Post by TiJiL on Nov 15, 2006 21:55:12 GMT -5
STAMP-181 “Armadillo”
Sub-Terrain Ambulating Missile Platform
The STAMP-181 “Armadillo” is a heavy underground walker with deadly ambush capabilities.
The Armadillo is approximately twenty feet long. A pair of clam-like domed shells protects the front end of the craft, concealing a wide digging drill and the machine’s weaponry, while another shell protects its rear and the four walking legs beneath. The fore and rear shells come together in a hinge at the machine’s ventral surface. A pair of retractable rotary lasers is built into the hinge’s axle. As a defense against surface foes when digging is unachievable, the armadillo can retract entirely into its shell, forming an immobile bunker. While in this state, its missile launcher cannot fire, but its rotary lasers are free to mow down nearby foes.
The armadillo’s primary weaponry is its drive-shell missile launcher, which fires its payload with enough force to fly through over one hundred feet of soil. Drive-shell missiles are equipped with heavy metal casings that protect the missile and prevent it from detonating as it travels through the ground. Once above ground, the casing is ejected and the missile itself is free to travel uninhibited through the air, and does so in an erratic spiraling flight path. Powerful targeting computers in the armadillo angle the missile’s thrusters such that it travels in great, spiraling arcs and flies into targets. This behavior makes drive-shell missiles extremely difficult to intercept, though it can reduce accuracy. (If the situation calls for it, this spiraling behavior can be turned off and the drive-shell missile treated as an ordinary projectile).
Due to the necessary strength of the casing and the powerful fuel required to send a missile through one hundred feet of dirt, drive-shell missiles are very large and thus armadillos only carry about thirty of them. Once their payloads are spent, armadillos can either begin a slow trip to the nearest base to restock or act as deadly kamikaze units. Each armadillo carries an enormous tumultuous shapecharger, capable of sending hundreds of pounds of molten coronium into a target’s underside at thousands of miles per hour. The shapecharge must be used at closer ranges than the missile launcher (around thirty feet of dirt maximum) and needless to say destroys the armadillo.
Due to the logistical problems of storing a month’s worth of oxygen far underground, the armadillo is entirely robotic, controlled by powerful computers. Armadillos are typically deployed along with (or ahead of, due to their slower speed) twassecc roaches. Roach pilots are given full control over their assigned armadillos, which they can issue specific orders or generalized commands to. Armadillos operate best underground, where their advanced targeting sensors can sleep for many weeks, waiting for an enemy unfortunate enough to stumble overtop of them. However, in a pinch, armadillos can also function above ground as armored artillery, sending drive-shell missiles maximum distances of about a mile. Finally, though not designed for aboveground combat, armadillos are nonetheless very durable machines and can hold their own against most infantry with their twin repeating laser cannons.
Sub-Terrain Ambulating Missile Platform
The STAMP-181 “Armadillo” is a heavy underground walker with deadly ambush capabilities.
The Armadillo is approximately twenty feet long. A pair of clam-like domed shells protects the front end of the craft, concealing a wide digging drill and the machine’s weaponry, while another shell protects its rear and the four walking legs beneath. The fore and rear shells come together in a hinge at the machine’s ventral surface. A pair of retractable rotary lasers is built into the hinge’s axle. As a defense against surface foes when digging is unachievable, the armadillo can retract entirely into its shell, forming an immobile bunker. While in this state, its missile launcher cannot fire, but its rotary lasers are free to mow down nearby foes.
The armadillo’s primary weaponry is its drive-shell missile launcher, which fires its payload with enough force to fly through over one hundred feet of soil. Drive-shell missiles are equipped with heavy metal casings that protect the missile and prevent it from detonating as it travels through the ground. Once above ground, the casing is ejected and the missile itself is free to travel uninhibited through the air, and does so in an erratic spiraling flight path. Powerful targeting computers in the armadillo angle the missile’s thrusters such that it travels in great, spiraling arcs and flies into targets. This behavior makes drive-shell missiles extremely difficult to intercept, though it can reduce accuracy. (If the situation calls for it, this spiraling behavior can be turned off and the drive-shell missile treated as an ordinary projectile).
Due to the necessary strength of the casing and the powerful fuel required to send a missile through one hundred feet of dirt, drive-shell missiles are very large and thus armadillos only carry about thirty of them. Once their payloads are spent, armadillos can either begin a slow trip to the nearest base to restock or act as deadly kamikaze units. Each armadillo carries an enormous tumultuous shapecharger, capable of sending hundreds of pounds of molten coronium into a target’s underside at thousands of miles per hour. The shapecharge must be used at closer ranges than the missile launcher (around thirty feet of dirt maximum) and needless to say destroys the armadillo.
Due to the logistical problems of storing a month’s worth of oxygen far underground, the armadillo is entirely robotic, controlled by powerful computers. Armadillos are typically deployed along with (or ahead of, due to their slower speed) twassecc roaches. Roach pilots are given full control over their assigned armadillos, which they can issue specific orders or generalized commands to. Armadillos operate best underground, where their advanced targeting sensors can sleep for many weeks, waiting for an enemy unfortunate enough to stumble overtop of them. However, in a pinch, armadillos can also function above ground as armored artillery, sending drive-shell missiles maximum distances of about a mile. Finally, though not designed for aboveground combat, armadillos are nonetheless very durable machines and can hold their own against most infantry with their twin repeating laser cannons.