Vehicle of the Week Update: Saladin Hover Tank(The original article covering the Saladin, Saracen, and Scimitar together was reposted with the Saracen article.)Three hovertanks have been in the arsenal of the vehicle user for over a long time, reliable standbys and old friends. I speak, of course, of Scarborough's series of S-named hovercraft, the Saladin, Saracen, and Scimitar. This article looks at the last of the three to be developed, the Saladin, named for
á¹¢alÄḥ ad-DÄ«n YÅ«suf ibn AyyÅ«bi, a famed general of the Crusades who, among other things, recaptured the city of Jerusalem. It was introduced as a companion to Scarborough's earlier Saracen and Scimitar tanks for short, quick defensive operations. Sluggish initial sales were countered with free shipping and training (likely discontinued since) combined with a shell company licensing agreement that ultimately spread the Saladin far and wide. Many wound up in the Periphery as a fast-moving counter to raiders while a surprising number were sold to the Lyrans. A great deal of the Combine's Saladins are concentrated in the Azami regions, where they are a favorite both for their capabilities in the arid landscapes of many Azami worlds and the name of a general who is venerated in Muslim traditions. In later days, small, largely sensible upgrades to the armament were applied and one truly odd offshoot but by and large, the Saladin is what it's always been.
The basic description of the Saladin is a big gun with a lift skirt and an ammo feed attached. Just like the others, the Saladin is a 35 ton hovercraft powered by a 105-rated ConLee ICE engine, cheap and easy to both acquire and maintain as well as common to the entire Scarborough family, powering it for an 8/12 movement curve and 129 kph at flank. The armor is... well, it's certainly
there, but considering the kind of attention a Saladin attracts, it doesn't help as much as you'd hope. A mere 2 tons is arranged 17/5/5. The lack of a turret complicates engagements but as far as the armor goes, it's a saving grace... to the extent this design
can be saved. Considering the limited armor available, the distribution isn't bad, just
barely keeping an IS standard or ER large from being a lethal threat and managing to soak a 20 pointer to the front, but you don't really want to be soaking hits with internal structure, especially on vehicles. At 9 points and up, the flanks are gone, however. The real attraction of a Saladin is the Scarborough Original class 20 autocannon in the front, fed by a prodigious three tons for 15 rounds of fire the hovertank all too often doesn't survive to use.
Apparently ungrateful to have a tank to ride in at at all, let alone one with such a generous ammo supply, the crews perversely disliked being stuck out there where any smart aleck with a PPC could (and given the threat a Saladin embodies,
would) try and blow them right to Hell. In the face of both Scarborough and the Combine's disinterest in the matter, some of them took matters into their own hands and removed an ammo bin in favor of another ton of protection, arranged 18/10/10. I find myself much in favor of this, personally. It's a good level of protection against limited fire from the common threats of the era, although Clan tech's compact and highly dangerous weapons yanked that right back.
Honestly, I'm a bit puzzled on the face of it by the Saladin cargo variant. As you can tell, the history of these vehicles post-dates the Exodus, and unlike, say, the
Jenner, which attracted a lot of attention, the Saladin is not the sort of thing that's going to merit a lot of respect from your stereotypical honor-bound Clanner. It's mentioned as being Clan in tech base, although frankly, this is probably the only case in the game where you can scratch that out, write "Inner Sphere", and not notice at all - literally, all the stats amount to is taking a stock 3025 Saladin and ripping the AC/20 and its ammo bins out for 17 tons of cargo space. That tech base does seem to indicate that these may be new-build units, and they're marked as Invasion era, though, heightening the mystery. As a speedy logistics unit with enough armor to survive a bit of harassment, this makes a lot of sense as a larger capacity, behind the lines counterpart to the Anhur, but it still leaves us with some questions as to the relationship with the basic Saladin. I'd expect the Clanners to base something like this on a Zephyr or some other Star League unit, not a design that didn't debut until well after the Exodus and, indeed, the formation of the Clans. The truth of the matter was revealed to me by one of Randall Bills' BattleBlogs, pointing back to the scenario pack "The Falcon and the Wolf" where two Stars of supply hovercraft were being used by the Jade Falcons, indicated to be identical to Saladins except for the removal of the weapons for cargo. Some more information may be available in the future; a question was submitted to the Powers That Be but was unanswered before our recent round of hacker antics.
Two models date from RS:Upgrades and are now found alongside the cargo variant in RS3058 Unabridged's Inner Sphere volume. They share the same engine as the original but traded the armor for 35 points of ferro-fibrous arranged 14/8/5. I'm really not sure that's such a great improvement here, honestly, but it improves protection on your flanks a bit. One carries an LB 20-X fed by three tons of ammo while the other uses an Ultra/20 with two tons.
Saladins can be a devastating weapon but in contrast to the seemingly blunt instrument appearance they present, they're more of a rapier, capable of a telling blow on an opponent in skilled hands but they're also fragile, easily broken from harsh or incorrect use. The design is old enough that their basic reputation is fairly well known and many experienced players will react to them aggressively. Keep that in mind when you consider your tactics. They need to take shelter, avoid the front lines until the last moment, and function best as either a surprise rammed right into combat after the engagement has already been pressed or as ambushers. They may also be decent as a (very short lived) decoy. Operate in groups, pick out isolated targets, and tear them apart while keeping your movement modifiers as high as you can. Also, don't expect to get many back - Saladins have a very high mortality rate. For this reason, go ahead and set the Ultra model's gun to rapid-fire and leave it there. Taurian and Marian operators may find it useful to have a lance of Gladius hover tanks lead the way a turn or so before the Saladins charge in to soften the enemy up, and Saracens make excellent companions.
Countering Saladins requires you to be aware of the battlefield. If you know Saladins are around, keep your forces in position to provide mutual support, don't feed the Saladins your forces piecemeal. If they're wandering around openly on decent numbers, someone may be trying to decoy you, but they have definitely provided you with a golden opportunity to swat a very dangerous fly before it can land. If they try to close, kill them with extreme prejudice. More to the point,
pay attention - Saladins are expendable assets but your enemy wants to get his money's worth out of them, so they're likely to emerge in unexpected places to try and avoid fire. Having a lance get behind you is going to hurt. Generally, any fast hover killer (LB 10-Xs are great) will work, but so will any heavy weapon that can bear, and Saladins getting close are the sort of thing that demands attention. Precision ammo out of a Zhukov or Po is very rude but an excellent way to settle the matter.
Image Reference: The
Master Unit List includes the artwork alongside current availability data and BV. CamoSpecs has an example done up in the colors of the
17th Donegal Guards.
