Mida

= Mida II Landship=

Overview
Regarded by many academics as the first “true landship” of the North Ghurkkans, compared to its much lighter predecessors. The Mida II was an extremely simple design and as a result was manufactured extensively to equip Northern Ghurkkan cavalry units, while its smaller size allowed for easier transportation by river barge, train or aircarrier. Like the Oba, the Mida II was created for operations on the Ghurkkan borders- in mainly hot and dry conditions. Despite this, it still lacked cooling systems, though possessed better ventilation than the notorious Oba. Desert operations still necessitated underclothes in favour of uniforms to try and lessen the maddening engine heat. However in the Karelian campaigns, the freezing conditions meant the engine heat was an unexpected boon on keeping the crew warm, while one commander recounted how freezing infantry would huddle desperately about idling tank’s exhausts. Though small, the Mida was still larger than the Oba and possessed wider tracks that improved grip and travel over ground, though the lack of rubber padding would have the notorious effect of loosing grip while traversing snow-coated slopes and causing the tank to slide or tumble downwards. A crew of four was required to crew the Mida II: commander, gunner, driver and radio operator. The Commander would sit in the top turret, their position less cramped than the gunner who was surrounded by the shell racks of his main gun. The driver sat in the front, while the radio operator’s compartment was the rearmost, in front of the engine. The commander would have the dual role of firing the rear-facing MMG, while the driver or radio operator could both fire the bow-mount, though in practise it was the latter’s role.

Armament
The main gun for the Mida 2 was a North Ghurkkan Royal Armouries 37mm gun. Respectable for border wars with Veda and a considerable improvement on the Oba, the 37mm gun was still significantly underpowered for the Great War. It lacked the power and penetration to take on enemy landships, resulting in the landship taking on a more infantry support role with its HE ammunition and machine guns. Four machineguns served in tandem with the 37mm- three 7.62MMGs and a magazine fed LMG. The belt-fed medium machineguns were outfitted in the coaxial, the rear facing turret mounted and the bow. The light machinegun was fixed to a pintle mount upon the turret rails, to be used by the commander if they commanded from the open turret.

Mida II
The standard variant of the Mida. Armed with 37mm main gun and carrying a crew of 4

Mida II T
Though the Mida II had proved reasonably admirable in its performance, its weakness in the role of countering other landships. As a result, the Mida II T was hurriedly developed. The turret was entirely removed alongside the hull mounted MMG in favour of the installation of a hull mounted Royal Ghurkkan Armouries 75mm gun. The AT gun required an extra crew member to act as loader, while it came with shortcomings of its own: the canon taking up a large proportion of the crew compartment while the assault gun could not rotate to the right as well as it could to the left. It still proved a satisfactory stop gap with decent landship-killing capability, until proper models were developed.