Armored Vehicle Grape

Armored Vehicle Grape is a vehicle that the Air Raider can call on in Earth Defense Force 2025 and Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair. It remains exclusive to the Air Raider class in Earth Defense Force 5.

Description
Amored Vehicle Grape is a fast, lightly-armored wheeled infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) equipped with a light howitzer or faster-firing armor-piercing automatic cannon in a limited-traverse turret, and is able to carry up to three additional infantry in the rear compartment. Unlike most vehicles with extra seats, there is nothing for troops sitting in the back to do other than ride along. Only an Air Raider or Ranger can drive the vehicle, but any class can sit in the rear compartment.

The transport compartment has three seats, but only displays one "get in" location marker at the rear of the vehicle; the seats in the rear are all filled using this one marker. Troops in the rear compartment can exit at any time by pressing the enter vehicle button again; the vehicle does not have to stop to let them out, and they will not suffer any consequences if they get out while it is moving.

The transport function is only useful for multiplayer modes, since even "recruited" allied NPCs will not get into the vehicle.

Strategy
Grape is a fairly situational vehicle which, like a real IFV, is intended to fight alongside infantry rather than on its own; if the latter is tried, its weak armor will quickly result in it being overwhelmed. It is very useful for a team consisting mostly of Rangers or other Air Raiders since it allows them to redeploy quickly, but of limited usefulness if the other players are Wing Divers or Fencers who know how to dash-cancel. It is also very useful for collecting Items due to its high mobility.

Grape manoeuvres a little awkwardly since it has fairly realistic eight-wheel steering; it does not like turning too tightly and cannot turn on the spot like a tank, and it has a very powerful engine that tends to make it jerk around on its suspension if power is applied too quickly. It also has some difficulty dealing with slopes compared to tracked vehicles. It is, however, nothing like as hard to handle as the SDL1.

The vehicle's turret traverse is limited to about 60 degrees in the frontal arc with elevation also somewhat limited: though it can engage aerial enemies, it has no way of hitting Transport Ships, Earth Eaters or a Quadruped Fortress. Because of its narrow arc of fire and inability to turn sharply on the spot, it is best off operating in a fixed position facing enemies, using its high speed to relocate if it is in danger of being overrun.

The armament varies: those with Howitzers have a slow fire rate and the lowest amount of ammunition, but the gun fires explosive shells with some splash damage. The trajectory is virtually flat, lacking the arc of the Howitzer weapons of the E551 Gigantus or BM03 Vegalta. Smooth-Bore Guns fire at the same rate and have slightly more ammunition, with higher direct damage and muzzle velocity but no splash damage; instead, their rounds will penetrate multiple enemies. The same applies to the Light Rapid-Fire Gun, which has double the rate of fire of the other guns and double the ammunition.

In 2025 all Grapes have substantial recoil, to the point they will move backward fairly quickly if their gun is fired forwards while they are parked, even if the brakes are applied (X button on a PS controller with default controls, a function only Grape and the SDL1 actually have); slow forward motion is needed just to stay in one place.

Grape is heavily re-tuned in 4.1, more so than any other vehicle in the game. All versions have their rate of fire doubled and their recoil significantly reduced, while those with penetrating guns have their ammo count doubled and their per-shot damage halved.

The change emphasises their primary role of engaging swarms and makes the vehicle more controllable when firing on the move.

It is easy to get on top of the Grape to place turrets, Posts and Vendors, and the vehicle's own small turret means that turrets placed on it are fairly unlikely to damage it. Notably, placing a Life Vendor on the vehicle will heal troops in the rear compartment, allowing it to act as an ersatz Caravan Armored Vehicle.

Variants
All Armored Vehicle Grapes have a crew capacity of 4 and reload for 2,700 credits. Numbers in (brackets) indicate changed stats in ''EDF 4.1. ''Like most vehicles, at higher levels Grape becomes more responsive to control and faster.

Description
In gross mechanical terms Grape is exactly the same as in 2025 and 4.1, being an eight-wheeled IFV which can transport up to three player characters in splitscreen or online multiplayer and has a driver-controlled turret. As before, only an Air Raider or Ranger can drive it, but any class can sit in the back.

Control of the vehicle has been changed: rather than movement being entirely controlled with the left analog stick, it now uses the L2 trigger as an accelerator and L1 for reverse. This overall makes the vehicle's movement a lot less jerky than before. As before, it is one of the few vehicles with a manual brake, operated with the X button. The left stick is only used for turning, while the right stick operates the turret.

Strategy
Armored Vehicle Grape in this game continues in the fashion of the 4.1 reworking of the vehicle: its handling is even more improved, with the tendency to skid while turning at speed greatly reduced along with substantial improvements to the turret's maximum elevation and traverse limits. The turret now covers about 270 degrees in the forward arc, with an elevation limit of about 60 degrees, making it quite capable of dealing with most types of light aerial enemies and allowing Grape to engage enemies "broadside" rather than having to face towards them.

Recoil has been toned down even further and all weapons except the Light Rapid-Fire gun have increased ammo loads, with Howitzer ammo doubled: in addition, Grapes have a significant buff to their durability. However, this does come with a trade-off: their reload credit cost is increased by almost 50% even when they are fully upgraded, and per-shot damage is decreased somewhat. Their high rate of fire means Grapes are still quite capable of dealing with standard insect enemies, but they struggle somewhat with online health multipliers in place, making it best to make use of their speed to circle groups or perform hit-and-run attacks. It is a good idea to mount ZE-GUNs on a Grape to bolster its offensive capabilities.

A unique new variant is the level 108 Armored Vehicle Grape SRXE, which can only be unlocked by playing DLC 2 missions on Inferno difficulty. This variant does not have any of the normal Grape weapons: instead, it mounts a powerful shotgun weapon which fires spreads of 10 piercing projectiles in 5-round bursts. Damage is still only 5,600 for the whole burst, and it is best fired into swarms to take advantage of the multi-hit properties of its penetrating ammo, though it is also a very capable anti-aircraft weapon.

While the handling is improved, Grape is still somewhat top-heavy and not particularly difficult to flip over. However, in EDF 5 the game will attempt to self-right a vehicle if the player character exits and re-enters it, so this is not nearly as concerning as it used to be. In addition, if the vehicle flips onto its side it is often possible to right it by turning the turret, using the gun as a lever.

While riding in a Grape, the driver's item pickup radius is increased by 300%. As with other multi-seat vehicles, any items picked up by the vehicle count as being picked up by the driver and not any passengers.

Variants
All Armored Vehicle Grapes have a crew capacity of 4 and reload for 3,969 credits when fully upgraded.

Trivia

 * Grape is based on a Stryker ICV with a fictional turret which seems to be loosely based on that of the Polish Rosomak IFV.
 * It is not at all clear why it is called "Grape." It is possible it is supposed to be "Gleip" as in Gleipnir, the binding that holds the great wolf Fenrir in Norse mythology, but this is a bit of a stretch.
 * The direct-fire weapon on some Grape versions would not be classified as a howitzer (which is a high-angle gun), but as a "gun" or "cannon."
 * The interior model is identical to that of the Caravan Armored Vehicle. This means the turret's barbette is not depicted; the internal layout would imply that rather than being a turret it is a remote gun installation.