EAM - 03 Retaliator

The Retaliator is the standard medium interception battlemech of the Earth Federation. Many of the actual Earth Federation battlemech designs are based on this machine, as its reliability has been proved many times over (although it isn't entirely flawless: see below). Well-armed and fast for its size, it can take on opponents bigger than itself and still come out on top. The Retaliator is commonly found in strike teams along with Pathfinders because of its high speed and heavy armament. What this machine is lacking is armor. To ensure speed and maneuverability similar to that of light battlemechs while still carrying heavy armament, compromises had to be made. The extra mass needed for weapons and thrusters came off the limbs armor, much to the dismay of the pilots assigned to the machine. To save further mass, the engineers tried to reduce the size of the thrusters by using a new plasma injector cone with pre-heating. It worked, up to a point: because the verniers have to operate at near maximum level for extended periods of time, they overheat easily, which can cause a shutdown (or, even worse, an explosion, in extreme case). Green pilots often burn out the thruster array on their first sortie with a Retaliator, despite warning from the tech crew. The Retaliator is equipped with the powerful JAW-I railgun, a proven modular design able to send a Lexan shell with metal sabot straigth through several inches of composite armor. Because of the rapid wear of the gun's rails, no more than fifteen shots can be fired before replacing the parts. Several pilots have attempted to fire once more, only to have the weapon jam and explode. However, it never happened before the sixteenth shot. The engineers are still at work on this strange problem

Variations
There have been few modifications to the basic Retaliator frame over the years, mainly because building a Pathfinder variant for a given operational role is much cheaper. To date, only two versions exist, the Retaliator HA and C models.

The Commander-type is nothing more than a standard Retaliator with extra communication and detection gear. It is undistinguishable from the standard EAM-03 save for the extra antennae. The Heavy Assault version, however, is often mistaken for the heavier Vindicator model. It adds nearly 5 tons of armor as well as more powerful missiles. The railgun is also replaced by an arm-mounted rocket launcher.

Service Record
Like the Pathfinder, the Retaliator has been mostly used against pirates in the Earth Federation system. A few were sent to assault strongholds in the Asteroid Belt in conjunction with units from the Free Colonies, which put both the standard and HA versions to test.