Military Mashup Machine: Difference between revisions

[[File:military mashup machine 1871.jpg|link=Supreme Commander|frame|A Submersible Land Battleship Aircraft Carrier Factory Shield Generator.]]

 

 

In the military, innovation has driven military conquest as someone found new ways to do something that was better than what came before. However, in [[Speculative Fiction]], it seems that a lot of people have decided [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|combining previous concepts into one über-machine]] is easier than [[Creative Sterility|coming up with something original]].

The [[Base on Wheels|Land Battleship]] is a landgoing vehicle bristling with heavy artillery, generally the equivalent of a naval vessel's guns only on land, or rather, a ''really'' big tank. Often used in deserts.

 

** The ''[[Gundam Seed]]'' spinoff ''[[Gundam SEED Astray]]'' shows that that universe's land battleships are ''amphibious''; though designed specifically for land combat, they use an exotic "scale system" that works just as well on water as on land. ''[[Gundam Seed Destiny]]'' reverts to the relatively more conventional "giant tank" with tracked propulsion in the form of the [http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/seed-destiny/hannibal.htm Hannibal class].

* ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' goes typically overboard, by making the [http://www.gurren-lagann.net/mecha/images/daigurren.gif featured land battleship] a literal ''battleship on legs'' and a [[Humongous Mecha]] to boot (ironically, it requires special adjustments to cross water). General Guame's Dai-Gundo is more typical of this kind of thing. {{spoiler|Ignore the phallic connotations of its design.}}

** At the same time, they have the word "cruiser", which is a naval term, despite the Race hailing from a [[Single Biome Planet|desert world]] with no oceans or any other major bodies of water. In fact, it's specifically mentioned that our battleships and aircraft carriers are a mystery to them. They also call their spacecraft "ships", and it's not just [[Translation Convention]] either. A Chinese woman who has studied their language wonders why "planes that never land" are called "ships". The Race obviously can't think of space travel in terms of [[Space Is an Ocean]] because they never had an [[Age Of Sail]].

 

* GoGoVoyager from ''[[Go Go Sentai Boukenger]]'' is basically a battleship with wheels (and a terrain-flattening roller), able to go from sea to land and leave a path of devastation. Did we mention [[Combining Mecha|it also seperates into five assault vehicles]] [[Humongous Mecha|AND combines again into a big horkin' robot?]]

* [[Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger|Ultimate Daizyujin]]/[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers|Ultrazord]]. [[Description Porn]] warning: Start with an oversized robot brachiosaurus on wheels. Split the tail into two [[BFG]]s, and put one on each front shoulder. Take a skyscraper-sized robot formed from a robot [[Tyrannosaurus Rex]], a robot mammoth/mastodon, a robot triceratops, a robot smilodon, and a robot pterosaur, and a robot aquatic dragon. Remove the chest armor and tail from the dragon, and retract its missile-launcher hands into the shoulders. Then tilt the feet around, split it at the middle, and put it on the humanoid robot as armor, making sure to tilt the head crest up. Put the brachiosaur's chestplate (which has several firing barrels) on the humanoid robot's chest, and put its front paws on the humanoid robot as gauntlets. Attach the dragon's tail to the and chestplate to the brachiosaurus in the appropriate spots. Then stand the humanoid robot in a bay in the brachiosaurus' back. Voila. The resulting machine can roll along at a good clip, and packs enough firepower to blow up even the devil.

 

=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===

* The Nazi wheel tank from the ''[[Justice League (animation)|Justice League]]'' episode "The Savage Time". These were taken from the old ''[[Blackhawk]]'' comics during that time.

* [[Losing Your Head|Skullus]], one of the [[Evil Sorcerer]]s from ''[[Thundarr the Barbarian]]'', possesses [http://images.wikia.com/thundarr/images/b/bb/Skulluslandmachine.png a huge war machine] which runs the gamut from land battleship to [[Base on Wheels]]...er, treads.

 

== Submersible Carrier ==

* USS ''Imperator'' in ''Silent Hunter'' by Charles D. Taylor was a submarine which carried a USMC contingent—a '''battalion''' if I'm remembering this right—and the '''helicopters''' to deploy those Marines '''and''' their supporting artillery pieces ashore. It's basically a submersible version of a ''Tarawa''-class amphibious assault ship, but heavily armed with torpedoes and lasers to defend itself against ordinary submarines, cruise missiles, etc. Also, it has to be '''bigger''' than a ''Tarawa'' so everything can be enclosed to submerge. [[Awesome But Impractical|Of course something that size can '''not''' be made stealthy]], [[Hand Wave|no matter how hard the author waves his hands]]....

 

* Honorable mention to the S.S.R.N. Seaview of ''[[Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea]]'' which carried one flying submarine.

 

=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===

* The USS ''Ticonderoga'' and NGR ''Poseidon'' in ''[[Rifts]]''.

* The "arsenal subs" of ''[[Transhuman Space]]'', though it helps that the aircraft are unmanned.

 

 

=== [[Real Life]] ===

 

== Amphibious Tanks ==

Aren't just tanks that can travel on water, but often are entirely submersible until they surface on the beach.

 

* Perhaps taking the concept from the other direction, the aquatic [[Zoids]] known as War Sharks are shown in the third anime series as being capable of [[Sand Is Water|swimming through the ground]].

 

* [[Metal Gear]] RAY. A giant, walking, swimming battletank, with an armor-piercing water cutter.

* The two [[Boss in Mook Clothing]] tanks in ''[[Raiden]] II'''s second stage, and the Stage 3 boss in most installments.

 

=== [[Western Animation]] ===

** The first amphibious tank ''actually produced in series'': Soviet [http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=565 T-37A].

*** The [[wikipedia:PT-76|PT-76]] is probably the most successful of modern amphibious tanks. Arguably, its biggest success is in being cheap, lightweight, and armored enough to serve as an universal chassis for the whole lot of other Soviet vehicles, from self-propelled artillery to SAM launchers, adding more to its Military Mashup Machine status.

 

== Amphibious Jet Fighter ==

=== [[Comic Books]] ===

* ''[[Gold Digger (Comic Book)|Gold Digger]]'' gave the villainous Night Flight an entire wing of these.

* Turned [[Up to Eleven]] by the ''[[Star Wars|Clone Wars]]'' comic books, with ''starships'' that operate underwater, crewed by Mon Calamari, appearing during the battle of Kamino. As their commander said while piloting one of the damn things:

{{quote|'''Commander Merai''': [[What Were You Thinking?|What are they]] ''[[What Were You Thinking?|thinking]]'', defending a water world with ships that can't submerge?}}

* [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]' ''Beyond Thirty'' (alternate title ''The Lost Continent''): the protagonist is the captain of a Pan-American Navy "aero-sub"—a submarine capable of [[Anti Gravity]] flight. Sadly, he doesn't have his vessel throughout most of the story, having been thrown overboard by a mutineer in the first chapter.

 

* The "SkyDiver" from ''[[UFO]]'' was a submarine whose entire front end was a JATO-boosted rocket plane called Sky One. At need, the SkyDiver would flood its rear ballast tanks until its bow pointed upward, and Sky One would launch...from ''under water''. (One wonders how the rocket plane was ''reattached'' to the submarine -- did it have to be refitted in a dry dock?)

* The [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Flying Sub]] from ''[[Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea]]'' was the coolest thing on the show.

=== [[Real Life]] ===

* The Soviet Union designed a [[wikipedia:Flying submarine|flying submarine]] in the 1930s, but it was never actually built.

 

== Mobile Factory ==

* The General Systems Vehicles of [[Iain M Banks|Iain M. Banks's]] [[The Culture|Culture]] novels qualify as, among other things, mobile factories. These ships are large enough to be home to billions of people and can crank out other massive ships, as described in '''Excession''.

 

** More ''Galactica:'' Tyrol actually had his crew build a whole Viper out of spare parts onboard the ''Galactica,'' and a damn good one at that. In fact, due to the availability of pretty much any material ''but'' metal, it was also their only stealth ship.

** The civilian ships also had sewage treatment ships and mining ships.

 

== [[The Battlestar]] ==

 

* ''[[Uchuu Senkan Yamato]]'' takes this to its logical conclusion, by taking the World War II battleship ''Yamato'', fixing it, adding a ([[Trope Namer|the]]) [[Wave Motion Gun]], and putting it in space. It still works on water too.

** And, true to trope, it also has hangars for a squadron of starfighters.

* Large capital ships in ''[[Perry Rhodan]]'' are usually this, carrying not just fighters, but larger secondary craft (often smaller warships in their own right) as well. A particularly striking and unique example would be the (Terran-built) SOL, which is basically three such ships (two spherical 'ultra-battleships' and a cylindrical central section connecting the two barbell-style) usually linked together but capable of [[Detachment Combat|separating from each other]] if needed. That's right—a [[The Battlestar|battle star]] ''made of'' [[The Battlestar|battle stars]]!

 

* As mentioned, ''[[Babylon 5]]'' capital ships often carry fighter complements, as does the titular station.

* There were about three ships in ''[[Star Trek]]'' that fall under this sub-trope that we've seen—one of which was fictitious (even within the context of the series itself). They were the historically inaccurate recreation of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]]'' in the episode ''Living Witness'', the ''Scimitar'' in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek: Nemesis]]'', and the Akira class. Other ships don't really count for this, as they primarily carry shuttle craft, which are neither good at nor designed for combat, nor is the compliment in any way considered "considerable" (usually half a dozen at most on the largest ships). The shuttles function more like rowboats for wooden sailing ships, small transports for when it wouldn't make sense to land the ship.

** Imperial tanks in [[Empire From the Ashes]] use a fully-functional gravitonic drive, and can hit Mach 2 in atmosphere. [[Lightning Bruiser|They are also heavily shielded]], and capable of deploying more conventional tracks for increased stability and decreased power budget.

 

* [[Humongous Mecha]] in most Real Robot settings seem to be mashups of your average infantry soldier and an armored tank or jet fighter.

* The Mobile Armours of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' are often even straighter examples: Large non-humanoid units, built with the same technology as Mobile Suits, that acted as more specific machines like submarines, flying tanks, land battleships, and more.

 

=== [[Comic Books]] ===

* Marvel has the [http://marvel.com/universe/S.H.I.E.L.D._Helicarrier S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier], which mostly resembles a Zeppelin gondola minus airbag with engine housings beefed up and turned up (to helicopter position).

* ''[[Nextwave]]'' spoofed "S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier" with the "[http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n11/impbianco/09Aeromarine.jpg H.A.T.E. Aeromarine]", which is a bunch of submarines welded together and equipped with oversized rocket thrusters.

 

 

* Federation ships in ''[[Star Trek]]'' tend to be science-vessel/warship hybrids. There were a few exceptions, like the ''Defiant'' class, the ''Sabre'' class, and possibly the ''Prometheus''- and ''Akira''-class ships, which were dedicated warships.

* The ''[[Andromeda|Andromeda Ascendant]]'' takes large parts of [[The Battlestar]], and adds troop transport, science vessel, mobile factory, diplomatic vessel, planet killer and ''star destroyer'' to boot. All such ''Glorious Heritage''-class heavy cruisers have such capabilities.

=== Webcomics ===

* ''[[Spacetrawler]]'' features [http://spacetrawler.com/2011/07/10/spacetrawler-152/ the Purfin M-32], essentially a boat with all-terrain wheels, rockets, and wings.

 

=== Web Original ===

 

=== [[Real Life]] ===

** Many battleships carried seaplanes; today, many destroyers and cruisers carry helicopters, as did the ''Iowa'' class battleships when they were brought back into service in [[The Eighties]].

*** Many battleships were built before radar was around, so the seaplanes served the scouting function. Now that we have radar, the seaplanes have been replaced by helicopters to serve in the ASW role.

** The unlucky French submarine [[wikipedia:Surcouf (N N 3)|''Surcouf'']]. Touted as an "underwater cruiser" it was armed with ''two'' 203mm guns in a forward turret and 10 or 12 (accounts differ) torpedo tubes, and housed a scout seaplane in a hangar below decks to use the full range of those guns. It was also armed with a significant number of AA cannons and machine guns. However it never saw action: it was accidentally rammed by a US freighter off the coast of Cuba and sank with all hands.

* The Israeli [[Tank Goodness|Merkava]] is arguably a mild example, armed as well as any other main battle tank in the field AND capable of doubling as an APC. Some are even equipped as [[Deadly Doctor|ambulances]]. In practice, though, the Merkava's rear compartment is normally used to carry extra ammo for the main gun. On the other hand, it made adapting the Merkava chassis into a pure APC (something that would be virtually impossible with most modern main battle tanks) not only plausible but easy, resulting in the Namer (contraction of "Nagmash" (Hebrew for APC) and "Merkava"), the most heavily armored APC in current use.

* [http://www.diseno-art.com/encyclopedia/strange_vehicles/x-wing.html RSRA X-Wing]. (No, not [[Star Wars|that X-Wing]].) It's a plane! It's a helicopter! It's a plane ''and'' a helicopter!

* See [http://www.amazon.com/My-Tank-Fight-Zack-Parsons/dp/0806527587/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205083504&sr=8-1 My Tank is Fight!] for a look at flying tank ideas, among other Military Mashup Machine concepts from [[Real Life]].

* Wouldn't be a complete article without mentioning [[wikipedia:Lockheed AC-130|the AC-130]]. With the weapons load including a ''105mm howitzer'' it's is informally classified as a flying artillery platform. I mean just look at that thing.

* The Boulton Paul Defiant: a WWII RAF fighter/interceptor with a machine gun turret behind the cockpit and no forward armament.<ref>the turret guns ''could'' be triggered by the pilot, with the intention of allowing forward fire as in a standard fighter, but the cockpit was in the way, which forced the guns to elevate by 19 degrees when pointed forward. It would have been difficult to design a gunsight that would handle this, so the pilot ended up without one</ref> The weight of the turret and gunner seriously impacted on the aircraft’s performance compared to other fighters, and it was still vulnerable to attack from beneath or dead ahead. Initially, the Defiant brought down quite a few rather surprised Luftwaffe pilots,<ref>many of whom confused it with the similarly-shaped Hawker Hurricane</ref> but once they knew what they were dealing with, they made mincemeat of it.<ref>The turret fighter concept had worked rather well back in the WWI era, with a number of successful models, particularly the RAF’s Bristol F.2 Fighter, which the Defiant was intended to emulate. However, that was the era of biplanes, open cockpits, top speeds a quarter of those in the WWII era, and rather more forgiving aerodynamics. Which, for instance, allowed the Bristol F.2 to be equipped with both a turret ''and'' a forward machine gun. By the time the practical limitations of the turret fighter in the WWII closed-cockpit arena had become apparent, a number of turreted versions of successful fighters (such as the Mosquito) were in the process of being designed or commissioned. None made it into service.</ref>

* It's a corvette! It's a heli carrier! It's a Landing ship! No it's a [[wikipedia:USS Freedom (LCS-1)|Littoral combat ship!]]