Medium Tank (Tiberian Dawn)

The medium tank is GDI's main battle tank in.

Background
The tank visually resembles the American M1 Abrams. It features a low profile, a high power 105 mm cannon and balanced armour.

Nod deployed few medium tanks compared to its series of s.

After the First Tiberium War, GDI replaced the Medium Tank with the Titan Mk. I medium battle walker, only to return again to cost-effective tank technology in the Third Tiberium War.

Game unit
The Medium Tank is a workhorse combat vehicle, armed with a single 105 mm cannon, firing APDS shells. It is the backbone of GDI's armored divisions in Tiberian Dawn.

Advantages
Superior to almost all Nod armor, the Medium Tank is incredibly durable, fast, powerful and cost-friendly for its class, outperforming Nod's heaviest combat vehicles, the Light Tank and the Flame Tank, in a one-on-one match. Priced at only $ 800, The Medium Tank is best suited at fighting most vehicles and is still capable of maintaining its effectiveness even late into a arms-racing skirmish. Given its firepower and protection, the Medium Tank's also serves as an decent fire support platform against base defenses that do not have antitank warfare in mind like enemy GDI gun-based Guard Towers and Nod SAM Sites. All-in-all, the GDI Medium Tank is a champion of mechanized warfare (after Mammoth tank). Due to its protection level and crew training, sometimes a crew may survive the destruction of the tank (albeit not in his/her best condition) and ready to continue fighting. This tank's cannon fares better than Nod's counterpart as it can shoot further and have larger barrel to boot (depend on the terrain)

Disadvantages
The GDI Medium Tank is only a specialist. In unconventional warfare, the Medium Tank performs miserably against targets that are too effective to deal with, relying only on the same defining characteristics of a main battle tank to survive: speed, protection and firepower. Infantry like the Rocket Soldier are far too difficult to aim at and kill with cannons, and many base defenses such as the GDI Advanced Guard Tower and the Nod Obelisk of Light are far too strong to be brought down with just an antitank cannon. Even in its own turf, it faces challenges: ground vehicles like the Recon Bike and the Stealth Tank can take a chance at winning against a Medium Tank in superior numbers, speed or stealth, while flying vehicles like GDI Orcas and Nod Apaches can fight Medium Tanks without fear of retaliation from its antitank cannon.

These weakness, however, are largely negated if the Medium Tank is deployed in great enough numbers. In large groups, they can easily crush large numbers of Rocket Infantry, as they are too slow to escape the tanks, overcome loses inflicted by aircraft and simply overwhelm base defenses.

Variations
In Command & Conquer: Renegade, the Medium Tank is portrayed in better light. In-game, the Medium Tank is able to perform maneuvers that are quick for its weight. More importantly, its 120 mm antitank gun can be use as a anti-aircraft weapon as its cannon can conveniently adjust its angle so that it points upwards into the air up to a certain limit, which can become a potential killzone against Nod Apaches and Chinook transport helicopters.

Nonetheless, the Medium Tank is designed to handle any threat in the battlefield provided it is well supported with auxiliary infantry and vehicles.

Behind the scenes

 * The Medium Tank is depicted as the American M1 Abrams main battle tank in both Tiberian Dawn and Renegade. In Tiberian Dawn, its rear side skirt armor, turret lifting bracket, and 105mm cannon armament are consistent with the early production M1 variant, albeit with the updated blast panels found on the M1A1 and onwards.

Trivia

 * The Medium Tank is strictly a GDI main battle tank in-game, but also appears as to have been in Nod service in some cutscenes. There are several Nod mission that enable (sometimes mandated) to capture GDI technology, including GDI's war factory.