Battlemechs and Aerospace fighters have always been at the forefront of the Clan Touman. Outside of Clan Hell’s Horses, vehicles had largely fallen into disuse. The majority of vehicles existed to for cannibalization to keep others afloat or cached in favor of other battlemechs. It was not until il Khan Jerome Winson tenure that vehicles were recognized to have a huge benefit over a battlemech, cost.
The cost of a vehicle was sharply less than that involved in manufacturing a battlemech and vehicles could be produced in larger numbers. Both factors drove the il Khan to order a kick start to vehicle production so that new holdings obtained and grown from exploration during the Golden Century could be capably defended. Vehicles that utilized the newer weapon systems developed over the years. As part of this effort the Ishtar was given form.
Ishtar is the Mesopotamian goddess of love, beauty, sex, desire, fertility, war, combat, and political power. Fast forward now to the 3oth century and she is now the Sex on Wheels of your Local Clan 110 Auxiliary/Solhama unit. Featuring a variety of auto cannons and gauss weapons this is the no frills, wheeled, direct fire platform that your opponent really can’t ignore because of the volume of fire it can put down field. Survival though clearly takes a back seat though to the design’s firepower.
Omnimechs were not yet in mass production and the mechs of the day being developed were largely headed in different directions. Clan mech design was mostly focused on refining existing design with tech refinements that had been going on at the time and/or putting into production mechs that were on the drawing board at end of the Star League. The Ishtar, along with other new tank designs constructed at the same time, offered an easy platform to adopt the newer Clan spec weapons systems over the previous Star League and early Clan prototypes.
Variants:
The Original Ishtar was a faster machine than either of its off spring. It moved a modest cruise of 43kph which was faster than most other second line tanks released after the Pentagon Liberation and through the Golden Century. Packing the combination of an Ultra-10, a LB-10X, and a LRM-10 with Arty FCS makes for a decent weapons package. Armor is criminally low when you fighting another Clan opponent with only 7 tons of armor. It would take only 2 PPC strikes to get critical hit off on the Ishtar.
The modern Ishtar is a slower machine due to a smaller engine. The small engine allows for improvements in the weapons and ammo loads. Armor though is barely addressed. Carrying a half ton more than the Original and protecting the sides so that it would take a 3rd PPC strike to produce a critical hit. The weapons load upgrades the LRM launcher to a 15. Two ER Medium Lasers are added for more direct damage. An AMS system was put on the front of the machine to help deter massive missiles strikes from outright gutting the tank
The most recent and last variant of the Ishtar is the so called Gauss model. The ACs and AMS have been removed for a standard Gauss Rifle and HAG-20. Each big gun has its own 2 ton supply of ammo. No change in armor layout. Overall this is probably the superior of the 3 different models in that it can now
provide its full firepower at a stand-off range, rather than medium range that the LB and Ultra provided on the other two models.
Conclusion:
The main issues that exist with the Ishtar are that the design is to slow to chase down targets and a rather weak amount of armor when compare to designs of the same tonnage. On the other hand, defending a static outpost, especially one that can dig in and or entrench is where the design will shine. As long as the Ishtar is not in a situation where it has to deal with broken terrain it makes for a solid, just not stellar basket of guns. The thank is less than ideal with respect to anything other than flat terrain or open ground. The wheeled nature of the designs means that the design can't go park and hide in light woods like other armor that uses a tracked motive system.