The GallantIn truth the Gallant was a product of panic and a fortress mentality that was taking hold of the Word of Blake as the Coalition forces closed the noose round Terra. The rush and desperation to make any Mech or vehicle that could be thrown at the Allies shares remarkable parallels with Nazi Germany. The Germans designed such aircraft as the HE-162 ‘Volksjager’ a wooden, jet powered aircraft that was to be built in huge numbers and flown by young pilots with minimal training. That the HE-162 was a brutally uncompromising aircraft to fly, and one would have to be an expert to fly it, not a barely trained youth, as well as in some cases being structurally unsound wasn’t seen as a factor. This parallel can also be seen with grandiose projects like the Omega which mirrors the Nazi's 'Maus' super-heavy tank in terms of size for the time.
In turn the Word produced a spate of Mech’s that were built to be controlled by MechWarrior’s who had little in the way of training, and for many, their first battle would probably be their last. To this end ‘wasteful’ or 'unnecessary' things like ejection systems or anything resembling adequate reactor shielding were simply not included in the designs.
Almost all of these panic designs never saw the light of day, but one did, being encountered in the Sol system and counted amongst the Word’s forces on Terra. Here it had enough success and caused enough trouble to Coalition forces that when the factory was seized, the design was looked at.
Whereas designs like the Toyama, Initiate or any of the Celestial series carried with them the taint of the Word of Blake and the horrors inflicted by its forces, the Gallant did not, and, with their Mech forces in tattered after the bloody campaign to destroy the Word, the newly formed Republic of the Sphere opted to put the Gallant into production. With a decent amount of reactor shielding and an ejection system fitted of course. The Mech's design was also shared with the Lyrans and Davion's as a thank you for the help they had given and pain they had suffered during the Jihad. Most people would send flowers or chocolate, but hey, the Republic was a bit weird.
DesignAt a solid 70 tons the Gallant is very firmly set in the heavy Mech category, fitted with a 210 XL engine (now, fortunately with the proper amount of shielding) the Gallant is a rather slow machine for its weight category, only capable of hitting 56kph at full speed. But five of the somewhat poorly named ‘Waterly’ Improved Jump Jets allow the Mech to leap up to 150 meters, making it quite agile despite its lumbering speed.
The standard compounds skeleton holds a beefy 13 tons of armour, giving the Gallant near full protection and allowing it to take a pounding whilst engaging targets.
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And this thick layer of protection is needed as the Gallant’s speed means it can’t withdraw from a fight save breaking the line of sight or leaping into heavily wooded terrain. An extra four double heatsinks are fitted allowing the Mech to keep cool whilst engaging as well.
VariantsGallant GLT-7-0 – The standard Gallant’s armament was re-worked by the Word at the last moment, instead of being built purely to engage Mechs, it was re-armed to allow it to engage the combined-arms units that the Coalition was often fielding (mostly due to the destruction or crippling of so many Mech manufacturing facilities). A pair of Large pulse lasers provide accurate firepower at mid to short range whilst allowing for even the most novice pilot to score hits with a torrent of laser pulses.
A MRM-20 can cause significant damage and is cheap to produce and easy to train pilots to use, and the MRM can easily disable tanks with hits to their motive systems. A Streak SRM-2 was also fitted and again this speaks of a design that was meant to be used by novices. As the Streak won’t fire without a lock it conserves ammo. Finally, a flamer can be used against Infantry and vehicles alike.
The tactics used by Word pilots was to jump from behind cover and get at short range where their weapons would be at their most accurate and this is needed as the Gallant 7-0 lacks any form of long range firepower and is achingly vulnerable on an open battlefield due to its plodding speed.
Still in tight terrain or heavily built up areas it can be potent and has been issued to units defending urban or built up areas acting like a larger Wyvern.
Gallant GLT-8-0 – Coming out several years later the 8-0 is a significant re-working of the armament of the standard 7-0 as well as being a testbed for more advanced technology to see if the Chassis could be adapted to fit new weapons that would overcome its short-range limitations. On the whole, the Federated Suns designers were successful and the 8-0 entered limited production.
Still limited by its plodding 56kph speed but having a 150 meter leap the only changes are to the armament. Here the Davion designers removed everything and worked in new weapons from the ground up.
A quartet of Medium-X pulse lasers provide heavy fire at medium range and nearly have the range of the original dual large pulse lasers. Longer ranged firepower comes from a pair of Thunderbolt-10 missile launchers.
The large missiles fired by the Thunderbolt system have a good range on them and can be fired indirectly, allowing the 8-0 to engage a target at ranges that a 7-0 pilot can only dream of.
A significant upgrade of the 7-0 the 8-0s longer ranged firepower make it a far more potent threat although with 18 shots shared between the two launchers, battlefield endurance is somewhat limited. Also, the hot running X-pulse lasers will push the 14 double heatsinks to their limit
Gallant GLT-10-0 – Going full circle again the 10-0 is once again, a product of desperation. With the Federated Suns facing threats on all sides and with Combine and Capellan forces pushing ever deeper into Suns space the Gallant was altered to produce a cheap but potent combat unit. A cheaper and less resource intensive Light engine replaces the older 210 XL, keeping the Mech’s speed the same, whilst the jump jets also remain untouched.
Once again House Davion changed the weapons, stripping out the maintenance heavy X-pulse lasers and ammunition hungry Thunderbolt launchers. In their place is a more limited but still useful weapons package that is cooled by 11 double heatsinks.
Two of the newly developed large re-engineered lasers form the 10-0’s main punch, the blisteringly fast micro-pulses of the lasers allowing them to combat the special armours faced on the Kuritan and Capellan fronts. They also have a considerably greater range than the 7-0’s large pulse lasers. An MML-7 fitted with Artemis IV takes advantage of the huge stocks of LRM and SRM missiles available whilst a flamer can do horrid things to infantry, or set buildings on fire. Losing out on firepower to the 8-0 the 10-0’s re-engineered lasers work well to counter the now worryingly common hardened armour of the Kuritan military whilst also being quite accurate and hard hitting.
Cheaper to produce the 10-0 is not overly impressive but makes a good support unit and to assist in this the 10-0 also carries a remote sensor dispenser on its back, allowing it to lay ‘trip wires’ that can detect hostile Mechs trying to sneak through allied line (Capellan stealth units say hello).
ThoughtsThe Gallant is a bit of an odd duck. Its achingly slow and even with the variants its long-range firepower isn’t amazing, meaning it’s not really a front-line combatant, UNLESS you’re in a city or very built up terrain, at which point your weapons range won’t be too much of an issue. The 7-0 is a bit uninspiring, its mismatched weapons ranges don’t lend itself to much although its jumping mobility is nice. The 8-0 is a straight upgrade, plus indirect fire AC-10 hits are always nice and the X-pulsers allow it to fight at beyond knife fighting ranges which again, is a nice upgrade. The 10-0’s ability to ignore special armour types with the RE-Lasers is again good, but it lacks the firepower to take full advantage of it, perhaps replacing the MML with some medium RE’s would have been a wiser choice, keeping it closer to a weapons swap of the 8-0 built during more frugal times.
At best I’d say the Gallant is adequate, the 8-0 is the best of the pick, and the 7-0’s near useless on terrain where there’s little cover. The whole family is hobbled by its low speed and faster Clan units will be able to gobble up a Gallant in no time thanks to their general range advantages.
Fighting one, well it’s a slow moving heavy with good armour. Apply heavy firepower until it goes away. If you have the range advantage, exploit it without mercy and the Gallant won’t be able to effectively reply unless it happens to be an 8-0 and even then, it will start running out of ammo. The Gallant will require careful use if you want to get the most out of it, outside its natural environment its lack of speed make it vulnerable, but in tight terrain, its jump jets give it the mobility to out manouver a target and get the drop on them, hopefully from behind and at short range.
As always, thoughts and comments are most welcome!
