Vehicle of the Week: Vedette

[mbear]

Yeah, no half a ton AP Gauss ammo.

Of course, a Clanner would protect a solahma tank like a Vedette with some solahma armor. That is, solahma doing a tank desant (ie sitting on top of the tank).

Sadly, BattleTech seems to lack rules for tank desants...

Use the Unwilling Allies rules from one of the Jihad Hot Spots books. (I think.)

[SCC]

So I'm going to say something that might seem weird, but here me out: The Vedette might be the worst design in the entire game, and yes I include the Targe in that.

The idea behind the Vedette is to take the Scorpin, which is a cheap, throw away unit, and give it more armour and speed, both of which will make it more expensive, this on a throw away unit without actually getting rid of the 'throw away' bit, that's why it's so bad, because at least the Targe had a reasonable design idea behind it.

[Elmoth]

I never cosnidered a Vedette a serious vehicle. I would say that militias take Scorpions. And then go for serious gear for specialists. Or go for serious gear for everything if they have the money. The vedette would have very low sales as it does not have the necessary speed that other designs (hovers) have, nor the staying power, nor the hitting capabilities. A poor design indeed.

[Vonshroom]

So I'm going to say something that might seem weird, but here me out: The Vedette might be the worst design in the entire game, and yes I include the Targe in that.

The idea behind the Vedette is to take the Scorpin, which is a cheap, throw away unit, and give it more armour and speed, both of which will make it more expensive, this on a throw away unit without actually getting rid of the 'throw away' bit, that's why it's so bad, because at least the Targe had a reasonable design idea behind it.

I never cosnidered a Vedette a serious vehicle. I would say that militias take Scorpions. And then go for serious gear for specialists. Or go for serious gear for everything if they have the money. The vedette would have very low sales as it does not have the necessary speed that other designs (hovers) have, nor the staying power, nor the hitting capabilities. A poor design indeed.

I don't necessarily agree. Sure the Vedette is not what you use to assign to troops you want to keep around for a while, but it serves a valid role, and one that the Scorpion can't quite fill. Most importantly it can keep up with a 5/8 line (cavalry speed) and generate an extra +1THM (which might help more than the added two tons of armor over the Scorpion). It's allocation of armor also lets it take a few more chance LRM clusters or Medium lasers than the Scorpion can. Objectively I would always prefer to have a Vedette over a Scorpion, but the BV & CBill cost are the killer....

Sure for the BV and Cbills there are better units to field than the Vedette, but it does fill a nice "Expendable" niche that other units don't quite have. Hovers are better in most situations but in some terrain Tracks are superior. So if you need a dirt cheap ICE medium tank that can go 5/8? The Vedette is your tank. Also BV wise excepting the Galleon and the Scorpion they are about the cheapest thing you can field. Ironically this 50 ton tanks main competition is from the lightweight Scorpion and Galleon.....

From a force building standpoint if you are letting me simply play requisitions officer and build TO&E's using either CBills or BV as a metric I am always going to select Scorpions and Galleons over Vedettes from the standpoint that I can purchase about an entire Battalion of either of the lighter tanks for about the same price as a reinforced company of Vedettes. Looking at the BV you can get about 1.5 (Galleons or Scorpions) for the price of a single Vedette. With that said you need to have some tanks that have enough armor to take some hits and still be able to move quickly (usually hovers) but if pressed the Vedette isn't a terrible choice.

The Vedette fills the role of cheap APC infantry support tank for me, and there isn't another tracked vehicle that can really do the same thing in that era for the price. A 5 (or 2) point AC hit might not do much against a mech but a mass of Vedettes can turn ASF's or VTOLs away from your force without tying up an expensive and slow Partisan or Pike in the process.

Where the Vedette suffers is a lack of good variants. While the Scorpions LRM and SRM versions allow it to fill nearly any roles a slow budget tank needs to fill, the Vedette has no solid variants other than the AC/2 variant which really only provides a decently cheap AA option.

[AlphaMirage]

Agree with most of those points. I always thought 50 tons was to heavy. I've lightened it to 45 tons without much reduction in efficiency while saving a crewman. I've also thought of removing the machine gun and replacing it with smoke VGLs.

[Sabelkatten]

45 tons gets you another half ton of payload, so it's a plus in every way. But you can go all the way down to 34 tons and just lose 1 ton off the original - that's a pretty massive cost saving for a relatively small loss (~15% of the armor).

But it's the AC/5 that hurts the most. It really is a terrible weapon... :(

[Maingunnery]

On the board I have encountered Vedettes, but I can't say the same for Scorpions.
But the Vedettes that I do encounter are usually those with more firepower, such as light gauss or an LBX gun.

[Elmoth]

I have done and faced the scorpion horde. Nasty.

[Hellraiser]

The idea behind the Vedette is to take the Scorpin, which is a cheap, throw away unit, and give it more armour and speed, both of which will make it more expensive, this on a throw away unit without actually getting rid of the 'throw away' bit, that's why it's so bad

I think the Vedette pre-dates the Scorpion (MW1E) or at least is the same TRO (3026), so I'm not sure it was really based on it.
There is some fluff from "Price of Glory" that in universe it was based on an SLDF era tank of the same name.

I've always seen it as an alternative for better equipped militias.

Basic Militias use Scorpions from that go 4/6 & POP really easy.

Better Militias use Vedettes from NETC & Hunters from Defiance that are more nimble at 5/8 & don't POP quite so easy w/ extra armor.

[Liam's Ghost]

I think the Vedette pre-dates the Scorpion (MW1E) or at least is the same TRO (3026), so I'm not sure it was really based on it.
There is some fluff from "Price of Glory" that in universe it was based on an SLDF era tank of the same name.

I've always seen it as an alternative for better equipped militias.

Basic Militias use Scorpions from that go 4/6 & POP really easy.

Better Militias use Vedettes from NETC & Hunters from Defiance that are more nimble at 5/8 & don't POP quite so easy w/ extra armor.

Both the Vedette and the Scorpion appeared in MW1E, though the scorpion was one of the three combat vehicles that didn't get individual fluff in that book.

Amusingly, the little bit of lore in MW1E suggested that the Vedette was primarily a Liao and Davion tank, so if you wanted to play lore friendly at the time and all you had was that book, you'd tend to be throwing Davion Vedettes at Kurita Manticores and Liao Vedettes at Marik Hunters (and of course Liao and Davion Vedettes at each other). Or you'd be trying to trade them in for Strikers or Pegasi.

[SCC]

So Sarna lists a new variant I don't think we've covered before, the Armor Vedette. Swap to a FCE, Ultra 10 main gun with HMG backup and HFF for armor. Very nice, but I wonder about the utility of the HMG.

[SteelRaven]

I do like the newer art for it:

It's almost like a Ripsaw beefed up to Cold War tank proportions.

[AlphaMirage]

I too much prefer the new look, so many BT vehicles look silly and nonfunctional with strange proportions. It's nice to see some reasonable design added in

[Luciora]

Man, canted treads and we'd have a new candidate for the H.I.S.S. tank!

[chanman]

Well over a decade since I wrote this, I just now realized that I forgot to put the vehicle weight anywhere in the article 

[CarcosanDawn]

What do you guys think of the Marik experiment with the AC10 vedette?

Is the AC/10 a better weapon? Yes, I am aware it is a dumb idea, what with fusion engines costing more money than god ... just curious about upping the firepower. Shame they didn't go for a PPC considering it has 10 sinks already, but I digress...

[Alan Grant]

Assuming Sarna is correct (I don't have the book to verify and Sarna isn't always right) it's a fuel cell engine, not a fusion engine. If that's accurate, it's perfectly viable. Dunno if the HMG is that great, but otherwise I don't see any faults with it. Fuel cell works well with a lot of vehicles, more armor sounds great. It makes this Vedette feel more suitable for vehicle brawling and urban combat than some of the other variants. Where perhaps the HMG does get some play.

A big question mark for me since I don't have the book is where this variant is being built and what factions have access to it. If it's the usual spread of Vedette users then it's just ok. There are some other good medium tanks in the mix available to those factions and it's also competing with the existing array of Vedette variants.

If the Mariks do indeed build it (you called it a Marik experiment, so I'm intrigued) then that gets a little more interesting to me. Because the FWL doesn't have a lot of good medium tracked 5/8 tanks that they build. A lot of what you see on FWL RATs are imports like the Vedette LBX/ULTRA and even oddly the Myrmidon. They do have the Phalanx but it's slower and with an artillery cannon it's more of a direct fire support platform. 

So, if its FWL built, then to me it's a lot more interesting. It fills a vehicle niche (medium, tracked, 5/8) where the FWL has long relied on imports.

If the existing Vedette manufacturers are building it and it's still an FWL import, then it's ok. But it's operating in a field where there's a lot of competition on the menu, even from other Vedette variants where a player might choose to focus on things like which has the cheaper BV.

[paladin2019]

Without knowing the actual dimensions (how much of 1 level does it use?), it may or may not be a bad design. Hull extending past the tracks is generally seen as bad on tanks.

[Cannonshop]

Assuming Sarna is correct (I don't have the book to verify and Sarna isn't always right) it's a fuel cell engine, not a fusion engine. If that's accurate, it's perfectly viable. Dunno if the HMG is that great, but otherwise I don't see any faults with it. Fuel cell works well with a lot of vehicles, more armor sounds great. It makes this Vedette feel more suitable for vehicle brawling and urban combat than some of the other variants. Where perhaps the HMG does get some play.

A big question mark for me since I don't have the book is where this variant is being built and what factions have access to it. If it's the usual spread of Vedette users then it's just ok. There are some other good medium tanks in the mix available to those factions and it's also competing with the existing array of Vedette variants.

If the Mariks do indeed build it (you called it a Marik experiment, so I'm intrigued) then that gets a little more interesting to me. Because the FWL doesn't have a lot of good medium tracked 5/8 tanks that they build. A lot of what you see on FWL RATs are imports like the Vedette LBX/ULTRA and even oddly the Myrmidon. They do have the Phalanx but it's slower and with an artillery cannon it's more of a direct fire support platform. 

So, if its FWL built, then to me it's a lot more interesting. It fills a vehicle niche (medium, tracked, 5/8) where the FWL has long relied on imports.

If the existing Vedette manufacturers are building it and it's still an FWL import, then it's ok. But it's operating in a field where there's a lot of competition on the menu, even from other Vedette variants where a player might choose to focus on things like which has the cheaper BV.

The HMG: "Let's make something that weighs more than medium laser, with less range than a small laser, that has at least half a ton of ammo-bomb and is only useful against infantry that are within swarming distance! (but not close enough to actuall swarm)."

it's a weapon customizers pull for very nearly anything else that can fit in one-and-a-half tons (IS) or one ton (clan).

realistically, that is the purpose-something for players to practice their [unit] builds removing and replacing for something that's actually useful.

this kind of applies to the Vedette as a whole-it's a vehicle you hold on to long enough to afford to trade up to something that's actually good.

why? because even in the variants, you're looking at something trying to be everything...and failing.

it even fails to excel at mediocrity in most fits...but it iS, Unlike some vehicles, better than nothing.

That said, if you have a variant in your campaign and it's got an HMG, you're better off pulling it for a "Level one standard machinegun" and adding that half ton you've saved as armor, or swapping it for two standard Level 1 machineguns.  (30% more range, more infantry killn' power and lo! you can kill grunts from beyond Pistol range now!!)

just being random...

[Liam's Ghost]

Assuming Sarna is correct (I don't have the book to verify and Sarna isn't always right) it's a fuel cell engine, not a fusion engine. If that's accurate, it's perfectly viable. Dunno if the HMG is that great, but otherwise I don't see any faults with it. Fuel cell works well with a lot of vehicles, more armor sounds great. It makes this Vedette feel more suitable for vehicle brawling and urban combat than some of the other variants. Where perhaps the HMG does get some play.

A big question mark for me since I don't have the book is where this variant is being built and what factions have access to it. If it's the usual spread of Vedette users then it's just ok. There are some other good medium tanks in the mix available to those factions and it's also competing with the existing array of Vedette variants.

If the Mariks do indeed build it (you called it a Marik experiment, so I'm intrigued) then that gets a little more interesting to me. Because the FWL doesn't have a lot of good medium tracked 5/8 tanks that they build. A lot of what you see on FWL RATs are imports like the Vedette LBX/ULTRA and even oddly the Myrmidon. They do have the Phalanx but it's slower and with an artillery cannon it's more of a direct fire support platform. 

So, if its FWL built, then to me it's a lot more interesting. It fills a vehicle niche (medium, tracked, 5/8) where the FWL has long relied on imports.

If the existing Vedette manufacturers are building it and it's still an FWL import, then it's ok. But it's operating in a field where there's a lot of competition on the menu, even from other Vedette variants where a player might choose to focus on things like which has the cheaper BV.

The Vedette Sarna is talking about appears to actually be the "Armor" variant that first appeared in RG32. That one is a late republic design that is being built everywhere and appears to be the new standard Vedette. And aside from the heavy machine gun (and assuming your local logistics are up to supplying the fuel) seems to be a pretty nice medium tank.

The AC 10 Vedette originally appeared in Turning points Helm. It's a 3020s design that does use a fusion engine to keep the speed while also making room for the bigger gun. It's originally a Marik design using "surplus" engines from the plant on Stewart that was in service during the late succession war before going extinct by the clan invasion, then briefly reappearing in, of all places, the Escorpion Imperio during the early republic era.

In universe its main weakness was that the engines were just too valuable at the time. The tank itself wasn't terrible. It got a good armor boost compared to the practically disposable standard vedette. Personally though, I'm of the opinion that if you're going to put a fusion engine and a new gun in a vedette hull in the first place, you should commit to the bit, go for a large laser, and see what else you can get away with.

But on the other hand the intention was probably to keep the same visual outline.

[glitterboy2098]

sonds like there should be a "Marik 2" using a fuel cell+AC10 combo to make an extra cheap MBT.

[SteelRaven]

Without knowing the actual dimensions (how much of 1 level does it use?), it may or may not be a bad design. Hull extending past the tracks is generally seen as bad on tanks.

I'm not saying it's a reasonable looking design by any means but this IMO the most the Vedette has ever looked like a actual tank vs some sort of toy or a Snow Cat with a turret. It also looks passable as a 50 ton chassis (ball park of allot of Cold War tanks) while pass art has been all over the place in regards to proportions, the first MW RPG being the worst offender:
 

[Colt Ward]

sonds like there should be a "Marik 2" using a fuel cell+AC10 combo to make an extra cheap MBT.

Eh, you have the Vedette (Cell) . . . despite the HMG complaint, it is probably the best Vedette out there.

[paladin2019]

I'm not saying it's a reasonable looking design by any means but this IMO the most the Vedette has ever looked like a actual tank vs some sort of toy or a Snow Cat with a turret. It also looks passable as a 50 ton chassis (ball park of allot of Cold War tanks) while pass art has been all over the place in regards to proportions, the first MW RPG being the worst offender:

Fair enough. At least the third track of the MW1e version might help compensate for its nigh undriveable 1:1 track to wheelbase ratio and it won't ever balk on a climb because the hull hits the incline first.

EDIT: Make that a near 3:2 ratio when the optimal number is between 1:1.5 and 1:1.8.

[Minemech]

Assuming Sarna is correct (I don't have the book to verify and Sarna isn't always right) it's a fuel cell engine, not a fusion engine. If that's accurate, it's perfectly viable. Dunno if the HMG is that great, but otherwise I don't see any faults with it. Fuel cell works well with a lot of vehicles, more armor sounds great. It makes this Vedette feel more suitable for vehicle brawling and urban combat than some of the other variants. Where perhaps the HMG does get some play.

A big question mark for me since I don't have the book is where this variant is being built and what factions have access to it. If it's the usual spread of Vedette users then it's just ok. There are some other good medium tanks in the mix available to those factions and it's also competing with the existing array of Vedette variants.

If the Mariks do indeed build it (you called it a Marik experiment, so I'm intrigued) then that gets a little more interesting to me. Because the FWL doesn't have a lot of good medium tracked 5/8 tanks that they build. A lot of what you see on FWL RATs are imports like the Vedette LBX/ULTRA and even oddly the Myrmidon. They do have the Phalanx but it's slower and with an artillery cannon it's more of a direct fire support platform. 

So, if its FWL built, then to me it's a lot more interesting. It fills a vehicle niche (medium, tracked, 5/8) where the FWL has long relied on imports.

If the existing Vedette manufacturers are building it and it's still an FWL import, then it's ok. But it's operating in a field where there's a lot of competition on the menu, even from other Vedette variants where a player might choose to focus on things like which has the cheaper BV.

As far as the 3rd Succession War Free Worlds League Militia would be concerned, a Vedette and a Scorpion would be largely interchangeable for mission profile with the former a spruced up version. I do not really think that it would be viewed in terms of being a medium tank.

 

[BATTLEMASTER]

I think the new Vedette art makes the Vedette look like a Cobra HISS tank

I'm not sure I'd take this tank over a Scorpion.  If I have an objective that needs speed, I'd consider a hovercraft or VTOL.  I think the Scorpion's 4/6 movement is fine for its AC/5-ranged configurations, and with BV costs I can take 4 Scorpions for 3 Vedettes.  I'm referring to the original configurations.

[Colt Ward]

A 4/6 tank is generally not going to be able to keep up with a 4/6 mech . . . so to escort & screen the 4/6 heavy & med mech formations you need that next speed bracket.  And the tracks are going to take them to places the mechs can go where hovers cannot- they only have the advantage w/ water.

[Weirdo]

Yeah, for me Scorpions are the defensive AC/5 tank, Condors are the offensive AC/5 tank, and the Vedette is the middle ground that takes all the other jobs. As mentioned, it's pretty decent at accompanying mechs to provide them with a bit of extra firepower and some target-choice armor*. In bigger campaigns, I could see Vedettes also being used as middle-shell patrol units. You keep them moving around the most likely approaches hostile units will use to get to something useful, and they've got the firepower to put some notable holes in a group of scouts or raiders, while the combination of good range and speed means they can stretch an engagement with fast units trying to break past them by a vital turn or two longer than a 4/6 unit could - and every turn where they can keep putting AC shells into a target or calling down artillery on them is another turn closer to rendering them unable to finish their mission, whatever it may be.

*As in, every shot that is aimed at a Vedette is one that won't hit a mech.

Just as I was about to post, another thought occurred to me: Up until the 31st-century tech renaissance made faster wheeled and tracked vees more common, the Vedette was one of only a few combat vehicles whose speed profile paired well with the classic Mobile HQ and had a weapons load suitable to protecting such an asset. Going solely from memory, only the Striker also springs to mind. The Hunter comes close, but is hampered by the lack of turret.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I think the new Vedette art makes the Vedette look like a Cobra HISS tank

Not remotely as much as the MHI AA Tank does.

[BATTLEMASTER]

Not remotely as much as the MHI AA Tank does.

I'm thinking it's not the Word of Blake or the ilClan we need to be worried about past 3150...