How effective were rebel alliance cannons against armoured vehicles?

Question

During the battle of Hoth, the rebels used the 1.4 FD P-Tower and DF.9 Turrets against imperial armour in order to destroy/neutralize them. From the sections of the battle that is seen in The Empire Strikes Back, it is suggested that these static defences are useless (several seconds into clip):

Was this the case or were these towers just in-effective against heavily armoured vehicles such as ATATs?

Answer 1

  AT-ATs were designed to be impervious to fire from standard laser cannons.

As you put in your question, 1.4 FD P-Tower and DF.9 Turrets were mainly antipersonnel and anti-light vehicle weapons (AT-ST comes to mind). But AT-AT was designed specifically to endure laser and blaster fire, and even weapons like proton torpedoes. In fact , only way to bring it down were non standard tactics like the trick with tow cables and tripping. Later versions were equipped even against that.

As far as we know, there were no standard turrets or towers with weapons sufficiently powerful to deal with AT-ATs. I exclude anti-orbit weapons like V-150 Planet Defender which were unique, cumbersome and too expensive to be used in combat against walkers and other vehicles. And even if those weapons existed, Rebels certainly didn't have access to them. So they used what they had, and relied on stealth rather on firepower, hoping that they main base would remain undetected as long as possible, and also preparing to flee if they were discovered. Turrets and towers around base perimeter served to screen it against light scouting forces and possible pirates or marauders, not against full scale Imperial attack.