Vehicle of the Week: Challenger MBT(Author's Note: Mainly because it appeals to me, this article uses the TRO: Prototypes nomenclature "Mk." throughout.)The modern trend, fad, or whatever you want to call it for tough, powerful, high-end assault tanks goes back to two designs in TRO3058, the Challenger and the Alacorn. The Alacorn is a triple Gauss monstrosity known to MechWarriors as a tank that's not only meant to fight 'Mechs but to flat-out kill them, superior technology be damned and cost right along with it. It's actually not quite as nerve-wracking to tanks - Gauss rifle single-shot kills aren't that much more likely than AC/10 shots against most designs and in a lot of ways, the weapon is less dangerous to a heavy or assault tank than an LB-X is because it's less likely to immobilize the tank. Challengers hold no truck with this specialization, mounting a broad range of weapons that give them options specialists tend to lack and the ability to respond effectively to most armored units. Introduced by the cooperation of General Motors and Kallon Industries, the design was an effort to avoid competition by working together to build the sort of assault tank that could face down 'Mechs one-on-one. Despite production on three worlds, supply never kept up with demand, a demand that has seen the tank become the backbone of the FedSuns heavy armor corps and also common in Lyran hands. More recently, an effort by Major Jymm Sortek to develop "the ideal main battle tank" produced an effective but massively expensive prototype. AFFS responses to the price were less than enthusiastic to put it mildly and GM went back to the drawing board, producing the Mk. XV, the first really affordable, low-cost Challenger, somewhat less heavily armed but tougher and carrying more ammunition than the prototype XVc did. While Kallon's Kirklin plant continues to produce the Mk. XI and XII, the Mk. XV is the only product of GM's two production lines (Salem and an unstated location that's probably going to be Kathil). I don't normally comment on notable units but the "Sanitarium" is the sort of grisly legend you just have to talk about. First assigned to the Eighth FedCom RCT in 3057 and following them off of Second Chance when they retreated in the wake of Guerrero, trading hands between the sides in the FedCom Civil War a dozen times and finally landing with the Tenth Lyran Guards. No crew has survived more than one battle in the tank, three crew members committing suicide "...while at least half a dozen others perished in “training accidents†and “firearms mishaps.â€" If Hellbie's Dice had a tank, Sanitarium would be it. Personally, I'm not sure whether to suggest an exorcism or just setting the tank on fire, dousing the burning wreck in holy water after a few hours, then burying whatever's left in a sealed ferrocrete vault.
The original Challenger, the Mk. X (possibly a reference to the Challenger Mk VIII from World War II), was originally seen in TRO3058. At 90 tons, this is one of the bigger tanks out there, and with a GM 270 XLFE, it's one of the more expensive ones, too. (That said, see the Mk. XVc below if you
really want your mind blown.) The 54 kph speed is enough to evade the infantry and Elemental attacks that it's described as
if the tank is in open ground. To preserve the investment in the design, 14 tons of Kallon Unity Weave ferro-fibrous was layered on 57/50/36/57, an armor spread shared by most of the Challenger series. The weapons arrangement reads a little like someone emptied a parts bin but it works decently in practice. The primary armament is in the turret - the Poland Main Model A Gauss rifle that's mounted on most Challengers, an Imperator Code Red LB 10-X, both them with two tons of ammo, and a Federated 10-shot LRM rack with a single ton and an Artemis IV module. The turret has a MainFire AMS package, blunting missile fire or possibly stopping a Thunderbolt. The weapons mix is a punishing amount of long-range fire for Spheroid units. The front mounts a pair of Martell MPLs to help deal with fast-moving opponents; not the most efficient weapons but they're handy sometimes. Off each side is a Federated Super Streak SRM 2, more useful for crit-seeking or harassing hovers trying to poke your sides. Personally, I'm not really convinced they're all that helpful, but they do occasionally manage something. The stern has an ExoStar SPL; at the time, I'm not sure this wasn't more about using the heat sink capacity without going over than anything else but it'll peel infantry off your tail. The weapons load means you generally have an option for doing something effective about an opponent's actions, even if it's not perfect, and in groups, the combination of LB 10-X, Gauss rifle, and supporting weapons can be devastating. At the moment it appears that the Mk. X is out of production but there's no doubt plenty of them left despite the type's vulnerability to minor little problems like ammo explosions.
The next iteration of the Challenger to emerge was the Mk. XI, developed to use the Combine's then-new C3 technology based on systems provided by Wunderland. Designed as a tough, powerful C3 master for a lance, the Mk. XII replaces most of the weapons, augmenting the retained Gauss rifle with a twin, feeding them with four tons of ammunition. The forward lasers are gone entirely for an ERML, with no replacement for the side- or aft-firing mounts. Naturally there's a C3 master but the joker in the deck is the targeting computer. That's right, a targeting computer linked to two Gauss rifles tied into a C3 network. Those of you who don't think that's enough are welcome to use the TAG to provide spotting.
A couple of years later, as the Civil War raged on, the Mk. XII rolled off the lines as a counterpart to the Mk. XI. The electronics are less ambitious, just a Guardian ECM suite and a C3 slave, and the weapons load is a little more familiar. The forward lasers are replaced by two ERMLs. In the turret, they left the Gauss rifle intact, upgraded to an LRM 15 with the same Artemis enhancement, mounted a Streak 4 rack to go with it, and then added in a RAC/2. The Gauss rifle and LRM launcher have three tons of ammunition each, the Streak one ton, and the RAC 2 tons. I'm not really that fond of the RAC but it can get the job done. As usual, tailor your fire rate to your chance of getting a good return on the risk of jamming.
Stepping off the beaten path (and probably into the deep end) is the Mk. XIVs in RS 3085: Unabridged Old is the New New. A lot of you are probably aware of the various amphibious and alternate environment models in that book and the Mk. XIVs is the Challenger's entry into the underwater arena. The environmental sealing is tying up a lot of tonnage. To save a little, they shifted to 13 tons of HFF and shaved a point off the front, rear, and turret. The weapons arrangement is sort of the made for TV movie version of the Mk. X's armament package. Up front are a pair of four-tube launchers, one for torpedoes, the other for SRMs, each with its own dedicated ton of ammo. The Streaks are still on the sides. In the rear, they left the SPL in place - not a great move. The reason for that is the turret loadout was switched for AMS, an LB 10-X, an MML 7, and an ERLL, making this the only Challenger without a Gauss rifle. The MML and LB-X have two tons each while the AMS has a single ton. For the purposes of being an alternate environment tank, it's okay. Not great in my opinion but it gets the job done.
In 3075, Major Jymm Sortek launched his ambitious project, described for posterity in XTRO: Davion. The outcome was certainly impressive but doesn't come anywhere near justifying the resources necessary to put it into production; leaving aside the cost, which is over 60 million C-Bills, investment in the infrastructure to produce the engine in any real numbers is probably impossible for GM and judging from the AFFS's response, not something the Treasury is going to be funding, either. The armor is slightly lighter than older Challengers but use of HFF improves things to 57/57/39/57. On the front is a Thunderbolt 15 fed by four tons of ammunition. Two tons supply the turret mounted Gauss rifle and SB Gauss. Each side-mounted sponson holds a pair of Magshots sharing a single ton of ammunition. I won't argue with the assertion that it's a good assault platform. It certainly is. But you can get the same basic performance (without the little problem of being vulnerable to AMS) out of an Alacorn and you can fit that Alacorn with HFF while you're putting the SB Gauss on. The Magshot sponsons are handy sometimes but not really overpowering. If you're going to be this pricy, you'd better bring more to the table than the Mk. XVc does.
The Challenger Mk. XV from TRO: Prototypes is a strange juxtaposition of the familiar and the bizarre for a Challenger veteran, rationalizing the Mk. XVc into a vastly more affordable design. The big change to cut cost was pulling the extra-extra-light engine and replacing it with a fuel cell. While it lowers the cost to a little under 4.8 million per unit, it needs fuel and is probably vulnerable to fuel tank explosions; MegaMek thinks so and, personally, I'm inclined to agree, but the rules themselves aren't clear on the results of a fuel tank explosion critical for non-fusion, non-ICE engine types even when dealing with support vehicles. Something to note if you use quirks is the Poor Performance quirk, meaning you need to spend a turn at no more than Cruising MP when you first start moving before you can go to full Flank MP. Whether the acceleration problems indicated by the quirk are an issue for just the Mk. XV or something that's endemic to the Challenger series as a whole is unknown. What you get for that price and engine performance, though, is worth the price of admission. Thanks to the use of an additional 1.5 tons of armor in combination with a switch to heavy ferro-fibrous, the armor protection is improved by over 20% to a total of 307 points arranged 65/64/57/57 - the only place that didn't see an improvement was the already well-armored turret and the rear thickness nearly doubled. Since CASE won't actually contain a weapon explosion on vehicles, like the Mk. XII, the lack of it isn't an issue. The weapons load saw a cut but the end performance is, in my opinion, quite sufficient for a much lower-cost platform - two Poland Main Gauss rifles, one the same Model A from the Mk. X and one a Model X SB Gauss. The standard Gauss rifle needs no introductions at this point in time, of course. Backstopping them are sponson-mounted Magshots, two to a side and fed by two tons of ammunition. Magshots lack the infantry-killing potential of the APGR and are less powerful but make reasonable options in light of the lack of CASE and a fusion engine. The SB Gauss has taken a certain amount of flak in some circles for not being a Gauss rifle or not being an ammunition option the way LB-Xs get to treat cluster ammo. Say what you want about it in general, here on the Mk. XV, the SB Gauss has turned in a solid performance for me to date. Up to 15 pellets out to 22 hexes in combination with the Gauss rifle is just plain rude. Your weapons load isn't as diverse (or as difficult to use together in many cases) as the others tend to be but what's there works quite effectively in most situations, which is what's important, and the non-elite formations who are receiving the Mk. XV are getting one hell of a budget tank for their money. Those looking to employ the XV, keep in mind the errata on the rules level - this is a standard rules tank under the guidelines in Prototypes, not an advanced one.
Your best defense when running a Challenger is a good offense and I don't just mean kill the other guy first. They're vulnerable to infantry that manages to close and several aren't great against battle armor. With the rise of the artillery cannon, both of those problems can be made to go away, and there are other equally effective short-range options, so layering your tanks with Challengers and similar types at the core of a defense intended to let them remain mobile while providing their massive firepower to their defenders is valuable. The C3 models are invaluable for that. Medium 'Mechs, which have less to fear from the way infantry and battle armor deal damage, may also be useful as flank protection, as can battle armor. My recommendation is IS Standard suits with LRRs - they kill infantry at a reasonable range, they're annoying to 'Mechs, and they can keep up with the tanks to some extent without having to hitch a ride. Grenadiers loaded down with Infernos are a slower but more devastating option if you can afford the transports to move them around. Your defensive ruminations also need to include the problem of dealing with flankers. While the cluster guns carried by most Challengers are a good start, some pulse laser-armed fast-moving types are also handy. Once you've got your forces, point them at the enemy, using faster moving units to steer or draw enemy forces into the path of the assault tanks for an old-fashioned hammer-and-anvil approach. The Challenger series is, when massed and operated well, a devastating sledgehammer.
If you want to kill Challengers, you have a bit of work ahead of you. Disabling them isn't difficult if you brought crit-seeking weapons; as usual, the LB 10-X's all-around capabilities and greater availability make it the winner of best in show but SRMs, SB Gauss, and other weapons are all valid options. Like Alacorns, Gurties, Demolishers, and any number of other slow vehicles, they don't have very much tolerance to immobilization. Like a lot of them, Challengers have enough armor that it still requires some effort to beat down, although the sheer number of Crew Stunned results sustained fire can generate will frequently make this safer; whether you're safe from your opponent's murderous thoughts at having his assault tanks locked up like bank vaults when there's a safe cracking convention in town is another problem. Once they're disabled, beat them down with applied brute force until you either blow the tank up or generate enough crits of the right types to neuter it and keep in mind that if it's not stunned, your opponent is likely to fire every gun they can at you in an effort to neutralize you before you blow the tank. Another possible option is to use minefields to box the slow-moving tanks in, immobilizing them even if they aren't obliging enough to drive through them. Artillery is a safe bet at this point if you've got it handy - back your units out of range, send most of them to go do something more productive, and leave one guy to provide spotting. Pointing and laughing isn't required but some players find it satisfying.
References: The Master Unit List is not updated to include the Mk. XV as of this writing but the rest are
right here.
Several units have their own Challenger Mk. X miniatures immortalized at CamoSpecs.
