Purpose built melee weapons for vehicles

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**Inquisitor Lord Katherine**

amanita wrote:At least one of my ork tanks has a bayonet mounted on the main gun barrel. Because why not? Besides, any tank with a main gun mounted in a turret can sweep trespassing infantry off the deck with a bit of luck.

I'd have to disagree with the notion that chain flails for anti-mine use are less lethal than the tank itself, though it would depend on the speed of the tank. A man-sized target would be immediately disabled after contact with flails, while a vehicle moving at mine clearing speed (5 mph-ish) would have little effect on personnel unless they happened to fall under the tracks themselves.

All this reminds me of a concept my friend had for a vehicle: a tracked machine not only with a giant articulated hammer, but another arm with a massive chisel. It's something the orks might build for anti-tank work, lol!

The flail moving at mine clearing speed is no harder to get out of the way of than the tank without the flail, and if they step out of the way, the flail is just as useless. Mounting the flail also slows the tank down and is generally a hindrance to the tank in all the times it is not clearing mines.

There is some precedent for people going underneath tanks when it's not going fast, and you don't want that, because they have things like bags of hand grenades. You can mitigate this with a loop of chain dangling from your front clevises.

Hankovitch wrote:The amount of energy you can get by mounting a ram or a spiked whatzit on a tank and hitting the gas is considerable...and utterly pathetic compared to the amount of energy you would get from a shell fired from the tank's main gun. And the main gun has the bonus of being usable from All the Way Over There, which is where you want your tank to be. Not flooring the gas and heading straight for the nearest tarpit of infantry. Never mind the capability of secondary machine guns, fully automatic grenade launchers, laser cannons, flamethrowers etc. Putting offensive melee equipment on a tank--as we and the Astra Militarum know them*--is wasting money and weight for the purpose of doing the wrong thing at the wrong time with a very valuable weapons system.

Okay, but we're talking 40k world, and our tank might have to deal with mobs of screaming orks trying to rip it open, or space bugs trying to eat it, or insane armored metahumans trying to smash it with a plasma wrecking ball or something. What we actually want to concern ourselves with is not helping the tank crew do a vehicular bayonet charge, but assist them in the event that things go wrong and they find themselves being assaulted by these particular threats. What you want is not something to sit in melee range and swing back, but something to dissuade these Enemies of Man while you put the vehicle into reverse and enable the secondary-weapon gunners to do their jobs.

The Tesla Bug-zapper is not a bad idea, though probably too complex and unwieldy a solution for what should be a rare event in the field. What you want are the equivalent of a bunch of claymore mines strapped to the hull, pointed outward. Or fragmentation grenades in a smoke-discharger type of launcher. Or a way to suddenly vent burning prometheum or reactor plasma outside the hull. (I think 7E had some kind of "incindiery barrels" upgrade for IG vehicles, at some point?). Note that this sort of weapon is Extremely Unpopular with infantry who might be fighting alongside your tankers. Yes, in the event this weapon was needed they would likely be dead or--far worse!--fleeing. But for some reason they tend not to see these weapons as trustworthy.

* Aside from xenos and heretics, the methods of the Adeptus Astartes do not correspond with rational methods of tactics or logistics, and must be disregarded. Perhaps they find some benefit to constructing their walking, "dreadnought" vehicles and sending them into hand to hand combat. But then they are just as likely to hack off the melee arm and turn their "venerable hero with ancient and invaluable battlefield wisdom" into a rear-echelon artillery platform. They are madmen.

To be fair, there's precedent for tank troops being ordered to run people over [especially things that can't get out of the way, like an Antitank gun], and precedent for infantry being ordered to engage tanks in melee [usually when there's no other option].

The generally accepted policy for the former is that the tank itself is sufficiently effective when running down guys it doesn't need help.

The generally accepted response for the latter is to have infantry near your tank, to prevent guys from jumping on your tank in the first place or to shoot them off once they're there.

**Tygre**

2nd Edition had Electrohull and Frag Defenders as vehicle card upgrades. Frag defender was basically a frag grenade that explodes over the vehicle.

**OldMate**

I guess machine gun fire and in a pinch a HE shell from a friendly tank has historically been sufficient. If you had a dozer blade or flail it could be used to hold bigger threats away from your vehicle. I.e carnifex/dreadnought charge denial.

**Inquisitor Lord Katherine**

Tygre wrote:
2nd Edition had Electrohull and Frag Defenders as vehicle card upgrades. Frag defender was basically a frag grenade that explodes over the vehicle.

Electrified riot vehicles have been mentioned, though I don't think it would be suitable for an armored vehicle that also expects to have friendly infantry potentially riding on it or at least standing very close to it. And friendly infantry will be riding on it and near it way more than enemy infantry.

And the frag grenade thing was actually also a historical thing. The germans had a thing that they fitted to their vehicles late war that basically launched a frag grenade out of the tank that burst above it to try to kill infantry climbing on top of it.

Tanks being in melee is a problem that does have historic precedent. Fitting them with melee weapons in response... does not. There have been and still are a decent number of "things to help the tank defend itself when engaged by enemy infantry" that are fitted to vehicles or issued to tank crews, they're just not "melee weapons" and the things that people think are melee weapons are actually engineering gear and not for hitting the enemy with.

**ArcaneHorror**

I can definitely see some Brazen Beasts berzerkers putting a ton of assorted blades and chain weapons on a vehicle and rampaging through a war zone. Like any good Khornate weapon, they could be powered by the blood of victims.

**Hellebore**

The eldar had deliberate melee weapons as a vehicle card in 2nd ed iirc and this continued into 3rd and 4th ed.

It was literally just called 'scythes' in 3rd ed.

Blades they stuck on the sides of the tanks so they could drive by decapitate people.

**morganfreeman**

amanita wrote:
At least one of my ork tanks has a bayonet mounted on the main gun barrel. Because why not? Besides, any tank with a main gun mounted in a turret can sweep trespassing infantry off the deck with a bit of luck.

I'd have to disagree with the notion that chain flails for anti-mine use are less lethal than the tank itself, though it would depend on the speed of the tank. A man-sized target would be immediately disabled after contact with flails, while a vehicle moving at mine clearing speed (5 mph-ish) would have little effect on personnel unless they happened to fall under the tracks themselves.

All this reminds me of a concept my friend had for a vehicle: a tracked machine not only with a giant articulated hammer, but another arm with a massive chisel. It's something the orks might build for anti-tank work, lol!

But if the flail is moving at five miles an hour, it too won't really be hurting anyone. Five miles an hour is pretty freaking slow in the grand scheme of things.

You can disagree all you want, but Katharine had it absolutely right: There's no point in "melee weapons" on tanks from a realism perspective. The tank hull has more killing power, and anything you hit with the weapon could've just been hit with the tank to greater effect.

The only real exception being activated defenses (so anti melee). Or I guess if you had a tank with actual arms that could swing weapons, that'd also be a whole other ballgame?

**Tygre**

The MG on the back of tank turrets in WW2 (like the russian KV) was to keep enemy infantry off the tank.

**Pyroalchi**

But again: OP stated "vehicle weapons" not necessarily "tank weapons". Yes a tanks hull at full speed is hard to beat, but something mounted on a Tauros Assault Vehicle equivalent or a quad? I mean... maybe?

Also regarding some of the technology of 40k: Knights have Ion Shields that grant a 5++ (or 4++ with strat) against SHOOTING attacks. So I can see a niche for some kind of fast, aggressive attack vehicle with a kind of "Melta cutter" oder similar that bypasses a Knights defenses. Sure that thing is prone to being shot of or sliced by the knight but in the grant scheme of things it might be a budget efficient counter to the "God Engines".
Think of something like the IG Hades Breaching Drill Melta-cutter (S: 2XUser, AP -4, D6 damage against vehicles) or the Termite Drill of the AdMech (S: 2XUser, AP -4, 3 damage + mortals if the target isn't killed) mounted on some cheap, fast, expandable platform that has a high chance of reaching the hull of an Ion-Shield protected enemy. The Tauros/Scout Sentinel/Barebones Chimera come to mind.

**OldMate**

That's a neat idea Pyro, I can see a Genestealer cult Archillies ridge runner doing that, and certainly the sentinel and tauros carrying out that role!

Also with the flail my original suggestion was something similar, of course you'd not use a sherman crab one that has to be operated a 5kmph. You'd have to be pretty dumb to think that is a good idea. I'm talking a mosterous high speed flail on a fast and powerful tank chassis that is capable of driving at full speed with the flail active and operating at high speed. So you can actually run stuff down and shred it. Would be more a terror weapon than anything. And well you're not getting any heroic enemy soldiers getting close the the tracks with grenades, because they'd be flayed.
You have a fair bit of reach over your stationary hull and much more damage potential if you neutral turn with the killer flail running. The idea being you can then clear a space around your vehicle, by killing, maiming and terrifying your enemies.

**Tygre**

The rockgrinder that Genestealer Cults use is similar I guess.

**solkan**

This is 40k where the chainsword is granted the necessary mechanical leniency to become an actual weapon. If you extend the same leniency to vehicles, then giant claws and flails would become equally plausible.

The thing is, you're still dealing with what are essentially "industrial hazards". :-/

**p5freak**

I would love to have dread with two massive chainswords, giving it like 10 attacks with S8 AP-2 D2.

**OldMate**

That does sound like a good idea, I like the idea of giving mechs articulated hands rather than weapons, therefore you can have the utility of carrying weapons into battle.