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Champions of Equestria

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Description

Art discussions with Baron Engel over the design of some of the earlier recoil-less cannons used by the Roan military during the start of the war against the Ratvarians. Due to the design, many vehicles had to be open topped, but later on this issue would be solved.  
Learn more about Roan World at War

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Background Pony #F170
@Background Pony #433A  
That could be a spotting rifle, yes.
 
As AFVs go, this one’s tiny, and everything about it makes me think of something from WWII or shortly thereafter. Volute style suspension, and only two sets per side. Looks like the drive sprockets are up front and the engine may be there too–and I’d guess at a transverse mount. I doubt it has much more armor than the absolute minimum to deflect shell fragments and small arms fire. It makes me think of some of the German “ersatz” panzerjaeger AFVs they built toward the end of the war, with an antitank gun, or even a mount for a bundle of welded-together Panzerfausts, stuck on top of an obsolete light tank chassis. I doubt it can carry more than twenty rounds for a gun that big and maybe only a dozen. It’s probably pretty fast, for an AFV–for the crew’s sake, I hope so, because they may not get a second shot.
 
Recoilless rifles are a 20th Century technology we’re unlikely to see return, because now precision guided antiarmor weapons do that role better–but there was a time at which they were the best idea going for putting a large caliber gun that could lob big fat HE and HEAT rounds onto the lightest possible chassis. Some armies even now still use US 1950s 106mm recoilless rifles mounted on top of jeeps and other light vehicles.
 
I’d also say that with modern fire control systems–thermal sights, laser rangefinders, ballistic computers–and modern dual-charge HEAT rounds and HE rounds with preformed fragments to improve lethality and bursting radius, a large caliber recoilless rifle stuck on top of a light vehicle with good offroad performance just might be a lot more useful, and a lot more of a threat, than you might think. None of that is present on that vehicle in the drawing, though, just the Mark I Eyeball and, at an educated guess, a big fat HEAT round with a 1940s or 1950s style copper foil lined shaped charge. Give them a chance to get a hulldown position and camouflage the vehicle properly, and they’ll probably get the first shot off. They’d probably better bug out after they fire that first shot, though, whether they hit anything with it or not.
Background Pony #AA2D
@Background Pony #F7FC  
Given that there appears to be a gunsight on the left of the main gun, that tube over the gun is likely some sort of spotting rifle.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotting_rifle  
It’s a bit strange to see a recoiless rifle on a vehicle this large though. You’d think that they would go for a mid calibre anti-tank gun with good AP preformance, since this appears to be more of a TD than an SPG.
Background Pony #F170
Well… any crew-served, direct-fire heavy weapon–at least if we’re talking about real-world technologies like nitrocellulose-based propellants–is going to have a very, very noticeable firing signature. Depending on the composition of the ground and their height above it, large caliber recoilless rifles can even draw a big black arrow on the ground behind them that points directly at the breech of the gun, highly visible from the air. One of the nice things about AFVs is that they can displace after firing, before the artillery barrage lands on their positions. A static recoilless rifle or antitank gun crew, however well their position is dug in and camouflaged, is almost certainly going to find themselves the center of a lot of very sincere attention from a lot of very angry people after they fire the first shot, and when the mortar rounds start walking onto their position, they’re gonna have a bad day.
 
All this assumes real-world technology or equivalent. Maybe magic can make them harder to see when they fire. Maybe there are illusions of other vehicles or heavy weapons in nearby positions being very noticeable and drawing fire.
 
…also, what’s that above the gun tube? Is that an optical sight, or the muzzle of a coax MG? Armored vehicles, especially open-topped ones, need an MG to deter the fanatic hiding in the bushes with the RPG or the Molotov cocktail.