As often happens during wars, mysteries often creep up to play with the minds of historians and military alike for years to come. It was on Outreach that a mystery started, when a grizzly old mech warrior landed with two assault mechs for sale. The Kell Hounds ended up purchasing the unknown mechs for a far below estimated price. Shortly after the sale the seller suddenly disappeared, and was never heard of again. Interviews later conducted with the parties involved noted the grizzly old warrior spoke with a mixture of Clan and Innersphere style dialect, leading some to believe (however, unlikely) that the warrior may have been a refugee from the clans.

The two mechs where the same modle and as Kell Hound techs dug into the mechs they soon discovered that they were clan tech. As the mystery deepened they called in techs from the Wolf's Dragoons and Wolf in Exile to help figure out this puzzle. They all agreed immediately from the amount of rust, wear and tear on the access panels and pilots couch, and soot accumulation that the mechs were older and have seen extensive combat in their lives. After tracing markings and what was taken for serial numbers the techs discovered these mechs had once been built by Clan Steel Viper, but other critical parts showed that they had came from Clan Ghost Bear, and Clan Ice Hellion while chassis parts derived from Clan Burrockwhich only added to the mystery. The mech chassis its self did not help either as it too looked like it came from three different mechs; a Archer, with the legs belonging to some unknown mech as with the arms.

Having no name for it one Clan Wolf in Exile technician began calling it Short bow for its large number of SRM's, after a while the name stuck.  

The Short Bow is very much like an Archer on crack, being a short range powerhouse. 8 SRM six packs provide the close in fighting backed by 10 tons of ammunition. The ammunition bins can easily house multiple munitions types. However if used extensively the mech can quickly chew through it ammo reserves and appears unlikely to be suited to long drawn out campaigns. For a long range punch the Short Bow carries a matched pair of extended range PPC's house in its arms. However, all this weaponry did come at a price for the Short Bow.

The price was poor heat dissipation ability crippling how much it could fire at anyone time, while alpha striking could proove very deadly to the mech and pilot. The engineers of this design seemed to have noted this problem an placed could strength sinks in the lower legs and torso for the pilot to take advantage on any water resources found an around a battlefield though.

Where the Short Bow Really shines is in the reliability and ease of maintenance. This 85 ton machine carries 100 percent of its theoretical armor, while making use of case and a standard fusion engine only add to its survivability. Even the use of multiple SRM racks adds to this durability as it can take multiple hits to the racks and continue the fight.

The Kell Hound, Wolf in Exile, and Dragoon techs loved the access panels as they were large enough for them to literally crawl through and into the mech, to ease maintenance and down time. The computer system was also a site to behold for the techs as it could diagnose even the smallest of problems right down to cracks in the armor. After the computer diagnosed the problem it has the ability to print step by step instructions written so that even non-techs could repair the mech.

Considering how old the mech seems to be the techs all agreed that the mech probably has a combat history, but do to it being unknown even to the clan techs of Wolf in Exile Comstar can only guess.

Unknown at this time.

However, the techs agree that heat would have been a major problem so there cold have been variants to help make the Short Bow more heat efficient. The variants would have most likely to been the removal one or more SRM packs for replacement with heat sinks. This would have allowed for a longer battlefield loitering time as the ammo would last longer with fewer SRM packs chewing it up.

With the various clans that these two mechs seemed to have derived from the techs agree that the Short Bow may be operating in Clans Steel Viper, Ghost Bear, Ice Hellion and Burrock. Considering the Short Bow has not been seen in action yet among these clans Comstar agents believe that either the mech is being stored in Brian caches or the mech is in such a short supply that it maybe just too rare.