The Claymore is a design derived from the smaller Gladius hovertank originally designed by the Marian Hegemony. The Claymore is five tons heavier than its parent design, with a beefed-up frame and engine to support and propel the heavier hull. It has the same movement profile as the Gladius, but is better armed and armored - the Gladius's autocannon is replaced in the Claymore by a Zeus Slingshot Gauss Rifle, in the same fixed-forward mount, and the Claymore has more and better armor than the original Gladius.
Externally, the Claymore and the Gladius are very similar in appearance. At first glance, it's difficult to tell them apart, and all but impossible if the two designs aren't sitting side-by-side where the slight size difference becomes noticable. Other than size, the only external differences are around the muzzle of the gun, and some subtle changes in the shape of some of the armor plates, mostly on the Claymore's massively armored front end.
The Claymore was designed as a cheap, fast, long-range direct-fire platform. Like its parent design, the Gladius, and older designs such as the Saladin, the Claymore is basically a big gun on hoverskirts. In the Claymore, the big gun is a Zeus Slingshot Gauss Rifle, produced at the Majesty fab on Dunianshire, and also used on the new Confederate Shadow Hawk.
The Gauss provides the Claymore with almost half again as much effective reach as the Gladius's autocannon. The firepower it provides is equally impressive. The Claymore is capable of smashing most light scout mechs with a single hypersonic slug from the Gauss, and, with careful targeting, can decapitate even the heaviest assault mechs with one shot. The Gauss, however, is the Claymore's only weapon, which has some obvious drawbacks, especially in combination with the fixed-forward mounting. If the weapon is damaged or runs out of ammunition, the Claymore stops being combat-effective. The Claymore counters these problems by burying the gun in the core of a heavily-armored hull where it is less likely to be damaged, and by carrying an ample supply of Gauss slugs - four full tons, 32 rounds, enough to keep it constantly firing for almost five and a half minutes, which should be more than sufficient for most engagements. In extended operation without resupply, the magazine can run dry, however, which poses problems for long-term guerrilla raiding missions. On the bright side, the Gauss slugs are basically nothing more than large steel balls, which can easily be manufactured out of local resources given even the most primitive industrial base.
The other problem, the limited arc of fire produced by the fixed Gauss mount and lack of secondary weapons, is more difficult to overcome. In part, Claymores are intended to be deployed in lances that can cover each other's backs and sides, but that only goes so far. More generally, the Claymore credo is to always keep the enemy in front of them. The hovertank's high speed makes this a reasonable proposition, though fast scout mechs can still give them problems.
The "this side towards enemy" philosophy is reflected in the Claymore's armor as well. It mounts half again as much armor as the original Gladius, and that armor is tougher, lighter Ferro-Fibrous, to boot. Almost all of the additional armor weight is on the front quarter of the tank. The result is a Claymore proven capable, in testing, of absorbing four direct hits to the front from another Claymore's Gauss without suffering an armor breach. A mere two shots, however, will easily blow through the back armor and destroy the tank.
The Claymore's power plant is a cheap and rugged air-breathing gas turbine, capable of propelling the hovertank at speeds up to 120km/h - as fast as a standard Locust, and faster than most other light mechs. That makes Claymores ideal for hunting recon mechs - they're fast enough to catch them, and the Gauss has fair odds of destroying poorly armored light mechs with a single hit.
The turbine itself is simple and easy to maintain, even for poorly trained mechanics from the backwater worlds of the Periphery, and is designed to run on just about anything that'll burn, from jet fuel to rubbing alcohol to New St. Andrews whiskey. The low-cost internal combustion plant keeps the Claymore's price tag low - half that of similarly sized fusion-powered hovertanks. Performance is slightly poorer than a fusion version's would be (proposals for a fusion Claymore included a top speed 20km/h better and otherwise similar capabilities), but the ability to put two ICE tanks into the field for the same price as a single fusion tank is very attractive to the perpetually cash-strapped CAF. The ability to put a full company in the field for the price of some newer assault mechs has been known to make Confederate generals chortle with glee, especially when they contemplate what concentrated fire from a dozen Gauss rifles could do to said assault mech.
The Claymore has gone into full production at the new Alphard factory, and is intended, as the CAF's focus shifts more and more to conventional armor, to become the core firepower of the Confederation's fast striking force, operating in conjuction with new-model Gladii. Claymores are still rare, but that's expected to change as production ramps up at the Alphard plant and, possibly, lines elsewhere are converted to Claymore production, with the eventual goal being Claymores forming a significant portion of every Confederate hovertank regiment.
No variants of the Claymore exist. Some discussion has been made of stripping some of the armor and reducing the Gauss magazine and using the recovered mass to install an SRM two-pack, either fixed rear-mount or in a small turret, to cover the Claymore's vulnerable back. The ability to load Inferno missiles would help against infantry as well, against whom the Claymore's Gauss is fairly inefficient. However, these proposals have so far been shot down as not worth the loss of armor protection they would necessitate.