ROBOTECH: Zentraedi Mecha - Nousjaedul-Ger Personal Body Suit

by Peter Walker and Pieter Thomassen, with Robert Morgenstern


Designation: Personal Body Suit (Nousjaedul-Ger)

I. Dimensions:

Length : 8.4 m
Width : 11.8 m
Height : 15.5 m
Weight : 15 metric ton

II. Type:

One man fast cavalry mecha.

III. Propulsion:

Engines: three plasma-shock expansion thrusters in the back, output 90 kN.
Fuel: multiple protoculture canisters

IV. Performance:

Speed : 750 kph (flying)
65 kph (running)
Ceiling : 13000 m
Combat radius : total delta-v 2.7 kps
Protoculture supply: average operational life 30 days continuous use for standard battlepods, sliding down to 15 days continuous use for the TPA.

V. Sensory Systems:

Short range (35 km) conventional radar system
Thermo-imager
Night vision optics
Telescopic optics (x10 magnification)
Laser tracker/designator
Low power broadband sensor jammer.

VI. Armament:

Cannons:

1 x 1 PB-10 : a Gatling type weapon with four barrels that rotate in one housing. Each barrel fires 2.5 MJ of particle energy, if necessary once every second. All barrels can be fired in parallel, for maximum localized damage, or in series for increased hitting chances.
1 x 1 IC-H (40 rounds) : Impact Cannon, Heavy. As the light impact cannon, but fires one 79.2 mm diameter shell rather than a stream of small shells. Firing rate 120 shots/minute.
1 x 1 PL-3HH : a hand-held pistol version of the PL-3. This weapon is mainly seen in the hands of the PBS, though is sometimes seen being held by Zentraedi unmechanized infantry. Internal power supply allows five hundred rounds.

Missiles:

none

VII. Armor:

Armor will stop all grenade/shell/mortar fragments, energy beams and solids originating in hand-held weaponry. Poor resistance against weaponry as mounted on combat mecha, but still much better than that of the Officer Pod armor. Full nuclear, biological and chemical warfare protections.

VIII. Development:

The Cavalry arm of the Zentraedi armada was armed with a specially designed suit called the PBS, or Nousjadeul-ger. Compared to the Battlepods, it traded in (sustained) firepower to aerial capabilities. The suit could fly at speeds up to 750 kph, and as such engage in aerial combat, but this was not its forte. Its weaponry suit was designed for prolonged ground combat, as the suit was meant to do most of its fighting there. Also, the PBS was the smallest of the Zentraedi mecha, so as to be able to make maximum use of terrain as cover, and to be as small a target as possible in general. The heavy power requirements made by the suit implied that the PB armament had to be halved to one PB-10, mounted on the shoulder. This cannon was augmented by an IC-H in the chest and a hand-held weapon pod. The projectile weapon in the chest did not require significant amounts of power, but of course, it was less suited to sustained combat as it had an restricted ammunition supply. However, given the traditional Cavalry role of hit-and-run raids, where this mecha was best suited for, this was acceptable.

Some reports indicate that a new model of this mecha was produced in limited numbers beginning in the 1990's. The mecha sported a stronger but lighter frame, a vernier thruster in the groin, more strongly sloped armor for better protection, and a general improvement in power transfer to the beam weapons systems, which could fire around twelve percent more rapidly. It is, however, estimated that no more than ten or twenty thousand of the Nousjaedul-ger mark II were built before the collapse of the Zentraedi war machine.

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