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.