Greetings all, and thanks for the opportunity from Moonsword. This is my first *otW article, and I was given the Star League's
Lightning hovercraft. I'm not nearly as creative as the other Weekers, so forgive what might be a bit dry and pedantic. I also apologize for not having access to the original article, hence I'm starting fresh - so as they say in the pleasure circuses, on with the show!
The
Lightning is, arguably, one of the classic design studies for an attack hovercraft. Designed in the waning years of the 27th century for the Star League, the requirement was for something capable of three things: significant tactical speed to charge into enemy formations as a preparatory move, to dash in at the right moment to seize victory from the jaws of defeat with a rapid barrage of accurate firepower, or to die spectacularly like a cockroach that's been set on fire and running across the floor.
At 35 tons, the
Lightning is a hovercraft in the upper end of what I call the "medium" weights for hovers. Chief to the vehicle is a a top speed of 184km/h, letting it leave anything in the Star League era with legs in the dust; even the speedy
Hussar barely peaks at 151km/h. At 13.5 tons the fusion engine takes up a sizeable chunk of mass; 38% is well over the efficient 20% mark. It isn't really overengined, though - even a cruise, with a single turn, will net you a +4 modifier to neutralize incoming fire. Considering the risk of flank-speed skids and how weak the frame is, I would concede that the
Lightning has enough engine to do its job and less would be problematic.
Protection is better than I'd expect - as it lacks a turret, it doesn't need to spread the thin armor across five locations. This, plus the use of Ferro Fibrous armor, gives a surprisingly decent level of armor - able to take an AC/20 on the nose, and Gauss Rifles on the sides, it can certainly absorb a few hits from the lighter weapons often carried by other 'Mechs and vehicles in its weight class. Even the rear armor is proofed against typical PPC fire, and while it isn't as good as many other vehicles in its weight class the belief of Admiral Jackie Fisher more than makes up for it.
Speed is armor.
The core of the baseline
Lightning's arsenal is the pair of Medium Pulse Lasers. Despite the short range, these are nastily effective - allowing the
Lightning to run at full thrust, up to 17 hexes while neutralizing the +2 shooter's movement modifier. They also do a fair bit of damage for the era, two six point hits will do some serious damage to a light 'Mech. It might be a bit much for tonnage, but at least it isn't wasting heat sinks unnecessarily.
The use of the one-shot SRM-4 packs seems foolish on its face, especially from the point of view of the tactical boardgame. The half ton extra mass lost to each launcher could have been collected to give a full 25 salvos, not just two. However, considered in universe, it makes a little more sense - it highlights to the crew that their job is not long-term battlefield endurance but simply a rapid one-shot dump of firepower and then be gone. Using one-shot missile packs also abrogates the need for CASE, ostensibly - the missiles are likely to be empty when the crits come rolling in.
Despite the obvious waste of tonnage, this design choice probably did wonders for the survival of
Lightning crews. This clearly formed a statistical outlier as far as hovercraft crew lifespans go, and to solve this problem and bring the deaths more in-line with Star League lifespan expectations the fluff-only "bunny hop" maneuver was developed. This extremely dangerous and difficult maneuver that has no actual in-game effect succeeded, allowing "numerous"
Lightnings to be eliminated along with their Methuselan crews. (Speaking as a Canopian fan, I fully approve of anything that gets Star League troops killed in foolish ways.) It might be useful to consider loading infernos in your one-shot launchers - they work pretty well against infantry, the crit bonus against tanks can help, and against 'Mechs that heat spike may well be what keeps them from plastering you anyway. Should you be interested in modifications, swapping the missiles forward and converting them to regular magazine fed rounds might make for a nastier one-shot pull, and you can rely on the slightly heavier front armor.
As time passed, the design reappeared in 3067. Now produced on Epsilon Eridani at the Kressly Warworks plant, the
Lightnings were churned out in large number - but where they went was, at first, a mystery. Once the Jihad began later that year, it was discovered that the Blakists had indeed been hard at work with the
Lightning. And what they made was a thing of true beauty. A dark, unholy beauty like Gilbert Gottfried in a ball gown carrying a chainsaw, but I digress.
The first version mounted a pair of anti-missile systems in an attempt to increase survivability of the design. Not bad; personally I would have been happy to see the two tons applied to the limited armor instead, even with the (admittedly low) risk of things like Tandem-Charge missiles. However, the rest of the rebuild understood the point of the original. The engine and armor remained unchanged, while the foreward firepower was indeed intensified. A total of seven RL-15s, 105 rockets ready to fly, pockmark the front end of the
Lightning like high explosive teenaged acne. This seven ton warload is common to all three Blakist rides, and it hits like a baseball bat made of Swarovski crystal - sure it'll shatter, but it's so heavy that it's likely caved your skull in and the slivers are bleeding you out. Drive really fast, get to range 4 or 5, fire all of your rockets, and then drive really fast in the other direction. You'll be nigh-impossible to hit, decently protected if you are, and once you fire off your salvo noone's going to care about you anymore.
Giving a little more endurance are two other Blakist variants, one replacing the twin AMS and ammo with a pair of ER Medium Lasers. The other uses one ERML and two ER Small Lasers, all facing forward as well. There isn't much finesse or care in using them - the dual ERML version might be good to zap the occasional fast-mover on the way in, or to add a little more pain to the rocket strike, but either way I consider the lasers afterthoughts. They don't have the accuracy of the pulse lasers on the original, though they do have much better range, outside of the twin ER Small Laser version.
XTRO: Comstar does carry - almost - the story of the
Lightning one chapter further with the CX-3 prototype. Confirming indeed that the missile load was designed to beat it into the skulls of the crews that they aren't supposed to hang around the battlefield (ostensibly before an autocannon round would beat the same lesson into their skulls) it also shows that the lack of ammunition doomed the design. As this is the Experimental tech version, we find it aplenty and very, very well used - mostly. Stealth Armor is one of the major points of the design, making the already stupendously fast vehicle even harder to hit before it dashes in. The attendant ECM package can be used in supplementary roles when the Stealth Armor isn't on, ghost targets and whatnot may even be funnier than actually stealthing up.
Keeping the same rocket-barrage concept, the designers stepped down to six launchers, but put them in equal sponson turrets. This keeps closer to the
Lightning's original profile of slashing/bypassing attacks, giving each side a 45-rocket salvo and very wide firing arcs; this allows a lot more paths to be chosen and a better firing position reached than you'd get with typical side-mounted guns. Keeping to the original as well is a Medium Pulse Laser, giving that -2 bonus again despite the trade for range.
There are, however, bugs eating the leaves of this particular Tree of Eternal Life. One is the armor, or the virtual lack thereof. The front and side protection is slashed in half, enough to stop two medium lasers on the nose or a single large laser on the side. The rear gets away with only a 40% cut, and can still hold off a medium pulse laser, but that's it. The Vehicle Stealth Armor does help, but even with the fact there's only four locations to protect, 32 points of armor stretches very thin indeed. The other problem is that the design is sadly illegal. The specific problem is the Medium Pulse Laser and Stealth Armor heat; under vehicle construction rules you have to have enough heat sinks to handle the maximum heat burden. In this case, that'd be 14 - but the
Lightning CX-3 only mounts ten. It isn't a tonnage typo; the rest of the mass budget has been used up completely.
As it is, you would have to either remove the Stealth Armor or the MPL. The former is a very bad idea, as there's very few Vehicluar Stealth units in the first place and the loss of the extra to-hit modifiers is a major weakening of its defense. Pulling the MPL is the obvious solution, perhaps replacing it with more armor or rockets. The issue has been reported in the Errata thread, though without an official answer we can only speculate. Be aware of this should anyone want to use the Comstar version in a game. (Watch said answer come in very soon after posting this article.)
Because I apparently have the attention span of a catgirl, we come to a missed entry. Laster, and still not leastest, is the Royal version which - for the tech at the time - pretty much does it as right as it can. The Medium Pulse Lasers are retained for all their accurate zappy goodness, and the SRM4s are pulled out. In their place now is a pair of
forward mountedStreak-2 SRM launchers, with one ton of ammunition feeding them. You're getting the most bang for your buck that way, and the SRMs will eventually put out 200 damage into something, though it'll take a while. The thing that elevates this from a good hovercraft to "oh dear god kill it kill it kill it" status (in my furry-eared head) is the TAG system. Sure, you've got the risk of Arrow strikes, and there's plenty of carriers for that back in the old Star League days. There's a
hell of a lot more of them in the later eras, and that also combines with nastiness like semi-guided LRMs in brutal ways. Fortunately this little monster is IS Clan only according to the MUL, but you can guarantee the Diamond Salessharks will be happy to sell blueprints and working examples to anyone who wants them - probably at a discount, since it's an old SL ride...and that may be why it's apparently listed in the Republic era (though not yet specified who has it.) Either way, this is easily the best of the non-RL versions, and brings some nasty utility to the field. Wings and centers, man your sticks.
The best way to counter the
Lightning, in any of its examples, are the classics. Terrain is the best; making the super-fast unit burn MP twice as fast on rough terrain means it can't dictate range as easily, and if you are nice enough to provide jump jets for yourself you can really bring down that mobility gap. Woods of any kind are prohibited for hovers, so you may want to find a nice ambush - and put something in the way so that the enemy tank can't just charge on through and blow right past you. Mines should be used liberally and often, considering the terrain. Do be mindful of the fact they can skim over water surfaces without penalty and take all the chances you can to demonstrate how poorly hovercraft perform as floatation devices. Hitting the things is the primary mission; at the ranges it wants to fight at with its pulse lasers or rockets it's perfect Large Pulse Laser bait. Snub PPCs work as well, their long short range will also do wonders against the stealthy version. And lastly, don't forget the higher susceptibility to crits for hovers - even some minor damage can really cut down on the vehicle's movement. Most importantly, bring something able to run it down and kill it - for the Clans, that means Icestorms and the Locust IIC 8 and 9. For the Inner Sphere, the LCT-5M and -6M should handle the deal well; we Canopians also can put the Ebony to good use - warmed up it can keep pace, and the MEB-9's SNPPC gives it great range while the Capellan -11 model's plasma rifle will fry the thing extra-fast with the 2d6 damage bonus and extra crit chances.
As always,
the MUL has data and Camospecs has
a couple minis to see it.
