even still enter the rear hatch when stored like this.
It's all about what the vehicle was designed for. The trade federation's primary intent was intimidation, not effective combat, so they opted for quantity over quality. Hence the shit tons of battle droids and lots of tanks with big guns and missile launchers. The battle line formation makes sense there too. Show up at a planet, unpack all your toys in a line facing the enemy city, palace, what have you, and intimidate them into submission with the size of your force, all while hoping they don't look too closely at it.
Add that to how cheap they are and it makes sense you'd get a low cost, poorly armored, heavily armed system that stacks in storage and can be used by shitty battle droids *OR* any organics they choose to sell the weapon to.
"Please be advised that any ship left on the dock for more than 24 hours will be compressed to a cube" - what if a ship is already a cube? :)
That's because they aren't lasers. They are called that as a holdover name wise for the older laser weapons that were used before blasters. Blasters are infact based on partical beam technology.
A real life comparison. The term "rifle" is a weapon the orginally referred to the old flintlock weapons that had rifling. The term is still used in modern rifles... which admitily still have rifling... ok perhaps a better example might be blue prints, but you get my point.
Playing air hockey with enemy armor.
Ok, so the primary armament has limited traverse and low mounting position granting limited visibility, the secondary armament is mounted in the main turret, it's ridiculously tall and easy to tip over, and the antipersonnell machine guns are fixed.
.... so this thing is the star wars hovertank equivalent of the M-3 Lee.
You didn't mention my favorite dumbass design flaw for the AAT MK-1. That giant scoop on the front comes off. Not only does it come off, but you have to take it off in order to reload the rockets, and it's basically impossible to do it in the field.
So once you've fired your six rockets into the slight hill in front of you, you have to drag the entire tank back into space so they can take the whole scoop off with a big crane and reload six more shots.
57.
I love this channel its a glorious mating of Tex and Spacedock also a request for the GTD Orion and its weird-ass classification
Actually, I was thinking more like an American - Science Fiction version of Drachinifel.
Ooh. Sacred cow/tex battletech crossover? Whos w me?
@@blackc1479 yeah have em do the Mc kenna or something
The positive thing about their shape is they can be stored amazingly space efficient in CC-9979 Dropships, as one tank basically drives half the way under the tank in front.
Kinky.
Ground warfare designs in Star Wars have always been a bit weird...
Original trilogy: Giant robot camels and chickens.
Disney trilogy: Giant robot gorillas and a superlaser siege gun that makes the WW2 Schwerer Gustav railway gun look practical.
Legends: Tie fighters on tracks and aquatic AT-AT "swimmers."
Prequel trilogy: Giant robot spiders, crabs and snails.
So yeah...a giant floating steam iron with guns strapped onto it isn't that unusual.
Every time something in Star Wars mentions a “laser” replace it with “plasma” things make a LOT more sense that way.
Unlike most of the equipment designs.
No replace it with particle beam. Blasters are particle beam weaponry. Not plasma or laser weaponry. Both are rather rare.
@john smith Death Ray wouldnt be scientifically accurate. They arent rays. They are bolts. Blaster bolts are explicitly and exclusively particle beams. Wtf do you think is going to happen if you stick your head inside the gigantic fucking particle cannon buried under Switzerland rn? And besides, its a hell of a lot more scientific than the bullshit pseudo-science Star Trek makes up to justify its constant use of macguffins in EVERY FUCKING EPISODE MY GOD VOYAGER WAS SHITE! Edit: th-cam.com/video/AEPM-Bqc8fQ/w-d-xo.html&t
The amusing thing is the tank is far more likely to die when shot from the front, not the sides. The front has at least 12 shot traps I can count from just the stills in the video alone.
Ooo, if we're doing tanks now then I HAVE to recommend the 40k BaneBlade. Meters thick armor, Weapons for days, and if you count the turret it has 3 stories. Truly the most awe inspiring mobile fortress in 40k (and thats not even going into the different variants, one of which has a main gun to combat those 100ft tall bipedal walkers with city destroying weapons!)
HEAVY gasmask noises*
Main issue being... ground pressure. It's tracks are wide enough, and mostly covered to be sure. But good luck replacing them if they break!
@@Destroyer_V0 hehehe bane blades are without a doubt awesome even by Warhammer standard.
I would like to introduce keith laumer bolo. Tanks that are so big (mark 25 and up) that they could run a bane blade over. Armed with space cruiser grade weapons (that can fight ships in low orbit) enough turrets to make said bane blade green with envy while packing enough fire power to make a hive think twice. With a weight so great that they actually had to install "limited" antigravity devices just to kept them from carving new canyons in the ground. With a crew of one. Controlled by AI that is.
How to put it. As loyal as the Death Korps of Krieg, as honorable as the Cadians, and as uncorrupted as the Mordian iron guard.
@@sethgilcrist8088 and as powerful as a mini Death Star
@@danielm.595 Well I don't think the 300 mm hell bore cannons are that strong.
But the mark 33 hell rail might be that strong
I mean these things fire power is measured in the megatons
Edit went and double checked. Hell bore cannons topped out at 200mm with 5MTs of fire power
The hell rail was 300mm with a peak of 12MTs for 1.2 second or a substained pulse 1.2 MTs for 12 second
With a few upgrades this can be one of the best tanks in Star Wars.
Most sci-fi tanks are over the top big and over the top heavy with over the top weapons and would realistically only be useful in somewhat developed worlds with specific terrain features. Something like a river delta or the moon's soft surface would make most sci-fi tanks useless. And you want to log these heavy, big tanks across the stars to your destination? Are you crazy?
This tank however? Its design lets you stack it by placing one upside down, most tanks of that size can be destroyed by a single hit from any anti-tank weapon so making it overly protected isnt useful and its repulsors make it useful for most worlds that you encounter.
Upgrades would include removing the rocketlaunchers, this cheapens the vehicle and makes it lighter while losing little firepower outside of a few edge-case scenario's, but in those scenarios the reduced cost let you bring more tanks so its a win either way.
Second, droid brain. We see the fighters come with a dedicated droid brain, and if its absolutely necessary you can build a few free-standing B1 droid brains to man the turrets. This leaves more space inside for power generation, ammo storage and armor.
Speaking of turrets, those two side-turrets should be able to pivot left and right on top of up and down. As for the big turret, assuming the repulsors can also attract to stabilize the vehicle during uphill movement then the turret being that far back lets you absorb more recoil, besides that the long barrel already seems to absorb most of the recoil.
Add some anchorpoints for droids at the back for transport (they hang in those transports anyway) and solid anchor handholds at the front for transport before battle is joined and this tank is done.
This makes for an excellent Star Wars light tank: cheap(er), lighter, easily stackable and stored, can traverse almost any planet regardless of how developed it is and has a lot of solid firepower. Especially as a support vehicle it has great uses while still being capable enough as a frontline combattant or scouting tank that packs a punch similar to the Centauro family of combat vehicles.
It was made by a bunch of corporate guys that had their droids meant to resemble their own skeletons. So I would not be shocked if it was supposed to resemble some aquatic thing that they were afraid of. The skirt launchers, style does not fix substance. The fixed cannons make sense if this thing cannot get much ground clearance and it needs to clear an obstacle. The wing guns should have had better mounts so they can fire everywhere, yes.
One bit that bothers me is this thing seems a bit, tall.
One question of the overview. Do not Abrams and similar current tanks have areas for troops to ride on the outside if necessary?
I believe they /can/ do it, but it's generally not recommended.
There was an episode that should the clones pushing one of the tanks over a cliff and linking with other tanks to drag them all over.
I believe that was 'The Bad Batch' episode 1.
tbf.. That was not just "a clone" but a Geneticaly defective clone taht made him, because fucking stupid plot reassons, way more physicaly strong then any other clone.. or even most other species.. ever(i fucking hate the idea of the bad abtch)
This is still my favorite star wars vehicle by terms of appearance.
One thing to note about the hovel part (yes, that lower arch was actually made out of a shovel blade in the miniature) is that it could come off and be replaced in one go, when it ran out of missiles.
Future Droid tanks will become droids themselves. The lore around the tank hints toward the a machine that was designed to be piloted and sold to other species and planets.
It's still one of my favorite tank designs, and it's good by Star Wars standards. Certainly better than Republic walkers, one of which has a cabinet protected by glass, while the other one is just open, so you can snipe the pilot. Also, my Battlefront 2005 experience tells me that these things love to flip over in every possible direction when you drive or turn too fast.
Well the image of a Sepratist tank 'Mario Stomping' infantry is going to be one that's with me for a while
**boing** **boing** **boing**
“Lasers” in Star Wars are actually sped up clumps of plasma made from superheating certain types of gases, which is why there is recoil.
The AAT specifically uses kinetic shells surrounded in plasma so that might be a reason for the recoil
This is why I have been so disappointed that there is not an instant kill mechanic if you blast a rocket into it's holes. In the games those things are damn near indestructible unless you also use a tank
Funny you should mention the Clone Wars, because the tank that appears in the show is the AAT MK-2 and they fix several of the problems you mention in that model. They opt to get rid of the extra guns in favor of a Coaxial Lazer mounted beside the main cannon on the turret. This let's them drop the crew down to two. (or three, when you add a communications specialist) They also ditch the stupid missile launchers on the scoop. These changes make the AAT a cheap and efficient light tank.
The CIS primarily uses the AAT as a command vehicle for it's organic officers or T series Tactical Droids. It's basically the only crewed Tank in the CIS as well, so it's got it's Niche.
“Who are you”
“I’m a Star Wars ground vehicle that would suck in real life”
“Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?”
"Why doesn't it have a built in droid brain?"
it gets worse, there is precedent for that. ALL of the Trade Federation's fighter-ships do EXACTLY this.
The AAT seems like they didn't want to bother with developing a droid tank, so they just bought a fleet of off-the-shelf regular tanks and stuck infantry droids in them.
Maybe it was cheaper to stick cheap infantry droids in a cheap tank rather than a verbobrain in a cheap tank? Although tbf one of the Vulture droid tactics was to literally kamikaze into the target so… idk maybe redesigning and outfitting the tanks with them would have been more trouble than it was worth. Of course it could also be that the organic portions of the CIS military also used the model so they never had a reason to fully commit to a redesign. Idk
AMX-13 is probably the most prolific rear turreted tank, unlike this thing it has a low profile and can use ATGMs at a useful height.
Some AAT variants used the hatch on the front to mount a manned heavy repeater like a star wars MG60 to clean up infantry trying to lob droid poppers near the tank
I feel this could be improved by making it a kinda larger vehicle so it's no longer a tank but rather an IFV.
Pull the bottom launchers off, and kinda wrap the bottom armour/repulsorlifts into that big negative space below the turret, and even if you don't add a sealed compartment for infantry they can kinda crouch behind the front armour. It's not a great solution but it cuts down the massive footprint this this has, so it's less cumbersome and allows it to be used outside of big open fields.
It was used like that later, especially in the clone wars show but this is the gen 1 model, when the trade federation used droids in LINE FORMATIONS. THEY DEPLOYED THEM STRAIGHT TO THE BATTLEFIELD IN LOW BATTERY/STORAGE MODE SO THE DROIDS HAD TO WAKE UP AND WHERE CONTROLLED FROM A SINGLE SPACESHIP WHICH IF DESTROYED WOULD SHUT DOWN THEM ALL. Idiots the lot of them. The only sensible droid from phantom menace era is the IG series droids. Or as they are known better "the tax man".
@@jebbus132 i mean.. in defence of the Trade federation.. they never planned on actualy fighting a war at that point, they used their Droids as Security forces and to intimindate planets. not ever actualy fight a major war with
And everything they do was designed specificaly to be as cheap as possible.
the AAT was designed for organic operators, and the Trade federation put droids in it as it was cheaper that way then to redesign or aquire a fully Droid brained tank,
the Battle Droids had no motivators, thus where cheaper to produce, with the drawback of a Central controll signal being required.
The later models had either a partial motivator, which woudl allow them to execute the last recieved command and slight autonomy,
and evne alter full (altough cheap) motivators which allowed them to act fully autonomous with verbal commands being enough.
HOWEVEr the CiS(and trade federation) being cheap as always, never botehrd performing regular maintanance on the droids, like deleting their Memory units... Thus the regular rank and field Droids became "chatty" and stupid as we know them from TCW.
same with the Low power mode, it was cheaper, and more space efficent, to store them in the MTTs disabled, and deploy them far enough away form the enemy(under tank support, and dong forget the MTT cannons are pretty strong as well)that they arent under imidiat threat then to deploy them already active, they obviously changed that later as that tactic works against regular militias and planetary defence/police forces, btu not against a Trained clone army.
most of EP1s "weird shit" in terms of droids can be explained by the Trade Federation being cheap as heck in terms of their "army" and the fact they where used in a fashion they arent realy "meant" to be used
@@weberman173 Or the Geonosians being cheapskates since wasn't Geonosis one of the largest droid manufacturing planets during episode 1&2?
well, the geonosians arent realy cheapstakes, they get hired to produce droids, they produce droids,
Another thing about that front hatch, the GAR and other Militias used this against them, they literally jumped up on the tank, opened the hatch, and threw in a couple grenades.
"Squishing Squishies is practically why tanks exist!"
new favorite line...
Hmmm giving a tank an ablative meat shield... Why does this suddenly remind me of 40k?
They did go on to make use of the tank droid, which solved a number of problems the aat presented. Particularly making it a droid in itself.
everytime I hear you say, "And Then" or "But wait, There's More!" I keep seeing the Hellsing Abridged version of Alucard during the invasion of london pointing out all the souls he's got saved up to attack with, or some such. meh, it's literally the guy saying those exact words and everything around it got drowned out in my memory.
I love to see what you think about the Normandy from Mass Effect game series and some of the other ships
Lasers have recoil! It's just mostly negligible so I'm mostly a pedant.
mostly 😉
To be fair, Star Wars turbolasers don't have recoil
They have *RECOIL*
I imagine the Trade Federation built these for cheap as for most of their existence, as they only needed to deal with debtors rather than proper militaries, then sold their surplus to the Separatists who didn't have proper dedicated tank production when they were first getting started.
You do have to admit, it is FAR BETTER than its competitor, the Sabre tank, at least this thing has a freaking turret!
i imagine the tank can adjust the repulsor to be higher or lower relative to the ground. i think an in universe reason it is flawed is that the trade federation just wanted a really cheap army based around droids, didn't really care about the armor, just wanted guns, and the droids had to work with existing infrastructure, rather than being a separate droid brain. The interior accessibility could also be for maintenance?
Sometimes cheaper is better when its not intended to face planets with strong military forces. Many worlds, like naboo may not have standing armies.
Ironically the version used in the CGI kids show had fewer weakpoints in the front hull. Still had the boom tubes, but the little heat vent at the front and the two "Hull machineguns" were gone, replaced with a nice curved front The flat part at the front's also almost entirely gone. The armature mounted guns were doubles instead.
Mass?
They don't need to worry about mass.
Their's a crystal for that.
Playing this in Battlefront 2, I can testify that all of the problems you bring up actually come up in the game. This thing is glass to rockets. Those missile launchers at the bottom will often fire directly into the smallest obstruction. When going over anything but flat terrain the vehicle will cantilever backwards, smashing the turret into the ground often with enough force to inflict fall damage and finally, it slips and slides to all hell, regularly over cliffs, bridges and ledges. What you forgot to mention is the parallax on those side guns and even (less so) on the missile launcher being extended as far as possible from the center line of the tank and fixed.
There is only one vehicle that is actually worse than this in the game and that is the alliance AAC. Combine the slipping and sliding, hitting the ground with weapons, even worse armor and the parallax with entirely ineffective weapons. The AAC has these little cat-ear missile pods in place of the turret. Sound normal right? Well the rockets it fires don't seem to have warheads because they only cause any damage to infantry and only on a direct hit. They're basically blunt weapons. Anyway these, thus, need to be used with the accuracy of a normal gun to be effective. Well.... they can't do that. You see, the rockets aren't guided OR dumbfire. They are randomfire. As soon as they leave the launcher, they pick a random direction to fly off in. You can and are even likely to hit your own tank with your tank mounted rocket launcher, firing directly at the enemy. Naturally, the best weapons are the ones as likely to hit you as your enemy. SO, what about it's other weapons? It's got 2 basically machine gun blasters on the very bottom, even lower than the rocket holes on the AAT because they are actually hanging off the bottom. So multiply the obstruction x2 and then, when you add in parallax, it is actually impossible to hit infantry in waste high cover. Okay, so these blasters are at least good at dealing with mass infantry in the open right? Nope because even if you hit an enemy they don't do much. While most tanks in the game had one-hit kills on infantry with their primary blaster, the AAC took around 8 hits if I remember correctly. The anti-guns were actually better at dealing with infantry. Speaking of which, the anti-tank guns were at least decent minus the fact that they too were hanging off the bottom of the tank and had the same aiming issues. Overall, I generally would get more kills and less deaths as an infantry grunt than if I went as a tank pilot.
It also looks like it has some unnecessary shot traps in places. Those two lasers that jut out of the sides have those tube things that would direct shots back upwards into the laser mounts if they got hit the right way, for example.
Squishing squishys is exactly why tanks exist, they were originally designed to flatten barbed wire.
There was a series called the bad batch where a squad of clone troopers attached two AAT tanks with some sort of rope thing and pushed one over the edge of a cliff which pulled the other with it because you know... no friction.. The big scoop ram thing is the magazine for the projectiles btw it can detach.
The lasers in starwars aren't actually lasers. Unless they are. Except when they are called lasers.
It was probably a COTS tank originally designed for a squishy crew.
the rocket argument issue actually happens in Battlefront 2, they need to be fired on flat ground, also the reason they are crewed by droids is the AAT is intended to be both used by droid and organic crew, believe it or not there were a significant portion of non clone organics fighting on both sides of the clone wars although you make a point in the sense having a drop in brain kit to run it by itself with the option of a B series or organic crew would be a neat concept
As a former tanker, I approve this message. I busted out laughing when I first saw this abomination in the theater.
This thing and the tank from Fallout 4 keep me up at night
I love the comment about running squishies over. XD
AAT: Who are you?
Type-58 Wraith: I am you but -stronger- for indirect fire.
Also better.
The thing about almost all tech from the republic vs CIS times is they were purposefully made to be semi effective but overall bad designs to drag out the war but ensure the republic wouldn't lose the war, it's why pretty much everything was scrapped and replaced when the Empire came in
"we dont give a F***k" made me chuckle my freind
In defense of the AAT, it was originally pitched as a much more similar vehicle to the wave serpent or tau gunships from 40k, it was much more of a gunship than a tank. Then i have no clue what happened to make it a simple hover tank.
Also, laser weapons in star wars fire plasma, the laser part refers to what energizes the gasses.
Also, you need to keep in mind that despite all its weak spots, this tank had mobility on its side, sure it could go at 55 km/h (pretty average) compared to its saber tank counterpart 200 km/h, but it could still move in all directions even when firing its main gun of wich recoil wasn't that much, so that is another point in favor of this tank.
Its still a terrible design, but for how cheap it was, i think it makes sense as, again, the AAT only costed 75.000 credits.
Droids on the outside of the tank:
"We are ablative armor, life is boring, then momentarily interesting, then over. We are ablative armor..."
I mean, given how those droids are presented in the movies...
NOW I CANT STOP SINGING THE VIDEO TITLE IN MY HEAD! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, AND ALL THAT IS HOLY, PLEASE HELP ME!
I'd be lying if I said that wasn't my goal.
The aat was actually designed to be used by humans or wtvr as well, hence the droid crew. And apparently droid brains are expensive as hell.
I should mention, the star wars universe uses plasma weapons, which is why it imparts kinetic force. It's not just hot light it's superheated (usually magnatised) gas
At least in WWII Era, infantry did ride on the outside of tanks as ad hoc way to have mounted infantry. They would deploy on foot as they got to the battlefield, and would not be on the tank in combat unless the unit got ambushed.
Seems the AAT was designed to totally kill the crew commanding the hover tank. Gee even Southern Cross in Macross/Robotech did a better battle tank in the 1980s. But those have open cockpits, so bad too.