BUSSA IMPERIAL ARMOURIES PRESENTS...
[OOC: Credit to New Aeyariss/Gran Cuscatlan for helping me hugely. Much of the write-up here was originally formulated by him]
Price: NS$1,800,000
Upon his ascension to the throne, His Divine Imperial Majesty Emperor Tadenikawo XII commanded that the Yughanan Empire would need to develop its own arms industry in order to be truly independent from the influence of the foreign, non-Afruikan colonialists. In 1994, a proposal by the newly appointed Minister for Defence Muyiwa Olasunkanmi was put forward1 to develop an entirely domestically produced main battle tank, capable of defeating all similar vehicles fielded by neighbouring countries and also any military hardware they might be able to field in the future. A massive but efficient effort began to build factories all across the country to produce the components that would necessary for this vehicle, seen through by the revolutionary and patriotic zeal of the Yughanan people, fueled by a love for their Emperor. The design of what would become the Type 9374 Okyinya appeared to Emperor Tadenikawo XII, revealed to him by the ancestor spirits.2 Work immediately got underway to build prototypes of the tank seen in this dream.
Named after the glorious, mystical horse 'Okyinya' which was ridden by Adeoluwa I over nine thousand years ago when Yughana was founded3, the tank design is cutting edge4, with an ingeniously designed suspension, oscillating turret and other features. The hull of the tank is 5.55 m in length, increasing to 6.91 m with the gun forward. It weighs in at 26 tonnes, allowing it to be transported by plane. The driver's compartment is located at the front. Behind it is the turret, and behind it, at the rear, is the engine compartment. The turret is offset roughly seven centimetres, and the engine about 15 centimetres, from the vehicle's longitudinal axis in order for the turret to traverse more quickly.
The complete crew of this tank consists of four persons. The driver sits to the left of the front, radioman right to him, with commander and gunner sitting in the turret, commander to the left, driver to the right. The driver sits below the hatch with a periscope made out of bulletproof glass protecting him. Perhaps the most marvellous of the Okinya's turret is its turret, which is manifested directly from the dream had by His Imperial Majesty. It is a turret of an oscillating type, composed of two parts; the lower part being directly attached to the hull, with the upper part being loosely jointed and able to move freely up and down. Loading is done via an autoloader.5
The main armament is a state-of-the-art 108mm rifled gun6, capable of firing 108x525mm tank shells. Available types of ammunition are; High Explosive Dual Purpose (HEDP) round and a High Explosive Shaped charge (HESH) round, both domestically produced in Yughana. Either type is extremely effective against all modern armour, fully capable of crippling or even destroying an American M1A2 Abrams, Nifonese Type 1997, Riysan Watani or Carlosian MV4139 tank.7 The rifled gun is fitted with a muzzle brake. The gun is powered from two six-round revolver autoloaders. This permits the tank extremely high rate of fire (8-12 rounds per minute). In addition to that, twelve rounds are stored in the hull and about twenty in the turret.8 The gunner controls it via a pneumatic joystick controller. Pressing it sideways results in the turret rotating, pressing it vertically means the turret elevating or depressing. Firing is done via pressing a pedal with the gunner's feet. As for secondary armament, there is a 12mm coaxial machine-gun at the turret fired by the gunner, and a 7.62mm machine-gun at the front of the hull crewed by the radioman.
The tank commander sits below the entry hatch, which is filled with seven optic prisms emerging from it. Additionally, both driver and the gunner field a single observation device; the commander's with 1.5x magnification, the gunner's with up to 7x magnification and a laser rangefinder. The radioman has use of a state-of-the-art commercial radio. Again, all of these components are 100% made and assembled in Yughana.9 The tank possesses two front-facing lights at the hull and a single searchlight at the turret.10
The tank is propelled with a locally-made 305 hp diesel engine.11 The engine is connected to a drive shaft connecting to the transmission at the vehicle's front, with the driver steering the engine via two steering brakes. The suspension is torsion bar. Responsible for propulsion are six steel road wheels and six rubber band tracks. The tank packs 500 litres of fuel. Mobility upgrades have permitted it to go up to a speed of 50 kilometres per hour and increased it's range to 300 km.
Protection levels at the turret go up to 40mm RHA, 25mm RHA at the turret's sides, 80mm RHA at the hull's front, and 30mm RHA at the hull's side.12 It is possible for export customers to install a light explosive reactive armour (ERA) of their choosing should they desire so.13 14
Type 9374 OkyinyaType: Main battle tank
Weight: 26 tonnes
Length: 5.55 m (hull length), 6.91 m (gun forward)
Width: 2.87 m
Height: 2.57 m
Crew: 4 (commander, driver, gunner, radioman)
Armour: Turret front; 40mm RHA, turret sides; 25mm RHA, hull front; 80mm RHA; hull sides 30mm RHA. Compatible with light explosive reactive armour (ERA) kits.
Main armament: 1 × 108mm/L40 rifled gun
Secondary armament: 1 × 12mm coaxial machine-gun, 1 × 7.62mm hull machine-gun
Engine: 305 hp diesel
Suspension: Torsion bar
Operational range: 300 km
Speed: 50 km/h
1 While it is true that Olasunkanmi made the proposal, he was only appointed to the position because the previous Minister for Defence had tried to explain to the Emperor that Yughana didn't have the industry to build a tank that would be in any way capable of fighting a modern war. He was sent to a camp and, according to rumours sold to a witch coven deep in the Yughanan jungle.
2 This didn't happen. In fact, the design was the work of Dr. Yin Jiang, a refugee from Wenchuan who had been secretly hired by the Emperor himself. Back in Wenchuan, he had been a Doctor of Engineering in a prominent university but was thrown out after a disagreement with the faculty. He owned a trailer factory but was forced to leave after his business was seized by a warlord. Eventually, he was recruited by the Yughanan government.
3 There is no evidence a person called Adeoluwa I ever existed in Yughana.
4 Yin Jiang had the chassis based off the design of the Panzer IV. The former British rulers of Yughana dumped hundreds of these in the Yughanan jungle. Jiang simply modified the design, giving it a relatively modern torsion bar suspension.
5 The turret is an almost carbon copy of the French AMX-13.
6 The gun is a total copy of the rifled cannon used on the Nifonese Type 1948.
7 The threat posed by this gun to any of these tanks is limited, especially due to the poor quality of rounds produced in Yughana.
8 Like the AMX-30, a huge disadvantage is that the autoloader must be reloaded from the outside after firing all of its rounds. The extra rounds in the turret are located around the crew. In battles against rebel groups in Yughana, penetration of the turret by anti-tank weapons has been known to trigger an explosive chain reaction that typically results in the death of the crew and the turret itself being propelled hundreds of metres into the sky.
9 None of these radios are made in Yughana and are typically smuggled in from abroad to get around sanctions and embargoes against the Yughanan government. Most often these are Nifonese in origin.
10 No night vision equipment is installed.
11 In fact, these are usually just cannibalised engines from civilian lorries, imported from around the world and popular across the continent of Afruika.
12 This only provides protection against up to 14mm rounds, making it vulnerable to even the lightest of autocannons which equip most infantry fighting vehicles.
13 Equipping heavier ERA risks blowing the tank to pieces.
14 There is no air conditioning. Crews operating in the Yughanan jungle have been known to die from dehydration and exhaustion.
Emperor, leader, die for him
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