So, got the green light to introduce a Dumassas company and a future product.
Ajax industries
"Engineered for the trip ahead"
A newcomer emerging from the wreckage of it's predecessors, Ajax Industries was one of many small companies that formed on Dumassas as result of the local branches of various megacorps leaving/getting looted and/or blown up over the course of three Succession Wars. As the original operators left, the various refit and manufacturing facilities were left abandoned for the local workers to take over and fire back up. Originally starting as a communal 'cottage industry' keeping the combat vehicle facilities running; they slowly but surely used the knowledge gained by examining the machinery to actually start manufacturing vehicles. Admittedly these were simple ICE-powered civilian vehicles such as farm tractors, transport trucks and so on; but they were still things desperately needed on Dumassas due to the steady decreasing numbers of traders visiting the planet as the Wars dragged on. And with fewer traders, forign equipment and machinery became harder and harder to acquire; forcing everyone to make due with more primitive designs.
By the time Raynor's Raiders showed up, Ajax had grown to be one of the larger companies focusing on ground vehicles of every sort on the planet through growth, mergers and acquisitions. In fact they were in the planning stages of developing an autocannon (or rifle if the systems couldn't be built to the proper standard) equipped combat vehicle through a partnership with other companies. However with the technology that the Raiders were practically giving away (compared to how hard it would normally be to acquire technical specs for anything) it was felt that they could afford to be a little more...ambitious with their creation.
Even as final design issues were being ironed out of the Barbute (with the army keeping a close eye on developments) Ajax began looking into producing a fire support vehicle based off the same chassis while merging Raider missile tracking/targeting capabilities with existing LRM/SRM munitions.
Overview:
With the introduction of the 'immigrants' from the Koprulu sector, the world of Dumassas gained several things: powerful allies, a plethora of salvage including mechs, dropships and a functioning jumpship; and most importantly, a knowlege and industrial base undamaged by the centuries of Sucession Wars and the attitudes of Star League. While not an instant fix for everything they had lost, many damaged and/or broken facilities were repaired or replaced with equivalent equipment since what was involved was not considered classified/high-end technology by the Raiders and Dr. Hanson's people. But like the former Taurians they were, Dumassas was not content to sit back and let other people defend them.
And with trade for new combat vehicles being limited, they rolled up their sleeves and set about making their own with the newly rebuilt factories and industry.
The Barbute was one of the first creations of that drive. Initially based on the Quikscell Hetzer self-propelled artillery-piece as it was a machine Dumassas already had examples of; everything but the general shape was redesigned after one Rory Swann saw the 'questionable' equipment present. While he did promise to help in the design process (after a five minute long yelling rant about everything wrong with Quikscell's apparent manufacturing standards) he also needed to be restrained from 'borrowing' one of the Raider's Thors for the purpose of destroying any and all Hetzers and other Quikscell-produced equipment still on the planet.
Weapons and Equipment:
Sporting a fuel cell engine derived from (if not equal) to the Raiders cold fusion cells, the Barbute saves weight normally needed for a combustion engine that can be used elsewhere. Similarly the main armament took examples of Koprulu technology and existing knowledge base to convert a grade-10 autocannon into a gauss weapon of equal tonnage supplied by three tons of ammo. Unlike the C-14 gauss rifle, this equipment is far bulkier than Koprulu equilvalents and the capacitors in the weapon are somewhat volatile. A coaxial machine gun is included in the turret along with half a ton of ammo allows it to fend off infantry but that is not this machine's primary mission. The remaining ten and a half tons is dedicated to armor allowing the Barbute to shrug off most incoming fire as it hammers targets with it's primary weapon.
Of interesting note that while the 'Godhammer' is more or less equivalent in terms of range and damage capability to available historical data on the gauss rifle produced during the Star League, due to it being based on an autocannon and using technology derived from the C-14 Impaler, it's mechanisms are rather different. While the Star League weapon functions by firing a single large round at a target, the Godhammer fires a short burst of projectiles. Additionally it was found during development that attempting to power the system off a fuel-cell engine would greatly degrade the vehicle's overall capabilities. As such the ammo units was modified to house batteries capable of taking the load off the main engine. Admittedly this reduced the number of bursts per ton from ten to eight, but it was considered an acceptable trade-off to ensure the Barbute could always move at full speed in combat.
As an aside the Dumassas government is in talks with Star-tech about designing up-scaled versions of the rifle to be installed in fortifications around vital locations.