Best scifi tank?

[Purple]

Do you even know what defines a tank?

That is actually a pretty god question.
Where do we draw the line?
Do we stop at tracked vehicles? Do we count wheeled/hovering/repulsorlift?
What about walkers? They way they are used in many SF they fit right into the tank niche. (well except the really huge ones)

This said, I would have to go with the Apocalypse tanks from Red Alert 2 (the game).
It has two main guns and anti aircraft missile launchers. And if it were in the real world it would probably mount a machine gun or two (seeing how those guns were effective against infantry).

All in all, a nasty peace of equipment you do not want to be on the other side of.

[dragon]

What about the heavy grav tank from the Dahak verse. They only showed it in Mutineers' Moon though.


Appearently the shields on the thing would take a nuke to take out.

Nergal's heavy tank moved forward confidently, cannon seeking, anti-personnel batteries flashing, heavy grav guns whining from its upper hull.

Anu roared in fury as Transhar's tank was killed, but his fury redoubled as the enemy tank took up a firing position that covered Transhar's vehicle ramp. Another tank tried to come down it, and Nergal's heavy blew it to wreckage with a single, contemptuous shot.

A warp grenade bounced and rolled, bringing up against the edge of its shield, but nothing happened. Both sides had their suppressers out, smothering the effect of a grenade's tiny hyper generator. Normally that favored the defense, but now he watched a second enemy tank charge out of the portal-and a third!-and nothing but a nuke or a warp warhead was going to stop those things. That or a proper warship giving ground support.

link

[CaptHawkeye]

The Tsar from Battlezone. It hovers, it has a range of guns, a single crewman, etc. It's also sexy.

I'm so happy you brought up that tank.

Man no one will ever make a game like Battlezone again.

[Themightytom]

[Dave]

How about the tank from A Boy and his Tank?
I kid, I kid.

Full AI, direct neural interface, dozens of robotic accessories, 20 years between refuelings, and a gun that fires osmium needles at 0.25c.

That book was so terrible it was almost funny. I mean, an eighth of it was the protagonist having sex with his tank.

[SapphireFox]

Scroll up to my last post.

oops, sorry about that. I guess I must have either missed it or you had just posted yours as I went to type mine.

How about the tank from A Boy and his Tank?
I kid, I kid.

Full AI, direct neural interface, dozens of robotic accessories, 20 years between refuelings, and a gun that fires osmium needles at 0.25c.

That book was so terrible it was almost funny. I mean, an eighth of it was the protagonist having sex with his tank.

And here I thought almost no one else had read that book. It seemed to me at the time that was the horny poor mans Bolo attempt. Good for a time waster and of slight note but otherwise mildly forgettable. The battles themselves in the book were halfway decent if I remember it correctly.

[Simon_Jester]

WTF? They put no less than four vulnerable grills on the side? At least the French had only one on their heavy tank ...

It's a hovertank without antigravity. The grilles are for fan nacelles. They accept the vulnerability created by the fans in exchange for mobility that makes just about any tracked vehicle in history look like a turtle.

Not knowing what the internal armor scheme is, I don't know what if anything they do to try to mitigate the obvious weakness created by the fan intakes. Just getting a shot off at them is going to be nontrivial, though, between the active defense system (boxes around rim, below the grilles but above the skirts) and the aforementioned high speed. Certainly possible, but I can't remember enough about the series to be sure how big a problem Drake makes it and whether it's big enoguh.

Also, this is a model from a tabletop game; the look may not by "strictly" accurate.

[Commander 598]

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b329/ ... 190957.jpg

It's a recon vehicle though.

Amongst other things...

[Ritterin Sophia]

Do we stop at tracked vehicles? Do we count wheeled/hovering/repulsorlift?

Is it an all-terrain, front-line combatant, with a high-power direct-fire primary weapon, and sufficiently heavy armour as to protect the crew from all manner of smallarms fire and smaller cannon fire?

What about walkers? They way they are used in many SF they fit right into the tank niche. (well except the really huge ones)

Depends on the walker, none of the walkers in 40k and SW actually fit such a role.

As for Halo's Scorpion, I can accept it as a decent light tank, akin to the Austrian SK-105 and the French AMX-13.

[Interlord1]

What about the baneblade? Its huge, Has a good resistance to Anti-Tank weaponry, Carries 2 Lascannons (Can carry up to 4 if upgraded) And 3 heavy bolters (Again up to 5 of upgraded) It also has a Huge main gun which i'm not sure what the measurements are, a Co-axial Autocannon, And a demolisher cannon (Again, not sure how strong it is, but its capable of destroying pretty much anything in one shot.)

[Azazal]

Not bolo levels, but I've always been a sucker for the Ogre Mk V from Steve Jackson Games, OGRE.

[Imperial Overlord]

Drake's panzers as well. Really tough, can shoot down satellites with its main gun, and its own AI to run the close defense systems and shoot down incoming artillery.

WTF? They put no less than four vulnerable grills on the side? At least the French had only one on their heavy tank (yes, it's a model but fairly accurate):

That's just the model, which is pretty wretched. The actual tank doesn't have them.

[CaptHawkeye]

WTF? They put no less than four vulnerable grills on the side? At least the French had only one on their heavy tank ...

It's a hovertank without antigravity. The grilles are for fan nacelles. They accept the vulnerability created by the fans in exchange for mobility that makes just about any tracked vehicle in history look like a turtle.

All tanks have exposed parts like running gears, vents, vision slits, etc. It's not really possible to design a tank that is literally just a big slab of hull and treads. The resulting tank would have almost no situational awareness, would be impossible to maintain, and overall wouldn't be very flexible. In short it would be a Heavy Tank. There's a reason that class of tank went extinct. (On top of the fact that ATGMs couldn't be defeated by just linearly increasing armour thickness.)

Even the most well protected AFVs in the world can only expect effective protection from enemy fire as long as the enemy is restricted to random hit placement on the vehicle. If guys are close enough that they can actually pick specific parts of the tank they want to shoot at then your screening forces suck.

[IvanTih]

My absolute two favorites are Bolo,Baneblade and Shadowsword.Two are from 40k.

[Simon_Jester]

All tanks have exposed parts like running gears, vents, vision slits, etc. It's not really possible to design a tank that is literally just a big slab of hull and treads. The resulting tank would have almost no situational awareness, would be impossible to maintain, and overall wouldn't be very flexible. In short it would be a Heavy Tank. There's a reason that class of tank went extinct. (On top of the fact that ATGMs couldn't be defeated by just linearly increasing armour thickness.)

Even the most well protected AFVs in the world can only expect effective protection from enemy fire as long as the enemy is restricted to random hit placement on the vehicle. If guys are close enough that they can actually pick specific parts of the tank they want to shoot at then your screening forces suck.

True.

For Drake's Slammers, the heavy armor relies on extreme mobility (100 km/h or higher speeds off-road, capable of firing the main gun with high precision on the move), and on active defenses to defeat antitank missiles and airborne threats. The tank portrayed in the model would still be quite vulnerable because even random fire directed at the hull would have a high chance of hitting the fan intake grilles; the "real" design is hopefully somewhat less vulnerable.

[Purple]

What about walkers? They way they are used in many SF they fit right into the tank niche. (well except the really huge ones)
Depends on the walker, none of the walkers in 40k and SW actually fit such a role.

I would say that the AT-ST could fit the role. And so can a 40K dreadnought.

[Simon_Jester]

The AT-ST is too lightly protected to be much good as a main battle tank; it's at best more like an armored car. 40k Space Marine dreadnoughts arguably do qualify, though, since they're well enough armored to be immune to antipersonnel weapons and resistant to anything short of large antitank weapons.

[DrStrangelove]

Rift RPG has some pretty awesome tanks, particularly of the hover variety. Also the Chelgrians from Look to Windward have some tank analogues which should be pretty bad-ass as they are based off mid-level involved Culture tech

[Ritterin Sophia]

What about walkers? They way they are used in many SF they fit right into the tank niche. (well except the really huge ones)
Depends on the walker, none of the walkers in 40k and SW actually fit such a role.

I would say that the AT-ST could fit the role. And so can a 40K dreadnought.

All-Terrain Scout Transport, it's the equivelant of an up-armoured Humvee with a Mk19 grenade launcher. The closest thing Star Wars has to a tank is are repulsortanks like the 2-M and AAT or things like the T3-B and T4-B.

The Dreadnought is an oversized power armour and completely incapable of offering the maneuverability of a tank.

[SapphireFox]

Rift RPG has some pretty awesome tanks, particularly of the hover variety. Also the Chelgrians from Look to Windward have some tank analogues which should be pretty bad-ass as they are based off mid-level involved Culture tech

Rifts is the RPG where they put medium and long range missile launchers on the side track armor, firing horizontally at ground level! Where cannons suck compared to itano circus style missile spam and munchkinizm lives. Yes some of them look very cool but most Rifts designs run the gamut of militarily impractical to HOW THE HELL DOES IT FUNCTION?!??!?? Believe me I should know I own a mostly complete set of Rifts RPG books.

However I will admit that the TGE land battleship in Phase World sounds awesome though.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Also the Chelgrians from Look to Windward have some tank analogues which should be pretty bad-ass as they are based off mid-level involved Culture tech

Sorry, but the Chelgrians are at best a low-level involved species similar to the Oct from Matter. Their technology is very primitive compared to the Culture and it was also mentioned that they have been Involved for only a few hundred years. The fact that some of them managed to sublime at such an early stage of their development was considered a very rare incident in galactic history, another proof that they are not very advanced.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I'll go with the Soviet Apocalypse heavy tank from Red Alert 2, or the Chinese Overlord from C&C Generals. Big guns, heavy armour, and able to mount either a big minigun for anti-infantry stuff, a bunker for troops, or a speaker tower to heal friendlies

If we are allowing walkers I would wager the King Cobra or Dark Kodiak from the excelletn game Heavy Gear 2. They mount a multitude of heavy weapons in multiple mounts (hand held, left/right collar, left/right shoulder (for mortars), left/right hip (for anti-infantry machine guns or grenade launchers) or back (rocket pods). They pack armour to withstand multiple hits from their own weapons, can run at 32 kph, jump, crouch, crawl, use wheels to move at up to 70 kph, they have advanced VR fire control gear, powerful sensors and can operate in zero-g with an optional thruster pack.

Phew

[Srelex]

Speaking of CNC, I wonder how the Mammoth Tank of Tiberium Wars can stack up--according to the official stats, it is armed with 150mm guns that can be converted into railguns. What sort of punch would that pack?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Enough to give you a serious headache

[Andras]

1) Bolos
2) The grav tanks from Renegade Legion
3) Hammer's Slammers' Panzers