Description / application in missions

It is a very successful vehicle in its class. Raptor is simple and reliable in operation it has good maneuverability and firepower. In combat, it is applied for supporting both infantry and mechanized assault elements. Raptor made an excellent showing during the whole period of the Empire wars.

The walking tankette gained its incredible popularity already during the First Wave of the Empire Intrusion. Having studied the effectiveness of the use of Bronekhods by the Protectorate troops, the Empire military also noted their weaknesses – in particular, their insufficient cross-country ability. For ensuring and supporting actions of infantry units, the Empire high command set a task: to develop and create a light and maneuverable fighting machine with high cross-country ability. To avoid the mistakes made by the Protectorate designers, the Empire engineers offered quite different concept for developing this armored machine. The traditional caterpillar platform was replaced by a walking mechanism. Thus there appeared the first prototype – the walking tankette for close combat and reconnaissance. The walking chassis for Raptor was taken from a standard dock loader and weapon complex was borrowed from Bronekhod. As a result there appeared an exceptionally maneuverable fighting machine possessing a unique cross-country ability. Raptor easily climbed ramps of production areas and stone slopes, freely moved among ruins and in the forest, passed over loose and boggy earth. It moved there, where Bronekhod got hopelessly stuck. Raptor’s control system was designed so that any infantryman could quickly master it. It was designed on the principle of recording pilot’s motions, amplifying them and transferring to the walking mechanism of the tankette. It was a large armor-suit by its nature that repeated the motions of its operator. In spite of all these advantages, Raptor didn’t provide its pilot with a whole armor protection and didn’t have a sufficient firepower. However its high mobility allowed applying Raptor as a light shock machine. Raptor’s armament was exactly the same as Bronekhod’s one, though sometimes the slots for the missile launchers made over for fastening machine-guns and fire-throwers. The Empire forces used these simple and reliable machines everywhere and even when a great number of new armored machines arrived in the regular troops, Raptor remained widely used.

The armament of the walking tankette Raptor:

-- Twin missile launcher “Hammer” for unguided missiles R-6. The Empire’s model of this weapon except for its name is absolutely the same as the Protectorate’s one. In contrast to complex and expensive self-guided missiles, the missiles R-6 have no guidance system. A gunner points them at a target like a cannon with the help of a telescopic sight. These missiles are widespread everywhere and produced both in the Protectorate and the Empire. The missiles R-6 and the launcher “Hammer” were developed by the Empire Directorate of Missile Weaponry. Before the Raid War, the missile launchers “Hammer” rather often replaced on Raptors with launchers for heavy missiles R-9 (the analogue of the Protectorate’s Mk11). But all raiders prefer cheap, widely spread unguided missiles.