Stalker Gatling Tank

**Key Features** |  » "Lead shred" 20mm Gatling Cannons (x2) » Fast rotating turrets » Advanced radar systems » Massive stockpiles of ammunition » Disturbingly enthusiastic attitude

*"Hey wanna know what my guns sound like? It's like this, BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT."*

- Gatling Tank Commander to Tengu pilots.

## Tactical Analysis

* *Got lead?*: One of the most infamous light vehicles in Epsilon's arsenal, the Stalker Gatling Tank makes up for most of the disadvantages it has compared to its rivals ranging from inferior durability to lesser versatility to a lack of armour piercing capabilities or a lack of amphibiousness through sheer rate of fire that only gets higher the longer the Stalker continues to fire. Light Units are simply annihilated and are more or less instantly suppressed by the wall of lead thrown their way. At its full rate of fire, dodging the hundreds of rounds it throws down range every second is simply impossible for most units and in numbers they can chew through even heavier targets.

* *Hey get a whiff of this*: Gatling tanks carry a special supply of virus gas shells that can be loaded up to temporarily give the tank the ability to cause infantry they kill to explode into virus gas clouds until the load of ammunition runs out. This lets the tank simply evaporate virtually any number of infantry thrown their way. Attempting to overwhelm Gatling Tanks with sheer numbers of unprotected infantry, as many foes have found; is a fool's task.

* *Not enough BRRT*: The Stalker is lightly armoured, unable to crush infantry, and has relatively short range. In addition it needs some time to build up to its full rate of fire and more heavily armoured targets are usually able to out-trade the Stalker until it is destroyed. Infantry can also protect themselves by taking heavy cover or better yet; garrisons. Stalkers are also exceedingly mediocre against sructures and especially defenses and walls, don't put them at the front lines in sieges.

* *I'm a little rusty!*: Special oxidizer shells have been made for various models of gatling guns used by Epsilon, mixed in with standard ammunition. However the risks of improper handling causing internal damage to the vehicle itself and its weapon systems mean that these are only given to crews who have proven themselves. To these crews however, goes a quantum leap in the Gatling tank's effectiveness against heavier units.

## Background Information

### Fre-War

With the effectiveness of Gatling weapons already being a known factor to Epsilon, a mobile version of the Gatling Gun turret was an inevitability. Though equipped with smaller guns than its stationary counterpart, the Stalker's rate of fire is no less incredible and the engineering done to maximise ammunition capacity by Scorpion Cell is nothing short of masterful. Equally devastating to infantry, light vehicles, and aircraft, the Gatling Tank was designed to be a one size fits all solution to the needs of the secretive Dominion's armies. Fast enough to keep pace with Epsilon's swift early raiding vehicles and powerful enough to shred through anything not sealed behind a wall of steel or concrete, the Stalker was pressed into service almost as soon as it was completed. Though its range was somewhat short and its armour was rather weak, it was believed that its speed and rate of fire would more than make up for any such deficiencies elsewhere.

The low crew survivability due to the Gatling Tank's tendency to brew up and detonate spectacularly if penetrated due to the haphazard stowage of ammo in any available space in the vehicle was also dismissed as a non-concern. Epsilon did not lack for manpower and training new crews was a simple matter. Chemical coolants that covered the barrel jackets would help keep the barrels from melting under the strain of firing so quickly and ceaselessly, and every effort was made to make sure that the ammunition feed system was as seamless and reliable as possible to ensure that jams would not occur. And to complete the package, a special case of Virus gas shells was fited into the back, ready to be fed into the ammunition loaders when needed to cut down enemies who foolishly believed they could overcome Epsilon with sheer numbers.

All that would be needed was the right opportunity to truly unleash them and step out of the Alliance's shadow once and for all.

### World War III

The covert ops that the Stalker was used in before and during the war were highly satisfactory, even with relatively numbers to disguise the magnitude of Epsilon's true strength. And when the time came to stab the Allies in the back and unveil the great master's plans to rule the world, they made an immediately devastating impression. Anyone who dared to face one was immediately confronted by a wall of lead that only grew more intense the longer they dared to test its guns and the vehicles were infamous for their ability to scythe through massive numbers of infantry, aircraft, and light vehicles when given even half the chance to fire uninterrupted. Of the many trillions of rounds fired throughout the third world war, its estimated that Stalker Tanks made up a statistically significant proportion of every bullet fired by all weapon systems combined and were in no small part responsible for adoption of brass recycling programs to dig up spent rounds to melt them down for re-use by all sides.

Anti-Tank Drones that had usually been the terror of Allied tank divisions were found to be particularly easy for the Stalkers to tear apart; the drones' agility failing to avail it against the sheer number of rounds that the Stalker could unleash and thus guaranteeing that Stalkers would be dispatched to guard just about any Epsilon formation imaginable. They were so common that some tank aces stopped bothering to count the number of gatling tanks they destroyed; though Ground Attack and Helicopter aces had a particular emnity for them due to the numbers of aircraft that ended up shredded by them in attack runs. The fragility of the tank usually meant that a successful attack by a tank killer copter or a CAS mission aircraft would destroy the vehicle, but the number of rounds thrown down range usually required extreme evasive action to avoid that made accurate attack nearly impossible.

Infantry paid a particularly heavy butcher's toll as even a single Stalker tank could pin down an entire foot advance. Getting close enough to guarantee a kill with anti-tank weapons was very often suicide and few wished to poke their heads out of whatever shelter they could find to see if maybe they'll be lucky enough to not get struck by a round. The Virus gas rounds were particularly hated, with the usage of the gas being denounced as a war crime with the inventor sentenced to death in absentia in a trial by the Indian government after an entire infantry division was virtually wiped off the map by a single Stalker Company loading up their virus gas shells. Those sepoys who survived the initial charge were slain by the gas which spread like wildfire among the largely unprotected ranks of the frontier corps. In a matter of minutes, more than ten thousand soldiers were killed in the great massacre of Dharnai.

But despite the fear that the Stalker was held in, they were known to have severe weaknesses. Tanks took them out with tremendous frequency unless the Stalkers were gathered in large enough numbers and with enough other threats to draw attention away from themselves for them to bring down heavy vehicles through spalling damage. Battlesuits were also much more able to get in range to fry the Tank; and heavier or longer ranged aircraft were often able to attack wih minimal retaliation; taking out the vehicles before they could spool up their ammunition properly. Tank destroyers and artillery proved to be a repeated menace that lead to countless thousands of destroyed vehicles, which was worsened by the thin armour of the vehicle and its unsafe ammo stowage practices. By the end of the antarctic campaigns, more than a million Stalkers had been destroyed in action and crew survival rates were appalingly low.