This vehicle was used by Republic Forces during the Clone Wars, and later, by the Rebel Alliance. This seems to have been designed because the Republic felt they needed to add balance to their battles, because the CIS ground vehicles were way cooler. I mean, that Hailfire droid is freakin' awesome.

During their computer battle simulation training exercises, Republic participants were left without a ground vehicle that could compare to similar assets in the CIS Arsenal. This skewed the results toward CIS forces almost every time, which frustrated Republic officers, and often caused them to throw their controllers at the monitors in anger. Senior Republic leadership commissioned the TX-130 because they were losing money on replacement monitors.