Editing M270 MLRS (section)

==IRL==
{{topquote|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}}
[[File:MLRSIRL.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Some one is about to have a very bad day]]
[[File:Jericho_Test.gif|right|thumb]]
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 [[awesome|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 [[GRIMDARK|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. 

{{British Forces in Team Yankee}}
{{US Forces in Team Yankee}}
{{West German Forces in Team Yankee}}

[[Category:Vehicles]]