The Guardian Tank


Designation: Anti-armour Tank
Manufacturer: Blindage Uni
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Mass-produced at: Allied Weapons Factory

Accessories:

• 90 mm smoothbore gun
• Designator targeting scope
• Impact-resistant Composite Armor
• Heavy-duty tracked chassis
• Dual encrypted communications panel



Faced with Soviet incursions on various fronts, the Allied nations hastily came together to form a military coalition from the remnants of their respective defensive forces. Whilst the need to form a cohesive military network was, of course, urgent, it took a considerable amount of time to track down certain key elements. After all, despite general differences of opinion within the Allied ranks regarding the best way to repel the Soviet Union’s advances, everyone was on the same page about at least one thing: the Allies would not have a second chance to preserve the sovereignty of their nations. It was therefore with great care (and a certain amount of agitation) that the Allied War Council took the decision to proceed with a plan to double production of the MBT-X8 Guardian tank, the backbone of the Allied armoured divisions and a crucial component in the free nations’ ongoing struggle to prevent the USSR from further expanding its borders.


The Allies have proven themselves capable of repelling Soviet ground forces in recent years, partly thanks to the Guardian Tank, one of the most resilient workhorses in the Allied army.

A British-designed main battle tank, the Guardian has become the backbone of Allied Forces on the ground worldwide as an upgraded version of the Grizzly, an American-built design that has been field-tested at every level. Whilst the Guardian’s performance specifications did not exceed those of the Grizzly by a wide margin, even a narrow victory was enough to justify switching the production lines to this newer model. After all, the Allied War Council fully expected to have to deploy Guardians in large numbers to hold back the Soviet armoured divisions, which were believed to be the strongest in the world. To this end, the Allied Guardian tank proved itself to be the defender of the oppressed, effectively helping to repel larger Soviet forces whilst bolstering the combat effectiveness (if not the morale) of the coalition forces engaged in the same battle.

The Guardian boasts impressive balance, durability and manoeuvrability, and features a modular design that helps to reduce production costs. Its 90-millimetre main gun can reliably penetrate Soviet armour and delivers greater firepower, albeit at a slightly lower rate of fire, than its Soviet counterpart. However, the Soviet equivalent of the Guardian was not the Allies’ greatest concern, as they needed to be able to contend with a range of heavy vehicles. To this end, a relatively heavy platform such as the Guardian tank proved to be a suitable vehicle for a specialised targeting system that could be used even when the odds were stacked against them. Every Guardian tank now comes as standard with a targeting module, which replaces the exposed machine-gun mount found on older models. Designed to complement other Allied weapon platforms, the Designator targeting scope (commonly known as ‘the target painter’) relays target information to nearby Allied Forces. By automatically linking up with their weapon systems, the Target Painter makes other forces more accurate and lethal by compensating for wind direction, visibility and over 100 limiting factors – which increase considerably. A Guardian tank is unable to maintain its firing range due to the recoil from its main gun, so Guardian crews must coordinate closely to decide which unit will ‘lay the decoy’ (as Guardian Technicians have put it) whilst the others support the attack.

Accident rates amongst Guardian Tank crews are closely guarded by Allied officials, although one might assume the worst: that these forces, well-equipped as they may be, were necessarily deployed to turn the tide of many battles on the verge of being lost. Now that the Allied Forces have secured a number of victories along the European frontiers, concerns are turning to hope-and even a touch of bravado on the part of some Guardian Tank crews, who quip that their vehicles must have been given a different name now that they occasionally take the offensive. In any case, despite the inherent dangers, many men – career soldiers – fight for the honour of serving aboard such a vehicle in the name of the Allies’ difficult mission to stabilise the world’s most dangerous countries.


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

• Built to last– The Allies’ main battle tank is capable of withstanding fire from most small arms and can easily deal with smaller armoured vehicles from the Soviet arsenal. Its armour can even withstand several direct hits from larger, slower Soviet units, although fighting in the vicinity of an Allied Weapons Factory and its Repair drones is often necessary to withstand larger numbers of opponents.

-Armour Penetration- Guardian Tanks work well in small groups, as this allows them to compensate for their average rate of fire by dispatching armoured enemies and military equipment quickly and efficiently. Note that because Guardian Tanks are armed only with smoothbore guns for cost reasons, they are not effective against smaller or faster targets. To this end, a crucial memorandum concerning Soviet Terror Drones is said to have circulated very quickly amongst Guardian crews.

-Target in sight- The Guardian’s Designator targeting scope may seem like such an obvious compromise that it cannot be used to damage an enemy vehicle directly, unlike the Guardian’s main gun. However, by effectively bolstering the firepower of all other Allied Forces against the target in the sight, a Guardian tank crew using this device may prove to be far more crucial to the outcome of the battle.

-Beware of air threats - Guardian tank crews rely on anti-aircraft support, as they are prime targets for Soviet attack helicopters. In what some see as an overzealous effort to neutralise the formidable Soviet Twinblades, the Allies have begun deploying a variety of powerful anti-aircraft platforms, including their Hydrofoils and, of course, the Multiartilleur IFV.