Almost all the tanks I have covered on this channel both fake and real,
have originated sometime during the 20th or 21st century with only a few exceptions.
Today’s topic however will take us back a long long time ago to a galaxy far
far away as we discuss the Confederacy of Independent systems Armored Assault Tank.
Although some of the more recent films have soured me towards the Star Wars galaxy I have
always been a big fan of the series and the Clone Wars era in particular.
Although my favorite armored vehicle from that universe is probably the AT-TE the AAT, or Armored
Assault tank, used by the Trade Federation and CIS is a close second. For simplicity
and since most of the times we see these in action is within the Star Wars canon universe
that is the information I will be using. This is not too far from the legends vehicle but if I
seem to miss something that is likely the reason. Designed by the Baktoid armor factories this tank
is both heavily armed and armored featuring a massive cannon along with a slew of other
weapons. These included secondary laser cannons mounted on arms and 6 launch tubes
capable of firing High explosive bunker buster shells, Armor Piercing shells,
and high energy shells. This ammo would be carried in a sort of magazine loading system housed within
the shovel shaped hull with each of the 3 tubes on either side holding one type of ammo. When fired
these projectiles would be surrounded by plasma which reduced drag allowing for higher velocities.
The design of this tank is far different from any we have on Earth with it not only having an
unusual shape but eliminating the normal wheels or tracks found on our armored vehicles. In place
of this the AAT used repulsorlifts to allow it to hover above the ground. This did allow the
tank to cross many sorts of terrain but keep in mind they only held it slightly above the surface
and without ground beneath it gravity would cause it to come crashing down.
Moving up from there on the hull we find the large frontal hatch where the driver sits which
curves back to the turret. Despite the use of energy weapons and a droid crew the AAT
still required a total of 4 battle droids to operate. This consisted of two gunners located
in the hull behind the driver and a commander in the fully traversable turret. Additionally
6 droids could ride outside holding onto external hand holds. It does seem possible this was reduced
to 2 crew after the start of the Clone Wars as usually only two droids are shown within the tank.
Although all the weaponry, armor, and reasonable 55kph speed made the vehicle quite effective
in theory we often see it had numerous weaknesses. One of the main ones is that either due to the
doctrine of the CIS or an oversight in the design the external hatches are easily opened. This
combined with poor visibility makes the tanks easy targets for even lightly armed forces if
they are able to eliminate the supporting battle droid force. This is perfectly illustrated by
how easily these tanks are knocked out with two grenades. A simple solution to this would be to
have a lock on the hatches as many real world tanks are equipped with. Despite this we see
just how effective these tanks are alongside large groups of droids with their powerful cannons able
to take out groups of Republic forces with ease. Over the course of the Clone Wars these tanks
would see surprisingly little in the way of changes with only one major variation of
the design. This, known as the DDT or Defoliator Deployment Tank, was designed by General Lok Durd
and replaced the primary laser cannon with a special missile launcher. Testing showed that as
planned the armament could eliminate living things while leaving droids unharmed. Only two of these
would be produced with the first being destroyed during testing by Republic forces and the second
being used by General Grievous during his attack on Dathomir. Likely the main reason this design
wasn’t pursued further was more due to Sidious preventing the CIS from getting too far ahead
of the Republic in terms of weapons technology. The AAT would see use throughout the lead up to
the Clone Wars as well as during the conflict. Though primarily used by the CIS a few smaller
factions would use them as well including Death Watch, the Hutts, and the Rebel alliance.
With the lore behind the vehicle covered I want to now consider how a tank of this sort
might perform in the real world. Obviously the technology for it doesn’t exist yet but let's
just say for the sake of argument that we figure that part out. Although we don’t have a direct
comparison to real world currency the AAT costs about 75,000 credits to produce vs around 100,000
for the AT-TE used by the Republic. Assuming this carries over to our world it could allow
for a cheaper alternative to more traditional tank designs. For a more direct combat comparison it's
much trickier since we really don’t have any real world scenario to use as a hypothetical
and just randomly giving one nation access to this tech makes no sense. Maybe in the future I
could do a sort of versus series as part of Fake Tank Friday where we pit two vehicles
against each other but for this video I’d rather just consider the pros and cons of the tank.
The AAT would bring with it almost unparalleled cross country performance with the repulsorlifts
acting as anti-gravity devices. This would mean swamps and potentially even rivers would pose no
challenge to the tanks. In theory this would also eliminate the threat of traditional mines as the
vehicle would never contact them. Alongside this mobility the tank is fairly quiet which would make
it much easier to launch an ambush or reposition your forces without the enemy hearing the AATs
moving. When in combat the large turret hatch seems to provide reasonable visibility for the
commander which would allow for better situational awareness. Overall I would say the design is quite
strong but there are a few issues with it. The primary issue I can see with it is
the high profile. Though not as tall as the walkers it appears alongside the side profile
especially is a massive target. Part of this is mitigated with the wider lower hull which stores
much of the ammo, but I could see this suffering a similar issue to the Russian carousel ammoracks
where any impact to that area would result in a catastrophic detonation. Another issue would
be the two man crew as we have seen throughout history that this is not a great choice. With
a droid crew this is probably less of an issue with computers able to think faster than humans.
Alternatively the earlier 4 man crew layout would work better for a traditional human crew.
These crew do seem to have the ability to see outside the vehicle with internal sensors but I
question the lack of any other form of viewport. In the event of power loss or sensor jamming this
would leave the tank effectively blind, not a situation any vehicle wants to find itself in.
That's just my opinion though, let me know how you think this vehicle would
perform down in the comments. There are likely some things I missed with how much
star wars media is out there so feel free to add anything I left out down there as well.
I hope you all enjoyed this look at the AAT and if you did a like on the video would be
greatly appreciated. If you want to see more videos like this, subscribing and leaving a
comment is the best way to show it. Thanks as always to my channel members for supporting
this content and the channel as a whole. That's it for today though so if you want to see more
videos like this I highly recommend checking out the full Fake Tank Friday playlist. See you there.