The Sickle


Designation: Anti-Infantry Walker
Manufacturer: Kazminov Design Bureau
Country of origin: USSR
Mass-produced at: Soviet War Factory

Key features:

• Three 12.7 mm PKX heavy machine guns
• Three insulated, swivelling seats
• Pressurised strut suspension
• Sealed ammunition compartment to prevent internal fires
• Radio alarm clock



Originally designed as a police vehicle for use in border republics notorious for their high risk of Uprising, the Soviet Union’s Sickle KDB-5 has a compact design, four sturdy steel stilts and three articulated Artillery positions, making it ideal for urban operations and crowd control. It exceeded expectations in its original role, becoming a key asset in Soviet mechanised armoured divisions and enabling the Ukrainian Kazminov Design Bureau to rise to the top ranks of the Soviet Union’s arms manufacturers.


Three hundred and sixty degrees of firepower, combined with its exotic design, make the Sickle KDB-9 one of the most popular Soviet military vehicles still in service today.

The Sickle’s spider-like design – clearly a response to the infamous ‘Terror Drone’ from the Sversky robotics industry, a Talon reconnaissance unit created some ten years earlier – quickly curbed crime in several sectors. However, the Sickle had the opposite effect, provoking an already disrespectful and ungrateful populace into riots and street fighting. It was through several of these incidents that the Soviet army took notice of the vehicle, as it managed to eliminate a staggering number of disloyal men, women and children in record time. (As if those idiots could mock the Sickle with impunity!) Despite the vehicle’s slender appearance, it proved to be stable and fast enough to provide an almost perfect vantage point for its three Minigunners to silence enemy combatants.

The militarised version of the Sickle features a much more robust and reinforced leg design, enabling the entire vehicle to leap long distances, allowing it to clear obstacles such as road junctions or roadblocks. The manoeuvre was intended solely to provide these kinds of tactical advantages, although the Soviet authorities have admitted that the Sickle’s ability to perform the ‘frog leap’ has increasingly been used by the vehicle’s gunners for their own amusement. The appropriate punishment is still under close scrutiny in military courts, although for the time being, all Sickles on the battlefield have been hard-coded with a strict limit on the frequency with which the jump manoeuvre may be used.


Shown here is an earlier model whose flanking Artillery positions were vulnerable to counter-fire. In addition to its omnidirectional weapons, the Sickle’s ability to jump long distances makes it as unpredictable as it is effective.

There are a number of concerns surrounding the Sickle, despite its name and patriotic purpose. According to interviews and the psychological profiles currently being drawn up, it is becoming clear that Sickle gunners – typically three young men per vehicle – are twice as likely to engage in sadistic acts, excesses, or disregard for authority as the average Soviet Conscript. This may explain why the average life expectancy of Sickle gunners does not exceed 31.8 years. Despite repeated safety video briefings, the operators of these vehicles seem unable to refrain from committing senseless acts of violence or endangering themselves. In any case, the Soviet Union continues to deploy Sickles in large numbers, as they are used in a significant proportion of its military operations, and citizens continue to volunteer in their thousands for the chance to drive one.


Reconnaissance on the battlefield has at least revealed the following facts about the Sickles:

• Fully armoured- Each Sickle has three heavy machine guns, each covering a 130-degree firing arc around the vehicle. Sickles can effectively fire whilst on the move and can engage targets independently, but cannot concentrate their full firepower on a single target.

-Cannot engage aircraft– Whilst the Sickles have an unrivalled ability to attack in any direction around them, their turrets cannot swivel vertically enough to engage enemy aircraft. The speculation that KDB deliberately designed this limitation to ensure that its Sickles and Bullfrogs would be purchased is, broadly speaking, clearly false.

-The ‘Flea Jump’– The ‘Flea Jump’ has proved extremely useful for reconnaissance purposes, as Sickles can leap directly onto plateaus that are inaccessible on foot, for example. It has even been reported that some Sickle gunners leap directly onto enemy infantry divisions. If the enemies subjected to this attack survive, the Sickles finish them off quickly and easily.

-Cost-effective – KDB uses an inexpensive alloy to keep the cost of the Sickles very reasonable, meaning this unit is abundant on modern battlefields. Although the Sickle’s armour can almost completely withstand small-arms fire – which might go off after a disappointing ice hockey match – it cannot withstand anti-tank weapons.