IMW-3 Snark
| |
| |
| Type: | Mobile Command Platform |
| Place of origin: | Shireroth |
|
| |
| In service: | |
| Used by: |  Raspur Pact
|
|
| |
| Designed: | 1641 AN |
| Manufacturer: | Red Bear LLC |
|
| |
| Crew: | 24 |
| Speed: |
|
| Range: | |
| Weight: | Heavy |
| Length: | Long |
|
| |
| Main Armament: | 75mm cannon |
| Rate of fire: | 90 rpm |
| Effective range: | 1,800 m direct fire |
| Maximum range: | 7,678 m indirect HE shell |
|
| |
| Cost: | |
A product of the Red Bear factories of Mishalan, the IMW-3 Snark, a grotesque monstrosity enthusiastically described by Ludovic Verion as a "Sweet machine of destruction", had been signed up to by the Shirerithian Ministry of Military Affairs (MoMA) purely on account of its imposing bulk alone. The Snark programme had indeed consumed vast resources that left the Imperial Forces of Shireroth entirely bereft of tactical helicopters and a viable artillery arm during the conflicts leading up to the War of Lost Brothers and the Auspicious Occasion. The Snark's inherent advantages, namely its armour, speed and firepower was off-set by its sheer gargantuan size which tended to make it something of a magnet incoming enemy fire. For instance, at the Battle of Arandurcourt (1644 AN) three Snarks were lost to a combination of mechanical failures and Elwynnese flanking harassment attacks. At least one Snark was recorded to have been lost to an encounter with a Tyrannocricetus aliger during the 1650s when the creatures still terrorised central Benacia.
Expensive to maintain and difficult to manufacture, the Snark had been slated to be withdrawn from Imperial service even before the Kalirion Fracture. Surviving examples were captured and operated by the Black Legions of Benacia Command. The challenges experienced in the design and production of the Snark manifested themselves during its operational life also. The design had to feature significant, and in consequence bulky, shock absorbers to mitigate stress and strain on the steel frame when operating in gallop mode. The four legs of the walker also produced a noticeable “stiletto effect”, where all the weight of the Snark's considerable mass would be concentrated in a very small area. Actuation and articulation motors on the legs and main body of the Snark also added to the overall weight burden, to say nothing of the armour, armaments, and personnel carried. The engineering challenges of distributing this weight and dissipating its downward pressure added further cost and complexity to this design. To this day the Snark should ideally limit its movements to terrain where the going is firm under foot. The considerations of material fatigue also obliged the operators of the Snark to limit its period of "galloping" to five minute "sprint dashes".
In spite of these limiting factors it had been consistently reported that being on the receiving end of a charge by three or more Snarks was a distinctly disconcerting experience for those who endured it and survived.
The development of Bassarid Quadwalkers, along with the rumoured scale of armaments production in Çakaristan, prompted a re-evaluation of the design in the late 1690s. The list of objections presented by the Mishalan Arsenal to proposals for an immediate restart of production proved to be a considerable one, beginning with the loss of machine tools and technical knowledge, the ensuing inability to mass produce essential components, including the main gas-turbine, drive shafts, and reduction gears, and the estimated time required to reconstitute a long-ago dissipated supply-chain, suggested that a target for resumption by 1700 AN would be deeply optimistic to the point of impossibility.
In 1707 AN, reflecting the dramatically altered geopolitical landscape in the aftermath of the reunification of Shireroth and Kildare, the design schematics, machine-tools, and a working example of a Snark were presented to Sokoku Industries in return for an artificial nociception system recovered by the Tegong from one of the eleven quadwalkers formerly operated by the Jizhi-zou.
Following the advent of the Thuylemans Government, and the enactment of the Shirerithian Hegemony Implementation Plan after 1718 AN, came the first credible reports of the Snark returning to mass production along specially built gargantuan assembly lines in the interior of Greater Kildare.
