Sabre Tank Hunter
The Sabre Tank Hunter was an anti-armour vehicle based on the Rhino armoured carrier, incorporating a fixed, forward firing autocannon in its front hull.
White Dwarf 120 included conversion instructions to build a Sabre from a Rhino MKI and parts of the Land Raider MKI.
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History
The Rhino itself was conceived to be easily modified to answer various specific needs. Many Rhino variations have their origins during the Horus Heresy, when variations of existing vehicles to fulfill new roles became a necessity. The Sabre was one of these modifications, seeing its first use during the earliest days of the Heresy, its design spurred by the need for heavier firepower.
The Sabre was one of the type of Rhinos modified during the Heresy wars to mount heavier weapons, this type becoming known as "Tank Hunters" for the role they played during the Heresy.
Besides the Sabre, various types of Tank Hunter were developed, each mounting different heavy weapons, such as missile launchers or lascannon. However, the Sabre was the most common form of Tank Hunter.
The most well remembered combat use of the Sabre was during an incident in which Dark Angels Space Marines had retaken a city from a combined force of Ork Freebooters and Chaos Renegades, only to be pushed back by Ork reinforcements. The Dark Angels fell back past a great bridge spanning the mile-wide crack called the Black Gorge. The bridge itself, a structure of adamantium from the Dark Age of Technology, could not be destroyed; instead, the Dark Angels set up a single squadron of Sabres at a site overlooking the bridge, and allowed the Orks to cross much of the bridge before the Sabres began to fire. First the lead vehicles were destroyed, blocking the bridge's front. With the column halted, the Sabres began firing at the column's rear, blocking any retreat. Then began the slaughter of the entire Ork column.
Armament
As with other Tank Hunters, the Sabre has particularly thick frontal shielding to protect it from enemy fire. Its main weapon is a fixed forward-firing autocannon mounted in its front hull. A bolter is mounted alongside the much larger autocannon. The Sabre has no capacity to transport troops.
Related articles
Sources
- White Dwarf 120 (UK) (1989), The Sabre Tank Hunter, by Rick Priestley
