Vehicle of the Week Update: Puma Assault Tank(The original article has been lost to time; talk to GreyWolfActual if you want a copy. The other article indicated some issues with divergent statistics. This one is concerned exclusively with the record sheets from RS3050 Upgrades Unabridged and RS3075 Unabridged and has been updated .)Continuing my recent string of TRO2750 updates to deal with Royal models, I bring you the Puma Assault Tank: Big. Visually impressive. Powerful. Well, two out of three isn't bad. The Puma may have been procured to make the Alacorn look better. I'm not sure why this was actually a concern, the triple Gauss murder machine has always looked good to me, but it would explain why the SLDF actually bothered with this thing. Another suggestion on that front from the inimitable
chanman goes, "I was going to say data corruption and blueprints for an Age of Sail warship got mixed in. I still like the idea of some crazy land admiral trying to cross the T with his column of Pumas." In any case, it's not terribly impressive because of some... interesting... decisions about weapon placement. The Puma's origins lie with an armor general in the Hegemony, concerned at the way BattleMechs were displacing combat vehicles from their traditional roles left, right, and center and the possible implications for both his employment and the Regular Armor Command (which had been going on for about two centuries by 2681, but hey, who's counting?), but they outsourced the response to a company that previously had only built BattleMechs, which may explain why the design is so deeply flawed and was apparently made by engineers with only the barest knowledge of combat vehicles, much like two ships passing in the night but never to share a dock. The PMA 001 was made with environmental systems that were a disaster against nuclear or chemical weapons and still heated to 120 degrees in combat, hindering crew effectiveness. I certainly
hope that's Fahrenheit but sufficiently wry commentators might well have used it for the effect 120 degrees
Celsius would have on crew efficiency. (At the time the article debuted,
chanman suggested “deliciousness” for that.) The next model fixed that problem but had jamming issues with the LRMs - our putative land admiral would have had a lot of fun with
that. After that, some ham-fisted butterfingers messed up the cooling coils for the lasers. Suffice to say that the complete engineering history of this vehicle probably reads like something out of a tech show's engineering disasters episode, right up until they get to the really fun stuff like "city in flames, hundreds dead". The effect on the tank's reputation scarcely needs to be imagined. Early fluff in TRO2750 about the LRM 20s being able to fire forward is probably best dismissed in character as another one of those little engineering problems that was never properly worked out.
The baseline Puma we're concerned about is the PAT-005, the model in TRO3050U and listed as the stock Star League variant. It's also curiously enough pure introductory technology. With a 95 ton tracked chassis, this is one of the biggest tanks in the game, on par with the Ontos or the Alacorn and only slightly smaller than the Behemoth or the mighty Mars tanks of the Clans. A 285-rated Pitban standard fusion engine, perhaps the very same model that would later drive the BNC-3S
Banshee to greatness, provides a typical 3/5 movement curve with a 54 kph flank speed. So far, so good, although we're not scratching the paint on the Star League's real wonders of technology, and the armor keeps up the trend. At 11.5 tons of standard plate layered 48/32/24/48, it's on the light side for my tastes on a unit this big but still quite solid and, frankly, the firepower doesn't inspire anyone to devote the sort of attention that a Mars or Alacorn rates. That's right. We're done with the good news. The firepower looks reasonable, heck, even
nice in that pretty little column on page 182 if a bit heavy on energy weapons but the devil's in the details here. The main gun is definitely the Donal PPC in the turret. The LRMs are, as implied, only able to fire out of their side mounts, one on each side. Perhaps fortunately given that if they have the bearings to both be useful at once you're probably already on your way off this mortal coil, only two tons of ammunition were provided, shared between the launchers. Normally, yeah, I'd be screaming for more ammo, but here, I'd really rather not have any more explosives rattling around inside the tank than necessary. The front has two medium lasers and an SRM 4 fed by a single ton of ammo - kind of shades of the Demon but that's not a bad thing in my book. Remember, though, you're paying heat sinks for the lasers here. All the basic sinks are tied up with that
Warhammer arm this thing uses for a turret gun. The stern has two weapons, which is definitely at least one too many. A vehicle flamer (the kind of flamer that doesn't need heat sinks) and a small laser (yes, there's a sink for it) are provided for waxing your rear. The flamer makes a certain kind of sense, really, but the small laser lacks the range or power to threaten anyone. It can't even scare infantry anymore, not that it needs to with a flamer full of who knows what pointed at them. Usable, sort of, but I seriously question the wisdom (or perhaps integrity) of whoever in the SLDF's procurement office bought these instead of a few production runs of Manticores.
So you're the Word of Blake or ComStar looking at this lemon on your table of organization and equipment. You figure you can do better now. To the designers' credit, the PAT-007 really is an improvement but as we've just seen, that doesn't really take much and the new model is suitably off-beat to follow in its predecessor's footsteps. Unfortunately for when this variant was introduced, it seemed like the original's fluff history of engineering problems and real history of record sheet screwiness reached out from the dark and terrible places where bad game mechanics lurk to claim another victim. Fortunately, corrected stats are now available, so let the good times roll! Working from them, overall, it's a fair model but devotes too much firepower to the sides. Again. The engine is now a 285-rated light fusion engine, pricy but capable. The main gun is now a heavy PPC. The missile racks were all replaced by MML 7s - you've lost a lot of your LRM potential but at the same time gained the ability to actually generate useful deterrence capabilities against close-in attackers on your flanks. These are now fed by five tons of ammunition, plenty of endurance. The lasers and flamer are still in place but each side now boasts a machine gun array with two MGs fed by plenty of ammo. A B-pod sits on the front to keep battle armor off the bumper. The armor is marginally thicker at 49/33/24/49 while CASE (which should be there, I think) increases survivability. Finally, some joker slipped a surprise into the deck with C3i, giving you the ability to either stand off and take advantage of a spotter or drive into someone's teeth (an excellent choice if the main gun is shot out by critical hits) and act as a particularly hard-to-dislodge spotter yourself. It won't last that long - the armor still isn't terribly thick and C3 spotters have a popularity right up there with Typhoid Mary - but it's a viable option. Just one last note on the fluff - it kind of waffles over whether or not this is a ComStar model but the line referring to uprated ComGuard units is in the wrong context to refer to the PAT-008 and there are no other variants, so this looks like it's also available to the (supposed) good phone company.
(Author's Note: It is.)The other new Blakist model is a bit of a riff on the PAT-007 above. While it lacks the construction problems of the PAT-007, the PAT-008 also lacked a listing of MML ammo originally. My reconstruction of the unit indicating 3 tons of MML ammo was vindicated with the coming of the Unabridged sheets. Aside from that, though, smooth sailing. Described as a model for Protectorate commanders to let them sit off a bit, the loadout makes sense in that context. It uses the same 285-rated light fusion engine as the PAT-008. The main gun is an ER PPC, while the missile racks had Artemis IV added and were bumped up to MML 9s. A targeting computer enhances ER PPC accuracy. All of the other weapons are gone. In their place, the Word of Blake engineers loaded no less than six anti-missile systems fed by five tons of ammunition. (Note to Thunderbolt missile users: Shoot someone else.) CASE was replaced by a half-ton of armor in a dubious boost to 51/35/26/51. B-pods were placed on the sides and front, making infantry or battle armor leery of getting right on top of this model. Finally, ECM was added, although you no longer have C3i. It's durable, it's survivable until someone hits an ammo bin (hint, hint), and it's still pretty underwhelming.
The Star League Defense Force (probably) wasn't unaware of the problems with the Puma, either, and in a section of TRO3075 from HTE, we got to see their answer. A lot of times, the Royal models either here or in Operation: KLONDIKE are manna from the heavens, made of win and sent down by the Blessed Beas to take names and kick shiny metallic butt. This isn't one of them. It's better at being a Puma, sure, and doing what it is a Puma does but like any of the other Pumas, it needs more win to really stand out as anything other than, "That oddball Star League tank with the side-mounted missiles." Now it's just saying, "That oddball Star League Royal tank with the side-mounted missiles." Considering the expense, unless someone just really wanted to play shell games, I wonder why they didn't buy more Alacorns. Anyway, let's get down to brass tacks. The main power plant was replaced with a 285 XLFE (this would be why I said "more Alacorns" - the exact same power plant!), while the armor wasn't messed with but had CASE added. The main gun was bumped to an ER PPC (indicating this is a fairly late upgrade - ER PPCs weren't really widespread until 2760, which is why they're thin on the ground in TRO2750). The LRMs are mated to Artemis modules and have their ammunition doubled. The land admiral is no doubt squeeing in glee, especially since his chaser SRMs are now a pair of Streak 2s. The rear laser becomes a pulse model, giving it some real bite against infantry. As I said, this really doesn't do anything but turn it into more of a Puma.
Using a Puma is a bit problematic. In general, it's one more big, slow tank but the fire arcs are wonky, which is the main problem with the entire design. Those side-mounted missile launchers might work for surprise fire or screening but aren't terribly useful in general combat nor do the LRMs on the Star League versions (PAT-005, Royal) really strike fear into the heart of flankers who are moving quickly and closing. The MMLs, which can salvo off a pretty respectable number of 2 point clusters, really do work better there in my opinion. They're tough enough considering the way you can't focus fire. Generally, I'd reserve Pumas for flanking and screening work for other assault tanks, disposable spotters (for those of you whose minds don't boggle at calling a 95-ton LFE unit "disposable", anyway), and palming off to militias for getting your hands on the really nice toys. They could also be useful as urban fire support, especially with the Tactical Operations rules that let them fire in multiple directions, and use of semi-guided LRMs if you can get them is a definite plus. The Age of Sail line tactics should probably be reserved for tanks that are harder to immobilize and thus disorder the entire line but it can work if you've got the taste of sea salt in your mouth; these work better with the Star League models and plenty of room.
Fighting Pumas isn't hard. Cripple them with crit-seekers, then apply damage until something pops. The basic model and PAT-008 lack CASE, so feel free to try for ammo kills, but don't expect anything quite that simple with the Royal or PAT-007. The PAT-007, thanks to the C3i, can be a much larger headache than apparent and needs to be jammed - they lack the standoff power to really be a priority for defense so an enemy may well be willing to hurl them into your teeth like bricks to provide spotting data. Expect EW games from the PAT-008 (ghost targets are fun, but jamming to cut out the Artemis systems a lot of LRM 'Mechs use these days are probably more common thanks to being in the core rules). If nothing else, don't be afraid to deprioritize the Puma. It's big, sure, but they generally don't have the power that a lot of tanks this size can bring down on targets. If you can cripple one - lock the turret and immobilize it - in an inconvenient position, that can go a long way to keeping it from causing any real trouble at all but be aware that unlike some tanks, those side-mounted missiles make it more of a flank threat after being crippled so pay attention to the firing arcs as you maneuver. Stern attacks are almost always a good idea for killing armored units.
References: The
Master Unit List now includes all known Pumas, including two of the engineering “learning experiences” I mentioned in the fluff section. The only mini available at CamoSpecs is in the livery of the Free Rasalhague Republic's
Third Hussars and it's quite pretty in my opinion.
