BATTLETECH: The Mobile Long-Tom
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มี.ค. 2023
- Few things are as terrifying in the #InnerSphere as the #LongTom artillery system. This is the ultimate destroyer, to be frank. It doesn't matter if it is shelling the #Clans, or the #GreatHouses, or the #Periphery.
From the #StarLeague and the #SLDF, to the #SuccessionWars with the #CapellanConfederation, #freeworldsleague, #FederatedSuns, #DraconisCombine, and #lyrancommonwealth blasting one another back to the stone age, the #LongTom has been a monster to any one foolish enough to face it.
#TaurianConfordat #Periphery #HouseMarik #HouseKurita #HouseDavion #HouseLiao #HouseSteiner #Ilclan #DarkAge #Mercenaries #Kickstarter #Claninvasion
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Perhaps ironically, the lore quote for the old CCG artillery card was from the Smoke Jaguar tactical manual: "The first rule of jungle warfare is, obviously, to eliminate the jungle."
A bullet may have your name on it but a grenade is simply addressed "to whom it may concern."
Artillery: Dear grid co-ordinates.
And when you use the spicy tipped artillery, it becomes: General Notice to area code
Legit, Battleship is just a bunch of stationary artillery emplacements without any scouting elements
Artillery is mass mailing to the whole neighborhood! LOL
Nice one.
With certain specialized ammunition: To soon-to-be-non-existing post code.
Artillery: "We've been trying to reach you about your battlemech's extended warranty..."
The long tom is a logistics vehicle. Its job is to deliver ordinance to the front lines from behind the front lines.
close... its job is to deliver ordinance behind enemy lines from well behind friendly lines. what it does best is target those largely static positions where players have their assault mechs as reserve units (or where a realistic battlefield would have the command lance)
and the gun can be mounted on a mech...
"Do you see that armored column?"
"Yes commander"
"I don't want to see it anymore"
"that tank offends me. remove it."
Mechwarrior: "Your weapon is notoriously inaccurate"
Long Tome Gunner: "I'm aiming at the grid square, not the mechs"
Mechwarrior: *rolls for drift* "I know"
Long Tom Gunner: "You know what? Fuck you in particular."
*Loads Copperhead Shell*
That's why the lances shouldn't bunch up or advance as if on parade.
It's like +7 to hit a hex with artillery unspotted and even then you can only get it down to +5 , you really need to take a few and bracket an area and hope for luck , but you are still doing 5 damage 3 hexes from where it lands
@@mathewkelly9968 The scatter on a miss rarely moved the target hex out of the blast radius IIRC.
Still definitely not an "accurate" weapon even when firing at the literal broad side of a literal barn. (Used to joke the damn things could miss a barn when fired from the inside - then joke that "Close counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear long toms")
imagine putting a long tom cannon on a mech...
The fact that the longtom can poke holes into dropships is all you need to know tbh
The Mobile Long Tom, also known as "Violent Terraforming Device".
Can't hide in a forest if there's no forest.
Inferno rounds go brrrrrr
Daisy Cutter sub-munittions 😂
Super heavy roto-tiller!
Also true with a city. Hell, give them enough time and they'll turn a mountain into a crater.
Ahh yes, the embodiment of, "Ok, it wasn't a request. Get off my property!"
Yeah wish I had one in my back yard
~Sincerly, the Taurian Concordat.
Because they totally will use those nuke shells to make sure you understand "Hippity Hopity, get off my property"
Hippity hoppity, get off my property.
“What’s that whistling noise?”- a green Mechwarrior moments before losing his mech.
If the mech is all that's lost if he's hit then he's a bit lucky.
...his life....and most of the surrounding terrain LOL
I've always found it hard to believe this literal road train occupies as much space as a Locust or Swift Wind scout car in a dropship. But yet it does.
It folds up like a cardboard box.
A hex is around 30 meters across. Unit markers are representative. It doesn't look too too long
@@argokarrus2731 I was referring to cargo space on a dropship, sorry for being unclear.
Kinda bad examples. Locusts are two to a Mech Bay. (Compact Mech quirk ftw.) Swift Wind can use the Light Vehicle Bay.
I thought it took up two vehicle bay slots. One spot for the 65-ton primary vehicle and one slot for the thirty tons of support vehicles and ammo carts.
The "You can't hit me, but I can hit ALL of you" solution.
The Long Tom, whenever it shows up it’s the writer hitting the ‘oh shit it just got real button.’
Clanners: Your artillery is cowardly and dishonorable!
Long Tom gunner: Hope you're not too attached to that drop ship and your whole trinary bud. We're here to win.
Wolf engineer: And this is why we have things like the Naga.
@@bthsr7113 lucky for the IS not many clanners are willing to use such weapons. But if I played completely true to personality, I doubt my freebirth ghostbear star captain would dream of taking any artillery assets onto the field but would think nothing of saying "forget this. you honorless cowards want to play artillery... see how you like orbital bombardment."
@@mattlewandowski73"Fuck you, my artillery I'd ABOVE YOU"
Old school story. Box sets use to include map sheets. Just folded paper maps with hexes and terrane drawn on them. Typically you would use 1 map sheet to play a game on, though if a lot of mechs were being fielded you might use 2 map sheets, or even 4 map sheets. One of the little details about these map sheets is that every hex was numbered. The Long Tom and other artillery are one of two reasons the hexes are numbered. When you use artillery you're suppose to write down what square you aimed for, then roll out the results after the units move. The other reason for the numbering system is the hidden unit rules, where you could write down which hex a unit is in and you had to reveal it when an enemy unit got close enough to reveal it (or the hidden unit did anything). Infantry could remain invisible to almost anything. Tanks could remain hidden until an enemy got very close. Mechs could remain hidden until an enemy got a direct line of sight to it. Both the artillery and hidden units rules are hardly ever used, but the map sheets were designed with them in mind even before the rules were released.
Battletech Game of Armored Combat box set and Clan Invasion, come with hex maps that are numbered. So it still applies.
I used to play some matches against a group that had actual servicemen in it, so those numbered hexes were often read out as hidden panzer and infantry units role concealment and opened fire. Or the spotting rounds began to fall, heralding a storm of metal rain. Was always annoyed that there was no AMS system that could swat shells like Hammer's Slammers.
@@screenmonkey This is true, the advanced play remains.
I have to admit... I NEVER played on a map sheet... from my first game in 1988 I was taught terrain (even if it was just pieces of color coded felt on a table as my first game ever was) and tape measure... but as I stated in my own comment... given the size of an "official map" the range of the long tom is 42.5 feet (just shy of 13 meters for metric players) in standard 1" (25mm) = 1 hex scale I no longer recall the numbers as I have not had anyone to play with in YEARS, but there was actually published rules somewhere on how many rounds it took a shot to reach a target based on range. since I would set my long tom on display on the next table in the game shop as a reminder to the players, we usually considered it as landing the next round, but our local "rules god" (you know... that guy who can almost quote what page an obscure optional rule is on from memory and does complex to hit calculations in his head :) I think ours was named john something in the early to mid 90s) pointed out the actual info to us one day. we had just been playing with a house rule of second round hit because it seemed logical.
This is why it is important to have an air lance. "Aerospace fighters, go kill that Thing!!" 😫
Almost enough to justify having a LAM.... Almost
@@robrib2682 But can a LAM do a bombing run with Elementals?.... Actually it might be able to......
Point is, I prefer actual planes to embrace the combined arms nature of the setting. This isn't Macross or post OYW Gundam, this is Battletech. A setting with outright blue and even brown water units statted.
@@bthsr7113 I agree, although I am glad that they have something like LAMs in the setting because you know somebody would have thought up this when they had all of the technology and resources to try it.
This is true. Which is why you surround your arty with Rifleman and other anti-aerospace assets.
@@robrib2682 I guess an an experimental thing it only makes sense given all the attempts at submersible and flying/gliding tanks we had IRL.
Mech warriors- We detect a series of ground vehicles in the configuration of an artillery train. What shall we do commander?
Command- Ignore them. We are in battlemechs. If they had enough firepower to worry about, we would already be moving in on them.
Artillery- Looks like they are headed to our facility to the north. The river is gonna force them too bunch up in another 5minutes or so at their current speed. Set up to start firing immediately.
Mech warriors- ....
They were never heard from again.
And the river in question was considerably widened at that point.
Clanner: You can not defeat me, Freebirth!"
Spheroid: "I know... but he can."
::points up at onimously growing tearing noise::
Be mindful not all Clans shun artillery or air support.
@@MultiKbarry True, but, its generally true, and therefore funny.
While its expensive, using the fuel-air ammunition in a long tom is just outright oppressive... but sometimes in life you just have to make the ground shake from kilometers away.
Shake and bake, baby
Ran out of nuclear warheads?
I won't step a single foot into a city with an urbanmech defensive force - just level the entire city with nuclear long toms & Arrow IV's
The Long Tom, the sole reason you will learn to fear the Firemoth-A.
Back in my Mechwarrior2 Ti days I was a jenner pilot, and one of the games elite players. I only ever met ONE player who could consistently beat me... He was a moth pilot, and the best at what he did I have ever seen. While I made it my mission to take my Jenner to wipe out assaults and heavys so my own teams heavy pilots could dominate the field, he specialized in taking me out... erm I mean taking fast light pilots out :) Lucky for me, the only time he really played AGAINST me was when he was playing WITH my "squad" as he would side with me if he could when playing against outside players... I could just never convince him to wear our tag :) this was o.k. though as he played with us, and he had the same gameplay concepts we did. my squad was created because I developed a following when I was ranting about the MANY players on public servers who did not know a thing about battletech. only knew pew pew with giant robots. I did have a tendency back then to pull out my soapbox and rant a bit in the lounge area chat about "why do you play this game if you care nothing for the game it is based on, or the cultures developed within this game?" all too often I would hear players asking for no hear, unlimited ammo, and out came my soapbox :)
I DID meet one other player who actually KNEW battletech, but she was a league player from a private server who was playing one evening on the public servers for reasons I do not recall. we were opposing forces and where dueling with each other when someone decided to "help". we both took the incoming missiles as an affront to our honor turned without shared communications and killed the interloper (I do not recall who's team he was on.) after that we both stopped started chatting in global chat shocked that the other understood our actions and did the same. we were still just parked there "out of our cockpits and talking over some tea" as a friend of mine put it when the match ended. IIRC I tried talking her into coming back to play more often, and she tried talking me into applying for her league, but league play was not my style.
Still... I miss those guys I used to play with. including that old moth pilot... We split up in 1999/2000 and moved on to other games losing contact with each other. but the fact that a moth pilot was the only one on public servers who could consistently kill me was enough to show moths were a mech to be respected. I used my light mechs on the tabletop much the same way, hit and run tactics using enough modifiers to raise their "to hit" to obscene levels.
When playing combined arms games with artillery and aerospace assets I prefer to choose not just maps for the primary battle field but also single maps for artillery support units and plot them on the aerospace map as well. Yes, it's time and space consuming but I enjoy it.
What a player does with their aerospace becomes rather strategic, and they are forced to prioritize. Attempt aerospace superiority, go after the artillery far from the main battle, or directly support the main battle. When playing games like this especially in a campaign, LAMs become very interesting in their ability to go from the ground maps to the aerospace map and back to a ground map.
But this saves space compared to laying out enough ground maps to get about 500 hexes which is what you need for two long-toms to duel with each other at maximum range.
Tell that to this guy and Tex, as they constantly go on about how wasteful and worthless the LAM is.
Infantry win firefights, Mechs win battles, Artillery wins wars
All have their role to play.
The fact that, in Mechcommander 2, I can slap 2 of these artillery pieces on a Blood Asp and have a LANCE of them as hit and run mechs is ludicrous! It's not feasible, and you might have to sacrifice 1 to land surefire hits, but my dad didn't expect it in our head to head match (Blood Asp vs. Anubis 400t).
My old merc unit was a raiding force, so artillery was a rare threat. I always had the mechs run on the move when possible to minimize having an enemy artillery battery get coordinates. We all learned to curse the appearance of a Boomerang spotting plane! So I've always considered the Long Toms and friends as an incentive to not stroll through enemy territory or take protracted rest stops.
Hooray for being able to shoot without bracing or piloting rolls!
I can just imagine that at least one person was blasting Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture or Bosanka Artilerija in their Long Tom as they blast everything that isn't airborne into oblivion.
While cackling insanely like Tex when he plays Long Tom in Mechwarrior Living Legends LOL
You mean like that one scene in Good Morning Vietnam? "Hi, Bob! What's your request?" "I'm in Artillery! I don't care what you play, as long as you play it LOUD! "
@@kitirena_koneko I had a bunch of mechs I bought second hand. They had been painted as a merc company, so I simply expanded on that as my own personal unit lore. I had a merc battalion. In that unit I had 4 aerospace fighters, 1 long tom, an ammo carrier, a coolant truck, a pair of partizan tanks (plus another one that had broken barrels on the minni), a pair of demolishers, a pair of hunters, 4 SRM carriers, a pair of strikers, a schrek PPC carrier, a tank I forget the name of that looks reasonably close to real world tanks, some hovercraft I rarely used, half a dozen savana masters (I used for scouts using indirect fire rules and a missile boat mech and the hunters) and 6-10 lances of mechs depending on what era I was fighting in (some of my mechs where newer release than many players were willing to play so I could not use them) including a LOT of "unseen" (including a lance of quad mechs (3 scorpions and a goliath (and occasionally 2 tarantulas)) and a lance of LAMs) one of my favorite tactics when someone was brave enough to play against my armored vehicles was to bait the opponent into an ambush with my demolishers using hidden mech rules... as it was my turn I liked to say "your audio sensors suddenly pick up ancient terran music in the heavy iron or something to the effect style playing on PAs in multiple locations followed a moment later by BOOM." or something to that effect. but in my unit lore I had decided that some member of my armored company had gotten their hand on ancient earth heavy metal recordings and as my ambushing armor was being powered up PA speakers they had wired all around the ambush area would suddenly start blaring the recording of the music. and the gunners started firing their first round. I had lore for other aspects, but that was always one of my favorite tactics and "I am about to own you" moments. my longtom was usually set on the next table over at the game shop as a reminder, but so many of the players I played with where too scared of artillery, tanks, and clan mechs to let me play anything other than 3025 mechs up to 400 tons or 8 mechs... many where even worse 4 mechs up to 400 tons IS only (even if newer mechs where played) and no "specialty mechs" (such as my quads or lams, or artillery mechs as my unseen did have one that I rarely played just because I did not like it much).
@@mattlewandowski73 Sounds a little like me--when I play Clan Wolf, my unit commander likes to listen to "Classical" music blasting through his mech's communication system and external speakers at concert hall levels, so our enemies get serenaded by Ozzy Osborne, Journey, KISS, Van Halen... at one point, one of my opponents told his partner to target the command mech. When his partner asked which one was the command mech, he replied, "the LOUD one!"
What can I say? Big stompy mechs and hard rock/heavy metal go together like pretzels and beer, IMHO!
These guns are the reason why light mechs keep there value. Nothing makes a long tom sweat is few lights that sneaked past the line.
Of course those same light mechs really fear the long tom because if they happen go be in the aoe they are going down
@@kithran absolutely. I love the o shit moments between them.
I like to think it's Long Toms that are dropping the hammer on a assault lance that you were sent to pinpoint in that one mission in Mechwarrior 2.
They get shredded in seconds once the sky starts dropping.
yah that mission was an Oddball. Their payloads looked like scaled up Arrow IV missiles and also used it's splash damage but the launchers were angled, implying arcing payloads like an actual LongTom
@@iller3 if you look at the art work like the naga that fire arrow4, many of the launchers are drawn with horizontal tubes implying as guided missile artillery, they were launching parallel to the ground, then the missile would pitch up to climb to altitude and drop back down on arrival. though if you look at real world launchers, most are angled or vertical.
The Long Tom has but merely one quote that sums up artillery.
“To whom it may concern.”
"this is a general imminent obituary notice for your area code"
With the nuke shells it’s more “To whom it WILL concern...”
Major Weakness: "Hey what are you doing? My recon lance and I were told by an aerial spotter that there were a couple of big artillery pieces in this area. You guys in big trucks with what looks like big barrels on top of them wouldn't know anything about that would you?"
lasers and stompy noises
Only ever faced these hunting down the Smoke Jag' remnants on Cermak. Even as fortification defenses, they're scary if your Assault lance is caught in the wrong spot before the Lights can kill the command and control systems.
Redleg, this is Dapper, Fire for Effect,
Grid 1334,
Assault Lance in the open,
2 rounds HE,
When ready, over!
in MW5, putting a Long Tom in my MAD-4A was the best decision I ever made. I got your back.... way back
Hello Red.
I don't know about others, but I did like fielding Long Tom Cannons. Especially the Mobile version. Even as a Mercenary unit leader, the Long Tom added a dimension of very long ranged combat to some battles.
To use it effectively, I bought and used a 'battery' of 3 Long Toms, with a Phoenix Hawk used as a Scout and Spotter for the unit. Although there are other, faster Mechs. I felt that the Phoenix Hawk's jump jets gave it a maneuver advantage that compensated for a few more hexes in straight line speed. Being able to traverse even the worst terrain, I felt, was better than having to run around it. Possibly for more 'turns' than I wished to spend.
Deploying these 'monsters' of battle was not all that hard. A single Leopard Drop Ship was devoted to landing and deploying the Artillery Battery. Usually within its firing range, and far enough behind, or to one side of the prospective Mech and Vehicular battlefield, to be 'on call' during the resulting combat.
One must understand that a single Long Tom is not 'effective', but a 'battery' of three is far better. The actual cost in C-bills of the units (1,722,275 Cb each, or a total of 5,166,825 Cb for three) is not very 'expensive'.
As a Mercenary Commander, I always looked for cost-effective units, and the Long Tom was, indeed, very effective for its cost.
To give an idea of how I used this to my advantage, when called upon to aid a planetary invasion, I 'borrowed' 2 batteries from my Employer, and added my own battery, giving me NINE such units to deploy using 3 Leopards. I then carefully looked at the planetary map and chose a location to site 'my' artillery units to support the forces that would land with my own. This was usually in canyon networks, or valleys surrounded by steep hills, or even 'short' mountains. Another 'good' location was mountain passes, if a good blocking force of dug in tanks could be seconded to artillery protection.
The basic idea was to 'shoot and scoot'. Moving the artillery after a 'fire mission' of a few salvos of artillery fire, to a new location, where the tactic would be used again, and again, and again. Keeping Enemy counter battery fire guessing where the units would be. And, usually, missing them by comfortable margins.
The reason to deploy 3 Leopards to field the artillery, was that no interception of a single Drop Ship, would result in losing ALL the artillery. At most, it would be reduced by 33%. Which I felt was an acceptable loss, should it occur.
Believe this old Warrior... NINE Long Toms are nothing to sneeze at! Concentrated fire could even alter terrain features on the battlefield, or lay extensive and 'thick' minefields for the Enemy to trip up upon. Dropping mines ON an Enemy unit's position during combat, merely gave the Enemy Commander yet more to worry about... and even sometimes, forced him to maneuver units in the newly laid minefield, crippling his Mechs, which had already been damaged by friendly fire.
In one battle, I was amazed at the number of Mechs that had their legs blown off due to tripping artillery laid minefields, after taking damage from my own forces. In that battle, over 7 Mechs out of 16, were 'legged' and failed to fall back with the rest of the Enemy's forces. Those 7 were 'sitting ducks' for my force to destroy, while forcing the Enemy to pull back and try to reorganize his forces.
I cannot stress enough, just how inexpensive such firepower is, or how useful it can be for Campaign play on the tabletop.
I just remembered playing in a multi table game featuring Long Tom Artillery from back in 04-05 I was part of the bodyguard unit assigned to the Long Toms once the opfor started moving on our table we had to protect the Artillery can't remember if we won or lost as it was so long ago but it sure was interesting 😅
oooh I like... oh how I wish I could of played with that group... as it was I often set up a small diorama on one edge of a neighboring table (often with MTG players using the table) as a reminder that I was one of the very few "evil" or "insane" players in my area who used vehicles, aerospace, and artillery in my merc battalion, and if I was permitted would use my artillery and non combatant units to fill in any unused weight on my field. I mean the tables were within 8 feet of each other... long tom has a range of 42.5 feet...it was just there to remind people... most places where I played I could probably park my long tom on the dash of my car and still be "in range".
Years ago I met a retired marine colonel who fought in vietnam. He told me some interesting stories from his flying days. One thing that he mentioned was that they used helicopters to orbit over combat areas and spot for naval fire support. He flew f4s for a chunk of his career, but at one point he got the arty spotting assignment for awhile.
That got me to thinking that basic vtols who hang out over the battlefield would make for ideal spotters. Then when I went down the rabbit hole I found the karnov thumper variant. Im really thinking I should make an air mobile unit. Bunch of vtols dropping jump infantry and jump capable battle armor into a fight supported by those karnov thumpers and some yellow jackets. I could easily see running a mass vtol unit that swarms in to support areas faster than mechs could arrive.
Just had one recently and played with it in Alpha Strike. Such a game changer against Clan units. Ran a campaign similar to Mech Commander 1. It killed more Mechs than my Mechs altogether. "No place to hide."
I love Artillery, actually built a Quad mech based around it and to take over the job previously occupied by the Cyclops. Being an Omni mech it has quite a few varients. Prime mounts a Thumper a couple of medium lasers, and an lrm. The A mounts an Arrow IV in the torso, a Gauss rifle, and a pair of medium lasers. B is like the A but with a ER PPC. C mounts a ER PPC, larger LRMS than the prime, and medium lasers. D swaps the PPC for a Gauss Rifle a similar missile set up and a pair of ER large lasers. I did want to mount a long Tom as well as Naval grade gear to it but that was quickly crushed by just how heavy, large, AND difficult to use they would be.
This is ALL backed up by several targeting computers many of which are the master unit on the battlefield feeding and being fed information to front line units. I mostly ended up using the C and D as most of my campaigns involved medium and close range combat and to be honest it didn't perform well in that role I did get a lucky shot to the head of an enemy unit with an aimed Gauss Rifle shot but that was about all it did that was noteworthy, where it shined was the campaigns where it could sit far back and target buildings, fortifications, and assist other mechs with recon and with higher hit rates through the use of its targeting computers. It is surprisingly satisfying when you let your enemy think that their mobile depot is safe to use only for it to be pelted with Artillery as they are using it. You may not destroy the mech but a sitting duck is still a sitting duck.
We call it "shoot and scoot" in the military 😜
This looks like it was made by Krupp (now ThysenKrupp) during ww2.
Funny thing, Krupp is still around in the 31st century in Battletech. They're not operating outside of Terra, but are one of the biggest armaments companies there and sell to basically everybody. Mechs, vehicles, battle armor, fusion engines, armor, weapons systems etc., they got a pretty damn wide product list.
@@magni5648 with roots going back to the 19th century, that makes this company more than a millenia old.
Yep, my comment was that its a railway gun without the railway.
@@Wastelandman7000 in fairness, their tracks are its new railways.
Battletech proved to me that artillery will always absolutely murderduck everything they fired upon no matter how hard you nerfed their range and damage.
The boxset with the Long Tom in it is one I really need. Getting two boxsets to make a lance.
Infantry Win Fights
Tanks Win Battles
Artillery Win Wars
Mechs win planets
Warships win star systems
Whenever Long Tom shows up I always hear Bill Paxton's whiny little rant about "We're all gonna die!!!" from Aliens in my head.
Bill Paxton will always be missed.
Hey Taurian! Remember that time you had a ‘mech and I had a Long-Tom and you used to have a ‘mech?
Great times.
Welp, there goes my power armor.
The grace of heavy field artillery, which makes all things equal
Can it come on trashcans
LOL, no but you can mount Arrow4 on them.
@@Wastelandman7000 kinda short range by comparison
The board is setup in the den and the LongTom gets setup in the kitchen.
Artilery war, is, and shall always be, "King Of The Battlefield."
The version I am most familiar with is that artillery is god.
There are few non mech vehicles I treat as major threats on the table top. Mobile Long Toms are at the top of that short list.
Anyone who picks this in Mechwarrior living legends will have a 2 RAC5 2 medium pulse laser, 2 er small laser Catapult charging at it to kick it's ass.
These things are cancer on that game especially on larger maps like Tukkiyd.
On April fools each year we put a Long Tom gun on a Harrasser with a super charger, you can do double backflips with the recoil.
Video about artillery and its significance, very timely, taking into account the events taking place in the world. Music from Mech Commander makes me very happy.
FIELD ARTILLERY!
This is my rifle, this is my gun, this is my Long-Tom, 1,2,3 run.
o.k. : "their crews will be remembered by thier families" is a "jenner pilot" line...
Amazing work! As always.
This is why artillery is, honestly, best employed in mass. This is how we do it IRL. If you are firing 5-10 of these as a battery... well enough near misses will kill you just as dead as a direct hit.
For games, don't scoff at specialized munitions. I love mines as a way to shape the battlefield. If you have a way to, this can turn a lance vs company milk-run into the death of the larger force.
And remember, good commanders have multiple pre-planned fire missions to call in written on that sticky note placed on the far left viewscreen...
Another great video, I love the long Tom and really enjoyed seeing it get some love
nearly forgot that commenting helps videos perform!!! also quite a good video
Ahhh artillery!! My best friend on the battlefield!! My favorite strategy is a 3 volley then move!! I did a lot of Halo crossover!! So that's why artillery is my best friend!!! What???
Another great video
Ya earned a new subscriber! Battletech vehicles are some of my favorites!
Awsome video.
great vid man ! love the channel
Appreciate it!
"Artillery is the god of war." - Joseph Stalin
"Leave the Artillerymen alone, they are an obstinate lot." - Napoleon Bonaparte
To quote a friend of my and former soldier: "Mechs don't make any tactical sense because artillery exists"
True, though for me its more because guided missiles exist. When you're piloting something that stands taller than most treesyou're going to be a bomb magnet. I think something about the size of Armored Trooper VOTOM's is about the largest you can field without it instantly being zapped by dozens of missiles. And even then tanks are more survivable.
Not to mention "man portable" anti tank missiles.
I never used one of these in a game. Nice video.
I do have a bit of a funny story about this thing. I've made a custom mech that proved to be so much of a nightmare to fight that he said that he would bring a Long Tom just to deal with one of them. It wasn't an idle threat either lol, said he was painting it that night
Missed the live but excited none the less
I was always in love with Aircraft, mainly fighter planes. When Top Gun came out that was all I wanted to do. When I got older I realized how rare it is to be selected to be a fighter pilot. The same is for Mech Jockeys. I would be in a tank lol
One of my favorite units... I seldom was permitted to play with mine... Cowardly players would see me place it prominently on display on the next table over, then refuse to play unless I did not play my long tom (they often did the same if I played any of my armor, or if I brought my clan ghost bear stars)
The simple truth of the matter is instead of a long tom, a cruise missile carrier such as the arrow 4 imitates have proven conventional artillery to be out dates. The game was created in the mid 80s, and most people had not yet heard of a hummvee much less cruise missiles. Further the game was inspired by mecha anime which favored semi guided missiles fired in rocket barrage style.
Given that an official map is on ansi C-scale paper of 17x22 (or approximately half a meter (+/- 60mm depending on which side of the paper you are measuring) for you metric players... and the long tom has a range of 30 maps (not inches, but maps) it has a range of 42.5 feet on standard battletech miniatures battle scale. Given how often games are played at "your local game shop" meaning the miniature COULD be put in the next shop over
You play it by taking measurements of the sides of the table and making notes as to what the grid coordinates are for your next shot, then you hope someone still has a target in that area a round or two later when it hits its target. If I fielded one I would take 10-12 measurements of the sides of the table per round from the start of the game noting them in my notebook and put a star with a turn number in it next to the ones I actually fired. Players did not know what my REAL target was until I showed them the note. We might be 12 turns into the game when I finally use a coordinate as my target. Sadly I only ever got my hands on a single long tom miniature, so I could not implement true battery fire as mentioned at the end of this vehicle.
I was also fond of using optional rules for alternate ammo types. A long tom is a great way to pop smoke in a battlefield leading up to an engagement to allow you to use hidden units rules or cover a retreat, or to use incendiary rounds to ignite sections of wooded terrain on fire causing approaching enemies to overheat.
It is also good to drop conventional HE or fascam rounds into the path of mechs that are chasing your units around the battlefield. I once had a gauss boat doing popup attacks on my opponents mechs (a tactic I had used before). I was using a ridge for cover and hiding in a shallow valley behind that ridge. my opponent got tired of me wiping his mechs out and launched an aggressive suicide charge with his biggest baddest surviving mech (a laser boat) so I marked I was laying down a minefield with fascam between me and his approach and my gauss boat took off running in the other direction. he thought he had me on the run til he hit my minefield and ALMOST lost a leg... then he discovered I fired a second HE round on my own previous position which he also had to pass through due to land the next round. Since the game was a 4 person "battle royal" the end result was my gauss boat and long tom along with a light lance and some other vehicles totaling around 350 tons took down over 700 tons of the other three players combined 1100ish tons of combat weight. I fully eliminated one player and severely damaged the other two players. They eventually defeated me by making an alliance then calling it a tie and pyrrhic victory (which was technically cheating, but it had been a long game and I did not mind the added challenge). IIRC, I think when we called it a game, I had a damaged jenner from my light lance no longer able to inflict reasonable damage running around playing hide and seek. my long tom and a support ammo carrier had BOTH run out of ammo before all was said and done. (to be fair, we did skip predictive book keeping. I had x number of rounds (I do not recall how many we calculated the ammo carrier had), but apparently could change between warheads magically :) ) but I was also the only player with a merc unit that included support vehicles... I had non combatants in my unit including a coolant truck and an ammo carrier that I frequently fielded. the coolant truck would often be assigned to my "boat lance" to cool my missile boat or my gun boat.
To give a real world analog to a long tom. Someone took a main gun of a US navy battleship and strapped it to a tank inspired land train. To quote a once popular song... "Here comes the... BOOM"
GOOD!
I know you've been covering vehicles from the updated Recognition Guides, but you should totally do a video feature of the Destrier! It's such an insane and massive siege oriented vehicle and it doesn't get enough attention in my opinion.
I'm just covering a few select vehicles from the Kickstarter. There are only 3 after this one :)
@@BigRed40TECH Sad times, oh well. Maybe for the future 😉
Destrier. What's worse than being shelled by a pair of well protected snub nosed Long Toms? Being shelled at the same time with the twin AIV trailer.
A company of longtom... a.k.a. the bane of the clans!
It's even better when they don't realize what the company is made out of and so they decide to open comms which lets them know the commander's exact location
@@robrib2682 Only call-in artillery if you want to kill EVERYTHING!
I was FDC for rocket/missile artillery for a bit over 6 years. I was also trained to calculate some tube (cannon) rounds in addition. My minimum range was 8km and my max was classified depending on the round. Let me tell you though, I never had any rounds in my repertoire that could shoot the equivalent of 30 map sheets knowing that long side to long side they are essentially 16km across as each hex is roughly 1km. That thing shoots at least 480km (close to 250 miles easily). That thing is no joke!
1km? i always heard they were 30m, which multiplied out to the full range of a long tom is 15.3km
Yep. Mind you, some of the arty they're coming up with is insane. The US navy had a program using light gas to propel naval artillery. They made a 120mm gun that could launch a shell at 7.5 miles per second and had a range of 200 miles. Earth's escape velocity is 7.2 miles per second. Once they get the bugs worked out things are going to get insane LOL
OK more insane.
Yep, and blast range only 90m, very poor, 155mm can easy outperform this, or you think blast range from conventional shells is 3 km? Very strange for real FDC officer.
When the Long Tom speaks, all listen and pray they are not within its sight.
Mobile Artillery--When it absolutely, positively has to be destroyed completely in 30 minutes or less.
The Long Tom is a railway gun without the railway.
I hear the Iron Warriors bellowing in delight from the next board over
I think the Long-Tom is great freands with Gereral Mud and General Swap
I like how you use the MechCommander logistics background music when you talk about loadouts. Quite fitting!
That song at the end, does it also come from that game?
16:08
@@mill2712 Don't think so.
@@ztSHOCK
Man.
Well I'll guess I'll ask next video if that song features again. It's awesome and I need to know what it is.
Never mind that song is called Steiner's defeat from mechwarrior 4.
Whoever said you can have too much of a good thing never had the pleasure of interacting with artillery :D
I can imagine the Long Tom Artillery caliber is as large as a battleship main gun battery in our time, perhaps being as large as in between 305mm (12 inches) & 406mm (16 inches) in its largest.
Since the Soviets once slapped a large artillery (with 356mm being the largest artillery that was meant for an unfinished battle cruiser) on an armoured train & made effective use of it during WW2 & even made a 406mm self-propelled artillery during the early Cold War. So why not make one in Battletech?
There were artillery guns mounted on the train with a caliber of around 800 mm.
@@raypath403 800mm is beyond overkill to inflict 25 direct hit damage in the tabletop
Time to start digging.
I like to think of the Long Tom as a topography tool: your map says there are hills, forests and a forward operating base? Nope, now there's craters, ruins and an empty field of stumps...
My buddy ended up getting a Long Tom in the old dark ages click game, and it was devastating.
I have a love hate relationship with this thing, love it when its on my side, loath and hate when its not.
This is true of all artillery.
Farmers on the periphery don't own shotguns they own Long Toms😎🇺🇲
Especially in the Taurian Concordat LOL They love to drop the hammer on inner sphere invaders.
@@Wastelandman7000 nothing says "git off my lawn!" Like a artillery strike🤣
When you just wanna say fuck that grid square and everything in it.
Ah, the Long Tom....why do you cover all the vehicles that give me nightmares, Big Red?! as a Marine, we HATE artillery for obvious reasons, which carry over into what these things typically do to me on tabletop lol as a great Texan once said "No one argues with smoking craters"
Artillery is your friend. :D
@@BigRed40TECH as both a proud AFFS MechWarrior and an IRL groundpounder, arty is no man's friend if you're on the receiving end haha
King of the battlefield.
I love my artillery battery. The two thumpers lay down hate quite well. The longtom is in a different league, though. Sometimes, you just need to murder someone, and everything else, within 45 meters of them.
nothing sez love like a Long Tom saying Hello!
attached as a Battalion to my Regimental Combat Team. Long Toms make the foundation of my supporting Artillery units aided by smaller Thumper and Sniper pieces and Arrow IV.
additional Long Toms are found in my variant of the Fortress Dropship which hosts a proper 5 gun Battery in it's own right comfortably housed in the ship's nose.
effective Area Denial weapon of choice to tell the enemy, "Thou Shall Not Pass"
the only "Safe" place from a Long Tom?
deep inside a Mountain!
no one is otherwise immune when this ancient but deadly weapon speaks.
reminded by the Cyclops fielded by my opponent who by misfortune, ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time when a Long Tom barrage landed. his hex got hit and 25 points delivered to his Mech. 3 of the hit groups struck the head leaving a Decapitated Cyclops standing there headless and his unit leaderless.
Big Badda Boom.
Super heavies crumble to Tom.
Big slow balloons waiting to go *pop*
ARTILLERY IS KING OF THE BATTLEFIELD
Great video! Please consider making a Rommel Howitzer Tank video.
The Patton video will include the Rommel.
@@BigRed40TECH cool, thank you.
I hate in MW5 when you run into an Atlas with one of these things strapped to it instead of a normal autocannon. Its very irritating for one of your lancemates to just go from green, to missing limbs...
Lotta 💥💥💥💥💥
I have the long tom for the mechwarrior dark age clix game, i know many people hate it but 15 years old me very love him. Battletech have worst miniature and the are very rare in europe in the 2003-2005. I play mechwarrior, warhammer and 40k. Great times
Battletech's miniatures are currently pretty great, for their plastics. :\
Hey, if you enjoy it, that's the whole point of playing a game.