Flak Traktor

**Key Features** | »» 115mm Flak Cannon»» Riveted steel armour»» Armoured rear hatch»» Worn Soviet propaganda»» Mighty Soviet vodka bottle holders

*"Flak them down!"*

- Flak Traktor when shooting down enemies

## Tactical Analysis

* **Flak them all**: The Flak Traktor is the Soviet's answer to any multi-mode units. Unlike many other units, the Flak Traktor is unfazed by air units, capable of filling the skies with fragments from air burst shells.

* **Flakking Flanker**: Armed with a Soviet made 115mm Flak Cannon, the Flak Traktor is effective against vehicles as well. The Flak Traktor is also capable of outmanoeuvring unfriendly vehicles, puncturing the rear or sides of vehicles it can't punch through the front of.

* **Retreat to Flak again**: If caught in a tight spot, the Flak Traktor can rev up to full throttle for several seconds and quickly retreat out of the range of enemy weapons. In a more offensive role, it can speed behind enemy units to attack their more vulnerable rear. However, this tends to overwork the engine, so it can only be used in short bursts.

* **Flak You!**: Experienced Flak Traktors know the best spots to aim at in order to slow down a vehicle. This is even more effective when combined with electrostatic flak rounds.

## Operational History

Allied Propaganda would like to claim that the Allies of course had the best anti-tank guns and that Soviet commanders were powerless before weapons such as the 88mm or the 120mm cannon, This campaign has gotten to the point that in popular memory the bewildering array of calibers was largely condensed down to just "88mm guns", ignoring the might of their heavier guns or making the Soviets cartoonishly incompetent. Something factually untrue from the front at literally any range, especially not the short L/56 most people think of when they hear "88mm gun" that in the anti-tank crews it was assigned to nicknamed the "Doorknocker" because its primary effect against Communist Tanks was to inform the crew of your position upon which a swift and messy death usually followed. The longer anti-tank L/72 88mm gun was primarily used against Soviet Medium and Light Tanks, and it was the 105mm that actually saw the most usage on the European Mastiff and the American Abraham medium tanks.

The other falsehood of course, is that the Soviets who have the most sophisticated anti-air systems in the world somehow did not have comparable flak guns, particularly not now when they are infamous for advancing the technology to the point that Soviet Anti-Air artillery is regarded as comparably effective to Allied surface to air *missiles* with Soviet Flak Cannons being unnervingly accurate against aircraft through a combination of radar guidance, high quality optics, and sophisticated proximity detection while Soviet SAMs are unmatched in the world. The 88mm and 90mm had the 85mm, the 105mm had the 100 and 107mm guns, and the 120 and 128mm had the 122 and 130mm cannons. The 85mm was, much like the 88mm, a multi-purpose gun for light anti-tank, heavy anti-air, and light artillery purposes.

Many of these were deployed on the Flak Track, whose origins were actually an accident when farmers and reservists under sieged by the Allied counterattack would attach an 85mm rapid-fire flak cannon from anti-air turrets with a high-speed autoloader (taken from Anvil factories) to a supercharged agricultural tractor, a design so effective that Stalin actually approved and implemented without even sending these men into the gulag (allegedly it was because he found out on his birthday). Once integrated into the Red Army proper it proved effective against air targets, and could bombard infantry with its proximity burst flak rounds that would rain a shower of fragments onto the heads of soft targets, while being able to transport many infantry at a time. Flak Tracks would increasingly accompany Soviet Forces met with Longbows, Jet Troopers, and Hawkers as they could easily take down a Longbow straight out of the air with bursts of accurate flak.

Then the infantry inside could disembark and do their job, with Shock Troopers being a popular loadout due to their ability to lay waste to heavier armoured vehicles, often tasked with taking out the Beagle or Clemence Light Tanks as well as Mastiffs and McClellans that escorted the Longbow. However by war end the Flak Track was regarded as insufficiently versatile due to its lack of amphibious qualities and would eventually be retired and replaced by the Bullfrog which utilised two smaller calibre but faster firing guns, is amphibious, and can disembark passengers at a longer distance via the Mancannon.

The competing designs, produced by the Novosibirsk Motor Collective that had close ties to the "Cherdenko clique" came in a twofer package, the heavily armoured and amphibious Armadillo with two heavy flamethrowers, anti-mine ploughs, and stealth detection systems, and the Tigr, were reportedly favourites of Cherdenko, Krukov, Reznov, and Krukova. While clearly well thought out designs with a suspicious degree of familiarity behind their design studies for supposedly new vehicles (having none of the teething issues every new vehicle had as if the designers had somehow worked out all the bugs that typically are only known after field service), Cherdenko was ultimately only one man in the Sovnarkom and Krukov only one man in the STAVKA and they got outvoted.

The Tigr would lose out to the Bullfrog in the performance evaluation tests with its rather low transport capacity to maintain both good speed, strong armour equalling or even surpassing most main battle tanks, and a potent armament of a quad-mounted 37mm Chaingun Flak cannon and twin 14.5mm DshK superheavy machine guns, being a stickler. The Armadillo, while enjoying rave reviews for its cheapness despite its high transport capacity, incredible armour, sensor suite, and amphibious nature, was criticised for its short range due to its flamethrower armament and lack of turret, while the already produced Pincers were incredibly modular with differing turret models. As such, both would end up being acquired by the APRC and other Comintern subfactions and would find a place in the Black Guard. Cherdenko reportedly brought out his "special vodka" and shared it with Krukov as they drink away their disappointment at the outcome of the acquisition board's vote.

During the Third World War, however, the Empire of the Rising Sun exposed a gap in Soviet military doctrine when their light vehicles outmaneuvered the superior Hammer Tanks and Rhino II Tanks and scored dozens of kills with flanking shots. Realizing the need for an anti-air tank, and needing it fast, Soviet command would remember the Flak Track and began requisitioning it back to the frontlines after a series of retrofits, and in WW3 it proved to be much more maneuverable than the average Soviet tank, giving it ample ability to intercept enemy light armour. Initially unsure of how to counter the Empire's war machine, the reintegrated Flak Track was deployed in detachments to tank divisions patrolling the disputed land in eastern Russia that the Empire had captured.

It was here that one such unit, running as scouts for the 37th Tank Division, had ambushed a group of Striker VXes in air configuration. When the Flak Track fired, the Strikers switched to ground and tried to run... and the Flak Tracks guns effortlessly followed them, wiping the squadron out. The secret was in a supply of anti-tank rounds that the crew had taken from old storages despite the 85mm being largely regarded as no longer viable at anti-tank purposes. And while the old 85mm gun certainly wasn't strong enough against main battle tanks anymore, it was more than enough to reduce the flimsy transforming air-mecha to nonfunctional scrap and could easily bully light vehicles like the Multigunner and Tsunami. They had turned their vehicles into a potent sort of AFV destroyer, and it turned out so effective that, yet again, Cherdenko approved of the modifications and didn’t send the crew to the gulag.

Krukova would make further suggestions to improve on the Flak Track midway into the war during Cherdenko's reorientation of the armed forces to make military spending more efficient and self-sufficient and free up vast sums of resources for military industrial development programs for the "brand new economic program" With the RKKA relying more extensively on Ore credit economy instead of the Ruble, the project would mostly fall under the auspices of the Uzbek engineer Sanobar Aminjonova who decided that while the Flak Track was fine as a transport for second-line divisions and allies not slated to receive Bullfrogs, if they made it a more dedicated vehicle it could have both more armour and be faster.

Removing the transport capacity and replacing its Aging 85mm for an automatic revolver fed 115mm flak cannon as well as insetting new composite armour, "smart" shells making use of drone technology to allow for subtle guidance towards a target, high resolution radar, and new targeting sights, her team would come out with a vehicle that could function as a light tank as well as a light anti-air weapon, with a gun able to maintain a shocking rate of fire. In demonstrations and field tests, the new Flak Track, renamed as the **Flak Traktor**, proved to be endlessly versatile and would receive the go-ahead for adding its templates to the databanks of War Factories in use by the RKKA, used in the vast majority of the support units within Soviet tank divisions.

The Flak Traktor is often credited for why the Imperial Japanese Army ultimately scrapped its plans for the "Sutāsukurīmu" Mecha which would have combined the roles of a strike fighter and a main battle vehicle via a combination of a 20mm kinetic bust gatling gun, modular weapon suites to fit a combination of various types of missiles and bombs (droppable from the air, lobbable like grenades on the ground), and technology disabling "null rays". While initially showing a great deal of promise that made its high ore credit price tag bearable, being durable enough to shrug off medium and small calibre anti-air weapons such as were used on the Multigunner and Bullfrog or the MiG-16 and Apollo, and fast enough to ensure the all important first shot on tanks and heavy fighters, its acceptance by the IJA was contingent on it being a system with no answer by the other powers.

Thus the existence of a vehicle like the Flak Traktor and the increasing deployment of Javelin Troops into Multigunners to equip heavier anti-armour missiles that countered its every strength consigned it to the personal guard divisions of the Imperial Family. Reportedly the sight of such high technology wonders being reduced to scrap by incredibly simple means of countering them prompted Tatsu, the program's primary supporter, to request "three days of meditation" at his personal onsen resort with his harem of concubines and finest sake.

While the more purely anti-air or tank devoted vehicles would be more famous in Europe and Africa, the particular ability to engage ground and air targets equally effectively would find its time to shine during the Axis Invasion of Russia. And post-war the Flak Traktor would be used as one of the mainstay vehicles of the police force and militia in suppressing rebellions and hunting terrorists, a particular bane for the HAF cavalry, in their new territories.

## Behind the Scenes

 File:VM-SovietFlakTractor.png
* The Flak Traktor name is a shoutout to the Flak Track from Red Alert 2.

## Just the Stats

 **Armour Type** | Heavy Armour

 **Kill Reward** | 6400

 **DPS** | 25