Vehicle of the Week: Padilla Artillery VehiclesIntroduced into the Star League Defense Force in 2620 - probably in the wake of a new generation's analyses of the Reunification War and Arrow IV usage therein - the Padilla was intended to supplement the smaller, slower Chaparral. If I had to guess, it's probably because someone at SLDF HQ realized that "Twice as fast as an
UrbanMech!" probably wasn't as impressive as it sounded, so maybe that whole fast moving part of the RFP hadn't actually been met. Most of the SLDF's examples were destroyed in the Liberation of Terra, with only twenty left in the entire Inner Sphere by the start of the First Succession War. Out of production for centuries, Leopard Armor may have begun building them again after the Word of Blake took Terra; TRO3058U and TRO3067 contradict themselves on that point. WizKids' Padilla Tube Artillery Tank doesn't clarify things although it seems to imply that Wolfnet's hesitation on the point in 3070 is justified. It was introduced by Aldis Industries on Terra at the behest of Cameron St. Jamais as he fumbled around looking for something to deal with the fallout from declaring war on basically everyone and was based on their Thor, a much smaller design than the original, to save time and development costs. Used alongside both its parents, Blakist commanders found the mixture very readily customizable to deal with different circumstances. After Terra was liberated again, Aldis began filling orders first for the Republic and then everyone who wasn't a Clanner.
These are two very different vehicles, so I'm going to address the older Padillas first and then deal with the Padilla Artillery Tank. The original design was a showpiece of advanced Hegemony technology, one of the first units to integrate a wide swathe of the technology available to the Star League Defense Force. Designed off of a 75 ton tracked chassis, it was powered by a massive 375 rated extra-light Ragusson fusion engine for a top speed of 86 kph, enough to pace most medium 'Mechs. The StarSlab armor isn't nearly as impressive, though - a mere 5.5 tons arranged 28/24/12. You need to use that speed not to get caught, moving from firing position to firing position. The point of all of this is the Katyusha Arrow IV launcher fixed forward, fed by an incredible six tons of ammunition for the sort of endurance most Arrow IV platforms can only salivate over and the ability to carry a standard 15 round endurance and a variety pack of other options just in case you get the opportunity
to be a jerk to exploit their unique capabilities. To help protect you from marauding 'Mechs that might be taking a bit of exception to the whole steel rain act, Leopard put an AMS system and a pair of MPLs on, then added TAG. At first glance, TAG looks a bit silly. It's not because the idea is not to self-designate. The idea is that if someone looks like they want to get in your face, everyone aims homing Arrows at the proper map sheet and you light them up the next turn, hopefully turning the offender into a pile of merrily smoldering scrap.
Looking at a rapidly depleting stock of Arrow IVs, the Capellans modified their Padillas by ripping out everything but the AMS system. The resulting space was filled with a pair of LRM 20s sharing a six ton magazine. Somehow, these units survived, advanced engines, AMS, and all. The Capellans certainly aren't building new ones but they have both Padilla Heavy Artillery Tanks on their available list in the Jihad. Whether they're still there after the Jihad is anyone's guess.
The next design to emerge was named courtesy of WizKids' bad habit of going for name recognition on things that really aren't, although this time, like the Regulator II, CGL managed to scrape something together that makes me only mildly grumpy. The basic design isn't it. At 55 tons, something they inherited from WizKids, this is one of those design decisions we don't see very often. While technically 60 tons is the dividing line for medium and heavy tank designs the same way it is for 'Mechs, informally, 50 tons is for two reasons - it's the cutoff for hovers and more importantly the cutoff for a light vehicle bay. To give you an idea of what sort of selection pressure this exerts, there are 5 55 ton vehicles in the game at the moment. There were that many 55 ton 'Mechs in the game in 1986 with the release of TRO3025. With a wheeled chassis, the design isn't going to win any awards for all terrain capability, and with a 145-rated Leenex light fusion engine, it won't be winning any races, either. The armor is actually heavier than the engine - 7.5 tons in a 28/25/20/22 pattern. The point of all of this was the weapons load, all of it loaded in the turret. The main weapon is a Sniper artillery piece with two tons of ammunition - enough to split loads if you're willing to take your chances about running out of one or having your TAG spotters blown to scrap and wasting your Copperheads, assuming you can get your hands on any. Two LRM 5s (with their own two tons of ammunition, making me wonder if someone's thinking of minefields; why they didn't use that second ton for something more worthy, I don't know) and two SPLs were added to provide the crew with a certain amount of reassurance that ultimately means nothing. It's passable as an artillery piece but not really impressive. Fortunately, between the small engine and low speed, it's also fairly cheap either way you want to slice it unless you're looking at shipping it between worlds.
The artwork is of a Thumper-armed variant that's apparently intended to provide somewhat more hefty defensive fire. ECM was added - probably to compete with Brooks' own Thumper carrier - along with upgrading the lasers to MPLs and switching the launchers for a quartet of MML 3s fed by two tons of ammo. The Thumper has two tons much like the Sniper but double the endurance, making it much more readily doable to use alternate munitions.
The one that actually interests me is the one with the Long Tom Cannon. I won't pretend it's really a good idea and at a shade under 1000 BV, we're not talking particularly cheap anymore, either, but hey, Long Tom Cannon! And four tons of ammo! ECM was kept, a good thing since you're much more likely to be in ranges where it's useful, and you've still got an LRM 5 and two SPLs for defensive purposes. Like the other artillery cannons, the Long Tom Cannon has a variety of uses but the damage and blast radius makes it much more useful, including swatting light hovers, killing infantry of either type in job lots, and otherwise making a nuisance of itself. It may not live long but honestly, sometimes, I'm interested in the amusement value, not the effectiveness, and it's the only remotely common Long Tom Cannon unit out there right now. Considering that battle armor is only getting more annoying and more common, that's not anything to turn your nose up at.
Using the Padillas is fairly simple. If it's an artillery model, the Tube version wants to find a hole and crawl in it until someone's counter-battery fire starts getting a little too accurate, then find another hole if the counter-battery fire doesn't kill it. The MMLs will make lights a little nervous but the Sniper model can't even boast that. The 5/8 XLFE model is pricy but can actually advance or retreat on its own, something that some users may be interested in, and the ammo levels are handy if you need alternate munitions available. You won't live as long if someone finds you, though. The direct-fire models are... interesting. Exactly how well the LRM model works is curious. It's fast enough to be useful but the combination of price and firepower suggests you really should be using either LRM carriers for the low-end performance or 'Mechs to do the speed. The LTC model is very interesting in practice. They're hardy enough to stand up to a certain amount of abuse from lights but they get disable quickly like most wheeled vehicles. What they work well doing is acting as an escort to keep someone off of your more important vehicles. If some light 'Mech wants to harass a group of Marksmen or Trajans, suddenly having a couple of Long Tom Cannons open up will discourage them (especially since they don't eat movement penalties), and in urban fighting, the ability of a Long Tom Cannon to damage buildings (intentionally or otherwise) is difficult to overstate. Watch for opponents bunched up, even at a one hex interval, and use LTC Padillas in pairs to generate more chances for PSRs. Combine this sort of antic with other heavy tanks and someone will really learn to hate you.
To stop an artillery Padilla, you first want to eliminate spotters. Given the way Arrow IV = Homing in many people's minds, that takes on even more emphasis with the heavy model, but Copperheads aren't exactly love taps. It'll also cut into the accuracy boost once units are no longer providing LOS to standard round impacts. After that, find the actually artillery platform (VTOLs work well but keep them out of direct-fire range unless you've got a good reason). Once that's done, you can either disable it or simply keep up LOS to catch it with other units; doing the latter is more difficult with the heavy version. After you have firepower in position, disable it if you want and then play "Hulk smash puny artillery unit!" The LRM model is handled in a similar way but is easier to find because of the shorter range of LRMs. The LTC is interesting. You're likely to eat at least a couple of shots unless you're a fast light and even then, the odds are good you'll eat one. (Failing that PSR tends to hurt.) With any of the AE-armed units, don't bunch your units up and try to keep two hex minimums between them to avoid opportunities for multiple hits. If you see someone hit the same hex twice in a row with artillery fire - especially if they do it with multiple rounds - that's probably an auto-hit hex. Those of you who enjoy "steel rain" as a cleansing, refreshing method of relaxation, please stand under the incoming high-explosive death. Everyone else will probably want to get out of the way.
References: The
Padilla Tube Artillery Tank and
Padilla Heavy Artillery Tank have separate entries on the MUL. The only Padilla on CamoSpecs is a
Word unit from the fighting around Cairo. So far, no miniature of the new Padilla has been produced for BattleTech although some of the old Dark Age figurines are probably floating around.
