Tank Grunt

Tank Grunt (later known as Colonel Tank Grunt) is the oldest son of General Buzz and Lyla Grunt. He is the older brother of Ripp and Buck, but he is distant from both of them. Tank is the only one of his siblings who wants to follow their father into the Military career and the only teen in Strangetown who doesn't have any friends when the neighborhood is first played. Tank's name is a reference to his military background and heritage.

Life leading up to The Sims 2
Tank wants to follow in his father's footsteps and aspires to become a General like him. They have a good relationship, but Tank wants to impress him by getting a Military job. Tank is also part of the feud against the Smith family. He is enemies with Johnny Smith and wants to win a fight against him. If Johnny throws a party while still a teen, Tank will attempt to crash it.

When first played, he is 5 days away from becoming an adult. Either the Grunt household or the computer itself is scripted so that whenever Tank searches for a job, the first result will always be the military career track.

He considers his father, General Buzz, a friend, though the friendship is not mutual. This sort of one sided relationship would not have been possible without the use of hacks such as SimPE.

Surprisingly, Tank doesn't have any body skill points or indeed any skill points at the start of the game. He has exactly the same interests as his father. According to his Sim DNA in SimPE, he has recessive alleles for blond hair and grey eyes.

Strangely, when looking in his family album, Tank appeared to have lighter skin as a child in one of the photos, while his father Buzz had darker skin. Tank also had lighter skin in another photo as a teen.

Life leading up to The Sims 2 (PSP)
Colonel Tank Grunt lives in the Barracks at the military base Division 47 with General Buzz, Corporal Ripp and the Smith family. His youngest brother Buck doesn't appear in this game. Someone has hacked Tank's computer and the player's Sim has to repair it. During this time, he will constantly attack Ripp until his computer is fixed. It is also possible to sell secrets to Tank, but the one he wants to know is why Mister Smith is outside around midnight, snooping by the alien crash site. If the player chooses not to tell him, he will become very angry with the Sim.

Oddly, Tank's eye colour in the PSP version is brown, but in the PC game, his eyes are blue. This is also the case with his brother, Ripp. Both of them are adults in this game.

Tank's secrets from The Sims 2 (PSP):
 * 1) (Personal): Tank wanted to go into ballet, but his father forced him into the military.
 * 2) (Intimate): Tank secretly blames Ripp for stealing his first love... an action figure named Missy McBoom.
 * 3) (Dark): Tank once got punished by Buzz for being "too creative" with his face paint.
 * 4) (Tank's Incompetence): Tank let someone hack into his security computer.

Life leading up to The Sims 2 (Game Boy Advance)
In The Sims 2 (GBA), Tank is a resident of Strangetown. He lives in the barracks, which is next to the Medical Center and plays a major and minor roles in several episodes. He is seen in the intro for each episode. His affiliation with the army isn't directly stated, but it is heavily implied. He seems to deem many things illegal, calls the player "Citizen," and as the voice of a stereotypical army general. He will randomly start to pretend he is aiming a large gun (such as a sniper rifle) at times.

Dusty Hogg introduces the player to Tank Grunt in the tutorial mission, where he says that Tank Grunt is the only guy in town with a worse temper as him. He insults the player, Dusty, and Dusty's gift for you before admitting that he's not really such a grouch and instead is a gentle soul. He just fears drastic change. The player can talk to him in "Buried By the Mob," but he will just yell at the player for thinking he dressed weirdly.

During the mission "What Digs Beneath", the player can ask him for help with getting some iron. He believes it to be a "Top Secret Government Mission", but wonders why he hasn't been told, as he is a "High Ranking Officer". He follows the player, but when the player get there he says "That strikes me as an inappropriate seizure of private property" and "As an officer and a gentleman, I cannot justify breaking the law... Goodbye miscreant. When they throw you in the dock for stealing, don't go calling for me", and leaves. The player will have to talk to Jimmy "The Neck" instead.

In "Aliens Arrived," a strange-talking Tank Grunt comes up to the player and Dusty Hogg and asks them to give a bouquet of strange-looking paper flowers to Kayleigh Wintercrest. When the player does that, she will realize that the flowers are made of satellite images taken of the nuclear power plant. The player, Dusty, and Kayleigh will go to talk to Tank, only to realize that there were two Tanks! One of them is promptly revealed to be an alien in disguise, introducing the main issue in this episode. He also appears in the ending cut scene.

In "The New Cola," Tank Grunt walks in on Dusty and Ava Cadavra having a discussion on ladybugs to announce that he got a six pack of New Cherry Guava King Chug Chug Cola. He will make the main character drink a can of it with him, and then after realizing that the New Cherry Guava King Chug Chug Cola is making him feel weird, both the player and him will shrink down to a very small size. The rest of the episode features the player and Tank fighting through hordes of ladybugs. Midway-through, Tank will get surrounded by the ladybugs and run, and the player will have to find him and intimidate him in order to get him to move. It is implied that he is absolutely terrified of ladybugs and calls them "disgusting monsters."

During "The Doomed Earth," the player must coax a way to take Tank's telescope from him. At first, he will deny that he has one, implying that the player only thinks he has one due to being a military man. The player must talk to Misty Waters, who will say that Tank uses his telescope to keep an eye over Ara Fusilli, and that asking a man in town to flirt with her will likely make him come out. The player must ask Luthor L. Bigbucks or Tristan Legend to do so, and once either of them do, Tank will come running out, talking about how Ara's father is paying him to keep an eye on her. Ara will try to bribe Tank to stop watching her. The player can then steal his telescope while he is distracted.

In "It All Came to an End," the player can talk to Tank to be informed of the location of one of Optimum Alfred's parts.

And, finally, during "A Very Special Reunion," Tank is one of the characters that the player must find and bring back for the reunion. After talking to Frankie Fusilli, the player will hear a pre-recorded tape from Tank Grunt, stating that after Strangetown was being taken over by aliens, he decided to go into hiding until they could re-take the city from them. He asks for any humans to come and find him. He is located in the Yeti's ice cave, and when the player talks to him, he is very aggressive and assumes that they are an alien. The player will have to intimidate him to calm him down, to which he will explain that Burple stole his house from him, and he will only join the reunion if the player can get his house back. Thankfully, this is quite easy to do, as paying Burple only 500 Simoleons will do the trick.

Life leading up to The Sims 2 (Nintendo DS)
In The Sims 2 for Nintendo DS, Tank appears as a hotel guest. He has no story purpose, but he is on the 10 simoleon lottery card, "The Emperor's Coffers." His secret is that the camouflage pattern is actually tattooed on his face. He will autonomously change the radio in the saloon to the track "Heavy Metal."

Life leading up to The Sims 4
An official Maxis recreation of Tank and his family was uploaded to the The Sims 4 Gallery on February 28, 2019, marking the 19th anniversary of The Sims. In this timeline, Tank is the same age as Ripp (both will become young adults in 12 days) and he is friends with everyone in his family. He has the same aspiration and traits as his father, except for the neat trait and Buzz's traits from The Sims 4: Parenthood. Unlike his Sims 2 incarnation and the remakes of the Newbie family and the Pleasant family on the Gallery, Tank has several skill points in a variety of different areas. He also carries incomplete homework in his inventory.

Simology

 * -|Skills =
 * The Sims 4


 * -|Relationships=
 * The Sims 2
 * The Sims 4
 * -|Personality=
 * The Sims 2


 * -|Interests=
 * The Sims 2


 * -|Memories=
 * The Sims 2