The market for small single stack (and staggered-single stack) pistols for concealed carry is huge. In my eyes, they’ve neatly usurped the old S&W J-Frame in the small concealment weapon space. Perfect for NPEs and the backup gun role. For my money, I’d much prefer striker fired triggers to heavy double action revolver triggers. Plus, the sights on the Glock 43 and M&P Shield are easily interchanged. Sights on most J-Frames aren’t. And what comes on the gun are atrocious.
So it makes sense that SIG would try to get in on this market. Using the same sort of striker-fired action as in their P320, they’ve come out with the P365. It’s sized in between the Glock 43 and the M&P Shield, as seen below
From left to right: Glock 43, P365, M&P Shield.
What makes the P365 special is the capacity. Where the Glock 43 holds six rounds with the standard, nonextended basepad, and the Shield holds seven rounds with the standard, nonextended basepad, the P365 holds ten rounds with the standard, nonextended basepad. It’s still thin and small, so it will still conceal very well. But more bullets. More bullets is better. Otherwise, ergos are very much a slimmed down P320. I’d expect the trigger to be like the P320 as well, so short and heavy and doing its best to resemble the single action trigger of something like a P226 or P229. Eminently shootable to be sure, and way better than the trigger on a J-Frame.
This idea sounds like a winner. And it probably will be. I have my reservations, at least as of when this goes to press. First, I don’t like to buy first generation anything for firearms. I am not a beta tester. I am not a member of anyone’s QC department. And I don’t do that work for free. So I’ll wait a little, just to make sure the bugs are gone. And that goes double for anything that says SIG on the side. Between the P320 drop-safety recall and their history of QC problems with their traditional P22X guns since setting up the plant in Exeter, they get an even longer wait. I do not like the current management either.
All that said, I would like this gun to work well, because I’d love a small backup gun with more bullets.
Today’s terrain is wooded hills, a nice large map with room to maneuver.
Heavy Lance will deploy in the northeast corner, since the Flashman and Awesome aren’t due until Rounds 2 and 3.
Round 1
Private Ngo and Double Dog deploy in that northeast corner, behind some trees from the main body of the enemy. They begin to maneuver toward the enemy, still well out of range.
Round 2
Rook’s Flashman takes the field. The enemies are still out of range to the southwest.
Round 3
Drake arrives in the Awesome. He’s just barely out of range with his PPCs. The enemy, having initiative, manages to stay out of Ngo’s firing arc, too. Rook and Double Dog have shots, though; Double Dog cracks off a Large Laser shot at an enemy Pegasus, while Rook opens fire on an enemy light mech, a Raven.
Everyone misses everything, except for our brave ally in the Hermes; he cracks the Raven’s center torso.
Round 4
Drake can hit from here; he aims for a Pegasus hover tank. The remainder of Heavy Lance, taking cover behind a convenient hill, has a shot on the same tank. In the hopes of removing it from the field, we focus our fire on it.
Round 5
The friendly Hermes is suddenly in a bit of a jam. It seems likely it’s going to die now.
Heavy Lance is solidly in engagement range now. Drake has a solid shot at a Scimitar hovertank, and takes that in preference to a less-solid shot on the Raven. The remainder of Heavy Lance has a better shot on the Raven, and all three take it.
Drake immobilizes the Scimitar, which should make it easy prey going forward.
Round 6
The friendly Hermes is now dead.
Cadre Lance will arrive before the next round.
This round, we’ll be working on the nearby Pegasus scout tanks; they carry SRM-6s, or what past experience leads me to call ‘mech-bane’. Drake and Ngo will shoot for the nearer one, while Rook and Double Dog go for the further one.
Ngo pads her tally with a kill on the nearest Pegasus, while Rook adds to her lead with the kill on the other.
Round 7
Cadre Lance arrives, and with its high speed is already close to the fight.
Drake aims for the Scimitar he immobilized; at this range against a stationary target, he’s automatic, a leisurely kill.
Ngo and Rook look to kill the last Pegasus, while Double Dog aims for the Scimitar hover tank directly in front of him.
Cadre Lance fires at what they can, but they’re still largely out of range.
As expected, Drake scores with all three PPCs on the immobilized Scimitar, punching through its armor with the first, cutting deep into its internal structure with the second, and scoring the kill with the third.
Ngo immobilizes the Pegasus, but Rook, everyone’s favorite glory hog, gets the kill.
Round 8
The enemy reinforcements arrive. At this stage, we’ve already won per the battle requirements, but once again, we’re in a sufficiently good position that I decide to fight it out. Drake, hidden from enemy fire by woodland, shoots at the only enemies he has a line on, a pair of Vedette medium tanks. Rook and Double Dog team up on the Scimitar in front of them.
Cadre Lance is still mostly out of range.
Round 9
Finally, Cadre Lance is mostly close enough to shoot. They, along with Heavy Lance, mainly engage the Raven. Drake and Ngo take aim at a Vedette and the currently-immobilized Scimitar, respectively.
Ngo and Teddy Bear are the only two to hit anything; Ngo finishes off the Scimitar, while Teddy Bear inflicts light damage on the Raven.
Round 10
The battle is truly joined now; not much movement occurs.
Drake polishes off the Raven, Rook scores on a Vedette. Wojtek lands a 15-missile volley on a Bulldog medium tank, nearly destroying it; Milspec, however, lands the killshot, delivering the largest amount of damage I’ve seen yet.
Cleanup
At this point, the enemy is scattered and nearly destroyed. Double Dog finishes off a heavily-damaged Scimitar which limped away from the battle early. Rook (of course) gets the Hetzer. Lastly, Severe scores a critical hit on the enemy Wasp’s SRM ammo, knocking it out.
Salvage, Repairs, Injuries
Drake is moderately wounded, and his Awesome will need a good bit of armor. No mechs took internal damage, and no other pilots got hurt. An easy victory.
Only the Raven is available for salvage, mech-wise; we take that, because it has medium lasers and armor.
We ransom five prisoners for 60,000 C-bills, and make a few thousand more in battle loss compensation.
Kill Board(s)
Rook continues to trounce all comers.
Last Mission
All-Time Leaders
Lieutenant “Rook” Ishikawa (15, 4 mechs)
Captain “Drake” Halit (8, 3 mechs)
Private Ngo (6, 2 mechs)
Lieutenant “Linebuster” Atkinson (5)
Lieutenant “Double Dog” Dare (4, 1 mech)
Private “Euchre” Kojic (2, 2 mechs)
Private “Ker-Ker” Ec (2, 1 mech)
Private “Teddy Bear” Jamil (2, 1 mech)
Private “Wojtek” Frajtov (1, 1 mech)
Private “Woad” Kohler (1, 1 mech)
Private Ed “Hanzoku” Yuksel (1, 1 mech)
Private Cathrine “Severe” Payne (2, 2 mechs)
Sergeant “Milspec” Ortega (2)
Status
It is now December 1, 3050.
Contract Status
After this month’s victories, the Capellan forces break and the contract is complete. Despite the general wimpiness of the Capellan armed forces, this was nevertheless a good test for the Opinionated Bastards. We fought at a very high tempo, and still managed to keep our unit in good fighting trim.
Finances
We have 11,361,817 C-bills in the bank. We’ll use a million or two to get home to Piedmont.
Unit Market
We purchased a Thunderbolt.
Organization
Woad gets his Grasshopper back, now that we have a replacement Thunderbolt for Double Dog. Lance tweaks to come.
Spares
Now that the contract is over, we arrange for the following spares from the Federated Commonwealth. (Their price is deducted from the finances note above.)
Three large lasers, one to replace the missing one on the Frankenstein Lancelot, and two to have in reserve.
One three-ton gyro.
One 70-ton jump jet to bring the Grasshopper up to a full complement.
MechWarrior Claims and Assignments
For the record, the following mechwarriors are claimed.
The following mechwarriors remain to be claimed. They’re listed with their current mech assignment. To claim a mechwarrior, give me a callsign for one of them. I’ll refer to them by their callsign in most places, and bold it so it’s easier to find them.
Pvt. Ngo, Crab CRB-20
Action Items
Should we refit the new Thunderbolt to remove the missile weapons, or leave it be? Note that refitting units to a non-standard configuration makes them difficult to maintain.
Glock has released their MHS entrant to the civilian market: the Glock 19X.
It’s got all the Gen 5 improvements: no finger grooves, an improved trigger, and ambidextrous slide stop, plus the texture and replaceable backstraps from the Gen 4 models. By all accounts, the Gen 5 models are awesome. I’m most excited about the improved trigger. It’s better than previous factory models and very competitive with the aftermarket options.
Of course, there are Gen 5 options available for the Glock 19, the Glock 17, Glock 34 MOS, and Glock 26 out there already. The Glock 19X is different. It pairs the full-size frame of a Glock 17 with the compact slide and barrel of a Glock 19.
Glock made this design to fit the “box” of the MHS size specifications. It will probably do well on the civilian market, as short-slide, full-size grip 1911s, snubnosed K-Frames, and subcompact pistols with grip-extending magazines are very popular.
I’m not a fan of the 19X from a concealment perspective, because the height is more annoying to conceal than the length. If I’m going to carry a full-size grip, I might as well get the sight radius of a full-size gun. Plus, those tend to recoil a little softer. I’d be a little more interested in a Glock 19 frame with a Glock 17 slide and barrel for concealment, but that’s just me.
However, if you wanted to build an Open Glock, the Glock 19X is a great base gun. It just needs an MOS model or some milling for an optic. The shorter slide means that if you opt for a smaller compensator like the KKM or Black Rifle units, your pistol will fit in a Glock 34 holster. So you’ll be able to find a holster quickly and cheaply. With a bigger compensator like the SJC, you’ll still have a shorter overall pistol to help transitions, plus a lighter slide that improves recoil characteristics.
You also get the longer, Glock 17 grip. This is nice partially because I prefer the grip on the Glock 17. Your mileage may vary. What doesn’t vary are the magwell options. There are a wide variety of large, competition magwells available for the Glock 17 size frame. Small differences make these not viable for Glock 19s. Bigger magwells are more forgiving than small ones. Plus, there are a wide variety of materials (and therefore weights) available.
There you have it. A concept with plenty of admirers, albeit for different reasons. It’s good to see more options.
I’ve discussed before that the Arleigh Burke-class is the best destroyer afloat today. It’s got a good radar, plenty of missile capacity, and comes at a pretty reasonable price due to its large production run. Competitors like the Daring class cost entirely too much and deliver entirely too little. Let’s look at a a follow on. Nothing lasts forever, and something newer, with newer systems, will be fun to sketch. This will be my version of something like the Zumwalt class. Though, because I prefer things evolutionary, it will be rather less ambitious. Admiral Zumwalt would have wanted it that way, anyway.
We’re not going to compete directly with the Burkes in terms of size, because that makes it really hard to justify the changes. And we’ve already sketched smaller. In case the title didn’t give the game up, we’re going bigger.
As always, we must first define our mission. Being a large cruiser, we’d like it to focus on air defense and air control, with plenty of land attack capability (i.e. plenty of missile tubes). We’d also like reasonable antiship capability and some antisubmarine capability, though this last is negotiable. I’ll pencil in some nice, off-the-shelf sonar systems now, with the understanding that designers can make adjustments as needed for cost reasons there.
On to the sketch! First thing to do is to forget about the stealth nonsense baked into the DDG-1000 design. Some low-observability features are a good thing, but the excessive stealth optimization of the Zumwalts with their special superstructure and ridiculous tumblehome hull is silly. A more normal hull design, bow raked forward, has far better seakeeping, and that’s much more important. Not only is it a patently obvious ship if one bothers to look out their windows, but we’d expect it to be able to handle Air Defense and Air Control, which means the radars have to be on, which means it will be pumping out electrons like the Las Vegas strip. And if we don’t turn on the radars, what exactly is protecting the carriers? Accepting that not every new design has to be a ghost’s shadow will help keep costs down. We need to limit the use of new technologies in new designs so the costs don’t explode. Nobody bats 1,000 with new designs. Some will fail, and we need to be resilient about this. Also, a more conservative design means we’ll be able to reuse some things from existing designs. Or, test out some new stuff elsewhere. Like we used to.
There you have it. Some gentle angles, avoid corner reflectors, keep the nice clipper bow. As a side effect, that’s a lot prettier.
Next: radars. I really like the original, un-neutered suite planned for the Zumwalts, namely the SPY-3 and the SPY-4. The SPY-3 is an X-band AESA radar, optimized for best tracking accuracy. The SPY-4, deleted from the DDG-1000s to save costs and still fitted on the Ford-class Carriers, is an S-band AESA radar optimized for high volume search. This split of functionality mirrors what NATO testing found to be best in the late 90s. These were integrated into a dual-band array system, which is some pretty revolutionary stuff. I’m fine with that as one of the key new technologies embarked, though the emitters could also be separated. The overall concept is right though. And, of course Aegis-type integrated fire control and combat management systems.
As a bonus, from an emissions perspective, a cruiser with a dual band radar looks a lot like a carrier with a dual band radar. Or maybe that other contact is another cruiser and the carrier is somewhere else. Or has its radars off. Emissions doesn’t tell you. With the right ECM and radar signature management, your active radar won’t help you either at range. Better go look, and hope you can radio your buddies back before you eat a missile.
On to missiles, and the tubes that launch them. The Mk. 57 can handle a greater volume of exhaust gasses than the Mk. 41, but the sheer number of deployed Mk. 41 tubes means missiles will be developed for that. Also, while the Mk. 57 is a bigger tube, it’s not much bigger, and there’s no missile around that would not fit in a Mk. 41 but would fit in a Mk. 57. Plus, the Mk. 57 modules are rather bulkier than those of the Mk. 41. So Mk. 41 it is! And we’d like to pack her with missiles. To hell with 80 missiles on nearly 15,000 tons. If we can’t do better than the 128 cells of a Ticonderoga, we should go home. Ideally we’d fit four of the big 64-missile clusters off the Ticonderogas for a total of 256 missile tubes. This gives us plenty of space for SAMs, including ballistic missile defense capable ones, LRASMs, Tomahawks, and VL-ASROCs.
Now, let’s talk about the gun. DDG-1000 originally had an ambitious vertical gun with guided shells, but this was shelved. The impact of development costs remains on the final design. I am not sold at all on ambitious gun projects that aren’t railguns, and those are nowhere near ready. The best estimates on the range of the Advanced Gun System put the ships entirely too close to shore. I’m fine with 155 mm, but 155 mm without being able to share shells (and shell development projects) with the army is patently absurd. And I’m still not entirely sold on the need these days, given how many other options there are for getting firepower on the beach, and how nasty coastal defenses can be. For my design, I’m quite satisfied with the 127mm/64 LW gun from Oto Melara. 127mm is a pretty standard naval gun caliber, and there are plenty of guided shells in that caliber under development.
There’s no need for extra antiship missile launchers given plenty of VLS cells and LRASM, so we don’t need to worry about those.
Point defense duties will be handled by at least two Rolling Airframe Missile launchers, mounted, well, wherever there’s room. Possibly amidships. Possibly fore and aft, which is rather more traditional.
Since we’re not obsessing over stealth, we can throw in some remote weapons stations and pintle mounted heavy machine guns to hose down any suicide bombers. Who will have no trouble finding a stealth boat because they use their eyeballs, not radar.
For propulsion, we’re going to go for Integrated Electric Propulsion, which has also been done on the Zumwalts. And could have been tested somewhere else. There’s no reason why it should be hard. Generators are run by diesel engines and gas turbines, and electric motors drive the screws. I’d like to take some time on a demonstrator to explore steerable propulsion pods for the electric motors in a military context, specifically focusing on cost, agility, and noise.
Helicopter fit is the usual hangar for two SH-60-size birds and beartrap-equipped deck. No reason to change it. Though, given the size, we should probably expand the hangar a bit to accommodate several drones.
Antisubmarine warfare is not our focus, but we should make a bit of effort to be prepared. A nice bow sonar and variable-depth towed array will do nicely, as will the usual pair of triple 325mm torpedo tubes amidships. Something like the Thales UMS 4110 CL sonar for the bow and a Captas 4 in the towed role.
See subject. We hope you’ve enjoyed the content we’ve managed to provide for you in 2017, and hope you’ll stick with us into 2018 and beyond. We have at least one project of a humorous nature we’d like to get out early on next year, so keep checking back for that, for the podcast, and for more of the insightful and incisive commentary we always aim to deliver.
The Component Advanced Technology Test Bed was another late 80s American test program to investigate new systems for future tanks. As we’ll see, it looked quite a bit different from the TTB, and where the TTB was testing a very specific change (namely the unmanned, low profile turret) the CATTB tested a variety of new technologies in a more conventional layout.
CATTB shared an Abrams hull, but the turret was new, and came with a bustle-mounted autoloader. The autoloader was very similar to the one on the Leclerc or K2. A new gun was tested, the XM291, which came in both 120 mm and 140 mm versions. The 120 mm version provided a lower-risk alternative to the 140 mm. The turret had rather large forward armor arrays, plus reasonably thick side arrays and a decent amount of roof protection. And I have no idea why they decided to mount so many smoke grenade launchers on there, but they did. This was before the advent of soft-kill active protection systems, but might not go amiss on a tank today with the right cueing system.
As you can see from this rear view, the CATTB also came with a new engine: the XAP-1000 diesel. The Cummins/Allison XAP-1000 was based on the advanced Cummins XAV-28 V-12 diesel, a low-heat rejection engine. It used only oil coolant and has no water in the cooling system at all. Higher temperature exhaust gasses were tapped to run the APU. I don’t know a ton about this engine, but the US Army has a history of backing highly advanced diesel engines that end up being problematic. I would suspect similar things with the XAP-1000. Again, the project went nowhere. Later in the 90s, the Abrams was going to get a new engine as an offshoot of the Crusader project, but the proposed engine was not the XAP-1000. Instead, a gas turbine was chosen.
CATTB is a lot more of a conventionally designed tank. I do really like its lines. The project which was supposed to lead to the Block III MBT ended up leading nowhere due to changing priorities. Though, it is not at a museum. It is in the long term storage section of the Sierra Army Depot in Hurlong, CA. Make of that what you wish.
Let’s talk some more about the 140 mm tank gun, that late cold war weapon that never was. Perfect for killing Soviet Supertanks that never were. And making your new tank way cooler than everyone else’s. The fastest way to get more armor penetration is to just build a bigger gun with more muzzle energy. A lot more.
As you might imagine, a 140 mm round is quite a bit bigger than a 120mm round. Let’s take a look, because these numbers are damned hard to find:
First, a typical 120 mm APFSDS round for the era, the American M829A1. The legendary Silver Bullet that slaughtered the tanks of Saddam’s Republican Guard. Some variations in length and weight are to be expected amongst 120 mm rounds. Newer rounds are a little heavier, but the size is constrained by ammunition storage racks and the existing chambers. The M829A1 is also the round that was in service while the 140 mm was under development.
M829A1 120 mm APFSDS * Length: 984 mm * Weight: 20.9 kg (46 lbs)
And now, the round to replace it. Producing 23 MJ at the muzzle, more than double that of the 120mm. The mighty 140. Dimensions were fixed by the NATO countries that were all developing their own versions of the round.
XM962 140 mm APFSDS * Length: 1,482 mm * Weight: approximately 40 kg (88 lbs)
The length and weight of the 140 mm stand out. This round would have been a royal pain to handle. It’s also a bit fatter, so autoloaders could handle fewer rounds. This explains why the K2 Black Panther, otherwise similar to the Leclerc, can only hold 17 rounds in its autoloader compared to 22 in the Leclerc. The K2 is ready for 140 mm, needing only a barrel change. Interestingly, the round count in the Black Panther matches those for the M1-CATTB prototype, which had a similar, belt-style autoloader in its bustle. Don’t worry, we’ll talk about the CATTB in a future article.
NATO-standard 120 mm rounds like the M829A1 are unitary rounds. One big piece, like an oversized version of the cartridges you load into your guns at home. Because of the large size of the 140 mm rounds, these were made as two-piece rounds. Unfortunately, while I can find dimensions for the round’s overall length, I don’t have dimensions for the pieces. Until I can find one to measure myself, we’ll have to make do with some pixel counting/scaling, which yields a length of about 1,024 mm for the upper part of the round, and about 461 mm for the lower part. Which is still big and annoying for autoloader development. Length of the upper part of the round is heavily influenced by the length of the APFSDS projectile. This also would affect a design using a carousel autoloader like the TTB, since carousel (and therefore hull) height and turret height are constrained by the requirement to lift and rotate the rounds into position.
Based on the standards of the day, the 140 mm gun made more than twice the energy of the 120 mm at the muzzle. Of those 23 MJ of muzzle energy in the 140 mm, 14 MJ goes to the penetrator. Running the numbers meant that the 140 mm APFSDS could punch through more than 1,000 mm of RHAe at a ‘battle range’ of 2 km. For comparison, we’ll pull some open source estimates for M829A1, which give it a penetration of 700 mm of RHAe1.
Now, those are some really good numbers2. Of course, there’s a price to be paid. Even with the two-piece construction, everyone working with the 140 mm designed with autoloaders. Which meant significantly reworked turrets for the British, the Germans, and the Americans at a minimum. Plus, ammunition capacity would drop.
Upgunning to a 140 mm round was the simplest way to get a lot more armor penetration capability into a tank. At least from a weapon/projectile design standpoint. It would have required some serious reworking of then-extant designs, but such is life. When the Soviet Union imploded, the armored threat of the projected Future Soviet (super)tanks evaporated, and the 140 mm gun projects were quietly shelved. 120 mm rounds are continuing to get more development and the latest are quite a bit more effective than the M829A1. Lower cost, likely lower capabilities, but this decision makes sense given the circumstances.
There’s some variation in this estimation depending on source. Open source disclaimers apply, etc. ↩
They’re also a trifle disingenuous. Nobody is armoring their tanks with a meter of rolled homogenous steel. Literally nobody. A more advanced penetrator design can exploit effects on the not-steel that people actually armor their tanks with. Similarly, the armor might be designed to radically degrade (read: break up) the penetrator, which can be sort of but not really captured in RHAe estimations. So the RHAe numbers don’t actually tell the whole story on either side of the design puzzle. Oh, and the numbers themselves are the usual open-source estimates3, so they’re probably all wrong. ↩
If you’d like to try your hand, start running through the Odermatt equation. And then remember that Odermatt wrote for tungsten-based penetrators, and M829A1 is depleted uranium, so you’ll need to tweak it. ↩
This is, in fact, our November episode, despite the fact that it is currently December; we recorded it on the 29th, and I’ve been busy, or possibly lazy. Regardless, listen to us talk about engines of three sorts: tank, rocket, and game.
The M1 Tank Test Bed (TTB) was a late-80s prototype to test unmanned turret design concepts and compare them to a modern, manned-turret design: the then-state-of-the-art M1A1. The TTB was not necessarily intended to be what the next MBT would look like, but it was intended to shake out some design concepts and see if they were worth considering in the future. So let’s take a look.
Some of you may notice a resemblance to the T-14. Both use similar unmanned turret design concepts. Such designs have been kicked around since the 1950s by many different groups of tank designers, and all for similar reasons of being able to reduce protected volume (and hence reduce design weight for a given standard of protection). The M1A1 weighs about 57 tonnes. The TTB, with a similar protective standard and the same 120mm gun (and a similar ammunition capacity) was reckoned to weigh about 15% less, for an approximate TTB weight of 48.45 tonnes. Interestingly, this is very close to the published weight for the T-14.
TTB also, of course, reduced crew to three men and put in an autoloader for ammunition handling. The design was intended to improve crew safety by completely isolating the crew from the ammunition. The autoloader itself was a large carousel, holding all ammunition below the turret ring. Let’s look at some pictures.
It’s sort of like the autoloader on the T-80, though NATO 120mm ammunition is one-piece, and is therefore a little more annoying to design an autoloader for. The autoloader built for the TTB held 44 rounds and this could be expanded to 48 or even 60 rounds with minor design changes. All of the ammo was stored in a ready configuration because the crew would be unable to move ammunition from a reserve magazine to the autoloader’s ready magazine (as on the Leclerc for example). The TTB autoloader was extensively tested, and could manage a rate of fire of one round every 12 seconds. Spent case bases or misfired rounds were ejected out a small hatch the back. The autoloader could be supplied through the rear hatch, and also had an unloading mode where it could slowly present rounds for removal. The autoloader weighed about 1,400 lbs. empty.
Some might question the vulnerability of such a design. However, statistically the vast majority of tank hits occur to the turret. Tanks like the T-72, for example, ran into trouble because of the ignition of their unprotected reserve ammunition stowage in the turret, not hits that set off ammunition in their autoloaders. And again, complete isolation from the ammunition should keep the crew relatively safe.
The TTB program was dialed back with the end of the cold war and was finally cancelled in the mid 90s. The autoloader design was used in the M1128 Mobile Gun System version of the Stryker.
As for the TTB prototype, it’s at the National Armor and Cavalry Museum at Fort Benning, and has recently been restored and repainted.
It’s going to be a brawl, and it’s going to be a brawl almost out of the gate. The map was originally 15×35; that seemed a bit cramped, so I used my reroll to change the map size. Now it’s 15 hexes by 25. Oops.
On the plus side, it’s a very hilly map with a lot of forest, which means, given initiative (which I never have, and which always seems weighted against the force with fewer units in any case), we can use the trees to protect ourselves.
Medium Lance will deploy near the edge and stay close to it, so that they can retreat in case of emergency.
Round 1
Since, once again, it’s a Scout deployment, units deploy by speed; onlyEuchre andHanzoku (in the Trebuchet and the jump-capable Guillotine) arrive in the first round.
Pictured: basically every mech currently deployed. Happily, almost everyone misses. As usual, the allied Wasp is getting plastered.
Round 2
Ker-Ker and Double Dog arrive. This is literally the worst kind of fight.
As seems to be tradition, Ker-Ker takes a pounding from the enemy, and fails to keep her mech on its feet.
The melee phase makes things even worse. Three of our four mechs end up on the ground.
Round 3
Everyone manages to get up. Euchre moves to protect the flank, while the heavier mechs take aim at a Vindicator and a Wolverine.
Ker-Ker, still focused by the enemy, loses a leg to weapons fire from a Wasp behind her. Her mech falls and won’t be getting up, but at least she’s not wounded or unconscious. The Lancelot still has both its arms, so she can prop herself up and shoot, too. Euchre plants a solid kick on the Wasp that did it and destroys its leg in return.
Round 4
Ker-Ker takes light damage, which isn’t bad, all things considered. Since, for once, she’s merely prone rather than prone and immobilized, she’s actually a harder target for mechs more than one hex away than she would be were she standing.
Euchre bags the Wasp which knocked Ker-Ker‘s mech down, while Double Dog kicks the Stinger next to him in the torso, knocking it out.
Round 5
The Wolverine jumps next to Ker-Ker, no doubt intending to attempt to kick her downed mech. The rest of Heavy Lance angles to keep that from happening.
The Lancelot takes heavier damage this time, including a hit or two to the head. The damage knocks Ker-Ker out, so now she’s in serious danger. Again.
Round 6
The good news is that everyone seems to be leaving Ker-Ker alone this round. The bad news is that, in attempting to protect her, we’re pretty poorly positioned. The good news is, Cadre Lance arrives in two rounds. The bad news is, I’m not sure Ker-Ker will survive that long even if nobody’s shooting at her this time.
The brunt of the enemy fire is aimed at Euchre, but catastrophe! It’s the Thunderbolt taking a lucky critical hit through the armor. (Fun fact: through-armor crits should happen a little less than 3% of the time. It’s happened twice in three turns here, though I didn’t mention the first one, since it was less terrible in outcome.)
The allied Wasp proves its worth for once, destroying its opposite number.
Round 7
This time, we focus on one of the enemy Vindicators. Next round, Cadre Lance arrives; the round after, Heavy Lance takes the field to wrap this one up.
The FedCom Wasp falls again, after taking heavy damage from the Vindicator facing it. We knock out the nearer Vindicator’s PPC, which renders it more or less harmless. It’s also taken heavy center torso damage, and another round of focus fire should fell it.
Round 8*
Cadre Lance arrives. The better elements thereof take the field to the north of the battle, while Wojtek and Severe deploy to the south. They’ll work as a team, with Severe spotting for Wojtek‘s LRMs.
Ker-Ker wakes up, somehow still not dead.
Teddy Bear scores his first mech kill, knocking out the Wolverine menacing Ker-Ker with a hit to the ammo reserves. Which is a shame, because other attacks decapitate it; we could have taken the chassis if it hadn’t blown up.
Ker-Ker‘s Frankenstein Lancelot is going to take quite a lot of repairing agin.
Round 9
As Heavy Lance takes the field, the enemy quite wisely begins to retreat. We’ll see what we can do to take them down.
It’s Hanzoku in the Guillotine who gets the kill on the Vindicator nearest us, his first as an Opinionated Bastard. Rook, hitting a ridiculous cross-map shot on a damaged Wasp, further cements her place atop the killboard.
Rounds 10+
With only two enemy mechs left, we move to cleanup. Rook bags the Wolverine, while Severe notches her first kill on the enemy Firestarter.
Salvage, Repairs, Injuries
The Thunderbolt is a total loss, so thoroughly destroyed by the ammunition explosion that there’s nothing left to salvage. The Frankenstein Lancelot is crippled, but we have enough spare parts to get it back into service. Everything else is undamaged. Ker-Ker is the only pilot to be wounded; she has a concussion again, along with a number of lesser injuries.
We can’t take any actual salvage because we’re still over our percentage.
We receive battle loss compensation to the tune of 600,000 C-bills, then add 70,000 more in ransom payments for enemy prisoners.
Kill Board(s)
Rook‘s lead grows. Notably, all the current Opinionated Bastards now have at least one kill.
Last Mission
(Turns out I forgot to take a picture. Oops.)
All-Time Leaders
Lieutenant “Rook” Ishikawa (11, 4 mechs)
Captain “Drake” Halit (6, 2 mechs)
Private Ngo (5, 2 mechs)
Lieutenant “Linebuster” Atkinson (5)
Lieutenant “Double Dog” Dare (3, 1 mech)
Private “Euchre” Kojic (2, 2 mechs)
Private “Ker-Ker” Ec (2, 1 mech)
Private “Teddy Bear” Jamil (2, 1 mech)
Private “Wojtek” Frajtov (1, 1 mech)
Private “Woad” Kohler (1, 1 mech)
Private Ed “Hanzoku” Yuksel (1, 1 mech)
Private Cathrine “Severe” Payne (1, 1 mech)
Sergeant “Milspec” Ortega (1)
Status
It is now November 20, 3050.
Contract Status
The Capellan forces are beginning to look worn down as our string of victories takes its toll on them. There’s another mission scheduled for tomorrow, a probe against a medium vehicle lance and a mixed mech-and-vehicle light lance, with a second medium vehicle lance in reserve. Heavy Lance and Cadre Lance are currently detailed to the mission, with Cadre Lance arriving late as reinforcements.
Finances
We currently have 5.856 million C-bills in the bank.
Unit Market
There are a few options to replace the lost Thunderbolt, including another Thunderbolt. Action item below for should-we-buy-something.
Organization
Double Dog, left without a mech, takes Woad‘s slot in the Grasshopper for the upcoming mission. (Sorry, Woad. It’s not that you’re a bad pilot, it’s that the other guy’s a better one.)
Repairs
We’re in good shape. Ker-Ker‘s Frankenstein Lancelot is missing a large laser, and the Grasshopper is still down a jump jet.
Spares
We’re out of large lasers, which is a significant blow, especially given Ker-Ker‘s tendency to get our Lancelots blown up. We are, of course, still out of three-ton gyroscopes, but in good shape otherwise.
MechWarrior Claims and Assignments
For the record, the following mechwarriors are claimed.
The following mechwarriors remain to be claimed. They’re listed with their current mech assignment. To claim a mechwarrior, give me a callsign for one of them. I’ll refer to them by their callsign in most places, and bold it so it’s easier to find them.
Pvt. Ngo, Crab CRB-20
Action Items
We’re down a mech. Should we buy a new one?
For Culise, about Rook:
Rook now has enough experience to buy a Weapons Specialist trait for large lasers, which will further improve her enemy-shredding ability in the Flashman, but tie her down to mechs with large lasers. Should she buy that trait, or save for improved piloting/gunnery down the line?
Any requests for changes to deployment or strategy for the next battle?
