With the rediscovery of the Gray Death Memory Core and 
the Clan Invasion, HardfordCo decided that the time was 
right to introduce an update to the venreable Cronus.  
They planned to sell the Cronus as a fairly cheap and 
easy to mantain heavy Battlemech that was capable of 
fighting off the Clan raiding parties of the post- Truce of 
Tukyaid era.  To this end the redesign team stayed away 
from filling the Cronus with too much high technology, to 
keep the  costs down and to allow local technicians to 
repair the design with common parts.  The main changes 
were adding Ferro-Fibrous armor to allow for the weight of 
the Mech's armor to be reduced.  This allowed the 
addition of two medium pulse lasers, providing the Cronus 
with an ammo-indepedent back up weapon, and further 
increasing it's close range firepower.  To keep up with the 
heat problems the lasers introduced the heatsinks were 
updated to a common double heat sink model.  

The end result was a mech that still tough enough to 
outlast many enemies, and the firepower to make an 
impression on the enemy.  It's slow speed was still 
considered an issue by some, but most say it's a small 
price to pay.  

The updated design took several years to catch on, but it 
eventually proved to very popular with frontier planets, not 
only along the Clan Occupation Zone but on the borders 
between the Succession States.  Many of these planets 
had no access to the latest tech or heavy Battlemechs, so 
a unit with the Cronus's performace and price tag was 
welcome indeed.  A miltia commander often feels much 
more comfortable knowing they have a few Cronus to 
back up thier other forces.  The design has ganered 
respect from it's foes as well.  Sighting a Cronus among 
the defenses signels a long and bloody battle for the 
attacker.

Some of the design team were not happy with the final 
Cronus refit, as they felt that further application of new 
technology could have made the Cronus the 'mech it was 
meant to be'.  Whether they will be able to convince 
HardfordCo to proceed with another, more extensive, 
redesign remains to be seen.