So this is what happens when I played too much World of Tanks
Somewhere in the South Pacific, a secret island hosts The Armored Gladiators, a bloodsport tournament with tanks and artilleries, for the entertainment of the wealthy, powerful degenerates that have either overtly or covertly held sway over much of the civilized world.
On this island called War Paradise, people kidnapped from all over the world- those who bet on the wrong horses during power struggles, political dissidents, victims of score-settling, even random nobodies having the misfortune of walking by some bored, socially-influential activist in the wrong place at the wrong time- are parachuted onto random locations. Those who didn't get killed in the crossfires of on-going combat are either forced to form factions or recruited by one of the factions they run into (typically the first one they meet, willingly or otherwise), which in term deploy teams of 15 vehicles to locations specified by the game show hosts. These unfortunate souls must then crew the vehicles and fight it out against teams from rival factions with live ammunitions. Anything goes, the winning teams live to fight another battle, and the losing teams are completely at the mercy of their opponents.
The tournament is divided into thirteen "Tiers"; each faction is given increasingly-capable vehicles as the tournament progresses through Tiers, with Tier I corresponding to late 1920s technology and Tier XIII corresponding to early 1960s level. All vehicles and ammunitions are produced in automated plants on the island- their precise locations known only to Tyrannos Inc., the organization that produces and administers the game show- and delivered via heavy-duty unmanned ground vehicles to ensure properly-functioning logistics for each viable faction.
Unmanned aerial vehices disguised as replicas of the Il-2 attack aircraft and MiG-21 jet fighters patrol the skies over War Paradise. They not only add immersion to the audience but also scan the ground with their sophisticated onboard cameras for anyone showing signs of desertion or even stalling, who will then be strafed and bombed. The aristocracy demands entertainment, and the show must go on- even though it kills you.
As the team death match goes on, The Armored Gladiators matches become largely dominated by two factions- the New 1st Army, known for being relatively-disciplined compared to others due to being led and trained by a former tank commander, and the Order of Schäferhund, a group of upper-class thrill-seekers who came to this island willingly and are known for brutal, calculated tactics, an utter lack of compassion, and their penchant for executing strangers on-sight out of spite (which in turn means that they never took in new recruits but are bolstered directly from their home societies- a priviliege, amongst others, granted by the administrators at Tyrannos Inc.).
Even as Season 1 of The Armored Gladiators reaches its eighth Tier, the desperate need for standing forces against the Order of Schäferhund's onslaught means that the New 1st Army must utilize any vehicle that can be armed with an useful gun at all. Normally this means all serviceable vehicles shall be upgraded to the farthest extent permitted by the game show (which is in turn based on these vehicles' real world potential to begin with), but the capture and the subsequent "digital pacification" a.k.a. hacking of an automated plant with the assistance of a former Tyrannos employee exiled to War Paradise in an instance of workplace cancel culture, presented a "good news, bad news" situation. On one hand, the New 1st Army now has not only ready access to powerful vehicles such as the Caernarvon, IS-3, M26 Pershing, and AMX-13 75 tanks but also the ability to fabricate parts in surplus- that is, in addition to supporting the construction of new vehicles. On the other, however, only in a fool's dream would the gamemasters at Tyrannos remain ignorant to the loss of an automated plant for long or accept such a loss without a fight once they figure out exactly what happened, and a counterattack by their security forces is only a matter of when, not if, further exacerbating the need to keep as many tanks operational and somehow combat-worthy as possible (fortunately, they do have enough manpower, both through rescuing new arrivals from Order of Schäferhund hunting parties and through absorbing survivors from defeated factions, to field such numerous armoured formations). One of the results of this new situation is that surviving examples of the T6 Medium, a forerunner of the M4 Sherman tank and acquired during Tier IV phase of the tournament, are upgraded alongside the Tier V Sherman tanks equipped with Vertical Volute Spring Suspension (tanks that were not already allocated for conversion into the M36B1 Jackson tank destroyers) and employed using tank destroyer tactics.
The most visible upgrade to the T6 Mediums is the same FL-10 turret used by AMX-13 and upgraded M4 Sherman tanks, with a high-velocity 75mm gun that is effective enough against the Order of Schäferhund's elite Tiger I tanks, especially when using ambush tactics that the New 1st Army Shermans have already been resorting to anyway. The M3-type VVSS units are also replaced with the more-resilient M4-type ones, and "duckbill" extended end connectors are added to their tracks, which are standardized with other VVSS Shermans, in order to improve their cross-country performance.
With the Tier VIII phase of the tournament comes the T-VI-100 variant of the Tiger I tank, basically one re-armed with the 100mm D-10T gun. Beyond upgrading the existing Tiger I tanks, the same gun ended up being tried with the Porsche Tiger, which has essentially the same turret design. While these up-tiered tanks are no longer well-protected by Tier VIII standard, the wide variety of the 100mm ammunition means that the tanks will have at least a fighting chance against the opponents they will face.
(Credit: AMX-13 turret by
Tank Encyclopedia; the "castle turret" insignia came from World of Tanks; the rest by War'tist of
War Drawings; I only threw them together and then adjusted the turret's colour a bit)
