UGV22 Lunchbox

==Summary==
The UGV22 Lunchbox is the latest model of unmanned ground vehicle used by the Capitalist Corporations. Several of these weapons were deployed by the Mother Lady's space elevator to support its ground base defenders from a Legitimacy Kingdom attack.
==Powers and Stats==
Tier: 
Name: UGV22 Lunchbox
Origin: Heavy Object
Age: Unknown
Users: Capitalist Corporations
Pilots: Unmanned, controlled remotely by a human operator
Classification: Unmanned ground vehicle
Powers and Abilities: Armed with a heavy machine gun and fully-auto grenade launcher, Self-Destruction
Attack Potency: Wall level (Fires 12.7mm anti-materiel bullets that will tear a human torso in half or rip off a human limb with a grazing hit and anti-personnel fragmentation grenades)
Speed: Superhuman (Can move as fast as a scooter)
Durability: Small Building level (Noted to have armor as tough as an armored truck's, capable of shrugging off barrages of anti-materiel bullets and grenades and it won't be destroyed by a missile fired at its frontal, side or top armor)
Range: 2000m for the heavy machine gun, higher for the grenade launcher
Stamina: Its batteries can last a week on standby mode
Weaknesses: If its surface is painted black in a hot environment it will eventually overheat
Feats
Heavy Object 18 Chapter 1 Part 4 (General description, weapons and toughness)
“The enemy must like packing things in tight to fit 20 of those in a single cargo tank. What are they, a Class Rep or a young housewife? Each one is 3m long, weighs 2 tons, and has 50cm-thick armor on the front. Their primary weapons are a heavy machinegun and a grenade launcher. They’ve made those small things as tough as an armored truck and they can charge right into a barrage since they’re unmanned. Do not let them near you because they will ignite their remaining ammo to self-destruct if they’re immobilized. I don’t want to waste our human primates on those masses of metal and silicon, so prepare for electronic warfare!!”
Armored trucks had thin armor compared to tanks, but they were still too much for an assault rifle or grenade to handle. These unmanned vehicles were apparently only 3m long, but since they did not need any space for anyone inside, they could be packed in tight to reduce the size of the entire weapon.
They might as well have had 3m hunks of metal coming for them.
Heavy Object 18 Chapter 1 Part 6 (Heavy machine gun)
Quenser and Heivia rolled into a crack in the dry ground while pursued by the roar of an automatically swiveling heavy machinegun that scattered 700 bullets a minute. And each of those bullets was the same size as the 12.7mm ones used in anti-materiel rifles. A graze to the thigh would be enough to tear off the leg like wringing a rag.
[…]
But as Quenser and Heivia were pushed back by them, the fear was much like being slowly crushed by the moving walls in some ancient ruins. They were already within range of the barrage. At this rate, the unmanned weapons would catch up to them on their continuous tracks, but carelessly sticking their heads up from the crack in the ground would only get their torso torn in two by anti-materiel bullets.
Heavy Object 18 Chapter 1 Part 6 (Lunchboxes are completely airtight and can resist EM waves and other common anti-machine tactics)
Quenser had tried to use an attack that was harmless to people but deadly to machines: heat, EM waves, dust, dirt, static, moisture, etc. Unmanned weapons were giant communication devices encased in thick armor. Just like with a phone or computer, machines had plenty of weaknesses unique to themselves.
Or so the theory goes. But…
“Damn, it didn’t work. They’re completely airtight, so no dust or moisture can get in. What kind of cooling system do they use? I didn’t see the wire mesh for a radiator. Do those bastards use stylish fully-enclosed liquid cooling!?”
Heavy Object 18 Chapter 1 Part 6 (Speed)
Quenser and Heivia were lucky the Lunchboxes’ weight prevented them from moving very fast. They traveled at about the speed of a scooter while suppressing the enemy with their machinegun and grenades. Instead of nimbly pursuing their target, they were likely meant to be placed at a particular point to prevent anyone from getting through. By generally surrounding a target with several of them, they could then slowly close in on the target.
Heavy Object 18 Chapter 1 Part 13 (Batteries)
“I believe those things’ batteries can last a week in standby mode.”
[…]
“They’re electric and it has to take a lot of power to move something so heavy. If we had them run a needless marathon to drain their batteries, they wouldn’t be able to shoot back anymore.”
“You want us to wait for their batteries to die while being chased by a machinegun that fires 700 shots a minute? Our bodies would be riddled with tens of thousands of bullets before that happened. It isn’t realistic.” Heivia breathed an exasperated sigh. “Besides, we got lucky and slipped through a gap in their circle. Just like some small fish left behind in a tide pool. If we do anything to stand out now, they’ll change their formation to include us. And once that tide pool is gone, we suffocate. The end.”
Heavy Object 18 Chapter 1 Part 13 (Toughness)
“First of all, they’re basically big hunks of armor. Firing a missile at them head on, from the sides, or even on the top won’t destroy them.”
Since unmanned weapons did not need space for anyone inside, they could add in more armor. That much Quenser had already known.
“It goes without saying that assault rifles and anti-materiel rifles are useless against them. You might be able to destroy the exposed lenses or sensors, but the act of shooting would also give away your position. Even if we were hiding behind cover, they could fire their fully-auto grenade launcher to fill the entire space with explosive flames. Explosives would be raining from the sky, so I wouldn’t call that an effective tactic.”
Heavy Object 18 Chapter 1 Part 14 (Cooling. The Lunchboxes have countermeasures if they are set on fire)
“Since the Lunchboxes are covered on all sides with solid armor, I was curious how they managed to cool their electronics. They clearly aren’t using air cooling and even liquid cooling would need to expose the metal pipes to the air to remove heat from the coolant. Y’know, like a car’s radiator or that elevator’s heat exhaust. But the Lunchboxes had nothing like that. So how do they do it?”
[…]
“Do they use the same method as modern smartphones and tablets?”
“Bingo. The metal exterior itself doubles as the cooling plate. By exposing that metal to the air, the heat inside can escape. That’s why those unmanned ground vehicles don’t have a wire mesh anywhere and why you can’t hear a vent fan turning. …So this should work. By coating them with a black substance, the sunlight will deliver the finishing blow. The cooling can’t keep up with the unexpected rate of heating. We don’t have to touch the weapons or the tracks when the overheating will shut down its computer. We just have to set things up so we could fry an egg on the hood, just like in an informercial for car wash soap.”
If they attacked with a flamethrower or napalm, the Lunchbox would quickly work to put out the fire. Either by rolling over to cover itself with sand or by triggering a nearby explosion to rob the fire of the oxygen it needed.
But they had not caused any major changes here.
Something had quietly ruptured below the Lunchbox where it lacked cameras and sensors, but it had been too small to call an explosion and the machine remained unharmed, only covered in a black powder. It might have felt a small tremor, but smaller than if its thick tracks crushed a rock and a piece struck it from below. It was unlikely that would trigger an error report or an emergency inspection.
[…]
“That depends on the material.” Quenser checked to make sure it had worked. “That thing is coated in sand, right? They’ve coated the metal armor with a gel to increase the cooling effect, so the powder will stick to it nicely. If that hadn’t worked, I was thinking of borrowing the starch you use for your white coat.”
Heavy Object 18 Chapter 1 Part 14 (Auto Grenade launcher)
The attack began with a horizontal burst from the heavy machinegun. Quenser and the others rolled to a lower point of the dry ground to avoid that, but then they heard several sounds like corks popping.
Grenades even larger than hand grenades were launched into the blue sky like a long throw in baseball.
Fourteen in all.
[…]
Heivia grabbed the skinny boy’s uniform and dragged him below the truck.
The grenades detonated not three seconds after landing.
The explosions and impacts from above caused the beat-up truck to bounce up and down several times. The suspension must have broken partway through because it ended up tilted at an unnatural angle. If Quenser had not quickly pulled his legs in, they would have been pinned below the truck.
The explosives were only designed for anti-personnel use.
The heavy machinegun was actually the more frightening weapon when they had a truck.
Heavy Object 18 Chapter 1 Part 6 & 15 (Lunchboxes have cameras, microphones and various sensors. They can be remotely controlled even in the middle of high power wide range jamming by using ultrasound and infrared)
The Capitalist Corporations’ Federation of Elevator Industries was jamming them using the microwave bases surrounding the ground base and the many military stations built up in space, so Quenser and Heivia could not communicate or use their datalink to tell their allies where they were.
[…]
Their cameras, microphones, and sensors were useless with the sandstorm scraping against them and the sand might also be blocking their transmissions. The Capitalist Corporations were probably using ultrasound or infrared transmissions to avoid their own jamming, but not even that was perfect. During the day, the desert sand would be hotter than a human body and it would be mixed with plenty of iron sand. The sandstorm might function even better than chaff or a flare.
Heavy Object 18 Chapter 1 Part 15 (Lunchboxes have both visual and radar targeting)
“This thing has to use a really powerful IR laser for targeting, so I aimed that at the Lunchbox’s camera lens. It’s the same as a rude spectator shining a laser pointer in a soccer player’s eyes. That trick works on machines too!!”
But it would not work every time.
If something that simple would have worked consistently, the Lunchboxes never would have been such a threat.
[…]
Some unnatural static burst from the buggy’s radio.
They were under the effects of some powerful jamming, but this was something else.
“Radar targeting? We can’t do anything about that!!”
Heavy Object 18 Chapter 1 Part 15 (Weapon Range)
But losing the physical machines did not necessarily mean they could escape firing range. The heavy machineguns that fired anti-materiel bullets thicker than someone’s thumb could blow away a soldier’s head from a range of 2000m. The grenades launched along parabolic arcs could reach even further than that.
Notable Attacks/Techniques
Self-destruction: If it's immobilized but still functional a Lunchbox that is approached by an enemy can ignite its remaining ammo and self-destruct as a last-ditch attack.
==Notable Matchups==
Victories:
Losses:
Inconclusive:
Category:Items
Category:Heavy Object
Category:Machines