Ah - the noble Jagermech! Proud icon of the Federated Suns! I don’t doubt that it was a matter of some concern to the officers of the AFFS that one of their most famous and recognisable heavy mechs had the all firepower of gentle summer breeze and protection of a biscuit tin. When the opportunity came to redesign this most Davion of mechs, Kallon proudly turned out not one, but two completely reinvented Jagermechs. I have already discussed the 65 ton Jagermech III, so now lets consider its bigger brother, the 70 ton JM7 series Jagermech.
Incidentally, for all the fact that the JM7 series should logically be called Jagermech IIs, officially that term doesn’t seem to be used. Go figure, sometimes the Inner Sphere is weird like that - for the sake of clarity I’m going to call them Jagermech IIs anyway.
The first Jagermech II went into production in 3057 and the resulting JM7-D is armed in a manner highly reminiscent of the Rifleman - twin Ultra-5 Auto cannons and twin ER Large Lasers, one in each arm and a pair of medium pulse lasers in the torsos. This is cooled by thirteen double heat sinks, propelled at 64 kmph by a 280 rated XL engine and protected by eleven tons of ferro-fibrous armour. That's right, 91% coverage biased towards the front – whilst that’s not maximum protection that’s still a respectable carapace for a seventy ton mech and you can take a good number of solid knocks without having to fear being breached. There's a ton of ammo for each Ultra-auto, but even that's padded by the heat sinks spilling out of the engine and there’s CASE protecting the pilot if not the engine. Jagermech IIs can actually stand in line and take a beating while dishing one back out! However it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows - the range brackets of the auto cannons and lasers don’t line up perfectly making it hard to find an optimal engagement range. Also, although the heat sinks cover the primary weapons, once you ramp up the firing rate of the auto cannons or start moving – much less both – you will start to build up some heat. By succession wars standards this is nothing and you can easily drop a large laser occasionally to get things back under control, but it is pity because the JM7-D works best when it can put down a continuous barrage of supporting fire. Heat is much more of a problem if you find yourself at knife fighting range as the temptation is to exploit the large lasers lack of minimum range. In practice you are probably better off accepting the penalty to hit with the auto cannons and firing only one of the large lasers. Nevertheless, the JM7-D is a pretty capable fire support mech and if you keep it in your back line, sustaining a high volume of fire it can more than pull its weight. The JM7-D appears to have made its operational debut in the invasion of Cermak in 3059 (part of Operation Bulldog) where it performed respectably against the Smoke Jaguars, which is no small achievement.
Following on from this in 3062, the JM7-F pulls the arm mounted weaponry from the 7-D in favour of a pair of RAC5s. The pulse lasers are replaced by extended range models and there's enough ammo for the rotary blenders to keep them running at full chat for a minute. If that wasn't enough, the entire set up is augmented by a Guardian ECM suite and a Targeting computer. Ouch. Old timers like me will remember just how evil rotary auto cannons coupled to targeting computers were under previous rules editions and back in the day it was quite possible for a JM-7F to saw open and gut the torso location of your choice in a single turn. These days it is merely a dangerous mid ranged brawler, although the lack of arm actuators can put you at a major disadvantage if things close to melee range. You’ll probably want to run it on point for a lance, so the ECM suite means you can perform an additional service interdicting C3 networks or interfering with enemy targeting.
The JM7-G of 3068 is more in line with the traditional, lighter Jagermechs. It mounts a class 2 rotary and LBX auto cannon in each arm and retains the ER mediums of the JM7-F. Obviously you’re not going to be smacking down an Atlas in a single round with that armament, but it can crit-seek at range or fish for a golden BB like few others whilst staying icy cool all the while. It also performs the traditional AA role better than any of the other models in the JM7 series.
The last model in the series is the JM7-C3BS, which dates from 3075. The mech packs a grand total of four LAC2s and two snub nosed PPCs, making it the first Jagermech II to tote three guns in each arm and swinging hard for the “most dakka” award. There is only one ER Medium laser backing this up, however, which has been moved to the centreline. This time the conversation piece is a boosted C3 slave which is a technology that I’m personally not really sold on. In fact, I’m not really sold on the combination of snub nosed PPCs and C3 networks at all. I can’t really see this being used as a spotter as it’s a bit slow for that role and exploiting the snubbies huge short range isn’t going to help the rest of your lance that much. Meanwhile, hanging back and benefiting from targeting information does nothing to mitigate the damage drop beyond 270 meters.
When it comes to using Jagermech IIs, both the D and the G want to hold the range open and snipe as they only have token secondary weapons. They have enough armour to resist some heavy firepower, but the unreliability of ultra and rotary auto cannons means they don’t dish it out in quite the same quantity as some of their peers like the advanced Marauder and Warhammer variants. As such they really benefit from working alongside something with more close-ranged crunch – something like the JM7-F. Penetrators also spring to mind as a good partner from the AFFC armoury. The JM7-F works best at medium range. All Jagermechs can flip arms but the JM7-F is probably the only mech in the series where you might actually want to exploit that ability on a regular basis – few back stabbers will want to risk two short ranged RAC5s at full chatter and the very threat of that can keep the enemy off your tail if you plunge into the fray.
There is no magic trick to fighting Jagermech IIs - they are all relatively conventional heavies that just need to be beaten down until you can get at their soft innards. The main thing is to know if you're fighting a JM7-F or one of the other variants as you'll want to close with the most of them, but rushing into the loving embrace of a pair of tar-comp augmented RAC5s isn't terribly smart.
