In 3012 the DCMS ordered an evaluation of replacement 
designs for the long used Jenner. Luthien Armor Works (a 
producer of the Jenner) used it's political clout to ensure 
that it recieved the evaluation contract. A team of talented 
but junior design engineers was formed to produce a 
possible replacement and for eighteen long months they 
labored almost day and night to produce a new design. 
However, in the end their hard work was for naught. 
Luthien had never intended on producing a new design. 
Upper management and DCMS procurement officers 
conspired to sink the project before a prototype was ever 
built.

Ian Tanaka turned out to be a most unusual Combine 
citizen. Rather than accept his superiors' edict, he took 
the matter to what he thought would be a higher authority. 
However he found himself brushed off and then demoted 
in a backlash for his affront. Disgusted with his bosses and 
the DCMS Tanaka talked several key team members into 
joining him in taking the design outside of the Combine. As 
a tribute to the forces that drove him from his home he 
dubbed the new design the Backlash.

Capabilites:
In concept the Backlash was an attempt to marry the 
manueverability and ease of maintainence of the Jenner 
with the idea of better armor as evident in the Panther. 
Meeting both goals reduced the top speed a bit to 97.2 
khp, however few BattleMech move faster. 6.5 tons of 
armor - about as much as the frame can bare - were 
grafted into the design. As armament twin medium lasers 
are mounted in the center torso under the cockpit in a 
chin like recession while two SRM 4s are moounted in arm 
pods above the main body. As they lack hand or lower 
arm actuators, the missile pods are capable of angling to 
the outer sides allowing a wide arc of fire and can even be 
rotated all the way to the rear thanks to the ammunition 
being mounting in the weapon pods themselves. As 
Tanaka felt that a light Mech couldn't afford to let 
firepower waste while waiting for the heat level to lower, 
the two base heat sinks that didn't fit in the engine where 
leg mounted so a pilot might make use of shallow water. A 
second pair of heat sinks were added as well, these tied 
into the entire system but mounted in the missile pods to 
provide direct venting of booster gasses. 

Deployment:
Four Backlashes were custom built on Solaris from Jenner 
frames and did well enough that Tanaka was able to 
convince the Free Worlds League Defence Industries to 
finance an initial run of 200 machines with the thought that 
some of the independant planetary militias or pehaps a 
Periphery power might be interested in a lightweight, 
sturdy, and easy to maintain design. Industry rumors 
indicate that the CapCom has made overatures to Tanaka 
should his sketchy arrangement with the FWL fall through.