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AAM Fenrir Mk. I (Vanilla, 23-round survival magazine)

Fenrir Sturmpanzer

A monstrous wolf, the son of the god Loki and fated to slay Odin on the day of Ragnarok, "Fenrir" was deemed an appropriate name for the Uranian Confederation's heavier alternative to the Grendel.

Located on two moons in the Uranian lunar system, the Confederation has no need for a substantial ground force -- they are far from any other nation, their population is comparatively small, and most of their habitats are subterranean. The same naval troopers that provide security aboard their warships also rotate through planetary garrisons, and can employ mechanized or VTOL transportation if necessary, but there is no dedicated surface army in the traditional sense. However, if the worst should happen, and the Twin Moons are invaded, it does possess a small but potent armored division, which all seven provinces contribute to. The Fenrir forms the backbone of that division.

The Fenrir is classified as a "sturmpanzer," or assault tank, meaning it is meant to be used at the fore of intense assaults, either on the defense or the attack -- though, unlike other vehicles classified as such, the Fenrir is meant to engage other vehicles directly. To let it fight in this manner, the tank is heavily armored, particularly on the front. The rear has thicker than typical armor as well, as U-Con tacticians considered it likely the tank might be outflanked by lighter vehicles fairly rapidly. The tank's sides are its most vulnerable areas, although this is mitigated by an armored skirt that protects the treads. The treads themselves are wider than typical, to support the tank's weight on high-G worlds, and are quite durable. To enable the Fenrir to oppose even the earliest stages of an invasion, the main gun can be elevated up to 45 degrees to target incoming dropships.

The main armament of the Fenrir is the double-barreled Sarissa railgun from Eisenstern Armaments. The Grendel's 8.8 cm cannon was felt to be insufficient in generating a short enough time-to-kill, as multiple shots were frequently required to degrade the armor on rival tanks sufficiently to disable them. Coupled with procurement issues, and concerns about purchasing critical armament from foreign sources, a request was made for a heavier weapon. Eisenstern Armaments was awarded the contract -- prompting the usual accusations of nepotism -- and two months later produced the Sarissa.

Unlike most other main battle tanks, the Sarissa's railgun system allows the rounds themselves -- solid metal slugs, devoid of propellant -- to be comparatively small. This, coupled with an inventive loading system, allows the weapon to carry substantially more ammunition than comparable weapons on most other tanks.

In addition to the main gun, the tank features a pair of coaxial gatling guns, and an additional, automated gatling gun atop the turret. The turret is controlled remotely; the single crew member occupies a compartment at the back of the tank, and handles both steering and gunnery. Advanced control systems from WMI allow a single person to operate the vehicle at peak efficiency. Significantly, the tank also features a magnetic detection system, allowing it to alert the operator to the presence of nearby manmade objects that might be mines; an alarm is triggered upon detection.

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Well, I finally got this done, my second tank. Only took me, err ... how many years? Oh well.

The main challenge in making this was creating a tank that didn't use mods, but which had a realistically large magazine for the main gun in X1 survival settings; because Keen still hasn't added NinjaPirate's superb CSD Battlecannon to the game, most vanilla tanks have a very limited ammo capacity in survival. I prefer not to use mods -- even very good ones -- so I decided to see what could be done. The main gun uses a reloadable rocker launcher, with a connector mounted on the underside; the launcher draws rockets from the connector, giving it 23 shots before it needs to be reloaded. There are another two connectors ("ammo lockers") on the rear hull. To reload, find a safe spot to park, rotate the turret to face backwards, then elevate the barrel fully. You can transfer rockets from the lockers to the magazine pretty quickly like this. All told, the tank can fire 61 rockets on x1 settings in survival before needing to reload -- more, if you stuff another 19 rockets into the connector at the rear of the tank, but that's meant of O2 tanks, a rifle, etc.

One consequence of this is that the turret ring is pretty hefty, as a substantial portion of the turret needs to protrude into the hull of the tank to accomodate the main gun (which is pretty similar to real tanks, where a lot of the turret is within the hull). If you pop the turret off, there's a giant space in the middle of the hull to fit the thing. I'd originally hoped to set another connector up inside the turret well, so reloading could be done without even exiting the tank; you'd just swing the magazine connector over the storage one, dock it, and top up that way. But that would have made the tank bigger than I was willing to go.

The tank's biggest vulnerability is when the barrel is highly elevated; a shot into the innards will gut it. Then again, if that happens to you, maybe you should shoot the other tanks near you before taking potshots at pigeons. ;) Another problem is that the double-treads apparently can't be built in Space Engineers anymore; I am dealing with this problem by ignoring it. Keen keeps breaking cool stuff in the name of "realism," and I'm pretty much done with that.

As always, I am deeply indebted to Whiplash141 for all his wizardly scripting skills, without which this tank would simply not be possible. In particular, his skid-steering program, which does not have its own workshop page for some reason, and the MART turret control script, which makes controlling tanks vastly less painful than it used to be.


Mass: 148,783
Powerplant: 3 MW [6 small reactors]
Maximum speed: 90 kph
Armament: 1 Sarissa railgun, 1 gatling turret, 2 gatling cannons
Length: 14 meters
Width: 8.5 meters
Height: 4.5 meters