Vehicle of the Week: Manteuffel Attack TankThe Manteuffel is the product of one of the oddities of military procurement, the bizarre rejection of OmniMech programs by the former Federated Commonwealth at the same time they were aggressively seeking OmniVehicles in a maneuver that might have been calculated to drive Khans mad if any of them could be said to care in the first place. The reasoning behind that decision stems from fiscal considerations, specifically where the money came from; funding for OmniVehicles came from a different account. StarCorps, long a noted 'Mech manufacturer whose most famous product is almost certainly the
Warhammer, both assembled a competent design team in record time and paid off enough of the right parties to earn contracts with both the AFFC and LAAF, including offering directorships to over a dozen officers. This probably also had something to do with why the huge cost didn't seem to cause trouble with anyone. Named for a Lyran family noted for armor generals, it takes a number of cues from their tactical theories with a focus on speed and firepower but doesn't neglect armor. Traditionally the Manteuffel was assigned to only high profile RCTs, most prominently the rebuilding Davion Brigade of Guards and Lyran Guards, as well as the Deneb Light Cavalry. How the design's manufacturing fared through the Jihad is an open question without any details on the various plants assembling it (Crofton, Loburg, and Son Hoa) but StarCorps, unlike a lot of arms manufacturers, seemingly came through without major assaults on their facilities. It's entirely possible that the Manteuffel may be one of the few Omnis still in heavy production, something we'll need the full release of the
Objectives series to puzzle out. (The recent release of
Objectives: Federated Suns has confirmed its production status, something I'll leave to the PDF until the moratorium expires.)
There are two types of cavalry tanks. Smaller designs that economize like the Vedette or Myrmidon, and the big, expensive tanks like the Kinnol that employ technology lavishly to achieve their aims. The Manteuffel is very definitely one of the latter. At 70 tons, it's on the upper end of tracked designs, and the Magna 350 extralight engine is not cheap but it has the virtue of allowing an 86 kph top speed under normal conditions. Considering that the speed is one of the things that makes the tank distinctive, I'm not inclined to worry about it that much, but the discussion around the tank five years ago indicated that a lot of people don't find it that helpful, particularly in a strategic sense. 11.5 tons of ferro-fibrous armor includes fixed CASE, arranged 56/40/25/45. The stern makes me twinge the slightest bit as a thin point but when something meets the short-range HGR test cleanly, it's time for me to quit worrying and learn to love the tank. 23.5 tons of podspace is available for weapons and equipment, the turret having space for up to 15 tons. Since this is an OmniVehicle, you've automatically got handholds for suits of battle armor short of the assault class to hitch a ride. While you can't carry Grenadiers or Hauberks this way, nor can you carry quads, a squad of Cavaliers, IS Standards, or Infiltrator IIs can make people leery of getting in your face. The fact that a Manteuffel is fast enough to get them into the fray fairly quickly and can do so as part of doing its own job is icing on the cake.
The Manteuffel Prime is one of those close range fighters I implied above, although to some extent all of them are. The “big gun†of the configuration is a class 5 rotary autocannon supplied with three tons of ammunition. Three ERMLs support it with their own five point hits; how wise that really is, considering that you're obliging yourself to pay for five heat sinks, is something I'm sure I'm not the only one that's remarked on it. All four ride in the turret as you can see from the tank's artwork. ECM provides defensive cover as you close or the ability to jam enemy ECM. Considering the C3 slave the Manteuffel Prime also carries, I'm sure I see some use for that option. It also lets you circle around the outside and pour in fire from 10-12 hexes if you have a spotter able to run straight into the fire.
The Manteuffel A is even more of a close-range marauder, swapping autocannons to a massive Ultra/20. Five tons of ammunition give you plenty of endurance even when you go to rapid fire. Two standard medium lasers and an ER small are mounted on the front while another C3 slave gives you the ability to sprint in, relying on your armor to absorb blows while you tear open holes for your C3-equipped fellows to exploit. Unquestionably, the Manteuffel A is a close-range fighter. There's nothing on here that reaches past 10 hexes, so you absolutely need to just bore in and start ripping into the enemy. If the Prime needs to be watch it with the rapid fire, the A needs to be even more careful since it's impossible to unjam an Ultra. Reserve that sort of thing for desperate situations or low target numbers.
Just like the other two, the Manteuffel B is the sort of thing that gets better as you get closer, but the reason is a little different. It's definitely a “one giant gun†sort of tank, though, namely the biggest gun in the game at the time. A huge heavy Gauss rifle is fitted to the tank's forward arc (exactly how is one of those questions I'm not sure I want an answer to), fed by four tons of ammunition. With that much laid into the main gun, the support weapons are fairly puny, only an ERSL and a medium laser. In practice, because of the way the HGR dominates the loadout, the B is a slave to its peculiarities. Use your speed to pick around slower opponents and introduce them to the full power of the magnet or keep in medium range of faster foes and pound at them with 20 point sledgehammers they probably can't survive too many hits from.
The Manteuffel works best with some room to operate in. Tight quarters aren't really your friend. This simply isn't a Demolisher, which thrives in alleys. You want to be able to use that 5/8 speed to sprint around. Your armor's pretty tough but it
is breachable and it
will get blown open sooner or later, so use your speed to keep that from happening until the inevitable movement hits force you to slow down. You also want to bring some similarly fast friends or act as the spotter for a C3 network. Crit-seekers are one of the things Manteuffels are classically missing, for instance, and long-range fire support linked into an A's C3 slave is going to be a nasty combination.
Stopping Manteuffels isn't too hard a task. The armor is sufficient but not to the levels of some tanks, so killing them is far from impossible. Your best bet is the classic tank solution of crit-seeking to slow it down and then applying heavy firepower, preferably to the flanks where you've got less armor to punch through. Beyond the basics, you really want to keep Manteuffels at arm's reach if possible. All of them are significantly more dangerous up close, without much in the way of long range weapons, so faster units that can evade them and snipe will be a frustrating problem for a Manteuffel player.
References: As with all TRO3067 designs, the Manteuffel is not in the MUL, but the
BattleTech Wiki has some of the information you're looking for. Despite the fact that the Manteuffel is sometimes thought of as a Federated Suns tank, which it is, two of the three known production sites are in Lyran space, and appropriately, the model on display at CamoSpecs.com is in the colors of the Lyran
1st Royal Guards RCT.
