battletech interstellar operations lam rules

#Battletech interstellar operations lam rules series#

However, the Word of Blake discovered the same harsh limitations of the Star League LAMs still applied. The Spectral LAMs were the first new designs in over three hundred years. The extinct LAM was briefly resurrected in the late 3070s by the Word of Blake. A handful of non-airworthy LAMs remained in combat museums, tended by graying, retired pilots, when the Word of Blake Jihad began. Coupled with inordinate training and maintenance demands the loss of parts production eliminated the LAM as a viable combat element in the Inner Sphere. When Clan Nova Cat destroyed the last LAM parts factory on Irece it marked the end for the struggling LAM. Controlled by an aerospace pilot and a MechWarrior, the project ultimately failed to fit the Clan’s vision of warfare and was abandoned. A variant of the Phoenix Hawk with a dual cockpit was developed. In the 3050s the Jade Falcons briefly explored adding LAMs to their Touman. Designers failed to produce an airworthy prototype and Simon Cameron scrapped the project when he came to power in 2738. Prior to the fall of the Star League, Joseph Cameron sponsored a project to develop quad-LAMs using the venerable Scorpion chassis. Pilots failing to earn LAM assignments found themselves mediocre MechWarriors or aerojocks compared to their peers and frequently died in combat without ever piloting a LAM in battle.Īfter their initial development, innovation in LAM design stagnated. The depredations of the Succession Wars reduced LAM manufacturing to a bare trickle by the time of the Clan invasion leaving fewer of these machines available to graduates each year. By the Fourth Succession War, the best academy for LAM pilots took fully three times as long as the worst MechWarrior academy to churn out qualified pilots. The difficulty of mastering both ’Mech and aerospace fighter, coupled with the complex AirMech mode, started the LAM’s death spiral. After the Successor States annihilated their navies in the First and Second Succession Wars a growing emphasis on ground-based combat relegated the LAM to a battlefield curiosity that many commanders could neither effectively employ nor afford to risk. Among the more unique creations of this era, the Land-Air BattleMech or LAM survived to the mid thirty-first century before finally succumbing to the changing battlefield.Īlthough the LAM formed a prominent component of all SLDF divisions, few remained after the Liberation of Terra. Many of these would be lost to the wholesale destruction of the Succession Wars. In the late twenty-seventh century, the SLDF’s military renaissance developed countless technological advances. Only a handful of these bimodal LAMs were built before competitors perfected the standard LAM that survived into the Succession Wars. Their Shadow Hawk LAM was capable of conversion between BattleMech and aerospace fighter configurations.

#Battletech interstellar operations lam rules series#

Peterson implemented sweeping changes and commissioned several manufacturers to create “a series of ’Mechs that could fly as well as function as light ground ’Mechs.” Allied AeroSpace, Inc.

In 2680, First Lord Michael Cameron went against conventional wisdom and appointed a naval officer, Admiral David Peterson, as commander of the SLDF. The Bimodal Land-Air BattleMech was the Terran Hegemony’s first attempt at ’Mech-to-fighter conversion. A preivew was on the blogs of classic battletech site a while back.