• Member Since 11th Jul, 2012
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ultra1437


Editor, gamer, and smartass. Mostly that last one.

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Celestia and Luna go on an unexpected adventure after a drinking contest gone awry. Let’s follow them and see what kind of trouble and adventure our drunken princesses can manage to find!

No actual tanks were stolen in the making of this story. An airplane totally was, though.

Fair warning now, this contains far more headcanon than it probably should. I started writing this in September, well before season four premiered.

Special thanks to two of the authors I edit for, among others, ‘BioChemicalWolfGear’ and ‘CDR’ for helping me turn this from a load of plot hole-filled crap (not that kind of plot, perverts), to slightly less than crap. On a less vague note, I’m thanking them for being awesome and helping with characterization (some of which I blatantly ignored), general errors, and giving me more awesome ideas to help inspire this story along.
Special thanks to these individuals as well, for much the same reasons as those above,
Josephdalepony’, ‘Midnight Spark

Coverart from the awesome Bakki!

Chapters (14)
Comments ( 29 )

Damn, the entire story was written before you finally released it? That's pretty sweet. I'll put this in my read later list for now.

4411215
Yeah, that's why it took so long. Releasing it complete is more my style. Doesn't mean i'm not up to do bonus chapters or anything, though.

4411219
We'll see if I want bonus chapters. XP I might, but I'll need to read it first.

Or she could put the plane down, fly over the fence and then pick it up again.

:ajsmug:
The vehicle choices were very appropriate: A fast and deadly flyer for the smaller, quicker Luna; A massively powerful and visually intimidating tank for the elder and wiser Celestia.
:ajsmug:

What tank has a steering wheel? I've never heard of a tank with a steering wheel. Also, manual engines don't work that way. If not holding the clutch and the vehicle is stopped and is in reverse or drive, the engine will stall. If the vehicle is in drive and the brakes are off, the vehicle will slowly roll forward because the engine is still on and is still connected to the transmission.

5558495
i.imgur.com/bItX7.jpg
This is the steering unit of an M1 Abrams tank. Obviously, I hadn't described it properly. I'm going to leave myself a note to do so tomorrow.

Also, the transmission in the Abrams is an automatic, so there's no clutch to bother with, per source. That doesn't excuse rolling forward, but this is a story about colorful diminutive equines. Some kind of suspension of disbelief has to happen here.

Now, I'm going to assume that post wasn't as condescending as it appeared to be written, nor does this one, and thank you for your criticism. It has been taken into account, and edits will be made accordingly.

5558495 the Abrams has a form of steering yoke. It works similarly to a steering wheel. R Lee Ermey put it nicely: it's just like driving a car.

5558495
just of note, the WWII German Tiger 1 had a steering wheel.
qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-545e118e21e7d21a069453991035d5e3

I understand why Celestia feel that way, for a mare who got used to peace instead of violence.

Wu-wuwha-h wait! Is that... An A10 pulling an Abrams... With literal rope... While being shot at by more 30mm form other A10's? Not only should've the Abram's sank, but I'm pretty sure the tank's 105 or 120mm gun alone would've sank the A10 by sheer weight...

Just... how? Heck, the Abrams should've sunk in the water alone, considering how heavy modern MBT's are... It's not an IFV...

This makes my brain hurt...

I'm definitely gonna read this later, this feels like comedy gold.

11239147
Right? It's such an absurd mental image I had one evening, I had to write a story about it.

Where are the Abrames? Where are the sluggishly slow A10 variants? COME TO ME FASTER COMEDY—

Charges full force into next chapter

Also, Bad Discord! Casting while under the influence, Bad! Tia should revoke your advanced teleportation certificate!

Luna sighed in relief. “At least there is a door here we can leave through.” They turned back and wandered through the stalls, checking out the ‘magical carts’ in greater detail. Instead of having wheels sitting on the ground, the cart’s wheels sat in grooves, like widened, modular train tracks. Its sides and front weren’t perfectly flat, but rounded slightly, and the sides had rectangular plates along their length, covering the upper part of the grooves. The top half of the cart was much more angular. It had some kind of hoofholds and storage racks wrapping around the sides and back. On the very top were various little holes and it had a second, smaller cannon that appeared to be set on a rotating track.

Why of course it’s not flat Tia. You see, by slopping the frontal armpit of a tank, you can increase the amount of amour a kentic round with have to penetrate, as well as increase chances of ricochet. Though good luck trying to ricochet modern apfsds, that dart literally turns into dust while penetrating, you either get a penetration or shell shatter.

Good luck trying to use chemical shells like HEAT and HESH, it’s composite amour. Don’t even try HE unless it’s a being rough shell to over pressure and you hit say the roof of the turret.

Afterward, she settled down next to Celestia and looked over the other books. Which, to Luna’s surprise, were for the boxes in the other building. ‘ Well, there is nothing else to read around here. I might as well. ’ She looked at the box on each cover before grabbing the first one. ‘Ammunition, Cannons, and You, An Introduction . Well, that sounds dry, if informative. Let us see… ’ A few minutes of perusing the book’s pages brought more questions than answers. ‘ Why is the word heat capitalized like that? ’ Luna seethed at the manual’s callousness. ‘ That is no way to talk about the estrus cycle of a mare! ’ She flipped the page and her disgust died away. ‘ Oh. It is an acronym. High Explosive… Anti-Tank. There are other acronyms here too. APFSDS-T? ’ Luna’s face took on a queer expression, as confused as she was. ‘ Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-Sabot… Tracer? What in tartarus does all that mean? I understand the armor-piercing part and the tracer part, but what is a sabot, and why is it discarded? ’ Luna put a hoof to her temple as she groaned aloud. ‘ This will be a difficult read. I can just tell… ’ she thought as she settled in for the long haul.

You see, Tia, APFSDS simply means it fires an amour penetrating shell that is stabilized with fins. To increase penetration, the shell discards a good portion of the sabot, leaving only a flying dark going 1500 meters per second on the low end, probably 2000+ for the 120mm smooth bore of the Abrams.

Luna nuzzled under her sister’s chin. “I know that we should not have taken the… tank, but what is done is done. We know it was an accident because we got spooked, but I feel like we should have a second vehicle, if for no other reason than to keep from being one target if we are caught unaware by a threat. They do have something called ‘High Explosive Anti-Tank’ ammunition for their cannons. The book made it sound like it could defeat any armor, even the armor on this tank.” Luna pulled back and softly spoke again, “I just want us to have the best chance of getting home alive, ‘Tia.”

Well, you see Tia, HEAT works by… you can see where this is going.

‘ Now that it's armed, I have to be careful. I still have no idea what kind of destruction this weapon is capable of. ’ From the bushes right in front of the cannon a vehicle emerged, its weapon trained squarely on her own tank. As it skidded to an abrupt halt, it fired its weapon, missing due to momentum.

Momentum? What? Abrams face stabilization!

Thunder sounded, even louder than the other vehicle’s cannon, and it seemed to come from everywhere to Celestia. She fell on her back in surprise as her tank lurched back. Quickly returning to her hooves, she peeked out the commander’s hatch to see what had happened. The other vehicle was now in two major pieces, the turret was sitting on its top next to the hull, and both were on fire, with a clean semicircle punched into both parts, where the turret and hull would’ve met as one.

Abrams have blow out panels? Even if the shell hit the ammunition, unless the loader was loading it only shouldve started cooking the ammunition.

11251749
There's actually two parts to this particular description. The hit was directly to the ammunition rack, which depending on the hit will either cook off, or detonate. This was the latter, and the force caused the turret to fly off. This is a real life phenomena.

Depending on the variant of the Abrams it may have had a blow-out rack where the weakest point wasn't into the turret and cabin, but out and away. Not all variants have this.

11251744
Also for this, gyrostabilizers are only so good. Rapid momentum changes can and will still cause shots to miss as the gyro can only compensate so fast.

Lessened learned: Always cast magic under the influence! It wins your wars! - Discord

Oh well, laughs aside this was fun short adventure. Poor hoomans must’ve been confused after all that.

11251769
Meanwhile:

11251766
Poot crew, out of curiosity what did Tia fire? I don’t think either apfsds or heat could’ve gotten through the turret unless it was through the breach(somehow) or turret ring.

11251885
I didn't have any specifics for that, but it likely was a lucky hit HEAT shell that dropped into the turret ring, or down the barrel for just playing up the intensity of the fight. Might've hit the commander's viewports, those are weaker too.

As well, the Leo 2 may have a better gyro as it's newer. A lot of the fight is played up for drama, while still being grounded in (theoretically) realistic capabilities of the equipment.

11252595
That’s true enough. Though, when you mention the commanders view port, I get flash backs of German panzer cupolas…

Funny thing, I once made the mistake in a game of thinking Leopard 2’s had high firepower and mobility but low amour like the Leopard 1. My poor, poor tank and repair cost… oh, and the crew. That too.

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