Ikazuchi Airborne strike mech

The Type-37 Ikazuchi airborne strike Mech is the most common mech in service of the Imperial Japanese Army. Since it was put into production in 2182, more than half a million of these second generation mechs have marched off of imperial assembly lines. These mechs not only see widespread service to the Chrysanthemum Throne, but are also a popular export item, several other states, including the Tsardom of Romanova, the Free Nizamate of New Hindustan, the Republic of Zion and the Turkish Republic.

The Ikazuchi is fairly small, standing only eight meters tall and weighing about 16 tonnes. Its armor is rated against small arms and can offer some protection against heavy machine gun fire, but the Ikazuchi is still comparatively fragile. Its main advantage is flight. Using a powerful jet engine, countergravity systems and two manuvering wings an Ikazuchi mech can fly at speeds of up to 500 km per hour. Should the flight modual be damaged, it can be ejected. If it is jetisoned in flight, the countergravity systems and foot based thrusters generally allow the mech to safely land. Like all Japanese mechs, it is operated through a bio-feedback system. Somewhat unusually, more than 75% of the Imperial Pilots that rated to operate these war machines are women.

The standard armament of the Ikazuchi is a Type-7 beam rifle. This weapon draws power through a connection in the right hand and can be set to various power settings to either maintain a continious beam of energy or fire a single short intense burst which can be a threat to even even some medium tanks if fired at their side armor. It also has little recoil, but takes some time between shots due to cooldown. They are also equiped with six wing mounted missiles, either for anti-air or anti-vehicle work, a bayonet and a 6.5mm machine gun in the left arm as a back up weapon. This is hardly universal. Customization is often the case and non standard loadouts and unusal modifications are fairly common, especially among specialist units.

The Ikazuchi stands as the Vanguard of any planetary offensive the Empire launches. Whole divisions of these mechs are generally deployed at the first wave of planetfall, scouting out and clearing landing zones, forcing enemy columns to spread out, harasment and manuver warfare. They are also useful in urban combat, making use of their VTOL and ground combat capacity to quickly move to engage trouble spots. In the Japanese Empire's war with the European Alliance, the Ikazuchi has proven quite sucessful in its intended role. This has prompted interest by the European Alliance's high command and has begun various programs to make counters for the Ikazuchi.