It is rare to see a Shadowrunner driving down the street in a tank for some reason. Arsenal doesn't even have any main battle tanks for some reason. Yet, there is a real civilian market for surplus tanks and it is very easy to purchase one.

http://www.armyjeeps.net/armor1.htm

All of these tanks are old, of course. The Chieftian is the most advanced MBT of the 60s and the 70s, but it is obsolete now. Its armor is unlikely to stand up to any modern anti-tank weapons, but it works very well against small arms and the anti-tank weapons of its generation. And you can apparently buy one on the internet for $45,000 (or could, both have been sold).

Demilitarized tanks shouldn't be terribly common, but they should be available in the civilian marketplace for anyone with the desire and a relatively modest sum of money compared to their initial cost. Thje M1A1 Abrams is of sufficient age to have been retired by 2070 and that means that they will be available on the civilian market for the cost of a new car. The guns would have been removed and replaced with non-functioning display pieces or simply have been rendered unfireable, but that can be remedied by a character with an weapons shop or with the appropriate contacts.

For some reason, Arsenal doesn't have any tanks, new or old. But I must ask the question of what would be a reasonable armor rating for a used MBT circa 1992?

Invulnerable to any and all small-arms fire.

The only thing that should have a hope of damaging it is an anti-vehicle missile/rocket or anything with a similar amount of damage from a single shot.

I believe there aren't any tanks in Arsenal because there is the possibility of a separate military supplement.

Tanks wouldn't likely EVER be runner gear. This is because a tank is SLOW, it's BIG, and it's LOUD; tanks chew up the pavement as they pass, and they aren't very maneuverable. "Shadowrunners" are people who do illegal things in secret. A tank is hard to keep a secret, omae. You'd get three blocks down the street before the local government or a corp took you out.

Also, you couldn't exactly hide it in your garage, and you'd be easily identified as "the guy who has a tank in his driveway". Currently in RL you can buy a tank... but you can't actually drive it anywhere or make use of it. If you were rich you might park it on your thousand-acre lawn as a centerpiece.

In the golden age of piracy, pirates did not use man-of-wars or even ships the size of the Black Pearl in That Movie. They were too big and too slow and too hard to maneuver. They went for fast, agile sloops and schooners with shallow drafts, for "attack and escape" power rather than brute force. Shadowrunners follow the same principles. Use a citymaster if you must, but anything slower and you're toast.

Tanks in SR4 would be purely military NPC equipment.

That said, while a runner would never purposely outfit himself with a tank, commandeering one in the middle of a run on an army base would be fair game. Keeping it afterwards would be out of the question, unless the PC is an idiot.

All you have to do is put some tail lights on it and maybe modify the engine to comply with emissions standards

IIRC, In the UK, there's provisions that allow tanks to be driven on roadways. They're old laws from WWII, apparently. For civilian ownership, they can't be armed, and that's about it. (Usually the barrel is cemented or some such.).

OK, it won't be 'Runner equipment, but how about Mercs? Mercs are a part of Shadowrun as well.

Hell, I bet there are still a few Russian T-34s still kicking around parts of the world in 2070!

If there's one thing that Pirates of the Burning Sea has taught me, it's that if you have a Bermuda or Jamaica Sloop and optimize your rigging, you can ream damn near any larger, slower boat that isn't a ship of the line, because you can just hang out in their blind spots and rip their rigging up with chain shot.

Queen Anne's Revenge or Whydah much? They weren't raiders, but made great flag ships.

I should say looking at some of the bigger things in Ars you can get an idea of tank stats. I doubt with LAVs though they are that common on the battlefield anymore

I'll agree that you'd have to be running a different type of game for these to really come into play, but Merc games aren't all that uncommon.

The real reason why we still have huge, hideously expensive hardware like M1A1s around is because pretty much only the US and a few other first-world european nations have the money and the production to field the top-of-the-line AT weapons to take them out reliably. When you're fighting insurgents with 1950s weapons like the RPG-7, it's easy to see where the MBT is a beatdown machine. If everyone had Javelins, however...totally different story.
With the thrust of battle becoming the acquisition of markets, assets, and resources for corporations I think that hideously expensive equipment like MBT will go the way of the do-do due to costs of not only making them but also parts, training, ammunition, storage, deployment, etc. Add the fact that a 10K (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) missile will blow out a 10M (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) tank and the crew and you see a huge cost-to-gain deficit. I would treat systems more like the Striker as the SR MBT as they focus on the current trends in land warfare anyway. Relatively low cost (when compared to MBT), higher urban mobility, easier to store and deploy, can carry the same weapons, cheaper to maintain, easier training, etc.

As several people have already mentioned, Mercs for one would make use of tanks. And your saying that, should you choose to Run in a war zone, you won't have to deal with tanks that are in your way?

As for driving down the street on a rampage, eventually your hosed. But your going to do alot of damage before they bring something heavy enough in from the national guard armory to stop you.

Also your wrong that you can't drive tanks around in the US. I know there is at least one individual in the US that sells refurbished tanks, and the treads have been replaced by multiple wheels. Because it's not against the law to drive tanks on the road, it's illegal to drive treaded vehicles on the road (because it tears up said roads). I also believe that it might (in certain situations) be qualified as a "wide load," which of course has extra qualifications. (And of course you can off road them to your hearts content).

And I believe there were several famous pirates that, while they didn't sail around in full sized ships of the line (which aren't good for much, except for being in a line), some of them did use Frigates of War and other large ships, because of their firepower and carrying capacity. Because what are you gonna do about it? Unless you want the expense of several large ships wandering around looking for the pirate.

As for armor value... no clue. High enough that small arms aren't going to hurt it, low enough that a really good shots for missiles might, and... I don't know how likely the LARGE weapons from Arsenal should be to kill it, though I guesse it should be a good chance, since many of them are supposed to be the weapons on naval ships.

I'm not sure how accurate the info is (it's several years old), but .50 rounds could pierce most APC amor except the Bradley (which is only kinda a APC, it's really a small tank that carries soldiers to). Tanks were mostly immune (though I won't want to bet on a Sherman). But now that we're going towards lighter "strike" vehicles, I would expect .50 to start hurting heavy vehicles again. So it really depends on what direction you think armor has gone in 2070 vs. high end, armor piercing sniper rifle rounds. (And of course, Autocannons.)

Rampage? That's just silly. The privately owned tank is, however, ideal for driving to and from the grocery store and other such every-day tasks in style and safety.

While I completely agree that they are perfect for grocery runs, there is a basis for tank "road rage":

(On several occasions in the last 10 years people have gone on "tank" rampages.)

One individual took a piece of heavy industrial equipment, strapped steel plates, cinder blocks, and other stuff to it, and destroyed a decent portion of the town. There was absolutely nothing they could do to stop it, until I think it either stalled or a large building fell on in (I can't remember). The driver shot himself.

And then there was the individual who really did steal a tank, and drove on down the street. Crushed alot of cars and whatnot. Can't remember how they stopped that one, I think (maybe?) the individual forgot to lock the hatch.

Btw, I don't know if I agree with psychophipps that the Striker Vehicle is the way that armored vehicles will continue to go (for the forseeable future). I think it's a really good idea to continue having virtually indestructable machines of war, especially after we've seen what can happen to our troops when they roll around in (virtually) unarmored vehicles. The intimidation alone is an excellent tactic. In recent history we've been able to stay ahead of the weapon vs. armor seesaw that destroyed mounted knights as a battlefield weapon. And I just don't really see that changing in the future (though that is pure speculation on my part).

Also frankly, tanks are just cool. Look at Ghost in the Shell for example. The episode where they are desperately trying to stop the prototype tank is just cool.

Now, and APC or Infantry Fighting Vehicle, I can see Shadowrunners pulling out on the High-End gigs! Ones where it all matters and needs to come down on the line. You know, blockaide running contraband that is larger than the cargo space of a T-Bird.

They're designed more for speed than a MBT is (Although an MBT can motor more than most people give credit to them!), And the IFV still has enough firepower to intimidate any Security Forces around, until they can pull out their big stuff.

It is not illegal to own a armored vehicle in the US, it is illegal to a armored vehicle with any weapon any where near functional.

There are many privately owned armored cars and tanks. Yes the tanks can not be driven on most roadways but the armored cars due to having wheels can.

One exception being the M-60A series tank that a "person" took from a San Diego Military Reserve Facility 10+ years ago and went driving thru RV's light poles and LEO vehicles. The videos of its drive are still on the net. The San Diego PD had nothing to tuck or impair its illegal drive thru the city.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AcVSEY2DP0

Wonder what the outcome would have been if he had crossed the median barrier at a 90 degree angle than the oblique he did.

WMS

The Internet... And the TV! I remember seeing that on a few different shows!

The problem with surplus tanks is that you'd have trouble with spare parts. a Sherman or Patton is, relatively easy to maintain. An Ambrahams or Challenger are much more high maintenance and without that, they're real big paperweights. There are a couple of dozen F-15 sitting in Iran, usless. Some say it's because th4e mechanics on site scragged them when the embassy was siezed in '79. The more common belief is that without trained technicians and parts, they just broke down and are now decayed beyond all hope-since the Iranians don't know how to mothball them.

There is a fairly famous bit of footage of a wack job in and M-60 driving through LA eventurally the police got on board and cut it open at the doors. admittedly driving over the line of parked bikes belonging to that go-gang you hate, in a Leopard II is amusing but you've gotta get out of the tnak at osme point.

Again, T-34s are probably still around. And they'd be more than enough to take for a trip around town. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

sure same generation tech as the Sherman. same idea. but not as advanced as the current genreration of MBT's

Correction the location was San Diego not LA. It was not until he threw a tread while attempting to cross over a concrete center median, which stalled him, with allowed the SD LEO's to climb onto the turret, to open the hatch.

There are many videos of armored vehicles on similar rampages in modern times.

WMS

This the game where a flying tank costs 2 million? In SR world the prices are silly low, so your tank prices are absurd.

In the real world prices are rather different. M1's costs maybe $2-4.3 million per (It's hard to tell, as we haven't built any in 15 years) and a FGM-148 Javelin is $200,000. (More accurately each round is $80,000 and the launcher is $120,000.)

Most of the stuff they are selling is just light armor, subbing in the stats for a city master would work fine.

(Assumption: the Citymaster has all around armor roughly the equivalent to 1 inch/25mm of RHA steel)

Compared to a Citymaster the Chieftain has around 5 times as much armor on the front hull, 8 times as much armor on the turret face, around 2x on the sides, and around 1x on the rear.

A Citymaster compared to a current M1, the M1 has 24 or more times as much armor on the front hull, 32 or more times as much armor on the turret face, around 10 times as much armor on the sides, and around 3?x as much armor on the rear.

In addition, the M1 has composite armor that doubles (or more) its resistance to HEAT warheads.

Good point on the prices, I was just using the random number as an example. Of course, once you add in ammunition, maintenance and the crew to do it, training of the vehicle and maintenance crew, shipping, spare parts, fuel, etc and that $2-4.3 million starts looking a whole mess larger when it's all said and done.

Also a good point on the M1 vs. Javelin costs for today (don't forget all the other expenses incurred, though). Of course, by the SR timeline the Javelin will be like trying to use a first-gen Bazooka against a M1A2. Add to this the fact that the guidance systems and such will only get cheaper as time goes on, the fact that the missiles would no longer exclusively being designed, built, and used by the US military with it's virtually unlimited budget and such weapons systems will be pushed way down in price just through market competition and limited corporate budgets. In the end, however, you will note that a Javelin to M1 cost ratio is still 10-21 to one by your own admission. Perfectly acceptable for the US military for the reasons above but far from acceptable in a market-driven corporate action.
Of course, the US military has yet to face an opponent that can reliably destroy a M1, so the doctrine hasn't been developed for such a contingency nor have plans been made monetarily for such a situation. I'm quite certain that a massive change in the use and concept of future armored vehicles and their operations would result if enemies like the insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraqi had weapons like the Javelin at their disposal through various corporate channels.

No, it's 2 Million (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) , not US$2 Million. BIG difference!

The (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) is an artificially created currency by the Corporate Court that's designed to keep the world economy going no matter what. At least, that's how I've read it.

Anyhow, here are official rules for exchange rates.

or simply that they are the deus ex machina of corps and governments. in other words, a close cousin of the orbital bovine launcher...

still, there is always rigger3 that had stats for nuclear-powered carriers. but no tanks (somewhat corrected with sota63, but they left out the base chassis stats).

Well, I'll just have to whip something up for when my group hits the big time, and they have to GTA a Tank for some Johnson that needs one for a Merc Unit. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/vegm.gif)

The GM heavy cannon (MBT main armament) is 17P/-8. The AZT Itzcoatl is 18P/-10.

Soaking that kind of base damage takes a combined rating of Body+Armor of around 60. But a full soak is certainly not desireable.

Lets see what kind of armor is defeatable:

Base Penetration Values (damage+AP against vehicles):
Ballista 14+6=20
Generic AV rocket 16+6=22
Great Dragon 18+6=24
GM HC 17+8=25
Itzcoatl 18+10=28

IMO MBT armor ratings should top out at around 30, requiring a few net hits on an attack with a dedicated anti-tank weapon to penetrate. That would leave about 20-30 for body on those tanks. Another way would be extreme Body and lower armor, but thats (again, IMO) pretty much writing the penetration capability out of the game.