Hollander

The Hollander BZK-F3 (primary), for when you feel riding around in a massive BattleMech is not compensating for something quite enough.

The Hollander is a light BattleMech designed as a gun platform for a massive shoulder-mounted Gauss Rifle, which makes it quite recognisable on the battlefield.

Overview

In 3054, Coventry Metal Works received a commission from the Lyran Alliance to build a BattleMech based around the use of a Gauss Rifle for sniper duties. As such, Coventry set out to cram as much gun onto as little 'Mech as they could. The result was a 35 ton 'Mech with a shoulder-mounted gun longer than the Hollander is tall. It carries no backup weapons or jump jets and relatively little extra ammunition, with scant armor and a low top speed. These last two were justified with the argument that as a 'Mech designed to operate at the edge of the battlefield it did not need much armor or speed, even for one of the size of the Hollander. Suffice it to say, the Lyrans were not amused.

Armament

The Hollander's gun and raison d'être is a Poland Main A Gauss Rifle. Mounted into its right shoulder, the Gauss Rifle can deal crippling damage to any target it hits, though it is limited by its modest stockpile of ammunition, rendering the Hollander useless once it runs out of ammo. Another weakness of the design is that if the gun is crippled (which is rather easy given its limited armor) the Hollander was out of the game.

Wir sind die Hollander

While the Hollander was decent at what it was designed for (sniping), the Lyran Alliance commissioned a number of retreads of the design:

• The BZK-G1 replaced the Gauss Rifle with a LB-X Autocannon/10, added a pair of Medium Lasers and more armor to change it into an anti-vehicle/aircraft platform, which it was quite good at, though it sacrificed its powerful anti-'Mech capabilities that the Gauss Rifle gave it.
• The BZK-F5 (also known as the Hollander II) turned the 'Mech into a Medium weight by adding 10 tons of weight to the Hollander, alongside a Medium Laser and a Streak SRM-2. Though it fixed the problem of not having backup weapons, it still had the same problems of low speed and armor.
• The BZK-F7 gave the finger to fixing its problems, doubling down on the "big gun on a small chassis" concept by strapping on the then-new Heavy Gauss Rifle to make it even better at the things the Hollander did well. Problem is, there's a reason people usually don't put Heavy Gauss Rifles on light and medium mechs: Simply put, between recoil, light armor, and game rules, this mech is the only one in the game that has a chance of destroying itself when it fires

Eventually, the Lyran Alliance grew tired of the Hollander's problems and commissioned the Blitzkrieg instead: while a weight class higher than the Hollander it had more armor, was faster and packed a massive Ultra Autocannon/20 to deal with anything it comes across. During the era of the Jihad its armor was replaced by a lighter variant to carry a Heavy PPC, Jump Jets, a Targeting Computer and a C3 Slave Computer.