Military Mashup Machine: Difference between revisions

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

** [http://www.achtungpanzer.com/panzerkampfwagen-viii-maus-porsche-typ-205-tiger-iip.htm Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus]. "Mouse". At 188 tons, it is the heaviest tank ever constructed. Yeah, they really built this monstrosity.

*** [[Reality Ensues|Reality Ensued]]: it was a total failure. Sure, it had a [[BFG]] and was a fortress on wheels, but it broke windows on nearby buildings when it moved, and bogged down on anything except asphalt, cobblestone, or concrete.

* ''[[Supreme Commander]]'' - The Fatboy actually mounts battleship calibre guns on rotating turrets. And it has a landing pad on top. Taking it even farther are the Salem Class destroyers of the Cybran Nation which are actual warships which sprout spider legs when they reach land in order to render them amphibious They are ships on legs!

** In the sequel, all of the Cybran ships can do that, with the right research.

** ''Red Alert 3'' does one better, with ''amphibious battleships.'' Not a battleship-sized tank on treads, but a literal [http://portal.commandandconquer.com/portal/site/redalert/template.MAXIMIZE/factions_en/?javax.portlet.tpst=887f789b1e9f05362087dce7b100cda0_ws_MX&javax.portlet.prp_887f789b1e9f05362087dce7b100cda0_viewID=proxy_view_secondary&javax.portlet.prp_887f789b1e9f05362087dce7b100cda0_wcproxyurl=http%253A%252F%252Flocalhost%253A8080%252FSiteAssets%252Ffactions%252FAssault_Destroyer.html battleship on treads.]

** See [[Supreme Commander]]'s Salem-Class, above.

* The ''Tuatha de Danaan'' from ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]''.

* The Dai-Gunkai of ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]''. Notable for being one of the few capable of creating ''its own ocean'' when it needs to travel over land.

* UNS ''Daedalus'' from ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'' is a submersible [[Humongous Mecha]] carrier.

* At one point, the team manager in ''[[Zoids]]: New Century'' brags that his already massive, snail-shaped Zoid carrier (overlapping somewhat with Land Battleship above) is capable of functioning underwater. Since it can launch flying Zoids, it pretty much counts.

 

== [[Anime]] ==

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* The Fatboy from ''[[Supreme Commander]]'' is also this. Ditto the Cybran Monkeylord spiderbot (which is more of a [[Humongous Mecha]]). Supreme Commander loves this trope, with many more amphibious tanks and mecha to choose from. The UEF Percival, the Cybran Wagner, Brick, and Megalith, the Seraphim Othuum and Ythotha, and the Aeon Galactic Colossus are all perfectly happy going scuba diving. And if you count amphibious hovertanks, you get to count the UEF Riptide, the Seraphim Fobo, and the Aeon Aurora, Ascendant, Asylum, and Blaze.

** Preceding the Fatboy were the "Crock" and "Triton" tanks of ''[[Total Annihilation]]'', which also had hovercraft of its own.

* [[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]] ==

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* See the ''[[Warhammer 40000|Warhammer 40,000]]'' entries above- at least half of those tanks are capable of functioning underwater. The Land Raider in particular has been used for devastating beach assaults.

 

== [[Truth in Television]] ==

== [[Video Games]] ==

* Almost all scrolling shooters allow the player's air or spacecraft to fly underwater without consequence.

* ''XCOM: Terror from the Deep'', the second XCOM game, had the player fighting Unidentified Submersible Objects (ie, UFOs that could go underwater) with a small fleet of their own submarine-jets.

* ''[[Elite]]'' had the Moray Star Boat, because aquatic species need to get shot at by [[Space Pirates]] too.

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* The [[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann|Chouginga Dai-Gurren]] has the production facilities and raw materials to build several dozen city-sized [[Humongous Mecha|giant robots]] in a matter of days.

 

** Not just factories then, but also refineries. You also ought to include EVS Construction Droids, which are walking rather than flying factories.

*** EVS droids aren't really military, though. Well, there was that one time [[X Wing Series|Rogue Squadron]] hijacked one and went on a [[Kaiju]]-style rampage to evacuate a section of an enemy city before it could be [[Kill Sat|Kill Satted]], but that definitely wasn't the intended purpose.

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

** 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 ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' crew used their [[Matter Replicator]] to replace the shuttles they frequently lost. Eventually they even designed a new shuttle class.

* The seed ships in ''[[Stargate Universe]]'' travel the universe building Stargates and placing them on habitable worlds

* The Protoss Carrier in ''[[Starcraft]]'' manufactures and launches its own robotic interceptors. The Reaver similarly builds Scarab drones that are used as self-guided bombs.

** The Carrier returns in SC2, the Terrans gain the Raven, and the Zerg the Brood Lord. Could also be broadly applied to Terrans as a whole, since their major production buildings can move, although they can't produce units while doing so.

** It goes back further than that. Since the earliest C&C games the heart of the base of either side has been the Construction Yard, which deploys from the Mobile Construction Vehicle, an immense truck-like unit that could move to an optimal position and set up. More recent games have given it the ability to pack up again and move somewhere else.

* Aircraft carriers in many [[Real Time Strategy]] games usually operate like this.

* The ''Nautilus'' in ''[[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]'' turns out to be a spacecraft that just incidentally happens to make a dandy submarine as well.

* Similarly, many spaceships in anime, especially ones featuring [[Humongous Mecha]], are often capable of operating in the air as well as in space, effectively making them a combination of space ships (see above) plus an Airborne Aircraft Carrier.

** The titular ship from ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' is also an Assault Carrier-type.

** The ''Hagane'' and ''Hiryu Custom'' in ''[[Super Robot Wars]] Original Generation'', which were also ''submersible''. Also the ''Kurogane'', which was not only submersible, but could also travel ''underground''.

** The Chouginga Dai-Gurren from [[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]], while having some trouble with atmospheric flight ({{spoiler|you don't want something that used to be THE Moon in your atmosphere}}), fits this trope.

 

* Many large capital ships in the ''[[Free Space]]'' series (for example the ''GTD Aquitaine'' in Freespace 2) carry dozens, if not hundreds of strikecraft. They're fully fledged warships that make mincemeat out of smaller capitals and have dozens of anti-fighter and anti-warship turrets to boot.

* In ''[[Sins of a Solar Empire]]'', direct combat capital craft, whilst incapable of supporting strikecraft initially (unlike the specialized carrier capital craft), can gain strikecraft support slots as their combat experience increases.

* The [http://imgur.com/NGKH6.jpg Titans] of [[Eve Online]] (yes, that is to scale) don't just have their own wing of drones, don't just carry, rearm and refit player ships, but also the clones of the players themselves! Its not enough to have a jump drive but it can also jump bridge entire fleets making it a logistical wet dream. Top it all off with enough defenses to shrug off anything but a major fleet attack. Oh, and a [[Wave Motion Gun|Doomsday Device]] that's enough to make [[Super Dimension Fortress Macross|Captain Gloval]] eat his enormous hat.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* Most ships in ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' of heavy cruiser size and upwards are either battleships with a fighter complement, or carriers with potent weaponry of their own, but some dedicated assault carriers exist, mostly in the Imperial Navy.

** Speaking of Warships: Biggest guns in the game, anywhere from 2-10 times as powerful as their Aerospace/Battlemech equivilants. Carries more guns than a battalion of battlemechs. ''Often transports Dropships.'' That's right, it's a carrier that carries other carriers. Mercifully rare, as most were lost or destroyed during the Succession Wars.

 

** These were mostly built because the Soviet Union couldn't afford to field full-fledged aircraft carrier battlegroups required to match the American ones. The missile cruisers were designed to approximate the versatility of an entire battlegroup.

** Also, if it is an aircraft carrier, it is denied passage through the Dardanelles by international treaty. If it is a cruiser that ''just happens'' to carry aircraft, it can pass.

* A number of American aircraft carriers in [[World War II]] had batteries of 8 inch guns to defend themselves from enemy warships. They were removed after it became apparent that enemy ships just weren't going to get close enough often enough for it to matter. Ironically, the ended up putting somewhat smaller 5 inch gun batteries on the carriers later to be used as anti-aircraft batteries.

* Indeed, many of the earliest aircraft carriers were less dedicated carriers and more conventional warships with flight decks put on them to see if they could get some effective use out of these newfangled flying contraptions. Several years of development of the idea ensued before they began to resemble the flat-topped ships we are familiar with today.

 

== Others ==

** That would include the A-Gears in ''[[Air Rivals]]'', which are not so much an aircraft but a ''flying hovercraft tank'' that's capable to not only traverse land and aquatic terrains, but also ''latch itself onto edges of ravines and cliffs''. To hammer the point home, one of the equippable armors had wings on it. Predictably though, its survivability drops down once it actually does take to the air, especially when pitted against other, more fighter-oriented Gears...

** The Soviets attempted to build a flying tank during [[World War II]] as an attempt to bring a tank very quickly into battle. Basically a tank with wings and tail strapped to it, it's more of a glider - a bomber would tow it into the air, then it would sail into the battle field, land, ditch its wings and tail, and start blasting away at the enemy. It was cancelled because they didn't have a towing plane with enough engine power to haul the hulking thing into the air fast enough.

** 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.

 

== [[Anime]] ==

** Zoids are the animal versions of the same principle.

* The Grandia Tank in ''Nadia'' is a triple threat: a tank on land, an airship, and a paddle-wheeled boat. It runs off [[Steampunk|steam with punch card controls!]]

** In the ''Cataclysm'' expansion, it's possible to add "battleship" to the number of roles it fills. While still fairly vulnerable, it was much more capable of fending off fighters and small capital ships on its own. With a particular upgrade, they could even wipe out enemy fleets.

** In ''Homeworld 2'', though, the Mothership went back to being vulnerable to pretty much anything, and ''another'' factory/carrier ship, the Shipyard, was added. It could build the largest ships in the game, which the regular Mothership couldn't, but was even slower and less maneuverable.

** [[Real Life]]: There were real examples of Sword-Guns, though they weren't very popular. Commonly, they involved a knife/revolver combination.

** Of course, the rifle bayonet is a somewhat more successful example of a gun/edged weapon hybrid.

* ''[[Starcraft]]'s'' Terran siege tank, which switches from main battle tank to artillery platform.

** Then there's the Viking in ''[[Starcraft II]]'', which switches from mecha to space superiority fighter.

* To a lesser extent, the Sonic the Hedgehog titles. The easiest example being the Egg Carrier, having a runway on the front of it, robot construction rooms in the interior (complete with "training" areas), as well as a couple entire stages within it.

* ''[[Chrome Hounds]]''. Yes, the titular [[A Mech by Any Other Name|Hounds]] are supposedly [[Humongous Mecha]], they're more like ''tanks''. And by that I mean, a hound is probably a wall of Artillery cannons, Battleship guns, hulking armor, [[More Dakka|machine guns that turn M1-Abrams into swiss cheese]], on anything from humanoid bipeds to tanks. ([[Real Robot|Oh, and tanks/wheels tend to be a bit faster.]]) and the cockpits range from bridges of ships to jet-fighter cockpits.

* ''[[Strange Journey]]'''s unique model of dimensional-hopping warship model definitely counts. It has fabrication labs for weapons and technology development, outer weapons systems, plasma shields, hospital sectors, an AI navigator, and, oh, yes, ''rocket-boosted VTOL capabilities''.