Vehicle of the Week 3145 Preview: R10 Mechanized ICVThe R10 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle is one of the latest offerings from the Exeter Organization, best known for the Pegasus hover tank and their line of communications equipment. Although it's masked a little bit by the wide range of infantry combat vehicles in BattleTech, a lot of infantry doesn't get to ride in tough, decently well armed ICVs, and I suspect that at least some of the missile-armed variants of the heavy APCs might be attempts by militia forces to address that. Popular with the troops (funny how they like riding in things that are reasonably tough and armed well enough to keep them from being casually murdered by [i}UrbanMechs[/i]...), the design was originally manufactured for the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth back around the turn of the century but had proliferated to other former League powers including the Rim Commonality. Exactly how far is going to have to wait for the MUL but we know the Wolf Empire founded by Alaric Ward permits export now that they control Keystone and may well be using the design themselves.
The R10's overall design reminds me a little of the Goblin, starting with the fact that they're both 45 ton vehicles that happen to have infantry, similar armor levels, and more than strictly notional firepower, especially the fusion-powered upgraded variants. The wheeled motive system restricts mobility and increases your vulnerability to motive hits somewhat but with the use of a GM 205 XLFE, it permits a 7 ton engine to drive the R10 at flank speeds of 86 kph, comparable to the much smaller heavy tracked APC and a decent enough amount of mobility for a medium vehicle. The armor isn't notably heavy but at 7 tons of Kallow FWL Special Ferro-Fibrous arranged 34/25/21/20, it's enough to make the R10 something more than a casually-swatted target, especially if you remember that the vehicle's primary job is moving and supporting infantry, not trying to play tank. The CASE that was included plays into that by protecting your troopers and vehicle crews from any catastrophic ammo hits It's also significantly better than most if not all Vedette variants and slightly tougher than the Hetzer, both vehicles I'd expect lower-end R10 customers to be fielding. Ordinarily, this is the part where I start talking about the guns, but the R10 is an OmniVehicle with a 15 ton turret and 18 tons of total podspace as well as a fixed 4 ton infantry compartment. While I'd prefer to have that tonnage for myself and simply assign it to infantry bays in individual configurations, that does move the R10 closer to tank than the ICV Exeter intended to market, and there's precedent with the older Badger Tracked Transport from Blackwell, an adaptation of a Clan combat vehicle. Either way, an Omni's base chassis only gets you half the story.
I mentioned the Badger a minute ago but while they share a general role, the Badger is more of a heavily armed APC than a true IFV, something that definitely isn't true of the R10, and the Prime makes that difference very clear. Despite piling on another eight tons of infantry capacity, the R10 Prime has a pair of ERMLs mounted forward and a pair of SRM 6 launchers in the turret sharing two tons of ammo. Although there's certainly room for the lasers in the turret, an argument can be made for not fixing all your weapons into a locked turret, too. The A configuration is more of a general battlefield unit but it works well alongside the Prime, packing two LAC/5s and two standard medium lasers into the turret, plus another pair of medium lasers on the forward mounts. (I'm beginning to sense a pattern here...) Two tons of ammo leave you with an acceptable but not spectacular 10 rounds per gun if you carry precision or let you split a ton of standard rounds plus flechettes, flak, or some other special load, or just 20 rounds per gun if you expect a long battle. The R10 B rounds out the mixture with an LB 10-X fed by four tons of ammo in the turret (I get the feeling someone doesn't want to run out of ammo), plus two small pulse lasers fixed forward. Without carrying special ammo, this is the only R10 that can really smack around a conventional platoon, but wheeled vehicles don't want to get that close to infantry most of the time, so these are in my opinion more for deterrence and ambushes, not routine sweeping of infantry. That's what the BA in the back are for. (The best commonly available load for that sort of work is probably the flamer if you don't mind dooming infantry to a horrible, painful death as they're consumed by fire. And hey, if they didn't want to die horribly, what are they doing on
your battlefield?) A Beagle Active Probe and Guardian ECM suite provide electronics support to the infantry.
I'll start the tactical advice section off with an observation for our FWL players. Three R10s, one of each configuration, can carry the FWLM's canonically oddly sized BA platoon assuming medium or smaller suits or standard rules, and the Prime can move two squads of Phalanxes or the new Ogres under TacOps rules. If you
are packing three R10s, attaching another 5/8 or faster vehicle gives you a compact BA transport platoon that can probably fight its way out of a moderate ambush or set one of their own, especially if the troopers bail out of the backs of their rides to help. In general, R10s are capable of being used in the light to medium tank role, especially the A and B configurations, and they make solid IFV contenders, much more so than the Republic's slightly faster Giggins APCs. Even the fire support variant is going to find itself outgunned by the Prime or A, while the B's ability to pepper it with LB-X clusters will be a significant pain to deal with. Non-BA loads can also be accommodated, including a significant motorized contingent in the Prime, so the R10 has a lot of utility even for forces that aren't heavily equipped with BA.
If you're fighting R10s, remember what you're dealing with. It's not just an armored fighting vehicle, it's a transport, and the last thing you need while you're getting smacked around by laser and missile fire is to have a squad of Kopis suits step out of the back to say hello in that special way only eight medium lasers trained on the same target can. One of the best things you can do with these guys in an open terrain engagement is disable them early to strand their passengers, then sweep them up once the rest of the enemy force is dealt with. Killing an R10 with BA in it is also a good idea. If you can't kill them at range, the only real advice I have is to be careful and bring AE to bear if you can - it's likely to make any infantry either get out of the area or duck back into the R10 for cover, not to mention damaging both targets at once. Once you do move into the killing engagement, the usual advice applies: Bring enough firepower to do the job quickly. R10s may not be the most heavily armed things around but they do pack a certain amount of firepower in.
References: While the MUL isn't updated yet, I have uploaded the unit artwork elsewhere:
