Category:Tanks/Scrapbook

=Factions=

Allies
In Red Alert and, to some extent, Red Alert 2 and Red Alert 3, the Allies use "light" tanks (not the lightest available in Red Alert 2 or Red Alert 3, but much lighter than the corresponding soviet tanks. The allied basic tank is even lighter in Red Alert 2 than in Red Alert. In Generals, however, the Americans are the faction with the best regular tanks, although they do not field the heaviest (the chinese Overlord), all their other tanks are heavier than their counterparts of the other factions. The Chinese tank is the equivalent of the Medium from the previous c&c games (with a gun that's a little weaker), not the Soviet heavy. The Allied tanks do not correspond stat-wise to Soviet heavy tanks from RA/RA2 though. The Allies use two tanks, which would be "bloatware" according to GD. There is a concept of splitting the European and American allies into two seperate factions with different hardware.


 * Scrapbook
 * Abrams Tank - Matching the Crusader Tank of Generals.
 * Paladin Tank - Matching the Paladin Tank of Generals.

Britain
The very concept of the tank originated with the British Landships of World War I. The British fielded the first tanks of the war, although they were soon outclassed in size and weight - but never in numbers - by Imperial German designs. In the inter-war period, the British adopted a doctrine of using two seperate categories of tank designs - the slow-moving, heavily armored infantry tank, which works in concert with infantry in an assault, and the lightly-armored, fast-moving cavalry, or cruiser tank, which exploits the breach once it is made, roaming the enemy's hinterland. To an extent, these doctrines were taken over by the French and the Soviets, but the latter abandoned them quickly (the former had little time to change their mind). The main difference between the infantry tank and the heavy tank is that the infantry tank places little emphasis on mobility or armament - a heavy tank may be less mobile because of its heavy armor and armament, but the attempt is at least made to keep it as mobile as possible. This is not true for the infantry tank, which is designed only to keep pace with infantry advancing on foot. The difference in armament is also notable, as an infantry tank is not usually more heavily armed than a cavalry tank, only more armored. The concept was over time abandoned by the British, and after World War II, the British were pioneers of the main battle tank concept (with the Centurion tank), although there is considerable uncertainty where and when the main battle tank idea becomes distinguishable from the medium tank.

In World War II, the British did come up with a few heavy tank designs (TOG, TOG II), mainly in anticipation of having to scale extended trenchland, confirming the general European propensity towards heavy tanks.

France
Nothing notable here. The French designed and produced the Char 2C, the largest tank ever made (classed as super-heavy by wikipedia, although it is outweighed by the TOG2, which is classed as heavy), further lending to the European heavy tank inclination.

Soviet
The Soviets are associated with the use of heavy tanks and super-heavy tanks (low-end, the Mammoth Tank and Apocalypse Tank) in Red Alert, Red Alert 2 and Red Alert 3. Their basic tanks are exclusively heavier in both HP and firepower compared to the allied tanks. This is historically inaccurate - while the Red Army did possess heavy tanks at the start of World War II, these were unsuited for actual battlefield use and were quickly abandoned. The tank the Soviets are most famous for, and which contributed substantially to the victory over Germany in World War II was the T-34 medium tank. Late in World War II, the Soviets did begin to field heavy tanks with a modern design again in the form of the Iosef Stalin series. However, as the Cold War progressed, the development of heavy tanks was expressly forbidden in favour of lighter designs. As the main battle tank concept gained hold in the Soviet armed forces, the remaining IS tanks became obsolete - some were given to Arab and North Korean forces and in both conflicts revealed that the heyday of the heavy tank was over.

The main issues I see are with the question of multi-barrels vs multi-turrets, and with the HP assignment to heavy tanks compared to super-heavy tanks. A minor issue is the assignment of the Mammoth Tank.

Third Power
Historically, the Third Reich (and even preceding that, Imperial Germany) is propably the side most closely associated with fantastic super-heavy tank designs, although the most extreme of these - the Panzer VIII Maus, Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte and Landkreuzer P. 1500 Monster - were never realized due to wartime resource shortages. While the idea of super-heavy tanks may have existed in the imagination of the other factions, no side came as close to their realization as Germany. However, of those tanks that did reach war-time importance in production numbers

Brotherhood
Whatever tanks the Brotherhood fields, are modified and improvised designs captured from the other sides. This side is not really supposed to field any tanks, just as the Taliban did not. Instead, they rely on improvised fighting units made from civilian vehicles.

Asian Alliance
The tanks fielded by the Asian Alliance are supposed to be mainly inspired by Japanese units during World War II, not in tech level or sophistication, but in doctrine, role, terrain and relative weight. To a lesser extent, Chinese vehicles also play a role, however during that time, China did not possess a great deal of armored fighting vehicles, so their influence is propably neglectable. The true history of chinese tanks starts only with the import, reverse-engineering and reproduction of Soviet tanks during the Cold War. The EA tanks should all be light and underpowered, but technologically advanced and "exotic" designs, aka GitS SpiderTanks and the like. They will however use mecha for the majority of roles that the other factions use tanks for, although, as can be seen in the Spider Tank, the transition is not a clear-cut one.

=Tank Stat Comparison Table= (for the vanilla C&C games) (not including games in which „tanks“ become so futuristic they're no longer really comparable) (although some seemingly-futuristic units CAN be compared directly to certain units from this table – for example, the Titan mech from TS is about equal to the Medium Tank). This list contains the IFV because there is considerable ambiguity about the IFV/Light Tank in TD and RA.

Medium Tank VS Grizzly Tank and the matter of the Abrams Tank
As can be seen, there is a marked decline in combat ability between the Medium Tank of Red Alert and the Grizzly Tank of Red Alert 2. Namely, while labelled "Medium Tank", the HP of the Grizzly are actually only equal to a Light Tank. There is, however, an improvement in firepower, which is both due to the change from a 90mm gun to a 105mm gun, essentially turning the tank into a heavy-armed light tank, and due to technological advancement, as all gun weapons inflict more damage in Red Alert 2 than in Red Alert. I suggest that rather than a change in doctrine or a technological decline, the decline of HP is due to the Medium Tank in Red Alert being European, while the Allies in Red Alert 2 are actually the Americans.

I suggest replacing the Grizzly Tank with the Abrams Tank for all allied sides - the Abrams Tank would be identical to the Medium Tank in stats, but would be fitted with a 120mm gun in place of the Grizzly's 105mm gun, additionally a set of M60 machine guns for anti-infantry combat, which is upgraded to a Laser-based CIWS when the tank is promoted.
 * A 145mm gun would match the Apocalypse's two-shot damage; the secondary would match the Mammoth Tusk missiles. TD/RA's 155mm gun would present itself as a candidate for renaming to 145mm and equipping on the tank - its range is tank-like (6), its damage exceeds the damage of a single shot from the 120mmx by 50% (150 VS 100) and its ROF is 25% faster (60 VS 80). While this apparently gives only 75% of the Apocalypse's two-shot, it is still a close match and could be given Burst=2 at elite.
 * Do it that way.
 * Done!

Rhino Heavy Tank VS Third Power Tanks, RL Soviet tank doctrine and the Battlemaster from Generals
Giving the Soviets the IS tank (Stalin's Fist) in an assault gun role is acceptable. The armament should consist of HE shells for rookie and Tesla shells for elite.

In a way, the Apocalypse Tank can be viewed as as the more extreme in-game incarnation of the IS-3 actually - look at the pointed bow and even the arrangement and caliber of the guns. The only major differences are the differently-shaped turret, the presence of auxiliary missile launchers and, of course, the presence of two 120mm guns rather than one. The warhead is designated as "AP", in contrast to the IS' HE shells, but it is actually quite suited to demolition.

However, the development that led to the Apocalypse has to be examined before coming to this conclusion.

The single-barrel 120mm IS tank actually seems more close to the Rhino Tank.
 * Is the Apocalypse a super-heavy? Mammoth would be then, too, and vice versa.
 * Assuming the Mammoth Tank is the equivalent to the Maus, it is a super-heavy, which implies that the Apocalyps, being even larger and heavier, is too.

Resulting HP Realignment
Main battle tanks are supposedly medium tank designs with the armament of heavy tanks. Red Alert flips this around, making its medium tank have HP equal to the heavy tank, but making its armament lighter. (This could be argued to be an infantry tank, however it is also faster than the heavy tank.) In order to realign this with reality, we have two options - either increase the HP of the Heavy Tank, perhaps to 500, making the HP scale of the tank classes a pretty facile matter of increments of 100 HP. However, any in-between values would be simply guessing, while 100 HP does have precendent between the Light and Medium. The other option would be downgrading the HP of the medium tank - and consequently the light tank - by 100 HP. It appears that Red Alert 2's designers have attempted exactly this solution for the problem, giving the Grizzly 300 HP (like RA's ligh tank) and the Light Tank (which ended up being cut from the final game) 200 HP.

The secondary problem is that of the HP difference between the medium tank - in TD and RA - and the main battle tank - exemplified by the Crusader and Paladin. Main battle tanks are supposedly medium tank designs with the armament of heavy tanks, which means the HP of the MBTs should be consistent with those of the medium tank (especially since the Medium Tank in RA and especially in TD is already blurring the line between medium and MBT, being a M60 Patton or M1 Abrams), but instead they are even higher than those of the heavy tank. The Chinese Battlemaster in Generals is supposedly the Type 69, which is derived from the T-55, a soviet model half-way between an MBT (one of the first ones) and a medium tank (one of the last ones). The Battlemaster does have the HP of the Medium Tank of TD and RA. There are two factors which influence HP - not only the weight class, but also the tech level of a unit, as can be seen by the adding of 100 HP to all american tanks in Generals by the addition of Composite Armor. Tech upgrades are not present in the Tiberian and Red Alert series.

The difference between the Mammoth, Apocalypse and Overlord tanks also indicates a difference in HP in tech level, or by type within the same class. Between Panzer and Panther Tank for example, both medium tanks, HP should also go up.

I suggest the following approach:
 * Keep Medium Tank HP at 400, as exemplified by the medium tanks in both RA and TD. The Panzer should follow this HP value.
 * Keep MBT HP at 480, as exemplified by the Crusader tank, which corresponds roughly to an M1 Abrams. The Abrams and T-80 should follow this HP value.
 * Raise Heavy Tank HP to 500, as exemplified by the Paladin Tank. Revise the soviet Heavy Tank though to be the IS-3 and put it on par with the Paladin. Keep the cost as 950 per unit (as per Red Alert) and explain the difference between the Paladin and the IS-3 by the Paladin's Laser CIWS compared to the IS-3's tank desant method. The Paladin, IS-3 and Tiger Tank should all follow this HP value.
 * The Mammoth Tank's 600 HP are kept, but the Mammoth Tank itself becomes a Third Power unit.
 * This obviously leaves the 800 HP of the Apocalypse and the 1,100 HP of the Overlord unaccounted for. These 800 HP are exemplary of how the type influences HP within the same class of tank - obviously while both are super-heavy, the Apocalypse is just a tad bit heavier and the Overlord is nearly twice as heavy (indeed relative to Overlord, the Mammoth is propably "merely" an extra-heavy heavy tank, not a super-heavy). There are two possible solutions:
 * One would be to make a soviet superheavy (maybe multi-turretted), or perhaps rather, British or general-european superheavy, with 600 HP, and that is then trumped by the Third Power's Mammoth/Maus with 800 HP.
 * The other would be to reserve the 800 HP for an even heavier Third Power unit, the Landkreuzer Ratte or Monster. Note that the Mammoth tank does have similarities with the P1000 Ratte in having a double-barrelled turret (which is otherwise entirely unknown in RL tank designs), even if it is much smaller.

Revising the Soviet tank selection: T-55, T-62, T-64, Rhino, T-72, T-80, Newtype
The basic soviet tank in unmodded Red Alert 2 is the Rhino Heavy Tank.

The Generals mod "Rise of the Reds" mentions the Rhino designation as the "T-64 Rhino", albeit vastly different from the Rhino Heavy Tank of RA2 - instead, it is a medium tank or MBT.

Finally, we have to clarify what the "Newtype" tank is - this seems like an unnecessary and out-of-context problem, but we do want the units of Red Alert 2 to be consistent with a possible later integration with Random Kingdom 3. According to the latest revisions to the Newtype tank, Newtypes are actually repaired, patched-up, hybridized or remodelled pre-war tanks, or tanks built with crude postwar craftsmanship based on pre-war designs, produced in the field or local workshops after industrial infrastructure was destroyed through nuclear warfare. The Newtype article mentions that the basis of these tanks could be a "T-72, T-80, T-90 or Rhino Tank". The inclusion of the "Rhino Tank" term here seems slighty "off" and ill-fitting - we have revised the Rhino Tank into a numbered tank model above, so we can now revise this list too. Alternatively, "Rhino Tank" could be a certain type of Newtype tank, rather than the designation of an old T- number tank.

Revising tank gun damage
In Generals, the 105mm gun of the Battlemaster and the 120mm gun of the Crusader do an equal amount of damage - 60 - which is slightly less than even the 105mm gun of Red Alert - 65 - however it is propably modulated by warhead properties (I'm not certain about the inner workings of the GEN combat system). This does make for slightly longer tank battles in GEN compared to RA2, especially since the tanks also have more HP in most cases. The Battlemaster's gun can further be upgraded with DU Shells, granting it a +15 damage increase. This brings the main gun's damage up to 75 damage, which is more even than the 120mm gun in Red Alert 2. Because of these discrepancies, I suggest revising the armament of these tanks when transferring their equivalents into the mod.

=Scraps=

Cerberus Tank

 * Faction: Category:Factions/Scrapbook (?)

A blocky tank carrying three old-fashioned breechloader cannons in its turret, which fire one by one, generating a sustained firing rate. This tank idea was just a scribble to use a certain old, unused, not very well done voxel of a flat, boxy tank with a turret with three stubby guns. It had a turret animation that would show the guns retract one by one when firing.

=Peacock Tank Destroyer=
 * Faction: Unknown; perhaps Allied with Stolen Soviet Tech

A Rhino Tank base fitted with a rack of no less than six 110mm guns. This was originally named „Hydra Tank“, but that term is already very much overused for a number of variants on a very different design. Fired energy shells on elite when it was implemented. Was coded to be inaccurate (due to the dispersed gun pattern).