Shorts From The Multiverse

M1A1 Ancestor-Occupied Space's Most Popular Tank

Preface

In PGW 52, fresh off of incursions into Uncharted Space, The Volume began shopping for a new main battle tank to replace the aging IAEV2 that had been serving for the vast majority of the PGW time period. Talks among the Volume's Armored Corps about a new main battle tank had circulated for decades, and many crews among the Volume's vast armies had their own lists about what they would like to see in a next generation, cutting edge main battle tank. While they were unable to take everything into consideration, the Volume Armored Corps spoke to a vast majority of tanker crews, speaking to those who crewed armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles along the way. During these conversations, those who commanded the Armored Corps learned that it wasn't just their main battle tanks that were struggling, in fact, the entire Armored Corps appeared to be rotting. Vast swathes of crews reported that then several centuries old PAC-11 armored personnel carrier's armor was completely insufficient against emerging anti-tank weapons, and natives of several planets in Uncharted Space fielded energy weapons as their service rifle which were able to defeat their armor. While the IAFV and IAEV were still sufficiently armored, many, if not all, of these tanks and IFV's were approaching their three million mile mark, and the aging tanks were struggling to keep up against emerging threats. There were perhaps as many complaints about part availability, crews having to cannibalize each other's tanks while they waited for parts, and even several cases of two crews of tankers sharing the same engine. The conclusion among many millions of similar testimonies and collective thousand years of man hours spent analyzing data drove the Volume Armored Corps to the conclusion that it was in everybody's best interest to not only to restructure and procure a new main battle tank, but to design one vehicle that could fill all three roles.

Requirements

Designing such a tank wouldn't be an easy task. The Armored Corps had announced open design submissions with pages of technical requirements. Among these, the tank would carry a crew of five, driver, navigator, gunner, loader and commander. Easy enough on it's own, but to fill the armored personnel carrier role, the tank had to have room for two fire teams of four members and all of the equipment necessary for a five day long mission. Other stipulations included that the tank must be armed with a Landry 14Y70 146x617mm cannon like the IAEV2 and carry no less than 85 rounds. It also must carry the same armament as the IAFV1, the Landry 72T10 25x152mm autocannon coaxial mounted with the main cannon and the 88U10 12.7x108mm heavy machinegun. The volume also allocated, or would allocate, extra funding to anyone who could design effective armor using a composite material. Right off the bat, designers were looking a tank significantly bigger and more heavily armed than anything that had ever been built before, and thus, the newer tank would require upgrades to the suspension, transmission and engines to accommodate the requirements without the vehicle being unacceptably slow. A much larger than normal turret would be needed to host the coaxial Landry cannon systems, thus the turret would need electrical turret cranks opposed to traditional manual cranks. Stipulations also existed for air conditioning, upgraded cooling all around, and ESOC NBC4/1 compliance. The most complicated requirement from the Volume, however, was the request for a space saving, transversely mounted front engine front wheel drive layout, along with a steering wheel system, opposed to the traditional lever. Much like the request for composite armor, such a thing was unheard of at the time, as nearly every tank in Occupied Space used a longitudinally mounted engine and rear wheel drive along with lever steering. These requirements were what made many would be contract seekers back away, unwilling to design something from the ground up while simultaneously being unable to draw from the knowledge pool of thousands of years of tank design. All but one, and the unwillingness by all but a few elite companies was great news.

Design & Prototyping

In an old barn in the backcountry of the universal wall, retrofitted with concrete floors and an overhead crane, a 21 year old REC II Android named George Camarillo and his crew of six college friends were aspiring tank designers. The group had been providing contracting services to the Volume Armored Corps while they worked to pay for their engineering degrees, and as such, were offered the technical specification packet to submit designs to trials. Old rumors state that the crew of what would become the universe spanning titan Camarillo Armored Solutions began work the moment a courier handed off the packet.