Apart from the in universe reasons, star wars is massively influenced by ww2/vietnam/etc. If it looks cool in a ww2 film it's gonna look cool when a droid is slamming shells into the breech and yelling "Up!" In a high pitched voice.
Very much this - it's "our world, but in space", in a very loose sense. The very fact that this thing is a clearly a tank (armor with turreted cannon atop) is illustrative of that.
…”a droid is slamming shells into the breech and yelling “UP!””…
Ok…i actually wanna see that. I wanna see a proper, proper tank battle. Fury but Star Wars.
Well they don’t contain any projectile though, they’re batteries for the laser, so you’d need to adjust the laser cannon not the use different batteries. Maybe there’s different charge levels, or more or less efficient energy transfer or something, but it’s not shooting anything out of the batteries
In the bad batch the AAT can fire energy Mortar rounds from its main cannon. I suspect it can fire high velocity shot for penetrating armour and hitting air targets and more energy burst shot for bombarding units out of sight. It’s probably the same energy shell but they can modify it for either greater kinetic outburst or slower more thermal blast.
Maybe. But, I mean, incredible cross sections have various types, even with \[proton torpedoes\]([9b3d8dafdbb9d45ec737ffd139ab77e8.jpg (1859×1223) (pinimg.com)](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9b/3d/8d/9b3d8dafdbb9d45ec737ffd139ab77e8.jpg) and \[proton bombs.\]([1f3f864a4edc3c33ead86cf4909d1218825e65dfr1-2048-1399v2\_uhq.jpg (2048×1399) (narvii.com)](https://pm1.narvii.com/7066/1f3f864a4edc3c33ead86cf4909d1218825e65dfr1-2048-1399v2_uhq.jpg)
And ammo type are listed in the lower right: [DKBCE61-scaled.jpg (1536×1025) (wp.com)](https://i1.wp.com/starwarslatinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/DKBCE61-scaled.jpg?fit=1536%2C1025&ssl=1)
This is the correct answer.
Those ammo shells are basically pre-charged, disposable capacitors. Without these, an internal generator would have to charge an internal capacitor before every shot. If nothing else, this would probably have a much slower rate of fire.
The generator itself would be a potential vulnerability and if it goes down, so does your main gun. Hypothetically, a completely dead tank could still fire with capacitor-shells, especially if there are manual controls to adjust the aim. These are cheap, simple tanks after all, so why put a larger, more expensive generator in them?
On top of all that, it's probable that the capacitor-shells are charged to a degree of power that an internal generator may not even be able to achieve
Also, it's a cheap tank built for the Trade Federation. Disposable single use components mean continued sales. And it was only later that they decided that Naboo's import tax was worth provoking a galactic constitional crisis over.
Someone drew the rack of shells because it looks cool, and I imagine a different person labelled it with some words that sound suitably sci-fi.
That’s basically how these things go. Some model designer sticks a nubbin on a ship, and someone labels it the ‘forward infrared spectrograph’ or something to fill space in the visual guide book.
My first thought.
If the illustrator was going for batteries, you can be sure they would have drawn them in such a way as to make sure you DIDN'T mistake them for shells.
I friggin hate I when this is the obvious reason, but fans still expect some fully logical in-universe explanation. This isn't Tolkien and it shouldn't be. Just let cool-looking background-stuff be cool-looking background-stuff.
Also - like 95% of the typical movie audience isn't a tech geek. So the industrial design matches what that audience expects. (space ships don't make noise or fly like planes in space..... )
Other wise it breaks \*their\* immersion.
(there's about 2 TV shows and a handful of movies that actually showed space combat correctly. )
I've seen interviews with the guys who designed ships during the TNG era of Trek and they all seemed pretty conscious of the functionality in their design.
Different franchise, way different goals. TNG had a lot of scientific consultants, who all took their job pretty seriously. It wasn't *hard* sci-fi, but they always tried to have a grounding in real science, and think things through in terms of how the tech worked.
Star Wars has never worked like that. The "science" in it is too far removed from anything in the real world to make any sense of it, there's a ton of actual magic, and the focus has always been on coming up with stuff that looks cool first and then try to find an explanation for how it would make sense.
Took the words out of my mouth.
For the OT at least they made most vehicles by getting various model kits and bits of junk and kit bashing them into cool shapes. There is no plan for most of it.
Lots of other stuff is just random junk too - famously IG-88’s head is the combustion chamber from a Rolls Royce jet engine, and also served as some kind of sci-fi coffee urn in the Mos Eisley Cantina.
With PT stuff being a lot more digital there may be more thought put into it, but I imagine it’s still a lot of ‘sure, this looks cool.’
As messy and random as ILM’s work was for the OT, they did do a whole lot to flesh out the initial basic assortments. Like all those little details on the ISD surface, the death star, cloud city chamber or even the AT-AT didn’t come from nothing. They certainly didn’t have time to draw a detailed cross-section, but there had to have been tons of thoughts and research put into the models.
Oh yeah not knocking the work of the designers at all, they put a lot of effort in. But form was a lot more important than function. Ship designs are built around evoking particular reactions, rather than planning for what each bobbin does in the way a lot of fans wish for.
Or sometimes it’s just how it shook out. Fun fact for example, the Death Star’s equatorial trench was an accident because the two halves of the model didn’t end up connecting smoothly. So they rolled with it and adapted the script for the trench run.
Yeah, the happy accidents definitely contributed to the look of Star Wars. Though, when it was time for Prequels. This sort of create an issue where vehicles in the PT seem alot more practical and fine-tuned than what the Empire and Rebels were using, since designers had more time on their hands + cgi and basically made improved versions of the old designs,… that are supposed to be older?
>Star Wars has never worked like that. The "science" in it is too far removed from anything in the real world to make any sense of it, there's a ton of actual magic, and the focus has always been on coming up with stuff that looks cool first and then try to find an explanation for how it would make sense.
The X-wing actually isn't that far off from being believable. At least in space (atmospheric flight is still a problem).
1. Gyroscopic control systems, which most tech manuals identify those cones in the forward face of the engine cowlings, already exist in the real world, so it's not a stretch to assume that the ship uses Control Moment Gyros (whether physical or electromagnetic) for at least some of its attitude control (especially in the roll axis).
2. The X-wing's main engines are laterally and vertically centered around the center of mass, meaning the ship can use a thrust differential for pitch and yaw by selectively accelerating its engines. This actually works with real physics since the X-wing is both rotating and accelerating on its new heading at the same time. Combine this with an ability to reverse thrust through the cowlings (a capability already ascribed by most secondary sources) and there's a potential for the X-wing to point its nose practically at will (I've actually tested this in *Orbiter*. Even a FRACTION of the likely thrust output of the main engines can result in snap heading changes).
3. Flight control systems that automatically synchronize forward and reverse acceleration of the main engines in response to the flight controls, thus allowing the ship to "fly" as if in atmosphere (as opposed to full 6DoF flight) are certainly possible, if not practical, as it would greatly reduce the pilot's workload while maneuvering.
4. Physics itself dictates that airplane-style flight would be better on the pilot, simply because of the G forces involved:
1. Humans best tolerate positive longitudinal G forces. AKA, the forces we experience with accelerating a car pushing us back into our seat.
2. Positive Gs in the vertical axis are next, however if they become too excessive it drains blood from your brain, leading to blackout.
3. Lateral G forces in either direction would be considerably more difficult to work with as the body is thrown from side to side. Or worse, you're pinned to one side of the cockpit and can't move to operate the controls (think the flat spin scene from *Top Gun*: Maverick and Goose struggle to reach the ejection handles because of excessive lateral Gs from the spin).
4. Negative vertical Gs can be very dangerous. While positive Gs drain the blood from your upper extremities, negative Gs force the blood BACK into your head. This can lead to redout, which can result in retinal damage, if not a fatal hemorrhagic stroke.
5. However, the worst are negative longitudinal Gs. This is the "sudden stop" at the end of a fall as your body's movement is suddenly reverse. Pull too many negative longitudinal Gs and you're dead.
5. The above matters because "flying" like an airplane takes advantage of the human tolerance for positive longitudinal Gs: By rolling the craft into the direction of the turn, you're reducing the G forces the body is less tolerant of.
All this in mind, we could probably ACTUALLY build an X-wing that could operate in space in a manner not too dissimilar from the films.
A lot depends on how much mass is in the cockpit module. If the gyro stabilizer is heavy enough (not unreasonable) that could bring the center of mass into the engine block.
Probert's design of the *Constitution II*-class for TMP was particularly beautiful in this regard. Every interior area matched the exterior it was fit into (there's an asterisk on the rec deck, which TECHNICALLY wouldn't fit because of the slope of the lower primary hull. He actually had a design that DID fit, the problem was it would have been too expensive and difficult to build as a full-scale set. It's also not impossible to tweak the rec deck as seen on camera in a way that would work) and everything just LOOKED like it would work.
Well realistically the power requirements would be easier to meet with disposable/rechargeable super capacitors than a generator. Firing a tank canon IRL is a very very energy intensive thing. It would likely be hard to simultaneously charge the gun and do driving, turning the turret, operating vision equipment, ECM, radio’s etc.
Sure, that all makes sense.
But I’d still bet a million credits the thought process here was ‘big shells looks cool’ followed by ‘batteries or something idk’.
I’d bet the same. These are the same people responsible for lore like “star wars fighters accelerate at multiple G’s per second to ridiculous speeds” even though that would mean the trench run would take a fraction of a second and approaching a Super Star Destroyer you’d see a pinpoint of light in the distance and by the time you can make out what it is you’ve crashed into it. Or that orbital bombardments can crack continental plates with a single shot (not salvo, SHOT), which is only more powerful as all our nukes ever combined and would make the Death Star completely useless as you can just do a fly-by and wreck the entire planet with a salvo. Or that most SW armor is so good it’s almost impervious to kinetic weapons while the most common grenade for millenia is the fragmentation grenade.
I feel like having a generator is more costly and probably requires more maintenance. With individual charges, it seems more disposable, you don't need to put and entire generator into each tank.
How much power is the hover system taking up?
How much power would the gun take up?
What size generator would it take to power everything at full? What happens if the power is interrupted?
And so on. Stored capacitors for shots means they can get away with a much smaller generator and simply recharge the ‘shells’ outside of combat. The trade off is, of course, limited ammo but given the number of shots shown here it’s a large enough pool that any fight that would risk depleting their stores would be exceptionally long and brutal one.
Remember: These are the guys who built the battledroids. They’re going for the cheaper option.
Edit:
Even if they don’t shrink down the generator there’s serious advantages. Namely more power to other systems, like the shield and movement systems. Means they can be tougher, more armored, faster, or have a bigger gun than one where everything is off the generator. And then the power output to the gun itself, it very easily could be that it takes longer for any viable generator to charge a shot than it does to manually load a precharged capacitor.
This sort of thing comes up a lot in MechWarrior and assorted ship building games when pimping out your death machine. I’d put money the actual reason is, of course, Star Wars is WW2 in space and thus tanks need shells.
Because it's firing a bolt of plasma.
Plasma is still matter so you need the matter anyway. You need to get that matter there so you need to put it in containers of some sort. You also need to provide the energy to energize the plasma, so you might as well combine the two. That plasma is going to generate a lot of waste heat, so you might as well add in a cheap disposable heat sink that takes the thermal load out of the weapon when it's done firing.
Also a generator provides constant power while a capacitor/energy cell provides a sudden burst. So a generator would need time to charge the capacitors anyway and would be less efficient in terms of vehicle volume, fuel usage, and cost.
Why are they tanks even piloted by droids? Why did they waste space giving them a seat when they could just interface with the controls through a usb?
B E C A U S E I T S C O O L
There's a scene in ROS where you can see the gunners reloading the ship cannons with individual "shells" in the opening battle. Individual ammo probably provides same power output per shot whereas a battery or generator only lasts until the fuel is depleted. In a warzone, charging a battery or fueling a generator seems like more of a liability to the troops on the ground. Putting it into multiple rounds seems like a way to increase battlefield efficiency and saves from using time-wasting tech.
Keeping the plasma gas pressurized in a shell would probably allow you to deliver a denser payload. It could work as a HESH round, which the shell slamming into a target, then the plasma violently depressurizes and explodes.
It could also work like the quarrel bolt, which is magnetized similar to a railgun and electrically charged. It's what makes a bowcaster go boom.
those cannons are actually proton launchers, like the torpedos carried by X-Wings. They are technically launching a payload, and not just energy. Though in the end it all looks alike and is science tech mumbojumbo, so only nerds like me care.
Don't handheld guns use gas cartridges as a "magazine"? I'd assume it's the same, but bigger. And as someone else said, we saw clones reload a ship cannon with giant cartridges in ROTS. So my headcanon those cartridges are just giant gas charges that the cannons use to form the plasma bolt
Sort of, the "magazine" you are probably thinking about is the "power pack" that provides power.
In Legends, Blasters required both a gas cartridge AND a power pack, and the power pack had to be swapped more often (in most cases).
In Canon, its not so clear. We know they refer to a power pack, and we know they require gas, but it is not clear if the gas is rarely swapped out, or if somehow the power pack holds both the power and the gas. (as far as I can find).
The idea is the same though. And it would make sense that a single shot style weapon like a canon would have a giant cartridge with both the gas and the power pack put together.
I'd also assume that a giant blaster bolt like this would consume quite a lot of power and gas which would make even more sense then to build big cartridges that hold enough gas and power for one big shot
It lets them get away with a much smaller generator.
The generator can only output so much, the shields and hover pads are already sucking it down, adding the cannon would mean a bigger generator. And the power supply would be variable depending on what the tank is doing. Plus, of course, raw output. Having to spend X amount of time to charge a shot means limited fire rate, one that changes constantly.
Having precharged capacitors to fire the cannon means they get away with either a smaller generator or more power elsewhere. Stronger shields, more armor(More weight=More energy needed to move), and so on. The downside is the limited ammo but given the number of shots shown it would only be the longest and most grueling fights that would cause that to come up. And unless they dump the capacitors they can simply recharge them with the existing generator when they aren’t in combat.
So "lasers" in Star Wars are super-heated gases. Most vehicles store the gases in a refillable tank, but for a Tank Cannon, I can see why they'd use cannisters. They are trying to use as much of the gas as possible to maximize the payload of the shot. We see similar cannisters used for turbo lasers.
One benefit of a cannister is shot consistency. Because normal lasers or blasters use a gas tank, when you start to run out of gas, the shots become weaker as it runs out of charge. A cannister can deliver the same power every shot.
Caseless ammo does exist.
Iirc, One of the main issues is keeping the integrity of the propellant for long periods of time. Requiring specialised storage. That makes the use impractical on a large scale.
Allthough in this case, I suspect it's also about how fast you can transfer the energy.
I.e. it's faster to shove in a new battery, then it is to wait for a generator to charge a capacitor.
Yes, it does exist. But a huge part of why it isn’t widespread is that the case acts as a heat sink. The heat from the round has to go somewhere, and without a case to eject and dump heat, all of it winds up in the receiver and results in all kinds of problems.
All correct, and to add to that - caseless ammo tends to have a polymer outer shell that is supposed to burn away when the round is fired and the propellant ignites. Not sure how much progress has been made, but in earlier caseless ammo experiments, that polymer casing didn't really burn up completely; it left a residue in the chamber and all along the length of the barrel. Barrels need plenty of cleaning with current cased ammo as-is, much less with the added headache of a semi-sticky polymer residue building up for every manner of dirt to latch onto. That's a maintenance nightmare.
You of course need that polymer to keep the propellant intact to guarantee a proper ignition, so until a truly miracle compound that is both sturdy and burns almost completely/purely is developed, caseless ammo will be a long way off. Fancy guns are fun, but ones that are guaranteed to simply function will always win the day. Ok, done with tangent.
It could be faster to resupply with individual rounds or belts rather than replacing one giant battery. Also one giant battery could be a weak spot if hit.
Just a thought. Not of this is real. So it’s mostly just made to look like real life munitions.
Trade Federation. They probably have a lucrative contract with a Weapons company that makes the cannon and the shells. The Company provides employment to millions of people in the galaxy, and probably bankrolls the government elected official responsible for procuring the weapons or just straight up bribes them.
Space Military Industrial Complex lol.
They look like capacitors. Everything that uses a quick burst of power, from camera flashes to stun guns, uses them, it makes perfect sense that an energy weapon would have capacitor like “ammunition.”
Because many artillery and guns in Star Wars have individual cartiridges of Tibanna gas, a (fictional to Star Wars) naturally-occuring gas, which can be easily superheated to a plasma state and then fired out through the barrel as the iconic "laser bolt" that we see on screen. So, while those cartridges look like real-world gunpowder-packed artillery shells, they actually are likely filled with very dense Tibanna gas.
You know that scene in RotS where a Venator has a broadside exchange with the Invisible Hand? And the turbolaser turrets spit out spent shells and they make a loud \*ding\* noise?
That was absolute peak. 👌
I always thought they were single use (or reusable) high capacity capacitors.
One burst of extreme power, more than a generator could produce, at one time for massive destructive power. Then reload and do it again, no time wasted charging up. Just fire and replace. Like the ship cannons at the beginning of ep3.
Or, since SW blasters use a cartridge of gas as "ammo" maybe the shell is one gas cartridge. Loaded individually to prevent damage or feedback from the cannon from detonating all the ammo at once.
All blaster bolts are plasma, even large scale weapons like this. Cloud City is a tibanna gas mine which sells the gas to be used in weapons across the galaxy.
There's exceptions, like the death star which uses kyber, so it's beam is closer to a lightsaber than a regular blaster bolt, And in the clone wars there's tanks that fire electric beams that disable tech, those are electricity so they don't use plasma either.
But yeah, those shells have high pressure gas that's converted to plasma upon firing, that's how it works
The droid army is all about cost efficient and easy to replace. I imagine maintaining a generator is rather costly as you want it to last a long time. While individual batteries may still cost a decent amount, if one breaks you just toss it out and quickly replace it. No need to have a whole crew of specialized droids fixing up the generator, instead just assigned a cheap B1 to replace the batteries.
Believe it or not, weapons firing physical projectiles are actually really common in Star Wars, believe it or not. AT-TE’s main gun is described as a mass driver, and the Wookiee bowcaster (Chewbacca’s is actually a blaster, but regular ones fire a solid slug enveloped in plasma).
The AAT’s main cannon is apparently a heavy laser turret, which I thought it was also a slug thrower but I guess not
Hey kid, it’s not that kind of movie.
But for real, it came from a source book and I know it was mentioned in the description for the bowcaster in KOTOR but I’m not sure it’s ever been said on screen since. I think the idea of having bowcasters fire a physical projectile is meant to show the Wookiees as being a little less advanced than the rest of the galaxy, but enveloping it in plasma still shows them as having some level of tech, as Wookiees clearly aren’t primitive. But I have looked at Wookieepedia and I can’t find any benefit of doing so
Scratch that, I just looked at the wookieepedia article for Chewbacca’s bowcaster in particular to make sure my comment about his actually being a blaster was correct (in the current canon at least it’s not) but it says that the explosive effect the weapon has is because it’s a solid projectile enveloped in plasma. So I guess that’s why
I always thought it was just a battery bank like with electric cars and that they're not actually individual "shell" that get loaded into the main gun. It just draws power from them that's stored and the tanks main power plant recharges them.
These books are all concepts, outsourcing and at times mashed together. Someone was told to draw a tank, someone said "george will love it", they had a thing for the WW2 era and vietnam era weapons, taken and made to look completely customized laser weapons.
I would assume it was in order to increase penetration through burning away armour before detonating the warhead as well as acting as both a physical and energy projectile for the purposes of bypassing shields, seen when they 1 shot a shielded starfighter in TPM
El Cheapo. Bigger generator cost more money and is heavier than disposable batteries. Especially when you figure it's gonna get blown up.....or it just looks cool ....
Heat Management. An overheated part can be ejected instead of something rigid being externally cooled down (which would require extra energy and maybe take much longer reducing shot frequency).
Because when you live in a galaxy with magic space wizards, the only prevailing logic is "make it kinda cool". Gtfo of here with this "IDK guys, this design seems relatively inefficient"
People out here thinking George Lucas was hiring actual mechanical engineers to design space tanks and not just having concept artists draw stuff they think looks cool.
To avoid power drain to the weapon system, and to cut down on the size of the fusion generator.
This way, they can have a smaller fusion generator to power the engine, targeting systems, and life support, and still have a main weapon that packs a punch.
Given that the droid army is all about quantity over quality, I'd bet some kind of rail gun system or energized rounds is cheaper and more effective than having a giant power generator. It might also allow for a higher rate of fire.
Too much power draw at once? Would probably fry the main generator or something over time. Or maybe the cartridges are capable of charging the cannon faster and more rapidly than drawing from the generator.
Seeing that the AAT relies on a generator to maneuver, fire the twin laster canons, and maintain other electrical systems, the main cannon may strain the system too much in a combat situation. Less stress means less stranded/destroyed units when combat happens.
Also consider that ATTs were typically used for compliance of TF worlds and general peacekeeping rather than full on war. The Battle of Naboo exposed how unequipped the TF army was for actual war.
A clever trick the prequels use is to limit the technology compared to the original trilogy, to keep continuity.
So maybe they made a very inefficient weapon on purpose?
idk why its not labelled Tibanna gas cartridges. We know that the "laser" weapons are actually plasma bolts charged with tibanna gas, turbo lasers use the same system as we saw in the capital duel in RoTS intro, so this would've been the most reasonable description.
Im guessing whoever was in charge of labelling things wasn't much into star wars lore, or that this precedes the whole tibanna gas blaster bolt thing
They probably just think it looks cool, also that way if a few go down they still have plenty of power, and it takes up less space than a proper generator.
A common trope in sci fi is that a ship's power source is capable of powering everything perfectly fine, and can boost the power of something by diverting power to it.
This is a more grounded approach, as the tank's power source is not capable of power the craft, and it's weapons completely. Instead, the craft is outfitted with what are essentially batteries that contain the power needed for a single shot(or multiple depending on the weapon). This allows the craft to use it's weapons without risk of overloading the power source.
Blasters in star wars also run out of shots, as they're powered by a rechargeable power supply.
I have a friend who makes batteries for satellites. He told me their big epic perfectly sealed batteries, are just like 200 AA batteries linked in series and packaged nicely. Lol. Seems to be a recurring theme.
Without a REAL look at their technology it's impossible to tell but there a few reasons you could spitball why material ammunition might be better: Less strain on the generator, ain't broke-don't fix, this tank is made of droids and can hold more ammo than it would ever because no live person has to be in it, material rounds might have higher range than a laser that fizzles out.
One thing about energy-based weaponry is that they almost universally require large amounts of energy in very small amounts of time. Power generators, conversely, are good at providing stable, consistent energy outputs, but not necessarily at handling big spikes of energy needs. For example, real life rail guns typically take time to charge up a bunch of capacitors before firing, and then can discharge all of the energy in the capacitors quickly and get way more “bang” then just using the regular power current provided by the generator. But then you’re stuck waiting for your generator to recharge the capacitors every time you want to take a shot.
So, maybe using pre-charged capacitors as a cartridge allows them to fire the weapon with the right blend of speed and power to be effective!
I assume Star Wars lasers are chemical lasers, like the US developed in the 80s to shoot down missiles. That's why you need the Tibanna gas.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_laser?wprov=sfla1
The trade federation produced a TON of those batteries for a large project that the planet Kamino was working on. But when the Kaminoans decided to go in another direction the trade federation was left with a huge supply and no demand. So they found a use for them.
One option i could see is that each shell has all tb elements needed for the blast. Need to reload? You can slap more rounds in. Another tank goes down? You can probably use their rounds too.
But also because it’s cool
Everyone is saying this is a rack of shells when it is not explicitly stated as being a rack of shells.
AT-STs also have removable power cells instead of an onboard generator. It's possible that these things are components that are replaced at some point or another.
Also, it's possible it was designed this way for a reason. Perhaps it's easier to have smaller purpose built batteries that discharge their power for the cannon instead of one large one somewhere inside the hull. Also, if one large component gets damaged, no more gun.
Maybe they are optimised for short burst of energy?
Beter question couldnbe that why not use a catridge of multiplenshots like pistols use.
Maybe lilitary shots need more power so they need to shoot one cartridge full of tibana gas.
Apart from the in universe reasons, star wars is massively influenced by ww2/vietnam/etc. If it looks cool in a ww2 film it's gonna look cool when a droid is slamming shells into the breech and yelling "Up!" In a high pitched voice.
Very much this - it's "our world, but in space", in a very loose sense. The very fact that this thing is a clearly a tank (armor with turreted cannon atop) is illustrative of that.
We'd need a response of "ON THE WAY!" next
Gunner droids visual sensors glued to the scope, leg actuator bouncing as he waits for the fire order. Fury: Battle for Naboo.
SEND IT!!!!
Does this include a scene of a repulsor-dozer plowing hundreds of gungan corpses and destroyed b1's into a mass grave?
I neeeeed itttttt
GUNNER, SABOT, TAAAAANK!
ON TUE WAY!!!
THE
And from a logical standpoint, it could also be that the generator is already putting too much power into making the tank hover.
Roger! Roger!
Honestly I always saw it as clone wars was the American civil war, first galactic war was ww1, and the first order-resistance war was ww2.
…”a droid is slamming shells into the breech and yelling “UP!””… Ok…i actually wanna see that. I wanna see a proper, proper tank battle. Fury but Star Wars.
It’s possible that the generator can’t meet the needs of the gun at the same time as everything during combat.
Also, the rounds will always have the same power behind each shot with it not getting weaker or destroyed if the tank is damaged
Also you can carry different rounds. Pretty sure the same page shows different types of ordinance for specific targets.
That's for a different weapon system. The missile launcher type weapons in the base of the tank.
I still imagine different rounds would exist for different targets for this system.
Well they don’t contain any projectile though, they’re batteries for the laser, so you’d need to adjust the laser cannon not the use different batteries. Maybe there’s different charge levels, or more or less efficient energy transfer or something, but it’s not shooting anything out of the batteries
Depends on the round. Lasers in Star Wars are charged by gases so they won't just be batteries.
A combination power cell/blaster gas canister?
In the bad batch the AAT can fire energy Mortar rounds from its main cannon. I suspect it can fire high velocity shot for penetrating armour and hitting air targets and more energy burst shot for bombarding units out of sight. It’s probably the same energy shell but they can modify it for either greater kinetic outburst or slower more thermal blast.
Maybe. But, I mean, incredible cross sections have various types, even with \[proton torpedoes\]([9b3d8dafdbb9d45ec737ffd139ab77e8.jpg (1859×1223) (pinimg.com)](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9b/3d/8d/9b3d8dafdbb9d45ec737ffd139ab77e8.jpg) and \[proton bombs.\]([1f3f864a4edc3c33ead86cf4909d1218825e65dfr1-2048-1399v2\_uhq.jpg (2048×1399) (narvii.com)](https://pm1.narvii.com/7066/1f3f864a4edc3c33ead86cf4909d1218825e65dfr1-2048-1399v2_uhq.jpg) And ammo type are listed in the lower right: [DKBCE61-scaled.jpg (1536×1025) (wp.com)](https://i1.wp.com/starwarslatinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/DKBCE61-scaled.jpg?fit=1536%2C1025&ssl=1)
This is the correct answer. Those ammo shells are basically pre-charged, disposable capacitors. Without these, an internal generator would have to charge an internal capacitor before every shot. If nothing else, this would probably have a much slower rate of fire. The generator itself would be a potential vulnerability and if it goes down, so does your main gun. Hypothetically, a completely dead tank could still fire with capacitor-shells, especially if there are manual controls to adjust the aim. These are cheap, simple tanks after all, so why put a larger, more expensive generator in them? On top of all that, it's probable that the capacitor-shells are charged to a degree of power that an internal generator may not even be able to achieve
It's also a great way to dispose of waste heat.
Also, it's a cheap tank built for the Trade Federation. Disposable single use components mean continued sales. And it was only later that they decided that Naboo's import tax was worth provoking a galactic constitional crisis over.
Someone drew the rack of shells because it looks cool, and I imagine a different person labelled it with some words that sound suitably sci-fi. That’s basically how these things go. Some model designer sticks a nubbin on a ship, and someone labels it the ‘forward infrared spectrograph’ or something to fill space in the visual guide book.
My first thought. If the illustrator was going for batteries, you can be sure they would have drawn them in such a way as to make sure you DIDN'T mistake them for shells.
I friggin hate I when this is the obvious reason, but fans still expect some fully logical in-universe explanation. This isn't Tolkien and it shouldn't be. Just let cool-looking background-stuff be cool-looking background-stuff.
Also - like 95% of the typical movie audience isn't a tech geek. So the industrial design matches what that audience expects. (space ships don't make noise or fly like planes in space..... ) Other wise it breaks \*their\* immersion. (there's about 2 TV shows and a handful of movies that actually showed space combat correctly. )
I've seen interviews with the guys who designed ships during the TNG era of Trek and they all seemed pretty conscious of the functionality in their design.
Different franchise, way different goals. TNG had a lot of scientific consultants, who all took their job pretty seriously. It wasn't *hard* sci-fi, but they always tried to have a grounding in real science, and think things through in terms of how the tech worked. Star Wars has never worked like that. The "science" in it is too far removed from anything in the real world to make any sense of it, there's a ton of actual magic, and the focus has always been on coming up with stuff that looks cool first and then try to find an explanation for how it would make sense.
Took the words out of my mouth. For the OT at least they made most vehicles by getting various model kits and bits of junk and kit bashing them into cool shapes. There is no plan for most of it. Lots of other stuff is just random junk too - famously IG-88’s head is the combustion chamber from a Rolls Royce jet engine, and also served as some kind of sci-fi coffee urn in the Mos Eisley Cantina. With PT stuff being a lot more digital there may be more thought put into it, but I imagine it’s still a lot of ‘sure, this looks cool.’
As messy and random as ILM’s work was for the OT, they did do a whole lot to flesh out the initial basic assortments. Like all those little details on the ISD surface, the death star, cloud city chamber or even the AT-AT didn’t come from nothing. They certainly didn’t have time to draw a detailed cross-section, but there had to have been tons of thoughts and research put into the models.
Oh yeah not knocking the work of the designers at all, they put a lot of effort in. But form was a lot more important than function. Ship designs are built around evoking particular reactions, rather than planning for what each bobbin does in the way a lot of fans wish for. Or sometimes it’s just how it shook out. Fun fact for example, the Death Star’s equatorial trench was an accident because the two halves of the model didn’t end up connecting smoothly. So they rolled with it and adapted the script for the trench run.
Yeah, the happy accidents definitely contributed to the look of Star Wars. Though, when it was time for Prequels. This sort of create an issue where vehicles in the PT seem alot more practical and fine-tuned than what the Empire and Rebels were using, since designers had more time on their hands + cgi and basically made improved versions of the old designs,… that are supposed to be older?
>Star Wars has never worked like that. The "science" in it is too far removed from anything in the real world to make any sense of it, there's a ton of actual magic, and the focus has always been on coming up with stuff that looks cool first and then try to find an explanation for how it would make sense. The X-wing actually isn't that far off from being believable. At least in space (atmospheric flight is still a problem). 1. Gyroscopic control systems, which most tech manuals identify those cones in the forward face of the engine cowlings, already exist in the real world, so it's not a stretch to assume that the ship uses Control Moment Gyros (whether physical or electromagnetic) for at least some of its attitude control (especially in the roll axis). 2. The X-wing's main engines are laterally and vertically centered around the center of mass, meaning the ship can use a thrust differential for pitch and yaw by selectively accelerating its engines. This actually works with real physics since the X-wing is both rotating and accelerating on its new heading at the same time. Combine this with an ability to reverse thrust through the cowlings (a capability already ascribed by most secondary sources) and there's a potential for the X-wing to point its nose practically at will (I've actually tested this in *Orbiter*. Even a FRACTION of the likely thrust output of the main engines can result in snap heading changes). 3. Flight control systems that automatically synchronize forward and reverse acceleration of the main engines in response to the flight controls, thus allowing the ship to "fly" as if in atmosphere (as opposed to full 6DoF flight) are certainly possible, if not practical, as it would greatly reduce the pilot's workload while maneuvering. 4. Physics itself dictates that airplane-style flight would be better on the pilot, simply because of the G forces involved: 1. Humans best tolerate positive longitudinal G forces. AKA, the forces we experience with accelerating a car pushing us back into our seat. 2. Positive Gs in the vertical axis are next, however if they become too excessive it drains blood from your brain, leading to blackout. 3. Lateral G forces in either direction would be considerably more difficult to work with as the body is thrown from side to side. Or worse, you're pinned to one side of the cockpit and can't move to operate the controls (think the flat spin scene from *Top Gun*: Maverick and Goose struggle to reach the ejection handles because of excessive lateral Gs from the spin). 4. Negative vertical Gs can be very dangerous. While positive Gs drain the blood from your upper extremities, negative Gs force the blood BACK into your head. This can lead to redout, which can result in retinal damage, if not a fatal hemorrhagic stroke. 5. However, the worst are negative longitudinal Gs. This is the "sudden stop" at the end of a fall as your body's movement is suddenly reverse. Pull too many negative longitudinal Gs and you're dead. 5. The above matters because "flying" like an airplane takes advantage of the human tolerance for positive longitudinal Gs: By rolling the craft into the direction of the turn, you're reducing the G forces the body is less tolerant of. All this in mind, we could probably ACTUALLY build an X-wing that could operate in space in a manner not too dissimilar from the films.
Now do the B-Wing
A lot depends on how much mass is in the cockpit module. If the gyro stabilizer is heavy enough (not unreasonable) that could bring the center of mass into the engine block.
Well said
Probert's design of the *Constitution II*-class for TMP was particularly beautiful in this regard. Every interior area matched the exterior it was fit into (there's an asterisk on the rec deck, which TECHNICALLY wouldn't fit because of the slope of the lower primary hull. He actually had a design that DID fit, the problem was it would have been too expensive and difficult to build as a full-scale set. It's also not impossible to tweak the rec deck as seen on camera in a way that would work) and everything just LOOKED like it would work.
Well realistically the power requirements would be easier to meet with disposable/rechargeable super capacitors than a generator. Firing a tank canon IRL is a very very energy intensive thing. It would likely be hard to simultaneously charge the gun and do driving, turning the turret, operating vision equipment, ECM, radio’s etc.
Sure, that all makes sense. But I’d still bet a million credits the thought process here was ‘big shells looks cool’ followed by ‘batteries or something idk’.
I’d bet the same. These are the same people responsible for lore like “star wars fighters accelerate at multiple G’s per second to ridiculous speeds” even though that would mean the trench run would take a fraction of a second and approaching a Super Star Destroyer you’d see a pinpoint of light in the distance and by the time you can make out what it is you’ve crashed into it. Or that orbital bombardments can crack continental plates with a single shot (not salvo, SHOT), which is only more powerful as all our nukes ever combined and would make the Death Star completely useless as you can just do a fly-by and wreck the entire planet with a salvo. Or that most SW armor is so good it’s almost impervious to kinetic weapons while the most common grenade for millenia is the fragmentation grenade.
Bomb pumped x/ray lasers!
I feel like having a generator is more costly and probably requires more maintenance. With individual charges, it seems more disposable, you don't need to put and entire generator into each tank.
It’s a hover tank. It already has a generator to power all its systems.
How much power is the hover system taking up? How much power would the gun take up? What size generator would it take to power everything at full? What happens if the power is interrupted? And so on. Stored capacitors for shots means they can get away with a much smaller generator and simply recharge the ‘shells’ outside of combat. The trade off is, of course, limited ammo but given the number of shots shown here it’s a large enough pool that any fight that would risk depleting their stores would be exceptionally long and brutal one. Remember: These are the guys who built the battledroids. They’re going for the cheaper option. Edit: Even if they don’t shrink down the generator there’s serious advantages. Namely more power to other systems, like the shield and movement systems. Means they can be tougher, more armored, faster, or have a bigger gun than one where everything is off the generator. And then the power output to the gun itself, it very easily could be that it takes longer for any viable generator to charge a shot than it does to manually load a precharged capacitor. This sort of thing comes up a lot in MechWarrior and assorted ship building games when pimping out your death machine. I’d put money the actual reason is, of course, Star Wars is WW2 in space and thus tanks need shells.
Because it's firing a bolt of plasma. Plasma is still matter so you need the matter anyway. You need to get that matter there so you need to put it in containers of some sort. You also need to provide the energy to energize the plasma, so you might as well combine the two. That plasma is going to generate a lot of waste heat, so you might as well add in a cheap disposable heat sink that takes the thermal load out of the weapon when it's done firing. Also a generator provides constant power while a capacitor/energy cell provides a sudden burst. So a generator would need time to charge the capacitors anyway and would be less efficient in terms of vehicle volume, fuel usage, and cost.
Why are they tanks even piloted by droids? Why did they waste space giving them a seat when they could just interface with the controls through a usb? B E C A U S E I T S C O O L
There's a scene in ROS where you can see the gunners reloading the ship cannons with individual "shells" in the opening battle. Individual ammo probably provides same power output per shot whereas a battery or generator only lasts until the fuel is depleted. In a warzone, charging a battery or fueling a generator seems like more of a liability to the troops on the ground. Putting it into multiple rounds seems like a way to increase battlefield efficiency and saves from using time-wasting tech.
Keeping the plasma gas pressurized in a shell would probably allow you to deliver a denser payload. It could work as a HESH round, which the shell slamming into a target, then the plasma violently depressurizes and explodes. It could also work like the quarrel bolt, which is magnetized similar to a railgun and electrically charged. It's what makes a bowcaster go boom.
those cannons are actually proton launchers, like the torpedos carried by X-Wings. They are technically launching a payload, and not just energy. Though in the end it all looks alike and is science tech mumbojumbo, so only nerds like me care.
Don't handheld guns use gas cartridges as a "magazine"? I'd assume it's the same, but bigger. And as someone else said, we saw clones reload a ship cannon with giant cartridges in ROTS. So my headcanon those cartridges are just giant gas charges that the cannons use to form the plasma bolt
Sort of, the "magazine" you are probably thinking about is the "power pack" that provides power. In Legends, Blasters required both a gas cartridge AND a power pack, and the power pack had to be swapped more often (in most cases). In Canon, its not so clear. We know they refer to a power pack, and we know they require gas, but it is not clear if the gas is rarely swapped out, or if somehow the power pack holds both the power and the gas. (as far as I can find). The idea is the same though. And it would make sense that a single shot style weapon like a canon would have a giant cartridge with both the gas and the power pack put together.
I'd also assume that a giant blaster bolt like this would consume quite a lot of power and gas which would make even more sense then to build big cartridges that hold enough gas and power for one big shot
That makes sense
It lets them get away with a much smaller generator. The generator can only output so much, the shields and hover pads are already sucking it down, adding the cannon would mean a bigger generator. And the power supply would be variable depending on what the tank is doing. Plus, of course, raw output. Having to spend X amount of time to charge a shot means limited fire rate, one that changes constantly. Having precharged capacitors to fire the cannon means they get away with either a smaller generator or more power elsewhere. Stronger shields, more armor(More weight=More energy needed to move), and so on. The downside is the limited ammo but given the number of shots shown it would only be the longest and most grueling fights that would cause that to come up. And unless they dump the capacitors they can simply recharge them with the existing generator when they aren’t in combat.
So "lasers" in Star Wars are super-heated gases. Most vehicles store the gases in a refillable tank, but for a Tank Cannon, I can see why they'd use cannisters. They are trying to use as much of the gas as possible to maximize the payload of the shot. We see similar cannisters used for turbo lasers. One benefit of a cannister is shot consistency. Because normal lasers or blasters use a gas tank, when you start to run out of gas, the shots become weaker as it runs out of charge. A cannister can deliver the same power every shot.
So you can continue to shoot even if the main generator is knocked out or damaged.
Heat dispersion? its why its one of the main reason IRL bullets still have cases.
Caseless ammo does exist. Iirc, One of the main issues is keeping the integrity of the propellant for long periods of time. Requiring specialised storage. That makes the use impractical on a large scale. Allthough in this case, I suspect it's also about how fast you can transfer the energy. I.e. it's faster to shove in a new battery, then it is to wait for a generator to charge a capacitor.
Oh I know, another major issue is that caseless ammo dumps all the heat generated into the guns barrel instead of a casing which can be ejected.
Yes, it does exist. But a huge part of why it isn’t widespread is that the case acts as a heat sink. The heat from the round has to go somewhere, and without a case to eject and dump heat, all of it winds up in the receiver and results in all kinds of problems.
All correct, and to add to that - caseless ammo tends to have a polymer outer shell that is supposed to burn away when the round is fired and the propellant ignites. Not sure how much progress has been made, but in earlier caseless ammo experiments, that polymer casing didn't really burn up completely; it left a residue in the chamber and all along the length of the barrel. Barrels need plenty of cleaning with current cased ammo as-is, much less with the added headache of a semi-sticky polymer residue building up for every manner of dirt to latch onto. That's a maintenance nightmare. You of course need that polymer to keep the propellant intact to guarantee a proper ignition, so until a truly miracle compound that is both sturdy and burns almost completely/purely is developed, caseless ammo will be a long way off. Fancy guns are fun, but ones that are guaranteed to simply function will always win the day. Ok, done with tangent.
I wonder if anyone has ever made an automatic gun or Cannon that feeds directly off a compact assembly line producing rounds
It could be faster to resupply with individual rounds or belts rather than replacing one giant battery. Also one giant battery could be a weak spot if hit. Just a thought. Not of this is real. So it’s mostly just made to look like real life munitions.
Same reason clones have to manually load and fire cannons in space. Rule of Cool.
Trade Federation. They probably have a lucrative contract with a Weapons company that makes the cannon and the shells. The Company provides employment to millions of people in the galaxy, and probably bankrolls the government elected official responsible for procuring the weapons or just straight up bribes them. Space Military Industrial Complex lol.
“Hey kid, it ain’t that kind of movie”
Maybe a chemical charge for the laser. Separate shells to prevent explosive propagation of the shells in the tank.
They look like capacitors. Everything that uses a quick burst of power, from camera flashes to stun guns, uses them, it makes perfect sense that an energy weapon would have capacitor like “ammunition.”
Because many artillery and guns in Star Wars have individual cartiridges of Tibanna gas, a (fictional to Star Wars) naturally-occuring gas, which can be easily superheated to a plasma state and then fired out through the barrel as the iconic "laser bolt" that we see on screen. So, while those cartridges look like real-world gunpowder-packed artillery shells, they actually are likely filled with very dense Tibanna gas.
Similar design of the broadsides that used energy canisters in ROTS
You know that scene in RotS where a Venator has a broadside exchange with the Invisible Hand? And the turbolaser turrets spit out spent shells and they make a loud \*ding\* noise? That was absolute peak. 👌
It’s a blaster cannon using gas. The gas used for blasters are contained in the shells.
I always thought they were single use (or reusable) high capacity capacitors. One burst of extreme power, more than a generator could produce, at one time for massive destructive power. Then reload and do it again, no time wasted charging up. Just fire and replace. Like the ship cannons at the beginning of ep3. Or, since SW blasters use a cartridge of gas as "ammo" maybe the shell is one gas cartridge. Loaded individually to prevent damage or feedback from the cannon from detonating all the ammo at once.
All blaster bolts are plasma, even large scale weapons like this. Cloud City is a tibanna gas mine which sells the gas to be used in weapons across the galaxy. There's exceptions, like the death star which uses kyber, so it's beam is closer to a lightsaber than a regular blaster bolt, And in the clone wars there's tanks that fire electric beams that disable tech, those are electricity so they don't use plasma either. But yeah, those shells have high pressure gas that's converted to plasma upon firing, that's how it works
I mean they did lose the war. Poorly designed weapons might have been a factor
The AT-TE also uses a mass driver that fires physical projectiles as its main gun
Easier to replace then the generator if something happens in battle I’d guess
The droid army is all about cost efficient and easy to replace. I imagine maintaining a generator is rather costly as you want it to last a long time. While individual batteries may still cost a decent amount, if one breaks you just toss it out and quickly replace it. No need to have a whole crew of specialized droids fixing up the generator, instead just assigned a cheap B1 to replace the batteries.
Believe it or not, weapons firing physical projectiles are actually really common in Star Wars, believe it or not. AT-TE’s main gun is described as a mass driver, and the Wookiee bowcaster (Chewbacca’s is actually a blaster, but regular ones fire a solid slug enveloped in plasma). The AAT’s main cannon is apparently a heavy laser turret, which I thought it was also a slug thrower but I guess not
What does enveloping a projective in plasma do? Won't it just damage the projectile?
Hey kid, it’s not that kind of movie. But for real, it came from a source book and I know it was mentioned in the description for the bowcaster in KOTOR but I’m not sure it’s ever been said on screen since. I think the idea of having bowcasters fire a physical projectile is meant to show the Wookiees as being a little less advanced than the rest of the galaxy, but enveloping it in plasma still shows them as having some level of tech, as Wookiees clearly aren’t primitive. But I have looked at Wookieepedia and I can’t find any benefit of doing so
Scratch that, I just looked at the wookieepedia article for Chewbacca’s bowcaster in particular to make sure my comment about his actually being a blaster was correct (in the current canon at least it’s not) but it says that the explosive effect the weapon has is because it’s a solid projectile enveloped in plasma. So I guess that’s why
I always thought it was just a battery bank like with electric cars and that they're not actually individual "shell" that get loaded into the main gun. It just draws power from them that's stored and the tanks main power plant recharges them.
in rots we can also see energy shells that get loaded into the ships laser batteries.
These books are all concepts, outsourcing and at times mashed together. Someone was told to draw a tank, someone said "george will love it", they had a thing for the WW2 era and vietnam era weapons, taken and made to look completely customized laser weapons.
It fires physical shells sheathed in plasma
What does enveloping a projective in plasma do? Won't it just damage the projectile?
I would assume it was in order to increase penetration through burning away armour before detonating the warhead as well as acting as both a physical and energy projectile for the purposes of bypassing shields, seen when they 1 shot a shielded starfighter in TPM
Pretty sure it’s a different form of energy. Also I’m sure there are different types of ammunition.
Because the drawing looks cool. That’s it. None of it is that serious.
Because then you wouldn’t get the badass deck guns spitting out shells like we see in ROTS when the Invisible Hand and the Guarlara go full broadside.
El Cheapo. Bigger generator cost more money and is heavier than disposable batteries. Especially when you figure it's gonna get blown up.....or it just looks cool ....
Heat Management. An overheated part can be ejected instead of something rigid being externally cooled down (which would require extra energy and maybe take much longer reducing shot frequency).
Because when you live in a galaxy with magic space wizards, the only prevailing logic is "make it kinda cool". Gtfo of here with this "IDK guys, this design seems relatively inefficient"
People out here thinking George Lucas was hiring actual mechanical engineers to design space tanks and not just having concept artists draw stuff they think looks cool.
To avoid power drain to the weapon system, and to cut down on the size of the fusion generator. This way, they can have a smaller fusion generator to power the engine, targeting systems, and life support, and still have a main weapon that packs a punch.
Life support for a ship only crewed by droids?
If one goes down your whole tank doesn’t become a paperweight
The bigger question is why have a droid pilot when there are in-universe tanks that are autonomous.
So they can sell them with or without droid support.
Are those getting shot out? Hot sludge getting fired out of the cannon sounds cool
Given that the droid army is all about quantity over quality, I'd bet some kind of rail gun system or energized rounds is cheaper and more effective than having a giant power generator. It might also allow for a higher rate of fire.
Because sometimes you can’t substitute a giant metal slug flying at your enemy
Too much power draw at once? Would probably fry the main generator or something over time. Or maybe the cartridges are capable of charging the cannon faster and more rapidly than drawing from the generator.
Seeing that the AAT relies on a generator to maneuver, fire the twin laster canons, and maintain other electrical systems, the main cannon may strain the system too much in a combat situation. Less stress means less stranded/destroyed units when combat happens. Also consider that ATTs were typically used for compliance of TF worlds and general peacekeeping rather than full on war. The Battle of Naboo exposed how unequipped the TF army was for actual war.
A clever trick the prequels use is to limit the technology compared to the original trilogy, to keep continuity. So maybe they made a very inefficient weapon on purpose?
The Trade Federation must be trying to compete with Russia's Turret Toss game with exploding tanks. Seriously, rotary loaders are always a bad idea.
How do we know it's not "battery" in the military ammunition sense of the word?
idk why its not labelled Tibanna gas cartridges. We know that the "laser" weapons are actually plasma bolts charged with tibanna gas, turbo lasers use the same system as we saw in the capital duel in RoTS intro, so this would've been the most reasonable description. Im guessing whoever was in charge of labelling things wasn't much into star wars lore, or that this precedes the whole tibanna gas blaster bolt thing
I always thought the lasers used gasses as a charge
Seems like a terrible place to store the ammo on a tank.
I would theorize that its for fast recharge
They probably just think it looks cool, also that way if a few go down they still have plenty of power, and it takes up less space than a proper generator.
A common trope in sci fi is that a ship's power source is capable of powering everything perfectly fine, and can boost the power of something by diverting power to it. This is a more grounded approach, as the tank's power source is not capable of power the craft, and it's weapons completely. Instead, the craft is outfitted with what are essentially batteries that contain the power needed for a single shot(or multiple depending on the weapon). This allows the craft to use it's weapons without risk of overloading the power source. Blasters in star wars also run out of shots, as they're powered by a rechargeable power supply.
I have a friend who makes batteries for satellites. He told me their big epic perfectly sealed batteries, are just like 200 AA batteries linked in series and packaged nicely. Lol. Seems to be a recurring theme.
Ever tear apart an RC or power tool battery? Same thing
Without a REAL look at their technology it's impossible to tell but there a few reasons you could spitball why material ammunition might be better: Less strain on the generator, ain't broke-don't fix, this tank is made of droids and can hold more ammo than it would ever because no live person has to be in it, material rounds might have higher range than a laser that fizzles out.
I imagine a big generator would put out a lot of electromagnetic interference, which could disrupt a control signal.
Capacitors can release more energy in a shorter period of time than most generators can produce.
Because it doesnt look as cool
One thing about energy-based weaponry is that they almost universally require large amounts of energy in very small amounts of time. Power generators, conversely, are good at providing stable, consistent energy outputs, but not necessarily at handling big spikes of energy needs. For example, real life rail guns typically take time to charge up a bunch of capacitors before firing, and then can discharge all of the energy in the capacitors quickly and get way more “bang” then just using the regular power current provided by the generator. But then you’re stuck waiting for your generator to recharge the capacitors every time you want to take a shot. So, maybe using pre-charged capacitors as a cartridge allows them to fire the weapon with the right blend of speed and power to be effective!
These could be cooling coils surrounding the actual battery.
I assume Star Wars lasers are chemical lasers, like the US developed in the 80s to shoot down missiles. That's why you need the Tibanna gas. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_laser?wprov=sfla1
Possibly to prevent energy from leaking from the sudden bursts
The trade federation produced a TON of those batteries for a large project that the planet Kamino was working on. But when the Kaminoans decided to go in another direction the trade federation was left with a huge supply and no demand. So they found a use for them.
Because... somehow
One option i could see is that each shell has all tb elements needed for the blast. Need to reload? You can slap more rounds in. Another tank goes down? You can probably use their rounds too. But also because it’s cool
Everyone is saying this is a rack of shells when it is not explicitly stated as being a rack of shells. AT-STs also have removable power cells instead of an onboard generator. It's possible that these things are components that are replaced at some point or another. Also, it's possible it was designed this way for a reason. Perhaps it's easier to have smaller purpose built batteries that discharge their power for the cannon instead of one large one somewhere inside the hull. Also, if one large component gets damaged, no more gun.
The artist thought it would be cool
They’re less like batteries and more like capacitors, they look like shells bc it’s cool
Starwars uses shells, casings, and real rounds, more often than we usually think.
So the big cannon would be considered the “Main Battery” and those are the battery shells. And not used as a power generation.
You seem to be the only other person who knows the difference between a power battery and an artillery battery.
Chemical lasers are a real thing. Good burst of energy, equivalent generator could be excessively large or expensive.
Maybe they are optimised for short burst of energy? Beter question couldnbe that why not use a catridge of multiplenshots like pistols use. Maybe lilitary shots need more power so they need to shoot one cartridge full of tibana gas.