Description / application in missions

It is a highly effective fighting machine, in which modern weapons are well combined with maneuverability. It is considered the Empire response to a very successful Protectorate T-Rex. While being inferior to T-Rex in armor and the number of weapons, Locust benefits by using its high-accuracy sighting system, with which it has no equal in ranged combat at medium and long distances.

At the very end of the war, the Empire Armed Forces received two fighting machines designed on the basis of a new monoblock UM-2 – Helix and Spider. Wishing to develop this family of fighting machines further, the military placed an order for a standard walking tank of the ordinary class. The usage of the same monoblock gave a serious economy in the material procurement and repair of the Empire armored units. The military decided that the new walking tank would be a useful addition to Spider, which, with all its cross-country ability and stability, sometimes had not enough speed. The new machine together with Spider and Helix should make the base of new armored units of the Empire. The pilots liked Locust very much – easy to control and service it was strongly armored and well armed. In the last battles of the Third Wave, the Empire lost its most trained pilots, so it had to replace them with cadets of military schools turned out after accelerated training. Designers took into account such novices and equipped Locust with a brand-new guidance system, which allowed even a beginning gunner to hit targets just as an experienced veteran. Locust’s control system was also simplified. On the whole, Locust was a good ordinary walking machine – powerful, well armed and simple. The Empire military appreciated the machine at its true value and ordered a big consignment at the very end of the war.

The armament of the ordinary walking tank Locust:

-- Two heavy armor-piercing cannons of 76 mm caliber ATC-76, developed by the Empire Main Artillery Bureau.