Cray
10/26/01 03:20 PM
204.245.128.108
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Back in the good ole days of the Star League, mechs were common enough to be used in a multitude of roles. The most famous of these utility mechs are the "agrimechs", but mechs also found use in construction and urban applications. The mobility and agility of a legged drive train, especially a bipedal design, was simply superior to other vehicles.
Unfortunately as mechs became more common in these civilian roles, so too did the crimes committed with them. In addition to angry workers who took their construction mech on a destructive rampage through a city, enterprising criminals found that utility mechs were almost as good as "the real thing" (a battlemech) when it came to ripping open the side of bank, seizing a money-laden armored car, etc.
Thus, local municipalities began seeking their own mechs to combat this growing crimewave. Calls to local garrisons had initially sufficed, but military soldiers were not trained to CAPTURE and SUBDUE criminals in utility mechs. For that matter, neither were battlemechs. Worse, the mechwarriors were rarely trained for urban combat. Even a Wasp or Stinger could wreck fantastic destruction as it tried to batter a utility mech into submission, to say nothing of what their scathing lasers could do to surrounding buildings if they missed their target.
The solution came from Terra, specificially the Tokyo Metro Police. Tokyo had a long history of dealing with rampaging monsters in its streets, mechanical and otherwise, and the wave of utility mech crimes with associated battlemech-created carnage lead to a multi-billion Star League buck (?) contract from the city to build a "police mech." The winning design was built by a North American small arms firm of ancient pedigree. While the "police mech" had an official designation, it was forever remembered as the Ingram.
BATTLE HISTORY
The first 3 Ingrams were delivered to the 2nd Special Vehicles Division of Tokyo's Metro Police for testing in 2760. While the Ingrams proved effective in subduing wayward utility mechs, they inflicted about as much collateral damage to the city as had militia battlemechs. About half of all official accounts chalk this up to bad luck on the part of the 2nd Division officers. The other half ascribe the damage to incompetence on the part of 2nd Division officers. Few accounts blame the Ingram. However, the Ingram was tainted by its failure to reduce collateral damage in cities. This failure was made all the more glaring by specially trained mechwarriors piloting conventional light mech designs in the 1st Special Vehicles Division that achieved better success in mech urban enforcement. The Ingram was produced in small numbers and disappeared in the Amaris Coup.
INGRAM
25 tons
1.5 tons composite internal structure
7 tons 180 fusion engine
Walking: 7
Running: 11
Jumping: 2
10 heat sinks
2 tons gyroscope
3 tons cockpit
4.5 tons ferrofibrous armor (81pts)
Head: 3 9
Center Torso: 8 11/5
R/L Torso: 6 7/5
R/L Arm: 4 8
R/L Leg: 5 8
1.5 tons mechanical jump jets (RL/LL)
3 tons Autoloading Cannon-5 (RA)
1.5 tons ALC-5 ammo (RA, 36 shots)
Both hand actuators present
Has police lights on shoulders
VARIANTS
To address concerns of attacks by actual battlemechs, the Ingram was designed to be easily equipped with heavier firepower. The hand-carried ALC-5 was easily replaced (in seconds) by an ALC-11 with a half-ton of ammo. The 6-ton weight gain was readily carried by the overdesigned internal structure of the Ingram, and the overrated engine kept flank speed at 97kph.
The Ingram was designed to take advantage of the advanced technologies of the Star League (Tokyo was a center of manufacturing on Terra, and it had a lot of companies that wanted to show off). Its composite structure was a tour de force of advanced materials that saved critical amounts of weight (though, in fact, it was overdesigned at 1.5 tons mass) and the ferrofibrous armor shell enabled the mech to take considerable punishment in hand-to-hand combat with clumsy utility mechs. The breakthrough SCLM drivetrain gave the Ingram an outstanding power-to-weight ratio and enabled impressive jumps without jump jet assistance (30m is a heck of a distance in a city, 3 times the Ingram's height, and pretty impressive for a standing jump by a 25-ton vehicle). The engine was overrated at 180, though engineers' promises of noticeable gains over the required 175 rated engine's performance were never noticed. A limber actuator design and innovative control system that learned the piloting habits of the mechwarriors gives the Ingram a -1 to piloting check target numbers.
(Much of the "overrated" engine "overbuilt" internal structure crap above is an explanation for normal BT rounding procedures. OTOH, the rounding does allow the Ingram to increase in weight up to 30 tons without too much trouble.)
The autoloading cannon was an interesting but logical choice of armament. Its 37mm solid slugs were usually adequate to pound through the hulls of utility mechs but were unlikely to do more than punch through walls if they missed. (No fires or explosions, unlike regular battlemech weaponry). The almost archaic "revolver" configuration of the ammo drum both provided an immensely reliable feed mechanism to withstand the pounding of mech hand-to-hand combat and to ncourage ammo-conservative firing habits by the pilots. This was expected to help minimize collateral damage from trigger happy pilots. In fact, the 10- to 20-second delay involved in reloading the 6-shot ammo drums (5 "speedloaders" were carried in the right arm) rarely seemed to inhibit the hot-headed mechwarriors of the 2nd Special Vehicles Division.
In an interesting deployment pattern, the Ingrams were typically shuttled to locations near trouble spots on large flatbed trucks. This was done to minimize damage to street pavement and wear on the somewhat fragile composite structure of the Ingram.
(Closing comment: No, it's not a perfect BT conversion of the Ingram, but I haven't seen anyone else trying and I had more success with this than with an Evangalion conversion.)
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Bob_Richter
10/26/01 07:23 PM
134.121.149.97
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Post deleted by Bob_Richter
-Bob (The Magnificent) Richter
Assertions made in this post are the humble opinion of Bob.
They are not necessarily statements of fact or decrees from God Himself, unless explicitly and seriously stated to be so.
:)
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Bob_Richter
10/26/01 07:24 PM
134.121.149.97
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>>>Tokyo had a long history of dealing with rampaging monsters in its streets, mechanical and
otherwise<<<
BWAHAHAHAH.
A good design. I was actually kind of disappointed it used only ONE of your innovations. :)
Based on your comments, I expect this derived from some anime series or other, but I still like it.
I suggest a happier future for it. Perhaps one that involves the rediscovery of its schematics by a FWL corporation and the incorporation of a hermes-style targeting computer to help further limit collateral damage. :)
-Bob Richter
A dead primate is nobody's ancestor.
-Bob (The Magnificent) Richter
Assertions made in this post are the humble opinion of Bob.
They are not necessarily statements of fact or decrees from God Himself, unless explicitly and seriously stated to be so.
:)
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Cray
10/26/01 09:02 PM
12.78.130.95
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Derived from Patlabor, man.
http://web.singnet.com.sg/~ecgoh/html/ingram.html
Shame on you for not recognizing an anime classic. :P
I didn't know how to re-implement it in the 31st century and stick to the original story. Lots of recovery angles possible for BT, of course, but Patlabor REALLY revolved around its characters. I just didn't have the heart to say "company X" of "House Y" rebuilt the Ingram without having the characters along.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Bob_Richter
10/26/01 09:43 PM
134.121.149.97
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I'm not, strictly speaking, an anime buff.
I'll watch it....but I don't go out of my way to get my hands on it....and thus I don't.
-Bob Richter
A dead primate is nobody's ancestor.
-Bob (The Magnificent) Richter
Assertions made in this post are the humble opinion of Bob.
They are not necessarily statements of fact or decrees from God Himself, unless explicitly and seriously stated to be so.
:)
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Deathshadow
10/26/01 11:51 PM
24.61.72.56
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This is too freaky. I've been working on the exact same mech, except using existing equipment. Seeing that it's to fight urban against labormechs, mines a 4/6/0 45 tonner. For the baton I'm using the sword rules and for the gun I had a T-bolt/20 with two tons ammo.
Oh, and technically yours would be the 98A. The original 98 didn't have reloads. (hence the ammo truck).
Armor? Bah, that's for wussies.  - Anonymous Locust-1M Pilot
Kept my cool under lock and key,
and I never shed a tear,
another sign of my condidtion.
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