MR-1S Morgenstern - 70t, TRO:3085
All proposed fan-variants should be posted in the corresponding “FotW Workshop” thread.“Better to rain Hell than serve Hazen.”
The first line of the
Morg’s fluff recognises something we’ve been saying on these boards for years.
Lockheed released a terrible airframe to the Lyran military over half a millennium ago.
Oh,
thank you! If the
Lucifer had shed some ammo for more speed, if it had had a comm. suite worth the name or an
ejection system... but it didn’t, and the LCAF was stuck with it. Indeed, given the nominal speed of government and allowing for that bureaucratic inertia being compounded by Lyran ‘Social General’ disease and the inevitable kickbacks, I’m actually a little surprised that it took the Elsies
only five centuries to embrace a truth that’s been staring them in the face since 2523! ::)
In any case, they finally admitted that they’d been handed a lemon, and they had to do something about replacing it. At the same time, the Jihad’s aftermath left people a little more conscious of supply issues, and with Tharkad’s production of the HCT-213
Hellcat and
Lightning also clobbered, it occurred to some bright spark that it would make their logistics a heck of a lot simpler if they replaced all three designs with a single OmniFighter. In acknowledgement to the
Lucifer’s centuries of service, no matter how chequered they might have been, they named the new type
Morgenstern (‘Morningstar’, one of the fallen angel’s other nicknames).
Seventy tons of Lyran-built winged badassery (seriously: look at the artwork!), the MR-1S was originally intended to use a Light engine, but given the sheer number of birds it was intended to replace across the LCAF, the per-unit costs were... problematic, and so a simple 280SFE was installed to keep the budget balanced. Matching the 6/9 thrust-curve of two of its three predecessors (and out-speeding its namesake), the
Morgenstern makes the unusual but understandable choice of only installing a four-ton fuel-fraction, with the expectation that more pod-space gives commanders more options - including that of devoting pod-space to extra fuel-blivets to make up the endurance-differential. (Not that the canon configs do that, but still.... :-\) As a lesson of the Jihad, the armour-fraction is a reassuringly sound sixteen tons of ferro-aluminium, with a 93/71/51 layout that renders the nose immune to threshold-crits from IS PPC’s or Clan large lasers (either ER or pulse) and the wings laughing off IS (ER)LLs; even the aft section sneers at IS medium lasers, including the MPL, and a Blaker MVSPL has to close to its own Medium range to hope for a TAC-check on a
Morg’s stern. While it’s not in the same league as the earlier
Eisensturm, the MR-1S was clearly built with survivability as a top concern. Another choice to maximise the pod-space was the installation of only the base ten DHS; as a piece of in-universe logic, I might have preferred the full eleven DHS the engine could house, but being that this is an OmniFighter, it’s not a crippler. All of that leaves you with thirty-one (31) tons of pod-space - that’s more than
forty percent of the ship’s mass available to be filled with dakka. }:)
And as a reassuring bonus, one of the key points of the
Morgenstern’s fluff, pointedly mentioned as being used to ‘sell’ the type to pilots converting from the old
Lucy, is that yes, it features
a working ejection system. You can almost
hear morale rising, can’t you? :P
Morgenstern-Prime is meant to make transition training easier for converting
Lucifer pilots, as well as fill many of the LCF-R15’s tactical niches. With reams of reports on how little the
Lucy’s wing-mounted SLs were actually used in combat still haunting their institutional memories, the Lockheed/CBM engineers chose to house the offensive armament purely in the ship’s nose. Dual ER laser-cannons provide a solid base-of-fire at long range, with twin Artemis-equipped MML-7s and two tons of ammunition allowing pilots to either add to the beams at those same ranges like the old
Lucy always wanted to, or follow up the guns with crit-seeking SRMs (particularly in the air-to-mud role). An ERML is installed in the tail-section to make sure the tailgaters get a warm reception, and seven DHS are installed to cover the heat-load. An all-forward alpha-strike is two points under the loadout’s dissipation capacity, and even a fore-and-aft “they’ve got me surrounded, the poor bastards!” salvo only bumps things up to +3, so I’d say that the Lockheed people were very mindful of their mathematics on this one. }:)
Meant for the ‘swing-fighter’ role, dealing with aerospace-superiority or ground-attack duties with equal facility, the
Morgenstern-A configuration is the sort of thing that gives its pilots and commander evil-gasms while inducing cold sweats (and then very
hot ones) in its victims. Retaining the tail-mounted ERML to keep the other guys honest, and packing in eight more DHS for the heat-load, the
Alpha loadout again concentrates its offensive firepower in the nose: an ERPPC and twin plasma-rifles(!) with three tons of ammunition.
You all know my feelings on the PR as an aerospace-combat weapon already, so you can well imagine that this loadout makes me want to call its designer things that would get past the censortron only as a string of symbols from the top row of my keyboard.
The heat-balance on this loadout is again consciously designed for full-forward-fire - the ER Peeper and the two PRs are still one under capacity - so the only reason you wouldn’t hit the other guy with everything you’ve got would be ammo concerns, and three tons of plasma-plastic means you can afford to keep handing out the bad news for a fair while. With the possible exception of the meanest and nastiest heavy fighters, three ten-point hits will get anyone’s attention, and +2d6 heat will
severely inconvenience most ’Mechs or ASFs; the additional damage they inflict on other units is just a bonus. Getting hit by a
Morg-A is an exercise in managing not only pain but also frustration. #P
Recalling the ‘one big main gun’ motif of the
Lightning (I’ll skip the Lyran/Freudian joke this time), the
Morgenstern-Bravo devotes most of its pod-space to a monster Improved Heavy Gauss Rifle and twelve rounds (three tons) of ammunition in the nose, backed by ERMLs in the tail and each wing as additional crit-seeking/‘getting-home guns’; the nose-mounted MML-5 and
its two-ton magazine strike me as meant primarily for delivering SRMs as ‘even more crit-seeking’, though getting pinged with another (albeit small) cluster out to Long range certainly won’t make the other guy any happier about seeing this thing in his airspace. The third config capable of firing everything it’s got without going into heat-debt, the
Morg-B’s sole purpose in life is to hurl quarter-ton ferro-nickel slugs down-range at every opportunity, delivering a 22-point hit out to Long range that will generate a threshold-check against any ASF I can think of and leave even the heaviest assault ’Mech at least a little dizzy.
Based on studies of the
Hellcat it’s intended to replace, the
Morgenstern-C is a pure flashbulb. With seven DHS podded-in to manage the heat it generates, although that does take some juggling, the
Morg Charlie’s nose boasts twin ERLLs for the long-range joust, backed by a large pulse-laser for those low-odds shots and a pair of ERMLs you can trade in for the pulser when you want to exploit breached (or naturally thin) armour. With back-up ERMLs in each wing and the tail, with an additional MPL to ‘reward’ the guys who get
really aggressive about their ‘ass-grabbing’, this loadout requires careful management of which weapons are appropriate to what situation and won’t overwhelm your sinks, but most pilots of the old HCT-213 will be used to that in any case.
There’s a long-standing tradition among Omnis that most of them have a configuration devoting much of its pod-space to missile-systems for fire-support duties, and the
Morgenstern-Delta continues it... though with awareness that there’s an even longer-standing tradition that missile-boats tend to be weak on self-defence weapons and thus get bum-rushed to put them out of the fight early. That consciousness is reflected by a respectable back-up array of energy weapons - an ERLL and ERML in the nose, with the tail warded by another ERML and a small laser - and bolstered by a
targeting computer just in case someone tries the classic ‘rush the sniper!’ routine. }:) (Personally, I would’ve rather seen it loaded with ‘just-in-CASE’ than the SL, but I guess that even on a generally-superlative project like this, Lockheed/CBM can have an ‘off’ day. :-\) The type’s missile-support capability comes from three Artemis-equipped MML-7s, one each in the nose and each wing, feeding from a shared four-ton magazine; finally, a single additional DHS is podded-in to handle heat concerns.
This is another config that requires just a little juggling in your ordnance selections - if you’re using the ERLL and the MMLs togther, you’ll need to stagger your missile-fire three-two-three-two to keep the gauge more or less flat - but all those damage-clusters it generates mean that interceptors, and other birds (or ’Mechs) with thin or breached armour, will heartily dread the sight of a
Morg-D. All those launchers, and all those ammo-bins, mean that this set-up provides an almost despicably flexible aerial-bombardment platform capable of addressing almost air-to-ground any scenario. Frag rounds for suppressing infantry? Thunders for shaping the battlefield? Infernos for hobbling ’Mechs or torching flammable terrain-features? Open
TW or
TacOps, pick a missile-munition to suit your situation and tactical needs, and watch the other guy’s face drop as you deliver it in copious amounts. }:)
There are two other notes that need to be made about the
Morgenstern’s offensive capabilities. The first is that it’s big and hefty and can carry an amount of external ordnance that’s almost as frightening to contemplate for its
operators as it is to the recipients:
fourteen points of bombs or other ordnance at 3/5 - enough for seven(!) Light AAMs or a pair of Arrow-IV AAMs and two drop-tanks, if you’re looking to keep control of the skies. Personally, I’m filled with visions of a
Morg walking a full load of cluster-bombs across a ’Mech battalion and watching the carnage.... }:)
The second note is that as of the publication of
TRO:85, the
Morgenstern was still in final acceptance trials, and the final decision about who would get them first and in what quantities had yet to be made. The Lyrans are naturally keeping the “lion’s share” of the first production-run to themselves, but the Exiled Wolves do have an option to acquire some as well, to supplement their (ageing and possibly depleted?) fleet of Clan OmniFighters. And if they
do exercise that option-to-buy, you do realise what
that would mean, don’t you?
Morgensterns loaded out with
Clan-grade ordnance. }:)
A lot of what you’ll want to do with the
Morgenstern depends on what loadout you’re using and what the other guy’s throwing at you - and given the post-Jihad threat-environment, that’s a really long list that would take far too many electrons to address in one column/sitting. ::) Essentially, it’s a matter of keeping the
fundamentals in mind and adapting to what happens in play. [shrug] Of course, part of that includes operating as a team, so if you operate an MR-1S as part of a high/low mix with some
Eisensturms, and maybe bring along some
Samurai for fast-dogfighter support and -Z4
Seydlitz for harrassment duties... well, the other guy’s going to have an
interesting day, isn’t he? }:)
Hunting
Morgensterns? Well, that’s at once a simple and a complex issue. Unless your interceptors are armed with weapons that match/out-perform Clan medium lasers, or they’re carrying Arrow AAMs to punch a hole in the
Morg, basically they shouldn’t bother; the thing was designed with malice aforethought to laugh off the weapons most light-fighters carry. (Of course, ClanTech is a different matter, but then isn’t it always? ::)) Naturally, more mobile fighters will have an easier time achieving good firing positions, but you’ll need IS LPLs or better to breach the wing-armour... basically, you need to come to the party with something just as big and mean, and unless you’re a Clanner (I’m looking at you, Malvina the Mongol Moron), that’s probably going to be a big ask. I know that’s not very useful commentary, but against a bird this well put-together, I’m not sure there
is an ‘ideal solution’. :-\
THE WORKSHOP I’m actually going to suspend the writing of new FotW columns for a while; recent developments at work mean things are about to get ‘interesting’ - in the Chinese sense - for at least the next month or so, and that’s even
before you account for the looming Season of Insanity. #P That said, since the forum’s recent migration has left us without the archives, I’m going to try to get the remainder of the old columns reposted Real Soon Now™ - though that may mean leaving the necessary re
writes until later. :-\