History Main / Hovertank

* ''[[{{Dune}} Emperor: Battle for Dune]]'': In another of Westwood's games, House Ordos got kickass hovering tanks with laser cannons and force fields, making them fast, hard-hitting, and surprisingly tough[[PhlebotinumOverload (unless a laser-armed enemy hit their force field)]].

** The Tragos mobile suit from ''GundamWing'' in it's walker mode is basically the tank of mobile suits, a huge beast with massive armor plates, huge twin shoulder cannons, and a rifle for close combat. With a couple of attachments it can transform into a hover-tank mode, especially useful for navigating desert terrain. The rebel Maguanac Fighters also had a hover-based Mobile Suit called the Oliphant.

* The N64 game ''Battle Tanx'' had hover tanks called [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Hover Tanks]], which were basically Abrams with turbines and a flat bottom. Though a bit squirrely to control, they could strafe sideways while firing, float over mines without problems, and pick up an impressive amount of speed for ramming other players.

%% From http://screamingzen.com/gallery/portfolio/6853108. External links on page images are
%% visually quite intrusive. I've also added a credit note and link to the ImageLinks page.

* ''[=~2300 AD~=]'' makes extensive use of air cushion hovertanks, with all the major nations (and the alien Kafer) fielding their own. They're hydrogen-fueled but indeed use giant lawnmower fans for lift.
* The ''[[StarTrek Star Trek: New Worlds]]'' game has the player constructing a Federation, Romulan or Klingon colony on an alien world and features a wide variety of hovering vehicles, including tanks. Others include [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier APCs.]] unarmed scouts and science vehicles and photon torpedo-armed mobile artillery pieces.
* Another unpopular Interplay-published video game ''[[MeaningfulName Tank]]tics'' gives players [[DesignItYourselfEquipment D.I.Y.]] tanks that can ride on five types of propulsion. One of these propulsions is the aptly-named "hover base".

* The Hoverdynes from ''GroundControl'', which are faster but frailer than conventional tracked Terradynes.
* "Hover" propulsion from ''{{Warzone 2100}}''. Another FragileSpeedster example.
* ''{{Earth 2150}}''. Seriously, just take control of the [[TheRepublic Lunar Corporation]] and trust us, its army's ''nothing'' but hover tanks.
* ''SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'': Hovercrafts are amphibious {{Lightning Bruiser}}s, but their high cost makes them nearly AwesomeButImpractical.

* DavidDrake's ''[=~Hammer's Slammers~=]'' series of short stories features fusion-powered air-cushion tanks. Each lift fan has its own armored nacelle to protect it from anything that damages another fan; "while a single broken track block would deadline a tracked vehicle, a wrecked fan only made a blower a little more sluggish."
* The PAC from ''Battlefield2142'' had hover tanks. They were no less durable than their traditional EU counterparts, but they traded the turret in for the very useful ability to strafe.
* The Neosapien Hovertanks from ''{{Exosquad}}''. They were built specifically to defend Phaeton City against Exofleet but fortunately for the latter, La Resistance managed to capture the factory where they were produced and used them against Neosapiens themselves.

* ''CommandAndConquer'' series
** In ''Command And Conquer: Tiberian Sun'' the Global Defense Initiative got hovering [[MacrossMissileMassacre MLRSes]]. They were fast and able to easily traverse terrain, including skimming over water, but had light armor and were grounded during Ion Storms. And in the next game... GDI went back to treads, ditching both [[AwesomeButImpractical mechas and hover propulsion]].
** GDI got both methods of propulsion back in ''Kane's Wrath'', though only the Steel Talons sub-faction uses the Titans and Wolverines (the latter are described more as PoweredArmor than tanks).
** In ''Red Alert 2'', the both sides got conventional hovercraft as transports, and the Allies also had robot hovertanks that could fly over water, but if their control station was destroyed or lost power, fell into the drink.
* ''[[{{Dune}} Emperor: Battle for Dune]]'': In another of Westwood's games, House Ordos got kickass hovering tanks with laser cannons and force fields, making them fast, hard-hitting, and surprisingly tough[[PhlebotinumOverload (unless a laser-armed enemy hit their force field)]].
* The N64 game ''Battle Tanx'' had hover tanks called [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Hover Tanks]], which were basically Abrams with turbines and a flat bottom. Though a bit squirrely to control, they could strafe sideways while firing, float over mines without problems, and pick up an impressive amount of speed for ramming other players.
* ''{{Halo}}'': The Covenant's Ghost and Wraith.

* ''Tanarus'' has a hovertank in it, similar to the one from ''Battlefield 2142''. Fast, maneuverable, packed a decent punch, but no traversable gun turret.
* The Vanu Sovereignty in ''{{Planetside}}'' gets these, in line with their super-futuristic and unconventional array of weaponry.
* The vehicle trope is played with in ''ChoujikuKidanSouthernCross''/''{{Robotech}} : Southern Cross/The Robotech Masters'', where the VHT-1 Spartas is a hovertank, but only in its tank mode for the purposes of transportation. To use its maximum firepower, it must go into Guardian Mode to engage its heavy cannon which has it standing on legs, but at the cost of being highly restricted in movement. Finally, Battleloid Mode, which is more a humanoid robot configuration is used when the pilot needs more maneuverability for combat.
* All vehicles in ''{{Battlezone}}'' except the walkers. Battlezone 2 had a lot of tracked and wheeled vehicles added in. The vector wireframe vehicles in the original 1984 arcade game might have been, but at that resolution who knows?
* ''{{X-Com}}'' has Hovertank (in variants with Plasma and Fusion Launcher) like this. Of course, they are a crossbred of your basic [[AttackDrone tank drone]] with enough of scavenged FlyingSaucer tech [[http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Research_Popular_Sequences_and_Tips#Firestorm to build your own]].
* ''AceOnline'': The [[ReportingNames Anima Mortar]], or A-Gear is a fully flight-capable Hover Tank, armed with an awesome [[MoreDakka Siege Mode]] for its main gun.
* ''Sgt. Bilko'': Fort Baxter is supposed to be demonstrating a hover tank. The problem is while it can hover fine, it runs into that pesky Third Law of Motion when it tries to fire its cannon with nothing bracing it.
* ''{{Gundam}}'' series
** ''MobileSuitGundam'' introduced the Dom, a heavily-armored Hover-HumongousMecha. It's oversized forelegs contained jet engines that it used to "skate" across the ground.
** The Tragos mobile suit from ''GundamWing'' in it's walker mode is basically the tank of mobile suits, a huge beast with massive armor plates, huge twin shoulder cannons, and a rifle for close combat. With a couple of attachments it can transform into a hover-tank mode, especially useful for navigating desert terrain. The rebel Maguanac Fighters also had a hover-based Mobile Suit called the Oliphant.

* The ''{{Juathuur}}'' use Fluur rings to power their sleds and boats.

%% From http://screamingzen.com/gallery/portfolio/6853108

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hexcannons_3306.gif]]]]

Often powered by AppliedPhlebotinum, Hover Tanks are for when you really want a RuleOfCool-driven war machine. They usually hover inexplicably only a few feet off the ground, often [[MidairBobbing bobbing slightly]]. They would be utterly [[AwesomeButImpractical impractical]] in reality, as they would need to expend fuel just to stay up (and to counteract recoil every time they fire), and yet wouldn't fly high enough to clear most terrain obstacles. The amount of armor and equipment they could carry would also be severely limited due to weight constraints. Of course, all that [[HandWave doesn't matter]] in fiction.

In strategy games, they may be portrayed as beingfaster and more maneuverable than their land-bound counterparts, but [[FragileSpeedster more fragile]]. They are usually amphibious as well and can travel over water at full speed.

Note that real-world [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovercraft Hovercraft]] would not quite count under this trope - while most fictional hover-vehicles use Phlebotinum Drive(usually labeled as "AntiGravity" or "Repulsor"), real-world hovercraft ride on a mundane air cushion and are propelled by oversized garden fans. They barely lift off the ground at all, and have a difficult time operating on non-flat terrain. The closest RealLife equivalent to a hover tank would be the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACV PACV]]s from the VietnamWar. You'll rarely find this conventional form of hover-propulsion in fiction though.

* ''StarTrek: New Worlds'' has the player constructing a Federation, Romulan or Klingon colony on an alien world and features a wide variety of hovering vehicles, including tanks (others include APCs. unarmed scouts and science vehicles and photon torpedo-armed mobile artillery pieces).

* Any 'repulsorlift' driven vehicle from the ''StarWars'' franchise, such as the Trade Federation's [=AAT=]s.

* 'SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'': Hovercrafts are amphibious {{Lightning Bruiser}}s, but their high cost makes them nearly AwesomeButImpractical.
* ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'': The Eldar Falcon and Tau Hammerhead and their offshoots are anti-gravity based hover tanks. Though it should be noted that in the fluff text and novels, they are capable of flying at the same altitudes as attack helicopters, and this is reflected in the game rules by them often being able to fly over obstacles and terrain.
** The Eldar don't actually use their skimmers as tanks, they use them in the same manner modern armies use helicopters, with the Falcon as the attack helicopter (think [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AH-64 Apache]]), the Wave Serpent as the transport (think [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UH-1_Iroquois Huey]]), and the Fire Prism and Night Spinner as heavy artillery on a helicopter platform in a manner completely infeasible with modern technology.
** And consider that the Skimmer type (shared by all of the above vehicles) also includes the Valkyrie, an ImperialGuard transport VTOL jet plane designed to be dropped from orbit and get its cargo of troops to the battlefield.

* In ''CommandAndConquer: Tiberian Sun'' the Global Defense Initiative got hovering [[MacrossMissileMassacre MLRSes]]. They were fast and able to easily traverse terrain, including skimming over water, but had light armor and were grounded during Ion Storms. And in the next game... GDI went back to treads, ditching both [[AwesomeButImpractical mechas and hover propulsion]].

* In another of Westwood's games, ''Emperor: Battle for {{Dune}}'', House Ordos got kickass hovering tanks with laser cannons and force fields, making them fast, hard-hitting, and surprisingly tough[[PhlebotinumOverload (unless a laser-armed enemy hit their force field)]].

* The [[ReportingNames Anima Mortar]], or A-Gear, of AceOnline is a fully flight-capable Hover Tank, armed with an awesome [[MoreDakka Siege Mode]] for its main gun.
* In the 1996 ''Sgt. Bilko'' movie, Fort Baxter is supposed to be demonstrating a hover tank. The problem is while it can hover fine, it runs into that pesky Third Law of Motion when it tries to fire its cannon with nothing bracing it.
* ''MobileSuitGundam'' introduced the Dom, a heavily-armored Hover-HumongousMecha. It's oversized forelegs contained jet engines that it used to "skate" across the ground.
** The Tragos mobile suit from ''GundamWing'' in it's walker mode is basically the tank of mobile suits, a huge beast with massive armor plates, huge twin shoulder cannons, and a rifle for close combat. With a couple of attachments it can transform into a hover-tank mode, especially useful for navigating desert terrain.
*** The rebel Maguanac Fighters also had a hover-based Mobile Suit called the Oliphant.
* The Grav Tank in ''{{GURPS}}: Ultra-Tech'' can travel at the speed of sound and is nearly invisible to sensors until it starts shooting.
* Hover tanks make an appearance in {{cutscene}}s of the Circe mission branch, in ''WingCommander IV''. They're pretty much just CannonFodder for the good guys, though, and don't even get the dignity of counting in killscores.

* ''MassEffect2'''s Hammerhead, the replacement for the first game's Mako.

[[quoteright:350:[[http://screamingzen.com/gallery/portfolio/6853108 http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hexcannons_3306.gif]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''Floating'' [[MemeticMutation METAL]] [[DawnOfWar BOXES!]]]]

In strategy games, they may be portrayed as being [[FragileSpeedster faster and more maneuverable than their land-bound counterparts(if present), but more fragile]]. They are usually amphibious as well and can travel over water at full speed.

Note that real-world [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovercraft Hovercraft]] would not quite count under this trope - while most fictional hover-vehicles use Phlebotinum Drive(usually labeled as "AntiGravity" or "Repulsor"), real-world hovercraft ride on a mundane air cushion and are propelled by oversized garden fans. They barely lift off the ground at all, and have a difficult time operating on non-flat terrain. The closest RealLife equivalent to a hover tank would be the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACV PACV]]s from the Vietnam War. You'll rarely find this conventional form of hover-propulsion in fiction though.

* The little known Interplay-published video game ''StarTrek: New Worlds'' has the player constructing a Federation, Romulan or Klingon colony on an alien world and features a wide variety of hovering vehicles, including tanks (others include APCs. unarmed scouts and science vehicles and photon torpedo-armed mobile artillery pieces).

* Here's another: try ''{{Earth 2150}}''. Seriously, just take control of the [[TheRepublic Lunar Corporation]] and trust us, its army's ''nothing'' but hover tanks.
* Hovercrafts are amphibious {{Lightning Bruiser}}s in ''SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', but their high cost makes them nearly AwesomeButImpractical.
* The Eldar Falcon and Tau Hammerhead and their offshoots from ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' are anti-gravity based hover tanks. Though it should be noted that in the fluff text and novels, they are capable of flying at the same altitudes as attack helicopters, and this is reflected in the game rules by them often being able to fly over obstacles and terrain.

* The Covenant's Ghost and Wraith from ''{{Halo}}''.

* The Sony Online Entertainment game ''Tanarus'' has (or at least had) a hovertank in it, similar to the one from Battlefield2142 (fast, maneuverable, packed a decent punch, but no traversable gun turret).

* ''MassEffect 2'''s Hammerhead, the replacement for the first game's Mako.

* Both ''{{Civilization}}: Call to Power'' and ''Call to Power 2'' have Fusion Tanks, which fill a similar in game role as modern day tanks, and can also travel over shallow water.

* There was one in ''{{Starcraft}} II'' for a while, but it got dropped (from the normal lineup at least) later.
** The Diamondback hover-tank is a campaign-only unit in ''Wings of Liberty'', featuring a pair of anti-armor railguns and the unique ability [[DoNotRunWithAGun to fire while moving]].

<<|VehicleTropes|>>

[[quoteright:350:[[http://attachments.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=758519&d=1250890656 http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hexcannons_3306.gif]]]]

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[[quoteright:350:[[{{Warhammer 40000}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hammerhead.jpg]]]]

* The AtariJaguar games ''Hover Strike'' and ''Hover Strike: Unconquered Lands'' has the player pilot a futuristic hovertank against enemy tanks and bases on alien worlds.

[[caption-width-right:350:''Floating'' [[MemeticMutation METAL]] [[DawnOfWar BOXES!]]]]]]

[[{{Warhammer 40000}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hammerhead.jpg]]
[[caption-width:400:''Floating'' [[MemeticMutation METAL]] [[DawnOfWar BOXES!]]]]

* the Hovertank/Plasma and Hovertank/Fusion Launcher of ''{{X-Com}}'' fit this. Of course, they appear to have been crossbred with a FlyingSaucer (or Cyberdisc).

* The {{Juathuur}} use Fluur rings to power their sleds and boats.

* Both {{Civilization}}: Call to Power and Call to Power 2 have Fusion Tanks, which fill a similar in game role as modern day tanks, and can also travel over shallow water.

* There was one in Starcraft II for a while, but it got dropped (from the normal lineup at least) later.
** The Diamondback hover-tank is a campaign-only unit in Wings of Liberty, featuring a pair of anti-armor railguns and the unique ability [[DoNotRunWithAGun to fire while moving]].

* Another unpopular Interplay-published video game ''[[MeaningfulName Tank]]tics'' gives players [[VideoGames.DesignItYourselfEquipment D.I.Y.]] tanks that can ride on five types of (nonlegged) propulsion. One of these propulsions is a called "hover base".

[[caption-width:200:''Floating'' [[MemeticMutation METAL]] [[DawnOfWar BOXES!]]]]

[[caption-width:200:''Floating'' [[MemeticMutation ''METAL'']] [[DawnOfWar ''BOXES!'']]]]

* The little known Interplay video game Star Trek: New Worlds has the player constructing a Federation, Romulan or Klingon colony on an alien world and features a wide variety of hovering vehicles, including tanks (others include APCs. unarmed scouts and science vehicles and photon torpedo-armed mobile artillery pieces).

* In the 1996 ''Sgt. Bilko'' movie, Fort Baxter is supposed to be demonstrating a hover tank. The problem is while it can hover fine, it runs into that pesky Third Law of Motion when it tries to fire it's cannon with nothing bracing it.