Editing Banshee (BattleTech) (section)

== What makes it so bad? ==
Simply put, in trying to speed up the typically ponderous Assault class, the poindexters from Defiant Industries who put this thing together didn't leave tonnage for firepower.

See, the ''Banshee'''s fusion engine is massive; bigger than anything else its manufacturer makes, and takes up a lot of its overall mass. As a result, while it's well armored and pretty damn fast for something that big, its main armaments are pitiful. A Magna Hellstar PPC and an Autocannon/5, both built into its lower torso, with some Small Lasers added in essentially as flavor. While on the surface that seems pretty okay, they all have roughly the same range, and while the guns themselves aren't defective, the big problem is impact per C-Bill. Those two main guns would be okay on something like a Medium 'Mech or a Heavy 'Mech whose principal strength was skirmishing or shooting up other mechs of their size, but definitely not a 95-ton Assault mech whose typical job is to carry the biggest, most dangerous armaments possible and blanket the battlefield with ordnance.

For perspective, this would be like if an [[M1 Abrams]] only had an autocannon, or a [[Baneblade]] had a variant that armed with regular [[bolter]]s instead of heavy bolters and a regular battle cannon instead of the mega battle cannon. It's still ''dangerous'', sure, and the weight savings almost certainly make them faster, but they're not gonna do nearly the same kind of damage they could've if they had weapons built for their size, and that ultimately would make them a massive a waste of money. Pack all that onto a big distracting robot, and you have the ''Banshee''.

And even if you did equip it with a loadout worthy of an Atlas, there would be even less tonnage reserved for armor. Ultimately, 'Mechs have to strike some kind of balance between firepower, armor and speed. The Banshee has the speed and firepower of a Heavy 'Mech and the armor of an Assault 'Mech, meaning it focused on armor and speed at the expense of firepower. All of this with the price tag of an Assault 'Mech.

It ''is'' admittedly pretty good in close-quarters combat, due to its pretty impressive top speed and the sheer size of it making it capable of pulling an ''Atlas'' and just fucking punching its way to a kill. Unfortunately, the reality is that this thing is routinely outgunned by 'Mechs almost half its size and cost, and as if to make goddamn sure you know just how fucking bad this thing is, its main guns are [[fail|terribly inaccurate]] in Melee range... which is one place its fists can compensate for its poor armament.

Perhaps the most damning example of just how badly this thing sucks, the original ''Banshee'' has survived up to the 31st century by sheer force of reputation. That is to say, absolutely goddamn nobody wants to get stuck in this thing, to the point that anyone who has one only ever uses it to bully minor Periphery powers, or as a training Mech for an actually good Assault 'Mech, like the ''Atlas'' or the ''BattleMaster'', the latter of which is actually cheaper and very nearly just as fast. It took almost ''600'' years of human history for a variant of the ''Banshee'' to be considered even somewhat viable for any real battlefield use, and a couple hundred more for it to be considered actually viable in general.

Seriously, just buy a Battlemaster instead. It's cheaper, has comparable speed and armor and is better armed.