ME-L6-1 'Scorpion'The Bear suit is a fine piece of armor, but it lacks something rather crucial for mounting super-heavy weapons and armor- platform stability. The Scorpion has that, in spades. In basic operational parameters, she's a hexapod with two primary gunnery arms and an elongated tail that serves as a flexible mounting point for lighter munitions than the main gunnery arms.
A discussion of the Scorpion's merits must begin at the bottom, quite literally. Each of her six legs has more strength than a Bear's and is capable of walking in either a low slung mode with the top of the body elevated to only 2 meters, or a fully elevated mode with the crest of the body riding at 3.6 meters. Each leg is also fitted with a 300mm armor plate, broadened beyond the needs of the leg to provide shielding to the body of the mech as it moves. In addition to providing protection to the core and stability, each leg also contains a reserve of the Stabil-ICE used in the mech's cooling systems, distributing the reserve in order to avoid catastrophic failure, providing optical cover in the event that a leg is destroyed by enemy fire, and also allowing the mech's pilot the ability to vent the reserve to discourage opportunistic infantry.
The body of the mech is protected on the sides with 160 mm plating, with a hardened dorsal strip and 'mask' at 360mm in order to protect against indirect bombarbment and provide additional protection against frontal attack. Three crew members are housed within the body of the Scorpion. In the frontmost position is the gunner, controlling the mech's frontal arms. Behind is the pilot, controlling the mech's movement, able to to receive visual information via fiberscope from either the mech's frontal eyes, or a visual node embedded in the tail. The final operator can take control of either the gunner's position of the pilot's but primarily serves to operate the mech's secondary systems. Re-routing Stabil-ICE from the leg reserves to supercool armor plating in preparation for bombardment, or directing current directly into the mech's armor to generate heat in the event of friendly ICE spills or the failure of one of the legs.
The frontal arms of the mech are of a different candor than the legs. Each mounts an immense 400mm COMBAT plate on the outfacing sides, thickly veined with coolant tubules in order to keep the armor frigid during combat situations. Each arm is capable of mounting a bumblebee cannon, with a secondary operations slot designed to either support an extended ammo store or a multiple-launch sarukh system launcher. In combat, one arm is extended to fire while the other is folded protectively. After firing, the arms switch position in order to allow one arm to reload and take hits while the reserve arm fires and cools its plate.
The tail of the scorpion is (comparatively) lightly armored, at 80mm, and can attain a height of five meters when fully raised. An optical node connected to the pilot's fiberscope enables the pilot to attain a periscope view when the Scorpion's main body is crouched below cover, and flexible munitions point enables it to mount anti-infantry weaponry with abandon- from ICE-throwers to a double mounted velociraptor.
While the current variant is only outfitted with extant weapons and systems, including native integration of fully rechargeable electrogel systems and dedicated charging docks, we look forward to arming the Scorpion's frontal claws with even heavier destructive weapons- taking advantage of the recoil absorbent base.
(0): Dire Bear Armor: By reading this text you acknowledge and affirm the fact that you have agreed to become a C.A.T. Gas test subject.
(1): C.A.T. Gas: FallacyofUrist
(2): Grizzly: Andrea, NUKE9.13
(1): Scorpion: Draignean
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Topic: Mad Arms Race - Mereth Design Division (Fall 1965 - Final Design Phase) (Read 82289 times)