Background
The heavier cousin to the Centaur, developed by scientists from Nanking who were visiting a research institute on Capolla when the Walls went up. The intellectuals in question had no love for the Liao family, nor the Capellan Confederation in general as all of them had lost several members of their families over the generations to the Maskirovka. When word came in of the Confederation's seizure of Nanking, they cut ties with anyone left behind with almost indecent haste.
Designed from the outset to make up for perceived deficiencies with the Centaur, such as its terrible ground speed and lack of range for its defensive armament, the Flaming Tortoise fixes all this and more. The tube artillery, with a notable increase in the number of rounds available to it over the Centaur, is set well back on the suit's armor plating. This allows it to be raised to firing positions both higher and lower then the Centaur's artillery placement. Something that Centaur pilots can greatly envy considering they have to often squat in place, or even go down on hands and knees, in order to shift the artillery into the positions required to take an accurate shot. It doesn't hurt either that the Flaming Tortoise is much lower to the ground then the upright Centaur and thus easier to conceal behind lower amounts of cover. Enhancing this further is that the artillery cannon is permanently mounted to the suit while not degrading its movement capabilities in any fashion, thus making it over sixty percent faster then the humanoid style suit if the weapon is mounted, and still a third faster if the older suit's artillery has been detached.
Agreeing that close combat systems are a waste on an artillery unit designed to be most effective while well back from the front lines, no attempts were made at mounting dedicated anti-personnel weapons, and a quadrupedal type suit cannot yet effectively mount a melee weapon. However they were well aware that battlefield conditions can shift drastically at a moment's notice, and used what little room was left to give the Flaming Tortoise a weapon that can 'reach out and touch someone' from as long a range as possible. As such, a support particle projection cannon was mounted forwards and just to the left of the artillery cannon. Enough rotation was built into the mount that, when the Flaming Tortoise is locked into place for stability as it rains down fire support, that the S-PPC can effectively guard its entire forward arc area. Most Flaming Tortoise squads settle into a rough fan-shaped formation to not only allow fire support in as wide a range as possible before them, but also to better deny an attempt to get easily get behind them. Initially a medium recoilless rifle was considered, trading a minor loss of range for additional firepower, but test pilots preferred the S-PPC as they could quickly connect to a fusion powered unit and quickly recharge the internal batteries for it, rather then have to do a second round of tedious reloading on top of already needing to deal with the artillery's needs.
The only real drawback to the new battle armor is a distinct lack of armor compared to suits of comparable mass. Barely being able to survive being hit by a Clan grade extended range medium laser, is normally limited to medium grade battle armors, and not something massing almost a quarter heavier. Unfortunately armor had to be cut from the design in order to fit in the desired loadout. Even the test pilots were forced to concede that trading off any of the other advantages the Flaming Tortoise has for even a small increase in armor would drastically undercut its effectiveness, but only after it was repeatedly pointed out that they were not meant to close with the enemy, but stay as far away as possible, with their defensive particle gun meant to keep any hostiles at a safe distance as the squad packs up and relocates.
Flaming Tortoise BattleArmor
IS experimental
BV: 274
Cost: 3,554,000 C-bills
Movement: 3/3
Internal: 4
Armor: 28
Internal Armor
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Trooper 1 1 7
Trooper 2 1 7
Trooper 3 1 7
Trooper 4 1 7
Weapon Loc Heat
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BA Tube Artillery (Body) Squad 0
Support PPC (Body) Squad 0
Ammo Loc Shots
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BA Tube Artillery Ammo Squad 2
BA Tube Artillery Ammo Squad 2
BA Tube Artillery Ammo Squad 2
BA Tube Artillery Ammo Squad 2
BA Tube Artillery Ammo Squad 2
I can neither confirm or deny that I was watching Gamera before designing this.
