Hello!
I’ve noticed that some people are having a few issues with some of the low-level technical terms inside the story. To be honest, I did think most people would know them, but that was with me assuming that everyone reading this would be a bit of a Mil Sci-Fi fan. Though that was kinda a mistake considering that this is also, you know, a space opera. And its also whatever the hell GATE is (I have not watched it by the way, but I have seen some of the battle scenes.).
So, anyway, I’ve decided to make this. In here I’ll lay out stuff like what an APC is, some of their history, what they are used for, and have some a lot of pop out tangent sections. Since I am a nerd, and this is an opportunity for me to talk about I’m interested in. Though please bear in mind I’m not an expert in this, I’m an Aerospace Engineering student. Because I know I’m inviting trouble by doing this.
I might also re-write this later to make this a sort of in universe thing but this will do for now.
Also, this is not required reading or anything. This is just a little guide that you can read if you want, and you have no idea what some of the acronyms and such in the story mean. Also, please tell me if there are any specific ones you want me to include.
And without further ado, lets get on with it.
APC
So why not start off with the various types of Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) and specifically the APC.
APC stands for Armoured Personnel Carrier and does exactly what it says on the tin. Infantry that are mounted on/in APCs are called Mechanised Infantry.
TLDR: APCs are armoured trucks that carry Infantry and sometimes supplies.
Historical Bits
APCs were first really made in the Second World War with most of them being open topped half-tracks like the widely used American M3 Half-Track and the German Sd.Kfz 251. The British Universal Carrier was also one, though some people may contend this, and it is also a fully tracked vehicle unlike the rest here.
Half-Tracks are vehicles that have wheels at the front, and tracks at the back. The reason why this weird arrangement was used was because, back then, wheeled vehicles had terrible off-road capabilities and tracked vehicles had terrible speeds. So, they just mushed the two together to get a middle ground.
Anyway, back to APCs.
These vehicles provided limited protection against only small arms fire (Rifles, pistols, etc) and usually also carried a machine gun. They weren’t that great at protecting against artillery however while their armour protected them from shrapnel from blasts, they were open topped. So one lucky round was all it took to kill everyone inside as it lands right inside of it.
After the second world war they kept evolving, with APCs gaining features like a roof and some gaining wheels, some going fully tracked, as then halftracks disappeared.
What is It For? What Are Some Examples? What are Its Characteristics?
There are a lot of APCs in service today around the world as they have become standard use for militaries.
Examples include the American M113, the British FV430 (Not to be confused with the M113), The Soviet BTR series, Multinational Boxer and the American Stryker.
APCs are generally light armoured and not too heavily armed. They are supposed to protect infantry from fire as they go into battle, cover them while they get out, then pull back to the second line. There they can follow the infantry along and pick them up if they need to go somewhere else. They aren’t used to support the infantry and are instead a “Battle Taxi”.
Though some militaries, like the Soviet did place more of an enthesis on infantry fighting from their vehicles to keep momentum up in an attack.
Most APCs are usually armed with things like a heavy machinegun but some like the Boxer and Stryker can mount heavier weapons like autocannons. Those weapons give the vehicles a good defensive capability against other lightly armoured AFVs and some extra fire power for infantry support. Though, again, APCs are not supposed to be used to support the infantry unless it’s a low intensity battle with very few anti-armour threats.
Examples of OBaS
The Panther is a wheeled APC like the Boxer, Stryker or BTR, though it is specifically based off of the Boxer.
There is also another APC that the IFC uses which is a tracked APC which has not popped up in the series yet. But it is a variant of the Crusader with it’s turret removed and some armour removed to make a lighter tracked transport for low intensity operations.
IFV
So, next up is the other main type of armoured infantry carrying vehicle, the IFV.
IFV stands for Infantry Fighting Vehicle. They are like if you smashed an APC and a light tank together. Possessing more armour and firepower than an APC, usually quite a bit of firepower in fact, while also carrying infantry. Infantry that are mounted on them can be called Mechanised infantry as well but sometimes get called Armoured Infantry.
TLDR: IFVs are light tanks that carry infantry squads and support them.
Historical Bits
The first IFVs were created during the cold war as APCs slowly got heavier and heavier armaments and a desire to have vehicles that the infantry could fight from started to arise. With these vehicles not being battle taxis like APCs were, but instead were an integral part of the way infantry fought.
The first IFV was the West German Schützenpanzer Lang HS.30. A vehicle designed so that the infantry could fight from it and given a 20mm autocannon to enable it to fight other AFVs. It’s carrying capacity was rather small however and the infantry had to pop out of hatches to fire.
Then came the Soviet BMP-1, taking a similar concept of having a well-armed vehicle that the infantry could fight from, the BMP-1 had anti-tank missiles, a low velocity cannon and firing ports. The firing ports allowed the infantry to fight from the BMP without exposing themselves to enemy fire, but more importantly to the designers and army, to nuclear and chemical threats. The BMP-1 ended up quite effectively combining the attributes of a light tank and an APC together. However, there were issues, mainly to do with ergonomics and the usefulness of the cannon.
Over the years more and more IFVs were developed like the Marder, with IFVs armaments mainly trending towards autocannons and anti-tank missiles. Firing ports also became less common due to an issue. When traveling in a tight metal box travelling over rough terrain at high speeds, it turned out people couldn’t aim their rifles particularly well. Hence infantry in several armies don’t fight from their IFVs, but rather fight alongside them, using the IFVs as direct fire support.
During the end of the cold war there then came the British Warrior, and possibly one of the most famous of all IFVs, the American M2 Bradley.
(If you want me to go off on Colonel James Burton, Pentagon Wars and such, I probably won’t, and I will instead leave that to LazerPig. See link 1. Just in a nutshell, the US Military “Reformers” are actually the military version of Ultra Conservatives who think the A-10 is too advanced. And Burton was just bitter that the military rejected his plane design. And was one of those “Reformers”, who thinks RADAR and thermals are not useful at all and should be ditched.)
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
The Bradley is a very heavily armed vehicle that leans quite heavily into the light tank lineage of IFVs. Featuring TOW missiles, a 25mm Autocannon with coax machine gun.
The Warrior is a bit of an odd one, as while it is like other modern IFVs like the Bradley, the British army uses it like an APC. Simply using it as a battle taxi that’s fast and manoeuvrable and just has a lot more firepower than the average APC, to use to help cover the infantry when dismounting.
What is It For? What Are Some Examples? What are Its Characteristics?
A IFV is a light tank crossed with an APC. Its supposed to carry the infantry into battle with a bit more protection than a APC, but, after letting the infantry dismount, it stays with them. Unlike with that APC does. A IFV is usually equipped with autocannons and anti-tank missiles. The autocannon is for dealing with infantry, light vehicles and light fortifications. The anti-tank missiles are for defence against tanks and for destroying heavier fortifications.
A IFV is not armoured like an MBT, it doesn’t need to be. Instead, its armoured to protect against weapons like autocannons mounted on other IFVs, anti-personnel mines, etc. Things that are issues to lighter vehicles like APCs and to Infantry.
The IFV is meant to support the infantry it carries. Giving them a defence against tanks and other IFVs while also laying down suppressive fire against enemy infantry. Armoured infantry, hence, have a distinct advantage over regular mechanised infantry in firepower. They can also be used as scouting vehicles. They’re also the usual mounts for infantry accompanying tanks due to IFVs usually being tracked, which allows them to keep up with the tanks over rough ground.
Examples of IFVs include the Soviet/Russian BMP series, the British Warrior, the German Puma and the American Bradley.
Examples of OBaS
The Crusader IFV is the main IFV of the IFC armed forces. It has an unmanned turret, which when combined with the electric power system, allows the vehicle to carry up to 10 men with a crew of three. However it is a lot more comfortable for the infantry for there to be only 8 men being carried as dismounts.
It is armed with a 30mm auto cannon, a 7.62mm co-axial machinegun and two Anvil ATGMS. It also has the option to fix a box launcher for a Switchblade suicide drone.
MBT
Next, is the really fun stuff, MBTs.
MBT stands for Main Battle Tank. They are the main sort of tank used in the modern day, with Light tanks still used, but rarely. The MBT is the workforce of any good armoured force, with medium and heavy tanks extinct.
TLDR: MBTs are your standard modern tank type, balancing armour, mobility and firepower.
Historical Bits
There are several tanks that have claims to being the first MBT, with the main example being the WW2 Panther, though some people point to the T-34 or the M4 Sherman. Though all of them have issues. The Panther is the closet to being one but had things like a bow machine gunner and arguably not quite balancing the attributes in the same way some later MBTs did.
The actual first MBT is the British Centurion tank. Built at the very end of the second world war and missing it, it was a combination of the British ideas of the cruiser tank and the infantry tank. With a combo of the two being something they had been looking for a while now. It got rid of the bow machine gunner position, blended together good mobility, good firepower and good mobility while also having good reliability. It has been used across the world and been involved in a lot of wars with some variants/derivatives still in service today at time of writing. It was the tank of choice for many NATO countries before the leopard was developed as well.
However, on the other side of the iron curtain, the T-54 was being developed, which would become the root for all other Soviet and Chinese MBTs. With an iconic pan shaped turret and a similar balance of hard factors as the Centurion. The design was then later improved with the T-55, and again, this tank is still in service today in some countries.
The American M47 and M48 Pattons then came about and replaced the US Mediums and heavies in use at the time. (Side note, the little commander’s turret on the M48 and the M60 are really cute and I love them.)
With the Japanese type 61 that rounded out the first generation of MBTs.
Then the second generation came about with better armour, firepower, night fighting capabilities and NBC protection.
Most western tanks of this generation were armed with the British Royal Ordnance L7 or licence produced version of it. The gun itself was created when a Soviet T-55 rolled into the British embassy in Hungary during the Hungarian revolution, someone in there measured the armour of it and had a brown pants moment. Hence the L7 was made to counter the armour that the Soviet tanks were now being built with, it was a good gun, so everyone wanted it.
Here you also get an explosion of MBT designs, from the German Leopard 1, the British Chieftain and Vickers MBT (Not used by the UK but imported by other countries like India), the American M60 and the Soviet T-62, T-64 and T-72 with the T-64 and T-72 introducing carousel style autoloaders.
Those autoloaders removed the need for the only standing crew member, the loader, therefore allowing for a lower profile that makes it harder to spot and target, lower manpower requirements and more reliable loading speeds. The downside is that that style of autoloader involves a load of exposed ammo and rounds sitting in the crew compartment. And as some of you may have seen on the internet and the news due to recent events, when one of those tanks get hit bad shit happens. The ammo explodes as its hit, vaporises the crew, and then quite frequently blows the turret off as an improvised space program is created in that very moment. The tank is therefore not usually repairable at that stage.
Other styles of autoloader are available such as revolver autoloaders which were being used by a lot of French tanks at the time and cassette style autoloaders (Not here yet), that can have the ammo separated from the crew.
The Type 74 tank from Japan is also one of the tanks from this generation and is the one you see in GATE, just as a little tid bit there for any fans of that reading this (I am not one of them).
However an issue was brewing for tanks. Anti-tank guided missiles, otherwise known as ATGMs. They use high explosive anti-tank warheads, otherwise know as HEAT warheads, that do not rely on their velocity for penetration. Instead, they use explosives lined with copper in a “shaped charge”, where the explosives detonate, with the shape of the warhead then forcing the melted copper into a spear that cuts through the armour at supersonic speeds.
Those warheads had gotten rather good and the ATGMs that carried them had become rather ubiquitous and in one of the many times in history, people were saying it was the end of the tank.
It wasn’t. As instead, composite armour and ERA (Explosive Reactive Armour) proved to be viable counters. The British Chobham armour is a example of composite armour and is what makes up the armour of the American M1 Abrams and the British Challenger 1 and 2, with the most modern version of it called Dorchester. The angular looks all three of these tanks are a result of the Chobham not being particularly flexible and therefore being placed in flat plates.
At the same time computerised fire control systems became far more common, allowing tanks to fire at and hit targets, while on the move, and at long distances. Tanks did have stabilisers and fire control systems before, however though they weren’t as effective as they now became.
Tanks of this third generation include the German Leopard 2, American M1 Abrams, Soviet T-80, South Korean K1, Chinese Type 99, British Challenger 1 and 2 and Japanese type 90. With many of these tanks still serving.
Gen 3 MBTs and upgraded Gen 3s are the most common generation of MBT in modern western militaries, with a few Gen 4 MBTs appearing like the South Korean K2 and Japanese Type 10.
Some other developments on Gen 3 tanks include blowout panels. Do you remember the problem of T-72s, T-80s, T-64, etc tossing their turrets when their ammo blows up? Well if you have a manually loaded tank or one with a revolver, bustle or cassette style autoloader you can have the ammo on a separate compartment and then put blow out panels on it. So if the door to that compartment is closed, when the ammo explodes, it blasts open the blow out panels and the explosion vents outside of the tank rather than to inside of the crew compartment. Neat. You may have lost most of your ammo but you’re not a pile of ashes and you still have your tank. These are quite notably included on the M1 Abrams.
What is It For? What Are Some Examples? What are Its Characteristics?
A MBT is your standard modern tank. It can support infantry, it can make breakthroughs, it can exploit those breakthroughs and it can be mobile bunker on the defence. They balance the hard factors of armour, firepower and mobility. But a good tank does also excel in the soft factors of reliability, crew ergonomics, etc. Its no use if your mega tank was so expensive and hard to design that you only built one of them, its breaks down before it gets to the battle, gets stuck in mud and your crew needs a break after an hour in the thing. Then it falls apart because the build quality is shit. (Looking at you Ajax, Maus, King Tiger and you T-14 Armata.)
One very important note with tanks. Do not leave them without infantry support! That is a very easy way to get a tank killed as tanks cannot cover all of the possible angles of attack to it, can't spot ambushers easily and can't react very fast to them. Infantry can keep the enemy's infantry with ATGMs away from the tanks. Infantry can clear out building and dense foliage. A lot of cases where mass numbers of tanks end up as wreaks are when they have been pushed up and have out run their infantry support.
A modern MBT will have a stabilised gun with a calibre usually around 120mm with a co-axial machinegun (A extra weapon next to the main gun). They also have computerised fire control systems, radios and other communications equipment and sometimes also a pintle mounted machine gun or autocannon. (A gun mounted on one of the hatches or the roof of the turret.)
Some examples of a MBT are the British Challenger 2, American M1 Abrams, Soviet T-72, German Leopard 2, French Leclerc, Japanese Type 10 and Chinese Type 99.
Examples of OBaS
The main example in the setting is the Defender. The Defender is a 4th gen MBT with cassette style autoloader, an electric drive system, advanced fire control systems, a remotely operated pintle 20mm autocannon, Switchblade drones, the latest gen of Chobham armour, a 130mm ETC gun for the main cannon and a couple of other neat things. One thing it is missing is a unmanned turret which some people are thinking may be the future, with the Abrams X demonstrator featuring one and the Russian MBT parade tank the T-14 Armata also having one.