Best scifi tank?

[Connor MacLeod]

Grav tanks from Renegade Legion. At least those that actually have a turret. Can fly upwards of 900 kph (although have to be several KM up to do that), fire hyper-velocity slugs of insanely high calivre (100-200mm) multi GW lasers as standard, missiles, missile interception systems, the ability to stand up to nuclear detonations (at unspecified range) due to shields and armor, and at least where Strike Legions are concerned, can be completely mobile (including their supply train) as long as supplies last.

Also cuz RL has insane mobile artillery that has ranges comparable to what the proposed Naval railgun is meant to have.

[Enigma]

MK. XXX Bolos all the way!

They'll mess you up whether you are on the ground or in orbit.

[fgalkin]

What?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[andrewgpaul]

"TRACK-LINK does not allow direct linking to images"; "What?" is indeed my response.

[fgalkin]

"TRACK-LINK does not allow direct linking to images"; "What?" is indeed my response.

Bah



Here.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Purple]

Do personal projects count?
Because a few years back I worked on the designs for a tank that would be several kilometers long, powered by steam engines the size of small apartment houses. It was to hold battleship turrets mounting 10 cannons each 1 meter wide, a small air strip and a zeppelin hangar.

Also, it was supposed to be able to ford the English channel.
I think I still have the Auto Cad blueprints I was working on... Simpler times...

[SAMAS]

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.

Consider that they are Medium- and Long-Range Missiles, and are usualy meant to fired as a first strike when the enemy is miles away.

The best Rifts tank is probably the Neo-Abrams from South America 2: No tracks (it's antigrav), so the side-mounted missiles aren't leaving any particular vulnerabilities, A large I-Beam cannon that can actually one-shot some of the other tanks in the same book, Coax grenade launchers and plasma machineguns for anti-infantry, and mini-missiles for backup.

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

Scary, you mean.

[SapphireFox]

Consider that they are Medium- and Long-Range Missiles, and are usualy meant to fired as a first strike when the enemy is miles away.

I have and it makes no sense to fire a first strike weapon horizontally at almost ground level were it can smack into the hill or tree or whatever that might be in front of the tank before it can rise above the obstacle. Even if you were in an almost flat desert with no obstructions it would still have more difficulty in tracking a target with all the ground interference being so close. In addition you could almost never target and hit an airborne target with the missiles due to the extremely limited targeting and maneuvering cone.

It would make far more sense to put the launcher on the sides of the turret to allow better targeting and field of fire. The first example in Rifts that I can think of is the New Navy air cushion hovercraft APC that has a missile box on each side of the turret.

Or if you must have them on the side the Abrams AG hovertank example you mentioned is an excellent example as an AG hovertank would be able to pop up above a hill or other low obstruction and pop of a few missiles. IIRC this kind of maneuver is already used by Apache gunships to pop of hellfire missiles without getting shot at.

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

Scary, you mean.

Nothing quite like a light warship grade laser cannon to ruin the enemies day. Or the dozen other weapons backed up by armor thicker than most Rifts earth ocean warships.

[Ford Prefect]

I have and it makes no sense to fire a first strike weapon horizontally at almost ground level were it can smack into the hill or tree or whatever that might be in front of the tank before it can rise above the obstacle.

You know that, in the real world, there are missiles which are designed to hug the ground and follow terrain.

[Batman]

As the Rhodanites appear to be on holiday, late pre-Hyperdepression Shift. 5 MT transform cannon (essentially a teleporter cannon that will drop the warhead in your shields if you have the right kind of shields and in your lap if you don't), 780MW generic EM ray gun/phaser (as in disintegrates matter via technobabble)/paralysis/machine gun style reverse tractor beam gun, 250 kps^2 out-of-atmosphere acceleration, 40 PSL max space speed, 6,400kph max atmosphere speed at sea level, max ground speed 300 kph.

[keen320]

Fatboy "tanks" (may be stretching the term) from the Supreme commander videogames.

Mrk 1 Fatboy experimental mobile factory.

It has 12 Gauss cannons, shield generator, aircraft landing platforms, and it has a personal shield. It can also drive UNDERWATER on the surface of the sea floor, so it's "amphibious."

Mrk 2 Fatboy experimental assault vehicle.

Smaller Gauss cannons but with one bigger turret, easier to build because it's smaller.

Both of them have pretty high ROF on those guns, too. But the first one has lousy anti-air, and the second has NO anti-air.

[Star Wars 888]

Fatboy "tanks" (may be stretching the term) from the Supreme commander videogames.

Mrk 1 Fatboy experimental mobile factory.

It has 12 Gauss cannons, shield generator, aircraft landing platforms, and it has a personal shield. It can also drive UNDERWATER on the surface of the sea floor, so it's "amphibious."

Mrk 2 Fatboy experimental assault vehicle.

Smaller Gauss cannons but with one bigger turret, easier to build because it's smaller.

Both of them have pretty high ROF on those guns, too. But the first one has lousy anti-air, and the second has NO anti-air.

IDK if those have the sheer firepower of an AT-AT

Although if game mechanics are to believed, they can be mass produced at a frighteningly fast rate.

What about the juggernaut from Star Wars? Huge, heavily armored, turrets covering all of its spots, AA capability, can devliver the heat of a nuclear bomb, an amazingly fast 200 km speed going straight on an open plain.

A battalion of those would fuck up any advancing army from miles away.

[SapphireFox]

I have and it makes no sense to fire a first strike weapon horizontally at almost ground level were it can smack into the hill or tree or whatever that might be in front of the tank before it can rise above the obstacle.

You know that, in the real world, there are missiles which are designed to hug the ground and follow terrain.

Last that I checked those missiles are set to hug the ground at less than 100 feet not less than 100 inches. Nor have I seen any launcher for them to be fired form waist height off the ground. If fired from the ground it makes more sense to launch them skyward to give them some room to maneuver before settling into terrain hugging level.

If you can find a real world missile launcher that fires terrain hugging missiles horizontally at ground level then I will concede the idea that such a launcher on a tracked vehicle is retarded.

[hunter5]

I am surprised no one has mentioned the Siege Tank from star craft. Decent mobility and range as a tank then transforms to a bad ass long range bombard cannon.

[Srelex]

A pity it doesn't having something like, I don't know, a HMG.

[Ford Prefect]

Last that I checked those missiles are set to hug the ground at less than 100 feet not less than 100 inches. Nor have I seen any launcher for them to be fired form waist height off the ground. If fired from the ground it makes more sense to launch them skyward to give them some room to maneuver before settling into terrain hugging level.

If you can find a real world missile launcher that fires terrain hugging missiles horizontally at ground level then I will concede the idea that such a launcher on a tracked vehicle is retarded.

Whaaaaat? Are you being deliberately stupid? I don't have to find a very specific example, simply the existence of weapon systems which are designed to get as close as possible to the ground should be an indicator that it is a positive design consideration. You complain that they would be smash into trees, but do they?

[Stark]

I am surprised no one has mentioned the Siege Tank from star craft. Decent mobility and range as a tank then transforms to a bad ass long range bombard cannon.

I guess you mean slow as fuck and nigh useless unless it deploys... so... an artillery piece.

Hey Ford, maybe the racks rotate. SCIFI rotate.

[Imperial528]

The new Siege Tank is more useful in regards to tank mode, but they made Siege Mode better too, so, no one cared.

Although, from some of the concept art, the Siege Tank definitely could be a very good tank, but game mechanics did not want.

[SAMAS]

Consider that they are Medium- and Long-Range Missiles, and are usualy meant to fired as a first strike when the enemy is miles away.

I have and it makes no sense to fire a first strike weapon horizontally at almost ground level were it can smack into the hill or tree or whatever that might be in front of the tank before it can rise above the obstacle. Even if you were in an almost flat desert with no obstructions it would still have more difficulty in tracking a target with all the ground interference being so close. In addition you could almost never target and hit an airborne target with the missiles due to the extremely limited targeting and maneuvering cone.

For one, the launchers are angled up at an angle somewhere around 45 degrees, and pointed out from the tank's sides. (i.e.: Perpendicular to the tank's glacis). The missiles fly out into the air, then angle towards the target. Even Rifts' Mini-Missiles can do that (ref. the Road Boss motorcycle (Juicer Uprising), Terror Trooper (Coalition War Campaign), and a number of Cyborgs from Triax and the NGR and Warlords of Russia.

It would make far more sense to put the launcher on the sides of the turret to allow better targeting and field of fire. The first example in Rifts that I can think of is the New Navy air cushion hovercraft APC that has a missile box on each side of the turret.

That's already where the Mini-missile launchers are located.

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

Scary, you mean.

Nothing quite like a light warship grade laser cannon to ruin the enemies day. Or the dozen other weapons backed up by armor thicker than most Rifts earth ocean warships.[/quote]
And so much redundancy built in that even after you penetrate or deplete the armor, you still have to destroy every single weapon system individually to stop it.

[Luzifer's right hand]

As the Rhodanites appear to be on holiday, late pre-Hyperdepression Shift. 5 MT transform cannon (essentially a teleporter cannon that will drop the warhead in your shields if you have the right kind of shields and in your lap if you don't), 780MW generic EM ray gun/phaser (as in disintegrates matter via technobabble)/paralysis/machine gun style reverse tractor beam gun, 250 kps^2 out-of-atmosphere acceleration, 40 PSL max space speed, 6,400kph max atmosphere speed at sea level, max ground speed 300 kph.

I dunno if you can call a Shift a proper tank. Although the versions with threads certainly look more like modern tanks than some of the vehicles the OP mentioned.
If you want "best" in the vs. sense of the word(max. yield :p) you would probably take a different kind of Shift though, the LFT Shifts is rather underarmed for the technology incorporated.
They were always rather reluctant to give numbers for the transform-cannons of Shifts but there is a cutaway with a Shift armed with 100 GT cannon.
I only remember on instance when a Shift used a transfrom-cannon and that was not an LFT Shift but one used by the Solar Imperium, the cannon was used to knock space->ground missiles out(the missiles were sill outside the planets atmosphere the Shift was on).
If you wanted to you could probably arm an LFT-Shift with a 1-3 TT range transfrom cannon(LFT fighters which are of similar size to Shifts can carry those).

But even post-hyperdepression large scale ground battles do not really happen in the series, despite the changes it's sill far more likely that a planet is attacked with ships than invaded, the lack of cheap planetkillers and the reduced overall fire-power of the normal weapons changed how it is done, crashing a fleet into a planet seems to have come into vogue for example(Maahk commanders got no patience for an hour long bombardment by a fleet it seems), but otherwise not much has changed.
There are some battles with Shifts inside space stations in the current cycle but this only works because the stations are built with superior technology and can take the pounding.
There are no more transform-cannons on Shifts post-hi, but the basic combat-module of a Shift carries has 40 missiles with a max. yield of 1 kT now and could still take most SF tanks.

[Andras]

I recall mention of heavy land crawlers in one of EE Smiths Lensmen books, with heavy macro cannon and shields. Those would rank above Drake's Panzers, but still less versatile then Bolo's or RL Grav Tanks.

[jollyreaper]

The silliness with the larger bolo tanks -- the continental siege units -- is that they're so bloody powerful, why not just put interstellar drives on the thing and make it be a warship? When it comes to ultimate badassery in the universe, the Saberhaggen Berserkers seemed to have it right. The "brains" as it were reside on the ginormous warship. The warship is the Berserker. Any smaller units that are on a human scale are nothing more than anti-personnel combat drones, small as a human only because they need to go places humans can hide.

It's interesting to consider what a vehicle would look like when talking about the ultimate form of power projection given fictional technologies. Lots of things can vary depending upon the tech and setting but certain bits of logic would not. A box is easier to armor than a human form. So no matter whether you have gasoline or diesel engines or fusion reactors and whether the armor is aluminum or diamond lattice adamantium, a box with a gun turret is easier to armor than a humanoid mecha.

Tanks are considered the symbol of ultimate power projection on the ground but have their limits, even with all the tech advances of the 20th century. Aircraft have the best mobility but can't hold ground. If we're talking fantasy tech, a hovertank would probably represent the best of all worlds. Air-mobile, presumably with the survivability of a tank rather than the vulnerability of an attack chopper. The only question is whether a tank represents too great a target given the existing tech. There's speculation now that anti-tank weapons on the drawing boards will eventually make tanks death traps in the future. Well, people will still need to move on the battlefield. Can counter-measures shoot down the anti-tank weapons?

[SapphireFox]

Last that I checked those missiles are set to hug the ground at less than 100 feet not less than 100 inches. Nor have I seen any launcher for them to be fired form waist height off the ground. If fired from the ground it makes more sense to launch them skyward to give them some room to maneuver before settling into terrain hugging level.

If you can find a real world missile launcher that fires terrain hugging missiles horizontally at ground level then I will concede the idea that such a launcher on a tracked vehicle is retarded.

Whaaaaat? Are you being deliberately stupid? I don't have to find a very specific example, simply the existence of weapon systems which are designed to get as close as possible to the ground should be an indicator that it is a positive design consideration. You complain that they would be smash into trees, but do they?

Perhaps you should do a bit more research into the topic first FP. Such flying is done is done typically to avoid detection and during such flying rarely would you find even disposable missiles going much under 50 feet. The reason for this is to retain a reasonable reaction time and manuvering space to avoid a ground collision. To get a missile to follow the terrain at waist height would require it to not only have an impossibly fast reaction time (even for a computer) but would require a missile maneuverability that depending on the variability of the terrain it is fired over would be anywhere between impossible for current missile tech to maneuvering that would break the known laws of physics.

I don't complain that it would smash into trees I complain the launcher placement for a long range guided weapon is terrible. Unless the weapon is used as a direct fire weapon that can only target an enemy directly in front of the tank exclusively it cant be used to full effect. As it is if you use it in that fashion then you waste the missile's 100+ mile range when a shorter smaller more numerous weapon would do. One would likely get more performance in having the wasted space filled with more cost effective main gun ammunition.

For one, the launchers are angled up at an angle somewhere around 45 degrees, and pointed out from the tank's sides. (i.e.: Perpendicular to the tank's glacis). The missiles fly out into the air, then angle towards the target. Even Rifts' Mini-Missiles can do that (ref. the Road Boss motorcycle (Juicer Uprising), Terror Trooper (Coalition War Campaign), and a number of Cyborgs from Triax and the NGR and Warlords of Russia.

Iron Heart Industries Iron Hammer MBT (Rifts:Mercenaries) Is the tank I first thought of and is the one I have been referencing and referring to. As for whatever tank you are referring too, (I assume it's the Abrams hovertank from your previous post) I don't have the book with me so I can't reference the the image you are talking about. However I have little issue if the launcher is angled upward to gain maneuvering room and as for mini missiles, they are intended as a short range direct fire weapon (like a modern RPG) so I have little issue with side mounted boxes for them. The cyborgs I would have even less issue with as at least they can angle themselves to point the launcher in almost any direction needed.

I have no problems with missiles on the sides. Its if the launcher is trying to fire a near cruise missile sized weapon pointed strait forwards and expect it to be useful for anything more than an extremely expensive direct fire cannon shot. As I said earlier it gives it too limited a field of fire to be more useful.

[Ford Prefect]

To get a missile to follow the terrain at waist height would require it to not only have an impossibly fast reaction time (even for a computer) but would require a missile maneuverability that depending on the variability of the terrain it is fired over would be anywhere between impossible for current missile tech to maneuvering that would break the known laws of physics.

What makes it impossible, exactly? I mean, in the real world we had HIBEX which could pull 400g, though admittedly in a straight line - but if a missile could pull 2g of lateral acceleration it could dodge just about anything stationary, if it's clever enough. And frankly I don't think you're really in much of a position to say that missile guidance will never, ever be good enough to make it possible.

[Stark]

He appears to be confusing 'inefficient' or 'unlikely' with 'impossible'.