Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/M16 "Lee" AA Halftrack

"Time to show you young feller’s how it’s done!"

-M16 "Lee" AA Halftrack

The M16 "Lee" AA Halftrack is formerly a Aquilan SPAAG that later serve as the primary SPAA vehicle of the Minutemen Survivors. This SPAA is planned to be voiced by *TBA*

Tactical analysis

 * Dang Kids and Them Flying Machines!: Though it dates back to the GVAW, the Lee is still quite good at its job, which is to shoot down aircraft. It can also be used against infantry with decent results, though it shouldn't be expected to fare well against much else. Thanks to stolen radar scramblers, the Lee is also cloaked while not moving or shooting.
 * Get Off My Lawn!: The Lee is also armed with another weapon; balloon mines. These mines can provide a highly visible obstacle to aircraft, leading them into traps or simply serving to blow them up.
 * Take That, You Whippersnappers: To help in their role Lee crews are also equipped with incendiary ammunition, which has a tendency to set their targets on fire, at least until the targets manage to put the fires out.
 * Ow, My Back!: While versatile, the Lee's guns are weaker than the advanced AA platforms fielded by other factions and are ineffective against heavy air. As a result, attempting to ambush a Mesofortress is usually a very bad idea (unless there are a lot of Lees).

History
"Now that's a true Aquilan lightshow!"

-Lee gun operator downing a Century Bomber, unaware of the irony.

One of the most numerous and under-appreciated vehicles of the Voshkod-Aquilan War was the M3 half-track, a rugged and dependable half-track originally produced in Aquila for their own army to get around post-war armor restriction, but swiftly licensed to the rest of the Allied powers and manufactured worldwide. After experimentation with wheels, air cushions, and even early walkers, the Aquilan government officially backed half-tracked designs. In addition to the advantages in power and all-terrain capability the half-track held, the vehicle could be driven by anyone with knowledge of the operation of automobiles, cutting down training time, and allowing the Aquilan to build up the industry related to tank engine, suspension, and track production. In the event of war, conscripts with minimal training could drive the half-tracks, while factories could easily be switched to manufacture the new tanks.

The Aquilans developed a great many half-tracked designs prior to the war; by 1945 V.C., nearly most troop transports are half-tracks. Of these many, varied designs, by far and away the most common was the M3 Half-Track series, which was something between a truck and an armored car. Endlessly flexible, the machine could be used in any role one could think of, armed with any weapon that would fit on the chassis, and operated with ease. Like with their Garand and M14 rifles, the Aquilan stockpiled a massive number of the vehicles, far more than their tiny army could hope to operate; thus, if war broke out, they could field them as fast as they expanded their ground forces. The huge number of these vehicles meant that for the first years of the war, they were omnipresent on the front; the Aquilan government gave them away by the thousands to any infantry force in need of mechanization, meaning that soon every nation in the young Alliance was well versed in their use. Soon, other countries were manufacturing them, under the "M16" name based on a nickname given to it by President (insert) himself, simply due to the familiarity and good reputation they had.

The M16 was a tremendously versatile chassis and a improvement to the M3 Half-Track series, and variants served as troop carriers, anti-aircraft vehicles, artillery support, direct fire support, ambulances, engineering vehicles, powerful towing machines, and much, much more. After the war, the M16 was retired from mainline military services of Gaiaterra in favor of more specialized vehicles like the M113, but the dependable half-tracks continue to serve in other parts across the world, mostly in non-combat roles and by Creeps.

The Aquilans, on the other hand, mothballed most of its M16 fleet and sent them to the New California Commonwealth, favoring its homegrown Ranger design instead. As a result, most of the M16s given to the NCC were the anti-aircraft variant, one of the few M16 designs the Americans admitted was superior to the attempt at a similar Ranger design. Of course, after the nuclear apocalypse, it only meant that the NCC storage facilities was a one-stop shop for Minutemen looking for mechanized and armored equipment. The burgeoning army rebranded the machines Lee Half-Tracks and stole them in great numbers in preparation for dealing with the Aquilan and Alliance feared air power.

The Lees aren't quite the same as the M16 used during the Voshkod-Aquilan War, however. M16 crews had complained of the tracks' hard and uncomfortable seats from the opening days of the war, and the first modification the Minutemen made was to replace the seats with recliner chairs taken and repaired from wrecked local furniture stores and bolt them to the floor. The second modification was to install sophisticated electronic countermeasure equipment smuggled out of various Sprawls by Farsight rebels. Developed in the Sprawls to make gang vehicles invisible to Syndicate eyes in the skies above, the "scramblers", as the less technologically savvy Minutemen have taken to calling them, proved just as useful for combating Allied air power. Finally, the Minutemen have also taken to using Lees as platforms for deploying so-called balloon mines, devices which consist of a high explosive bomb designed for maximum fragmentation, a crude proximity detector, and a literal balloon. Generally, these are obvious enough for pilots to spot and avoid them, so the Minutemen have taken to using them with other anti-air weapons as well.

Today, Aquilan airmen may scoff at the idea that relics from the Great Voshkod-Aquilan War could possibly be a threat to the famed Aquilan air squadrons of today, but the steady rise in aircraft losses over the Embry islands is its own testament to the skill and determination of Lee crews.

Guardians of the Tacitus

 * LAV-AD Blazer (Aquila)
 * Vulcan 'Avenger' (Task Force Wolf)
 * Avenger (Task Force Apollo)
 * Ironfire (Alliance)
 * M163 VADS (ADI)
 * Type 87 SPAAG (Protectorate)
 * Gepard (Andora)
 * Type 95 Zhuge SPAAG (Empire)
 * Biho (Community)

Destroyers of Balthazar

 * Tunguska (Voshkod)
 * Shilka
 * Otomatic (Brotherhood)
 * AA Trukk (Horde)
 * Quad Cannon (MLA)
 * Gattling Tank (Collective)
 * ZU-23-4 (Encantadia)
 * ... (Scrin)

Neutrals

 * Dune Half-Track (Coalition)
 * Norsca Shilka (Heralds)
 * Archangel Anti-Air Track (Order)
 * M16 "Lee" AA (Survivors)
 * ... (Syndicate)
 * Abrams AGDS (Conglomerate)
 * Hydra Flak Tank (Legion)

Bonus Factions

 * ZSU-39 Tigris (ASA)
 * SIDAM (Bastion)
 * SPAAG Creep (Rangers)
 * AMX-13 DCA (Pirates)
 * Shilka "Vibhishana" (Elona)
 * Flak Tractor (Ascalia)
 * ... (Dominion)
 * Hovet (Security)
 * ... (Ascendancy)

DLC

 * ... (Federation)
 * Magbow (Corona)
 * ... (Party)
 * Equailzer AA Tank (Skynet)
 * ... (Dominion)
 * Yastrebok (Elemental)
 * ... (Autocracy)
 * Chameleon ZSU (League)
 * ... (Swarm)
 * Rykov (Confederation)
 * VEAK 40 (Kingdom)
 * ... (Goo)
 * Wirbelwind (Imperium)
 * ... (Dynasty)
 * KV-1 AA (Warlords)
 * ... (Cult)
 * M42 Duster (Raiders)
 * Pierce Arrow (Theocracy)
 * AA Technical (Insurgents)
 * ... (Guardians)
 * ... (Hierarchy)
 * ... (Sundered)
 * Thunder Tunguska (Ecumene)
 * Centaur AA (Concordat)
 * Skyranger (Contingent)
 * ADATS Bradley (Eden)
 * Recluse Skysweeper (InGen)
 * Fireworks Carriage (Hallows)
 * MGMC (Commune)
 * Ta-Se (Guild)
 * ... (Threat)
 * Niska Mk. V AA Vehicle (Traders)
 * Falconer AA Tank (Entente)
 * Revenant (Oblivion)
 * ... (Corporation)
 * ... (Covenant)
 * Hidalgo Anti-Air (Institute)
 * Stout IFV-AA