LandShips - Boats on tank treads! (yeah its crazy.....)

[slade2501]

I know this is a zany idea, but I just love the visual idea of an ocean going boat modified to cruise on land with gigantic scenery flattening tank treads. Here we go folks.

LandShips: boats on tank treads, built to travel the wastes and wilderness of Rifts Earth. They come in all shapes and sizes from small cargo movers to great Battleships. LandShips are a self contained roaming village, town or city depending on their size. The men and women who crew these ships (called Landsmen) are a tight knit group proud of their ship and surviving another day in the Wilderness.
The smallest LandShip is a massive machine able crush any vegetation or rocks (read small boulders) they come across, often blazing a wide perfectly flat trail through many a woodland area. Able to seal themselves up tight, they can cross rivers and lakes without fear. Unlike many normal ships or boats, any in-land town is a port of call for them. When under water, port and starboard airlocks allow deep sea power armor or scuba divers out to salvage or scavenge wreckage while the main deck has a hatch that opens when on land to allow cargo and power armor to enter or exit from below decks.


Life on a LandShip: These ships operate on classic naval order and discipline; the captain and his officers (2-3 is usual) command the enlisted crew. The Captain welcomes new crew members aboard for a negotiated term of service (usually 1-2 years) and all the sailors are paid an equal share of credits from the salvage or cargo work they perform (typically 1200-1400 credits per month). Food is provided to the crew at no cost, and is fresh cooked daily (available stores on board permitting)and each Landsman gets three 15 minute meals a day on shift. The ship will have a full kitchen and galley, showers, toilets, etc.
A walk in freezer keeps provisions fresh. Water can be drawn from outside sources and purified/refrigerated. The Berthing compartment holds the crew bunks (a small cubby bed with a privacy curtain) to provide a regular 8 hour sleep period. Duty shifts are 8 hours (emergencies or battle stations not withstanding). Duties include ships maintenance (mechanical and electrical), cargo handling, manning the weapon systems, sensor monitoring, communications (radio), etc. Landsmen are often cross trained in multiple jobs and positions on the ship to ensure redundancy in case of emergency or crew casualties. Officers and crew have 4 hours every day minimum of "off time" where they are encouraged to engage in hobbies, such as music (many play an instrument or can sing), reading/writing (literacy is a must for all landsmen), etc. Many with technical skills spend their time working on personal equipment or in the cargo hold examining any salvage, possibly reconditioning any thing found to increase its trade/re-sale value for the crew. Landsmen who do this are often popular with the other crew (good for a few free drinks in the next port of call).
If a piece of salvage might improve the capabilities of the ship, the captain will often buy it himself (which automatically increases individual crew profits). Many captains can and often do improve the quality of their ships in this fashion.

Economics: LandShips can stop and trade with any community they find but most captains have a "route" or a regular travel pattern of places they visit when land sailing the wilderness. Several towns and kingdoms regularly see certain Landships making runs through their area with regular shipments of cargo. Some towns near the great lakes are popular ports of call for salvage. They can be a reliable predictable source of food, supplies, fuel, construction materials, weapons or whatever a town, village or city might order. The LandShip is a fantastic currier, capable of moving the cargo while providing great protection. LandShips often carry cargo as often as they carry salvage.

Salvage: A typical salvage operation includes using divers and sea power armor to cut up and recover chunks of a sunken ship's hull, sensor equipment, engines, cargo on board the wreck, etc. This can be dangerous work due to the environment and the possible presence of dangerous lifeforms. When underwater, any salvage is lashed to the upper deck until the ship makes landfall, then it is examined and stored below decks. Land salvage is also an option; reclaiming or recycling battlefield wreckage or finding a pre-rifts ruin can often result in flexsteel or ferrocrete which can be broken down and re-used in new construction. If the crew are lucky they might find some artifacts or equipment of some kind. Stories abound of that one ship who found a cache of Glitterboys or a crashed Coalition transport full of weapons.
Some LansShips carry prospecting or mining equipment with an eye to search for and mine deposits of valuable minerals and ores. Captains swear the crew to secrecy about these locations and often take harsh measures on crew with loose lips.

Marine Country: the Marines bunk in the ship's armory right next to their weapons and power armor (the crew find this weird but don't dare complain). They constantly check and recheck their equipment when not performing ships duties. One marine is the ship's armorer, master of weapon modification and repair. Any salvaged weaponry is brought to him for evaluation or reconditioning. He works closely with the chief engineer to maintain the ship's power armor and/or diving gear.


Example:
Cargo Landship - this is a common cargo landship. It carries anywhere from 15 to 30 crew, can move up to 10 tons of cargo and provides a mobile home to its sailors. The ship has a dual drive, powered by a pair of nuclear power sources.
The power armor onboard typically run light to medium suits with a preference of high mobility or flight capable units (Titan flying PA, NG Red Hawks, Bandito Sidewinders, etc.). The deep sea power armor suits are typically either NG Beach-Stormer of Blue Hawk, although suits from Triton industries are becoming popular (Merbots are a hot commodity right now).

Cargo landship:
Class: Medium size Submersible Landship
Crew: 15-30 Landsmen and up to a dozen Marines

M.D.C. By Location:
Hull - 2500
Bridge Tower - 300
Track treads (4) - 250 each
Stow-away cargo crane (1, concealed in the hull when not in use) - 100
Stern Deck Short range Missile Turret (1) - 80
Fore-deck Laser Turrets (2) - 80 each
Airlocks (2, port and starboard mid-hull) - 120 each
Deck access Hatches (2, 1 for 1 aft) - 50 each
Fore-deck cargo hatch/elevator - 120
*Winches/tow lines (2, for and aft) - 50 each
*Searchlights (4, 2 each side - for and aft) - 25 each
*Sensor Tower - 45

*These targets are small and hard to hit, requiring a called shot at -3 to hit.

Speed:
Land: 60mph (96kph) maximum.
Underwater: fully submersible to a depth of 1000ft (312m) at half normal speed (30mph/48kph).

Statistical Data:
Height: 30ft (8.37m) tall at the bridge tower.
Width: 75ft (23.4m)
Length: 150ft (47.7m)
Weight: 59 tons
Cargo: Can carry 10 tons of cargo in addition to ships stores and the Marines power armor. Can accomodate up to a dozen suits of man-sized power armor.
Power System: a pair of nuclear power supplies for the dual drive system. 20 year life.

Weapon Systems:
1. For-deck Pulse Laser Turrets: these two turrets, one port and the other starboard carry pulse laser cannons and are capable of 180 degree traverse.
Primary Purpose: defense
Secondary Purpose: anti-infantry
Damage: 3D6 M.D. per blast or 1D6x10 M.D. per triple pulse (counts as one attack action)
Rate of fire: as per melee attacks per round
Range: 4000ft (1250m)
Payload: unlimited

2. Aft-deck Short range Missile Launcher: this missile launcher has a 360 degree of traverse and can angle a full 90 degrees.
Primary Purpose: anti-armor
Secondary Purpose: defense
Damage: as per missile type (usually Hi-Ex 2D6x10 M.D.)
Range: 5 miles (8km)
Rate of Fire: volleys of 1, 2 or 4.
Payload: 8 missiles. Can be reloaded in 5 minutes with a trained crew in power armor (missiles are heavy).

3. Sensors: the ship has a full range of sensors as if it were a robot vehicle, with the inclusion of a sonar system for underwater use. Range 1 mile.

4. Marine contingent: members of the crew aside, the ship carries a Marine contingent; soldiers who pilot the power armors to defend the ship from boarders or to act as boarders themselves. The crew themselves will have 1D4 exoskeletons for cargo handling or heavy repair work.

[taalismn]

The 'Big Rig' dialed up to 'Extreme'. They need those onboard exoskeletons if they throw a tread or if a boogie-wheel slips on its axle.

Thanks to compact nuclear power plants, because if these things were liquid-fueled, mileage would seriously suck.
And by sheer size and power output they overcome the problems the German Reich would have faced with their 'Rate' proposals; slow speed and fording bodies of water.

[slade2501]

That was the idea. I simply took the tables for human ships from rifts underseas, added treads (1/4 to 1/8 of the main hull MDC per tread, like power armor) and generated all the fittings a ship would have for hit locations. After that, I simply run it like any ocean going vessel/submersible. like a post apocalyptic Das Boot.

For underwater salvage encounters, I use the random shipping tables from Northern Gun 1 to generate a hulk to explore. most wrecks will take 1D4 eight hour shifts to explore and clear of any useful stuff.

[Orin J.]

i'm legitimately surprised this wasn't a TW vehicle. looks good though!

[Grazzik]

You may want to check out the NG-S1 Sandfish (WB34 pg 191-192) ... a boat with tank tracks. Scale it up and soup up the drive track system and you've got yourself a landship.

[slade2501]

good call, I like the sandfish; but its too new a machine and its a production model. That we know of (wink) each LandShip is a converted boat, not a constructed ship of an assembly line. I was feeling that crazy Studio Gibli animation vibe or OG Xenogears with the sand subs.

[Warshield73]

In Rifts I think a land ship would probably be a walker with giant legs rather than treads but looks interesting. The problem with something like this is that it is too slow to run away but it isn't so tough that it can fight everything off so it would be confined to the less populated areas of the New west and great plains. Any further east and the CS or FM might want to chat with you.

[ShadowLogan]

Just a fun tidbit, but according to the Guiness Book of World Records (https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/wo ... nd-vehicle) you example vehicle is pretty small by comparision (by dimensions and mass) to the heaviest land vehicle (and some mining vehicles might be bigger but aren't self powered).

i'm legitimately surprised this wasn't a TW vehicle. looks good though!

More of a flying machine than a land vehicle, but its sort of been done before as a "magic" vehicle of some type, examples include:
-RMB/RUE has TW Sky Boats that can reach the size of a Frigate (in the TW OCC device examples). It can still float and such, and it flies via Ley Line (limiting where it can go)
-WB21 (pg190) has splugorth Flying Ships & Barges that go upto Frigate Size, but don't have the Ley Line drawback (darn Rune/Bio-Wizard magic)
-WB7 (pg185-8) Splugorth Sea Skimmer can execute "driving on the ground" per the stat block (technically its more of a hover vehicle)
-there might be more examples, but these are the easy ones I recall and could find.

Sure its not driving on the ground per say, but flying low and with enough distance someone might not be able to tell the difference.

There is the "Land Tank" in the old 1E Robotech books for the BK7 New World Order adventure module that could also (w/some "rifts updating") form the basis for sister-type vehicles.

[slade2501]

good call on the robotech land tank, its a great design.

I intend my example design to be a moving, mobile base for the player group as it travels its intended "line" (think ocean liners made to move people and cargo, the line being a map route through the ocean). The players will have to contend with outside threats, captain's orders and their own goals as they sail the wastes and wilderness of Rifts earth.