Horizontal crushers

Tough As Nails disposes of Disc-O-Inferno using its trademark crusher

Horizontal Crushers are a prominent form of gripping weapon, but grip the sides of robots. The first robot to use this design was Milly-Ann Bug, and Scarab was the first competitor to use it as a piercing weapon. The more successful robots with this weapon included Tough As Nails and Kan-Opener.

Definition

• A horizontal crusher uses two large claws or rods to crush or pierce the sides of robots.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Dead Metal's effective weapons synergy

Atomic's easy defeat of Kan-Opener

Advantages

• They are also easier to implement into an invertible design than their vertical counterparts.
• Following the example of house robot Dead Metal or competitor Big Nipper, the horizontal pincers allow ample opportunity for a good weapon synergy.
• Horizontal crushers can bite directly into the opponent's wheels, severely hampering robot's movement. Tough As Nails used this this to score easy victories over potent opponents like Disc-O-Inferno and Gravity.

Disadvantages

Kan-Opener's crushers break whilst stuck in Barbaric Response.

• Horizontal crushers provide a gaping ground clearance for opponents to get underneath. Kan-Opener's battle with Atomic was an example.
• Horizontal crushers have trouble getting unstuck after piercing an opponent's armour. This cost Kan-Opener the melee in Series 6 when it got stuck into Demolition Man and couldn't evade the attacks of the other two robots, and again in its Series 7 melee when it spent most of the match stuck inside Barbaric Response, which cost it the judges' decision.

List of Robots with Horizontal Crushers

Scarab was the first to use a horizontal crusher

Thermador was the first to have horizontal gripping weapons

Robots are listed alphabetically. Robots that are not heavyweight are listed with a green background. House robots are listed with a red background.

Robot	Series Appearences with Horizontal Crushers	Notes
4x4	Series 6
All Torque	Series 3 (World Championship only)	Added a small snowplough between the claws
Big Nipper	Series 5, 7	Mounted the claws on a lifting arm.
Bot-Ugly	US Season 1	Pincers moved in a straight line instead of an arc.
Dead Metal	Series 1-7, Extreme 1-2
Infinity	Series 6, Extreme 2
Kan-Opener	Series 5-7, Extreme 2	Twice Annihilator champion
Katnip	Extreme 2
Mechadroid	US Season 2
Milly-Ann Bug	Series 2	Two static beams attached to the front dome.
Monad	Series 5
Scarab (Dutch)	Dutch Series 2	Walkerbot
Scarab (UK)	Series 3	First robot to use such a weapon.
Staglet	Series 7
The Stag	Series 6-7
Thermidor 2	Series 3-7, Extreme 1-2	Claws combined with flipper
Thor	Series 6
Tough As Nails	UK Series 7, Dutch Series 2	The only robot with a horizontal crusher as its primary weapon to reach a series semi-final.