Vehicle of the Week: Teppō Support VehicleAs usual when we get into an esoteric rule set, I'm going to go into the special rules that apply to the Teppō before delving into the rest of the article. The tractor and trailer rules are on page 205 of Total Warfare, the hit locations for large support vehicles (also used by super-heavy combat vehicles) are on the next page, and the rules for combat vehicle tractors and trailers are on page. Considered a large vehicle, Teppōs are 2 levels high - they can't hide in the same holes we're used to sticking artillery units into. Tractors can move up to a quarter of their tonnage in trailers for either 3 MP or half their Cruising MP, whichever is less. Above that, up to their own tonnage, they lose half their Cruise MP, period. (Those of you who are already aware of the Teppō's generous, nay, prodigious ground speed are probably already clutching your towels and trying not to panic.) Trailers block the LOS of the tractor through the hexside they're located on and wheeled or tracked tractors have to be up front. Medium trailers (which the Tenmaku and Bokkusu are as far as the trailer rules are concerned - they're talking in support vehicle terms, not combat vehicles) occupy the hex of the tractor. Also, despite the name, this is a combat vehicle, as are the trailers, meaning that they all have a free ton's worth of communications equipment.
Unlike the design itself, the Teppō's origins are quite mundane and readily understandable. After getting hammered on, battered, bedraggled, ridden hard, and put up wet since 3050, the DCMS was finally ready to take another look at improving military policy and procedure. Part of it was the need to preserve command and logistical staff, something the Ryuken, with methods patterned on those of Wolf's Dragoons with somewhat less in the way of endowment in the fiat department, had managed better than the average DCMS line regiment despite extreme losses. They also used command and control vehicles and conventional units more readily; how much more in the case of the former, I can't really tell, since Daimyos were certainly being spread around and were even operated by the Sword of Light. So, in some ways, the idea of building a new command and control unit is really not a departure for the DCMS, it's a return to older traditions. Each one is built more or less by hand by Pesht Motors on Unity over the course of several months, so this is apparently supposed to be the stately Rolls-Royce of command units. The first one is going to the Ryuken-san; the DCMS is pondering wider deployment while the Republic Armed Forces are waiting for results before going to the Combine about either buying some or getting a production license.
As I hinted, the design is... well... I'll be nice and say ambitious. As a command, support, and artillery bunker, which it will be once someone gets a few shots at it and very nearly is to begin with, the Teppō is fairly impressive and can even crawl around a bit, so you don't have to erect it in place. Unfortunately, the operational specification called for a vehicle and we're not doing quite so well there. At 150 tons with a wheeled chassis, this thing is absolutely massive, and as a consequence of getting bigger, it's also painfully slow, reaching 33 kph despite a 280 Nissan fuel cell. Okay, fine, that's nothing new. Several vehicles get by with that sort of speed, although it's also something that many players (including the author) have traditionally not been especially enthusiastic about for various reasons. It has to rely on either aircraft or DropShips for any real mobility; the former gets to deal with StratOps rules for moving units as cargo and we don't actually have any that can carry one at the moment. Those of you suggesting Tonbos, no such luck - they top out at 112 tons. Since disrupting command and control is one of those time-honored battlefield solutions and the Teppō is certainly not going to outrun anything faster than an
UrbanMech with actuator problems, someone stuck 20 tons of heavy ferro-fibrous on here, arranged 60/56/56/55/57 (front/front side/rear side/rear/turret). Hitting it once it's located isn't much of a problem but with that sort of armor and 15 points of internal structure, actually killing it is a bit of a bother unless you generate an instant death crit. Okay, fine, so far, it's a lot like a tortoise - slow and hard-shelled. The justification for all of this is the payload. The turret is dedicated to a Sniper artillery piece with three tons of ammunition, enough for five minutes of continuous fire. Backing that up is a pair of Arrow IVs pointed forward with three tons each. Yes, if there's TAG in play, it's definitely going to deliver "the firepower of an assault 'Mech to a battlefield kilometers away from its position." To be precise, four of them. Whether you want to be within seventy hexes of an ongoing firefight in something that can't outrun an
UrbanMech is your problem; if you hide well enough, it can probably work. If. TRO3085 Supplemental also notes that it doesn't waste tonnage on short-range offensive weapons and it's not kidding. An LMG fore and aft will discourage infantry a bit (keep the trailer LOS in mind, though) while an AMS was carried on each side and the front. ECM is included to thicken the defenses. A 4 ton infantry compartment was provided along with an extra ton of communications equipment.
Okay, fine, that's the Teppō, but I must've had a reason for going over the tractor and trailer rules, right? Yes indeed! Supplied with the Teppō are the Tenmaku and Bokkusu. Both of them are 75 ton trailers with a 1 ton 10-rated fusion engine installed to provide power. (Those of you looking at logistics should be aware that this means they can be used to generate hydrogen fuel for fighters or fuel cell vehicles. Like, say, the Teppō.) Both have CASE and heavy ferro-fibrous armor. The Tenmaku's turret earns it an extra three tons, arranged 60/60/60/57, while the Bokkusu has a mere twelve tons laid out 60/59/60. The real differences are in the equipment. Tenmakus are command and control units. Their defensive armament consists of a pair of medium pulse lasers, two LMGs with a full ton of ammunition, and an AMS unit. Additional AMS mounts are on the sides, splitting four tons between the three units. It also has a second ECM unit. Since the two C3 master computers mean it's probably going to draw a
lot of fire from time to time, that's not a bad choice. Personally, I think this is more in the way of the Zugvogel's use of a C3 master as a command and control extension, not directly intended for use as a company master. Another ten tons of communications equipment - more than enough to do basically any of the things communications equipment can do in TacOps and then some, as well as probably enough to teleconference a really awesome session of D&D - and five tons of mission-specific equipment are mounted. Finally, there's another four ton infantry compartment. Bokkusus, on the other hand, are basically big, really well supplied mobile field bases. They've got an AMS mount on all sides with three tons of ammo but that's it for weapons. Otherwise, they rely on the eight tons of infantry compartment (or, rather, the people in that compartment) for defense. Speaking of mobile field bases, it has one, along with a lift hoist and 18 tons of cargo capacity. The arrangement of hitches - only a forward hitch on the Tenmaku but one fore and aft on the Bokkusu - indicates that a convoy of all three together is arranged Teppō - Bokkusu - Tenmaku.
On the scale of good ideas, personally, I'd rank the Teppō right around the same level as the
Owens. The basic concept is sound and there's some good ideas in the mix but the actual end result falls a bit flat even if it manages to muddle through and get the job done. I want to establish something right now: "Should" and "supposed to" are concepts that sound operational planning needs to minimize. When you're 2/3 and sometimes reduced to 1/2 by standard operating procedure, hearing them applied to your movement options and consequent enemy proximity is about as soothing as being told that most of the crocodiles in that lake you're swimming in "should be" toothless. If you can, deploy off-board and stay there, using something more mobile to boost sensor rolls. If you can't, you need to become intimately familiar with a certain
Monty Python clip. Double blind is your friend. Find a deep, dark hole as soon as possible, crawl to the most miserable, lonely abyss in it, and then
pull it in after you. Don't use bodyguards that are going to be obvious and if you can, pull them in with the hole. Tenmakus are a bad idea for running a company network in my opinion so the fact that you can't use it to do that if it's off-board doesn't bother me in the slightest. If you try it, be prepared for the network to get cut - a master this slow is trivially easy to jam, especially since it's not likely to be particularly close to the engagement. One thing you can do is monitor remote sensors under double blind. If you're bringing Copperhead and homing Arrow rounds along, there's no reason not to slip semi-guided into the bins of your LRM-armed units, too. For the BA complement, if you're not using TacOps BA sizes, I'd stuff at least two squads of Kanazuchis in there for close-in defense, and then maybe a couple of squads of Voids or TAG-equipped Kages to spread out and act as spotters for the artillery. Honestly, aside from the artillery and the potential for using the command rules (something I have no real knowledge of), the Teppō and its trailers are really objectives to be taken or defended, not combat units. That goes double for the Bokkusu. Also, please note that there's no obligation to use a Teppō as the tractor for either trailer. Anything seventy-five tons or larger can tow one of them if it has a trailer hitch. They may not be much faster (about the best you can manage is 2/3, even with a 5/8 tractor) but it's an option you have if you've got a 75 ton or larger tank with a trailer hitch. While we don't have the quirks to tell for certain, it seems to be a nearly universal feature of tracked combat vehicles judging from the entries in TRO: Prototypes since the only one that lacks a hitch is the Hunter Amphibious Tank.
(Author's Note: On reflection, I think I might have hit on something with the bunker remark. It really does keep making more sense to me when thought about as a bunker that's easily deployed to another world without tying up a DropShip rather than as a command and support vehicle.)Enough of my grumpy meanderings. If you're not fortunate enough to be a Snake, this is something you're concerned with countering, not wondering how you use this thing the Quartermaster shipped without being invited to consider the virtues of cold steel and your intestines entering a short, passionate relationship if you get it wrong. The ways a Teppō and its little friends can be annoying in combat rely on spotters, so deal with them ruthlessly. Mercy is for people who like taking artillery fire. If you're unsure which direction it's in and someone's using a Tenmaku to manage a company network, one way to find it is to move an ECM unit around and see if you can disrupt it. Once you have that, you know what direction the Tenmaku is in. Whether it's still attached to the other two or not is an open question - someone feeling sneaky might well use another unit with a trailer hitch to haul the Tenmaku (and possibly the Bokkusu) to one spot while the Teppō, possibly with the battle armor in tow, is hiding somewhere else. The other thing is to bring the reconnaissance assets to find it. Satellites may or may not be a good option - the Tenmaku has enough communications gear to hack one. Once it's located, it's not going anywhere, so just use your own artillery or close in and pound it; be prepared to keep at it. As little use as the armor is in keeping a Teppō mobile, it's going to make actually pounding through and killing the thing annoying and the trailers aren't much better. Air attacks may be useful but keep in mind that artillery can throw up a hellacious flak barrage, not to mention the risk of Air Defense Arrows if someone's feeling nervous about the possibility for some reason.
References: As the Teppō currently lacks a record sheet, the MUL does not include it, although you can find the artwork of one hauling a Tenamku over at
Sarna. To date, no miniature has been produced.
