During the early days of the war, Empire's armored units could hold on its own against the Clone war era armor that were fielded by the enemy forces. However as the war progressed, the newer armor's fielded by enemy, specifically units like the CIS A-GAT, Rail tank And the RCA Orray Mk-1 was takeing a heavy toll on Empire's tank formations, most of which were still equipped with the Clone war Era Sabre tank of it's marginally improved version, the 2M repulsor tank. Empire need a counter and it needed it fast.
The Rothana Heavy Engineering was ordered to make a tank that is powerful, cost-effective and can be built in large number. Under the "persuasion" of Darth Vader, the engineers of Rothana managed to design, built and test a prototype in less than five months.
The tank they designed was truly an engineering marvel. Equipped with thick sloped armor on sides, the tank was well protected from small arms and medium weapons fire. A simple tread configuration with a commercially available engine powering it resulted an easy to maintain and reliable platform. Probably the most complex piece that was developed for the tank was its 100mm L-10T laser cannon. While not as powerful as that of the Orray Mk-1’s 130mm RVW-14, this powerful main gun was able to deal a large amount of damage to any its counterparts. A three round revolving breech block was added to fasten reloading process. The targeting system and electronic suite were kept as basic as possible without sacrificing combat effectiveness. Crew comfort and survivability were ordered to keep as bare minimal so only one hatch was provided.
Labeled as the “Emperor’s Hammer” by Darth Vadar, this tank begun to be referred as just Hammer as it begun to enter service with the Imperial Army. The tank was proved to be highly effective in combat, whatever it couldn’t destroy with it firepower it overwhelmed it with sheer numbers, with more churning out of the production to replace it losses.