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Description

The CCZ-03 was commissioned by the ground forces command of E Pluribus Axioma during the Second Ancerious War as a successor to the CCZ-99 main battle tank. While the CCZ-99's strategic mobility was excellent, its actual combat performance was disappointing compared to the other tanks of the war. Its gun was significantly below par and unable to effectively deal with other MBTs, its optoelectronic targeting systems were inferior and the external APS tubes tended to get torn off in terrain like cities or jungles. Development of a tank that would make up for these shortfalls was started by the Nankenzheng Factory, a subsidiary of then-dominant Yamanashi Zaibatsu.

Early development proceeded relatively smoothly. To minimize costs much of the tooling was reused from the CCZ-99, resulting in visible similarities such as the distinctive tilted turret ring. The most distinctive feature is the massive 10-layer dynamic protection array in front of the turret, extending as far forward as the hull itself and capable of firing its plating up to half a mile away. Similar arrays line up the sides of the vehicle, replacing the CCZ-99's turret-mounted APS. The development of the gun, however, ended up throwing the project in complete disarray. It was planned for the tank to mount a complicated hybrid between a directed-energy weapon and a kinetic weapon: a cannon where the propellant charges doubled as flux generators for a microwave pulse gun. It was hoped that the tank would be able to fire an extremely high-intensity EMP that would disable enemy APS long enough for the shell to reach its targets. Nankenzheng was unable to produce a fieldable version of this weapon, even with help from other Yamanashi subsidiaries, and the war would end before the CCZ-03 could see service. Due to the defeat of E Pluribus Axioma and the destruction of many factories during the war, Yamanashi Zaibatsu ceased to exist. The Nankenzheng Factory was later purchased by Nashimara Keiretsu, another member of the Rangvald Cartel.

The machine's troubled development continued postwar as Nashimara themselves struggled with developing the gun and construction of the tank lagged deeply behind schedule. This resulted in a rather spectacular PR disaster for the Cartel: Nashimara was unable to create a working prototype in time for IDEX, the galaxy's greatest arms exhibition, and Triarch Corporation seized the chance to unveil their radical Sentinel hovertank with no competition. Furious at the failure of the project, the Cartel's ordered the project to be canceled. Development of next-generation MBTs was handed over to Nashimara's rival Yamanakako Keiretsu, who would end up funding the development of the Hashomer EMBT in record time. From then on Nashimara would largely be restricted by the Cartel directorate to developing cheap mass-produced weapons rather than trying to handle any more flagship projects.

Not even that could fully kill the tank, however. As part of the forced restructuring of Nashimara's defense branch it was made to sell the Nankenzheng Factory to another cartel member: the Itokawa Heavy Industry Conglomerate. Hoping to position themselves as a counterweight to the increasingly-dominant Yamanakako corporation and prove their worth to the directorate, Itokawa's engineers rapidly got the tank production-ready. This was achieved by greatly simplifying the design and turning it into a much more conventional vehicle. Crew was increased from two to three, neuroelectronic control was made less invasive, the synthetic aperture radar was replaced by a simple cupola and the overengineered gun was completely scrapped and replaced with a 155mm low-velocity gun built mainly to fire ATGMs and loitering drones. Itokawa would lend Nankenzheng the assistance of its electronics-manufacturing subsidiaries to develop the tank's respectable electronic warfare suite which includes an RGPO jammer, housed in a dome, to cloak the tank from airborne reconaissance radars. Combined with externally-mounted cryogenic tanks that allow the vehicle to rapidly eliminate its IR signature and long battery life, this has gotten the tank marketed as having "operational stealth" in an attempt to compete with Triarch's "tactical stealth".

The finished tank was given the factory designation of CCZ-03GA1, but it is sold as VT-8 due to the negative history of its original name. It would find its niche in the market as a mid-range tank with performance somewhere in between Nashimara's cheap A-series tanks and Yamanakako's sophisticated Hashomer. As Itokawa increases production and begins rolling out upgrade packages, however, it increasingly finds itself competing with the other cartel members and attracting the attention of the directorate.

Description

The CCZ-03 was commissioned by the ground forces command of E Pluribus Axioma during the Second Ancerious War as a successor to the CCZ-99 main battle tank. While the CCZ-99's strategic mobility was excellent, its actual combat performance was disappointing compared to the other tanks of the war. Its gun was significantly below par and unable to effectively deal with other MBTs, its optoelectronic targeting systems were inferior and the external APS tubes tended to get torn off in terrain like cities or jungles. Development of a tank that would make up for these shortfalls was started by the Nankenzheng Factory, a subsidiary of then-dominant Yamanashi Zaibatsu.

Early development proceeded relatively smoothly. To minimize costs much of the tooling was reused from the CCZ-99, resulting in visible similarities such as the distinctive tilted turret ring. The most distinctive feature is the massive 10-layer dynamic protection array in front of the turret, extending as far forward as the hull itself and capable of firing its plating up to half a mile away. Similar arrays line up the sides of the vehicle, replacing the CCZ-99's turret-mounted APS. The development of the gun, however, ended up throwing the project in complete disarray. It was planned for the tank to mount a complicated hybrid between a directed-energy weapon and a kinetic weapon: a cannon where the propellant charges doubled as flux generators for a microwave pulse gun. It was hoped that the tank would be able to fire an extremely high-intensity EMP that would disable enemy APS long enough for the shell to reach its targets. Nankenzheng was unable to produce a fieldable version of this weapon, even with help from other Yamanashi subsidiaries, and the war would end before the CCZ-03 could see service. Due to the defeat of E Pluribus Axioma and the destruction of many factories during the war, Yamanashi Zaibatsu ceased to exist. The Nankenzheng Factory was later purchased by Nashimara Keiretsu, another member of the Rangvald Cartel.

The machine's troubled development continued postwar as Nashimara themselves struggled with developing the gun and construction of the tank lagged deeply behind schedule. This resulted in a rather spectacular PR disaster for the Cartel: Nashimara was unable to create a working prototype in time for IDEX, the galaxy's greatest arms exhibition, and Triarch Corporation seized the chance to unveil their radical Sentinel hovertank with no competition. Furious at the failure of the project, the Cartel's ordered the project to be canceled. Development of next-generation MBTs was handed over to Nashimara's rival Yamanakako Keiretsu, who would end up funding the development of the Hashomer EMBT in record time. From then on Nashimara would largely be restricted by the Cartel directorate to developing cheap mass-produced weapons rather than trying to handle any more flagship projects.

Not even that could fully kill the tank, however. As part of the forced restructuring of Nashimara's defense branch it was made to sell the Nankenzheng Factory to another cartel member: the Itokawa Heavy Industry Conglomerate. Hoping to position themselves as a counterweight to the increasingly-dominant Yamanakako corporation and prove their worth to the directorate, Itokawa's engineers rapidly got the tank production-ready. This was achieved by greatly simplifying the design and turning it into a much more conventional vehicle. Crew was increased from two to three, neuroelectronic control was made less invasive, the synthetic aperture radar was replaced by a simple cupola and the overengineered gun was completely scrapped and replaced with a 155mm low-velocity gun built mainly to fire ATGMs and loitering drones. Itokawa would lend Nankenzheng the assistance of its electronics-manufacturing subsidiaries to develop the tank's respectable electronic warfare suite which includes an RGPO jammer, housed in a dome, to cloak the tank from airborne reconaissance radars. Combined with externally-mounted cryogenic tanks that allow the vehicle to rapidly eliminate its IR signature and long battery life, this has gotten the tank marketed as having "operational stealth" in an attempt to compete with Triarch's "tactical stealth".

The finished tank was given the factory designation of CCZ-03GA1, but it is sold as VT-8 due to the negative history of its original name. It would find its niche in the market as a mid-range tank with performance somewhere in between Nashimara's cheap A-series tanks and Yamanakako's sophisticated Hashomer. As Itokawa increases production and begins rolling out upgrade packages, however, it increasingly finds itself competing with the other cartel members and attracting the attention of the directorate.