The Palmaria is a Lyran super-heavy hovercraft designed to carry the Long Tom Artillery Piece on a mobile, self-propelled chassis. The design requirement resulted in two different projects, a Battlemech and a Hovercraft, which both made it to production status.
Both projects had the same project manager assigned to them, who was experienced at managing such exotic projects. He kept the design teams humble by discarding some of their more exotic ideas. Under his guidance, the Long Tom Carrier Projects continued on-time and without cost overruns, resulting in a design that was fairly practical and affordable.
The final product, the Palmaria Mk.I, is one of the fastest mobile Long Tom carriers in existence, and is twice as cheap and faster than the Mech-based platform. However, it's not without its faults: The ICE engine is a gas guzzler which can cause logistical strain, the ammunition supply is less than the older Mobile Long Tom that can fire for over 4 minutes sustained fire, it's twice as expensive as the Mobile Long Tom, it can be caught by any other hovercraft as well as some Battlemechs and tanks, and although the armor plating is a decent 7.5 tons of reactive armor that's ideal for surviving counter-battery fire it's also thinly spread across the vehicle such that an AC/20 or heavy gauss rifle can core the vehicle from the rear. Still, the benefits of a swift Long Tom Artillery Piece was widely recognized, resulting in large-scale production of the Palmaria.
Palmaria Mk.I
Base Tech Level: Advanced (IS)
Level Era
Experimental -
Advanced -
Standard 3100+
Tech Rating: E/E-F-F-E
Weight: 100 tons
BV: 1,330
Cost: 4,265,000 C-bills
Movement: 5/8 (Hover)
Engine: 175 ICE
Internal: 70
Armor: 120 (Reactive)
Internal Armor
Front 10 20
Front Right 10 20
Front Left 10 20
Rear Right 10 15
Rear Left 10 15
Rear 10 10
Turret 10 20
Weapons Loc Heat
Long Tom TU 20
Ammo Loc Shots
Long Tom Ammo BD 5
Long Tom Ammo BD 5
Long Tom Ammo BD 5
Long Tom Ammo BD 5
Equipment Loc
CASE BD
