MG144-Aotrs07 Enrager MK 2 Platoon

Army Of The Red Spear

144th (10 or 12mm)

The Mk 2 Enrager has only just begun to be fielded, production beginning in 2345. The Mk 1 Enrager was partially a product of trying to do a little too much at once to partly fill the role as MBT. With all the battle experience of the Mk 1 Enrager, the Mk 2 was built to address all the Mk 1’s shortcomings, and produce a unit that would fulfil the same role as the Mk 1 excelled at, but further improve its capabilities.

The Class 10 plasma-pulse cannon had proved highly effective, despite its short range, and the Mk 2 continues to carry the same weapon. All the other weapon system were pulled out and entirely replaced.

The Mk 1’s most pressing problem was its lack of ranged capability. The Class 10 coldbeam had been appended to attempt to deal with this situation, but it was just not powerful enough. Further, the arc of fire was limited and it failed to provide any kind of useful defence against aerial or point-defence targets.

But how could one place a turret capable of high-tracking on a relatively small bipedal droid? But the problem was that anything large enough to provide the necessary punch precluded the placement of a high-track weapon – and a left-shoulder high-track weapon of sufficient power alone simply would make the Enrager fall over when it swung about. The Aotrs considered several approaches, including a quadrupedal design, but nothing seemed satisfactory.

Then the team hit upon a solution, inspired by watching old fictional giant-robot movies. Laser eyes.

The design team turned the entire head of the Mk 2 Enrager into coldbeam emitter. The optical sensors could easily fit behind the faceplate. Using innovative new approaches made possible by the 11th generation coldbeam technology, backed-up by careful use of magic-enhancement systems, the Enrager now had a gaze attack capable of destroying an enemy MBT, with the same 2000m range envelope. And, being the head, the Enrager could shoot anything it could look at, solving the high-track problem. This was an expensive solution, but Lord Foul Skream himself approved the design, and commended the team for their innovative approach.

The power requirements of the new weapon exceeded what the Mk1 Enrager could manage. The 2342 power generator upgrades provided a partial solution, but even then, the Enrager Mk 2 had to be made 10% larger to be able to fit everything in. This case of size also mandated the  Enrager’s footprint size being increased, both to take and to spread the additional load. However, this additional size also allowed the Enrager Mk 2 to carry additional armour plate to bolster its protection verses kinetic weapon attacks (for which there is ultimately little substitute than just thicker plate) over most of the surface, with only the front upper torso being as strong as it could be already.

Analysis of the battle footage indicated that the coldbeam support weapon had almost never been used, and the new coldbeam gaze would serve better in the few times it had. The plasma-pulse cannon was an older model, whose performance was overkill for infantry in terms of penetration, but irrelevant verses vehicles, given the larger Class 10.

So both weapons dumped entirely, and the spare weight and power instead was given to mounting four standard plasma-pulse rifles – the same design as on the smaller War Droid shoulder -mounts – a pair on each arm. This further meant that they could be set back into the forearm, so the Enrager would no longer have to move its arm guns out of position to use its hands and could even fire them while making melee attacks. The coldbeam gaze was just as effective as the old support weapons at the job of suppressing infantry at long range (a job the Enrager rarely attempted and was not efficient at anyway). And with the four rifles, it was now much better at suppressing infantry at short ranges, which it could capitalise on. Both marks of Enragers were much more adept at close assaults than a regular War Droid due to their size and MBT levels of protection, provided they can physically get into a building or position to bring it to bear.

Finally, to supplement the coldbeam gaze, to add some additional anti-armour ranged offense, a trio of Snake Launchers were added in a rotary carousel to the left shoulder. This is normally held vertical against the Enrager’s back, and brought up into position, not unlike a regular infantry-carried Snake Launcher. Six additional Snake warheads are stored in a bin at the back of the Enrager, and once empty, the carosel is moved by the mechanical arm so that one tube enters the bin at a time to be reloaded.

The Mk 2 Enrager is thus a much more significant threat to enemy armour units – at least, if not more dangerous at close range, the Mk 2 can now engage enemy vehicles at longer ranges. While it is still too big to hide easily, it is still not a replacement for a regular MBT, but it is now far from helpless when caught out of its ideal environment.