Tales of El Escorpion - Mechs

[pat_hdx]

Hi Guys, I’ve noticed that a lot of the Early Clan Improved Equipment that has been fluffed in Interstellar Operations as reintroduced by El Imperio hasn’t gotten a lot of love, and I’ve been playing with these a lot in Megamek labs along with some creative Writing. So, I might be introducing a few of these creations here.


Villa Robledo, Valencia
Imperio del Escorpión
[minor date corruption] 3087

[SCap R. -Star Colonel, we took the liberty to peak into your pet Seeker Binary’s preliminary findings and correspondence. It pains me to admit it, but I am impressed. Oh, for sure some of their guesses are well of the mark, but some of their conclusions are insightful, and they have discovered a wild number of potential security vulnerabilities, inshallah, our enemies do not find it so easy.]

—Excerpts from data package ZDC reci>>fff^&* via primary Imperio DRUM +§(##

Star Commander ar-Rashid, know you are missed. We hope that your assignment on Asturias is going well.

Our “Red Team” operations (I had never heard the term until the Star Coronel introduced it to us) to estimate the strengths of the Imperio as our enemies might attempt too, have been fruitful. We have just returned from activities in Navarre and Granada, and will probably return to Navarre soon. However, the Star Cornel has allowed me to share some of our preliminary findings with you. I love our new home; I have been struck by the beauty of its planets and the passions of its people…and that passion is reflected in the ingenuity pressed into improving the Imperio’s capacity for war.

[SCap-R- I wonder if they had an inkling we might listen in!]

While on a team jog near the Watch compound (to which we were brought to after we were split from you), we came upon a convoy on a restroom break escorting a pair of Wolverines. Warrior Heike just trotted right up to what looked like the commander chatting to the mech pilot, flashed an excited smile and started asking questions. No one asked to see our Codexes.

[SC R–*Attached audio file of a head banging on a table*

This…this is a problem. Obviously, I tracked this man down to chew him out; a cursory check of any of their codices would have revealed that they are on restricted deployment. He had one hell of a counter argument though: “What would have happened if I’d challenged them for their codices? Me, a Grunt Caster? They get insulted, and if I refuse a Circle of Equals and train the guns of my Scorpions on them to scare them off, they come back in a Warhawk and declare a Trail of whatever-the-nuts and kill my whole command!” I talked him through a few ways he could have handled it, but his fears were not totally unfounded. There are some serious societal issues a ballsy culebra Watch team could exploit.]

I will update you on the interesting vehicle upgades the convoy had another time, but without further delay, this is what we learned regarding those Wolverines, and what we found out regarding a separate upgrade path latter.

It is not totally clear to us if this is the right designation, but it is the one we have given it based on the spotty nomenclature we saw on other units. The WVR-6R was one of the most common medium mechs in Castilian Space when our brethren arrived. As such it is unsurprising that it was one of the first units techs and scientists began to tinker with. Apparently one of the two Wolverines we saw was one of the earliest upgraded, and was on its way to the DropPort to be shipped off planet for a more thorough upgrade.

Wolverine WVR-6R IMP 1

Movement: 5/8/5
Engine: 275 Fusion
Heat Sinks: 10
Gyro: Standard Gyro

Internal: 91
Armor: 152/185

Armor lay out - see attachment

Weapons                           Loc  Heat
ProtoMech AC/8 (Clan)    RA    2
SRM 6                                LT     4
SRM 6                                RT    4
Medium Laser                    HD  3
Small Laser                         LA    1

The glaring upgrade was the ProtoMech AC/8 on the right arm, the same model as that on the Reptar we have read about. Bondswoman Sonia has some interesting theories on why we see this weapon so much. More on that latter, but the short version is that she agrees with the conclusions in one of the source materials we were provided (and informed some of our enemies may have access to), apparently there is a surplus of the 8-series Protomech autocannon, indicating a lack of new ProtoMech construction.

[SCap-R- You know how sore I am regarding the limited access local Watch units have regarding the Relocation and related logistics, as for the ProtoMech AC/8, all the insight I was once able to get from Merchant Factor [REDACTED] regarding it, was a wink and the whispered acronym “LIFO”]

• The ProtoMech AC/8 has 56% of the maximum range of the AC/5 it replaces but hits 60% harder, it creates twice the heat, but at just one additional standard thermal unit, that is not much. It is also two and a half tons lighter at 5.5 tons.
• Said weight savings and the removal of two heatsinks allow the mounting of an additional SRM6, and an extra small laser.
• Armor layouts remained unchanged.

[SCap-R- I understand the Scientist and Techs involved in those early upgrade programs wanted a Clan Flamer for that extra half ton, but it has taken time for even minor Clan grade weapons to be authorized for use in non-Omni chassis and as replacements on Clan originating units.]

That still left a little weight unaccounted for, with the additional SRM6 launcher the obvious answer was extra ammunition for the launcher. We eventually figured out that was not the case because the mechwarrior told us it was the case. We reviewed Warrior Jebediah’s ocular prosthetic recordings. The MechWarrior’s biometrics, particularly the thermals told us he was lying.

[SCap-R- Good man. I talked to him too, transcript and his record is attached. I have petitioned for him to receive 100 extra merit points for the next round of testing.]

There was a group of techs on the other side of the recovery vehicle trying to be innocuous, another prosthetic caught a whispered, “they like the special rounds”. We believe an extra ton of ammo for the ProtoMech AC/8 was added for special ammo

[SCap-R-Usually precision rounds. From what I can tell, when it became obvious that a big shipment of surplus ProtoMech AC/8s came in on one of the early convoys and they were authorized for use in early upgrades, a team on one of the first Industrial Dropships that first made it to Castilian space took it upon themselves to try their hand and precision ammunition from information recovered at Waypoint 351 and samples brought back by Seeker teams. Those early rounds were… dudosos, but their popularity has speed their refinement.]

It is difficult at times for me to converse with Bondswoman Sonia, but she seemed satisfied that the overall cost of this upgrade was pretty low “as long as the AC/5 was repurposed or reprocessed”. If this was a whole new design, she estimates it would cost 5,052,974 C-bill equivalents, while a new WVR-6R would cost 4,827,682 C-bills, from a sheer firepower perspective, this seems worth the cost.

Which brings us to what the doctrine for the use of these units. From what we have learned of other Wolverine variants, we think the philosophy is that these mechs will get in close to help pin down  or flank the enemy while other units continue the Goliath Scorpion  tradition of weapon accuracy to hit from range.

[SCap-R-We have definitely evolved that way, but when these first upgrades were carried out, the idea was just to get as much firepower as possible on the field to make a quagmire out of any Culebra landing zone. You all were a paranoid lot regarding possible pursuit when you got here.]

I have hit my allotted HPG limit Star Commander. More to follow soon.

Viva El Imperio,

Warrior Point 1 Reeves

[killfr3nzy]

Interesting...

With the Society gone, the Escorpian Imperio are basically the only Clan faction left mixing technology. That, combined with their hodgepodge collection of tech levels, including early Clan and Retrotech, means they should have some interesting designs.

[pat_hdx]

Villa Robledo, Valencia
Imperio del Escorpión
[Two weeks after last transmission] 3087

Star Commander ar-Rashid,

I have been granted another HPG allocation, apparently some of the weird coding left by Precentor Irene Gillick’s people has finally been cracked, and efficiency has slightly increased at the Valencia HPG transmitter.

As I last wrote you, our first successful intelligence gathering operation started almost at our front door, and lead us to really look into the development path of Wolverine variants in the Imperio. What has become clear is that there has been basically two upgrades paths, on ballistic and missile heavy path and a more recent upgrade path focused on energy weapon intensive builds. Our guess is that the original ballistic heavy branch came about because of a scarcity of double heatsinks, and the newer energy intensive branch has come about as double heatsink production has come on line.

[SCap-R-Basically correct if simplistic. Again, we do not have the whole story, but my team’s best guess is that there are four categories of double heatsinks out there.
• A large stockpile of carefully rationed Homeworld grade double heatsinks (with a few exceptions, these are reserved for repairing Clan made mechs)
• A small number of Home world grade double heat sinks produced in Imperio space, most in very limited quantities from Industrial Dropships, but a few possibly in experimental batches at the Elam and Suvorov Memorial Facilities on Navarre.
• Inner Sphere grade production on Navarre only just coming on-line.
• A middling size stockpile of Inner Sphere grade double heatsinks from old Star League Caches still in Scorpion Hands at the timle of the Exodus, and some captured at Waypoint 531. Apparently, there is a non-trivial quality control problem here because the supplies have been intermingled, and while the Blakist heatsinks were in excellent shape, the older ones, while also of very good quality MUST be refurbished before installation due to their extreme age and degraded coolant.

So, for the first few years after the Arrival, Command was a bit stingy about authorizing the release of double heatsinks. It DID happen, but usually to upgrade at least late Star League era mechs. So the early Wolverine upgrades were ballistic heavy. When the IS grade double heatsinks began to trickle out of the Navarre complex, Command became a lot less stingy.]

So, as I mentioned last time, the convoy we ran into was headed to the Space Port. We did not get a solid look at the other Wolverine escorting the convoy because the Mech warrior had parked the mech a bit far from the road in a grove of trees, but we DID manage to bug the truck that the techs were on. Warrior Jebediah gave a rare smirked when I asked where in his arm he keeps the bugs, all he said was, “who says I keep them in the arm?”

Anyways, apparently after the convoy got back on the road on the way the Space Port, the conversations we started spurred an older timer among the techs who regaled the younger staff with tales of “Wild West” days of the early upgrades.

Once we retrieved the bug (a story in and of itself), we were regaled with the story of a failed variant, that we have denominated…:

Wolverine WVR-6R IMP 1.2
Mass: 55 tons
Chassis: Standard Biped
Power Plant: 275 Fusion
Cruising Speed: 54 kph
Maximum Speed: 86.4 kph
Armor: Standard
Armament:
     1 Medium Laser
     2 ProtoMech AC/4
     1 SRM 6

Cost: 5,085,137 C-bills
Technology Base: Mixed (Experimental)
Tonnage: 55
Battle Value: 1,136

From what we picked up, a version was authorized using two ProtoMech AC/4s to claw back some of range in direct fire. It quickly became obvious that this development batch would go nowhere as ProtoMech AC/4 lose packaging efficiency at lower sizes, and certain energy weapons then on the drawing board would give twice the firepower for the weight.

[SCap-R- Most have been upgraded to newer variants, and as the above surmised, development went elsewhere, but I tracked at least one of these down to the rebuilding efforts on the colony that suffered from the Riesige Götter incident. The mech warrior answered a message I sent him and he wrote back that it was actually not too bad for hunting pirate raiders and bug mechs as long as he had the precision ammo, he added that the twin barrels of the autocannons on the right arm “looked cool” and intimated lesser opposition. They sent me pictures, the mech had the arm painted a metallic green with arachnid like fangs painted on the muzzles of the barrels. Still, he looked forward to earning enough merit points to request an upgrade.]

Viva El Imperio,

Warrior Point One Reeves