Shadow Fortress Tank

Draconic wars era.
Third draconic war
Just another battle


This is a Draconic Shadow Fortress Super-heavy tank.
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Technical Description:

Origin: Draconian, Shadow Legions

Weight: <estimated at 400 tonnes, varies significantly >
Speed: 10 km/h (Official cruising). Maximum varies significantly (estimated 30-40 km/h).

Armour type: Stargauge MK4 composite layers


Weapons:

Primary: Twin DragonLance cannons (turret)
<sub>Ammunition types:
Solid core, high density, Armour piercing (primary)
High explosive shell (secondary)

Submunition clustered-bomb shell
"Sticky putty" gel explosive shell
Delay-blast, solid head ( these "Demolition rounds" detonate shortly after piercing the armour of it's target, resulting in a huge explosion inside the target rather than just a clean hole )</sub>


Secondary:
"Twinkle" Rapid fire light Autocannon (pintle mounted, may be exchanged for other weapons )
2X "Tornado" Heavy rotary Machine Guns (Side ball mount)
2X "Arc caster" Missile launch systems (side, pop-up mount)



Description

This is a super-heavy tank that is employed by Dracoinc forces usually in major assaults.

For a weapon system of such size, it carries surprisingly few weapons systems. Much of the tank appears dedicated to the massive frontal shields that can be hydraulically moved to the front of the tank (as seen here) to provide additional front armour as well as to provide cover for draconic infantry.

Built with protection as one of the key considerations (and also built to the draconian's REAL idea of a tank ) it comes with protection levels comparable to those of some starship hulls and is built to survive even orbital fire. With multiple redundant systems as well as manual controls to every fire control system, it is unsurprising to note that these machines can still provide effective fire support even if heavily damaged or in EMP situations.

Typical of draconic construction, the vehicle can be loaded with multiple different types of ammunition for the main gun as well as the missile launcher system, making it highly versatile.


History

The Shadow Fortress Super-heavy tank was originally developed as a solution by the Shadow Legion to the problem of massive numbers of casualties in the infantry when fighting in open battlefields. Since such engagements are often unavoidable, they started development of a mobile bunker of sorts.

Eventually considerations were made such that such a unit can also provide fire support to knock out units too massive for infantry to deal with. After successive modifications to the design, the result ended up as a extremely huge tank.

The massive frontal shields of the tank are actually not intended for additional protection of the tank. They are designed for use as cover for the infantry squads near by. These can be pulled back to the sides of the tank or raised slightly for the tank to move (AKA uprooting )

As with typical technology swapping between the two draconic legions, the tank now has become rather common sight amongst both legions. They are always deployed with dedicated squads of "Tank Rider" infantry and frequently with other infantry detachments.

More recently, Field generators have been placed in the tanks to utilise the idle engine power when entrenched. These generate powerful force fields that protect the tank and the attached squads from incoming fire.

These tanks are also commonly used as add-hoc ( and rather mobile ) turrets on larger starships with the use of magnetic tracts.

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Pic descript

This was admittedly a rather old pic.... that more recently I decided that I better finish the damn thing and avoid leaving large numbers of half-done crap in my sketchbooks.


Also cause I decided to try drawing something rather messy.... so I drew 1 squad's worth of infantry on the thing.
And yes, I have a certain facination with double-barreled tanks.



Design was inspired by the "Ravager" heavy tanks of the game <Ground Control II > .... as well as some of those overkill boss tanks of Metal slug series........



May scrap this later.... cause it looks kinda sketchy.......