HOME | DD

Description

RYJ-1K RYUJIN

The Ryujin was designed, and built in limited numbers, as House Kurita's answer to the Battlemaster being used so prevalently by their Davion and Steiner Foes.

By the end of the First Succession War, the Dragon was a known, and frankly, somewhat uninspiring, quantity. It was decided that they needed something grander to be the symbol of the Combine, and so the competition for the new DCMS Assault Mech, code named "Ryujin" (Dragon God) was launched. The final product would be a joint bid by LAW and Diplan. Based on a heavily reinforced version of the ubiquitous Dragon Chassis, the new Ryujin would be nearly 150% the mass, and a true Assault mech in every sense.

Deciding that one drawback to the Dragon, and to many of the Assault Mech's of their enemies, was over emphasis on speed. So the top speed was intentionally limited to the 54 kph average of so many heavily armed Assaults of the era. Likewise it was decided that it would need to be at least as well armored as a Battlemaster, so it was clad in 15.5 tons of Starshield Standard.

For armament, it again, looked to the Battlemaster, but went bigger. Where the Beemer carries one PPC in it's fist, the Ryujin would carry TWO Lord's Thunder PPCs, stacked in an over/under configuration. Like the Beemer, it would also carry four Medium Lasers, in this case, Angra 3Ls, one per side torso, two more in the left arm. Where the BLR carried a single SRM6 rack, the Ryujin would carry two Ayukawa "Slappers" , one each in it's lower side torsos, each fed by a 15 shot magazine. Replacing the MGs of the Battlemaster, is a "belly" mounted Flamer, giving the "Dragon God" it's "breath".

Keeping it cool are 22 Heat Sinks*, configured w/ two in each leg to allow maximum use of bodies of water for cooling, and 4 more in each side torso, being used as added armor around the SRM Magazines. And s is befitting a "TRUE" command machine, a Cockpit Command Console was dded, allowing the field commander to focus on the battle, while his "bodyguard" did the actual fighting (if so desired).

Testing went well, with only a few major hurdles to clear (the biggest being the same hip actuator issue that still plagues the Dragon to this day, requiring about twice as much maintenance as average). The other major issue is the intense heat from firing 2 PPCs so close together caused excessive heat in the lower arm package, severely reducing the service life of the myomers and lower arm actuator. An unexpected benefit was that the PPCs were demonstrably more accurate, and the double blast being so close together would often disrupt enemy electronics momentarily. There were also some issues reported with the cooling system, particularly the leg mounted heat sinks seemed to be easily damage if it kicked or was kicked. These were considered minor, overall, and expected to be ironed out over the first couple runs.

With LAW already at capacity building Dragons, the decision was made to build the new mech at the Diplan factory on Ozawa. The first of these machines came off the production line in 2847.... only for Diplan's Factories to be utterly destroyed less than a year later, ending production of the infamous Jenner and killing off the Ryujin, almost before it was born. With less than 30 built, and essentially no spare parts stockpiles, it was only a matter of time before the brutality of the 2nd Succession War wiped the design from memory. Of the 28 units known to have been built, one is in a Museum on Luthien, and 2 others are uncounted for. Yet another victim of the unbridled barbarism of the Succession Wars.

Variants: Production didn't last long enough for any official variants to be made. Plans were for a version without the Command Console, mounting 2 rear firing Medium Lasers, and two forward Small Lasers, but these never got off the drawing board. Due to lack of parts, many "unofficial" modifications were seen during their service lives, as any available part was pressed into service to keep them running.

QUIRKS: Non Standard Parts, Difficult to Maintain, Cooling System Flaw**, Stabilized Weapons (PPCs x2), Command Mech

*Which I forgot to place on the RS. Oops.

** With sufficient time, skill and money this flaw is reversible. It simply wasn't in production long enough to be fixed, though it's possible some of the units that were built, had been retrofitted during the Second Succession War.

Description

RYJ-1K RYUJIN

The Ryujin was designed, and built in limited numbers, as House Kurita's answer to the Battlemaster being used so prevalently by their Davion and Steiner Foes.

By the end of the First Succession War, the Dragon was a known, and frankly, somewhat uninspiring, quantity. It was decided that they needed something grander to be the symbol of the Combine, and so the competition for the new DCMS Assault Mech, code named "Ryujin" (Dragon God) was launched. The final product would be a joint bid by LAW and Diplan. Based on a heavily reinforced version of the ubiquitous Dragon Chassis, the new Ryujin would be nearly 150% the mass, and a true Assault mech in every sense.

Deciding that one drawback to the Dragon, and to many of the Assault Mech's of their enemies, was over emphasis on speed. So the top speed was intentionally limited to the 54 kph average of so many heavily armed Assaults of the era. Likewise it was decided that it would need to be at least as well armored as a Battlemaster, so it was clad in 15.5 tons of Starshield Standard.

For armament, it again, looked to the Battlemaster, but went bigger. Where the Beemer carries one PPC in it's fist, the Ryujin would carry TWO Lord's Thunder PPCs, stacked in an over/under configuration. Like the Beemer, it would also carry four Medium Lasers, in this case, Angra 3Ls, one per side torso, two more in the left arm. Where the BLR carried a single SRM6 rack, the Ryujin would carry two Ayukawa "Slappers" , one each in it's lower side torsos, each fed by a 15 shot magazine. Replacing the MGs of the Battlemaster, is a "belly" mounted Flamer, giving the "Dragon God" it's "breath".

Keeping it cool are 22 Heat Sinks*, configured w/ two in each leg to allow maximum use of bodies of water for cooling, and 4 more in each side torso, being used as added armor around the SRM Magazines. And s is befitting a "TRUE" command machine, a Cockpit Command Console was dded, allowing the field commander to focus on the battle, while his "bodyguard" did the actual fighting (if so desired).

Testing went well, with only a few major hurdles to clear (the biggest being the same hip actuator issue that still plagues the Dragon to this day, requiring about twice as much maintenance as average). The other major issue is the intense heat from firing 2 PPCs so close together caused excessive heat in the lower arm package, severely reducing the service life of the myomers and lower arm actuator. An unexpected benefit was that the PPCs were demonstrably more accurate, and the double blast being so close together would often disrupt enemy electronics momentarily. There were also some issues reported with the cooling system, particularly the leg mounted heat sinks seemed to be easily damage if it kicked or was kicked. These were considered minor, overall, and expected to be ironed out over the first couple runs.

With LAW already at capacity building Dragons, the decision was made to build the new mech at the Diplan factory on Ozawa. The first of these machines came off the production line in 2847.... only for Diplan's Factories to be utterly destroyed less than a year later, ending production of the infamous Jenner and killing off the Ryujin, almost before it was born. With less than 30 built, and essentially no spare parts stockpiles, it was only a matter of time before the brutality of the 2nd Succession War wiped the design from memory. Of the 28 units known to have been built, one is in a Museum on Luthien, and 2 others are uncounted for. Yet another victim of the unbridled barbarism of the Succession Wars.

Variants: Production didn't last long enough for any official variants to be made. Plans were for a version without the Command Console, mounting 2 rear firing Medium Lasers, and two forward Small Lasers, but these never got off the drawing board. Due to lack of parts, many "unofficial" modifications were seen during their service lives, as any available part was pressed into service to keep them running.

QUIRKS: Non Standard Parts, Difficult to Maintain, Cooling System Flaw**, Stabilized Weapons (PPCs x2), Command Mech

*Which I forgot to place on the RS. Oops.

** With sufficient time, skill and money this flaw is reversible. It simply wasn't in production long enough to be fixed, though it's possible some of the units that were built, had been retrofitted during the Second Succession War.