Mechanized Autonomous Weapon

RussianHungarianPolishBattle — Two UN-allied MAWS open fire on a NATO-allied MAW tank unit.

Mechanized Autonomous Weapons or "MAWS", were a type of autonomous or semi-autonomous heavy armor originally constructed in secret as an alternative to mutual assured destruction or "MAD". Originally 34 were constructed only by 4 of the 5 permanent UN Security Councilors; the United States, China, France and the Soviet Union - the Soviets alone developing 19 of the weapons between 1968 and 1991 - as a means to phase out nuclear weapons, eventually the aforementioned superpowers' allies began to construct less advanced iterations, leading to the rise of various sub-categories of MAW, the Command Units and the Scout Units, and - in time - China, Cuba, Poland and Russia would design even larger iterations than the originals known as Tank Units.

Information and evidence on the existence of these weapons would not start being disclosed to the general populace until the late-2010's, with the first posts of the weapons first appearing on the dark web on 30 January 2018 on a site called "shadowpolice.on" with a North Korean defector posting anonymously on the site to expose the "global shadow police cabal" involving China, Russia, North Korea and the United States, claiming that North Korea had received 2 of the weapons after the fall of the Soviet Union in the late-1980's to early-1990's.

Scout/Reconnaissance Unit[]

RussianHungarianMAWS — A Brazilian *M2 Jaguar* (left) defends a heavily-damaged Chinese unit alongside a Cuban *X1 Crocodile*, c. 2027

Operators[]

Arab League: 5
Japan: 4
Korea: 4
Denmark –Norway: 4
Taiwan: 2
United States: 2
Belgium: 2
France: 2
Pakistan: 2
Sweden: 1
Brazil: 1
India: 1
Cuba: 1

Command/Control Unit[]

TurkishIronWolf — Chinese *石龙–Shí Lóng **"Stone Dragon"** Mechanized Autonomous Weapon* Command Unit

Operators[]

China: 6
United States: 6
Azerbaijan-Bukhara: 5
Korea: 4
France: 2
Iran: 2
South Korea: 1
Netherlands: 1

Tank/Assault Unit[]

HungarianBigOne — **Cuban** *“Palma de Navajas”* (**“Palm of Razors”**) Tank Unit – the **largest, most heavily-armed** of the MAW units to see combat in WWIII, c. 2029– Appalachian foothills, United States

Operators[]

Cuba: 3 (1 trainer)
Azerbaijan-Bukhara: 2
China: 2
Poland: 2
Russia: 2

Total units in circulation[]

MAW Superpowers — By the mid-2020's, the 3 recognized MAW superpowers were China, Korea and the United States, with only Cuba, Japan and France possessing more than 3, with most of the 18 other MAW nations possessing only 3 or 2 MAWS

By 2027, an estimate 70 units were in existence spread out between roughly 2-dozen nations, with over a third of the units owned by China, Korea and the United States - Korea having received the technology to build MAWS from the United States, China and the Soviet Union prior to reunification (most of the units produced by the South). Most nations possessed only 1 or 2 of the weapons with Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and Pakistan each possessing 3, and France, Japan, Cuba, the United States, Korea and China possessing 4 or more.

Although Denmark and Norway officially only produced 2 weapons each, they would combine their forces in the late-2020's to better combat an expansionist United States and an aggressive Russia. Russia formerly possessed the most MAWS but disseminated them among their former-USSR and non-USSR allies such as Azerbaijan, Cuba, Iraq, North Korea, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Likewise, by the mid-2020s China, Iran and Turkey were considered 'unmanned drone superpowers', with the United States producing three types of drones, Pakistan two and Russia, South Africa, India and Australia each possessing a single production line of combat drones respectively. China, Turkey and the United States would make extensive use of their drone fleets over the course of the War on Terror and World War III between 2001 and 2032.
Operators:

China: 8 (2 heavy)

Korea: 8

United States: 8

Cuba: 4 (3 heavy)

France: 4

Japan: 4

Denmark –Norway: 4

Pakistan: 3