RDF/LT

"The future is now, old man"

– Dewey

The Mauler tank RDF/LT is the cheapest tank available to NATO at company size, with a set of strengths and weaknesses that require a very specific playstyle to work effectively. Basically just a half-assed combination of a whole bunch of light tank concepts from the 80s, the RDF/LT is not necessarily faithful to its historical capabilities, but since we're playing pretend anyway, what's the harm in a few sci-fi looking tanks to fill out the force, right?

In Team Yankee

Another glass canon, but hey it's the (theoretical) replacement for the Sheridan so what did you expect?

The RDF/LT mounts an AT19, RoF 2/1 cannon on a 2 point chassis, but is defined by a few peculiar stats. Probably the most important of these is its relatively light armor (4/2/1), meaning that anything with an AT weapon (read: basically everything) will go through you like a Taco Bell burrito. This means that any strategy around these things is going to have to do all it can to keep these things safe.

Fortunately you have help with a couple of interesting special rules and stats to help you out here. The first is Hammerhead (how? Yankee space magic) Which means as long as you can get cover, you'll be hit on a 6, whether you fire or not. The other is your skill of 3+, making you particularly good at using movement orders like blitz and shoot and scoot to protect your tanks and maximize your firepower.

Speaking of, the firepower on this vehicle is pretty good for a 2 point tank, giving you 2 AT 19 shots stationary and letting you pretty effectively deal with 2nd gen MBTs like the T-62, T-55, Leopard 1, and even (potentially) the M60. The main crippling factor here is the fp of 3+, meaning you are twice as likely to leave whatever tanks you penetrate simply bailed or unaffected. This can be critical, especially when facing the soviets who have 3+ remounts across the board.

The mobility, last of all, is rather decent. Nothing to write home about really. The main problem here is the 3+ cross check. On paper, this seems alright. After all, a 3+ cross is still a 67% chance right? Well, if you want to pull any fun strategies with woods, you'll be doing a lot of cross checks, and that adds up to a lot of stranded tanks very quickly. Try to play ridges or fences instead.

Overall, the RDF/LT is the US answer to the T-55 tank spam prevalent in Warsaw Pact armies. Bring a company of these to help escort a harder core of heavy tanks like the Abrams, setting up in woods, ridges, or low cover to create kill zones for older Pact armor and IFVs. As long as you're in cover, your durability is tremendous. Let the enemy catch you out of cover though, and you will die fast.

In Real Life

If you count the York, this is the second American Team Yankee vehicle to be lifted from a paper design that never went into mass production and existed only as a prototype. Unlike the York which had major design issues, the RDF/LT was rejected mostly on a logistical basis since its primary weapon was a different caliber to other US tanks of the time.

This was one of many projects to try to replace the Sheridan and fill a perceived gap for an air-transportable light direct fire platform. The RDF/LT depicted here represents the 80's iteration of this initiative. By the time of the Gulf War, the design had changed to mount a larger 105 mm gun, and some early demo vehicles had been produced; an effort was made to field those prototypes against Iraq as the M8 but this ultimately didn't happen. The turret from that project was later redesigned to use on the Stryker as the short-lived mobile gun system.