Intent: Provide a relatively low cost armoured support vehicle to bolster infantry effectiveness.
Manufacturer: Creed Defence Industries
Model: AV-47 Armoured Fighting Vehicle
Production: CDI examples require access to high-tech polymers and composites that can be difficult to obtain outside of industrial sectors. The original tank design made use of much simpler materials, and it is not uncommon to find lower-tech systems still producing versions equipped with crude RHA rather than proper alloys.
Material: Basic alloys. Armour composition classified, but likely a polymer/ceramic blend.
Classification: Infantry Support Tank
Crew: 5
Overall Length: 30 feet
Overall Height: 8 feet
Overall Width: 11 feet
Weight: 50 tons
Top Speed (Road): 58 MPH
Top Speed (Off-Road): 30 MPH
Armour rating (Turret Front/Side/Back): 405mm RHA equivalent/405mm RHA/405mm RHA
Armour rating (Hull Front/Side/Back): 516mm RHA equivalent/ 400mm RHA/ 376mm RHA
Other Defenses:
The AV-47 has been upgraded repeatedly to increase survivability. Basic screens are typically issued on all relatively recent versions to assist in defeating HEAT, and reactive armour panels have been developed to aid in defeating both HEAT and kinetic penetrators, though the latter is often only equipped in specific environments due to the danger presented to supporting infantry. While electronic protection and active defence systems have been undergone various stages of development, the age of the AV-47 platform has caused current military leadership to abandon these attempts and begin development of a replacement vehicle.
Armament:
1x 90mm TG-83 Main gun, 64 rounds held in wet storage
1x Coaxial 8.5x51mm machine gun, 4,000 rounds
1x Bow 8.5x51mm machine gun, 2350 rounds
1x Roof mounted pintle-mount machine gun. While this is often the 8.5x51mm MG-14 GPMG, it is increasingly being replaced with the EL-3 AMD system in order to increase the AV-47's anti-armour capability.
Main Gun Ammunition Type:
S-91 Mk. 54 HEAT
Penetration: 900mm RHA @ 90 degrees
Brief Description:
The S-91 offers a mix of anti-fortification and anti-armour capabilities. Using the Monroe effect, it has been shown to be able to penetrate up to 900mm of armour grade steel at a flat angle. It is one of the most commonly issued shells for the AV-47
S-48 Mk. 12 HVAP
Penetration: 400mm RHA @ 90 degrees up to 100 yards
Brief Description:
The S-48 High Velocity Armour Piercing was developed to address the shortcomings in HEAT style warheads. It uses a dense, sub-calibre penetrator fired at a high velocity to physically punch through armour. While limited success relative to the S-91 HEAT shell has been documented, particularly against fast moving, irregularly shaped, relatively lightly armoured targets such as mechs, the TG-83 is not well designed for achieving the proper velocities to allow mid to long range frontal penetration of most enemy main battle tanks. While the S-48 is still issued, it is not widely used and is typically abandoned by crews in favour of other ammunition.
S-16 Mark 7 High Explosive Shock
Penetration: 1900mm RHA @ 90 degrees
Brief Description:
The HES shell for the TG-83 is no longer in common anti-armour use, but still enjoys widespread use against fortifications. While the on-paper penetration is spectacular, the mechanic by which the HES warhead causes damage (i.e. via energy transference resulting in spalling) is fairly easy to defeat with simple spaced armour or a spall liner. While some races are not familiar enough with this weapon to defend against it, it is increasingly rare to meaningfully damage an armoured vehicle using this shell. It is still devastatingly effective against fortifications such as bunkers, and lightly armoured vehicles.
S-3 Mark 91 High Explosive Fragmenting
Penetration: 220mm RHA
Brief Description:
This basic HEF shell increases the tank's effectiveness against soft targets, and, in various marks, is the most widely fired tank shell in Rastal history. It is more than capable of demolishing non-hardened targets, and carries enough charge to significantly damage even strong fortifications. A fragmenting casing further increases it's capabilities against exposed targets such as infantry.
Market price: 185,000 GSC
Description:
The AV-47 is easily the oldest armament still issued in Rastal service, and likely one of the longest serving weapons systems in the galaxy. For over 250 years it has acted in everything from a dedicated anti-tank role, to serving as the basis for a variety of utility vehicles, to it's current role as a well-armoured infantry support vehicle.
Originally designed as a main battle tank, it became technically obsolete relatively quickly, but the reliability and robustness of the design, as well as it's inexpensive construction, has caused it to remain in active use all throughout Rastal space. Unlike replacement designs, it can generally be produced in great numbers nearly anywhere. Though frontline armoured units almost exclusively utilise the much more advanced AV-74 MBT, the AV-47 is still very common in mechanised divisions, and is the mainstay of most Rastal planetary defence units.
While there are hundreds of local varients, official and unofficial, the above statistics represent an "average" composite of information available. The AV-47 is capable of defeating light vehicles and some handheld anti-tank systems, but struggles increasingly as the latter advances and is not considered a match against other dedicated anti-armour tanks. Despite an increasingly tenuous combat record, the AV-47 is wildly popular amongst Rastal troops, with a statistically anomalous number of them both retired and in active service crediting the tank with directly increasing the survivability of their infantry platoon. Due to this, and the very low production cost, it has proven very hard to phase out even though superior designs are available.
Despite all it's shortcomings, the AV-47 is still a reasonably effective infantry support weapon, and fills a role roughly equivalent to mechanised combat suits in other militaries.
Multiple upgrades have been made to various systems, and most examples presently feature relatively modern on board firecontrol computers, sensors, and night-fighting abilities. The AV-47 has served far, far beyond it's expected service life, and official policy calls for a full replacement of the platform rather than further upgrades.
A variety of powerplants have been used over the centuries, from solar to crude combustion engines, but the latest versions generally use a very powerful battery system that requires external charging. While this does limit the tank's range to a few hundred kilometers, Rastal doctrine dictates that it typically remains close to support elements. Experimental versions with plasma based powerplants have been designed, but a lack of feasible survivability upgrades have caused them to not see standard issue.
((So, if you aren't familiar with tank stats, this is roughly a very, very heavily armoured late cold-war era tank. It would *probably* stand up ok against a modern main battle tank, but not as well as another modern MBT (the armour is better than most MBTs, but the gun is pretty lacking). As you can also see if you read the AT-44 rocket launcher product page, it's really not that much better than just bringing a bazooka, and the most dangerous offensive weapon on it IMO is probably a mounted EL-3 AMD.))