Got the movie on video back then, it was the official german widescreen edition, and remember this clearly. Must be a false memory, because i read the novelization around the same time. But what's strange and i can't get my head around that, is that what i remember is kind of different in the details. Or could there have been more editions that aren't listed at wookieepedia? In the novel the Wampa is destroyed by a continuous beam of the Probot, while i remember it exploding and turning to cinder after one big powerful blaster hit. Alas i can't check the tape anymore, because i sold it a long time ago, but i still wonder why i remember this so vividly.
This is the first I've ever heard of anything like that, and I saw the movie in its original run in 1980 (age 12), as well as reading the comics and novelization. There was a cut scene where a wampa attacks the Tauntauns inside the Hoth base- you can still see an artifact of it when Han is getting ready to head out to look for Luke. But nothing about a probe droid schwacking a wampa. Now I need to go back and look at the comics again- that would be where something like that would creep in, if anywhere. Archie Goodwin and the Marvel gang back then liked to take those sorts of liberties with the adaptations...
Wasn't there suppose to be some kind of fight against some invading wampa in Echo Base? Attracted to the whittles that R2-D2 makes. With a firefight that involved some sort of mobile cannon and eventually trapping the wampa off in a room (with a warning sign added) that much later, C-3PO rips off during the escape, for some snowtroopers to find and get...attacked?
Yes, you can see parts of that in the deleted scenes/extras in the iTunes ESB, and on the box set releases
I'd say false memories. I have false memories like that around Star Trek. I remember seeing a Klingon crash-landing in a farm on Earth just like in in the Enterprise first episode, except around 1995, Klingons in a warbird stranded cloaked in orbit above 20th century Earth right before that. I remember the first holodeck episodes of TNG as a portal to an artificial sea inside the Enterprise, and time travelling to 21st century and Picard ridiculing our clothing as he infiltrated us and our formal dinners, as they paused reality to discuss the game plan on taking over our primitive world. The last two are at least close to what happened on the show, and can be explained by mere misunderstanding of what a holodeck was.
OK, just to clear up any confusion: yes there was a scene planned where the probe droid would tangle with a snow creature (scripted to occur between the Han/Leia corridor spat scene, and the scene with Luke in the ice cave), but so far as I'm aware it was axed before anything final was filmed. As you can see the script doesn't specifically identify it as the same "ice creature" that would later be called a wampa, only describing a pair of eyes under a snow drift. Indeed some materials refer to it as a "snow squirrel". The creature for that scene was planned to be realised with a stop motion puppet, but they cut it for what I am presuming were time and money reasons; Tippett already had plenty on his plate at that point, and the production was already running over budget. However, some elements were completed before the cut (the squiggly line is meant to represent the "snow squirrel".) So I'm reasonably sure the thing was never designed or built, let alone animated. Yes they did try and film the wampa invasion scenes despite the fact the suit was a nightmare to use on location. Several shots were completed, but they were just as unsatisfactory as the location stuff and were ultimately deleted, with a simple but effective hand puppet and some sneaky editing replacing most shots of the original suit. When it came to the Marvel comic adaptation, they didn't include the probot/snow monster encounter, but they did keep the wampa invasion subplot and included a deleted scene of it attacking one of the rebel's perimeter outposts right before Han & Chewie go out after it (which I'm also reasonably sure was never filmed.) Spoiler The novelization seems to be where the conflation of "snow squirrel" and "wampa" occurs.
I actually thought I saw the Enterprise in the water in front of the Seaview…a dream or commercial mashup maybe?