Vehicle of the Week: Strike Falcon Attack VTOLWe're moving out of the water and into the air this week with the Strike Falcon. Continuing the lineage of attack VTOLs dating back to early experiments during the Algerian War, the Strike Falcon was devised by the Capellan Confederation to replace OT-22 Bird of Prey attack helicopters they inherited from the Tikonov Grand Union. Introduced four years later in 2371, the Strike Falcon was regarded as relatively speedy for its era (which says unpleasant things about either AA doctrine or pilot mortality rates - while units were slower, they weren't necessarily all that much less accurate compared to Succession Wars fare) but by the end of the Age of War, the only birds in the air were those that had been stripped down and sold to civilians.
At 30 tons, the Strike Falcon is at the top end of the medium VTOL bracket for support vehicles, and at TR D, it was fairly advanced at the time it was introduced, although the chassis isn't armored. Speaking of armor, it's 1.5 tons of BAR 7 armor, giving you 33 points arranged 10/8/5/2, a point under the maximum for a VTOL this size. The BAR isn't necessarily a problem, nor is the unarmored chassis - at the time it was designed, things that could punch through BAR 7 were called capital weapons - but it's worth keeping in mind once the large laser appears on the scene in significant numbers. The appearance of the AC/10 and the PPC, which could rip the armor to pieces, would have been even more dire. The 6 ton ICE power plant is sufficient to drive it at speeds up to 118 kph. That's fast for a 'Mech (especially primitive 'Mechs - you can just about keep up with a running
Wasp at cruise speeds), but it's slow for VTOLs, which have to deal with flak weapons. One ton of fuel gives you 1666 km of endurance, enough to give you a considerable combat radius. On the plus side, the armor is tough enough that casually shooting one down takes some actual effort with the weapons available at the time, so the situation could certainly be worse. The weapons load is pretty decent and the use of advanced fire control matches the accuracy of standard BattleMech or combat vehicle electronics. Twin SRM 4s (one on each stubby “wing” but pointed forward) are your primary punch, with a machine gun mounted fore and to each side to “discourage” infantry. Only a single ton of ammo means you can't mix and match ammunition types on a single mission, but a half-ton of machine gun ammo gives you enough endurance to outlast the time you really
want to be exposed to infantry fire in the first place. The joker in the deck here is the six tons of infantry capacity, enough to move two foot platoons or a motorized platoon. (Or, for that matter, a squad of heavy battle armor, although the anachronisms involved there are staggering and the primary user doesn't operate heavy suits in significant numbers anyway.)
Operationally, the Strike Falcon reminds me a bit of the mission role of the Mi-24 Hind on a grander scale. Given Tikonov's Russian roots, that's perhaps unsurprising. Specialization would have yielded a better design for either of its given purposes but it has the speed to outpace combat units of the day quite handily even if it can't do as good a job of evading AA fire if it's planning to get into range to engage with the SRMs. My best advice there is if you're moving troops, get them into position and
then go tank hunting. Doing it the other way around is a pretty good way for it to start raining men without that being in the ops plan for the day. Infernos are a decent option once they're invented.
Unfortunately, at least two of the military forces opposing the CCAF have valid counters readily available to answer the Strike Falcon, starting with the AA variant of the Estevez (remember, the FWL build them, too) which was introduced in 2360. Although the +1 modifier for poor fire control is a bit annoying, it's still a net -1 modifier for flak ammo. The A3 Augustus, which is
definitely going to be a problem sooner or later after it shows up in 2439, has better fire control and adds an AC/5 to the pair of AC/2s. The reach of LRMs makes them a reasonable fallback for AA duty, too. This is important because Strike Falcons are slow for VTOLs, and their armor is thin enough that AC/2s are a legitimate ablative threat, with AC/5s and LRMs being much more significant ones. Other than that, there's not really much to say. The smaller pool of weapons and slower units of the Strike Falcon's heyday tend to limit your options a bit.
References: The Strike Falcon isn't in the MUL yet, nor is there a miniature or even a BattleTech Wiki page. In light of that, I will link you to the artwork that was borrowed originally from the
Peacekeeper SWAT Carrier in TROVA.
