Gotterdammerung Tank

**Key Features** |  » Twin 240 mm/55 Mle 1984 Smoothbore guns » 16 layered composite Chobham armour with heavy grinders at the front » 13.2mm machine guns x8 » "Tod" class Air and Projectile defense grid (Includes twin missile pods and four spectrum point defense beams) » Ford-Maybach 1110 A4 Engine (Earth-shaking)

## Tactical Analysis

* **Rolling Judgement**: The Gotterdammerung Tank can simply roll over anything that survives its main guns. Main battle tanks, let alone smaller vehicles, can easily be crushed under the Gotterdammerung tank's treads and anything that can survive is simply shredded by the grinders in front of the massive tank that also make it immune to mines.
* **A curtain of death**: Those who seek to harm the tank face a wall of Spectrum beams capable of burning out incoming missiles, projectiles and lighter targets that survive its missiles, cannons, and machine guns. However with the flick of a switch, the Gotterdammerung can shift power from the autoloaders into the Spectrum systems to create a nearly impenetrable curtain of defensive fire.
* **Armageddon moves at its own pace**: The Gotterdammerung is the pride of the Alliance's tank park, and as such it is neither cheap to produce nor is it available to just any commander; typically these behemoths will only see action late into a Skirmish. And while generally effective against nearly any target, the Gotterdammerung is slow with few ways to speed it up.
* **The howling void of death**: Efforts to miniaturise Vacuum imploder technology while minimising the reduction in destructive power have paid off quite well, as a new mark of shell for the blue behemoths has demonstrated in tests and in engagements with the Alliance's still numerous enemies. However these shells are still tempermental and as such can only be safely handled by the best crews.

## Background

With a nickname like "Gotterdammerung", literally "Twilight of the Gods"; the germanised form of Ragnarok, the end of Days; the Alliance of Free State's Superheavy battle tank has certain expectations to live up to. And, unfortunately for the Alliance's enemies, it does. This monstrosity of a machine, while clearly slower and less manoeuvrable than the typical modern main battle tank, overcompensates for any of its limitations with two extremely powerful main guns, each one markedly stronger than the main gun on a lesser tank and each extending for more than thirteen meters in length and firing shells more than two hundred kilograms in weight, infantry must brave a wall of heavy machine gun fire while aircraft and lighter vehicles are met with a deadly barrage of powerful missiles mounted in pods to the sides of the turret. Its armour, made of sixteen layers of composites, is virtually impervious to weapons fire and its powerful British made engine is something one would expect on warships instead of a tank. Even amid all the calamities of war, the choking black smoke and piercing shriek of grinding metal emanating from a Gotterdammerung is the stuff of nightmares for combat veterans--including Allied soldiers, who seem to fear the Gotterdammerung Tank as much as anyone else does.

On the whole, the Alliance of Free States and the German Reich in particular is extremely proud of the Gotterdammerung, which is widely featured in military multimedia propaganda, military recruitment mailings, motivational posters found in businesses and classrooms, and more. While a cadre of schoolmasters denounced the naming of the vehicle as an act of fear-mongering, the German government quickly quelled these concerns by insisting that the name was intended to give hope to the people -- here is a tank that can withstand anything, they proudly said. The schoolmasters held fast, claiming that the name betrayed evidence of the Alliance's dissolution into an agenda of mutually-assured destruction with the International. They remained incarcerated by the British government until after the third world war. Of course, given the elevated role in propaganda the Mammut and Sensenmann before it had, the Gotterdammerung's elevation to a transnational icon was virtually guaranteed. Even with the magnitude of the legacy of the tanks that preceded it, it managed to exceed all expectations placed upon it.

The Gotterdammerung Tank even became popularised in a morning cartoon show and toy line ("They Are Not Allies"), at which point it truly became an icon not just in the Alliance's military arsenal, but all over the world. Such mainstream success is impossible to anticipate completely. However, the plant responsible for its design, Porsche heavy tank factory one, (Porsche schwere Panzerfabrik eins), boldly promised the Thornleyite regime that the Gotterdammerung would revolutionise modern vehicle warfare by trivialising other, lesser tanks. This proved to be quite true. While the Gotterdammerung Tank is very expensive to produce for all its German excesses whether on the field or in rear factories, it is virtually unstoppable on the ground.

The Gotterdammerung is such a massive vehicle that Porsche engineers installed a second set of cutting treads into its massive hull, enabling it to simply roll over just about anything that survives long enough to get in its way. To further offset the tank's relatively slow speed is a network of four point defense spectrum beam emitters that can fry infantry, vaporize projectiles, and reduce lighter vehicles to slag. This system also allows it to offer some protection to other nearby vehicles, and makes a column of Gotterdammerung tanks all but impervious to incoming missile fire.