4M "Hammer" attack tank. image - The Second Clone Wars mod for Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption
18 BBY/2IY: Supreme commander of the Imperial Fleet, Lord Vader ordered the execution of Queen Apailana of Naboo on the charges of committing treason against the empire by harboring fugitive . The 501st was sent to eliminate her but the battle became a disaster the empire for a number of unexpected setbacks: On the land the 501st was shocked to see that the defenders of Naboo was leaded by their former brethren's from the from the famed Torrent company, the most veteran company of the 501st under the command of the traitors captain CT-7567 "Rex", the former second-in-command under Lord Vader. Under his command the Naboo defenders put up a deadly resistance and then lunched an even more deadly counterattack that drove them from the planet. In the bloody engagement, the 501st lost an entire battalion, entirely composed of veteran troops from the clone wars and Operation: Knightfall.
During the early days of the war, Empire's armored units could hold on its own against the Clone war era armor that were fielded by the enemy forces. However as the war progressed, the newer armor's fielded by enemy, specifically units like the CIS A-GAT, Rail tank And the RCA Orray Mk-1 was takeing a heavy toll on Empire's tank formations, most of which were still equipped with the Clone war Era Sabre tank of it's marginally improved version, the 2M repulsor tank. Empire need a counter and it needed it fast.
The Rothana Heavy Engineering was ordered to make a tank that is powerful, cost-effective and can be built in large number. Under the "persuasion" of Darth Vader, the engineers of Rothana managed to design, built and test a prototype in less than five months.
The tank they designed was truly an engineering marvel. Equipped with thick sloped armor on sides, the tank was well protected from small arms and medium weapons fire. A simple tread configuration with a commercially available engine powering it resulted an easy to maintain and reliable platform. Probably the most complex piece that was developed for the tank was its 100mm L-10T laser cannon. While not as powerful as that of the Orray Mk-1’s 130mm RVW-14, this powerful main gun was able to deal a large amount of damage to any its counterparts. A three round revolving breech block was added to fasten reloading process. The targeting system and electronic suite were kept as basic as possible without sacrificing combat effectiveness. Crew comfort and survivability were ordered to keep as bare minimal so only one hatch was provided.
Labeled as the “Emperor’s Hammer” by Darth Vadar, this tank begun to be referred as just Hammer as it begun to enter service with the Imperial Army. The tank was proved to be highly effective in combat, whatever it couldn’t destroy with it firepower it overwhelmed it with sheer numbers, with more churning out of the production to replace it losses.
In case anyone wondering, yes the Imperial Military is going to be quite different form that of the canon. In canon, the Imperial Military's job was primarily occupation hence they used intimidating but ineffective terror weapon like the AT-ST, better known as the Chicken walker. With often fending off attacks form largely unequipped Rebel forces. In this AU however, the Empire is at full scale war with two faction that are almost as powerful as them so instead of focusing on impractical terror weapons, Empire has adopted the philosophy they chosen for their TIE fighters. Cheap, effective, simple, reliable and expendable units that can be made in large numbers and can be used to overwhelm the enemy's of the Empire.
You. I like you.
I like you very much.
Question: Will these tanks or those of the other factions, have the ability to crush enemy infantry by running them down? That feature was a plus in the original FOC game, when getting to play as Garm Bel Iblis...
All tanks will have that ability, cause else it would just be silly!
I have to ask, though, will infantry get any extra candy to compensate for that?
As fun as roadkill is, seeing this thing do a C&C and make infantry worthless would be...saddening.
We're experimenting with cover mechanics and garrisonable buildings along with mixed infantry weapons on one squad (Ie: Basic infantry squads will have 5 troops of with two will have heavy blasters, three will have light blasters while the remaining one will have a rocked launcher). Basic infantry will probably get a grenade/ detonator attack ability too, which will do heavy damage to other infantry groups while do moderate damage to enemy armor.
Niiiice.
Is the code for the sandbags from the original still in the game, by the way? Don't even understand why they thought replacing them with the bunkers was a good idea.
Its still there, plus when you mentioned the C&C thing, I just wanted to mention that all the original game's tanks could run over infantry...
Oh, right, Maulers!
Completely forgot. They're ******* in FoC, aren't they?