Chainsaws

Chainsaws were gas-powered saws used by lumberjacks to cut down trees. They featured a chain with many teeth wrapped around a motor that spun the chain in an elliptical pattern. Oftentimes, the chainsaw would be mounted on a servo motor so that it could be pushed further down into the other robot's shell.

Chainsaws have been used as weapons since the dawn of robotic combat. In fact, in 1994, when Marc Thorpe was putting out an invitation to bulders for the first Robot Wars ever in the world, he provided a photo of a robot equipped with a chainsaw as an example of a what he thought the competitors would look like.

House Robot Matilda was the first to have a chainsaw, although it took until Series 2 for them to be used by competitors. Inquisitor, Napalm and Spin Doctor all carried them in Series 2, but all three broke before combat and were forced to rely on other factors in battle.

Definition
It is very simple to tell if a robot is wielding a chainsaw. The weapon is long and uses the chain to cut.

Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
 * In the early days of Robot Wars, chainsaws were fairly common because they could be purchased pre-assembled, unlike most other weapons.

Disadvantages
 * However, chainsaws are meant to cut wood not metal, and as more and more roboteers chose the latter to armour their robot with, chainsaws became all but extinct, with no UK robot using one past Series 4 (Rocky-Bot-Boa was the only robot to use one past that time, in US Season 2).
 * Chainsaws often locked up when they came into contact with harder armour. This was seen most clearly in Overkill's battle with 101.
 * They could very easily be broken. Matilda's chainsaw was destroyed by Razer in Series 4, Leighviathan's was wrecked by a simple push of Dead Metal's claws, and most infamously, under mild pressure from Killalot, Napalm's merely fell completely out the back.

List of Robots with Chainsaws
Robots are listed alphabetically. Robots that are not heavyweight are listed with a green background.