The Mech Touch novel Chapter 5600

Chapter 5600 Private Product Reveal

The Supremo Project was unlike any other second-class heavy artillery mech design that Micky Tarukan had seen before.

In fact, no Rubarthan had ever seen such a mech before!

On the surface, the Supremo Project looked like a typical heavy artillery mech that was based around the one-huge-gun mech concept.

These were mech designs that attempted to skirt the line of the MTA-imposed rule that restricted the caliber of ranged weapons.

The general rule of thumb was that weapon systems were only allowed to be as big and powerful so long as they could still be independently carried by a single mech.

This restriction chafed people a lot during the early years of the Age of Mechs. Many of the people who were alive at the time still recalled the awesome firepower of warships.

A standard mech could never come close to matching the firepower of the main cannon of a battleship, but that did not stop mech designers from attempting to close the gap as much as possible!

All sorts of silly mech designs emerged as a consequence that amounted to little more than a big cannon with a mech body vaguely attached to them. From mounting the oversized cannons on their backs to literally turning them into spines, the ultra-heavy cannon mechs did manage to live up to their promise and bestow immensely strong firepower to the mech forces that fielded them in battle!

Unfortunately, restricted mech combat abided by a completely different set of rules than traditional unrestricted warship combat.

Big guns did not deliver the overwhelming suppression and the easy victories as their promoters envisioned.

The mechs that carried them were too undersized relative to their enormous cannons. This caused them to lose a huge degree of flexibility.

Their ultra-heavy cannons possessed an exceedingly slow firing rate. Their massive frames moved too slowly on the battlefield. They were easily damaged. Their main weapon systems became prone to malfunctions. The most stressed components wore down far too quickly.

While the ultra-heavy cannon mechs barely functioned adequately when employed as a semi-fixed defensive installation, they were terrible when used in attack maneuvers.

Any adversary could easily work around their many obvious weaknesses and take advantage of their complete lack of flexibility and adaptability to target their vulnerabilities!

They were especially vulnerable to light mechs. Any light skirmisher could easily advance while evading the slow-firing attacks from the unwieldy ultra-heavy cannons.

Once the light skirmishers came close, then they could easily avoid the firing arc of the single big weapon and dismantle the vulnerable heavy mechs from the rear or any other unprotected sides!

Of course, the forces that employed the ultra-heavy cannon mechs always made sure to provide their expensive babies with adequate escorts, but that brought its own host of issues.

When a hostile force fielded a more reasonable and flexible roster of heavy artillery mechs, it became easy to eliminate the ultra-heavy cannon mechs by relying on quantity as opposed to quantity.

It was impossible for a small number of ultra-heavy cannon mechs to eliminate a much larger quantity of regular heavy artillery mechs!

The latter had a lot more depth and redundancy. They could also reposition themselves much easier after they fired a salvo, allowing them to avoid counter-battery fire a lot easier.

In short, there were many reasons why the prevailing pattern of heavy artillery mechs ultimately ended up as a relatively balanced configuration with multiple reasonably-sized integrated cannon weapons.

Any mech designer that deliberately deviated from the market standard better had a good reason behind this risky decision.

"The demand for heavier siege weapons has increased by a large extent after the start of the Age of Dawn." Micky Tarukan remarked. "Isthmus Manufacturing along with many of our competitors have observed that mechs armed with weaker and lighter weapons are selling in much less quantities than before. The demand for heavier mechs that are armed with larger weapons has increased, but the market has yet to demand mechs as unbalanced as your Supremo Project."

Having designed the heavy artillery mech in cooperation with Master Decimus Horst for many months, Ves had gained a much more comprehensive understanding of this mech type.

"That is because the customer base is lagging behind the rapid changes in circumstances. They are still stuck in their own mindsets. There is nothing wrong with more traditional heavy artillery mechs. The latest iteration to my famous Transcendent Punisher model still adheres to this pattern. However, I think that there is a legitimate place for ultra-heavy cannon mechs in many mech forces, particularly the less well-equipped ones that cannot afford to employ transphasic mechs on a wider scale."

"Is the Supremo Project a transphasic mech?" The Rubarthan chief executive asked.

Ves shook his head. "Strictly speaking, it is not. I designed this machine with the economic conditions and resource endowments of the Colonial Federation of Davute in mind. The second-rate state used to enjoy the backing of a consortium of first-rate powers, but that relationship ended with the Great Severing. Master Horst and I took great effort to make it as affordable as possible while still preserving much of its key strengths. The estimated production cost comes at just 4 MTA credits. I have no idea how much Davute intends to charge for this product, but I imagine that it should hover between 4.7 to 6 MTA credits depending on how much it wants to subsidize its own domestic mech forces."

The Supremo Project was a bit more expensive than the Standard Fey Fianna, but the new drone mech was already expensive when compared to other medium mechs.

As far as heavy artillery mechs were concerned, it was not unusual for them to be priced at 5 or even 6 MTA credits. They were more expensive because they used up a lot more materials and because it was worth it to obtain so much firepower.

When Micky Tarukan reminded himself of the unverified but highly consequential claim that the Supremo Project was able to unleash greater destruction with the support, however slight, of the Destroyer of Worlds, then the heavy artillery mech was definitely a bargain at this price range!

Micky Tarukan could believe in this claim. The huge size and other obvious characteristics of the main cannon better be able to one-shot a mech, or else it wasn't worth the trouble! _{ƒгeewёbnovel.com}

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