Vehicle of the Week: Ontos Heavy TankReputedly named for the M50 Ontos used by the United States Marine Corps and with a design inspired by the original, the Ontos (“the thing” in Greek) is definitely the “made for TV movie” version of based on. In Grumman Amalgamated's internal testing, the final decision to produce it was based more on the ammo independence of the tank's primary weapons than its firepower or armor. Early problems with heat buildup were countered by measures that fired the energy weapons in sequence rather than all together; whether that's still a problem and is still addressed the same way in modern variants is unknown. Originally a Capellan design, the fortunes of war saw Grumman's manufacturing lines on Shiro III captured by the Free Worlds League, then Kallon's Nanking factories fell into the hands of the Federated Suns during the Fourth Succession War. TRO3039 notes that the vehicle is the backbone of FWL heavy tank regiments. There's a reason for that: They didn't really build anything else that even vaguely fits into the role. They certainly had some of the usual mix of Manticores, Bulldogs, and Demolishers, but they didn't build any of them domestically. Upgraded models came online after the Clan Invasion, culminating in the newest variant to date featured in TRO: Prototypes.
They all go back to the original in TRO3026, though, republished in TRO3026R and TRO3039. At 95 tons, it's equal in size to an Alacorn or
Banshee and pretty much obliged to be tracked under tournament rules. A 285-rated ICE provides enough power to keep moving at 54 kph for a flank speed. It isn't fast but at this size, you're not going to get a fast tank anyway. The armor is one of the two great weak points of this tank, although whether you really should expect simple things out of a brand called “SimplePlate” is a good question. Snark about the suppliers aside, at only 8 tons, we're below the 10% level on armor with 128 points arranged about as well as it can be: 28/24/24/28. It'll stop any of the big guns around at the time it was designed, certainly, and even some SRMs after that, but in a heavy fire fight, an Ontos's armor is going to come up lacking. Considering the firepower and its consequential place just below the SRM carrier and the Demolisher on the classic ranged targeting priority list, that's probably not something the crews like to think about very much. Okay, if speed and armor are both clearly not the point of this thing, it's got to be the guns, right? Where the original M50 Ontos mounted six 106mm M40 recoilless rifles, its BattleTech progeny spouts eight medium lasers. Those of you who are wondering if I misspelled fusion engine up there, I didn't. There's no less than 24 heat sinks on an ICE tank, plus the one ton power amplifier. (Yes, TRO3039 says it's 0.8 tons. Yes, TRO3039 is wrong.) Supplementing the turret-mounted lasers are a pair of LRM 5s, also carried in the turret, sharing a single ton of ammunition.
Some units, regarding the use of the heat sinks and power amplifiers as inefficient, attempted to either replace the lasers with LRMs or to add a fusion engine. As a reminder, both the LRM and fusion variants from the Succession Wars have current record sheets that occasionally dubious due to production problems with RS3039U's vehicle section, but in this case, all the math looks to be right. The LRM variant replaces all the lasers and their associated hardware with two LRM 20s fed by five tons of ammunition total, then upgrades the LRM 5s to LRM 10s sharing a single ton of ammo. Exactly why someone didn't just make it an LRM 20 and link the ammo feeds I don't know but it's a worthy endeavor for gamers who don't insist on absolute canon adherence. Personally, since the description goes back to TRO3026R at least, I'm not sure the answer isn't “blame FASA” as it often is at times like this. Of course, others may feel that they might as well just use an LRM carrier but the half-ton of additional armor arranged 30/26/24/30 is nice to have.
The fusion model is a predecessor to later developments and a major improvement on the original, trading the engine in for a similarly-rated standard fusion power plant. The tonnage freed up is shifted to a pair of LRM 10s (this time sharing two tons of ammunition instead of just one) while the number of lasers actually increased by 25%. Better yet, the armor is a sinful-seeming 11.5 tons arranged 40/35/34/40. It's things like that that say to me that if fusion-powered tanks are wrong, I don't want to be right! Unfortunately, the conversions were difficult and expensive, rarely working out the way they should.
After the Clans decided to come back and say hello, a round of military upgrades occurred even in the combat vehicles that had been skipped over during the race to improve 'Mechs with the fruits of the Helm Core. One of the beneficiaries of this process was the Ontos whose 3053 model (originally from TRO3058, reprised in TRO3058U) shows certain similarities to the fusion experiments from the Succession Wars. The main one is, of course, the use of a fusion power plant, a change that was much less temperamental when done by designers instead of tinkerers without the full support resources to do it right. 9.5 tons of Durallex ferro-fibrous armor provides a 40/32/30/36 armor layout that isn't quite as good as the somewhat heavier protection from before but it works well enough. The armament is where things really diverge. The lasers are down to a quartet of standard medium lasers and three medium pulse lasers, providing more accuracy at point-blank ranges in exchange for some of your reach. The fact that it also comes to twenty four heat sinks just like the original may not be a coincidence. Supplementing these are an LRM 15, SRM 6, and SRM 4, all of them provided with Artemis IV fire control suites. I might have dropped Artemis and gone for a pair of SRM 4s for more LRM ammo to do things like lay mines or burn ammo throwing indirect fire around until you're ready to rock as well as carry Infernos, but overall, it's not a bad design.
With the coming of RS: Upgrades, the Ontos got a variant featuring the League's newest favorite toy, the light Gauss rifle. Unlike a lot of LGR refits, this one makes a lot of sense in practice although I'll also note it's kind of like a cut-down Alacorn in a lot of ways. The main one is the triple Gauss turret armament but all three are LGRs this time. Four tons of ammunition give them a quite adequate 64 shots to share while the turret also hosts a pair of ERMLs to assist in close-in fighting. It lacks the staggering close-in punch but as a supporting sniper, the LGR Ontos is something an enemy won't enjoy seeing parked on a hilltop. The fact that it can be used to support its close-in brethren is just gravy, as is the fact that everything but the weapons load is identical, allowing a lot of parts commonality. By the end of the Jihad, this variant available to most of the Inner Sphere, so while it's very much a League design in origins and armament, it's not really out of character for an LGR Ontos to turn up in anyone's hands.
Not one but two different variants surfaced in TRO3085: Old is the New New. The first is a riff on the LGR model that trades one light Gauss rifle (but not its ammo) for a pair of MML 7s fed by three tons of ammunition along with CASE. The close-in firepower jumps up a fair bit and the LRMs will do more damage once someone gets a bit closer than the fringes of LGR range so, overall, this one is definitely a respectable addition to the Ontos family. The other one, featuring environmental sealing, is more of a return to type. Twin extended-range and four standard medium lasers finally bring the Ontos's gun count into line with the old Marine Corps M50 while a pair of MML 7s mated to Artemis modules either shoot the tank in or provide a crit-seeking aftertaste for the lasers. Five tons of ammunition are, by default, weighted toward SRMs; personally, I'd shift a ton to Infernos, fragmentation, or tear gas to deal with infantry (including battle armor).
The latter shares a feature with two of the newer variants. The original is the Ontos-X All Aspect Assault Tank from XTRO: Pirates, intended to operate in extremely hostile conditions with relative safety. Environmental sealing was added to enable dealing with vacuum, hostile atmospheres, or even going underwater. The loss in armor is where the Ontos-X really got hurt, 7 tons of ferro-fibrous arranged 30/25/25/20. In terms of firepower, it's somewhat superior to the original 3025 model, using eight medium lasers and an enhanced LRM 15 fed by two tons of ammunition. (Enhanced LRM 15s are basically just IS LRM launchers with a 3 hex minimum range rather than the 6 hexes of the original; they're fully compatible with all special munitions and Artemis.) The kicker is the combat vehicle escape pod which lets crews have a survivable shelter, something that would be handy on places like the design's proving grounds on the bleak world of Despair in Ender's Cluster. Everything went well until Captain Theobald West and his crew decided to steal the vehicle, blow up the other prototypes, and ransom some of the scientists before disappearing into the wastelands.
Exactly where and how Quikscell got their hands on the Ontos-X specifications is unknown. What is known is that Grumman Amalgamated claims the whole thing is a theft of intellectual property and has thrown down a gauntlet in the courts but not just over the Ontos. No, they're also rather upset about Quikscell acquiring a lot of hardware on the cheap from Irian before the wounded giant was stabilized by the Republic after the Jihad, then using those components to built the Ontos Hostile Environment Assault Tank (or Ontos HEAT as it's generally called). The laser armament was largely reduced to a single Diverse Optics Sunbeam ERLL with three standard medium lasers due to supply shortages on Quikscell's part, giving you a bit more range flexibility at the price of some of the killing power the Ontos is known for. The enhanced LRMs were left alone. Helpfully, the laser switch did free up three tons, all of it invested in boosting the armor to 40/37/35/30. I'd also like to say that the artwork looks great, perserving the feel of the older art but significantly better than the TRO3058U artwork.
Operating an Ontos is a bit tricky in the same way that the Demolisher requires some subtlety that's entirely lacking in the tank's armament. The classical idea is to get one to short range somehow and flay someone with the lasers, be it by stealth, treachery, or distraction. (The Demolisher option, driving on through the fire with a bit of assistance, doesn't work as well unless you're using the fusion-powered variant. Even then, you'll probably want someone to draw some fire.) The LGR models want to stay at range, preferably with a clear LOS, and hammer someone with repeated shots until they drop. They
definitely need friends - LGRs don't have quite enough reach to have a commanding edge in range modifiers against a lot of modern weapons on something this slow. Having a
Hunchback or a
Berserker charging into range is going to force the enemy to deal with an immediate threat, giving the LGRs time to work them over properly. Ultimately, like a lot of the Free Worlds League's more prominent designs, the Ontos is a vehicle that works best as a member of a team, struggling together to create a greater whole from lesser parts.
The Ontos isn't the scariest assault tank in BattleTech in terms of firepower but that doesn't make it a good idea to stand in front of one, either. Even the (light) Gauss model may not be noted for tearing cockpits off in a single shot (unless you're driving, say, an HSR-200-D
Hussar, in which case you shouldn't be standing in front of
anything including a stiff breeze) but all of them work to some degree or another on the RAC principle: score enough small hits on a target and the fact that they're not that big won't really matter. None of them are that heavily armored, either. You need to bring the laser models down at range if you can. If they manage to get close, try to stay out of the short-range bracket to minimize the laser fusillade. Against the long-range models (the LGR and LRM variants), try to take cover and surge into short range to tackle them under their range minimums but be aware that at medium range, they can rain a lot of fire on you quite accurately. And whatever you do, bring decent amounts of firepower. You want these things killed reasonably expeditiously, not next week, and you're going to have to deal with whatever the League dragged out of the arsenals to operate alongside them, too.
References: The
Ontos is on the MUL, but you'll need to look
here for the Ontos-X. The
BattleTech Wiki has some additional artwork. CamoSpecs has both one of the out-of-production original minis in the colors of
the 3rd McCarron's Armored Cavalry and several different versions of the
3058 model.
