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Description
An experimental design from the Capellan Confederation from just before the CCAF invaded the Federated Suns in the late 3130s, The UM-D6 "Panlong" takes existing r60 or r63 Urbanmech chassis and extensively refits them for underwater use. While initially mean for defense of underwater facilities within the Confederation, in short order during the Invasion, they were also being used by Liao's dread Death Commandos for various SpecOp missions on oceanic worlds.

The Urbanmech was chosen as a basis for 3 reasons. 1) The cylindrical body was already well suited for dealing with crush pressure, 2) Underwater, very little moves fast, so it's low speed was not considered major issue, and 3) The CCAF had a metric crap ton on hand to experiment with, and if a few dozen were destroyed in testing? No big.

The first major change was the switch to UMUs in place of the original Jump Jets. In each arm, it mounts a LRT10 rack enhanced with Artemis FCS. In the left torso, an ER Medium Laser is added, both as another offensive weapon, but also as a cutting implement. Defensively, the mech carries 5.5 tons of Heavy Ferro Armor, giving it theoretical maximum armor for it's class.

One notable issue is the lack of CASE, leaving the design very vulnerable to ammo explosions, which inevitably lead to catastrophic flooding and or crush events. One counter to this is a Full Head Ejection system, with ballast and flotation devices. A secondary measure was to move the ammo to the arms, in the hope that a blow out there would be less likely to compromise the integrity of the main hull. Neither proved a satisfactory answer.

The Strategios eventually debated the tradeoffs of removing the Artemis FCS units, and adding CASE II in it's place. Being that the entire arm assemblies are new units, this actually allows them to not have to make the modifications in the factory, but can be done on units in the field by simply swapping assemblies. By 3150, 60% of the Panlongs had been updated with the new arm units. Some pilots have refused the upgrade because they prefer the better accuracy and patterning with the FCS, and feel that the non frontline nature of the design limits the need for the extra protection.

Description
An experimental design from the Capellan Confederation from just before the CCAF invaded the Federated Suns in the late 3130s, The UM-D6 "Panlong" takes existing r60 or r63 Urbanmech chassis and extensively refits them for underwater use. While initially mean for defense of underwater facilities within the Confederation, in short order during the Invasion, they were also being used by Liao's dread Death Commandos for various SpecOp missions on oceanic worlds.

The Urbanmech was chosen as a basis for 3 reasons. 1) The cylindrical body was already well suited for dealing with crush pressure, 2) Underwater, very little moves fast, so it's low speed was not considered major issue, and 3) The CCAF had a metric crap ton on hand to experiment with, and if a few dozen were destroyed in testing? No big.

The first major change was the switch to UMUs in place of the original Jump Jets. In each arm, it mounts a LRT10 rack enhanced with Artemis FCS. In the left torso, an ER Medium Laser is added, both as another offensive weapon, but also as a cutting implement. Defensively, the mech carries 5.5 tons of Heavy Ferro Armor, giving it theoretical maximum armor for it's class.

One notable issue is the lack of CASE, leaving the design very vulnerable to ammo explosions, which inevitably lead to catastrophic flooding and or crush events. One counter to this is a Full Head Ejection system, with ballast and flotation devices. A secondary measure was to move the ammo to the arms, in the hope that a blow out there would be less likely to compromise the integrity of the main hull. Neither proved a satisfactory answer.

The Strategios eventually debated the tradeoffs of removing the Artemis FCS units, and adding CASE II in it's place. Being that the entire arm assemblies are new units, this actually allows them to not have to make the modifications in the factory, but can be done on units in the field by simply swapping assemblies. By 3150, 60% of the Panlongs had been updated with the new arm units. Some pilots have refused the upgrade because they prefer the better accuracy and patterning with the FCS, and feel that the non frontline nature of the design limits the need for the extra protection.