LMC-42 Valkyria (Heavy Metal Magellan)

This page describes a mech for the game Heavy Metal Magellan, from a mostly in-universe perspective.

LMC-42 Valkyria

The LMC-42 is a significant upgrade from a Roomba with a 9mm duct taped to it. (Obviously this will be written later.)

Overview

Name:	—
Model:	LMC-42 Valkyria
Chassis:	Light modular core (a core that accepts attachments at 7 points: back, left and right shoulders, left and right arms, left and right legs), with 2 LC/L-6 legs, 2 LC/A-4 arms, and EW/ECM package
Weight class:	light
Weight:	28 T (tare) 45 T (max gross)
Height:	8.5 m
Top speed:

Description

The LMC-42 "Valkyria" comes to a little over 8 m tall, with LC/L-6 legs, and with LC/A-4 arms has a mostly humanoid appearance, albeit with a bit of a sunken head. The pilot sits/stands in the upper torso - the "head" lifts up and tilts back and the front plate folds down to allow the pilot to enter; a Christmas tree ladder extends down from the front plate to allow the pilot to climb the 6 m to the cockpit. When the pilot leaves the cockpit, she takes a "key" with her - which is either a small tab that fits on a keyring like a conventional garage door opener and is only used to open/close the mech, or a small tablet/remote that can allow the pilot limited operation of the mech from outside (which is mostly used to facilitate maintenance). The battery is in the crotch - panels open to allow recharging cables.

Armaments

Standard armaments

Being a modular mech chassis, the LMC-42 has no single "standard" layout.

Non-standard armaments

Fully automatic flechette gun

(Removable.) Mounted on right forearm. Fires 6×45 mm fin-stabilized carbon steel darts (with polymer sabots) at a rate of 350 rounds per minute, with a 1000 round cartridge. This is a primarily anti-personnel and penetrating round used against the very light plating of non-armoured vehicles and some kinds of power armour. Unlike bullets, the flechettes are not designed to flatten out and stop inside a target (so they have little "stopping power"), they rip right through the target, and continue on through whatever is behind them. The result is while a single shot has less chance of killing than a bullet, but far more chance of penetrating through light cover and thin plating (like bullet-proof vests). It is totally ineffective against even light armouring.

Combination light shield / light pile bunker

(Removable.) Mounted on left forearm. Uses compressed gas to drive a super-hard 15 mm diameter spike into a target. Several tonnes of force are focused on a very small point, which enables punching through light armour, and into the circuitry, mechanics, or people inside. By the power of the piston alone, it can penetrate light armour consistently and even medium armour under good conditions, but a skilled pilot can time the piston release at the apex of a punch to add several tonnes more force, and puncture even medium armour with ease, though care must be taken not to exceed the limits of the punching arm. (Deepika Patel is aware of this technique, but cannot use it consistently.) The pile and its compressor is covered by a large plate of medium armour that extends to the sides, and doubles as a shield. With the arm positioned correctly, the shield is large enough to cover the entire pilot profile, but not much else.

Subsystems

LC/EW-4 Electronic warfare package

(Removable.) Attached to the core at the back and both shoulder mounts. Contains a suite of systems designed to make the mech a electronic warfare and countermeasures platform. Consists of:

Radar

Active and passive phased-array radar systems. Effectively useless against ground targets due to interference from terrain and structures, but able to pinpoint airborne targets for hundreds of kilometres, if they're high enough and have a large enough radar cross section; can pick out a small surveillance drone at 50 km in good weather, ~20 km under average conditions. Active radar gives position away, but is necessary for radar target acquisition.

Lidar

Pulsed 1500 nm wavelength lasers are used for ground imaging, in combination with standard and infrared cameras. The system is able to image a centimetre in diameter half a kilometre away. Its primary purpose is to generate battlefield maps and targeting information, such as for artillery or orbital strikes, but it doubles as "night vision" and infrared or ultraviolet vision to allow the pilot (and any connected allies) to "see" through darkness or smoke. When not using the pulses for extra resolution, lidar is passive.

Chaff

Cartridges that are fired, usually upward, that burst at a preset height and throw out metallic confetti that confuses radar. There are two types of cartridges: one simply throws out chaff, the other bursts into a small balloon that dangles chaff. The chaff scattered by a regular air-burst cartridge floats slowly to the ground over the course of several minutes. The balloon stays airborne for an hour or more, provided it isn't shot down or blown away. Chaff blocks all radar - friend or enemy.

Full spectrum antenna and broadcast unit

Capable of resolving and emitting signals across the entire broadcast range. Useful for detecting the presence of enemy by their transmissions, but since the emitter is more powerful than the standard broadcast emitters in most equipment, can also be used to jam, drown out, or spoof enemy signals.

Satellite detection and tracking

If the sky is clear, can detect the presence of satellites overhead, and identify them using a database of registered satellites. Useful for being aware of when enemy spy or tracking satellites are coming into range.

Integrated Battlefield Intelligence System (IBIS)

All of the data collected from the detection systems is collected and put together to get one big picture of the battlefield. That data is then combined with all data collected from allied units, and then routed through the commander - who could be in an entirely different mech, or even kilometres away in a base camp, or in an aircraft - who marks targets, paints waypoints and routes, and gives targeting instructions. The upshot of all this is that when a mech with the IBIS package is on the field, the other mechs in her squad can get the majority of their target acquisition and tracking data from IBIS, so they can carry less optics, radar, and processing equipment, and instead carry more weapons, ammo, and armour. They are also able to coordinate better, and avoid all shooting at the same target (unless that's what is desired). IBIS transmissions are encrypted, so they can't be snooped or spoofed, and sent both using radio and light pulses - if radio transmissions are jammed, mechs can still share IBIS data among each other so long as there is a line of sight path. The system includes a "keyring" of encryption keys for important allied organizations, so that squads can connect to any allies they run into, share data, and cooperate better... but if those keys fell into the wrong hands, the enemy could spy on all battlefield communications in real time, and give false information that will be taken as "safe", and access networks and information with a wealth of highly valuable and highly dangerous information.

Jump jets

(Non-removable (built into the LMC-42 core and the LC/L-6 legs).) Compressed air assistive jets mounted on the backs of the thighs, calves, and ass. The LC/L-6 legs provide a powerful push off the ground, which alone allow for a jump of almost 15 m, but when the jump jets kick in, they magnify the effect considerably. Unloaded, the mech can jump almost 70 m into the air. With the current loadout, ~50 m. The jets require 30 s to fully repressurize, but after 5 s can provide just enough thrust to cushion the landing from a full jump. Bursts from the jump jets can also be used for quick "dodges" to the side - a standard tactic is to step out from cover, fire, and when return fire is incoming, jet-burst back into cover. The trick is to pull that off without unbalancing and toppling over gracelessly.

Adaptive camouflage

(Removable.) Any place it can be managed, the mech is covered with 10 cm diameter hexagonal flexible "stickers", that wirelessly communicate with each other, and with the mech's main computer. They are dull grey by default, but can change colour on command to any hue. Generally the mech's main computer will use the optical sensors to "see" the environment, then try to create a pattern of random colours that the "stickers" can display that will make the mech very hard to see in that environment. If the mech remains stationary, and the environment is chaotic enough, it can hard to spot by both human eyes an machine vision (due to the semi-regular hexagonal pattern) even from less than 50 m away. The colours do not change instantaneously - it takes a second or two - so the camouflage is useless in motion. The colours are also somewhat limited to dull, dark colours - they cannot produce pure white or pure black. The "stickers" provide no help with armouring, and if damaged become useless (but can be trivially peeled off and replaced).

Combat effectiveness

Strengths

Highly mobile and manoeuvrable

Very fast, and able to quickly change correction, and move within just about any terrain type - even city streets and civilian vehicle bridges. Hard for slow tracking turrets to target, and able to effectively fight from cover because the mech can quickly dart in and out of it.

Stealth

Though the mech could hardly be considered a true "stealth" machine because it is not truly invisible to visual, radar, or anything, its adaptive camouflage and ECM package make it extremely hard to pinpoint and target. Under the right conditions - in a chaotic enough environment or from far enough away - it can be effectively invisible.

Hands

The hands on the LC/A-4 allow the mech to operate a wide range of equipment, without requiring any modification to the mech. It can pick up and use clubs, blades, rifles, shotguns, RPG launchers, and a variety of non-weapon tools. More importantly, it can reload hand-held weapons, implying a functionally infinite ammo supply in combat (assuming you have a functionally infinite ammo supply available).

Modular design

The mech itself is really just the torso and head. The arms, legs, backpack, and shoulder weapons are separate, and anything that fits the same standard connection points could be substituted. There are a variety of parts available, such as heavier legs without jump jets that provide better stability when firing heavier weapons, or arms that don't have hands but rather integrated machine guns or beam weapons instead. It also means the mech is usually trivial to repair, if you have spares: just pop the broken limb off and snap a new one on (not to imply this could be done by hand - you need a crane to lift mech limbs - but it can be done even on the battlefield with a "medic" mech / combat engineer).

Weaknesses

Open field combat

While the mech excels in combat in areas where it can duck behind cover, in open spaces it's basically an 8 m tall clay pigeon to enemy mechs, and it doesn't have the armouring to take much of a pounding.

Light armour

Can take hits from most standard mech weaponry, but only from range. Utterly useless in close-up combat, and against heavy or high-powered armour piercing ordinance.

Light weaponry

Starts out effectively unarmed, but even after acquiring a full load-out, still wouldn't be much of a threat to anything but other light mechs, unless Deepika is willing to give up the EW/ECM equipment.

Not sealed

The mech can operate completely submerged... but only for a few minutes before the pilot drowns. The cockpit isn't sealed, so the pilot is vulnerable to chemical or biological weapons - which includes water deeper than ~7 m. There is a face mask in the cockpit connected to small air tank, but only ~30 min worth.

No soloing

With its EW/ECM load-out, this mech can't even handle a fair fight with equivalently-classed mechs - it would only be a threat to foot soldiers and battle armour, and even the latter would be a challenge. It is supposed to be a part of a team, providing only light attack power on its own, but vastly multiplying the combat effectiveness of the dedicated combat mechs it is linked with. Without the team, it's almost entirely ineffective.

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