VotW: Shun Transport VTOL

[A. Lurker]

Well, I see the Shun as being durable enough to wade into the fire to drop those BA.  The Stealth Armor is going to give even some of the standard AA weapons a bit of trouble- only at short range does a cluster benefit negate the +1.  It definitely calls for the LB-5X with its longer ranges . . . (Hello Garm)

Stealth armor doesn't give any bonuses at short range. (Well, the vehicular model doesn't, anyway.) Just an extra +1 at medium and +2 at long. So if the Shun has to move into the short range brackets of suitably long-ranged AA weapons, all it has left to protect it is the sheer thickness of its shell, and that's assuming no catastrophic rotor hits.

In fact, a Shun planning to move that close to a target that can defend itself might actually be well advised, depending on the situation, to drop out of stealth mode first. That way it at least gets its ECM bubble back.

[Leozack]

Another vehicle you've made me go back and look at again in the last week (I'm still reconsidering the Bandit courtesy of your previous article being a bit if an eye-opener for me). I'd kind of breezed past the Shun, when I looked through the TRO. I don't think I'd noticed the type of armour it mounts before.

The more I look at it, the more it makes me want to smile a thin and cruel smile. Enough Battle-armour that you can seed a few penny packets here and there as tripwires and nuisance, or land a sizeable knot of them to either make life very difficult for someone where he has to go, or to persuade someone to not go somewhere in the first place. I like it, expensive but in universe it is the kind of capability that serves as a really good force multiplier. (The Suns may have taught a harsh lesson in combined operations in the Fourth War, but it does feel like the Capellans have been attentive students.

Karl

[Kidd]

So... Magshots, stealth armour, three times the BA. This is basically the Cavalry Infiltrator on a budget - cause His Divine Celestialness prefers to build 1/3 the airframes of the Davion scum. It makes a lot of sense.

[SCC]

You guys know what this is? It's the Yùn 2. About the only problem I see is that VTOLs can't drop infantry the way ASF's can, multiple squads a turn ???

[Empyrus]

Yun 2...? They're in the same TRO. The Yun is for rapid commando insertions (though it isn't that subtle really), the Shun is for carrying infantry where you need them, en masse.

Regardless, the Cappies do get some lovely and interesting toys for sure. The Yun and Shun both are good examples, indeed the CapCon 3145 TRO doesn't really have anything i'd call a dud, expect perhaps the Mortis, though there are one or two weaker units (like the Vandal, which is a bit lacking i think, thanks to its terrible configs).
(Now they need a super-heavy siege vehicle thing like the FedSuns Destrier, with Cappie-twist to it (Stealth armor isn't probably suitable but perhaps quad-Arrow IV or something like that...))

[Baron RedSkull]

Unfortunantely while the stacking limits are by level, so you can have say two squads land beneath the VTOL (in case of jumping suits) loading is extended.  And the Shun will have to loiter in the area to get that third squad down.  Or even worse if it has to pick the troops up.

In short the Shun is going to have longer times loitering around the LZ than a Cavalry Infiltrator.

If I remember the loading and offloading rules correctly, you can only of load 1 squad per door per turn. So a fully loaded Shun is still going to require 3 turns to offload completely.

[A. Lurker]

If I remember the loading and offloading rules correctly, you can only of load 1 squad per door per turn. So a fully loaded Shun is still going to require 3 turns to offload completely.

Not exactly; VTOLs don't even have "doors" in the sense that Small Craft and DropShips may, anyway. However, only one infantry unit may dismount into a target hex per turn (TW p. 225, right in the continued first paragraph), and only if doing so would violate no stacking limits. Since for a VTOL the only valid "target hex" would be the one beneath it at the end of its movement, we end up still only able to dismount one squad or jump platoon at a time anyway.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Speaking of 150 year olds... I seem to remember the RoW having a special rule that a VTOL's rotor was automatically destroyed if a mech hit the unit with a physical attack. I don't know if the newfangled TW kept that rule.. if not it should have!

Didn't someone say a while back that if your helicopter is getting punched, things have already gone horribly wrong?

[mbear]

EDIT: Putting the final article together, I managed to accidentally cut the mention of the one-ton targeting computer guiding the rifles. This is an odd choice on the Shun, since really it doesn't help the guns a great deal, not nearly as much as, say, more Magshots or a couple of rocket launchers would. But, if you're already investing in an XL engine, stealth armor, etc., why the hell not go totally nuts? Plus it's another little swipe at the Federated Suns, and that's never a bad thing.

I can see why they did it. If you have fewer weapons, you're not likely to stick around and get shot up. The XL engine, Stealth Armor, and targeting computer ain't cheap. If you get shot down because you were trying to fight a heavier unit, the Chancellor is going to be pissed.

[Kojak]

Didn't someone say a while back that if your helicopter is getting punched, things have already gone horribly wrong?

I believe that was me, talking about the benefits of reflective armor on VTOLs.

[SCC]

Hm, now that I think about it, that same can be said of ASF (Getting punched)

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

There's another term for punching an ASF: having it crash-land on you.

[mbear]

There's another term for punching an ASF: having it crash-land on you.

I thought that was the ASF making the punch attack though.