Docking clamp

A docking clamp or docking claw was a device that starships used to attach themselves to other ships as a means for ships to latch onto one another, many times for boarding or for goods transfer purposes.

Docking clamps were capable of attaching themselves to another starship through mechanical and magnetic means, securely enough that the tremendous forces of sublight was not enough to dislodge the other ship. These features were often taken advantage of by customs patrol ships, such as the Rendili StarDrives Imperial customs corvette, for boarding action purposes, as well as by The Sabertooth-class assault/rescue vessels, which used docking clamps and tractor beam grappling systems to forcibly move starships off the battlefield.

In a famous example during the Galactic Civil War, the Rebel Captain Han Solo used the Millennium Falcon's docking clamp to hide the ship on an Imperial-class Star Destroyer.

The Viscount-class Star Defender was equipped with multiple docking clamps, allowing it to dock with multiple capital ships simultaneously, making it one of the largest known ships to have docking clamps.

The Twilight was among the vessels to be equipped with docking clamps.

Text and facts from the “Docking clamp/Legends” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.