BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Universe => The Inner Sphere => Topic started by: Alan Grant on 29 March 2020, 06:37:07
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I'm considering getting back into Battletech after a long hiatus. I've never used artillery at all and seldom given it any thought. But I've been learning a lot of about real world artillery. So I was toying with the idea of building an arty unit as part of a roleplaying game.
Some questions kind to mind. Some associated with the board game rules itself others more more roleplaying/fluff focused.
Roleplaying question- Thumper, Sniper and Long Tom, any idea what caliber weapon system these would be regarded as?
I was originally mostly interested in towed infantry artillery akin to the Kurita Thumper platoon and Capellan Missile Artillery in TRO 3085. But now I'm seeing stuff on Gun Trailers in a TRO I don't own yet. So now I'm torn, Pros and Cons between the two?
Are there rules for Gun Trailers in a rules book somewhere, aside from TRO 3145 Mercenaries? The biggest questions that comes to mind is deployment speed (setting it up) and to what degree a Gun Trailer slows down the vehicle hauling it.
Both the Thumper and Arrow 4 artillery platoons weigh 40 tons. I'm looking for VTOLs that could make them air-mobile, at least strategically, any recommendations?
Finally, is there any consensus on what constitutes an Artillery "Battery" in Battletech? In the old 3050s-era Field Manuals I see the terms Artillery Company and Artillery Thrown thrown around a lot in infantry units or as part of armor brigades. Anything resembling canon standardized organization on towed artillery organization would be helpful.
Thanks in advance, if you can even chip in toward even one or two questions it's helpful.
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Here are a few artillery ideas I've posted over the years:
Winged Caisson system (https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=56825.0) (ASF mobile Thumper platoon).
My Glenmora Planetary Militia (https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=50881.0)has some artillery modified Goblins.
And a couple of ComStar artillery units (https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=55469.0) made at WorkTroll's request.
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Roleplaying question- Thumper, Sniper and Long Tom, any idea what caliber weapon system these would be regarded as?
I have always considered (and fluffed in my fanfics and scenarios) the Thumper to be a heavy 120mm or equivalent Mortar, the Sniper is a 155mm or equivalent Artillery gun, and the Long Tom more akin to the old german railway guns or coastal defense artillery.
I was originally mostly interested in towed infantry artillery akin to the Kurita Thumper platoon and Capellan Missile Artillery in TRO 3085. But now I'm seeing stuff on Gun Trailers in a TRO I don't own yet. So now I'm torn, Pros and Cons between the two?
An infantry platoon is more vulnerable to area of effect damage but likely cheaper in cost both in c-bills and BV while being able to move albeit very slowly. A gun trailer needs a tractor and is effectively a vehicle although one unable to move under its own power.
Are there rules for Gun Trailers in a rules book somewhere, aside from TRO 3145 Mercenaries? The biggest questions that comes to mind is deployment speed (setting it up) and to what degree a Gun Trailer slows down the vehicle hauling it.
Both of those rules are in Total Warfare and TechManual. It may have changed but I have always used the trailer as added weight to its tractor when computing cruise MP (for example a 20 ton vehicle with a 20 ton trailer assuming they use the same motive type is a 40 ton vehicle. So a 200 rated engine would move them 5/8 instead of 10/15 assuming its tracked). A trailer is a vehicle without an engine but following all the same rules for vehicle construction.
Both the Thumper and Arrow 4 artillery platoons weigh 40 tons. I'm looking for VTOLs that could make them air-mobile, at least strategically, any recommendations?
No standard VTOL can carry a 40 ton load as they max out at 30 tons themselves, there are some super-heavy VTOLs that can but they are rare, expensive, and better used elsewhere. If you want artillery to move make it self-propelled or tow it.
Strategically you can always deliver the infantry and artillery piece separately and just say they come together for that battle (drop the platoon and ammo off with a Karnov then make a second trip to pick up an underslung artillery piece being the easiest)
Finally, is there any consensus on what constitutes an Artillery "Battery" in Battletech? In the old 3050s-era Field Manuals I see the terms Artillery Company and Artillery Thrown thrown around a lot in infantry units or as part of armor brigades. Anything resembling canon standardized organization on towed artillery organization would be helpful.
There is no canon consensus on artillery organization for any faction that I know of and I have looked. The fiction is all about Battlemechs (Davion, Kurita, Wolf, and Jade Falcon Battlemechs in particular) after all. Armor is a distant third (with Elementals and Battle Armored Infantry being second), and everything else is more distant from there.
My fiction is always a 6 piece battery as that makes the most sense in my head-canon. The closest you get is in the CCAF which is the most prolific user of both infantry and artillery in the Inner Sphere. Their augmented lance (company, etc...) system is the basis that I typically default to.
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I've generally thought of the Thumber as a 105mm, the Sniper as the aforementioned 120mm mortar-like weapon (given it's shorter range), and the Long Tom as the 155mm.
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For actual game use and if you playing on a board that cannot easily identify the actual target hex, I recommend using tokens to be placed on the game board as Target Reference Points.
From these Target Reference Points you identify the direction and distance to the actual target hex. The tokens identify incoming rounds and the tokens do not reveal to your opfor what is the actual target.
Simply create a spreadsheet identifying the Token and place the Token on the map. On the record sheet, record the turn the round was fired, the turn that the round should arrive, direction of the actual target and the distance to the actual target. Next, ID the type of round fired and let the fear of incoming rounds intimidate your opfor.
TRP ID // Round Fired // Round Arrives // Direction (Hexside 1-6) // Distance // Type (HE/Cluster/Tag/Fascam/Smoke)
Red chip 1 4 2 6 HE (one hexside turn right go out six hexes High Explosive)
Blue chip 1 4 - - Cluster (In this case the Token/TRP is the actual target)
Yellow chip 1 4 - - Tag (The token simply informs everyone a round is incoming)
(I found the three turn delay is too long. So I am going to try a two turn delay. Rounds fired on turn two will arrives on turn 4. For cheap fiction purposes, the artillery rounds are semi-guided (radio) so the artillery is too far away for the opfor to make an attempt at overrunning the guns.)
Just trying to be helpful.
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Also, on a hexless board, I would use a coaster or maybe a cover from a soda cup (McDonald's) as the area impacted by the artillery round.
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There is no canon consensus on artillery organization for any faction that I know of and I have looked. The fiction is all about Battlemechs (Davion, Kurita, Wolf, and Jade Falcon Battlemechs in particular) after all. Armor is a distant third (with Elementals and Battle Armored Infantry being second), and everything else is more distant from there.
My fiction is always a 6 piece battery as that makes the most sense in my head-canon. The closest you get is in the CCAF which is the most prolific user of both infantry and artillery in the Inner Sphere. Their augmented lance (company, etc...) system is the basis that I typically default to.
The CCAF is the most prolific user of artillery in the Inner Sphere? Is there a source on that?
Not doubting, I can see the argument, I'm just wondering if that's stated in a book somewhere.
Also on the VTOL issue. I'm not opposed to splitting up the 40 ton platoon among multiple VTOLs. I should have stated that.
Thank you for answering all the questions, and thanks to all who have replied so far. You all are awesome. :)
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If you want real world artillery advice, I recommend contacting Charlie 6. He has the most experience of anyone I know.
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The CCAF is the most prolific user of artillery in the Inner Sphere? Is there a source on that?
Not doubting, I can see the argument, I'm just wondering if that's stated in a book somewhere.
Also on the VTOL issue. I'm not opposed to splitting up the 40 ton platoon among multiple VTOLs. I should have stated that.
Thank you for answering all the questions, and thanks to all who have replied so far. You all are awesome. :)
+1 to Precentor Scorpio's suggestion. I use a homemade record sheet for firing coordinates with delays, once you get more than 3 pieces it gets very difficult to adjudicate. Also artillery lands before the firing phase but after the movement phase. You can possibly knock a mech down (Homing A4 or Copperhead shells are nasty like this) and deny it half its weapons before firing even begins. They will get a slight advantage in their TMM for being prone unless you are next to them but if they were firing from behind partially cover they can't see over it now.
I don't think there is a citable source of the CCAF being the largest user of artillery but several of their mechs have A4 variants (the most common being the Catapult C3 and Thunder 3L variants) and their heavy hovertank (the Regulator) and dark age Po II also have variants. They are also responsible for several ammo types and the reintroduction of the system from lostech in the 3040s.
The CCAF is also one of the largest users of armor in the IS (by percentage of their army obviously the regiments of armor in the Davion RCTs outmass and outnumber them) which is a natural niche for artillery. Artillery really fits into their general MO of teams of smaller units taking down larger ones by coordination and also denying the enemy mobility (with the Thunder versions) which makes them easier to destroy with artillery. They also have a large number of units with AC/20s that could be converted to missile artillery.
Long live Liao!
Down with Davion!
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Or Thumpers... They do less damage, but 20 shots per ton goes a bit further than 5.
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Your better bet for calibers would be . . . 75mm, 105/155mm and 203mm for the calibers- it seems to be what was originally referenced from the 80s under light/med/heavy artillery. MLRS could be A4 . . . but really, going with the era they referenced its more like the Perishing IMO- they were a single missile firing at a time.
The Capellan Thumper platoon is the only canon tube towed artillery around BUT, its done as an example of 'how to build' in the rules. Its just such a low priority I do not expect we will ever get other platoons. I ran into this problem for a competition using MUL only units when I was wanting a Sniper platoon . . . so if you want the Sniper, get the platoon plan off of MegaMek is my best suggestion. If you use the right type of motive system for towed you will be less vulnerable to AI & caught in the open weapons . . . but suffer more from anti-mech weapons.
Organization- IRL the US Army uses in a battery two firing platoons (of 3 guns) and a command platoon, a battalion is made up of 3 firing batteries and a command & support battery for MLRS, be it heavy or light rocket artillery. This changed from after Desert Storm where they had 3 firing platoons in a battery under the command platoon . . . real world experience said it was overkill to consolidate that many launchers into a battery. Pretty sure tube follows that as it is what I remember seeing when running across tube training units- it also makes internal sense for 3 guns due to tube/rocket having the same manpower requirements. On table top . . . I consider 3 tubes to be the minimum to make effective fire plans, and really wish you could 'FDC' a HQ unit.
Applying it to hexless or in my group's case unnumbered hexless maps . . . well, here is a mix of what is used. We had one player who would bring a A4 launcher and take a picture of the impact location on his phone and show it to everyone on his side so it was 'locked in.' Since I ran 3 tubes during a half-dozen games (Thumper Towed platoons) I would enter the firing information on the backside of the sheet's slick. It would be like-
Turn 1
Gray Plt- not firing, moving
Blue Plt- target is 3 hexes from the #3 (scatter chart) on SE L3 hill w/ heavy woods- hits turn 3
Green Plt- not firing, moving
Sounds a lot like a forward observer calling in a strike . . . and if you use hexless terrain, its going to sound like it even more!
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For my planetary militia, the three battery sections had two tubes each, with an ammo carrier (a modified MG variant Goblin) and a bodyguard unit (an LRM Goblin). The Battery HQ was an HQ vehicle (an MG Goblin with enough Communications Equipment for satellite uplinks) and 3 Ferrets (plus attendant infantry).
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Typically the FOs are not part of the battery though they do train with a specific one. Usually they are attached though regular line grunts are taught to call in infantry they are not as good at accurate CFF as FOs nor do they have any of the specialized equipment.
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The infantry attached to the Battery HQ also pull security, so they're multi-functional.
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Desert Storm and prior US Artillery was 2 platoons of 4 guns, each firing platoon had their own fire direction vehicle. Headquarters platoon would also contain the Batteries ammo section. 3 Batteries to a Battalion.
Thumper = 105mm
Sniper = 155mm
Long Tom = 203mm
Arrow = Probably the Lance, Pershing is way too big
That is how I see it any way.
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Light artillery was 75mm, Medium Artillery was both 105 & 155mm, and heavy was 203mm . . . Pershing, well all I know was it was a big missile that got thrown- see enough former crew post pics on FB. Post Desert Storm, each platoon still has its own FDC section. I assume that was tube? MLRS was 3x3, and then like I said went to 2x3 . . . to be honest, I was surprised that HIMARs did not alter the format even if it was now 'rocket, light' by increasing the vehicle count.
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75mm went by the wayside around Vietnam or earlier and out of inventory during FASA years. 105mm was the Army's light artillery. 155 was med and 203 was heavy from 1980's to Desert Storm.
Lance was in use until the late 80's. Before MLRS. I spent a year with 4/31st Inf at Ft Sill in the late 1988-89. Usually beat on the cannon cockers, but I also enjoyed learning everything I could. Spent as much time with the FO's, even the gun bunnies when they would let us. Figured it would not hurt learning as much as I could. Fun times. IIRC, they still had a Lance Battalion at Sill during that time frame. Or it was being deactivated. I remember because we provided security whenever the Russians came a calling to check the Pershing stuff.
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House Liao as a percentage, fields twice the artillery of any other faction. They deploy two battalions of artillery per 'mech regiment vs the one that the other Houses and Periphery States use.
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Desert Storm and prior US Artillery was 2 platoons of 4 guns, each firing platoon had their own fire direction vehicle. Headquarters platoon would also contain the Batteries ammo section. 3 Batteries to a Battalion.
Thumper = 105mm
Sniper = 155mm
Long Tom = 203mm
Arrow = Probably the Lance, Pershing is way too big
That is how I see it any way.
That's how I interpreted it as well.
I feel if there was a 75mm analog in BT, it'd take the form of some sort of sub-Thumper artillery piece. Thumper just doesn't feel small enough to represent that.
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Reason I broke it down the way I did citing the 60s as where they got their template was we actually had a piece called the Long Tom, though I did slip calibers it was the 155mm. But early Vietnam from what I found its how they were divided though I think by mid Vietnam the airborne were the only ones with 75mm b/c of drops.
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One related weapon we do have caliber on is heavy mortars. Lostech: Mechwarrior's Equipment Guide page 41 says the Heavy Mortar accepts 100mm to 150mm shells.
I tend to equate that to the real life 120mm mortar, which is found in several real life militaries today.
Just a useful bit of context.
One thing I struggle to understand is the damage of that weapon. Infantry weapon stats confound me a bit, especially relative to vehicle/mech scale weapon TRO data.
How does the damage a heavy mortar can do (or an infantry platoon with 4 or 8 of them) compares to say a single Thumper?
Obviously by weight (heavy mortar = 220 kg) and range (heavy mortar = 900 meters) it's vastly different.
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Unfortunately we do not really have a mortar analog other than the later mech mortars though IMO BA Artillery is it- especially by the looks!
Not really sure how RPG weapon damage would carry over, do they get the special shells tube artillery get?
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Unfortunately we do not really have a mortar analog other than the later mech mortars though IMO BA Artillery is it- especially by the looks!
Not really sure how RPG weapon damage would carry over, do they get the special shells tube artillery get?
There is a whole section in Lostech: The Mechwarrior's Equipment Guide, page 35 that touches on different ordnance types. So basically the answer is yes, and there's a lot of similarities and some of them work across different weapon systems. For example, grenade launchers, recoilless rifles and mortars.
But there are also some that are distinct only direct-fire or only indirect-fire weapons. For example anti-vehicle ordnance is direct fire only. While FASCAM is indirect fire only.
But yeah there's NARC, gas, flare, flash, smoke, Anti-personnel, High Explosive and I'm probably overlooking a couple.
There's an Ordnance class system to govern size and power. With class A being like the size of a button, B a small explosive charge, C a standard grenade, D used by Recoilless Rifles mortars etc and E used in heavy support weapons and mines. The Heavy mortar is class E.
EDIT: If you do a search on Sarna for "Ordnance Types" a page comes up that breaks this down.
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Sure, but that is RPG . . . the RPG lists ammo count for BA weapons that TW gives infinite ammo. All of that existed before, but we still did not have TW vehicles (or many anyway) that had grenade launchers on them to pop off smoke like IRL vehicles. TW abstracts up some of the RPG effects to simplify what goes on- example we had no mortars on vehicles for TW afaik until mech mortars were introduced recently.
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Fair point. I guess the best that can be done is for someone to use the infantry platoon construction rules to make a heavy mortar infantry platoon and go by that. That's at least a Field Artillery Platoon to Heavy Mortar Infantry Platoon comparison.
If anyone wants to take a stab at it, that would be cool. I might make an attempt but I haven't dusted off the unit construction rules in ages and never infantry.
Not an imperative issue, more like a tangent topic curiosity. Discussing this topic is bringing up a lot of things I've never really thought much about before, which is kinda fun.
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I lightly touched on infantry construction in my Glenmora thread. It's actually pretty easy. What I like to do is match up long range standard weapons (like the Intek, my favorite) with Auto-Rifles to maximize damage and range without impacting mobility. If damage and mobility are your goal, simply stick with Auto-Rifles and a single (high damage) support weapon. If mobility isn't a priority at all, two long-range high-damage support weapons backed by Auto-Rifles is the way to go.
The other major thing to consider for conventional infantry is armor. Armor Divisor only counts the armor on the torso, and a total BAR rating (across all four types of damage) of 15 is the magic threshold for Divisor 2. Lyran and Davion jackets (and the FedCom kind, of course), and Ballistic Plate Vests (not suits) can all get you there without a movement penalty. And they're surprisingly cheap.
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The Galtor Campaign book dates back to the 80's and used Battleforce 1 rules . . . but it does have a couple of artillery unit organization tables.
One of the Davion "auxilary guards" units consists of a full battalion of infantry and a full battalion of light recce vehicles (presumably acting as artillery spotters) to go along with the actual battalion of artillery guns.
A Kurita artillery unit is also detailed . . . 2 companies of light recce vehicles (spotters again) and 1 company of transport vehicles (ammo, one would assume) and 1 company of infantry security goes along with the full artillery battalion in that case.
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Yeah, but the recon companies would not be co-located with the artillery . . . they would be broken up into squads to a company of infantry/armor/mechs that the artillery battalion is tasked to support. They are not organic to those battalions/regiments they are supporting but more of a task force level asset. If you were to build them now you would of course grant them the SPA 'Forward Observer' and the would drive something like the Ibex or Kruger cars.
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House Liao as a percentage, fields twice the artillery of any other faction. They deploy two battalions of artillery per 'mech regiment vs the one that the other Houses and Periphery States use.
The FWLM attaches multiple batteries of Long Toms, and Snipers to infantry battalions. Then it attaches what other houses would view as reinforced infantry regiments to mech regiments...
That said, I believe the CCAF has the most artillery mech platforms.
I should note that this is based on the original house book. A later book has more than 90% of the FWLM artillery forces vanishing with no major war, or explanation (They likely skim read it, and missed that detail).
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Found a nice gem and I think this was what Minemech was talking about.
FM: FWL page 21. Artillery batteries usually consist of 4-6 Long Toms or 8-12 sniper cannons and their crews and are usually attached to regimental command groups.
Loving this thread, been copying and pasting and saving a lot of what people have contributed for reference later.
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The numbers given in that, IMO, are b/c the original writers did not know military structure or the reasoning behind it . . . they merely offered to double the numbers b/c the Snipers were weaker guns. I think 4-6 Long Toms are fine if you are going with a 2x2, 2x3 or 3x2 battery structure. But you would keep the same structure at the battery level for reasons of personnel organization- the difference is where you call a artillery battalion a 'artillery battalion, heavy' which indicates Long Toms. 'Artillery Battalion, Medium' would be Snipers, light would be Thumpers and Missile or Rocket would be Arrow IV depending on how you view it. Those names would also be what applies for towed systems since something like Thumper Artillery Vehicles which were produced by the FWL would be assigned to a unit called 'Artillery Battalion, Self-Propelled, Light' while the original Marksmen vehicles would be 'Artillery Battalion, Self-Propelled, Medium.'
Its been a LONG time since I played darts & charts and I did not pay much attention to the tube stuff nor did I really have to spend much time putting on the map heavy/light rocket artillery so I do not recall if there is a symbology difference between the two but here is the US Army/NATO map/organization signs.
(https://image1.slideserve.com/2094360/field-artillery-and-mortars-l.jpg)
And here are the other ways to modify the symbols
(https://image1.slideserve.com/2094360/echelon-size-symbols-l.jpg)
IIRC some of the BTU maps they do follow NATO map symbols in the book- for obvious reasons.
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The numbers given in that, IMO, are b/c the original writers did not know military structure or the reasoning behind it . . . they merely offered to double the numbers b/c the Snipers were weaker guns. I think 4-6 Long Toms are fine if you are going with a 2x2, 2x3 or 3x2 battery structure. But you would keep the same structure at the battery level for reasons of personnel organization- the difference is where you call a artillery battalion a 'artillery battalion, heavy' which indicates Long Toms. 'Artillery Battalion, Medium' would be Snipers, light would be Thumpers and Missile or Rocket would be Arrow IV depending on how you view it. Those names would also be what applies for towed systems since something like Thumper Artillery Vehicles which were produced by the FWL would be assigned to a unit called 'Artillery Battalion, Self-Propelled, Light' while the original Marksmen vehicles would be 'Artillery Battalion, Self-Propelled, Medium.'
Its been a LONG time since I played darts & charts and I did not pay much attention to the tube stuff nor did I really have to spend much time putting on the map heavy/light rocket artillery so I do not recall if there is a symbology difference between the two but here is the US Army/NATO map/organization signs.
(https://image1.slideserve.com/2094360/field-artillery-and-mortars-l.jpg)
And here are the other ways to modify the symbols
(https://image1.slideserve.com/2094360/echelon-size-symbols-l.jpg)
IIRC some of the BTU maps they do follow NATO map symbols in the book- for obvious reasons.
In a previous iteration of these forums, there was a debate, and discussion with Davion players, do to the fact that I countered an assertion that they fielded the most artillery. If I recall correctly, one of the Davion side's flock noted that the FWLM structure actually made much sense, as the FWLM relied more on infantry than other houses, and that artillery was often used to suppliment the abilities of infantry. Since FWLM infantry was required to perform an outsized job, and could not (Infantry is awesome when correctly employed, but has limitations), it attached large artillery formations. FWLM armor regiments tended to be in 2 tiers, recon armor, and heavy armor, with some independent artillery formations. They were not used the same way as the infantry, and did not support mech formations the same way. As the truism went, the worse the infantry, the more artillery you need. They would also force mech units to better integrate with infantry forces on the battlefield.
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Artillery formations and doctrine do not usually increase the size of batteries- instead you increase the number of batteries. Basically a battery is enough firepower to suppress X size enemy formation, I THINK its designed to suppress the next size up of other arms- so a artillery battery would be designed to deal with infantry or armor battalions, mechs IMO are a bit different b/c of their nature in the game. So instead of outsized batteries, what you are likely to end up with is artillery under control of different tiers.
Structure would be . . . FWLM Infantry Brigade comprised of 3 infantry regiments and a reinforced artillery regiment along with what would basically be a regiment of support- HQ, recon, medical, admin, supply, & maintenance. Each regiment has a battalion (med or light) from the artillery regiment assigned to them but they are not organic. The brigade as a whole has ANOTHER battalion- probably the heavy or rocket artillery- that is on call to support the brigade in general (whole list of criteria checks) or can be handed over to regimental control if they are the ones coordinating a regimental strength attack. You would see the same thing in mechanized/armored formations, though IIRC the latest has the TAV being the mainstay of FWL armored formations and the Sniper armed Marksmen/Ballista/Pollux being rarer birds with Long Tom vehicles being the rarest of all.
But note, I said the # of guns in the Long Tom example was on, depending on the battery structure you wanted which would depend on deployment. It was the doubling of the guns for Snipers, and I assume Thumper would be the same numbers, that I was suggesting would have the guns organizationally spread around. They might effectively have that many guns on a per battalion or regiment basis but control of the guns would rest in other hands unless assigned.
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Artillery formations and doctrine do not usually increase the size of batteries- instead you increase the number of batteries. Basically a battery is enough firepower to suppress X size enemy formation, I THINK its designed to suppress the next size up of other arms- so a artillery battery would be designed to deal with infantry or armor battalions, mechs IMO are a bit different b/c of their nature in the game. So instead of outsized batteries, what you are likely to end up with is artillery under control of different tiers.
Structure would be . . . FWLM Infantry Brigade comprised of 3 infantry regiments and a reinforced artillery regiment along with what would basically be a regiment of support- HQ, recon, medical, admin, supply, & maintenance. Each regiment has a battalion (med or light) from the artillery regiment assigned to them but they are not organic. The brigade as a whole has ANOTHER battalion- probably the heavy or rocket artillery- that is on call to support the brigade in general (whole list of criteria checks) or can be handed over to regimental control if they are the ones coordinating a regimental strength attack. You would see the same thing in mechanized/armored formations, though IIRC the latest has the TAV being the mainstay of FWL armored formations and the Sniper armed Marksmen/Ballista/Pollux being rarer birds with Long Tom vehicles being the rarest of all.
But note, I said the # of guns in the Long Tom example was on, depending on the battery structure you wanted which would depend on deployment. It was the doubling of the guns for Snipers, and I assume Thumper would be the same numbers, that I was suggesting would have the guns organizationally spread around. They might effectively have that many guns on a per battalion or regiment basis but control of the guns would rest in other hands unless assigned.
If you use 3SW logic, there was a higher demand for Long Tom support, than supply. Rather than focus Long Tom batteries to retain their power, the FWLM rationed them into smaller batteries, despite any issues that came with that. Long Toms were greatly desired among the states at that time. This meshes with the fact that if you deploy too many Long Toms in one location, that location becomes a highlighted target for raids
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Sure, everyone usually wants heavier guns . . . but you fight with what you have, not what you want. I was merely pointing out a organizational structure without really assigning equipment to the slots just suggesting where it would be assigned- like the brigade level (if I call it divarty, its b/c it was the doctrine I am familiar with/replicating) having the heaviest available guns and the ones assigned to specific regiments being lighter. On the simple theory the lighter guns are going to be more common and its more important to make sure the heavier guns go to the right targets.
With that being the case about Long Toms, that sounds like great bait for a ambush- cross the beaten zone taking Long Tom strikes and then you have mobile forces to encircle- trap them in a Alesia situation.
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Sure, everyone usually wants heavier guns . . . but you fight with what you have, not what you want. I was merely pointing out a organizational structure without really assigning equipment to the slots just suggesting where it would be assigned- like the brigade level (if I call it divarty, its b/c it was the doctrine I am familiar with/replicating) having the heaviest available guns and the ones assigned to specific regiments being lighter. On the simple theory the lighter guns are going to be more common and its more important to make sure the heavier guns go to the right targets.
With that being the case about Long Toms, that sounds like great bait for a ambush- cross the beaten zone taking Long Tom strikes and then you have mobile forces to encircle- trap them in a Alesia situation.
I wonder if Snipers and Long Toms were viewed as the artillery, while lighter pieces were simply deployed as platoons in armor, and possibly infantry formations. This may have been a common scheme among the Successor States.
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With that being the case about Long Toms, that sounds like great bait for a ambush- cross the beaten zone taking Long Tom strikes and then you have mobile forces to encircle- trap them in a Alesia situation.
It was less risky to just claim to have found a large cache of lostech, when speaking through official channels. Regardless of the Successor State, someone else would hear.
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No, check the TAV fluff . . . makes it sound like it was the majority of self-propelled systems when the technology started sliding. Plenty of reasons why you have light and medium artillery. Tech level depends on the size/caliber of the weapon, the tech determines the size of the system and thus the mobility which is critical. The heavy weapons of WWI were medium sized for WWII with the trend continuing until you reached a point where the lethality of shells and propellent allowed medium sized guns to match what heavier guns could do but offered more mobility. The lighter mobile guns of the time were 75mm & 90mm with 155mm seeming to be the upper end for mobility . . . though they did apparently have some monster cannons, they were more likely semi-mobile.
FREX, US inventory no longer has the 203mm due to being able to match the range and lethality, or close enough, with modern propellants and shells used by smaller guns. If the effects could be matched, why not keep the 203 which it would be presumed to have a higher performance. Two reasons- diminishing returns and transportation . . . mobility is a key component of modern military doctrine and so 155mm being lighter (at the time, they are more now) allows it to redeploy tactically and strategically faster than the heavier 203mm system. Moving from firing position to firing position is critcal to avoiding counterbattery fire. But when the change was made, IIRC, it was easier (or perhaps merely possible) to sling-load 155mms under helicopters or into the back of airlift transports while the 203mm were too massive or their build prohibited them being placed on aircraft.
For BTU this makes Snipers and Thumpers more important to militia or non-mech assigned national forces because they are less likely to have dropships available to shuffle around in response to attacks. The Karnov or something like the FB-335- or even railcars- are easier to load the lighter artillery pieces on. They also make lesser targets compared to Long Toms as you mentioned.
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Yeah, but the recon companies would not be co-located with the artillery . . . they would be broken up into squads to a company of infantry/armor/mechs that the artillery battalion is tasked to support. They are not organic to those battalions/regiments they are supporting but more of a task force level asset.
The recon elements do appear to be organic to the artillery battalion, and not assigned 'as needed' by high command. I agree that they would be deployed well ahead of the artillery in the field, but they are not "loaners" from high command, at least as spelled out in the Galtor campaign book, which is the only one I can think of that actually published TOE for artillery units at this scale. I don't own the FWLM book referenced a few posts earlier, but even there I think they just talk about battery sizes.
Throwing out that Davion Auxiliary Guards (re-reading the unit description, they seem to be more focused on an elite infantry heavy weapons assault battalion that happens to have a lot of artillery and recon support) there are three other artillery formations spelled out on the Kurita side.
The 'Galedon Defense League' is described as a collection of base support pooled from multiple regiment resources, and alongside its collection of supply/recovery/admin formations, it describes an "artillery defence" unit of battalion size. That has one company of lighter artillery pieces, 1 company of transports, and one company of spotters/guards consisting of a mix of infantry and light vehicle.
The 82nd Galedon Artillery is a two-battalion unit that consists of 2 companies of heavy artillery, one company of heavy vehicles labeled as 'defence' (probably heavy with the Partisan and other AA models) and a whopping 3 companies of recon (one of them being light Mechs, the other two light vehicles)
The 512th Imperial Artillery Battalion is even a bit bigger than that. It contains 2 companies of heavy artillery, 1 company of ligher artillery/vehicles labeled as "defense", 1 company of supply trucks, 1 company of infantry (also labeled as "supply" for some reason?), and 2 companies of light recon vehicles. They top it off with a "Battalion HQ" unit of 2 lances of light Mechs!
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That is a lot of organically assigned support per barrel. Almost as much as many full regiments from the same sourcebooks, and far more than some of the other specialty units (like fighter wings).
My personal take on that is that in the Battletech universe they want artillery units to be able to function nearly independently . . . or at least, be able to assign it to a particular fight without worrying about whether any other regiments in the same battle would need to devote any of their own resources to spotting/supplying/guarding the guns. The historically low amounts of artillery deployed by the Succession Wars IS militaries meant that the units that *did* exist had to handle all their own integration into the battle and take care of all of their chores 'in house' rather than assume the line regiments or even the base support would be able to take care of it for them. Again, just my take on things.
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The recon elements do appear to be organic to the artillery battalion, and not assigned 'as needed' by high command. I agree that they would be deployed well ahead of the artillery in the field, but they are not "loaners" from high command, at least as spelled out in the Galtor campaign book, which is the only one I can think of that actually published TOE for artillery units at this scale. I don't own the FWLM book referenced a few posts earlier, but even there I think they just talk about battery sizes.
There are two books being referenced, one of which used to be free for download on this website. The other just gives sizes, and attaches them to a different part of the military command. If you have the old PDF, hit CTRL+F, then type batteries, or tubes.
I should note that the Free Worlds League book was unusual in that it gave hard mech production numbers, among other things.
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Your mistaking a few terms . . . This gets complicated because the best demonstration is organizational charts, lol. I may have to grab the one in the back of . . . CM Mercs? Or was it 1SW SB that I was looking at, to fill out with the structures.
I said the dedicated FOs would not be organic to the line infantry battalions or companies. For the purposes of training artillery and FOs, they might be in the same battalion (though to be honest, I knew of the 13Cs but never had them around my MLRS unit & I was in during 2 organizational shuffles) it depends on force doctrine. We had observers for safety purposes during live fires, but during training all our FO reports were script generated.
Anyway, here is an example-
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-foGnu2G-78Q/TyvA8zKJ05I/AAAAAAAAAsM/VE0OEDwAvCw/s1600/Stryker+BCT.png)
To go through left to right . . .
You have 3 HQ & HQ Support Companies for the brigade you can sea all the details of what that entails but the HQ Support is a company of military police & signal company
Recon BN is a dedicated brigade level asset, but in practice it might be broken up to have a troop assigned to each battalion or they could be tasked by BDE. Recon may also have most of the intel staff and sensors like that Target Acquisition plt- chart is less clear.
3 Maneuver BNs- each has 3 Stryker companies w/1 MGS plt, a scout platoon, and a mortar section the last 3 would fall under the BN HQ
Anti-Tank Company- BDE can either keep them together or assign platoons to Maneuver BNs
Fires (current Artillery catch phrase)- looks like 5 FO-type parties which could be with the intention of Recon, 3 Manuever & Anti-Tank each getting one but they are part of the arty BN. Not sure why they picture Towed as the icon is for Self-Propelled which matches their movement. This is a BDE level asset.
Engineer Company- 4 platoons, again a brigade level asset
Support BN- Medical company which assigns out a medic to each company along with running BN & BDE aide stations, the Distribution company looks like the current catchphrase for BDE supply/ordnance, and a maintenance company
For BTU purposes, substitute regiment where I say brigade above and realize BTU has a brigade composed of regiments which would be the equivalent of divisions in US Army afaik. The 3 Maneuver BNs are the 'line' units, everything else falls under the Rgt/BDE's authority and get broken up to support the combat tasks assigned to BN. If you are assigned to support a BN you are called an attachment/detachment depending on verbiage.
Though I will be honest, I was part of a artillery brigade which was assigned to a division, so mirror this and go up 1 level . . . and the doctrinal shift to Brigade Combat Teams happened when my unit was changing equipment and alternating deployments to Iraq so it was never as clear as the Division model that was used post-WWII so someone might offer better insight since we were never tasked to a maneuver BDE.
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*snip*
My personal take on that is that in the Battletech universe they want artillery units to be able to function nearly independently . . . or at least, be able to assign it to a particular fight without worrying about whether any other regiments in the same battle would need to devote any of their own resources to spotting/supplying/guarding the guns. The historically low amounts of artillery deployed by the Succession Wars IS militaries meant that the units that *did* exist had to handle all their own integration into the battle and take care of all of their chores 'in house' rather than assume the line regiments or even the base support would be able to take care of it for them. Again, just my take on things.
That's pretty much how I built my Planetary Militia too...
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In both examples- a artillery battalion as part of a brigade or a artillery brigade as part of a division- the artillery can operate independently, its why I said the FOs were not organic to the line units they might find themselves in at any time. They belong to someone else, just like the medics, engineers, ordnance techs and specialized maintenance troops but when a combat unit is going into action they get troops assigned to fill those roles as the mission requires. Take the above theoretical Stryker Brigade . . . say the folks in the pointy building think they need more than a single artillery battalion to accomplish their mission . . . they can either pluck one from another Styker Brigade- say its undergoing a equipment switch on the maneuver BNs- or they can re-assign one from the division's artillery brigade pool to give them that 2nd artillery BN. By assigning a 2nd artillery BN they get a unit able to handle most of its own needs because it has all those components organically. I say most b/c the transport of ammo & fuel will need to be supplemented depending on the distance from a supply depot. In fact, throwing extra support BNs at a combat formation is more likely.
Basically it comes down to your line troops are not going to need specialists all the time, when they do they get them and when they do not the specialists are not present.
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Thanks for the detailed breakdown Colt Ward. I've seen a few visual breakdowns of a Stryker Brigade before, but not that one. And your descriptions were very helpful. Definitely saving that.
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No problem . . . I spent a lot of bored hours staring at posters in the school house during training.
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Your mistaking a few terms . . .
Yep, I misread one of your earlier quotes to be saying that the FO/recon team would not be organically assigned to the artillery. Sorry if my reply caused any confusion. :)
The more I look at it, the better question seems to be not "Why do the batteries have organic recon" - since it makes sense that they should if they are considered independent from the line units - but instead "Why do they have SO MUCH organic recon in the Battletech universe"? Entire BTU line regiments (Mech or conventional) often only have 1 company of light/hover vehicles listed as "Recon" according to my browsing of the TOE's listed in Galtor and the 4th Succession Wars books. The artillery battalions seem to have about one company of recon per one company of guns. Company organization varies from faction to faction, of course, but that is more FOs than barrels in many cases!
By comparison, your Stryker TOE (very cool BTW) indicates a full recon battalion per "regiment" of 3 line battalions, which is a bit richer than a 'typical' BTU line regiment . . . but only 5x FOs per artillery battalion. Or are some of the "Fires" vehicles listed in the recon battalion also considered spotters for the "Fires" (i.e. artillery) battalion?
[Edit for clarity]
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BTU puts a mere fraction of artillery to combat power that IRL does . . . so in that Strkyer graphic you see a battalion per BTU regiment-equivalent. But in the BTU you have a single battery if not less per regiment . . . so you get the same coverage of FOs, just less artillery for them to call. Recon & FOs are different, putting it in current BTU terms Recon units would have SPAs like Eagle's Eyes (spots hidden units & mines), Forest Ranger, Foot Cavalry or could have a Special Command Ability like Combat Drop Specialists or Tac Experts (Hidden Units) while FOs would have Forward Observer (lol) or maybe the SCA Tac Experts (Hidden Units) too.
Now recon and line units are trained to call in artillery but they are not specialists, its why the FOs get special abilities.
Honestly, FOs should have the SPA Forward Observer to reflect their individual equipment and training- its what they worked for and their assignment after all.
In regards to the Stryker BDE questions its a bit harder for me to be specific on what their organization is like IRL. I knew FOs in training but like I said I never really dealt with them . . . usually a section (part of a squad) would be assigned down to the company in a special vehicle, so you might end up with a squad of FOs (or team) assigned to a battalion but I would expect at most 2-4 people. The FOs might also be able to call down air strikes, but outside my experience . . . I know as Fire Control the computer system we used had the ability to orchestrate artillery & naval gun support and accommodated air actions.
The Recon BN is broken down as 3 recon troops (or companies, they are just signifying cavalry- Cav Scout is a mentality), a drone using Surveillance troop, BN HQ troop w/NBC & mortar platoon. Not sure they get the counterbattery radar assigned to them as part of the Surveillance troop or HQ troop.
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I never purchased the 4th SW Atlas, so I have never used its data to affect my Successor State playstyle. I have read the house books from the 80s.
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Overlooked this until now, FM: Mercs Supplemental update details Thor's Hammers. Arty-centric merc unit. Three batteries consist of 6 guns each. One is mobile Long Toms, one is a mix of self-propelled Snipers and Thumper. The third battery is jury rigged mechs that carry Arrow 4 and or sniper field pieces.
In that unit each battery has is the unit's center piece, even mechs are assigned supporting roles like scouting or anti-aircraft. Along with spotter planes, infantry, recon vehicles etc.
It's the first arty centric merc unit I can ever recall seeing. Interesting stuff.
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I want to say we got a few more though probably not as detailed- I think one gets killed off in 1SW or 2SW sourcebooks. Do they describe each battery as 2 firing platoons of 3 guns & a support slot with the 3rd platoon being HQ/support?
Btw, what is their factional background- I have FM Mercs(R) pdf but the book is at home.
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Thor's Hammers are fluffed as the core unit and especially CO being a survivor of the 12th Star Guards Third Regiment. Which were destroyed during the Clan Invasion on Icar. Napolean Hobart commanded an artillery battery. One dropship loaded with support personnel and that arty flew off when the rest of the regiment was forced to surrender.
After that happened they went to Outreach. Rather than perpetuate the 12th Star Guards, Hobart started a new command, recruiting gun crews and others from among the survivors of other merc units crushed in the Clan Invasion.
So I'd argue no factional bent. Since we don't know anything CO's history prior to being a merc and the 12th Star Guards worked for a lot of different employers and had a long interstellar history as mercs.
As for composition it's centered around those three batteries of six guns each, Able, Baker and Charlie. Charlie being 'mechs.
Everything else is attached to those batteries, most notably an infantry company and 'mech lance (2 scouts and 2anti-aircraft 'mechs). Add ammunition vehicles, scouts, recon vehicles and spotter planes to that. It doesn't really answer what you are asking in terms of platoons, or which unit is HQ/support. That's not clear.
It feels like each battery is designed to be a self-contained unit with its own support. So the Hammers can split up into three separate forces if they really want to.
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Nah, projecting each battery being . . .
Lance 1
3 artillery units, 1 heavy APC as 'support' or the ammo carrier
Lance 2
3 artillery units, 1 heavy tracked APC for ammo carrier
Lance 3
4 mechs
If you have CM Mercs you might check out the Star Guard entry, I recall something about them having artillery or maybe I got that from War of 3039.
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You said CM mercs, I assume you meant FM: Mercs and they aren't in there. That book is written from the in universe perspective of post-Clan Invasion.
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CM Mercs has the 12th Star Guard, to include the 3rd Regiment. My notes had them with artillery though I cannot say if I got that from War of 3039 or remember additional details from CM Mercs. The CM adjusted some of the things I had set up for the 3/12, like giving the CO a Wolverine rather than a heavy.
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I honestly want to see an artillery battery where every support role was filled by a Generic Expandable Services Vehicle variant. It has enough configurations to make that work. Figure the Battery HQ role filled by the GESV tractor in Mobile Command Post configuration, with a trailer in Bunker configuration to carry the assorted support personnel. The GESV's assigned to the individual Firing Platoons would have their trailers in Cargo/Workspace configuration, while their tractors are sporting a modification of the Mobile Command Post configuration (lower the communications equipment tonnage and drop the Remote Sensor Dispensers to increase the cargo), allowing them to serve as ammo trucks that also allow tight coordination between the various sections of the Battery.
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My planetary militia thread had each battery relatively self-sufficient. Each gun section (3 per battery, 2 tubes per section) was supported by a security platoon of infantry, and a tech team for reloading. The tech teams had two industrial exoskeletons attached that could carry a ton of ammo each. Goblins were the base chassis, and for each two chassis carrying a Thumper, there was one ammo (and infantry) carrier, and an LRM Goblin for security (the ammo carrier was a modified MG Goblin, which covered short range). The Battery HQ had a modified MG Goblin (with Communications Gear) and three Ferrets for logistics, spotting and security, as well as an infantry platoon for security (and spotting, of course).
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The Inner Sphere at War force lists give every BattleMech regiment in the Inner Sphere and Periphery 1 artillery battalion in support. Except for House Liao, who gets two battalions per 'mech regiment.
Conversely, House Kurita has the largest Aerospace support element (Outworlds doesn't really count), Infantry and Armor support numbers go to Houses Marik and Steiner.
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The Inner Sphere at War force lists give every BattleMech regiment in the Inner Sphere and Periphery 1 artillery battalion in support. Except for House Liao, who gets two battalions per 'mech regiment..
Yeah but there is a difference between a battery 2x3 Thumpers (light art bat) and 2x3 Long Toms & 1x3 dual A4 launchers (heavy art bat).
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It's still a valid factor to consider.
It means more logistics (e.g. ammo supply train) is devoted to artillery, more personnel are trained to be artillery crews, and you are allocating more dropship space for artillery. So it does speak to priorities.
Is it the only variable to consider? No. But this is like crowdsourcing puzzle pieces to build a more complete picture of artillery in the universe.
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Lol, now let's complicate the logistical picture . . . supporting a artillery battery is going to be different between a set of towed Thumpers behind wheeled and Sniper equipped tracked Marksmen. So, specialized spare parts for the heavy tracked vehicles vs more common spare parts for wheeled chassis towing . . . and rations for a crew of 3-5 vs for 20+ gun bunnies humping ammo.
My personal 'ideal' logisitical planning is for offensive forces to be supported by fusion powered vehicles due to cutting the strings on most POL (never bet on local supplies) for offensive freedom- IE, seizing a refinery or tank farm can be #7 or #8 on the list for a planetary invasion rather than #2 or #3. I would also suggest that offensive formations are more likely to draw SP artillery than towed artillery, it cuts down the amount of food you need to haul between worlds (never bet on local supplies) and bunks on dropships. Dropship collars being the single most limiting factor for any offensive in the post-1SW BT universe. Also as a sort of no brainer, you are going to assign the heaviest artillery to offensive formations but still IMO have some of the lighter tubes for flexibility- though if the choice is between towed Sniper or self propelled Thumper Artillery Vehicles (TAV) fusion or ICE powered, you take the SP artillery.
If Charlie 6 chimes in, our experiences are going to be a bit different even if the training comes from a lot of the same place (Marines trained in Artillery the same place I did) especially since he was on ship with a expeditionary force vs I was slated to move with a division tasked with a offensive.
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The Inner Sphere at War force lists give every BattleMech regiment in the Inner Sphere and Periphery 1 artillery battalion in support. Except for House Liao, who gets two battalions per 'mech regiment.
Conversely, House Kurita has the largest Aerospace support element (Outworlds doesn't really count), Infantry and Armor support numbers go to Houses Marik and Steiner.
It sounds like they tried to simplify things, which is not always a good idea. It can be outright unfaithful to the source material. That said, this was speaking of units attached directly to the regiment, and not independent assets that are typically attached as extra assets.
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Lol, now let's complicate the logistical picture . . . supporting a artillery battery is going to be different between a set of towed Thumpers behind wheeled and Sniper equipped tracked Marksmen. So, specialized spare parts for the heavy tracked vehicles vs more common spare parts for wheeled chassis towing . . . and rations for a crew of 3-5 vs for 20+ gun bunnies humping ammo.
Why the disparity in numbers? An observation, not a criticism, whomever came up with these did not take into account the M548/FAASV-equivalent vehicles that would be supporting the SP shooters.
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I would have to see the ISaW list, but more than likely its a Order of Battle type list, not a Table of Organization & Equipment . . . which means sometimes those artillery battalions are from independent artillery regiments and attached by theater command and other times they will be organic to the command. Its like mechanized infantry vs foot infantry assigned some vehicles from a transport pool. Best BTU example I can think of is the FedSuns RCTs vs FWLM mech regiments that are supported by combined arms. RCTs have specific armor, infantry, artillery, aero and dropship assets that are part of the command- they cross train with them and share a familiarity of command officers. RCTs share a tactical doctrine and have planned responses that make them a more cohesive combat command with material assigned based on that tactical doctrine (see 1FSAC RCT). While FMs never list their DS, we do get fiction where RCTs cannot go anywhere b/c their assigned JS are stripped or none are sent for them- one of the Davion Guards RCTs assigned to Galax during the FCCW comes to mind.
Most of the FWLM, as I understand it from FMFWL, have mech regiments posted places and then assign local/regional armor & infantry assets to support the mech regiment. When the mech regiment is moved/reposted it generally leaves the armor and infantry behind to be mated up with replacements at the new location. This practice can be observed when you end up with regionally named armor/infantry. For example, look at FM3085's pg 91 unit listings- (my 1st example did not survive the Wolves) Steel Guard, Ohrensen Steel Wing, New Delos Steel Armor, Ventabren Steel Infantry. Each of the supporting conventional forces are drawn from a different world.
So artillery would IMO be like the Aero forces . . . you have independent battalion/regiments/brigades that can have sub-groups assigned to fall under a specific ground command that are set up as regional command assets and you would have organic battalion/regiments/brigades as part of a larger combat command- like the Deneb Light Cavalry command having a artillery brigade under the DLC commander whose staff assigns out battalions (9 total?) to support the different DLC regiments. Or the regiment, like say the 1FSAC RCT is built with its own artillery battalion that answers only to the 1FSAC commander.
Why the disparity in numbers? An observation, not a criticism, whomever came up with these did not take into account the M548/FAASV-equivalent vehicles that would be supporting the SP shooters.
First off, unless you play AccountanTech usually campaigns do not dig into those numbers BUT . . . in my experience SP ammo haulers have small crews too, and they would not be numerically any different than mech or armor ammo support companies. What I saw of Paladins, and dealt with in MLRS, was a small crew (2-4) operating/driving the vehicle that used machinery to reload the magazines of SP artillery vehicles. Ammo haulers for towed used the same vehicle/system afaik as MLRS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Expanded_Mobility_Tactical_Truck (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Expanded_Mobility_Tactical_Truck)) which was basically a flatbed with fold down sides and a heavy crane on the back to unload pallets of shells or the MLRS 6 packs for firing unit use. Paladins use a different tracked vehicle with IIRC a armored sleeve to feed the shells & propellant directly into the SP gun's armored box- I think it has a crew of 2 but it might vary between models. Basic different between towed & SP artillery is not the nature of its motive system, its the reloading/aiming . . . one is mechanized, the other is manual- the 20+ bodies in a towed platoon are there to physically shift the gun and feed it shells & propellant. Taking them the ammo can be the same 2 guys driving a truck- or just moving general supplies.
Under current doctrine, and I will assume BT follows that for the most part, a battery has the trucks to move rounds from the BN ammo point to their firing platoon ammo points in a support platoon filled with truck drivers whose senior NCO tracks ammo expenditures/movement for average firing rates plus a bit more. The BN ammo support platoon has enough trucks to move ammo from the BDE or DIV ammo point to the BN ammo point to keep the firing batteries supplied for average firing rates plus a bit more. You are SUPPOSED to have 2 drivers per truck, and that is the paper strength, but as discussed elsewhere a unit rarely matches paper strength.
For my personal merc group that uses AccountanTech . . . yeah, I have support platoons that for easy of tracking are 28 man foot platoons that are tasked to drive 14 support vehicles. I take the vehicles I have (being merc & not a national force, its mixed), add up the cargo capacity and slowest movement speed to list track I can move X amount of supplies Y amount of distance a hour. Being mercs, they are not tasked specifically for artillery but rather general resupply- so a truck could be hauling rations, mech armor or LRM ammo- if I DO plan out for scenario purposes what a convoy carries (like I get hit by enemy behind the lines) I will put the critical supplies on faster vehicles.
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I took a swing at the logistics problems with Ferrets, industrial exoskeletons, and dedicated ammo carries at the gun section level (2 guns).
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I took a swing at the logistics problems with Ferrets, industrial exoskeletons, and dedicated ammo carries at the gun section level (2 guns).
Makes perfect sense if you're going to do split Battery ops.
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To be clear, the Ferrets were at the Battery level... the other two were organic to the sections...
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The "Long Tom" of BT was named after the "Long Tom" of the US Army which was 155mm.
But it doesn't actually match it in description.
The USA calls Light now to be a towed 105mm gun (Thumper infantry)
They also have 2x 155mm as Colt mentioned, 1 towed, 1 mobile. (Unknown Sniper Infantry Platoon + Marksman)
The Real World equivalent of the BT Long Tom looks more like the 203/220mm guns the Germans had in WW2.
I don't think US Mortars have the range to match anything like BT Artillery do they?
I think for those we are looking at something closer to the "Cannons" versions that some Mechs/Tanks carry.
BT Artillery seems to use 4 gun platoons like every other vehicle platoon.
Or 4 Gun Companies if its Artillery equipped infantry.
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Google says up to 9,500m for 120mm... that's 19 map boards, more than a Sniper (by a map board).
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Hmm, the longest ranged Mortar in the US I could find is 7240m
Significantly less for the smaller 60mm ones.
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The 4SW books don't actually say what kind of Artillery is attached to mech regiments. (Vehicle or Infantry)
Probably because we only had the MLT from 3025 & a Sniper gun carriage from BT Mag at the time.
Most regiments had 4-12 guns listed of Sniper/Long Tom sizes (Thumper didn't exist yet IIRC)
The Battalion assigned to an entire RCT is supposed to be Mobile (Vehicles).
I've often thought the stuff assigned to single regiments would more likely be Infantry like the Kurita platoon, but bigger guns.
While the stuff in the RCT Battalion or the rare Artillery "Regiment" would be stuff like the TAV or Ballista.
Certainly the 4 guns that were actually assigned to Infantry Regiments IIRC might be Infantry Platoons. (I really want a Sniper platoon like the Thumper)
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Hmm, the longest ranged Mortar in the US I could find is 7240m
Significantly less for the smaller 60mm ones.
The US Army has been working to acquire a minimum 9,000m range system since 2018...
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The "Long Tom" of BT was named after the "Long Tom" of the US Army which was 155mm.
But it doesn't actually match it in description.
The USA calls Light now to be a towed 105mm gun (Thumper infantry)
They also have 2x 155mm as Colt mentioned, 1 towed, 1 mobile. (Unknown Sniper Infantry Platoon + Marksman)
The Real World equivalent of the BT Long Tom looks more like the 203/220mm guns the Germans had in WW2.
Which is why I said BT artillery was built around the artillery paradigm of the 60s- we had 203mm super heavy systems on heavy carriages. Atomic Annie was a 203 on a rail carriage IIRC. Such weights are not tolerated today b/c of shoot & scoot, 8 inch SP (or 203) was phased out in the 80s IIRC.
But its just like ACs have various caliber IMO- Thumper 'light' artillery would be 75mm to 90mm, Sniper medium 105mm to 155mm and Long Tom heavy 203mm-240mm. But arguing artillery caliber is as useful as AC caliber IMO.
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If you want real world artillery advice, I recommend contacting Charlie 6. He has the most experience of anyone I know.
If Charlie 6 chimes in, our experiences are going to be a bit different even if the training comes from a lot of the same place (Marines trained in Artillery the same place I did) especially since he was on ship with a expeditionary force vs I was slated to move with a division tasked with a offensive.
Two summons and PM later...I show up, I guess. Before you get your hopes up, it has been a while since I've thought about much of this in game terms. After I retired in '16, I was a wargame designer until a couple of months ago. From a design perspective, BT is meant to fit on a table and fluffs pretty well to make that work...before you start pushing too hard on the boundaries.
To make artillery fully and lethally effective you need to talk in terms of artillery battalions and not just gun sections, platoons, and batteries. Artillery battalions are company killers: by that I mean a "battalion three", or three 18-gun volleys, will break enough of a company's cohesion, morale, and/or equipment to make that company function like a group of platoons rather than a company. Break a company and it's parent maneuver battalion has problems executing it's mission because losing a third of one's combat power at a critical moment can be devastating. So, if you buy off on that perspective and understand that real life artillery can't simply move and shoot at the same time then you'll realize that you need more than one battalion and actually closer to to five to support a three regiment division. Craziness right? That comes from someone who could plan knowing that we had multiple squadrons of AH-1Ws, F-18s and AV-8Bs in support.
So sticking artillery battalion(s) on a BT game table can be problematic: the ranges, formation sizes, rates of fire, etc. The other option is to keep it small and have fun.
As to what represents what...I'd look for inspiration rather than perfect canonization. It isn't worth the effort but if you're looking to role play/build a unit then a six unit battery offers some fun. If you had four gun units (ideally the same weapon), a missile unit, and anti-air unit you could divvy up the rest to do security, recon, or whatever...
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I kind of like the idea up thread of a "battery/6-guns" actually being a "company/12 units"
Platoon-A = 3 Guns & 1 Other (Defensive ADA Partisan?)
Platoon-B = 3 Guns & 1 Other (Ammo/FDC/IFV)
Platoon-C = 4 Other (Foot Platoon, or, Jump Platoon w/ Karnov)
Lets you attach a Partisan, Ammo Carrier, FDC, APC's, Infantry to be Spotters, Etc etc.
All to the battery while keeping it 12 units in size to fit BT sized org charts.
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My militia units used 2 guns, 1 ammo carrier and a security vehicle (all Goblin variants) per section to embark a Tech Team (with the aforementioned exoskeletons) and Security Platoon, while the Battery HQ had one HQ vehicle and 3 Ferrets to embark the staff and a Security/Spotter Platoon. For quirks, I gave the gun carriers Exposed Linkage and Rapid Reload.
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Thanks Charlie 6, glad you came to the conversation. That Artillery Battalions are company killers explanation... that entire paragraph really, was extremely helpful. Not just for a BT game but my real life understanding of artillery.
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Agreed, I hadn't read that part about killing 1 level up/down.
And that it isn't actually "killing" it, just breaking it up to the point of making coordinated maneuver extremely difficult.
So as I read it, 1 Arti Battalion (18 Guns), is used to sow utter chaos on a single Company-12 Units, in order to force a full Battalion (12+24 more) into stagnation/hesitation/ineffectiveness.
Like wounding 1 infantryman takes 2 more off the front line to carry him to safety.
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Thanks Charlie 6, glad you came to the conversation. That Artillery Battalions are company killers explanation... that entire paragraph really, was extremely helpful. Not just for a BT game but my real life understanding of artillery.
Agreed, I hadn't read that part about killing 1 level up/down.
And that it isn't actually "killing" it, just breaking it up to the point of making coordinated maneuver extremely difficult.
So as I read it, 1 Arti Battalion (18 Guns), is used to sow utter chaos on a single Company-12 Units, in order to force a full Battalion (12+24 more) into stagnation/hesitation/ineffectiveness.
Like wounding 1 infantryman takes 2 more off the front line to carry him to safety.
Excellent, I’m glad you like both the suggestion and my explanation. If 12 elements doesn’t quite work for you then you could reasonably split a battalion in half to give each six gun firing unit 12 vehicles in support for 18 total. That way, you could put out scout-observers, have a small group looking for a new area to move to while continuing to fire from an already occupied location.
S/F
Matt
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If this has already been discussed, my apologies, losing track.
Thinking advantages field artillery can have over self-propelled.
One thing that occurs to me is that it might be easier to make a field artillery unit Air Mobile without dropships. A Field Artillery Platoon weighing 40-46 tons is less tonnage than most artillery vehicles. In some cases by only a little, but less all the same.
It is also easier to split that up into different cargo/passenger loads (e.g. the artillery piece itself, the ton of ammo, the mechanized infantry platoon) and transport those by Karnovs, King Karnovs and other conventional aircraft separately.
The idea of air mobile artillery gets a nod in the infantry section of Field Manual: SLDF (Page 16) where its mentioned that air mobile artillery is often assigned to jump infantry divisions.
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Yeah, Vtols or Aircraft w/ VTOL ability seem suited for those tasks.
Motorized + Thumper + Ammo = 22 Tons.
A bit too much for a Planet Lifter to carry with its 20.5? capacity IIRC.
But I'm sure there is something out there that could get the job done.
Meanwhile the Karnov I guess using internal for the Infantry & External for the Gun/Ammo could move the same platoon at 6/9 Vtol speed, so the same as a Yellow Jacket.
Sure your not outrunning a light mech, but you can at least move that gun around.
4 of them w/ 4 Karnovs makes for an interesting "Company/Battery" of 5 total Platoons.
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I think it has to be mechanized infantry.
The TRO 3085 Kurita example is wheeled Mechanized and total weight was 40 tons, 4 ton difference between Wheeled and Tracked Mechanized. The Liao Missile Artillery (Arrow IV) was also 40 tons.
Mechanized Wheeled Field Artillery Thumper or Arrow IV- 40 tons
Mechanized Tracked Field Artillery Thumper or Arrow IV- 44 tons
Mechanized Tracked Field Artillery Sniper- 49 tons.
So for Air Mobility Purposes
Thumper or Arrow IV- 15 tons
Ammo- 1 tons
Mechanized Wheeled Infantry Platoon- 24 tons
= 40 tons
So two Planetlifters. If you wanted to put the entire unit on one vehicle you'd need a King Karnov.
Interestingly with the King Karnov, you can carry the entire platoon and tack on a J-27 with ammo.
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Take a 30 ton VTOL and slap 4 lift hoists on it. By the rules, each hoist allows it to lift 1/2 it's weight, so 4 of them would let a 30 ton VTOL carry a 60 ton load slung underneath. So the Karnov could then easily carry an artillery section.
The Planetlifter is supposed to have a forward 20 ton cargo bay and a 50 ton rear bay for a 70 ton total cargo load. It is fluffed to be able to carry a Warhammer laying down or 2 Stinger's.
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It does Not have to be Mechanized.
The 2 canon examples are Mechanized.
But, the rules clearly state Motor or Wheeled/Tracked Mech.
Either way they are reduced to 1MP.
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The Planetlifter is supposed to have a forward 20 ton cargo bay and a 50 ton rear bay for a 70 ton total cargo load. It is fluffed to be able to carry a Warhammer laying down or 2 Stinger's.
Yeah, the rules don't support it.
It only worked if Aircraft were allowed to use the external cargo rules, but they are not, which is why the fluff in TRO3039 now says Stinger instead of Warhammer.
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Whoops, don't have that TRO, might need to grab it.
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Given this current turn in the conversation, I'm just going to leave this link to an old thread here: Winged Caisson System (https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=56825.0).
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It does Not have to be Mechanized.
The 2 canon examples are Mechanized.
But, the rules clearly state Motor or Wheeled/Tracked Mech.
Either way they are reduced to 1MP.
Huh, I just went digging into Tac Ops and it looks like you are right. That's really interesting. I don't quite get how some heavy ATV or jeep hauls around a 15 ton artillery tube. But it's hard to argue with how that reduces the weight.
At 22 tons a platoon, you can fit 3 platoons, 3 pieces in a King Karnov with some tonnage to spare.
For a more combat platform route, one platoon will fit in a Zugvogel Prime.
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Huh, I just went digging into Tac Ops and it looks like you are right. That's really interesting. I don't quite get how some heavy ATV or jeep hauls around a 15 ton artillery tube. But it's hard to argue with how that reduces the weight.
At 22 tons a platoon, you can fit 3 platoons, 3 pieces in a King Karnov with some tonnage to spare.
For a more combat platform route, one platoon will fit in a Zugvogel Prime.
Eh, I figure the platoon's vehicles are just plain built with enough towing capacity that they can do that. Probably needs a fairly powerful engine for its size and a Tractor chassis mod...
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Yeah, motor field arty is much easier to haul around. The main benefit to using mechinf for this is their resistance to burst-fire weapons. A lot of folks will counter towed gun batteries with very fast units with machine guns to quickly bring the troop numbers down below that needed by the gun(Locust, classic APCs, Karnov (MG), etc), but mechanized infantry take much longer to kill with such weapons than motor troops.
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Thinking advantages field artillery can have over self-propelled.
*snip*
The idea of air mobile artillery gets a nod in the infantry section of Field Manual: SLDF (Page 16) where its mentioned that air mobile artillery is often assigned to jump infantry divisions.
Just a note, towed & SP are both considered field artillery . . . its only if guns are fixed that they are no longer considered field artillery. Further, while some of the SP artillery cannot be VTOL transported, lighter units could be and the other option for things like jump infantry or Nighthawks performing airborne/pathfinder duty would to me be small craft. We also have vehicle drops IIRC . . . but that can get tricky, check out the video of airborne troops watching vehicles get dropped into their zone. Clearest video I watched was probably from Ft Bragg and was a big unit, BN I think rather than division (not sure the last time they did that), and IIRC at least half dozen light vehicles failed to have their chutes open. SOMEONE got some paperwork that week.
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Just a note, towed & SP are both considered field artillery . . . its only if guns are fixed that they are no longer considered field artillery.
That might be the case in the real world, but in Battletech, Field Artillery is a specific rules term that applies only to towed artillery pieces.
As with all other things, comparing real-world artillery to Battletech artillery is highly inadvisable.
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You are talking rules terms, I am talking about organization which has it separated between field (mobile) or fixed emplacements (shore guns or others as part of a structure). The only canon organizational structure, since TPTB got away from that, that I can remember seeing is the artillery stars that had Naga or Hui and the Drac's 71st which mentions a field artillery battalion (but is not actually named like the stars) that had towed Thumpers. The Capellan A4 example probably does the same as the Drac's but I do not remember its infantry regiment name.
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Huh, I just went digging into Tac Ops and it looks like you are right. That's really interesting. I don't quite get how some heavy ATV or jeep hauls around a 15 ton artillery tube. But it's hard to argue with how that reduces the weight.
Think of it like this.
4-5 Hummers have to tow something.... or 28 Kawasaki bikes have to tow it.
Either way I think it explains why the MP for either platoon is reduced down to 1 no matter what it started at.
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Again: The real world splits them between field and fixed emplacements, but that has no relevance to Battletech. Because there is no indication Battletech does so, and Field Artillery is an actual term in Battletech that means something else, I advise against using it in the real-world context because people are going to get confused. And again, I advise that extend to all real-world terms that are also Battletech rules terms.
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Just a note, towed & SP are both considered field artillery . . . its only if guns are fixed that they are no longer considered field artillery. Further, while some of the SP artillery cannot be VTOL transported, lighter units could be and the other option for things like jump infantry or Nighthawks performing airborne/pathfinder duty would to me be small craft. We also have vehicle drops IIRC . . . but that can get tricky, check out the video of airborne troops watching vehicles get dropped into their zone. Clearest video I watched was probably from Ft Bragg and was a big unit, BN I think rather than division (not sure the last time they did that), and IIRC at least half dozen light vehicles failed to have their chutes open. SOMEONE got some paperwork that week.
I will try to remember that, thanks.
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Do you insist also that people call a battalion of Vedettes a combat vehicle battalion rather than a armor or tank battalion? Tank and armor are common military terms just like field artillery.
I already indicated that the Clans called their mech & vehicle stars equipped with artillery just 'Artillery Stars' rather than using the 'field' portion. The few times I have seen it referenced, as description rather than name, is 'mobile artillery' in for example FM Mercs(R). In that book a few formations like 56th Artillery (pg 45) refer to a battery sized element without using battery. Some infantry formations, like the 21st Centauri Security Lancers' Fourth Company (p56), do not call their artillery anything but that and do not specify if its SP or towed. Further, the next page with Clean Kill has ' . . . four towed Sniper artillery pieces . . . ' not referring to them as 'field artillery.' Olson's Rangers support company (mostly infantry) have parked their 'four Thumper artillery pieces' around a factory (pg94). I can of course skim further or even word search on PDFs . . . but its a stompy robot game, doctrine for the king of battle or even its inclusion is mostly a after thought.
The House books and 4SW Atlas referred to earlier in this topic pre-date towed artillery being in the rules afaik, though I do not have the books so I do not know if they refer to the formations as 'Artillery' or 'Field Artillery' though would reference Long Tom, Snipers and Thumpers by what others said instead of the SL vehicle names.
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FWIW, my entire group internally refers to both SPGs and infantry-based artillery tubes as "field artillery". It's been pretty intuitive to us.
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I think he is pointing out that the Rules Term for "Towed Artillery with an Infantry Platoon" in Tactical Operations, is called "FIELD ARTILLERY".
So he's just trying to point out that people could be confused.
Its kind of like people saying Mechanized Infantry when referring to Motorized, Mechanized (Type), & Infantry in a "Combat Vehicle".
The term gets thrown around but the individual Game Units have different terms so its useful to clarify what your talking about.
Which is why I use the game correct terms for Motor/Mech infantry & I use "Mobile Infantry" (Stolen from Starship Troopers) when I'm referring to any Infantry that is then carried aboard a vehicle of some type.
Just to keep it clear what I'm talking about.
He's just saying.
Game Terms.
Mech Artillery or Vehicle Artillery
Infantry Artillery = "Field Artillery" per TacOps.
I'd say use the term "Towed Artillery" for Infantry but T/O didn't do that, but even then it might be confused with those new Towed Trailer things from one of the more recent TROs
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I think he is pointing out that the Rules Term for "Towed Artillery with an Infantry Platoon" in Tactical Operations, is called "FIELD ARTILLERY".
Yeah, I see that.
I just mean that BT's terminology is sometimes weird and is actually the cause of much of the confusion. I know that the Battletech rulebook has a term that means something very specific but also different from the real-life term (in this case "Field Artillery"), but I haven't necessarily memorized that the term is "Field artillery" and not "towed artillery" or "infantry artillery", or how that term differs from the real-life term, and I'd have to go hunting in the rulebooks to find out all that.
So I can be technically correct and only refer to Field Artillery in its BT context, but it'd be more likely to cause some confusion than cure it in my group.
I use "towed artillery" or sometimes "infantry-towed artillery" as that's more concise and obvious to my groupmates as to what I'm talking about.
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It occurs to me that the rules-as-written are the only thing stopping us from deploying towed artillery units via a lift-hoist-based cargo VTOL, with a separate VTOL to haul around the soldiers themselves as a Foot Platoon.
So I figured a good house rule would be to keep it as a Motorized Platoon, and have a pair of VTOL record sheets on hand to justify their deployment. Setup and bugout times might be an issue. How long does that take IRL?
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What's there to house rule? A Karnov can sling up to a thirty-ton gun underneath it, and can carry the 6-ton motor platoon and the ton of ammo internally. Offload time is one turn. Done, and no need to muddle things up with house rules.
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What's there to house rule? A Karnov can sling up to a thirty-ton gun underneath it, and can carry the 6-ton motor platoon and the ton of ammo internally. Offload time is one turn. Done, and no need to muddle things up with house rules.
Wait, that doesn't require a lift hoist? I thought the lift hoist was a required piece of equipment for those sorts of tactics, and I don't see even one lift hoist on the 3055 model (the one I presume you're talking about).
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Lift hoists carry more and load/unload faster. But VTOLs can carry external cargo without them. VTOLs can not load during gameplay (without lift hoists), takes too long.
The Planetlifter, as a conventional fighter, cannot externally carry cargo.
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Sling & lift hoist are two different things, though perhaps slings are a TacOps rule . . . its not something that I have ever used TT and I am not sure its possible in MegaMek so for me its a strategic capability that gets dealt with 'off camera' for my big campaigns.
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Lift hoists carry more and load/unload faster. But VTOLs can carry external cargo without them. VTOLs can not load during gameplay (without lift hoists), takes too long.
The Planetlifter, as a conventional fighter, cannot externally carry cargo.
Sounds like having a lift hoist would really help with rapid re-positioning, whether to keep your front line in range, avoid counter-battery fire, or "artillery hunters are incoming, GTFO".
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Hence why I built my Cobra VTOL variant with 4 Lift Hoists. I can carry 15 tons slung with no movement loss, but can carry 60 tons in total with reduced movement. I also have a 3 ton infantry bay inside it to carry the crew. Allows me to sling load any "towed" artillery platoon of 2 main weapons with their support vehicles. That way they can do small shifts of firing position, but call in the VTOL for a long move.
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Wait, that doesn't require a lift hoist? I thought the lift hoist was a required piece of equipment for those sorts of tactics, and I don't see even one lift hoist on the 3055 model (the one I presume you're talking about).
No equipment is required for a vehicle to carry cargo externally, up to their own tonnage. Where lift hoists come in handy are when you want to carry a load greater than your tonnage, plus a few other benefits regarding unload times. The rules are in Total War, pages 136-137, and page 261.
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Safer to use an ASF than a VTOL...
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The House books and 4SW Atlas referred to earlier in this topic pre-date towed artillery being in the rules afaik, though I do not have the books so I do not know if they refer to the formations as 'Artillery' or 'Field Artillery' though would reference Long Tom, Snipers and Thumpers by what others said instead of the SL vehicle names.
The house books referenced tubes rather than platforms. They used whatever platforms mounted the tubes.
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Safer to use an ASF than a VTOL...
No aero can ever carry external cargo. Hope you've got the internal room.
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Oh right... you don't read custom designs (like the ASF system I linked with the internal cargo space necessary)...
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It burns us!
*hisses, and skitters up the wall and into the night*
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All this discussion just makes me think about how grossly overweight Inner Sphere artillery is when compared to modern systems.
For example, the Sniper artillery piece weighs in at 20 metric tons (that's 20,000 kilograms), without ammo. In comparison, it's nearest equivalent in the modern US arsenal, the M198 howitzer, weighs in at just 7,154 kilos. The M198's successor, the M777, is even lighter, weighing 4,200 kilos. Where the hell is the Sniper's extra weight coming from?!
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And neither can load a shell, load propellant, set a fuze, lay on the target/azimuth, and fire all of that every 10 seconds continuously.
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And neither can load a shell, load propellant, set a fuze, lay on the target/azimuth, and fire all of that every 10 seconds continuously.
Surely autoloaders can't be that heavy?
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What makes you certain that those guns are the best real-world equivalents? Why not another, larger gun?
And if course, the usual advice begging folks to avoid comparing Battletech anything to real-world anything applies here. For the sake of your mind, run while you can!
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Surely autoloaders can't be that heavy?
Its part of why I said they built the artillery paradigm (in the 80s) on what was common knowledge of 60s systems. It is what it is, but in some cases BT artillery outperforms 80s era systems (and that is when they originated) and in other ways they do not.
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Surely autoloaders can't be that heavy?
The sustained firing speed of BT artillery is 3x that of the M777. That probably requires a pretty hefty autoloader. Since the waste heat doesn't go *poof* once the shell leaves the barrel, trying to match that sustained fire rate would mean a 3x higher heat rate, in which case passive cooling is probably not enough to solve your heat problems. Which means you better have allocated extra weight for an active cooling system, most likely liquid-cooled.
Also, the M777 is designed as a light-weight version of the M198 (~7 tons). BT doesn't have any "Light Thumpers" or "Light Snipers", or really any "variant" artillery, so there's arguably no canonical equivalent in the setting. The M198 would be the equivalent of the BT artillery pieces, instead. Not to mention that the Long Tom/Thumper/Sniper was in Battletech before the M777 was introduced. Modifying BT equipment to follow real-life technological developments is simply too much to ask for.
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The sustained firing speed of BT artillery is 3x that of the M777. That probably requires a pretty hefty autoloader. Since the waste heat doesn't go *poof* once the shell leaves the barrel, trying to match that sustained fire rate would mean a 3x higher heat rate, in which case passive cooling is probably not enough to solve your heat problems. Which means you better have allocated extra weight for an active cooling system, most likely liquid-cooled.
Also, the M777 is designed as a light-weight version of the M198 (~7 tons). BT doesn't have any "Light Thumpers" or "Light Snipers", or really any "variant" artillery, so there's arguably no canonical equivalent in the setting. The M198 would be the equivalent of the BT artillery pieces, instead. Not to mention that the Long Tom/Thumper/Sniper was in Battletech before the M777 was introduced. Modifying BT equipment to follow real-life technological developments is simply too much to ask for.
Yeah, that's fair. If I were crazy enough to try to balance the M777 against the Sniper, I'd have it only able to fire once every three turns.
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I'm pretty sure modern 155's are Thumpers at BEST...
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I'm pretty sure modern 155's are Thumpers at BEST...
Stop with reality. My battery of M198s could shoot to 28.5k and hit a 100m sheaf with armor killing munitions.
BT doesn't do that...it stays on a tabletop.
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Can we just agree that what we would consider modern artillery, the Inner Sphere would treat as lostech? Because I'm seeing a few IS artillery commanders looking at the stats for the M198 and responding with a mixture of screaming "what is this sorcery?!" and envious drooling. :drool:
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I'm all for a lighter system with that kind of range. :thumbsup: