The original TRO has the hatchet listed as handheld. Under the rules below from Tactical Operations it should be possible for the Hatchetman to throw the axe at a target. And other mechs with hands should be able to pick it up, if it has been put down or dropped, and throw it at a target.
Throwing at Another Unit: Use all the rules above for throwing at a hex, including the modifiers added for the number of hexes thrown, except instead of a punch attack the throwing unit makes a charging attack (per standard rules, the relative Piloting Skill Rolls of the attacking and target unit are taken into consideration). If the attack is successful, apply the damage as noted above to the target, using the direction of the attack to determine the appropriate location. For battle armor, the damage only applies to a single trooper; for conventional infantry, the attack is treated as though it originated from another infantry unit. If the attack is a failure, determine where it lands as described above; regardless of whether a unit is in the new hex, the attack fails to strike that unit (it automatically strikes any other non-unit object, such as terrain or a building).
Physical Weapons: The following Physical Attack Weapons can be thrown as inanimate objects (whether by the unit they are mounted on, or by another unit if the unit picks the object up (see Physical Weapons under Picking Up Inanimate Objects, p. 92): Hatchet, Mace, Sword, and Vibrosword. Use all the rules described above, with the following exception. If a unit is built to use the physical attack weapon (i.e. it can use the weapon in a physical weapon attack), apply a
–1 modifier to the punch attack. When rolling to determine damage to the physical weapon, roll 1D6: on a result of 1-4, nothing happens, on a result of 5-6, the weapon takes a critical hit, applied to the topmost open critical slot. If the weapon is damaged, it can still be thrown as an inanimate object until all its critical slots are destroyed, but it cannot be used to make a physical weapon attack as soon as 1 critical slot is assigned.
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