Well, as promised, this is the second installment of Rumbler Week, and here we see a Victor-class Autonomous Armored Vehicle, designed to supersede the venerable Echo Class.  More than twice the mass of the Echo-class, it is the largest and most ambitious military Rumbler design yet put into production, with firepower approaching that of an entire armored cavalry squadron.  In addition, it is the most recent attempt by the defense conglomerate Nordyne Defense Dynamics to re-establish control of the arms market in the UNA.

Nordyne originally produced the first Rumbler designs in the early 1980’s, the Alpha and Bravo classes (the Alpha-class was a testbed and never entered mass production).  However, the Rumbler type was quickly adopted by the O.V. Consortium, which used its broad access to the U.S. and Mexican computer and automotive industries to rapidly outpace its competitor, producing the Charlie, Echo and Foxtrot classes of Rumbler which were the standard designs used by the UNA militaries between about 1987 and 1995.  As the Echo and Foxtrot classes began to age, however, the Security Council issued a requirement for a new Rumbler design to replace both classes, and Nordyne saw an opportunity to retake the initiative in AAV design.  After a very contentious bidding process, Nordyne won the contract to provide twenty new Victor-class AAV’s to replace the Echo and Foxtrot vehicles then in service.

The Victor’s design is very clearly meant to show up the OVC classes, primarily by doubling the armament of those vehicles.  It also includes a new kind of protein-wetware computer system based on a self-replicating organic compound called “8-8 Mitochondric Ribotransistorase,” which supposedly increases memory density by mimicking amino acid structures.  So far, four of the planned class have been completed, two of which were assigned to Africa.

So far so good, folks!  More Rumblers tomorrow!