MSF-42 Bluehawk/ASF-23 Protector - Handbook: Major Periphery States
All proposed fan-variants should be posted in the corresponding “FotW Workshop†thread. As a self-confessed Culture Vulture who rarely gets to actually
play any BattleTech-related game, I’m often dismayed by the degree to which TROs and stats-blocks, rather than extensive sourcebooks, drive the evolution of the BattleTech franchise and its universe. Apparently the majority of BT fans do not fall into the same category, because according to TPTBs TROs are far and away the biggest sellers in the BT range, and in order to meet their demand for new and interesting ways to blow each other up, even the
Handbook series (each meant to be a definitive look at its respective faction(s) in terms of history and culture) include some elements of ‘crunch’. With five factions to cover in almost the same pagecount its counterparts devoted to
one, I find this focus especially lamentable in the case of
Handbook: Major Periphery States, since it further reduces the room each faction gets for its fluff, but at the end of the day BattleTech is a war-game first and a
sci-fi space-opera franchise second, so my free opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it. :D
On the other side of the coin, of course, there is the factor that looking at the hardware a faction/culture chooses to produce gives you some insight into their economy, their tactical thinking, and their approach to engineering problems, which in its own way can be as informative as a four-page wall o’ text. This may mean that the mini-rant to which I just subjected you all may not be entirely justified, but, to use the common Internet slang,
meh. ;D
In any case, the Magistracy Metals
Bluehawk and the United Outworlders Corporation
Protector might be strikingly divergent in appearance and internal arrangements, but they’re so similar in performance, and were introduced so contemporaneously to each other, that no-one’s quite sure whether the original specs came from the Canopians, the Outworlders, or a joint project between the two - and the MoC and the OA sure are saying a whole lot of nothing to clear up the confusion. Cheap atmo-fighters meant as missile-boats and bomb-trucks, the two designs have achieved a pretty fair degree of market penetration since their first appearance in munitions brochures in 3019, outfitting not only planetary air-militia squadrons in their parent nations the MoC and the OA, but also in the Taurian Concordat and indeed in some outer areas of the FedSuns and the Combine. (The fluff also makes note of a dirty trick played by owner-operators, who often buy the two designs and deploy them together: since the two machines are so radically different in appearance, such mixed squadrons tend to bamboozle targets, as they don’t know what to expect from each and can end up paralysing themselves asking ‘which one do I shoot first?’ instead of more properly following the air-defence motto of ‘shoot ’em all down and sort ’em out from the wreckage’.)
For the sake of convenience, throughout the rest of this article I’ll refer to the type by the slightly more evocative Canopian designation. Though it makes little material difference, I’ll also assume that the
Bluehawk is the rearward of the two designs pictured above, the one with the canard foreplanes, a vertical stabiliser, and wingtip missile-pods; there’s only a fifty-fifty chance I’m right, but hey, it’s not like I’ve got money riding on it. :D (Besides, with the OA’s aviation bias, I figure they’re the ones more likely to produce an X-wing wannabe like the other design. :P)
The
Bluehawk hits the top end of the ‘conventional fighter’ bracket at a ‘clean’ maximum-takeoff weight of fifty tons, driven by a 250 turbine that gets the ship up to a reasonable 5/8 thrust-curve at the price of half its mass-budget. (For those running the maths at home, it means the MSF-42’s top cruise speed is just under the Mach, like most modern tactical fighters.) Three tons of fuel yield 480 points, nominally 20% better endurance than most ASFs; I don’t know if the designer noticed the subtle change
Tech Manual made in the construction rules that allows half-tons of fuel, but even if they had I’m not sure it would have made much difference, given the limitations of CF technology. Three tons of armour, 14/12/10, may not be superlative survivability, especially protecting an SI of only 5, but it’s about as good as it gets for a conventional fighter.
On the other hand, the
Bluehawk is meant as a ‘utility attacker’ in militia arsenals, and that’s what it delivers. Three machine-guns and a half-ton of ammo are snuggled into the nose, making for Strike firepower that can scythe down half a battalion of infantry in a single pass - perfect for COIN duties and ripping up ‘soft’ targets like supply-depots. Each wing holds a vanilla LRM-10 - low-tech, but entirely serviceable - and the two tons of ammunition available to those launchers mean that all manner of ‘alternate warhead’ options are available to a pilot/commander willing to foot the bill. (Given the close relations (^-^) between the MoC and the CapCon these days, various flavours of Thunder munitions are almost certainly available to Canopian MSF-42 squadrons, which makes for all manner of terrain-denial options. Throw in TAG or Narc from ground-units, and things can get downright miserable on the receiving end of a
Bluehawk squadron.... }:)) Lastly, the plane being built to the very top of the CF mass-spectrum is clearly a conscious attempt to maximise external warload capacity: depending on your budget, the contents of your munitions igloos, and how much or little attention you pay to the Ares Conventions, that can give you as much as ten tons of bombs or ten pods of free-flight rockets, a pair of air-to-ground Arrow-IV missiles (with optional Davey Crockett or Alamo atomic warheads, for those wishing to unleash their inner Taurian), or for those who need air-defence options, up to five Lyran Light AAMs (or two LAAMs and a centreline Arrow-IV AAM, if you need to really rattle their teeth). Max-load thrust is only 3/5, so you’ll have ‘fun’ getting off the runway and Gawd help you if you get bounced short of your target, but as long you can get airborne you can keep ’em honest.
Offensively, the
Bluehawk is a classic ‘swarm’ fighter: throw an entire squadron at a given target-unit, blow it up real good, and hope/pray you get back more than half your airframes and/or two-thirds of your pilots. Entire wings should go after an enemy’s rear-area soft-parts, like supply dumps, repair depots, airfields, or DropPorts, and again, it’s a cold-blooded matter of trading planes and lives for seriously hurting your enemy’s ability to prosecute the campaign. While evasive routing, nape-of-the-earth flying, and
similar tactical basics can mitigate the attrition, and you need to make every loss
count, conventional fighters
bleed every time they tangle with front-line forces and there’s no point pretending otherwise. (Of course, the fact that the MSF-42 has a BV2 of only 441, and a material cost somewhere under 800K C-Bills according to HM:A, means that you can afford to procure replacements in bulk. You’re gonna need ’em.)
The ideal combination for going after ’Mechs and other hard ground-units would lead with
MechBusters and maybe Heavy Strike Fighters (like the Taurian
BatHawk) to punch holes in armour, followed by waves of
Bluehawks, Light and Medium Strike Fighters, and possible
Guardian fighters to pelt the already-rattled target(s) with missiles, rockets, and bombs and finish them off.
If you’re up against aerial defences (including ASFs, Gawd help you), make sure that the strike-package has a decent escort. Again, LSFs and MSFs can do this work decently enough for a militia unit, especially if someone’s managed to filch a goodly supply of LAAMs to give you some stand-off capability. If
Bluehawks find themselves alone against enemy ASFs, frankly they should conentrate their fire on one or two birds at once and pray they’re fighting something with armour soft enough for their LRM clusters to generate TACs, because otherwise they’re hosed.
All of which suggests a great deal to the defender, of course. ::)
Pike vehicles aren’t going to be great SPAAGs against
Bluehawks, since their nose- and wing-armour is
just thick enough to negate Threshold threats from an AC/2, but the ever-popular
PartyVan Partisan can make their lives unutterably miserable. Hell, scattering a few
Striker missile-tanks around the perimeter of likely targets will quickly start thinning out the oncoming swarm, and backing them with a few
Scorpions loaded with flak ammo makes for the attackers’ squadron briefing-room being a quiet and a gloomy sort of place even
before take-off. And if you can spare a flight or two of interceptor ASFs from other duties.... }:)
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