For my aToW group we skip the attack declaration step in the Weapon Attack Phase and Physical Attack Phase. Lowest initiative resolves first. There is a certain strategic nuance that is lost but it simplifies combat and speeds up turns, for us quite a bit.
I would second Alpha Strike though for one off games. It is satisfying getting company vs. company battle, finished in an hour or two.
Used to play skipping the attack declaration phase. Back then we kind of thought people would be cool about it instead of abuse the hell out of it. What ended up happening is that certain people would just throw everything at a particular target until it was dead, regardless of how unlikely the pilot of the 10th firing unit would target that one unit. Others would target units based upon proximity, what that unit was likely to do in the next few turns, and also target numbers. What ended up happening was that units would die faster being hammered by one player's entire force instead of the one or two that made sense to target the unit.
It is unfortunate that the phase is really needed to keep people honest by forcing them to think about who they should target and with what. If they want to throw everything at a specific target, that's fine since there are times that the target is dead by the 2nd unit's firing phase and all of that player's units are now wasting ammo, building up heat, all while loosing out on a chance to put damage on another target. It becomes a gamble, as it should be. It is a bit closer to being a double blind game, which sounds as though it would be the most difficult setting, if we were to think of it as a video game.
As for ways to speed up the game, movement dice. Just in case it wasn't said 20 times already, using a d6 next to a unit that has moved to show it's movement modifier helps other players make a decision while taking little of your own attention away from the game. I have been thinking of getting the smaller D6s in a few colors to indicate the method of movement, walking, running, and jumping. Doing so would help you with calculating target numbers since you don't have try and remember how it got there.
Have your forces pre-printed. Have a cover sheet that shows the list of the force and their battlevalues. It is hard to question a force's point value when it you see the breakdown in front of you. Having it all ready to go also avoids spending time picking units before a game, something we did all of the time which ate up at least an hour. It was part of the fun of the game, but time went by fast.
Have maps, or terrain ready to go. If you are going to use random maps/terrain, have a system to roll or allow players to help select it but make sure it is randomly placed so that no one can come in with an optimized force and drop them on optimized terrain. There is always that one guy that will do it.
Know where you are going to be starting the game. Some people will start at the edge, some will start in a corner. Someone will try to start 10 hexes in right next to that piece of terrain that is optimized for their optimized force. Pick a side, how many hexes deep,and if that half hex at the edge of the map counts or not, cuase someone will ask.
Think about how you are going to use your force before you ever get to the table. No plan is going to survive, we all know the phrase, but knowing how your units are supposed to work together will help you speed up the changes to your plan that you need to make. It will help you figure out where to move, when to move there, and how to move there.
Don't spend your time sitting around waiting for the other person to finish their move before you decide what to do. Yes, it sounds like what I just said, but spend your free time thinking about what you are going to do based upon a general idea of what the other guy is goign to do. This way you don't need to wait for him to put the mini down and tell you its your turn to move before you start thinking about how to adjust for his movement. Knowing where you are going is one way to scare the heck out of someone, which can be counter productive, but it saves times.
KNow your units! Regardless if you do use the weapon declaration phase or not, knowing which weapons you can fire without over heating is a good thing. Knowing which weapons you and over heat by X amount is even better. Knowing what weapons you can fire and overheat by X amount, and what not to fire for Y amount of turns afterwards so that you can bring your heat down while still remaining effective, and knowing where to go for cover if needed, is far better! Sometimes it is worth the overheat to fire those medium lasers at long range when you know the chances are slim. other times its just a damn waste that will make you pay for the move as you try and cool off when you need those mediums the most.
download the pdfs here that have the target modifiers, missile cluster hit table, and hit locations and print them up. The less you need to deal with the book, the better. Having that information at the ready will shave minutes off the game. You will eventually start to remember chunks of the information.
There is only so much you can do about speeding up the game. The dice rolling and movement of minis takes up time no matter what. What you can change is how you go about it. There are those players that wait until you d something before they start to think of what to do next. They will take several minutes to move a unit and even then wait to see if you respond, then try to move it all over again because it was wrong though they spent 5 minutes deciding. Somehow a snap decision is always the right one for such a player, at least in their mind. No matter how much you try you will hit a point where you end up being that guy. the goal should be to avoid being that guy, and honestly that comes with the risk of making a bad move, but if you view it as practice then its not such a big deal. It is a game afterall.
I won't say go play alpha strike. It might be a good variant of BT, and I might get into it at some point, but I personally like the standard scale of the game. I like the record keeping, the scatter of damage. I like that stuff, I just hate how much time people can burn going through it, and I hate how much time I can take when I hit those points where I cannot help but take time to rethink a move that I know is going to have a serious influence on the rest of the game.
