M2A1 Slammer

Slammer
Faction	NATO
Type	Main Battle Tank
Seats	9 seats: 1× Driver 1× Gunner 1× Commander 6× Passengers
Item capacity	Max: 3000 kg 12× Weapons 128× Magazines 12× Backpacks
Top speed	64 km/h
Fuel capacity	100 L
Primary armament	Main: 1× Cannon 120 mm
Secondary armament	Coaxial: 1× Coaxial MG 7.62 mm Defensive: 1× Smoke Generator
Variants	M2A4 Slammer UP, M4 Scorcher, M5 Sandstorm
Games

The M2A1 Slammer is NATO's primary Main Battle Tank in ArmA 3.

Overview

• Roles:
  • Direct fire and maneuver
  • Troop transport

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A licensed copy of an Israeli tank built in Central Europe, this vehicle brings both versatility and maximal crew protection to the battlefield. Such gained it significant appreciation from Western European armies in the 21st century. The M2A1 is armed with a 120mm cannon and a coaxial machine gun, with the potential for it to be utilized as mobile artillery. This tank has proven itself in battle and thanks to heavy manufacturing, it became the second most wide spread main battle tank of many countries around the world. Field Manual

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Design

The Slammer is a main battle tank that uses a drive train consisting of six road wheels, one rear idler wheel, one front drive sprocket and three return rollers per side. The turret is triangular and narrow in shape, large but low, and is mounted rearwards onto the chassis, a layout commonly found on SPGs.

It is armed with a smoothbore 120 mm cannon that can fire a mixture of anti-vehicle and anti-personnel shells. In addition, it has a coaxial 7.62 mm medium machine gun that can be used against soft targets in lieu of the main gun.

The standard loadout of the Slammer gives it 24 rounds of armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS-T), 12 high-explosive (HE-T), and 12 high-explosive anti-tank multi-purpose (HEAT-MP-T) shells for the main gun. The coaxial MMG comes pre-loaded with a single 200-round belt, and has a further 19 spare belts left in reserve.

With the ability to transport troops in its rear compartment, Slammers can double as heavily armed IFVs.

Mobility-wise, the Slammer is the slowest and least manoeuvrable out of the four MBT designs. However, this is compensated by the Slammer's design being centred around crew survivability. It has the highest base armour of the three MBT designs currently available, and unlike its CSAT and AAF counterparts, has its engine positioned at the front of the hull (where the armour is thickest).

This makes it almost impossible to inflict a mobility kill on the Slammer in a first strike, as unless its frontal armour is already compromised (only possible after multiple consecutive attacks on the same position), the engine will never be disabled from a single shot.

And although the Slammer lacks a heavy machine gun turret for use by the tank's commander (an issue rectified by its Urban Purpose sub-variant), this is somewhat compensated by its ability to be able to carry half a squad's worth of infantry in its rear passenger compartment. This gives Slammer crews the ability to provide both direct fire support and transport troops into battle.

The Slammer has a seating capacity of nine personnel including the crew. The crew includes the driver, gunner and commander.

Camouflage

• Sand: Standard pattern-less dark tan paint scheme used by all NATO ground vehicles and certain aircraft. This can be universally employed in all types of terrain, but is more suited to arid and forested environments. Any camo nets applied on the Slammer's hull or turret will use a two-tone desert camouflage pattern scheme.
• Olive: Tropical olive green paint scheme. Only useful for jungle or woodland environments. Camo nets attached to the Slammer use a two-tone woodland camouflage pattern when this scheme is used.

Components

• Camo Net (Hull): Drapes the entire hull with camouflage netting. Partially conceals covered sections from thermal sensors.
• Camo Net (Turret): Identical to the Hull camouflage netting, but for the turret instead. The barrel and most of the turret is concealed, though certain components such as the pintle mount and commander optics are not covered.

Trivia

• The Slammer is based off the real-world "Merkava Mark IV" MBT.
  • However unlike the real-world Merkava, the Slammer does not have the ability to fire either LAHAT ATGMs via its main gun or mortar shells from the internal 60 mm mortar launcher. It also does not have a coaxially mounted Samson RCWS (although the Urban Purpose variant does have a turret mounted HMG for use by the commander).
• Despite being modelled onto the turret, the Slammer lacks the ability to make use of the Trophy active missile protection system that is present on real Merkava tanks.
• Screenshots released during the pre-Alpha phase of ArmA 3's development indicated that the Slammer was originally meant to be used by other factions as well in a similar fashion to the MQ4A Greyhawk.
  • However, the Slammer was eventually superseded with the introduction of the T-100 Varsuk for use by CSAT by the time of the Alpha and Beta's release. The MBT-52 Kuma on the other hand, did the same for the AAF with the release of the Adapt episode.

Gallery

Arma3-slammer.jpg

Rusted Slammer wreck, long since destroyed. Some wrecks can occasionally be seen at decommissioned NATO facilities on the Altis mainland.

Pre-Alpha render of the Slammer in arid Hexacam.

Promotional screenshot released during the pre-Alpha. Note the arid Hexacam camouflage scheme used by the Slammer.

Another promotional pre-Alpha screenshot. Note the digital camouflage pattern scheme used by all AAF vehicles.

External links

• Wikipedia: Merkava
• Wikipedia: Trophy (countermeasure)

See also

Variants

• M2A4 Slammer UP
• M4 Scorcher
• M5 Sandstorm

Vehicles of comparable role and configuration

• T-100 Varsuk (CSAT counterpart)
• MBT-52 Kuma (AAF counterpart)
• M1A1 Abrams (USMC/U.S. Army predecessor, ArmA 2 only)