Tank Goodness: Difference between revisions

[[File:Imperial Guard Baneblade Maximillian Weisemann 8072.jpg|link=Warhammer 4000040,000|frame|"Ready to unleash [[Up to Eleven|eleven]] [[More Dakka|barrels]] [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|of hell]]!"]]

|'''Anonymous Mammoth Tank crewman''', |''[[Tiberium Wars]]''}}

|'''Colonel Joachim Pfeiff, 14th Krieg Panzer Regiment''', |''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''}}

Of course, the above paragraph refers to tanks around the size of today's main battle tanks. Sometimes that's not enough. <big>[[Bigger Is Better|They need to be bigger!]] Big enough to crush the ''other tanks''! [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|And carry loads of weapons!]] While [[Multi-Track Drifting|While racing donuts around them!]] No, we're not compensating for anything!</big>

Related to [[Cool Car]], [[Cool Bike]], [[Cool Train]], [[Base on Wheels]], and other vehicle/warfare tropes—this is basically [[Cool Tank]]. Has nothing to do with [[Shorttank]], which makes you say '''Tank Goodness''' in a completely different way. Also has nothing to do with playing a damage-sponge character in an [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]], or with the oxygen storage unit strapped to the back of a SCUBA diver.

* In later light novels of ''[[ZeroThe noFamiliar Tsukaimaof Zero]]'', Saito obtains a King Tiger II tank from second world war.

* ''[[Girls und Panzer]]''. Tank battles can be awesome and ''adorable'' at the same time. Standard-size tanks, though.

* The Landram was used in the [[Pilot Movie]] of [[Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)|the original ''[[Battlestar Galactica Classic]]'']] to save some humans from the Cylon -rigged Casino on planet Carolon.

* ''[[Discworld]]'' featured a steam tank of sorts in ''[[Discworld/Small Gods|Small Gods]]''—notably — notably, because its existence was enough to shift the balance of power and change history, Lu Tze of the [[Time Police|History Monks]] sabotaged its construction.

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''story [["If This Goes On—"]] --'' story has these. They are sort of "landships". His novel ''[[The Puppet Masters (novel)|The Puppet Masters]]'' has amphibious tanks or "mud turtles".

** To get an idea of the "landships", think of a [[WW 2II]] battleship that goes overland like a tank!

* The ''Sovremenyy''.: the Russian jaggernaut (ice cruiser) rumbling across the south polar plains in Swedish dieselpunk novel ''Iskriget''.

* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|takes this Trope and makes sweet, sweet love to it]]. All races have access to some form of armored death machine, with the exception of the Tyranids (who have a broad variety of armored death ''biomechanoids'', but they all walk, crawl, hover, fly or slither rather than rolling). But it is the [[Imperial Guard]] who have access to the widest range of vehicles - from the ubiquitous Leman Russ main battle tank and Chimera armored personnel carrier/infantry fighting vehicle to the Baneblade super-heavy tank, pictured above in all its glory (yes, it [http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Baneblade#Armament_and_Upgrades really does have] [[More Dakka|eleven barrels of hell]].<ref>If you want a quick breakdown: Baneblade battle cannon mounted in the turret, with a co-axial autocannon, Demolisher cannon mounted in the hull, two sponsons mounting twin-linked heavy bolters with two lascannons mounted on top of those, and a further twin-linked heavy bolter mounted in the hull</ref>) Then there's the Shadowsword, which is basically a Baneblade chassis housing a [[Wave Motion Gun|Volcano cannon]]—usually the main armament of [[Humongous Mecha|Titans the size of buildings]]. As for the other armies, the Space Marines and their Chaos counterparts (who can ''daemonically possess'' their tanks) have access to Predator tanks based on the Rhino APC along with the awesome [[Military Mashup Machine|troop transport/battle tank]] that is the Land Raider, while the Eldar and Tau use highly maneuverable skimmer tanks, although they tend to take their personnel carriers and turn them into tanks by adding an appropriately powerful gun that removes the capacity to carry troops. The Orks? Well, they use cobbled-together battlewagons and looted Imperial vehicles that shouldn't even be able to ''move'', let alone fight in combat. The Necrons have the titanic Monolith, a horribly-beweaponed flying tomb that is ludicrously hard to kill.

** See also the [https://web.archive.org/web/20110920195117/http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14209 treadhead thread].

* ''[[Armored Core]]'' would be the ultimate Tank Goodness poster child: most games offer the tank legs. Very slow, but usually very heavily armored, has very low energy drain, has built-in boosters, so it actually saves the main body weight, and carry loads like nothing else. With that in mind, most kinds of tanks can fulfill requirements of [[More Dakka]], [[Macross Missile Massacre]], [[Nuke'Em|Tactical Nukes]], or all of the above, ''with [[Stone Wall]] defenses''. [[There Is No Kill Like an Overkill]] is guaranteed. And then, starting from [[PlayStation 2]] Armored Core titles, you have the option of having Overboost, and later additional boosters. At that point, tanks can finally achieve [[Multi-Track Drifting]], made even more possible by mounting the best generators. And even with all that, most players don't really consider it, since [[Rule of Cool|Gundamlike bipedal robots are just cooler.]]

* [http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=210 KV-2], which mounted a [[BFG|152mm howitzer]] (largest caliber weapon ''ever'' fitted on a production tank), but was virtually immobile and couldn't traverse its turret unless it was on perfectly level ground. Its intended role was an ''assault gun'', i.e. self-propelled bunker-buster, better compared with the German Jagdpanzers or StuGs. As such neither did it need much mobility, nor lack of ease of use would be all that detrimental for it. Of course, these lumbering behemots performed well enough [[Finns With Fearsome Forests|slowly chewing through Mannerheim's concrete]], in highly mobile warfare of the summer campaign of 41 they acted more as mobile fortifications—unable to hit anything that doesn't stand and wait for it, but armored heavier than [http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=313 KV-1] that were able to [https://web.archive.org/web/20130412151323/http://books.google.com/books?id=5EA5LrwmP2UC&pg=PA36 survive over a hundred cannon hits] and beat lighter tanks by ''[[Ramming Always Works|ramming]]''. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130412084305/http://books.google.com/books?id=5EA5LrwmP2UC&pg=PA18 One well-placed KV-2 was enough to stop a division]: tanks and anti-tank cannons failed to penetrate its armour, so Germans stuck until they brought in 88-mm anti-air guns. 105-mm howitzers were able to only to blow off tracks off these monsters, but not destroy them. KV's worst enemy were the Stukas (bombs were more practical against heavy armored but slow tanks) and Red Army's own logistical troubles. Still, the scheme was good enough to reuse production lines, upgrading both assault gun and tank branches, and later turn KV series into [http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=191 IS] series.

** Somewhere in between is [[wikipedia:Obyekt 279|Obyekt 279]] ("Object 279"), a Soviet prototype heavy tank with a maximum armor of 305mm and a 130mm cannon. It is designed to withstand a [[Mnogo Nukes|nuclear attack]], and it seems that it doesn't fail its purpose. '''Two pairs''' of tracks (claimed ground pressure is 0.6 kg/cm² — in "human without much load" range; losing one track would push it past heavy tank norm, but still viable on hard ground) and 1000 horsepower to move 60 tons allowed it to be a tank and not a self-propelled bunker—velocity on a road is claimed to be 55&nbsp;km/h and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okTc-87-XvU you can see] how it plows through snow and swamp. Canceled, like most projects of its time not related to either nuclear missiles, space race or overdue upgrade of production capabilities.

** The Military Channel show ''Top Tens'' episode on tanks ranked the T-34 as number one, ahead of M1 Abrams. One of the main ranking categories were production numbers and historical impact. The M1 Abrams, while arguably the best modern tank, has not yet made significant historical impact. Also, they're very high-tech and expensive, meaning there aren't very many of them made. The T-34 is the second most produced tank in history(after the T-54/55) and was crucial in turning the tide of a world war. It's, basically, the AK-47 of tanks (which won the best rifle ranking in another episode) — [[Master of None|not too impressive]] in performance statistics, but practically good enough, and fit for production and maintenance in great numbers.

* The Slovakian's have a Version of the T-72 that has a pair of 20MM Anti-air guns [https://web.archive.org/web/20131020033417/http://www.army-technology.com/projects/t72/t726.html attached to the side of the turret.]

* The very first tank battle took place at Villers-Bretonneaux in 1918. It involved a battle between 10 tanks on the British side (1 male Mark IV, 2 female Mark IVs, 7 Whippets){{spoiler|*:In [[World War I]] British parlance, a "female" tank was one armed solely with machine guns, while a "male" tank had cannons as its main armament. Later "tankette" was used for machinegun-only light tank as a separate subtype.}} and 3 German A7V Sturmpanzerwagens. None of them were very good tanks, yet the battle looked awesome, with both sides accquitingacquitting themselves quite well: the Germans lost their lead tank, [[I Call It "Vera"|Nixie]] (whose crew later stole her back), but knocked out 4 Whippets and forced the female Mark IVs to retreat, while the British and their Australian allies ultimately won the battle.

* British Infantry Tank II Matilda. Before late 1941 it completely outclassed anything the Germans and Italians could throw in, and the only weapon which had chances to destroy it was the [[Cool Gun|88 mm anti-aircraft gun]]. It gained the nickname ''Queen of the Desert'' during the Operation Compass in 1940. Obsolete at West by 1942, the surviving Matildas were shipped to Far East - where it proved superior against anything the Japanese had. The Australians dubbed Matilda as ''Queen of the Jungle''. One of the more whimsical modifications was to equip Matilda with Hedgehog ''depth charge'' launcher. [No, it was (not used against submarines, but Japanese bunkers). It had a weak engine for its weight, but on small flat islands it didn't matter that much.]

[[Category:Motor Vehicle Tropes{{PAGENAME}}]]