The Greatbow hits with 3.3x the missiles and absorbs 2.3x as much damage as a baseline ARC-2R. Designed around a balanced defense and offense, the Greatbow leverages a mixture of inner sphere and clan technologies to absorb and dish out overwhelming return fire.
The defense consists of 34.5 tons of hardened armor, clan endosteel, a small shield in the left arm, an Angel ECM suite, and a Chameleon Light Polarization Shield. The Greatbow is best used by a pilot with a dermal armor implant (1.5M, but doesn't affect BV) which makes the pilot immune to damage from head hits. Between the shield and the hardened armor not even the improved heavy gauss can guarantee a head kill in a single shot. More importantly for something like the
Headhunter which is designed to kill mechs with cluster fire the shield increases survivability up to about an expected 9 Arrow IV cluster hits. An Angel ECM suite adds EW defense to degrade advanced missile systems, provide ghost targeting, and disrupt enemy ECM with ECCM. The Chameleon Light Polarization Shield makes the Greatbow nearly immune to return fire at long range, it's preferred location in a battle.
The offense consists of 16 Streak-5 launchers, 8 tons of ammunition, and 10 free heat sinks. The 16 Streak-5s provide 80 points of damage potential at long range, substantially exceeding even the Hellstar and rapidly disassembling even assault mechs. Antimissile systems offer very limited value due to the overwhelming number of missile salvos. While this might appear heat-sink light, it generates 0 heat in expectation if the target number is 7+ with the CLPS on or 6+ with CLPS off. Furthermore, since there are 16 Streak-5s, the odds of heat 6 (13 or more hits, -1 movement) are <10% and the odds of heat 8 (14 or more hits, -1 move, +1 to hit) are even smaller. For elite gunners out there, you can effectively leverage called shots for far more lethal targeted damage while retaining a low heat profile. The 8 tons of ammo provide 960 points of damage, well exceeding what even heavily armored mechs can absorb. At short ranges damage can be further augmented with a lethal kick bringing the damage potential up to a full 100 points per round.
Due to the use of a shield, the layout of this mech is necessarily asymmetric. The shield protects the head, the left torso including ammunition (also protected by Case II), center torso, and left arm. The Streaks are arrayed in the right torso( 8 ) and right arm ( 8 ).
A Greatbow is best used as a sniper, standing off at long range and raining heavy destruction on enemy units. If enemy units penetrate to medium range, walking backwards can help keep the range open for a longer time while keeping up the intense firepower. At short ranges the Greatbow turns off the CLPS to escalate destruction even further and closes to range 1 where a devastating kick can be employed to generate up to a full 100 points of damage in a round. Fast light mechs coming in for a backstab discover that the rear armor can absorb a full AC-20 round and the right armor can deliver a 40 point attack back. Overall, the Greatbow provides both firepower and defense which exceeds nearly all adversaries in both.
Greatbow Mech
Mass: 100 tons
Chassis: Endo Steel Biped
Power Plant: 300 XL
Cruising Speed: 32.4 kph
Maximum Speed: 43.2 kph
Jump Jets: None
Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Hardened
Armament:
16 Streak LRM 5
Manufacturer: Unknown
Primary Factory: Unknown
Communication System: Unknown
Targeting & Tracking System: Unknown
Introduction Year: 3150
Tech Rating/Availability: F/X-X-X-F
Cost: 27,865,000 C-bills
Type: Greatbow
Technology Base: Mixed (Experimental)
Tonnage: 100
Battle Value: 3,653
Equipment Mass
Internal Structure Endo Steel 5
Engine 300 XL 9.5
Walking MP: 3
Running MP: 4
Jumping MP: 0
Double Heat Sink 12 [24] 2
XL Gyro 1.5
Cockpit 3
Armor Factor (Hardened) 276 34.5
Internal Armor
Structure Value
Head 3 9
Center Torso 31 43
Center Torso (rear) 13
R/L Torso 21 30/28
R/L Torso (rear) 10
R/L Arm 17 30/27
R/L Leg 21 38
Right Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm
Left Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm, Lower Arm, Hand
Weapons
and Ammo Location Critical Heat Tonnage
Chameleon Light Polarization Shield RT/LT/RA/LA/RL/LL1/1/1/1/1/1 - 0.0
8 Streak LRM 5 RT 8 2 16.0
Angel ECM Suite LA 2 - 2.0
Shield LA 3 - 2.0
CASE II LT 1 - 0.5
Streak LRM 5 Ammo (192) LT 8 - 8.0
CASE LT 0 - 0.0
8 Streak LRM 5 RA 8 2 16.0
Fire Control Controlling heat on the Greatbow is relatively easy for beginning pilots. As pilots improve their gunnery skills they can learn to control the number of Streak-5s and whether or not they make Called Shots[high] or [low] for more focused targeting. The following fire control table assists with that:
Target # vs Heat | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
12 | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all |
11 | 6 | 12 | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all |
10 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all |
9 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 14 | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all |
8 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all | all |
7 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 15 | all | all | all | all | all | all |
6 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 15 | all | all |
Tradeoffs:
Offense vs. defense The current ratio of streaks to armor seems to be nearly optimal. Streaks weigh an amortized ~3 tons including a half ton of ammo and approximately half a heat sink. Swapping for more or less armor around this tradeoff does nothing to increase damage*armor.
Heat sinks 10 or 12 heat sinks are the natural choice. 12 heat sinks seems to be preferred in an environment where external heat sources can come into play since 20 - 15(maximum outside heat)=5 leaves very little for any kind of offense while 24-15(maximum outside heat)=9 provides a significantly increased capacity for action. At the same time, the 2 extra heat sinks provide the capacity to deal an additional 10 damage/round. In terms of defense, the extra 2 heat sinks covers most of the heat generated by the CLPS which might halve damage received at long range and reduce damage at medium ranges significantly.
Small Shield The small shield appears
quite worthwhile compared to an extra couple tons of armor except in a few corner cases. The extra protection for the head is quite valuable in an environment with designs optimized for taking out heads. The corner case is something like LB-X or silver bullet gauss which might rapidly strip the shield without fully utilizing the damage absorption ability. Even there, the additional protection from the shield is modestly beneficial in protecting the head and against lucky critical hits.
Angel ECM There are two steps here: ECM and Angel. ECM alone (1 ton) degrades opposed Artermis IV and disrupts C3 (a potentially very big deal). Angel ECM provides the additional protection of degrading Streak and simultaneously giving the possibility of Ghost Targets which has a modest chance of modestly increasing the target number for incoming fire---that's well worth a ton.
Chameleon Light Polarization Shield? The CLPS adds 11% to the BV and 4% to the cost while increasing the target number for heat-free firing to 7+ from 6+. However, this last doesn't seem to be a significant drawback since the CLPS can be turned off whenever the range falls to short. Overall, this seems modestly useful for slots which are otherwise not used.
Interface Cockpit? This would undoubtedly make a more lethal mech, freeing up 5 crits and a half ton of additional armor while making the pilot even more robust. But it's unclear what the extra crits would be useful for and the half ton of armor does not appear worth the increase in Battle Value and restriction in the set of viable pilots.