bobnik
Memetic Warfare Specialist
Move and counter move was my entire point, sorry if I was unclear. I was mostly trying to brainstorm counter moves to vertically mobile arty.
Battletech Welcome to the Jungle
- Thread starter Speaker4thesilent
- Start date
If you let the enemy bomb you you're not that much better off with mechs than tanks because the rear armor is so thin. If the enemy gets close to your artillery with ground units you have messed up. And you're nowhere near as mobile as a Thumper SPG. The standard Thumper SPG does 4/6 or 5/7 on roads. If we're comparing SLDF artillery mechs to SLDF artillery vehicles the Thor does 5/8 or 6/9 on roads. That's a big difference. You take a force of 5/8 mechs and hovercraft like the Harquebusiers and the Thor can keep up through flat fields and easily keep up on roads and the Thumper SPG can almost keep up on roads. The Helepolis flat out can't keep up on any terrain unless it has airlift. If you move farther than artillery range when you can't afford to reposition your artillery with a dropship you outrun your fire support.
You take your more common line of battle force of Thunderbolts, Warhammers, Archers, and Hunchbacks or Catapults and Vindicators and Blackjacks or Centurions and Enforcers and Blackjacks or whatever your preferred nation's mix is and the vehicular artillery is even more able to keep up. The Helepolis still can't
One platform for two guns isn't an advantage when you can fit three light vehicle bays in the space of one mech bay and can fit a Thumper into something the size of a Hetzer.
Get your artillery mech up to 4/6/4 (ie. a converted Victor) and it can keep up with conventional line of battle forces of heavy and slow medium mechs. Get it to 5/8/5 and it can keep up with heavy cavalry forces.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
I will note that getting some Rifleman and upgrading the crap of them is high on the procurement list for the 1st Catachan, mind you they can probably get some of those out of the deal they're planning to make with THI which makes the things
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Would they be interested in getting Partisan tanks for closer to home? I would think they would be cheaper and when you want your landhold free of unfriendly fliers the Partisan works great. What kind of upgrades would you want for a Rifleman other then double heat sinks and more ammo.
Armor...Rifleman needs more armor.
God yes. They're the easiest heavy mech in the game to just turn to utter scrap in
MW5. If I see a Rifleman on the field I always target it first, so easy to reduce enemy firepower.
Speaker4thesilent
Crazed Deplorable
You're getting ahead of yourselves with this discussion. Because the biggest thing you want for a Rifleman after 'moar armor!!!1!' is an Autocannon that doesn't suck.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Aka either a LBX-10 or once its developed a LBX-5
Probably LBX-5 as fitting in a pair of bigger guns with everything else the (improved) Rifleman wants to use might be hard. From what I know of the Rifleman its big weaknesses are heat and armor. Heat might solve itself with the Double heat sinks. Armor might be tricky as you only have so much tonnage to play with (and volume). With the weight of LBX-10 or just AC-10 (with ammo) might be to much.
Speaker4thesilent
Crazed Deplorable
Yeah, four main guns on a 60-tonner is a bit much. Even going with LB-5Xs it basically eliminates any secondary armament.
I though you were replacing the ac 5 with a Lb 5x. Correct me if I am wrong but do they not weigh the same? not slapping on another set of ballistics. Pull the Large Lasers for more dakka and keep the heat down? keeping the ML for last ditch self defense? Issue with the Rifleman is 2 LL 2 ac 5 and 2 ML with 10 single heat sinks. with doubles you can at least sink a standing attack with your main guns (LL and AC), but those LL eat a lot of tonnage on a mech that cant afford to lose its AC/LB and fill its role. a XLFE 240 might save you on tonnage but volume concerns are a thing as are the weight savings to volume of Endo or Fibro.
Speaker4thesilent
Crazed Deplorable
Large Lasers and LB-5Xs both count as main guns in my mind, due to the combination of mass, damage, and range. ERLLs moreso even than regular LLs. This is especially true when your primary target is ASFs, which have to make a control check when they get tagged.
And since LB-5Xs are subject to the same damage boost as their heavy brethren when paired with advanced SLDF neurohelmets and an Augur Array, a refitted Rifleman with those four guns, theoretically does 32 damage a round out to just beyond PPC-range.
That’s pretty seriously impressive for a 60-ton ‘Mech.
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Wargamer08
Well-known member
Loathe as I am to say that the Clans has any good ideas, the Rifleman isn’t a heavy enough mech for its role. Pushing it to 65-75 tonnes would let it much more easily balance speed, armour and long range alpha.
Because 60t is all you have to work with, I’d honestly just cut all the secondaries and accept that it’s not going to be as armoured as line breaker like a Thunderbolt. What matters is consistent long range alpha, enough speed to not slow down your trooper mediums and a deep enough ammo reserves to keep the skies clear.
Edit- Messing around with the mech builder, you can fit an XL240, enough heat sinks to standing alpha the four main guns, 14, and four tonnes of ammo with zero secondary weapons and like 60-65% armour. Maybe if you mess with limb endo you can get the armour up a little more, but I think you’re stuck with after factory mods on these mechs not rebuilds.
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PeaceMaker 03
Well-known member
Joint Gauss line with his business partners, they already have factory, security, trained engineers, etc...... And it will cut year's and years off getting the gauss line going.
Speaker4thesilent
Crazed Deplorable
Thus far, it hasn’t gotten too out of hand. Things that are being discussed still relate to the plot of the story. If it gets to the point where it is more discussion for a general thread, I will definitely point people in that direction to avoid sending everyone a notification for unrelated discussion.
Just catching up on things but didn't Catachan actually have Streaks? I thought the initial cover story they used when they met Olivetti was pretending to have found a few mechs and Streak SRM2's from a lostech Cache.
Figured that meant that there was a factory producing SSRM2 Ammo somewhere on the planet.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Still its probably cut down the time to making new ammo by a fair bit of time. Assuming of course there isn't a ammo factory somewhere else on the planet.
Fair enough but then shouldn't there still be information on the Core about making the Streak launchers? Rather than not having anything at all.