Author Topic: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)  (Read 14015 times)

marauder648

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(Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« on: 28 September 2017, 15:44:27 »
The Crossbow (IIC?) Oh..just the Crossbow then.

Background

The Crossbow started life way back in the late 2800s during the Clans Golden Century.  Designed by Clan Steel Viper who wanted to kickstart their OmniMech production, with them being newcomers to the field they were aided by group of Clan Snow Raven Scientists that had been captured and claimed by the Vipers. 

The design itself was hardly innovative, and could be called extremely conservative, featuring very little in the way of advanced technology in its construction and limiting the pods to the arms.  These arm pods are quite unique, more like a detachable turret with a plug and play link up, the arms can be swapped out and replaced with new pods very quickly.
Later variants did change this slightly with the addition of weapons to the torso but the Mech’s arms are where you will always find the primary armament.

Still, despite these drawbacks the 65 ton Mech is far from useless.  Its dirt cheap to produce, uses little resources but is tough and has a potent targeting system that, if you get into short ranges becomes lethally accurate.

Design

At 65 tons the Crossbow is very much a heavy Mech and its 325-rated standard engine let it hit typical Clan heavy Mech speeds of 86kph at a full run.  The designers didn’t try mounting jump jets and no advancer materials went into the Mech’s construction. So that’s no endo-steel and no ferro-fibrous armour, and with a large and heavy standard engine, it cuts down on what the Crossbow can carry.

But this also makes the damn thing very tough, and 12 tons of armour give it good protection, with a hide thicker than that of a Mad Dog or Loki (admittedly a soggy biscuit has more protection than a Loki) and the Crossbow boats similar protection to the wildly popular and successful Summoner.

9/19/26/19 (9/13/9)
18/18/26/26

But all this heavy standard equipment does bite into what the Crossbow can carry, and a somewhat meagre 16 tons of pod space are available.  Still despite this the Vipers and their Raven Scientists did manage to make it a viable machine, one that saw a lot more variants than one would think for a Mech that had clear design limitations worked into its hull.

And that tends to be simple but effective design choices and pairing up weapon systems of the same type.

One other thing was that the Crossbow design is VERY handsome, at least in my mind, its sleek and elegant, lots of artfully worked curves, not the brutalist styling of Clan Omni’s seen in REVIVAL, but something that’s more…1930’s sports car elegant.

Variants

Prime – The simple but effective weapon mix starts here.  A pair of LRM-20’s with Artemis IV fire control, each fed by a 2-ton ammo bin and that’s it. 
Under gunned for a Clan 65 tonner but still not bad, 40 missiles are a whole lotta spam, and the Artemis is a nice touch, less useful later on with the proliferation of ECM though.  Still 2 tons per launcher gives you adequate endurance by Clan standards, and of course, the Clan LRM’s don’t care what range you’re at when fighting so don’t be afraid to get close. 

Alfa – An attempt at a multi-role version the A is very much a jack of all trades and master of none.  A pair of LRM-5’s gives some long-range firepower but at best it’s a tickle, so if you can, load up with other ammo, but this is Clans, pre-REVIVIAL so they won’t.
The A is instead much happier at close range, a pair of Medium pulse lasers and SSRM-6’s gives it a good punch, but it’s still very weak for a 65-ton machine.  The good thing is that its BV is dirt cheap so that’s a plus for sure.  The Streaks and pulsers let you deal with faster foes and this thing can quite happily bully a light or medium, but its outgunned by many heavies.

Bravo
– The B takes the A’s “I’m a jack of all trades” approach and throws it out the window.  A quartet of Streak 6’s, two in each arm are what the Bravo packs and each has their own ton of ammo, so, thanks to them being streak launchers, you’re not going to have the typical Clan ammo problems any time soon.   Whilst it lacks a knock down punch, the B can sandblast a Mech’s armour off whilst also making a serious threat to tanks and Battle Armour.  This may well be its role as the missile spam can cripple Elementals outside of the battle armours effective range to reply.  Still, you don’t want to let this thing get close, and its fast enough to do it considering the period that it was encountered by the Inner Sphere. 

Charlie – New toys time and of course it’s not a H so we all know what that means, ATM time.  This time it’s an ATM-6 in each arm with a nice and generous 3-ton ammo bin per launcher allowing full use of the ammo types available.
The Charlie also features the first torso mounted weapons in the form of a pair of Heavy Machine guns, one in each side torso to help caramelize infantry forces.  An ECM is added to the mix too. 
The C like the B lacks a knock down punch, but like the B, it’s another sand blaster, the threat of 12 HE missiles can’t also be underestimated.  The C is screaming out to be paired up as a bodyguard, its big brother makes the holes and this fills them with explosives.

Delta – A bit of a weird one, I’m not sure where this is from but it screams SOCIETY to me.  Instead of missiles for support we see the newly introduced Mech Mortar get rolled out in a Crossbow variant.  The D has a Mech Mortar-8 in each arm and each draws from their own 3-ton ammo bin allowing for flexibility with the ammo choices available to the Mortars. 
Of course, the Mortars have their own drawbacks, they have a 180-meter minimum range and don’t do much damage.  But, their range is nice, the flexible ammo types are a bonus too.  Unfortunately, you only get 4 shots per ton so if you do break out the special ammo, beware you get only 4 shots of it.  (Seriously, what calibre is this mortar?  The largest mortar in service today fires a 240mm round and that weighs 130kg, a MM-8’s round is 250kg, is this thing a sawn-off battleship cannon?)
A pure support unit, the D is vulnerable to anyone who gets close and it can’t really fight on its own due to its limited damage.  Take with friends, put friends in front of threats and rain HE down on baddies.  Not your friends, it tends to irk.

Echo – The E was designed by someone who REALLY liked APGRs and had a serious hatred on for infantry.  Eight, yes eight Anti-Personnel Gauss Rifles live in EACH ARM, and these are all linked into a targeting computer.  This allows the E to spit out a huge volume of relatively light damaging shots to medium ranges (literally Medium laser range).  Sure, if all 16 APGR’s hit the same spot that’s more damage than a double tap from an Ultra-20, but you would have to have Lady Luck and Admiral Awesome smiling upon you that day if it did happen.  Oh and six tons of ammo let you hammer away.
So basically, what we have is another sandblaster, much like the Prime, A, B and C.  Put this near any infantry formation though if you want them to go away in a cloud of hypersonic flechettes.

Hotel – It’s a H so we all know what that means.  Finally, we move away from being a sandblaster!  The big showpiece of the H is its Heavy large laser, which brings a big punch to the table.  To counter the heat surge pumped out by the laser, four more heatsinks are installed.  The rest of the weapons are a curious hodgepodge.  A LRM-15 and its 2 tons of ammo live in the other arm and this provides cover whilst the H gets into range for its heavy laser, but then it falls a bit flat.  A quartet of LMG’s with half a ton of ammo between them fill out the rest of the weapons and these live in the torso.  This curiously makes the H over-sinked and removing one heatsink in favour of even a pair of ER Smalls would have been a better choice.  Still it’s got a good punch and its not totally defenceless at long range.

Uniform – A product of the Wars of Reaving the U is an ultra-specialized underwater fighter, meaning that you won’t see it outside of special deployments.  But its very very good at what it does, even if it is in a limited role.
To do its role the U has a pair of LRT-10’s as well as a pair of SRT-2’s for close in work.  As most Mech’s that fight under water don’t feature weapons specialized for the environment, so this gives the U the ability to engage at longer ranges than most threats can return fire. Finally, a pair of ER Mediums give good, dependable firepower.  The final polish on this underwater fighter’s sheen is a full group of UMU’s to allow it to move faster than a typical Mech when underwater. They have to walk, this thing can zum along thanks to its prop-pods. 
Although extremely specialized, its good at what it does, but don’t expect to see this in a pick-up game.
 
Thoughts

A family of sandblasters, the Crossbow is under gunned, cheap but quirky.  Fast and tough, with enough firepower to make it a viable threat on the battlefield but not suffering from Kit Fox-itus where you have too much firepower but are squishy and thus easily removed.  The Crossbow, to me, makes a good wing-man. It can engage a distracted opponent or move in to take out a badly damaged target with its many crit seeking weapons.  All but one lacks any real knock down wallop and rely on flaying the armour off with repeated strikes or relying on a lucky crit.  Still they can sandblast quite easily thanks to the weapons choices.  And, fortunately, there’s no donkey choices with LB or Ultra 2’s which would eat into the available tonnage far too much. 
Even the Crossbow D is okay, as its built to operate in a situation where Zell’s been thrown screaming from a building whilst on fire.  It’s a pure support unit and its designed to operate in an environment where it would be supported.  Hint, don’t take the D out and expect to solo someone who’s not an infantry platoon.

What we get is a good support platform, but not an outstanding one.  Don’t have too high expectations of it doing amazing things, but the Crossbow won’t underperform if it is allowed to do its job either. 

Fighting one, go for the arms, limb one and you get rid of 100% of their firepower in most variants. Otherwise it’s a case of leg it or core it.  Since all their ammo is carried in the arms, you can’t really kill them that way (also, standard engine) so it’s more a case of applying sledge hammer to object until it falls apart.









Presumably what the D's guns are based on, that's a 15-inch howitzer.


As always, thoughts and comments are most welcome.

« Last Edit: 28 September 2017, 15:55:41 by marauder648 »
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Iron Mongoose

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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #1 on: 28 September 2017, 17:46:43 »
I'd initially thought that this one had been done before; I realized it had, just a decade ago (September 07).  Seems like less than that, somehow...

In any event, my decade old conclusions are broadly still valid.  It's problematic from a chassis standpoint, but manages to make itself usable by using some of the best weapons in the game for it's Prime and B variants (the A is pretty forgettable, and the others come from a different design team).  Fact is, 40 guided Clan LRMs is enough to make a threat out of any mech, or 24 streak SRMs if your zombie nature allows you to get in close.  As noted, it's as tough as you can make it, which combined with it's poor power means it will tend to be a mech that lasts late into battles.

Truthfully, I'd have liked to see a laser configuration or two.  The vast empty crit space just cries out for massive banks of heatsinks.  Something in the mold of the Nova H, perhaps, might have actually made use that space, or even something utterly silly with a mass of ER small or micro lasers or something. 

The revised fluff makes the mech make a lot more sense, as a very early Omni that simply hasn't been retired but rather just given fresh guns over it's two century old bones. 

One thing I have enjoyed is using it with an IS unit in a campaign.  The idea was that it would be tremendously easy for IS techs to repair and keep in the field, and not really that valuable to trade away.  Usually I'll do a single big energy weapon (HLL, ER PPC, HPPC) and a suite of MLs for close in work.  Still not a great mech, and even worse if you are forced to use IS weapons, but a fun change of pace and something you can be sure no one else will be using.
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marauder648

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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #2 on: 28 September 2017, 23:26:24 »
I'd initially thought that this one had been done before; I realized it had, just a decade ago (September 07).  Seems like less than that, somehow...

In any event, my decade old conclusions are broadly still valid.  It's problematic from a chassis standpoint, but manages to make itself usable by using some of the best weapons in the game for it's Prime and B variants (the A is pretty forgettable, and the others come from a different design team).  Fact is, 40 guided Clan LRMs is enough to make a threat out of any mech, or 24 streak SRMs if your zombie nature allows you to get in close.  As noted, it's as tough as you can make it, which combined with it's poor power means it will tend to be a mech that lasts late into battles.

Truthfully, I'd have liked to see a laser configuration or two.  The vast empty crit space just cries out for massive banks of heatsinks.  Something in the mold of the Nova H, perhaps, might have actually made use that space, or even something utterly silly with a mass of ER small or micro lasers or something. 

The revised fluff makes the mech make a lot more sense, as a very early Omni that simply hasn't been retired but rather just given fresh guns over it's two century old bones. 

One thing I have enjoyed is using it with an IS unit in a campaign.  The idea was that it would be tremendously easy for IS techs to repair and keep in the field, and not really that valuable to trade away.  Usually I'll do a single big energy weapon (HLL, ER PPC, HPPC) and a suite of MLs for close in work.  Still not a great mech, and even worse if you are forced to use IS weapons, but a fun change of pace and something you can be sure no one else will be using.

You'd done this O_o  it didn't show up when I did a search for it on the articles :s
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glitterboy2098

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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #3 on: 29 September 2017, 00:07:27 »
Anyone Else think the C config could easily be used as a basis for a Society iATM design? swap the launchers, then drop the HMG's to standards and  replace the ECM with a Nova CEWS..

or just drop the HMG's entirely for another 2 tons of ammo for the iATM's.

i agree the mech mortar version seems odd for the clans.. according to the MUL, it's earliest users are Blood Spirit, Snow Raven, and Steel Viper (though it is on the Clan general list).. which really doesn't help narrow it down.

Jihad era adds the Stone Lions, afterwards it is just the Ravens (due to lack of info on the homeworlds, probably)
« Last Edit: 29 September 2017, 00:09:18 by glitterboy2098 »

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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #4 on: 29 September 2017, 01:36:45 »
I quite like the design except for the fact over half the configurations lack any use of the side torsos.  The worry being a critical roll against then ends up transferring to the center torso and quickly eating the engine or gyro.

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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #5 on: 29 September 2017, 02:29:29 »
The mortar-8 is supposed to be an eight shot mortar, not one big one.  :P When it was first introduced in the Tactical Handbook of old, you were supposed to use the missile hits table to determine how many shots hit. In fact, the Mech Mortar-8 was the first such weapon to use a then non-standard means of resolving the number hit (roll on the 4 table and multiply by two).

In fact, the Mortar-8 might actually be firing smaller diameter shells than the smaller mortars, since it's got too many shots to align with the smaller ones.

As for the Crossbow, I've always been fond of it. I kinda wish the Snow Ravens had given the plans to the Outworlds Alliance. As omnis go, it's a great starter.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #6 on: 29 September 2017, 04:00:38 »
I've hated the Crossbow for a long time due its ridiculously low pod space and, initially, all of the weapons being arm-mounted only. I still hate it.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #7 on: 29 September 2017, 07:13:32 »
I've always been a fan, actually, since it's the perfect 'Mech for my Blood Spirits: low cost, low tech, high durability.  In fact, I firmly believe the H configuration was a Spirit-designed variant because they adopted the heavy lasers fairly quickly and the LRM-15 is one of their most-proliferated weapon systems.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #8 on: 29 September 2017, 09:41:44 »
I've always been a fan, actually, since it's the perfect 'Mech for my Blood Spirits: low cost, low tech, high durability.  In fact, I firmly believe the H configuration was a Spirit-designed variant because they adopted the heavy lasers fairly quickly and the LRM-15 is one of their most-proliferated weapon systems.

Agreed. The fact that the Ravens helped produce it makes it possible that the Spirits received some Crossbows from the Ravens.

Conversely, I see the Echo variant being developed by the Vipers/Adders to counter the large number of conventional infantry Stars the Spirits fielded.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #9 on: 29 September 2017, 12:25:32 »
You'd done this O_o  it didn't show up when I did a search for it on the articles :s

It wouldn't, having been lost in the crash of 2011 and not reposted (by design, so that folks like yourself would never feel weighed down by prior authors' work).  There was also a CWD article in 2003 about it (that was before my time, so I have no memory of it).  You can see titles of the lost articles on the archive thread (you have to go down to the third and fourth post): http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=174.0

I just noticed, CWD also did his Crossbow article in September.  Makes it three for three.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #10 on: 29 September 2017, 14:22:09 »
One thing to remember about the Echo: one crit to an arm and the mechwarrior's head is liable to melt.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #11 on: 29 September 2017, 18:47:16 »
I've always been a fan, actually, since it's the perfect 'Mech for my Blood Spirits: low cost, low tech, high durability.  In fact, I firmly believe the H configuration was a Spirit-designed variant because they adopted the heavy lasers fairly quickly and the LRM-15 is one of their most-proliferated weapon systems.

Same. Did you mod your minature?

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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #12 on: 30 September 2017, 09:03:10 »
I don't actually have one.  Yet.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #13 on: 30 September 2017, 10:08:56 »
While I've always been a bit of a fan of the Crossbow's sleek aesthetics, I find the 19 points of armor in the side torso to be a huge turn off given that there are no crit padding in either torso. Common weapons like ERLLs or LPLs, or even 3 ERML blasts will go straight through to crit the center torso.  #P 

IMO this design would be way better if it had ES or FF and just put even one more ton into armor. Oh well.

Fun fact is the Crossbow is on the 7 position of the 3150 Raven Alliance RAT. How weird is that?
« Last Edit: 02 October 2017, 14:54:58 by Crow »
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #14 on: 30 September 2017, 14:15:57 »
While I've always been a bit of a fan of the Crossbow's sleek aesthetics, I find the 19 points of armor in the side torso to be a huge turn off given that there are no crit padding in either torso. Common weapons like ERLLs or LPLs, or even 3 ERML blasts will go straight through to crit the center torso.  #P 

IMO this design would be way better if it had ES or FF and just put even one more ton into armor. Oh well.

Fun fact is the Crossbow is on the 7 position of the 3145 Raven Alliance RAT. How weird is that?

I mean, they battled the Vipers a LOT, and captured Raven Scientists originally made it, and I'm assuming it's cheap to make.  Could either be salvage or they put it back into production in sheer desperation.  Since I dig the Ravens, the Vipers, and this mech, I am okay with this.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #15 on: 01 October 2017, 00:42:11 »
Fun fact is the Crossbow is on the 7 position of the 3145 Raven Alliance RAT. How weird is that?

Which pub has that?  I have both FM and ER 3145 and neither of them has any mention of the Crossbow.  Not that it wouldn't make good sense to restart Omni production with as much KISS as possible when the Ravens relocated.  The only factory that was known to make them was vaporized during the sacking of the Vipers at New Kent.

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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #16 on: 01 October 2017, 01:39:20 »
I always wondered why comstar was so focused on the Battle Cobra when this beauty could be built off the shelf, technology wise.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #17 on: 01 October 2017, 02:31:18 »
From the description in TRO: 3058U, it had to do with the number of Battle Cobras they captured more or less intact.

And honestly, reverse-engineering the Battle Cobra gave them a better than this thing.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #18 on: 01 October 2017, 03:40:01 »
One thing to remember about the Echo: one crit to an arm and the mechwarrior's head is liable to melt.
I've been calling it the Popcorn Crossbow since I first saw it.  One APGR crit means another crit roll which is probably going to be another one or two APGRs, ad nauseam until the lid comes off.  The pilot, of course, is quite long since expired, and what's even funnier is that Clan-tech CASE means even a worst-case arm loss still means the seat can be hosed off and the 'Mech driven out as salvage.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #19 on: 01 October 2017, 05:41:09 »
The lack of side torso equipment was likely an act of sabotage from the Raven scientists.  ;)
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #20 on: 01 October 2017, 09:19:13 »
I've been calling it the Popcorn Crossbow since I first saw it.  One APGR crit means another crit roll which is probably going to be another one or two APGRs, ad nauseam until the lid comes off.  The pilot, of course, is quite long since expired, and what's even funnier is that Clan-tech CASE means even a worst-case arm loss still means the seat can be hosed off and the 'Mech driven out as salvage.

It's got 16 explosive slots in case of crit.  I don't think there's any other mech that comes close to that (not counting mechs like the Fafnir since they can only be critted once on a given side).
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #21 on: 01 October 2017, 11:03:47 »
The Kraken 3 has 16 I believe.  Have to feed all those LRMs ammo somehow.

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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #22 on: 02 October 2017, 07:08:57 »
The mortar-8 is supposed to be an eight shot mortar, not one big one.  :P When it was first introduced in the Tactical Handbook of old, you were supposed to use the missile hits table to determine how many shots hit. In fact, the Mech Mortar-8 was the first such weapon to use a then non-standard means of resolving the number hit (roll on the 4 table and multiply by two).

In fact, the Mortar-8 might actually be firing smaller diameter shells than the smaller mortars, since it's got too many shots to align with the smaller ones.

As for the Crossbow, I've always been fond of it. I kinda wish the Snow Ravens had given the plans to the Outworlds Alliance. As omnis go, it's a great starter.
What he said. I'm pretty certain a Mech Mortar 8 is 8 mortars, like it's done with LRMs. In that case, a single round for the MM8 would be 31.25 kg.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #23 on: 02 October 2017, 13:16:26 »
What he said. I'm pretty certain a Mech Mortar 8 is 8 mortars, like it's done with LRMs. In that case, a single round for the MM8 would be 31.25 kg.

That being said, there's a couple pieces of art (the Antlion and a vehicle whose name I forget) that depicts their mortars as single tube weapons. Even then, though, I expect it's more a rapid fire autoloading thing.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #24 on: 02 October 2017, 14:56:01 »
I've been calling it the Popcorn Crossbow since I first saw it.  One APGR crit means another crit roll which is probably going to be another one or two APGRs, ad nauseam until the lid comes off.  The pilot, of course, is quite long since expired, and what's even funnier is that Clan-tech CASE means even a worst-case arm loss still means the seat can be hosed off and the 'Mech driven out as salvage.

This really makes me reassess how I feel about the Summoner Z, to be honest.  :-\
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #25 on: 02 October 2017, 16:59:11 »
That being said, there's a couple pieces of art (the Antlion and a vehicle whose name I forget) that depicts their mortars as single tube weapons. Even then, though, I expect it's more a rapid fire autoloading thing.

IIRC, every depiction of a Mech Mortar in the artwork has been a single-tube weapon.  Obviously it fires in bursts.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #26 on: 02 October 2017, 18:36:29 »
IIRC, every depiction of a Mech Mortar in the artwork has been a single-tube weapon.  Obviously it fires in bursts.

Honestly, now that you mention it the only depictions I can think of are the two I mentioned earlier. I wonder if there are any other examples.
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MoneyLovinOgre4Hire

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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #27 on: 02 October 2017, 19:58:56 »
The Ha Otoko-HR in XTRO The Clans is the only other one I know of.
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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #28 on: 03 October 2017, 02:29:43 »
Mechmortar 8 reminds me of something like a faster-firing AMOS that's automatically ToTing its fire.  *chunk*chunk*chunk*chunk*chunk*chunk*chunk*chunk* "You got time to duck?"
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Sjhernan3060

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Re: (Slightly early) Mech of the week - Crossbow (Omni)
« Reply #29 on: 03 October 2017, 11:01:36 »
Does anyone have picts of other configs of this they made?

 

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