ROLLING THUNDER
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"Rolling Thunder" is an attempt to describe the various OGRE units involved in the Last War from the lowly Mark I up to the super heavy Mark VIII and the often misconceived Mark IX. Falling between the more recognized marks were many interesting variants. The Combine Dark Horse stealth OGRE, the LOGRE, the OGRECOVERY vehicle, the ESPIONOGRE, the OGRECON, the OGRENGINEERING vehicle, the Trojan Horse, the Reaper, the OCP (OGRE command post), Fencer, Huskaral, and the first Sentient Forts (immobile OGREs, both land and sea variants) all played key roles in the Last War.

The various types of OGREs are all well documented in the Historical Archives of the Last War. Audio and visual files (still and all aspect sensory motion) exist of all the popular models. However, there were many variants of the basic models, low production models, used for special missions and operations. These variants are not as well known, due to their low production numbers, but they are nonetheless worthy of mention.

The Combine's experiments with battlefield mobile artificial intelligence were far more successful than those of the Paneuropeans. In fact, the Paneuropeans were only able to produce and field successful OGRE units after they had captured the Sheffield Complex. However, much of the plans were ruined by the retreating engineers, and the Paneuropean technicians never fully grasped the details of the Combine AI models. As such, the Paneuropean cybertanks were less technologically advanced than the Combine models, took longer to field successfully, and took longer, on average, to gain sentience when such an option began to appear.  The logistics and maintenance service required to keep the Paneuropean cybertanks in operation were also far greater than the Combine counterparts, requiring more personnel and more logistics ... but the Paneuropean cybertanks still were able to hold their own during the duration of the Last War and throughout the various theaters of operations that the conflict spilled over into.

The cybertank was a virtual Pandora's Box on the battlefield as its development and deployment had opened up many new (and sometimes frightening) aspects of systematic / automated warfare. The experiments continued throughout the Last War, each new breakthrough being rushed into service often as more breakthroughs were looming on the horizon.  Breakthroughs in every aspect of technology and warfare spurred the rapid rise of the full-contact arms race.  Operating Systems advanced quickly, leading to greater armament, higher accuracy, and higher probability of survival and mission success.

The cybertank was not only used as a assault unit, several different models appeared to fill the mission assignment tables for the Combine doctrines. The Combine was notorious for producing new models and designs, pushing the utility and effectiveness of the cybertank to newer and higher theoretical limits all the while keeping with a design philosophy of maintaining the most parts interchange possible between models all in order to cut logistics and cross-platform training to a minimum. The core command center from a wrecked chassis could be removed and placed into a lesser or greater chassis, such was the Combine design philosophy. On the modern battlefield, modular design and wide spread interchange became the Combine's key to success. The Combine realized this early on, the Paneuropeans learned it the hard way; from the Combine and from actual combat field experience with their own cybertank designs.  While the Combine cybertank designs followed a logical evolution from start to finish, the Paneuropean designs seemed adhoc, sometimes chaotic in design.  The Paneuropeans understood the overall concept of the cybertank, but lacked the technological finesse and the development foresight that the Combine enjoyed.  As each side rushed newer, more powerful cybertank designs into operation, it was the Paneuropeans who were always lagging a step (or two) behind the Combine.

The Paneuropean answer to trailing behind the Combine was always to produce cheaper units that could be produced in higher numerical order.  This design philosophy applied not only to the Paneuropean cybertanks to the basic Paneuropean armor units.  This design and production philosophy trickled down all the way to the lowly Paneuropean mobile infantry units which used more soldiers per squad, each equipped with a power suit that was not the equal of the Combine equivalent but which used superior numbers of soldiers in the lesser advanced, lesser powered armor to make up the Combine's technological advantage.  On average, it took between two and three Paneuropean soldiers in powered armor to equal one Combine soldier in powered armor but as the Last War dragged in in the later stages, this discrepancy became much closer to the 1:1 equivalency seen at the closing years of the Last War ... but by then, the Paneuropean numerical advantage in personnel had been whittled down by a large degree and while the Paneuropean forces were throwing fresh, barely trained warm bodies into cut-rate power armor, the Combine was meeting those new forces with highly experienced veterans in ever evolving designs of Combine developed personal power armor that, again, followed the Combine philosophy of planning ahead instead of trying to match on-the-go.

The Paneuropean artificial intelligence and computer controlled vehicle programs were never as advanced as the Combine programs, and as such, each new type of Paneuropean cybertank shared very little in the way of component parts with any of its predecessors.  Even when Sheffield fell and the Combine lost its major European cybertank manufactory, the Paneuropean nations were ill-equipped, technology and expertise wise, to just "pick up the pieces" that had fallen into their laps.  This led to a greater amount of frustration among Paneuropean field technicians than was shared by their Combine counterparts. It also meant that field stripped Paneuropean cybertank parts could only be installed on similar models of the same design family; not good if you needed parts for a Mark V and all you had to salvage from was two smashed Mark IIIs. 

Many a Paneuropean Field Tech, especially those stationed in the Sahara Combat Zone, questioned on frequent occasions the design philosophy of their superiors when it came to fielding such massive engines of destruction, and they looked upon their Combine counterparts with a certain professional jealousy.  While the Combine design philosophy seemed to be well throught out and planned, the Paneuropean design philosophy, especially when it came to cybertanks, seemed to be done by committee and then it was evident that in that process there were "too many chiefs, not enough indians".  Sometimes, changes to a design or integral design vectors for a new Paneuropean cybertank would fall to being dictated by which nation-state of the Paneuropean alliance was going to foot the bill for a new model of cybertank or, sometimes, which nation complained and yelled the loudest that it was "their turn" to have a majority say (and vote) in the direction of the next cybertank design.

By and large, Combine cybertanks were in and out of depot maintenance far quicker than their Paneuropean counterparts, and they spent less time in the depots for routine maintenance, reloading, repair and servicing. A fact that ultimately helped the Combine achieve its major victories over the Paneuropean forces in the early to middle stages of hostilities.

The debate on the history of design philosophy between Combine and Paneuropean cybertanks is still a popular, well researched and lengthy course taught in many contemporary military academies around the world.

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