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I regret to inform you about hoi4's land cruisers
You should regret informing me of this. Why the hell would you bring this to my attention?
What did I do to you?
All I want is to have fun yammering about tanks, and you bring me the Ratte's shit-on-a-stick ugly cousins?
I RATE FICTIONAL TANKS
Because I love 'em.
Using the knowledge I gained by being autistic and lurking on r/noncredibledefense, I'll rate every Armored Fighting Vehicle you send me!
Any vehicle I can find a picture of online!
So go on! Drop me an ask with YOUR favorite!
I'll get to it eventually!
what would make a good sc-fi tank for you?
The main thing I want in a sci-fi tank is something that's actually designed for the reality of combat in its setting. This doesn't always mean following real-world armor design doctrine, either. There are many cases where considerations have to be made for the combat of space, or the future, or what have you, or where Plotonium (the magic element of plot convenience) technology allows for new technology.
Basically, to summarize, I want a sci-fi tank that is seriously designed to best deal with the situations it will encounter, not haphazardly slapped-together elements that look cool and get justified after the fact.
Any thoughts on the Siege Tank from SC2? Was wondering what you thought of the main cannon, which is supposed to be two guns in tank mode that combine to form one big artillery piece in siege mode.
Its bad. Really bad.
That's most of the answer, to be honest. It's like a checklist of Shitty SciFi Tank Features.
Four tracks, which apparently swivel out to become legs, for some god-forsaken reason. Why they couldn't just. Stay where they are, I have no idea. Four tracks is bad enough, but four tracks that move? And seem only to be connected to the main body by hopes, prayers, and perhaps a bit of duct tape? Absolutely not.
As far as the gun, its just stupid, frankly. How two guns, with two seperate closed systems, would combine into one bigger one? I've almost no clue. Even if this could be done, say through railguns or energy weapons or some other such sci-fi contrivance, it would almost certainly be immensely mechanically complex and more prone to failure than a Panzer V's drivetrain.
All this not even touching on the fact that it appears to be a massive metal brick, sticking up way too high and presenting a target that a stormtrooper couldn't miss.
In summary: it's bad. Very bad. Perhaps the worst fictional tank I've seen outside of battletech. It falls into the trap of most vehicles designed to fulfill two radically different roles: it tries too hard at doing both, and ends up being abysmal at either. It's a shit artillery piece, a shit tank, and a shit vehicle in general.
Look at this
This makes me sad. Why would you put this in front of me? Did I do something to you? I just identify tanks people send me, and sometimes give my opinion.
What did I do for you to hate me so?
contrasting to the mechanically super-complex Starcraft tank, what about the Mammoth Tank from C&C (The original, not the newer game versions) https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Mammoth_tank_(Tiberian_Dawn)
I've covered the Mammoth before, in the earlier days of the blog, but I'll summarize my opinion quickly here, in three points:
Double-gun tanks are bad. They will always be bad. No tank has ever been improved by doubling its main gun.
Split-track designs like the Scorpion and Mammoth are bad. They add an immense level of complexity and risk of failure to the vehicle for little-to-no benefit.
The size/weight to power ratio. It's slow. Painfully slow. Modern MBTs typically exceed a power-to-weight ratio of 25 hp/ton, and the Mammoth definitely isn't hitting that benchmark.
Those are my three main problems with the Mammoth. All fixable, with some design changes, but still poor features.
If you'd like to discuss further, I welcome you in the notes.
????
This one is interesting, and took me quite a while to dig up. It's a modern scale model loosely based on concepts floated at the Soviet Kharkiv Design Bureau, reportedly based on the Swedish Strv. 103, in the late seventies.
While interesting-looking, it is nigh-impossible to discern whether this model matches the designers' original intention, as the notes on the discussions were quite limited, giving only ideas of a two-man turretless tank and simplistic sketches that resemble the later Obj. 490 more than this model.
Thank you for sending it in, and I'm sorry I don't have better news for you. If you've any more questions, I'll gladly field them in the notes.
What's your favorite Battletech franchise tank?
To be honest? I don't know enough about BattleTech to say. It intimidates me. I don't know where to start, and without that, I don't feel confident in chiming in on that. While I can identify and look at info on BattleTech tanks, I'm still extremely new to the franchise.
