Lion Heavy Tank

## Tactical Analysis

* **King of the Desert:** Though not a true super-heavy, the Lion (short for "Lion of Babylon") is one of the most powerful mass-produced vehicles indigenous to the middle east, surpassed only by the Khalid in terms of vehicles of purely arab origins. Its 130mm autoloaded cannon crushes most other vehicles and structures it meets and handily overpowers most any MBT while its three machine guns (pintle, coaxial, and hull) are appreciable assets against infantry. Though its armor is not quite as impressive as its firepower, it retains a great deal of speed.

* **Tactical Withdrawal:** If threatened and in need of making a quick retreat, the Lion can dump fuel from its tanks and ignite them to leave a fiery trail behind it. Infantry is the most badly harmed by this fiery trail of destruction, but even vehicles should exercise caution. However, as this is the tanks' fuel, the vehicle experiences a loss of speed until fresh fuel can be delivered.

* **Lightning Bruised:** The Lion, however, is not perfect. Its armor is the statistic that suffers most; being only moderately better than that of MBTs, and it is of course defenseless against aircraft. Large numbers of anti-tank infantry are sure to bring about a swift downfall as well.

* **Stand by Me:** The most elite Lions are given the "mane upgrade kit" where they are given an amazingly powerful new 152mm gun for their tank; vastly outstripping the power of any MBT's main gun and allowing them to swat aside other vehicles and structures with ease, and furthermore are granted storage stations for medical supplies that infantry can use to heal their wounds.

## Background

When the Crescent Pact reviewed its arsenal, it decided that in true communist tradition it needed a powerful heavy tank of its own. Eschewing the decision to make a double-barreled vehicle, the Syrians, and North Iraqis instead decided to create a single-barreled vehicle that wasn't quite large enough to crush other vehicles, but still big enough to match or exceed every other vehicle in the desert, particularly the arsenal of Crusaders being amassed by the capitalistic Arabs to the south.

The vehicle was to be swift, powerful, and well-armored thanks to its harsh angles. It was to be the pride of the Crescent Pact, and so it would come to be called the "Lion of Babylon" after a narrowly decided vote on whether to name it for the ancient civilizations of Iraq or Syria. The Lion would be the flag bearer of the left in the Middle East, following the example of the ever-helpful Persia as the Communist bloc found its newest members. In an unveiling during the midst of World War Three that surely frightened many to the south, the Lion spearheaded a new Communist front in the war.

Lion tanks helped the Comintern's push through the Middle East and North Africa tremendously, with the mighty Lion's roar helping to shatter the tanks and fortifications that stood in the way of the heavy metal of the socialist North. First, the lines that separated Royalist South Iraq from its Communist brothers were shattered as the corrupt Royalist government's Scorpion and Beagle tanks and scattered handfuls of Mastiffs and Scimitars. With such superior firepower in its long; powerful 130mm gun or even the thunderous 152mm reserved for aces, the Lion seemed to be unstoppable in the initial push while the lesser Rhinos and Mattocks of the Middle Eastern communist arsenal followed suit. Though not a match for the Apocalypses and Terminators of Soviet and Iranian arsenals, the Lion proved to be well suited for the vast distances of desert warfare; quickly moving through the dunes and striking enemies at great range.

Lions starting in Damascus soon found themselves besieging Riyadh itself while others went to the west in a long drive across the North African desert. Thunder rocked the desert each time the Lion roared, and the broken dreams and the ruined hulks of tanks and bunkers of capitalists were left behind in the wake of the Lion's advance. Though concerns were raised that the Lion was only somewhat better armored than the hammer, these were dismissed by pointing out its relative affordability, firepower, and speed and noting that the hammer was a very durable tank anyway. The anarcho-capitalist governments of Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria proved fairly easy to overrun, though they noted a marked preference for Talos AFVs or battlesuits as opposed to the standard tanks they were used to fighting. These too were swept aside as Crescent Pact forces made a final dash to the Atlantic Ocean to link up with West African socialist forces. It was finally here, at the Atlantic Ocean that Cherdenko's advance was halted by the arrival of fresh troops from Southern Africa and North America and soon the sudden and shocking assault of the Empire.

The seemingly inevitable victory of Communism was rapidly rolled back across Africa while landings in the Middle East drove the stalled Socialist advance in the Arabian peninsula farther and farther back. Once rolling across thousands of miles in one of the most spectacular advances in history, the Lion was now increasingly being used to defend. While its heavy cannon proved lethal at range, its less than spectacular for a heavy tank armor proved to be a greater vulnerability than expected, especially on the defense where there was less room and ability to maneuver. More particularly noticed was the number of Socialist infantry who could not receive adequate medical care and thus had to be put out of action for months. The Syrian, Lebanese, and Iraqi politburos quickly came together with a solution and started issuing medical kits and extra armor to newer Lions, though the former only could be distributed to elites and the latter did not come fully into force.

When the war came to the Mesopotamian socialists at last, the Lion was once again pressed into service, this time to defend the homeland from a very much unwanted "Liberation." If the Allies thought that the Arabian Socialists had fought hard to spread Socialism, they had never seen them fight to defend Socialism. Even with Peacekeeper, mercenary, and Indian reinforcements the Reservists and Coalition troops proved unable to crack the increasingly determined defensive lines of the Socialists as they fought like fanatics to keep some of their gains, namely newly-unified Iraq and liberated Lebanon. The ruined hulks of the many, many kinds of tanks the Allies deployed to the region, so many with holes put in them by 130mm or 152mm guns; managed to put a renewed fear of the Lion in the Allies. By the war's end, Iraq remained united under communism and Lebanon remained liberated under socialism.

Though not able to break the hated capitalists to the South despite all the effort thrown into the war, the Lion helped seize all of Iraq from the remaining royalist government and unified the nation that was once divided by Kuwaiti-backed occupiers. In addition, the Lebanon offensive proved successful in liberating the catholic nation from the clutches of the increasingly hated capitalist oppressors whose dictator ran a remarkably brutal state (though they found that much of the nation's military had been quietly sabotaged or destroyed piecemeal by the time they got there). No more would these legacies endure; thanks in part to the Lion. But history soon proved that it was unwilling to allow anyone to rest on their laurels as the crisis in the Middle East deepened. The GLA had risen and the White Guard had rebelled, followed not long after by the Coalition-Commonwealth Cold War.

Struck by the GLA for their "devilish secularism", the Socialists soon found themselves battling against the insurgent GLA. Having to cut their plans for retrofitting all Lions with the new medical kits, cannons, and later the added armor, the Socialists rolled the Lion tank back into action, not only defending against GLA attacks on themselves but also probing into besieged Arabia, seeking to expand into the territory of the Saudis and free more of the Middle East from royalist oppression and fundamentalist slavery. Though currently proving effective, only time will tell if the commitment of the Lion can be as effective as it was before.