Vehicle of the Week: Aithon Assault TransportOne of the newest vehicle offerings from the Hell's Horses, long-time proponents of combined arms warfare among the heirs of Kerensky, the Aithon is in a lot of ways the Clan answer to the Trajan. The product of Swedenberg Heavy Industries on Kirchbach, a possession the Wolves had overlooked but the Horses retooled to produce the Zephyros, the Aithon is suggested by the Republic's analysts to replace the Oro and the Indra. Leaving aside my usual suggestion of drugs in the water tank, there's a little something to the idea, although like the Zephyros, there's also a few details someone at Republic DMI seems to have forgotten about. Built as a transport and attached to assault forces for engaging and defeating strong points, the Aithon has also seen some use as salvage vehicles or prisoner transports.
At 100 tons, the Aithon is as big as it gets for ground combat vehicles under standard rules (although the design is not a standard rules unit), and it's obliged to use tracks under those same rules. Power is provided by a 300-rated extralight fusion engine; whatever you want to say about the cost, the Aithon's effectiveness at being an assault IFV depends on having a lot of tonnage available, so getting rid of it means a severe cut to speed, armament, or toughness. The Horses have a point to what they're doing here, although whether it's worth the price is a somewhat different issue. Personally, I think it's not a bad option for the job, but I'm sure others are going to disagree with that. One other feature of the motive system goes into explaining why that tonnage was so necessary - at 10 tons, the armored motive system is heavy but also means that while it operates in an environment prone to flank attacks, it's less vulnerable to motive hits than most vehicles. Since it's also less vulnerable to damage thanks to the 12.5 tons of ferro-lamellor armor, the Aithon is fairly well off thanks to the distribution of 37/37/34/30. The last non-weapon feature is the 10 ton battle armor bay. Before I get into explaining how wasteful the energy armament is, I want to point something out: It's fairly effective. Clan MPLs are very nearly the equal of the old ISLL that was used in singletons or pairs as main guns by a number of units for damage back in the day and inside their reach, their accuracy makes them a severe nuisance. Anyone getting close to an Aithon is going to know they got kissed, especially if Elementals or Gnomes start piling out to say hello. You don't have to like the tradeoffs made to get the MPLs but I've seen far more dubious choices of armament out of tanks in the process of writing this column for a year and a half. (My personal vote for the oddest still goes to the Panther's side-mounted LRM 20s.) Combine them with the LTC's ability to lay a serious hurt down on lighter units as they close and you've got an armament that's strange, quirky, inefficient, and most importantly, works reasonably well. That said, when I said wasteful, I meant it. The extra heat sinks involved mean that the 3rd MPL costs you 4 tons, while the 4th MPL (and any others afterward) would be 6 tons each; combined, it's 10% of the Aithon's tonnage tied up in two MPLs. This isn't actually the worst problem with the weapons, although it probably explains it. No, that would be that the Long Tom Cannon is forward mounted, so when someone gets into your flanks, it's down to the pulse lasers to deal with them. Granted, you don't want to be firing an LTC right next to you, but the loss of flexibility hurts.
The first thing you want to do using an Aithon is assign a crew to it that knows what they're doing. While LTCs are reasonably accurate against units moving fast enough to generate TMMs, the fact that they scatter when they miss means you need to take care with what you're doing anyway lest it scatter either onto your own forces or onto something you don't want to get hit, like a building. And that's not just about reducing collateral damage, either - a scatter into a building can bring some of them down and if you're using the right rules out of TacOps, the collapse may hit your own forces anyway. Or you might hit a gas tank, with similarly destructive results. On the other hand, that same potential for mayhem makes the LTC an enormously useful tactical demolition tool. It's as powerful as a Sniper or Arrow artillery piece but can be employed immediately, not whenever the round lands. So, overall, what we have here is a siege machine, an assault-level infantry fighting vehicle that, combined with close integration with the battle armor it operates alongside, can pack a significant punch. We may also be looking at part of an integrated Horse solution to heavy urban assault scenarios: Aithons to smash strongpoints and Elemental IIs, which are much better at moving through buildings despite their lighter weapons. Combine them with standard Toads or Gnomes operated out of Anhurs for air assault and a mixture of assault and jump-capable fast 'Mechs to provide the armored fist and I can see why the Horses did what they did. For all the complaints about the C-Bill price, the price in BV is nicely low considering what you're getting, low enough to get a couple of points of APGR Elementals and still be under 3k.
Stopping Aithons is... interesting. They aren't as vulnerable to the usual method of dealing with assault tanks, namely disabling them with crit-seekers, and their armor is decent enough considering their weaponry. That said, they're still going to be slow whatever happens and the armor isn't that tough, either, especially if you're Clans Wolf or Jade Falcon and therefore have Clan weapons to throw at the problem. One worthwhile option is bringing your own artillery cannons or other AE weapons to deal with the Aithon and pound its battle armor down quickly. The last thing you need while you're fighting one of these beasts is a couple of points of Elementals (or worse, Gnomes, Golems, or other heavy armor under TW weights) coming in swinging. Another is Infernos, which couldn't care less about the armored motive system and can wreck things like the weapons or engine. Whatever you do, try to stay out of the front arc and don't clump up. LTCs may not do just oodles of damage but they can hurt, especially smaller units. In particular, keep battle armor at a safe distance - LTCs that hit dead on will destroy any suit in the game.
Reference: Once again, we're out here ahead of the curve, with no one else covering the vehicle just yet, but I do have
a picture.