I did get carried away with the Therampolus but the concept is still there -- a large (but nowhere near as giant as I've implied the Therampolus to be) infantry transport/support vehicle. But yeah. That'd be better in the near future, not now.
So here's my infantry design. Taking advantage of the setting and existing tech to do something cool, but more importantly, and practical.
Infantry CorpsThe militia was hastily scrambled together from the first people we saw after the breach with the first weapons we could find. This won't do. We need to create a proper infantry division to compete with the new way of battle.
Equipped largely with carbines for close-quarters combat with enemy infantry where our other assets can't make enough of a difference as well as for personal defense, their main piece of equipment is the Grapple Launcher -- a much smaller (and
much weaker) and cheaper version of the Harken Launcher Array we already have. A soldier's grapple launcher can be fired at enemy vehicles (and most importantly, mechs); then the soldier can either whisk themselves to wherever they grappled (we recommend making sure there's nothing in the way first) or collaborate with other Grapple Launcher-equipped infantry to immobilize or bring down enemy assets. Surface-to-air missile launchers can be and are utilized as well, though the Grapple Launcher is expected to be the number one piece of equipment.
The Infantry Corps is trained via new training facilities to make the best use of their Grapple Launchers as well as skirmishing tactics, quickly moving with their grapples (and just running) to get an advantage on infantry or other enemy assets too small to be properly grappled. They're taught how to do the most damage to mechs & other vehicles while on them and using their Grapple to stay latched onto them, or how to bring them down via multiple Grapple Launchers.
In order to allow for greater mobility, their armor and kit is fairly light. They should be avoiding getting shot at rather than fighting through getting shot at. They just have some other standard infantry gear and miscellaneous cheap tools/weapons to help damage enemy assets up-close.
TL;DR: We need infantry that can make a difference where mechs can involved. Luckily for us, we already have tech -- the Harken Launcher Array -- that we can derive from to accomplish this in a cheap (and cool) way.
Mechanised Infantry (3): Roseheart, Taricus, DaLintyGuy
Therampolus Walker Platform (1): Doomblade
Infantry Corps (1): Chiefwaffles