History Main / Hovertank

** The Eldar are the undisputed masters of anti-grav technology (at least initially as later editions keep adding floating vehicles to factions left and right) , and use it for everything from squad support weapon platforms to jetbikes to flying tanks. Their Falcon grav-tank can operate at high speeds and altitudes like an attack helicopter, the Wave Serpent variant trades some weapon options for a protective force field and increased passenger capacity, while offshoots like the Night Spinner, Firestorm and Fire Prism are basically fast-flying artillery pieces. Even the Eldar's superheavy vehicles like the Scorpion and Cobra are {{Lightning Bruiser}}s able to keep up with their smaller brethren while dealing out hideous amounts of firepower, and though they lack the durability of Imperial superheavy vehicles, the Eldar equivalents are protected by holo-fields that baffle sensors and disrupt targeting.

** If a piece of Tau military hardware isn't a mech, it floats, and their Hammerhead tanks and Devilfish [=APCs=] are able to circumvent dangerous terrain as they advance across the field, though unlike Eldar grav-tanks, Tau skimmers aren't classified as "fast" vehicles. The Devilfish is infamous for being part of the notorious [[GameBreaker "Fish of Fury" metagame]] during 4th Edition, when the shooting rules forced units to fire at the nearest available target - Tau players were able to keep squads of [[GlassCannon Fire Warriors]] safe by sandwiching them between Devilfish transports, which they could shoot "under" during their turn, but would block incoming fire during the enemy's turn. The game's 5th Edition made changes to the shooting rules that ended this practice.

** The Eldar are the undisputed masters of anti-grav technology, and use it for everything from squad support weapon platforms to jetbikes to flying tanks. Their Falcon grav-tank can operate at high speeds and altitudes like an attack helicopter, the Wave Serpent variant trades some weapon options for a protective force field and increased passenger capacity, while offshoots like the Night Spinner, Firestorm and Fire Prism are basically fast-flying artillery pieces. Even the Eldar's superheavy vehicles like the Scorpion and Cobra are {{Lightning Bruiser}}s able to keep up with their smaller brethren while dealing out hideous amounts of firepower, and though they lack the durability of Imperial superheavy vehicles, the Eldar equivalents are protected by holo-fields that baffle sensors and disrupt targeting.

** During the Imperium of Man's glory days before the Literature/HorusHeresy, it could field hovering armored vehicles like the Caladius Grav-Tank and Coronus Grav-Carrier, though such hardware was limited to the [[PraetorianGuard Legio Custodes]], and eventually became another example of LostTechnology. More common is the Land Speeder used by the Space Marine chapters, a two-man, open-topped recon vehicle that can be thought of as a flying armored car. Then around the close of the 41st Millennium when the Primaris Marines were introduced, new hover tanks were developed to support them, the Repulsor heavy APC bristling with guns and grenade launchers (and its Executioner variant which replaces some transport capacity for a {{BFG}}), and the smaller but better protected Impulsor transport.

* In ''VideoGame/MegaMan1'', the final boss. Unlike a tank, it shoots tiny little plasma balls that don't do much.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Any repulsorlift vehicle from the franchise, such as the Trade Federation's [=AAT=]s. Oddly enough, hover tanks don't make all that many appearances in ''Star Wars'' films or games, considering that they look a whole lot more practical than those walkers we see all the time. This is justified in the ExpandedUniverse where it's said that terrain effects and enemy countermeasures can easily knock out repulsortanks and leave them vulnerable, hence the Empire's emphasis on walkers. This is alluded to in ''Film/StarWarsRiseOfSkywalker'' during the final battle at Exagol, when [[spoiler: Finn, Jannah, and others land a troop carrier on the deck of General Pryde's flagship.]] Pryde orders a subordinate to jam the repulsorlifts of the Rebel's speeders, but the landing team had the foresight to ride into battle on [[HorseOfADifferentColor Orbaks]].

Hover Tanks would be utterly [[AwesomeButImpractical impractical]] using real world technology, as they would burn a lot of fuel just to stay up and yet wouldn't clear most terrain obstacles. They would suffer from recoil issues(due to not having ground friction to push against), or have to burn more fuel to counteract it. The amount of armor and equipment they could carry would also be severely limited. Of course, all that usually [[HandWave doesn't matter]] in fiction, though some settings do restrict hovertanks to lighter designs. Though that still leaves the tank [[LawOfInverseRecoil ramming itself into the ground]] every time it fires. However, this can also be averted by giving the tank in question a more-or-less realistic energy weapon, soft launch systems, or bazooka-like barrels, which would give little to no recoil.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Any repulsorlift vehicle from the franchise, such as the Trade Federation's [=AAT=]s. Oddly enough, hover tanks don't make all that many appearances in ''Star Wars'' films or games, considering that they look a whole lot more practical than those walkers we see all the time. This is justified in the ExpandedUniverse where it's said that terrain effects and enemy countermeasures can easily knock out repulsortanks and leave them vulnerable, hence the Empire's emphasis on walkers. This is alluded to in ''Film/StarWarsRiseOfSkywalker'' during the final battle at Exagol, when [[spoiler: Finn, Jannah, and others land a troop carrier on the deck of General Pryde's flagship.]] Pryde orders a subordinate to jam the repulsorlifts of the Rebel's speeders, but the landing team had the foresight to ride into battle on space horses instead. ItMakesSenseInContext.

** During the Imperium of Man's glory days before the Literature/HorusHeresy, it could field hovering armored vehicles like the Caladius Grav-Tank and Coronus Grav-Carrier, though such hardware was limited to the [[PraetorianGuard Legio Custodes]], and eventually became another example of LostTechnology. More common is the Land Speeder used by the Space Marine chapters, a two-man, open-topped recon vehicle that can be thought of as a flying armored car. Then around the close of the 41st Millennium when the Primaris Marines were introduced, new hover tanks were developed to support them, the Repulsor heavy APC bristling with guns and grenade launchers, and the smaller but more heavily-armed Impulsor variant.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Any repulsorlift vehicle from the franchise, such as the Trade Federation's [=AAT=]s. Oddly enough, hover tanks don't make all that many appearances in ''Star Wars'' films or games, considering that they look a whole lot more practical than those walkers we see all the time. This is justified in the ExpandedUniverse where it's said that terrain effects and enemy countermeasures can easily knock out repulsortanks and leave them vulnerable, hence the Empire's emphasis on walkers.

Hover Tanks would be utterly [[AwesomeButImpractical impractical]] using real world technology, as they would burn a lot of fuel just to stay up and yet wouldn't clear most terrain obstacles. They would suffer from recoil issues(due to not having ground friction to push against), or have to burn more fuel to counteract it. The amount of armor and equipment they could carry would also be severely limited. Of course, all that usually [[HandWave doesn't matter]] in fiction, though some settings do restrict hovertanks to lighter designs. Though that still leaves the tank [[LawOfInverseRecoil ramming itself into the ground]] every time it fires.

** During the Imperium of Man's glory days before the Literature/HorusHeresy, it could field hovering armored vehicles like the Caladius Grav-Tank and Coronus Grav-Carrier, though such hardware was limited to the [[PraetorianGuard Legio Custodes]], and eventually became another example of LostTechnology. More common is the Land Speeder used by the Space Marine chapters, a two-man, open-topped vehicle that can be thought of as a flying armored car. Then around the close of the 41st Millennium when the Primaris Marines were introduced, new hover tanks were developed to support them, the Repulsor heavy APC bristling with guns and grenade launchers, and the smaller but more heavily-armred Impulsor variant.
** The Eldar are the undisputed masters of anti-grav technology, and use it for everything from squad support weapon platforms to hoverbikes to flying tanks. Their Falcon grav-tank can operate at high speeds and altitudes like an attack helicopter, the Wave Serpent variant trades some weapon options for a protective force field and increased passenger capacity, while offshoots like the Night Spinner, Firestorm and Fire Prism are basically fast-flying artillery pieces. Even the Eldar's superheavy vehicles like the Scorpion and Cobra are {{Lightning Bruiser}}s able to keep up with their smaller brethren while dealing out hideous amounts of firepower, and though they lack the durability of Imperial superheavy vehicles, the Eldar equivalents are protected by holo-fields that baffle sensors and disrupt targeting.
** If a piece of Tau military hardware isn't a mech, it floats, and their Hammerhead tanks and Devilfish [=APCs=] are able to circumvent dangerous terrain as they advance across the field, though unlike Eldar grav-tanks, Tau skimmers aren't classified as "fast" vehicles. The Devilfish is infamous for being part of the notorious [[GameBreaker "Fish of Fury" metagame]] during 4th Edition, when the shooting rules forced units to shoot at the nearest available target - Tau players were able to keep squads of [[GlassCannon Fire Warriors]] safe by sandwiching them between Devilfish transports, which they could shoot "under" during their turn, but would block incoming fire during the enemy's turn. The game's 5th Edition made changes to the shooting rules that ended this practice.

* ''TabletopGame/{{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.
** Hover tanks are covered by the universal rule, Skimmer-type vehicles (shared by all of the above vehicles). In the past this included the Valkyrie, an [[Characters/Warhammer40000ImperialGuard Imperial Guard]] transport VTOL jet plane designed to be dropped from orbit and get its cargo of troops to the battlefield. Under modern rules the Valkyrie is counted as a Flyer instead, and the Imperial HoverTank role is now filled by the Land Speeder, a flying armored car loaded with {{Space Marine}}s.
** 8th Edition introduced a new generation of Imperial Hover Tanks designed for the Primaris Marines. There's the Repulsor, a heavy APC with copious amounts of guns and grenade launchers, the Executioner variant which trades transport capacity for a massive anti-tank laser or plasma cannon, and the smaller Impulsor which can carry fewer troops but is much faster and can come with a variety of special equipment ranging from an anti-air turret to a protective shield dome.
** Tau players had found an [[GameBreaker interesting application]] of the Devilfish hover transport: by sandwiching their GlassCannon Fire Warriors between two Devilfish, they essentially formed a moving bunker (the reasoning being that the Devilfish lifts off to allow the Warriors to fire, then back down to shield them). As the rules at the time this strategy was discovered forced units to prioritize firing at nearer targets instead of slightly further away targets, this effectively left the Fire Warriors unable to be targeted while the Devilfish were still functional. Rules changes in later editions eventually rendered the "[[FanNickname Fish of Fury]]" strategy dead.

* Also common in ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renegade_Legion#Grav_vehicles Renegade Legion]]''.

* TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}} has [=LAVs=] (low altitude vehicles) aka Thunderbirds that typically use vectored thrust from jet engines. Notable for being incredible fuel hogs. They are not quite light tanks in their armor and armament, but are far tougher than any aircraft, fixed wing or rotary. Piloting them (at least in earlier editions) was a separate skill from driving a ground vehicle or flying any sort of aircraft.

* ''Tomorrow's War'' has both semi-realistic air-cushions and anti-gravity as options for [=AFVs=], though both limit the amount of armor they can support.
* ''TabletopGame/HeavyGear'' has Hovertanks as one the main units of the Colonial Expeditionary Force. It hovers by using a turbo fan, but it has jump jets that allow it to jump over obstacles. The CEF arm their tanks with particle cannons which are powerful enough to punch holes through mechs.
* ''{{TabletopGame/Rifts}}'' has a number of hover tanks, as well as ones with regular treads. The hover ones are generally bit more maneuverable, but otherwise they only seem to exist due to RuleOfCool.

** Hover tanks are covered by the universal rule, Skimmer-type vehicles (shared by all of the above vehicles). In the past this included the Valkyrie, an [[Characters/Warhammer40000ImperialGuard Imperial Guard]] transport VTOL jet plane designed to be dropped from orbit and get its cargo of troops to the battlefield. Under modern rules the Valkyrie is counted as a Flyer instead, and the Imperial HoverTank role is now filled by the Land Speeder, a flying armored car loaded with {{Space Marine}}s

[[caption-width-right:350:Artwork by [[http://screamingzen.com/gallery/portfolio/6853108 Eli Maffei]].]]

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[[folder: Film -- Live Action ]]

* ''[[Series/ThePhilSilversShow 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. When asked to demo this defective technology at the film's climax, they fake it.

* Creator/DavidDrake's ''Literature/HammersSlammers'' 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."
* In ''Hardwired'', the main male character is a "Panzerboy" who drives/flies his hovertank "Pony Express" across the balkanized U.S.A., smuggling all sorts of contraband.

* Grav tanks in the Literature/HonorHarrington universe utilize a hybrid design, having both [[AntiGravity countergrav]]-driven hovering for quick bursts of movement and conventional treads. Their [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier IFVs]] follow the same pattern.
* ''Literature/EmpireOfAshes'': The climactic battle of the first book in this trilogy has both the Mutineers under Anu with medium tanks and the Loyalists under Horus with heavy tanks. The tank on tank action ends about as well as one might imagine.

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* VideoGame/Hovertank3D, [[CaptainObvious obviously]].

Hover Tanks would be utterly [[AwesomeButImpractical impractical]] using real world technology, as they would burn a lot of fuel just to stay up and yet wouldn't clear most terrain obstacles. They would burn more fuel just for counteracting recoil. The amount of armor and equipment they could carry would also be severely limited. Of course, all that usually [[HandWave doesn't matter]] in fiction, though some settings do restrict hovertanks to lighter designs. Though that still leaves the tank [[LawOfInverseRecoil ramming itself into the ground]] every time it fires.

Contrast with the SpiderTank, for cases in which the conventional treads have been traded in for legs instead of a floating propulsion. See also: CoolTank.

* ''[[Series/ThePhilSilversShow 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. When asked to demo this defective technology, they fake it.

* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' has at least two classes of hover tank used by Tagon's Toughs. Their primary use is air support.

* ''VideoGame/SteelReign'' has several varieties of Hover Tanks at your disposal, including the Sidewinder and the Viper. As Hover Tanks, they are considered the [[Fragile Speedster]]: Faster than treaded tanks like the Diamondback or the Copperhead, but are very lightly armored. These tanks also tend to be equipped with just a single shield generator, as opposed to the quad shields found on many of the other machines.

* ''VideoGame/SteelReign'' has several varieties of Hover Tanks at your disposal.

Hover Tanks would be utterly [[AwesomeButImpractical impractical]] using real world technology, as they would burn a lot of fuel just to stay up and yet wouldn't clear most terrain obstacles. They would burn more fuel just for counteracting recoil. The amount of armor and equipment they could carry would also be severely limited. Of course, all that usually [[HandWave doesn't matter]] in fiction, though some settings do restrict hovertanks to lighter designs. Though that still leaves the tank [[MissingBackblast ramming itself into the ground]] every time it fires.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'': The Hammerhead, a replacement for the first game's Mako, which is used in the ''Firewalker'' and ''Overlord'' [=DLC=] missions.

* The hovercraft from ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'', which are unique in that they actually use air-cushion based lift, like real-world hovercraft. True to form, they're fast and zip over water with ease; on the other hand, they're lightweights compared to many conventional tanks, limited to fairly open terrain, can only safely move at full speed while traveling in a fairly straight line, and can be [[FragileSpeedster easily and rudely grounded by a single lucky shot]]. That said, their speed gives them a decent chance against Mechs in open combat, while other tanks usually need an ambush. While most hovercraft do have air skirts, some use vectored thrust to stay afloat rather than using skirts, making them look much more like a regular hover tank, such as the Hephaestus or the Epona.

* Grav tanks in the HonorHarrington universe utilize a hybrid design, having both [[AntiGravity countergrav]]-driven hovering for quick bursts of movement and conventional treads. Their [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier IFVs]] follow the same pattern.

* The Hoverdynes from ''GroundControl'', which are faster but frailer than conventional tracked Terradynes.

* ''VideoGame/{{Earth 2150}}''. The [[TheRepublic Lunar Corporation]]. Seriously, just take control of its forces and trust us, its army's ''nothing'' but hover tanks.