Military Mashup Machine: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

== Land Battleship ==

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.

 

* ''[[Gundam]]'' has a slight love affair with these, which have featured from the beginning to the more recent ''[[Gundam Seed Destiny]]''. Perhaps the most bizarre version was the Battleships of the [[Mobile Suit Victory Gundam|Zanscare Empire's]] land forces, such as the [http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/v/adrastea.jpg Adrastea-class], which were essentially naval ships on enormous motorcycle wheels.

** 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].

* ''[[Mai-Otome]]'' has these as well (and normally used as the launch platforms for the ''Otome's'' themselves), considering the planet where the story takes place is a ''Desert Planet''. Heck even a civilian ferry travels on land.

 

* The titular Land Leviathan from [[Michael Moorcock]]'s 1974 novel "The Land Leviathan".

* The ''original'' land battleship, from the story "The Land Ironclads," by H.G. Wells, is possibly the earliest example, predating actual tanks.

** 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|BFGs]], 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.

 

* [[Truth in Television]]: there was such a school of thought in 1920s to 1930s advocating the use of powerful vehicles to serve as trench-breakers and infantry support. As the expected pace of warfare was restricted by both technological limitations and the speed of infantry, these largely concentrated on larger and more heavily armoured vehicles.

** Both the British and Germans considered building these during [[World War II]]. The Germans prototyped at least one, with several more designs in the works before the war's end prevented their construction. By contrast, the British eventually gave up on the concept due to it being more expensive than it would be worth.

** The Soviet [[wikipedia:T-28|T-28]], nicknamed ''Postivaunu'' (Stagecoach) by Finns in [[Winter War]]. Formidable three-turreted monster, but an abysmal failure in practise. The follow-up [http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=346 T-35] was a veritable Games Workshop Tank with five turrets (reused from already produced tank designs, in different variants), but about as much use as you might expect. This one got into series, but soon canceled as obsolete. Their roles were split between [http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=254 T-26] (mass produced infantry support tank), KV series (heavy) and T-34 (medium - reinforcing lighter or beefing up heavier forces rather than specialized).

 

* The Imperial Baneblade in ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' is a tank the size of a large house and mounts no fewer than 11 separate weapons ranging from high explosive cannon rounds, laser cannons and bolter (fully automatic armoured-piercing RPG) turrets. It should also be noted that the Baneblade chassis is the ''standard'' chassis which Imperial super-heavy tanks are usually based on. Like, for example, the Shadowsword [[Humongous Mecha|Titan]]-killer - a Baneblade chassis housing a [[BFG|Volcano Cannon]], usually found on the Titans that it is designed to destroy. Even larger examples of Imperial land battleships include the Ordinatus (tracked [[Wave Motion Gun]]) Leviathan (mobile command centre, basically a castle on tracks) and Capitol Imperialis (APC ''for tanks''). And let's not get started on the Imperium's [[Humongous Mecha]], the Titans, which are often referred to as "walking battleships."

** In older versions of the setting, the Baneblade chassis was said to be the size of a ''city block''.

* [[Dystopian Wars]] has Land Battleships large enough to mount [[Up to Eleven|Saint Paul's Cathedral]] on their backs, while also carrying various weapons that make them more than able to live up to their moniker.

 

* ''Planetside'' - The Sunderer (and its variants) are basically ''giant'' (they're the size of a house) buses, with massive spikes on front, and tank cannons on top. And they can carry [[Powered Armor|MAX units]]. Oh, and they can use a EMP pulse on anything near them, making them minefield sweepers as well.

* ''[[Haze]]'' - The Land Carrier is what its name suggests: rather than a Land Battleship, it's a rather useless land helicopter carrier which seemingly whiles away the hours by driving in circles.

* ''[[End of Nations]]'' features massive battleship sized tanks armed with more than a [[More Dakka|dozen cannons]].

 

* ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' has had a number of these in toy form, although they rarely appeared in the cartoons. One of them, the General ([[wikipedia:General (G.I. Joe)|The Other Wiki link]]) did recieve the focus of an entire episode. Driven by the Russian guy no less. Go peristrokia.

* 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.

== Submersible Carrier ==

 

* The ''[[Area 88]]'' manga features one of these, albeit on land: The land carrier moves on tracks, launches unmanned fighters, and hides itself by burrowing under the desert sand. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is very difficult to cool.

* ''[[Gundam]]'' and its multiple continuities had several of these serving to launch both aerial and amphibious mobile suits.

* ''[[Super Atragon]]'': Both the ''Ra'' and ''Liberty'' are submarine-battleships. The ''Ra'' carries and launches jet-powered sea planes.

 

* ''[[Nextwave]]'' had a cross between an [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier]]...and a ''submarine''.

 

* The ''Starsea Invaders'' series by G. Harry Stine has a US navy which has replaced its surface aircraft carrier fleet with cold fusion powered submarine aircraft carriers.

 

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

 

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

** And a fan-made [http://www.kitsune.addr.com/Rifts/Rifts-Earth-Vehicles/REEF_SSCR-1_Narwhal.htm thing].

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

 

* ''[[Supreme Commander]]'' has the Atlantis-class submersible carrier for the UEF.

* ''[[Ace Combat]]'' 5 had a pair of these on the Yuktobanian side, although they were actually ballistic missile platforms that happened to be able to launch their own fighters for air defense. The first one, ''Scinfaxi'', had a rear takeoff area for Harriers and F-35s, while the Hrimfaxi had unmanned aircraft in vertical launch tubes (it can even launch them while submerged!).

* ''[[Crimson Skies]]'' included a mission where a British submarine carrier, the HMS Barracuda, tries to attack and destroy their own base as well as destroy the Fortune Hunters and their zeppelin in order to hide evidence that they were planning an invasion of Hawaii.

 

 

== 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]].

 

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s novel ''[[The Puppet Masters]]'' had amphibious submersibles.

 

* 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.

* The Empire Of The Rising Sun in [[Command & Conquer|Red Alert 3]] will have the [[Meaningful Name|Tsunami Tank.]] The Stingray from the Soviets is a boat that sprouts legs. And there's the above amphibious cruiser from the Allies. The game makes extensive use of amphibious units, as a way to make the inclusion of sea combat less frustrating and complex.

 

* On ''[[G.I. Joe]]'', Cobra had a couple, the most notable being the [http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/90/hammerhead/hammerhead_title1.jpg Hammerhead], which was not only a submersible tank, but also a submersible carrier for its own mini-fleet of smaller vehicles.

* "Katastrophe", The first [[Season Finale]] of ''[[Swat Kats]]'', had the Kats use one of these against the alliance of Dark Kat, Dr. Viper, and the Metallikats.

 

* 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.

** In the latest Codex: Space wolves there is mention of the Space Wolves batteling Tau under 5 miles of oceans, after having driven their Land Raiders there, on the bottom of the sea.

 

* [[Truth in Television]] yet again; several sorts of [[wikipedia:DD tank|amphibious tanks]] were designed, built and deployed in World War II. Likewise, a number of modern armored vehicles include amphibious capability, and most tanks can ford rivers using snorkels.

** A more extreme example is the German "Tauchpanzer" variant of the [[wikipedia:Panzer IV|Panzer IV]]: a tank capable of driving under 15 meters of water.

These can fight equally well in the air or in the water.

 

* The VF-0s in ''[[Macross Zero]]'' can, apparently, fly underwater. For short periods, at least. Ironically, this is the early version that runs on jet engines, as they hadn't got the alien fusion reactors working yet. There is an explicit shot of the intakes closing before it hits the surf, and it appears to be coasting.

* The Hammer Head [[Zoids|Zoid]] can do this.

* To quote [[Marine Boy]]'s theme, "Flying sub ahoy!"

 

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

* From [http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=33&Itemid=52&limitstart=64 an old comic book].

* Top Cow's ''Fathom'' comics had one of these in testing, based on a recovered fighter from the race the titular character was from. Semi-F-14ish with variable wings, but mounted with a forward sweep design.

 

* ''[[Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow]]'' (2004) did this with submersible propeller planes.

* Though not explicitly armed, the automated transports used by Syndrome in ''[[The Incredibles]]'' get to Nomanisan Island by air... then go under water to dock.

 

** The KingFisher in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' novel ''The Indestructible Man'', a [[Captain Ersatz]] of everything Gerry Anderson ever did.

* [[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''.

* 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.

* The "Delta Flyer" from ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'', in similar fashion to the above mentioned "Puddle Jumpers", was modified in Season 5 Episode 9 ''Thirty Days'' to operate underwater. Making it a combination spacecraft/submersible. As with all shuttles in the Star Trek universe, it had atmospheric capability and space for multiple crew members, in effect making it a combination spacecraft/submersible/fighter/transport.

 

* A number of vehicles in the ''[[Rifts]]'' Underseas sourcebook.

* The system defence boats of ''[[Traveller]]'' are capable of flying in space and in atmosphere and can go underwater, at least in the ''[[GURPS]]'' version. It helps that the vehicle rules of ''[[GURPS]]'' practically ''invite'' people to design vehicles that fit this trope.

** In defence of ''GURPS Vehicles'', it doesn't expect people to be doing this in the middle of a session of regular play. The ongoing design example from the book, incidentally, is more than worthy of inclusion on this page - a [[Flying Car]] (kept aloft by [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum]] and propelled by a jet engine, which can also give it a bit of extra speed on land) that's also a submarine, has military-grade electronics and is armed with concealed machine guns. [[James Bond]], eat your heart out.

 

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

* Although ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star FOX]] 64'' had a separate submarine for the underwater mission, Arwings and other starfighters in ''Star Fox Command'' can do this.

* Stage 2-1 of ''[[Contra]]: Shattered Soldier'' features a submarine that transforms into a giant VTOL gunship.

 

* ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' had the S.H.A.R.K. aircraft.

** SHARC was always intended to be strictly a submarine. In playtesting kids started treating the toy as an aircraft.

* The triple-changer Broadside in ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'' transforms into both an aircraft carrier and a jet.

* Dr. Claw's [[Cool Car]] in ''[[Inspector Gadget]]'' can turn into a jet or a submarine.

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

* The USA had [http://davidszondy.com/future/Flight/flying_sub.htm a similar idea].

The is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|exactly what it sounds like]]. A factory capable of pumping out mass-produced (often robotic drone) war machines, combat-ready right off the assembly line. This is usually its primary purpose, though it may have other weapons.

 

* The ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'' was able to build new and replacement mecha (at least it could in ''[[Robotech]]''), not to mention the Zentraedi/Robotech Master factory sattelite. Each of the colony fleets shown in ''Macross7'' and ''[[Macross Frontier]]'' included factory ships as well.

* 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.

 

* The [[Dark Empire|World Devastators]] from the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] not only did this, but ate the planets they were attacking to get the raw materials. If given enough time, a fleet of World Devastators could consume the entirety of a planet and convert it into new war machines. Including ''more World Devastators''.

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

* 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''.

 

* The Cylon Resurrection Ship in ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'' is a mobile ''people'' factory.

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

 

* The restored monolith from ''Dawn of War''. The Necron race is badass enough, but really takes the cake when their headquarters building is brought completely back online. It changes from an ominous black pyramid of doom into an evil floating pyramid of doom and green lightning that can suddenly materialize right in the middle of your base. While it holds the award for the single slowest unit in the entire game, it can teleport, has a gigantic cannon, and regenerates. As if that wasn't enough, it still maintains the ability to produce units. Combine it with the Necron Lord who can buy an ability to stealth units around him and your enemy is clueless what just decimatde his base.

** Although, to be fair, without proper support or preparation, a restored monolith can be ripped to shreds by a properly defended base, leaving you down quite a bit of energy.

* The majority of Night Elf buildings in ''[[Warcraft III]]'' are mobile, and while they can't perform their primary function while moving, they ''can'' fight.

 

* Some starships in ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' are equipped with [[Nanomachines|Fabbers]] big enough to create other starships. At one point the main characters acquire a particularly big one, and consider fitting it with engines and crew quarters and naming it ''The Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance''. (mocking [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Ob'enn]] naming schemes)

 

* While not a factory, real naval ships have machine tools on board to fix broken equipment. You can do quite a lot of work on a real aircraft carrier.

 

Starships in most [[Space Opera]] series, including ''[[Star Wars]]'', ''[[Babylon 5]]'', and ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'', tend to be a [[Recycled in Space|space-borne]] hybrid of a modern naval battleship and a carrier, possessing heavy armor and lots of large guns as well as a sizable fighter compliment. Operating in space alleviates a lot of the conflicts in design that prohibit this combination in real life (need for a runway and elevators, having a large portion of the vessel's surface be unavailable due to being underwater, and the noise of the heavy guns giving the deck crew shellshock)

 

* ''[[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.

** 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.

 

* Averted occasionally in the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], though such over-specialized ships usually don't do well - for example, the escort carrier, which can carry as many fighters as a Star Destroyer in a much smaller and less-expensive ship, is pitifully under-gunned. One could send an escort ship with it... or just send a ship that both carries fighters and can adequately defend itself. This has been a design philosophy that has been common throughout the galaxy for thousands of years, from the ships in the Old Republic to the modern Star Destroyers.

** While single-purpose cruisers and carriers are rare, different cultures do make different design emphasis. A Star Destroyer (and most Imperial vessels) is first and foremost a battleship whose fighters are primarily a defensive screen -- the main offensive component of the group is the big guns on the big ship. In contrast, Rebellion and New Republic fleet groups favor heavier fighters with less powerful capital ships, or sometimes no capital ship at all.

* 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.

* The Alliance cruisers in ''[[Firefly]]'' appear to be multipurpose combinations of warships and fighter carriers, equipped with "gunships" that are used to engage targets, as well as some type of large laser/torpedo weapons system.

 

* The [[Cool Spaceship|Panther]] in ''[[X (video game)|X3: Terran Conflict]]'' is a frigate which carries 32 fighters, and capital ship weaponry. [[You Fail Physics Forever|And it turns so fast that anyone on the front of the ship would be pancaked.]]

** The last part is easily justified: the setting is known to have gravity control, which inertial dampers are generally an outgrowth of.

* 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.

 

* 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.

* Dropships in ''[[BattleTech]]'' are heavily armed atmospheric assault transports; they carry more weapons than anything short of a Warship, anywhere from 4-40 battlemechs, can function as atmospheric craft (Albeit not exceptionally well), and carry fighters of their own to keep the planet's own fighters busy while they land and offload the assault force.

** 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.

 

* The Soviet-built cruiser-carriers fit here, carrying both anti-ship missiles and aircraft. Rather than a last-ditch self-defence mechanism like most carrier armaments, the design intention was for the ''Kiev''- and the ''Kuznetsov'' class to be capable of both serving in both ship roles in a fleet role.

** 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.

** 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.

* ''[[Code Geass]]'' has airships that are submersible, a [[Humongous Mecha]] that turns into a fighter jet-thingie, and another that turns into a ''submarine''.

 

* ''[[Blackhawk]]'' comics were in love with this trope. Along with the [http://superdickery.com/index.php?id=457:we-all-live-in-a-flying-submarine&option=com_content flying submarine], there was an [http://superdickery.com/index.php?id=461:the-furious-assault-of-the-hell-divers&option=com_content underground fighter plane], [http://superdickery.com/index.php?id=474:the-cyclone-terror&option=com_content tornado-generating helicopter fortresses], [http://superdickery.com/index.php?id=484:qgiant-kites-in-twenty-four-hours-to-doom&option=com_content combat kites], [http://superdickery.com/index.php?id=492:the-sky-sleds&option=com_content bobsled planes], [http://superdickery.com/index.php?id=504:the-winged-menace&option=com_content helicopter pogo-sticks], [http://superdickery.com/index.php?id=512:the-flying-tank-platoon&option=com_content flying tanks], and some sort of [http://superdickery.com/index.php?id=521:the-fire-wheel&option=com_content flying on-fire-spinny-thing]. And these weren't even all of them! ''Blackhawk'' comics had more fuzzy-science-derived plot devices than ''Star Trek''.

* ''[[Airboy]]'' had [http://superdickery.com/index.php?id=501:the-wheels-of-eboli&option=com_content tank-tracked] giant [[Monowheel Mayhem|monowheels]].

* ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' has the mashup machines; they tended to make a small appereance or two, then explode.

 

* This was the central plot point of ''[[The Three Stooges]] In Orbit'': a professor builds a vehicle that's a submarine with tank treads and rotor blades. When it's stolen, the military has problems figuring out who should stop it. It lands: 'Call the Army!' It takes off: 'Call the Air Force!' Eventually, it goes over the ocean, to the relief of the commander: 'Call the Navy!'

 

* [[Dale Brown]]'s EB-52 Megafortress and other machines that fall into the [[Cool Plane]] category are essentially mash-ups of heavy bombers and fighters. Since in real-life the most difficult changes would involve changing some programming lines in a radar's software and adapting the bomb bay to carry an ''[[Macross Missile Massacre|obscene]]'' [[Macross Missile Massacre|amount air-to-air missiles]], this concept [[wikipedia:B-1 Lancer#B-1R|just might]] become [[Truth in Television]] as well.

* Navy pinnaces in the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' series are the bastard children of the space shuttle and the B-1R mentioned above, scaled up to the size of a 747. They are interplanetary space craft, [[Space Marine]] assault ships and fighter-bombers rolled into one.

 

 

* 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.

 

 

* Some [[Transformers]] have multiple forms, resulting in things like this. Perhaps most well-known is the Decepticon Triple-Changer Blitzwing, whose alternate modes are a MiG-25 and a Type-74 tank. The most over-the-top, though, would have to be Sixshot, a Decepticon with ''six'' alternate modes who can take on entire teams of enemies single-handedly.

** Anything with [[Transforming Mecha]] really, when you basically have tanks that turn into mechs. Literally when you bring [[Combining Mecha]] into the equation.

 

* In the ''[[Homeworld]]'' games, your mothership is a space factory/carrier, able to manufacture everything else in your fleet and house all of its smaller craft, while also able to maneuver(or even make hyperspace jumps) to any part of the battle area like any other ship. However in the original game, on its own, it's still fairly vulnerable.

** The Carrier-class ships from the first game also functioned as factory/carriers, but weren't able to build the larger ships (like Carriers) and were much faster and more maneuverable than the Mothership.

* ''[[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''.

 

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

 

* Courtesy of [[The Onion]]: the [http://www.theonion.com/video/obama-axes-pentagon-plan-to-build-billion-dollar-t,14351/ Dragon Tank].

* ''[http://blog.glennz.com/swiss-army/ Swiss Army]'' tank by Glenn Jones.

 

* Arguably, the original aircraft carrier was a working real-life example of this, attempting to combine an airbase with a ship.

** ...and while we're at it: the [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier]] in all its many incarnations.

* The AC-130 is cool, but similar attempt was done on at least two [http://www.stormbirds.net/variants262a1aU4.htm ME262], the Me262 A-1a/U4 variant, with 50mm Anti-tank cannon fitted on its nose. Consider WWII have light tanks with smaller cannons.

* 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>

 

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