Could Galatic empire build a warhammer 40K titan equivalent

[hunter5]

So this is an idea I have been tossing around in my head for a while. Could the Galactic Empire build an equivalent to the Imperator titans? I say they could at least come up with something similar using a Construction droid body as a base adding weapons and shields could make a rather tough nut to crack. What are your thoughts and would it be competitive?

[Borgholio]

I don't see why not. It would probably be slow and ungainly, but the Empire already produces building-sized walkers so if there was a practical reason to do so they could probably do it.

[biostem]

Just looking at some of the images, it looks like a walking cathedral. I think the galactic empire could build something on the same scale, but it likely wouldn't have all the accouterments.

How big are they compared to a World Devastator?

[Jub]

Just looking at some of the images, it looks like a walking cathedral. I think the galactic empire could build something on the same scale, but it likely wouldn't have all the accouterments.

How big are they compared to a World Devastator?

Generally smaller, but I'm sure there are outliers.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Given that World Devastators are a) spaceships and b) usually ISD-size, no 40K Titan is going to come close in size or mass, since the largest estimates I've seen for an Imperator (the largest Imperial Titan) is 150-200m tall or so. Then again, in the old Epic game there was one Imperator-variant that had an airbase on it's back, so they may well be bigger than that estimate.

So, yeah, I'm sure the Empire could build something comparable, but I doubt there is any need to. Plus, the GE doesn't have the absurd range of weaponry that a 40K Titan does, they'd just add turbolasers, maybe an ion cannon or a missile launcher to it. Whereas a 40K Titan can have anything from vortex missiles (very bad to be on the receiving end of) to turbolasers to giant plasma guns to giant melta guns to fuckoff-huge gatling guns.

[Lord Revan]

weren't some of the bigger AT-walker variants Titan sized? I mean from the Legendaries, maybe not as tall but definetly as massive.

Also that wheeled tank/APC/command centre thing from ROTS seems quite large as well.

[Boeing 757]

They could most likely build something like a Titan in terms of size and firepower, but with SW equivalent of weapons. Obviously, that means no fancy WH40k no vortex missiles or warp grenades. Both factions specialize in building huge constructs of doom....

[Elheru Aran]

The answer is 'yes'. The question is 'why'.

Titans work in 40K because they give the Imperials a way of carrying near-starship grade weapons protected by armour and void shields capable of withstanding massive artillery and tank barrages. Also, just because it's Rule of Cool. Plus that whole 'machine spirit' thing.

The Empire already has large walkers carrying heavy weapons. A Titan would be an upgraded version thereof, but with theatre shields being as powerful as they are (a primitive culture being able to manufacture one capable of withstanding a sustained barrage), they're less useful and would be monstrous targets. Bear in mind that the Star Wars galaxy does have effective close-in air support, if you run with the Expanded Universe; this is less often demonstrated in 40K. A couple of photon torpedoes could potentially make a big mess of a Titan, even one built with Star Wars technology.

[Q99]

Considering how their walkers are relatively easy to trip, I certainly wouldn't recommend the idea...

Titans are so much bigger than Walkers, I'm not entirely sure if Wars ground tech could do it, but rule-of-cool does say yes.


Just landing a big spaceship makes more sense.

[Adam Reynolds]

AT-ATs are shown in a specific instance for which they were almost ideally designed. Attacking a theater shield's power generators to allow reinforcements to arrive. Because said shield would prevent enemy fighters from flying up and over it, air attacks would be forced to make a head on attack right into the walker's guns. With armor powerful enough to avoid energy attacks, it would make them quite effective as we saw.

They would likely not be as effective in a pitched battle. For that function, I would suspect the Empire still has access to juggernauts and AT-TEs. Not to mention the smaller AT-STs for smaller enemies.

[Jub]

Considering how their walkers are relatively easy to trip, I certainly wouldn't recommend the idea...

Titans are so much bigger than Walkers, I'm not entirely sure if Wars ground tech could do it, but rule-of-cool does say yes.

Just landing a big spaceship makes more sense.

If large spacecraft exist and can stand thousands of G's of acceleration, not to mention landing within a planet's gravity well or the miles tall structures of Coruscant, they obviously have the technology to build arbitrarily large ground vehicles. Even if we assume, for whatever reason, they lack the material science to build limbs strong enough to carry a Titan-sized walker they could, if desired, use repulsors to take up the load. So in terms of just building the shell of such a walker they obviously have things covered.

To make it functional also wouldn't be beyond them. Based on the energy density that hyperspace capable start fighters pack Star Wars clearly has the power sources required to move such a beast while also powering weapons and if they chose to add them, shields as well. The largest issue would be a landing craft to bring the thing planet side and a niche for such a weapon to fill.

[Starglider]

The Galactic Empire doesn't have the bizarre technology production bottlenecks, in particular the inability to mass produce repulsorcraft, that the Imperium has. The fluff for the land speeder specifically stated that they can't make the antigrav units any more and this is why it went from being available in the Imperial Guard codex to Space Marines only. The Empire has no problem cranking out repulsorlifts so if it needs a giant gun platform it just builds something like this instead.

[biostem]

I recall some novel going into how the AT-ATs were designed more as a tool of intimidation, than as an actual functional weapon of war - hence why there aren't turrets covering all angles, and why it's so much taller than it really would need to be...

[Q99]

If large spacecraft exist and can stand thousands of G's of acceleration, not to mention landing within a planet's gravity well or the miles tall structures of Coruscant, they obviously have the technology to build arbitrarily large ground vehicles. Even if we assume, for whatever reason, they lack the material science to build limbs strong enough to carry a Titan-sized walker they could, if desired, use repulsors to take up the load. So in terms of just building the shell of such a walker they obviously have things covered.

Agreed. It'd probably make more sense to use repulsors like you say and make it a hopping fortress rather than walker.

To make it functional also wouldn't be beyond them. Based on the energy density that hyperspace capable start fighters pack Star Wars clearly has the power sources required to move such a beast while also powering weapons and if they chose to add them, shields as well. The largest issue would be a landing craft to bring the thing planet side and a niche for such a weapon to fill.

Rather than a landing craft, it may be logical to have an engine attachment to it, ala how we've seen ships with detachable hyperspace rings. Fly into orbit, detach from engine segment, land. When done, use repulsors to bounce back up, reattach....

Which, of course, is getting pretty far off 'walker,' to be sure ^^

Hm, to an actual walker... well, Victories and Venatorscan land. I wonder if one could make a hole through them, have the Titan-walker fit in the hole. Land, release walker, lift back up.

[Jub]

Rather than a landing craft, it may be logical to have an engine attachment to it, ala how we've seen ships with detachable hyperspace rings. Fly into orbit, detach from engine segment, land. When done, use repulsors to bounce back up, reattach....

If you were going to do that, you'd also need to have fully sealed crew compartments. The best bet for making this plan work is to design a limited role landing craft that is basically cockpit, pressurized cargo bay, and engines. This craft could attach to the fleet and carry the walker while the walkers crew only ferry over before the last jump. This also has the benefit of not needing your walker to be multiple things at once.

[Q99]

If you were going to do that, you'd also need to have fully sealed crew compartments. The best bet for making this plan work is to design a limited role landing craft that is basically cockpit, pressurized cargo bay, and engines. This craft could attach to the fleet and carry the walker while the walkers crew only ferry over before the last jump. This also has the benefit of not needing your walker to be multiple things at once.

That makes sense to me.

A Walker's so big, or tall rather, that it really has to be carried externally (the only ships big enough for internal bays don't land.... hm, with one known exception, but putting a Titan on a World Devastator is just gilding the lily) so such considerations are an important requirement.

[Adam Reynolds]

I recall some novel going into how the AT-ATs were designed more as a tool of intimidation, than as an actual functional weapon of war - hence why there aren't turrets covering all angles, and why it's so much taller than it really would need to be...

I thought it was the height that it was as a means of gaining a line of sight advantage. As to why the weapons aren't at the highest point, it is likely an issue of recoil and moment of inertia. As for turrets in other directions, that's what the AT-STs are for.

They are sufficiently well armored that most enemies would be unable to stop it before it could achieve its objective, that of destroying the power generators for theater shields. As I stated earlier, it is also protected by the very thing that it is supposed to destroy. Enemy fighter attacks would be forced to fly directly into its guns because the shield gives them an altitude limit.

[Vendetta]

The answer is 'yes'. The question is 'why'.

Titans work in 40K because they give the Imperials a way of carrying near-starship grade weapons protected by armour and void shields capable of withstanding massive artillery and tank barrages. Also, just because it's Rule of Cool. Plus that whole 'machine spirit' thing.

The Empire already has large walkers carrying heavy weapons. A Titan would be an upgraded version thereof, but with theatre shields being as powerful as they are (a primitive culture being able to manufacture one capable of withstanding a sustained barrage), they're less useful and would be monstrous targets. Bear in mind that the Star Wars galaxy does have effective close-in air support, if you run with the Expanded Universe; this is less often demonstrated in 40K. A couple of photon torpedoes could potentially make a big mess of a Titan, even one built with Star Wars technology.

More importantly, the Empire has little to no need for a large scale ground combat system, because it doesn't actually engage in large scale ground combat. It doesn't need to, it co-opted the existing political systems of an already mostly unified galaxy and doesn't try and exert much if any local control beyond collecting taxes and possibly raising levies for the army and navy, which mostly exists as a regime protection force rather than a military to fight other militaries.

Even the one large scale ground combat war seen in the 'verse is actually a phony war run for the benefit of the man at the top and so was prevented from escalating too far because that was never actually the point.

So whilst the Empire could build a titan equivalent the strategic and political need isn't there. A titan is not a weapon system their army needs to do its job whereas a heavy armoured transport which can put those regime protection forces where they need to be and deal with the kind of nontrivial but not particularly heavy weapons that forces like the rebel alliance can field is.

[FTeik]

Nomad City was a Dreadnought-class heavy cruiser (600 meters long), that had been put on legs:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Nomad_City and that was a small-scale, private enterprise.

So if the GE wanted, if could have built something of similar size for military purposes and not a mobile mining-facility.

[hunter5]

forget Nomad city they already have a civilian titan http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/EVS_Construction_Droid these things are equal to if not bigger than the stupid big titans of the Imperium.

[Boeing 757]

...which pretty much equates as glorified fanfiction since it falls into the category of Legends canon.

[NecronLord]

I believe a Self-Propelled Heavy Artillery - Turbolaser (the big raygun walker from AotC) may actually have more overall size than an Imperator. It probably has more firepower, given that they slice straight through Trade Fed core ships.

[Elheru Aran]

I believe a Self-Propelled Heavy Artillery - Turbolaser (the big raygun walker from AotC) may actually have more overall size than an Imperator. It probably has more firepower, given that they slice straight through Trade Fed core ships.

...how's that? It doesn't look *that* big in the pictures I've seen. Surely you don't mean it's bigger than an ISD?

[NecronLord]

An Imperator titan is the largest sub-class of Emperor Titan (the other is Warmonger) in 40k.

While not as tall as titans, the SPHA-T is 140m long, and therefore longer along its longest axis than most depictions of titans. The tallest description of an Emperor/Imperator titan I know of is 140m high. So yeah, they're broadly similar in role and size.

People forget the poor old SPHA-T, because it only appeared briefly, but it's bigger than an AT-AT.

[Elheru Aran]

Here I was thinking you were talking about an Imperator class Star Destroyer... too much of Fractalsponge's art, I suppose!

Don't forget the classic picture of a Warlord that's got access ladders on the guns, implying it's like a kilometre or more tall... that was ridiculous.