FCA Mechanised Chassis Batallions
"It wasn't long after the battle at Artemis and its debut of Vaduz's new mechs that the FCA decided to play the same game and make contact with a Corpro-State to even the technological-edge a few centuries. IPS-Northstar were the first to respond, made some trade-deals in exchange for licenses to manufacture a few of their product-lines, and before local Union forces knew what was happening, FUC factories stopped pumping out older 'tank-walkers' and started filling patrol-routes with Drakes, Raleighs and an assortment of other modern mech-designs. Sure as sugar made Vaduz more cautious in their engagement-planning, I'll say that much."
"Don't let the shiny new frames make you think the FUC have learned their lesson. They're still so overdesigned and underbudgeted that a jockey has to be a jack of all trades just to pilot the damn things. Doesn't mean they're bad, mind you, quite the opposite: For all the pain their maintenence causes, they're built so tough and fitted with so many redundant systems that you just can't put them down for good. We've all seen the vid of the chassis put at ground-zero of a kinetic strike, only to bisect the first Vaduzian suit to come and investigate. Pilots hate them and they hate the pilots, but they work well enough that the FCA isn't gonna change praxis..."
Composition
Manpower
Each Batallion posesses 58 tanks, with a total of 58 pilots, along with 160 support-staff and supplemental/secondary-pilots.
Equipment
FCA mech-equipment, both personal and vehicular, prizes ease of manufacturing and maintenence above all else: the majority of hardware have had substantial cutbacks to advanced systems and rebuild to accomodate standardised parts and mounting points. While this makes FCA mech-systems by no means extraordinary, they posess a near-unrivaled advantage in logistics and component redundancies.
Weaponry
The majority of weapons are ballistic firearns and autocannons chambered in heavy cased cartridges, along with occasional direct-energy weaponry on specialised units. Melee weapons have a tendancy to be bulky, mechanised cutting-tools and blunt hammers made to pierce and overwhelm enemy armor.
Vehicles
Despite heavy adoption of Harrison Armory licensed systems and heavy refurbishing/replacement of current designs, the average FCA mechanises chassis is, as it always has been, an updated variation of the decades-old 'Umibozu' bipedal firing-platform design, with older models having a corpus resembling a tank/artillery turret on a pair of heavy legs than the more anthroform designs of contemporary union mechs. Modern chassis still share a large degree of parts compatibility with prior models, and follow the same design principals of slow, heavily armored gun-batteries.
Structure
FCA Chassis fight in units of nine individual mechs, divided into two fireteams and an independant command-mech piloted by a Senior-Commander. Said Commander reports directly to a Batallion-Major, who directly oversees tactics from his own command-vehicle.
Tactics
Unlike the ersatz-infantry focus of Vaduzian VEPs, Falian military forces treat their mechs much like bipedal tanks, fielding large squadrons in coordination with mechanised infantry to produce a semi-mobile wall of sloped armor and heavy gunfire, while using two-person 'command-chassis' as mobile virutal command-stations. Though individual pilots ('Jockeys' in local vernacular) are expected to be self-sufficient in caring for their mech, droves of support-staff and engineering units are often kept in close proximity of mech units to minimize repair/maintenence downtime.
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