Erdspinne and Order Buckler?

[Mafty]

So is there any information out there about these mechs? They have a bit more of a unique design compared to the Scopedogs. So what are their specs? Are the Erdspinne’s more powerful than the Baralant Fatty Units, and the Scopedogs? How powerful is the Order Buckler?

[Seto Kaiba]

So is there any information out there about these mechs? They have a bit more of a unique design compared to the Scopedogs. So what are their specs? Are the Erdspinne’s more powerful than the Baralant Fatty Units, and the Scopedogs? How powerful is the Order Buckler?

... have you actually looked anywhere? I have near-zero familiarity with VOTOMS and it took me only about two minutes to turn up several fairly detailed writeups (including a fair amount of carping about inconsistencies in published data between different artbooks).

Consequently, I apologize for any transliteration errors of proper nouns as what I know of the setting of the Armored Trooper VOTOMS series could fit comfortably on a business card.


From Armored Trooper VOTOMS AT Perfect Establishment Data 2 - can I just say I HATE the font used for that? - I found the following:

The X-ATH-11 Erdspinne is described on page 148 as "An H-class AT used by the religious organization Martial. It was originally used to defend the sacred land of Alegium, but was used in many external battles after the cult's loss of authority." It is noted that it has some inconvenient aspects like the omission of landing gear(? I don't know what that means, but that's what it says), but its basic performance is said to be high and that its is said that it's a powerful AT.

It's also said that the main camera freely moves/rearranges its sensors with a gear-shaped part, and that it is equipped with a harpoon launcher that was originally intended for vertical movement in stone buildings but has a wide range of other applications. The main armament is a StG-3b Sturmgebert and an "arm punch" on the right arm only. The left arm is equipped with a "wire winder" called a "spinrad". The roller system has rubber(like) tires for increased mobility over rough/broken terrain). The cockpit is noted to be quite different from a normal AT with some attention spared to cosmetic/aesthetic considerations like parts made from polished brass.

Specs drawn from Armored Trooper VOTOMS Armored Trooper Mechanical Setting Collection (1995) claim it was 429.8cm tall, 8,511kg dry, 8,764kg at standby weight, that it had armor between 7mm and 18mm thick, a 320hp engine developing 65kg/m enabling to maneuver at 45km/h or up to 72.3km/h running. It used a MCT-328-C computer, Sleek Method 2P-MM-S4 muscle cylinders, that it had 184 liters of PR liquid, a 40 liter spare tank, 150 hour exchange time, and crew of one.


The X-ATH-11TC Order Buckler is simply noted to be a custom command variant with a shield containing a pile bunker that was considered to be an ultra-high performance AT.

It's a bit taller (431.9cm), a bit lighter (8,154kg/8,420kg), a tiny bit faster (46km/h and 80.5km/h), has a slightly larger main tank (194L), shorter exchange time (138 hours).

I cannot verify those numbers because I cannot locate a copy of the book cited at this time.

[Mafty]

Thanks, that's very informative.

Where exactly do you find the information. I've tried googling the mechs, but I had trouble finding detailed information. Is this on a webpage, or do you have access to the printed mech manuals?

[Kuruni]

Although it come from video game, it's noted that Erdspinne was originally a Gilgamesh AT.

[Seto Kaiba]

Where exactly do you find the information. I've tried googling the mechs, but I had trouble finding detailed information. Is this on a webpage, or do you have access to the printed mech manuals?

At first, I didn't even know it was a VOTOMS mecha. I reached that conclusion after reading your post and seeing you'd mentioned the Scopedog, which I knew was pretty much THE VOTOMS mecha. I went googling for "VOTOMS Erdspinne" and the first few hits told me the designation of the Erdspinne was "XATH-11". I googled "XATH-11 Erdspinne" and got multiple Armored Trooper VOTOMS fan pages and wikis. From there, it was pretty straightforward.

For good measure, I went and looked on a few of the usual suspects for artbook scans and found the aforementioned Perfect Establishment Data 2 book which had a two-page spread for the Erdspinne that I translated in my post.

I have never seen Armored Trooper VOTOMS. I haven't even so much as read its TV Tropes page. I own no artbooks for it. Just some lower-mid tier Google-fu and memberships on a few sites where artbook scans are frequently posted.

[Mafty]

The Scopedog is definitely the mascot of Votoms : It's the most commonly fielded mecha, appears in some variant across all of the animated works :even the Lighthearted alternate universe Votoms Finder has a mech that looks like if Ippei Gyoubu designed a Scopedog (Yes, I know that Gyoubu didn't work on this). So it's actually neat to see a mecha that designed differently from the regular mechs in the series.

Again thanks for the info, It's always neat to access artbook scans.

[Kuruni]

There's also one fun bit that the "Sylespeid" wire harpoon launcher seems to have its root in Bounty Dog's wire hook. I don't know if it's later retcon or not, but this is sort of established in VOTOMS pachislot game that feature Church of Marteal's custom Bounty Dog that replace the hook with a pile bunker connected to a large winch unit backpack.

[Mafty]

Thanks, it neat to see that like Gundam , Votoms has it's own mech history, in regards to one unit following another. It seems that the Gilgamesh Confederation was really the dominant power in the Votoms verse (SPOILER , of course this is not counting playing the long game with Chirico as the Overman) , as their mech designs seemed to be the backbone of not only the civilian dueling arenas (how often did we see a Blocker or Fatty in the arena?), but also other groups like the Martail church.

Really the Balarant Union is no Zeon, they are shortchanged in visbility, and with the exception of the pachinko slot game VOTOMS XLA, none of the non Chirico spinoff material (ie Armor Hunter Mellowlink, Case Irvine) focuses on them either, which is a shame really because they did have some cool mech designs.