Last night i flipped through my Rigger 3 and found three described Battle Tanks and some diverse Light Tanks/APCs. They seem to lacking in Arsenal and i am playing with the idea of GMing a campaign where the players are the crews of a vehicle.

Somebody came up with an idea of what profile a Main Battle Tank (Sigur III or the 2070 version of the Abrams) should have?

You can blame the people who keep clamoring for Shadowrun to go back to "street" level. Maybe these people hasn't been to Bangkok lately or have already forgotten Tiananmen Square.

Been talk about a military style arc in the distant future. (conflict in South Am maybe) Maybe someday we'll get a "Fields of Fire" update.

Yeah, talked with a fellow player about playing as a mercenary tank crew and it caught me like it's been the first day i ever heard of it ^^

Anyway, how would you scale the numbers of a Battle Tank? More Armor than Body was something that sprang into my mind. Tracks are a must have and one reinforced heavy Turret. How would Tank Warfare look 2070 or Warfare in General? I just remember some german fan site theorizing about it but it didn't sound right. And where are major wars fought in the 70ties? Arabia? Africa? South America?

Well you'll get your tanks eventually in the mentioned but not named Merc book due out everntually. You know CGL and their telling us when their releasing something. Though a couple of writers have commented on the book (pretty sure AH and the big man) that I have seen, so we know it will *eventually* be released.

Yeah and we also know from adams teseing that there will be a plot need for such things.

Merc: 2000 gives lots of ideas for Mercenary campaigns in Thailand...

It also gives reasons why there are few tank mercenaries.

But there is a part of me that wants things that go boom and the cringe that players insist they can use them. I like keeping such big toys in the hands of GMs.

Didn't LAV's, and magic kind of make tanks a niche item rather than standard milspec items? The Tir Source book has a tid bit story when elves invaded the Cal Free State. Basically describing how a 20th century army fares in the 21st. It describes the use of illusion an mind control spells (on officers) to mess with CNC, dragons and spirits attacking, and the inability of the California national guard to mount a defense.

Not much on eurowars though in any of the sourcebooks (unless I missed something)-mostly just describing strategic level.

Back on topic--As for heavy tanks, there the MIG-67 LAV in arsenal, and in Rigger 1 (1st ed rules) there was the Stonewall MBT. IMHO, you are talking an Armor minimum of 30, and a body of at least 20 for a heavy tank. Speed may be an issue, and why I'd say they are a niche item rather than standard. LAVs fullfill the role of blitzing much better than a tank, though a tank would have better armor. Vehicle mounted lasers and rail guns might make this a moot point (I'd check but my books don't come to work with me).

Warlordtheft hit it on the head. in the race between armor and anti-armor, armor never comes out ahead enough to be practical.

LAVs and aircraft made tanks useless due to speed and maneuverability. and "firepower" in the 6th world is such a wild card, heavy cannon don't count for much.

I would love some tanks. in the LA game I am in [Going back to 2nd ed] the LAPD puchased a bunch of old M1A2 Main Battle Tanks for "Patrol Operations"
Yes we had to deal with the LATP "Los Angels Tank Police"

In some of the fluff shadowtalk in Fields of Fire, they talk about modern Main Battle Tanks having an "antipersonnel zone" that's kept clear of any enemy infantry by automated sentry turrets mounted on the tank. Also the shadowtalk alleges that most of the anti-armor weapons there are pretty much worthless against a MBT. But if you regularly rumble against people packing the vehicle weapons out of Rigger 3, then yeah, you could be in for a world of hurt.

The big problem I see is that to produce a tank you need to change one of the firm rules in Arsenal, that no vehicle may have more than 20 pts of regular armor. They stuck with that rule even for the large ships (many of which are traditionally armored at least as well as tanks, and usually better.)

Joel Halpern

PS: Yes, I think it reasonable to relax the rule. The ships confused me.

Maybe it is just me, but why would you need (or want) Main Battle Tanks in Shadowrun... Maybe for the Desert Wars, which I could understand, but not for running the shadows in any given city...

Please explain this, as I am having trouble with the concept...

Tanks today are legal for civilian use, and can be driven on normal roads if they have their tracks replaced with tires. (But I'm sure they make run flat tires in that size. If not, I sure don't see Monster Trucks getting flat tires in short order.)

But what if we want to run a mercenary campaign? Or the runners get into a bad situation, out in the wilderness (or decrepit barrens), and a chase scene ensues where they try to make it to their getaway vehicle, while a MBT is rolling after them and bringing down the buildings they are trying to hide in? And of course, there is always Desert Wars. (But it seems to me military equipment would be very useful for pirate campaigns, and campaigns based out of/around Hong Kong.)

I think you have it pretty well conceptualized, actually. Most of the people who want stats and info for tanks don't plan on using them in a standard "urban mercenary" shadowrun campaign, but do want to use the rules and concepts to explore a facet of the setting that would include such things (portraying a team in the Desert Wars, say).

Exactly TonkaTuff. As i said, i thought about trying a campaign where the players play a Tank Crew (or LAV, or similar vehicle). Regular Shadowrunner and a frickin Main Gun? No thanks, there is only that amount of suspension my disbelief can bear.

AngelisStorm: Why Hong Kong? Didn't read Runners Havens.

Probably as a central point for an Asian region mercenary campaign. Macao (right across the water from Hong Kong) is a big merc city and Asia has plenty of mercenary job opportunities.

The advent of magic (and more specifically conjuring) changes the whole paradigm for tanks. Nobody's going to want to spend $3M on a tank that can be taken out with little effort by a materializing F5 spirit that costs almost nothing. Astral defensive measures aren't good enough to completely counter spirits, so stocking a tank with a human crew is just a waste of resources. I can only think of two options to counter this:

• All tanks are [super-sized] unmanned drones.
• Tanks are redesigned to accomodate a single rigger in a form-fitting cocoon with no space for a spirit to manifest in the compartment. (This still might not be sufficient if the crew can be possessed. Maybe combining this with some of the astral defenses that induce a background count to make it harder for the spirits to succeed in possession tests.)

CCU.

Better yet multiple CCU's for multiple 'crew' members....

Best places to run a Merc Campaign IMHO:
Africa
Amazonia Azzie border
China (based out of Macao)
Portugal (would be a base of operations, seeing the world)
Austrailian Outback
Southeast Asia

CCUs would give the best performance, but would they be cost-effective for mass production considering their limited shelf life and high maintenance costs?

Well no less cost effective than any other Cyborg.

Can you give a Cyborg Astral Hazing?

i think i have a tank concept somewhere thats a tata hotspur on tracks, fielding a light gauss cannon.

Because there's a whole lot more to Shadowrun, the game world, than Shadowrun, the street-level criminal endeavor.

As Toturi already mentioned upthread, remember Tiananmen Square back in the late 80s or Bangkok right now.
Or Prague in the 1950s or...you see where this leads.

I can completely see how Kenneth Brackhaven would call in the Metroplex Guard to respond with methods we would rather asociate with the PRC nowadays if riots in the sprawl take a particularly nasty direction.
And outdated, tracked tanks not used by the regular army anymore would make for perfect Metroplex Guard equipment.

There you go, tanks on the streets of Seattle.

Unlikely to happen in your campaign?
Well, your mileage may vary -in fact, it's very likely to vary- but the majority of groups i've GMd for would be very prone to start a city-wide riot qualifying as a national emergency if the right factors come together, either by accident or willfully.

Reasons for this could be well-known SR plotlines such as Bug invasions or AIs taking over a local arcology.
Or it could be other factors either directly caused by the players or made a whole lot worse by them.
Factors such as coming out on top of a gang war by whatever means possible (hey, once you start your own gang, you gotta do something worthwhile with it, right?).
Or simply looking for a good use for that entire warehouse full of homemade Warp and ANFO (reminds me, i still have to stat out my mad scientist concept).





I don't see why it wouldn't be possible- Astral Hazing is entirely possible for purely mundane characters and cyborgs have plenty of reasons to build up the negative emotions that fuel Astral Hazing.

Of course, it would offset what i perceive to be the biggest advantage of 'borgs, their near-invisibility on the astral plane.
In general, a cyborg is per default as well protected from magic as a drone.
Pretty good defense, if you ask me, especially as, unlike the drone, he does not emit wireles signals.
So you get excellent stealth both on the astral and matrix level.
I wouldn't want to compromise one of those advantages by slapping a big, nasty, walking background count on top of Mr. Stealthy.
That's an approach better suited to CZs, IMHO.

But then, this may be not that much of a concern for a frickin' tank rigger, so...yeah, go for it.

Yes a surged brain, but the radius would be zero (I think); if expenses and possible collateral damage aren't a problem you can use a Cyberzombie as rigger, a tank within the tank (not for mass production).

Hah, good point, lol.

What a dumbass I am sometimes, honestly.

I ran a sweet merc campain based out of the Yucatan it was fun as hell. Rigger had a sweet like WWII half track crashing threw the jungle. With dudes in full mil spec pouring out of it . Was fricking sweet. Believe i killed em all with some well placed white phosphorous mortars and MMG fire. That was the the best... Enter evil laugh stage left.

Apathy is quite right, spirits are the Grade A Super Plus armor killer. Just conjure, then tell it, "go kill everyone in that thing over there, that I'm looking at from the astral plane." Repeat until it stops being fun, which is never.

That presumes that there is a live crew inside the vehicle. If not, then hackers are a very big problem. MBTs would all be matrix pillboxes.

I would suppose that the greatest threat to MBTs in the 6th World - coming in even before spirits, because magicians are very few in number - would be guided missiles and the drones that carry them. I'd think that MBTs would carry automated anti-missile/anti-artillery shell laser systems. The MP Heavy Laser on something a lot like a sentry gun mount.

But I think that in the 6th World, MBTs may go the way of the battleship, for the same reasons. Too expensive, too slow, too big of a target.

First, there has never been such a thing as an invulnerable tank. Since the advent of tanks on the battle field there have been anti-tank weapons. Invulnerability has thus never been a part of the doctrine of tank warfare, nor has it ever been a justification for the existence of tanks.

The most heavily sighted reason for the discontinuation of the development of heavy armor is its supposed excessive vulnerability to attacks from aircraft. This is something of a fallacious argument as non-contested air attack is going to destroy any sort of ground force, regardless of what type of vehicles it consists of. However, in the face of contested airspace, the tactical value of heavy armor in increased dramatically. Heavy armor reduces vehicle vulnerability to light anti-vehicle weapons (RPGs), improvised explosive devices and other anti-mobility weapons (mines), light artillery (mortars), as well as small arms fire (machine guns, grenades). It takes a great deal of effort to stop heavy armor, and if heavy armor can be stopped, then all ground vehicles can be stopped. Light ground vehicles equipped to fight heavy armor are at a considerable disadvantage against heavy armor for a variety of reasons. Which brings up another reason why heavy armor would still have a use in Shadowrun, the best (at least ground based) weapon to fight a tank with is another tank.

In the context of Shadowrun, the role of heavy armor in an environment with enemy aircraft would have a direct analogy to the role of heavy armor in an environment with magic. If a force deploys without the ability to contest the magical space, then that force is going to loose, regardless of the type of vehicles it otherwise mounts. You are better off with your magician protected by a 70 ton MBT than you are with said magician protected by a 3 ton truck. Keep in mind also that if the possibility of chemical or biological agents is real (as it is in Shadowrun), maintaining an environment resistant to those attacks is considerably easier behind the protection of heavy armor than it is behind a lightly protected vehicle (where small arms fire will routinely penetrate the sealed environment).

Also, and this is more applicable to shadowrun than current military operations, active counter-measure technology (small caliber weapon guided by radar or inferred systems) will dramatically reduce the vulnerability of heavy armor to incoming anti-armor weapons (much more so than such systems will protect lightly armored vehicles, as such vehicles can still be easily disabled or destroyed by a close proximity blast). Such systems will in fact require an upgrade of the armor content of any force that deploys them, as accompanying infantry and light vehicles would suffer from the effects of said weapons being destroyed in close proximity to the formation.

Finally, in an environment with massive jamming being deployed by both sides, the communications disruption will reduce or eliminate remote operated systems on both sides-leaving manned vehicles still the corner stone of any assault force.

AFE

In a Merc game, would you not just use a MIG-67(?) LAV... As far as I know, they are what replaced Tanks in 2070... At least, I would think that they would be the replacement... so much better than a MBT...

As for Pirates... in Hong Kong... Ships are where it is at, alonmg with the occassional LAV

OGRE III anyone?

In the end, I can see your reasoning... Though I still contend that the LAV's are the tanks of the 2070's...

I would think that a LAV's would end up being employed in a manner much closer to that in which ground attack aircraft are employed today, and less like a MBT.

Maybe... they do have multiple roles that they can fill, that is for sure

The reports of the death of the main battle tank have been greatly exaggerated several times. First by guided missiles, then by the birth of the attack helicopter. In each case, tactics and design evolved.

In the battlefields of the 2070s, it will be no different. Magic and hacking will be just another threat to be countered, just like ATGMs, mines and air attack are today.

An earlier poster mentioned attack by spirit. That would definitely be a huge threat, if no tank had ever been attacked by spirit(or magic in general) before. When compared to a 3+ million nuyen weapon that probably costs 500 nuyen a mile to operate, and fires 2-3000 nuyen ammunition, whistling up spirits before each mission, and putting a mage on the maintenance crew to maintain wards seems dirt cheap.

Likewise, when it is protecting something that expensive, you can afford ridiculously high-end network countermeasures.

So, if anything, tanks from first-world nations in 2070 will be more dangerous in their battlefield than modern MBTs in today's battlefield.

Having said that though...

I think MBTs will be much rarer in 2070 than today. Except for the corporate reality trid that is Desert Wars, I don't get the feeling that there are many cases where first-world militaries go head-to-head anymore. And haven't been for a while.

The nations that can afford to will keep truly nasty MBTs on hand just because they might need them one day, but vehicles more like today's Bradley IFV and Stryker APC will see greater numbers and greater use.

I can get on board with that line of reasoning...

They would be an interesting mix of helo gunship and AFV/light tank. Slash in at several hundred KPH sometimes, wait in defensive positions for days other times.

How expensive are the wards? You need a ward that will be able to withstand the rigours of combat(I would think the ward should survive at least BC4). Similarly for the spirits.

You wouldn't even need the ward. Pure Astral Warfare should be enough. If the spirits and magicians of the enemy have bigger problems than destroying something mundane on the physical, they won't bother except if they are desperate.

Wasn't another Problem with LAVs the short range since they have a quite limited supply of fuel? I don't have the Rigger 3 ready, it should have the numbers for that.

I'm sorry, i thought we were talking Panzer tanks.

Who gives a f*ck about stealth at this point?!!?

- J.

Tank Hunter Tank Crews. SCNR

Sure, you can have your mages engage the other side's mages in astral warfare. But the question is naturally what if the other side won? Or simply has a temporary advantage? If you are using your mages to defend your 6 billion nuyen tank, how much are you paying them?

I thought the whole thing about mages/spirits vs tanks was that one side had tanks and no mages and the other had mages and no tanks?

But how often would that happen in a real combat? I don't think that there aren't enough military trained magicians who are capable of creating wards to protect every tank against spiritual interference. One Abrams costs approx 5 Million $, it is expensive but the US produced over 9000 (no meme intended) of those and todays anti tank weapons can frag them down to a oversized turret. So it's not a question of "Oh god, how much money do we loose if we don't protect every tank!" it's more like "So... how do we signal our enemy that it is a bad idea to mess with our troops by spiritual means?"
Remember: Mages are rare. A unit can consider itself lucky if they have one and while yes, they can ward every tank and it wouldn't be unwise, the cost-effective choice would be active magical defenses. Like spawning your own spirits to counter those of the enemy. And there are better targets for spirits and mages than a tank (which could be destroyed by one good placed stickbomb or a well placed shot from a anti tank weapon). Ritual Magic against the enemy command structure, scouting from above or just being a WMD all by yourself by hurling spells or better: Just spawn spirits. A force 3 spirit alone is immune to the main weapon a regular infantry squad bears and they don't need to be bound.

And the other side has those options as well. That's when it comes down to tactics. Do you want to give up a portion of the astral by materializing your spirit to destroy one tank?

Wards are dirt cheap, and last weeks. Cost is no problem there - especially compared to the cost of maintaining a tank (or, even worse, an aircraft like a LAV). You'll have active and passive astral defenses. And any army able to field tanks in 2070 is fielding magical assets as well.

A Force 3 spirit will most likely have a Magic attribute of 3 which grants 6 points of hardened armor, the most common antipersonel weapon infantry will use will probably be an assault rifle and ARs have a damage code of 6P AP -1 (an heavy pistol would also do the trick tanks to net hits), which means that the spirit is not immune to infantry (and we are talking of regular ammo, EX-EX and APDS ammo aren't that unlikely to be used by military, making even force 6 spirits killable if you manage to hit them).

Passive astral defence can also be active if the wards are those tricked out from Street Magic that attack trespassers.

Whoops. Forgot to look at the AP, my bad.

Think of how you would use your tanks and how you would support them with magic assets. Think it through. Are you sure you want to support your armored unit with magic?

Wards never hurt. Any expensive vehicle like a tank will also have rigger pilots, and not conventional crews, so they'll be less vulnerable to manifesting spirits for lack of free space inside as well.

As far as magic support goes - combined arms have been proven to be superiour to other approaches.