ROBOTECH Technical Files

by Pieter Thomassen, with Peter Walker, Chris Meadows and Robert Morgenstern

edited by Tim Wing

Attachments:

• H-90 reference file
• H-90 gallery

Designation: Mars Gallant H-90 Modular Energy Weapon System

• Year Introduced: 2030
• Designer: Mars Gallant Armament Corporation
• Acquiring Military: UEEF
• Capacity: 3 1.5kJ or 1 4.5kJ shots per energy capacitor, 8 capacitor magazine (in pistol mode); 48 90kJ shots per rifle-stock magazine (in rifle mode).
• Rate of Fire: semi-automatic
• Weight: 0.9kg Length: 28cm (w/o stock or barrel)
• Weight: 3.1kg    Length: 120cm (w/ stock and barrel)

Designed by the Mars Gallant Corporation on the Earth colony of Mars and introduced in 2030 by the United Earth Expeditionary Force (UEEF) as an all-purpose personal energy weapon, the Gallant is a versatile hand-held particle gun that has served with the UEEF since the time of the Opteran campaign.

In its pistol mode, the Gallant derives its energy from miniature reloadable capacitors, each of which is able to hold 4.5 kilojoules of energy—enough for three shots on an anti-personnel setting or one shot on the anti-armor setting. The extremely hot spent caps eject from the gun, and caps are fed from and stored in a removable 8-cap magazine under the forearm grip. As the pistol mode does not use protoculture, it is not visible on Invid protoculture sensors. As a safety precaution, the Gallant has a heavy trigger pull, and this leads to some muzzle climb in a single-handed pistol stance.

When a special stock with a modified flat protoculture energy cell inserted in the rear is added, the weapon becomes far more formidable. Capable of firing forty-eight 90 kilojoule shots, this weapon can pierce most light armors. The circular fixture of the rifle stock is a lighted dial that indicates what proportion of charge remains in the “flat-cell.” Unlike the FAL-2’s stock protoculture cell, these flat-cells can easily be recharged in the field by cutting open a standard cylindrical protoculture cell and transferring the seed containers to the flat-cell. One canister can be used to recharge ten flat-cells in this way. With the powered rifle stock in use, the weapon is easily detectable by Invid protoculture sensors.

In addition, a collimator-magnet barrel extension can be added to the weapon’s nozzle. This barrel dramatically extends the effective range of the weapon and increases penetration, but drains some power from the weapon, reducing on-target energies by twelve percent. The barrel can be used in both pistol and rifle modes.

The Gallant pistol is the UEEF’s first infantry weapon to contain an integral laser/1-5x optic sight that can interface with the Cyclone mecha’s targeting computer and head-up display. It also has a limited human interface through a small flip-up eyepiece just above the handgrip.

Development

By 2028, the UEEF had engaged in a number of campaigns against the Invid during the Sentinels Campaign, giving its troops and its weapons thorough battle trials. Although the results proved the effectiveness of both, some experiences that came out of protracted combat engagements suggested there was still room for improvement in the UEEF’s energy weapon design.

One fundamental problem was this: During lulls in protracted battles, it is considered good battlefield practice for a soldier to swap out partly-depleted magazines in his weapons for full magazines, thus ensuring he has a fully-loaded weapon at his disposal for his next engagement. With cartridge-fed weapons, such as the AR-25 Wolverine or M-36 Badger, the soldier might then (if in a secure enough position) be able to reload partly-spent or empty magazines with fresh rounds from his field kit, or at the least consolidate the contents of two or more partly-spent magazines into fewer full magazines. However, with energy weapons such as the SAL-9, it is not possible to reload a partly-spent magazine without connecting it to a generator for several minutes—meaning that in the heat of combat, a soldier could end up with several partly-spent magazines and no full ones.¹

Another issue was the lack of a feasible infantry energy rifle. The Wolverine and Badger were performing satisfactorily, but an intermediate design between those and heavier anti-mecha weapons was needed, especially for use with the Cyclone Veritech ride armor then in development. The FAL-2 showed promise, but the non-rechargeable protoculture cell that powered it was too costly to produce in the sort of bulk numbers necessary to supply the UEEF’s entire infantry.

With the benefit of additional battlefield experience, the UEEF issued an industry wide Request for Weapon Proposal (RWP) that would address these issues. Of the industry submissions, the one from the fledgling Mars Gallant Corporation on Mars showed the most promise, beating out submissions by several sources to include the Robotech Research Group at Tiresia. Thus began the Mars Gallant H-90 project. Once the H-90 was accepted into service, it went into production on Mars, at Space Station Equality and on Tirol.

Fundamentally, the Gallant and the SAL-3 share many common characteristics. The actual beam emitter hardware is the same, right down to having the same part numbers. From a distance, Owens and Gallant discharges appear exactly the same. The Gallant’s wedge-shaped design can be considered a natural refinement of the SAL-3’s staple-gun shape.

The first major difference between the Gallant and the SAL-3 is that the Gallant was designed as a semi-automatic weapon from the beginning. This decreased wear on the beam emitter, and would thus extend the gun’s working life. Studies had shown that soldiers tended to use the SAL-3 almost exclusively in semi-automatic fire mode anyway.

Another big difference comes in the relative power levels of the shots. The Gallant design team felt that the 2 kilojoule anti-personnel blast of his first gun could be adjusted downward with only a minimal decrease in effectiveness and lethality. By decreasing their potency to 1.5 kilojoules, they could squeeze more blasts out of the same amount of energy—as well as increase the potency of the anti-armor shot by an additional half-kilojoule to 4.5 kJ by setting it equal to three times an anti-personnel shot rather than two. Allowing for eight anti-armor or 24 anti-personnel shots per magazine, the Gallant thus has 33% more anti-personnel shots than the SAL-3 at a cost of only one fewer anti-armor shot.

The greatest and most controversial change in the Gallant was in the pistol’s charge system. Where the Owens used a monolithic capacitor that held all the gun’s charges in a single repository, the Gallant uses a reloadable magazine tray that contains eight disposable mini-capacitor pellets, each of which contains 4.5 kilojoules of energy. The capacitors are consumed in the process of extracting their energy, and are then ejected out a port near the gun’s muzzle. (Unlike larger capacitors, these mini-caps cannot be recharged and reused, due to heat damage from the charge-extraction process.)

Critics of this system considered it a regression, bringing with it the logistical issues of ammunition management that the UEEF had hoped to phase out. However, thanks to the Wolverines and Badgers, the UEEF already had the logistical mechanisms in place to handle top-down ammunition disbursement quickly and efficiently—arguably more so than the two-way process of collecting, recharging, and redistributing SAL-3 and SAL-9 magazines. Furthermore, the Gallant’s advanced ceramic mini-capacitors were very inexpensive and easy to manufacture, and enjoyed several other advantages over ordinary cartridges as well: They were much lighter in weight, so they could be carried in greater quantities by soldiers. They had a shelf-life measured in years, theoretically even decades, with no loss of charge or deterioration. They were also far less vulnerable to accidental discharge due to impact or fire—and if they were accidentally discharged, they would simply ground out or explode in place instead of sending a bullet in a random direction. Finally, they would render the Gallant pistol fully combat-reloadable, so that soldiers would no longer be left with the problem of half-discharged magazines.

But creating a better pistol was not the only goal before the Gallant design team. Considering the need for a compact energy rifle for the UEEF’s infantry, the Gallant would improve upon the FAL-2’s multi-magazine adaptability by creating a protoculture-powered rifle stock that could interface with the Gallant pistol to increase its effective blast power. The economic problem that had kept the FAL-2 from seeing wide adoption was solved by making it possible to reload the Gallant rifle stock’s protoculture cell in the field. The Gallant in its rifle configuration is capable of delivering up to 48 90kJ blasts in semi-automatic mode only; in consideration of the powerful nature of its anti-armor blast, burst fire was deemed unnecessary.

At the same time the Gallant was being developed, other divisions of the Robotech Research Group were in the process of perfecting the Cyclone Veritech ride armor. The specs for the Cyclone’s targeting computer had been made available to the Gallant team; thus, it was a simple matter to integrate a laser and optical sighting mechanism into the Gallant design that would interface with it. This would allow a Cyclone operator to fire the Gallant as effectively as one of the Cyclone’s onboard weapon systems. (Picatinny-mounted versions of this mechanism were later provided for use with the SAL-3, Wolverine, and Badger, though by this time the Gallant had been so exclusively adopted by Cyclone troops that there was rarely any need for their use.)

Deployment

When the Gallant prototype was completed in late 2029, the UEEF leadership was duly impressed and immediately ordered a full production run. At this time, the UEEF was preparing to send the Marcus Antonius’s relief fleet to Earth to help fight the Robotech Masters; judging their need to be the most pressing, the Gallant’s first production run was almost exclusively issued to troops in this fleet. This first production run is considered the most sought-after version of the Gallant, both for collector value and for usability due to the cost-cutting measures that followed.

Between the first and second production runs, the molding of the composite casing was changed, ostensibly to further ruggedize the gun while reducing manufacturing costs. However, this also had the effect of making the gun seem less sturdy; some officers complained that it felt like they were holding a toy instead of a real gun. However, exhaustive testing showed that this was strictly an ergonomic issue and the gun’s actual function and sturdiness were unimpeded; thus, the changes stayed and grumbling gradually ceased as the soldiers got used to them.

However, this was not the only expression of discontent associated with the Gallant, nor was it the loudest. Although infantry soldiers were by and large happy with this new weapon, seeing it as a worthy replacement for the Wolverine, officers who were accustomed to carrying the SAL-3 and SAL-9 were less sanguine. Some of them preferred the greater stopping power of the 2.0kJ shot as opposed to the Gallant’s 1.5kJ; others, such as Colonel Jonathan Wolff, were mecha pilots who preferred being able to charge up from their vehicles’ onboard power supply over being dependent on external ammunition. Many otherwise-undecided officers simply preferred the aesthetics of the SAL-3, to which they had become accustomed over the years.

Since the overall effectiveness of the pistol version of both guns was about the same, and they used many identical parts in their maintenance, the UEEF acceded to Wolff’s request that officers be allowed to choose either an SAL-3 or a Gallant pistol as their personal sidearm. Infantry soldiers, who were issued the Gallant rifle kit, were not given that choice. Over time, as new officers were commissioned and old ones retired or (as in Wolff’s case) were sent to Earth, the proportion of Owens-using officers decreased; by 2042, almost 90% of all UEEF commissioned officers chose to carry the Gallant.

Although it was never manufactured on Earth, the Gallant was one of the most commonly-used energy pistols by the anti-Invid Resistance, simply because it was so readily available. (The rifle mode of the Gallant was used less often, for fear of attracting the Invid.) Thousands of Gallants arrived with the early Pioneer returns to fight the Robotech Masters, and thousands more arrived with the doomed 10th and 21st Mars Division deployments. Every wrecked Horizon-T transport shuttle would yield enough guns and capacitor pellets to keep a number of Resistance cells well-supplied, and the Gallant did have the advantage over the Owens that it could be reloaded without needing electricity. Many of these weapons are still in civilian hands.

Footnotes

(1) The universal recharging kit supplied with SAL-3 and SAL-9 pistols did allow consolidating the contents of two partly-spent magazines into one; however, the procedure was considered too complex for ordinary battlefield use, and it did not solve the problem of recharging spent magazines—or of the FAL-2’s protoculture stock cell, which could not be replenished at all.

Robotech (R) is the property of Harmony Gold. Genesis Climber MOSPEADA (R) is the property of Fuji Television, Artmic Studio and Tatsunoko Production. This document is in no way intended to infringe upon their rights.

Original artwork by: Yoshitaka Amano, Shinji Aramaki and Hideki Kakinuma

Acknowledgement is extended to Peter Walker, Pieter Thomassen and Robert Morgenstern of the unofficial Robotech UEEFerence Guide. Peter Walker, Pieter Thomassen and Robert Morgenstern are given credit for all quotes and paraphrasing of the unofficial Robotech UEEFerence Guide that has been utilized in this publication. 

Images from – Art Book Genesis Climber MOSPEADA Complete Art Works (August 2009)

Content by Peter Walker and Pieter Thomassen, with Chris Meadows and Rob Morgenstern, edited by Tim Wing

Copyright © 2006, 1999 Robert Morgenstern, Pieter Thomassen, Peter Walker; 2016 Tim Wing

ROBOTECH Technical Files

by Pieter Thomassen, with Peter Walker, Chris Meadows and Robert Morgenstern

edited by Tim Wing

Attachments:

• FAL-2 reference file
• FAL-2 gallery

Designation: Robotech Research Group Tiresia FAL-2 Pulse Laser Rifle

• Year Introduced: 2027
• Designer: RRG – Tiresia
• Acquiring Military: UEEF
• Capacity: 25 2kJ shots per pistol energy magazine, 96 40kJ shots or 290 2kJ shots per rifle-stock magazine.
• Rate of Fire: selective fire – 200rpm or semi-automatic
• Weight: 2.7kg
• Length: 48cm

The FAL-2, like the SAL-9, was created in response to the need for the UEEF to develop laser weapons for its infantry. As with the SAL-9, one of the goals of the FAL project was to be able to penetrate charged-particle force fields that could stop an conventional small arms; another goal was to fire a much more powerful energy blast, on par with the Robotech Masters’ T’luaza, paving the way toward phasing out the AR-25 and its bulky ammunition, and reducing reliance on the RL-2 and RL-6 rocket launchers in the man-portable anti-mecha role. However, in developing the FAL-2, the Robotech Research Group ran up against a problem of capacity: the capacitor magazines they were capable of developing at that time were not able to hold a sufficient amount of power for more than a half-dozen shots at the desired power levels.

Fortunately, a solution was found. The UEEF had become increasingly adept at working with protoculture power cells, replacing the self-contained protoculture engines from first-generation Valkyries with miniaturized expendable protoculture cell systems for their new Veritech mecha. From there it was a simple matter to devise an even smaller protoculture fuel cell that would fit into an attachable rifle stock. Although this sacrificed the field-expedient recharge ability of the SAL-9, it meant the rifle could fire blasts that were ten times as powerful as the Owens’s anti-armor shot, making it a potent anti-personnel and even anti-mecha weapon.¹

Another noteworthy innovation was the use of a SAL-9 magazine connector to attach the rifle stock. Since the FAL-2 used a refinement of the same firing mechanism as the SAL-9, this meant a SAL-9 magazine could be attached instead of the rifle stock to enable the FAL-2 to fire with a wield similar to the SAL-9. As the FAL-2’s size and weight without the stock were similar to the SAL-9’s but with much better ergonomics, this also had the effect of rendering the SAL-9 all but obsolete. As with the SAL-9, the FAL-2 offers a substantially greater pinpoint accuracy than the wider-beam Gallant H-90; it is not unusual to see a FAL-2 equipped with a sniper scope for making longer range shots.

Early field tests showed that the FAL-2 was a capable infantry weapon, and a much more powerful beam weapon than the weapons that came before it. However, the custom protoculture cell was expensive to produce, and the lack of a field-expedient recharge procedure meant it would require additional logistical considerations in the field. Though the FAL-2 was seen side-by-side with the Wolverine in the field, the expense and logistical issues caused it never to be adopted by the UEEF in large numbers. Even with these drawbacks, it is still possible the FAL-2 could have been more widely produced and issued if its special anti-force-field properties had been needed; however, the UEEF never encountered any adversaries who used the type of force fields that would have made it necessary, and the Gallant H-90 proved to be a much more economical solution. A few FAL-2 carbines are still in limited use today, by Special Forces units who need the enhanced accuracy of a laser weapon.

Although it was never manufactured on Earth, a number of FAL-2 carbines found their way into the hands of the anti-Invid resistance from soldiers who returned with the Pioneer mission to fight the Robotech Masters, and from salvage from wrecked troop carriers of the 10th and 21st Mars Division deployments. Due to the rarity, non-rechargeability, and detectability by Invid of protoculture cell attachments, any FAL-2s wielded by the resistance are usually powered by SAL-9 magazines. The ruggedness, accuracy, rechargeability, and non-protoculture nature of the gun in SAL-9 mode made it a valued weapon to the freedom fighter who found it. Many of these weapons are still in civilian hands.

The FAL-2’s use of a specialized protoculture cell and interchangeable magazine types are considered to be in large part an inspiration for the later Gallant rifle.

Footnotes:

(1) Unlike the later Gallant H-90 rifle’s cell, the FAL-2 protoculture cell does not have an easy field-expedient recharge procedure; however, resourceful bio-maintenance engineers have been able to jury rig it.

Robotech (R) is the property of Harmony Gold. Genesis Climber MOSPEADA (R) is the property of Fuji Television, Artmic Studio and Tatsunoko Production. This document is in no way intended to infringe upon their rights.

Original artwork by: Yoshitaka Amano, Shinji Aramaki and Hideki Kakinuma

Acknowledgement is extended to Peter Walker, Pieter Thomassen and Robert Morgenstern of the unofficial Robotech Reference Guide. Peter Walker, Pieter Thomassen and Robert Morgenstern are given credit for all quotes and paraphrasing of the unofficial Robotech Reference Guide that has been utilized in this publication. 

Images from – Art Book Genesis Climber MOSPEADA Complete Art Works (August 2009)

Content by Peter Walker and Pieter Thomassen, with Chris Meadows and Rob Morgenstern, edited by Tim Wing

Copyright © 2006, 1999 Robert Morgenstern, Pieter Thomassen, Peter Walker; 2016 Tim Wing

ROBOTECH Technical Files

By Tim Wing, Pieter Thomassen, with Peter Walker, Chris Meadows and Robert Morgenstern

Attachment:

• RL-2 reference file
• RL-2 gallery

Designation: Bofors RL-2 95mm Anti-Mecha Recoilless Rifle

• Year Introduced: 2020
• Design and Manufacturer: Bofors Anti-Armour AB
• Acquiring Military: UEEF, UEDF
• Capacity: 1 rocket
• Weight: 7.3kg
• Length: 150 cm

As the Reconnaissance Expeditionary Force (REF) prepared to depart on its search for the Robotech Masters, one of its chief concerns was how to fight them when it found them. Veritech mecha were only part of the equation; the REF knew that it was very likely their infantry would face mecha in the field, and a feasible anti-mecha energy rifle design was still years away. Thus, the REF turned to the anti-armor expedient that had served mankind well for most of a century: shaped-charge high explosives. The RL-1 rocket launcher was a good starting point, but it had been designed as a counter to unarmored or lightly-armored Zentraedi soldiers; it lacked sufficient punch to penetrate even the relatively flimsy Reguld battlepods and the like, let alone heavier mecha.

What the REF needed was a heavier weapon that could penetrate the armor of larger Zentraedi and Tirolian mecha and, if not destroy the mecha outright, still kill the pilot inside. In response to this need, Bofors offered an update to their tried and true Carl Gustav recoilless rifle. The Carl Gustaf was an 84 mm man-portable reusable anti-tank recoilless rifle produced by Bofors Anti-Armour AB in Sweden. This weapons system was first introduced in 1948, and was still in widespread use by the individual armies of the Unified Forces well through the Malcontent Uprisings. After the consolidation of the Unified Forces under the Treaty of the Southern Cross (thus forming the United Earth Defense Forces – UEDF), the Carl Gustav continued on in service until the invasion of the Invid in 2031, and continued to be used throughout the occupation by resistance fighters.

The RL-2 took the Carl Gustav design, and simply enlarged it from 84mm to 95mm, and lengthened the barrel by 40 cm. With its heavier round and longer range, the RL-2 was capable of crippling all known Zentraedi mecha with a single shot. Because of the heavier concussion caused when firing the RL-2, both the REF and the UEDF mandated that the weapon only be fired by soldiers wearing hard body armor. This is not to say that the RL-2 couldn’t be fired by an unarmored soldier, but it was… painful.

Although the RL-2 was used often and to good effect during the early years of the REF’s campaigns, the REF only rarely encountered enemy mecha tough enough to require its powerful warhead over that of the RL-1’s. With the introduction of the Cyclone and its RL-6 interface, the RL-2 fell into disuse. Nonetheless, it remained part of the UEEF’s arsenal in throughout the Invid Occupation. The RL-2 was also adopted by the Southern Cross, who used it in addition to the older Carl Gustav. The RL-2 was occasionally used by the anti-Invid resistance after the invasion of Earth, but not as frequently as the RL-6. Today, the RL-2 is still in use with the Terran Union Marine Corps, Earth’s Federal Combined Planetary Forces and the planetary defense forces of most of Earth’s colonies. Because it, and the original Carl Gustav, are such simple designs that are only limited by the imaginations of munitions designers, they will both likely remain in service for the foreseeable future.

From its inception, the RL-2 was available with a variety of ammunition types. Though originally only the standard non-guided High Explosive (HE) and High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) rounds, by the late twenties an impressive number of conventional and guided rounds were available. Rounds with terminal guidance were of either the heat seeking variety, or laser guided. Heat seeking rounds could be fired from any RL-2 variant and would automatically lock onto the strongest heat source within a 30 degree field of fire. Laser guided rounds could be fired from any version of the RL-2, but required either an external laser designator to paint the target or the integrated laser designator from the RL-2A2 onwards. Improvements to the ammunition of the RL-2 has been continual.

UEDF RL-2 rounds, circa 2029. (For a full list of RL-2 ammunition, see 95mm Recoilless Rifle Round technical file entry.)

• RRR-M100 is an unguided HE round, useful in a “lobbed” trajectory to 1,600 m, which can be fused to either detonate on impact or as an airburst.
• RRR-M100B is an unguided HE round with an effective range against personnel in the open of 1,700 m. The round arms after 20 to 70 m of flight.
• RRR-M152 is a smoke round fired like the RRR100, with a range of about 2,000 m.
• RRR-M162 is an unguided HEDP round with the ability to be set to detonate on either impact or one-tenth of a second afterwards. Effective range is 1,600 m against dispersed soft targets such as infantry in the open, 800 m against stationary targets and 500 m against moving targets. Minimum range is 15 to 40 m to arm the warhead. Penetration exceeds 350 mm of rolled homogeneous armor (RHA).
• RRR-M154 is an illuminating star shell, fired up to 2,900 m maximum range, but with an effective envelope of 300 to 2,100 m. Suspended by parachute, the star shell burns for 30 seconds while producing 650,000 candela, providing a 400 to 500 m diameter area of illumination.
• RRR-M155 is the primary unguided HEAT round and is a rocket-assisted projectile (RAP). Effective range is up to 1,300 m (1,000 m against moving targets) and penetration up to 600 mm of RHA.
• RRR-M156P is a practice round with the same ballistics as the M100.
• RRR-M165 is a newer HEAT round using mid-flight rocket assistance for ranges up to 1,000m. In theory, it has less penetration than the M155, but it includes a stand-off probe for the fuse to improve performance against reactive armor.
• RRR-M175 is a tandem-warhead HEAT round with an effective range of 900 m and ability to penetrate more than 700 mm of armor.
• RRR-M176 CS (Confined Spaces) HEAT round that can be fired from within small enclosures.
• RRR-M216 is an IR guided HEDP round with the ability to be set to detonate on either impact or one-tenth of a second afterwards. Effective range is 1,600 m against all targets, moving or stationary. Minimum range is 15 to 40 m to arm the warhead. Penetration exceeds 350 mm of rolled homogeneous armor (RHA). Note that the IR seeker will lock onto the strongest heat source, enemy or otherwise.
• RRR-M220 is a laser guided HEAT round and is a rocket-assisted projectile (RAP). Effective range is up to 1,500 m against all targets, moving or stationary. Penetration up to 550 mm of RHA.
• RRR-M165 is an IR guided HEAT round using mid-flight rocket assistance for ranges up to 1,500 m. Penetration up to 550 mm of RHA.
• RRR-M232 is a laser guided tandem-warhead HEAT round with an effective range of 800 m and ability to penetrate more than 700 mm of armor.

Robotech (R) is the property of Harmony Gold. Genesis Climber MOSPEADA (R) is the property of Fuji Television, Artmic Studio and Tatsunoko Production. This document is in no way intended to infringe upon their rights.

Original artwork by: Yoshitaka Amano, Shinji Aramaki and Hideki Kakinuma

Acknowledgement is extended to Peter Walker, Pieter Thomassen and Robert Morgenstern of the unofficial Robotech Reference Guide. Peter Walker, Pieter Thomassen and Robert Morgenstern are given credit for all quotes and paraphrasing of the unofficial Robotech Reference Guide that has been utilized in this publication. 

Images from – Art Book Genesis Climber MOSPEADA Complete Art Works (August 2009), Robotech II: The RPG, The Sentinels (September 1988)

Content by Tim Wing, Peter Walker and Pieter Thomassen, with Chris Meadows and Rob Morgenstern

Copyright © 2006, 1999, 1997 Robert Morgenstern, Pieter Thomassen, Peter Walker; 2016 Tim Wing

ROBOTECH Technical Files

by Pieter Thomassen, with Peter Walker, Chris Meadows and Robert Morgenstern

edited by Tim Wing

Attachments:

• M-46 reference file
• M-46 gallery

Designation: Steyr M-46 Badger 10mm Caseless Submachine-gun

• Year Introduced: 2020
• Designer: Steyr Mannlicher
• Acquiring Military: UEEF, GMP
• Capacity: 30 round magazine (typical)
• Rate of Fire: selective fire – 650rpm or semi-automatic
• Weight: 2.5 kg
• Length: 51 cm (collapsed stock), 67cm (stock extended)

Although satisfied with the M-30 Hound machine pistol as both a sidearm and “mob gun,” the UEDF felt it best to hedge its bets until it was certain of how well the M-30 tested out in combat. To complement the M-30, the Reconnaissance Expeditionary Force (REF) chose a new submachine gun designed by Steyr Mannlicher.

Based on the proud lineage of machine pistols best exemplified by Israel’s Uzi, the M-46 Badger makes use, like its predecessor the MP-9, of the hot 10mm caseless ammunition, often with either a steel-core boat-tailed FMJ armor-piercing projectile, or a delayed-fuse high-explosive bullet. The Badger was designed with a special reinforced frame and bolt system, so that it could fire the higher-power anti-armor loadouts the REF required without damage to itself, as well as more conventional anti-personnel rounds.

The Badger was one of the main submachine guns of the REF through the 2020s, often seen side by side with the M-30 in squad issue, but was gradually phased out as the Hound proved itself in combat and the Gallant H-90 was introduced. However, it has remained an important part of the later UEEF’s arsenal for situations where energy weapons are not safe or feasible to use; its 9mm anti-armor/explosive rounds can pack comparable stopping power to the Wolverine carbine’s, though at a much shorter effective range.

The Badger was also adopted by the Global Military Police, though saw only limited use on Earth before it was phased out in favor of energy weapons.

Although a number of Badgers found their way to anti-Invid Resistance fighters, they were rarely used in direct action against the Invid due to the scarcity of the special anti-armor loads necessary to damage Invid armor and its inability to pose a threat to larger Invid mecha. Many of these weapons still remain in civilian hands.

Robotech (R) is the property of Harmony Gold. This document is in no way intended to infringe upon their rights.

Original artwork by: Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd.

Acknowledgement is extended to Peter Walker, Pieter Thomassen and Robert Morgenstern of the unofficial Robotech Reference Guide. Peter Walker, Pieter Thomassen and Robert Morgenstern are given credit for all quotes and paraphrasing of the unofficial Robotech Reference Guide that has been utilized in this publication. 

Images from – Robotech II: The RPG, The Sentinels (September 1988), Robotech II: The RPG, Robotech Expeditionary Force Field Guide (March 1989)

Content by Peter Walker and Pieter Thomassen, with Chris Meadows and Rob Morgenstern, edited by Tim Wing

Copyright © 2006, 1999, 1997, 1995 Robert Morgenstern, Pieter Thomassen, Peter Walker; 2016 Tim Wing