Crew: 9 (1 commander, 3 gunners, 3 Loaders, 1 tech adept, 1 driver)
Known Patterns/Subvarrients: I-IX (Mars-Ryza)
Armament:
Main Armament:Irradiation Carronade Array, Hull mounted 203mm "Demolisher" Cannon (15-20 rounds)
Secondary Armament:Pintle mounted Storm Bolter or Heavy Stubber (1000-5000 rounds), 4 Sponson-Mounted Irrad-Cleansers, 2 Sponson Turret Mounted Lascannons (1000 shots each), Radiation Vents
Mobility:
Max Speed:28 km/h
Traverse: 360 degrees (Main turret), 180 degrees (Sponson turrets) and 6 degrees (hull turret)
Elevation:-2 to 25 degrees
Powerplant: 2xKR 71-1 Micro Nuclear Fission Generators 'Irradiation Engines'
Dimensions:
Weight: 297Tonnes
Height:6.3 metres
Width:8.4 metres
Length:13.5 metres
Ground clearance:1.2 metres
Armour:
Superstructure: 200/200/200mm Faramite Alloy Plate
Hull: 200/200/200mm Faramite Alloy Plate
Gun Mantlet: N/A
Turret: 220/220/220mm Faramite Alloy Plate
Lore: Of the Imperium's vast arsenal of weapons, few are as cruel in their crude and brutal design as the Doomsword. The Doomsword promises the slow and agonising destruction of anything unfortunate enough to witness it on the battlefield, friend or foe, leaving a blazing visage of the apocalypse in its wake that robs the aggressor and the agressed of land they might use for their own purposes.
The Doomsword's history can be traced back to the aftermath of the War of the Beast that spanned from the end of M32 and into M33. A war that very nearly saw the Imperium suffer ultimate defeat at the hands of the largest Ork Waaagh in history, with Terra itself being invaded during the conflict by hordes of Orks as whole Imperial sectors were overcome by a tide of green before the gargantuan warboss could be killed and his endless horde fragmented and destroyed. Many Imperial worlds are still seeded, well into M41, with Orks thanks to this apocalyptic war. The High Lords, hoping to avoid such a cataclysm from occurring again, petitioned the Adeptus Mechanicus to produce a new generation of Ork slaying weapons; and for the organisation to take a more active role in the defence of the Imperium as the war that had nearly ended in both empires' complete destruction had been fought and narrowly won entirely by the Imperium.
The Adeptus Mechanicus, themselves reeling from the Ork assault, agreed to closer cooperation with the Imperial administration and new compacts were formed between Terra and Mars. Of this agreement, new Skitarii legions strode from forge worlds all across the Imperium equipped with radiation-based weapons to bring death to enemies of man, and titan legions both new and old strode forth in unison with other Imperial formations as opposed to the separation that had been upheld since the end of the Horus Heresy.
But the most fearsome and brutal new creation of this Adeptus Mechanicus mobilisation was the newly created Doomsword. This bringer of the apocalypse was built on the chassis of a baneblade, but featured a variety of weapons that no baneblade would ever carry. The tank had a pair of crude, but efficient, nuclear fission generators that produced vast amounts of broad spectrum radiation. The sponson Heavy Bolters were replaced with 4 Irrad Cleansers, that focused massive amounts of pure gamma radiation directly from each generator at any foe unfortunate enough to oppose the tank in battle.
The tank caused near instant, massive and traumatic mutations in the target; radiation burns and extremely rapid onset radiation sickness would set in for any creature who so much as saw the beam when it was being fired. The beam's intensity was also sufficient to generate the heat required to turn steel into molten slag. In addition, the Doomblade had radiation vents that vented Beta and Alpha Radiation into the surrounding, as well as toxic radioactive gas created as a byproduct of the nuclear reactions ongoing in the tank's generators. Any life caught in this toxic cloud being very rapidly destroyed by toxic shock and acute radiation poisoning.
But these radioactive weapons were child's play compared to the main weapon of the Doomblade: the truly terror-inspiring Irradiation Carronade Array. This weapon required the tank to sit still in order to fire, as all the power of both nuclear power generators was required to fire it, but the sheer destruction it could cause made the limitation worthy of such a weapon. Once fired, the array unleashed pure nuclear fury in a highly focused area, but even though it was far less indiscriminate than the nuclear weapons of old Terra, collateral damage is always unavoidable when wielding such power. The heat blast from the beam would flash-vaporize lighter materials, while the light produced could turn the blackest night into the brightest day, the beam able to turn everything it touched into either radioactive slag or vapour. Sand would become glass, rock would become dust and any unfortunate soul not directly hit and turned into a nuclear shadow by the Doomblades' awesomely powerful nuclear gaze would be left to scream out their final moments in agony as rapidly growing tumours ravaged their burned and blinded form.
In an effort to protect valuable allied units, the Imperium never deploys the Doomsword with conventional units, but rather only to penal battalions expected to fight the massed biological threat of the Orks or the Tyranids in combat. The Imperium also takes care to shield the crew who run the Doomblade into battle, the crew always wearing heavy protective gear, as well as thick walls of Faramite-plate-reinforced lead separating the crew from the twin generators and the internal weapon assemblies for the cleaners and the Irradiation array. But even with this protection, high rates of crew attrition due to radiation poisoning are common. For exactly this reason, the Doombalde remains a rare, and strictly specialist vehicle, used only when it's deadly services are absolutely necessary.
Although there are rumours that it has been used to make examples of human rebels, the radioactive fallout descending over the cities of noncompliant cities is like a long shadow, heralding the gruesome doom of all who turn away from the Emperor's light. Although such rumours are normally suppressed, and are allegedly not supported by evidence, as even some of the most hardline Imperial loyalists find such a weapon a distasteful one to use on fellow humans.