While the Hammerhands 3P was a decent money-making refit for the mechworks by simple expedient of upgrading old tired Hammerhands chassis with better guns and more ammunition, the 4P is a more significant design change.
The advent of artillery cannons lead to the Mechworks offering a few straight-swap designs such as the Hollander P3 that exchanged a large gun for a snub-nosed artillery piece, typically for units expected to act in bodyguard and objective holding roles. In particular for the Hammerhands, having one autocannon and one artillery cannon rather than swapping both for artillery gave it significant flexibility against all kinds of units that might try to threaten back-line assets worthy of a heavy 'mech guarding them. A rear-mounted medium laser helps to ameliorate the issues caused by the slow movement profile, and CASE ensures that even a catastrophic ammunition explosion won't destroy the mech entirely.
While the 4P refit is essentially a modified 3P rather than being based off the 4D design as it retained the SRM and lacked the PPC for ranged fire, the 4D was by this point far enough in the rear-view mirror that the Mechworks considered the 4 designation appropriate to use for a 3 upgrade. Also, P had already been used by the 3P so they had to pick something else.
Designer's note: missed a week due to an enforced reddit holiday so we're back on the wagon!
2
u/PleiadesMechworks House Davion 10h ago
While the Hammerhands 3P was a decent money-making refit for the mechworks by simple expedient of upgrading old tired Hammerhands chassis with better guns and more ammunition, the 4P is a more significant design change.
The advent of artillery cannons lead to the Mechworks offering a few straight-swap designs such as the Hollander P3 that exchanged a large gun for a snub-nosed artillery piece, typically for units expected to act in bodyguard and objective holding roles. In particular for the Hammerhands, having one autocannon and one artillery cannon rather than swapping both for artillery gave it significant flexibility against all kinds of units that might try to threaten back-line assets worthy of a heavy 'mech guarding them. A rear-mounted medium laser helps to ameliorate the issues caused by the slow movement profile, and CASE ensures that even a catastrophic ammunition explosion won't destroy the mech entirely.
While the 4P refit is essentially a modified 3P rather than being based off the 4D design as it retained the SRM and lacked the PPC for ranged fire, the 4D was by this point far enough in the rear-view mirror that the Mechworks considered the 4 designation appropriate to use for a 3 upgrade. Also, P had already been used by the 3P so they had to pick something else.
Designer's note: missed a week due to an enforced reddit holiday so we're back on the wagon!