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JU-88T Pike

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Description

Overview
So we in testing the gun put a target mark about a three miles down range, spaced chobham style armor almost ten feet thick to determine the impact force of the V/100-S in pre-trials. We learned three things, one, we should have used a thicker target, Two We should have emptied the parking lot down range seven miles away, and three, we really should have worn the same ear protection the star fighter jocks use…half the test crew filming the flight of the projectile was struck deaf on impact!
- Daniel Oreiksany, SSC Department of Ordinance.


“And then...”
“And then what comrade?”
“We came about the crest of a ridge line, expecting to find the American ‘scientific station’….
“Yes but what then?”
“We then were faced with several tanks we had not yet seen…the turrets looked like those in document 4045, and yet the hulls, something thing very different.”
“How different?”
“Longer bodies, bigger road wheels, more long then wide…. seven bigger diameter road wheels far bigger cannon comrade!”
“How big do you estimate it was?”
“At least a third of a meter, a capitalist foot…”
The tank commander spat at the word ‘Foot’ finding the measurement entirely disgusting looking a little sick at even having used a capitalist measurement. He paused as if to clean his palette of the word and looked back to the person debriefing him. His gaze genuinely told it all; furious and somehow hurt as if he could not comprehend what he was to say next; yet the words after a another moment or two came forth.
“These guns…these vehicles….they murdered us, they made coffins of our tanks, I only ask to know when did the allies get such weapons?!”
“Comrade, were it not for the video footage recovered we would think you mad, and yet there it is...the allies clearly have something new, and thus we have a new assignment for you commander…”
-Excerpt from the Debriefing of Theodor Ilytch, after the battle of the Ronne Ice Shelf


Capabilities
The JU-88T or “Pike” as it is called by its crews is an absolute rarity amongst self-propelled guns or artillery vehicles. Due to its sheer size some call it the mother of all self propelled guns and by scale it certainly deserves the title as it weighs a hundred and ten tons straight off the assembly line. Unlike many other artillery vehicles the pike was flatly designed to be a true mobile artillery asset and thus is capable of a top speed in an unloaded status of 97 miles per hour. The key to that prior statement is ‘unloaded status’ because straight from the factory a pike is loaded with eight tons of ammunition for it’s main gun and sixteen tons of modular armor. The armor and munitions are typically offloaded into a supporting munitions vehicle before the pike changes positions allowing the pike to attain its best possible speed. The obvious flaw in this strategy is the reliance on a supporting vehicle to carry the modular armor and standard ammunition. The vehicles often have to maintain tight coordination as the Pike itself is designed to handle all but the roughest terrain where as the munitions vehicle, typically a Hydra tank variant is not as terrain capable. In perhaps the ultimate evolution of ‘shoot and scoot’ artillery strategy, it is common for a pike and it’s supporting vehicle to race to a firing position, where the additional crew aboard the support vehicle will transfer the munitions and re-armor the Pike, then proceed to bombard the target, and promptly remove the armor and whatever munitions are left aboard the pike then move before the enemy has a chance to recover.

By design vehicle is centered on its primary cannon a V/100-S Legacy weapon. Proportionately the V/100-S fires a 17” /430.1 millimeter, 667 pound projectile that can vary from the common ferrous rounds to the self forging penetrators, Anti-Fortification shot, guided munitions and the vaunted ‘Red’ rounds. For self-defense purposes four pairs of V-A/18 rapid firing legacy guns are mounted one in each arc of fire to protect from infantry attacks. While these guns are somewhat effective versus low-flying aircraft, typically a Pike will be supported by two or more Anti-Air variant Hydra tanks and a anti-air oriented sensor variant of the Hydra. Typically this arrangement means a Single Pike artillery vehicle may be travelling with upwards of five supporting vehicles making further restricting where Pike crews can take their vehicle.

Unlike the Javelin the main armament is not carried in an open air barbette mounting instead using a limited arc sponson type turret mounting in a closed gun-house that is styled to look like the Ontos III’s turret. The logic is double fold, the vehicles are the physically about the same size and at a glance may look alike. The sponson mounting is oriented for maximum elevation and limited depression and movement along the horizontal axis. The effect of such a mounting is a good range of motion for an artillery piece considering the sheer size of the V/100-S and its sheer bulk. More then few Soviet Aero-Dreadnoughts have been mysteriously cut down before they could reach allied shores by batteries of Pike artillery vehicles positioned to counter landings.

Aside from heavy firepower thankfully the Pike is not a selfish companion, as it is equipped with a complete sensor array which is tied into a potent electronics warfare module. The module is reported to be able to perform the usual jamming duties, as well as scramble enemy communications and play havoc with computer guided targeting systems. It is rumored that this ECM system is semi-sentient and thus able to autonomously hack enemy computer systems for the express purpose of causing critical system malfunctions. No evidence of this ability has been seen however, it is noted that up until the battle for Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica no Soviet satellites had ever been able to get a image of the vehicles. Several traditional gun cameras in the battle from the remnants of the 912th Red Guard Armored division were the first to get any clear image of the Pike. Much to their horror the found out about the pike’s speed and by sheer weight a few Soviet tanks found themselves literally run over when they were disabled or otherwise unable to out run some of the newly arrived ‘unloaded’ pikes


Deployment
Deployment is limited to SSC Guard Units. Due to the limited number of vehicles present very few are ever seen in deployment, but it is rumored a small number may be deployed with the SSC outpost in the Falklands, and possibly elsewhere in the pacific.
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