Bigornia Tank

**Key Features** | »»»»»

## Tactical Analysis

* **99 tons of awesome:** 90-ton behemoths from WWII, Bigornia tanks are a localization of the age old Anvil produced by Uruguay and sold to the MIR cheaply as surplus military equipment. Still possessing both AP and structure-busting shells, Bigornias remain dangerous to other tanks and fortifications alike, and are invaluable for helping MIR push through enemy armor and fortifications. The Bigornia is also substantially more comfortable for the crew due to an actual turret basket, a more modern autoloader, and an enlarged turret to allow for more crew and ease the commander's burden; resulting in improved accuracy.

* **Che's special brew:** But that's far from the nastiest trick up the Bigornia's sleeve. When faced with especially heavy armor, the MIR has concocted a special chemical capable of degrading the armor of enemy vehicles made with the help of Uruguay believed to be a variant of Desolator defoliant. This makes the afflicted vehicle substantially more vulnerable to further damage to the point that even Macheteros can take down tanks if they attack in numbers; or set them up for a follow up barrage from other tanks to be destroyed.

* **The revolution moves at its own pace!:** The Bigornia, like the Anvil, remains slow, and while the armor has been modernized somewhat, it remains very vulnerable to flanking due to vehicle's slow turn speed and turret rotation. Concentrated anti-vehicle breaks these vehicles just as well as they broke the Anvil.

* **Dwarf-Mammoth:** The Bigornia's redesigned turret also allows for a special upgrade kit with a pair of smaller tusk-missile pods to be placed on the sides of the vehicle; giving the Bigornia the capacity to enhance its anti-infantry and anti-air capacities with these potent missiles. But for reasons of cost; the MIR only assigns these kits to the best Bigornia crews.

## Background

*"We are living in a world of tanks; therefore, if we want to survive longer, we must have tanks of our own."*

- Gabriel Miranda, MIR quartermaster
The MIR had a number of issues. One of the biggest being the sort that runs on tracks or walks on giant legs and is wrapped in thick armor, or the sort that hides in bunkers and riddles the area with machine guns. The RPGL-6s that they managed to acquire simply weren't enough. Not enough were heading their way fast enough and RPGs still didn't offer the MIR a way to push through heavy fire without taking heavy casualties. Unlike the Phoenix Front, the MIR couldn't afford to just remain in the cities or melt into the country side all the time as they were doing more than just fighting defensively for their homes in a small country. They had to press offenses and that needed armor. What they needed of course, were tanks.

Luckily, an answer came to them almost as soon as they brought up the issue to their Uruguayan compatriots. Uruguay; sympathetic to the plight of the MIR and a communist foothold in South America, was willing and able to offload its Bigornia tanks; a locally produced improved version of the Soviet Anvil, to the MIR to give them the armor they needed. Wanting to both demonstrate its abilities for export and further its agenda on the continent, Uruguay offered the Bigornias for low prices that even the MIR could afford in amounts large enough to give it not just armour; but armour they could concentrate. Disguising the sales as the selling of military surplus, MIR was, and still is capable of acquiring the tanks it so needed.

The next problem came with how to crew them. Though the Bigornia; like the Anvil before it, remained simple enough that any tractor driver could operate it and relatively little training was needed for other roles, the MIR simply refused to waste their potential on second rate crews. So they turned to Combine dissidents, ex-reservists, and Syndicate thugs and mercenaries who had a change of heart to supplement their own home-grown crews picked from the country side. Soon enough; the Bigornias would roll to spread the revolution across Latin America and bring terror and woe to those who would oppress the people. Combine, Unionist, Allied, and Syndicate forces once smugly confident in a lack of need of anti-armor abilities when fighting the MIR got a rude surprise when they encountered these ninety nine ton monsters crushing their armored units and punching through their defensive lines.

Even worse, with Uruguayan aid, these Bigornias were to be equipped with a number of special "degredation" shells that would, upon impact turn enemy armor soft and weak, making enemy vehicles easy targets for destruction, further bolstering MIR's anti-vehicular abilities. And as a final check on the list of bad news for the foes of the proletariat, Uruguay was even willing to offer the MIR miniature tusk-missile pods for their new tanks, giving these monsters the power to strike down aircraft and blast apart infantry that crossed them. Delighted, the MIR passed out these kits to their most storied crews and already tales of "mini-mammoths" have spread as the Bigornias join the family of the many tools of the Communist revolution in South and Central America.