Without the Jihad the Orochi may have never seen the light of day. While most industry was in some way affected by the chaos, Victory Industries, the Orochi’s manufacturer, made it through the conflict largely untouched. With Luthien Armor Works main plant on Luthien in shambles and Independence Weaponry conquered by the Word of Blake during the Jihad the wheels were already in motion to upgrade the lines on Marduk to pick up lost production of those other worlds. Nonetheless, the task of taking over design and production for likely the largest military producers in all of the Draconis Combine was monumental task.
The name Orochi has its basis in Japanese mythology of a multi-headed/tailed serpent which in some respects is similar to Hydra. Such a fantastic beast seems awe inspiring and fitting name for a new battlemech that would replace DCMS stalwarts such at the Akuma, Naginata, and Atlas whose production was lost when the world of Quentin and home to Independence Weaponry were conquered by the WoB. With all of those mechs in mind you would expect that Victory Industries would base their new design off of one of these machines. Instead they based it off of that tried and true Starcorps Industries Longbow design!?
Weighing in at 90 tons the Orochi is a beast and no expense was spared in providing the very best proven and new technology proven through the fires of the Jihad. Capable of flanking at the same speed as the Sunder and just as well protected makes the Orochi an assault mech worthy of those that came before it. The Orochi OR-2I is armed with two Thunderbolt 20 launchers, a pair of Streak 4 launchers, and an ER Small Laser. Victory installed only shoulder and upper arm actuators in the design allowing its arms to flip to the rear making any opposing pilot feel uncomfortable around an Orochi until it has been destroyed.
That combination is downright impressive as it manages to check off number of features found in most, if not all, the designs the DCMS could no longer produce. Overall it represents a large improvement in protection with no loss in speed found in its inspiration the Longbow. The firepower of the original design is still there, albeit, with a reduction in range of 90m which isn’t horrible.
The twin T-bolt 20s can be fired indirectly and the damage is no longer spread out like the parent design. Instead they offer the same punch of a Class 20 auto cannon. The Streak launchers allow for respectable firepower within the minimum range of the Thunderbolt launchers where not only are shots less accurate, their damage decreases as well. It is worth nothing from the ground up, all major components of the design are produced at Victory Industries which allows for little if any delays in manufacture.
While all of the above items make for an outstanding design there are issues that the design team either chose to intentionally to overlook or not address. An opposing AMS system has the potentially to play havoc with the modest damage that the Orochi’s Thunderbolt launchers produce. It’s thus fortunate that the traditional enemies of the Dragon, the Federated Suns forgot that the AMS existed until they designed the Sortek Assault Craft. At which point the Suns R&D forgot about them again until the Republic lowered their fortress walls to gift them mechs that had them!
The largest oversight though is the placement of all the design’s ammunition in the arms and or a decision not to include CASE to prevent a catastrophe. While CASE II would make a sensible inclusion the technology was not an item in standard production outside of the newly christened Republic of the Sphere at the time of Orochi's development. At the very least by choosing not to put the ammunition or CASE in the torso the design is more likely to suffer a total loss.
The other major issue the design suffers from is a lack of ammunition for its biggest weapons and far too much ammunition for its auxiliary weapons. With half as many rounds available to the Thunderbolt launchers when compared to standard LRMs there is only enough ammunition for 90 second of continuous fire. Once those rounds are depleted you are left with a 90 ton Whitworth. The Streak 4 launchers have a staggering 50 rounds of ammunition which will probably never be used before the machine is destroyed. The replacement of that additional ton of ammunition would have been better used toward CASE or additional ammunition for the T-bolt launchers.
The Orochi has one known, but yet to be fully disclosed, variant the OR-3K. The Thunderbolt launchers are replaced by a pair of Silver Bullet Gauss rifles. No other information is known about this particular model except that it was a refit and not a production model that was put into service to provide AA defense against am incursion to conquer the world by House Davion. Such a design would require other modifications because of the fact the Gauss Rifles have a larger bulk than the Thunderbolt Launchers they are replacing.
Overall I believe the Orochi does many things well; however its endurance I find woefully lacking. As noted it wouldn’t take many changes from the base design to improve upon that. 2 crit seeking SRMs make a modest amount of sense when used in tandem with 2 hole punching Thunderbolt. I’d have preferred standard SRMs or MMLs for special munitions and the fictional troupe of not wanting my mechs hanging around after the Thunderbolt‘s ammunition has been depleted. The lack of a C3 Slave module is also surprising and would be a welcomed asset for a design that is going to want to keep itself ideally at medium range to be the most effective.
