Crawler Mine

Classification: Drone, Mine
Effective VS: Vehicles
Ineffective VS: Infantry, buildings, aircraft
Armor: Light
Armament: Powder-actuated nailgun w pyrotechnic fasteners
Cost: 320$
Produced by: Factory
Requires: Factory

The Crawler Mine is a drone that can be seen as an early attempt of what would later become Terror Drones and Limpet Drones. It is an anti-tank mine that moves about like a spider. It has various sensors, reacting to radio output, heat and vibration of vehicles. It will be attracted by such sensor input, check wether the target emitts a friendly radio output, and if the check returns negative, crawl towards the target and attempt to place itself underneath it, minimize ground clearance by grappling onto it, fastening itself using powder-actuated nail guns with pyrotechnic fasteners mounted in the spikey reverse sides of its "legs", then detonate a larger charge in its center, which acentuates the main nail gun, firing a larger pyrotechnic fastener into the target. When hitting the vehicle, the explosive bolt detonates, helping armor penetration by blasting a hole into the vehicle and possibly injuring the crew. Even if the bolt fails to penetrate the armor, the explosive charges used to fire it, combined with the charge it holds, is still big enough to cause damage comparable to any normal anti-tank mine. Any vehicle will take serious damage and lighter vehicles will almost certainly suffer a catastrophic kill.

Because of the large explosive charge used, the mine is just as effective against infantry, but because it is designed for anti-tank purposes, it has a very narrow area of effect, and though the weapon will propably kill any type of infantry, other infantry in the area will be unaffected, making a Crawler Mine in anti-infantry duty a highly expensive weapon for taking out single soldiers. Also, infantry can direct its fire much faster than a tank, meaning that soldiers have a reasonable chance of destroying the mine before it reaches them, especially when armed with anti-tank weapons. Note that hovercraft are immune to attacks by this mine, because they have a large ground clearance, and neither infantry, buildings nor other drones will attract Crawler Mines.

Being a drone, a Crawler Mine is very susceptible to hacker attacks. The Soviet Electronic Warfare Center, ECM Tower, Emperor Tank and Hacker all have the capability to take control over Crawler Mines and send them against their own forces.