GEV capabilities

>Just curious, what kind of terrain do you guys believe GEVs can
traverse? How
>far off eh ground does it hover or porpel itself? Have any of you
played
>Activisions Battlezone? IMO this is one of the best implementations of
GEV
>tanks. A Gev can skim along pretty deftly over terrain and can "jump
short
>distances but it can't hope over steep hills or terrain features. It
has to
>generate sufficient power to lift it's heavy mass against eth pull of
gravity.
>
>SO the point I'm getting at is, a GEV could not traverse a cliff, or a
mountain
>or even a stiff hill. Does this jive with your guys impressions of GEV
>capabilities or do you see it like a helicopter, capable of rising to
any
height
>it wishes . (I believe the pop up ability of a GEV is a function of teh
rating
>of its power plant and mass).
>
>Los
>
>

Is GEV "Gravitic Effect Vehicle" or "Ground Effect Vehicle"??	If
Gravitic, then I figure it could fly like a helicopter - to orbit
potentially (though the vehicle would have to be vacuum tight).  If
Ground
Effect, you'd have to have a REALLY powerful set of lift fans to get an
armoured vehicle to hop over any significant terrain (say, larger than a
car).  Hovercraft float on a contained cushion of air - remove the
containment and down they go.  Present hovercraft can go over limited
obstacles, but mostly by momentum/inertia not by the lift power of the
fans
- these are really just to keep the cushion skirts "inflated".	

Just to throw in a monkey wrench:

Q:  if a Ground Effect (hovercraft) tank fires it's main gun, won't it
be
propelled in the opposite direction - in other words, there's nothing to
push back against the recoil...  This would not be a problem if you had
directional fans providing propulsion AND the gun was firing in a
direction
opposite to the thrust of the fans AND you had "burst" thrust capability
on
the engines to compensate for the momentary thrust of the cannon
recoil...

There are some potentially very serious performance
issues/considerations
for ground effect armoured vehicles...

For example: How do you stop them once they are moving...  A tank has
LOTS
of inertia, and a GEV is like an air-hockey puck...???

Armoured vehicles have a maximum side incline rating (the vehicle can
climb
an incline of x degrees, descend a y degree incline, and traverse an
incline of z degrees tipped to the side without rolling over...).  How
would a ground effect vehicle traverse ANY side incline - would it not
just
"slide off" to that side...????