For any one interested this Saturday at 9 am eastern time me and steve are going to be live streaming halo 3 and maybe halo reach on legendary. Come hang out, chat, ask questions and enjoy a day with SCI and Steve if you're interested. Check the link below to get to my twitch. 10K subscriber special stream on twitch: www.twitch.tv/scienceinsanity
The guy on the left in that picture you were laughing at is in an InnerSphere Cooling suit and a mech pilot. This is what they used pre clan and Pre memory core cause they could not make star league era suits anymore. SO just put on a water cooled jacket take off all your clothing and go into battle on you mech that generates 20 heat but you only got 10 heat sinks.
I think 40k has a great quote on the subject: "Despise infantry if you must. Crush them underfoot, by all means. But do not ignore them. Battlefields are littered with the wreckage of Titans whose crews ignored infantry." - Grand Master Ferromont, Ordo Sinnister, Colegio Titanica That's coming from people who pilot 33 meter tall war gods.
Ordo Sinister, not only 33 meter tall death machines, 33 meter tall death machines with devastating psychic powers on top of ludicrously powerful conventional weaponry.
Ah, yes, the imperium’s biggest spooksters. Remember that one time an Ordo Sinister Psy-Warlord landed on a rebellious planet and quelled the rebellion just by walking around without firing a single shot? Damn spooky as all hell. Unfortunately, if any of them are left, they’re in the Emperor’s basement and there’s at most 5 of them remaining. Thank you, Legio Mortis, for being Horus’s favorite beat-stick and breaking all the cool toys.
40k is also a setting where infantry can potentially have weapons that cause gravity effects, which could potentially lead to a *really* bad day for a Titan if it hits them in the right spot at the right time. Can you imagine an Imperator taking a step, then all of a sudden one of their legs just shifts out from under them and they go straight to the ground?
Clanners learned the hard way that infantry are not be fucked with at the Battle of Tukayyid. Nothing is more freighting than having your mech's legs blown off by satchel charges, laying on your back, and having two grunts standing on top your cockpit. One of them has a can of Inferno gel and a hose, the other has a drill and a lighter.
People make fun of my infantry. That is until their mech gets absolutely smoked in an ambush or get a satchel charge attached to their leg by a jump trooper. Never underestimate the infantryman in battletech.
Swarm attacks are the stuff of nightmares for mechwarriors, once a unit swarms, and they don't have to be jump capable, get in a mech occupied hex, they can't fire at them and friendly mechs that try would most likely hit the mech as well if they tried. And the attack is punch hit locations which means a one in six chance that the head is going to take damage. All the swarmed can do is basically spend a turn trying to force the infantry out of their hex with the equivalent of a punch attack.
@@eddapultstab2078you can stop, drop and roll and squish the infantry. Which is even supposing that the get to the upper body of the mech, which is a tough roll to do.
@@kairakuwaeldreor3868 that's basically what's happening with the mech. it deals 1 point of damage per 10 tons of mech and pushes the infantry unit 1 hex away on success.
Played a full infantry regiment against a guys reinforced mech lance on an urban hell defensive map. He didn't make it halfway through the city. Field guns holding streets srm teams ambushing from buildings. Jump laser teams blitzing his mechs. And flamer and rifle platoons jumping his armor. Icing on the cake was the ac20 field gun held up in a strategic point on the map that happened to be a hospital.
It's what infantry do IRL. The main benefits of tanks and mechs is their mobility paired with their firepower. If you take away their ability to maneuver, they are actually fairly fragile ton-for-ton since the infantry have no engine, no limbs, no armor, no structure. Only guns and ammo.
"Yeah, it's the Mobile Infantry" 'Wait, that's Starship Troopers, that's the wrong franchise' "Would you like to know more?" Putting the Insanity into the channel name, I see
If you feel too bad for the infantry, remember that they have been given nuclear weapons to play with in Battletech as well! The Davy Crockett-I is a one shot infantry support nuke manned by a group of infantry. The range is about a little over a kilometer, which as you can imagine, is not what most would call a safe detonation distance.
If you feel too bad for the infantry, remember they are a lot scarier than any of us think, and during the Clan Invasion, they gave the Clanners some of the most trouble.
One thing I will always remember, big guns, missiles, bombs, tank, aircraft cannot hold ground and go door to door. You need boots on the ground, always have and always will.
And then a bunch of firestarters pull up on them while relaying their current position to the local Catapult. You are chaff and you will forever be chaff 😂
When the mech goes into the city, every angle becomes available for the infantry to take advantage of. Also the two infantry men at 7:10 are there to shoot the enemy piolets that are downed.
Remember mech jocks, infantry in Battletech have assault rifles capable of damaging your mech, while an AC20 can only kill 2 at a time. Also, TAG is 1t of extra equipment which is fired prior to the artillery phase to see if it designates, otherwise the mech jock has to forgo firing his own weapons to designate a target. While Heavy Jump Infantry are canon if rare, basically proto Battle Armor.
Good to address how inefficient mech weapons can be at killing infantry. In fact, some of the most feared mech weapons are the least effective against infantry. To my knowledge, the feared ERPPC and Gauss Rifle can each only kill one ground pounder at a time. Oh sure, that poor sap is atomized, but the rest of the unit can still rush forward with satchel charges, rocket launchers, and plastic explosives.
The whole assault rifles damaging Mechs thing is pure game mechanics so you don't have to roll every weapon in the platoon seperately and spend half an hour to resolve the shooting phase of a single unit. Down in the more granular systems (ol' Battletroops and the RPGs) you do need some actual AT if you wanna fuck with a Mech.
@@magni5648 I always thought of it as a consequence of the _extremely_ ablative armor mechs use. Lots of it but designed to slog off easily to steal energy from solid gauss slugs. IDK why TW rules wouldn't just be "small arms just can't attack armor" otherwise.
@@H9092-2 You can get a platoon with 2 AC/20s, but I prefer tanks to do the job. Po is a good balance of cheap and durable, or you can be nasty and use Demolishers.
I’ve always looked at mechs as uncommon on the battle field in planet wide campaigns. Always used for major assaults . They are expensive to maintain. The original canon was post star league weapon systems and ammo types were difficult to manufacture and maintain due to decade of war , and remoteness os some planets .
In particular, many of the more advanced mechs are difficult or impossible to replace. Sending a mech battalion is always going to be a high-stakes gamble. Sending a force of tanks and infantry... well, it's much less of a disaster if everything goes pear-shaped.
18:20 the one on the left is a mechwarrior with neuro helmet and cooling jacket, the one on the right is actually a technician, i believe that is from the capellan confederation hand book, and from that you may understand why.
Aye, was going to say this, myself. Inner Sphere mechwarriors, in particular, are known for going into battle almost or completely naked aside from helmet and vest, if they get a vest, due to degrading tech causing their units to run so hot.
Keep in mind that in Battletech a Vulcan cannon, what WE consider a light auto cannon, would be considered a light machine gun. What Battletech calls an auto cannon we would call, "Holy shit, did that 120 mm tank gun do a fucking 5 round burst?!" So yeah, the idea that a machine gun can threaten a tank isn't as far fetched as you'd think. Also the armor in Battletech is very hard but brittle and was deigned to defeat HEAT and long rod KE rounds. It's almost impossible for a single hit to penetrate the armor but it slowly shatters and weakens as it's hit. Hence why high rate of fire weapons are favored in this setting.
For context in regards to Machine Guns: The Timberwolf typically carries two to four "Nathan-Browning M2A4 .80cal (20mm) Anti-Personal Machine Guns" Even a millennia in the future, we're still using the Ma Deuce, just rechambered for 20mm.
@@torg2126 Yep. Kinda wished they communicated this a little better just to give you an idea how just how advanced and scary these weapons actually are.
@@torg2126 From my understanding, AC-2s are *_not_* in any caliber less than 40mm, as 12.7-30mm is *_vehicular machinegun range._* AC-5s tend to be somewhere around 60-90mm, AC-10s tend to be 90-120mm, and then there are the AC-20s, which top out at about 203mm. Oh, and the AC line's 'inspiration' is AAI's 75mm autocannon design (created by Eugine Stoner himself) for the HTVL, which could fire up to 5 rounds a second (though its more common firing mode is a 3-round burst).
My infantry usually own a battlefield if there's enough terrain. Gimme a couple heavy lasers for that 15 hex range and a building to hide in and I end up feeling sorry for the mech. Sure I can take 1 loss per turn while I peel off armor in droves. Jump-Laser infantry with support lasers can be NASTY when used correctly. Thanks for the video guys... hey steve.
Another thing to note about infantry is that in innersphere warfare infantrys job is less fight and most likely die and more securing the real estate. Capured Cities need to be kept in check mechs and tanks need to be guarded when not in use and assets need to be put to work. infantry tends to either be the last line of defense or when you need a bunch of dudes with guns to do something a giant mech can't do delicately. Usually throwing them in suicide waves is peak steiner or liao move as even kurita knows better to do that, they are more slaughter the denizens of a city/continent to the last man women and child types and you can't waste your infantry until that's done first.
Why do I have the feeling that MANPADs and the survivability onion are not a thing in the Battletech universe? A giant machine walking on two legs...the wet dream of any AT soldier.
MANPADs and the survivability onion are actually kind of a thing in Battletech. Higher tech mechs have ECM and stealth tech to help with the not being detected part, but mobility and terrain have always been useful for avoiding being targeted and being hit by the long range missile weapons that infantry carry.
Well they have towed mech grade weapons but those are advanced rules. Still, I would put a company of fortified infantry crewing ac 5 or 10s with tanks backing up that line.
thers also warship ar missle ships and subcapatal missles as well. heck the battletech warship navl lasers in the battltech tactcal ops rule book even has a AAA mode for dealing with aerospace fighters.
Thats why there are light mechs with machine guns and flamers. Some even have Anti-Personnel Gauss Rifles. To quote Professor Randolph P. Checkers, "Nothing says fun for infantry like being exploded."
7:58 For those curious, “crunchies”, in this case is a nickname members of the Mechwarrior Mafia (aka Mech pilots) use for infantry because of how stepping on them is like stepping of a twig or dry leaf, complete with the sound effects.
Infantry do die in droves in BT, but they can be a real pain to Mechwarriors. "Kick the Can" is a real thing. There is nothing more annoying to have a squad sneak up on your mech, and suddenly realizing you just had your mech's knee blown out. And, now you are on your face, sucking dirt, with a shit ton of his angry friends swarming over you, knocking on you cockpit window.
To be fair, the Gray Death Legion had quite a bit of success using specialized infantry units to fight mechs. Of course they did suffer a fair number of casualties doing so, but not as many as you would think. They are a bit of a special case though. Definitely not your average cannon fodder.
Honestly, the #1 reason to have Infantry even in the Age of Mechs, is because while Mechs dominate the battlefield, if there's building infrastructure you want to take from a hostile force WITHOUT destroying it, you're going to need to send in infantry to clear it out.
On the topic of infantry designs, I'm actually working on redesigns for them! Next up for me is Capellans! Also hey! Thanks for using some of my art ^-^
18:30 the man on the left looks like an IS pilot in a cooling vest and neuro helmet, while the one of the right appears to be a tech or mechanic based on his equipment.
I love how the "Light rifle jump trooper" looks. I know his visor is supposed to epically reflect the scenery in front of him, but it took me way too long, to not think of him as "depressed uni-brow man".
Eye protection also makes sense when you're on a battlefield featuring laser weapons powerful enough to straight up melt a couple hundred pounds of armor on a decent hit.
Jim-Bob and Manuel are doing what infantry is supposed to do. Engage other infantry so they don't deploy cheap anti-armor against your expensive mechs.
Conventional infantry are one of the most effective units in the tabletop game, Ive had several games where Ive downed half a lance using SRM platoons then sent in a mech to finish off the survivors. When in urban areas or dug in they are a nightmare for an unprepared mechwarrior to deal with, and render the most powerful weapons in the game functionally useless if they either neglect or are too arrogant to bring a flame thrower or machine gun. The infantryman in battle tech is not unlucky, he is the bravest man on a battle field full of smug cowards hiding behind tons of armor. He is more than happy if given the chance to show a self proclaimed god of the battlefield his/her own mortality. Half of them will not wait for your mech to fall, there are more than a few with the raw cojones to try and scale your mech to pry you from the seat.
@17:00 The Fed Suns do actually use infantry with mechs more often than other factions, since their weaker economy during the Succession Wars forced them to diversify their forces, and the idea just kind of stuck. Combined arms warfare isn't as great when you're trading Mechs and Fighters for APCs on a dropship, mind, which is why other factions are less likely to do the same.
Heh, I used that as a bit of a funny prank on an old orbat for a merc unit. They had a mechansied infantry company. What the orbat didn't list was the 12 Goblins they had as transport. Fun times when the asshole reading your MRB entry sees "infantry company" and thinks his light Mech lance can totally take that.
Mechs do use tag systems. There’s a bit of technobabble explaining their use but in a nutshell, a mechs standard anti-electronic warfare systems prevent standard laser designators from targeting them. A tag cuts through this defense.
@@Cowboycomando54 Those are more specialised, heavy duty ECM that goes beyond what's considered baseline on Mechs and tanks and asusmed to be omnipresent.
In lore, TAG systems replaced the standard laser designator because every mech or tank has a base line laser spoofing systems (not even counting Guardian ECM or Angel ECM) that emits the same frequency any designator uses. So that completely throws off regular laser designators as a weapon with a fixed or preset laser frequency will get confused by a defensive system that is emitting at the same frequency. TAG however is a laser designator that operates on a multi-frequency and will auto switch frequencies once it detects spoofing or ghost targeting, thus insuring high accuracy. Hence that justifies its 1 ton weight, though infantry/BA variants are lighter at the cost of some range.
18:26 the guy on the left is a Mechwarrior, not a soldier. No sleeves and no pants because it's frigging hot sitting on top of a nuke reactor. The vest is a cooling vest, not armor, and the helmet is a neuronet helmet that connects his brainwaves to the computer of the mech.
PBM's: If you want to get to your objective you're going to have to go through us! Mechwarrior: Quick question: Do you happen to know the amount of damage my Warcrime on Stilts would suffer if I were to, oh I don't know, let it walk right over you and all your friends right now? PBM's: Uh....no? Mechwarrior: None at all.
That's basically how the Capellans killed General DeChavilier and nearly did the same to Elizabeth Hazen: lured them into a trap and fired on their mechs with small weapons while the mechs could not get out of a burning oil pit. The only reason Hazen did not die is that the Capellans foolishly brought guns to a Black Watch fight.
@@michaelbarnard8529 Battletech armor is way, way ahead of modern armor materials, and the matchup betwee nfirepwoer and armor is much more in the latters favour. An SRM is about the same size as a Javelin missile, and it sacrifices range for more warhead. And you still need them by the dozen to actually seriously endanger anything bigger than light and underarmored medium Mechs and tanks.
The lack of disposable, one-shot AT weapons in Battletech is rather interesting, given that it's a remarkably common concept in the real world. I'd expect every single infantryman in the Battletech universe to be carrying around the equivalent of three M72 LAWs, but with the punch of ATM HE rounds.
Infantry units in the BattleTech universe *do* carry those weapons. They just don’t carry one-shot versions. If they need to throw missiles at something, they need to be able to do it more than once, so they are equipped accordingly.
@Vessekx If you need more than one, you carry more than one- ever seen those images from 'Nam of US soldiers carrying literal armfuls of M72 LAWs? Anyways, dusposable launchers like that are easier to mass-produce, and tend to be pretty easy to use, like how the LAW had a pictographic guide on how to fire it printed on the side. They'd be an excellent option for equipping planetary militias, who aren't exactly Death Commandos, and would probably find a way to fuck up loading a hand-held SRM-2. Just give'em a Boom Tube that has an edutainment comic printed on it and tell them to die gloriously!
Erm, generic LAWs are absolutely a thing in Battletech. Serious anti-Mech oriented infantry just tend to prefer heavier, reloadable SRM launchers. LAWs are not nearly as powerful as ATMs. Which makes sense, given an ATM missile without any launcher or anything weighs in at like ~30 pounds, while a LAW comes in at ~8-10.
Battletech armor is basically layers of magic solid "ERA" So the Sabot and EFP warheads of modern weapons dont work. So you have to bash it repeatedly with HE
Building garrisons, forest ambushes, swarming tripped up mechs, setting mines to do the tripping up, field guns, jump infantry blitzing etc... Infantry can be absolutely nasty if you're clever with them.
"You choose the inferno missile launcher. Your commander says that is a good idea, as there are some mechs in the area and we need to be prepared for them. The thought that we would be using it on *people* has not yet entered his darkest dreams"
There's an old saying in the BT community about the infantry: when a 'mech comes by, you either run around like Gozilla is around *_OR_* snicker as the idiot 'MechWarrior has fallen for your trap.
When I think of infantry in Mechwarrior, Minus the Blackwatch, I only think of the cinematic in Mechwarrior 3 where one poor solo was crushed by a thor/summoner.
You can blast a piece of ground from orbit, hit it with artillery, strafe it with aircraft, roll a tank over it, have a mech stomp all over it, but you don't "own" it until you have an 18 year old with a rifle standing on it.
The problem with infantry in Battletech is the fact that heavy machine guns can’t shoot beyond 90 meters. By that I mean the scale of combat just doesn’t work for infantry in this game, which is fine because I like it for the stompy robots. If we wanted to have a hard look at this and try to inject some realism into the rules infantry would be a whole lot more capable.
"L'homme passe, même là où le véhicule a dû renoncer. Le fantassin demeure le combattant des 300 derniers mètres." The man goes where the vahicle cannot. The infantryman remain the last 300 metres fighter." French military instruction video "les 300 derniers mètres".
One has but to look around the real world at the moment in a hundred different places to see just exactly why the abstraction of Battletech allowing infantry to do what they do in system. The 1st Guards Tank army can likely explain to you if you’d like to ask them. They likely have strong opinions on fighting infantry under supported.
Thanks for the digestible breakdown of Battletech lore, your series is making my dive into the lore much easier, but I have a question: Is there an equivalent of naval marines in Battletech?
In terms of dedicated amphibious troops, the SLDF had a specialised branch. Also, hovercraft are very widespread in Battletech, and Mechs themselves are quasi-amphibious in that they can cross rivers and costal waters by just walking along the bottom. Amphibious assault is a very niche thing in Battletech, given that DropShips allow large-scale airmobile operations with heavy equipment under mot circumstances. Though what most people in-universe would think of when hearing Marines would be specialist troops trained and equipped for fighting in zero-G environments. IE, boarding space ship and stations.
the mobile infantry from starship troopers would actually fare pretty damned well in the battletech setting: they're basically those suittroopers they "aren't planning to talk about yet" but turned up to 11, technically they are armored fairly well but mostly that's just there so their suit is structurally sound enough to carry and mount even more weapons, their role in combat is a lot closer to Close Air Support than anything else, they just achieve it by rocket jumping all over the terrain, firing *All The Guns* on the way in to help them stop, and immediately jumping away while tossing nuclear grenades behind them. the tech base that they are a "turn all this up to 11 and what do you get?" idea of didn't really have anything remotely equivalent to modern information systems and somehow the military-obsessed author didn't really think that that would be a field of tech that would develop much despite it being the single most important field of development throughout the entirety of their life because they were kiiiiinda a giant screaming idiot so the Mobile Infantry "Suits" would be surprisingly shite at trying to operate over here in the real world even with their impossible stats for the exact same reason that CAS is looking less and less feasible but in battletech target acquisition tech seems to have mostly stayed equivalent to early cold war era which would make these things hulk-jumping their way across the landscape an absolute nightmare to deal with even for mechs, let alone anything else.
You may laugh at the humble HMG, but there isn't a better tool at turning cover into concealment and turning important things you thought were armored into less important trash. But seriously a HMG can punch through about of inch of armor.
It's crazy That most infantry centric settings are just generic supersoldiers and grunts and then battletech of all settings has the most in depth and cool infantry roles, this is the only setting with reasonable special forces that actually make sense
You have no idea how long ive been looking for lore on the infantry of Battletech. Thank you. Im the kinda person that likes the regular joe-shmoes of a given universe, case in point, my damn pfp, an Imperial Guard helmet.
"for almost no value" I get where the tongue in cheek comments are coming from, the mechs are supposed to be the kings of the setting. But tanks and infantry of all forms can be terrifying if used properly. They are far, FAR from helpless cannon fodder, they just can't stand toe to toe against the mechs. But ask any tanker from ww2 on if urban fighting is their favorite.
And of course i only realize how "uhum, AkTuAllYYYY" that sounded after i hit post, and i apologize for the overall tone 😅the point stands though. I will also say this vidja earned you a sub, so well done 👍
Starship troopers movies did the mobile infantry dirty. In the books, they drove mechs that were dropped from orbit and bounded over many kilometers to hit targets with nukes and bound away to be picked up. Never spent more than mere minutes on planet. Battletech mechs are mere turrets by comparison.
Why is there no unguided man portable AT in the lore? Its weird, like we got full on crew serviced at guns and crew serviced guided missles but we dont got the space javalin or space rpg-7 or even a space AT4?
LAWs and VLAWs (light and very light anti armor weapons) do exist within the settings, but it's hard to find a unit that actually uses them in the gameplay. I tend to make them in Megamek for my own use.
While yes, it's laughable for MGs to deal real damage to armor IRL, you've got to remember that Battletech armor is this weird gamey stuff that functions as _extreme_ ablative armor. Fucktons of it and designed to shear off with ease to dissipate the force of, y'know, a solid slug fired from a Gauss rifle. The tradeoff is that concentrated small arms can chip away at it as well.
Yes, but also the standard ballistic assault rifle is a .50 caliber fully automatic - likely firing sabot and the like, or they just straight up have lasers. A standard platoon of ballistic infantry without SRMs will do about an AC20's worth of damage in one turn of shooting.
Infantry platoons are massively abstracted on the normal Battletech game scale, with everything in the platoon treated as a singular attack. And every platoon is supposed to have some kind of AT on hand, even if it's just some LAWs or grenade launcehrs loaded up with HEAT. When you go down to Battletroops or the RPGs, anything short of an actual light AT weapon won't do shit to a tank or Mech no matter how much ammo you throw at it.
Playing infantry in MechWarrior Living Legends is horrifying for the mechs and tanks that don't have flamers that is because the BA you get absolutely wrecks house. Some BA/Infantry weapons do more damage than a mech heavy large laser but only have a range of 80 meters... That's the only hold back for their weapons is the range and speed.
I feel kind of sad that none of the Battletech video games has ever *really* let you play as an Inner Sphere infantryman. That said, I remember the rule that 1hp of infantry is roughly 100 men so....
The first Battletech book I ever read was the first book in the Grey Death Legion series. For a good amount of that book it's just dudes doing hit and run tactics on mechs while they drive around in their shitty Space Toyota Hilux technicals and capturing overheated mechs. It was a fun read, weird pacing though.
Infantry remain the peasants of war in this neofeudal future, but one should remember that even mighty kings may be felled by peasants. Even if mechs have replaced tanks as kings of the battlefield. Even the gods that rain fire from above the sky may be destroyed by peasants from within.
For any one interested this Saturday at 9 am eastern time me and steve are going to be live streaming halo 3 and maybe halo reach on legendary. Come hang out, chat, ask questions and enjoy a day with SCI and Steve if you're interested. Check the link below to get to my twitch.
10K subscriber special stream on twitch:
www.twitch.tv/scienceinsanity
you forgot the Anti-Mech Infantry.
The guy on the left in that picture you were laughing at is in an InnerSphere Cooling suit and a mech pilot. This is what they used pre clan and Pre memory core cause they could not make star league era suits anymore. SO just put on a water cooled jacket take off all your clothing and go into battle on you mech that generates 20 heat but you only got 10 heat sinks.
Please for the love of God cover the Mobile Infantry and their Drop Pods from the Novel of Startship Troopers.
I think 40k has a great quote on the subject:
"Despise infantry if you must. Crush them underfoot, by all means. But do not ignore them. Battlefields are littered with the wreckage of Titans whose crews ignored infantry."
- Grand Master Ferromont, Ordo Sinnister, Colegio Titanica
That's coming from people who pilot 33 meter tall war gods.
Ordo Sinister, not only 33 meter tall death machines, 33 meter tall death machines with devastating psychic powers on top of ludicrously powerful conventional weaponry.
Ah, yes. The Ordo Sinister. A force so cloaked in [All data redacted. Ave Omnisiah]
Ah, yes, the imperium’s biggest spooksters. Remember that one time an Ordo Sinister Psy-Warlord landed on a rebellious planet and quelled the rebellion just by walking around without firing a single shot? Damn spooky as all hell. Unfortunately, if any of them are left, they’re in the Emperor’s basement and there’s at most 5 of them remaining. Thank you, Legio Mortis, for being Horus’s favorite beat-stick and breaking all the cool toys.
40k is also a setting where infantry can potentially have weapons that cause gravity effects, which could potentially lead to a *really* bad day for a Titan if it hits them in the right spot at the right time.
Can you imagine an Imperator taking a step, then all of a sudden one of their legs just shifts out from under them and they go straight to the ground?
Also, never forget Cadia broke before the Guard. Discount Infantry (well mostly infantry) at your own risk...
Clanners learned the hard way that infantry are not be fucked with at the Battle of Tukayyid. Nothing is more freighting than having your mech's legs blown off by satchel charges, laying on your back, and having two grunts standing on top your cockpit. One of them has a can of Inferno gel and a hose, the other has a drill and a lighter.
Jfc, I have PTSD just from the image that evokes 😰
People make fun of my infantry. That is until their mech gets absolutely smoked in an ambush or get a satchel charge attached to their leg by a jump trooper. Never underestimate the infantryman in battletech.
Swarm attacks are the stuff of nightmares for mechwarriors, once a unit swarms, and they don't have to be jump capable, get in a mech occupied hex, they can't fire at them and friendly mechs that try would most likely hit the mech as well if they tried. And the attack is punch hit locations which means a one in six chance that the head is going to take damage. All the swarmed can do is basically spend a turn trying to force the infantry out of their hex with the equivalent of a punch attack.
@@eddapultstab2078you can stop, drop and roll and squish the infantry. Which is even supposing that the get to the upper body of the mech, which is a tough roll to do.
@@kairakuwaeldreor3868 that's basically what's happening with the mech. it deals 1 point of damage per 10 tons of mech and pushes the infantry unit 1 hex away on success.
there have been times playing table top Battletech when Infantry absolutely FUBARed my Hunchback or Victor mech with a lucky SRM shot
@@brothersgt.grauwolff6716through armor critical! Floating crit! Ammo hit!
Played a full infantry regiment against a guys reinforced mech lance on an urban hell defensive map. He didn't make it halfway through the city.
Field guns holding streets srm teams ambushing from buildings. Jump laser teams blitzing his mechs. And flamer and rifle platoons jumping his armor. Icing on the cake was the ac20 field gun held up in a strategic point on the map that happened to be a hospital.
Infantry in battletech done right
It's what infantry do IRL.
The main benefits of tanks and mechs is their mobility paired with their firepower. If you take away their ability to maneuver, they are actually fairly fragile ton-for-ton since the infantry have no engine, no limbs, no armor, no structure. Only guns and ammo.
I think you gave the guy ptsd. XD btw suprsied ya don't have at lest a few urbies.
"Yeah, it's the Mobile Infantry"
'Wait, that's Starship Troopers, that's the wrong franchise'
"Would you like to know more?"
Putting the Insanity into the channel name, I see
Funny enough, the Starship Troopers armor got used in artwork of Ghost Bear infantry.
IS infantry: Starship trooper Movie.
Clan Elemental: Starship Troopers THE NOVEL.
I mean your not far off since the Mobile Infantry pretty much existed to die in the movie.
Yes
"The crunchy's role--" "You did not just bring up Crunchyroll..."
If you feel too bad for the infantry, remember that they have been given nuclear weapons to play with in Battletech as well! The Davy Crockett-I is a one shot infantry support nuke manned by a group of infantry. The range is about a little over a kilometer, which as you can imagine, is not what most would call a safe detonation distance.
If you feel too bad for the infantry, remember they are a lot scarier than any of us think, and during the Clan Invasion, they gave the Clanners some of the most trouble.
The Davy Crockett is a real weapon. I got to see an inert version at the infantry Museum at Fort Benning when I was there for my officer school
@@Carnefice Is that the one that has "Have a nice day" painted on the warhead?
that's not even the worst man portable nuclear device. best one was a literal Nuclear Demo charge that had to be placed ON THE TARGET BY HAND.
@@JeanLucCaptain One was used by yacht club militia to flood a river delta after being delivered by their custom patrol craft.
One thing I will always remember, big guns, missiles, bombs, tank, aircraft cannot hold ground and go door to door. You need boots on the ground, always have and always will.
Yep. A feild battle is for the big toys, and city side os for hell on planet.
They are called 'Crunchies' for a reason. That satisfying sound they make when you step on one with your Marauder.
Diabolical 😂
Everyone makes fun of infantry in battletech until they pull out inferno launchers. 😂
Or until you run into an infantry unit in a city
And then a bunch of firestarters pull up on them while relaying their current position to the local Catapult.
You are chaff and you will forever be chaff 😂
When the mech goes into the city, every angle becomes available for the infantry to take advantage of. Also the two infantry men at 7:10 are there to shoot the enemy piolets that are downed.
They could also be a forward recon team that were flushed out of their position and are simply trying to fight their way clear to a new position
Remember mech jocks, infantry in Battletech have assault rifles capable of damaging your mech, while an AC20 can only kill 2 at a time.
Also, TAG is 1t of extra equipment which is fired prior to the artillery phase to see if it designates, otherwise the mech jock has to forgo firing his own weapons to designate a target. While Heavy Jump Infantry are canon if rare, basically proto Battle Armor.
Towed autocannons and gauss rifles are not to be underestimated either
Good to address how inefficient mech weapons can be at killing infantry. In fact, some of the most feared mech weapons are the least effective against infantry. To my knowledge, the feared ERPPC and Gauss Rifle can each only kill one ground pounder at a time. Oh sure, that poor sap is atomized, but the rest of the unit can still rush forward with satchel charges, rocket launchers, and plastic explosives.
@@bthsr7113, IIRC, a PPC does two damage to infantry.
Double that if you catch them being stupid and standing in open terrain.
The whole assault rifles damaging Mechs thing is pure game mechanics so you don't have to roll every weapon in the platoon seperately and spend half an hour to resolve the shooting phase of a single unit. Down in the more granular systems (ol' Battletroops and the RPGs) you do need some actual AT if you wanna fuck with a Mech.
@@magni5648 I always thought of it as a consequence of the _extremely_ ablative armor mechs use. Lots of it but designed to slog off easily to steal energy from solid gauss slugs. IDK why TW rules wouldn't just be "small arms just can't attack armor" otherwise.
Field guns are horribly underrated as a defensive unit. For less than a million c-bills, you can have a foot platoon with quad AC/2s.
Back it up with an AC/20 and you get to give someone a spicy surprise whenever they come to kill your AC/2's
@@H9092-2 You can get a platoon with 2 AC/20s, but I prefer tanks to do the job. Po is a good balance of cheap and durable, or you can be nasty and use Demolishers.
"thats a nice mech there partner unfortunately i have here a davey Crockett" - Jim Bob
I’ve always looked at mechs as uncommon on the battle field in planet wide campaigns. Always used for major assaults . They are expensive to maintain. The original canon was post star league weapon systems and ammo types were difficult to manufacture and maintain due to decade of war , and remoteness os some planets .
In particular, many of the more advanced mechs are difficult or impossible to replace. Sending a mech battalion is always going to be a high-stakes gamble. Sending a force of tanks and infantry... well, it's much less of a disaster if everything goes pear-shaped.
18:20 the one on the left is a mechwarrior with neuro helmet and cooling jacket, the one on the right is actually a technician, i believe that is from the capellan confederation hand book, and from that you may understand why.
Aye, was going to say this, myself. Inner Sphere mechwarriors, in particular, are known for going into battle almost or completely naked aside from helmet and vest, if they get a vest, due to degrading tech causing their units to run so hot.
Keep in mind that in Battletech a Vulcan cannon, what WE consider a light auto cannon, would be considered a light machine gun. What Battletech calls an auto cannon we would call, "Holy shit, did that 120 mm tank gun do a fucking 5 round burst?!" So yeah, the idea that a machine gun can threaten a tank isn't as far fetched as you'd think. Also the armor in Battletech is very hard but brittle and was deigned to defeat HEAT and long rod KE rounds. It's almost impossible for a single hit to penetrate the armor but it slowly shatters and weakens as it's hit. Hence why high rate of fire weapons are favored in this setting.
Oh yeah. RAC’s are the coolest.
For context in regards to Machine Guns:
The Timberwolf typically carries two to four "Nathan-Browning M2A4 .80cal (20mm) Anti-Personal Machine Guns"
Even a millennia in the future, we're still using the Ma Deuce, just rechambered for 20mm.
The AC-2 is in the 25 to 60mm range. The GAU-8 Avenger is a perfectly normal AC-2. AC-5s are the 120mm range autocannons.
@@torg2126 Yep. Kinda wished they communicated this a little better just to give you an idea how just how advanced and scary these weapons actually are.
@@torg2126 From my understanding, AC-2s are *_not_* in any caliber less than 40mm, as 12.7-30mm is *_vehicular machinegun range._* AC-5s tend to be somewhere around 60-90mm, AC-10s tend to be 90-120mm, and then there are the AC-20s, which top out at about 203mm.
Oh, and the AC line's 'inspiration' is AAI's 75mm autocannon design (created by Eugine Stoner himself) for the HTVL, which could fire up to 5 rounds a second (though its more common firing mode is a 3-round burst).
My infantry usually own a battlefield if there's enough terrain. Gimme a couple heavy lasers for that 15 hex range and a building to hide in and I end up feeling sorry for the mech. Sure I can take 1 loss per turn while I peel off armor in droves. Jump-Laser infantry with support lasers can be NASTY when used correctly. Thanks for the video guys... hey steve.
Another thing to note about infantry is that in innersphere warfare infantrys job is less fight and most likely die and more securing the real estate. Capured Cities need to be kept in check mechs and tanks need to be guarded when not in use and assets need to be put to work. infantry tends to either be the last line of defense or when you need a bunch of dudes with guns to do something a giant mech can't do delicately. Usually throwing them in suicide waves is peak steiner or liao move as even kurita knows better to do that, they are more slaughter the denizens of a city/continent to the last man women and child types and you can't waste your infantry until that's done first.
Russia is currently learning WHY you mix your infantry with your armor
Why do I have the feeling that MANPADs and the survivability onion are not a thing in the Battletech universe? A giant machine walking on two legs...the wet dream of any AT soldier.
MANPADs and the survivability onion are actually kind of a thing in Battletech. Higher tech mechs have ECM and stealth tech to help with the not being detected part, but mobility and terrain have always been useful for avoiding being targeted and being hit by the long range missile weapons that infantry carry.
Well they have towed mech grade weapons but those are advanced rules. Still, I would put a company of fortified infantry crewing ac 5 or 10s with tanks backing up that line.
well thers the arrow iv lunchers on tanks is that waht you mean they do kinda fit the manpad stuff.
thers also warship ar missle ships and subcapatal missles as well. heck the battletech warship navl lasers in the battltech tactcal ops rule book even has a AAA mode for dealing with aerospace fighters.
Thats why there are light mechs with machine guns and flamers. Some even have Anti-Personnel Gauss Rifles. To quote Professor Randolph P. Checkers, "Nothing says fun for infantry like being exploded."
7:58 For those curious, “crunchies”, in this case is a nickname members of the Mechwarrior Mafia (aka Mech pilots) use for infantry because of how stepping on them is like stepping of a twig or dry leaf, complete with the sound effects.
Infantry do die in droves in BT, but they can be a real pain to Mechwarriors. "Kick the Can" is a real thing. There is nothing more annoying to have a squad sneak up on your mech, and suddenly realizing you just had your mech's knee blown out. And, now you are on your face, sucking dirt, with a shit ton of his angry friends swarming over you, knocking on you cockpit window.
To be fair, the Gray Death Legion had quite a bit of success using specialized infantry units to fight mechs.
Of course they did suffer a fair number of casualties doing so, but not as many as you would think.
They are a bit of a special case though. Definitely not your average cannon fodder.
Mine is a U.S. Army family including combat Vets from WW1 through Vietnam. MAD respect to the infantry, real and fictional.
Even in battle tech, if you ain't infantry, you ain't shit. (infantrymen's motto for the US Army.)
Combine arm units are probley the most scary units in battletech.
Honestly, the #1 reason to have Infantry even in the Age of Mechs, is because while Mechs dominate the battlefield, if there's building infrastructure you want to take from a hostile force WITHOUT destroying it, you're going to need to send in infantry to clear it out.
On the topic of infantry designs, I'm actually working on redesigns for them! Next up for me is Capellans!
Also hey! Thanks for using some of my art ^-^
Oh hi wildcat. You seem to pop up just about everywhere
@bobskywalker2707 I am very where and no where.
Thus is my goal
At the end of the day , it is all worth it when you get to bayonet in ejected mech warrior
18:30 the man on the left looks like an IS pilot in a cooling vest and neuro helmet, while the one of the right appears to be a tech or mechanic based on his equipment.
I love how the "Light rifle jump trooper" looks. I know his visor is supposed to epically reflect the scenery in front of him, but it took me way too long, to not think of him as "depressed uni-brow man".
Eye protection also makes sense when you're on a battlefield featuring laser weapons powerful enough to straight up melt a couple hundred pounds of armor on a decent hit.
"This sucks."
- Infantry in Battletech
Tankers and likely mech pilots refer to infantry as crunchies. Due to sound made when you run them over
Jim-Bob and Manuel are doing what infantry is supposed to do. Engage other infantry so they don't deploy cheap anti-armor against your expensive mechs.
7:01 “I’m doing my part!”
No, infantry weapons do NOT need a TAG to fire a rocket or a missile.
Conventional infantry are one of the most effective units in the tabletop game, Ive had several games where Ive downed half a lance using SRM platoons then sent in a mech to finish off the survivors. When in urban areas or dug in they are a nightmare for an unprepared mechwarrior to deal with, and render the most powerful weapons in the game functionally useless if they either neglect or are too arrogant to bring a flame thrower or machine gun.
The infantryman in battle tech is not unlucky, he is the bravest man on a battle field full of smug cowards hiding behind tons of armor. He is more than happy if given the chance to show a self proclaimed god of the battlefield his/her own mortality. Half of them will not wait for your mech to fall, there are more than a few with the raw cojones to try and scale your mech to pry you from the seat.
Death korps of krieg fighting titans with a combat shovel yelling while muffled by gas mask:
"Amatures !"
@17:00 The Fed Suns do actually use infantry with mechs more often than other factions, since their weaker economy during the Succession Wars forced them to diversify their forces, and the idea just kind of stuck.
Combined arms warfare isn't as great when you're trading Mechs and Fighters for APCs on a dropship, mind, which is why other factions are less likely to do the same.
You can't run out of ammo for your bayonet
Maxim, packrat and goblin: "hey man we carry infantry! No words for us?!!?"
Heh, I used that as a bit of a funny prank on an old orbat for a merc unit. They had a mechansied infantry company. What the orbat didn't list was the 12 Goblins they had as transport. Fun times when the asshole reading your MRB entry sees "infantry company" and thinks his light Mech lance can totally take that.
You got lucky when you're Fed Sun infantry vs DCMS or Cappellan!
Mechs do use tag systems. There’s a bit of technobabble explaining their use but in a nutshell, a mechs standard anti-electronic warfare systems prevent standard laser designators from targeting them. A tag cuts through this defense.
ECM suites kinda disappeared after the Amaris Coupe untill the end of the Third Succession war.
@@Cowboycomando54 Those are more specialised, heavy duty ECM that goes beyond what's considered baseline on Mechs and tanks and asusmed to be omnipresent.
In lore, TAG systems replaced the standard laser designator because every mech or tank has a base line laser spoofing systems (not even counting Guardian ECM or Angel ECM) that emits the same frequency any designator uses.
So that completely throws off regular laser designators as a weapon with a fixed or preset laser frequency will get confused by a defensive system that is emitting at the same frequency.
TAG however is a laser designator that operates on a multi-frequency and will auto switch frequencies once it detects spoofing or ghost targeting, thus insuring high accuracy. Hence that justifies its 1 ton weight, though infantry/BA variants are lighter at the cost of some range.
still love the 3025 art work from the merc book!
18:26 the guy on the left is a Mechwarrior, not a soldier. No sleeves and no pants because it's frigging hot sitting on top of a nuke reactor. The vest is a cooling vest, not armor, and the helmet is a neuronet helmet that connects his brainwaves to the computer of the mech.
The "Would you like to know more?" lmfao
PBM's: If you want to get to your objective you're going to have to go through us!
Mechwarrior: Quick question: Do you happen to know the amount of damage my Warcrime on Stilts would suffer if I were to, oh I don't know, let it walk right over you and all your friends right now?
PBM's: Uh....no?
Mechwarrior: None at all.
I think infantry with some sci fi javelin equivalent would still hurt a mech.
That's basically how the Capellans killed General DeChavilier and nearly did the same to Elizabeth Hazen: lured them into a trap and fired on their mechs with small weapons while the mechs could not get out of a burning oil pit.
The only reason Hazen did not die is that the Capellans foolishly brought guns to a Black Watch fight.
Javelins one shot tanks, and mechs must be much less armored than tanks, given their much larger surface area.
@@michaelbarnard8529 Battletech armor is way, way ahead of modern armor materials, and the matchup betwee nfirepwoer and armor is much more in the latters favour. An SRM is about the same size as a Javelin missile, and it sacrifices range for more warhead. And you still need them by the dozen to actually seriously endanger anything bigger than light and underarmored medium Mechs and tanks.
Just follow Titanfall’s lead: 3d combat and Jump-packs for maneuvering around the Mechs.
I would like to point out Anti-Mech training and equipment cost about 9 million C-bills. The dude without pants is a MechWarrior.
The lack of disposable, one-shot AT weapons in Battletech is rather interesting, given that it's a remarkably common concept in the real world. I'd expect every single infantryman in the Battletech universe to be carrying around the equivalent of three M72 LAWs, but with the punch of ATM HE rounds.
Infantry units in the BattleTech universe *do* carry those weapons. They just don’t carry one-shot versions.
If they need to throw missiles at something, they need to be able to do it more than once, so they are equipped accordingly.
@Vessekx If you need more than one, you carry more than one- ever seen those images from 'Nam of US soldiers carrying literal armfuls of M72 LAWs? Anyways, dusposable launchers like that are easier to mass-produce, and tend to be pretty easy to use, like how the LAW had a pictographic guide on how to fire it printed on the side. They'd be an excellent option for equipping planetary militias, who aren't exactly Death Commandos, and would probably find a way to fuck up loading a hand-held SRM-2. Just give'em a Boom Tube that has an edutainment comic printed on it and tell them to die gloriously!
Erm, generic LAWs are absolutely a thing in Battletech. Serious anti-Mech oriented infantry just tend to prefer heavier, reloadable SRM launchers. LAWs are not nearly as powerful as ATMs. Which makes sense, given an ATM missile without any launcher or anything weighs in at like ~30 pounds, while a LAW comes in at ~8-10.
Battletech armor is basically layers of magic solid "ERA" So the Sabot and EFP warheads of modern weapons dont work. So you have to bash it repeatedly with HE
Building garrisons, forest ambushes, swarming tripped up mechs, setting mines to do the tripping up, field guns, jump infantry blitzing etc...
Infantry can be absolutely nasty if you're clever with them.
PBI...also known as cannon fodder.
"You choose the inferno missile launcher. Your commander says that is a good idea, as there are some mechs in the area and we need to be prepared for them.
The thought that we would be using it on *people* has not yet entered his darkest dreams"
Listen, Jim-Bob and Manuel are great dudes doing their best. A couple of little bros trying hard.
There's an old saying in the BT community about the infantry: when a 'mech comes by, you either run around like Gozilla is around *_OR_* snicker as the idiot 'MechWarrior has fallen for your trap.
When I think of infantry in Mechwarrior, Minus the Blackwatch, I only think of the cinematic in Mechwarrior 3 where one poor solo was crushed by a thor/summoner.
And this my friends is why i pack a fs-9 firestarter in my lance. Makes short work of infantry.
Ain't nothin better for shootin the jocks that a platoon armed with jungle jelly!
Happy Dalek noises: -"You are only good at one thing: dying!"
I love stomping on crunchies! greases the joints in my feet.
You can blast a piece of ground from orbit, hit it with artillery, strafe it with aircraft, roll a tank over it, have a mech stomp all over it, but you don't "own" it until you have an 18 year old with a rifle standing on it.
The problem with infantry in Battletech is the fact that heavy machine guns can’t shoot beyond 90 meters. By that I mean the scale of combat just doesn’t work for infantry in this game, which is fine because I like it for the stompy robots. If we wanted to have a hard look at this and try to inject some realism into the rules infantry would be a whole lot more capable.
29:51 Oh fuck, that's cool.
Immaculate Nausicaa vibes
Hey jump troopers you finally found a ligit use for the anti pigeon lazer
"L'homme passe, même là où le véhicule a dû renoncer. Le fantassin demeure le combattant des 300 derniers mètres."
The man goes where the vahicle cannot. The infantryman remain the last 300 metres fighter."
French military instruction video "les 300 derniers mètres".
I wish there was infantry in battletech just so MGs and Flamethrowers would be REALLY fun to use 😁
I like that there is some place for infantry in Battletech, I do want to try running them on tabletop sometime
flashback to infantry in early rogutech
Isn't there a mercenary company that perfected the art of using infantry to basically hijack light and medium mechs?
One has but to look around the real world at the moment in a hundred different places to see just exactly why the abstraction of Battletech allowing infantry to do what they do in system.
The 1st Guards Tank army can likely explain to you if you’d like to ask them. They likely have strong opinions on fighting infantry under supported.
Thanks for the digestible breakdown of Battletech lore, your series is making my dive into the lore much easier, but I have a question: Is there an equivalent of naval marines in Battletech?
Yes. I definitely recommend you look up the Black Watch Marine infantry.
In terms of dedicated amphibious troops, the SLDF had a specialised branch. Also, hovercraft are very widespread in Battletech, and Mechs themselves are quasi-amphibious in that they can cross rivers and costal waters by just walking along the bottom. Amphibious assault is a very niche thing in Battletech, given that DropShips allow large-scale airmobile operations with heavy equipment under mot circumstances.
Though what most people in-universe would think of when hearing Marines would be specialist troops trained and equipped for fighting in zero-G environments. IE, boarding space ship and stations.
the mobile infantry from starship troopers would actually fare pretty damned well in the battletech setting: they're basically those suittroopers they "aren't planning to talk about yet" but turned up to 11, technically they are armored fairly well but mostly that's just there so their suit is structurally sound enough to carry and mount even more weapons, their role in combat is a lot closer to Close Air Support than anything else, they just achieve it by rocket jumping all over the terrain, firing *All The Guns* on the way in to help them stop, and immediately jumping away while tossing nuclear grenades behind them.
the tech base that they are a "turn all this up to 11 and what do you get?" idea of didn't really have anything remotely equivalent to modern information systems and somehow the military-obsessed author didn't really think that that would be a field of tech that would develop much despite it being the single most important field of development throughout the entirety of their life because they were kiiiiinda a giant screaming idiot so the Mobile Infantry "Suits" would be surprisingly shite at trying to operate over here in the real world even with their impossible stats for the exact same reason that CAS is looking less and less feasible but in battletech target acquisition tech seems to have mostly stayed equivalent to early cold war era which would make these things hulk-jumping their way across the landscape an absolute nightmare to deal with even for mechs, let alone anything else.
You may laugh at the humble HMG, but there isn't a better tool at turning cover into concealment and turning important things you thought were armored into less important trash. But seriously a HMG can punch through about of inch of armor.
Ah yes welcome to the imperial gua I mean inner sphere infantry
It's crazy That most infantry centric settings are just generic supersoldiers and grunts and then battletech of all settings has the most in depth and cool infantry roles, this is the only setting with reasonable special forces that actually make sense
You have no idea how long ive been looking for lore on the infantry of Battletech. Thank you.
Im the kinda person that likes the regular joe-shmoes of a given universe, case in point, my damn pfp, an Imperial Guard helmet.
Steve....the Troll! My favorite character on the show!
"for almost no value" I get where the tongue in cheek comments are coming from, the mechs are supposed to be the kings of the setting. But tanks and infantry of all forms can be terrifying if used properly. They are far, FAR from helpless cannon fodder, they just can't stand toe to toe against the mechs. But ask any tanker from ww2 on if urban fighting is their favorite.
And of course i only realize how "uhum, AkTuAllYYYY" that sounded after i hit post, and i apologize for the overall tone 😅the point stands though. I will also say this vidja earned you a sub, so well done 👍
Also, Also. Steve did his comic relief job well. I cackled like an idiot every time "would you like to know more" came up 😆
Starship troopers movies did the mobile infantry dirty. In the books, they drove mechs that were dropped from orbit and bounded over many kilometers to hit targets with nukes and bound away to be picked up. Never spent more than mere minutes on planet. Battletech mechs are mere turrets by comparison.
I mean it was tech limits and budget that caused the mech/heavy PA to be sidelined
within 29 secs! New record!!
Infantry vs Mechs
Mechwarriors: (Laugh) Grunts!
Grey Death Legionnaires: (Scots Gaelic cursing)
Why is there no unguided man portable AT in the lore? Its weird, like we got full on crew serviced at guns and crew serviced guided missles but we dont got the space javalin or space rpg-7 or even a space AT4?
LAWs and VLAWs (light and very light anti armor weapons) do exist within the settings, but it's hard to find a unit that actually uses them in the gameplay. I tend to make them in Megamek for my own use.
I remember playing battlefield 2142 and panicking when I heard a Mech walking around.
Mech warriors talk a lot of shit until the infantry strap on the climbing crampons and bust out the angry playdough
Infantry man the turrets that get one shotted by medium lasers.
While yes, it's laughable for MGs to deal real damage to armor IRL, you've got to remember that Battletech armor is this weird gamey stuff that functions as _extreme_ ablative armor. Fucktons of it and designed to shear off with ease to dissipate the force of, y'know, a solid slug fired from a Gauss rifle. The tradeoff is that concentrated small arms can chip away at it as well.
Yes, but also the standard ballistic assault rifle is a .50 caliber fully automatic - likely firing sabot and the like, or they just straight up have lasers. A standard platoon of ballistic infantry without SRMs will do about an AC20's worth of damage in one turn of shooting.
Infantry platoons are massively abstracted on the normal Battletech game scale, with everything in the platoon treated as a singular attack. And every platoon is supposed to have some kind of AT on hand, even if it's just some LAWs or grenade launcehrs loaded up with HEAT. When you go down to Battletroops or the RPGs, anything short of an actual light AT weapon won't do shit to a tank or Mech no matter how much ammo you throw at it.
Jim bob and Manuel were looking for White Castle
27:23 EU APC and A8 Tiger from Battlefield 2142 in the bottom right haha 😅
EXCELLENT EPISODE!!
Man this is awesome channel. I love the Battletech series here. Keep it up!
Playing infantry in MechWarrior Living Legends is horrifying for the mechs and tanks that don't have flamers that is because the BA you get absolutely wrecks house.
Some BA/Infantry weapons do more damage than a mech heavy large laser but only have a range of 80 meters... That's the only hold back for their weapons is the range and speed.
New follower... I just want to say Thank you Steve.
I feel kind of sad that none of the Battletech video games has ever *really* let you play as an Inner Sphere infantryman.
That said, I remember the rule that 1hp of infantry is roughly 100 men so....
Can't wait for the memes of the Elementals next videos, or the IS attempts at replicating them.
Also the funny football game.
The first Battletech book I ever read was the first book in the Grey Death Legion series. For a good amount of that book it's just dudes doing hit and run tactics on mechs while they drive around in their shitty Space Toyota Hilux technicals and capturing overheated mechs. It was a fun read, weird pacing though.
Infantry remain the peasants of war in this neofeudal future, but one should remember that even mighty kings may be felled by peasants. Even if mechs have replaced tanks as kings of the battlefield. Even the gods that rain fire from above the sky may be destroyed by peasants from within.
Heavy Jump-Infantry, Fourth Regulan Hussars: Jetpack Gurkhas.
Mechwarriors may scorn infantry but a Star of Clan Elementals will tear the Mechwarrior and his Mech a new butthole.