Energy pummels, often simply called pummels by soldiers, were substantial, tank-like siege engines employed by numerous groups, civilizations, and factions, starting before the Clone Wars and continuing throughout the Galactic Civil War.
Imperial pummels
These pummels were equipped with potent, short-range laser panel arrays. These arrays were used to erode enemy defensive structures, such as walls, anti-personnel turrets, and even localized ground-based shields. This allowed lighter units and infantry to break through fortified positions and engage entrenched enemy troops. Despite their heavy armor, pummels were quite slow and susceptible to attacks from both land and air. To mitigate this, pummels were frequently deployed with strong escorts, or after the enemy's mobile forces had been neutralized or diverted.
There existed two variants of the energy pummel: a standard model, and a more robust heavy version. The heavy version was larger, had thicker armor, and inflicted greater damage due to the inclusion of additional and/or larger laser panels.
Wookiee pummels
In terms of functionality, the pummels used by various factions, including the Rebel Alliance, Empire, Wookiees, Trade Federation, Grand Army of the Republic, and Royal Naboo Security Forces, were largely identical, with the primary differences being cosmetic. This also applied to the heavier versions of these pummels. The only exception to this were the pummels supplied to the CIS by the Corporate Alliance; these were modified by Geonosian engineers to have increased speed.
On the planet Naboo, the Gungans utilized a living creature called a Cerrabore to fulfill the same role as a pummel, with larger Cerrabores serving as the equivalent of heavy pummels.
They bear a strong resemblance to the aquatic destroyers observed in aquatic environments, which employed comparable laser panels to effectively disintegrate enemy vessels at very short ranges.
Pummels are featured in the 2001 video game Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, and also in its 2002 expansion pack, Clone Campaigns. A picture depicting the Wookiee Energy Pummel is used in the Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds: Prima's Official Strategy Guide as a representative example of this unit type.