Fire Ant FNT-1R
Mass: 15 tons
Chassis: Argyle FF/05
Power Plant: DAV 90 Fusion
Cruising Speed: 64.8 kph
Maximum Speed: 97.2 kph
Jump Jets: Luxor Load Lifters
Jump Capacity: 60 meters
Armor: Livingston Ceramics
Armament:
1 Medium Laser
2 Machine Gun
Manufacturer: Argile Technologies
Primary Factory: Yed Posterior (Destroyed 2788)
Communication System: Cyclops 14
Targeting & Tracking System: Tansec C30-97
Introduction Year: 2750
Tech Rating/Availability: D/E-F-E-E
Cost: 938,285 C-bills
In its heyday often described as a "knockoff of a knockoff", or alternately a "GarMart brand Stinger", the Fire Ant was intended to be a streamlined low cost version of the already low cost classic bug mechs like the Wasp and Stinger, a mech suitable for light scouting, security duty, and policing, but at a cost per unit of less than one million Star League dollars. And for the most part, it was a very successful design in that regard. The base model was able to match the ground speed, overall armor protection, and weapons load of the standard Stinger with what were described as only "limited compromises" due to its smaller size, and it hit the manufacturing price without an issue, coming in at a sticker price nearly seven hundred thousand dollars less than a stock STG-3R.
How limited those design compromises were, however, is somewhat subject to debate. Slashing the ammunition for the twin arm mounted machine guns in half was widely seen as no great loss, of course. Any Stinger or Locust pilot worth their salt could tell you that the standard ammunition load was ambitious for even the most high intensity combat, and penny pinching commands were already short loading these more familiar mechs to save on expenditures. Jump capacity, however, is a touchier subject. In order to get the design to its target weight, Argyle Technologies cut most of the Fire Ant's jump capacity compared to the Wasp and Stinger it was competing against, retaining just enough to clear short obstacles or small buildings. While the Fire Ant's mobility was serviceable in most environments, this lack of effective jump capability could prove deadly in scouting operations, particularly in rough country or when attempting to evade mechs with a faster ground speed, such as the Locust or Cicada.
While the Fire Ant proved a successful design with planetary militias, corporate security forces, and other private buyers, it failed to garner any major military contracts due to its perceived inability to evade scout hunters. Or at least, so it seemed at the time. As it turned out, the single largest buyer of the Fire Ant would be Stephan Amaris and his backers, who would arrange for the purchase of the lion's share of Fire Ant production through various third parties as part of the effort to assemble the Secret Army. Thousands of these mechs would thus be fielded by the various periphery rebel armies against the SLDF during the Periphery Uprising, often with lightweight false body panels added to disguise them as Wasps or Stingers to throw off SLDF intelligence efforts (An effort that would lead some historians to incorrectly label the Fire Ant as part of Amaris' Deceiver series). On those battlefields, the strengths and weaknesses of the Fire Ant were on full display. On the open field or in rough country, Fire Ants usually could not avoid confrontations with more mobile SLDF opponents, but likewise the bargain price had allowed periphery forces to field large numbers of Fire Ants, and the rebels' greater knowledge of the worlds they fought on allowed them arrange ambushes which could find an SLDF strike force outnumbered and surrounded.
However, those numbers, combined with the fanaticism and lack of discipline among rebel forces, also worked against the Fire Ant, with some rebel forces treating the mech as effectively disposable. Many would be lost in human wave attacks or expended in random acts of terror or questionable raids for little tangible benefit. Even successful operations would often see several functionally irreplaceable machines lost to the greater firepower and technology of their defeated enemies. And much like the rest of the secret armies, Kerensky's campaign of 2766 would see the vast majority of Fire Ants in rebel hands destroyed.
Elsewhere, the Fire Ant's thin but widespread deployment saw it serving on every front of the First Succession War, though the Lyran Commonwealth, where the manufacturing plant was located, would be the largest user by far in this conflict. During the war, it was common for Lyran forces in the Skye Theater to assemble massed lances of Fire Ants and Firestarters (usually a single Firestarter leading three Fire Ants in each lance) as specialized urban warfare units meant to clear infantry from cities. These actions were bloody work, even with friendly infantry support, and led to heavy losses among Fire Ants only exacerbated by the destruction of the manufacturing plant in 2788. Though the Fire Ant had some parts commonality with the Firestarter, many of its most critical systems, such as the engine and gyroscope, could no longer be replaced, leading to remaining Fire Ants gradually vanishing from Lyran service as the war continued, a fate that had already befallen most of the Fire Ants in foreign service. Today, the Fire Ant is all but extinct in the Inner Sphere, existing as non-functional museum pieces with possibly only a handful of working models still operating in far flung planetary militias. The periphery, however, is something of a different story. While the vast majority of the many thousands of Fire Ants handed over to the Secret Armies were destroyed, as many as several hundred survived the conflict, and the abrupt pull out of the SLDF to fight the Amaris Coup left thousands of additional wrecks to scavenge for parts. Though centuries of attrition would cut into those numbers as well, isolated Fire Ants, or even pairs or entire lances, can still be found scattered across the near and deep periphery.
Variants:
The only production variant of the Fire Ant was the 2R, which attempted to match the performance of the classic Wasp by swapping the machine gun for an SRM 2 pack. However the weight of this change necessitated downgrading the medium laser to a small, a change deeply disliked by pilots and potential buyers, and this version would only see significant service with the Secret Army, which made the best of it by normally loading the SRM launcher with infernos to disrupt enemy formations and burn down stubborn outposts.
Many owners, considering the mass spent on a token jump capability to be a waste of tonnage, would remove the jump jets on their 1R or 2R models, most commonly using the mass to mount an additional medium laser in the arm. This proved to be a very popular conversion, though Argile Technologies steadfastly refused to make it a standard production model. Another popular variant snubbed by the manufacturer removed the machine guns of the 1R for a flamer and an additional jump jet. Though some were of the opinion that this made the mech a proper Fire Ant in practice as well as name, Argile considered the variant to be too much of a direct competitor to their more famous Firestarter.
Finally, as production new DAV 90 fusion engines was so spectacularly halted by the destruction of the factories on Yed Posterior in 2788, Fire Ants that have lost their engines to maintenance shortfalls or combat damage have been forced to keep their mech running by swapping in a different power plant, most commonly the GM 120 engine used by the Wasp and Stinger, though the Leenex 60 power plant of the Urbanmech has also been used. Swapping to the larger engine necessitates removing the jump jets (if they haven't already been removed) and replacing the secondary machine guns with a single small laser, but the speed and the advantage of using an engine that is actually still available on the open market cannot be dismissed. The most common variant to use the Leenex engine, on the other hand, actually increases the jump capability of the mech to mitigate some of the lost mobility, but also leaves space to add a third machine gun to boost the mech's close range firepower.
Type: Fire Ant
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Advanced)
Tonnage: 15
Battle Value: 313
Equipment Mass
Internal Structure 1.5
Engine 90 Fusion 3
Walking MP: 6
Running MP: 9
Jumping MP: 2
Heat Sink 10 0
Gyro 1
Cockpit 3
Armor Factor 48 3
Internal Armor
Structure Value
Head 3 4
Center Torso 5 6
Center Torso (rear) 4
R/L Torso 4 6
R/L Torso (rear) 2
R/L Arm 2 4
R/L Leg 3 5
Right Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm, Lower Arm, Hand
Left Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm, Lower Arm, Hand
Weapons
and Ammo Location Critical Heat Tonnage
Heat Sink CT 1 - 1.0
Half Machine Gun Ammo (100) CT 1 - 0.5
3 Heat Sink RT 3 - 3.0
Jump Jet RT 1 - 0.5
2 Machine Gun LA 2 0 1.0
3 Heat Sink LT 3 - 3.0
Jump Jet LT 1 - 0.5
Medium Laser RA 1 3 1.0
Features the following design quirks: Cramped Cockpit, Non-Standard Parts, Obsolete
A link to download the Beyond the Periphery Record Sheet Book, which includes record sheets for each of the variants of the Fire Ant, can be found in this thread:
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=84454.0
