Altdorf, Train Station, Afternoon same day

Kurt Müller was not happy-his arrival at the Altdorf train station was not going as expected. Instead of going into a train station full of admiring civilians they had been shifted into a part of the switchyard for cargo trains.
And instead of showing credulous Imperials the highlights of their new toy he and his crew had been ushered into a large room inside the Imperial palace and asked to stay put. That they had asked some of the officers of the 1st Landwehr made things even more mysterious. They were fed well and otherwise were left to stew.
Kurt was through most of his last novel and getting more than a little bit miffed when the so-far closed double doors which led to the room were swept open and quite a lot of Imperials entered the room.

He registered none of them for real as in their midst was Karl-Franz, the Emperor. Karl Franz was an amazing character who was able to play most roles that were required of an Emperor. He could be the wise elder statesman, the friendly Uncle everybody loved and the stern Judge who settled right from wrong.
But when the acts ended the core of the man came to the front, and that core was a warrior and General. He looked the part and anybody who slew Orc Warbosses in single hand-to-hand combat had few things left to prove-it showed. All of this was very much to the forefront now and it was an impressive and not a little frightening feeling for Kurt to be in the focus of this man.
He went to his knees as this was common protocol when dealing with the Emperor-and since it simply was what you did in this situation.

"You all may rise"
When everybody was back on their feet the train engineer found he was the directly in front of Karl Franz.
"Good afternoon your majesty. How may I serve You"
"Good afternoon Herr Albers. This is meeting is indeed how you can serve me-me, your fellow Germans and the empire. You may have heard already that there are several battles being fought inside the Great Forest by now. There is a source of vile sorcery which needs to be eradicated, a Quarry with many Germans and Imperials are under Siege and there is a Castle that needs reliving as well."
"Your highness I have heard about that, but how may I be of assistance?"
"We need to put troops as close to the center of this sorcery as possible and we need to protect them on the way. For these tasks We have commissioned your Great Work, the Train "Hammer" and it needs to leave tomorrow morning with the first light. And I need you to drive it. Soldiers I have aplenty but a railroad engineer that can drive this monster I have not-not now."
"Sire, I would like to help really, but this is impossible. I am not a member of any armed forces and as such I am not allowed to…."

"Herr Müller, this was explained to me both by Major Gruber and the German Ambassador in many more words and I am here to solve this. Kurt Müller, kneel and place your hands upon Ghal Maraz, the hammer that has been handed down to me and that is from Sigmar itself."
Having no idea at all what to so in such a strange situation Kurt Müller did not even think about not complying.
"Now speak after me. I, Kurt Müller, swear in Sigmar`s name to serve my liege, the Emperor Karl Franz in all and any way, to support and defend him to the best of my abilities."
And so the engineer did.
"I, Emperor Karl Franz of Altdorf, swear in Sigmar`s name to protect my vassal Kurt Müller from his enemies and to give him the means to fulfill his oath. You may now rise Sir Kurt, you are now Baron of Haltdorf. Your crewmembers are now your personal armsmen. Does this end the problem with not being a member of the armed forces?"
"I..I guess so your Majesty"
"Then go forth and slay my enemies. Do this by taking "Hammer" out to meet whatever gives us such problems. And Sir Kurt?"
"Yes my liege?"
"Thank you. I know it cannot be easy for you-but I know you will do the right thing"
"Thank you my Lord, I will do my best" Kurt Müller felt like he had stepped outside of reality and watched some play with no connection to himself. The feeling would not last long-he would miss it.
"And now to you Henrik Gerber. I hear that you have been a naval commander in your past life on a different world?"
"Yes, Highness"
"I can now give command of the train and of the 1st Landwehr to somebody who has never worked with both-or I can give it to you. Can you do it?"
"I very much hope so"
"Good. You are already Landwehr so I do not have to knight you but I can promote you-for this mission you are Major Gerber. Come back after fulfilling the mission and that rank stays."
"Yes your highness"
"Then I think you all have much more important things to do then gawk at me. Dismissed gentlemen"

Much later at night when all consumables were stocked and an approximation of a command chain were agreed upon Kurt tied to get a few hours of sleep. He found it rather hard to get any as so many worries easily presented themselves, so rest was hard to come by. It was a sure sign of Kurt not being a Veteran yet-that would not last.

Castle Wolfenfels, next morning

Count Heinrich was again on the Donjon to watch another air supply. And again he was staying apart from it as he had no idea how it would work-or whether it was safe. But there was a difference this time-neither had the Germans.
That they needed resupply already had been an unfortunate surprise to everybody, but nobody had considered that such a huge army could lay siege to his fiefdom or that they would be unable to call for the German air force in such a case.
The German soldiers and his riflemen did a splendid job at keeping the Chaos army at arm's length, but they did so by expending copious amounts of ammunition. They had radioed this to anybody who could hear that-but given the magical storm that was mostly Laager Middenheim. And the Lager had no working helicopter. As the exercise ground in front of the castle was hotly contested landing there was out of the question. How else could Lieutenant Albers resupply his men? He certainly could not land and dropping anything from great height seemed useless as it was too easy to miss the small yard to the castle and would damage whatever dropped.

Now he watched the approach of the Storch with interest. The Plane flew into the wind and seemed just to crawl forward at the pace of a running man. It flew maybe 20 meters above the level of the Castles walls, actually at the same level than him.
He had a good look at the pilot who was concentrating to keep his craft straight and level in the gusty winds at the edge of the magic storm. Just before the plane overflew the wall the aircraft suddenly banked steeply to a side and lost height rapidly. Something dropped from the plane into the courtyard but the Count only had eyes for the plane which righted itself but had lost too much attitude. Something crashed mightily and the plane disappeared behind the far wall.

Running to the parapet Heinrich tried to see the scope of the disaster when the Storch soared again to a safer attitude with a roaring engine causing him to scream in triumph. He joined the German soldiers in the courtyard to see them pull apart a pallet protected by many layers of cardboard and straw. The KSK Lieutenant was just opening a box with "7.62 mm" written on it and beautiful new shiny rifle rounds could be seen by all and any.
"I do not think that the flybody will be able to buy any Beer when I am around" could be heard from the normally taciturn Sergeant.
"I have something to show to you two-please come with me." The two KSK leaders bemusedly followed the Baron who led them to the far wall of the castle. Bending forward he showed them the two shallow ruts cut by the wheels of the German plane into the earthen embankment.
"I do not know about the Beer you want to buy for Lieutenant Alpers, but I know he will not lack for anything while I am around"

Quarry, Great Forest, same time

Garek Brightfur was unhappy. Intellectually he had been prepared for the high losses incurred by assaulting the Quarry-but seeing it happen for real had been a very different thing.
The advice of his shaman had been on the mark as usual, so he had used the warherds that arrived last and were not used to the fighting style of his beastmen to test the human defenses. One of his sorcerer had estimated that there were less than 3000 humans in this strange fortress-before his head exploded like an overripe melon when he tried something clever in sight of the walls.
How these very few could put up such destructive fire was something Garek could not fathom-but he would have to find a way to break through. The walls of the fortress had seemed to be so strange and easy to scale-they were not. The screamers that Arok had given to him should have taken out the defenders on the walls-they did not. But during this assault his troops had been able to get higher up the walls than ever.

So the winning tactic should combine more screamers to look after the thrice-damned human fast firers with more troops-and some protection for them so they could get close. One his Children were among the riflemen a massacre would ensue-one he would enjoy far more that the costly lessons he had received the last days.

Uli Hemnir was also not happy-but he had been like that for several human lifetimes. He was pretty sure that everybody tried to cheat him, everybody was talking behind his back about him, nobody accepted him for the bright dwarf that he was and he was only working for and with fools. As could be expected this attitude won him few friends with humans and dwarves alike-up to the point where he was forced to work for the humans for a living. While they did not like him any better than his "fellow" dwarves they were willing to tolerate his attitude better as his talents shone more among the uncouth humans.
But there were always times when he was less unhappy-and he had found something which cheered him up to an unusual degree-artillery.

When Major Brennecke had asked for volunteers for an artillery battery he had not known exactly what to expect-but with German technology such artillery might be….interesting. When he had seen the guns first he had been a little put down-the guns were so small. With a caliber of just 4" they seemed hardly fit to be called artillery.
That attitude had not survived the firepower demonstration. From that time on there was nothing which kept his attention better or received more lavish maintenance that his beloved M101 gun. His guncrew consisted of dwarves only-and under his pressure they had become the best gun crew of 4 which were in the Quarry. They received the coveted gun no. "2" when they had shown to be able to shoot accurately 15 times in a minute after setting up the gun in record time. This was the gun which was taking the lead in an engagement by long tradition. That his dwarves were muscled like human bodybuilders certainly helped-the fact that they had found their perfect weapon did so too.
Now he had taken his gun-"Grugni`s Axe" in combat several times during the last days. The only thing which had kept him from complete happiness was that the battery fired indirectly-over the walls, out of sight from the enemy. What kept him from freaking out about that was the sight of the battlefield after the first assault-even with the slow corrections due to the indirect firing the 4 guns had dished out frightful punishment to the Beastmen.

He had been roused from his reverie by the shrill sound of the siren, its rhythm indicating an air attack. This time the heavy machine guns were better prepared and opened fire quickly. The screamers were reluctant to close with them and drifted in and out of the cloud cover, never pressing the attack completely but also not retreating. It kept the quadmounts out of the fight. The amount of machine guns and rifle fire seemed to make up for it, but the dwarven lieutenant could make out more and more dismayed shouts by the humans. Finally their meaning became clear.
"Giants-and they do not go down"
He did not wait for any commands-and did not inform anybody about what he was to do-they would take far too long to wrap their slowpoke minds about his genius anyway.

"Ok stonebreakers-this is our turn. If the humans cannot hack this we can. We need to get up to the redoubt-on the double. Come on you lazies-lets show the humans we can run"
Screaming, cajoling and pushing himself hardest were the indigents which made his crew push the cannon up the earthen ramp to the "B" redoubt in a time which would make a human drill sergeant nod approvingly. The sight which greeted them showed that Uli had taken the right decision-there was a new assault on the Quarry, and this time the Beastmen had brought mobile cover. Three Giants were stomping their way forward. Moving seemingly slow their long legs ate up the distance at the same pace a human would jog.
Uli had seen giants before-but these were different. They were always huge, stupid and not very good at coordinated movement, but these samples were all of this, just worse. They held huge shields in front of them which seemed to give a strange black light whenever they were hit but showed no other damage. The Giants themselves had an unhealthy color and were surrounded by a virtual cloud of insects-but whenever something missed the shields and hit them it just left quickly closing holes.
Behind the Giants several lines of beastmen were taking advantage of the cover given to them and closed with the walls.

"Emplace gun-load HE"
His crew proved why they had gotten the "2" number by setting up the gun in no time at all. When loaded with a shell Uli for the first time shot over open sights for real. The shell could hardly miss and did explode with a satisfying bang-but for all the damage it did it could have been a dud. The Giant took two steps back, flattening some too close beasts-but that was it.
Uli looked at it in utter disgust-again the Universe had proven it hated him guts. There was one more chance-but that was a slim indeed. He opened another box of shells and pulled out a shell like all the others. Pushing the loader aside he inserted the round carefully into the breach.
Shooting again and expecting no better results the hit brought something on Grimnirs face not seen for an eternity-a grin, a big shit eating grin. The Giant hit by the shell was missing half his chest and dropped on many unfortunate Beastmen.
Uli Grimmnir was a very good hater, none better. In his spare time he had written his worst grudges into the cooper driving band of some of the shells of his gun. Making sure that the runes were spaced so that the rifling would not cut them when aligned right the dwarf had fired the first grunge shells in history-and they were definitely magical enough to overcome the giant's magical protections.
Two more Shells ended the Giant attack well enough. Whooping, clapping on each other back and shouting their disdain at the Beastmen the Dwarven Artillerymen out on an unexpected display. It took them a while to see how close the Beastmen had come already during the fight with the monsters-they were already placing logs over the first line of wire.
Both riflemen and machineguns poured fire into them as if their ammunition was going out of style tomorrow, but given the mass of hateful beasts moving up the walls all around the redoubt it seemed a pitiful defense.

When technically-minded civilians get to play soldier in their spare time and have the feeling that their doings could have a rather important bearing on their life expectancy they get creative with high explosives and flammable fuels. Some of these "Homeguard Horrors can be remarkably effective, like the technicals which roamed over Africa (and now Naggaroth). Most, like the sticky grenade or the Northover gun, are nasty failures more dangerous to their users then to the enemy at worst or only useful under very special circumstances at best. In other words they are failures.
One of these Homeguard Horrors was in the hands of three Landwehr men. Two Imperials and a German were wrestling with all their power with a "B" Nozzle at the end of a high pressure pipe which wrestled them like an angry Phyton. They barely managed to keep the nozzle pointed in the right direction, the "V" cut between the two redoubts they were responsible for.
From the Nozzle shot a full stream of liquid out to more than 40 meters, drenching everything below them well. Normally they were part of the fire brigade responsible for the railyard but today they were about a different business.
Their transportable pump was not sending 800 liters of water per minute downrange but was pumping from a huge tank of diesel fuel. Intended for the fleet of earthmoving equipment and generators the Quarry needed it was now used to soak the Beastmen who scrambled up the earthen walls. The front ranks of Chaos Children felt even through the red fog of battlelust that this was something bad-but the back ranks would not cease to push forward and upwards-always upwards for forward.
The Sergeant responsible for this stretch of wall pulled his face into something like a grin which would have done any crocodile proud when he pulled the trigger of his flare pistol.

The Fire and screaming spread from his shots like a shockwave. The fire consumed the front ranks of the beastmen assault instantly and the screaming, burning beasts which ran panicked into the back ranks or were left floundering in the wire completed the destruction of the morale of the Chaos children outside the conflagration . The fire knew many ways to kill-outright burns, injuring the airways so much they swelled close and left the beasts suffocating-destroying the eyes and having the panicked beastmen be cut down by comrades which had to protect themselves were only a part of the opportunities for a nasty death.
It killed and injured many Chaos children outright-and took the will to fight from all the others like nothing else. The amorphous swarm of Beastmen which ran back to the safety of the forest was nothing like the proud disciplined troops which had started the attack and were punished by the Humans troops with rifle fire all the way.

They did never see that the misused fire pump, never intended to pump diesel, oversped, never realized that several gaskets were ruptured and a fire consumed the pump and injured two men working on the pump.
Homeguard horrors usually fail-some fail gloriously.
Few of those humans close to the fire would ever be able to eat a barbeque again without the smell evoking memories they could do without.

Railroad from Altdorf to Middenheim, afternoon

Kurt Müller was used to push his beloved steam engines up to speeds of 220 km/h. Even the cargo haulers he certified for the Meiningen works made better than 80 km/h. So he had expected this monstrosity which posed as a train to reach the quarry in a few hours.
He was, of course, wrong. It seemed like every hamlet contained some Chaos Cult and every clump of trees with a count over three hosted a beastmen warhered. All of them of course were trying to slow or stop the passage of "Hammer" and the troop trains that followed. Not that they had any chance to sto but they gave their best effort. Loosened rails were just a nuicance as were trees or similar placed on the rails-but as it was always possible that this was just the opening move in an ambush so everytime they had to stop the Landwehr had to make protect the engineers-and that took time.

The good news was that they were still so far from the storm that German planes could provide recon-and if huge numbers of enemies would turn up also fire support. Müller had seen the "Storch" planes which flew up and down the railroad a couple of times-he was rather happy about them.
He was taken from his musings by another order via the Intercom to slow down-the next blockade was a couple of kilometers down the way. He relayed the orders to the teams in the other two locomotives keeping a careful watch on the screens which showed the rails in front of the train. His engine was not in the usual position in front of the train but actually several cars back-no need to expose the locomotive to IED`s or other dangers. Getting the train to stop in front of the newest edition of felled trees and moved boulders he relaxed a bit and used the monitors to get an idea of what was going on.

He would have been happy if the soldiers could have used the Demolisher cannon-it was in the second carriage and had a quiet "pfffft" sound when used. The warhammer world presented the German army with many structures it sometimes needed to remove in a hurry - roadblocks, improvised field fortifications or occupied houses. One of the solutions for this was another application of the high/low pressure gun. Having a breech which contained the charge and then metering the propellant gasses through a perforated plate in small doses into a lightweight barrel the 250 mm gun shot a load which was called the dustbin for its shape. It contained an inordinate amount of explosives as it was accelerated slowly and needed no thick walls against the stress of firing. Unfortunately they could not use it here-it could have damaged the rails.

The blocking junk probably contained little surprises the enemy loved to leave in the materials. The engineer had already heard about snakes in jars, beehives, shit-laced sharpened sticks and even something like the magical equivalent of a booby trap. Thankfully the 1st Landwehr had something to make this less of a problem.
The first to leave the trains were a company of the 1st Landwehr who established a perimeter away from the railblock. The next were a number of military engineers which were accompanied by an old engineer vehicle-a "Dachs" (Badger). This old AEV was based on the venerable Leopard 1 tank but had no weapons save for an add-on machine gun. Instead it sported a dozer blade, and excavator which could do double duty as a crane and other accessories which made life easier for an engineer.

A short look by an EOD team showed there were nothing that could damage the AEV in the rubble and so the men dug in to clear the rails. Thankfully the rails themselves were not destroyed and could be reattached. The train brought some rails and used them in the first car as ballast but at the rate they were going they could easily run out if they were not careful.
The "Dachs" was moving all bigger lumps of material which the men either assisted or moved smaller debris out of the way. This had already gone for a while when the clump of trees not too far from the block disgorged a mixed unit of beastmen and Cultists who ran as fast as they could towards the Engineers. The Landwehr opened fire immediately, making the few survivors take cover in the trees. The next cannon could be heard quite well-4 155 mm guns dropped shells into the woods-the 35 mm shells from the air defense just added insult to injury.
It took, all in more than an hour to clear the block, it had been the 4th so far-this was going to be a long trip.

Castle Wolfenfels, same date at night

The air around Castle Wolfenfels was quite-much too quiet. The sounds usually made by many animals were muted due to the presence of many-many men-and other things. In the deep moonless darkness an even darker blob could be seen moving forward-seen if you had excellent nightsight and were standing 2 meters from it. The 4 Chaos warriors inside the blob who carried the petard were extra careful. Not only did they want to avoid any sound which might betray them, but they did not really trust the war machine they had to carry. It looked like a truncated cannon with and enormous caliber or a mortar mounted in the vertical-but it contained no ball or other type of shell. Instead it was constructed to be placed directly against the wall or gate you wanted to destroy. When it was fired that way the pressure from the oversized charge would hopefully blow the intended target.

The Warriors all wore dark clothing, had blackened all pieces of flesh which showed and each wore a pendulum which supposedly clothed them in shadow-so far it worked very well, there was nothing to indicate they were spotted.
The greasy Chaos Dwarf which had instructed them had told them 4 times how to place it and how to light the fuse. That he was not accompanying them showed clearly how much trust he had in this enterprise. Still, the 4 warriors were making good progress. What little light there was allowed them to pick their way well enough without being seen from the castle. The smallest of them weighted 150 kg, with most of the weight in oak-hard muscles. They carried the heavy petard like others might carry a wooden garden bench. They had already made at least half the way between their army and the castle and slowly started to believe that their mission might be a success.
When the ground leveled off they were in the last 100 meters to their target-now a quick sprint and they would be there. That they were out of sight for the Chaos army now was not important-they could not help anyway.

Dirk Zimmermann was looking through his starlight scope again-nothing, or was there? He thought he had seen something but before he could focus on it nothing could be seen. He was about to call his Sergeant anyway when he already came up-creepy-he had not yet called for him.
Blascoviks was holding up the wooden box containing the magic indicator. "Dirk, got anything-the indicator seems to have something but I cannot see anything. If there is anything it should be a 260 degree.
"Nothing Boss. But let me check out something else"

Asul Hellebore was listening closely. That close to the castle his witchsight did not work very well due to the wards, but that the group he sent had gotten very close was obvious. They should by now have placed their machine…did something go wrong….boom. The flash and boom which emerged from the castle were starting sign enough-his army which had so long waited for this ran forward as a huge wave.
He stayed back-he knew better than to engage in physical combat. He would attack these pesky defenders in a different way. Concentrating to wield the powers of the mind he missed the series of low-key "popping" sounds. He could hardly miss the 4 bright something's which appeared in midair over the open ground. They floated down slowly and lit the battlefield in a stark bright light.
He had often watched the Slave girls which amused the Chieftains of the Barbarians his army used when they performed in the tents. He was sure that these warriors now felt as least as naked under the sun bright light than those girls-and the roaring gunfire from the castles walls showed why.

That his army was still advancing after a lurch due to the surprise was testament to their aggressiveness and discipline-but also to the hope to find a Gate blasted open by the Petard. His troops took their licks, dropping in droves whenever the shots from the never-to be sufficiently damned rifles fell.
He resumed his spell with which he hoped to occupy the defenders enough-just to see it fail miserably. Who gave these backwoods hicks such magical protection?
The cry from his troops when they stormed the final stretch in front of the castle was not doing great things for his state of mind either-it seemed the Gates were not smashed-but the what had been the explosion then?

The only creditable threat left to the castle on that nights assault were the two Ogres that had taken the pay of Asul Hellebore. So huge they had to be part magical just to maintain stability on two legs these ugly beasts closed the distance to the castle with huge steps. Both were bearing huge makeshift ladders for storming the walls. They soaked up the rifle fire from the walls with no real visible effect-it was like shooting an enraged bull with 0.22" ammo-he will die eventually, but not before he grinds you into paste.

Sergeant Blascoviks was lining up a difficult shot-fast moving targets meant he had to use defection shooting, had to calculate Wind and drop from the wall.
His rifle kicked far worse than usual but only gave off a muted sound. He had time to get anxious about the hit when fire blossomed on the stomach plate of the first Ogre. The Ogre gave a sound which would be a high-pitch whine if it would not have come from such a huge creature-a strange sound which frightened all and sundry. It also gave pause to the second Ogre who stopped for a second too long to see what had happened to its mate.
This time the explosion was to its head which took the other Ogre down without much ado. Their death took the starch right out of the assault. Even before they were told by their leaders the Attackers understood that there was no way this particular assault could work, so they slowed down except for a bloodthirsty Khorne-disciples who had to be persuades to cease attacking by German 7.62 bullets.

"That's 5 Euros for me Dirk"
"Pay you later Sergeant. Nice one, shooting these Energa Rifle Grenades is tricky."
"Yea but they do the job. How did you spot he first group anyway?
"As soon as I knew where to look I used the infrared flashlight-showed them up real nice.I have to admit that thing with the Grenade was sneaky-lured them in right away."
"Just could not let that opportunity go to waste. And as they were so nice to advertise their presence on the magic indicator I thought it would be polite to invite their friends to the they wanted an expolosion it seemed the way to start it."
"Not much of a party seems to me"
"You are getting greedy, aren`t you? What do you want, 20 naked virgins?"
"Virgins they need not be, I prefer experience, the rest I take"
"See, told you that you are greedy"

Stuttgart & Munich, Germany

At both the headquarters of Porsche and Kraus-Maffei-Wegmann the champagne korks popped. For the first time since the World Wars, Germany commisioned 2 MBTs at the same time. Main reason for that move was the still lingering question if Germany might somehow return home. It became less probable with every passing day, but even the remote possibility had to be calculated with.
KMW´s design was the favourite for the Warhammer world. Made with input from WH-experts, the firm had used her "Puma" design as a base. The modular armour basic configuration would suffice for quite some time here on Warhammer and Kraus-Maffei had developed 5 other configurations to deal with various, even some magical threats. The main gun was a new, rifled 105mm Rheinmetall KwK, suffienct for most targets on this world, with a 30mm machine cannon coaxial. Other armaments included a remote-controlled MG on the turret for anti-personal use and a grenade launcher. The tank was naturally ABC-sealed, could dive, make fog and was equipped with a small, handy observer drone. It was fast, agile for it´s weight and costs were rather low due to a platform build with the Puma APC. A perfect design for almost all MBT needs on Germany´s new home.

Porsche´s approach had been very different. Equally build with WH-experts input, Porsche asked the question about what could be the worst we can come across? Starting from that the firm designed a high-tech King of the Battlefield. The electric drive train, a thing Ferdinand Porsche would have been overjoyed to see, was fed by a high-powered, compact Rune-turbine from the Gold Order. The Gold Order could build such stuff smaller than the Dwarfs, but they could for now not keep the compact one going in perpetuty. But recharging the core once a year by a Mage was a compromise no one had problems with at all. The engine room was designed to be modular, so if needed a multi-fuel engine could be installed. Beside the Rune-core, a small auxilliary motor was installed, as a security if the core would fail, to keep the emergency batteries charged, so the tank could leave the combat zone. The rather small size and weight of the core enabled the designers to keep the 120mm calibre with a brand new Rheinmetall KwK. The new gun came with a broader range of ammunition, among them a guided rocket shell, able to fight at longer ranges. As in the Puma MBT, the Porsche design had the 30mm MK coaxial. A turret with the new 105mm main gun was made as an option.
Other armaments included 2 remote-controlled MGs, a multi-ammo grenade launch system, able to deliver a broad span of grenades, among them phosphorous ammo and two hardpoints able to carry missiles.
Unlike the Puma, the Porsche was armoured to wade into the thickest of fighting, if need be. A thick Chobham-type sandwich armour with magical plating, complete with hardened top armour (think about the special package for the swedish Leo IIs as inspiration). AMAP-APS and MMUSS (one M for magical) soft and hard kill defence systems and both Puma and this new design could charge the outer layers or pump chemical gases into the immediate surrounding in an emergency. As the Puma the new Tiger was ABC-sealed, could dive, lay smoke and had the observer drone.
It was surprisingly agile, but here the weight saves for engine, transmission and fuel made itself known. The on duty top speed was set to 75 km/h, but like Leo II and the new Puma, the absolute top speed was a higher. Porsche claimed that with their special designed, heavy-duty track, they could bring "their baby" to 190 km/h on a road, making it the fastest MBT ever, but the wear on the road itself would be breathtaking. It simply showed the advantages of the magical engine.
All in all, the new Porsche Panzer came close to the optimum of speed, agility, armour and firepower, but at a cost. One unit of the new Porsche Panzer was very expensive due to all the high-end materials and more complicated as a new Puma, even if it was less severe than thought at first.
Nevertheless, the situation warranted to get both types of Tank.