Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Stewart Light Tank

"..."

-...

The Stewart Light Tank is the airborne light tank of the Alliance of Hawke available through the Allied Paradrop General power. This unit is planned to be voiced by William Salyers

History
"When war breaks, we fix it."

-...

Well Refined Ore Corporation is first and foremost an ore refining company, and most in the Alliance military only know of WROC through their Chrono Miner. However, WROC has made some forays into the world of military contracting. Despite their lack of experience in armoured vehicle design, the corporation has gotten off to a good start, as shown with their M555 Stewart Airborne Assault Tank. Entering the Alliance' "Armoured Airborne Vehicle" Competition, they surprised the competition with their bold and innovative design.

The requirements for the tank were that it was to be light enough to be carried by helicopter, droppable by parachute and amphibious. WROC was facing off against several other competitors, including United Armour, Towne-Travers Technologies, Ferelden Armored Systems, AdvanceArmour Inc, and Neptune Hovercraft. Towne-Travers submitted a modified version of the IFV, adding a supercharged engine, amphibious capability, and several other features, stripping out what little armour the IFV possessed in the process.

While not nearly as well armoured or armed as its competition, it was the fastest. United Armour's Hunter Tank combined the wheeled hull of an APC with the turret of a main battle tank and was armed with a high velocity 75mm main gun. To reduce weight and retain survivability at the same time, it had a titanium alloy hull. Despite this, it was one of the heaviest tanks in the competition, although it was also the best protected.

AdvanceArmour submitted the Talos, little changed except for a pair of screw propellers that added amphibious capability. They might have won, except for the fact that they withdrew for reasons unknown early in the competition, although some people say the reason why withdrew early is because of AdvanceArmour was involved in a bribery scandal and tie-ins to the Lumeris, which was discovered by the Bureau moments before their entry to the competition. Ferelden Armored Systems submitted a modified version of the Bulldog Light Tank. Neptune Hovercraft tried to enter the Crocodile Hovertank, and were effectively laughed out of the competition before it had even started (this is the not end of it, the Crocodile, Neptune's entry, would later redesigned as the unmanned Automata tank). The Stewart Tank sported a relatively conventional aluminium hull. Weighing in at 15.2 tonnes, it was equipped with a water jet propulsion system to allow it to cross water bodies, and met all the weight requirements, as did the other designs.

Initially, it looked like the winner of the competition would either be the Hunter or the Talos, with the Stewart the apparent underdog. At first its short, stubby barrel seemed ridiculous. Then the Stewart took out a mock T-72 Hammer Tank in a single shot, stunning the rest of the competition and the judges. Even the Talos, with its formidable railgun and all, would have found itself outgunned, had it not already been withdrawn from the competition. The secret to the Stewart's firepower was the M18 155mm gun/launcher.

When officials learned of the M18's calibre, they were at first quite shocked at how WROC could have fitted such a large gun without severely exceeding the weight limit. Then they realised the reason for the stubby barrel. In order to for WROC to mount such a large gun on the Stewart without making the tank so heavy that it couldn't be carried, they had shortened the barrel length considerably, removing much of the gun's weight. This meant that the muzzle velocity of the M18 would be extremely low, making the gun useless for all but combat at extremely short ranges.

Yet, WROC had also managed to circumvent this problem. The "Sheridan" anti tank guided missile, designed to be fired from the barrel of the M18, provided the Stewart with a deadly anti-tank weapon that could track its targets. Light, airmobile and amphibious yet more than capable of outgunning all of its competition (and the majority of main battle tanks currently in service) by a considerable margin, the Stewart emerged as the winner, and WROC emerged with a contract to produce 100 Stewarts for use with the newly formed 1st Armoured Air Cavalry Brigade, which would see its first action in Lustria.