#also don't think I didn't see that refit that turns the Tricycle into a rolling War of the Worlds Tripod (complete with heat ray)

[kaelor0409]

It says something that the VM-96 is straight up scifi bullshit that looks like it just walked out of Castle Wolfenstein...

...and it still seems more plausible than this.

“Killer Can!”/“Better Than No Tank I Guess”

Macchi had been working on a variety of light walkers and had deployed several for trial runs. The original Model A was an infantry support vehicle carrying a 37mm cannon and an aircraft rotary engine on the underside, but as the Macchi Republics began to lose air superiority, the vehicle was redesigned into a mobile machine-gun carrier. Production of these models soon outstripped the Model A and became by far the most common walker in service.

It quickly became clear that the production rate for the VM-94 was not going to meet demand, and the issue was the locomotive mechanism. At the height of the issue, three sets of hulls were produced per walker chassis. Rather than waste this excess industrial potential, it was ordered these excess hulls be converted into cheaper conventional “Victory Tanks”. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the “Carro della Vittoria” did not go as planned. Tracks even theoretically capable of crossing trenches required extending the hulls, which negated much of the built-up reserve chassis. The resulting tank was clumsy, sluggish, and had a tendency to flounder in most terrain. Still, it was all Macchi had.