ADVANCED OGRE CONSTRUCTION FACILITY

I was constantly amazed at the new designs of OGREs that appeared, but was confused by the "method" of creating these monsters.  Too many people just put a few extra guns, a new missile or two, and called the thing one Mark higher than the last one.  Certain formulas (close enough for government work) appeared in the initial designs, but most were never kept to, the current "canon" or "official" OGREs are a hodgepodge, all over the board collection of rolling weapon systems.  I know there are formulas out there, but none of them really make me happy.  I figure that the bigger an OGRE is, the greater the Mark and that the more its chassis will carry.  Each new Mark was a "guesstimate" of the upper capacity of the Awareness and the weapon load-out that it could carry.  Often even this guesstimate was found to fall short of the next generation"s capabilities so each new Mark (or evolutionary step) was not only pushing the performance envelope of the onboard artifint, but also of chassis design, weapons loadout and system management.  

Many times, Combine (and later Paneuropean) designers found that they had drastically underestimated the capacity of the integral awareness and that as the power of the onboard artifints grew, so did their capacity to handle larger and more powerful combat chassis (and subsequently larger and more powerful dedicated systems).  New Marks were often on the drawing boards before the current Mark was even finished with active field trials!

So you want to build a new OGRE?  

No problem!  

Here"s a handy little guide to making OGREs fast and easy:

Combine OGRE naming conventions

The Combine built their OGREs on various chassis and flexible combat platforms, each of which had a different model name to distinguish them from one another.  The designated class names were just that ... class or family names for the root of that Mark of cybertank.  Variations within the designated class were often assigned as well.

Four other classes were planned but never constructed past CADD renderings and basic template designs.  The Resolute class was to be built on a modified Mark III chassis.  The Audacious class was to be built on a modified Mark V chassis while the Renown class and Incessant class were to be built on modified Mark IX chassis.  Very little is known of these four classes other than they were supposed to be much more "stable" versions of their predecessors and to incorporate cutting edge / still experimental technology.  The end of the Last War removed any chance that these four "X-Ogres" would ever see serious consideration let alone production since their cost was astronomical.

Missile armament varied highly among the OGREs as active / passive countermeasures and electronic warfare waxed and waned.  Some designers and military tacticians wanted heavy launch cybertanks based largely on guided missile applications while others wanted the most amount of guns available and fewer missiles, reasoning that gun rounds were higher velocity and thus afforded enemy PDS systems less time to track and dispatch incoming rounds.   As such, the general consensus that was reached was to make the OGREs modular in design (at least the Combine cybertanks, Paneuropean designs were primitive and not very interchangeable between series or models).  This modular design allowed the space dedicated within the OGRE"s hull to be equipped with plug in "pallets" or cohesion modules.  

With the advent of SCRIBOL in the Combine design process, these pallets and modules, regardless of their configuration, integrated their operation seamlessly into that of the rest of the Awareness.  As the popularity of TAC missiles waxed or waned directly in accordance to the steady, sometimes even rapid, advancement of passive and active defense systems, the size, type and delivery system of OGRE missiles also fell into or out of favor with the various design levels and with the Combine and Paneuropeans, often in a strange dance of fancy.  In periods of electronic superiority and during the early years of the conflict, the big heavy missiles were carried.  As the technology to adapt these missiles to a more rapid fire delivery system, and the rest of the guts of an OGRE grew smaller through radical evolution in design, much needed room was freed up and an armored cavity was engineered to act as a missile storage cache.  Missiles, like any other weapon system, became smaller, lighter and quicker as time and technology marched on while their effectiveness often paced farther ahead than the rest of their performance envelope.

The "Rattler" missile of 2060 was a lot different looking than the "Rattler" missile of 2079 though both shared almost identical performance.  Later variants of TAC missiles were smaller, lighter, sleeker, much more apt to survive active and passive defense systems and packed fifth and sixth generation tactical warheads, some with MIRV or "scatterpack" type payloads, all the while using "brilliant" and "genius" level guidance systems.   

One of the great minor stories of the Last War was a Combine active bait and dupe operation codenamed "Gift of Thunder."  Gift of Thunder revolved around a radical new Combine TAC missile weapon system that was based on a pop-up, armored, magazine fed missile launcher or "missile rack."  Armchair historians will be quick to tell you that the "missile rack" was first seen on the Paneuropean designs of their "Fencer" tanks and the design was quickly copied, even improved upon, by the Combine for their own Mark IV raider units.  The truth be known, the "missile rack" was originally a Combine design that was having problems in deployment and feed mechanisms.  Under the clandestine operation "Gift of Thunder", the templates for the mostly complete missile rack design were intentionally left intact at Sheffield when the manufactory fell.  The Paneuropeans "found" the templates for the missile rack, rapidly improved upon the design, did all the field trials, and fielded a working example.  As a result, the Combine merely brewed up one of the missile rack equipped Paneuropean cybertanks and reverse engineered the new and improved working design of the missile rack back into their own cybertanks.  The papers and files exist to prove this "conspiracy" much to the chagrin of the Paneuropean military industrial sectors which were tricked into doing some of the Combine's hard work for them, all under a false sense of having acquired a technological windfall during a time of active raging conflict!

The addition of modular missile armament allowed the cybertanks to truly become heavy launch vehicles.  Their plug-in sockets could accept component arrays of either disposable single shot missile launchers, pop up racks with dedicated automated loading mechanisms, or smaller, lighter rapid fire TAC missile launchers like those found on much smaller armor units.

Gun advocates found that they could remove any missile rack, launcher, or battery and its attendant ammunition cache and replace that unit with a modular secondary battery system which simply plugged in.  Some all gun (Gamma class) OGREs were used in the Sahara Combat Zone when the Pans began to field their "Deaf Ear" jamming systems which were the portable equivalent of the massive and cumbersome Combine jam screen systems (and which were a constant target of opportunity for Combine MI Ranger units which played a deadly game of search and destroy with the Paneuropean jam system operators ...).  Until the "Hearing Aid" system was produced and fielded by Combine units, most OGREs in the African and Sahara theaters went to pure gun models, hastily being stripped of their missile armament.  

The depot techs were not happy in those days...

Early models of OGREs were not heavily missile armed, carrying a single type of missile launch system at most.  These light cybernetic platforms were incredibly fast raider type units making use of every traditional advantage that had been such a disadvantage to a human crewed vehicle.  The cross country and rough terrain speeds of these raider cybertanks as well as their ability to slew around or simply barrel over obstacles in their path would have severely punished a human crew, if not disabled them entirely in short order.   However, the Combine and the Paneuropeans did produce some missile armed Mark Is and Mark IIs.  The Nihons seemed to favor missile armed Mark Is and Mark IIs more than any other nation-state and their Ronin light cybertank carried only secondary battery, AP and dedicated missile armament.

TERTIARY BATTERIES - I always felt that the OGREs were under-armed.  That's right!  Under-armed!  There was a very real drop in firepower from secondary batteries to anti-personnel batteries so I added the tertiary batteries as the smaller, intermediate weapons systems, delivering near or above the level of firepower of most light tanks and GEV type vehicles but with slightly reduced range.  The Tertiary weapons fill the gap between the secondary batteries and the AP batteries, giving the OGREs more close range firepower and defensive capacity.  Like the AP batteries, the Tertiary batteries would represent a variety of devices and combat systems designed to give the massive OGREs a smoother transition through their weapon choices.  These weapons systems are used for close-in work on light armor or in overrun attacks, their one hex of range enables OGREs to roll through massed groups of targets like a grinder or to conduct incredibly effective broadsides against stationary targets or slow moving targets.  

Light skinned targets (convoys of trucks or other utility vehicles, buildings, GEVs, or anything with a defense strength of 2 or less) can be worked over, effectively freeing the bigger guns for the thicker skinned targets of opportunity.  Tertiary batteries are the "fighting" batteries of the OGRE units, not the main guns, but rather the mainly used guns which tended to work over anything foolish enough to close distance with one of these mighty fighting machines.  

The Tertiary batteries were effective against all targets.

Master List of OGRE Construction Templates

* 1/1 attack against infantry (MI) or D0 units only.

Missile Weapons - OGREs can be equipped with a variety of missile launch systems.  The two standard missiles carried by OGREs are the 3/4 light TAC missile (the type found in both Combine and Paneuropean missile tanks) and the standard 6/5 heavy TAC missile.  As the Last War progressed, all newly manufactured (and most older) OGREs were retrofitted with modular fast load missile racks and rotary internal missile storage caches.  

One missile per rail, rack or battery may be fired per turn but each rail, rack or battery may fire during a single turn.

OGRE missiles (6/5) cannot be used in Overrun situations, only the OGREs primary, secondary, tertiary, (3/4) missile batteries or AP guns may be used in an Overrun situation.  This is because the heavy missiles carried by OGREs affect entire hexes, not just single targets.  IF an OGRE fires any of its 6/5 missiles during an Overrun situation, half of the damage caused by the missiles are directed back at the OGRE itself.

Swapping Missile Weapons - The OGRE player may "swap" missile launch systems before the scenario starts but must note this on the OGRE record sheet.  

Swapping Rails and Racks to Batteries: Each D3 missile rail or D4 missile rack may be traded even for a (3/4 D2) missile battery.  For each launch rail traded, the OGRE loses (1) 6/5 missile.  For each missile rack traded, the OGRE loses (5) 6/5 missiles from its internal "storage".  These missiles cannot be "replaced" as that space and internal space is now taken up with the (3/4, D2) missile battery, its hardware and ammunition.  A Mark V could swap all six of its (6/5 D3) missiles and racks for six (3/4 D2) missile batteries.  It would still be able to fire six missiles each turn but ammunition would not have to be tracked and the missiles fired by the OGRE would be of a lower yield and less range.  

Rails to Racks: After 2060, on Combine OGREs, two external missile launch rails (D3) may be traded for a single (D4) internal missile rack.  For every two (D3) external launch rails traded for a single (D4) missile rack, the OGRE gains three (3) tac missiles (6/5) carried in an internal magazine or storage.  For example, a Mk V OGRE could trade all six of its (D3) missile rails for three (D4) missile racks and nine (9) internal missiles. After 2080, all internal storage for missile racks increases to five (5) missiles per rack so an OGRE with three missile racks would carry fifteen (15) internal missiles. As the Mark of the OGRE increased, later models (especially after the Mk VI) switched entirely over to missile racks which were hardened and more difficult to destroy than external racks.  

OGRE missiles were also expensive and even if an OGRE lost all of its launchers, when using the missile racks the OGRE may still be able to return home with a substantial surplus of missiles (stored internally) which had, individually, an equally substantial value. The design of the original pre-2060 internal racks were such that each missile rack fed from an individual, dedicated magazine and missiles could not be shared between missile racks. Later missile rack designs shared a munitions vault which allowed every missile rack to draw from a shared store of missiles. Prior to 2080, missiles could not be shared between missile racks. After 2080, any rack may draw from the common store. If a rack is destroyed, one missile is still destroyed with the rack but the other missiles that were intended for that rack may be used by any surviving rack. 

Historical Design Note - The Mark I and Mk II OGREs were too small to be able to carry the heavy TAC missiles of their later, bigger family members but each of the smaller OGREs had enough space to mount a single (3/4 D2) missile battery and most later variants did (after 2075).  Very early models did not as the electronics during the trials and test phases were not looking at adapting the smaller TAC missile to OGRE use.  Only when the Mark II was five years into use did the Combine designers go back and start integrating basic missile armament into the Mk I and Mk II.  This was done by using the Combine missile tank's FiConSys, self-loading launcher and rotary magazine.

Missile Storage - The listed number in parenthesis is the amount of regular (6/5) missiles that that particular Mark of OGRE carried normally.  Ammunition with a small letter "i" next to it indicates "Internal" missile storage.  Ammunition with a small letter "e" next to it indicates that the missiles are carried externally.  Ammunition for a 3/4 D2 missile battery is not tracked like ammunition for the 6/5 launch rails and missile racks.  These smaller missile weapons, like the guns on the OGREs, may fire every turn until either the weapon or the OGRE is destroyed.

STRUCTURE POINTS - OGREs now have structure points.   An OGRE may lose its treads and weapons, but it is never truly destroyed until all the structure points are gone.  This was due to the expanded fact that it is the Awareness, not the weapons system, which is the greatest expense in producing a cyber logical autonomous weapons system, and the Awareness would be worth a lot both to the enemy (for research and interrogation) as well as to the friendly forces (who could simply put the Awareness back into another weapons platform and probably have it back in the field, with all its memory and learned experience, within a few days).  As such, while all the weapons and the mobility may be destroyed, the Awareness is only destroyed when all of the structure points are destroyed.  This is due to the fact that the Awareness is nestled in the deepest armor belts and component armor shells of the chassis, with dedicated backup power feeds and batteries.  Even without the massive nuclear reactor(s) on-line, at minimal levels of operation ("awake"), the Awareness can remain in a fugue state inside its survival center.   

The core of the Awareness can be saved off to dedicated hard storage units and then removed by friendly technicians to be reloaded into another Awareness array.  Special cybernetic recovery teams were used by both sides to "save" damaged or "dying" OGREs on the field, since the most expensive part of the OGRE was usually its brain and the investment in time and effort it took to both create and "educate" that brain.  Until the last structure point is destroyed, the Awareness is fully intact and the OGRE cannot be considered a "loss" for any victory conditions.  Victory points may be assigned on the basis that the Awareness would count for half if not two-thirds of the cost of the OGRE.  If friendly forces can recover the shattered OGRE, the Awareness can be salvaged.  An OGRE does not count for victory points for the enemy until the Awareness is destroyed.

If scenarios are created involving rescuing the Awareness of a disabled OGRE, it will take approximately a number of turns (plus 1d6) per Mark of the OGRE to recover the Awareness into a Survival Center.  The Survival Center is rather large and is usually carried aboard a modified GEV-PC which also carries the Cybernetic Recovery Team (CRT).  Add 2 VP to the price of the GEV-PC to represent the value of the extra equipment and personnel carried.  A GEV-PC used in this manner is referred to as a GEV-CRT or CRTV.  If the Awareness is downloaded successfully but the GEV-CRT is later destroyed before it can exit the map, VP for the GEV-CRT must include the VP for the recovered Awareness as well.

Other versions of a CRT could be used as well.  In some hardware poor areas, CRTs rode on open trucks and did their work with makeshift tools.  Some scavenger CRTs were noted as being active as well, though these CRTs were often drawn from CRT deserters from both sides.

Besides missiles, many OGREs were built in a modular fashion.  Templates for construction could be modified with ease and manufactories reprogrammed almost instantly for a change in loadout on the current model line or a single specific unit.

For switching out and Awareness load, the following weapons could be swapped on a ratio basis out of a chassis.  This also represents the critical operational "load" on the Awareness with regards to operation. Due to the amount of work and modification needed to the chasis for this type of change, these modifications were rarely (if ever) done in the field.  Most light modifications were done in rear echelon areas that were well equipped and heavily automated.  Most of the swapping of weapons and modifying the loadout was done at the point of construction.

Roughly, operating a main battery is four times more complicated than operating the much smaller AP batteries. To swap out a weapon, look at the weapon you have currently (left column) and go across the top to find out how many of the other types you get back or how many you have to trade in to get what you want.  I put missiles and main batteries as the same line due to their tactical effectiveness.   Thus, using the chart below, if you wanted to trade some AP for another Main Battery, you would have to trade in four AP for one Main Battery.  Or you could trade one Main Battery and pick up four additional AP, or trade the Main Battery for two additional Secondary Batteries.

For game purposes, the number of modifications that can be done to any particular OGRE would be half of its Mark number, rounded up.  A Mark I or Mark II would be able to accept one swap.  A Mark III or IV would be able to accept two swaps, and so forth.

MOVEMENT ALLOWANCE - (MA) - All OGREs start with a MA of M3, these are reduced by 1 movement point for every third of the treads destroyed.  Some OGREs, the raider units, had higher movement rates, such as M4.  Divide the tread units by four.  OGREs over Mark IV never had MAs higher than 3 (they were just too massive), and OGREs of Mark VII and above were limited to a MA of 2, but it took a LOT to stop them, or even slow them down as they were, quite literally, rolling fortress mountains.

OGREs of Mark VI and higher mass do NOT lose tread units when ramming armor units, buildings, etc.  They are simply built too heavy and their components are too tough to be damaged by something as insignificant as hitting a smaller armored vehicle or a comparatively weak man-made structure!

The Mark X was the biggest, heaviest OGRE ever produced by the Combine during the Last War though, as mentioned, even larger and greater OGREs were planned but never implemented.  It took three AIMs and two hyperfacs working together to produce this monster and only the New Quebec Industrialplex was capable of handling the massive templates and the associated materials and labor load required to assemble a Mark X unit.

Nothing can be swapped out for treads, you can"t add more treads or trade them out for something else.  Sorry.  Treads remained the most stable form of movement for the OGRE series.  Several Combine Mark 1 OGREs were built on a low production segmented wheeled chassis but they were experimental urban combat units and were never deployed past the testing stages.  A ground effect system did reach the drawing board stage but even then the CADD systems returned a verdict that the OGRE was simply too big to be equipped with a conventional ground effect system.  However, the Combine did invent a chemical polymer spread that the treads were immersed in through an automated roller process that greatly increased their durability and protection from attack.  Blisterskin is available from 2070 onwards and can be applied in about one hour per Mark in size to any OGRE.  Blisterskin was an ablative polymer which raised the defense of the treads and reduced damage to them by fifty percent.

BACK