Your name is Zematoña mac Carnhill, Maor-Ceannfort of the new Experimental Weapons and Armor Motor Rifle Battalion of the Army of Galaceia, and what you're looking at is a hot mess to rival all other hot messes in the long and storied history of Galaceia. After the national humiliation that was the Margethean Wars, in which you most recently went 2-5-1 with the damn Bulganians, the Parliament and President both came to an agreement on reforming the (treaty limited) Army of Galaceia into the most deadly fighting weapon in the continent of Abruzzi.

The problem was, though, you had a continent's worth of enemies and a hell of a smaller army than that. Neighbored by the Grand Dutchy of Bulgan (consummate horse-fuckers they were), the Democratic People's Republic of Berry & Lemins (stabbed you in the back when they descended into civil war over Anyism), the People's Confederated State of Zcherblinka (not actually bad people when they weren't raiding your boarder, which was never), and the Kingdom of the Holy Lamp (scriveners and useless usurers the lot of them), there were a lot of people on your national shit-list and only one hundred thousand people in which to kick them in with. There was also the Peninsular de Diablo, home to the only real blue-water port you had, but that wasn't worth mentioning to a ground pounder like you.

Your poor adjunct said you should probably watch your language, but eh. Your unit, bless their coal-black hearts, was not in a good shape. After the first few Margethean Wars, the domestic arms industry had gotten hideously clapped out, so a lot of heavier items like artillery and tanks had been imported. Fortunately, post-wars and the treaty an army standardization law was passed to try and get everyone onto the same general trucks and tractors. Unfortunately, though, everything else got passed on to you and yours. On the plus side, this made you massively overstrength for your TOE listing. On the minus side, it meant you had a ridiculous number of subdivisions to keep track of, explaining why you had six captaens and eighteen leifteanats to ride heard on.

As it stood right now, you were responsible for, along with keeping your unit from falling apart as it tried to tape itself together with outdated and off-order Werser, Irromic, Nyassander, Kubachi, Carragian, and Balchivian equipment, designing and testing new vehicles for your unit to use and evaluate. The good news was High Command understood this was going to be slow going, and more importantly had money for more than one research unit on this.

Which was why you were going to kick the asses of the New Model Armor Battalion and that bastard Maor-Ceannfort Joannes Finean O'Janissarian and make up the blood feud between your families you weren't supposed to tell anyone about. Either way, you had a first order of business: picking what project to go with first. O'Janissarian would take one of the others, and once this batch of three was done, your collective vehicles would be compared by an "impartial board" and evaluated for mass adoption.

The first project was simple- an anti-tank vehicle. After the rather infamous Battle of Renevideo, in which horse-mounted cavalry managed to outmaneuver and engage the anti-tank company of the Sixth Division leading to the armor elements basically running over the rest of the division, the decision was made to have a self-propelled AT unit that could serve as infantry support and perform as a counter to armor.

The second project was less simple, and involved designing an assault carrier for stormtrooper squads. In the battle of Meztclapa, losses among the forlorn hope were as high as sixty percent over the course of the assault due to inability to get covering fire from support units that were tied up in the counterbattery doctrine. The design needed a level of machine-gun proofing, the ability to carry a full twelve-man infantry section, and it's own automatic weapon.

The last project was a new scout tank. After the massive victory that was the Encirclement of Al-Zeriah, the infamous (and now dead) Briogáidire-Ghinearál Joan Cu Cuthlain credited his victory on the reliability of his armored scouts, whose work doubling as forward observers allowed him to use the naval artillery captured off a grounded cruiser to its best effect since his standard artillery park was badly supplied. As such, the new tank had to be a light, moderately protected, and be equipped with a ten-channel radio and reasonably powerful anti-tank weapon.

Cracking your knuckles in your headquarters barrack, you grinned and got down to work.

VOTES (no plans please)

Project choice?
[] Project 1: Tank Destroyer
[] Project 2: Assault Carrier
[] Project 3: Scout Tank

Allow foreign entrants?
[] Yes; it's not like we're not starting from scratch here anyway
[] No, it's more important to develop this from the ground up

Welcome to SACQ 9/4th, which is going to cover armored fighting vehicle design through the postwar era to some unidentifiable point in the future where my research material runs out. The catch is, you aren't the designer, you're the poor sucker who has to wrangle the designers, pay the bills, and in the end steals all the credit for the invention. To this end, you will be designing tests, hiring people for your test board, and trying to balance pre-existing doctrine and reactionaries against the force of progress you will inevitably spearhead as you prove that cold iron is the master of them all. This quest is coterminal with the main body of SACQ (1, 3/2, and 2) so if foreign design items are brought up, expect to see items and callbacks to those quests.

One important item to note is my stance on omakes and fan material. Art, stories, or other bonus material will make votes count for double as my way of saying thank you to people who contribute valuable side material. Likewise, on theoretical votes where you get to influence doctrine, anyone who submits a white paper (defined as a 1k+ word essay explaining their ideas) automatically wins the vote on the very valid grounds that you did a short version of what the character was going to do. For white papers of significant quality or with other items that go doubly above the bar for participation, added bonuses may be added at my discretion.

Good luck, have fun, and whatever you do remember: this isn't Earth. Physics doesn't lie, but people do.

TOE of the Expirimental Weapons and Motor Rifle Batallion (10.3.46d9th)

Format
Lead Example Unit
-Example Subunit: Main Equipment 1 (country of manufacture), Main Equipment 2 (country of manufacture)
-Example Subunit 2: Main Equipment 1 (country of manufacture), Main Equipment 2 (country of manufacture)

Headquarters Company
-Command Platoon: 2x Gabriel Command Trucks W (KB), 1x Gabriel Radio Truck (KB)
-Signals Platoon: 3x Gabriel Communications Trucks WL (KB)
-Courier Section: 12x Volga Motorcycles (CR)
-Repair Section: 4x Gabriel Trucks (KB)
-Medical Platoon: 4x Gabriel Hospital Trucks (KB)

Artillery Battery (rump)
-Command Section: 1x Yugo Truck (BC)
-Supply Section: 3x Yugo Truck (BC)
-Gun Section 1: 2x Memova 85mm guns (BC), 2x Vescaro tractors (BC), 1x Volga Motorcycle w/ sidecar (CR)
-Gun Section 2: 3x Mle. 845 60mm guns (BC), 3x Montecarn tractors (BC), 1x Volga Motorcycle w/ sidecar (CR)

Anti-Aircraft Battery (rump)
-Command Section: 1x Opelwagon (WR)
-Supply Section: 2x Oppelwagon (WR)
-Gun Section 1: 3x Flak 2cm Flakvierling (WR), 3x Kettenkrad Wersermuster (WR)
-Gun Section 2: 1x Flak 5,5cm Flakkannone (WR), 1x Kettenkrad Wersermuster (WR)

Anti-Tank Battery (rump)
-Command Section: 2x Kettenkrad (IE)
-Supply Section: 5x Kettenkrad (IE)
-Gun Section: 3x 5cm/60 (IE), 3x Kettenkrad (IE)
-Quick Response Force Section: 3x Kettenkrad mit Slk.69 machinenkannone (IE)

Company A, Armor
-Command Section: 1x Oppelwagon Command WL (IE/WR), 2x Kettenkrad Wersermuster (WR)
-1 Platoon: 1x SkW-1 (IE), 4x W7 (IE)
-2 Platoon: 2x Np-2 (IE), 3x GBA-16 (IE)
-3 Platoon: 6x W-5 (IE)

Company B, Motor Rifle
-Command Section: 1x Yugo Command Truck WL (BC)
-1 Platoon: 3x Yugo Truck (BC), 1x Prt 16g (CR)
-2 Platoon: 3x Yugo Truck (BC), 1x Prt 16d (CR)
-3 Platoon: 3x Yugo Truck (BC), 1x Prt 16f (CR)

Company C, Motor Rifle
-Command Section: 1x Yugo Command Truck WL (BC)
-1 Platoon: 3x Yugo Truck (BC), 1x Pordo 6 (TX)
-2 Platoon: 3x Yugo Truck (BC), 1x Pordo 9 (TX)
-3 Platoon: 3x Yugo Truck (BC), 1x Pasce 4 (TX)

Company D, Motor Rifle
-Command Section: 1x Gambiste Command Truck (TX)
-1 Platoon: 3x Gambiste Truck (TX), 1x Pordo 2 (TX)
-2 Platoon: 3x Gambiste Truck (TX), 1x Pordo 11 (TX)
-3 Platoon: 3x Gambiste Truck (TX)), 1x Parrie 3(TX)

Example Infantry Squad for Motor Rifle Company
Squad X
1x Sáirsint [E-4](Ntja carbine (NY), 2x stalgrenaden (IE/WR), Bayard pistol (GL), shrapnel jacket)
2x Ceannaire [E-3] (Jackal submachine gun (GL), 4x stalgrenaden (IE/WR))
4x Grenado [E-2] (Jackal submachine gun (GL), 2x stalgrenaden (IE/WR))
4x Saighdiúr [E-2] (Inkunzi autorifle (NY), Bayard pistol (GL))

Country Tags
TX: Taelexi
WR: Werser Crownlands
IE: Irromic Empire
BC: Bahlkchivian
KB: Kubachin
NY: Nyassaland
GL: Galaceia

Note: Anything not replaced with a piece of war material in continual production is subject to change at a moment's notice, due to lack of spares and a large supply of obsolete materiel and war booty.
Note 2: Due to confusing non-English ranks, NATO serial codes are added as an indicator in case of confusion.

After getting down to the task of claiming the assault carrier concept and preemptively refusing foreign entrants, you got right down to work on making sure your unit wouldn't fall apart. Feeding them was a pain in the ass, but you managed to deal with the farmers enough to get the food coming into the camp area. You also set down people to recording your supply of war loot, outdated equipment, and the ten thousand miscelanious pieces of kit your batallion would have and would need to have before it was fully operational.

You weren't kidding about the ten thousand pieces of equipment, either. You had shovels from nearly twenty different countries, re-badged uniforms, small arms from the last sixty years, and vehicles that boggled the mind- and more were coming in every day. Each and every unit that got standardized shipped it's old crap to you, and any unit that needed something that wasn't standard got shipped out from you. When you weren't busy doing work with the battalion, the rest of your time was spent taking in and shipping out gear.

While that was happening, though, you had to get down to the business of selecting your design goals and your board of advisors. Since you had thrown out the foreigners as a matter of first principles, most of them were from the Army, Navy, Air Corps, or the guys at Irizar or Elizalde. Not exactly your top picks, but you'd take what you could get.

Aside from design team, though, you also had to figure out both what sort of doctrine you were going to use with these assault carriers, and more importantly how you were going to deploy the new vehicles in your ranks. Right now it was just a pecadillio to go on the problem sundae that was your life and command, but it was also one you'd need to look into carefully. Maybe you could get advice if you picked up a theory guy? Eh, who knew. Time to pick a board.

SELECT THREE, NO PLAN VOTES

[] Captaen Lucio mac Vaemari, Army
Your captain in charge of the B Company of the batallion, and a decent commander of motorized task elements. He might drink too much in garrison, but in the field he understood his men's limitations. You've served with him for two years and a war previous to this, and trust his skill in using these vehicles.
[] Leifteanant-Cheannasaí Mahri Siemprevidas, Navy
A ship commander left berfit his torpedo ram, and more importantly a well-known commander of naval landing forces. While he's Navy, and therefore totally irrelivant on how to design, not many people alive today can claim his experiance at breaking into armed and armored strongholds.
[] Ceannfort Johan Muller Santiago y Portezon, Air Corps
One of the darling boys of the ground attack portion of the air force, and more importantly one who's not got his head so far up his ass he's turned into Oruboros, Johan's big item he's bringing to the table is the ability to turn anyone standing against you politically into wet paste.
[] Manuel Fabricio O'Sylvester, Irizar Bus Works
A corporate flunky like none other, Manuel works for one of the two major vehicle manufacturers in Galaceia and is totally up to date on everything you can do with them. More importantly, he also has contacts over at Ghermain Brothers Automotive over in the Irromes in case you need to order some parts from out of the country.
[] Felix Austorias van Doragio, Elizalde Automotive
A corporate flunky who is also a girl, because after the manpower shortages in '43d9 women's rights have basically got shot into bloody orbit, and a negotiator from one of the two major heavy industries left in Galaceia. More importantly, if you want to contract the armor out, she's also got contacts over in Skoda Panzerschiffenwerke, who've been working hand in hand with the tank guys forever.