I was thinking a hind /fire support/transport .I would suggest mini gun pods 1 or 2 anti armour missiles*just for the unfortunate event a armored enemy came to view*But over all .And a typical support weapon with only miniguns/light armour

the boomers took over an air base which most likely had fuel tanks. they didn't want to use the fuel up because they had a vision about bombers. the other places in the usa may have used up all fuels because they didn't have a vision.

How about a Vertibird?

I don't think the NCR has the resources to build tanks, simply because there is nothing to show that they do.

Those were modified mining robots and apparently the delusions of a mentally unstable General Chase who ordered there presence into the simulation. The OA simulation was propaganda not a history lesson.

Wouldn't the pulse gun make a tank useless? God forbid enimies having one.

Vertibird is to expensive to be used as a support weapons platform maybe for support/extraction for special forces but for typical grunts hell no.A huey with mini gun would be a cheap but reasonably effective system./It would be capable of air lifting .in simple vertibird=damn expensive

You dont use tanks against people you use tanks against tanks and cities... they are fighting people on foot with no cities to attack.

Power armor is used vs people and mobile encampments.. and even here the ncr JUST got power armors and doesnt know how to make them only salvage them.

The boomers have a biofuel shed on the west side of Nelis. Don't recall whether it is bio-diesel or alcohol based, but they have been preparing for 50 years.

Another important thing to remember, the resource wars where running full scale when the bombs finally fell. The Poseidon platform used by the Enclave in FO2 was one of the last remaining fossil fuel sources on the planet. This would explain why the Enclave was able to run their Vertibirds. This is also why the cars are nuclear powered. Without easy access to any fossil fuels or a steady source of nuclear fuels, any large vehicles are out of the question.

"Now why doesn't the NCR just make biofuels like the Boomers?" - Well, for the same reason E85 didn't take off in the US. We know they grow corn, but they are having a hard time getting enough farmers to grow it for food, hence the sharecroppers. Any corn being diverted to fuel would reduce supply for brahmin feed and food consumption, driving up the price. As we know the NCR senate is influenced owned by wealthy brahmin barons, who aren't likely to give up brahmin feed for a tank.

They dont use them because it would make for a very annoying game if you tried to fire at a tank and your bullets are useless, it's a gameplay balance thing.

The Enclave seem to have had a good use for the Vertibird, and I wouldn't put it past the NCR to be capable of creating many Vertibirds, depending on their military complex funding. Remember, Vertibird's are canon, Huey's are not. We're more likely to see in a future Fallout game, the NCR using Vertibirds to airlift and support troopers, rather than a Huey or other helicopter of today.

Plus, if the NCR has tanks, (if they were ever shown in a future game with the NCR emblem,) the creation of Vertibirds wouldn't be too expensive compared to a slow moving, vehicle like a tank. Especially with the ruggedness of how they'd probably be compared to a tank nowadays.

Pre war california would be quite good tank on tank country rolling terrain, towns made of light materials, few hedges or stonewalls.
Not perfect like north Africa with great supply lines though, and post apocalypse may make it harsher.
I have no clue about Nevada though, but crossing vast distances without heavy trains or other haulage means would make it unlikely, especially in heat.

NV is more a defensive place imo, tanks would be best used as implaced defensive peices, capable of redeployment if needed.
Those areas where they would have to be redeployed however would be a nightmare to do so.

I can't remember but is Nevada split by a mountain range from California as well, or is that further north?

Edit: Vertibirds were being planned on getting built by at least one of the factions if not all by the end of FO2.

Power armor would make Tanks obsolete.

Tanks are vunerable to air attack and massed antitank infantry.They are cumbersome, require a lot of precious metals, use a metric [censored]ton of fuel, and have extremely sofisticated electronics requirering several men to operate. A man in power armor would be able to seek cover, camouflage himself (way better than any tank short of one with a cloaking device), combat infantry units, have fewer raw material needs, would not require fuel, ect. Remember that the first powerarmors were insanely powerfull and able to carve massive holes in the chinese frontline.

If anything the implementation of power armor would again make armored personell carriers a significant force multiplier. An APC with six persons in powerarmor would basically be able to take hamlets and villages by themselves. Airdrops of soldiers in powerarmor behind enemy troop formations (say in the reserves and resupply area of an army) would wreck havoc disproportionately to the manpower involved. Dug in infantry units would again be attacked head on, after shelling with CS Gas and smoke.

Powerarmour would virtually change warfare as we know it.

It's just the game. Any one who can maintain vertibirds can build and maintain tanks. The tank tech is 20th century the vertibird is 21st century at least.

Tanks are best used in combined operations and would be very useful against Legion. Ain't no power armor gonna haul a 120mm cannon, not nohow. The Boomers do well with 105mm howitzers as a powerful game faction. Some 120mm guns on tanks would be much heavier.

It's just a game folks. No need to distort reality to make it fit. The Boomers could destroy the Fort in a few hours max.

Why make tanks to fight someone that does not have tanks or vertibirds? Boomers have howitzers but NCR has that big gun at the damn and I am sure they have howitzers back in NCR. Point is PA was the Tank of America before the great war. Fuel was gone and tanks use alot of fuel. Also Tanks svck in urban combat. So what have a tank when you can have PA troops?

I am sure America had tanks before the great war but not in large numbers. No real need to have them when you can just have an army of PA wearing troops with anti-tank rockets and Fatmans.

In that case why have the NCR not just wiped the Legion out. The big gun at the damn could level the Fort real quick. A single vertibird should be enough to wipe the Legion out. They have no anti air and you could just drop bottle cap bombs on em' ... endlessly. Slightly higher tech wepons, like C-4 would be devastating.

It's just a game. In real war any air power is as Rommel said:

"Anyone who has to fight, even with the most modern weapons, against an enemy in complete command of the air, fights like a savage against modern European troops, under the same handicaps and with the same chances of success."

The terrain doesn't seem to be very conducive for tank use. They'd just be sitting ducks.

Absolutely wrong. Tanks are high-mobility armored artillery platforms, originally designed for breaching fortifications and for supporting the infantry with direct fire (suppressing machine gun emplacements etc.). Tanks designed to fight other tanks was a rather brief thing that was unique to World war II, and it was mainly for lack of options. Even then, though, special up-gunned, up-armored, turret-less vehicles were preferred for anti-tank duty (so-called tank destroyers like the German Jagdpanzer and the Russian ISU 152).

The main problem with tanks in the Fallout universe would be logistics; a tank requires fuel, ammo, oil, spare parts (standardized) and frequent repairs (tanks live dangerously and drive off-road). They need all sorts of support, and that support has to be motorized to keep up with the tanks- recovery vehicles, supply trucks, command vehicles, etc. To operate a single tank battallion ( 50-60 tanks) the NCR would have to dedicate 700 to 1000 people to it, and that's without the supply and the manufacturing taken into account. There's no way the NCR could afford it, certainly not on a long-term basis.

mabey it would because they can take over huge chunks of land with them?

srry dubble post :slap:

Helicopters provide fast mobile weapon support /harder to shoot down/more uses.Tanks are good but only when u can afford the bill for them lol.A cheap knockoff of the vertibird would be alot cheaper in supply/fuel /resources required to build.Like a earlier post said a vertibird with power armoured units=ass ownage/or even a bombing run

Maybe tanks ar not usefull but IFV maybe are because they can have wheels (tell me if iam wrong) there are plenty tires around so that would be a problem i gues.

Very good post! Tanks are real war beasts.
I think many people especially on game forums, have wrong impression about tanks. Because they are not accurately shown in the popular online shooters. Where 1-2 dudes with RPGs blow them to pieces. No tank is going to be sent alone and even on it's own, good tank crew can turn the battle in to victory. They might have problems in some ruins where they can be ambushed and hit, but thats why the tank is either in a convoy with other machines or/and accompanied with infantry squads whos job is to protect the perimeter around the tank from enemies.
I remember watching some interviews with veterans from WW2 and they said that everytime they saw tanks against them, it was like hell. Considering, it was not like game to have 23246 rockets and just shoot the crap out of that tank.

But yeah you have to have very strong supply line and economic in general to be able to maintain such machines.
No need for tanks in Fallout, because there is no such strong enemy to use them against. Those bunch of roman soldiers wannabees called Caesar legion, can be killed in 5 minutes with not so strong artillery strike on their camp.

While the other thing, that there is no need for tanks, cause there is Power Armor... well I really want to see any Enclave/BoS member take a hit from any anti tank weapon and continue to fight. Lets say his fictional armor is going to stay strong, but I can imagine the picture inside like a food in a can.. messy.

Open areas are much more tank friendly than a town or city. It gives them better mobility, and ability to use range as their advantage against an enemy.



Tank treads are better suited for sandy, dry dirt landscapes, like a desert, than most tires are. IFV's do good in sand and stuff, but if you've ever seen a tank in the sand, they can get hauling pretty good.

One thing bugging me a little is the idea that PA would replace tanks.
Kinetic displacement on a PA suit would in no way equal a tank, even if you take into account the greater curve of PA the thickness of such composite material.
Power bundles, servos, and other endo skeleton features would take up alot of the room rather than solid plating.
Even if the PA had a electro magnetic hull shield, stabilisers and force resistant gel to take the brunt of energies force, shear brute force would butterfly the insides of the wearer given strength, and certainly send him flying on impact.
A tank and crew could withstand these far better, especially as the tech in PA would be easier to transfer to larger frames.

Modern tanks have reactive armor. Essentially the entire tank is covered with explosives. When a AP round approaches the armor in that area explodes screwing up the shaped charge explosion. Modern anti tank, like Hizbollah's Russian Kornet have a two stage approach and it explodes the tank's armor just before delivering the main charge.

War Never Changes

It does get more complicated though.