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The subject of old tanks being restored to service reminds me of Twilight: 2000.
There were official game stats for tanks as old as the M48, Leopard and T-55.
Some had gotten upgrades, some did not.
There's even the Romanian M-81, a T-55 sporting a 120mm Reinmetal gun! This tank never existed. Romania's actual T-55 developments had a locally developed 100mm gun using the same ammo as the old D-10.
Just as being the one eyed man makes you king in the land of the blind; having a functioning tank in T2K makes you master of all you survey.
Anti-tank missiles are scarce with the combination of having been used to thin the tank herds and the lack of targets remaining. Why lug the thing around when you most likely aren't going to need it.
I can't recall a single player buying something heavier than a LAWS during the entire course of me GMing it. Not for 37 years.
But we have had an M1A2 once. A couple of LAV-75's. The heaviest armor the players regularly got was a LAV-25. A LAWS will suffice on a LAV.
It was a hobby of this GM to separate the players from their legitimately obtained armored vehicles through theft, destruction or breakage. At least once they had to abandon their LAV-25 because they'd run out of fuel and the still had only started perking when a marauder band hit them.
Knowing what I know now, that I didn't know then, was I should have had more light mortars among the various groups and encouraged the players to do the same.
But, like the LAWS being the heaviest "anti-tank" they'd take, the heaviest indirect munition they'd buy was an M203; and even then wouldn't get the best rounds for supporting fires.
Been that way since Day 1 of tanks. The little Carden-Lloyd style tankettes and small tanks ruled against infantry that didn't have anything that could stop them. The Japanese light tanks worked great in China and in the Pacific theater until bigger guns and better armor came out.
ReplyDeleteEven an up-armored vehicle, like a bank truck or a Bob Semple-style tractor, is better than nothing when the other side doesn't have diddly squat for anti-armor weapons.
Heck, it goes all the way back to Zizka's war wagons during the Hussite Rebellion. Can't defeat vehicles without anti-vehicle weapons.
During a NATO sponsored dog and pony show in Romania, I saw several T-54 and T-55's on the base. Don't ever ask a tanker what the difference was. The Canadian army armor officer gave a half hour lecture that impressed even the old Warsaw Pact troopers.
ReplyDelete~sings~
ReplyDeleteI fired a LAW at a BMP-1
I fired a LAW, and the LAW won...
~/sings~