Steel Talons Circa 2xxx - [Canoncity to be defined]
KnightDisciple
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Steel Talons Circa 2xxx
Overview
What follows is a treatise on the current state of the Steel Talons segment of GDI's Armed Forces. While nominally a segment of the GDI Army forces, the Steel Talons are even more independent in nature than either the Zone Operations Command forces or the more "generalist" Ground Forces segment of the Army.
While this is rooted in their origins as a semi-independent command, whose primary missions were "field-test bleeding-edge designs in live combat" and "provide heavy security for major research & development sites", their current mission profile has only encouraged this independent streak within their culture.
Current Operational Areas
The Steel Talons of today are the premier "tip of the spear" units, serving as the first wave of troops deployed onto a hostile planet, often directly from orbiting warships. While Ground Forces can field heavier formations overall, the Steel Talons have a peculiar talent for leveraging the forces they have for maximum shock, awe, and damage.
The Talons still tend to field weaponry that has not been deployed to the rest of the GDIAF, mind. Their need for more robust and comprehensive maintenance resources means they're well-positioned to deploy semi-experimental systems. Combine that with the highly modular nature of the various chassis that they field, and one should expect to see the Steel Talons firing off all manner of exotic weapons, no few of which will not see widespread use in that particular form or iteration.
However, their assignment as the primary or exclusive guard force for most R&D laboratories is long past. GDI has ensured that the most sensitive sites are on their innermost worlds, heavily and jealously guarded by layers upon layers of security, orbital assets, and mixes of ground forces. The Talons are absolutely present at many such sites, but it is no longer the sole purview of the Steel Talons to provide that protection. Often, those members of the Talons performing R&D site security are either on a "rest" rotation due to injury recovery or having seen heavy combat, and/or they are pilots noted to have an excellent instinct for using the most-bleeding-edge weaponry before it's ready to deploy to mainline Talon forces. While some of being a "test pilot" is high levels of basic skill, the ability to specifically push equipment to breaking, and then articulate the "what", "where", "how", and "why" is rare and valuable for this type of work.
This overall shift in their duty is due to the vastly changed "geography" of GDI territories, rather than any impingement of the capabilities of the Talons. Being able to protect major labs and testing sites behind an entire planet's defensive grid vastly changes the calculations of who defends what. That almost any threat of significance, or at least of a scale above "barely-armored infantry with light arms and makeshift bombs", would have to very visibly make it through the black-Navy vessels and any orbital defenses only reinforces this.
Technological Notes
To some degree, the Talons still existing is a case of vehement efforts on the part of their members, retired members, and friends and "fans", to continue to justify their existence as a coherent entity. However, the current technologies used in the field have meant that the decades of experience building, driving, and maintaining Battle Walkers is an incredibly relevant suite of skills. GDI has found that the combination of jump jets and legs allow the "mecha" used by the Steel Talons to consistently land safely on a planetary battlefield without needing an entire landing craft, and often not even needing a full landing pod, but rather just a heat-resistant re-entry pod.
In terms of technology and weapons, most of their technology isn't radically different in material than that used in more "conventional" forces. The armor materials, power sources, and structural elements are basically similar, or one generation more advanced, using the smaller force as a test bed to field test options before adopting it on a broad scale. These components are just shaped differently, for the structure and armor, and with power lines feeding different systems in modestly different ways. The weapons, as well, are essentially the same; railguns, particle weapons, lasers, and missile launchers. The motive systems are the main difference, using myomers and actuators instead of treads, wheels, and hoverplates. As well, while there is some level of turret/gimbal mounts, it's more likely for Talon walkers to use arm structures to allow a wide range of aiming for many of their weapons.
Command Structure
Organizationally, the Talons have two distinct "sub-groups" in their day-to-day operations. The general culture and organization of them has evolved over time and based on both experience and expedience.
The first is the research, maintenance, and logistical portion of their command. While these people are an invaluable piece of keeping the combat arm of the Talons running, a fact that every single soldier within the Talons is keenly aware of, they are also much more loosely organized compared to many sections of GDI's military. The practice of having cutting-edge tech on field/combat deployment blurs a lot of the traditional lines, means that there's a lot of cross-training, and generally leads to people working in ad-hoc groups led by 1-2 more senior members, with the larger groups reporting to 2-4 officers and NCOs who work hard to corral them.
The second is the actual combat troops, who are organized much more rigidly, though this is primarily an outgrowth of the need for standardized transport sizes and the ability to "plug and play" various smaller units into larger formations as needed. The base organizational unit for all Steel Talons operations is sized around 4 units. For all combat vehicles, it is a Lance, composed of 4 Walkers, Tanks, or VTOLS; for all infantry it is a Squad, composed of 4 individual units. For infantry specifically, a Squad is the equivalent (in general combat use) as a single Vehicle, while the Platoon, which is 4 squads of 4 troopers, is the equivalent of the Lance.
Platoons and Lances are then organized into Companies, which can be either homogenous or mixed, and are comprised of 3-4 Lances/Platoons. Above Companies are Battalions, which are composed of 3-4 Companies. The default is 3 Lances/Platoons per Company and 3 Companies per Battalion, but sometimes a "Square Company" and/or "Square Battalion" (4 sub-components) is deployed. It is exceedingly rare to have a Square Battalion of Square Companies, simply because this becomes difficult to cohesively transport, and unwieldy for the commanding officer on the field.
Above the Battalion is a Regiment; these units are almost always comprised of 3 Battalions, though Augmented Regiments of 4 Battalions do exist, primarily at the higher command level (to accommodate the Battalion of command and support troops active in the field).
Specific Units
While the Steel Talons have used a multitude of one-off designs and "lineages" over the years, today there are a handful of specific models of equipment in use by members of the unit in their day-to-day combat operations.
Not covered here are the multitude of unarmed repair and recovery vehicles, as well as the larger landing craft that are crewed by the Navy while being seconded to the Talons themselves.
Titan Mark VI, aka Hyperion Main Battle Mech
The twin arms end in hardpoints that allow the mounting of various energy weapons pods, though the most common configuration puts a Particle Projection Cannon (a descendant of the early research into "Tactical Ion Cannons") and a Pulse Laser (descended and iterated from the early Crystal Beam Laser mounts used on Predator tanks and other such vehicles). However, these weapons are actually the lighter section of the Hyperion's armament, intended primarily to be heavy anti-infantry and/or light anti-armor in use. Due to linkage and myomer weight limits, it was decided to make them exclusively energy armaments in the various pre-made pod attachments (which ease maintenance cycles somewhat). On the top of the mech's "spine" is a mount for a larger, single heavy weapon system. Most often, this is one of three things, depending on the specifics of the expected battlefield: a Dual-Core Heavy Laser ("Blazer"), a Tactical-Scale Ion Cannon, or a direct-fire Gauss Cannon. The pod attachments for the former weapons include cooling and targeting equipment, while the latter includes recoil compensation and ammunition.
Integral to the design are a set of jump jets used both for tactical battlefield movement, and for stabilizing the last-burn segment of an orbital drop landing; for lateral combat movement, it can reliably move up to 40 meters distance. Beyond the jets, the Hyperion is capable of achieving walking speeds of a bit above 40 km/h, and run speeds of around 60 km/h. The armor protection of the Hyperion is carefully balanced to give it notable survivability, while staying light enough to allow it to maintain speed and maneuverability. It is not as fast as other models, not as heavily armored as others still, but it is fast enough, armored enough, and armed enough to be the primary model fielded. Fully 45% of the Mechs used by the Talons are Hyperions, with the other models all being roughly evenly split among the other 55% total.
Havoc Mark IIIA, aka Valraven Electronic Scout Mech
The Havoc IIIA is fundamentally a combination scout and electronic warfare mech. Deployed as part of larger scouting units alongside the Havoc Mark IIIB, the Valraven focuses the majority of its weight on a fairly equal combination of speed (up to 97 km/h at a full run), armor, and E-War gear. The bird-head-shaped central torso started as a necessity to help contain the powerful antennas needed for many of its electronics, and was then refined into the more fanciful shape seen today. While its electronics package can theoretically be changed around, most typically the Valraven carries what is called an Active Probe (a suite of powerful sensors capable of greater range, power, and precision than those carried by default on Hyperions or other Mechs), an ECM Suite (focused on jamming and counter-jamming enemy e-war attempts), and a Command/Control Communications Module, allowing it to coordinate with the Havoc IIIB lances working with it, as well as other Valravens and the command Mechs of their larger assigned units. They are also equipped with a series of jump-jets that allow the Valraven to jump about 60 meters distance.
Armament-wise, a Valraven is equipped primarily to kill anything lighter than it, and allow it to outrun anything that could kill it quickly with its weaponry. Thus, its left "arm" is a pod typically equipped with two medium-weight lasers (the slower-firing but higher-powered variants), and the right "arm" is a missile pod, typically with a half-dozen tubes firing the shorter-ranged but more powerful iteration of the Talons' favorite multi-purpose missiles. The central torso has a pop-up anti-missile turret that is typically tucked away when not in combat; its position means it is ineffective versus infantry, and thus has been designed as an exclusively defensive feature (giving it marginally increased performance in that specific role). There are loadouts with more weapons, but these require a sacrifice in electronics, which is not typically favored.
Havoc Mark IIIB, aka Wolpertinger Scout-Harasser Mech
The Wolpertinger's design is small and compact, more reminiscent of the original Havoc in many ways. They are capable of reaching a blistering 129 km/h in a dead run, and it can leap up to 240 meters in a single go. Their size and shape makes it easy to bring an entire Company of them on most transport ships, giving any Talon formation a highly-capable scouting force. While certainly not as heavily-protected as a Hyperion, the Wolpertinger has armor almost as heavy as the Valravens, despite being several tons lighter overall; the E-War Mechs have to dedicate more space to their gear than the fast scout mechs.
Weapons-wise, the Wolpertinger has been designed as an energy-weapons-only mech. Most typically it mounts two lasers, most often the middle-weight rapid-fire Pulse versions, in place of more "normal" arms. Atop its chassis is the modern equivalent of the old Crystal Beam Lasers used on Predator tanks, in what's called a "Laser Anti-Missile System".
Wolverine Mark VIII, aka Ratel Infantry Support Mech
Because the Ratel stands at less than half the height of a Hyperion, it is light enough to actually be carried by the Talon's MBM, though more than one is too much weight for anything but an emergency evacuation or drop. To facilitate this battle deployment, Ratels are equipped with special magnetic clamp mechanisms on their torso and knees. While they can and do utilize their hands (and the smaller integrated magnets therein) to hold on, often the Ratel pilot is instead still utilizing their weaponry to fight off enemy infantry or light vehicles while the Hyperion focuses fire on heavier targets, or even focuses on moving out of the area.
For its own movement, a Ratel can typically keep pace with a Hyperion both in terms of land-speed and jumping distance, which keeps it roughly on par with various Armored Infantry that both the Talons, and the larger Army of GDI, utilize. Its armor is some of the most advanced materials available, as the Talons have sought to give it the most protection possible for its size. Still, there are limits, and it is only tougher than a Valraven due to having fewer sensitive electronics and packing slightly more redundancy in its frame; they have roughly the same effective armor coverage. This is more than sufficient for the Ratel's intended role, however, as most infantry-scale weapons will not achieve a through-armor penetrating hit on any of the Ratel's vital systems.
For armaments, the Ratel typically mounts a dedicated anti-infantry weapon (most often a light laser) in underslung mounts on each arm, with the hands equipped with multi-purpose "claw" extensions. It is capable of mounting two larger weapons on the back, or a weapon and ammunition pod. Examples include a Light Railgun, a Missile Pod, Medium Lasers, or Light Particle Cannons. There are a handful of hand-held weapons it can utilize as well, functioning as modestly upsized versions of Zone Armor weapons. However, these are not universally used, as the extra mass slows the Ratel down marginally, and they cannot utilize the Mech's own power supplies. There are rumors of large-caliber, high-ROF railgun units being utilized with Ratels, where the power and ammunition storage is on the back and fed via cables and belts to a large hand-held weapon, but these have yet to be seen on the battlefield, so it is unclear if this weapon will ever be commonly utilized.
Ratels are often deployed in Lances alongside 3 Platoons of Infantry, or as a Company alongside two Companies of Infantry. While they can function independent of Infantry and solely supporting other Mechs, this is not their intended role, and they suffer for it, as they do not typically have the necessary numbers to fully suppress enemy infantry. The Talons are very insistent on integrated deployments for Ratels, so this concern is mostly moot.
Juggernaut Mark V, aka Arjuna Fire Support Mech
Arjunas are almost as well-armored as Hyperions, and capable of the same ground speeds and jumping distances. However, while the Hyperion mounts two fully-articulated arms as well as a dorsal weapons mount, the Arjuna instead has two mounts for heavy weapons integrated directly on the sides of its torso. While this means that an Arjuna can, if need be, completely flip these weapon pods backwards, it also means it has much-reduced ability to engage targets that are close and to the sides. Its only other weaponry are a quartet of Medium Lasers near the "nose", specifically fast-firing Pulse variants.
The main weapon mounts tend to come in one of three main models, with two further more-rarely-utilized options.
The first, and most popular, are boxy missile launchers utilizing the long-ranged "micro" missiles the Talons developed, giving the Arjuna both direct and indirect target engagement capability, as well as multi-target barrages. The deceptively small size of the missiles means that each pod carries enough reloads for several minutes of fairly sustained fire, and ammo replenishment is fast and easy (utilizing special doors on the rear of the pods).
The next most common mounts are twin PPCs, the heaviest and longest-ranged models GDI can cram on the frame (only the Haizum can mount a larger version on a frame smaller than a Dropship or full Warship). While this sacrifices indirect fire and guided munitions, the sheer power of the PPCs makes this arguably the most immediately dangerous model, as just two or three well-aimed barrages can disable even a Hyperion.
The third configuration utilizes twin heavy railguns, with large ammunition pods allowing for extended deployment. This is viewed as something of a "compromise" between the Missile and PPC configurations, as while it has indirect fire capability, it is largely unguided munitions. However, it allows an even greater variety of munition types than the Missile configuration, and can deliver potent direct-fire damage to single targets as well, ensuring it is still a commonly-used weapons pack in the field.
The final two configurations are sub-variants of the Missile and Railgun models. The former utilizes a pod setup with a smaller number of larger missiles with much longer range and larger payloads, with the pod opposite the actual missile launcher containing advanced targeting electronics systems, and a "wraparound" pack on the back containing additional missile reloads. The Artillery Railgun configuration does much the same, placing a single very large railgun on one side, whose range is described in at least two digits of kilometers, and with ammunition and counter-weights on the other side of the Mech.
Mastodon Mark III, aka Mumakil Command/Siege Mech
The Mumakil is the current iteration of the concept, and is the only regularly-fielded Steel Talons mech to lack integrated jump-jets of some kind. When deploying into a combat zone, Mumakils either ride down in their parent dropship or, much more rarely, utilize a combination of a disposable "drop pod" as well as a quartet of cast-away "jump packs" that combine repulsor tech and actual jump-jets. As well, its ground speed is, at best, around 30-50 km/h, meaning it can be outpaced by all of the other Mechs in the Talon's arsenal. This is not seen as overly concerning, as while the Mumakil is deployed to front-line combat areas, it is not intended as a "tip of the spear" so much as a mobile command base and a deadly "anvil" for various maneuvers in the field.
The Mumakil is a large, heavy mech, standing tall enough that Hyperions are barely taller than the Mumakil's belly, and heavy enough that they're approximately 130% the weight of a Hyperion. They are correspondingly much more heavily armored, even with all the space they dedicate to command systems and weaponry.
Behind the boxy cockpit of a Mumakil (which is the only Mech to have not only a separate Pilot and Gunner, but two such Gunners typically assigned) is a small, cramped room that can house up to five officers, including the Force Commander. They each have computer stations (barley wider than an average person's shoulder spread) that allow them to capture, filter, and interpret the massive amounts of incoming information from a modern battlefield, which then allows the Force Commander to issue large-scale orders for his troops in the field, with little worry of jamming or interception. The Mumakil's communications suite is exceedingly powerful, and has advanced encryption systems to ensure safe broadcasts even in an enemy-held battlespace.
For armament, the Mumakil's designers assumed that the Mech would often be dealing with both threats in its immediate area, as well as engaging targets at long range. To that end, it has an entire array of secondary weapons to provide close-in protection, while on its back the main guns allow it to put out staggering firepower.
Mounted on the forward and aft torso hull are four articulated gun mounts utilizing Medium Pulse Lasers to deter most light and medium enemy vehicles, while the knees mount Micro Pulse Lasers, which have an absurd rate of fire and enough stopping power to deter any battle-armored infantry thus encountered by GDI. Under the cockpit is a Light PPC mount slaved to the Pilot's own helmet, allowing him to easily engage any targets in a roughly 140-degree horizontal arc, elevations up to 30 degrees, and depressions of almost 70 degrees. It also mounts fore and aft dorsal AMS systems, which have the same "pop up" design as that utilized on the Valraven.
The main weapons system is two heavy-duty modular mounts, utilizing even heavier versions of the three weapons systems seen on the Arjuna (Missile Pods, Heavy PPCs, and Heavy Railguns), as well as adding in the ability to mount two next-generation Sonic Cannons, which while slightly smaller than the ones originally mounted on a MARV, are capable of higher rates of fire, and are also light enough that the Mumakil can mount two of them (though if firing both at once, it cannot be walking and must brace itself).
Infantry Battle Armors
Camazotz Scout Battle Armor
Carbuncle Trooper Battle Armor
Raiju Heavy Battle Armor
Combat Vehicles
Simurgh Infantry Support Tank
Rarog Fast Attack VTOL
Older Garrison Models
A handful of machines are not deployed in frontline combat but are considered fit enough to fulfill duties in defensive roles at Steel Talon R&D sites. The Titan Mark V, aka "Prometheus" remains an exceedingly popular unit despite being slower than the Mark VI, and is in use by a handful of field commanders to this day due to its heavier armor and weaponry. It ultimately proved too slow to continue to serve as the Main Battle Mech for the Talons, however. The Wolverine Mark VI-D suffers similar speed issues, though it is the most popular "garrison mech" due to being easy to repair and fairly compact. Finally, the Mastodon Mark II-B, aka "Oliphaunt" is typically assigned to an overall Garrison Commander; while it bears much less in terms of communication and command equipment, it is still an exceedingly tough and well-armed machine. There are few of them left, though, and no more shall be produced.
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In conclusion, while an unorthodox force by most metrics, the Steel Talons are exceedingly effective at their assigned task as the "tip of the spear", as well as operating in unconventional terrain and urban areas. For all their boasting, the Talons generally recognize they could not conquer a planet on their own without the rest of the Army. But when both the regular Army and the Talons set aside hazing and rivalry and focus upon a single enemy, a singular foe? Woe betide them, for GDI's armored fists shall show no mercy.
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Author's Note: This is a labor of love born primarily from a combination of a near-obsessive love of Battletech, a fascination with the Steel Talons as a distinctive force, and some discussions with @Ithillid regarding the potential future of GDI's Mech Fanboys. This Omake is by no means meant to be truly canon, especially as it is something of a "future-cast" of what might be rather than what will be. But it sure was fun to write, and I might do more in the future.
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