This is a fan-made contribution.
Production History[]
While collaboration, sharing, leases, and sales are common across the galactic front, each faction arrayed against the TOG legions maintain their own engineering firms to craft and develop vehicles for their armed forces. It is in this way that, despite a trio of new heavy grav tanks already entering the Commonwealth army, a new design has also emerged from within the KessRith empire.
Named the Taral’skwae, or Artistry Arising from the Thunderous Forge Hammer (aka the Forge Hammer or Thunderbolt Hammer among the Commonwealth / Renegade forces), this MBT follows the KessRith customs of heavy firepower and toughness wrapped in an elegant shell; a fire-breathing bulldozer designed to split the enemy forces and leave nothing but wreckage in its wake.
Design Philosophy and Tactical Role[]
With but a few exceptions, modern battlefield tank designs follow the conventional wisdom of mounting a single gauss cannon of the largest possible size, which is often supported by a secondary cannon of smaller caliber. The Taral’skwae, however, eschews this tradition to mount a pair of 150mm cannons, arranged as a stacked pair on one side of its turret. While the punch of a 150mm’s APFSDS round is less than that of a 200’s, the KessRith engineers noted that the two were much closer in effectiveness when it comes to HEAP performance, especially in the crucial factor of penetration depth. A pair of deep-digging 150mm HEAP rounds offers a higher chance of reaching a target’s soft internals than a single 200mm, even when the larger cannon is backed up with a smaller secondary cannon. As such, this fits well with the same KessRith philosophy that drives their love of laser-class weaponry, giving the Taral’skwae two laser-like weapons that ignore the target’s armour while also having the capacity to switch to more overall damaging APFSDS rounds once the breaches have been created. And while the impact of a single 200mm APFSDS round can be impressive, there’s no denying that a pair of 150mm APFSDS rounds can be equally frightening.
The weapons array that accompanies the twin gauss cannons is no less imposing, most notably the remarkable complement of five 1.5/6 lasers. Three of these are mounted in the turret in a triangular configuration, opposite the paired gauss cannons. The other two are each matched with a GMDC-18 to form a twin pair of weapons clusters within the hull. A single SMLM tube rides on each side of the tank, while a turret-mounted TVLG 6 system completes the Taral’skwae’s offensive capabilities. With the numerous forward-firing weapon systems and two KessRith already filling the turret, the TVLG is of an unusual design that mounts the tubes vertically at the back of the turret.
Despite the heavy weaponry, the Taral’skwae is no glass cannon. With 10 tonnes of armour protecting every major face, and shield ratings of 80 or 90 all around (save the bottom, with a respectable 60), the Taral’skwae is a resilient beast. In addition, a Vulcan-IV provides extra protection against incoming missile attacks, while the latest in hardened electronics and NBC systems are provided to maximize the Taral’skwae’s battlefield endurance.
A large 2350-rated Nishtar engine beats within the heart of this heavy grav tank, though even its enormous power output only manages to propel the Taral’skwae forward with an acceleration class of 3. It is not hard to see why this is so, however. Given standard KessRith battle philosophies, it should come as no surprise that speed was not the primary concern. Heavy firepower and heavy armour are the rule of the day, and the Taral’skwae delivers that in spades.
Game Notes[]
The Taral’skwae is a fan-produced design by Kannik, using technology from the Centurion Technical Update.