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Nuclear Weapons? Check
Too large to be transported by anything other than another Ogre? Check
Eventually turns the planet into a nuclear blasted wasteland?
Check
Bender wrote:* Realise that despite the way people talk, this is not a professional sport played by demi gods, but rather a game of toy soldiers played by tired, inebriated human beings.
Vehicles in the latest rules last so little time that stuff like ammo explosions don't really strike me as that much of a problem. Any heavy vehicle, even tracked, is only going to last so many hits before immobilisation forces a withdrawal anyway.
Which is why I mentioned crew survival in particular with regard to the Demolishers. The crew will usually survive the destruction of a vehicle in Battletech, except if they're killed by critical or the ammo cooks off in which case they're killed in the explosion. In my experience the mortality rate among my AC-Demolisher crews due to their tanks brewing up was far higher than among Gauss-Demolishers, Manticores, Bulldogs or the handful of Alacorns my unit can afford to keep operational and I'd really prefer it if my tank crews weren't killed unnecessarily.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/02/23 17:51:44
Ditched the Main Battle Tank appellation a few Marks before - these are designated Planetary Siege Units; with primary weapons measured in the megaton per second scale. Anti Grav, capable of fully autonomous warfare or human pilot neural interface for human guidance at AI decision making speed. Main weapons capable of engaging capital ships in orbit.
Bender wrote:* Realise that despite the way people talk, this is not a professional sport played by demi gods, but rather a game of toy soldiers played by tired, inebriated human beings.
Bromsy wrote: If we're going fictional, obviously I'm going
MK XXXIII BOLO of the line.
Ditched the Main Battle Tank appellation a few Marks before - these are designated Planetary Siege Units; with primary weapons measured in the megaton per second scale. Anti Grav, capable of fully autonomous warfare or human pilot neural interface for human guidance at AI decision making speed. Main weapons capable of engaging capital ships in orbit.
Because hells yeah.
Tank or mobile fortress?
Needs more skulls though...
Sgt. Vanden - OOC Hey, that was your doing. I didn't choose to fly in the "Dongerprise'.
"May the odds be ever in your favour"
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I have no clue how Dakka's moderation work. I expect it involves throwing a lot of d100 and looking at many random tables.
FudgeDumper - It could be that you are just so uncomfortable with the idea of your chapters primarch having his way with a docile tyranid spore cyst, that you must deny they have any feelings at all.
Those mobile fortress things are reminding me of a game system I played once. I can't remember the name, but each player was given a massive vehicle of some kind (i.e. tracked, sea, air), from which they could deploy further units. The game itself, as with most games run by this particular gamer, was done on a massive scale itself. As in across a good few 6 feet tables - representing a ring world like planet (i.e. you could fire off the board on one end and hit someone on the other. Also important due to intervening terrain making some of the terrain impassable based on your vehicle type). The models themselves were only like 15mm, with tinier support units.
It was fun to play a game on a scale which truly represented that ..super, duper heavy tank concept.
Then there was the more run of the will stuff like a Ratte tearing down the streets of Moscow, or Germans, with prototype tanks, facing off against the Martians. The 28mm World of Tanks games we run are maybe a bit less impressive by comparison.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/02/23 23:52:39
If we are expanding the definition of 'tank' to 'armoured shooty vehicle' then I submit this bad boy:
The Coalition State Spider Skull Walker
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
Bromsy wrote: If we're going fictional, obviously I'm going
MK XXXIII BOLO of the line.
Ditched the Main Battle Tank appellation a few Marks before - these are designated Planetary Siege Units; with primary weapons measured in the megaton per second scale. Anti Grav, capable of fully autonomous warfare or human pilot neural interface for human guidance at AI decision making speed. Main weapons capable of engaging capital ships in orbit.
Because hells yeah.
The one Bolo story I ever read had one sitting out a civil war because it didn't agree with the aims of its superiors, and then getting lost, half-buried and forgotten.
And in the Ogre setting, IIRC the automated Ogre factories and the few remaining Ogres ended up ruling the world between them.
Everyone knows the best tank is the Guntank. And the best Guntank is the RTX 440 Assault Guntank!
Emperor's Eagles (undergoing Chapter reorganization)
Caledonian 95th (undergoing regimental reorganization)
Thousands Sons (undergoing Warband re--- wait, are any of my 40K armies playable?)
When I was about nine years old, I spent a year in Huron, Kansas - there, in a barn, was a rusted hulk of an old WWI French Tank - gun long gone, tracks only partially present, turret present, but open in the front, where the gun used to be, only bare hints of what color the paint might have been, once upon a time.
For many years I had no idea how a French tank ended up in rural Kansas, until about ten years ago - the US bought over a hundred of them, after the war - then we manufactured almost a thousand more of our own.
When the tanks were taken out of service they were sometimes shipped to Kansas to be stored - and then were later sold off for use as tractors, after the weapons were removed.
Still, it was an exiting mystery when I was nine.
The Auld Grump - sometimes I wonder if that old hulk is still there, hidden in a disused barn.
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
Agreed on the little FT. Unlike the British MkIV and the German A7V it actually has all the appearance of a tank*. Looking at it though it's puzzled me for a while why such an issue is made about the T-34 having sloped armour when the FT was there with sloped armour on its front back in 1917.
Another favourite of mine is the M-24 Chaffee, partly because of an interest in the Vietnam war back in the stages when it was still French Indochina and the Chaffee's use at Dien Bien Phu. It's one of my "One day..." projects to get a decent kit and build it up as Bazeille.
* As a bit of an aside, I used to be a member of a now largely defunct tank-related forum and one of the subjects that came up was how to define a tank. It was something that was never really satisfactorily resolved since whatever definition we came up with ended up either included vehicles that weren't tanks or excluding vehicles that were.
ingtaer wrote: Baby tanks are much more fun than huge continent spanning ones, have we done the Vickers MkVII light yet? Could fit it in a glider.
Well that's a propper tank... Just tiny!
Short barrel gun, not best range but any tank is better than no tank.
Sgt. Vanden - OOC Hey, that was your doing. I didn't choose to fly in the "Dongerprise'.
"May the odds be ever in your favour"
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I have no clue how Dakka's moderation work. I expect it involves throwing a lot of d100 and looking at many random tables.
FudgeDumper - It could be that you are just so uncomfortable with the idea of your chapters primarch having his way with a docile tyranid spore cyst, that you must deny they have any feelings at all.
"I learned the hard way that if you take a stand on any issue, no matter how insignificant, people will line up around the block to kick your ass over it." Jesse "the mind" Ventura.
simonr1978 wrote: Looking at it though it's puzzled me for a while why such an issue is made about the T-34 having sloped armour when the FT was there with sloped armour on its front back in 1917.
The Schneider CA1, developed in 1915 also had slopped armor. In fact, the first tank with fully slopped armor was the French SOMUA S35.
People make a big deal about the T-34 for more reasons that just its slopped armor (which was not a new invention); it had, at the time of its debut, an unparalleled combination of firepower, mobility, and armor protection.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/03/08 01:48:16
d-usa wrote: "When the Internet sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending posters that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing strawmen. They're bringing spam. They're trolls. And some, I assume, are good people."
simonr1978 wrote: Looking at it though it's puzzled me for a while why such an issue is made about the T-34 having sloped armour when the FT was there with sloped armour on its front back in 1917.
The Schneider CA1, developed in 1915 also had slopped armor. In fact, the first tank with fully slopped armor was the French SOMUA S35.
People make a big deal about the T-34 for more reason that just its slopped armor (which was not a new invention); it had, at the time of its debut, an unparalleled combination of firepower, mobility, and armor protection.
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
simonr1978 wrote: Looking at it though it's puzzled me for a while why such an issue is made about the T-34 having sloped armour when the FT was there with sloped armour on its front back in 1917.
The Schneider CA1, developed in 1915 also had slopped armor. In fact, the first tank with fully slopped armor was the French SOMUA S35.
People make a big deal about the T-34 for more reason that just its slopped armor (which was not a new invention); it had, at the time of its debut, an unparalleled combination of firepower, mobility, and armor protection.
They known about the value of sloped, and deflecting angles In armour for many centuries. Diffrent forms, same physics.
Sgt. Vanden - OOC Hey, that was your doing. I didn't choose to fly in the "Dongerprise'.
"May the odds be ever in your favour"
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I have no clue how Dakka's moderation work. I expect it involves throwing a lot of d100 and looking at many random tables.
FudgeDumper - It could be that you are just so uncomfortable with the idea of your chapters primarch having his way with a docile tyranid spore cyst, that you must deny they have any feelings at all.
jhe90 wrote: They known about the value of sloped, and deflecting angles In armour for many centuries. Diffrent forms, same physics.
There were some civil war Iron Clads built with sloping armour, so yeah, it'd been around a while.
The sloped armour of the T-34 is noted because the plate was already pretty thick for an early war tank, so the combination made it extremely hard to penetrate for German early war tanks. That feature then combined with its mobility and reliability to make a tank that really was everything you wanted out of a tank - it could breakthrough enemy lines then roll about the operational areas laying havoc and collapsing then enemy line.
Had similar sloping been placed on a tank with a thinner plate so that it became hard to penetrate but not impossible, or placed on a tank that was harder to build or less mobile, then it wouldn't have been such a feature.
Or had the T-34 rolled out in 1943 then it would have been noted, but not so loved. I mean, the Sherman had a thicker plate on almost the same slope, with much higher standards of manufacturing, but it debuted in an environment where German tanks and field guns were now far more commonly high velocity 75mm guns or bigger, and as a result no-one talks about the quality of the Sherman's armour with any kind of awe.
It wasn't the sloped armour, or the wide tracks, or any individual feature, it was having all those features combined in a single tank, and having it in 1941 that was key.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/03/08 01:56:20
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
That’s always been my understanding of the importance of the T-34, it’s key feature was balance. It was an effective tank, well suited to it’s operational theatre and capable of being produced in vast numbers.
Zed wrote: *All statements reflect my opinion at this moment. if some sort of pretty new model gets released (or if I change my mind at random) I reserve the right to jump on any bandwagon at will.
Another thing about the T 34 was it was a cheap, easily replaceable tank that was often fighting expensive, hard to replace tanks. As such the crews were encouraged to ram Tiger tanks if feasible. Trading a T34 for a tiger was a hands down win.
The T34 was an excellent design, even Nazi military experts called it that. It was not easy for Nazis to admit those they considered 'subhunan' made an excellent design.
The real issue with it was the construction quality. Two T34s from two different factories could be lightyears apart in construction quality. One might be fairly well made, the other could be a clanking rattletrap with quarter inch gaps in it's armor, missing or misaligned rivets, a terrible engine, etc.
It also suffered from a quality death spiral effect. They had short lifespans on the field, which meant it made sense to put less time into building them, which lowered quality, which lowered lifespan, which meant they had to be replaced faster which lowered production time and quality.
Heh heh, the T34 abd the Sherman were polar opposites. The T34 was an excellent design that suffered from haphazard construction quality. The Sherman was well produced abd suffered from a poor design.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/03/08 11:05:26
"I learned the hard way that if you take a stand on any issue, no matter how insignificant, people will line up around the block to kick your ass over it." Jesse "the mind" Ventura.
Emperor's Eagles (undergoing Chapter reorganization)
Caledonian 95th (undergoing regimental reorganization)
Thousands Sons (undergoing Warband re--- wait, are any of my 40K armies playable?) 
