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| - Under Doctor Catherine Halsey, the MJOLNIR Mark IV Program saw spectacular successes, both in their deployment with the SPARTAN-II Program operators they were designed for and in the development of powered armour technologies. At the same time, however, it eclipsed other projects begun by Naval Special Warfare, and other military research and development teams, to create their own powered armour projects. The chief drawback of the MJOLNIR Program was that it was extremely specialised - they could only be worn by SPARTAN-II or III personnel, for example, and neither the Army or Marine Corps did not wish to create Spartan-grade special warfare operators. Nor could they afford it - construction costs alone for a mere forty suits of MJOLNIR Mark IV was roughly equaivalent to a small UNSC Navy
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| abstract
| - Under Doctor Catherine Halsey, the MJOLNIR Mark IV Program saw spectacular successes, both in their deployment with the SPARTAN-II Program operators they were designed for and in the development of powered armour technologies. At the same time, however, it eclipsed other projects begun by Naval Special Warfare, and other military research and development teams, to create their own powered armour projects. The chief drawback of the MJOLNIR Program was that it was extremely specialised - they could only be worn by SPARTAN-II or III personnel, for example, and neither the Army or Marine Corps did not wish to create Spartan-grade special warfare operators. Nor could they afford it - construction costs alone for a mere forty suits of MJOLNIR Mark IV was roughly equaivalent to a small UNSC Navy Battlegroup, and maintenance costs were a constant source of harrassment for the projects ONI backers. The MJOLNIR Project practically bankrupted ONI until the results of its investment began to pay off. The outstanding performance of the MJOLNIR-equipped SPARTAN-II's would see FLEETCOM dramatically increase the research and development budget. This benefitted other projects as well. Although funded by ONI Section III, Naval Special Weapons Development, Project NAEGLING was started in 2535intended to provide the UNSC Army with a powered exoskeleton to rival, if not the MJOLNIR Project, then the cheaper but overlooked VAJRA-I Project. Many of its personnel had been reassigned, more than half to the MJOLNIR Project where they would develop upgrades and improvements to the Mark IV and eventually the Mark V, but NAEGLING managed to gather remaining ex-VAJRA personnel, including project leader Arthur Falkner and metamaterial experts Moriko Yoko and Alyosha Timofey. Initially, the project was run concurrently with the HRUNTING and YGGDRASIL projects, which produced an extremely effective prototype in 2542, but the destruction of both projects and the prototype itself when the Algolis colony fell saw NAEGLING become the Army's sole hope of developing powered assault exoskeletons. Eventually, seeing little in the way of tenable results, NavSpecWep agreed to transfer oversight to the UNSC Army Corps of Engineers in 2545. Now separate from Naval oversight and resources, NAEGLING would make surprisingly rapid progress, producing a number of demonstration models for Army observers. By 2551, seven prototypes were developed of a final model, the Naegling-XIX, a powered assault armour system designed for providing ground forces with highly mobile heavy firepower, specialising in anti-infantry and anti-armour operations but with anti-air capability. Field testing was conducted on Reach in July, 2552, and the prototypes were shipped to Earth for additional development before scheduled for deployment. The Fall of Reach, and the subsequent devastation of Earth and other UNSC strongholds in the Solar System, would delay the introduction of the NAEGLING into service, and only after the conclusion of the war did the UNSC Army adopt them for select special warfare groups. In the post-war reconstruction period, NAEGLING suits would assist in the consolidation of remaining UNSC territory, providing heavy firepower to Army and Marine warfighters on Europa and Titan against Insurrectionist uprisings. Other operations were classified, though it is suspected that they were deployed in a number of engagements against Kig-Yar pirate bases and the fledgling Blood Covenant. During the War of Vengeance, the NAEGLING would be refined further, incorporating advanced made in the fields of directed energy weaponry and energy shielding, including rudimentary solid light barrier generators. By the war's end, the NAEGLING had gained a fearsome reputation among the Jiralhanae for its destructiveness, nicknamed "Vrathek's Hammers" - named after a Jiralhanae demon spirit.
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