In my own words, why Mecha aren't better than tanks....

[Steve]

I almost put this in OSF, but I figured it'd be better if moderators made that decision based on what debate it creates.

So, onto the post in question....


Village outside Tubas
West Bank, Palestinian Authority
State of Israel (Occupied)
15 February 2016 S.E.C.
5 December 3058 I.S.C.


The low rumble of Israeli battle tanks at full throttle sent a wave of alarm through the people of the village. The Palestinians huddled in their homes, wondering what was going on. Wondering if the Israelis had violated the agreement to cease hostilities and fight Giuseppe, an agreement forged in the aftermath of the Holy Cities' destruction by Giuseppe's nuclear arsenal.

But soon they gained confirmation that this was not so. Flanking the Israeli Merkavas were trucks laden with Palestinian men with assault rifles. Where were they going? The enemy was stalled outside Damascus, suppressed by Israeli and Jordanian artillery firing down from the Golan Heights. The Iraqi and Kuwaiti Armies had counter-attacked at Baghdad and the enemy there could not be spared to move in this direction. The Giuseppians could not have advanced so far without warning. Or could they? Could their leaders have lied to them again?

Children clasped onto mothers, trembling in fear, as everyone felt slight tremors in the earth. It was if the earth was quaking, but in a fashion they'd never felt before. A few brave young people looked outside and quickly prayed upon seeing the monsters before them. Among them was a particular Palestinian, a young man of twenty-three by the name of Achmed Hijaz. Like other young people his age, Achmed looked outside an available window to see what was going on.

A bright ruby beam speared on of the trucks with their countrymen. The gunmen screamed as the beam cut through their bodies, vaporizing their organs and entire limbs. The truck's gas tank exploded and showered a nearby home with flaming debris. Ahead of the village were the targets that the Israeli and Palestinian forces were moving toward.

There were five of them. The walkers that had been spoken of only in hushed whispers and rumor.
Clan BattleMechs.

The tallest was the size of an office building, it seemed, or at least the height of one. There were smaller ones of varying height, each of them bristling with powerful weapons. Their color scheme was a mix of red and gray, and a large blood drop emblem was emblazoned on various parts of their frames.

A thunderous sound echoed in Achmed's ears. The main cannons on the Israeli tanks fired in concert. The HEAT rounds exploded against the armor of the two closest ones, a Hunchback IIC and an Adder Alpha. The Adder returned fire with a particle beam. A spear of plasma lanced through the lead Merkava and it exploded on the inside from the combustion of it's ammunition. The other tanks continued their attack. A second one's tread was melted by the impacts of emerald darts from a Conjurer's pulse laser. It slowed to a complete stop. The largest 'Mech, a Hellbringer Prime, stomped up to it and the MechWarrior inside brought his foot down on top of the tank, smashing in the turret.

With the quick destruction of two of their number, the last two tanks began backing up to flee. The Clan 'Mechs now turned their attention to the two remaining trucks of Palestinians. Rounds from their Kalishnikovs peppered the Horned Owl that had come from behind the Hellbringer. The rounds bounced harmlessly off the hard armor plate of the Clan 'Mech. The Horned Owl looked down at the Palestinians as if it were in contempt of ants pelting it with grains of sand. The MechWarrior within raised both arms, pointing each at one of the trucks. Achmed and many others tried to shout a warning to the men to get away, but it was too late. Darts of ruby light struck out at them. One truck exploded immediately with the screams of it's dying occupants echoing in the air. The other truck's driver had tried, belatedly, to move backward, with some of the men falling out. As he did so, a red beam from the Conjurer thrust through the vehicle. The heat it generated in the truck caused the fuel tank to explode. Men flew through the air from the wild explosion that prompted frightened cries from the huddled civilians. One such man, alive but fatally wounded, looked up just in time to scream as the Hellbringer brought it's foot down on him, crushing him into the sand and rock. With this done, the 'Mechs turned their attention back to the tanks.

As they did, there was movement behind them. Achmed now realized that several of the trucks he had seen come in had not joined the main battle, and one had emerged behind them. From it's back, a gaggle of people had jumped down, each of them carrying a shaped object. They ran toward the 'Mechs, and as they drew near, a loud shout of "Allahu Akbar!" echoed through the air. And Achmed knew who they were.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Suicide-bombers.

The lead one, a young man of his age, leapt onto the knee of the Horned Owl. Scrambling up close to the knee as the MechWarrior inside reacted, he pushed a shaped explosive charge up to the slight exposed part of the knee actuator and pressed the detonation button. A massive explosion ripped the leg of the Clan 'Mech off, vaporizing most of the bomber's body and creating a short rain of flesh and blood from what was left. The 'Mech collapsed and immediately a swarm of Palestinians emerged from between buildings, one of them wielding a cutting torch. The Horned Owl's pilot lifted his right arm and leveled it on the approaching people. The MechWarrior fired his pulse laser. A stream of red energy needles erupted from the muzzle and speared three of the people, who died almost instantly. He had not managed to hit the man with the cutting torch, who clambered up onto the side of the 'Mech and began cutting away the hatch for the cockpit. When it gave way, the Palestinians found within a dead woman, a scorch mark on her skull to show where she had lasered herself in the head to prevent capture.

The other 'Mechs had reacted, and with the exception of the Hellbringer, turned to face their new attackers. The Hunchback IIC's right arm lifted and the ruby laser it carried fired, scorching ground behind the approaching bomber, an older woman of about thirty. She ignored the scorching heat that baked her flesh from the rear and jumped onto the Hunchback IIC's left leg. The MechWarrior within lifted the leg to try and shake her off, causing the woman to hold on for dear life. Finally he stopped and held his leg aloft, the movement of the actuator covering the gap in his armor, and pointed his right arm at the woman. A discharge of red light was the last thing she saw as the laser cut her in half, melting off a portion of the Hunchback IIC's armor from the surface hit.

By this time, a younger and faster man had clambered up unto the Hunchback IIC's other leg. The MechWarrior noticed too late, and without comrades able to pay attention, there was no stopping the bomber. Repeating his earlier comrade's actions, he blew himself apart and with his death blew the Hunchback IIC's leg out from under it. The medium 'Mech toppled over and was immediately assailed by waiting Palestinians.

In the distance, an explosion flowered where one of the Merkava tanks had been. The Hellbringer had scored a direct hit with one of it's extended-range PPCs. The MechWarrior began to target the other.

Another explosion ripped through the air, blowing apart a young girl and the left leg of the Conjurer, the MechWarrior within having concentrated on killing two suicide-bombers racing toward the Adder instead of trying to stop his own attacker. Palestinians swarmed over the fallen 'Mech as they did the others. The Hellbringer turned it's attentions to the bombers. As the heavy OmniMech turned, it's right leg-mounted A-Pod fired an fragmentation mine. The burst of shrapnel cut down two of the suicide-bombers approaching the Hellbringer, disembowling them. As they collapsed, the others maintained their run. One began screaming as flames from the Adder's flame-thrower engulfed him. He collapsed, still burning.

Another A-Pod deployed a mine from the Hellbringer's left leg. A spray of shrapnel dismembered one of the bombers, who fell screaming, and sliced through the chest and neck of another, a young girl who's guts spilled out onto the ground as she fell dead. The Hellbringer turned toward the Hunchback IIC and a second mine deployed, spraying some of the people swarming over the 'Mech. Five were wounded, two fatally, by the shredding of their bodies because of the resulting shrapnel.

Only one had managed to survive, by remaining to the side of the Adder and keeping the lighter 'Mech between him and the devastating A-Pod dispenser on the Hellbringer. He ran to the left leg of the Adder, who's pilot noticed him and trained the 'Mech's Flamer onto him. The flames burned his clothes and his flesh. His nerves screamed from pain, but with grim determination, he set out to complete his holy duty. He jumped up on the left leg and in four seconds had scrambled up the necessary height to push the shaped charge into the Adder's knee actuator. With one last, painful gasp, he thanked Allah for giving him the strength to go this far and hit the detonator. All became dark.

The explosion did to the Adder as it had done to the others. The leg was blown off at the knee and the 'Mech tipped backward. But this time, no one came to deal with the fallen 'Mech. The Palestinians had retreated because of the Hellbringer's anti-infantry mines, dragging with them the pilot of the Hunchback IIC, whom was being beaten to death by his captors. The Hellbringer's pilot turned toward his comrade. With cold precision, the right arm on the OmniMech lifted and a bolt of cerulean lightning erupted from the muzzle, enveloping the pilot and his torturers. They all vanished in a few instants, vaporized by the PPC blast.

Along with others, Achmed was transfixed by the scene before him. He wanted to do something, anything, to stop this gigantic monster before it killed them all.

He could hear a loud engine roar to his right, and turned in time to see the last Merkava bearing down on the Hellbringer. It was going as fast as physically possible. The Hellbringer's torso twisted and a red energy beam cut into the tank's rear, but it was going to fast and was too close for the beam to do more than damage the rear armor. At full speed the tank slammed into the Hellbringer's feet and legs. A respectable sixty metric tons in mass, the momentum it delivered with it's mass and speed was too much for the Hellbringer's gyro to withstand. The 'Mech fell forward and on top of the Israeli tank, crushing the turret. The impact managed to partially shatter the ferroglass cockpit of the Hellbringer, and some of the resulting shards pierced the Clan MechWarrior's body, including a piece that sliced open his neck and carotid artery. His last seconds of life were spent drowning in his own blood.

A cry came from the Merkava. Achmed heard it, as did others, but he was the only one to immediately respond. He ran to the tank, half-buried under the massive OmniMech. At the rear part, which was under the massive fallen 'Mech, he spotted a hatch for the driver. He gripped it's opening panel and pulled with all of his strength. A burning pain filled his arm muscles at the exertion, and with a final pained gasp of effort, he wrenched open the hatch. Seated at the front of the tank was a young woman, as olive-skinned as he, wearing an Israeli tank uniform. Her forehead was bloody and her eyes were drooping lose. She was beginning to lose consciousness. Seeing that she needed help, Achmed jumped into the tank began pulling her out. He ignored the dead body of the gunner, crushed in the turret from the impact of the Hellbringer's fall with only his head and upper chest visible. The young woman was of decent size and weight, making it a struggle for Achmed, but he got her out and onto the ground. He pulled her away from the tank just in time, as it's overburdened structure collapsed from the extra weight of the OmniMech on top of it. There was a bruise on her forehead around the gash. Blood trickled from a broken nose and the side of her pinkish lips, which were split open. Her almond eyes closed completely. "Wake up!", Achmed shouted in Hebrew. "Speak! You have to!"

A low moan left the woman's lungs. "You will be okay," Achmed continued. "Help!", he shouted, this time in Arabic. "We need help!"
But his people would not listen. Old hatreds died hard, and the Palestinian medics were more concerned helping their wounded than a lone Israeli girl.

Achmed looked back at her. He swallowed and prayed to God that she would live. He had no love for Israelis either, but neither did he hate them all, and this girl had done him no personal wrong but had probably saved what was left of his village, and many of his relatives and friends, from these Clan Walkers. She deserved life. A few scraps of memory returned to Achmed, and he tore open the girl's BDU top. Placing his hands over her belly to try CPR, he pushed down hard five times, and then moved his mouth to her's and blew into it. At the second time he heard her cough. "You're alive?"

"That was unnecessary," she answered meekly in the same Hebrew he had used. "You speak Hebrew?"
"Only a little," Achmed confessed.
"And what about English?", the young woman asked in the new language.

That was a language he was acquainted with, thanks to a mother educated in Britain. "I speak good English," he replied.
She nodded. Her almond eyes looked up at his of the same color. She tried to form a weak smile. "Your name?"
"Achmed Hijaz. Your's?"
"Rebekah. Rebekah Shameel bat Gurion." The name was not one Achmed had heard before. Unknown to him, she had been named in a more traditional fashion, with a surname and then a patrynomic.

Finally a medic walked up, followed by others with a stretcher. "You will live," the medic said in Hebrew to Rebekah after examining her. "She will live," he repeated for Achmed in Arabic.
"Achmed?" Rebekah's right hand reached out, and her slender fingers gently wrapped around his right wrist. In English, she murmured, "Thank you."

"You are welcome." Achmed stood to the side and watched the medics take the Israeli girl to an ambulance. He looked at the death around him, the gore of slain bodies and the husks of burned out vehicles, and sighed deeply. He did not feel like joining the others, who were celebrating loudly and dragging the still-living pilots of the Adder and Conjurer around, beating them to death while others had leapt onto the tops of the fallen 'Mechs and were firing Kalashnikovs into the air wildly. This had been a victory, or so they seemed to think.

Achmed walked away from the Hellbringer and toward a body draped with a sheet that had been bloodied. He lifted it slightly and stared into the lifeless brown eyes of a Palestinian girl. She looked no older than seventeen. She had been one of the suicide-bombers, mowed down by a frag mine. Her life, and others, snuffed out in a matter of minutes.

Achmed stopped and looked up at the sky. If this was victory, then he truly dreaded what a defeat would look like.

[Ryoga]

You know what's wierd?

A tactic almost exactly similar to this one was actually used in the Battletech universe, by the Gray Death Legion on their first job (they were training a guerilla army with few or no 'Mechs). I can't for the life of me remember why it wasn't used more often, especially on people facing Clan occupation (who were certain to face severe repression or death unless drastic measures were taken to defend themselves). Chalk it up to writer's stupidity, I guess.

[Kuja]

Man, my eyes hurt. Put space between your paragraphs.

[Typhonis 1]

Stackpole didnt think of it

[Patrick Ogaard]

You know what's wierd?

A tactic almost exactly similar to this one was actually used in the Battletech universe, by the Gray Death Legion on their first job (they were training a guerilla army with few or no 'Mechs). I can't for the life of me remember why it wasn't used more often, especially on people facing Clan occupation (who were certain to face severe repression or death unless drastic measures were taken to defend themselves). Chalk it up to writer's stupidity, I guess.

It also shows up as a completely official Battletech rule in my copy of the Battletech Manual: The Rules of Warfare, copyright date 1987. On page 47 there is the entry for anti-mech infantry. They cost five times what a regular platoon of the same type (rifle, short-range missile, machine gun, flamer, etc.) would cost, and can swarm a mech to place satchel charges in strategic locations on the legs. If it works, the mech automatically takes a critical hit to one of its legs or, if the critcial hit roll does not show an effect, loses 4 points of armor on that leg, which in itself can be enough to seriously discomfit a light mech.

Much like real world infantry, properly deployed Battletech infantry under cover in an urban environment can chew up battlemechs and tanks, especially if the infantry have a bit of artillery support to encourage the battlemechs to enter the city instead of standing off and blasting the city to rubble. In the open, Battletech infantry are simply dead.

Of course, properly deployed Battletech tanks can chew up Battletech battlemechs.[/u]

[phongn]

This was supposed to be a Clan behind-the-line operation (the Arab-Israeli main lines holding against the UN/Clan assaults) , hence the lackage of artillery or infantry support.

[phongn]

Of course, properly deployed Battletech tanks can chew up Battletech battlemechs.

Have you heard of LordChaos's Savanna Masters from Hell?

[Iceberg]

Hmmmm...

*wonders how much extra range could be had on artillery by putting the gunbarrels a couple dozen meters in the air, a la RX-77 Guncannon/RGC-80 GM Cannon*

[Sea Skimmer]

Hmmmm...

*wonders how much extra range could be had on artillery by putting the gunbarrels a couple dozen meters in the air, a la RX-77 Guncannon/RGC-80 GM Cannon*

Very very little. The dispersion of the shells would be greater then the increase.

You need hundreds or thousands of meters of elevation to start getting a real range advantage. Though for battletech its hopeless, since modern 155mm artillery outrange there bests weapons by about 150%.

[Steve]

So... Skimmer.... would you mind actually posting something about the topic's first post?

[Kerneth]

Given that BattleTech heavy machine guns apparently have an effective range of only 90 meters...

[Patrick Ogaard]

Hmmmm...

*wonders how much extra range could be had on artillery by putting the gunbarrels a couple dozen meters in the air, a la RX-77 Guncannon/RGC-80 GM Cannon*

Very very little. The dispersion of the shells would be greater then the increase.

You need hundreds or thousands of meters of elevation to start getting a real range advantage. Though for battletech its hopeless, since modern 155mm artillery outrange there bests weapons by about 150%.

Battletech artillery is definitely not firing anything resembling modern artillery shells, though modern artillery shells would likely be more useful in many, possibly most, cases. Range would be a nice thing to have, after all.

Take the Long Tom cannon, the biggest piece of commonly deployed Battletech ground artillery. The cannon masses 30 tons, and each of the shells complete with propellant masses just under 200 kilograms. With that relatively puny 200 kilogram shell the Long Tom manages to completely blanket an area with a primary blast radius of 15 meters and a secondary blast radius of 30 meters. The effect of the shells is definitely not the same as that of conventional HE artillery rounds, more like that of a bomblet dispenser capable of saturating the entire area with an extremely dense pattern of explosives. An infantry platoon caught in the open in the primary blast radius will simply be shredded. It's not entirely clear how this is advantageous, particularly as modern tube artillery can fire similar, though smaller, rounds to greater ranges faster with a lighter gun.

On the other hand, that 30-ton cannon does also come in a self-propelled track version.

[Steve]

Given that BattleTech heavy machine guns apparently have an effective range of only 90 meters...

Depends on if you're using ranges in the table-top or RPG.

I've been told that the RPG ranges are greater. 300 meters for the HMGs.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Given that BattleTech heavy machine guns apparently have an effective range of only 90 meters...

Of course, BattleTech heavy machine guns resemble real world machine guns only insofar as both are called machine guns. No one in the real world would call a multi-barrel weapon, one that flings 20mm to 30mm shells at a rate of nearly 5 kilograms of shell and propellant per burst, a machine gun. Their ludicrously low range can really only be explained in-game by the shells being heavy, low-velocity shaped charge projectiles. That would also explain how one burst from one of those guns can mow down from 4 to 24 infantry soldiers if they are unlucky enough to be caught in the open.

All weapons in BattleTech are ultimately designed specifically for use by and against Battlemechs. Any other use is purely secondary. In the context of the tabletop game, even BattleTech rifle platoons can not hurt each other beyond a maximum of about a hundred meters.

[Sea Skimmer]

Take the Long Tom cannon, the biggest piece of commonly deployed Battletech ground artillery. The cannon masses 30 tons, and each of the shells complete with propellant masses just under 200 kilograms.

Unhun, that would place it at around 200mm. No point to tube artillery that big, rockets work better.

With that relatively puny 200 kilogram shell the Long Tom manages to completely blanket an area with a primary blast radius of 15 meters and a secondary blast radius of 30 meters.

Puny? That would be classed as super heavy. The blast radius is absurd, the things must be filled with black powder. A 155mm shell has a blast radius of about 50 meters.

The effect of the shells is definitely not the same as that of conventional HE artillery rounds, more like that of a bomblet dispenser capable of saturating the entire area with an extremely dense pattern of explosives.

We've had DPICM for modern guns since the late 1960's.

An infantry platoon caught in the open in the primary blast radius will simply be shredded. It's not entirely clear how this is advantageous, particularly as modern tube artillery can fire similar, though smaller, rounds to greater ranges faster with a lighter gun.

A platoon that bunched up would be wiped out by a 155mm round as well. This weapon manages to be heavier in

On the other hand, that 30-ton cannon does also come in a self-propelled track version.

The only other way would be to make it a railway gun or dissemble it for movement. You can't tow artillery that heavy.

So lets see. The Longtom is heavier then a 155mm turreted SP gun, in its fixed form, and has inferior range and burst radius despite a much larger shell. In other words, massively inferior in every respect to current artillery or that of several decades ago.

[Sea Skimmer]

Given that BattleTech heavy machine guns apparently have an effective range of only 90 meters...

Of course, BattleTech heavy machine guns resemble real world machine guns only insofar as both are called machine guns. No one in the real world would call a multi-barrel weapon, one that flings 20mm to 30mm shells at a rate of nearly 5 kilograms of shell and propellant per burst, a machine gun.

Actually we both have such weapons and they can correctly be called machine guns. Though Gatling is a more common name. They however reach out to multi kilometer ranges.

If cought in the open as bunched up as Battletech infantry seem to be you can mow dozen dozens of infantry with a single grenade.

[Sea Skimmer]

So... Skimmer.... would you mind actually posting something about the topic's first post?

Umm okay. Good writing from a literary standpoint. But hampered by a universe that's indescribably stupid. With every bit of new information I learn about Battletech I knock the date at which Earth could beat it back a few more years

[Vympel]

Unhun, that would place it at around 200mm. No point to tube artillery that big, rockets work better.

I think Russia still has it's 2S7 203mm guns on hand, but I guess they'd rather rely on their Smerch rocket artillery.

Puny? That would be classed as super heavy. The blast radius is absurd, the things must be filled with black powder. A 155mm shell has a blast radius of about 50 meters.

200kg shell with the blast radius of a grenade.

[Vympel]

Umm okay. Good writing from a literary standpoint. But hampered by a universe that's indescribably stupid. With every bit of new information I learn about Battletech I knock the date at which Earth could beat it back a few more years

What do you reckon- 1950s?

[Patrick Ogaard]

Given that BattleTech heavy machine guns apparently have an effective range of only 90 meters...

Of course, BattleTech heavy machine guns resemble real world machine guns only insofar as both are called machine guns. No one in the real world would call a multi-barrel weapon, one that flings 20mm to 30mm shells at a rate of nearly 5 kilograms of shell and propellant per burst, a machine gun.

Actually we both have such weapons and they can correctly be called machine guns. Though Gatling is a more common name. They however reach out to multi kilometer ranges.

If cought in the open as bunched up as Battletech infantry seem to be you can mow dozen dozens of infantry with a single grenade.

The point is that a half-ton rotary multibarrel weapon with a caliber of 20-30 millimeters and a maximum effective range of less than 150 meters is not a machine gun in the conventional sense of the word in that it does not appear to adequately fill any of the the tactical roles of a machine gun. It does not qualify as a conventional machine gun, a gatling-style minigun, a chain gun, a grenade machine gun, or even a gatling-style small-caliber cannon like the GAU series, since it does not have any of the range of those weapons. A gun with such an incredibly short range would be a terrible liability under almost any conceivable circumstances.

Also, in theory the infantry platoon of 28 soldiers would be spread out within a space approximately 30 meters across. That's still dangerously bunched up, but not so close that any conventional hand grenade should be able to do everyone in.

[kojikun]

Heres my version..

As the small group of tanks, 4 M1s in all, drove north through the vast expanse of the desert, recon sighted 7 mechs walking south to meet the tanks.

A few minutes later the mechs were just barely viewable 2.5 miles away, you'd need to look through binoculars to get a good image. The tanks kept moving and targeted four of the mechs.

The shots fired, three of the mechs took body shots and were knocked off their feet, but not before blowing up. The other tank took a leg shot which destroyed the entire left leg and left the mech paralyzed on the ground.

The last 3 mechs were taken out similarly. The mechs had gotten off shots with their extremely small pieces of artillery, and with their low powered tactical lasers, but never managed to damage the well armored tanks.

The End.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Take the Long Tom cannon, the biggest piece of commonly deployed Battletech ground artillery. The cannon masses 30 tons, and each of the shells complete with propellant masses just under 200 kilograms.

Unhun, that would place it at around 200mm. No point to tube artillery that big, rockets work better.

With that relatively puny 200 kilogram shell the Long Tom manages to completely blanket an area with a primary blast radius of 15 meters and a secondary blast radius of 30 meters.

Puny? That would be classed as super heavy. The blast radius is absurd, the things must be filled with black powder. A 155mm shell has a blast radius of about 50 meters.

The effect of the shells is definitely not the same as that of conventional HE artillery rounds, more like that of a bomblet dispenser capable of saturating the entire area with an extremely dense pattern of explosives.

We've had DPICM for modern guns since the late 1960's.

An infantry platoon caught in the open in the primary blast radius will simply be shredded. It's not entirely clear how this is advantageous, particularly as modern tube artillery can fire similar, though smaller, rounds to greater ranges faster with a lighter gun.

A platoon that bunched up would be wiped out by a 155mm round as well. This weapon manages to be heavier in

On the other hand, that 30-ton cannon does also come in a self-propelled track version.

The only other way would be to make it a railway gun or dissemble it for movement. You can't tow artillery that heavy.

So lets see. The Longtom is heavier then a 155mm turreted SP gun, in its fixed form, and has inferior range and burst radius despite a much larger shell. In other words, massively inferior in every respect to current artillery or that of several decades ago.

The Long Tom, just like the smaller and shorter-ranged Sniper and Thumper artillery pieces, are most definitely not normal artillery pieces. They aren't very good compared to real world artillery even a century old.

Some examples: At the maximum 10-kilometer range of the Long Tom -- yes, I know that kind of range is ludicrously low for large-caliber piece of tube artillery technically called a Long Tom Rifle -- the shell from a fire mission takes approximately 110 seconds to arrive, or about a minute to reach a target some six kilometers away. This is extremely slow. The six kilometer figure should come out to about 360 kilometers per hour for the artillery shell. This value is constant for the other two pieces of artillery.

As for the horrendously anemic blast radius, it's actually stranger than that. The thing is that an infantry unit takes damage as if it were the target of a moderate HE blast or a rain of bomblets, neither particularly new artillery technology, whereas an armored or BattleMech unit sharing the same terrain with the infantry unit (and effectively surrounded by it) takes a single concentrated hit to one particular location (unless some bit of errata changed that), such as an arm, a leg or a torso location. Given a formation of mechs suicidally clustered as closely as they can conceivably be, one shell could damage up to seven mechs simultaneously, one taking a full-strength hit and the remainder taking a half-strength hit. Of course, a half-strength hit from a Long Tom shell is still enough to completely rip the arm off a 20-ton light mech armored to the maximum level possible. That same strike could also strike up to 7 platoons of closely clustered infantry interspersed with the mechs.

As for the mobility, that is provided by a 95-ton two-part tracked vehicle (with 30 tons of its weight devoted to the gun), noted as being painfully slow, with a cruising speed of 20 km/h and a maximum speed of 25 km/h, as well as being limited to specially prepared roads or rail tracks (so, yes, it can be employed as a railway gun or could even be mounted on a mech chassis).

[Sea Skimmer]

You said the warhead was bomblet? If it was a unitary warhead of some form the effect could be explained, somewhat. Explosively forged penatraitor can be made to explode as fragmentation explosions or to actually form the penatraitor.

[Patrick Ogaard]

You said the warhead was bomblet? If it was a unitary warhead of some form the effect could be explained, somewhat. Explosively forged penatraitor can be made to explode as fragmentation explosions or to actually form the penatraitor.

Well, the bomblet part is my conjecture. Something along the lines of your train of thought, with a multipurpose warhead similar to those supposedly employed by the newest generation of Tomahawks, might actually go some ways toward explaining the behavior. It's still an extremely odd sort of effect.

Stepping outside the suspension of disbelief box for a moment, the problem is really that the first game was initially called BattleDroids, with giant battling robots. Then it was changed to BattleTech, with giant battling robots with human pilots, but with no vehicles or infantry in sight. Then came CityTech, which brought in infantry, artillery and vehicles. Unfortunately, they were inevitably not perfectly smooth additions, particularly the infantry and artillery aspects. Then came AeroTech, which introduced ground-strafing and dive-bombing aerospace fighters. Since everything was initially conceived solely as a tabletop miniatures game to be played on a hex map, realism was sacrificed on the altar of playability.

That being said, BattleTech was fun, and the Technical Readouts are still interesting enough for me to occasionally drag them out and give them a short look.

And now back into the SoD box.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Of course, properly deployed Battletech tanks can chew up Battletech battlemechs.

Have you heard of LordChaos's Savanna Masters from Hell?

Can't say I have. Though I do have the Technical Readout that includes the Savannah Master hovercraft. I always wondered if anyone designed a larger version armed with a large laser.