Initially built as a cavalry tank, the Jenite’s design still emphasizes mobility and hard hitting firepower. Designed with the same antigravity technology common throughout deWulf space, the Jenite mounts an extensive array of emitters shielded behind armored plate. Instead of landing legs, it instead makes use of a pair of low-tech landing skids to support it while stationary, and unlike virtually every other armored unit in service with any armed forces, it completely omits fitting any anti-infantry weapons.
These decisions are not without drawbacks. Physical shielding reduces the effect of antigravity emitters, meaning that a substantial amount of the Jenite’s underside is taken up by emitter arrays in order to support its high speed. Landing skids means that more time and effort must be expended ensuring that firing positions and parking areas are level, and the lack of even a token anti-infantry weapon ensures that the Jenite requires support in close encounters.
In most circumstances, these issues would not have allowed the Jenite to enter service, nevermind remain in service for over thirty years. But the Jenite has one countervailing benefit: the Phalrica mass driver. Originally derived from larger naval variants (the predecessors to the current Vulturo and Cabrera models), the Phalrica brings c-fractional firepower planetside.
Upon closer inspection, several of those drawbacks become clear tradeoffs in order to fit the Phalrica as the tank’s main weapon. Unlike its larger in-space cousins, the Jenite has to deal with considerable recoil, which necessitates the installation of an “overpowered” antigrav array. Even at full power the antigrav array cannot always compensate for the hellacious recoil that the Phalrica generates, which explains why the designers went with armored landing skids instead of more common legs. Finally, the sheer power draw needed for both the Phalrica and the antigrav array meant there was little space or power for an an anti-infantry weapon.
While deWulf ground units have been the subject of some writing, the Ibizan ground forces got at best a passing mention. Still, when I was doing some art of various deWulf units I also played a bit with what some other races had for their primary ground armor units. While not as deep or extensive as the deWulf designs, it did help set up a bit more of a feel for the various races and what to expect from other bits of technology in their polities.
Dollarton Proxima Shipyards 