Taking requests, because the well is running a little dry- please, if you have something you want discussed, send it in to my via PM! I can't guarantee I'll cover it (a lot of recent requests have been good, but have been covered recently), but if it hasn't had a recent article I'll do my best at least.
So. Let's talk WiGE units, a unit near and dear to the author's heart. Having studied the
ekranoplan concept (wing-in-ground effect) in college, the introduction of units like the Hiryo and Fensalir into Battletech was a gleeful thing for the author. The concept is a fascinating one- in effect, the wings create lift like an airplane, but by forcing air down onto the surface below it creates a sort of 'cushion' that the unit rides on- in some way similar to the effect of a hovercraft, but created and utilized in a very different way. (It's much more complex than that, but I'm trying to keep it short and simple for the purposes of not making this an enormous article- a more detailed 'what is a WiGE?' article may come later as a VotW special report). While the
ekranoplan concept never really caught on in most places, they do see service in civilian roles in the former Soviet Union, and even the Soviet military explored amphibious and anti-ship strike roles for these interesting craft.
So, a thousand-odd years into the future, what do we find? The concept has returned, with a number of craft coming out during and after the Jihad. One of these, the Fensalir, was a horrifying Lyran craft that allowed a heavy Gauss rifle to zip around the battlefield with relative ease- not fun to deal with. It only made sense to create a follow-on unit, but rather than simply create new variants of the proven Fensalir, Nashan Diversified instead went with a whole new airframe because... reasons... shut up... anyway, the result was the Schwalbe, or Swallow, which ends up being as Lyran-thinking as a Zeus in lederhosen.
As with VTOLs and hovercraft, a WiGE relies on being able to move quickly- they're not particularly durable, so even an otherwise innocuous hit can have severe consequences. The 45-ton Swallow... doesn't move as fast as one might like. At 7/11, it's pretty quick still, but it's going to take hits that a faster unit might be able to avoid. Regardless, it accomplishes this still-handy movement via a 200XL engine, an expensive but necessary setup which the Swallow's design does take full advantage of. It IS worth remembering that a WiGE doesn't care about such obstacles as water or rough terrain, so that speed is faster than it looks. (Note that Total Warfare rules that a WiGE must move at least five hexes in a turn to remain airborne, and on the ground is treated as a hovercraft with an MP of 1, with all the restrictions that a hover would have in terms of terrain.) Worth noting is the flotation hull equipment, which effectively turns the Swallow into a flying boat of sorts, able to land on water safely. Handy, particularly in areas like swamps and coastlines.
If Steiner built it, it probably is tougher than old shoe leather, in general. The Swallow doesn't break the mold. Seven and a half tons of heavy ferro-fibrous armor give the craft a pretty hefty skin for its size. The old VotW cannon is stymied by this beast- fifty points up front mean that it can take two hits from the old AC-20 and not even care. The sides get another thirty-five points each, enough to withstand three Gauss hits before breaking, on a 45-ton unit mind you! Even the rear gets twenty-eight points. However you go about killing a Swallow, it won't be an easy time of it. That's a lot of protection, and combined with the unit's rules of movement (remember, have to move at least five hexes to stay airborne), the movement modifiers to hit it in the first place won't be great. So it's far tougher than even this appears. (Testing proved this out, both using it and fighting it- if you do score a hit, it takes a long time for the Swallow to start caring)
One of the knocks against this thing is that it's just a faster Hetzer. The author, having used Hetzers many times over the years, wonders where the drawback to that is exactly. A massive Defiance Disintegrator LB-20X autocannon sits in the nose, in an unusual-shaped mounting. You should be sweating the idea of a huge clustergun on a fast-moving, hard-to-kill frame right about now- and the idea of a lance of four of them should have you breaking out in hives. Three tons of ammunition allow the carriage of multiple ammo types (the author advises two cluster, one solid), and makes enemy vehicles and such simply vanish in a cloud of pain. A pair of ER medium lasers use the heat sinks from that engine nicely, and are handy backup weapons to the main gun- these are also nose-mounted, of course. That's a lot of 'oomph' for a 45-ton craft. I told you it was Steiner-flavored!
Interestingly, as with the Behemoth II, the production version listed here wasn't the original model. The original was rejected by the LCAF- it didn't feel Lyran enough, so the giant-freakin'-cannon version above was the result. The original model is still produced for export though, and admittedly has a very Davion feel to it. The weapons in this version are replaced with a rotary AC-5 fed by three tons of ammunition, backed by a snub-nosed PPC. Both versions are nasty in their own way, but this version was preferred at the end of the day by the author- even when the RAC jams, the rules to the unit allow it to quickly zip away to safety to get the gun working again, and even if that's not an option the PPC is an excellent hole-puncher that enemy forces have to take seriously. The Lyrans are fools for ignoring this unit that they had access too- but, all things considered, they got a very nice unit instead, so it isn't a total disaster for them.
Go forth, use Swallows, tell stories, recommend upgrades, send requests to the author, read more VotW articles as they come out, etc.!
