Land-Air BattleMech
Sarna News
Originally conceived during the Star League era, the Land-Air 'Mech, or LAM, is a hybrid military unit capable of transforming between BattleMech and Aerospace Fighter forms, an ability that conveys great speed and flexibility at the cost of power and protection. LAMs are a preferred recon and fast raid unit, but their fragility and rarity made them uncommon in the original SLDF and increasingly so in the Succession War era.
Only three LAM designs saw mass-production, each based on an existing successful BattlMech design:
- The Stinger LAM
- The Wasp LAM
- The Phoenix Hawk LAM
Combat abilities
Thanks to their transforming ability, LAMs combine the best features of Aerospace Fighters and BattleMechs and avoid most of their disadvantages. Unlike a BattleMech, a LAM can make it's own way to a target from orbit, where BattleMech in a drop-pod is a vulnerable and relatively slow moving target or alternatively must disembark from a landed DropShip. Likewise a LAM can quickly travel vast distances, allowing it rapidly range across the battlefield to engage in lighting strikes. Unlike a Aerospace fighter, a LAM can also serve as an more effective ground combatant. As well as Aerospace fighter and BattleMech modes, LAMs have a hybrid interim mode between the other two most frequently referred to as AirMech mode, which resembles an aerospace fighter with arms and legs, giving LAMs VOTOL capabilities.
Disadvantages
Despite their vaunted abilities, LAMs are jacks-of-all-trades and masters of none. While able to serve double-duty as both a Aerospace Fighter and BattleMech, due to the required conversion equipment, a LAM in either mode is not ton for ton the equal of a fighter or 'Mech of equivalent weight. Even in the Star League era, the heaviest LAM to see action on the battlefield was 45 tons, limiting their effectiveness against heavy and assault weight aerospace fighters and 'Mechs.
Decline
Produced in limited numbers by only a handful of factories, the majority of LAM manufacturers were among those factories lost to the malestrom of the early Succession Wars. Some of the most pyrrhic objective raids in the Succession War era saw whole regiments of conventional Battlemechs and aerospace fighters heavily damaged or lost to capture a few LAMs or LAM spare part stores. By the Third Succession War, the high cost and rarity of LAMs had made military commanders increasingly wary of committing these prized relics to battle, and most had turned to replacing them with more plentiful conventional counterparts in their TOEs. The Fourth Succession War was the among the last conflict that saw the Great Houses field LAMs in significant numbers.
Until recently, only one LAM-producing factory remained in the Inner Sphere, LexaTech Industries on the planet Irece, which was captured by Clan Nova Cat. The strict Clan caste system has no place for LAM pilots, mainly because their unique position blurs the distinction between MechWarrior and aerospace pilot, and evidence supports the common belief that the Nova Cats had dismantled or refitted that facility. As a result of that action, new repair parts are no longer available for LAMs, forcing those using them to rely even more heavily upon the salvage mentality of the Succession Wars to keep them in operation.
Notes
Like many of the early BattleMechs later referred to as the Unseen, the original concept and art of the three common LAMs types was based upon the transformable variable/veritech fighters of Macross/Robotech, which saw LAMs fall out of favor with FASA staff even before lawsuit with Harmony Gold. The LAMs became optional Level 3 rules with the Battletech Tactical Handbook in 1994, and the designs themselves were among those dropped from Technical Readout: 3025 due to the lawsuit.
While the 'Mech counterparts of the LAM designs were later provided new art in Technical Readout: Project Phoenix, there has been no attempts to provide Reseen art for the LAM versions, and while the stats and associated rules are still valid under Level 3 play, the last official publication to include them is the now long out of print Battletech Tactical Handbook.