An AFV from Anno Astra...

C.A.F. 37 Asp

The Asp is a typical example of a modern Flowtank. Manufactured by a partnership between Agusta & Fiat, the C.A.F. 37 Asp serves as the Latinate Council's primary MBT and is in widespread use among its home-defense and second-line units.

There is nothing really special about the Asp which makes it stand out from other flowtanks (also known as skiptanks, from their typical modus operandi). Like others of its kind, it is essentially a well-armed and –armoured hovercraft with a lifting-body cross-section. With the help of powerful auxiliary thrusters, retractable air-cushion skirts and extendable airfoils, the flowtank can achieve low-level, wing-in-ground effect, high-speed flight of up to 500 kph over suitable terrain. It can also achieve unassisted, vectored-thrust hops & jumps of short duration. Of course, due to its nature, a flowtank cannot operate in very thin atmospheres, thus limiting its areas of deployment.

Note that the main intakes for the flowtank's air-breathing thrusters and hover propulsion systems are positioned behind the forward 'bow' section of the tank. They are exposed only from an oblique rear angle. The auxiliary intakes are protected by armoured shutters which open only when the flowtank is in WIG/low-level flight mode.

In its basic form, the Asp is armed with a turret housing a 75mm coilgun along its centerline. Firing either rod penetrators or multi-purpose explosive rounds, the main coilgun is fed from a removable magazine/powercell occupying the entire left side of the turret. The coilgun itself is the tank version of the Spatha heavy MS weapon, and is cradled in a magnetic free-floating assembly designed to stabilize the weapon and significantly reduce its felt recoil. To the right of the main gun is a 25mm co-axial coilgun. This is ballistically matched to the main gun, on occasions when failure of the main FCS requires the use of ranging shots. It can also be independently elevated for engaging airborne targets. The right side of the turret also houses a fully automatic 7mm coilgun 'suppressor' or 'repeater' for engaging infantry targets. To the rear is a turreted laser CIWS for engaging fast-moving, incoming threats such as ATGMs and mortar rounds. The turret itself is modular—it can be removed in its entirety and replaced with a different type of turret, as the turret ring & mountings are built to LOH standards. Some units have replaced the 7mm repeater with a 50mm coil-mortar for use in the indirect-fire light support role. Due the popularity of this modification, a mortar has been integrated into the rear of late production turrets, next to the CIWS laser.

For armour, the Asp uses replaceable ablative and cermet composite panels interlaced with a carbon nanotube/binary superconductor grid, providing medium all-around protection against most battlefield threats, although lack of a MIUC reactor and I-field barrier leaves it vulnerable to high-intensity plasma and megaparticle beam weaponry. It is also protected by active defense arrays in the form of bolt-on countermeasures dischargers and close-in directional mines. In the event of catastrophic damage, the entire armoured crew compartment can be ejected from the vehicle.

A host of optronics and other sensors dot the turret and the hull; without these, the tank crew is literally blind, due to their location at the rear of the tank’s hull. They are in a 'buttoned-up' condition all of the time. While this may seem very disadvantageous, the mindset and technology is very different from that of 20th-century tankers; computer-synthesized environments and immersive displays are considered to be more than adequate to give an unrestricted field of view and situational awareness to the crewmen while integrating relevant data into the display at the same time. Due to the pervasiveness of Minovsky particle jamming, emphasis is placed on passive & short-range sensors, most notably visual, thermal and ultrasonic sensors. Phased-array radar and Lidar are also utilized, although sensor backtracking techniques make these risky propositions on the modern battlefield.

The tank is highly automated and utilizes a powerful AI system, cutting the crew down to two: a driver and the commander. The fire-control AI is good enough to determine windage and other gunnery factors from the behaviour of heat mirages and vegetation, if it came to that. One crewmember can actually operate the tank by himself, but only at much-reduced effectiveness.

The depicted example appears to be an early production type which has seen combat, judging by the wear and the coilgun hits on its bow plates. The lack of 'kill rings' on the main gun barrel suggests that this tank’s crew was lucky, not good. The damage was probably incurred while reacting to one of the numerous off-world 'pirate' raids which have plagued New Trieste in recent years.


Although it took several tries to get it to look decent, the design concept is basically "what if I stuck a tank turret on top of the Rebel Snowspeeder from Empire Strikes Back?"

Edit: A couple of spelling & terminology errors