Thread:Shas'o'Kais/@comment-2045915-20130102015556/@comment-1621503-20130102133808

Warhammer 40k's vehicles and races certainly blur those definitions, though, not like they're exactly clear in real life either..

The primary point of the APC role, I think we can agree, is to carry infantry into its combat staging point (which very well may be at the front lines, or behind them, or into the thick of combat itself) with a degree of relative safety (safe from infantry squad weaponry in general at least, I would think). Everything else could be considered secondary. That said depending on the modern nation in discussion, you end up with some rather extensive definitions of what 'secondary' is. The Russians have a line of APCs that are functionally light tanks, if not outright MBT hunters. The Canadians use wheeled APCs for virtually every role that is not better handled by a MBT (Leopard 2, to be exact). On the other hand, you have the Israeli Merkava, which despite being a MBT, is also an APC.

With W40k, you end up with a blending of the tank/APC role in a bunch of tanks. The Land Raider fluff is pretty clear it's an APC, but with armour and firepower that easily exceeds most of the Imperium's MBTs. The Eldar have the Falcon MBT with it's mini-personnel compartment. Orks have...well, whatever they've lashed together from spare metal and big guns, and have stuffed as much  green orky grumpiness into and still move (certainly not 'tank' and not 'APC', just orky WAUGH silliness....).

I would suggest, as a topic of discussion, or maybe to reduce conflict, is that as a rule, if its main role is to transport infantry, its an APC only and has no Tank catagory added to it. If it's an APC turned into ehmahgerdGUNS assault weapon platform (aka Land Raider Ares, Land Raider Terminus Ultra and the Hammerhead in a sense), it have the Tank catagory added (since it can't carry troops anymore yet is used to go blow up other tanks). If its main role is to shoot other tanks, it's a tank, regardless if it carries people, and gets the Tank catagory added.