Assault Destroyer

**Key Features** | »» *"Reugart-GX"* 155mm swivel-cannon»» State of the art *Black Hole* armour»» Reinforced composite hull»» Front scoop clears and crushes obstacles»» All-terrain treads deploy on contact

*"Taking one for the team."*

- Unofficial motto of the ANV *Hurricane*

## Tactical Analysis

* **Amphibious assault**: Assault Destroyers have similar handling characteristics both at sea and on land, though their typically-gruff, typically-proud captains scoff at this suggestion, pointing to myriad nuances such as how the vessels can only move in reverse while on land, and so forth.

* **Black-Hole armour**: The "secret weapon" of the Assault Destroyer is some sort of field that draws fire into it while supercharging the vessel's defensive strength even further. This device makes use of bizarre gravity manipulation technology that makes all lines in a radius around the Assault Destroyer lead to the centre. Unfortunately, energy weapons are unaffected by the field.

* **For surface use only**: While powerful, the Assault Destroyer's main gun is only effective against surface targets, leaving the vessel with no direct response against enemy aircraft. Soviet subs also pose a threat to Assault Destroyers. Debate continues over whether these vessels are evenly matched. But on land, the Assault Destroyer can simply crush smaller vehicles, let alone enemy foot soldiers. Infantry are still considered a threat to these vessels, however, since its main gun is too bulky to be effective against them.

* **Stay out of its way**: Recently the Allies are starting to research the viability of "point defense weapons", which stop rockets and explosives by prematurely detonating them at range, with the Assault Destroyer being the main subject for field tests with an array of mid-range microwave guns. With veteran crews being given the chance to test these vessels in battle.

## WWIII Operational History

As the Soviet Union further encroached on its neighbours from every direction, the Allied Nations sought a versatile solution to coastal threats that could press onto the shore to secure a beachhead.

 File:AssaultDestroyerConcept.jpg  Years of design conducted in secret, headed by the finest panel of international military vehicle specialists ever assembled by the Allies, resulted in the **Assault Destroyer** -- an amphibious warship featuring a highly accurate armour-piercing cannon suitable for land and sea warfare, as well as layers of specially-designed armour that can be activated to draw enemy fire away from otherwise-unprotected targets.

Assault Destroyers are so massive that only Allied seaports are large enough to manufacture them, even though the vessels themselves are fully as capable on land as they are at sea. In fact, on land, the relative girth of Assault Destroyers is such that they dwarf most other vehicles, including the Soviet Union's own main battle tanks. These vessels all are fitted with a swivel-mounted armour-piercing main gun, more powerful and no less accurate than that of virtually any modern tank, and their performance characteristics on land rival all but the Soviet Union's own Apocalypse tanks.

Of course, unlike Apocalypse tanks, Assault Destroyers can traverse land and sea with equal ease, which recently has come into play throughout numerous combat encounters between Allied and Soviet forces near the Strait of Gibraltar as well as near the Allies' science facilities in Mykonos.

 File:AssaultDestroyerArtwork.jpg  In spite of the Assault Destroyer's raw power as an amphibious armoured assault vehicle, its greatest strength may be its defensive capability. First and foremost, this vessel's reinforced hull can shrug off all but the most violent of concussive blasts--the Assault Destroyer is probably the single most heavily armoured element of the Allied military, rivalling even manufacturer Gerhardt-Giraud's own Aircraft Carriers.

Yet while heavy armour is nothing special to the modern battlefield, the *"Black Hole Armour"* most certainly is. Each Assault Destroyer has the capability to activate a special field, which causes nearby ordnance to gravitate toward the Assault Destroyer instead of its intended target. While purposely drawing enemy fire may seem like lunacy, the Assault Destroyer's extremely durable hull absorbs most enemy fire as a fine sponge soaks up a spilt beverage.

Assault Destroyers' Black Hole Armour makes them probably the single most reassuring sight that other Allied forces could hope to encounter on the battlefield. Even though activating the Black Hole Armour field means having to avoid use of their main guns for fear of internal combustion, Assault Destroyers still are extremely powerful when not attacking simply because they can prevent more-vulnerable Allied forces from coming to harm.

Thankfully at least, Allied forces tuned to the same encrypted frequencies as Assault Destroyers need not fear damaging their brothers-in-arms and may fire through the Black Hole Armour field as normal, since the Black Hole Armour field's ability to not affect projectiles firing *out* of the field is just a backup in case the frequencies are messed up. After returning from a successful counterattack against Soviet Apocalypse tanks in France, one Mirage Tank commander famously quipped, *"Today I love the Assault Destroyer more than my mother, and I wouldn't be here if not for her."*

## Post-War Operational History

Several captains have brought it to Gerhardt-Giraud's attention that the *"Michell"*-class has a design fault, wherein communications with Decks 2 and 3 are knocked out after the Assault Destroyer had taken damage. The bridge doesn't know where to send damage control teams, and more than one ship has been sent to the bottom because of this. Gerhardt-Giraud Shipworks has recently retrofitted all ships with extra wiring, allowing damage control to better receive status reports from the troublesome decks. Statisticians have noticed an increase in Assault Destroyer survivability because of this.

In recent times the Allies are starting to look into the concept of stopping explosive weaponry by prematurely detonating them before they impact. Previously the idea was considered a fantasy as extreme accuracy and/or calculation is required for a bullet to destroy an extremely fast missile, but with the advent of Spectrum and Microwave weapons that hits instantly and the advancement of computer calculations the idea, coined as "point defense", is starting to be considered. With the Assault Destroyer, thanks to its durability and space, being the testbed for the system.

Their latest iteration is a pair of microwave cannons mounted on the port and starboard, letting them destroy four projectiles or concentrate on big ones, that can fire even when its black hole armour is active and has started to reach the field test stage. Thus, experienced Assault Destroyer captains are authorised to switch to the prototype models to test on the battlefield to stellar results. Though there are rumours that said captains, in battle, tend to also use these cannons, despite it not being their intended role, to cook any vehicle and infantry who gets too close to horrific effects, which by right is banned by the Allies, but currently, there's no evidence of such.

In other news, the Allies had tried to *"acquire"* the Syndicates Railguns, but as of now its a failure, and the ones they try to buy are absurdly low quality, and trying to open one would cause it to destroy its internals via a self-destruct mechanism.

## Just the Stats

 **Armour Type** | Heavy Armour

 **Kill Reward** | 14400

 **DPS** | 26.7