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This fanfiction article, Mobile warfare, was written by Ahalosniper. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission. |
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| The Mark IX Mantis is one of the UNSC's most widely-adopted modern combat walkers. |
Mobile warfare, also known as "walker warfare" or—informally— "mech warfare", is the use of walking vehicles in modern warfare. While long considered a marginal and esoteric doctrine, the practice of employing walking vehicles (or "mechs") in armed conflict has seen a resurgence since the beginning of the 26th century and proliferation in the balkanized galaxy following the Human-Covenant War. While fundamentally similar to armoured warfare in its use of armored vehicles, the enhanced mobility of walkers and their stability on the varied and often difficult terrain of extrasolar worlds has resulted in altogether new approaches to warfighting. These changes have since necessitated military academics to consider mobile warfare its own discipline.
History[]
Emergence[]
- "The interfacing of this technology with a more advanced one, will bring us that much closer to the realization of a mechanical man."
- ―General Electric advertisement for the Walking Truck.[1]
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| Early walking vehicles found their first uses in primary sector private industry. |
The use of limbed vehicles in military combat was conceived of as early as the mid-twentieth century. Civilian corporations were first to attempt putting designs into practice, hoping to market the results to militaries of the time for massive profit, but even working results such as General Electric's hydraulic Walking Truck were so impractical the concept became regarded as an impossible, frivolous experiment. For decades, the idea remained popular only in the public consciousness as the subject of entertainment fiction, until advances in robotics in the early twenty-first century made the control and coordination of multiple limbs a more practical reality. Though examples such as Boston Dynamics' BigDog were tested in military and civilian law enforcement settings, their limitations and the proliferation of cheap, expendable UAVs would result in drone warfare dominating conflicts throughout the century.
Though largely ignored by military procurement officers, walking vehicles began to find uses in the private sector, including logging, mining, construction, and other heavy industry. Walking machine companies advertised the dexterity of their "walkers" as more maneuverable in tight spaces than traditional wheeled vehicles, capable of precise omnidirectional movement without the need to turn around while lifting heavy and potentially cumbersome loads. Though the articulated legs and arms of these vehicles were highly maintenance-intensive, their stability on uneven terrain made them ideal for export when Earth founded its first planetary colonies on Luna and especially Mars. Despite initial teething issues with Mars' sandy environment, dedicated Mars-based walking machine construction and repair firms established themselves early during colonization and cornered much of the planetary market for heavy machinery.
Interplanetary Wars[]
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| A Koslovic propaganda poster bearing the image of a John Deere P-4010 Power Loader. |
The dominance of such an isolated market placed the walkers of the twenty-second century perfectly for adoption during the Interplanetary Wars. When the Koslovic movement began inciting armed revolutions against Earth-sponsored corporate control starting in the late 2150s, they had to appropriate what military and civilian materiel was available. This extended famously to the John Deere P-4010 Power Loader, a design widespread in the mining outposts where Koslovic Neo-communism took root. Koslovic factions converted the walkers into NSTVs by arming them with whatever firearms could be welded to their frames and adding as much armor plating as the hydraulic legs could carry—which was considerable, given the P-500's intended role as a heavy industrial lifter. While their tactical effectiveness remained questionable at best, the ubiquity of the Koslovic P-500 led it to appear frequently in propaganda campaigns as a symbol of hardy native Martians repurposing everyday equipment for their cause.
Walkers would see their first combat trials during the Battle of Oenotria, when the Unified German Republic launched a military expedition to put down the Koslovic uprising which had seized control of their colony and its profitable magnesium exports. The UGR marine detachment approaching Oenotria's western outskirts encountered a number of armed P-500s roughly equivalent to a tank platoon, and engaged first with infantry, then the tanks they had shipped all the way from Earth. Though the UGR eventually won the engagement, the walkers were noted for performing extremely well in the lower gravity and difficult boulder field terrain. The walkers were able to resist infantry fire, including RPGs, and outmaneuver the tanks by moving laterally without turning away from their opponents. More importantly, footage of the battle was leaked to the public, and images of Koslovic walkers in battle proved a coup for their recruitment campaigns.
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| The HRUNTING Mark I prototypes would rely on wired external power supplies, severely limiting their usefulness. |
Despite a combat performance still considered lacking, the morale effect of their employment caused larger militaries to again take notice of walking machines. Research groups were funded, resulting in the advent of Project HRUNTING by 2166. Despite promising initial results, the prototypes underwent their first trials too late to be fielded, and treaties marking the war's end stipulated efforts at demilitarization after concerningly rampant arms stockpiling. As an experimental program with no practical results to show for itself, HRUNTING was one of the first programs on the chopping block. Its advancements in the use of walking machines for military application, however, were saved from obscurity by the Materials Group, which found a place for the eventual HRUNTING Mark I as a military logistics and weapon carrier, making it one of the first and longest-serving military walking vehicles.
Though listed as perpetually active under the Materials Group, HRUNTING's think tank would produce few real innovations in the following centuries. Though the Colonial Military Authority expressed some interest in the development of walking vehicles for use on planets with unusual gravitational and terrain properties, the HRUNTING Mark II battle armor proved too costly for practical deployment, and refinements to the Mark I continued for principally civilian use.
Insurrection[]
After some three hundred and fifty years as a think tank, generally regarded by the military research community as a dead-end posting in the T12A Weapons Research Facility on Algolis, the HRUNTING project would again play a significant role in the development of mobile warfare. In the late 2400s, concerns of growing colonial independence movements grew amongst the United Earth Government's military minds. Famously, Doctor Elias Carver produced an inflammatory, though insightful, thesis which predicted civil war between breakaway states if the colonies were not violently brought to heel. Preparing themselves for the anticipated wars ahead—and partly bringing them into reality through such action—all UNSC military branches began funding new programs to update their warfighting capabilities against anticipated foes. This extended to Project HRUNTING, as walking vehicles had been noted previously to excel in the difficult terrain of various colony worlds.
The research grants awarded to HRUNTING, and the engineering talent such grants attracted as the think tank expanded, led to the development of the Mark III exoskeleton prototype in 2510. Intended as a multipurpose warfighting platform, the Mark III promised to provide an individual pilot with an armored, atmosphere-sealed, and highly mobile means of delivering large-caliber ordnance to any position in the field. During initial trials, test pilot Lieutenant Commander Shūichi Ikeda proved the walker could outmaneuver the venerable M808 Scorpion tank in urban and dense forest environments, impressing key military procurement officers. Rival programs, however, also vied for continued research grants, including Acheron Security's effort to create automated combat drones. A joint test was proposed and agreed to, during which Ikeda piloted a Mark III against an entire squadron of Acheron's automated drones. Ikeda confirmed kills against all seven of its opponents, disabling the last by walking over the damaged drone and stomping it near-flat. The walker had symbolically and literally triumphed over the drone, and the UNSC Marine Corps signed purchase agreements for an initial consignments of the Mark III, with other organizations soon following.
- "The Mark III Peacekeeper's tactical summary makes it quite clear. Riot suppression and close-quarters combat speak for themselves, but what the hell does 'behind enemy lines' mean in a law enforcement context?"
- ―UEG Senator Reuven Hume questioning NMPD Commissioner Samuel Abioye during a hearing on police brutality.
HRUNTING's success would be short-lived, however. While excellent engineers, its project leads were exceptionally poor office politicians, which as far as rival project heads were concerned was the real battlefield. The T12A Facility team soon lost Doctor Bernard Dalathorn—a promising young engineering student who had made breakthroughs on HRUNTING's key haptic interface technology—to a more lucrative offer from Doctor Catherine Halsey to help lead her fledgling Project MJOLNIR. While MJOLNIR's intended final product was powered armor instead of a piloted vehicle, Dalathorn's expertise with haptic interfaces became a key feature of the program, leading to accusations of corporate espionage by HRUNTING's team which stalled as other problems arose. HRUNTING became caught up in the cutthroat competition for UNSC contract bidding, and when Peacekeeper-variant Mark III exoskeletons employed by the New Mombasa Police Department were used against colonial independence protestors—resulting in a score of fatalities—their rivals tore their team and resources apart.
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| After a redesign by the HRUNTING team, the Mark III (B) Cyclops would become the most widespread walking vehicle in UNSC use. |
Deprived of funding by those able to convince or blackmail procurement officers, and deprived of talent either stolen by rival projects, disgraced into resigning, or—allegedly—even assassinated after the disappearance of Doctor Nikifor Daalmans, HRUNTING looked ready to return to being a dead-end think tank. Returning to drawing boards in 2513, the remaining HRUNTING team attempted to retool their design for the demands of the time. The Mark III had seen marginal deployments in the opening hours of Operation: TREBUCHET on Eridanus II, during which the UNSC had learned to adjust its expectations. Instead of a shooting war between peer states, the Insurrection would be an asymmetrical war of guerilla fighting, and HRUNTING aimed to adjust its product to suit this new vision. Their end result was the Mark III (B), intended for engineering support, construction, and materiel transportation—work much the same as walking vehicles had done for centuries in the civilian sector, now merely armored for the same in a military setting.
The Marine Corps agreed to a limited purchase of the new B model—nicknaming it the Cyclops—for use in logistical roles, but were hesitant to commit to further contracts. The Office of Naval Intelligence had already abandoned early plans for wider military adoption of the Mark III (A), convinced by Catherine Halsey to redirect funding to MJOLNIR. Furious upon learning the scientist who'd stolen their talent and research was now siphoning their potential future contracts, a feud began between Halsey and HRUNTING's lead designer, Doctor Alek Granin. While relatively one-sided on Granin's part, their contention for grant funding and personnel would continue for the next decade. At last, the rivalry would come to a head in 2523, when Granin proposed a joint testing scenario like that against Acheron's drones years prior, in which the Mark III had shone. MJOLNIR leadership accepted without hesitation—which would have looked like a red flag to a wiser man than Granin.
- Dr. Alek Granin: "A battle for the ages! The hammer of Thor against the sword of Beowulf!"
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: "You missed your calling, Doctor. You obviously should have gone into promoting carnival side-shows."
- ―Remarks from the pre-testing reception hosted at Damascus Proving Grounds
At the Damascus Materials Testing Facility on Chi Ceti IV, the cross-test took place which would determine whether the future of UNSC research and development would be in powered armor or walking vehicles. The answer, as it happened, would be entirely one-sided. In test after test, the MJOLNIR prototype outcompeted the Cyclops with greater power, speed, and the agility walking vehicles had long clung to as their signature advantage. Although the initial MJOLNIR prototype was at that time tethered by cable to a local generator, it was noted the first HRUNTING experiments had started in the same place, and future revisions would eliminate this problem. Thoroughly humiliated, HRUNTING lost what remaining support and independence it had, and just over a decade later was folded into the Materials Group's umbrella Project YGGDRASIL as a subsidiary. By then, its patents on the Cyclops were taken away and sold to multiple engineering firms, including Lethbridge Industrial, Hannibal Weapons Systems, and Liang-Dortmund, who each produced variants on the design to market for their own profit.
For the time being, research into military walkers, combat or otherwise, was once again sidelined as HRUNTING's team was re-tasked with a project more closely resembling the powered armor which had humiliated them. This left the Cyclops as the only walking vehicle in humanity's arsenal when the next conflict arose.
Human-Covenant War[]
When humanity first came into contact with the alien collective known as the Covenant at Harvest, leading to the start of a 27-year-long war, the UNSC's sole walker design was perfectly placed to take part in the conflict. The Cyclops had already proven its effectiveness in rapid combat engineering tasks in variable environs thanks to the needs of UNSC armored vehicles to remain mobile while combating guerilla Insurrectionists. Their work assembling bridges and tearing down obstacles made them essential to the UNSC's warfare strategies in the Outer Colonies, which were the first hit by the Covenant's advance into human territory. Cyclopses became workhorses during the Harvest Campaign, assembling the modular UNSC firebases, then repairing and deconstructing the same structures as required for the constant shifting of territorial control. The orbital deployment each side remained capable of often brought second-line units into direct combat, and it was then the Cyclops began to see regular combat use.
Frequently called up as emergency support for firebase defenses, Cyclops pilots began to weld weapons of various types to their suits in anticipation of combat, or simply waded into firefights with nothing more than their hydraulic limbs. They would prove surprisingly effective in this role, with thick armor able to resist Covenant troops' plasma weaponry long enough to close to melee range and actuators powerful enough to physically tear enemy infantry and armor apart. Their resilience also allowed them to conduct repairs on other vehicles and base defenses without concern for enemy fire, keeping heavier Scorpions and M5 Talos turrets active in engagements longer. This capability was noted by UNSC officers, and records show Cyclopses even being assigned to active combat units by Sergeant John Forge of the 45th Marine Regiment.
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| Making do with available materiel, the Spirit of Fire would count on the Mark III [S] in frontline roles. |
Although some experts debate whether the Cyclops is considered a true walker and not a powered exoskeleton, others point to the Harvest Campaign as the time of the first walker-vs-walker engagement, when Cyclopses assigned to Firebase Whiskey engaged Covenant Locust light excavators attempting to demolish the base. After loosing salvos of jury-rigged rockets, the Cyclopses closed to close combat range and, while unsuccessful in their attack, were able to delay the Locusts long enough for a UNSC armor platoon to reach Firebase Whiskey and eliminate the attackers.
Unknown to the wider UNSC for several decades, the Cyclops and its design descendant, the Mark III (S), would play an integral role in the continued survival and combat effectiveness of the UNSC Spirit of Fire. After disappearing from Arcadia in 2531, the Spirit of Fire relied on Cyclopses to construct and maintain its complement of prefabricated firebases, and perform combat repairs on the carrier's power systems in the opening action of the Battle of Trove. During the vessel's twenty-eight years running dark with its crew in cryostasis, ship's AI Serina employed remote-controlled Cyclopses to conduct wider repairs and refits of the aging support ship. This also included refits to the Cyclopses themselves, using blueprints illicitly copied from Lethbridge Industrial data centers on Arcadia to update them to Mark III (S) Cyclopses. Fitted with integrated weapon systems, the Mark III (S) would serve in combat roles during the Second Battle of The Ark.
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| In the seat of his Command Cyclops, Major Travis Hannig would become one of the first renowned mobile warfare operators after his Cyclops platoon's famed last stand during the Battle of Briar. |
Lessons learned from the Harvest Campaign prompted renewed interest by UNSC procurement in walking vehicles, and many variants of the Cyclops were produced and marketed by the design's various inheritors. Training doctrines had to be drawn up for combat use of the walkers, for which the Shūichi Ikeda Walker School—persistently called "mech school," despite faculty protests—was founded at Brigadier General Juan Luis Lopez's prompting on Briar in 2538. Despite being active for just over a year, graduates of Walker School would serve in Cyclopses throughout the remainder of the Human-Covenant War, though their most famous action was during the Battle of Briar. Under Major Travis Hannig, up-gunned Cyclops lances would conduct heavy reconnaissance against Covenant invaders with legendary success, up until their mythologized last stand on Hannig's Ridge.
The repeated combat successes and high attrition rate of walker units brought attention to both the potential of walker warfare and the aging Cyclops design's obvious faults. Though it had survived numerous engagements, the engineering walker was simply not designed for combat, which resulted in the loss of many skilled pilots. Military research grants were approved for the development of new, combat-oriented walker models, and surviving documentation produced by the Shūichi Ikeda Walker School led to a consolidation of knowledge and Admiral Preston Cole coining the term mobile warfare in 2540. Later that same year, the Travis Hannig Mobile Warfare School was established on Arcturus, which would remain the UNSC's preeminent mobile warfare training center for most of the following century. Despite the protests of the early faculty, students at the school popularized the label of "mech warfare" which has since become the more prevalent term outside of academic circles.
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| The largest military walker yet seen in UNSC use, Hannibal Weapon Systems' Colossus uses hardpoints to equip itself for a variety of mission profiles. |
The new wave of military funding for specifically walking vehicles led to an explosion of development as military industrial partner companies seized on the free funding. Building on what had been learned from combat deployments of the Cyclops, the Materials Group once again devoted effort into HRUNTING under YGGDRASIL purview, which would lead to creation of the HRUNTING/YGGDRASIL Mark II (D) Geyrion. Though a solid proof of concept for how large a walking vehicle could be produced, the Geyrion's size and the limits of its limb actuators made its use limited outside of low-gravity environments. Further iterations would down-scale the design and eventually produce the Mark IX Armor Defense System, which became known in UNSC service as the Mantis after the prototype destroyed an entire battery of Covenant Type-27 Mantis anti-air guns in the famous "Cherbourg Run" during the Battle of Meridian. Though other walkers would be adopted by the UNSC, including the Skyfire Exosuit and HRUNTING/YGGDRASIL's own Mark II (J) "Colossus", the Cyclops would remain the most widespread walker model in military use for several years.
Post-Covenant Conflicts[]
Having narrowly avoided the destruction of its bureaucratic and military centers of power on Earth, the United Earth Government entered the post-war years in a precarious position, but in possession of a few distinct advantages. The former Covenant member species now lacked the governmental structures which had supported them for centuries, and floundered in conflicts both internal and external. The UEG, by contrast, had experience dealing with its own Insurrections and was far more capable of adaptation to new status quos. To the latter end, many reconstruction plans were put forth in the UEG senate and adopted to reevaluate and rebuild humanity's military capability, approving dramatic restructures to capitalize on the successful methods found during the Human-Covenant War. These included the radical addition of Spartan Branch to the UNSC armed services, the official launch of the wonder-weapon vessel UNSC Infinity, and renewed investment and industrial gearing for new military technologies, including walkers.
Some fifty mobile divisions were assembled in the wake of the Human-Covenant War, seeing subsequent reorganization into light or heavy mobile divisions within the first year as doctrine was established. Assigned to survey vessels tasked with reestablishing contact with distant colony worlds, the mobile divisions would excel in providing heavy reconnaissance and combat support on alien terrain in skirmishes against former Covenant species, many of whom turned to piracy to maintain their own commandeered splinter groups. Most mobile divisions, however, were forced to make due with updated Cyclops walker variants, as ONI—in a move sharply criticized years later—decided to retain exclusive fielding of the Mantis for themselves and a select mobile unit aboard the UNSC Infinity for some years. This handicapped the forces graduating from the Travis Hannig MWS and other mobile warfare schools established soon after, preventing the full potential forseen by leadership and theorists from being achieved. It did, however, force a response in the form of further Cyclops variant development for the specialized needs of different branches.
The withholding of the Mantis from mainline UNSC forces would come to an end after the Battle of Requiem in July, 2557, due to the inquiry into command decisions by Captain Andrew Del Rio which resulted in leaving the resurfaced MCPO John-117 behind. The full investigation touched on the Master Chief's use of a Cyclops to defend Infinity from the Didact's Cryptum. Subsequent hearings revealed the extent to which ONI had hoarded the Cyclops' technologies, and calls from Army, Marine Corps, and Navy command officers supported by Lord Terrence Hood resulted in several high-profile resignations from ONI. Thereafter, UNSC Heavy Mobile Divisions would start to receive Mantis units to field, vastly increasing combat capability. Public comment also forced the UNSC to share the Mantis design with several private-sector manufacturers and security organizations, resulting in new variations on the design.
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| SPARTAN Jerome-092 would make custom additions to the Command Mantis he operated during the Second Ark Conflict, nicknaming the vehicle Theseus. |
The following year, however, the UNSC would be near-entirely upended by the rebellion of its Artificial Intelligences. The Created seized control of everything from military vessels to public infrastructure, much of which had relied on AI control for decades if not centuries. Such a complete takeover also included the near-entirety of production pipelines for walking vehicles. The Created began employing all existing UNSC designs as a prominent part of their forces, whether controlled by automated remotes, Promethean constructs, or collaborating human or even non-human pilots. Escaping UNSC forces, meanwhile, retained some mobile warfare units, but the repair-intensive units became difficult to maintain without proper chains of supply. This led to two results: the more selective deployment patterns of walking vehicles, reserving the firepower they could bring for critical missions, and the custom of refitting the vehicles with whatever weapons, armor, or other technologies were available to deprived UNSC units.
In truth, the advent of custom combat walkers had already existed for much of the 26th century. Aside from continued Insurrectionist use of repurposed industrial walkers, Cyclopses fell into civilian hands either as battlefield salvage or military surplus. The walkers found employ as everything from private security infantry support to Outer Colonial law enforcement units. Notably, the rogue Kru'desh Legion would start to employ a full mobile warfare unit after the prolific success of Sergeant Ragna Aasen's Mark III [S] Cyclops Custom, in turn inspiring other factions to seek possible acquisitions and refits of walker vehicles. By the time of the Created's dissolution, mobile warfare had become a widespread and accepted component of modern warfighting in human culture across the galaxy.
Covenant Examples[]
The use and history of combat walkers by the Covenant has proven a difficult subject for UEG military theorists to study. Cohesive study of their rare deployments during the Human-Covenant War was difficult, with sparse data gathered during combat and sometimes lost as data centers housed on colony worlds were destroyed during the alien advancement into human territory. As with a tragically large sum of Covenant knowledge, records of conflicts since lost to living memory and entire libraries of battle doctrine were lost in the fall of High Charity during the Great Schism. Even in the war's aftermath, former member species of the dissolved collective have been reluctant to share military information. Not helping is the complex tangling of walking vehicle usage with Lekgolo colony tending, a subject which has been more closely compared to animal husbandry despite the evident sentience of more complex Lekgolo gestalts. Some theorists have suggested setting aside Lekgolo colonies entirely as a branch of war animals, but sbaolekgolo vehicles make up such a large portion of Covenant combat walkers that to exclude them would not create an accurate picture of their use.
Even before the Covenant's founding, records of the War of Beginnings show Sangheili employed walking vehicles known as rock-treaders for war and peacetime use. After the Writ of Union was signed with the San-Shyuum, vehicle designs were largely based on what could be reverse-engineered from discovered caches of Forerunner technology, as an extension of their reverence for and efforts to emulate their gods. This focus led anti-grav vehicles to dominate Covenant vehicle design, though walkers did find some rare roles in fringe designs by radical, non-conforming weapon workshops. Workshops which sought to prove their own capability and deviated from Covenant doctrine frequently aligned themselves with rebellious cults, with walkers taking up roles in insurrections which curiously mirror those present in UEG history.
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| Despite thick armor and an imposing size, the Scarabs' original purpose as excavators prove Covenant species repurposed industrial walkers for combat as readily as humanity. |
A sweeping reintroduction of walkers would come some time after the Taming of the Hunters. The brief war which resulted in the Lekgolo's assimilation came after realizing certain strains of the worm-like creatures fed only on the mineral deposits surrounding Forerunner artifacts, making them ideal for excavation. At some uncertain point, this led Covenant reliquary retrieval specialists to breed Lekgolo colonies large enough to operate the first excavators, a class of mining walker used for the same tasks. As would be witnessed during the Human-Covenant War, excavators were easily turned to combat purposes, and some theorize they had been used by the Covenant against other species in the past. The most widespread of these were the massive Class-Four Scarab excavators, which could burn through the heaviest UNSC fortifications and decimate ground forces with their focus cannons. Some Field Masters would come to prefer the excavators in combat roles, due to the psychological power of such giant vehicles as terror weapons.
Lekgolo gestalts aside, the Covenant were known to employ some walking vehicles in specialized roles. Smaller excavator classes such as the Locust shared both exhumation and combat duties with their larger cousins despite being fully mechanical. The Kraken Siege Tower was employed so rarely and to such devastating effect the UNSC was unable to confirm its existence, serving as a mobile hangar and command center for Banshee squadrons while scaling terrain impossible for smaller vehicles to surmount. The size of the massive tripoidal siege towers allowed them to entirely bypass and overrun UNSC defensive emplacements without concern for any obstructions its enemies were able to build. Their designation as Subjugators, however, supports anecdotal evidence many of these walkers were kept on Covenant-held worlds which had yet to fully comply with the hegemony, such as Doisac. Later, the Banished rebellion became such a pressing conflict that some were redirected to combat Atriox's rogue legions.
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| The massive scale of Covenant walkers like the Scarab and Shuul'se-pattern Kraken suggest they were often employed in keeping member species in line with Covenant theocratic tenets. |
Following the Great Schism, the loss of High Charity and disruption of the empire's supply networks made the resources for the mass production of excavators and other walker classes a near impossibility. As with many warship designs, excavators were hoarded by Covenant splinter factions as rare and valuable trophies, seldom deployed for fear of losing the irreplaceable status symbols, only to fall intact into the hands of rivals. The lack of such a longstanding component of Covenant battle theory further contributed to the decline of remnant factions compared to the UNSC resurgence, despite maintaining technological superiority. The largest factions, such as Jul 'Mdama's Storm Covenant, would take great pains to secure the resources needed to deploy Krakens, Harvesters, and other super-heavy walkers both for their tactical strengths and value as propaganda to inspire former Covenant members disillusioned by doubts in the hegemony's binding religion.
Deprived of the empire's resources, the Banished had already embraced walkers by the post-war period, depending on their mobility to stay ahead of Covenant punitive campaigns. The Jiralhanae-led raiders designed their own Scarab patterns and rebuilt captured Covenant rhulolekgolo colonies to their specifications. Banished models began with simple modification, adding Thrasher missile launchers for anti-air defense as the excavators were turned to dedicated combat service. Soon, however, Atriox's chief engineers would diversify the roles walker technology could fulfill, creating entirely new vehicles from the scrap battleplate and laminates of their enemies. These efforts resulted in the Reaver, a dedicated anti-air platform on a bipedal chassis with incorporated jump-jets, allowing it to reach the most inaccessible parts of any battlefield. The lekgolo Colony sworn to Atriox also brought forth the quadrapedal Skitterer, though given its lack of pilots outside the lekgolo gestalt within has led to much debate in military circles about whether to classify them as mobile weapons, infantry, or something else entirely.
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| Heavily armed and frighteningly durable, the Pnap-pattern Goblin has led to troubling conclusions about Unggoy production capabilities. |
Perhaps the most concerning development in post-Covenant mobile warfare has been the Unggoy Goblin. Created on their homeworld of Balaho, the Goblin is the result of innovation and initiative previously unheard of in the species during the Covenant's heyday. Equipped with energy shields, robust laminate armor, and a complete arsenal of anti-infantry and anti-vehicle weapons, the Unggoy's early foray into their own warfare technologies has deeply troubled the intelligence community over the species' long-repressed potential. These concerns have only deepened as isolated Unggoy populations, such as the rebel deacon Yapyap's rebellion on Installation 00, have proven capable of manufacturing and modifying the design themselves, resulting in models such as the Lanbt-pattern Spriggan. Unggoy collaboration with the Created's uplifting policies has yet to reveal what walker designs may appear on the battlefield next, but the re-coalescing UNSC military has already stated research into counter-contingencies are underway.
Doctrine[]
- "The whole month, our motor pool technicians bitched about having to clean the sand out of our joints. Dust is a real pain to get out of the artificial muscle bundles; can't use water, the grit just sticks in there. Have to use an air compressor. But when we blindsided a whole Wraith column coming up the side of that ridge they thought we couldn't scale, they were cheering our names."
- ―Captain Jack Hooper recalling the Battle of Mars.
The challenges inherent to combat walkers, both in development and practice, prevented their usage for centuries after their first conception. Their articulated limbs create more strain than wheels or tank treads, requiring more frequent maintenance and regular access to maintenance facilities. Thus, walkers have rarely been deployed outside of large-scale armies such as expeditionary forces, though the ingenuity of mechanics on resource-strapped Outer Colonies maintaining industrial walkers has shown almost any limitation can be overcome. Limbs are also far more vulnerable to attack than more compact configurations such as tanks using the equivalent armor. They are also more prone to tipping over, though walkers in UNSC service have always been required to display the ability to right themselves unaided—something tanks are incapable of. Fine motor control of a walker's limbs proved one of the more complex challenges for designers, with solutions overtime ranging from up-scaled translation of an operator's legs to dedicated onboard computer systems. Modern walkers, however, almost universally employ neural interfaces.
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| A Mantis hunkered hull-down behind a ridge for cover. |
A walker's principle advantage over other vehicle types is mobility. A walker can rotate within its own footprint, which can be smaller than the body of a wheeled vehicle or tank. Limbs can also step over obstacles shorter than their "hip" articulation, making them excellent for urban combat or dense woodlands, among other cluttered environments. Further, a walker can advance at full speed and immediately translate its motion into a lateral strafe without turning its body. This prevents the walker from exposing sides with less armor to an enemy for their exploitation. This agility also allows a walker to quickly turn and face opponents coming from unexpected directions, bringing to bear all firepower at their disposal. For these reasons, while most stock model walking vehicles distribute armor coverage evenly, many independent operators and even battlefield refits by military personnel prefer to reallocate as much protection as the limbs' carrying capacity allows to the forward sections of their walkers.
The increased height profile of walkers relative to other vehicles of their tonnage has been seen to have both advantages and disadvantages. A towering walker's size has an undeniable psychological impact on opponents, and can allow a walker to shoot down over obstacles and enemy cover a tank or jeep cannot. Detractors, however, have argued a taller vehicle only presents a larger target. Designers of the Mark IX Mantis responded to this critique by articulating the legs so the vehicle can "crouch," lowing its profile significantly at the cost of slower movement. This has made it especially easy for the Mantis to operate hull down behind any convenient barrier without the need to dig out a position as has been done with tanks in the past.
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| A Mantis using its powerful limb actuators to crush a Storm Covenant Ghost to pieces. |
As a weapon of last resort, the articulated limbs of a given walker can be used to engage opponents in close combat. The power of a walker's mechanical actuators can make this tactic very effective, inflicting mass physical trauma against infantry and targeting the armor of vehicles from unusual angles, or even prying armor free to expose components or operators beneath. As a means of defense, close combat can actually provide walkers with an edge over tanks in urban fighting, as opponents who manage to close in have a harder time contending with an agile walker than a wide-bodied tank in tight spaces. The manipulating "hands" of Cyclopses, initially meant for engineering tasks, allow their operators to grapple or bludgeon an enemy in emulation of hand-to-hand combat, while the powerful actuators of the Mantis have been used to drive their legs down hard on targets who close in too far with remarkable lethality. As research into alternate loadouts for both walkers continue, dedicated close-combat equipment including spiked maces and bladed weapons have remained in armament proposal pools.
See Also[]
Theorists and Practitioners[]
References & Trivia[]
- The name "mobile warfare" is a dual nod to both the Mobile Infantry of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, who operate powered armor suits as standard in the novel, and Yoshiyuki Tomino's anime series Mobile Suit Gundam, which popularized the mecha genre.