AW-12 Mastodon

The AW-12 Mastodon is a large GDI Offense quadrupedal walker appearing in Tiberian Twilight as an evolution of the Mammoth Mk. II walker as a base assault platform.

Overview
The Mastodon eschews its predecessor's large experimental railguns for a powerful, but also less expensive, chin-mounted "Tusk" Artillery Battery. The battery can fire four sonic shells in rapid succession to destroy targets in its line of fire, achieving a similar effect to the railguns. The reduced cost allows multiple Mastodons to be deployed simultaneously in a given area. Groups of Mastodons are referred to as "herds". The Mastodon's legs are also armored against charges' flechette shrapnel.

Secondary armament consists of a pair of anti-surface/anti-air missile launchers and the Depth Charge Emergency Ejection System. The Depth Charge system dropped explosive charges from the walker's flanks to repel close quarter assaults, compensating for the artillery battery's forward-only firing arc. The "Depth Charge" system was a later development and were still being retrofitted to older production units at the time of the Fourth Tiberium War.

The Mastodon Backup System is a Nod-derived repair module. The module activates after the walker suffers catastrophic system failure and slowly repairs the vehicle; the module can bring a Mastodon back online if an is unavailable.

History
Although the Mammoth Mk. II walker was decommissioned after the Second Tiberium War, support for the concept survived and was reinforced by the Third Tiberium War. Despite considerations of future Scrin invasion funding was not available to revive the walker. The debate reignited with increased military funding once construction of the Tiberium Control Network was well under way. The GDI Council of Directors ended the heated argument between the generals; it authorized the production of both a new and a next-generation Mammoth walker to cover anti-Scrin contingencies.

A redesign of the Mammoth Mk. II resulted in the Mastodon. Improved technology made the Mastodon significantly less expensive to deploy than the Mammoth Mk. II. Some of the these improvements were based on innovations Kane derived from the Tacitus. The first Mastodon emerged from the renovated San Pedro war factory in 2069, the same factory where the last Mammoth Mk. II had emerged 30 years earlier.

Early abortive Mastodon prototypes were created before the 2062 alliance at the El Paso base in Central America. They saw combat when Nod invaded their base with prototype Widows and managed to push back the invaders.

In-Game Unit
In essence, it has an identical look to the Mammoth Mk. II, though it no longer uses a railgun. Instead it launches 4 sonic artillery shells simultaneously at mid-long range targets, effective against buildings and light-armored units such as infantry, especially when targets are in groups. But this primary weapon is not good at making pin-point attacks, so Mastodons are not very suitable for facing single heavily-armored enemies. At the same time, it will also fire 4 missiles at either ground or air targets. Note that if an enemy manages to close in on the Mastadon, it will be unable to use its chin mounted artillery weapon on them and will have to resort to using only the missile batteries installed to defend itself.

When upgraded with Dispersion Bays, it gains the ability to launch small explosives from either side, which then violently explode, damaging nearby units, while keeping the Mastodon safe from harm. It can also be upgraded with Backup Systems, so that the destroyed mastodon husk will slowly gain health until it reaches full health and return from the dead under the original player's control. Interestingly, when idle the Mastadon will crouch down on his front two legs like a dog.

Trivia
The Mastodon bears some similarities to its much less powerful cousin, the Striker. Both seem to be based on Star Wars machines; The Mastodon looks similar to the AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) and the Striker has similarities to the AT-ST (All Terrain Scout Transport). As well as this, both have the stereotypical English upperclass voice, and both belong to the Offense class.

Quotes

 * Crush em.


 * Put that one down!


 * Mastodon fully armed!


 * A sound order!


 * Mastodon on route!


 * Mastodon restored and ready!


 * Elimination in progress!


 * Where are they hidding?


 * Cocky little buggers.