Gravity Bender

The Gravity Benders were a series of superweapons produced by the Galactic Empire, a few years before the First Death Star was completed. These weapons were like large starships, about the size of two Imperial-class Star Destroyers, normally operated by a skeleton crew of 1,200 men. Designed for destruction, these weapons were only used twice.

How They Work
The Gravity Benders worked by using many huge starship components. They included 6 large modified gravity well generators, 6 Supernova-class Gravitational Disruptors, at least 10 modified communications jamming devices, and various other small devices. All of these were placed at the front of the ship.

Along with the Gravitational weapons, they used a large reactor core, and several heavy turbolasers. They also used modiied ion cannon batteries to magnify the Gravity Benders' range and effect.

Using the Weapon
The weapon would hyperspace to a planet, normally not any farther than 500 km away from it, and then head into the atmosphere. Once into the lower atmosphere, it would activate its communication jammers, and moments after that, activate all of the gravitational devices, which disrupt gravity on the planet, and also destroys part of the atmosphere. The Gravity Bender then starts heading around the planet, all the while having its gravitational weapons firing. The ship makes two passes around the equator of the planet, and then finishes up cutting a straight line to a safe hyperspace jump point. This normally could only be performed on small to average sized planets, and still wasn't very reliable even when performed on small planets.

After the weapon had done its job, the Empire would hide it at a secret installation, and would normally replace some of its equipment.

Aftermath
If the weapon completed its job, the aftermath was horrendous. Gravity on a planet it successfully completed its mission on was usually almost completely gone, and the atmosphere would normally be reduced to around Type 1.5, if it had been Type I. Even if it didn't finish its job all the way, the planet would still have lost around half of its gravity, and the atmosphere would be damaged as well.