Australia in the Panzer Waltz Universe

Note: In-game, the vehicles described below can quite happily be folded into the Britannian tech tree, the same way the Vijayanta already is. The following is not intended to posit the inclusion of Australia as a MAJOR player in the Panzer Waltz universe, but simply to expand the wider universe with more lore and fluff. With that said...


Oz, the 'Lucky Country' in Brief:

Oz, named after a wondrous place of fiction due to its bountiful resources, started out as a peaceful Brittanian colony that had established and maintained its independence from its mother country for about four decades before the beast tank threat arose. Consisting of one large and three small islands deep within the southern hemisphere, it was initially thought that the emerging beast tank onslaught in Bavaria would be no threat to the country, due both to the distance and the expansive body of water between Oz and the main Eurasian continent.

However, soon after, Brittania was attacked. Then Freedonia. It quickly became apparent that complacency in one's sea borders wouldn't cut it, and the Ozzies hastened to muster a defence, calling upon the hard-fought lessons learned fighting in wars alongside Brittania, where Ozzie troops (known as OZACs, or OZzie Army Corps) gained reputation for fierce determination in overcoming impossible odds.
Despite the sterling reputation of Ozzie "diggers", it was feared that the country, with only a small population to guard its truly enormous landmass, would be quickly overrun and depopulated. Unlike Bavaria, there was little latitude to evacuate the entire country, as this would require the rapid over-ocean transport of millions of people. The only alternative was to fight.

And fight the diggers did.

To almost everyone's surprise, Oz held off its regional beast tank onslaughts in highly respectable fashion, maintaining the integrity of its borders and sustaining only moderate damage to its northerly and westerly cities, with its wealthy eastern and southern cities virtually untouched. Some naysayers posit that the sheer distance still gave them a great deal of help, but (righly or wrongly) such dissenting voices tend to be quickly silenced by those who feel deep respect for the OZACs and their small but highly-regarded contingent of metal maidens.

The manufacturing base for producing armaments in Oz is limited. As such, Oz receives most of its military equipment from the other nations, primarily Brittania and Freedonia. The rough, expansive terrain of the country means that most Ozzie maidens are patterned after Freedonian ones, primarily the M3 light, with smaller numbers of M3 mediums and a very few M4 mediums. However, a few Matildas are also operated to shore up defensive positions with their heavier armour.

Perhaps more impressively, however, Oz has also managed to develop its very own native metal maiden program with what little arms industry it has (as well as a fair bit of help from Brittania, but try not to mention that part). Codenamed Sentinel, the maidens that were produced by this program are mostly inspired by the Britannian "cruiser" designs, and utilise the same armaments.


Oz has developed the following metal maidens:

AC I: The earliest versions of the Sentinel-class maidens were equipped with 2-pounder guns, the same as those used by early British cruisers. These were simple to wield and readily available, making them perfect for Oz's first foray into metal maiden development. Despite their mechanical simplicity, AC I maidens quickly developed a reputation for ruggedness in the face of both harsh terrain and harsh opposition, and are very adept at quick,  overwhelming strikes.


AC IA: When it became clear that the Sentinel program was a success, thoughts turned immediately to firepower upgrades. The 2-pounder was all very well, and effective, but the Ozzie army really wanted the more modern, more powerful 6-pounder. Eventually, Britannia was able to provide and the AC IA maidens (as they became known) rolled off the production line. These are now considered the standard to which all other Ozzie metal maidens are held (both local and foreign-designed), with flexibility, firepower, and armament to rival the middle-weight units of any other nation.


AC III: The only SPG-class maiden that Oz uses, some bright-spark hit upon the idea to equip a Sentinel with a Britannian artillery piece, having calculated that the tough Ozzie maidens could withstand the recoil even without the bracing systems common to typical SPGs. Those Sentinel maidens who wield the 25-pounder gun describe the experience of firing it as a little bone-jarring, but they are more than happy to take an extra swig of G-milk and knuckle-down, redoubling their efforts in the defence of the sunburnt country they love.


AC IV: Through a lot of hard work, perseverance, intense training, and intense pain, a single Sentinel maiden was successfully equipped with a 17-pounder gun. Coming through her ordeal having lost none of her chipper, prototypically Ozzie spirit, AC IV became Oz's shining star, a beacon of light and slightly eccentric patriotic further for a country isolated and under consistent attack. Despite her weapon's best use as a kind of sniper rifle, AC IV insists on fighting right alongside her mates, and has been repeatedly reprimanded for leaping in path of enemy fire in order to take hits in their place. She claims it hurts her less than it hurts anybody else, though many consider these claims dubious.


Schofield: A bit of an experiment, the Schofield maiden was designed by an engineer from one of Oz's two furthest islands, her production intended as a gesture of goodwill considering the place is frequently forgotten about in Ozzie politics. Though it is debatable as to whether the political aspect of the Schofield's creation was successful, the maiden herself, classed as a light tank, proved to have exceptional speed to make up for her utter dearth of armour, and battles effectively with the same 2-pounder gun as the early Sentinel maidens use.


"Bob Semple": With the success of any metal maiden program, there is always a disreputable element who has an ill-opinion of or an ill-intent for the maidens. Roberta "Bob" Semple was a prime example of the former. A young "public works" scientist involved in the program, she had desperately wanted to become a maiden herself, but could not meet the physical requirements, and her applications were knocked back time and again. Intense jealousy for those Ozzies who were accepted quickly followed.

Undeterred, Semple instead began her own strain of research in secret, using her access to plan, scheme, design and, ultimately, forced her way into the production machines without permission. The scene when security and the rest of the science team arrived could be charitably described as "gruesome", and Roberta would almost certainly have lost her life if not for the quick thinking of the scientists. The usual Sentinel augmentations had been rejected by Roberta's body, but she still required them to survive. Alternatives were quickly fashioned which would put much less strain on Roberta's body, but the severely limited time window meant these had to be fashioned from anything and everything that was available in the general vicinity, including simple corrugated roofing steel. The result was a maiden of highly unusable appearance and equally highly questionable fighting prowess.

Semple quickly became a bit of a laughing stock and nobody wanted to see her fight and die on the front lines (aside from the more empathetic reasons for this, it would also surely be a PR disaster!), but Roberta refused to be shuffled off to a cupboard somewhere. She was going to fight, damnit! That's what metal maidens were for! So the army begrudgingly, and after much pleading by Roberta, welded a 1-pounder "pom pom" to her arm (the only weapon she could handle safely) and sent her on her way. Surprisingly, the makeshift plating that had been attached only to keep Semple alive proved to be effective armour in practise (something to do with Semple's unusual genesis as a maiden, experts have speculated), and though she is slow and awkward as metal maidens go, she is said to fight with an earnesty and purity of heart and intention rarely seen among metal maidens (surprising given her dishonest intentions when she started out).