M270 MLRS

This article is fucking 'Murican. Expect copious amounts of Freedom with an infrequent side of Awesome.

See that grid square? I don't want to.

The lovechild between an American engineer and a Soviet lady named Katyusha, the M270 combines the raw firepower of a multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) with the laser guidance systems of modern artillery warheads. Despite its Yankee heritage, the M270 is used around the world by NATO countries looking for a long-ranged artillery system that can hit harder than any other weapon on the battlefield, short of dropping bombs and nukes.

A strategic weapon, these units were almost always classed at the division level thanks to the logistical strain, and the immense range one of these systems can fire up to. As with other Battlefront artillery pieces, this thing that should be sitting beyond 25km from the battlefield is here to support your forces half a mile away from the front.

In Team Yankee

USA

See how they like freedom via steel rain.

Finally, the US gets a cheap anti-infantry Salvo template that doesn't come strapped to a pair of wings, either fixed or rotary.

The M270 Multiple-Launch Rocket System is a multiple rocket launcher platform able to launch 12 rockets up to 20 miles (or more, depending on the version and munitions). It utilizes a crew of three and was adopted by the U.S. Army in 1983, so the system has only been in service for two years by the time the Cold War finally goes hot in August 1985. The M270 is tracked, unlike standard wheeled platforms on the Soviet side, like the BM-21, but similar to them its armour is only meant for protection against small arms fire at best; anything much heavier and the M270, which is supposed to be literally miles to the rear of the line of battle, is in big trouble. Seriously. With 0 on the front, 0 on the side, and just 1 point of armour on top, the M270 is about as heavily armoured as a civilian's car. Protect it, or Ivan will make it disappear.

The defining feature of the M270 is that each vehicle counts as 2 guns firing, which means a platoon of 3 drops as much firepower as a unit twice its size. Enjoy your rerolls and extra minefields! While it can drop some serious firepower, the paltry FP 5+ means you'll mostly be pinning or bailing stuff until your main force hits.

Deployment of the M270 is straightforward. Keep it firing as far from the enemy as possible, and deny enemy air power and artillery any opportunity to reach it. Like its Warsaw Pact counterparts, the M270's rockets explode above the target area rather than impacting the ground to shower their enemy in shrapnel, popularly known as "steel rain" for the M270. This means that the system can do some pretty serious damage to infantry and lightly-armored targets, but heavily-armored units like the T-55 and T-72 main battle tank will be largely unaffected.

UK

The Royal Artillery declare this an infantry-free zone in the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

The M270 MLRS is an artillery system that uses a variety of warheads to pulverize enemy positions of all sorts. Coming in at 3 points apiece (more than the Abbot and M109), this unit is the British answer to infantry and BMP hordes when the M109 just won’t do.

When using the M270, make sure you screen it with some troops. Units like the Abbot and the M109 can fire directly if needed, but the M270 literally has no other weapons to speak of. Its designers intended for it to be miles to the rear, firing toward the battlefield from a long distance.

Deutschland

Gotta be special with the name, eh Germany?

The M270 Mittleres Artillerieraketensystem (MARS) is the Bundeswehr's version of the American M270 MLRS; the name MARS more or less means Main Rocket Artillery System, although "Mittlerer" literally means "Middle," as in medium or middle between a heavier and a lighter weapon. The M270 MARS is essentially identical to the original American version, depicted here in Team Yankee as being part of the artillery formations of the West German Army's 1st Panzer Division.

Apart from being 1 point more skilled than their American counterparts, the West German M270 crews are also the most determined, with a morale check of only 3 needed for them to pass. Their tracked MARS are just as helpless if attacked up close as the American and British versions, so keep these rocket-throwers well to the rear, where they can rain steel on the Reds like they were meant to do.

IRL

"We drop food, and then we drop bombs. Food... bombs... bombs... food. And here's the fun part, some of the bombs were little yellow bombs and the food comes in little yellow packages. Now you're playing Survivor: The Real Game."

– Robin Williams

Some one is about to have a very bad day

The M270 multiple launch rocket system is relatively new as far as Team Yankee is concerned, coming into service during 1983. It is used not only by NATO countries but Japan and Israel, the latter giving it the name "Smasher" in Hebrew. In its long and storied history as one of NATO’s premier MLRS, it’s gained a number of nicknames such as the Grid Square Removal System, the Finger of God, the Commander’s personal shotgun, and the Gypsy Wagon due to either its ridiculous amount of firepower or its inability to carry personal gear without lashing it on top of the roof.

The main loadout for the M270 is the M26 rocket, carrying between 500 and 650 submunitions depending on the size of the rocket motor. Each submunition is a multi-purpose antitank/antipersonnel/incendiary device with a cute teeny tiny little shaped charges in the bottom side that are capable of punching through 2" of rolled homogeneous armor, which is more than enough for most of the world's AFVs, even MBTs. Fully loaded with 12 rockets, an M270 can pick a square kilometer somewhere 30 to 40 kilometers away and make about 7,000 grenades drop out of the sky there.

The powers that be don't look to kindly on nonprecision area denial weaponry though, never mind that the USA never signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions to ban the things, the PR of children finding unexploaded bomblet's is a bit more then the US tends to like so the M270 had to reinvent itself for the post cold war era. The first development was the GPS guided MGM-140, although its size meant that one missile took the space of six rockets. Eventually the M30/31 guided rockets were developed, the M31 having a uniary warhead instead of bomblets. These fit in the same racks as the M26.

Its performance against Iraqis in 1991 and 2003 suggests that in the game it's kind of nerfed. Then again, IRL, a full battery volley of eight M270s ripple-firing twelve rockets each in a few seconds results in over sixty thousand bomblets raining down on an area a kilometer across. That is a time-on-target barrage that gives the unfortunate fellows occupying that grid square an average of one bomblet for every seventeen square meters. Reports from the battlefield suggest that this inflicts 40-50% casualties on units of AFVs in that area that aren't parked under substantial overhead cover, approaching the (estimated) effectiveness of a tactical nuclear weapon in the two kiloton range, only without the fallout--radioactive or political. In '91 MRLS fire made the recipients' shit all retarded, if not literally pushing their shit in. It also means that if you presume a 1% failure rate, you have about 600 unexploded munitions left over. We keep mentioning this but there is a reason most of the world does not use these things, and goes to show how desperate Ukraine is if they want cluster weapons.

Given the scale of battles and size of battlefields in Team Yankee it is probably appropriate either to deny the US player this "I Win" button entirely, by saying "yes, it EXISTS, but that's corps artillery, it's not available to your single mechanized heavy combat team in a blocking position, it's being used for other purposes/held in reserve for counterbattery fire/whatever." It'd be not much different from breaking out the nukes, or letting the American player call in B52s for ARC LIGHT strikes. In my opinion that would be more satisfying than making it available but nerfing it this badly and making it all but unrecognizable.