Star League Monthly Mech Design Contest ******************************************************************************** .. |fa-mech| raw:: html The Star League Discord server runs a monthly mech design contest. Here are my submissions. July 2026 - Irrwicht IRW-1T -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Federated Suns Ministry of Information, Intelligence, and Operations (MIIO) found themselves operating under strong resource constraints following reclaiming of New Avalon and the Dragon's Tongue during Operation SOLAR FLARE. MIIO created task forces to investigate low cost approaches to deter aggression from the Federated Sun's historical enemies. The Covert Operations Division proposed designing an inexpensive BattleMech which could be supplied to rebels in neighboring realms to help destabilize their traditional rivals. The design team started with a 55 ton chassis, allowing the Irrwicht to share common components with many prolific designs, such as the Griffin, Shadow Hawk, and Wolverine BattleMechs. From there, the team focused on designing a platform for pilots with minimal military training but reasonable experience piloting agricultural or industrial 'Mechs. The resulting design proved highly popular in the Periphery, especially when paired with units with longer range capabilities, such as the Merlin. The initial production run used components from as many different manufacturers to demonstrate the ease of maintenance for this platform, with no two units in this production run containing identically matching components. The MIIO intended to use a shell company to collect licensing fees for the design to fund covert operations; however, the simplicity of the design proved easy to replicate and soon several Periphery manufacturers were creating unlicensed replicas. In its first deployment, the base design, the Irrwicht IRW-1T, proved successful in border raids against the Raven Alliance from pirate forces operating out of the Outworlds Wastes. The Draconis Combine also encountered the design during in border raids in short order. Unfortunately, the rugged design rapidly proliferated, and the Federated Suns soon found themselves fighting their own design, much to the disappointment of MIIO. As these raiders captured 'Mechs equipped with clan technology, the various medium lasers on the Irrwicht often received field upgrades, resulting in a wide variance in range capabilities, complicating MIIO's efforts to provide intelligence on the unit to border militia units. | |fa-mech| IRW-1t: `PDF `_, `MegaMekLab file `_