Artillery in the Battletech universe.
In Battletech we’ve got lots of vehicles with artillery weapons on them but three types of guns Sniper, Thumper and Long Tom which are used by all the Great Houses and anyone else. And I will preface this by saying that I’m using modern military equipment and ideas, as well as throwing out the idea that the heaviest artillery pieces have a range of 15,000 meters at most (9 miles), and that in ‘real’ terms, the guns and missiles are a damn sight longer ranged. And in turn, the actual ranges of weapons in Battletech are a lot longer, and that what we get is simplified for tabletop use (lets say that each hex is actually around 100 meters rather than 30 as that makes more sense at least to me).
I would assume that within a Houses Military, that standardisation would be largely the order of the day, at least until the 1st and 2nd Succession Wars threw it out the window. But this does not mean that each House’s artillery is identical, and the name for the different guns is more a generic catchall for light, medium and heavy artillery that’s used in general parlance.
This is the same for autocannons, where you’ve got things like the Marauder’s 105mm autocannon, but other AC-5’s have been described as rapid firing 50mm guns that fire bursts of rounds in a few seconds. Whilst AC-20’s have been described as 203mm cannons firing large individual shells, to very rapidly firing 75mm guns that fire in large, sustained bursts. MechWarrior 5 shows this with the burst fire cannons for example.
So I’d assume that the distinction is roughly this;
Thumper – 105mm – 122mm (4-inch to 4.8-inch)
Sniper – 130 – 175mm (5.1-inch to 6.8-inch)
Long Tom – 180mm – 305mm (7-inch to 12-inch)
With the smaller calibre guns the blast wouldn’t be that different, and a smaller round could have a more advanced and potent explosive charge than a larger round, the end result is still the same damage. Whilst with the bigger guns, I had a far larger spread of gun size because looking at the art for the new Mobile Long Tom that was on Mr Scroggins Patreon. That gun is a LOT bigger than 203mm, and its what got me thinking.
For example, House Steiner might use a 305mm Long Tom cannon, it fires a large, heavy shell and has a long range. House Davion’s home-grown Long Tom however is a 203mm gun, but it uses a flick rammer to fire off 3 rounds in 9 seconds using MRSI or Multiple Rounds, Simultaneous Impact firing to ensure that all 3 rounds arrive at or around the same time. Because if you hammer 3 smaller rounds into a small target area at the same time, you’re not having a nice day if you’re on the receiving end.
And despite being a smaller round, the 203 of the Davion Long Tom has about the same range as the Steiner 305 which needs a bigger propellant charge to fire it, thanks to either being a rocket assisted projectile, or having a base bleed designed shell -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_bleedWhilst the SLDF would have had a standardized set of guns and calibres for their artillery, the Houses would probably produce their own weapons because it saves money having to wrangle a licence to produce a gun made and designed by someone else. And, whilst they would have their own standard guns across their military, the back and forth of the Succession Wars, especially the 3rd would probably see this being hopelessly destroyed. Because you’d be salvaging and stealing guns off your enemies, which then leaves you with a ‘Sniper’ that fires 175mm shells whereas your home-grown gun fires a 155mm round. Hopefully you’ve also captured a stockpile of shells, otherwise you could find units approaching local manufacturers to produce a comparatively small run of shells based on samples that are given to them. And with this done largely without any centralised control you could have a gun battery assigned to say a Regiment, and within those three batteries, you’ve got ‘Thumpers’ and sure, some are your home grown 105mm rounds but Charlie Battery’s got those four 122mm guns and vehicles that the Cappies use which makes the Regiments quartermaster hate them.
This does throw out the number of shots per ton of ammo but this could be basically handwaved as a gaming simplification. You get 5 shots per ton of Long Tom ammo, meaning each shell’s got to weigh about 200kg. The now retired M110 203mm (8-inch) howitzer’s shell and propellant charge weighed 90kg together, the bigger M1 Howitzer firing a 240mm was 160kg. This could then be taken as a ‘round’ being 3 x 203mm shells from a Long Tom in Davion service, whilst a bigger gun like the hypothetical 305mm Steiner gun is a shell per round.
The biggest change between the SLDF and Succession Wars, using the 4th Succession War as an example would be the change of fire control and spotting.
Going into head canon here, but I’d sat the SLDF would have gunnery systems that would give modern artillery personnel raptures. You’re talking fully integrated gunnery direction and communication systems, allowing Platoon Commanders, and even individual troopers to mark and designate targets. This would be for ‘Mechs, infantry, and anything else. And any guns nearby would get the targeting data and engage as needed. Each gun would have its own onboard electronics (phased radars etc) to aid with accuracy and rather than relying on what people think of an artillery bombardment of massed guns. You’d only need a few guns firing a limited number of shells, all landing in a very tight area to destroy a target. This is what we've actually got today, now. But the SLDF's would probably be smaller, lighter and more powerful in terms of use and flexibility.
But with the loss of technology thanks to the Succession Wars, a lot of these integrated systems went extinct and artillery systems were dumbed down, meaning you needed more guns to get the same kind of effect as the SLDF could do with a handful of weapons.
Whilst the Thor and Thumper largely vanished, you could expect that a fairly simple bit of kit like the Ballista -
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Ballista would be able to remain in service. But without the advanced technology of the SLDF, you could well need a full Lance/Battery of such guns to have the same effect on a target as the SLDF would have done with 1 or 2 guns.
This has a real-world correlation as weapon systems and the means of directing them have become more capable.
WW1: Yeah, we need 10.000 shells to disable an enemy gun battery 7km away
WW2: Yeah, we need 2000 shells to disable an enemy gun battery 15km away
Cold War: Yeah, we need 500 shells to disable an enemy gun battery 25km away
Modern Day: Yeah mate, we need about 10 shells to disable that gun battery 50km away
The SLDF would be probably capable of doing the ‘modern day’ equivalent above, and during the 4th Succession War, it would be the ‘Cold War’ equivalent or even WW2, simply due to the loss of technology and the widening gap that technology and training offers.
And this isn’t going into what a missile system like the Arrow IV offers.
In a more modern and lifelike context, an Arrow missile is probably roughly analogous to something like the HIMARS or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM-140_ATACMS in terms or role. A single missile that is supremely accurate. Yes the fluff says ‘Arrow IV launchers can be equipped with standard unguided area saturation missiles but that makes little sense when you’ve got artillery cannons for that. Of course they would also be capable of an area attack, but instead of being a simple unguided round, you'd have sensors for detecting and homing in, and then a proximity fuse would trigger for an air burst. At which point it showers the target with a mixture of explosive pellets for anti-armour and fragmentation for 'softer' targets. And if needed, either an FAE or Thermobaric warhead also for an area attack.
I’d see the Arrow IV being almost exclusively the Homing Arrow, or something where you fire it into an area and its got an onboard computer that knows what target to hit thanks to target recognition software. And this, in turn is what killed the Arrow off. It didn’t become lostech, the sensor systems for it did, because without those, you’ve basically got a dumb-fire rocket and its basically as accurate as a SCUD or FROG missile at that point. Just a lot smaller and less destructive, but also expensive to make. Which made it basically militarily useless.
The SLDF would have probably used the Arrow to engage priority or high value targets (HQ’s, logistics/travel hubs, bridges, Command ‘Mechs etc) and it could have seen less use in a general battlefield role. And who knows, if you extrapolate our modern-day military drone and loitering munitions, which writers didn’t know about when coming up with such systems as the Arrow (which I’d say is at least based on the MLRS). The SLDF could have had a loitering Arrow, call it the LAMS or Loitering Arrow Munition System, and they could have been fired and stayed overhead of an advance, waiting for a target designation before a missile or two onto the marked target with the missiles all being networked together to know what missiles were engaging what.
And one could even imagine that ‘Mechs equipped with LRMs, especially those that are tailored for acting as LRM boats would have a small onboard drone launcher that could provide targeting and telemetry data for indirect fire and that the systems for jamming and countering such systems would be beyond what we've got today in terms of EW output. But of course none of this is represented in game.
Just some musings brought about by a discussion yesterday that nestled in my brain. Feedback's always welcome!
