Home Entertainment The First Order has some new heavy hardware in Star Wars: The Last Jedi

The First Order has some new heavy hardware in Star Wars: The Last Jedi

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Last Jedi First Order (3)

You’ve got the galaxy under your control. Legions of Stormtroopers who can occasionally find their mark and the technology to construct mobile battle stations that can reduce a planet to ashes. Why then, why would you invest time and resources into the lumbering behemoth that is the All-Terrain Armoured Transport, or AT-AT for short?

Visually, I dig the military vehicle of classic Star Wars. It’s imposing, looks like the bastard child of the Terminator’s one-night stand with a camel and has proven itself to be iconic. On a tactical level, I’ve always thought the AT-AT was just begging for its weak points to be exposed and exploited. After all, how do you go from the more useful AT-TE tank:

AT TE Walker

To this?

at at tanked

I’m ranting a bit, but there’s a method to my madness. A generation later, and with the Galactic Empire now having evolved into the First Order, there has been an upgrade to the venerable AT-AT. Has the design changed much? Nope! But one of its major weak points have been modified at least. Check out the successor to the AT-AT, the beastly All Terrain Megacaliber Six. Or AT-M6 for short, courtesy of the Star Wars Show:

Last Jedi First Order (4)

That’s not the only new weapon in the First Order’s arsenal. In the cold dark vacuum of space the First Order also has the Dreadnought, a “mandatory 4-class warship and has two enormous orbital auto-cannons which can be used for larger-scale bombardments”. It’s also stupidly massive, measuring 7669.72 meters in length. While it’s considerably smaller than Darth Vader’s flagship the Executor (19 000 meters), it’s still a good deal larger than the regular Imperial-Class Star Destroyers of the old trilogy which usually had a length of around 1600 meters.

Last Jedi First Order (1)

Chuck in two dozen anti-aircraft air cannons on the dorsal side and you’ve got one hell of a Resistance-killing machine. The Last Jedi is out soon, and if the First Order is sticking to its oversized guns, then it’s got a pretty solid military design philosophy in mind: There ain’t no kill like overkill.

Last Updated: August 24, 2017

5 Comments

  1. ” It’s also stupidly massive, measuring 7669.72 meters in length. While it’s considerably smaller than Darth Vader’s flagship the Executor (19 000 meters)”

    Where did you get those stats? I know that disnet killed the whole previous cannon, but the Executor (Vader’s flag ship) was a Super Starr Destroy, of 8.2km in lengh. The Standard Victory Class Star Destroyers were 1.6km in length. Smaller ones, forget name (Victory Class?), were 1.2Km in length

    now, granted, the above is from memory, but I have read a LOT of the Star Wars books. Not one of the jedi series but….

    Reply

    • The D

      August 24, 2017 at 14:58

      I checked Wookiepedia, which usually sticks close to the canon.

      Reply

      • miaau

        August 24, 2017 at 15:18

        Fair enough

        Well, most of those figures I remember from reading the X-wing series of books. I am curious enough to actually flip through a book or two and see if I can find out. Book 4 in the series, I believe, is actually about a 2nd ship, identical to Vaders, made at the same time as Vaders.

        BUT, on a quick min(Created) search I found 19Km, 13 Km and so forth as sizes for Vaders flag ship.

        Reply

  2. Admiral Chief

    August 24, 2017 at 11:31

    AT-TE iz lyf!

    Reply

  3. Admiral Chief

    August 24, 2017 at 11:32

    Always loved that ship’s name, The Executor

    Reply

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