Over in my Der Tag FF thread, I recently put up an article called "Gods of Our Fathers" about all the weird and wild stuff the Star League could do and the weird and wild stuff developed since then and how it fits into my AU.
One of the major units mentioned is the Eponymous Giant-Class Mobile Fortress; a Hegemony-development thats serves as the source of that later myth about the J.Edgar Hovertanks facing down a larger force with MUCH superior equipment. The wildest version of
THAT STORY purports to include a "Giant Mobile Weapons Platform".
Okay. I can work with that.
I like the mobile structure rules and this is my first crack at them in a postable form. I hope it's postable anyways.
If this works, I'd like to make a drone version (don't ask, or maybe do. LOL), do the Mobile Orbital Guns from Mech Commander, a couple different DS Crawlers/Dropship launch complexes, a huge mobile crane, a strip-mining complex of linked machines and a massive excavator.
So let's go!
Right off the bat, I 100% ignored the canon rule limiting heavy weapons on Mobile Structures, but if I screwed up anywhere else, let me know.
So for fluff reasons, I have a debut date of 2317. That limits my weapon choices to these guys.
SL
ML
MG
Flamer
LRM-5/10/15/20
AC/2
AC/5
Thumper
Sniper
The
function naturally will be as a ground-mobile fortress hardened structure with an IS tech Base.
We're building a structure with is a total of 9 levels tall (with the ground-two bonus levels added in)
It will have 7 hexes in a hex-shape. Picture something shaped something like a cross between a hexagonal-castle and the TMNT Techno-Drome. Only the centre hex has 9 levels.
CF will be equal to 150 and I am not sure where I pay for that?
Internal capacity will be CF 150 x 6 levels per hex, max and we are using all of that, in theory.
For
power and motive systems, I came out to 172 tons each (Fusion), with an MP of 2, so the Urbies don't have time to window shop.
That comes out to 49 tons per hex
I'm open to debate the possibilities of large, mobile industrial fusion plants in this era.
Crew should really be done last, but TPTB put it here, so I give you what I came out to:
Total basic crew of 355. Thats a minimum of 336, with some extra bodies. With Hegemony tech, I am sure a MUCH smaller crew could manage no problem.
There are, thus; 42 officers. Or 34, plus some extra staff bloat
15 2nd class passengers, because who doesn't want to ride in style as you make your own road wherever you go? But 2nd Class, because there's a war on Dammit!
And then an infantry complement with a bayonet-strength of 188. But realistically, these guys are mainly 40% MP, 40% engineer and 20% grunt. Because this thing will need local security and people to get it un-stuck when it sticks. The heavy equipment is in cargo...
Grand total 600 pers, all ranks, including the weird harolds of the group
Equipmentsix identical outer hexes with The following weapons on each:Parenthesis represents the level the weapons are mounted on. I remain unclear as to what being in a turret means for level relative to firing arc. LOS is very clear, arc not so much. So when I say the Turrets are (8), for instance. what I mean is that they are mounted on level 8. Whether or not that gives them another level of effective height in any way, I am not sure, but I know they don't get more LOS.
Turret (8)
2x Thumper
2x AC/2
2x LRM/10
Outwards (IE: mounted on the outer walls and not on the turret)
4x AC/5 (7)
2x AC/2 (5)
3x LRM/20 (6)
3x Flamer (3)
8x MG (3)
6x SL (3)
10xML (4)
Ammo
Thumper (400)
AC/2 (1800)
LRM/10 (288)
AC/5 (800)
LRM/20 (540)
MG (10,000)
Heat Sinks 68 (Each hex)
Cargo: 358.5t MAX
Central Citadel with the following equipmentTurret (9)
3x Sniper
8x AC/5
2x LRM/20
Ammo
Sniper (300)
AC/5 (3200)
LRM/20 (240)
Additional Equipment
Communications
MASH x20
Field Kitchens x4
Passengers x15 2nd class
Infantry Bays
Jump Infantry (28)
Foot Infantry x3 (84)
Motorized x2 (56)
Mechanized x 4? (20)
Cargo: 394.5t Max
Total Mass (Full Combat Load) 6047.5t (6048? Do we round these?)
Please, find attached the spreadsheet with all the numbers
***
Fluff Excerpt from AU Fan Article
***
Regardless; these contemporary examples are well-known. But one good BS story deserves another. Did you ever hear the one about the unit of J. Edgar Hovertanks taking down a larger unit of superior mechs or tanks led by a massive mobile weapons platform?
Not so funny in context, is it?
In the days before Mechs; when the Terran Alliance was still vacillating between holding onto its vast network of colony worlds or letting them fend for themselves; the need was first expressed for a combat vehicle which would be the unrivaled final word in military power; something the colonies could never hope to defeat in open warfare and could not match industrially. A weapon that would literally dwarf anything thrown against it.
The project languished on the backburner for decades, until after the Terran Alliance Civil War, when the new Terran Hegemony decided they wanted their lost colonies back. Badly. So badly they were willing to throw vast amounts of money into what was to that point; the most ambitious, nay: outlandish military R&D program since the TAS Dreadnaught.
Thus, was born the Giant mobile weapons platform; ready for action in 2317. A towering, tracked monstrosity, bristling with weapons and layered in armour; only a few dozen Giants were ever built and fewer still were ever deployed; but it was just possible using the largest dropships of the day, specially modified for the task.
Only the vaguest records remain, because the Giant was developed in secrecy and its deployments and the training of its huge crews cloaked in the tightest security for many years; certainly, no examples remain for us to study. What I have been able to gather, however suggests a mobile, tracked castle or tower-like structure more akin to a huge piece of mobile industrial machinery than a tank, but festooned with weaponry of all kinds.
It is just barely possible that the legend of the J. Edgars and the force of monster-mechs or tanks is inspired by 3rd-hand or more distant accounts of the Giant in action in the Hegemony’s reclamation campaigns and the suicidal tactics which were employed to try and stop them. Usually flutily.
The Giant had a fatal flaw, however; one which contributed greatly to its redaction from the official histories and withdrawal from front-line service. Powered by a massive fusion reactor, it needed various means to vent its waste heat. One of these it seems was a network of thermal exhaust ports. A single, heavily redacted datafile refers to the devastation of Terran morale on an unnamed world due to the loss of a “highly visible and major asset” to a rebel’s lucky hit “up the tail pipe”. Various contextual clues in the logistical arrangements elsewhere in the document lead me to believe the incident referred to in necessarily vague terms is the loss of a Giant to a lucky exhaust port hit.
If you really want to believe in the J. Edgar story from the perspective of the children’s holos and story readers; you might imagine one getting very lucky with an SRM volley. But given the design of the Giant; this would have entailed braving a gauntlet of withering defensive fire and possibly an approach through low ground such as a large irrigation trench or ravine and/or between the massive, churning track units. Of course, all of this requires someone to find or have access to a surviving Giant they were able to restore, operate and transport at least once.
The surviving Giants were mothballed on an airless moon for many years, but Brian Cameron later had them re-activated and incorporated them as a mobile element in the Castle network which bears his name. These must have all been destroyed during the Amaris Civil War, as there exists zero evidence of them following the Liberation of Terra.
Late in Simon Cameron’s rule; the design was revived for the “TROLL” Program; a system of automated defences which served as the precursor to the CASPAR Project. Fragmentary references to the TROLL Program describe Merkava tanks (Lesser Troll) and Giant Mobile Fortresses (Greater Troll) outfitted with a very primitive AI and assigned to sensitive facilities which had themselves been automated additionally to repair and service the drone tanks. As far as is known; none of these have ever been found.
Link to full text of the article Here:
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=51058.msg1450132#new***
The only thing I'll add to that is that this thing would have rolled out with mountains spare-parts, tools and heavy equipment to enable it to self-recover at-need. I gave it vast quantities of ammunition because, this being the pre-major-energy weapons Era, the Giant has to be able to outlast any potential enemy.
Hope you like this one, but I am really dying for feedback in regards to my understanding of the construction rules and how I handled them here.
-Beachhead
