Machine Guns?

[Black_Knyght]

So I have an inquiry requiring personal opinions and their justifications:

Suppose you have an Inner Sphere 70 ton battlemech design, and after all is said and done it now has room and tonnage for 4x machine guns to be mounted on it, ostensibly for anti-infantry defense.

So, what type do you choose to add? Do you add four Light MGs, or Standard MGs, or Heavy MGs, and why THAT specific choice?

[Firesprocket]

Why aren't we using a flamer instead?  Otherwise are we talking clan or is?

[Major Headcase]

Make room for a Machine Gun Array? Then all 4 guns can fire as one attack. I tend to go "middle ground" when I'm fitting back-up weapons, so I would fit Standard guns. Non-specialised  to any specific roll, equally useful vs infantry and enemy mechs in close quarters. The non standard guns will tempt you into going after "ideal" situations to maximize their speciality, or you overlook them in situations that they aren't optimized for. With the standard guns? Just fire them every turn an enemy is in range, don't even worry about what the target is. 😁

[ANS Kamas P81]

LMGs for the range, in all honesty.  Serious infantry has some pretty notable firepower that reaches out to unpleasant ranges.  If I can zot them further away, I'm happy.

That said, plasma rifle means never having to say you're sorry. (Damn Cappies getting the best general-purpose weapon)

[StoneRhino]

I would go with the light machine guns because of the range. There are several other ways to kill infantry, but if you have to fend for yourself and have room for 4 they should be able to mow down at least a platoon per turn while giving you the chance to give the infantry a range modifer.

[JadeHellbringer]

LMGs for the range, in all honesty.  Serious infantry has some pretty notable firepower that reaches out to unpleasant ranges.  If I can zot them further away, I'm happy.

That said, plasma rifle means never having to say you're sorry. (Damn Cappies getting the best general-purpose weapon)

Bingo. LMGs allow you to attack outside the range of many infantry weapons- so if you can reach out and slap the stupid out of some PBIs without their being able to hit back, that's a no-brainer. (Obviously not ALL infantry are helpless in return- SRMs still can hit- but the point stands)

Combining them into an array is also an obvious choice- there's no weight penalty or any of that, so you have nothing to lose by doing so, and can make for a much more devastating attack in the process. While working out the kinks on what eventually became the Men Shen E, I tried the design out in a few tests with LMG arrays and without, and the difference was very noticeable.

What not to do? Heavy MGs. The power sounds great, but the range reduction now means that those infantry may actually outrange YOU in some cases, and that won't fly. HMGs are best left alone whenever possible, in favor of standard or light models.

(This assumes flamers are unavailable for whatever reason- perhaps your unit is a vehicle that doesn't have spare heat sinks, something like that. Flamers are generally a better way to go though than standard MGs.)

[anastrace]

I have always been a fan of LMGs myself. 6 hex range vs. 3 or 2 means I can reach out and touch infantry whenever I want. Plus even though the damage is minimal vs mechs, a lot of times it's more for the off chance of a critical hit. Nothing more embarrassing than losing a nearly intact mech to a machine gun crit.

A lot of times, I will toss an srm 2 on a mech with infernos and have a good old fashioned inner sphere bbq!

[Kovax]

Two LMGs and a Flamer, in my opinion.  The LMGs give you a bit more reach in more open situations, while the Flamer barbecues anything that manages to use cover well enough to get into conventional infantry weapons range.  Three independent shots means more likelihood of at least doing some damage and sharply reducing the inbound fire for the next turn, rather than an "all or nothing" shot with an array.  The Flamer also won't run out of ammo, ever.

[Weirdo]

If you don't expect your mech will do much city fighting, go for LMGs for the range. If you do plan to take this thing into a concrete jungle on a regular basis, LMGs are near-useless because they lack the punch needed to damage things inside buildings. HMGs can actually do that, and range is much less of an issue there, so those would be my advice for a city fighter.

If both city and open field combat are equal possibilities, split the difference with standard MGs.

[Col Toda]

3 light machine guns in an array . Headcase is correct here .

[celem]

Quad HMG.
Now I get to defend the obvious idiot option...

The OP states that these weapons are 'ostensibly for anti-infantry defense'. 
In my experience any weaponry I fit intended to defend against infantry will spend the majority of it's time firing at mechs despite design intentions, so here I'm aiming to cut the curve and take a shortcut to great victory.

So when you do come up against infantry they now probably have the range drop on you, which is fine.  Its an infy stand, how scared of it are we really? (If you play against humans who like doing things like packing platoons with 1-shot launchers then ok...this could suck some, but those tricks are going to gotcha an LMG packing mech too.).

So my point basically is that i'd fit the 'inferior' option, because I don't rate the threat and would rather said MGs contributed during my 'standard' engagements.

(caveats, i've never really played around with forces after 3050, so I may be showing far too little respect for BA and other advanced inf, 3-4SW inf is largely comical)

[JadeHellbringer]

Well... battle armor are a problem. All but the most lightly-protected suits will shrug off an HMG hit and just get mad. They probably are hitting back with significant weaponry themselves, and if they're in range where you're firing HMGs the real threat is being swarmed- you don't want some guy in a Salamander suit opening up your left torso to rearrange everything in there to his liking. So when it comes to battle armor, leave the anti-infantry weapons out of it in-general and switch straight up to the kind of weaponry you'd use to kill a small Battlemech- medium lasers are a great choice. The best way to get rid of them, ideally, is area-effect weaponry like a Long Tom, but that can be a little inaccurate and messy. But yeah, MGs, flamers, etc. (hell, some suits are literally invulnerable to flamers!), that stuff is out the window when battle armor are the threat. Don't play around- kill them before they kill you. (Watching a Golem suit- ONE- take a Gauss hit and shrug it off was a serious lesson!)

As for modern infantry, there's new tricks for sure. LRM-equipped infantry are a neat trick, for example. And of course anti-Mech squads with leg-crippling satchel charges are a nasty thing, especially in a city where they can hide in buildings before running out to surprise you. That's bad- especially since once they're in your Mechs' hex you can't do anything to them other than panicked physical attacks and hysterical sobbing. The Total Warfare revamp to infantry also makes all unarmored infantry units far, far more durable than they used to be, so killing off a squad like that can get a little rough if you didn't bring the right tools for the job.

They're still a cheap and questionable-use option on most battlefields, but used in the right environment some infantry can become a real menace. It's worth keeping a unit or two around that can get rid of them quickly and efficiently- and better if it's something mobile that can rapidly deploy to the trouble spot for the job. The old Vulcan really is still one of the better options for the job (and cheap to boot), as well as the Firestarter (standard or Omni). If you're willing to risk vehicles, there's other great options available as well- the Ignis is an extinct design, but if you happen to salvage one or two they make infantry melt away like snow in Ecuador. The VV1 Ranger, Chalupa-Tank, Shoden LBX, and Joust are more recent tanks that excel at anti-infantry work as well.

[Kovax]

As pointed out, most of the time you'll be using your anti-infantry weapons against other 'Mechs and vehicles anyway.  In this case, I'll accept the reduced damage of LMGs against 'Mechs (out to ranges where I can't use standard MGs) and fire them for the crit chance (without building up any extra heat), rather than for sheer damage.  I've got Medium Lasers for doing damage.  If the infantry is in a building, I'm going to switch to the medium lasers anyway, because the MG is only going to pass a single point of damage to the troops inside, if even that, and I can plink the infantry from outside of their return fire range with the ML.

A Flamer will wreck infantry in the open, and has a high probably of setting a building on fire, which is a rapid way of getting the enemy troops out of it.  I may want the Flamer for other options anyway, such as fire and smoke, as well as for incinerating enemy infrastructure and materials, or teasing shut-downs and other heat effects on opposing units that ride the heat curve; its anti-infantry effects are just one more application.

[massey]

If you have light and heavy machine guns available, then the era you're playing in has the option of small pulse lasers.  I'd take those every day of the week over any type of machine gun.  That -2 to hit makes all the difference.  2, possibly 3 small pulse lasers (whatever your ammo weight is) make you a more reliable infantry killer.  I hate running (or jumping) into terrain and finding myself needing 8s or 9s to hit some infantry who are sitting in the woods next to me.

[Weirdo]

Doing Horrible Things to People sense,
tingling!

Its an infy stand, how scared of it are we really?

If your opponent is competent? VERY. >:D

[sadlerbw]

Ok, I’m going to hijack for a minute here: it always annoys me that so very many of the ‘anti-infantry’ weapons in the game are a joke against battle armor. It isn’t so much that I think BA are overpowered or anything, more that it takes all those ‘anti-infantry’ weapons and makes their niche, and the niche of the mechs that focus on them, even more narrow. You get mechs like the fire starter and Vulcan that are at least credible against conventional infantry, and they are just about worthless against battle armor.

Anyway, my rant aside, i usually prefer to either go light or heavy. That extra one pip of range at a -4 to-hit for the standard MGs over the heavies hasn’t been worth a whole lot to me. If I want the extra range, the lights are a much more useful step up. When picking between the two, for me anyway, it largely comes down to how fast the unit is and how far it can jump. If the unit is mobile enough to generally dictate range, I don’t mind the heavy MGs. If I’m slower than 6/9 or so, depending on era, then I’ll prefer the lights. I’m another one of those people who cares more about my MGs still being useful against non-infantry than ultimate anti-infantry effectiveness.

[JadeHellbringer]

See to me, that's the fun to battle armor. Wouldn't you love to have been some of those early FedCom troops to face the Jade Falcons, call in a Vulcan to deal with those weird infantry-looking things hopping towards your front line, watching that MG roar and... the trooper doesn't even flinch? Laughs off the flamer? Even the medium laser seems to just make it mad? After all, if it's vulnerable to the same stuff regular infantry are, why bother in the first place?

(Both, as it turns out, react poorly to area-effect weaponry though, so that Loki Mk.II-B's Long Tom is a very messy but effective way to make them all vanish to the undiscovered country.)

[Weirdo]

Agreed. To me, battle Armor are supposed to be scary, and the ineffectiveness of light antipersonnel weapons against them is a big part of that.

[sadlerbw]

Oh, from a fluff perspective, I totally agree. Making them shrug off infantry-scale arms fire makes them sufficiently scary..well except for the flamers thing. I still think fluff-wise Flamers should roast non-fireproof battle armor alive.

It is from the game perspective that it annoys me. Conventional infantry had strengths and weaknesses that made mechs with otherwise terrible weapons have more of a reason to exist. Mech-scale weapons weren't all that good against infantry, but the otherwise horrid MG and Flamer were. With Battle Armor, they are most effectively killed either without using mechs at all (Arty and Bombs), or plain old mech-scale weapons. Since that is what the clans 'do' for infantry, and the IS almost immediately jumped on the Battle Armor bandwagon, it turned MGs and flamers into a waste on most things built after 3050. Why bother with them? If you need to kill conventional infantry, your BA are really good at that, so why bother using MGs or Flamers ever again? Not only did anti-infantry mech weapons end up being largely ineffective against BA, but BA became as good, if not better, than mechs with anti-infantry weapons at killing conventional infantry.

I get the fluff reasoning, but I always disliked the gameplay effect it had. That's just me though, and I'm more than willing to use house rules or the rapid fire rules from TacOps to help get things back to where I prefer them.

[ANS Kamas P81]

If your opponent is competent? VERY. >:D

I'm not going to lie, I still giggle madly at the idea of APGRs as field guns.  Think about the numbers...

[Weirdo]

Yeesh, talk about mowing the lawn...

[Black_Knyght]

Why aren't we using a flamer instead?  Otherwise are we talking clan or is?

The tech base in question is to be Inner Sphere, and as for flamers - heat is an issue so they're ruled out. For the same reason pulse lasers are ruled out.

[Scotty]

Oh, from a fluff perspective, I totally agree. Making them shrug off infantry-scale arms fire makes them sufficiently scary..well except for the flamers thing. I still think fluff-wise Flamers should roast non-fireproof battle armor alive.

It is from the game perspective that it annoys me. Conventional infantry had strengths and weaknesses that made mechs with otherwise terrible weapons have more of a reason to exist. Mech-scale weapons weren't all that good against infantry, but the otherwise horrid MG and Flamer were. With Battle Armor, they are most effectively killed either without using mechs at all (Arty and Bombs), or plain old mech-scale weapons. Since that is what the clans 'do' for infantry, and the IS almost immediately jumped on the Battle Armor bandwagon, it turned MGs and flamers into a waste on most things built after 3050. Why bother with them? If you need to kill conventional infantry, your BA are really good at that, so why bother using MGs or Flamers ever again? Not only did anti-infantry mech weapons end up being largely ineffective against BA, but BA became as good, if not better, than mechs with anti-infantry weapons at killing conventional infantry.

I get the fluff reasoning, but I always disliked the gameplay effect it had. That's just me though, and I'm more than willing to use house rules or the rapid fire rules from TacOps to help get things back to where I prefer them.

Prior to Total Warfare (hell, I honestly don't know how far back, I just know it persisted until well after the Clans' introduction), all weapons did full damage to infantry.  The niche to which you are referring, in game terms, has never actually existed except recently.  There has never existed a time in the rules where infantry were hard to kill by primary weapons and vulnerable to anti-infantry weapons that was not also infringed by battle armor.

But if it helps, things like the Firestarter and Vulcan used to be even less useful.

[sadlerbw]

Prior to Total Warfare (hell, I honestly don't know how far back, I just know it persisted until well after the Clans' introduction), all weapons did full damage to infantry.  The niche to which you are referring, in game terms, has never actually existed except recently.  There has never existed a time in the rules where infantry were hard to kill by primary weapons and vulnerable to anti-infantry weapons that was not also infringed by battle armor.

But if it helps, things like the Firestarter and Vulcan used to be even less useful.

Really? I suppose i shouldn't doubt you on this, and my copy of the Battletech Compendium (my first BT rulebook) is at home right now so I can't look it up. Still, assuming you are correct, which you probably are, TW came out in 2006. So, 'recently' is now over a decade. I know this game is almost as old as I am, but we are taking about close to a third of its existence being under the TW rules. It's not like it is really a new development. Anyway, even though anti-infantry weapons used to suck even more, it doesn't change the fact that I still don't like how TW has the rules to make those weapons more meaningful, and then just wholesale exempts BA from them!

Honestly, the Vulcan is fine if you ditch the AC2. I use the Davion variant all the time as sort of a bigger Fire Javelin. I've been known to dump the MG ammo on the first turn and use the arms as bullet sponges. The Firestarter? Well...the one with all the RL20's isn't so bad.

[Black_Knyght]

Replace the Vulcan's AC/2 with a LPL, and add a couple more MGs, and it's a nasty PBI-killer. ;)

[Firesprocket]

The tech base in question is to be Inner Sphere, and as for flamers - heat is an issue so they're ruled out. For the same reason pulse lasers are ruled out.

The choice is going to be based off of what the terrain is.  If I am going to go into a city and go block to block knowing buildings surround me it is going to be 4 MGs.  If the space is expected to me more open than it is going to be 4 LMGs.  If I don't know 4 MGs would be default.  4 HMG takes up to much tonnage (4 tons!) that is going to end up being next to useless if I am fighting something other than infantry outside of knife fighting range.

[RoundTop]

Piranha.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Piranha

12 Machine guns to kill things.

[Grognard]

when it comes to MGs, I miss my old college crew's "house rules"...

MGs get 'pulse weapon modifiers' & do 2d6 damage BUT use 3d6 ammo amount. (maybe 4D6, I forget)

[Col Toda]

The use of the machine gun array is optional when you choose to fire. I like light machine guns for a couple of reasons . First short range is not melee physical attack range . Second if your unit is faster with an array it has 1 in 36 chance of amplifying effectiveness . For example a light machine gun array /4  rolls a 2 facing torso possibly crit and gets a 10 on the cluster table giving you 3  possible critcals  or location 12 head for 3 one point hits and 3 pilot consciousness checks . Yes it is less effective in damaging infantry but its greater utility makes it hard to say no to. I hope Black Knight got  enough imput to make up his mind on what is best for him

[Firesprocket]

The use of the machine gun array is optional when you choose to fire.

The decision to fire with or without the array's benefits are actually decided on whether you leave the array on or turned off.  If you choose to do the later it has to be done during the end phase.