MechWarrior Online (New)

Wolf and {HRR} had fought many times previously, and we knew each other pretty well. Wolf had amazing snipers. They could hit anything, and were deadly accurate. In addition, they often had the advantage of Clan tech (Novas, Madcats) in their combat drops due to the way the league was set up. This combination had been giving us fits for a while because {HRR} likes to get in on people and bust heads. Often, the previous conflicts had been determined by who had been able to hold to their strategy. If it ended in a sniper war, Wolf won, if it ended up a brawl, {HRR} won. So, we wanted a brawl, and badly. Throughout this league, the Clans had been beating the snot out of us because of their sensor advantage in the Loki. With ECM/BAP, they knew where we were before we did. We wanted to have sensor parity, but the only way to get that was to take a Raven.

We knew going in that we'd have about 350 tons to work with versus their 390 tons. As is our tradition, we wanted to mix up our weapon ranges giving us more options. We ended up taking a two Thanatos, two Uziels, a Catapult, and a Raven (for the sensors as a scout). The Thanatos were set up primarily for infighting with LBX, though they did have some ERLLs. The Uziels were primarily fast snipers with some ERPPCs, Light Gauss, and ERLLs. The Raven was all long range with an LRM20 and an ERLL. We knew they were going to have a bunch of snipers, so we all put on our Reflective underoos.

We decided on a general plan. The drop was going to be on Timberline, at night, with moderate fog. This is ideal for Wolf, because it makes their sensors that much more effective and their sniping at night was downright scary. We wanted to find them, set up a good position on them, and utilize our long-range capabilities before closing and punching them in the gut. Couldn't afford to stay at range because they had the advantage with their ERLL snipers. So, the initial plan was to find a safe place, then send out the Raven (me) to scout for OpFor. That was the extent of the pre-game planning, the rest would be off the cuff during the game.

This document will explore several of the basic tactical ideas of warfare and of how they relate to mech combat in particular. Many of the principles of modern armored combat can be applied directly to mech combat while others need to be refined to deal with the specifics of the game and the equipment available to choose from in order to become useful to us.
In military studies there are three theories of warfare; Attrition warfare, Maneuver warfare and Revolutionary or Low intensity warfare. The first is not practical for MW4, a commander does not have a reserve of mechs to call upon to replace his losses, indeed he may not even have a numerical advantage to begin with in which case attrition warfare would be dangerous to attempt. The last also does not apply, an attacking unit will always be prone to counter-detection and fire and lacks the ability to fade away against superior numbers or firepower. We are left with maneuver warfare, the theory of which has many applications in mech combat. It does not rely on numbers or firepower to succeed but boldness, initiative and surprise. The size of forces taking part has no correlation to the end result of the battle, it is the concentration of effort at a critical time and place against an enemy weakness that counts most strongly toward victory.

MechWarrior Online (New) - Page 7