[Ralph McQuarrie painting] Can we use the foreground Imperial troopers and rebel outpost to estimate a lower limit on the thickness of one of the generator's disks?
Images of some of the landscape paintings used to portray the Hoth battlefield.
In the radio drama:
If either structure is within the shield then its attackers also need to be within the shield. However it is not clear whether or someone standing inside the shield can attack an object that is outside the shield. In other words: in some possible physical theories, the shield may be a directional barrier, or a volume of high potential that blaster beams can leave but not enter.
In maps published elsewhere, Outpost Beta is outside the shield perimeter and Echo Station 5-7 is barely inside. the attackers of Echo Station 5-7 must have been within the shield. Perhaps the attackers of Outpost Beta were stragglers or a mopping-up force following the main AT-AT advance? Perhaps, alternatively, some of the walkers will face backwards to strike Outpost Beta? Maybe the published maps have shown the shield perimeter too conservatively, and Outpost Beta really was inside?
If Outpost Beta is outside and Echo Station 5-7 is inside the shield then their near simultaneous action implies that they must straddle the perimeter very closely.
p.192: [MAP] A schematic showing some landmarks around Echo Base. The shield is centred around the power generator. The generator is to the west of the North Entrance.
Echo Station 5-7, the first major fortified area to see the AT-AT walkers over the horizon [in the movie], appears near the northern extreme of the shielded area in this map. This station must be at least 20km from the North Ridge. If the walkers fired at 5-7 from within the shield perimeter then the implied scale of this map makes the generator well over a hundred kilometres away. The 50km shield diameter indicated in EGWT would then be an underestimate.
The presence of a secondary Imperial objective, the "power grid" is worth noting.
There are a few problems requiring reinterpretation. It is implied that the walkers move southwards, whereas in the movie they mainly move southwest. The ion cannon should must not be in view of the walkers until after they pass the generator; this is ambiguous on the map. The ion cannon, transport ships, entrances and a few other structures are not in scale with the terrain; they must rather be symbolic markers.
p.88: [MAP] The map shows directions and topology of the main sites around Echo Base, although the relative distances and sizes of the objects are questionable. The shield is centred on the power generator. The generator is west of the north entrance. The ion cannon is on the south side of the base mountain range, situated between the generator and the south entrance. There is a concentration of defences on the plain to the north. A secondary objective of the Imperials, a "power grid" appears in the hills on the west side of the ice plain.
p.89:
The Imperial forces had to land in a vast glacier field north of the base. From there, it was a trip of a few hundred kilometres through Rebel defences as the snowtroopers and walkers made their way to the power generator.
Of all official references, this book presents the broadest idea of the extent of the rebel defences. The quote implies that some locations like Outpost Beta were hundreds of km away from the area nearer the shield generator where the battle ended. Since the AT-AT walkers have a maximum speed of about 30km/h, the battle would have taken several hours. It is significant that the final retreat of the rebels still took place in morning sunlight, though it could have been late morning.
Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology (1997)
p.50: The Atgar 1.4FD P-Tower antivehicle artillery piece (the dish-shaped gun at Hoth) has a "maximum targetable range of ten kilometers".
p.51: The Golan Arms DF.9 Anti-Infantry Battery has a "maximum range of sixteen kilometers" according to the same official source. Sixteen kilometres is approximately the horizon distance for a gun at the turret's height. The intrinsic range (for firing at objects above the horizon) may be greater.
p.106, "Planetary Shields"
A small unit such as the Kuat Drive Yards DSS-02, used by the Rebel Alliance on Hoth, protects an area approximately fifty kilometers in diameter. While these units are excellent at deflecting bombardments from orbit, they do nothing to prevent troopships and bombers from landing beyond a shield's perimeter.
Implication: the distance between the generator equipment and the Imperial landing zone is at least 25km. Of all officially published statements, this seems to be the lowest of low-end estimates. According to this theory, Blizzard One crosses only 8km into rebel territory before destroying the generator (from a range slightly over 17km). Veers' walker is then standing only in the outermost rebel defences, and there must be many more trench areas between him, the generator and base entrances. (Of course those areas are far from intact: they are blasted from great distances long before the walkers set foot nearby.)
The second edition says that the shield covered an "immense physical area, several hundred kilometres square." Does this mean merely several km² or does it mean a square wit side length of several hundred km? The latter would be much larger than the former.
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