Not that it’s cannon, but in the Game “Force Commander”. the walkers are loaded onto cargo barges aboard the star destoryer, which takes them to the planet and unloads them.
So, yeah, dropships. I assumed something as much before I played the game.
Actually, the way canon (not cannon, btw) works in Star Wars, anything in the game is canon until it is contradicted by something else.
Apparently everything is canon in the Star Wars universe (with a handful of specific exceptions). What they have is a hierarchy-type structure which says what trumps what when there are contradictions.
The highest level is the movies. They trump everything. The authorized novels come next. When they contradict the movies the movies take precedence, but otherwise they trump everything except the movies. And so on…
Games have some special rules. Game scenarios are considered canon (and this includes all games; computer, RPG and even SWG) but the outcome of the scenarios are not.
So, unless something specifically says otherwise elsewhere further up the hierarchy, the scenario as described would be canon. (Even if a movie or novel showed another method of deploying AT-ATs, it still wouldn’t contradict the game unless it specifically said that the method used was the only one ever employed or that “drop ships” were never used anywhere.)
Yeah, canonosity in Star Wars can be fun…
From what I remember from staring longingly at the box at Toys by Roy, snowtroopers deployed from AT-ATs via a gigantic door in the port side. There was no gangplank, so I assume they climbed down the rope Luke conveniently left in the undercarriage. Troopers would exit in pairs, because…well, there were only two in the body of the AT-AT. Don’t ask me how the third trooper or the AT-AT commander (who I now realize is General Veers, he’s the only one in the movie with that funny helmet) got into the cockpit.
I still don’t understand, among a lot of other things, the lack of air support. The battle seems to take place outside the shield, or else the AT-ATs and troops would have nowhere to land. So there ought to be some TIE fighters around.
The AT-ATs were dropped outside the shield–which supposedly covered quite a huge area–and by the time they showed up in the battle they were already well underneath it. Dunno why the TIEs couldn’t have done the same, flying under the shield the whole way. Maybe it was too low for them to fly around safely that way.
The battle takes place under the shield. The walkers landed at the edge of the shielded zone, and travel underneath the shield until they were close enough to blast the generator.
As for landing craft, I’ve seen two different types depicted in online sources. One type, taken from a comic book, carried two AT-ATs in a “kneeling” position (ie, crouched down). The other type, created for a computer game, carried one AT-AT in a standing position. The latter type of craft would be ideal for situations where the walker is being deployed into combat (like on Hoth) while the other type would be better for non-hostile landings. Both landers were large, boxy-looking craft.
I agree with msmith537 about strategy. Vader’s original plan was probably to exit hyperspace near the system, but not in it, and send someone to covertly destroy the shield generator before the Rebels knew what was happening. A couple of Tie Bombers could probably slip through the asteroid belt without being noticed, and catch the Rebels off guard. Then Vader could bring in the fleet and bombard the base from orbit. The Ion Cannon would be destroyed quickly enough that it wouldn’t make much difference.
Instead of this plan, Admiral Ozzle decided to try a “Shock & Awe” type of strategy, and brought the fleet out of hyperspace close to the planet. This gave the Rebels enough warning to raise the shield and organize an escape plan. This was both arrogant and stupid, so Vader (who never did develop appropriate anger-management skills) used the Remote-Controlled Fist Of Death on our boy Ozzie.
Doesn’t work. AT-ATs are gigantic, much larger than the two-man snowspeeders, apparently even bigger than the Millenium Falcon. TIEs are puny one-man fighters and should go under the shield easily. Of course, nothing comes easily in Star Wars.
Helicopters are a lot more agile than AT-ATs, and can actually get close to the ground if need be. I think I also said in the other thread that I’d rather take an equivalent mass of Republic gunships from the prequels over an AT-AT, as the gunships seem to have similar functionality to helicopters. As for the camel, it might be useful if it was attuned to a Dark Jedi riding it. Then it’d be like a Sith ninja camel or something.
I should also note that there could be more than one method of landing AT-ATs on Hoth.
-Force Commander style ‘landing barges’
-Landing the entire Star Destroyer, Episode II-III style
-Anything else you might have seen anywhere
It’s pretty apparent that between Ep II and Ep VI, the Empire goes through some kind of Nazi Secret Weapons program where they keep cranking out new and varied weapon systems (I know the real reason is more toys but whatever).
As for air support, the TIE fighters may in fact not be a match for the snow speeders. Or TIE fighters might not be able to operate in the harsh environment of Hoth. Or maybe there was too much Rebel anti-aircraft artillery in the area. In any event, the AT-ATs seemed pretty impervious to anything the speeders had except tow cable and even then they only brought down 1 or 2 of them.
Well, it’s probably the same reason that the rebels had to use airspeeders instead of X-Wings and Y-Wings for air missions. The TIE fighter is built for space not for atmosphere. It doesn’t even have wings. Not only that, but the rebels are having to completely refit their airspeeder fleet to deal with the harsh conditions on Hoth. So, you basically have a spacefighter without wings that probably wouldn’t work too effectively in atmosphere and without the modifications necessary to deal with the weather conditions on the planet to guard against a rebel air assault that was completely and utterly ineffectual anyway.
The Empire seems to totally lack an in-atmosphere fighter, a good old fashioned “aircraft” (what a concept). Surely such a weapon system would have been helpful in the Endor battle. Given Lucas’ desire to have new vehicle toys in each movie, it is a bit of a surprise that this was never done. But carpet bombing the redwoods (who cares if the battalion of Stormtroopers gets blown to bits in the process) would not have not been as cute as teddy bears tripping and squishing scout walkers and speeder bikes.
No offense taken, of course. I think I’m still not making myself clear, though.
I’m not saying that there’s no point in trying to fit the quote into the context of the story; rather, that a preliminary step is to get to the appropriate starting place to begin such discussions. For example, a similar thread could be “Just what does Han mean by doing the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs? That’s a measure of distance, not time!” and the ensuing enjoyable discussion could cover all of the theories of how that could be explained within the context of the universe — it’s a route through a mess of black holes, it’s Han trying to BS the farm kid, et cetera — but before that, the questioner should realize, if he hasn’t already, that there’s likely very little authorial intent behind it, and that the discussion won’t answer that whereas it could try to make some sense out of it another way.
Though we do know that Ties can operate within an Atmosphere. In Empire, I rememebr seeing a couple TIES chasing the Falcon as it escapes from Cloud City.
Yeah, but is there anyone out there who really needs that pointed out to them? I figure that’s the sort of thing that’s too obvious to need to be mentioned, but maybe I’m just being optimistic. Regardless, I did misread your intent. I read it as one of those eternally aggravating, “It’s just a movie. Why are you wasting your time thinking this much about it?” posts that tend to crop up in threads like this. Crap like that drives me nuts. So, sorry for confusing you with one of those people.
I don’t think episode IV-VI star destoyers are capable of atmospheric flight or landing. I’ve never seen anything that would suggest they are.
According to the customizable card game by Decipher (no idea where that comes in on the canon ladder, but I know it’s on there somewhere), those TIEs would’ve been part of a squadron or two that was specially adapted for that kind of atmospheric flight.
Though in Jedi Knight 2, you see TIEs flying around in Atmospheres several times. That and you see TIE Hangers on Planets and on Bespin.
And I’m saying this despite the fact I think they shouldn’t be able to fly in an Atmosphere.
Why not? The Millennium Falcon doesn’t have wings and it flies just fine in atmospheres.
Good point. Come to think of it, so do the cloud cars. Critcism withdrawn.
TIEs can fly in atmo, but they don’t perform as well. X-Wings are also negatively affected by atmosphere, but not nearly as much. It’s mentioned more than once in the EU that the TIEs, which are faster and more manuverable in space, are far inferior to the X-Wing in air. The X-Wings worked on Hoth (we see Luke and the rest of Rogue Squadron use them to evacuate late in the battle). I don’t think the cold would have been an issue for either craft (TIEs or X-Wings) since they operate fine in space, but the weather systems might have been so severe as to cause problems. The speeders, which were NOT designed for space, needed to be adapted for the cold, but once adapted, they were better suited to battle the walkers. The X-wings were being used mostly to escort the transports or as evac for the Speeder pilots. I can see using the speeders even if the X-wing was better suited, so as not to risk your way off the planet.