Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Ursa II Tank

"Let Eorzea's Wraith Begins!"

-Qilin Tank engaging in combat

The Qilin Tank is the successor to the famed Ursa Tank, as the main medium tank of Voshkod's Kvant Division. This unit is planned to be voiced by Colin Ryan

Overview
After the Voshkods had created the T-62 to the recent Kodiak, they no longer had any use for the old Ursa Tank from the previous war and sold the remaining units to their remaining states like Ascalia and Encantadia or even some fell into the Great Horde's hands. They fervently began improving the vehicles, though many problems plagued the development, due to the tank being too heavy to transport properly. After several years of tinkering and redesigning, a balance between speed and durability could not be found. Thus they decided to sacrifice the tank's mobility and pack as much firepower and armor into it as possible, creating the Qilin Tank.

Its slick design is aimed to decrease drag due to the slow speed of the machine. Some might expect the Qilin to follow the upgrade kits derived from the Kodiaks. They however, have not skirted any expenses with it, making it a rather pricey purchase.

History
"You know those Ursa Tanks, it seems a couple of personnel wanted to improve upon rather than outright scrap it"

-A Highlander Hyur tank commander telling about the Qilins.

During the Great Voshkod-Aquilan War, known to the Voshkod as the Great Patriotic War, the Ursa Heavy Tank formed the backbone of the massive Garlean war machine alongside T-34s, T-44s, T-54/55 series and the older EG series. Rugged, dependable, and easily superior to even the best of the Aquilan vehicles, the EG-7 Ursa was feared by Aquilan forces throughout the war. In the early years that machine was thought of as unstoppable; no weapon the Aquilans or Alliance could turn against it would penetrate the front armor, and its twin 107mm guns could destroy any defensive position in short order, leading to positions after position being overrun by Voshkod tanks. Even the heaviest Orlais support tanks or deadliest Ironforge panzers would falter against their world-class weaponry and thick sloped armor, and the Allies despaired that no weapon could reliably be expected to stop the tank posed to grind over all of (insert area).

However, on the Voshkod side, the Ursa was not seen nearly the same way as the older EG series. It was cheap to produce, being the first main battle tank constructed by automated lines, and in terms of raw statistics seemed to be the most powerful vehicle imaginable, with better range, armor, firepower, and even speed than most competitors. However, it was hell on its crews. No climate control left them either freezing or cooking. Poor suspension and hard metal seats meant that driving anywhere was like being in a tumble dryer, meaning that crews would inch the tank along at the lowest possible speed or simply become exhausted from the effort of driving the beast; this is widely believed to be the reason it took so long to overrun (insert location) despite their flawless win record. The lack of a rotating turret basket made it impractical to point the guns in any direction but forward; the crew had to shimmy around the weapon assembly as it turned. There wasn't enough space for the crew; the 107mm guns were an afterthought, originally much smaller 85mm guns taken from T-34-85s, so there was barely enough space in the turret. The primitive auto-loaders had the irritating tendency to take the fingers of their operators off, the tank commander also had to play the role of gunner, and over half the tanks fielded in (insert date) did so without so much as a radio for communication. Though it appeared to Voshkod commands and Allied troops alike that the tank was unstoppable, it was plagued by problems its strategic role was covering up, and they soon came to the forefront as the Allies began to strike back.

Though the Ursa seemed more than a match for the Alliance' new Mastiff tanks and Bulldog tank destroyers alongside various older designs and Aquila's Pattons and Shermans on paper, in reality, the many ergonomic problems were piling up, making it almost impossible for Ursa crews to spot and neutralize these threats before they got into range to punch through their armor. In 1954 V.C., the Aquilans, Hawkes, Zemurians, Katsuragi and Andorans had a 3-to-1 kill ratio on tracked AFVs thanks to these difficulties, and the Voshkod command scrambled for a solution while doing their best to cover up the extent of the problem to their political overseers. It soon became policy for infantry spotters to ride in the flank entry hatches of the tank and point out potential threats; factories in the field were modified so that the side escape hatches could be used as improvised bunkers of sorts for these spotters. Though this cut down on the losses, the Ursa's time was rapidly passing, and Voshkod command rushed the EG-8 (which later renamed T-10 after Garlean's death), designed to be an analog to the Patton (Aquila), Mastiff (Ferelden, Orlais, Aselia, Vinland), Centurion (Andora, Zemuria and Gallia), Tiger and Panther (Ironforge), into service as fast as it could manage. When the war ended, some Ursas were pawned off on other nations including Ascalia (which later refitted as the Anvil) and Encantadia (including some of it fell into the Great Horde's hands), and most of them went deep into storage in Othard.

This would have been the end of the story were it not for the massive losses suffered by Voshkod tank divisions in their invasion of Aquilan in 2004 V.C. Not only were they losing a great many vehicles in the savage fighting on the Second Aquilan front, the ability of the Katsuragi to rapidly cut off supply lines and escape routes meant that huge numbers of T-64 Rhinos and T-72B/T-80U/T-90A Kodiaks were abandoned in the field and losses were rarely recovered; the Katsuragi were quick to salvage these vehicles and dissolve them with nanites to reuse the raw materials, meaning that even as the Voshkod took their territory back there were incapable of recovering operational losses, which both the Aquilan and Katsuragi had considerably more success with. Though the Voshkod never found themselves short of trained crews due to the survivability and compartmentalizing of their vehicles, at the end of the war they found themselves in a position unheard of since the start of automated war machine production; they had more operators than they had vehicles, as the complex and expensive Kodiak tank was not rolling off the line fast enough to replace the losses.

Rather than wait for the retooling of their factories to resume production of Rhinos or Kodiaks to finish, rely on War Factories or waiting for their successor of the Kodiak via the Armata program, the decision was made to press old vehicles into service to temporarily augment Voshkod tank divisions to their on-paper strength, and then phase out these vehicles as production caught up. Old warehouse locks were cut and thousands of were upgraded, becoming the Qilin, flooded back into service. Mostly placed into reserve units, an interesting concept is currently being trialed by Voshkod command. With the new (insert location) Wall dividing the territory of the Allies and Voshkod, and the threat of the Viceroyalty's walls and defensive lines looming, it is generally agreed that such a tank is needed now more than ever.

Trivia

 * The Qilin has elements of the Anvil Heavy Tank from Red Alert Paradox