Tanks That Sort Of Were: the Char 2C

 

The Char 2C is a bit of a “what-if” tank for the Vespers War, since the development program for it was initiated in 1916 but the vehicles weren’t completed until 1921 (or 1923, depending on if one includes the immediate modifications of the tanks after initial delivery). Part of the delay was intentional; General Petain wanted them canceled until Colonel Estienne, head of tank development, reminded him that the delivery of Anglo-American Liberty tanks to the French was contingent on them developing their own heavy tank. In order to comply with the letter of that agreement, development was deliberately stretched out as long as possible. Once the war ended, 10 were completed to use up excess capacity in heavy manufacturing factories.

Dark Conspiracy: Retro Rockets

 In the Dark Conspiracy Facebook group, it was mentioned that there weren't enough rockets for some peoples' tastes. To help with this, I volunteered to pull together everything I could find that flew around the time of the game's setting, either with its last flight later than 1985 or its first flight earlier than 1995. I limited myself to rockets that could potentially launch at least a minimal Gemini-sized capsule, around 3.2 tonnes. 

Modern ground drones - the Robotic Combat Vehicles (Light and Medium)

 To kick this off, all of the information here is tentative and based on news reports of prototypes delivered for testing. Everything about these programs could change tomorrow. With that caveat in place, let's dive in to two new robotic vehicles.

Tanks That Never Were: The Oberschlesien

In 1918, the Germans realized the A7V was mostly a failure. While it was moderately fast and decently armored, its terrible ground clearance, massive bulk, and excessive crew meant it was a failure as a primary tank. So, they decided to build something smaller with the same main gun.

Other Universes: Heavy Gear Traveller: The Mordred Shocktrooper

In Heavy Gear, the Mordred is a type of genetically-modified clone soldier (known in-setting as a GREL) intended for use as infantry. As such, they provide a good example of a "combat beast" when converted to Traveller.

Other Universes: Heavy Gear Traveller: The Private Investigator

I was reminded recently that I had talked about providing examples of character conversion between Silhouette and Traveller. So, let's convert the Private Investigator (from DP9-101 Second Edition Heavy Gear Rulebook) to Mega and New Era.

American Small Arms of WW1

For people who are interested in the weapons of World War 1, one of the best pop culture sources I've found is C&Rsenal's YouTube channel, where they discuss the history of the weapon and test it on range. Watching through the series has led me to stat up the weapons they've discussed, along with a few that get mentioned as being relevant but that haven't had episodes shot yet. Below the break are the American weapons of the First World War. Please note that these use Fire, Fusion & Steel calculations for Pen, rather than my revised penetration calculations.