Metus regem, on 26 January 2018 - 06:47 PM, said:
I've said it many, many times... the irony of the Second line Battlemechs often being bleeding edge optimised in TT is something that has never been lost on me. That being said, from a logistical stand point, I can understand why they were not the main line units, rather than having to keep parts on hand to repair a few dozen unique units the Clan could keep less parts on hand as they could more easily salvage damaged units to repair others with the omni system.
That explains why some people get so bent out of shape when certain second line mechs are mentioned on this site.
FLG 01, on 26 January 2018 - 07:29 PM, said:
As an old logistics man (air force) I can only say: true! Ironically it does make a lot of sense that the second line Mech are actually better in MWO than the front line Mechs.
The front line Mechs were designed to be used in important campaigns with logistic concerns in mind. That's the whole point of the OmniMechs. However they are not necessarily better in pure Mech to Mech combat.
The second line Mechs on the other hand were designed to defend rear targets, which did not happen very often, and to allow the warrior a noble death (i.e. taking an enemy with her/him). Therefore they could be optimized for Mech to Mech combat, and logistics could be ignored. Those Mechs were literary designed to make as much damage as possible in a single engagement, and that's it. See the Hunchback IIc...
It even makes sense on a strategic level: if your front line units runs into a defending second line unit which has only one goal, i.e. making as much damage as possible in this one battle and only that one battle, you think twice about hitting this seemingly weak target. You know the damage to your front line unit might be too great compared to the gain of a victory. And you want to avoid attrition.
(Even more ironic, this kind of thinking plays directly into the Clan approach to warfare but makes it vulnerable to IS warfare. IS generals don't care how many of their front line units they have to bleed white; war of attrition is their daily business).
But as MWO ignores logistics too, guess what kind of Mech works better in MWO... Vapor Eagle, Black Python and so on are really dangerous Mechs in the environment of MWO.
I think of Clan Omnimechs as a sort of mech swiss army knife. They can be outfitted and swapped with modular parts to fill any combat role required by the Khans (as you already stated).
However, I'm not entirely sure about your statement about all second line mechs that were intentionally designed to defend rear targets is entirely true. While I can see mechs like the Bane and Rifleman IIC exceeding as second line garrison units (for anti-air and long range firepower support/combat), how does one explain the purpose of mechs such as the Stone Rhino and Warhammer IIC? I think more or less that these mechs were designed to be 'the clean up crew' after the front line Clan Omnimechs dished out as much damage possible against the enemy.
I believe that mechs like the Hunchback IIC and Firemoth were designed for an old/disabled mechwarrior for the glory of combat in the service of his/her clan, but what confuses me is when you have second line battlemechs like the Mad Cat Mk.2 that costs nearly the same amount of c-bills of a clan assault Omnimech.
Edited by Arnold The Governator, 26 January 2018 - 09:06 PM.
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