2-handed sword

The two handed sword is .... well it's a two handed sword. Nothing particularly high tech about it - essentially it has the dynamics of a sharpened crowbar the size of a Volvo (though obviously without the inherent safety features). The two handed sword is very good for breaking things - and surveys consistently reveal 80% viewers like to see things breaking (the other 20% lacking the required attention span to answer the survey questions).

30mm Auto

The 30mm Autopistol used by Woo Fenrir is designed to mimic the dual automatic pistols that were prevalent in the films of John Woo. The weapon can fire roughly 120 30mm APHE (armor piercing high explosive) rounds per minute with a maximum effective range of about 200 to 300 meters. Most importantly it makes a loud noise and throws out a lot of muzzle flash. City Arena technologists are currently working on two modifications to the Woo / Woogun combination:

1. The ability to make a Fenrir jump.
2. A large object (such a a giant table) for the Fenrir to jump over while firing both weapons.

FENRIR (Fusion Engine Non-Robotic Raider)

Though it seems the orignial Fenrir design came from planetary environment exploration units from old Earth, in modern Neo Earth use Fenrir have been developed as military units.

And as military units they are awful.

Where can you start in describing how impractical these units are ? Lets try anyway:

1. They are horrifically complex: The Mean Time Between Failure ratio for these units is at least 45:1 (that is for each hour of actual operation 45 hours are spent in maintainance). During the war with the Ontarians USNA Fenrir pilots had the lowest casualty rates mostly because so few of them ever got anywhere near a battlefield.
2. They stick out like a sore thumb: Perhaps a more romantic term would be 'towering over the battlefield'. This is why Fenrir are good for diversonary attacks -- they draw attention to themselves while allowing the real armor to win the battle.
3. They are really, really expensive: So expensive most Neo Earth militaries just don't use them. Conventional armor is much cheaper, far more effective and doesn't send your country into an economic freefall. The only people who can really afford to run Fenrir (apart from the few USNA marine companies) are the large multimedia broadcasting networks.

This is not to say they don't have their advantages --- They are very impressive, very big and very exciting to watch. Though none of these advantages are relevant to the current military situation in Neo Earth, they do help to make great television.

In the end that's all that's really important.

Holo-projector

The Holo-Projector is a rather recent development of another failed military technology. A holo-projector is more than a hologram projection unit - it is a complex electronic countermeasures and deception unit that can both visually and electronically fool an enemies eyes and sensors.

They are also rather bulky, fragile and complex. Therefore, apart from specialist Psy-Ops units, have not been adopted by the military on a wide scale basis. To quote the Anglo military evaluation team leader Brigader Wells "The unit is perfect, I have only the highest praise for it. If only we were in the business of confusing people rather than just shooting them in the head".

Fortunatly for home viewers everywhere TV is in the business of fooling people and the holoprojector was adopted for use on the Sigourney Fenrir.

How does it work ? Mostly pure shock value -- Imagine trying to concentrate on the game at hand with the image of a big scary monster (with lots of random movement) staring you in the face ? Deep down you know it's not real, but it's hard not to flinch.

Same effect occurs if it was a 20 meter tall holographic image of a naked Ms or Mr Attractive Individual. It would be awful difficult to .... um ... concentrate on doing .....you know ... wow ... stuff.

Light Anti-Armour Guided Weapon (L.A.A.G.W)

The Light Anti-Armour Guided Weapon (L.A.A.G.W) is a weapon not too dissimilar to the anti tank guided weapons of old Earth (such as the Milan and Spigot ATGW's). Though being of various manufacture these weapons are generally laser guided and carry a moderate sized warhead (Enough to knock out most tanks).

Machine Gun

The machine guns used on Fenrir are .... well they're machine guns. Big machine guns, sure. Usually firing 12.7mm (.50cal) cased ammunition (if it's in the movies it's in the live broadcast) they can go through a few thousand rounds of ammuntion in a couple of minutes.

On Neo Earth the usage of the term machine gun has come to mean heavy machine gun (other light automatic weapons being classed as either Assault Rifles or Squad Automatic Weapons).

Ridiculously Overpowered Gun (R.O.G)

The ROG is a guaranteed, if overly messy, manstopper. It is also a good Fenrir stopper and building stopper (if buildings moved that is). The ROG fires a 100mm low pressure HESH-I (High Explosive Squash Head - Incendiary) round. The range of the weapon is short, due to the low pressure and oversized round - but then the ROG is purely a TV weapon - loud noise, big ball of flame explosion, bits of target flying everywhere - real life special effects.