BATTLETECH: The Leopard
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
- This took a couple days longer than expected, but yes, it has finally arrived. #Battletech and #Mechwarrior have a craft which is recognizable to most people, because it's central to 2 of its latest games... perhaps the greatest #Dropship of all, this video is going to cover the #Leopard.
Every major state in the #InnerSphere knows of them, from #HouseSteiner, #HouseMarik, #HouseLiao, #HouseDavion, and #HouseKurita, over to even the #periphery states. Whether that be the #TaurianConcordat, #MarianHegemony, #OutworldAlliance or the #MagistracyofCanopus.
A ship from a few decades before the #StarLeague, the Leopard served in every era of Battletech. The #AgeofWar, #StarLeague, #SuccessionWars, #ClanInvasion, #FedcomCivilWar, #DarkAge, and #Ilclan era.
It's a great vehicle, so let's talk about it in its base configuration in this video.
#FederatedSuns #FreeWorldsLeague #DraconisCombine #LyranCommonwealth #CapellanConfederation #Mercenaries #Pirates
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Note: I am not associated with the Battletech / Mechwarrior IP, and create this under fair-use. Ownership of the Battletech IP resides with several companies at this time. I support all official releases.
You forgot the Leopard's Cybertonian-like sub-space cold storage capability that allows it to carry limitless tonnage of moth-balled mechs and spare parts (as shown in MW5).
Don’t worry. It’s part Tardis
I was playing MW5 the other day when the thought occurred to me...wait, where are these other mechs I salvaged? Didn't realize I had all that extra storage 😳
It's mentioned off handly in game that interstellar expedition chartered addidional cargoships to store the mechs for are small fee iirc
Maybe cold storage means just kicking them out the cargo door and have them float in space. With a little rope for repositioning.
@@gideonmccloud4151 they added that bit after dlc4 to explain why you can have more than 12 mechs outside of cold storage, cold storage is still an infinite pocket dimension.
Pocket Warship version is hilarious, imagine your massive battleship killed by the cheapest and almost oldest Dropship in service armed with spicy missiles.
well if you look at history, torpedo boats are such a threat the navy made a new class of ship just to combat them.
When you can just fire all the missiles. Just fill the void with nothing but explosions. You may not hit the larger warship, but the flak that is created could rip right through the hull, shred weapons, and maybe cause a chain reaction within the larger warship.
Sure the warship would have protection against this kind of outcome. But, from what I have gathered from Battletech/MechWarrior. Plot Armor only works when you are the NAMED character of the story.
The HBS gave Leopard can store unlimited battlemech parts and spares like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag.
PGI did the same thing, though I think most of the storage in Mechwarrior 5 is on the jump ship itself. I mean how else are 32 Battlemechs plus a full complement of ammunitions, weapons, and spare parts are stored?
Um no, HBS mostly did that with a giant dropship. There was some of it with the Leopard, but it was more the giant plush unarmed dropship pulling all the crazy stuff off.
@@bthsr7113 Um, yes. The only storage limitations on the HBS Leopard were fully assembled Mechs (ditto the Argo but it stored more). But parts, weapons, and equipment storage was unlimited.
It also has pocket of holding for storing stripped down mechs in it's 34 ton cargo bay.
Not to mention endless amounts of missile and ballistic ammunition, and dozens of wrecked vehicles and 'mechs waiting to be pieced together. Not to mention a small mountain of components the unit commander thinks 'might come in useful someday.' Oh yeah, plus all the consumables the crew needs, from beans and bread to replacement tools and other gear.
The wet dream of every logistics officer ever...
kinda feels like a pocket dimension, like the bag of holding from AD&D
Ahh the Leopard...such a useful little ship. My favorite games are the scenarios where my lance is dropped by the adorable little taxi, and then clear a DZ for the rest of my company
Or when extracting, stays in position to provide Close Air Support, while you get the hell out of dodge. :)
@@StressmanFIN Absolutely. It's all fun and games until you have to try and fight a Dropship with a medium lance...that one did NOT go well for yours truly
Also kind of hilarious to convert into a pocket warship. Had a tabletop merc game I was in where we took the leopard we initially started out with and basically stripped all the mech bays and non-PPC weapons for more heat sinks and PPCs and extra armor. Enemies thought they were going to face maybe another lance of mechs, boy were they surprised when its a freaking leopard making a strafing run with something along the lines of 12 ppcs.
@@Evinthal84 : I did something similar with my old playing group in Chicago from the 80's through the 90's. When my Merc Company got up to a dozen Mechs, I took one of the old Leopards and turned it into a 'pocket' Destroyer in almost the exact same way you did, but I limited it to 8 PPCs and 4 LRM-20's. The other three Leopards I had accumulated to that point were modified to carry Infantry, and Vehicles. Later on, I bought standard Leopards to maintain the ability to drop 'packs' of Leopards and drop Mechs, Vehicles, and Infantry onto multiple drop sites on a planetary raid.
@@Evinthal84 that's over 400 extra tons to play with, I'd have thought you could squeeze in more.
I quite regret I can't carry two of these babies on my Argo because look at it, it has space for one more
Play some of the modded versions; you can buy a second Leopard.
I have the exact same response every time I look at the Argo!
I would most likely use that spot for a Leopard CV as a dedicated escort for the Argo herself. Then the original Leopard would be stripped down to allow an extended mech bay as since it has the Argo to serve as its mothership. Doesn't need all that extra space onboard for other things and such as the Argo provides that along with a massively, advanced mech bay.
The one military where this would be uncommon is the Com Guards, because they use Levels of 6 battlemechs each, this is only useful if they use compact battlemechs.
You'll note Comstar's neither mentioned or tagged in this video ;)
@@BigRed40TECH could be that they simply turned them into cargo tenders or infantry/vehicle transport
Aren't they technically four mechs and two vehicles though?
@@MoreEvilThanYahweh ComGuard organization is kind of like the Clans in a way.
Level I is the base; can be 1 mech, or 1 vehicle/fighter or 6 Battlearmor(or a squad of unarmored Infantry).
Level II is the smallest Deployed Unit.(Think a Lance or Star) Consist of 6 Level 1's. So they can consist of any crazy configuration.
They either use danais which has 6 mech and 2 aerospace bays and a cargo hold to keep them operating, count the 2 aerospace units as part of the 6 unit system, or modify the leopard to convert the aerospace to mech bays.
As an Aerotech jock I do love me some Leopard CV class drop ships. 👍
That old but always useful little ship. The only bad part is that it is seen too much everywhere... sometimes I miss that they get more variety in video games (But I know the importance of the Leopards is such that they have earned that position).
I guess that's why I keep in my memory the two descent ships that were used in MW2 one with the Wolf Clan and one with the Jade Falcons... although, I think I remember that the one used by the Wolf Clan I have only found as a fighter carrier.
honestly never even considered how important this ship is
in the short stories for the Crescent Hawks during the Jihad, that battlemech a company and their Aerospace Squadron used three leopards. I just imagine the amount of tactical flexibility that gives, and the amount of ground attack potential 3 leopards have.
3 leopards are alot harder to pin down than a union or even overlord because they can be three places at once have close vtol ability allowing them to move around, and the ships themselves can strafe soft targets in advance of their assigned lances. Literature and game wise it's very underused other than combat lander.
Did not see anyone mention that transports bays (mech, vechicle, areo, infanty, and even cargo) have basic Sleeping accommodations for thier crews, so the 15 is only for the ships crew not bay crew.
Great for rapid planetary redeployment! Or if you're creative, mobile repair hub or if you're an entrepreneuring mercenary, a salvager! I wanna say that techmanual says that bays come with basic facilities and bunking for the unit crew and the tech crew necessary for it?
Rules sure won't support the Leopard hovering or having V/STOL capability but I will! Largely thanks to the games but it feels like it vibes well with it being called a flying brick. Just hangs around for a moment to look more brick shaped than just zooming past.
Plus it doesn't make much sense for a small Mech Dropship to need the massive established infrastructure of a huge landing strip...
Not very useful if you can only use certain facilities that might not even be found on a planet.
@@DonaldWWitt A Leopard drops itself into anything that can be used for a landing. You just need a long empty strip of a flat surface.
Rules say 15 hexes long (450 meters) 3 hex wide. And various 'failure' rates depending on what is inside that zone. (you can cut it down to 8 hex at a pilot and risk roll)
e.g. of risks: Friendly airfield -2 risk, building +3, heavy woods +5, no thrust +4 (+8 for spheroid), runway to short +2, etc.
Takeoff is better, if Aerodyne Dropship still has thrust of 3, it can launch vertically (one hex) at a simple dice roll. If not enough thrust or not wanting to dice, it takes 20 clear hexes.
Hot bunking explains the crew size to berth spaces. A ship like this would operate with colliers, having the supplies and the technical experts.
My mech pilot would just crash in his cockpit instead of using a bunk.
Cockpit is probably a lot more comfortable than the bunk anyway. At the very least you only have to smell yourself that way.
I wonder if anyone has designed a dropship with a pair of counter-rotating grav decks, that could dock with a JumpShip, to provide extra living space under gravity?
@@TheMajorActual You've been playing too many video games. Now pay your phone bill! -- ComStar.
@@jtjames79 Nope. I just write fanfic.
@@TheMajorActual You can just thrust and have gravity
When BT just took a leaf out of the Phantom fighter jet project-
Just stick control surfaces on it and the rest we'll figure out with massive engines because aerodynamics gets in the way of function
Apply enough thrust to a brick, and it will fly.
Application of sufficient vectored thrust at the right point will allow any conceivable shape to be turned into a very nimble "brick".
I'm gonna try to make one of these in KSP 2 when it comes out.
Favorite ship in BT for me, although I can see someone making a version 20-30 feet longer to give the crew more room to live.
The Flying Brick Cometh!
So, basically the best use case for the Leopard class dropship is cargo operations with no mechs and two fighter, and 600 or 700 tons of cargo capacity.
For the comfort of the crew, yes. lol
I keep looking at the _Leopard_ docking and undocking from the JumpShip and thinking, _Liberty-class,_ because it has four Leopard-capable collars...and then I think, _Why not slap two more on, between and offset to the other four?_ That would also answer something buried in the lore, about the TC originally using a company structure of four lances, because running an old Liberty-class with four Leopards would make that model work.
The Liberty class Jumpship might not have a large enough KF core to handle more Dropship Collars. IIRC the rough guide is 1 Dropship Collar per 50,000 tons, fractions round down. So a 90,000 ton Scout Jumpship might have a Jumpship Collar on one side with the other side completely bare, but its core isn't large enough to mount a second Collar. (90,000 / 50,000 = 1.8, rounded down to 1).
It helps that the Leopard takes its design from _Crusher Joe_ , down to the fighter bays, so FASA didn't need to work hard to come up with a design with an iconic silhouette. (That's not all FASA took from _Crusher Joe_ either; the most recognizable would be the design for the Locust.)
And the Warrior VTOL too
Thought the Minerva from Crusher Joe was the basis for the Leopard CV not the regular old Leopard??
Teh aero stabilized house building block.
There are living accommodations for all 27 people. The technicians are counted separately, being figured in to the 150 tons it takes to hold a 100 ton Mech.
Early in my career my lance was often crammed into a Leopard. Luckily when the Fourth Succession War started and when I was promoted to Tai-i we were assigned to a Union. You don't realize how much better life is when the whole company is together on a ship that has room for you not to be hot bunking with a lance mate or your chief tech.
There are days when I look back at my career in the DCMS and I miss the simplicity of the Succession Wars.
I role-played Mechwarrior in the 90s
Leopard was excellent for our mercantile adventures. Cappelan jobs were never uneventful
Ah the capellan confederation. Where being a mercenary means worrying if you are the loose end being tied up at the end of a mission
We ran from a total suicide job, and spent 2 hours of gameplay in litigation
I think the gamemaster was pissed that we didnt play the obvious trap hed set for us (and hours of his work wasted)
@@Doomer1984 I find it funny that in the Field Manual: Mercenaries that capellan negotiators work in threes that try to undermine each other
I'm running a Mechwarrior Destiny campaign that's been ongoing for about a year. They've grown their Merc unit from a single Lance to a battalion. One leopard always accompanies a union when a company is contracted. Oh the trouble they make for me.
While I always preferred the bigger death egg dropships, the Leopard's has its reputation for a reason. Great video as always!
Hello Gigas0101: As you say, the 'death egg' does allow one to drop heavier forces all in one place, and this is 'good', but... By using multiple Leopards, one can drop smaller numbers of Mechs for multiple 'raids' all over a world's surface, meaning that such raids will be more successful, since the defenders will have problems moving forces to all the drop zones swift enough to do anything about it.
Alas! I thought this was going to be the detailed breakdown of the Princess class! I am undone!
The workhorse of the Battletech Dropships. Great video! Thank you.
Man I love battletech but those are some magical numbers.
Ship design is where any semblance of scientific hardness goes out the window
Great presentation on the Leopard. Oh beloved Leopard, the first orbital ride for every player who built a company from a single Lance. Good times. 👍 Despite the big airplane look I always thought of it as a Higgins Boat that could fly and carry 'mechs while telling fighters and local reaction forces to keep their distance. My raider company ran with 3 Leopards for years until there were enough units to mandate a Union being added. Considering the crew quarters I always said they were for the CREW. The cargo (warriors + staff) got foldout bunks and space portapotties. It got the warriors in the mood to kill something by drop time.
A good ship. If now only the Jump ships would have more docking-collars to carry enough of them....
We'll just tape them together.
If I remember right, the Monolith can carry up to 9 Dropships. If you want real carrying capacity, the Potempkin Class Cruiser can carry 25.
@@gregdomenico1891 A Potemkin carrying 25 Argos themselves carrying 50 Leopards themselves carrying 200 Battlemechs, because the planet won't invade itself. Although that much mass would probably cause the Potemkin to suffer a truly spectacular meltdown when it tries to power the KF drive, radiation poisoning for everyone!
@@fix0the0spade Yeah, I think the Potemkins DS collars were only rated for 10k and below. 20 Overlords and 5 Fortress anybody?
@@fix0the0spade A single Mammoth Dropship can carry up to 40,000 tons of cargo, enough for 200 Battlemech cubicles and 10,000 tons of cargo. And this Mammoth can be carried by a scout Jumpship that only has a single collar.
Battletech tabletop can take hours and hours to play. Areotech tabletop ( Is there a video game version?) lasts about an hour.....maybe. Also don't try to roleplay pilots. They often live longer
In their creation mode than they live in game.
At least dropship pilots have more robust ships to fly. And being an areodyne ship the Leopoard can try to dead stick a landing if they suffer engine damage. Unlike their sphereiod cousins who leave craters after the loss of engine thrust.
The Leopard has 6 bays that support 4 mechs and 2 aerospace fighters. There are a lot of modified Leopards that repurpose the aerospace fighter bays. The simplest 'modification' is to just use the empty aerospace bay to store cargo. This puts the Leopard at greater risk, but when you are operating alone and especially as a raider any aerospace opposition is probably doom with or without the 2 aerospace fighters. Many pirates and mercs operate without Aerospace fighters.
A custom made cargo conversion would allow the 2 aerospace bays to be made into a multi-level cargo bay. Up to 300 tons of space could be divided between parts, replacement armor sheets, ammunition and fuel (for the Leopard).
An upgraded version of the same idea converts the 2 aerospace bays into an extended living space for the crew. This still leaves a lot of room for cargo, or more living space for infantry. Some would also have command centers installed. There are also some Leopards that have medical facilities installed to act as mobile hospitals.
Some units would convert the aerospace bays to hold tanks. This is not a popular choice, but being able to deploy a single platoon of combined arms is desired by some commanders.
The most controversial idea is to swap out the 2 aerospace bays for 2 additional mech bays. The size of the vehicle held in the bay accommodates the same tonnage range for both types. However, the Leopard is designed to deploy 4 mechs. How the 2 aerospace are intended to deploy is not obvious or described. It should be possible, perhaps with the additional 2 mechs having to take an extra turn to deploy due to there being only 4 mech hatches in the craft design. This idea behind this variant is supported by the existence of the Leopard CV which removes the 4 mech bays to support a total of 6 aerospace fighters, and is otherwise identical to the base Leopard.
You can carry mechs flat in the fighter bays but you can't deploy them - salvage only really.
To use the Mechs you would need to land the Leopard and then winch them out, possibly only at a proper Spaceport.
The Clans needed to use both fighter bays to get enough vertical space for another Mech, and it reduced the Leopard's other capabilities too.
Eventually they phased it out for the Broadsword.
I hear another dropship thunder!
Well from what I remember from another battletech channel. The space for the Mechwarrior, the techs, and if someone decided to store vehicles instead of mechs, tank crews. All of them use some of that 150 ton mech bay as housing unit. At least that what another battletech channel mention.
Yep, 'Mech and vehicle bays are sometimes converted for berthing spaces. Especially during the Succesion Wars when full lances for small units weren't common.
The horizontal bays can hold two Aerospace fighters, three ground vehicles like tanks or a MW3-type field base, or just be cargo.
The Clans tinkered around so it could hold a fifth Mech, but it meant losing other stuff like weapons and armour and later phased them out for a ground up dedicated design.
Another great Battletech video.
Loving the mw5 mod that brings in the possibility of an enemy leopard as an areal boss/opponent
I encountered one in a Battleground mission with a 400 ton lance - let's just say that, while I _did_ kill it in the end, the repair bill was not pretty 😀
@@EllenbergW been there, i got super lucky and had a friendly one come support my lance on a base capture mission just now
Your videos are getting much better man
Repetition and practice helps you learn stuff, its weird. lol
I have a feeling that some of the more "enterprising" and well-heeled mercenary groups that use Leopards for extended periods have modified their own Leopards in ways that may be considered subtle or drastic, if only to attempt to rectify the glaring domestic problems of "far too few bunks for the crew it needs to stay running at peak efficiency, even with hot-bunking". After all, the Commander shouldn't have to hot-bunk like everyone else, but with the Leopard being designed for 15 but needing 27 for peak efficiency (as you state), well everyone's gotta take turns, Commander included.
One likely modification I can think of right off the bat is to split the difference between additional spare parts and additional habitation room, by converting just one of the fighter or mech bays to a crew quarters. This doesn't even have to be a permanent modification, it can be done in a way that is easily installed or removed as needed, especially by mercenary groups with better educated mech or ASF techs. And it can all be done in a way that doesn't change the aerodynamics of the ship.
This would create a new kind of bay, which would be a "dual use" bay, meaning that with a short period to prepare for the intended use, it would be able to be converted between carrying a vehicle designed to wage war, or to housing some of the crew, and if they keep the parts they need to do such modifications on hand (they wouldn't weigh much) they could likely convert between configurations in just a few hours assuming that they have the free hands of even a couple of mech techs and a planned out period of zero-G. Now these won't be that nice of a place, but it's a bed and it's for JUST you, but you'll have to share the bathrooms with everyone else housed in such a converted bay.
Basically, it's a cross between a pop up camper (in that it can be stored like a piece of IKEA furniture) and a pod hotel (in that you don't get much additional space other than the bed itself), but it's tied down inside the bay using the exact same reinforced points that would otherwise secure a Mech or ASF in one of the respective bays.
Is it durable? No, if a fight breaks out it might suffer some minor damage. Will it hold atmosphere if the bay's hull is pierced? Nope, but if that happens you have bigger problems than "no air", like "you're getting shot at".
But at least you don't have to hot bunk anymore.
I'm sure most MechTechs are smart enough that they could fabricate something like this using readily available materials, if nothing else they could use readily available standard-issue Mech armor plating, cut down to size for the needs (aka cut into 12 gauge sheet metal, which is around 1/8 inch thick, and if it's anywhere near as good as mild steel is as a building material it'll work just fine, the structural demands are LOW since it's not supposed to be a load-bearing part of the ship's greater structure).
Another potential modification that I can think of is to consolidate the bathrooms. One bathroom per cabin is nice, but even the most luxurious of big business jets such as those used to carry heads of state don't have a bathroom for each cabin. That's luxury that doesn't fit in the mass or space budget for those aircraft.
So the same should go for the Leopard. Most of those bathrooms gotta go. It's out of place luxury in a generally dirty and depressing setting.
So instead, an enterprising mercenary company could say "Why do we have all of this complicated plumbing taking up so much space in each cabin" and consolidate the bathrooms down to 2 bathrooms, each with 2 toilets, 2 sinks, and 2 showers, shared between all the cabins except the Commander's.
And then with the room that frees up (along with rearranging the interior) install additional cabins.
Unlike my other idea, this would probably not completely solve the problem.
However, following Naval tradition, the Commander (closest thing you'll find to a "Captain" on a dropship) gets a better cabin than everyone else on board, as befitting their status.
If you were to combine those two modifications together, you might even be able to house a few extra people ABOVE what is strictly needed to keep the whole thing running. So a few crew members (probably the Commander and a few of the MechWarriors or ASF pilots) would be able to take their significant other (or current love interest, whatever) with them.
Smarter mercenary groups would get a larger Dropship. The Leopard is only ~1900 tons in mass. A Union is ~3600 tons, and and Overlord is ~9700 tons. You lose the aerodynamic platform and 25% of its thrust rating (Leopard can do 2 Gs thrust without afterburner, Union and Overlord can only do 1.5 Gs thrust w/out afterburner), but you gain much more capacity. Since the Jumpship fee is a fixed cost no matter the size of the Dropship, larger Dropships are more efficient.
@@toddkes5890 ... Critically missed a detail there tho. The Leopard can do hot drops, the Union and Overlord can not.
Mercenary companies sometimes take a mission without knowing the full details, or the details are misrepresented to the MRB, or uncontrolled variables try to influence the result, all of that speaks to the ability to hot drop being a critical aspect of a typical mercenary company's day to day operations, or at least it comes up often enough that keeping the Leopard around in lieu of another less aerodynamic type is seen as beneficial.
The ability to hot drop would be the main reason to keep the Leopard (and modify it in an attempt to fix its slight flaws) instead of choosing another type.
@@44R0Ndin Unions and Overlords can also hover and drop Mechs out their bays.
The other option would be using a decently-sized Dropship. For example, an Aerodyne Dropship that has 2.5Gs Thrust (vs LKeopard's 2Gs Thrust) and carries 8 Mechs and 4 ASF (twice as much as a Leopard) would mass ~3800 tons, cost less than twice as much, and still only use one Dropship Collar.
Look, at the end of the day my comment isn't about what's better than a Leopard. It's about what can be done to make the Leopard itself, better.
The Aerodyne Dropship you're talking about is the closest thing to that. And it's probably inspired by the Leopard.
@@44R0Ndin Considering I literally copied the Leopard to make that design, then yes it was 'inspired'. The key is that the Leopard is too small for profitable interstellar operations. Best use for the Leopard is as in-system only.
Have a few of them be carried disassembled to its destination system (it takes up ~1000 tons if disassembled as cargo), and just use them as as a heavy sub-orbital or planet-moon transports. From there, a mercenary group arrives as passengers & cargo in a Mule, transfers their Mechs to a hangar for activation, and uses one of those cargo Leopards as their disguise. After the mission the cargo Leopard crew gets their cut, and the mercenary group gets out on another passenger/cargo Mule.
The Leopard IS the right size, a point that I use when arguing that Battletech is an TTRPG that flopped into a miniatures game. With the rules I'm recently familiar with, the ability to fairly easily convert the hanger bays into troop or vehicle bays makes it a natural born raiding and recon platform. I'm a little sad they've never given us stats for the Royal Leopard.
Huh. Didn't think there is a Royal version of the Leopard? Also speaking of vehicle bays on a Leopard, the first time I really stumbled onto the Battletech books, the Mercenary Star novel, has a Leopard carrying a company of light tanks. I was confused as another similar vessel carried a mech lance of four mechs.
Aaaah...the Leopard.
Because who doesn't want to live on the walls when under thrust???
Best dropship, really.
It's the Eagle 5 of the Battletech Universe! Can't say Millennium Falcon cause that thing is more of a assault ship with a bit of a cargo hold.
The big annoyance with any aerodyne dropship is having to reconfigure the interior prior to operating inside a gravity well. In BattleTech artificial gravity and inertial dampeners for canceling out G forces do not exist. The leopard can get you in and out quickly making it ideal for raiding missions. Just remember, coming in at 2G gives some penalties and the full 3G burn is "unpleasant" for everyone even for those with proper G-suits.
You don't reconfigure anything. The transit drives on an aerodyne DropShip are mounted in the belly so, when it is flying to/from the jump point, 'up' as observed when landed becomes 'forward'. This results in the g-forces caused by acceleration generating artificial gravity 'downwards'.
The major problem aerodyne DropShips have is that they require substantial runways to take off or land when compared to spheroids. This really limits them to being strategic redeployment methods rather than tactical ones.
Honestly, most lance-sized units would probably prefer a Confederate over a Leopard, it's just that the Confederate's engines are notoriously temperamental, and Confederates probably suffered more attrition during the Succession Wars than Leopards precisely BECAUSE of their ability to deploy units directly into a fight. As such, you end up with Leopards forced into roles they don't really suit.
When I played (based on Aerotech, tech readout 3025, and the first mechwarrior book) the Leopard was not capable of VTOL, hovering, or anything like that. The Leopard would simply cruise at a drop altitude and the mechs would simply drop out of their bays. Mechs would use breakaway rockets stapped onto the legs and torsoes to slow their descent and make a safe landing, and "dropping" from a Leopard was basically a one-way trip until you could capture an airbase or some installation with a runway where the Leopard could land. Despite this, in many cases Leopards were still more desirable than the spherical dropships (at the time, Union and Overlord) due to their ability to manuever, fight, and engage in combat (generally defensive) in the atmosphere. Contrast to a Union or Overlord which may have been capable of VTOL and able to land in any clear, relatively level terrain; but was also inherently unstable in the atmosphere, not very capable when it came to maneuvering and could be taken out by a single lucky hit if it was forced to engage in combat. These rules and capabilities may have been updated when formal dropship design rules came out, but this was prior to that time.
They changed the design of the leopard, it no longer needs a runway . That was the case in the old books
The Leopard looks like a shuttle or aircraft which makes it cool in my book. Add on that it has a ton of weapons and is the lighter, nimbler, behind enemy lines drop ship and it easily becomes my favorite. The big round drop ships have grown on me but when I was younger I was not a fan.
I see it as a way to deploy reserves and crisis units for the great houses. That way it would normally hang around other dropships or jump ships that it would be supporting, taking the burden of crew and supplies of the leopard. And when the main force gets flanked? Surprise assault mechs fron the sky!
My favourite Leopard variant is my own custom raider one.
Drops both the Aerospace bays for two mech bays and additional cargo bays.
Used in pairs, two Leopard Raiders can carry an entire raider company into the engagement along with the cargo holds to supply them and replace said supplies with loot.
Usually deployed with one primary battle/fire/strike Lance in each and a split recon Lance between the two.
The recon Lance will either be dropped during flight or deployed when landed. Once the recon Lance has cleared the area the dropships would either land or fly over and deploy the remaining lances.
The leopard simply wasn't meant to do what many small organizations use it for. Hence it's poor ability to repair and refit, cramped living space and small storage capacity. It's not a union. Battetech did a good job with this by giving the player a lostech behemoth as a mobile base.
I'd argue the Leopard would normally have 21 or so crew, with frequently no one for the Aerospace Fighter bays. Still overcrowded, but less so than 27 with 2 pilots and 4 technicians for those bays.
Beware the leopard.
It's so universal and enduring....but I always wondered what the hell the Clans did with theirs...a 5-mech Star does not fit on a 4-mech Lance carrier!
The Broadsword carries 5.
The Clans tried, but even they couldn't pull off the'just remove the fighter bays, no problem' trick. So they designed the Broadsword; Based on the Leopard Frame, but with a whole new interior setup(5 mech bays, no fighter bays at all). The lore dosen't really state what they did with the originals; most likely they went to Solahama units.
@@gregdomenico1891 Thanks!
Huh. Always thought that the Broadsword WAS the modified original Leopards. As I seem to remember a write up somewhere that said the Broadsword had issues storing and then deploying the fifth mech of the Star. Shrug. It has been some years since I read that write-up.
@@robertdrexel2043 Imagine Nicky Kerensky mandating the new tactical unit is now 5 mech, and the Clan naval reps have an awkward conversation about where to put the 5th mech now, and with what. And Nicky's likely response....
What is the Clan slang for "Get good, noob and get out of my face, bubblehead"???
My dude your mech overview vids are like a listenable check list while jamming mechwarriors 5 fucking great time thanks mate
Thanks!
Our Merc company uses a heavily modified leopard as a second dropship. They're based out of an Overlord that's only about half full, but it's expensive to take on missions and overkill for the small engagements we mostly do.
The poor leopard has been so heavily modified. It's fighter bays have been replaced with 6 light vehicle bays and most of it's weapons and heatsinks have been removed to make room for a 5th mech bay and a little more cargo room. It's got a couple medium lasers fore and aft for debris clearance and a few small pulse lasers to deter infantry from trying to take it if landed.
Despite it technically all fitting we all agreed that it would be utterly miserable and that the mech bays would only be capable of class A and B field refits with little to no repair or support capability. It is literally a combat shuttle and that is all. Any kind of hot transit or extended stay requires the overlord.
It's a compromise, but with the drop capacity of almost a dozen units it's very very useful for simple combat drops
Snort. Have something similar that I am going to be using for my Battletech (HBS) novelization fanfiction once the Mercs get the Argo. They stripped down their Leopard down almost entirely to allow eight mechs to be carried, and a small vehicle bay for recovery vehicles, but these bays do not have the ability to properly repair them at all in the field. Have to be returned to the Argo for any major repairs. The final lance of the merc company carried on the Argo would mainly be used as a reserve able to be deployed via droppods if needed. The second slot on the Argo would be taken up by what I like to call the Assault Leopard which sacrifices it Mech Bay for an extra paired aerospace bay for a total of four aerospace fighters carried onboard, then double the armor, and almost double the weapons along with larger ammo magazines for the LRM launchers. This ship is then used as the direct escort for the Argo when in orbit of a contested planet. Shrug.
If you go based off of the end campaign movie from mw3, they can drop mechs from quite a ways up while moving.
A cool dropship. able to store 4 mechs another 16 or so in storage plus several thousand tons of weapons and parts judging from the computer games...Tardis technology must have been involved. In all seriousness I do actually like this. My tabletop merc company uses one. Battle-taxi for the win.
I love the Argo of the video game so much. It stays in orbit as a repair station/ mothership while the Leopard just brings the Battlemechs to the area of operation and back up for resupply. Man, I'd love to see an Argo equivalent with three Leopards assigned to it in a scenario. Maybe a highly modified Excalibur-class dropship. - The Leopard just is made for this kind of setup. Odd it never found its way in the original lore.
A W: Basically, HBS invented a new Drop Ship Class, and then limited it to only two of its kind. One destroyed, and one rediscovered and reclaimed in the game. I have to say that Tex of the Black Pants Legion probably has the right idea. Once known, Com Star would have moved in to claim this relic of the Star League at any cost, and without survivors to 'muddle' the claim. As for the utility of the design, I can see where HBS did some good thinking with the design. Allowing the Argo to be a 'Mothership' and 'mobile repair bay' for up to a couple of companies of Mechs. There is plenty of space on the Argo's model for additional docking ports for Leopards, if you look at it. One opposite to the depicted position, and one between them on the 'ventral' (underside) of the Argo's hull, but in the same area.
@@franksmedley7372 I agree. However the ventral port is used to dock with jumpships, so the third dropship port should be on the dorsal side.
Whistles Innocently. Now that you mention it I did manage to create a TRO which made the Argo not a Dropship but a full-on support-type Warship though with no real capital-scale weapons unlike other 'Support' Warships. Has three docking ports for dropships and a decent small craft bay to support the larger dropships.
Leopards used to need runways in older stuff but a lot of FASA bigwigs have openly said they like the hover better.
Yes, I also remember that Leopards needed runways to land an take off. Moreover their in system flight ist not shown correctly in the battletech video game. the Leopard would fly from and to a jump ship not with its nose directed to it's destination but with the upside.
I hate how popular the video games have made this dropship. It definitely has its uses- raiding and spec ops primarily- but it's too small for anything else. It's why until the most recent video games (that ignored EVERYTHING about it) , the Union was the mainstay dropship in the IP, the Overlord was for larger units and ones with c-bills, and the Leopard was for small lance-scale ops and units.
So now, everyone thinks the Leopard is some amazing dropship, when it's actually just a tiny, cramped brick that, while decently armed for ground support, is outmatched by almost everything, and cannot carry enough to support what it can drop onto a battlespace.
And no, it doesn't fucking hover. 🤣
Absolutely! Can't beat a solid Union workhorse! At least still canonically the most common, even if it doesn't seem it!
I beleive they changed the design or abilities of the leopard . It ysed to require a runway . But not anymore
I've always found it ironic for the Leopard to named after fast, svelte and beautiful creature. Especially when it is none of these things, aka "The Flying Brick".
Reminds me of the quote..."With a big enough engine, even a brick can fly"
Hello Red.
The Leopard is probably the premier drop ship for raiding forces everywhere in and out of the Sphere. It is also the most numerous drop ship ever made, since it is both cheap enough to build en-mass, and small enough to make such mass manufacturing fairly easy to do.
It is a favorite of small Merc units everywhere, and probably numbers around 20 for every other drop ship type combined.
If you play in the Battletech Universe, you'll use Leopards... almost exclusively, at first, and then, if you are a wise Commander, you will have plenty of them to use for Recon Operations, Raids, and multiple drop site-single landing scenarios.
Although the Leopard is 'light' in comparison to other drop ships, and carries fewer Mechs, it is far more mobile and 'agile', thus allowing it to exploit 'holes' in Enemy Defenses with ease and panache.
One can purchase several of these craft, even if you are a 'poor' Periphery State, for Defense. They are that affordable, and ubiquitous.
One of the coolest dropships in Science Fiction in my opinion. Great lore vid thank you!
Can you make a lore vid on on; Hyper assault Gaus weapons !?
Funny how in the battletech computer games you never see the leopard shooting much. It probably has enough power to take on a light lance on its own. Would help a lot in the first mission or 5.
The mods on the PC side for Mech Warrior 5 have it showing up to the DZ popping of large lasers and Lrms while waiting for you to get to it.
Another great video! Keep up the great work. (At an obviously not self detrimental pace)
Off topic:
I was watching the Phoenix hawk video the other day and you mentioned that one LAM variant single handedly stalled the nova cat advance for quite some time. I thought that would be a nice heroic story to read. Where can I find it? Tried to use the wiki but I failed to find it.
Check out Shrapinel Issue 1
@@BigRed40TECH Legion Team by Willaim H. Keith?
@@osogitzgraymane72 I don't remember the name of the story. It's the one with the LAM in it. lol
@@BigRed40TECH alright looking through Shrapnel issue one and not the anthology, it looks like it is Yesturdays Enemy by Lance Scarinci. I'll try and find a transcript of it and I'll get back with you. Maybe on the next video.
I've had an idea about modding the heck out of one of these to make a mech hunter. Think giant A-10 with some ridiculous main weapon/s array. Possibly with a purpose built system. If we go full 3150+ nonsense, I have... ideas. Dangerous ideas. Ideas of a mad Davion. Ultra Rotary Autocannon 2. Rotary LB10X Autocannon. Ultra LB20X Autocannon. Maybe even a rotary Gauss.
Or for more practical stuff, a naval laser, double heat sinks, and whatever else can still be crammed in.
I actually of a TRO laying around for an Assault Leopard which basically removes the Mech Bays, adds another Double Bird Aerospace Bay for four fighters total, doubles the armor, nearly doubles the weapons, adds a handful of trio small laser point defense mounts, and finally the ability carry a more massive amount of ammo for its LRM launchers.
I hope you do some more falling to drop ships
The crew's limited quarters can be solved somewhat by dividing the crew in to a day and night shift. Our real world Navies have 2 or more people sharing a single bunk on ships in this manner.
If i were to outfit one, I would have 1 aerospace fighter that would be used as a light fighter/transport ship for when a drop ship was to big. The other bay for the 2nd fighter would have space for more crew at least 6-8. Only 1 officer. 2 pilots. 3 gunners. The 4 enlisted would be technicians. 4 Mechwarriors.
Good stuff, though I would suggest noting the upgraded Leopard and its differences over the old model.
"Don't worry. I'll find space." --Yang.
In my own opinion, actually in lore it's a horrid vessel to use or work in. It's still excellent for small ops though. The ubiquitous Union is the more often seen and used dropship. It does have its uses though.
Anyway, great vid, Big Red. I look forward to more dropship videos from you, like for the Union- and Fortress- classes and their variants (like how you do it for the 'Mechs). We may want to consider Warships later on as well.
EDIT: No info about the variant like the Leopard CV? Just asking.
Just my local 2sen worth.
Fortress was covered in the general Dropship video.
Overlord and union will be covered soonish. Union should be this coming week
@@BigRed40TECH Aye I watched that after watching this one. Great mention! Looking forward to next week's coverage on the Union! Kudos!
Useful little ship :-) the mercs choice as its the only drop ship most can afford :-)
How many cup holders does the cockpit have?
None. It is a giant cupholder in and of itself.
I have thought that for the plethora of mechs available vs the amount of dropships used for the setting is quite limited unlike what the lore states. It would be rather fun if they would use something like a modified Buccaneer dropship instead of the usual Leopard, Union, or Overlord as a dropship. Maybe as you play the game you can upgrade the dropship to be able to accommodate things like a second lance or heavier armor and weapons.
"34 tons of cargo space..." My 139 Urbanmechs disagree.
Nice analysis. I've played every Mechwarrior including the OG Battletech on my Commodore 128D I bought in the Nuremberg PX while I was stationed in Erlangen back in the late 80s. I'm absolutely loving Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries. With each DLC they've improved the game. I wish they'd bring in the Clans and Clan weapons in the next DLC and add multiplayer. I listen to each Battletech novel on Amazon Audible too. Lots of good ones. Cheers.
Latest DLC was announced and it looks like, with the ability for other companies to exist and interact with the world, we might actually have a clan invasion.
Looks like everybody but the officers will be hot bunking. If I had a Merc unit that owned a Leopard, and lived their full time, I'd probably turn one of the aero bays into additional living and recreation areas. Maybe through in some simulator pods while I'm at it. The second aero bay would be converted to hold for salvage and loot.
One thing that struck me is the hover drop capability. I was pretty sure in the official lore they needed runways for take off and landing. I though the hovering thing was just a concession for the video games?
It's got downward thrusters. I assumed that their power would let it stay in the air.
@@BigRed40TECH Doesn't say on Sarna and I don't have all the source books to read through. I was just pretty sure I read somewhere that it needs runways. I mean just thinking of the full consumption to power a hover is frightening. I don't know though. /shrugs
@@BigRed40TECH I once asked some people with more knowledge about drop ships and they explained to me that the Leopard does not have downward thrusters. this is its interplanetary drive use for in system flights on long journeys from and to jump ships. and yes that also means when in space leopards fly always "up" towards their destination until they have to turn around on order to slow down. similar like in the Expanse TV show.
@@frankb3347 If they needed runways, they couldn't do the style of drops that they do to reinforce positions to be fair.
You might have been able to extend this video Time by mentioning the leopard CV which is an aerospace carrier
I originally did. I didn't felt it fit the tone of the script or video, so it was dropped during post-production.
Hmmm... Could have sworn that the Mech Bays, and Aerospace Bays for one have their own supporting cargo and two, have extra crew space for not only the pilots themselves but the bay personnel as well. That is what I have been told over the last couple of years after I started designing my own BT Ships for various reasons. Hence, why an individual Mech Bay/Cubicle is 150 tons when a Mech itself is can only be up to 100 Tons. The rest of that tonnage is for cargo to support its attached mech and supporting crew space for the extra personnel. Shrug. That is why the Leopard and even larger Dropships like say the Overlord Class has such paltry Cargo Bays.
Wonder if a Leopard could be a platform for fire support, like a Long Tom.
If you tore out the fighter bays, you could pull it off.
Hot racking is a small price to pay for being able to get in and out of a hot zone so quickly LMAO
A "light" dropship lol. These things would dwarf any spacecraft currently created by mankind by a large margin
Why i have a feel that pilot ia just gonna sleep in hammocks between mech arm
Okay, so the Leo only has half the usual capacity for supporting the crew. however, let's think about how like a submarine operates: same bunk, 2-3 occupants based on schedules. Is the Leo really that overcrowded? Once they are on the ground, they usually make a small village of tents around the dropship anyway...
Interestingly, the video games all seem to portray the Leopard's interplanetary transit incorrectly. According to lore, the transit drive for the Leopard is located 'underneath' the dropship meaning that when cruising between dropship and planets (and vice versa) it is constantly flying 'upwards' in order to provide gravity for the crew through acceleration, switching over at the halfway point to start deceleration (Those who have watched The Expanse on Amazon will know what I mean). The horizontal thrusters were only used when entering atmosphere and/or for combat operations, as the interplanetary drive was not capable of keeping the Leopard airborne in atmosphere, (something common to all aerodyne dropships,) and definitely not able to provide VTOL capability. Aerodyne dropships require a runway to land and take-off from. The need for the two drive systems is primarily what makes an Aerodyne Dropship such as the Leopard more expensive compared to a spheroid dropship of equal mass. The aerodynamic design is also a limiting factor when determining the maximum mass of an aerodyne dropship, which is why the biggest dropships in the Battletech universe are all of spheroid design.
I believe The whole idea of dropping 'mechs onto the battlefield from a Leopard originated from the book 'Wolves on the Border' where it described the tactic of 'Hot Dropping', a method used by Wolf's dragoons whereby an Aerodyne dropship would go as slow as it could and make a very low pass either close to or over the battlefield. The 'Mechs would literally jump out from their bays, hitting the ground at high speed (a low speed for an aerodyne is still much faster than any 'mech can normally travel,) while the dropship was still in flight. It was a very 'high risk / high reward' manoeuvre that even the Wolf's dragoons would use only when it was the situation desperately required it due to the potentially high cost in lives and equipment.
That all being said, I can see why videogames chose to portray the Leopard's flight profile as they do.. it looks cooler. In addition, those not familiar with the battletech universe and with the lore I mentioned above would probably think that there was a game bug causing the dropship to 'fly wrong'.
Kind of surprised that you didn't show the differences between the MechCarrier and the CV; they look nothing alike.
Didn't fit the script. This script had multiple rewrites, which is why I only mentioned the CV, and didn't fully cover it.
Good!
Very good!
No mention of the Leopard 2C? You ARE planning to do videos on the Leopard, Overlord, and Union IIC variants, quiaff? It would be a shame if we of the Clans had to initiate a Trial of Grievance over being left out, you know...
Seriously, I'm kind of upset that you didn't mention the Leopard 2C at least once, although I assume you're going to do a video on Clan dropships once you've finished with the Inner Sphere 'base' models--or so I hope, anyway. Still, good video as always--informative and interesting without getting tied down in minute trivial details or missing anything truly important.
there is no leopard C . clans use the Broadsword for the leopards role .
Even when pulling the fighter cubicles, the Clans couldn't make it work with the Star organization. Thus, the Broadsword was born. Even then, I think the 5th bay is limited in tonnage. And no fighters.
@@gregdomenico1891 with the Confederate available it would have been better to go with spheroid and set it up as a nova carrier
@@michaelbender5600 It could work, I mean without the fighters it can carry 6 mechs; Elemental armor dosen't weigh that much. But, where the hell are you going to house 25 Elementals? The thing dosen't exactly have a full size barracks on board.
I mentioned the Broadsword.
I am unlikely to do extensive coverage on Clan Dropships at this time.
Whats the dropship your company uses in mw4 mercs?
Huzzah
I look forward to when you do Warships.
That's not gonna be anytime soon. Way too much to cover before that.
The new look is better I still have 1994 printing of 3025 tech readout it was more rounded. Always found it funny when listing the make of it's weapons all it says is (All of miscellaneous manufacture).
Someone made a mod where those can come by to support the enemy and you can shoot them down.
If you have the firepower.
Pretty much any kind of "naval" or "artillery" weapon is a threat to the Leopard.
So, Arrow-IV, Thumper/Sniper/LongTom Artillery, any of the "big" weapons you'd find on a WarShip or Pocket WarShip, etc.
Its canon that a fafnir shot down a leopard.
In MW2 Mercs, you have to shoot down a Broadsword. And it shoots back; not a fun mission. MW4 had some destroy dropship missions also.
One of the things that bothered me about MW5 was that the Leopard was indeed too small to act as a base for your team. By the time you hit mid game, you had at least a second lance of standby mechs, 300-400 tons of mechs and mech pieces in storage, and about 8-10 pilots. No way all that could have fit.
Sure, but it's a game, and at the end of the day ptuting the player in a Union would only push the game into combat that they didn't want to make the gameplay for. Sadly, sometimes it really is such-is-life.
@@BigRed40TECH True, but I would have loved almost all the ways they could have taken it into account.
@@BigRed40TECH after replaying the game a bit, I come to the conclusion the the jumpship is either yours, or at the least owned by Interstellar Expeditions. It makes sense, especially when you start jumping around in the Deep Periphery, they just never come out and say it.
A nice ship for a merc
Big Red, you need to change your channel name to: Battletech Technical Readout 2022
Is the other drop ship shown in this video a different variant of the leopard?
For me the Leopard is too small for interstellar use. Each Dropship needs 1 Dropship Collar (except the older Behemoths which are big enough to need 2). So a Leopard can carry 4 Mechs + 2 ASF, but if you had a larger Dropship you could carry more Mechs, ASF, and cargo to perform the mission (or room to carry more loot). Jumpships will charge the same fee for a Docking Collar's use, no matter the size of the Dropship. (So if there is a cargo Leopard with 900 tons of cargo, and a cargo Mule with 8500 tons of cargo, there is no difference in fee charged by the Jumpship. This means that the extra shipping charge on the Leopard's cargo is over 9* higher, meaning the Leopard can only take high-value cargos where the difference in fee is not as much on an issue.)
To me the spot for the Leopard to shine would be on-planet and in-system transportation. A smaller Dropship would mean less damage when taking off or landing, and traveling in-system does not have to bother with the Jumpship limit. It also allows for better separation of destinations, as 10 smaller Dropships can be sent to 10 destinations, while a single larger Dropship has to go to the first location, then the second, then the third, etc. The key is to have the Leopards at a spaceport, rather than at a Jumpship.
One potential use for a cargo version of the Leopard would be sending several Leopards to the Jump point where a Mammoth or Behemoth on a Docking Collar is waiting to trans-ship the cargo. The Jumpship then goes to a new destination, and any Dropships in that system then take off the cargo in the Mammoth or Behemoth. The Leopards in the system take on cargo based on destination, and head back to the planet, splitting up based on the cargo destinations.
oh I can't wait until you get to the Union oh I have stories to tell about the "Pork Chop Express"
Leopards are nice but I like the Union more
Just very different purposes