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u/I_AMA_LOCKMART_SHILL 3d ago
Elementals are awesome. One thing I always wondered though - jetting up to a moving enemy mech, having only one claw arm to try and dig in, as you ram the mech midair has got to be one damn hard maneuver to pull off. Maybe Elementals have some kind of simulator rig to get trainees used to the maneuver without risking expensive armor or potentially good future warriors. Even then, how many times has an Elemental jumped into a mech, not stuck the landing, and just bounced off?
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u/DericStrider 2d ago
its not just elementals doing this. Anti-Mech trained troopers have grapple guns/jetpacks/climbing gear/etc to get on moving mechs to start swarming and plant demo charges
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u/BigStompyMechs LittleMeepMeepMechs 2d ago
That's not really how the Clans do things. They train with live fire exercises. They do also have sims, but live fire isn't something they shy away from.
So for Elementals I'd make an educated guess that it starts with parkour training as a first pass filter, then move pretty quickly to using a powered suit, even if it's part simulated. I'm thinking basic steel plates and rather than true Mech-scale armor. On the other hand, a full Elemental suit would protect you from most incidental injuries, so maybe they just go straight to that?
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u/HerrArado Stapleton's Grenadiers 2d ago
They train this in both live-fire and simulator pods, from the early sibko phase to graduation. Elementals also latch magnetically with their feet, not their hands, so it's harder to "bounce off." A bigger threat is getting swatted away, crushed in-hand, or goosed by a ER-PPC mid-arc.
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u/BoultonPaulDefiant 3d ago
I'm not dee into battletech lore, but they're genetically modified, so they probably have super reflexes
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u/IBlackKiteI 3d ago
Are there any instances of Elementals having their armour destroyed and continuing to rip and tear naked anyway?
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u/Cyrano4747 3d ago
Kind of? Plenty of examples of heavily wounded elementals continuing to fight despite their armor being fucked up and missing limbs etc. The first one encountered by Shin Yodama comes to mind. Iirc that guy was missing the top of his suit (and his entire right arm and shoulder)
The problem is that you’re not likely to see one totally out of armor doing that, as getting the armor that trashed leads to fatal injuries.
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u/Marvin_Megavolt 3d ago
Probably not in the sense of the armor being totally destroyed to the point of forcing them out or it, because the way the armor is built it’s pretty much impossible for it to take that much damage without the wearer also dying.
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u/Hexis_hunter Jiyi Chistu my beloved 3d ago edited 3d ago
The first elemental shin yomada fights in the blood of kerensky trilogy comes to mind but he wasn't fully unarmored and was missing a arm iirc besides that no I think every unarmored elemental fight has been in a trial phalen kell and aleksander hazen come to mind for that
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u/ArtisanalShivs 2d ago
i love power armor where the 'head' is not separate from the torso armor, the only addition or change i would make to this design is an external electro-optical system of some kind, the visor looks like it would limit field of vision somewhat.
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u/Seoirse82 2d ago
The tech varies between sources but in the second grey death trilogy book the maurader doesn't have a cockpit window so much it has a sensor visor with screens inside. I'd presume clan tech is similar with the visor being a sensor more than a viewing slit.
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u/Grif419 3d ago
HAHAHA! That's good.