Vehicle of the Week: Sturmfeur Heavy Tank and Kalki Cruise Missile Launcher(Author's Note: Usage of Sturmfeur or SturmFeur is inconsistent between published sources; TRO3039 uses the latter form consistently but other sources, including RS3039 Unabridged, prefer the former. For consistency with the majority of sources, I've elected to use the former.)The Lyran Commonwealth introduced several new combat vehicles towards the end of the Third Succession War. One entry into this Steiner vehicle force was built by Sudeten-based Trellshire Heavy Industries, the Sturmfeur. Probably best translated as “firestorm”, the Sturmfeur's designed echoed the Rhino's, being intended as a fire support design that could survive multiple counter-strikes. Built with a low profile, a design choice echoed in the later Patton and Rommel, the Sturmfeur was valued by conventional units within the Federated Commonwealth. Outside it, however, most units were uninterested despite significant service in Periphery border garrisons and the Fourth Succession War. Most frequently, it was employed as a command unit. Only one major upgrade, a fusion-powered derivative employing a heavy Gauss rifle, was ever developed, perhaps due to the minor problem of a preponderance of
Angry Birds Jade Falcons on Sudeten after 3050. And then Kallon got their hands on the design during the Jihad. While it was still a fire support unit, the design... well, keep reading.
The original is an 85 ton tracked vehicle, employing an InterComBust 255 ICE for a 54 kph flank speed. Inarguably the most notable feature is the 19.5 tons of ProtecTech 7 armor plating arranged 66/66/48/66. Yes, you can survive multiple AC/20 hits without the forward, side, or turret armor
even getting stripped. Apparently, someone at Trellshire took that “survive multiple counter-strikes” idea seriously. The star of the show is a pair of Sturmfeur LRM 20 launchers, one in the rear but firing forward (meaning it's in the forward arc) and one in the turret. The unusual arrangement is what prompted the new Sturmfeur Highlight targeting system with a BlindFire radar. With only three tons of ammunition, endurance of fire is a secondary concern behind endurance of vehicle; again, shades of the Rhino. Two machine guns with a full ton of ammunition between them were provided on the turret to discourage infantry and provide at least notional short-range defensive capability. If they're in MG range, you may do better to just ram them. I guarantee you start off with more armor than most of the things you can hit. Including
Atlases. It's a very Lyran sort of LRM carrier, really.
Recognizing that sooner or later, someone's going to try and close, Trellshire also built a close combat version in limited numbers, the only significant variant of the design for several decades. They chose the expedient solution of removing the turret launcher for a four-pack of SRM 4s fed by two tons of ammunition. (That this also means you have three tons for the LRM 20 is one of those fortuitous little coincidences that happen sometimes.) You don't have enough ammo to use Infernos if you want a reasonable endurance of standard rounds but overall, it's a pretty workmanlike bodyguard for other Sturmfeurs or LRM carriers than can still contribute to the explosive rain. A third machine gun was added to take advantage of the reduction in tonnage of the turret mechanism.
Despite the fact that a certain band of green feathered ruffians decided that Sudeten would make a great conversation piece,
someone in the Lyran Alliance started turning out a new Sturmfeur. The only published clue to who's building them is that they're listed as a product of Defiance Industries in Objectives: Lyran Alliance. However, Handbook House Steiner
doesn't list the design. Whoever it was, they started making changes with the engine block. It's not any faster but it is fusion-powered. That's going to be important because as usual, the Lyrans gave in to their big gun fixation. This is, after all, the Heavy Gauss Rifle Sturmfeur and that's just what they installed. Unlike the LRM 20s, they didn't skimp on the ammo, either. 20 rounds of the stuff will keep you firing for quite some time, although it's fixed forward. Since you can't mount HGRs in a turret, it's kind of a given anyway. An LRM 10 with Artemis and two tons of LRM ammo and an ERML provide some secondary fire. Overall, this is a much more economical way to get an HGR carrier on the field than the Alacorn variant. It reminds me a little of the CRD-8S, only it actually has a useful load of ammo.
That's very much not the case with Kallon's “Kalki” cruise missile launchers in XTRO: Corporations, derived from the Sturmfeur design. The original prototypes are 125 tons with a 250-rated fusion engine, moving about as fast as an
UrbanMech or their fellow super-heavy units, the
Omegas. I really wish the rest of the design fell into such august company, though. The five tons of armor fell into a 13/12/12/7/12 layout, meaning that there's actually more internal structure in most locations than armor. Sure, it takes an HGR hit at close range to instant-kill the sides, although an AC/20 will do the job on the rear end, but we're talking about a 125 ton unit here and you don't want to be soaking hits with internal structure to begin with anyway. Okay, it doesn't have speed or armor, it must have firepower, right? Well... no, not really. There's a
really big gun on the front, sure. A Cruise Missile/50. The problem is that cruise missiles don't come in shots per ton sizes. They come in tons per shot, instead, and even the itty-bitty ones like the 50s are in the double digits. Eighty tons of weapons and ammo buys you one (1) shot. Assuming firing it doesn't set the unit on fire (several of the prototypes - and their crews - were “supposedly” lost that way), it's basically useless until someone hefts a 25 ton missile out to reload it. The machine guns in the turret will keep PBIs from coming right up on top of you (assuming they or the turret don't jam...), but otherwise, it's basically defenseless. Did I mention the suspension has issues in rough terrain, too? Yeah, I can see why the program was finally killed.
In a procurement decision that in my opinion goes into the books right next to the
Targe, Kallon actually managed to sell them on a revised version after the Jihad. Now, to Kallon's credit, they fixed the quality control problems, partially by growing the crawler up to 150 tons. A fuel cell cut the engine size down some, too, although it's not any faster (and can now go up in flames from the engine compartment - something crews familiar with the fate of some of the prototypes must find immensely comforting). The machine guns were “upgraded” to Magshots. I say “upgraded” because part of the point of the machine guns was to keep infantry from getting too close. Magshots aren't effective in that role and are about as scary to armored units as an SRM 2 would be. Okay, they must have accomplished
something I approve of on here. The armor everywhere but the turret would be what improved... by all of two tons. A 20/16/16/16/12 spread, leaving only the turret with less armor than structure, is an improvement, but not much. The cruise missile launcher is still there. So is the fact that it only has one shot. Sure, it's powerful. I'm not going to argue that. But something like this goes better on a DropShip, which has the tonnage to actually pack a useful magazine, and given the design's speed and need for constant reloads, it's more or less tied to the DropShips anyway. A lot of commanders tend not to fire the shot off quickly anyway, saving it for a better opportunity that never comes. Mercs are apparently trying to get their hands on these things but the AFFS is so far restricting them to premier units. That's a good thing - most of those units are sitting in defensive positions around important targets, giving them the room to stockpile cruise missiles and prepare ammo reloads.
Employing them varies heavily. A Sturmfeur is tough enough to operate in the line or as a direct support asset, something the HGR model is going to excel at, and mixing the SRM variant in to other lances will make a nasty shock as it moves in while the rest of the lance backs up and pours LRMs in. Kalkis need to find a deep, dark hole and wait for targeting data. While you need to wait for a good opportunity, don't wait for a perfect one that never comes - a missile you don't fire is less useful than one you “waste” on a merely good opportunity now. They also need some sort of protection. For some reason, people object to having capital missile-range firepower hammering down on their heads and will probably look into keeping you from doing that again.
If you want to kill one of the 85 ton Sturmfeurs, I strongly suggest using crit-seekers. Not because it's all that hard to hit - it's an assault tank, they're not all that fast - but because the armor on this thing is so heavy it's probably faster to hammer the sides with LB-X pellets and SRMs until the fuel tank or ammo supply goes up in a great big ball of fire. Punching something violently effective into the crew compartment is another good outcome here. Since this has the benefits of getting you out of the fixed LRMs' arc, quite likely immobilizing the tank, and potentially stunning the crew into uselessness in the meantime, there's a lot going for the “death of 1000 cuts” tactic here. If you insist on using heavy firepower to accomplish the job, bring a lot of it. Sturmfeurs are generally built like rocks. Against the cruise missile models, which are slow, thinly armored death traps, you really don't need to expend that much effort once you're close enough to shoot at it.
Finding them is going to be the hard part. Given the range a cruise missile enjoys, aerial reconnaissance or orbiting aerospace assets
may will have more luck than scout 'Mechs.
References: The
Sturmfeur,
Sturmfeur “Kalki” prototype, and
production Kalki have separate MUL entries. CamoSpecs has entries for the
original and
HGR variants, the latter in Wolf-in-Exile colors of all things. No specific model for the Kalki has been produced to my knowledge.
