Hellhound

The Hellhound is a Battle Armor model designed by and for Clan Ashen Corsac. It is a flexible model capable of taking on a wide range of situations with its fixed loadout, though the early models suffered a number of significant reliability issues that took many years to properly iron out and it is often criticized for its lack of modular equipment mounts.

## Technical Information

### Armament

* 1x Flamer
* 1x Heavy Grenade Launcher
* 1x AP Sniper Rifle

### BV

392

When forming their Touman, Clan Ashen Corsac wanted Battle Armor to play an important part in their battle orders, but there were considerable issues in doing so. Firstly, no local production lines existed in their territory, so the only Battle Armor they could acquire was those they could purchase or take by force, often at price, and never quite in sufficient quantities to feed the needs of the Corsacs' rapid military build-up. Moreover, what suits they did get were intended for Elementals, and while regular could use them, it was awkward and sub-optimal. The Corsacs, with their eugenic program barely starting, only had a handful Elementals as Abtakhas, but there was a need for hundreds upon hundreds of Battle-Armor equipped infantry.

Therefore, the newly-formed Ravenstein Experimental Bureau, a design firm focused specifically on experimenting with new, untested, obscure, or otherwise unorthodox pieces of technology, was set to the task of creating a new suit of Battle Armor for the Corsacs in 3066. As a work base, they were provided with a handful complete suits of Elemental and Salamander Battle Armor, to experiment with and disassemble. The goals were ambitious, and the timetable was shaky. A Prototype version that wasn't fully complete would go on to enter serial production in 3071 due to the pressing needs of the Wars of Reaving and the more distant Jihad, resulting in a suit that was relatively unreliable. The usual redundancies were not yet in place and ironed out, causing more vulnerability to battle damage, and the life support only had half the standard run time (about 6 hours).

Despite these flaws, the Hellhound was an ambitious design indeed. Powered by a set of high-yield atomic batteries, it was designed with an adjustable internal structure and sensor network that allowed it to be actuated as easily by a regular human or Elemental, having effectively a whole 2 feet of internal leeway allowing wearers all the way from 5'5" to 7'5". The Suit was tall to accommodate the upper end of its range, but remained relatively light for its size, making use of foamed metals achieve low weight with a bulky, large stature that borrowed much from the Salamander's demonic appearance, which was built upon for maximum psychological warfare effect.

Compared to its predecessor, the HellHound can only jump 30m rather than 90. This was deemed acceptable, as it was more than enough to jump ontop of a mech or average building. In counterpart, it can sustain indefinitely a speed of 32.4 kilometers per hour, slightly faster than the average athlete's 100-meters sprint speed, allowing it to be very quick and agile for its size, and giving it a terrifying bull charge, especially when one consider all its limbs are equipped with massive magnetic battle claws similar to that of the Salamander. Once the various flaws were fully eliminated in 3081, the Hellhound became a truly solid Battle Armor choice for a variety of mission roles.

## Weapons and Equipment

The Hellhound is equipped with Flamer underneath its left arm's battle claw, which it can use to decimate massed infantry or fight larger battle armors, protomechs and light vehicles. Underneath the right arm's claw is a heavy grenade launcher, which can fire a broad range of ordnance. Thermobaric and High-Explosive Anti-Tank are common, but smoke, chemical and concussive grenades can also be used in less-lethal, supporting roles to capture enemy officers alive or as riot suppression. Finally, a sniper rifle is mounted on the left shoulder of the suit, allowing it to pick off high value unarmored targets from extreme range if need be. All of these weapons are slaved to a central tracking and targeting system that simultaneously overlays color and shape coded crosshairs on the HUD, with a high-magnification pop-up window for the sniper rifle.

With 240kg of fire-resistant 'BlazeStrider' armor, the Hellhound is slightly better armored than the Salamander, but less so than the Elemental, being enough to soak a direct hit by a Clan ER Medium Laser without being breached, or a Large Laser just barely. It is also equipped with an Improved Sensor module, helping it sniff out hidden targets in chaotic environments.

## Variants

* **HH-A**

The true production model was introduced in 3081, shortly after the end of the Jihad. While the Inner Sphere entered an age of peace and disarmament under the Republic of the Sphere, the Corsacs proceeded with the Restoration Wars, and never stopped their build-up. The -A version of the Hellhound solved its issues with general reliability, combat redundancy and life support, creating a much more capable product all-around even though nothing really changed with the loadout or base design. The biggest innovation of the Hellhound-A however is the inclusion of the 'Oracle' sensor suite. This refined and perfected miniaturized sensor suite was a jewel of the cooperation between Ravenstein engineers and Ladenberg scientists and rare refractory crystals, boasting the same range as a full-size, Mech-based Active Probe while being less than 1/10th the weight and size.

## Design Quirks

The HH-X prototype serie features the following Design Quirks:

* Distracting
* Prototype
* Poor Life Support

The HH-A serie features the following Design Quirks:

* Distracting
* Improved Sensors