Currie Command Mech
Mass: 50 tons
Chassis: Chariot Type C
Power Plant: Vox
Cruising Speed: 43.2 kph
Maximum Speed: 64.8 kph
Jump Jets: None
Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Strasbourg Armaments Type A
Armament:
2 Medium Laser
2 Machine Gun
1 LRM 15
Manufacturer: Martinson Armaments
Primary Factory: Terra
Communication System: Dalban SatSpeak
Targeting & Tracking System: Standus 2.1
Introduction Year: 2460
Tech Rating/Availability: D/D-X-X-F
Cost: 3,500,250 C-bills
Overview
The Currie Command mech was an attempt to expand the usefulness of Terran Hegemony battlemech forces after the revelation of the Lyran Commonwealth’s Operation: PROMETHEUS. While the Mackie and several other battlemechs had proved to be devastatingly effective in Hegemony service, the introduction of battlemechs by the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere led Hegemony planners to try to fill in some perceived role gaps in the Hegemony Armed Forces.
The Mackie, Banshee, and Emperor had all proved to be highly effective at urban and close assault operations. While these became the prefferred mount for commanding officers in the field, league planners felt that they were generally unsuitable to the role as they lacked the satellite up-link capabilities of a traditional mobile command center.
In addition, all three were massive pieces of technology. This led to issues in transport, where a Mackie or Emperor would require double the lift capacity of any of its supporting units. Much of the infrastructure where these battlemechs were intended to operate simply could not handle the 100-ton mass of these mechs, sometimes leading to strategic delays while these units attempted to maneuver around bridges or soft ground. On at least one occasion an Emperor was a “mission kill” during a deployment by virtue of a glacier collapsing beneath it.
THAF planners sent out an RFP for a unit that would solve these issues. One of the many manufacturers who responded was Martinson Armaments. Martinson by the 2450s was the leading manufacturer of medium-tonnage mechs with their Kyudo. They proposed a similar chassis to the one they had already produced that would be a capable command and control mech for expeditionary forces. This mech was the Currie.
Capabilities
The Currie is slightly larger than its parent design, the Kyudo. Hegemony planners had insisted that the new design mass no more than 50 standard metric tonnes. They had calculated that this would allow the new mech to cross approximately 80 percent of the bridges available throughout the Inner Sphere in the event of an expeditionary operation. Martinson pushed this requirement to the limit, ending up only a few kilograms short of the maximum allowable mass.
The primary weapons system was a Conan long ranged missile rack approximately 50% larger than the one carried by the Kyudo. While larger, the individual missiles were compatible between installations, allowing for a combined logistical chain.
Secondary weapons were a pair of medium lasers for close-in anti-armor work, along with paired machine guns for protection against infantry. These were added because the leg design in use by the Kyudo had been revealed to be vulnerably to enemy swarm attack.
The primary feature of the Currie, however, was the communications system. Four tons of comm gear allowed the Currie to coordinate with existing satellite infrastructure and even ships in low orbit. This allowed for a nearly unprecedented ability for commanders in the field to coordinate with other units, at least in theory.
Deployment
In practice the Currie proved to be a failure. Commanders of battlemech units had been trained to be aggressive, and to lead from the front. This meant that often the Currie’s communications abilities went unused as commanders would simply ignore their additional capabilities in the heat of a firefight. They would instead offload coordination and communication to supporting infantry or vehicle units nearby.
Indeed, this proved to be the right choice, as the cognitive load of piloting a mech, aiming its weaponry, and commanding a unit meant that battlemech combat tended to devolve into a series of small unit combats with lance and company commanders granted a high level of autonomy. Those units would then be coordinated by a traditional HQ. The problem of a command post keeping up with battlemech forces would later be addressed by the introduction of the Command Console, and later Stormvanger Industries’ CP-10-HQ variant of the Cyclops.
These issues, combined with the introduction of the Black Eagle dropship (which made transport of large battlemechs significantly easier) killed the Currie’s chance of widespread adoption. Fewer than 50 were ever built, with most having their communications suite replaced with more useful field modifications.
Type: Currie
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Advanced)
Tonnage: 50
Battle Value: 808
Equipment Mass
Internal Structure 5
Engine 240 Fusion 11.5
Walking MP: 4
Running MP: 6
Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sink 10 0
Gyro 3
Primitive Cockpit 5
Armor Factor (Primitive) 107 10
Internal Armor
Structure Value
Head 3 9
Center Torso 16 15
Center Torso (rear) 5
R/L Torso 12 12
R/L Torso (rear) 5
R/L Arm 8 10
R/L Leg 12 12
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
Half Machine Gun Ammo (100) CT 1 - 0.5
Heat Sink RT 1 - 1.0
Communications Equipment (1 ton) RT 1 - 1.0
LRM 15 Ammo (16) RT 2 - 2.0
Medium Laser LA 1 3 1.0
Machine Gun LA 1 0 0.5
LRM 15 LT 3 5 7.0
Communications Equipment (1 ton) LT 1 - 1.0
Communications Equipment (1 ton) HD 1 - 1.0
Medium Laser RA 1 3 1.0
Machine Gun RA 1 0 0.5
Quirks: Improved Communications, Exposed Actuators, Bad Reputation, Obsolete (2465)
