Allison MechWarrior Institute, Darienbad
Province of New Olympica, Free Worlds League
07 January 3048“Right then. Welcome back, cadets. I trust everyone had the chance to review the syllabus, so I’m just going to jump in. This semester, you’re going to be learning about the earliest history, battles, equipment, and combat doctrines of the FWLM. Understanding the past is key to understanding the present and predicting the future; the past informs our upbringing and our culture, shapes our mindsets and our preferences. For example, the two most prominent ‘main-gun’ weapons used on FWLM BattleMechs of our age are the large laser and the long range missile rack.
Wolverine-6M,
Marauder-3M,
Thunderbolt, Archer, Trebuchet, Awesome -8R and -8T and -8V,
Rifleman, and more besides. Some people think that these preferences are recent developments, that – for instance – we adopted the large laser because shortages in particle cannons. In fact, as you’re about to see, the large laser and LRM have been part and parcel of FWLM design doctrine from the earliest days.
“Our journey begins with the Age of War, and we’ll be focusing on the first ‘Mechs to serve the FWLM during that barbaric time. So who can tell me what the first home-grown BattleMech – not a Hegemony design – to serve in the FWLM was? No one? Anyone? Ahhh, Miss Mansouri? Incorrect. The
Wolverine is an FWLM staple now, but it was actually first built by the Davions. Anyone else?
“Well. It was actually a trick question. The first Free Worlds-developed ‘Mech and the first widely-deployed Free Worlds-developed ‘Mech are in fact two different designs. This is the first-ever domestically-designed BattleMech: the
ICR-1X Icarus.
“The Free Worlds first received BattleMech schemata from defecting Lyran engineers in 2462, who had in turn stolen the plans for the
Mackie and
Banshee from the Terran Hegemony. While the government directed Corean Enterprises of Stewart to begin tooling their tank factories to produce these new weapons of war, Atreus also wanted them to start innovating and make our own domestic ‘Mechs. With initial engineering going quickly with the help of the defectors, Corean set up two design teams to produce a domestic prototype.
“The
Icarus was the product of one of those teams. Rather than go for a hulking behemoth like the Terran ‘Mechs, the
Icarus was built on a relatively light 40 ton chassis. It used a primitive cockpit and primitive 195-rated fusion engine, which gave the ‘Mech a top speed of just over 60 kph. Now this isn’t very impressive for a medium-weight design for the modern age, true, but at the time, the overwhelming majority of BattleMechs seeing service had a maximum ground speed of fifty-three kph or even lower! The ICR-1X wasn’t the fastest thing on the battlefield by any means, but it was quicker than most other early ‘Mechs. For protection, it carried ten and a half tons of early-grade armor. ‘Mech armor was still in infancy so it didn’t grant near the same real protection as the compounds we use today, though. Everyone remembers the ‘armor point’ system from ‘MechTech101 last semester? Good. The
Icarus’ armor layout is relatively conventional, with the thickest armor on the torsos and legs, with the arms lagging behind. The point values assigned to each location were, as you can see on the slide: 9 in the head, 15 in the center torso with 4 in the rear, 13 each in the side torsos with four in the rear, 9 on each arm, and 16 on the legs. What does this armor layout tell us?”
“Correct! Survival was key, very good. Each of these war machines was a new, expensive, and precious commodity. Protecting their arm-mounted guns was secondary to ensuring that they still had legs to walk away from the battlefield!
“Now then, the ICR-1X’s firepower. Can anyone guess what that big-barrel main gun on the left arm is? Come on guys, think back to the start of the lecture. . . Yes, exactly! The very first ‘Mech of the FWLM carried a large laser as its main hitting power. It also carried a coaxially-mounted small laser. The left torso ‘launcher-box’ featured – No, Mister Hodges, that’s not an SRM-4. Nice try though. It’s paired SRM-2s, fed from a single-ton ammo bin. The right arm carried a pair of machine guns, also sharing a single ton of ammunition supplied from the right torso. This gave the
Icarus a full-spectrum weapon suite, capable of punching holes in heavier ‘Mechs and tanks as well as ripping up infantry formations, though a bare ten heat sinks struggled to keep the machine cool if it was being run at full speed and full power. Its comparatively high speed and close-range weaponry suite made it a good cavalry ‘Mech. Or at least would have, because only six prototypes were ever built and only four ever served in combat conditions. Technical problems plagued the ICR-1X and it never reached production.
“The production delays that killed the
Icarus program, however, were well-documented by Corean’s second team. They wisely absorbed these lessons and focused on simplicity rather than sophistication. Rather try to create a top-of-the-line war machine the second team wanted to provide a BattleMech that could be produced easily and cheaply so that the FWLM could get these weapons into the field. In 2471, a year after the ICR-1X was unveiled, the second team delivered their first prototype. Named after the Trojan hero, it was the HOR-1B
Hector.”
“The
Hector was an interesting machine. The FWLM of the time wasn’t thrilled by its performance, as we’ll discuss, but at the same time nothing about it was insurmountably bad. Built on a 70-ton chassis, it featured a Pitban engine capable of producing a top speed of 64 kph, the same as the
Icarus which again, gave it a slight speed advantage compared to most other early ‘Mechs. Twelve tons of primitive armor gave it an acceptably thick skin with that same traditional focus on protecting the torso and legs: 9 points on the head; 20 on the chest and 10 on the back; 13 and 7 for the front and back side torsos, respectively; 10 on the arms; and 15 on the legs.
“So, on the image, we can see four obvious weapons. Any guesses as to what those two main guns in the arms were? Correct! We’re learning, excellent! Paired large lasers gave the
Hector a decent punch, but remember that its primary Lyran opponents had twenty or thirty tons on it. The armament was judged to be fairly inadequate on an individual basis, but remember what I said about ‘ease of manufacture?’ Within a few years of going into serial production, the FWLM was pitting battalions of
Hectors against companies of
Mackies. Quantity, as they say, has a quality all its own. Now, those guns in the legs were originally machines guns, each fed by its own individual half-ton ammunition bin. The machine guns were initially included to protect against the emerging threat of anti-‘Mech infantry, but they actually proved to be a liability since the ammunition was co-located with the weapons in the thighs. This meant that if infantry could get past the bullet-storm, they could literally knee-cap a
Hector without much trouble. With that in mind, Corean switched production of the HOR-1B to the HOR-1C, which was identical in all respects except that those pesky MGs were swapped out for small lasers. This removed the threat of exploding legs, but it also put further strain on the
Hector’s heat dissipation system, which consisted of just thirteen heat sinks. All those lasers tended to overpower the cooling system, which contributed greatly to the
Hector’s bad reputation. Despite that, it mustered on as the standard BattleMech of the FWLM throughout the Age of War. While the
Hector was generally considered an uninspired design – good enough to keep, not bad enough to replace – its armament did inspire Terran Hegemony scientists, who produced the earliest
Rifleman prototypes in 2504. The RLF-1N had exceedingly similar capabilities to the HOR-1C, including the same speed, half a ton less of armor, medium instead of small lasers, one less heat sink, and paired large lasers for the main battery. The main difference was in the engine size, as the RFL-1N was only fifty tons, which meant that it was even cheaper to produce than the
Hector.
“So, the
Icarus hasn’t left prototype stage and the
Hector is rapidly becoming the standard line ‘Mech of the FWLM. We’ve got two left to go. In 2475 – that’s barely five years after the first ICR-1X took a step, which is amazingly fast turnaround for such experimental technology – the League’s third ‘Mech took its first steps. Like the
Hector, it was not the most well-received BattleMech in history. It was the TP-1R
Trooper. It might look familiar to some of you…”
“Yes, Miss Sommers, that is indeed the ancestor of the
Flea. The
Trooper was built by Toddlette Industries
(Author’s Note: The Trooper entry in Primitives V specifies Toddlette, but the Longbow entry in Primitives III claims the Trooper was built by Helleckson Corporation. For the purpose of this article, I’ll be sticking with Toddlette.) but designed by the former deputy Chief Armorer of the FWLM, Colonel J. Marcus Llewelyn-James. Llewelyn-James’ influence all but guaranteed the adoption of the
Trooper despite its shortcomings.
“The
Trooper was a flawed design from the start. Toddlette Industries built various classes of industrial ‘Mechs and simply adapted one of their most robust designs for combat by slapping on three tons of armor and a few weapons. The ‘Mech lacked an ejection seat and actual arms, with the majority of the armament instead mounted in gimble-jointed pods on the side. This looks commonplace to us in 3048 – just consider the
Catapult, for example – but it was rare in the Age of War for ‘Mechs to not have actual arms instead of these pods. The leg joints were also notably weak and often failed during trials. In terms of actual performance, the
Trooper featured a 145-rated first-generation fusion plant that could propel the 20-ton chassis over 90 kph, setting the standard for scout ‘Mechs for centuries to come. But while it was the fastest BattleMech in the Inner Sphere upon entering service in 2475 – slightly outpacing its most common opponent of the day, the COM-1A
Commando – its armor and armament were left lacking. That aforementioned three tons of plate was arranged with five aggregate points protecting the cockpit, with equivalent protection on the chest, three points on each side torso, both arms, and the both legs, and a bare five points spread across the entirety of the rear torso. This made it extremely fragile, and even infantry constituted a significant threat to the
Trooper as a result. Its weapon array made it a potent anti-infantry tool, but in ‘Mech-vs-‘Mech engagements left it short-changed: two small lasers filled the left-arm pod, one machine gun fed by a half-ton bin in the right-arm pod, and a flame thrower in a chin-mount. When the
Trooper was employed properly – that is, as a reconnaissance vehicle – this meager armament wasn’t an issue. Its speed was its best weapon since it was capable of nearly double the acceleration of the
Mackie and
Banshee, but
Trooper pilots early on had a tendency to bite off more than they could chew.
“So the TP-1R mustered on in FWLM service until 2501, when it was upgraded with the new, standardized technology that we still use today. However, due to the
Trooper’s poor reputation, the new advanced version was given an entirely new alphanumeric model designator and name. It became the FLE-4
Flea.
“Right then, moving on. So we’ve got our scout, our striker, and our trooper. What’s missing? Yes, Mister von Loeb? ‘Fire support’ is indeed the correct answer. Behold: the LGB-0C
Longbow.”
“So the FWLM at this point is comprised of a good mix of BattleMechs in term of both size and role, with a light, a medium, a heavy, and locally produced knock-offs of the Terran
Mackie and
Banshee. It was a very well-rounded stable for its day, but it lacked anything approaching fire support. League engineers took a good hard look at developments in the Hegemony, where the Terrans had recently unveiled their own fire support machine: the famous and soon-to-be-ubiquitous
Archer. Designers at Lockenburg-Holly Industries – one of the forerunners of StarCorps – also wanted to impress by building an indigenous assault-class, so they took the
Archer’s general schema and just scaled it up by fifteen tons.
“The resulting ‘Mech this has the distinction of being the longest-serving BattleMech in continuous serial production in this nation’s history. It’s beating heart was a 310-rated primitive engine, giving the
Longbow its traditional slow maximum speed of 56 kph. 13.5 tons of primitive armor sheathed its twelve-meter frame. Nine points maximized cockpit protection, with 21 points on the centerline and 18 on each of its shoulders. The backside armor is predictably thin at 10 in the middle and seven on the sides, but the limbs are where things got wonky. The
Longbow’s main armament, its paired LRM-20 racks, were mounted in barrel-shaped housings in the arms, yet each of these was protected by a mere 9 points of armor. The legs carried double that at 18 points apiece, which again indicates that the engineers of the day put a premium on maintaining mobility even at the expense of firepower.
“As for firepower, the Lockenburg-Holly team took the
Archer’s armament wholesale and transplanted it into the LBG-0C. Like I said, paired LRM-20 racks in the arms comprised its main armament, and each launcher was fed by its own three-ton ammo located in the side torsos. The paired medium lasers were also incorporated, this time mounted in the side torsos while a small laser was added in a head-mount, right beneath the cockpit. So, in a direct comparison to its progenitor, the
Archer appears to be the superior machine. Same speed, same long-range firepower, roughly equivalent short range firepower, but the Terran machine had over two tons more armor. Where the LGB-0C shines, however, is in its longevity. The primitive
Longbow featured a third again more ammunition for its missile launchers, giving it much greater battlefield endurance. It also had the added benefit of its launchers being arm-mounted, which means it could rotate the launchers to face to the rear so that it could retrograde at full speed without giving up its primary weapons. Its higher mass over the
Archer also meant that once technology advanced and components became lighter, the
Longbow chassis would have more space for armaments and equipment: in its standardized form, it would achieve a greater throw weight than the
Archer by adding ten more missile tubes.
“So, that’s our overview of our indigenous Age of War ‘Mechs. Your text goes into more detail and has the full specifications for each, so study it. . . you never know when there might be a quiz. Sorry for running late and I’ll see you all tomorrow. Class dismissed.”
