Jagatai - 70t, TRO3055
Originally posted 6 Apr. 2005. All proposed fan-variants should be posted in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread. Developed by Clan Wolf in the early thirty-first century to supplement and replace the older, smaller
Visigoth, the
Jagatai is a 'Jack of all trades' among the '55 OmniFighters, perhaps even tied with the
Visigoth. Unfortunately, although possessed of a great deal of flexibility and being a... serviceable replacement for the
Visigoth, it's something of a 'jack of all trades, master of none', and frankly it leaves me wondering why they
want to replace the
Visigoth. It's not that the
Jagatai is actually
bad at what it does; it's just that the
Visigoth can still do those things very well, where the
Jagatai is... well,
adequate at those tasks. :-\
Turning-and-burning at 6/9, with only four tons of space dedicated to internal fuel, the
Jagatai is rather underwhelming compared to the 7/11/5t
Visigoth, and the 'heavy' armour fraction, some eleven tons of ferro-aluminium in a 65/50/46 pattern, isn't especially impressive, either; it's adequate against IS foes, but considering that it's only half a ton heavier than that carried by the sixty-ton
Visigoth and remains just as vulnerable as the smaller craft.... It's tougher and longer-ranging than the
Sabutai, but then what isn't? :-X The payload fraction, on the other hand, is quite impressive: thirty-seven(!) tons, with a total of fifteen DHS to back up whatever ordnance is installed. (Is it me, or do
most Clan OmniFighters skimp on armour and gas to carry guns and bullets? I realise that the pilots are flying for glory, but what good is a chance at a Trial of Bloodright if you're too crippled - or dead - to take part in the first place!? ???)
Jagatai-Prime looks like a nice, general-purpose sort of layout. Each wing mounts an ERPPC and a large pulse laser, with an LRM-20 and two tons of ammo in the nose (complete with fluff about visibility problems from the launcher's backblast), a large pulse laser(!) covering the stern aspect, and two extra heat-sinks. The forward armament can't be alpha'd without a hideous +22 overheat, but using the LRMs and both PPCs put enough firepower on a target to ruin its day in a hurry and stays a mere two points over capacity; in a close fight (or to cool off), you transition from the particle-cannons to the LPLs, which arguably makes for even greater misery. If someone drops onto your tail, you simply trade out the LRM rack for the stern LPL, albeit at the risk of a +6 overheat if you're also firing the particle cannons - and brother, as much as people claim that Clan LPLs are a lamer's tool, few things will discourage most tailgaters faster than the prospect of a stern-defence weapon capable of inflicting a ten-point hit at Long range with a -2 BTH modifier. (Of the Clan starfighters, only the
Hydaspes is immune to such a nose-TAC, which means that dealing with
Jagatai-Primes is a stone bitca. :D)
Jagatai-Alpha is a specialist short-duration close-fighter. The nose holds a single ERPPC and a colossal UAC/20 with four tons of ammo; each wing houses a Streak-6 with a ton of ammo; the aft sector is covered by one of the C/ERLLs I have so come to love when building point-defence setups for WarShips; the whole array is backed by five podded DHS. :D With this configuration you
can alpha-strike the forward armament for as long as your ammo lasts, and you can expect to rip the hell out of anything you hit. Once your fuel or ammo runs out, you'd do very well to beat feet and go get more; when you do, though, you can rest assured that the nose-mounted PPC and the ERLL in the stern turret mean that anything that gets in your way or tries to pursue is going to regret the decision for what's left of its life. :D
Jagatai-Bravo... ummm,
Mommmmyyyy! Twin Gauss Rifles with four tons of ammo in the nose, an ERLL in each wing, and an MPL and an ERML aft? :o This one can snipe the hell out of the opposition, and if you're not daunted by the idea of facing a force with fire-support from a few of these, let me know where you're buying your drugs, 'cause I want some too. :D No heat problems (alpha everything forward and fire the aft MPL, and you're heat-neutral!), a Godawful long-range punch, and respectable tail-guns - not too bad at all.
Jagatai-Charlie is the Designated Loser of the lot, as far as I can tell; the configuration designer must've had a really 'off' day. The nose houses twin ERLLs and an LB-20X with only two tons of ammo, single LRM-10s are housed in each wing (each with a ton of ammo), and the stern turret mounts an ERLL
and an LPL? ??? The nose-guns are heat-neutral, which makes for a shitload of pain up close; however, getting there may be a problem, as at Long range, the LRMs and the ERLLs are a +2-per-turn overheat, which is not overly great, and leaving out the LRMs effectively means you've wasted seven tons of pod-space. :-X And the tail-guns? While they're daunting, you can't use the nose lasers in conjunction with either of the aft ones for fear of a nasty overheat, so the only thing I can think of is that they're meant to allow the pilot to blow through the bad guys and break contact 'cleanly' - or get a solid shot into the enemy's exposed stern(s) immediately after the merge. Sounds like a low-probability option to me, but if low-probability options worked out for Luke Skywalker.... [shrug] In any case, this configuration doesn't impress me too much - use it if you have to, but don't be afraid to use a
Prime or
Bravo instead. :-\
As with all of the 'lucky' fellows who came to us from the pages of 3055U, the
Jagatai Delta combines older Clan gear with their newer toys. A Gauss Rifle in the nose enjoys a two-ton magazine, which is pretty much never a bad start, and matching it with a pair(!) of ATM-12 launchers and three tons of ammo makes for a fearsome combination; each wing holds an ERLL. Unfortunately, as this loadout doesn't include even one more additional DHS an alpha-strike is NOT an option, which is a true shame since it means that the ER-ATM/ERLL combo is deprived of much of its ability for one of its design roles: super-long-range sniping. On the other hand, once things get to the knife-fighting phase and one of your ERLLs can't be brought to bear, you actually cool off by one point per turn... and in the meantime, your HE-ATMs will be doing all manner of unseemly things to the other guy. [legal] >:/!
Though spread throughout most of the Clans by Trials of Posession, the
Jagatai is most favoured within Clan Wolf (and by extension, their Exiled colleagues), and is replacing the
Visigoth in many units. (Oddly enough, despite the fluff's statement of this pronounced preference, the only Wolf ASF pilot we've seen in the fiction, Carew, drove a
Visigoth-A. Carew was featured only in Michael Stackpole's CBT novels. I leave it to the reader to draw their own conclusions. :-X)
Like many other Clan heavy OmniFighters, even with ferro-aluminium armour the
Jagatai is a little fragile for its weight; on the other hand, it has enough mobility to make life lively for the opposition and barring the dubious
Charlie model, its configurations provide for some very nice firepower with a good deal of flexibility. The
Prime layout can intercept, dogfight, or provide fire-support well enough, and a strike or strafe from the thing is as much throw-weight as a
Warhawk-Charlie :o; much the same goes for the
Bravo model. The
Alpha is clearly meant for ground-attack and anti-shipping work, and I don't doubt that those UAC/20s make a mess of the target every time. :o In any case, a Star of
Jagatais is a worthwhile addition to your order of battle, either offensive or defensive.
Employment recommendations (with the exception of The Mantras) are highly dependent on the mission. As an attack platform, keep a Star or so of escorts near by (
Avars or
Batus would be recommended) and stick to the mission; you can defend yourself well enough if enemy interceptors start hassling you, especially with the overpowered tailguns found in most configs, but it's always better to have help. For anti-shipping work, I'd recommend a Star of
Jagatai-Bravos in a New York minute, but the
Prime and
Alpha layouts wouldn't be all that bad either; again, screen them against enemy fighters and let them work. For air-to-air work, frankly the
Visigoth is a better dogfighter/interceptor (7/11 Thrust and better legs), and
Jagatais really, really shouldn't mess with anything lighter and/or faster - their tail-guns may be the next best thing to the Finger of God against interceptors, but with armour as thin as this, you don't go around taking risks you don't have to. In the Prime or B configs, the
Jagatai is a...
serviceable dogfighter, nothing more, and it should only pick on bigger, slower targets - the
Jengiz and
Hydaspes are the targets of choice, as their tail-guns cannot match the reach of the
Jagatai's main batteries.
I can say a little more about defending against
Jagatais simply because I can actually find things in the
Jagatai itself to speak to, rather than giving my generic 'Mantras' speech. Firstly, mobility: the
Jagatai's 6/9 is okay, but more is better. Secondly: the
Jagatai's onboard fuel endurance is not overly impressive. Thirdly, armour: almost anything heavier than a C/ERML is a valid all-aspect threshold threat against a
Jagatai, and Clan medium lasers (either type) can punch through the wings and aft at will. Thus, you need either an interceptor with a big-ass gun (glances at
Batu-Prime,
Avar-Prime, and
Chaeronea) or a dogfighter with better legs and better more turning performance (
Visigoth,
Xerxes, I choose you!). Those heavy-ass stern turrets are going to cost you, especially if you use interceptors, but it'll be a pretty straight trade. (I feel dirty even saying that - combat is all about making the other guy pay
more than you - but the
Jagatai's normal stern guns are too good for anything else to be a realistic appraisal, and if nothing else, trading a 35-ton
Avar for a fighter twice its mass is a good deal in cash terms. >:( Of course, if you get behind 'em with
Visigoth-As, the airframe-exchange-rate should be closer to three-to-one, which is arithmetic much more to my taste. :-X)
[VARIANT PROPOSAL(S) REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants - including my own - belong in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,2014.0.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. ;)
