OK, so before we begin here... this is a unit that has a whole lot of strong reactions to it, positive and negative. I get that- and it means this will likely be a lively thread. I want to make this 100% clear, both as the author of the article and as an administrator on these forums: If your way of discussing it involves browbeating other posters and trying to shout louder than everyone else, take it elsewhere. Let's keep this on-topic, civil and respectful, please.
"Speak softly and carry a big... oh my..."There was a time, dear reader, in which Battletech VTOLs were armed with skimpy weapons. Machine guns, SRM racks, LRM-5s, maybe a medium laser if you were really feeling bold- the large laser on the SLDF Cyrano looked positively obscene, even! (Honestly, it still kind of does, but that's a story for another day.) The idea of mounting something big like an autocannon or heavy LRM rack on a helicopter was the stuff of pipe dreams, or at the very least cause for taking whatever antipsychotics Max Liao was on. But as the 3050s wore on, the Clans were defeated, and Lostech became commonplace enough to begin showing up on non-Battlemech units, a new player entered the field- the game-changing Yellow Jacket.
Michaelson Heavy Industries has made some bold choices when it comes to vehicles over the years, but perhaps none were as grand in scope as the Yellow Jacket- an attempt to take the aerial gunship concept perfected by the Warrior decades earlier and turn it up to 11. The results are mixed, as we'll see, but the idea of mounting a heavyweight weapon like this hadn't really been done before- even the Warrior's AC/2 and Cyrano's large laser are dwarfed, though the resulting loss of speed is a little concerning. The idea was to create a rapidly-moving (compared to ground units) fire support platform that could rapidly react to enemy formations and deal with trouble spots, and the designers didn't do a bad job when you look at it from a support standpoint. It doesn't quite stand up as well as one might like, but that's more due to the rules of Battletech than anything else. Let's give the beast a look.
We find early on that compared to other attack helicopters, the Jacket is remarkably pedestrian in its movement- 6/9 isn't enough to outpace many ground units! Now, the caveat there is that of course a VTOL is passing over terrain obstacles, so it's not quite as slow as it looks- in theory, a Locust can chase one down, but in practice the VTOL's ability to ignore terrain obstacles gives it a bit of an edge still on any but the flattest terrain. But, there's no denying that it's slow- and the to-hit numbers on one will reflect that every time. Think of it as a flying assault Mech, really- it can't dodge incoming fire, and it can't deploy as fast as other units, so it's going to have to be carefully used, and accept that it's going to take a beating.
Luckily, Michaelson took that into account when they installed that little ICE engine, and made sure the Jacket won't get dropped easily. A previously unheard-of amount of armor coats this monster! Three and a half tons of armor is absurd compared to every prior VTOL, and it makes for a very difficult customer to put down. The front armor is twenty points, able to easily withstand just about anything that it could get hit with (at least once!), where other aircraft would simply crumple. The sides have thirteen points each, and even the rear can withstand a large laser at eight points. The rotors, of course, are the weak spot, but there's nothing to really be done about that per construction rules (and basic physics). Hitting a Yellow Jacket isn't hard, with its low airspeed, but making those shots do the job can be frustrating- you don't want that thing to survive to shoot back, after all, and it has a maddening habit of doing exactly that.
And why would that be a problem? Because the little missile packs and annoyances of past VTOL weapons are thrown away on the Yellow Jacket, in favor of the one weapon they knew could actually match the Clan hordes pound for pound on the late-3050s battlefield... the Gauss Rifle. That's right, Michaelson took the Hollander, cut off its legs, and crammed a rotor on its head. At fifteen tons, this is the single largest weapon to ever get tossed on a VTOL, even by the Dark Ages. That little ICE lawnmower engine? Yeah, that's where the weight savings went. If you're not familiar with the worry about a flying Gauss rifle, welcome to Battletech. Able to rip a meidum Mech's arm off in one shot, and punch worrying holes in even an Atlas' armor, putting such a weapon on a quick-response platform like this is a neat idea (theoretically), and makes for a heck of a combination when paired with the classic SRM-armed VTOLs- nail a target with a Gauss shot, then fill the armor hole up with SRMs until fun things happen. Two tons of ammunition feed the gargantuan gun.
It goes without saying that this is an all-or-nothing proposition- you accept going in, before ever rolling dice, that you aren't going to move around fast, you aren't going to avoid fire, and even with that elephant hide armor, you're going to take a lot of return fire- more than most VTOLs, because that Gauss rifle is just too powerful to let it roam around all day. It's like dealing with a Hunchback in 3025 play- since the giant scary cannon is coming this way, and it can't be allowed to fire more than once, it has to get lit up by every available weapon, period. The Jacket is the same way- if you get a shot at it, you take that shot. So that armor gets tested early and often. Which means an expensive asset has to be very carefully used, or you won't have it for long at all. The author would of course like to note that while a single Jacket is a terrifying thing to behold in action, a platoon of them is an unforgivable nightmare to deal with- particularly since, as they avoid terrain features, they can prove to be sneaky at finding their way into flanking maneuvers. A Yellow Jacket in the rear arc of a Vulture is a very unpleasant experience, as the author found in a test run- the Megamek bot likely wasn't expecting to lose the right half of his Mech on the first hit.
Proving that where there's a good idea, there's no reason to not run it, the Michaelson crew came up with a variant that they only build on request. A full ton of that impressive armor is removed in favor of a third ton of Gauss ammo, for extended operations. This ignores the fact that your Jacket will no longer be able to survive long enough to empty 24 rounds from the gun (even 16 on the original is optimistic!), and the author just can't comprehend a world in which this aircraft should be used over the original- or at all, honestly, unless you end up with one in a random force. It emphasizes the flaws of the original, while not adding any real positives to offset that problem, and that's never a good recipe.
Back to the ol' drawing board for Michaelson, who looked at their 'giant cannon with a rotor' concept and said 'what if we make it... bigger?'. The Arrow version of the Yellow Jacket is the unsurprising result. By dropping the Gauss, an enormous Arrow IV artillery launcher is installed (the author would love to see artwork for THAT!). This is interesting- it's faster than most other Arrow platforms, even with that stupid lawnmower engine, and it's far less likely to get shot down early in a game since it can fire from outside the range of weapons like ER large lasers and LB-2X guns. However, when one considers the ability to carry Arrow missiles as external ordnance on aircraft, this looks a little like a solution in search of a problem to solve. Two tons of ammo feed the launcher, and half a ton of armor was removed to install CASE for that ammo, a dubious upgrade really. It's not the worst idea, in theory, but just doesn't quite pan out as the neat concept the Michaelson engineers likely planned.
Another version popped up during the Civil War, a variant that couldn't scream 'DAVION' more if it came with a cheeseburger and Max Liao in a headlock exists as well, unsurprisingly stripping out the Gauss again for a RAC-5 because FedSuns. The author has always been a bit lukewarm to the RAC, seeing it as inferior overall to the tried-and-true LRM, but there are platforms that make good use of it (the later Legionnaire Battlemech, for example). This... is not one of those times. The slowpoke VTOL (the lawnmower engine remains!) is now relied on to get into close combat (compared to the other versions), where it will take considerably more return fire simply because it's in range of so many more weapons in the enemy force. When it arrives, it's spitting several five-point weapon hits (who knows how many will actually hit!), with no real knockout punch capability- and a significant chance to jam the gun and become impotent! The designers heaped on another 1.5 tons of plating to the armor (thanks?), likely as a band-aid to the 'more incoming fire' problem, and the two tons of ammo have CASE. A targeting computer is installed as a final treat, which makes the gun a bit more accurate, the whole aircraft considerably more expensive, and probably looked a lot better under the original RAC targeted-location rules.
A decade or so later, as the Jihad raged, a new variant debuted that took the concept and turned it on its ear. We again have a big, flying cannon, but the Gauss is gone again in favor of an ER PPC. The loss in raw power is theoretically made up for with the lack of ammo, for starters, but the real attraction is the switch for a light fusion engine in place of the old lawnmower motor. This also includes a reasonable speed increase, something the Jacket really needed! So while we lose 33% of our hitting power, we gain the ability to move around the field (and bump our to-hit number), which for the author is a reasonable exchange overall. The change to heavy ferro-fibrous armor is nice as well, though the author does note that none of the increases really hit the next threshold to keep out major weapons- the sides, for example, are up to 19 points each, just shy of keeping out an AC/20 hit, the rear can't quite keep a Gauss hit out, etc.- it feels like it comes up just shy everywhere of working out. Luckily, the powerful PPC hits are augmented with the use of a C3 slave system, allowing it to tie into a network and become a nasty mobile sniper. There are better options for the job, but this is nevertheless a pretty nasty customer to deal with if used smartly- probably the best overall Yellow Jacket in the right hands, despite having the lowest amount of theoretical damage per turn.
Even the PPC model just isn't a fast aircraft, no matter what, and using the Yellow Jacket with conventional helicopter tactics is a recipe for disaster. These have to be used as mobile snipers- keep far back to avoid return fire, choose your shots carefully, and don't take unnecessary risks to get better numbers. The value to a Yellow Jacket isn't in causing direct damage- that's nice, of course- but like the old Hunchback, it's a terror weapon. By existing, it forces the enemy to keep a watchful eye out for it, and forces them to consider where to move important units so they don't get hit- you're reducing their options simply by having a Jacket in your force, and that's worth more than any 15-point hit. Smartly used, a Jacket is a game-changer by being on the field- poorly used, it's gone so soon that it never mattered.
Obviously, the other side of it is that if your enemy has one, KILL THAT THING. You don't want to get hit with that big gun- any of them- any more than you absolutely have to, so the sooner it's on the ground burning, the better. LBX guns are obviously a great start, ER large lasers are good choices, LRMs, whatever you can aim at it. The absolute best way to get rid of them is a loitering aerospace fighter, if you have one handy. As before, a Jacket forces its enemy to reduce its options to avoid the punishment- the sooner you remove that limit, the more breathing room you have available, and the happier you'll be. This is not a unit you can afford to ignore for a later turn, in-general.
One final note, of course, is that the Yellow Jacket, warts and all, was a big success for Michaelson- unsurprisingly, they came up with a follow-on aircraft. The Hawk Moth looks at a glance to be a major Jacket variant, replacing the Gauss yet again with a Light Gauss Rifle, but in fact the Moth is a very different beast down to its core, and as such is outside the scope of this already-too-long article. Ink will likely be spilled about it in another article.
So go nuts, tell your stories, share your thoughts. Start a thread in the design area about any upgrades you'd like to see- I've seen mention of trying to cram a big MRM rack on one of these, which wouldn't work any better than the RAC but would be a heck of a sight to see, anyway. Snub-nosed artillery? (Hey, we're already dealing with a flawed concept, let's have fun with it!) Let's have some fun with one of the scariest concepts in Battletech!
(And again, be civil or don't post in here.)
