Hammer's Slammers: Vehicles and propulsion
This Maus heavy tank has a steel plenum chamber fed by 10 fans

Most large combat vehicles are run from nuclear power sources - fusion 'bottles', in fact. Smaller vehicles are powered by a variety of sources including gas turbine and internal combustion engines, utilising a variety of fuels, and electrical engines.

Other than for wheeled and tracked vehicles, the latter systems are most often used on smaller Air Cushion Vehicles (ACV's) like Slammers' Skimmers and Jeeps and are themselves powered by an array of ion batteries, charged from an electrical source. This can be a lengthy business taking as much as 36 hours from low voltage, domestic supplies.

In use with the Slammers regiment, these vehicles are usually recharged when at rest from the fusion bottles of Blower tanks in less than three hours. Most of the primary vehicles in the stories - and all of Hammer's vehicles - are ACV's.

This Skimmer has two fans and a plenum chamber made of steel and light alloys

This Combat Car has a steel plenum chamber fed by 12 fans

This tank destroyer has a steel plenum chamber fed by 12 fans
Many of the smaller vehicles used by other mercenary groups are fitted with flexible skirts made from Beryllium mesh re-enforced, polymide fabric. This is easy to maintain and moves over a variety of terrain well but is still vulnerable, even to converted attack by small arms.
This Slammers jeep uses a steel plenum chamber fed by three fans Heavier vehicles - and all of the Slammer's regiment - utilise powerplants which generate an air cushion produced by multiple fans pushing air into a solid steel 'plenum chamber'.

These vehicles tend to be heavy (especially the tanks at 170 tonnes) on account of being very heavily armoured, but - at the same time - they're still fast, owing to their fusion bottles offering up huge amounts of power to the propulsion system.
They propel themselves forward and change direction by tilting their multiple fans meaning that they can be viewed as very, very low flying helicopters rather than tanks. These vehicles occupy this ultra low NOE (Nap Of the Earth) mode because - in the combat environment - anything that gets above tree top height - planes, some satellites and most artillery is destroyed almost immediately by fire from Power Guns and Lasers, co-ordinated by information nets, Artificial Intelligence systems and satellites. Only the foolhardy fly in the combat zone.
This Puma APC has a flexible skirts made from Beryllium mesh re-enforced fabric
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