Skimmer (ICE)
Mass: 5 tons
Movement Type: Hover
Power Plant: Various 45 ICE
Cruising Speed: 183.6 kph
Maximum Speed: 280.8 kph
Armor: Various
Armament:
1 Machine Gun
Manufacturer: Various
Primary Factory: Various
Communication System: Various
Targeting & Tracking System: Various
Introduction Year: 2750
Tech Rating/Availability: D/C-C-C-C
Cost: 37,675 C-bills
A vehicle that has been done in so many ways by so many different manufacturers that the most descriptive label you can give it is simply "Skimmer", this light hovercraft was once ubiquitous across the Inner Sphere and the Periphery, and though the ravages of age and attrition has rendered it fairly rare, small numbers of these vehicles can still be found in most corners of human occupied space, and the Skimmer is generally instantly recognizable to most trained military personnel.
The achilles heel of the most familiar pattern of Skimmer, like so many other vehicles during the general collapse of the Succession Wars, was its fusion engine, which rapidly became unavailable due to widespread industrial and technological decline. While most users carefully husbanded what original Skimmers remained or stripped their vehicles for components for more valuable units, others sought an alternative solution in the form of simpler and cheaper variants of the vehicle which dispensed with the fusion engine entirely. The most common of these being the so called "Kolibri" (hummingbird) pattern first pioneered in the Lyran Commonwealth. This uses a simpler, but heavier, petrochemical engine to retain the phenomenal speed of the more familiar Skimmer. To make up for the engine's greater weight, the original's energy based armament was completely discarded in favor of a single bow mounted machine gun, with the ammunition magazine placed between the pilot and passenger seats, and the ammo feed running down the right side of the vehicle. This setup, along with the petrochemical engine, is slightly bulkier than that used on the standard Skimmer, and the extra engine noise and the bulk of the ammunition makes it difficult for the pilot and passenger to communicate without the use of radio.
Like the original Skimmer, the ICE powered version sees use most commonly as a scout, perimeter picket, and in less combat oriented roles as a frontier patrol vehicle for both military and non-military organizations. Given the loss of operational range and combat capability relative to the fusion powered original, the ICE variant is actually quite rare in the Inner Sphere, where enough fusion powered Skimmers still exist to handle most roles it was designed for, and where cheaper, less sophisticated Jeeps and light hovercraft can handle the rest. In the periphery, the ICE variant is more common, and can be found in significant numbers in virtually any organized periphery state able to manufacture modern combat vehicles. Outside those states the vehicle is much more rare however, as even the downgraded ICE version is a little too sophisticated for most isolated periphery worlds to manufacture and must therefore be bought offworld.
Variants:
Given that Skimmers see use with civilian organizations as well as military ones, it shouldn't be too surprising that unarmed variants are almost as common as armed models. The most common of these simply removes the gun and turns the passenger seat into a small cargo compartment. Though this cargo compartment has been rated for a ton of equipment and it has been claimed that this space can be used to carry personnel, that is clearly not what it was designed for, and any attempt to cram more than a couple men and their equipment into the space would require stacking them like cordwood with no room to move or possibly breath, and the only reports of operators using the vehicle in this manner have come from pirates intent on moving newly captured slaves quickly to their drop point.
The scout variant, which also originated for civilian use, replaces the weapon with a high resolution camera and a sensor dispenser system. Originally intended for forestry or wildlife protection work, this version's optics and sensors has obvious military applications as well, and they are occasionally deployed in the vanguard of an invading force or used to scout out enemy landing zones, trusting their phenomenal speed to keep them out of harms way.
The last of the most common civilian oriented versions of the Skimmer is simply called the speeder, which discards any ancillary equipment for a bigger engine. Though the ability to clear three hundred kilometers per hour in a straight line may have some practical value to someone, these vehicles are predominantly created purely as sport craft, and are most commonly found on the racetrack rather than the open field.
As it is commonly used as a fast attack vehicle against soft targets by pirates and other raiding forces, there have been several attempts to improve the Skimmer's hitting power over the years. Most commonly, this takes the form of installing a smaller engine, bringing the top overland speed of the vehicle down to "only" around two hundred and sixteen kilometers per hour, but freeing up weight for either a trio of machine guns or a twin tube SRM launcher. More recently, the Marian Hegemony would create their own variant which retained the original engine, but traded the machine gun for a pair of rocket launchers flanking either side of the pilot seat (the pilot, for his part, wears a fully enclosed helmet and respirator to avoid choking on the exhaust gasses of the rockets when fired). Though originally just a single shot fast attack vehicle, in more recent decades the Marians have been experimenting with using this model to transport battle armor, complete with wildly improbable claims that a full squad of five Marauder suits were somehow successfully stacked on top the skimmer and moved from one point to another. More logical evaluations suggest that, even using a suit equipped with specialized magnetic clamps, it's unlikely that any more than one or two battlesuits could actually successfully mount a skimmer, and a suit as large and bulky as the Marauder would likely be completely incapable.
Though it is outside the scope of this entry, it should be acknowledged that the famed Savannah Master is itself functionally a variant of the standard skimmer, albeit one that has since overshadowed its progenitor. Once the effectiveness of the Savannah Master had become obvious, however, it was inevitable that clones would appear, and among the first of these was simply a standard fusion powered skimmer which replaced the original weapons with a bow mounted medium laser and half a ton of additional armor. These so called "Savannah Racers" are a bit of a mixed bag. They combine the firepower of the Savanna Master with the raw speed and superior terrain handling of the Skimmer, but the lighter armor is telling. No Savanna Racer is going to take two hits from a locust on the bow and keep moving, and a single hit to the sides would likewise be fatal. Still, there are pilots who swear by the vehicle's raw mobility, and likely the only reason no manufacturers or nation states pursued the concept further was the lack of fusion engines to support construction.
Type: Skimmer
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Introductory)
Movement Type: Hover
Tonnage: 5
Battle Value: 60
Equipment Mass
Internal Structure 0.5
Engine 45 ICE 2
Cruising MP: 17
Flank MP: 26
Heat Sinks: 0 0
Control Equipment: 0.5
Lift Equipment: 0.5
Power Amplifier: 0.0
Armor Factor 8 0.5
Internal Armor
Structure Value
Front 1 3
R/L Side 1/1 2/2
Rear 1 1
Weapons
and Ammo Location Tonnage
Machine Gun Front 0.5
Machine Gun Ammo (100) Body 0.5
Features the following design quirks: Scout Bike
Record Sheets for the Skimmer (ICE) and its friends can be found through the link in the first post of this thread:
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=84454.0Author's Note: The original Skimmer first appeared in the first edition of the Mechwarrior RPG and got a modern acknowledgement and an updated record sheet in Recognition Guide 31. The brief fluff describing the Skimmer, indicating its small size allowed it to maneuver through lightly wooded terrain, was the justification I used to give this version the Scout Bike design quirk, and presumably the canon version found in RG31 would have the same quirk (the Savannah Master, on the other hand, traded the ability to move through light woods for extra armor).
And remember kids, five Marauder suits stacked on the back of a Skimmer is rules legal, whether or not geometry or physics agree.
