Vehicle of the Week Special Feature: Wyrm SDS Submersible FortressAuthor's Note: This was reposted at the request of a reader.Happy Holidays once again, Vehicle of the Week fans! Instead of just the article on the Rattler Mk II, I'm doing a double header special feature on the Wyrm, its fellow mobile structure from Jihad Hot Spots: Terra. I'd like to say that, like the Rattler is on land, this is one of the very largest canon water units, but the Wyrm covers only about 2/3 as many hexes as a template E naval support vehicle like the
Luftenburgs. Still, they're quite large, and considering the firepower and toughness, the Wyrm brings a whole new set of possibilities for blue water action in Classic BattleTech. Designed as part of an initiative to aid in defending against ComStar's knowledge of the Space Defense System installations on Terra that also saw the reactivation of the Rattlers, the first Wyrm was launched in 3072, one of a dozen completed by the time the Coalition forces reached Terra. Fully submersible, the Wyrm takes advantage of the fact that Terra, unlike many of the worlds humanity would settle in the Inner Sphere, is a world of vast oceans. Despite their size and firepower, five Wyrms were boarded and taken in hand-to-hand actions off of Asia while another five found themselves sunk by orbital fire or aerospace attack. Two escaped, fleeing to the deepest, darkest parts of the oceans to hide and launch guerrilla strikes, although it's implied at one point that they were eventually dealt with.
The Wyrm, sprawling over 18 hexes and tipping the scales at 22,726.5 tons of equipment (
not including the unit's own structure or the like - that's not listed for mobile structures), isn't really large enough for a decent 'Mech fight to rage across the deck, even with
Urbies, but you could have a fun time with infantry battles. Every hex has 150 armor and 150 CF for you pound through. A cluster of capital weapon hexes, the next set back from the "bow" rows, includes four Barracudas and two NL55s, although they're spread around various arcs. Two more NL55s, a pair of Killer Whale tubes, and a Killer Whale-T tube are located toward the stern, giving the Wyrm an impressive ability to hurl capital ordnance around for its size and, potentially, up to three Santa Anas launched as surface-to-orbit or surface-to-surface weapons. (Note: The management is not responsible for any beatings your game group may organize if you start throwing Santa Anas around willy-nilly.) Like the Rattler, the Wyrm's perimeter is ringed with anti-missile systems, although the Wyrm uses lasers instead of the ballistics on the Rattler. I'm going to just summarize the smaller weapons - there's a lot of them and, frankly, the Rattler article kind of exhausted my willingness to tempt the ire of the Powers That Be for details about these monsters. There's a lot in the book that's worth purchasing for even if you're not interested in the Jihad particularly. Torpedo batteries (equipped with Artemis) dot the flanks, with heavier, concentrated mounts fore and aft where there aren't as many ways to provide overlapping arcs. Four turrets, including Arrow IV batteries, Gauss rifles, LB 2-Xs, and
very heavy LRM mounts with Artemis IV, are placed near the bow and stern, offering 360 degree fire support and significant anti-air defense even before the capital weapons get involved. Various numbers of medium pulse lasers are placed all along the flanks, probably to pick off boats, VTOLs, or hovercraft. Additional turrets poke out just aft of the center line with heavy ER PPC mounts and large variable-speed pulse lasers.
The first thing to consider when you bring a Wyrm into a scenario (this is not the sort of thing you use for a casual pick-up game) is what to equip it with. There's a lot of room. We know they had at least two each of the Manta and Moray subs from TRO3085 Supplemental (of which I shant speak more at this date) but that's just a starting point. I recommend going ahead and carrying four Morays and four Mantas to round out the reach of the torpedo defenses, then. With room for 36 suits of battle armor, I honestly lean toward a mix of Tornado power armor (light) suits and the classic Inner Sphere standard armor, all configured with machine guns or flamers to deal with boarding infantry. To grab simple canon infantry, two 18-man machine gun platoons in heavy armor or something equivalent will make a nice little security force. We know, anecdotally, that this is one of the ways the Wyrms were countered and I don't see any reason to make it easy. For those not as concerned about infantry, substituting Phalanxes for some of the suits up above is a canon-friendly decision. The Demon series of suits from TRO3075 is, like the Celestial series OmniMechs, limited by and large to the Manei Domini, who from what I've read weren't heavily involved with the Terran Space Defense System but it's not implausible that you could have them turn up. I lean toward Shedus, anti-infantry Se'irim or Asuras, and a leavening of Djinns for mobile response if you decide to haul them out and it's hard to go wrong with Tau Zombies for infantry. There's four heavy vehicle bays
(Editor: per Welshman's remarks at the original publishing time, the Mantas are customarily carried in heavy bays) and four extra lights left over. A lance of Alacorns will make a formidable second-tier deck defense for dealing with hovercraft or the like, but there are plenty of heavy tanks that can do the job. Backing them, bring VTOLs. Pintos, Cyranos, whatever you feel like loading that has a fusion engine to increase its operational radius and reduce the need for fuel. These are going to be the eyes and ears of the Wyrm on the surface as well as its main way of putting troops on shore. TAG units, possibly Sprints, wouldn't be out of place for the Arrow IVs if you want to try homing rounds.
Using a Wyrm is a little hard to wrap my head around. You aren't as able to ram due to the terrain issues, so you really need to rely on your firepower. One vulnerability to be aware of is the risk of someone fairly mobile getting outside Arrow range and pounding on you with artillery while being evasive enough to make landing a Killer Whale or two on them in protest fairly difficult. Focus on finding your targets and bringing advantageous arcs to bear on multiple hostiles at once, although you've got the speed to pull a +1 targeting modifier if you see the need. Protect your vulnerable hexes by direction changes to rotate them out of someone's line of sight and take full advantage of the fact that unlike everything else, a mobile structure can move in any direction without a facing change. Remember that this thing operates on a scale that's more comparable to a battalion due to the combination of artillery, capital weapons, and close in defenses. Use your capital weapons and artillery to start the pounding match early. Don't be afraid to bracket a formation's movement options with Arrows. And remember, this is a three dimensional battlefield, so feel free to go underwater and force the enemy to do the same, picking your moments to surface - between the complement of subs and the Wyrm's own heavy torpedo defenses, anyone coming down there is in your chosen environment. If you spot something capable of carrying infantry, focus fire on it to bring it down unless you really
want to get boarded.
Taking a Wyrm on is not a casual undertaking. I need to make a point before we continue: While they're definitely the game's flagship unit, BattleMechs need to be left on the beaches for this operation. A Wyrm is more than capable of popping 'Mechs trying an underwater assault left, right, and center assuming it's even close enough to the shore to make such a thing possible in the first place. LAMs are a pretty bad idea themselves - leaving aside the lawn dart rolls those LB 2-Xs will inflict, the amount of fire a Wyrm can put into the air from its turrets can bring down LAMs fairly fast. Larger ASFs, which can survive that sort of punishing regime, can be used for strike work but I suggest softening the target up with bombing runs first. Big ones. Attempting a boarding operation is still going to go faster by saturating the Wyrm's defenses with targets before you go in and possibly clearing any defenders off the decks so you can actually get into position. You're still going to be writing a lot of "I regret to inform you..." letters at the end of it, though. It's a pity that we simply don't have any canon justification for a task group centered on a
Jormungand to just throw down with a Wyrm but we do have the stats to stage one ourselves just for fun. Try to stay away from the Wyrm's Arrows and pound it down with longer-ranged artillery pieces while evading the capital missiles it's probably going to lob back at you with speed - the way they're placed limits the Wyrm's ability to really bracket your movement options. A fast attack right into a Wyrm's teeth with massed hovercraft is possible but dangerous - among other things, you may run out of ammo before you run out of Wyrm to kill. Orbital bombardment and nukes are definitely justifiable options (canonically, five of them were taken out by aerospace attack, at least some by orbital strikes) but a little outside the realm of board game scenarios. Crocketts are more rational but you need to bring plenty and be positioned to go in right on the heels of the strike to take advantage of the gunners being stunned and start picking off weakened hexes.
Once again, this is much more of a discussion prompt than usual. What does everyone think? I'm kind of enchanted by the possibility for major blue water battles myself.
References: The
Master Unit List isn't as helpful as it could be here. I'm unaware of any miniatures for this monster.
