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I believe one use from walkers is that in an urban warzone, terrain could be traversed with greater ease. It also could provide a stable firing platform if the legs moved completley independently. Walkers could also be useful to mount large weapon systems that simply are impractical to fit on a tank, ie flamethrowers. Also leaving a pair of arms free means you can adapt to the situation easily, as in picking up weapons from the ground and ripping open armour.

Although honestly, the amount of research that would go into this would cost billions, and the end result would be unreliable at best. I think in 30 years, we may be on the brink of sending the first walkers into combat.

BlapBlapBlap wrote:I believe one use from walkers is that in an urban warzone, terrain could be traversed with greater ease.

Cities. The things with the nice wide roads that tanks roll down cheerfully?

It also could provide a stable firing platform if the legs moved completley independently.

No. Just no. Legs are completely inferior as a firing platform to any sort of treaded or wheeled system.

Walkers could also be useful to mount large weapon systems that simply are impractical to fit on a tank, ie flamethrowers.

You mean these things? Not seeing how that's easier to fit on a bipedal frame.

Vulcan wrote:
EDIT: As far as the Star Wars thing goes... I've always wondered why the Rebels bothered with the armed speeders, when they already had a good number of starfighters handy.

1) Once they got to Hoth, they had to be adapted to the cold. Starfighters, on the other hand, operate in the far colder extremes of deep space.

2) Starfighters are MUCH more heavily armed than the speeders. The X-Wings had heavy laser cannon, much more powerful than the paired blasters of the speeders. And heaven forbid they chuck a couple of proton torpedoes into a walker...

But then, rebel tactics sucked on Hoth too. Let's see. AT-ATs have all their weapons in the head. So wouldn't it make more sense for the speeders to attack them from behind instead of making repeated head-on passes? Duh!

This one's actually easy. The speeders were considerably cheaper, and apparently fairly old models they used for cargo hauling. Starfighters like the X-Wings were far, far more expensive and harder to come by...especially consider the company producing them, Incom, had its facilities seized by the Empire and turned over to Sienar for production of TIEs after the Incom designers defected to the Rebellion following Palpatine's early purges. One of the designers was apparently from a world that he purged with some nasty bioweapons, and convinced the design team to go with him.

Exactly! But in an urban environment, the majority of the cover is organized on vertical lines rather than horiziontal.

Building a full weapons system, just so you can have it peek around the corner? 1, you don't need a walker to achieve it. 2, there's this tried and proven military tactic called flanking, which actually becomes so easy in urban environments that there's a reason city fighting is dreaded by every armed force in the world.

A tank trying the same thing (around a building) would have to expose a significant amount of the chassis to clear the weapon.

Thats why they have armor and infantry support. Walkers are bigger targets, slower to move and turn, and designing a weapon just to do this is horribly impractical considering cost and usefulness.

BlapBlapBlap wrote:I believe one use from walkers is that in an urban warzone, terrain could be traversed with greater ease. It also could provide a stable firing platform if the legs moved completley independently.

A pair of sticks are not as stable as a block.

Walkers could also be useful to mount large weapon systems that simply are impractical to fit on a tank, ie flamethrowers.

Tanks have been equipped with flamethrowers. They still can be. The large you make your walker the more unstable it becomes.

Also leaving a pair of arms free means you can adapt to the situation easily, as in picking up weapons from the ground and ripping open armour.

The mechanical complexity of fully functional arms in a combat environment is so staggering that the very idea will to most military logistics planners will have them rolling on the floor laughing. There's just no practical reason to develop a combat walker. A tank will always be cheaper, smaller, and easier to maintain in the field. Imagine if your walker fell over. How exactly are you going to move it somewhere to fix it?

Also, in a city a small mech / exoskeleton would be able to fit down alleys and streets that other vehicles cannot.

And as to why they bothered - it was their standard air-speeders, used for recon and transport, they were simply modding their existing equipment for the envoirenment they were in.

The starfighters use a lot more power and fuel, and if you use them for ground support you no longer have them for air support.

The full frontal attack thing is still silly though xD.

Ovion wrote:Also, in a city a small mech / exoskeleton would be able to fit down alleys and streets that other vehicles cannot.

So use a smaller tank.

Ovion wrote:Also, in a city a small mech / exoskeleton would be able to fit down alleys and streets that other vehicles cannot.

Exoskeletons are a separate matter from walkers. And how small are the allies? And just because you can go down an alley, doesn't mean you should.

See, if there's going to be "combat walkers"--I envision them to be more like the GDI Wolverine or Imperial Guard Sentinel.

A one-man, lightweight, fairly fast moving platform which can carry a squad level support weapon and a huge amount of ammunition for larger scale engagements.

Vulcan wrote:

1) Once they got to Hoth, they had to be adapted to the cold. Starfighters, on the other hand, operate in the far colder extremes of deep space.

Space actually isn't that cold.

In fact, quite the opposite, Starfighters have to be built to withstand the heat of re-entry more than cold.

Just don't make neo sapiens. It's that easy.

Laughing Man wrote:

Ovion wrote:Also, in a city a small mech / exoskeleton would be able to fit down alleys and streets that other vehicles cannot.

So use a smaller tank.

Or guys in power armor. Marinesssssss HURR!!!

Well if you saw the latest version of Honda's Asimo that was on the news the other week, the technology is pretty much there. If there is an angle involved somewhere that it involves turning it into a killing machine, you can guarantee there is going to be money going into it!

If we do ever see walkers, I expect them to look like Heavy Gears:



They're relaitevely small, can carry a number of different weapons systems, still have dextrous hands to do things that infantry/tanks can't, and have treads to move quickly.

Kanluwen wrote:This one's actually easy. The speeders were considerably cheaper, and apparently fairly old models they used for cargo hauling. Starfighters like the X-Wings were far, far more expensive and harder to come by...especially consider the company producing them, Incom, had its facilities seized by the Empire and turned over to Sienar for production of TIEs after the Incom designers defected to the Rebellion following Palpatine's early purges. One of the designers was apparently from a world that he purged with some nasty bioweapons, and convinced the design team to go with him.

And what of the human cost? Sure, the speeders were cheaper. How many of them got back? How many of their crews? Pretty much the whole squardron got wiped, and only managed to take down 1 AT-AT (Luke's solo kill was a fluke that could only be done by a Major Character). Not to metion the loss of pretty much the entire unit of infantry that was guarding Echo Base...

If Rogue Squadron had brought the X-Wings around for one pass while waiting for those waddling transports to get moving, they would have done much more damage against the AT-ATs than those speeders did over the entire battle. THAT would have given the ground troops a much better chance of surviving as well, because NOW they are facing dismounted infantry... granted, elite Snowtroopers, so they'd probably still be defeated in the end, but it wouldn't have been the walkover depicted in the film.

Its going to come down to that one guy with huge brass balls to stand up and cut loose with a anti tank round to end either a walker or a tank. Question would be how fast can you get one redeployed after repairs?

No arguing with that!