Lifting weapons

Lifting Weapons were one of the most popular choices for weapons on a robot. The basic principle behind them was to lift a robot up and potentially over. There were four main classes of lifting weapons: Lifters, Scoops, Flipping Arms, and Flippers. Each had notable moments and robots armed with them.

Lifters
Lifters were more designed to lift a robot off from the ground than turn them over. Often, robots armed with lifters would use them to get under a robot and push it around. The most notable of these is Series 2 champion Panic Attack, who defeated many robots by lifting them up and dropping them in the pit. Other notable robots include Panzer Mk 2 and S.M.I.D.S.Y.. The most powerful lifter is almost certainly Series 2 superheavyweight champion Kick Robut.

Strengths of lifters were that they were effective weapons in early seasons, before the invention of the srimech. Panic Attack's road to victory in the Second Wars, as well as its run in Series 3, were the best examples of this. Also, lifting weapons could be used as effective weapons for invertible robots, such as Suicidal Tendencies, Storm 2 and S.M.I.D.S.Y.

Weaknesses included that lifters were not usually powerful enough to self-right or flip a robot from the arena. Robots such as Panic Attack added additional srimechs, but these were not as useful, as shown in Panic Attack's various losses to Firestorm.

List of Robots with Lifters
Robots are listed alphabetically. Robots that aren't heavyweight are listed with a green background.

Scoops
Lifting Scoops were similar to lifters in that they wouldn't flip a robot off the ground, but were more designed to tip robots over than lifters were. Some scoops were capable of hoisting others out of the arena. The only robot to succed in doing this, Behemoth, is also the most notable robot with a lifing scoop. Other notable scoops include Panzer Mk 4, G.B.H. and Scutter's Revenge.

Scoops were easily able to lift and tip overother robots because they were often large. However, this, coupled with the fact that they were often reasonably weak, made them a prime target for spinners.

List of Robots with Scoops
Robots are listed alphabetically. Robots that aren't heavyweight are listed with a green background.

Flippers
The most popular of the lifting weapons was the flipper. Flippers were usually reasonably large pieces of metal that were fired rapidly to toss a robot into the air and onto its back. Flippers were either rear hinged, or less commonly front hinged.

There were two categories of flipper: True Flippers and Flipping Arms

True Flippers
True flippers were often of a reasonable size, and had the most power of all lifting weapons. Both front-hinged and rear-hinged flippers were popular and notable in the history of Robot Wars.

Front-Hinged Flippers
Front-Hinged flippers were the more common of the two types of flipper. They first came into existence when Chaos 2 stormed through Series 3, becoming Grand Champion. Before that all front-hinged weapons, and there weren't many of them, were lifters. The other innovators were Facet and Beast of Bodmin. As the series progressed, flippers became more powerful, easily able to toss house robots over and throw other competitors out of the arena. The most notable robot with a front-hinged flipper is Chaos 2, also the first robot to throw another out of the arena, but as the series progressed, other more powerful robots such as Wheely Big Cheese, Gravity, Spawn Again and Dantomkia also came into the spotlight. The strengths of flippers were that they could easily end a battle quickly by throwing a robot onto its back or out of the arena. They were almost always powerful enough to self-right a robot if it was flipped, although Cygnus X-1 proved otherwise.

However, flippers were fragile, and could be broken. Also, CO2 powered flippers only had a limited supply of flips. Flippers rarely offered damage potential and their effectiveness was decreased when Self-righting mechanisms and invetable robots became more popular.

List of Robots with Front-Hinged Flippers
Robots are listed alphabetically. Robots that are not heavyweight are listed with a green background.