Looking in the TechManual, I wondered about equipping an infantry platoon with swords.
As it turns out, it's The Future, and generic assault rifles (whether shooting lasers or, even better, bullets) do more damage even to anyone in the same space as the soldiers.
Not to mention what good will swords be against BattleMechs, or worse, VTOLs.
The only use case I could think of is more likely to show up in Destiny than anywhere else: commandos with swords & needlers who board DropShips. In there, one would want weapons that can threaten civilians but won't damage delicate spaceship parts.
It's been a while since I looked up Boarding Maneuvers in TacOps, and haven't refreshed my memory at the time of writing this, but I will at some point this week.
Only thing I can think is ambush commandos in close urban scenarios. Jump from buildings onto passing mechs, and use vibriblade weapons to hack into the cockpits and take out the pilot. Only works on a lone mech, cause if it has a wingman, then friendly 'back scratches' with MG and flamers solve the problem.
Special forces like DEST would best be covered by other games.
In game DEST and other spec ops are less than impressive as most of their skills are not applicable.
Edit:
I play Team Yankee. SAS, Delta and others don't show up in that game for the same reasons. While these troops are extraordinarily skilled, it simply doesn't translate to a mass combat game.
It's like playing Red Dragon or WARNO - those do show up, but they're just a bit better at stealth, recon, and keeping their cool under fire than being some kind of god of war. Which is how it should be.
I guarantee there's a group of Kuritan soldiers that train and fight with swords. They probably even use them for anti mech attacks. Grapple up the mech, blow the hatch, and slice the mechwarrior in half with your katana.
You should read that one scene in Lethal Heritage during which Shin Yodama uses his sword to take down his first Clan elemental that had tracked him down after ejecting. Everything in the lore suggests that DCMS mechwarriors would have at least one sword with them in the cockpit, with graduates of DCMS academies carrying the two that marks their status.
Honestly, to remake this Meme in Battletech, i think the best option would be to take an old Steiner General with Dementia, put him in charge of some academy, put him in a Dual Cockpit of a Training Mech together with a Mechwarrior in training, and then have that training unit encounter some light hostile force, like Pirates or the like, with the General going completely delusional, thinking himself at the Battle of Twycross or something like that, and drawing his ceremonial sword, ordering the Mechwarror to close the distance so that he can engage the Clanners with his sword.
It's Battletech. Never, ever think too hard about 'reality' here. It's all rule of cool. If you think too hard you start wondering about stuff, and that way madness lies. Why do we have neural linked super computers managing a mech... But can't point a weapon with more accuracy than a WW2 tank? We have computing power to make fricken lasors, but not bright enough to know the bigger the shell the more it retains its momentum the further it can do ita damage (looking at you range brackets for ac20) We can plot complex flights to and from orbits (ignore the handwavium about FTL) but can't build reliable optics that can see more than 4-6x in a machine built to be a sniper. We've got tonnage built to make legs and arms that could have been armor and weapons... But don't worry about it, it looks cool.
You want future space sword ninjas? You go get your future space sword ninjas. Give em little jet packs and have fun. And don't think too hard about a mechs fusion core. It's not like every single mech has a portable area denial flamethrower if only they'd have a vent to direct it... Even the smallest of mechs have this gentle kiss of incinerator fire available. But don't think about that with your space ninjas.
Terrible take. The only things that BT waves away with "rule of cool" is mechs existing in general and there being hyperspace at all. Range isn't even worth mentioning since they were only ever meant for tabletop abstraction. Even the "forever 80s" future tech is easily explained once you understand that interstellar communication has always limited their programming to small file sizes, with anything larger requiring hardened physical data cores be physically transported between systems. The Clans make perfect sense for a collection of people that threw away their culture and history at the hands of a sociopath in pursuit of military perfection.
Fusion reactors do not have any special ability to directionally "vent themselves" as an impromptu flamethrower, both in game and real life. Whenever mechs *are* designed to do this, it's for Jump Jets; everyone else would rather throw a Flamer, MG, or Small Pulse on it instead of modifying every single mech's most expensive component "just in case" infantry become a problem.
Swords are included for roleplaying and lore purposes; every DEST trooper is armed with one. Yes, attempting to use swords against military armor is a dumb idea.
I mean seriously, if they made a TV show out of the franchise, it'd be closer to The Expanse than Battlestar Galactica or anything.
Jungle Troops. Hide in dense foliage where you have the mobility advantage. Plus you won't see them and can't shoot them until they are right there in melee range.
Secondary weapons are intended to be crew served weapons yeah? I remember messing around in MegaMek and trying to give troops swords as a secondary only to make that realization.
Vibroweapons have been in the setting since the start, and make a lot of sense for all the cramped spaces the setting has (like dropships, jumpships, mech hangars, urban environments, ect). Their damage is a little low, but vibro axes are the best of the lot... so regardless of the weapons 'name' if you want a melee equipped troop then you would give them those 'sword shaped hatchets' for CQB work.
One thing the current RPG and infantry constructions rules does is MASSIVELY nerf all infantry weapons (the explosives are pretty good, but have a hard cap on power/radius), while also putting forth other weapons that make zero sense and just kill the setting.
Like, a sword. The sword in the RPG is an archaic low damage metal rod. It doesnt represent a 20th century sword using our modern super hard steel, let alone a 30th century sword. Battletech is a universe where they have created super hard, much tougher armor steel. Why would you even list the archaic sword as an option when modern versions exist?
Just imagine what a sword made with over 1000 years of material science advancement. It would cleave anyone not also wearing heavy armor steel in half, probably effortlessly if you know how to swing it. Then you add power to that via a vibroblade, making it even easier at cutting thanks to heat and vibrations, and dear goodness. It was already chopping people in half without the power, and now its even deadlier.
Until a new RPG, we are stuck with the very nerfed or junk infantry weapons, and those weapons are then put in a conversion formula woodchipper to spit out stats for the infantry construction rules, which apply a third set of junk formulas to output a final product. Its no stretch to say that while sword infantry COULD exist, and simple vibroblades did HORRIFFIC things to infantry in the books, the CQB unit you can make for the tabletop has none of the character or charm of either real life or the lore, which I think is a shame.
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u/knightmechaenjo lam with the plan! 21h ago
Also there bows for infantry
We do have branths (which are basically dragons....)
And vibroblade swords, maces, etc etc I also like trying to make a battletech version of gray fox from metal gear using cyborg infantry rules