Fighter of the Week, Issue #015 (repost) - Shiva

[Trace Coburn]

SHV-O Shiva - 85t, TRO3067

Originally posted 23 Feb. 2005.

  All proposed fan-variants should be posted in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread.

  When the Free Worlders set out to build their first OmniFighter, they got something of a mixed bag out of the whole deal - and I get the impression someone was reading off the same page as the Smoke Jags who designed the Sabutai.  While the Shiva is not especially nimble, and its armour is pitiful for so heavy a spaceframe , it carries a warload that must be respected.

  Eighty-five tons of spaceframe is wrapped around a 255XL engine, pushing the Shiva to 5/8 with the standard five-ton fuel load; right from the outset, it's clear that this is not an aerial-combat platform so much as it is an attack bird (though it can lay down daunting fire support if need be).  The base spaceframe includes eighteen double heat-sinks, allowing for a hefty array of self-defence weaponry while still leaving room for large pod arrangements; 52.5 tons of pod space is available.  :o  The bad news?  Well, let's put it this way: did someone blow up every aerospace-armour factory in the Free Worlds League and cause a chronic shortage of aviation composites like ferro-aluminium?  'Cause that's about the only reason I can imagine for the Shiva's being so thinly protected - that, or some opportunistic Leaguer swiped the plans for the Sabutai during Operation SERPENT and they were in such a hurry to clone it that they didn't actually look at the specs too closely.  Okay, so they used FA armour, which helps a little... but ten tons of ferro-aluminium laid out 60/42/35 just isn't adequate protection for a fighter this size, pod-space or not.  Jesus, the F-90 Stingray is marginally tougher than this thing, and that's an IS1 fighter twenty-five tons heavier!  :o  To paraphrase a livejournal icon I saw last night, "I'd like to order a plate of 'WTF?', with an order of 'bitch, please!' on the side."  ::)

  A momentary digression: when building fighters, people need to realise that many of the same compromises apply to them as to 'Mechs.  In the heavy bracket, it's typically 'speed, resilience, throw-weight - pick any two', with the understanding that if you choose to neglect one, the other two must be correspondingly greater: if you go for tough and hard-hitting, you usually drop some speed (c.f. Stuka), and so forth.  The Leaguers put everything on the Shiva into additional pod-space/warload, meaning that the fighter is neither fast enough to escape trouble, nor tough enough to stand up to it when it arrives.  [shakes head]  About the only good news is, it'll make the WoBM that much easier to kick the shite out of when the Jihad kicks off.  ::)

  Shiva Prime is a close-attack machine.  Each wing supports a pair of large pulse lasers, while the nose houses a monster LB-20X autocannon with two tons of ammo, an SRM-6 with two tons, and an ERSL (which I can't really see the point of, but that's just me [shrug]) (which is a pretty damn' thin PD fit if you ask me), along with three more DHS.  Two ground-attack strikes from this configuration are all but guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye: the pulsers each tear off half a ton of ferro-fibrous armour, and in the first pass you throw in a Class-20 slug burst to really open the target's can, with the SRMs to exploit the resulting holes; on the second pass, you trade out the slug ammo for cluster munitions and really crit-seek the poor son.  Each such strike pass comes to a whopping +8 overheat, which is Not Good, but with a turn to cool off between attacks, it's kind of acceptable - and the strafing runs?  IS tech or not, four LPLs is gonna make someone miserable in a hurry.  And in the anti-shipping role, Shiva Prime is a beast: each squadron (or Level-II, considering that it's also a WoB machine) has two pulse-laser bays of 11 Capital damage, the AC bay of 10 Capital (or 12, if you use slug ammo), and the SRMs make for another 5 Capital - all in all, WarShip captains should accord Shiva units a great deal of respect.  The bad news is, they have to get really, really close to deliver that damage, so an alert adversary will stand them off with fighters or a DropShip screen.

  Shiva Alpha answers that tactic by mounting mainly long-range ordnance: an artemis'd LRM-10 and two tons of ammo in the nose (along with that had-a-spare-half-ton ERSL), while each wing boasts an ERLL and a Gauss rifle with sixteen rounds.  Cooler-running than the Prime (an alpha comes to net -6 heat, not using that afterthought small laser), with impressive throw-weight that all reaches out to Long range, this thing complements the Prime very, very well indeed; while its armaments don't have the Prime's one-bay knock-out capability, they do address almost any situation and have ample ammunition for sustained engagements (if you're silly enough to accept them).  Any fighter that gets in front of a Shiva Alpha is going to regret it immediately; any ground unit that suffers a strike from a Shiva Alpha is going to be keeping the unit's repair techs (or salvage crews) busy for a good long while (the strafing passes are a little less impressive, but those ERLLs can still sting); and any DropShip or capital vessel faced with a squadron of Shiva Alphas will face five Capital bays: two of nine points each (GRs), two of five points each (ERLLs), and a single four-point hit from the LRMs, all of it starting from Long (conventional) range and generating a sustained barrage all the way in without the need to cool off, ever.  :o

  "Aaaaaand, heeeere's MIRV!"  ;D  Obligatory though it may be, the missile-based Shiva-Bravo is another eye-opener: each wing houses a pair of LRM-20s with Artemis-IV and two tons of ammo per launcher; interestingly enough, the Shiva seems to pod-mount its CASE, and the Bravo is the only configuration that features it.  If the Leaguers ever get hold of CapCon Thunder munitions, this one's gonna make navigating any ground battlefield a nightmare; as it is, a single strike from this thing represents the potential to hit a single ground target with as many as sixteen five-point groups, which is both a nasty crit-threat and legitimate damage in its own right.  This is also arguably the single 'best' anti-shipping configuration on offer, with a squadron generating two bays of 19 Capital each :o, which is getting close to "one-pass-outright-kill" territory on some smaller vessels and can crit just about anything one cares to name - even the Black Lion needs to respect these.

  Shiva Charlie is a slightly different slant on the Alpha.  Four additional DHS are podded in; the nose-mounted LRM launcher gives way to a pair of ERMLs, and the ERSL stays; each wing holds an ERPPC, twin ERMLs, and that signature FWL weapon the Light Gauss Rifle, complete with two tons of ammo per gun.  Now, a lot of people don't like the LGR, but it does make a certain amount of sense here - leave us not forget, in AT2/R there are only two conventional weapons which can do meaningful damage at Extreme range: the Clan ER Large Laser, and the Light Gauss Rifle.  This makes the Shiva Charlie about the only Extreme-range sniper in the Spheroid arsenal, and it has the ammo stocks to keep it up all day and/or take the more marginal shots that more ammo-conscious designs have to pass up.  With its impressive dissipation capacity, the Shiva-C can hang back and lay into an opponent with the LGRs and ERPPCs for as long as his ammo lasts without ever worrying about heat (44 capacity, 32 generated with the LR weapons - almost oversinked, really), and at Medium range or closer you can throw in one of the ERML bays and still be under, or completely trade out the PPCs for the lasers and go crit-seeking.  All those energy weapons mean that strafers must make good situational calls - firing all your beamers hits up the heat-scale for +16, which is DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! territory - but they can put a nasty hurt on ground units, and a strike attack is just as daunting.  In the anti-shipping role, this config can make itself a real pain in the ass: a squadron can just hang back at Extreme range and hit you with a pair of 5-point LGR bays (while being immune to almost any conventional-scale return fire), close to Long and throw in a couple of 6-point PPC smacks as well, or come right into knife-fighting range and give you three more 6-point love-taps from the laser mounts.  Tactical options are what every commander wants, and the Shiva-C offers them.  }:)

  On the offensive side of the table, never leave a Shiva unit exposed or they'll get cut to ribbons before they can play any meaningful part in the engagement; escort them as heavily as you can, ideally with a mix of LX-2 Lancers and F-92 Stingrays, and no matter how tempting the bait they wave before you, don't take it - get in, hit your designated target, then get away before they catch you and make you pay for it.  THE MANTRAS ARE YOUR SOLE CHANCE OF SURVIVAL, SO LIVE THEM - notice how none of the canon Shiva configs carry back-scratcher weapons?  :-X

  Defensively, Shivas are like bigger Sabutais: they're bullies, hard-hitting but soft-skinned, enthusiatic pain-givers who hate being on the receiving end.  Lyrans should swarm them down with -Z4 Seydlitz, whose ERLLs offer an all-aspect crit threat; Capellan TR-13A Transgressor units can shit-kick Shiva squadrons any time they like, though they need to keep their eyes open for the escorts and get in close as soon as possible, otherwise the Shivas' heavy long-range armaments may produce sufficient attrition to turn the tide.

  [VARIANT PROPOSALS REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants, including my own, belong in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,1740.0.html

  Be advised: the attached .txt transcripts of previous runs of this thread contain numerous reader-proposals for variants.  I'll try to change those out for 'sanitised' versions of those threads when I can, but I can't promise it'll be soon - that's a lot of ground to cover.  ;)

  Repost closing note, 15-02-2011: This was another article that didn't get much attention when it was re-run, it would seem.  I wonder if Albatross ever did get back to reading it the first time around, like he said....  :'(

[Neufeld]

Slower and less armor compared to a Sabutai, the FWL design curse strikes again.  #P

[LastChanceCav]

The problem with the Shiva was that the WoB was secretly diverting all the armor and common sense to their Spectral omnifighters  #P It's too bad, because the Shiva rates so high in the looks department.  The art makes me wonder if the Shiva has variable swept wings too, making me wonder if Cortland/Valpula was already testing out some of his early ideas on the Shiva.  It would explain a lot about the gaping deficiencies in the design, being seen by the WoB contingent of the design team as a test bed, giving it those huge bays to let them play around with mounting different weapons on an omnifighter.

Cheers,
LCC

[Moonsword]

Agreed.  Someone get a man in here with some heavy ferro-aluminum, stat!

My preferred configurations are the A and B - both are hard-hitting ranged monsters.  Operating some Stingrays or possibly Lancers in the dogfighting escort role, they can do a real number on someone.  The C isn't bad, either.  The Prime just doesn't strike my fancy.

[Maelwys]

I've found them surprisingly effective when I've used them. True, the armor sucks compared to alot of the bricks out there, but it can still get the job done as part of the group.

One nice thing is that you can overthrust without worrying about overtaxing your structural integrity, and the pulse lasers of the Prime negate the penalty for doing so, giving you a bit of an added bonus if your opponent forgets about the overthrust possibility.

Of course, give me a Striga instead and I'll take that too :)

[Hellraiser]

Only had to face them once, a pair of Primes with 4 medium fighters.......Stingrays & Gothas maybe.

I had a pair each of Eisen-R3's and Stuka-D6's.........needless to say, they paid a heavy cost loosing 4 birds to my 1.

The prime version is nice with the LPL's and LBX making for a fairly accurate platform but you really need to give it cover or someone will take it out with longer ranged guns early before it gets in range.

[nerd]

Is it just me, or was the FWL chronically short on Aero Armor, except for the Thera class carriers in the up to 3067 timeframe?

[Moonsword]

Is it just me, or was the FWL chronically short on Aero Armor, except for the Thera class carriers in the up to 3067 timeframe?

It's not just you.

[LastChanceCav]

Is it just me, or was the FWL chronically short on Aero Armor, except for the Thera class carriers in the up to 3067 timeframe?

I wasn't kidding when I said the WoB diverted all the FWL's armor to themselves, or Warships they were planning on stealing after the FWL broke them in. I think it explains a lot of the issues with FWL equipment at the time, the WoB let the FWL keep the development projects and kept the final, polished products for themselves.

Cheers,
LCC

[Maelwys]

But you don't ever really see that. The WoB seems to be using the same sub-armored units that the FWL was using.

A really paranoid theory would be that the FWL's units were sub-standard because they would eventually be used by the WoB.

Heck, the fluff seems to indicate that the WoB just handed over the Defiance stats to the Capellans, and never put it into production for themselves

[Moonsword]

With the Defiance, they were fulfilling part of the agreement they struck to get the profits from running the Capellan HPGs.  They didn't put it into production because they didn't need to - the Capellans were sharing the first few production runs with them anyway.  TRO3067 indicates most of them went to the Fifth Division.

In addition, I imagine the Defiance was a development program partially intended as a "rough draft" OmniFighter, a sort of testbed for concepts later put into production with the Spectral series.  By the time their access to the Defiance dried up, they probably expected to have the first fruits of the Spectral programs in hand.  In the meantime, they fulfill the agreement with Sun-Tzu, keeping one of their customers happy and cementing their influence with him, and have plenty of other quite capable ASFs available to supplement their OmniFighters until then.

[Neufeld]

But you don't ever really see that. The WoB seems to be using the same sub-armored units that the FWL was using.

The Striga has only 1.5 tons of armor less than the Eisensturm, while being 10 tons lighter. So there is at least one WoB unit that has enough armor.

[lucho]

The FWL design curse really irks me; back in the day, the FWL built well-designed and well-armored craft (Reiver, and the Stingray's armor is respectable for its size), and the Lyrans cut corners (the Chippewa). Now, the Lyrans build kewl ASF and the FWL suddenly cant design toys, much less ASF  [tickedoff]

[Moonsword]

Time marches on.  The FWL is waking up and smelling the coffee.  The Stingray has never gone away as a competitive mid-range dogfighter.  The Lancer, as much as I rail at the armor, has some potential for further development - something we haven't seen yet.  And while their specific designs were sometimes ridiculously underarmored, the FWLM was the only Inner Sphere power to actually know what it was doing in terms of naval planning.  A lot of their designs make a hell of a lot more sense in lances than they do considered in a vacuum, too.  They're smarter than they're given credit for sometimes.  And frankly, between the two, I'd rather deal with the FWL's problem with FA than the DC's inability to get DHS out which absolutely crippled some of their designs, especially their lights.

The Lyrans have two advantages in the aerospace game.  First, their Chippewas no doubt got shot to hell precisely because of that armor problem, which provides a certain encouragement to get their heads back in the game.  Second, the Lyrans build and have access to a lot of different designs, giving them a surprisingly diverse range of options and, more importantly, experiences to draw on.  Between these two, you have an excellent environment for a motivated, well-funded program to evolve a better platform which is exactly what happened.  The Eisensturm is fast for its size and quite tough, blending the advantages of their traditional heavy ASF platforms (Thunderbird, Chippewa) and things like the Eagle while incorporating OmniFighter technology.  The Morgenstern, consolidating their medium assets into a single platform, is leveraging the Eisensturm's advantages in a budget platform that's still quite capable and durable.

[lucho]

The FWL is waking up and smelling the coffee.

And just what, exactly, was put in that coffee?

I hear what you're saying, and I agree with you, but it still gets under my skin that the FWL seems to have thrown out the experience gained during the Succession Wars

[Moonsword]

And just what, exactly, was put in that coffee?

My guess?  Fusion products and raw spite.  I'd be happier if it looked like Andurien Aerospace was fixing the Shiva's armor problem in XTRO:Marik, but their priority with the interceptor appears to be going to the fuel, speed, and firepower.  We'll have to see what, if anything, comes of it in terms of production hardware instead of limited-run near-testbed toys.

[Jellico]

Pair your FWL Shiva with a FWL Riever. One is a mobile short range brick. The other is fire support.

[lucho]

Pair your FWL Shiva with a FWL Riever. One is a mobile short range brick. The other is fire support.

While I would prefer my Balor, that's a good canon combo  8)

[Maelwys]

With the Defiance, they were fulfilling part of the agreement they struck to get the profits from running the Capellan HPGs.  They didn't put it into production because they didn't need to - the Capellans were sharing the first few production runs with them anyway.  TRO3067 indicates most of them went to the Fifth Division.

In addition, I imagine the Defiance was a development program partially intended as a "rough draft" OmniFighter, a sort of testbed for concepts later put into production with the Spectral series.  By the time their access to the Defiance dried up, they probably expected to have the first fruits of the Spectral programs in hand.  In the meantime, they fulfill the agreement with Sun-Tzu, keeping one of their customers happy and cementing their influence with him, and have plenty of other quite capable ASFs available to supplement their OmniFighters until then.

Maybe. It just seems odd to me that they designed a perfectly good, cutting edge deisgn and never put it into production. Sure, they got some of the production runs, but its always better to build it yourself. Especially since Sun Tzu is hardly the most trustworthy person. If the WoB was producing cutting edge fighters themselves at the time, then I could understand not needing it, but they hardly were.

The Striga has only 1.5 tons of armor less than the Eisensturm, while being 10 tons lighter. So there is at least one WoB unit that has enough armor.

Sure, over a decade later (the Striga debuted in 3071, the Shiva in 3060 I believe). But the original point was that the WoB seemed to be short changing the FWL, in order for the WoB to get better designs later, but that never seems to be the case. The WoB uses the exact same thing the FWL uses. You don't see up-armored Shivas, they didn't just steal the armored WarShips, they stole the unarmored stuff as well. It doesn't really make sense to say the WoB was sabotaging the FWL designs, because the WoB was USING the FWL designs.

[Weirdo]

Am I the only person who's had wonderful luck with these birds? The Prime's a disgusting-effective ground-attack unit. Every time I use it, it racks up enough kills(or maimings) that I start feeling bad for my gaming buddies who have to face it. This feeling stops when I realize that it's their own fault for not bringing ADAs or their own heavy air cover.

Also, while I haven't yet tried the Shiva-X, it fills me with all sorts of gooey feelings inside. Can't wait to get Trace's review on that hosebeast. }:)

[Maelwys]

I've had pretty good luck with it. I've found the armor, depending on how you use it, isn't as bad of a detriment as it seems, and the pulse lasers mean you're usually shaving off more of your opponent than he is in return (depending on what he's using).

The ability to overthrust without stressing your SI and your TN by too much with the Prime is also pretty nice.

The A,B, and C variants work well (though I'll admit to missing alot with the A's Gauss rifle, and the B makes me wince with all the extra heat sinks), and if you give them something else to shoot at, they're going to be around for a long time.

edit
Btw- On the Prime, does the SRM6 seem....I dunno. Wonky? Superfluous? Does it really do anything that the LB20-X can't do? (other than maybe, in very limited instances where you use special ammo on a strike or something..if you even can). While you can't use the 5 tons the SRM6 and its ammo takes up to improve the armor, I can think of quite a few uses for that tonnage (how about an almost heat neutral alphastrike with extra LB20-X ammo and a rear firing laser?).
/edit

[Weirdo]

I find the 6-pack very useful. My preferred air-to-ground tactic is to overfly my enemy at decent altitude, then pull a Split-S and go for backshots while dashing(relatively) back to my end of the map to avoid the worst of the AA, preferably on something isolated and/or big. LPLs are great for stripping back armor, but leg hits happen, and I find that when you're trying to OSK a Lao Hu, the more crit-seekers you put into him, the better. While my success rate is pretty high, it's often the last few bits of damage that finishes the job, so I might not get the kill if I don't use the SRM.

[Jellico]

A good example of how a fatal lack of armour in one kind of aerotech doesn't matter while playing another kind.

[Empyrus]

Bumping this to ask about the config and non-Omni versions, Shiva D and Shiva SHV-S. Either one any good?
To me, the SVH-S sure seems interesting with its iHGRs and stealth armor but interesting does not necessarily equal good.

(I don't really know much about ASFs but reading about them is interesting all the same.)

[glitterboy2098]

Honestly, the impression i get from the FWL aerospace forces is a reliance on the idea: "teamwork in key"
their forces being designed with the idea that no fighter or ship would deploy without an escort. the idea being that each member is highly specialized, and combined they make a balanced combatant.

for the Fighters, the Shiva is the mobile cannon meant to bring the hurt, especially in the bigger ships. it's the "bomber". but it was meant to be deployed with faster and better armored Fighters that would intercept hostiles before they could reach the 'bombers'.

likewise the naval strategy envisioned the Thera's ending up as the main target in an engagement, so they gave it the thick skin to soak up damage.. while the "ignored" thin skin but heavily armed escorts are the weapons platforms a Thera group would use to pound on the enemy. (similar ideas for the salvaged SLDF ships they had.. the thicker skinned SLDF ships are the 'tanks' meant to suck in all the enemies, whiel the thinner skinned FWL designs escortign them pound the crud out of the enemy..)

needless to say reality would not live up to this, but by the time the FWL actually got any combat experience with this naval mix.. it was all in WOB hands and no real changes could be made.

[Wrangler]

Well, despite loss of the Warship-Carriers, the Gorgons are pretty snazzy fighter-carriers into themselves.  Shiva operating from them would be force to be reckoned with.

[Don Lunardi]

Honestly, the impression i get from the FWL aerospace forces is a reliance on the idea: "teamwork in key"
their forces being designed with the idea that no fighter or ship would deploy without an escort. the idea being that each member is highly specialized, and combined they make a balanced combatant.

In a certain sense, you could also stretch this to explain the seeming reversal of Lyran and FWL fighter design philosophy.

The Lyrans started with the Over-gunned but Thin-Skinned Chippewa, then complemented it later with the more Brutish Eisensturm

The FWL started with the Brutish Riever, and then complemented it later with the Over-gunned but Thin-Skinned Shiva

At the end of the day, both ASF forces wind up in relatively the same place when both new and old retrofitted designs are taken into account.

[UnLimiTeD]

The notable difference being that the Lyrans aren't actually using the thin skinned designs much anymore, having apparently taken to their ground approach.

[Weirdo]

I wonder how well the Shiva operates in tandem with the newer Shikra? If you can psyche out your opponent and convince them the newer bird is the bigger threat, it might bee possible to use the Shikra as a Wild Weasel, altering your Shivas to attack with less fear of AA fire.