Vehicle of the Week: Prowler Multi-Terrain VehicleThe Prowler is not a new vehicle, though it's getting more publicity than it used to after being included in TRO3085 Supplemental instead of Explorer Corps. Rarely seen on the front lines, it's still fairly common and was originally designed by luxury car maker Vitesse Vehicles in 2611. Popular as an all-terrain transport in civilian applications as well as a combat unit, the Prowler was widely licensed to the point that Vitesse ultimately stopped building them, raking in the cash from licenses distributed as far as the Taurian Concordat. Even through the Succession Wars, production never quite stopped. Many Inner Sphere militaries retain some for unusual terrain or exotic conditions while the Word turned them into close-range suicide ambushers that started to gain a deadly mystique among the Coalition. Today, Millennium Vehicles is producing them on Terra, Defiance Motors has a line on Tharkad, Pinard is building them on the eponymous Taurian world, and various other unnamed manufacturers are still building them, although most of the manufacturing off of Terra is going to the Succession Wars variant. Despite the limited time in the limelight, the Prowler's sales are going strong, given a leg up by the Word's use of the type in the Jihad.
The baseline model (it's unclear if it's the original or not) is described directly in TRO3085 Supplemental. At 55 tons, the Prowler is right over the line for a heavy vehicle bay, something that may contribute to its relative rarity in front-line formations. One of the central features, particularly in a time long before the fuel cell gained any traction in military circles, is the Nissan 220 fusion engine that both provides the motive power for the tracks, enough to dash at up to 64 kph, and the ability to accept modifications like environmental sealing for true environmental independence. The J-Seal Standard armor is relatively light, 7 tons arranged 25/23/18/23, but for an infantry carrier, it's reasonably substantial considering the vehicle's other capabilities. (Note: The armor and power plant are standard to all of the Prowler variants I'm aware of .) What makes all of this stand out is the fully amphibious chassis, a modification that takes up 5.5 tons. The armament is a mix that can fight at pretty much any range, although it's not going to be a powerhouse at any of them, either. The turret includes two Blankenburg medium pulse lasers and a Snorri-10 LRM launcher fed by a single ton of ammunition. A Guided Technologies SRM 2 is fixed forward with a single ton of ammo of its own. Supporting all of this is a Beagle Active Probe. (One of the simpler variants, also of Star League vintage, swaps it out for an ECM module.) What makes things interesting is the 4.5 tons of cargo space, enough that if it's fitted as an infantry bay, you can move a six-man squad of light battle armor under the Tactical Operations
The next two variants are both products of the Succession Wars. The simpler of the two switches the amphibious modifications to the chassis for the environmental sealing I mentioned above, being otherwise identical. The more extensive one is a concession to the fall in technology levels, removing the pulse lasers and active probe. The lasers were replaced by standard models but the probe and the extra two tons from the laser switch were folded into the cargo bay. Even today, there are some uses for an eight ton cargo bay (like moving battle armor or jump infantry two platoons at a time), and it's not a bad starting point for relatively austere modernizations using the technological developments of the last few decades. A fire support model of a similar vintage used that as a baseline, replacing the LRMs with a 15-tube rack fed by three tons of ammunition while retaining a four ton cargo capacity.
After taking over Terra, the Word of Blake started production of their own model, customized for use in their C3i networks. The weapons array is similar to older variants but somewhat more modern, using a pair of extended-range medium lasers and a 7 tube MML launcher fed by two tons of ammunition. As noted above, there's also a C3i computer. They also decided to mount an M-pod on the forward glacis, sort of a one-shot close-quarters cluster ammo canister, dealing 15 damage at 1 hex, 10 at 2, and 5 at 3 hexes. The various modifications leave the Word's Prowler with six tons of cargo space, enough for their preferred six-man battle armor squads or to move a full Level I of infantry. Overall, this is very much a close-in fighter, intended to advance in semi-hostile areas and deliver a load of battle armor or infantry (using TO, it's possible to fit up to 3 6-man squads of PA(L) suits like Tornadoes in here) as a somewhat faster but more thinly armored version of the Trajan; in the latter's guise as the Palmoni, the two vehicles were frequently finding themselves deployed in desperate struggles as the Word of Blake finally collapsed. A similar model using a C3 slave and an active probe in place of the C3i computer is used by the Republic Armed Forces. Either one can still use the LRMs for harassing someone; Thunders will probably be most useful for that purpose. Considering the amount of urban fighting that may be going on during the skirmishes with the Capellans, it's possible that the Republic's new Prowlers are getting a trial by fire in their environment of choice.
Prowlers, despite being nearly the size of many of the standby MBTs of yesteryear, aren't really akin to any of them by virtue of being an infantry fighting vehicle, sort of a bigger, missile-armed Goblin in some ways because of the way the chassis modifications eat into the tank's tonnage. In combat, they really need to operate together or with more heavily-armed units to improve fire density, if not alongside their charges (assault BA, even under TacOps rules, can be moved by the Succession Wars amphibious or sealed models in squad size or two squads under standard rules), but they can move a reasonable amount of useful cargo in reasonable safety through terrain a lot of units can't. The sealed model is one of the few options for moving infantry through a vacuum or hostile atmosphere reasonably quickly, too.
If you're planning to stop a Prowler, it's not terribly difficult. The armor isn't too thin but it's not terribly heavy, either, so just focus fire and take it out. You really want to do that before the it gets into position to deliver infantry. Getting close is a gamble. Suddenly finding yourself up close and personal with two platoons of infantry or a couple of squads of BA - especially certain assault suits, like Hauberks, Kanazuchis, or Kopises - isn't going to do your armor any good at all. On the other hand, the increased accuracy and ability to use certain weapons can pay off. Weigh the risks (and any knowledge you may or may not have of your opponent's forces on hand) before you move. Remember, you can always use LB-Xs to harass it from a distance, then move out once it's largely immobilized and come back to the problem.
References: The
Master Unit List has everything covered this time around. CamoSpecs doesn't have any miniatures of the Prowler on display but
Iron Wind Metals does make one if you're curious about it.
