The Apocalypse Tank


Designation: Advanced Anti-Armour Tank
Manufacturer: Arkhangelsk Tank Factory
Country of origin: USSR
Mass-produced at: Soviet War Factory

Key features:

• Twin 125mm Drakon guns
• Schuka magnetic harpoon
• Myasorubka track system.
• 16 layers of reinforced steel armour
• Tesla Reactor eliminating 70% of emissions



With a nickname like ‘Apocalypse’, the Soviet Union’s super-heavy battle tank has a lot to live up to. And, unfortunately for the Union’s enemies, it certainly does. This monstrous machine is clearly slower and less manoeuvrable than the typical modern tank, a shortcoming largely offset by its two extremely powerful main guns, each of which is demonstrably more potent than the main gun of a conventional tank. Even amidst all the horrors of war, the suffocating black smoke and the piercing screech of grinding metal emanating from an Apocalypse Tank epitomise a nightmare for all war veterans – including the Soviets, who seem to fear the Apocalypse Tank just as much as anyone else.


The Apocalypse Tank is the largest and most powerful land vehicle ever built and simply cannot be stopped by a tank at equivalent range.

Overall, the Soviet Union is extremely proud of the Apocalypse, which features prominently in multimedia military propaganda, military recruitment materials, motivational posters found in workplaces, schools and much more. When schoolteachers denounced the tank’s name as an act of fear and madness, the Soviet government swiftly quashed these concerns by insisting that the name was intended to give the people hope – “here is a tank that can withstand anything”, they proudly declared. The teachers responded swiftly, claiming that the name betrayed evidence of the Union’s dissolution, the agenda of which was mutually assured destruction by the Allies. They remain in prison to this day.

The Apocalypse Tank even gained fame thanks to a morning cartoon series and a line of toys (“They’re not the Allies”); in this respect, it has become a true icon not only within the Soviet Union’s military arsenal, but throughout the world. Such success was completely unforeseeable. However, the company responsible for the Apocalypse Tank, Arkhangelsk Tank Plant (ATP), boldly promised the Soviet high command that the Apocalypse would revolutionise modern warfare by rendering other conventional tanks obsolete. This proved to be entirely true. Although the Apocalypse Tank is very expensive to produce due to its size, it is virtually invincible on the battlefield.


The design of the Apocalypse Tank underwent several modifications before the manufacturer, Arkhangelsk Tank Plant, settled on the most fearsome and terrifying version in service today.

The Apocalypse is such a massive vehicle that ATP’s engineers fitted a second set of razor-sharp tracks to its massive hull, allowing it to simply roll over just about anything that survives long enough to cross its path. To compensate for its slowness, a secondary weapon has been fitted: the ‘magnetic harpoon’, one of the first military tools to emerge from the Union’s ongoing research into magnetism. Essentially, this harpoon works like an industrial grappling hook which can be used, for example, to tow fast-moving enemy vehicles closer in order to destroy them swiftly – straight into its Grinder, which can reduce any metal to scrap.

Amidst all the fervour, fear and excitement caused by the Apocalypse Tank, it was to be expected that the design would provoke a certain amount of disdain. Outspoken critics and foreign detractors of Arkhangelsk’s most famous creation (with all due respect to the Hammer Tank, which is far more common) highlight its appallingly low speed, its lack of anti-aircraft defences, or even the absence of a simple anti-infantry machine-gun post, as evidence of sheer arrogance on the part of the Apocalypse Tank’s manufacturers. ATP, for its part, openly dismissed these claims as “nonsense”, whilst announcing that the Apocalypse Tank would go into mass production that very year. In any case, due to the notoriety of this tank, the identities of Apocalypse Tank crews are kept secret by the Soviet Union. It is difficult to imagine what sort of person would be suited to operating such a weapon, let alone what the experience of doing so would do to that person.


Reconnaissance on the battlefield has at least revealed the following facts about the Apocalypse Tanks:

• Relentless- The Apocalypse Tank can quite simply roll over anything that survives its main guns. Main battle tanks, not to mention smaller vehicles, can easily be crushed beneath the Apocalypse Tank’s tracks.

-The sinister magnetic harpoon- The Apocalypse Tank can effectively launch the magnetic harpoon at other vehicles to crush them, or even pull itself towards structures. However, the magnet requires an extreme amount of energy, so the Tank’s main guns are rendered inoperable whilst the harpoon is active.

-Pure anti-armour- Whilst the Apocalypse Tank has nothing to fear from conventional vehicles, its crew’s limited visibility, combined with its armour-piercing ammunition, means it is less effective against very small targets, namely infantry. Commanders also acknowledge that the Apocalypse requires anti-air support.

-Worth its weight in ore - The Apocalypse Tank, with its two main guns and 16-layer steel armour, does not come cheap. On top of that, the blueprints for manufacturing these vehicles may only be accessed by battle laboratory technicians, who are required to study the tank’s performance characteristics.