So, the mighty Devastator . . .
No, not
that one.
Not that one either!
I mean, he's cool but he's not who we are after either. . .
Yeah, that's the ticket. . .
Picture the scene: Terra burns, Amaris and his Rim World Republican Guard are fighting for survival against a vengeful Star League, and from out of the smoke of the battlefield, titans of war stride, the ultimate assault lance.
At their head, a solid wedge of armour bearing two AC-20 Autocannons, designed to slay opposing mechs as quickly as possible. The indomitable
King Crab shoulders through the enemies heaviest fire and guts mechs in one massive salvo. Following behind, standing tall and shrouded in smoke like a pair of grim reapers, come the
Atlas II’s. Any mech opened up by the King Crab gets shredded by missiles, LBX-pellets and burned down by lasers. Finally, standing on the ridge line behind, laying down a hail of murderous long range gauss and PPC fire, the
Devastator stands watch. Four hundred tons of fusion powered death machine, all designed by or designed for Aleksandr Kerensky.
Its just a damn shame it probably never happened. The Devastator, the last of Kerensky’s trifecta of Assault Mechs, only saw a desperate limited production run in the lead up to the assault on Terra, with six being produced and deployed. After that, the design is lost to the Inner Sphere until the Fed Suns trip over its schematics on Hoff in 3023. A low-tech monkey copy was produced and put into production in 3036 after being prototyped by NAIS, and it would take a further twelve years for the full DVS-2 to return to the fields of the Inner Sphere in the arsenal of the Fed-com alliance, and it would soldier on in both the Davion and Lyran halves of the Alliance, and Republic Space, right into the Dark Ages.
The Devastator is a simple, murderous machine. A hundred tons, it uses a Vlar 300 XL to propel it to the blistering speeds of 54 KM/H. The engine supports 14 double heat sinks, and its Star League XT frame carries 18.5 tons of Durallex heavy armour, near maximum for frame. Every forward location takes at least two gauss rifle hits to claw open barring the head, its legs take two AC20s to strip and the centre torso takes that and a large laser to inflict your first critical chance. Its rear locations are well protected, with protection enough to keep out an AC-10 or IS PPC on each rear torso, with a shred of armour left on the rear centre torso.
Weapons wise, the
DVS-2 uses a pair of Poland Main Model A Gauss Rifles, one to each arm. Each gun has a dedicated bin feeding it in the arm, and a cross-fed bin in each side torso for decent ammunition endurance. This is combined with a pair of Donal PPCs in each torso, and four intek medium lasers, one in the head, one in each torso location (the centre one points backwards, pointlessly.) This weapon arrangement helps protect the vulnerable XL engine, keeping Gauss explosions somewhat contained, so if some lucky devil crits out the gauss rifles, its unlikely to kill the mech. Thanks to the locations of the PPC’s and heat sinks that extrude out of the engine, the XL engine is well packed against criticals.
This variant is about as optimally designed for an Inner Sphere assault mech as you can get. The only flaw seems to be the range brackets of the PPC’s not quite matching up with the Gauss Rifles. ER PPC’s would make it easier to use, improving the designs overall range, but screw with the heat curve, which is currently gloriously easy to manage. A
Stalker this ain’t.
The
DVS-1D is the monkey tech variant pushed out in 3036. With a standard engine, it has to save a lot of weight. It strips out the heavy weapons and replaces them with a pair of AC10 and a pair of large lasers. This is a vicious combo for a Succession War era assault machine. It gains an extra heat sink, but its a single, so its heat curve is ruined. It also only loses a half ton of armour over the original variant.
With its matched up range brackets, and solid secondary battery, this mech has only a single flaw: Heat! A standing ranged strike with the four big hitters generates a six point heat spike. You have to drop the large lasers every other salvo to keep the heat under control, or pick your moments for an alpha very carefully. This variant completely disappears from Davion space by 3060, surviving only in the Taurian Concordat.
The
DVS-3 is pretty much a standardized field refit for the DVS-2. It strips medium lasers for armour and more gauss rifle ammo. Apparently it is intended for long term operations, and gains an additional two tons of gauss ammo and a half ton of armour. The only secondary weapons remaining are a rear facing small laser and a rear facing medium, both in the centre torso. No, I don’t know why either.
We have an experimental tech variant debuting in 3075, the Devastator
MUSE EARTH. This is jammed with experimental gubbins. Built on endo-composite frame and with a compact gyro, the engine has been upgraded to a 400 XXL engine, combined with MASC and a super charger, allowing this 100 ton machine it to nearly hit 100 KM/H, which is nuts. For weapons its packs a pair of medium Variable Speed Pulse lasers, and for long range poke it carries a pair of Heavy PPC’s, each mated to a PPC capacitor, allowing it to dish out serious hurt at medium range if you are willing to risk a big heat spike. Finally, the entire mech is coated in 19.5 tons of reactive armour, which provides superb protection against missiles, artillery and mortars, as well as screwing with AC armour piercing rounds, mech tasers and tandem charge rounds. Seeing this thing accelerate towards you faster than most cavalry mechs, exploding under fire and not giving a single flip, is probably a pant wetting experience for most pilots.
Finally, a production model of the MUSE EARTH, the
DVS-10 uses an XL engine and a suite of re-engineered lasers. This variant is found in readout 3150, and doesn’t yet have a control sheet printed as far as I can tell.
The Devastator is easy to use in most configurations: find your range, find some good cover, and lay down the pain. The MUSE EARTH and its production model are different, providing horrid speed and blistering take down power, which on a 100 ton frame is exceptional. Of the three mainline variants, the base is undoubtedly my favourite, followed by the Succession War era DVS-1D, which is just a nasty bit of kit for period and would require very little tinkering to make usable in the modern era.
Fighting one is not easy: Shoot it till it dies. All of them apart from the DVS-1D have zombie characteristics, with no explosive criticals apart from the Gauss Rifles, but they all mount an XL engine in a pair of (relatively) thinly armoured side torso bays. If you can rip open a side torso a salvo of missiles or cluster rounds can put one down for the count and leave you some premium salvage. The MUSE EARTH is a different kettle of fish, you will need to use lasers or PPC’s to chew through its armour, as it can shrug of long range barrages of missiles. Thankfully, its probably going to charge right at you to get optimum range for its PPC’s, so you should get a turn or two of close range fire as it closes to kill. The reactive armour and XXL engine makes it very vulnerable to criticals, so if you can dig past its fancy armour you can hope to get lucky and watch the armour fall of in a chain reaction.
The Devastator is a great machine, and arguably stands at the apogee of what can be achieved with Star League technology: maximum damage and direct fire range mated to the toughest chassis available. I've used them in a few games as I have a terrible weakness for assault mechs, and I've always found them to be a demanding presence that cannot be ignored.
You can find a selection of excellently painted Devastators on Camospecs:
http://camospecs.com/Search/Index?Term=devastator And further information on its deployment and availability on the MUL:
http://masterunitlist.info/Unit/Filter?Name=Devastator 
