"Orange you glad I didn't say banana?"NOTE: I maintained this article on a USB drive for a long time as a fill-in article in case someone couldn't get an article up on a particular week. Since I'm not really doing these anymore by popular demand, and the USB drive was needed for another project, I figured today was as good of a time as any to post this and have it out the door.It's interesting to look at the evolution of design types in the time of Battletech's publication and see how things have changed. Scout Mechs that used to be blisteringly-fast at 6/9/6 now struggle to get away from heavy Mechs, assault Mechs that couldn't cause a PSR with a full alpha strike now can do so with the weapons in their left arm alone, entire new types like the fast heavy have dominated battlefields... but when you get right down to it, the debut of Star League tech didn't change the classic old LRM boat a great deal. Tricks like XL engines and double heat sinks have enhanced their abilities, Narc and Artemis have made them better at their jobs, but the LRM-throwers of 3025 don't feel all that out of place even in the Jihad- in fact, it's safe to say that few 3025 stalwarts have aged as well as those designs have, still just as viable in those later years as they were in their heyday. It's no surprise then that even as new designs began to filter out of Inner Sphere think tanks and factories following the Clan invasion, there was still great need for this type of simple, effective fire support.
Few nations know the need for LRM support as well as the Free Worlds League, where Trebuchets and Archers have long held a greater importance than other places (and that says a lot!), and it's no surprise that Earthwerks saw an opportunity to build a new entry into that field. They stuck with simple, proven techniques to produce a machine called the Apollo- but did they play it a little TOO safe? Is it a decent Mech? Will it put the classic Trebuchet out the pasture, particularly following that design's struggles in 3050? It's complicated.
Despite the FWL having access to both Helm data and a massive industrial base, the Apollo stayed away from most of the new tricks coming out- tricks that were showing up across the FWLM in both good and bad ways. After all, for every effective Marik upgrade like the Awesome or Hermes II, there were odd ones like the Trebuchet or Hunchback to cause head-scratching. This extended to the new designs that followed as well, with some good ideas mixed with other oddballs like the Albatross. With that in mind, the Apollo feels almost quaint- few of the wild tech made it here, which both reduces cost and maintenance difficulty.
We start at the engine, as always, where we find a dinosaur. A simple 220 fusion engine, same as the old days, powers the 55-ton Apollo to a humdrum 65 kph (4/6), with no jump jets added on. A rare use of new tech finds double heat sinks installed, allowing the Apollo to run very cool in most situations, but this is a design that won't be going much of anywhere in a hurry- it paces older heavy formations nicely, but if you want it to find good firing positions the way a Trebuchet's higher speed allows (or a Catapult's jets allow) you may find this a frustrating machine to run.
We didn't do much with the engine, so we had room to make the armor beefier than the Trebuchet. Eleven and a half tons of standard plating cover the Apollo with a skin that can shrug off even an AC/20 round in most places, which is no small feat really on a medium Mech. That's standard plating, again- despite having a glut of open crit spaces, no endo or ferro shows up on this design, and while the former is a difficult field upgrade one can't help but think an upgrade with the latter isn't a bad investment someday- every little bit helps, right?
Some kind of ceramic cover maybe over the LRM racks shattering as it fires? Very unusual.Any LRM boat is measured by its throw weight- after all, no one cares how fast or tough you are if your firepower is anemic. The Apollo here mimics its predecessor with a pair of Zeus LRM-15s, though unlike the Trebuchet's upgrade the Apollo went with Artemis IV systems over Narc capability. This is a mixed bag- while Narc relies on other units to slap a pod on a target (a downside for sure), Marik at this point is developing plenty of units that can provide that role, not the least of which is the Trebuchet itself and the ubiquitous Orion! To forego that ability in favor of Artemis is almost a pity, and one can't help but think those two tons would be useful elsewhere. The missile batteries have the standard two tons of ammunition each, and both launchers and ammo are buried in the side torsos, freeing the arms up for... well, I almost said 'punching', but if your Apollo is in a fistfight you have done something very wrong.
The standard backup for an LRM boat is medium lasers, which the Trebuchet packed three of. The Apollo made an odd choice, going instead with a pair of center-mounted small pulse lasers. This isn't a great choice here- while they're very handy for getting rid of infantry, they're not particularly helpful for much of anything else- and if your Apollo is on anti-infantry duty for any reason, you Apollo-ed wrong. A pair of medium lasers, bland as they may be, are tried and true in the backup role and would have been a better choice- if all else fails here, the arms are still free for punching if you really need to. (The free arms, with hands and all, also mean Apollos are likely helpful in non-combat roles as well)
There's not a lot here to get excited about, honestly- it's a solid fire-support design, for sure, but it lacks the wow-factor many designs from TRO:3055 have like the Stealth or Hercules. It's a 2002 Toyota Camry- it's not going to turn heads, it's not going to make anyone fall in love with it, but it'll do the job it's made for without any trouble.
But, of course, that was simply the standard 1M model. A simple modification results in the 1R, removing the Artemis systems (I approve) for two more tons of LRM ammo. That's interesting- the Artemis wasn't all that helpful overall for the tonnage it cost, and this simply makes the Apollo able to sustain its bombardment for longer- nothing bad there, for sure. I strongly encourage the use of this model if you have a choice between the 1M or 1R, and if the 2S below is unavailable.
The 2S model debuted soon after the original, and made the swap I mentioned above to put in medium lasers in place of the small pulse lasers. This is simple stuff, hardly justifying an actual variant number, but is considerably more capable of defending itself against the kind of light harassing units that plague LRM boats and should be considered over the standard model whenever possible. Your Apollo shouldn't be fighting infantry- don't set it up to do so.
A bigger departure towards making the Apollo close-combat capable is the 3T model, which drops the LRM batteries down to 10-racks. They retain the Artemis systems (which again aren't really all that helpful, particularly on smaller launchers!), with the four tons of ammo remaining untouched as well. The small pulse lasers went away for the medium lasers in the 2S model, but the tonnage lost in the LRM racks is then put into a medium pulse laser mounted in each arm. This is interesting- the loss of LRM potential, the reason for the Mech to exist, is unfortunate indeed, but the ability to tell a snooping Spider or Pegasus to go the hell away is pretty handy. If you run Apollos, having one of these in a lance with the others can make for a handy bodyguard.
"You wanna get nuts? Let's get nuts!"And then there's the weirdo. The 4M model comes from the Prototypes TRO, and as such it's got all sorts of changes. The engine becomes an XL at last, but the speed remains 4/6. Ferro-fibrous armor appears, giving slightly less protection as before but with solid weight savings- what could the engineers be up to here? A single ER medium laser in the head replaces the original backup lasers, and... the payoff for all the weight savings, a pair of Extended LRM-15s each fed by a two-ton ammo bin. Wow. I guess it depends on how much you love the ELRM, whether you're a fan of this ride or not- the drawbacks are enormous, but the range is artillery-levels of ridiculous. Since I'm not a huge fan of them, this didn't do much for me, but your experiences may differ wildly.
This thing is so boring even the CCG artwork of it is bland. This is what vanilla looks like.It remains then only to discuss an offshoot of the Apollo as we wrap up here. With the reveal that Joshua Marik had died in the care of FedCom, the FWL refused sales of the design to the AFFC, and to the LAAF once the Lyran half of FedCom broke away. In response, Steiner developed the Cobra as their Apollo-answer, with a similar setup of LRM-15s on a medium-weight Mech. There's ink spilled on this design elsewhere, so I won't go into detail here, but if you find the Apollo appealing you'll enjoy the Cobra as well- they're fairly similar in the same vein as the Trebuchet and a half dozen other designs out there.
Years ago a discussion on these forums occurred in which a poster tried to explain that mounting Clan LRM racks could double the throw weight of an Apollo- which is true, of course. My argument against this became the occasionally-quoted Apollo's Law, named for this design as a result- if it needs Clan tech (or other radical gear) added to a machine to make it good, it probably isn't worth the investment to add that tech in the first place. Sure, Clan LRM-15s or 20s will make for a better Mech- no kidding. But if you have a few Clan LRM racks laying around, would you put them on an otherwise-humdrum 55-ton machine like this, or save them for other, already-better Mechs? Essentially, would you make an 'eh' Mech good or a good Mech great? With the rule aside, Apollos aren't really great for modifications- they're slow, and don't have a lot to do in terms of modifications that don't run into weight problems- you don't have lightweight engine or structure to fall back on, so the only place to find that weight is in the missile racks, and as the 3T taught us those are best left alone in-general lest you lose the point of the machine to begin with.
But hey, what's the point if you can't tinker a bit? Develop your take on the Apollo and share a link to the design in the Fan Design area! Tell us stories of using Apollos! You know how this works, join the discussion below!