Halberd Heavy Tank
Mass: 60 tons
Movement Type: Tracked
Power Plant: Jones 180 with EmissionKill ICE
Cruising Speed: 32.4 kph
Maximum Speed: 54 kph
Armor: StarSlab/9
Armament:
2 Machine Gun
2 SRM 2
3 LRM 5
1 Large Laser
Manufacturer: Lewis Arms
Primary Factory: Lewiston
Communication System: Magestrix Alpha
Targeting & Tracking System: Magestrix Gamma
Introduction Year: 3020
Tech Rating/Availability: E/X-D-C-C
Cost: 1,122,400 C-bills
While the battlemech corps is the flagship element of Lewis County's military forces, the small periphery state's ability to manufacture and otherwise procure mechs is nonetheless very limited, and those mechs the County does possess are predominantly lightweight machines like the Stinging Wasp. Good for scouting or handling lightly armed raiders, but not suited for heavy combat against more substantial foes. Importing heavier units from their largest trade partner the Magistracy of Canopus has netted some success, but the availability of battlemechs, particularly larger ones, in the periphery market is slim at the best of times. For all the attention and love Lewis County has shown its mech forces, the majority of the army's firepower had to come from simpler units that they could produce or procure in numbers. Which is to say, conventional armor.
Of course, Lewis County's manufacturing capabilities did not spring up from nothing. For the first century and a half of its existence, the small nation's armored forces relied on crude locally built vehicles that would have been considered obsolete by any of the Great Houses or Periphery states, and the County only started producing more modern vehicles in the mid 28th century, and even then only after a large financial investment by the Rim Worlds Republic meant to turn the state into a source of supply for the Secret Armies. As late as the dawn of the 31s century, light vehicles and crudely built missile carriers dominated the County's military, with the only modern heavy combat vehicles in their inventory consisting of a small number of Manticore tanks imported from Canopus.
It was during the reign of Countess Theophania Lewis that Lewis County sought to change that, leading to the creation of the Halberd Heavy Tank.
Though Lewis County had been largely unaffected by the succession wars and enjoyed a rather robust economy and industrial base for its size, it was still a tall order to expect those industries to turn out a modern heavy combat vehicle from scratch, something Countess Lewis seemed to understand perfectly well, so by her command, they didn't try. The basis for the Halberd is the Pike Support vehicles manufactured in the Magistracy of Canopus, and the tank uses the same hull, engine, control systems, and electronics as the Pike, simply mounting a new turret with a different mix of weapon systems better suited to the role of a heavy tank. The primary armament is a Blazefire Systems large laser, itself a reliable system with centuries of service with the County's aerospace forces, supported by a trio of five tube Holly LRM launchers also common to the familiar Shadow Hawk. Paired anti-personnel machine guns round out the turret mounted armament, while the finalized design also retains the bow mounted short range missile launchers of its parent design. Armor protection and mobility is unchanged from the Pike, though it is generally considered adequate for the vehicle. Though the hull is completely unchanged from the Pike, the distinctive turret with the large radiator blades mounted to its back end make a Halberd easy to distinguish. Possibly too easy, as allegedly even Comstar seemed to originally assume that the Halberd was an all new vehicle, rather than essentially a variant of the Pike.
Given the vehicle's design history, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that the first runs of Halberds to see service were not actually fully manufactured within Lewis County, instead consisting of Pike hulls imported from the Magistracy mated to locally assembled turrets. This method of assembly met the County's needs well enough that it was continued for decades after the first Halberds entered service, and Lewis Arms would not begin tooling up for full domestic production until 3052, with the first fully domestic built vehicles coming off the production line starting in 3054. Even then, production has been fairly modest and focused on maintaining the existing force strength for most of the Halberd's service life, showing only one brief (but drastic) spike in production during the Jihad. It was also during the Jihad that the Halberd would first see major action, with two battalions making up the bulk of the force dispatched to assist the Magistracy during the conflict. Though their crews lacked battlefield experience and tended to chafe under the County's mechwarrior centered command structure, in combat against the Word of Blake and their pirate and mercenary allies, the County's forces managed to more or less hold their own, a success that should objectively be attributed to their stout combat vehicles and the crews that manned them.
In the decades since the conflict, Lewis County has found itself more and more dependent on its armored forces to protect against deep raids by the Marian Hegemony, or even just against the increasingly common pirate raids that have been plaguing the County in recent years. While Lewis County's ruling class will likely never give their conventional forces the sort of respect they deserve, these forces continue to hold a stalwart line against the County's enemies.
Variants:
Lewis County would experiment with a handful of alternate weapon configurations when finalizing the design of the Halberd. Two of these focused on boosting the vehicle's close range firepower, the first by mounting additional short range missile launcher in place of the long range racks, while the swapped out the large laser and two of the missile racks for a Kali-Yama Big Bore autocannon. Neither option was considered successful enough for general service, though a small handful of each remain in the County's inventory. A third variant attemped an ammunition independent design by mounting a second large laser to the turret, pulling all the other weapons to make space to make space for its and its associated subsystems. This model would also be rejected, as the standard model was seen as simply the more flexible design, and only a couple prototypes would actually be created.
Type: Halberd Heavy Tank
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Introductory)
Movement Type: Tracked
Tonnage: 60
Battle Value: 793
Equipment Mass
Internal Structure 6
Engine 180 ICE 14
Cruising MP: 3
Flank MP: 5
Heat Sinks: 8 8
Control Equipment: 3.0
Power Amplifier: 0.5
Turret: 1.5
Armor Factor 144 9
Internal Armor
Structure Value
Front 6 33
R/L Side 6/6 25/25
Rear 6 25
Turret 6 36
Weapons
and Ammo Location Tonnage
2 SRM 2 Front 2.0
3 LRM 5 Turret 6.0
Large Laser Turret 5.0
2 Machine Gun Turret 1.0
Machine Gun Ammo (200) Body 1.0
LRM 5 Ammo (48) Body 2.0
SRM 2 Ammo (50) Body 1.0
Record sheets for the Halberd and her variants can be found in the PDF file Record Sheets: Beyond the Frontier!, downloadable through the link in the first post in this thread:
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=84454.0
