EU-Fic/Technology/AT-BT

All Terrain Battle Transport

The All Terrain Battle Transport is an ultra-heavy, hexapedal assault walker produced by Kuat Drive Yards, in association with Rothana Heavy Engineering. It is the largest, most well armed and heavily armored walker in existence; designed for full-scale sieges on planetary targets. Apart from its size, the AT-BT is notable for its hypermatter reactor and capital ship-grade weapons, armor and shielding. It has been described (more or less accurately) as a "walking Star Monitor". Indeed, while larger siege engines exist, all are repulsorlift airships. Anything larger would be, in the words of High General Kolenka Telyanin, "under Starfleet jurisdiction".

The AT-BT was desgined by Rothana Heavy Engineering during the Clone Wars, intended to supplement the lighter AT-HE, but did not enter mass production and service with the Imperial Army until 18 rS. For its first twenty years of service, the AT-BT saw relatively little combat, due mostly to a distinct lack of situations necessitating its deployment. On battlefields where it did deign make an appearance, its tactical supremacy was absolute and, for the opposition, thoroughly demoralizing. Since the death of the Emperor Palpatine and subsequent escalation of the Galactic Civil War, these colossi have seen considerably more use and increasingly worthy opposition; often from others of their kind. The AT-BT is currently in service with the armies of both the Galactic Empire and the New Republic, in addition to countless Imperial splinter groups and local governments. It is produced by Kuat Drive Yards and proprietary Imperial weapons factories.

In addition to its heavy, advanced composite-armored chassis, the AT-BT boasts a powerful shield generator impervious to all light and medium weapons and resistant to most forms of heavy artillery. Weapons heavy enough to penetrate its defenses (turbolasers and proton warheads) are a considerable collateral damage liability. As General Tyr Taskeen so famously complained, "Oh, you can bring down an AT-BT. Easily. Good luck doing it without igniting the atmosphere and glassing the surface, though." By the time AT-BTs are deployed however, "scorched earth" is usually a foregone conclusion. The primary weapon of the standard configuration is a heavy turbolaser cannon. Variants of the walker mount a heavy ion cannon or mass driver. Four heavy laser cannon are mounted in a triaxial ball turret on the forward section, with another two in vertically-traversing turrets on the flanks. The precise number of heavy blasters varies from unit to unit, but is usually in the range of twenty-six to fifty-two.

With eight times the cargo and troop capacity of an AT-AT, the walker can deliver two thousand soldiers, sixteen light vehicles or some partial combination of both on target and under heavy fire. The standard command crew consists of one pilot, twelve gunners (one primary, three secondary, eight tertiary), two COMSCAN technicians, two shield operators, a variable-strength engineering team (rarely less than four), a commander and emergency replacements for each. For operations of extended duration, larger crews are kept on hand for rotating shifts. Apart from the high cost of construction and maintenance, the vehicle's only drawback is that it is too large for transport aboard the ubiquitous frigate-carriers and destroyer-carriers. Heavy carriers, Star Dreadnoughts or dedicated transports are required to ferry the vehicles in-system, the latter of which are used as suborbital dropships.