| Archangel Anti-Air Track | |
| |
| Faction |  Order of the Talon
|
| Unit Type | Light Tank |
| Designation | Anti-Air |
| Prerequisites | Tribunal |
| Secondary Ability | Disguise as friendly unit |
| Cost | Unknown |
| Production Time | Unknown |
| Veterancy Upgrade(s) | Unknown |
| Dev. Status | Conceptual |
| Country of Origin |  Australia
|
| Forged by | General Dynamics Land Systems |
| Key Features | » 4x 25mm Repeating Flak Cannons » Wheeled, amphibious chassis » Modular utility bay (occupied by flak cannons and magazine) » Memory cloth lattice » Loudspeakers (pre-loaded recordings of Talon vehicles) |
"It's like a turkey shoot, but you can't eat these birds after you bring 'em down."
- - Archangel gunner
Operational History
One of the more common sights in the Australian Outback is the General Dynamics Prowler, a squat eight-wheeled heavy utility vehicle. Initially offered to the Allied Nations as a heavier stablemate to the Multigunner IFV, the Prowler was designed to take the idea of a modular military vehicle to the logical extreme: only slightly smaller than a full-bore battle tank, the Prowler could be built to fill virtually any battlefield role imaginable, from direct combat with a tank-like turret, to fire support with a heavy mortar or tube artillery, to an ambulance, armored personnel carrier, or virtually any other role necessary in the field.
The Prowler could not be reconfigured on the fly as the Multigunner could, but a short stay in a field base stocked with the necessary modules would do the job. However, Allied tests of the Prowler proved two things. First, while effective enough at any given role, the Prowler was not as capable at any specific role as a dedicated vehicle built for the job. Second, the Prowler system was expensive, and not cost effective unless the Allied Nations adopted the Prowler as a primary combat vehicle.
After much debate, the Prowler system was rejected. The Australian military, however, subsequently purchased a large number of Prowlers for their impressive performance in the harshest terrain and their fully amphibious hull. Other members of the Allied Nations also purchased the Prowler in smaller numbers, but Australia remains the foremost user of the Prowler. It was no surprise that the civilian variant of the Prowler subsequently manufactured by General Dynamics also found favor in Australia for much the same reasons - durability, enormously flexible utility bay, excellent gas mileage, and its ability to bull through most any terrain.
Inevitably, the Order of the Talon came into possession of a number of civilian and military Prowlers through its presence in Australia, and at the urging of Sir Harold Moore, conducted its own trials of the design. While a light combat vehicle by the Order's standards, the Prowler's performance, and the fact that unarmed Prowlers don't merit close inspection in much of the world, has resulted in the Prowler being adopted in small numbers by the Order.
The Inquisition in particular has come to favor the Prowler in its anti-air configuration, mounting quad 25mm flak cannons at the rear of the vehicle. Dubbing them "Archangel Anti-Air Tracks", these vehicles are an increasingly common sight in Inquisitorial strike forces, providing cover against air attack.
The Inquisition also added another, far less innocuous feature to these machines. An experimental textile technology developed in the Allied Nations, memory cloth is a marvelous material that, with the proper electrical charge, can assume or resume any programmed structure and color pattern. Highly durable and stiff to the touch, the Inquisition has wasted no time in shrouding its Archangels with memory cloth and rigging them with the patterns to mimic the appearance of any Order vehicle. Supplemented with loudspeakers to broadcast the sounds of any other Order vehicle's engine, the disguise has proven remarkably effective... until the time comes to retract the memory cloth from the flak cannons and open fire.
