Sulla - 45t, TRO3055
Originally posted 29 Sept. 2005. All proposed fan-variants should be posted in the corresponding “FotW Workshop†thread. Especially favoured by the Smoke Jaguars (when they were around) and the Ghost Bears, but found with almost all of the Clans, the
Sulla enjoys a rare amount of fuel-endurance by Clan standards, packs enough firepower to make many IS mediums step carefully, and its movement curve borders on the incredible. :o In fact, of all the Clan OmniFighters the design philosophy behind the
Sulla and the
Avar are arguably closest to what IS designers would consider ‘conventional’. :D
Being that it’s wrapped around a thundering 315XLFE, the
Sulla boasts a 9/14 thrust curve that must have caused “that
can’t be right!†moments for IS pilots during Operation: REVIVAL, since they
knew that a 45-ton bird simply
couldn’t move that quickly... and it actually has a fuel-tank of a size that the IS considers ‘standard’, meaning that its five tons of gas give it an operational range few other OmniFighters can match. Eight and a half tons of ferro-aluminium armour provide a reasonable amount of protection, which means it’s almost excessive to many Clansmen; while 46/41/35 isn’t much shakes against Clan weaponry, it leaves the nose and wings immune to first-shot threshold TACs from IS medium lasers, which means that it can afford a certain degree of confidence about mixing it up with the Spheroids. ;) Most noteably, however, the fourteen-and-a-half (14.5) tons of pod-space this leaves available is almost a third of the
Sulla’s overall mass, making for a nasty amount of internal ordnance made a little nastier by the hard-mounting of three additional DHS. I say a
little nastier because unlike other, heavier OmniFighter designs, despite having a
relatively high pod-space fraction the
Sulla’s
absolute pod-space is actually fairly limited, and one might have been better served by leaving those three tons of weapons volume free-and-useable and installing extra DHS with the Omni configurations that need them. :-\
Looking at the
Sulla’s artwork (especially the seemingly forward-swept wings and the dorsal-mounted engine), it’s hard to escape the idea that the
Sulla owes a great deal to the
Stingray which debuted barely
four years two decades before the Amaris Coup and left with Kerensky’s Exodus in respectable numbers. Certainly the
Prime configuration’s armament does nothing to gainsay this impression: a nose-mounted ERPPC, ERLLs in each wing, and an ERSL aft to discourage tailers/use that ‘spare’ half-ton. (Before fractional accounting was declared an L3 rule, the tail-gun used to be a Clan machine-gun with a half-ton of ammo! :o) While it overheats a touch if the PPC is employed in conjunction with one of the wing-lasers and gets decidedly toasty if a forward alpha-strike is fired (+13 Heat! :o),
Sulla Prime certainly doesn’t lack hitting power or reach. A very handy ‘utility’ configuration - you can snipe with it, dogfight with it, make ground-attack Strafes/Strikes with it, and a Star of
Primes will make a number of big holes in a ’Ship very quickly (bays of 10, 15 and 10 Capital over one Star! :o)
Sulla Alpha is a little more concerned about its heat-curve - and quite possibly descended from the F-94, I might add. Keeping the ERSL aft, the
Alpha loads an ERLL and an ERML into the nose and slots an Artemis’d LRM-10 into each wing with a ton of ammo per launcher. Able to employ its entire forward arsenal without heat problems, the
Sulla Alpha retains the reach of the
Prime (if not all of its throw-weight) and becomes quite a capable super-fast fire-support machine that can dogfight or shoot its way back to its carrier if need be. Another ‘utility’ loadout, to my mind.
Sulla Bravo goes to the maximum extent of ‘fire-support’ that such a light spaceframe can. The aft ERSL seems to be a near-permanent fixture; each wing mounts an Artemis’d LRM-20 with a ton of ammunition. This makes for a fearful amount of throw-weight but a very short combat-endurance, which is not too good a thing; it’s also greatly oversinked, thanks to those three hardmounted DHS. :'( A config intended purely for the brevity of a one-on-one Trial, or for standing back and pelting a target with missiles while one’s companions go dashing in ahead of you.
Sulla Charlie seems to be the dedicated dogfighter of the lot. Packing an MPL in the nose, an ERPPC in each wing and the inevitable aft ERSL, the
Sulla Charlie doesn’t have all of the
Prime’s reach or throw-weight, but it can actually use its nose-gun and one wing-gun without overheating, making it a slightly better choice for the ‘slashing’ snapshots typical of a turning engagement. I would STRONGLY recommend against forward alpha-strikes - +8 Heat isn’t as bad as the
Prime can get, but it’s still not too good.
Several posters in the original runs of this article dismissed the
Sulla Delta as the most token of Heavy Laser variants; personally, I don’t really see that as a negative, and in all honesty I’ve seen ‘D’ configs that I’ve liked a lot less. :D Twin SSRM-6s in the nose (with two tons of ammunition) are backed by an MPL, with one more in each wing, and the aft is defended by a single Heavy Small Laser. Granted, it’s not the most thorough-going application of the new kit, but given the clout of Heavy Lasers it’s a damned good way to make that hanging-half-ton work for you, providing an anti-tailgater weapon with respectable clout for a minimal imposition on your pod-space. The forward arsenal is certainly nothing to sneeze at, either: arguably intended for pilots who may be good at stick-and-rudder work but shaky on their fire-control,
Sulla-D runs at -3 Heat even on a full fore-and-aft alpha-strike, punches three nasty holes in folks with those lovely -2TH medium pulsers (with Medium range, no less!), then follows with twelve doses of Streak-guided crit-seeker lovin’ to finish the treatment. A knife-fighter, to be sure, but it’s a
sharp knife and no mistake.
Incidentally, this section’s all-new for this run, folks - I never did remember the ‘D’ loadout in either of the previous runs until another poster appended it later.... :-[ In all configurations, the
Sulla’s maximum load of purely-external ordnance is nine tons at a very nippy 7/11 thrust curve, meaning that full-laden
Sullas can keep pace with ‘clean’
Visigoths. }:) Rocket-launchers or bombs for a strike sortie, or extra external fuel? Situational call, but the
Sulla is fluffed as specialising in long-endurance CAP duties... either offensive or defensive. }:)
Tactical recommendations for using the
Sulla? Well, you need to steer clear of enemy interceptors - your armour is good enough to stand up to one or two (IS)ML hits from ahead or into your flanks, but not a constant pounding nor from behind. Against anything slower than 10/15, though, go to work - you will almost invariably have the advantage(s) of agility and/or weapons-reach over an opponent, so don’t be shy - exploit those advantages ruthlessly, in accordance with
the mantras.
Fending off
Sullas is a neat trick... if you can manage it. Clan players might want to break out the
Batus and the
Avars, which match or exceed the
Sulla’s drive performance and can deliver some pretty good whacks once they get a good position... though their smaller fuel reserves mean that they have less engagement time to get the job done in, and/or that the battle will take place closer to the enemy’s target than you might otherwise be comfortable with. :-\
Visigoths might be a decent choice, too, as long as each wing-pair remembered to cover every other one. I can’t say that I’d recomment anything heavier for the job, though - the
Sullas would simply fly rings around them and humiliate them before smoking them. :o
Spheroids have a better range of interceptors available to them, and thus slightly better options for dealing with
Sullas.
Seydlitz would be my natural first choice - their ERLLs have the reach and the punch to rock
Sullas back on their heels. Failing ‘flying doorwedges’, though, IS interceptor design doctrine means that any of the ‘original’ House interceptors can out-manoeuvre the
Sulla and start chewing bits off of its tail with their medium lasers... which were an IS1 interceptor’s weapon-of-choice for a damn’ good reason. }:)
[VARIANT PROPOSAL(S) REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants - including my own - belong in the corresponding “FotW Workshop†thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,3467.0.html [Anchor]“... Which brings us to our FotW Active Poll. Please, press the ‘Quote’ or ‘Reply’ buttons at the top-right of your CBT.org interfaces and share
your thoughts with us....â€[/anchor] ;D
Be advised: the attached .txt transcript(s) of previous runs of this thread contain numerous reader-proposals for variants. I’ll try to change those out for ‘sanitised’ versions of those threads when I can, but I can’t promise it’ll be soon - that’s a lot of ground to cover. ;)
