Thumper Artillery

The Inner Sphere's Thumper Artillery Piece is the smallest conventional artillery piece in MW:LL. While it can be used as Field Artillery weapon, the Thumper is perhaps best known for its use as a direct firing main gun.

Overview

Using the Thumper as an indirect artillery piece can be challenging as it lacks the Long Tom's targeting computer, and the shell explosion radius is smaller compared to the Long Tom counterpart.

Thumper projectiles arc toward there intended target so lining up your cross hairs on the target may cause the shell to drop short, in which case you'll have to aim above the target in-order for the shell to strike. The amount of arc is trial and error but with a little practice one can become proficient at devastating the enemy in a couple of shots, at the least you will remove much of their armor causing them to retreat. Thus taking them out of the fight and reducing their CBills having to repair and possibly keeping them from moving up to a larger variant.

Weapon Stats

Weapon	Max Range	Dmg Drop Range	Dmg Drop /m	Hit Damage/Shot	Splash Damage/Shot	Damage Type	Splash Radius	Shots /min	Sustained DPS	Speed (m/s)	Heat /Shot	Ammo /ton	Ammo cost /ton
Thumper (Rommel)	13900m	---	---	1000	1000	Energy	10m	9	316	700	200	8	2400
Thumper (Behemoth)								6	210
Snub-Nose Thumper	1120m									350	250

	All stats are current as of release 0.14.10

Gameplay & Hints

Thumper (Rommel Tank)

• The Rommel needs to be at a complete stop and then must be deployed using (Left CTRL - Deploy/Un-Deploy) in order to fire.

This weapon can inflict massive amounts of damage on the target and its immediate surroundings and it doesn't require a great gunner due to the splash damage radius.

Note: Suspension Kick doesn't work unless the Thumper Rommel is deployed.

Snub-Nose Thumper (Marauder A) and (Schrek G)

• The Magnum mounts the Artillery piece in a Dorsal Fin configuration and shares similar attributes of the Thumper minus the anchoring criteria of the Rommel. It has a slower fire rate and shell velocity as well.

When mounted on BattleMechs it provides artillery support at much closer ranges than its cousin. The Thumper Artillery Cannon fires a shell at an enemy location like an autocannon. Unlike an autocannon, the artillery cannon's targeted location isn't an enemy unit but a physical location (hill, tree, etc) due to it's high parabolic arc.

• Although not as highly mounted as on the Marauder, the KV-2813 carries an identical Thumper Artillery Cannon.

Artillery is the use of war devices that can far exceed the range of conventional personal and BattleMech weapons, and is primarily used to support an additional force. Due to the highly explosive nature of artillery, most artillery weapons cause not only substantial primary damage, but also secondary damage to adjacent areas, that is to say Mass Bombardment.

History

Smub-Nose variant was added to the game in release 0.11.3

Canon

The Thumper Artillery Piece is the smallest conventional artillery piece with an effective range of 10.5 kilometers. While an effective Field Artillery weapon, the Thumper is perhaps best known for its use as the main gun on the SLDF's Thor Artillery Vehicle, as well as the Thor's knock-off the Thumper. It is later mounted on the Danai Support Vehicle and a variant of the Padilla Artillery Tank, as well as the Cloud Ten Airship Carrier and Schwerer Gustav FrankenMech.

Date Introduced 2734 during the Era known as "Star League" (2571 - 2780) - Unit Role: Artillery Support

BattleTech reference

Usage

The following Inner Sphere assets equip Thumpers:

Asset	Type	Faction	Tons	Thumper	Snub‑Nose Thumper
Marauder A	Mech	IS	75		1
Rommel A	Vehicle	IS	65	1
Schrek G	Vehicle	IS	80		1
Behemoth E	Vehicle	IS	100	1

	All stats are current as of release 0.14.10

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