Diplomat Heavy Tank

"Cover me! I'm going for that badass tank!" —Soldiers from all factions

The Diplomat Heavy Tank is the Allied Nations' heavy and only tank in Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.

Overview
"Weighting in at nearly 70 tons, this modern behemoth has super-heavy armor and enough firepower to level a city on its own. The 105mm cannon fires sabot rounds which are particularly effective against enemy armor."

- Stockpile caption

Along with its direct competitor, the Chinese Iron Mountain Heavy Tank, the Diplomat is the pinnacle of land vehicle survivability and armament.

The Diplomat is unlocked by completing all 24 Allied Destruction Bounties, and can be bought from any Allied contact for $425k when friendly.

The Diplomat has a bigger profile and costs more fuel (240 gallons) to airdrop than the Iron Mountain Heavy Tank (220 gallons), however, it is more mobile.

This tank moves faster than many competitors and has fast hull traverse speed. For instance, it can traverse the lenght of the PMC runway in ~16.5 seconds and completes a 360 degree hull rotation in ~7 seconds compared to the Iron Mountain's ~18 second and ~9 seconds.

This tank's gunner station is also equipped with an unlimited arc minigun.

Locations

 * Two will appear patrolling near three Chinese Destruction Bounties in the Caracas Estates area. These spawn points will disappear when the targets are destroyed.
 * One is parked next to the road near an Allied High Value Target, south of the Allied HQ. It is thought that verifying the target will make the Diplomat's spawn point disappear.
 * May be found at other unspecified high value targets.
 * Several parked Diplomats can be found along the route of China's Last in Line race contract. They can be accessed after either failing or finishing the contract.

Hijacking
Hijacking the Diplomat Heavy Tank involves a sequence of 4 buttons which is more than any other tank. However, it is a very similar process to hijacking a Mantis light tank. The hijacking sequence is as follows:


 * Left
 * Use
 * Melee (mash)
 * Jump

Tactics
In terms of main armament, the Diplomat boasts a heavy tank cannon, the most powerful tank cannon type. Relative to this tank's own durability, player fired regular tank cannons inflict only ~15%, whereas player fired heavy tank cannons inflict ~70% damage. The Diplomat will one-shot any tank other than another of itself or the Iron Mountain Heavy Tank.

Heavy tank cannons also fire shells at higher velocity than regular tank cannons, making it much easier to hit helicopters. The Diplomat Heavy Tank has heavy type 3 armor which is completely impervious to small arms, grenades and has exceptionally high survivability in the face of regular RPGs and regular tank shells. Though, like all land vehicles, the Diplomat Heavy Tank will be destroyed if caught in a thermobaric explosion such as that caused by Fuel Air RPGs.

In spite of this, the Diplomat is fast enough to escape the blast radius of a Fuel Air Rocket even if it is hit directly, especially if it is already moving.

The Diplomat is vulnerable to other heavy tank cannons and heavily armed attack helicopters. Conversely, it only takes one shot, even for an AI controlled tank, to destroy any attack helicopter (AI tankers will take two shots to destroy super heavy transport helicopters). Do not expose the rear of the tank to increase survivability as it will take significantly more damage if hit in the rear.

Durability
The durability of the Diplomat is affected as follows (damage of direct impact when weapon is fired by the player, AI does approximately half of that damage, % is rounded to nearest multiple of 5 or 0.5):


 * 100%+ from fuel air explosion
 * 100%+ from IED (only in 'Medusplosion')
 * 70% from heavy tank cannon shells from the Iron Mountain Heavy Tank/Diplomat Heavy Tank (100%+ when hitting the rear)
 * 45%+ from C-4s (90% damage and engine fire when 2 are detonated at the same time, 2 consecutive C-4s inflict 100%, damage is not multiplied when placed on the rear)
 * 30% from dedicated Anti-Tank Missiles (ie: ATGMs, TOWs and Anti-Tank Missiles) (100%+ when hitting the rear, ~50% when AI scores a rear hit)
 * 15% damage from RPGs/helicopter rockets/regular tank cannon/static artillery rounds (100%+ when hitting the rear)
 * ~0.5% damage from armor piercing autocannon hits (2% damage if hit on the rear)

Real Life
The Diplomat is based on the M1A2 Abrams main battle tank with the M1A2 TUSK (Tank Urban Survival Kit) add-on armor kit, as shown by the square shaped bricks on the side of the tank which are the Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) bricks. However, the 105MM gun indicates it to be modified from a reserve M1 Abrams or a new export model entirely.

Trivia

 * On the main cannon, the words "The 4th Horseman" can be seen printed on. This refers to the "Four horsemen of the apocalypse," the 4th horseman was known as Death, a fitting name for the Diplomat due to it being able to destroy almost anything in the game.
 * The name of the Diplomat is quite ironic due to the fact that a diplomat is someone who negotiates arguments peacefully while the main job of the in-game Diplomat is to destroy heavy targets with pure force.
 * Despite the description claiming that the Diplomat is firing sabot rounds, the rounds are still as explosive as any other HEAT rounds fired by any other tank.
 * There is a glitch for every tank which you can drive your tank in underwater. (This works for PS2 version, unknown if this works for PS3 or PC, does not work on Xbox 360.)The trick is to submerge the player while driving the tank, but when underwater you must drive it backward. While underwater do not bail out of the tank or it will surface.
 * It can get run over and destroyed by a Sundered Dragonfly IFV if the main gun is not blocking the front.
 * It should be noted that the captions in game mention the Diplomat has a 105mm gun when in real life, the M1A2 Abrams carries a 120mm gun.
 * It has some visual, but unusable, smoke grenade dischargers on either side of the turret.