International Tanks

*"Anyone who thinks that the International's tanks are something to scoff at have never been on the receiving end of a Communist mechanized charge. They are a swift, well organized machine who can be standing on your molars before you even realize that the battle has begun. Dismiss them as inferior to their Alliance counterparts at your own peril."*

- Proselyte Enlil

# Light Tanks

## Skoda T 49m Gear Tank

 **Mod Relevance** | Lore

 **Key Features** |  » 8.8 cm Skoda vz. 43N gun » Two machine guns » 120mm of effective frontal armour » Praga AXKI Engine, 1200 HP (895 kilowatt) »

Though Czechoslovakia is a small country, it is one of the Comintern's most celebrated members in terms of designs. The inheritor of the bulk of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire's industry, Czechoslovakia turned its newly independent assets to its own use almost immediately. In the thirty two years between the world wars, Czechoslovakia pursued the development and advancement of its tank industry, having seen the reports of how the Entente used them during the great war. This lead to a large array of quite ingenious tank designs as they sought to provide for their own national defense with a hostile Poland to the north, a Germany with land claims to the west, the Soviet Union to the east, and a Yugoslavia that may have wished to unite all slavs to the South as well as a land hungry Hungary also to the east.

The T49m was the latest in a series of these tanks, meant to be a powerful all purpose medium tank that could quickly traverse all terrain, pack a powerful punch against enemy vehicles, while being tough enough to resist enemy impacts. And had Czechoslovakia had to face those countries alone, the T49m could very well have given them a severely bloody nose or enforce Czehcoslovakian land claims. But they were not going to be fighting some little skirmish to determine the ownership of some small scraps of territory, but a world war to determine the course of the entire planet. They would be fighting on the side of Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union, not against them. And they would not be fighting Germany alone, but the whole of western europe and their vast empires.

Though Czechoslovakia could not long stand up to the seemingly neverending Tsunami of war machines and soldiers pouring in from the west, they did indeed give their invaders a bloody nose. The Czechoslovakian defense was bravely fought and their evacuation rightly went down in legend as they evacuated industry, soldiers, scientists, and civilians to the Soviet Union to carry the fight onwards even as the neverending masses of Alliance military formations crushed their homeland. Alliance commanders found that the Czechoslovak tanks were tremendously maneuverable and incredibly fast, appearing at flanks they had not anticipated and managing to draw blood even from Thunderer tank formations when they managed to strike their rear or foul up their tracks; withdrawing before the lumbering heavy tanks could hammer them.

In the defense of the convoys moving east, the T49 would prove its worth many times over as they punctured lighter alliance vehicles, hunted down self propelled guns and towed gun positions, disrupted infantry formations, and harried tanks as best as they were able to. But even the T49 could not stop the fall of Czechoslovakia. But when they began to arrive in the Soviet Union and were inspected by Soviet, Chinese, Mexican, and American officials; they impressed the brass of the Internationalist military a tremendous deal. Though the armour was not as sloped as its French counterpart, the thicker but flatter armour did carry the advantage of being substantially more proof against overmatch, and the gun could easily be produced in factories across the Communist International.

Following some trials where it was pitted against similar tanks, the T49m was adopted by the Comintern as their light tank of choice and was now being produced in tank and war factories across the world in huge numbers. They would preform scouting duties, harassment, raids, swift cavalry actions, and exploit breakthroughs made by heavier tanks so that they could run rampant in the rear guard of Alliance forces. Incrementally upgraded throughout the war, the newly designated Gear Tank would form a core part of Communist military doctrine in the war and there was not a front of the war in the entirety of the world that did not see these tanks in use; and due to their relatively light frames, they proved to be highly popular with guerilla movements who were allied to the Communist International.

From 1950 to 1956, the tank fought against the Blue Storm until it receded from the shores of the Communist International's territory, driving the invaders back to their own borders as they struggled to contain the tides of industry unleashed by the Communist international. Going from a tank used in the fighting retreat across eastern europe to the defense of China, the Soviet Union, America, Iran, and the Federation to drawing a line in the sand that would not be passed by the alliance, to being an invaluable spear for the counteroffensives; the Gear was ubiquitous. Every commander had access to copious numbers of Gears and a huge number of uses would be found for them.

Hundreds of thousands of Gear Tanks were produced. So many Gear tanks were available that they had no idea what to do with them all after the war. Even passing them onto allies and rebels who had less need for the most modern tanks only made a small dent in the pool of Gear tanks . Even converting many into self propelled guns and anti-aircraft vehicles was but a dent in the pool of tanks. Even distributing them to various community defense militias wasn't quite enough, and even the Revolutionary Vanguard, Generation of Gaea and other organizations couldn't make use of them all. So a great many sit in museums, some have been taken home by veterans as memorabilia (and some even use them for recreation or in some eccentric cases; as part of the daily communte). But even these old war dogs can still find use in frontline conflicts, including the conflicts of the first and second cold wars and the third world war itself.

# Medium/Main Battle Tanks

## T-48 Forge Tank

 **Mod Relevance** | Lore

 **Key Features** |  » 130mm S-71 gun » Three machine guns » 150mms of heavily sloped frontal armour, 250+mms of sloped turret armour » M-51-T Engine, 1500 HP »

When Fuller's armies rolled across the world, his legions of Thunderer tanks seemed all but unstoppable. Virtually no one could stop the over one hundred ton behemoths and their immensely thick frontal armour or stand up to their twin 120mm guns. Structures were torn apart by HESH rounds, infantry were hacked down by plentiful automatic weapons, tanks were pulverized by powerful AP rounds and the tank seemed fast enough to continue to press the offensive to the ends of the world. Even the UASR struggled to stop the numbers of Thunderer tanks pouring down the Canadian border and it seemed that once again; British tanks would roll over all that opposed them as had happened in the first world war. But when the Blue Army encountered its first Soviet divisions they came across a shock.

The Soviet Union had been developing a formidable new tank in cooperation with its allies, the T-48 forge tank which they had intended to be a lighter heavy tank than the over hundred ton behemoth being developed by the Americans. With 130mm armour piercing composite rigid shells capable of piercing over three hundred milimeters of armour at close range, or standard AP shells that could pierce 250mms of armour but retain their energy at a greater distance; the T-48 shocked the Alliance command as they proved capable of puncturing a Thunderer Tank at range with some aiming; or using the surprising speed of the bulky tank via flank delivered shots. Against infantry and fortifications, very powerful high explosive shells meant for usage on destroyers and a brace of machine guns would crack bases and cut down Alliance soldiers.

The gun was also surprisingly accurate, capable of landing critical weak point shots at long distances or keeping track of faster vehicles to destroy them as they encountered them. And with a high top speed of sixty kilometers per hour and good turret and track traverse; the Forge Tank was one of the best tanks of the entire war, and to boot it was relatively easy to produce in the hugeindustrial complexes across the Comintern and in countless war factories; and was easy to both operate and maintain. And due to American demands, the tank was comfortable to drive in and had a remarkable crew survival rate. Though a massive tank, it was designated a medium tank due to the culture of industrial excess and the high bar set by the Thunderer tank at the onset of hostilities.

Across all the nations of the Communist International, tens upon tens of thousands of forge tanks would be produced to serve in China, Africa, America, the middle east, Europe, South America, Korea, and to support burgeoning revolutions in places like Indochina and Indonesia. As the Comintern pushed back against the eagle's legions, the production of the forge tank only continued to ramp further and further up. Crews from every nation in the communist bloc would come to operate forge tanks which would claim numerous Alliance Tanks and help to overturn and force back their advance. So successful was the Forge Tank that the Retriever Tank was pushed forward to replace the Thunderer in the later stage of the war to try and copy its success, and even the introduction of the Mammut tank, Hawker, and the first Spectrum vehicles and troopers could not halt the red armies on parade.

Following the war, the Forge Tank was eventually phased out and replaced by the American made Spanner Main Battle Tank, the next generation of communist armour which in turn would be supplanted by the Soviet produced Furnace; but would remain in use elsewhere with upgrades such as composite armour, improved engines and command and control capabilities, and smoothbore guns to stay competitive. So many Forge Tanks have been produced that the Communist International can essentially afford to just give them away to communist rebel movements around the world.

## MBT-1 Spanner Main Battle Tank

 **Mod Relevance** | Lore

 **Key Features** |  » 125mm D-72T Smoothbore Gun » Two Machine Guns » Composite armour (classified composition) » VV-63 Tesla-Turbine Engine, 2250 HP »

# Heavy Tanks

## HT-52 Revolution Heavy Tank

 **Mod Relevance** | Lore

 **Key Features** |  » 155mm AT Gun T8E3 » Three autocannons » 250+mm of frontal armour » Christie Collectie MX12 Engine, 2500 HP »

Though the Thunderer Tank is the more famous heavy tank of the second world war, the Comintern had its own heavy tank which saw its own extensive and decorated battle service. At over a hundred tons, the Revolution Heavy tank was conceived of as a way to break through European defensive lines and to stop an entire advance in small numbers; useful in the sparsely populated American-Canadian border and the huge distances involved in the likely frontlines of the war which would make predicting an angle of attack difficult. The Union of American Socialist Republics expected them to be a world beating tank with no equals in the world, but the sheer number of thunderer tanks that the Alliance had amassed proved to be a great shock to the American brass.

The Revolution was designed to carry a hugely powerful six inch gun that could shatter defenses, blow infantry apart, and put a crater in a tank; kept fed by a sophisticated autoloader system that allowed for a reasonably high rate of fire despite the weight of the shell, while lighter targets would experience the wrath of its soviet made autocannons that could rip through infantry and aircaft. The tank would have thick, well sloped armour; especially at the turret with a characteristically American nearly impenetrable gun mantlet and excellent gun depression to make the most out of its turret armour; though soviet requirements required the addittion of added spaced armour to the sides; with slats made from an early form of composite armour to keep the weight down.

When the attacks came from Canada to America though; the Revolution class of tank proved to be a very formidable and daunting adversary generally requiring the direct attentions of Thunderer tanks to deal with or quick thinking tactics from the operators of the smaller Alliance Tanks. Often outright air or artillery strikes would need to be called in to dig Revolution tanks out of their defensive lines, and single Revolution tanks could hold defensive posts across the world for formidable periods of time; particularly when they could leverage their gun depression, presenting small but extremely durable targets. In counter-attacks, General George S. Patton had high praise for the tank claiming it to be "the finest product of our revolution to touch the ground."

Well matched against the Thunderer Tank; the Revolution Tank was also frequently used as ad hoc transports for infantry who often rigged up battlewagon transports or rode on top in makeshift bunkers which would later give way to properly designed infantry housings that would allow soldiers to provide the tank with immediate covering fire and to suppress enemy infantry who would often carry Panzerfausts, PIATs, or Panzerschrecks that would threaten the tank itself. Thanks to this trait, the Revolution was adotped as the standard heavy tank of the Internationalist military in the second world war and would come rolling out of the factories in great numbers to oppose Fuller's blue legions. Though not quite as produced as the Thunderer, the Revolution was not exactly an uncommon sight.

# Superheavies

## SHT-2 Prong Battle Fortress

 **Mod Relevance** | Lore

 **Key Features** |  » Four multigunner turrets » 30mm frontal GAU-7 gatling cannon, BMT-17 Missile Launcher » 500+mm of frontal armour » Christie Cooperative MX19, 8000 HP »

The imposing superheavy vehicle that exemplified the Communist International's devastatingly effective counter attacks against the Alliance in the later part of the second world war, the Battle Fortress is only nominally a tank. In reality, it was more of a platform for four squads to operate inside and make use of its fireports and multigunner turrets that offer devastating all around firepower; with the lead of the squad operating the turret while the rest fire in completely safety with the benefit of cameras at anything the turret might miss. A devastatingly powerful Gatling Cannon is fitted to the front, able to pulverize even heavily armoured targets in front of it with a rate of fire of over six thousand rounds a minute, a brace of remote operated machine guns and a powerful multi-purpose fast tracking missile launcher rounds out its armament. With armour more than half a meter thick at its toughest point, it was an even match for the imposing Mammut tank in terms of durability, and with a proper loadout of anti-tank troopers inside, could actually outmatch the Mammut in a hand to head fight, though certainly it would mark a greater investment of resources than a Mammut.

Smaller vehicles would simply be rolled over and crushed beneath its multi-hundred ton weight while obstacles like heavy walls could simply be rammed through as if they weren't there. Thanks to their missiles, multi-gunner turrets and roof fireports; aircraft could be dealt with more than adequately by Battle Fortress units, and the mass deployment of the battle fortress is often credited with the cessation of attempts by Rascal squadrons to attack tank columns as the propellor driven aircraft were simply too vulnerable even when they were able to make it past interceptor sweeps. Jet powered Dassaults were able to launch quick hit and run attacks against formations not offered forewarning, but the durability of the Battle Fortress was often enough to let it survive these lighter air to ground missiles. Thanks to superheavy spall liners and the usage of high quality steel and a silicate coasting on the front, these vehicles were also quite resilient against high explosive and HEAT rounds, and the silicate coatings were able to dull the devastating power of the Alliance's first spectrum weapons.

Stopping battlefortresses typically required superheavy duty tank destroyers or the commitment of Mammut tanks, much as how Mammut tanks were considered to be impossible to dislodge by anything but the heaviest of anti-tank assets or a Battle Fortress by the Comintern's Stavka. And in the sorts of battles where the Battlefortress found itself facing a serious challenge, it was virtually guaranteed that the landscape would be devastated as a result of the clash. In the largest tank battle of the war at the Pannonian fields of Hungary, the clash between the superheavy tanks of the Blackwatch's 3rd Superheavy "Saint George" division and the Comintern's 5th Superheavy "Dare to tread" division was often described in biblical terms. Even amidst the swirling collision of armor across the steppes the Magyars once rode their horses through, the clash of a thousand superheavy vehicles on each side beggared description. Aircraft dared not interfere lest they become a target of swarms of missiles, and lesser vehicles and infantry could do little but support the behemoths as they unleashed Ragnarok in a rucksack.

Designed in Mexico, the Battle Fortress was created with the specific order to make a vehicle to outmatch even the heavy tank formations of the Alliance that was more practical than the SHT-1 Mobile Fortress. Given the diversity of enemies expected to be faced, the design specifications necessitated a vehicle capable of fighting just about any battlefield threat, so the multi-gunner system became vitally important to the design of the vehicle' giving it the ability to engage just about any kind of target with the right loadout of infantry inside and do so at nearly any possible angle of attack. The machine guns, gatling gun, and missiles would help ensure that any potentially missed bases would still be covered to some degree, and while it could significantly exceed the ore credit cost of a Mammut when fitted out with all elite gear; the base chassis was significantly cheaper.

The design process was overseen by the officials of not just every national military force within the Communist International but also the first set of officials who would command the nascent Workers and Farmers Revolutionary International Military. A few alterations would be made, such as the decision to mount the gatling cannon in a swivel casemate mount rather than its own turret to save on space and reduce the mechanical complexity of the design, as well as the decision to mate the behemoth to a 8000 horsepower Tesla engine that was more than up to the task of moving this several hundred ton behemoth. This meant that despite the machine's great weight, it had a more than formidable enough horsepower to ton ratio to power through nearly any obstacle and to maintain an acceptable degree of agility for the titanic vehicle.

The vehicle was completed and commissioned in time for the first Revolutionary International Military divisions to receive a number of them before shipping the blueprints to production facilities across the Communist International. In their very first battle at Kiev, more than twenty four bases were overwhelmed and destroyed over the course of seventy two hours and the first regiment deployed to battle had taken out hundreds of vehicles between them. Just as the very mammut tanks sent to the front in Northern New York were able to blunt an entire Comintern counter-attack, the first Battle Fortresses had shattered a defensive line that had been holding for months in mere days. Fuller himself was so displeased by the idea of his legions being pushed back by this new "monster bunker" that he ordered the deployment of ever larger tank destroyers and tripled the demand for Mammut Tanks. The infamous Mutually Assured Destruction generator would also be commissioned with the intent of stopping the ever growing number of Communist tanks pushing ever closer to the home islands as well.

Bright Troopers and the first Spectrum weapons proved to be the most significant threat to the vehicles short of a Mammut Tank formation. Whereas standard anti-vehicle HEAT round launchers were almost entirely ineffective, the first Bright Troopers were able to melt down a Battle Fortress' armour when enough of them could gather in one place and were tough enough to withstand the attentions of the remote-controlled machine guns for some time. The first Spectrum STUGs as they were called, also had a capacity to threaten a Battle fortress when massed out of proportion to their size. Other approaches, such as the launching of the first Tiger gunships and Hawker VTOLs were also of some substantial effect. As the Comintern began to push into the core nations of the Alliance and began to overrun substantial parts of Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, France, and the Low Countries and prepared for an amphibious invasion of members of the Alliance guarded by the sea in 1955 and early 1956; sheer desperation drove the Alliance to ever greater extents to try and stop the vehicles.

And try they did. With the war now being fought in Alliance territory, operation "Whiplash" masterminded primarily by Marshal Gunther von Esling managed to stall the Comintern's advance with increasingly stiff defense in depth tactics, a new wave of wonder weapons, a mobilization of all possible reserves, the efforts of the Peacemaker divisions, a reorganization of the Navy and Air Force, and ever growing layers of fortifications. Thanks to concentrating so many forces into one location, Battle fortresses were found to be vulnerable to mind control in particular; something which cost the Communist International the battle of Paris. By late 1956 however, the Alliance's counter-attacks were starting to tall part way through eastern Europe and once again the fighting was starting to reach into Alliance home territory. But by the time of the second battle for Berlin; the two sides called the Christmas truce and the Battle fortresses were pulled back. With the war over, the Battle Fortress would go on to serve with distinction throughout the second cold war.

As the newer Battle Station arrived on the scene and phased out the Battle Fortress in most armies, the existing stock would be turned towards Militia, Reservist, and increasingly the usage of pro-Communist guerrilla and insurgency movements coordinated by the Revolutionary Vanguard. Large numbers would find their way into Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America in particular. Not only would they serve in these insurgencies that continue today, but the venerable old vehicle would serve with distinction in the third world war against all comers.