LC-10bW

For other uses, see ice.

The Corellian Engineering Corporation LC-10bW, or laser ice-cutter, was a laser cannon used to sheer through ice with quick precision. These cutters were used by the Rebel Alliance Corps of Engineers, alongside excavator machinery, to carve out space inside the caves of Echo Base.^[1] The cutters need careful maintenance to operate in sub-freezing temperatures.^[2]

The LC-10bWs could be mounted on tripods or vehicles.^[2] On Hoth they were mounted on cannon sled ground vehicles.^[3] Luke Skywalker once manned an ice-cutter at Echo Base.^[4]

Behind the scenes

An ice-cutter (left) mounted to a Rebel cannon sled in the hangar of Echo Base.

This device appeared, unnamed, in Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back, where it is briefly visible in the left corner of the frame when Han Solo rides into a hangar.^[5] It is mounted on a vehicle named a "cannon sled" in original production blueprints.^[3] The vehicle, complete with the laser cutter, can be briefly glimpsed near the Rebel defenses outside of Echo Base.^[5] On set footage of the vehicle was included in the rarely seen documentary by Michel Parbot, The Making of "The Empire Strikes Back".^[6] There were a number of publicity photos of Luke Skywalker manning the laser cutter which, according to Lucasfilm Story Group executive Pablo Hidalgo, were not deleted scenes but rather on-set photos taken with the prop.^[7]

The 2005 reference book Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy seems to identify the entire cannon sled vehicle as the "laser ice-cutter,"^[1] but 2010's Star Wars Blueprints: Rebel Edition refers to the laser ice-cutter as the LC-10bW and suggests that it is only the name of the laser cannon itself, which is mounted onto the separate vehicle.^[2]