Vehicle of the Week Update: Oro Heavy Tank(The original article is no longer available.)Oro is the name of a Polynesian deity, worshipped on Tahiti as the principal divinity and, almost inevitably for Clan vehicles, the god of war. Yeah, that was a surprise, I'm sure. We have some interesting questions here, with the Oro going back a long ways in Clan history since it originally carried a conventional class 20 autocannon, a weapon that has been extinct among the Clans since approximately 2820. I want to point out that this is circa Operation KLONDIKE, which means that the original may actually date to the Star League, although I have nothing to back that speculation up other than the way things line up. Seeing how the MUL team solves this one should be interesting once it's released. Anyway, as GWA points out, the Vipers later designed the current model to help counter Raven aerospace assets. (This Oro, the one the Vipers put together, is referred to for simplicity as the "original Oro" for the rest of the article.) The design later spread among the Clans and worked its way out of the anti-air niche. I agree with GWA that the Oro is basically a box stacked on a box, with covered treads that give a nice impression of solidity.
While we have no additional information on the original Oros, the modern primary variant is rather better known. A fusion engine drives the tank to the same 65 kph maximum as the Manticore or Po, about standard for this size of tank. The weapons load is a bit scattershot in a way, with an LPL and an LB 20-X in the turret, while an ERML that looks like an iris reader hangs off the front of the tank. (Those of you familiar with the construction rules are already noticing the five tons of extra heat sinks, I'm sure.) The ammunition is very sparse, with only five rounds of each type. The armor is not thick at all, being 5.5 tons of ferro-fibrous distributed 24/21/17/22, but the TRO entry is rather blunt about pointing out that the Clans don't really care that much about their crews. That's fine. I question whether or not that really applies to keeping the tank itself intact to do something useful, but the Clans generally have a blinder where vehicles are concerned. Anyway, so this is supposedly an air defense tank. You need range to do that job because of the way it works mechanically, not least of which is the fact that aerospace units get another two range added for every altitude band. Against VTOLs, if they close, they're in a bad place, but this still doesn't help anything against snipers like the Donar, Warrior, or Hawk Moth. The LB 20-X has a longer reach than its classic counterpart, but it still doesn't have a lot of range, although that flak bonus is unpleasant... for the five rounds you potentially have it. The LPL is a much better choice. As a tank, this isn't terribly impressive, mainly because of the armor, although the range of the gun doesn't help anything. You can use it at close range, but that's true of anything with a class 20, so I'm not really saying anything that wasn't said about the
Hunchback and the Rommel when TRO3025 came out.
Apparently, the Snow Ravens have continued to tinker with their own Oros, which were last featured in TRO3060 as part of their training course. The Explorer Corps got their hands on battle recordings of an upgraded Clan Oro that fixes several of the tank's problems. First, someone removed the medium laser and its godawful five tons of heat sinks. This isn't an Ontos, people. Realizing that the LB 20-X is not the answer to anti-air, the Ravens removed it and the ERML. In their place, they installed a HAG/30, a weapon actually capable of
reaching out and hitting someone. Four tons of ammunition supply sixteen rounds, a much better endurance, although still a bit on the light side for some tastes. The three remaining tons were piled into armor, now spread 45/30/28/30. Everywhere but the tail can eat a double Gauss tap without going internal, although the turret could probably stand some more armor in an absolute sense. That's secondary, though, to the fact that the Clans finally have something that actually answers the Manticore or the Patton at being a real, classical MBT.
(Author's Note: Of course, the Axel IIC kind of kicked over the board there, although there are similarities between the two if you look closely.) And instead of someone like the Horses, the Snow Ravens blunder into it building a better AA gun. Kind of figures. In any case, this Oro has become, or perhaps ascended, to a jack-of-all-trades that can do either its original AA duty (
really do it, this time) or function as a general battle tank. You don't especially
want to do urban warfare, but the LPL still works just fine, and if you can avoid knife-fighting, a HAG/30 at short range hits like a mule with that +2 cluster bonus.
The use of an Oro depends a bit on the variant you're dealing with. In the AA role, either one is going to keep its immediate area clear of VTOLs in many cases, but the new HAG model helps a lot by keeping them at arm's length, and the fact that the armor went up by over 50% helps a lot in keeping the rocket jocks from being able to return the favor. The limited ammo doesn't do the original any favors, either. For surface warfare jobs, the original really needs to close. A Clan LPL is an impressive gun, made of equal amounts beard and cheese, but it's only
one gun. Urban/ambush warfare is an excellent use, although the thin armor means you're going to lose some of them in MAD scenarios. The HAG Oro, though, is more flexible, with the armor, ammunition, and range to stay back a bit or close in as circumstances dictate. Keep the HAG's cluster table modifiers in mind when deciding whether or not to take a long range shot. As part of a combined force, the original Oro serves in a similar role to the old Rommel, convincing people not to get close with the fury of your main gun, or rumbling up while using other units to distract the enemy from the short-range beating stick rolling closer. The variant Oro can provide the cover fire (and the distraction), serve as the centerpiece of an armored advance, or act as a general AA combatant. Those with access to both can combine them quite effectively, interestingly enough, because their limitations tend to cancel each other out in combined use.
Countering the Oro depends on the variant. The original needs to be kept at arm's length if it can be arranged. The ERML is annoying enough, but the original AC/20 was and remains one of the game's benchmarks for serious bad juju for a
reason. An LB 20-X can either deliver that same enormous smack or switch to cluster ammo for one of the most dangerous shotgun blasts in the game. Even if it doesn't, get used to the LPL carving pieces off of you. Concentrations of reasonably heavy fire should put it down fairly quickly, though. The new HAG model, on the other hand, doesn't want a knife fight. If you're in the short range bracket, getting right in the Oro's face is actually a good idea, because it inflicts range minimums on the HAG. Considering that a HAG/30 gains a +2 on cluster rolls at short range, this is a lot like getting hit two LRM 15s with Artemis, something that no one really enjoys. If you can't get in its face, back off to medium range to break the cluster bonus. Don't just lollygag around at ranges 5-7, which is the HAG Oro's "sweet spot" where both weapons are taking no penalties, and 8 isn't that much safer, really. The thicker armor makes this one more difficult to put down, but not too much so.
Reference: The
MUL is a good place to start, including BattleForce stats. The
CamoSpecs page, at first glance, looks like a display of a tank engagement from the Wolf-Horses tiffs after the Jihad, although I didn't take a close look at the units involved.
