Vehicle of the Week Update: AsshurIn this edition of Vehicle of the Week Updates, we see a fine example of Clan engineering lobotomized as we cover the Asshur! Named for one of the grandsons of Noah via Shem and implied to be the father of the Assyrians in Biblical accounts, the Asshur is a combination of reconnaissance vehicle and skirmisher in one fairly impressive package. Initially intended as a recon unit, the Blood Spirits later replaced it with the lighter, faster Shamash.
Okay, down to brass tacks. The Asshur is built off of a 20 ton hover chassis. With three tons of FF (now distributed 13/11/9/13 due to a change in armor rounding rules in TM), the armor is light in some ways but impressive enough. The nose and turret can take 14 points of damage (two hits from Clan medium lasers) without popping, while the stern can survive a ten point hit. You can't survive a Gauss rifle or Clan ER PPC hit anywhere, but the armor is thick enough for a light, swift unit as long as the driver is careful. At 9/14, it's slower than the likes of the Shamash, J. Edgar, or Savannah Master, but still faster than most 'Mechs and capable of pulling a +3 TMM at cruise while still turning a couple of times or going uphill once. (
Dashers are the most prominent exception to come to mind, although a
Dart can pace one.) Since all of the Asshur variants have ammo, it's a good thing CASE is integrated into the frame. The baseline chassis is useful and capable, but there's plenty of vehicles that have started from a good chassis and gone horribly wrong.
What makes the Asshur stand out is the firepower some enterprising fellow packed into the turret. Both of the original models from TRO3060 have two ERMLs and a single Streak SRM 6. Where they differ is that the first ones off the line mounted twin machine guns on the front. Since infantry is more something you run
into on hovercraft than get flanked by, their placement on the nose probably isn't as big an issue as it might be on some vehicles. If you're not looking to play spotter, this model is also very useful, especially if your friends like to field infantry occasionally, although an Asshur's armor is thin enough that the MGs are more useful for suppression fire than they are making infantry-hunting a good idea on this chassis. The BV of both of these is relatively high, though - 930 on the original and 952 for the MG variant. Overall, though, in a book ripe with oddball and just plain bad Clan vehicles, the original models of the Asshur are useful and capable.
In response to the introduction of the Shamash (apparently the Blood Spirits weren't using the machine guns that much), the Asshur was moved to more of a spotter role with that useful TAG mounted on the front in place of the machine guns. It's not as useful as it would be in the turret, unfortunately, but there's no room up there without removing weapons or reducing the size of the Streak launcher, and the Asshur is at least fast enough to be able to eat a turn if necessary to bring the TAG to bear, while points operating together can probably keep a target under the little red dot fairly effectively. Just be careful to watch the arcs as you move if you're planning on calling down fire from the heavens. Under the old BMR rules, the TAG was less useful in many circumstances than the guns, and you couldn't fire both at the same time
under BMR rules. When TW came out, things changed, dramatically increasing the utility of TAG on this variant by freeing it from an either/or decision on spotting or engaging with its own weapons.
The newest variant, from RS3060U, is a bit... offbeat and raises a few interesting questions. I suspect it's a new-build variant - 95 rated engines don't have a lot of uses other than on hovercraft, which implies they aren't being stripped - given the number of changes from the original, and appears to be fielded mainly by the Jade Falcons. ComStar evidently ran into at least one during a botched attempt to steal a Falcon supply cache somewhere in their OZ in 3072. The first change is the fuel cell engine, replacing the fusion engine I mentioned, and also removing the 'free' heat sinks that the ERMLs were using. It also freed up a half-ton, which was used by switching to standard armor and going to a 14/10/9/13 distribution. (It can now take an ER PPC or Gauss shot to the nose, though.) Okay, fine, I can deal with that, even if it's a bit odd. Hey, an LRM 20 on the back would make a pretty hefty weapon replacement for a cheap recon unit, although you now have to worry about gas (not that much, since it probably runs on hydrogen, but still...). However, that's not what the Falcons did. Instead, they replaced the weapons with a ProtoMech AC/8, with its 3/7/10 range, and ten rounds of ammo. So, basically, now you have to close into range of just about everything in the Clan inventory and most of the nastier things in the Inner Sphere's to do much of anything, you do one more damage than a normal Clan medium laser without either's range (or the MPL's accuracy, for that matter), etc. Nice attempt to use a new weapon, somewhat botched implementation, but at least the BV2 of 333 is low enough to use them in packs. I think I'd prefer either an ERML or MPL, though, combined with some machine guns to take advantage of the free heat sink from the fuel cell engine. The longer reach would be useful and anti-infantry weapons would come in handy against insurgents.
Those questions I mentioned: First, why are the Falcons switching to the use of fuel cells? Attempting to use native industry more efficiently? Second, why are they buying ProtoMech autocannons? They're not very useful for non-Protos, honestly, compared to Clan LRMs. Shiny toy syndrome may explain a lot, though. Third, are they building these things new (which I suspect is the case, although the Falcons are notably
not a vehicle-loving Clan) or have they found some use for the engines somewhere else? And, to add to it after one of Jellico's comments below, are the Falcons actually the ones building these things, or did the design originate with another Clan?
EDIT: Edited in response to a correction by Jellico and to add one more question based on his commentary.
(Later edit to reflect some boneheaded moves on my part during the original article's creation...)
Image Reference: Due to the way the database groups units, the MUL data for the Asshur is more readily accessible if I link to
the spotter and the
reconnaissance models directly. The Asshur is represented on CamoSpecs in
the colors of the Blood Guard Keshik.
