I was thinking more in terms of casualties taken, being honest. We see the Blackwings alone rack up about twenty kills on screen, and while I didn't work out any of the details of the ELH's performance, I'd be shocked if they didn't match that before the final bug-out fight. That's forty-to-fifty units outright lost out of a starting strength somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred, which I gather is... extreme... for a single engagement, in morale and psychological terms.
Tell The World That We Tried (Battletech CYOA) (Complete)
- Thread starter Valles
- Start date
- Location
- United States
It's also pretty big in material terms. Mechs are anything but cheap, and for an elite unit many of those mechs are going to be either relatively high-spec and well-maintained machines rather than mass-produced factory trash, or family heirlooms that might as well be literally irreplaceable.
Even if the Dracs decided to rebuild the unit, like as not they'd be years in the doing between having to replace all the hardware and bringing in new blood and getting them both to spec.
Even if the Dracs decided to rebuild the unit, like as not they'd be years in the doing between having to replace all the hardware and bringing in new blood and getting them both to spec.
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Ivan the Not-so-Terrible
AH MEW CHEEKI BREEKI I V DAMKE
- Location
- Mikonyan’s USSR
To be fair, that's probably the #1 cause of total unit destruction in the Combine. The unit suffers heavy losses, dying honorably and failing, then the survivors die honorably too for failing. Except that's probably more usually a 'company goes to raid, comes back with a lance, we need a whole new company as replacements' sort of thing in the 3SW.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
Er...well, yes but -how- you put your best foot forward matters as well. Now, any excuse to dress up for a date, but if you're trying to be taken seriously as a Mercenary Commander in the Future of the 80s, the little black dress is probably not the best choice. At the absolute best you might get a reputation like Natasha Kherensky...if you have the chops to back it up.
Don't you mean more meat for the--*shot*
Hey now, never turn down Atlases. You have to start your Steiner Scout Lance somewhere.
...no, you deal with the purse, it's where you're supposed to pack the biggest of your three+ concealed personal defense weapons.
Could be worse, you could have something called a 'Scroll' as your comm device.
...actually, no wait, Scrolls are way better.
*tilts head*
So, this has been commented on already, but yes there should only be 5 regiments of the SoL at this point in the timeline. Further, all 5 are known. The 1st, 2nd, 5th, 7th, and the 8th are the canonical extant regiments. Most tend to be either capital defense forces and/or directly commanded in the field by a ranking Kurita. The 5th seems to be the only exception I can see on first blush.
So, from my perspective, someone's either fronting, or this is a freshly organized regiment getting their first action in and not worth their name.
Ah, the joys of REMFs.
The downsides of having irregular units is that you can't really play rotation games to hide your numbers better. Thanks multiple Succession Wars ruining everyone's logistics!
Poor Cicadas. Not small enough to really dodge fire, not durable enough to take a hit, not fast enough to get away from lights if pursued, and not really with enough guns to outfight them. They just sit in the same traditionally underperforming niche as Dragons and Victors.
Dumb, stupid pilots. You're a light recon lance and you've just been surprised by an Assault weight company. You don't fire back, you turn around and bug the fuck out.
*shakes head*
I suppose not even Magic Bushido Hands could've saved them from that.
This is why certain assault weight mechs (which tend to be command units) have a second chair for another operator so idiots can't distract the main pilot with everything.
NB - Again, Marauder, it's just bait. You really want to use that ammo up as fast as possible in a defensive battle on friendly territory so when it inevitably cooks off you don't lose the entire mech, only a torso.
Ahem. Note above previous commentary on what kind of image you want to present...
Whoops. Well, good thing Asha sprung for the padded seat...
*shakes head* Someone's just showing off at this point. The main gun of a Von Luckner alone is more than enough to vaporize a Jenner.
Yes, but is the Atlas holding a giant axe?
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
Nice chapter. Very conclusive treatment of the raid. Of course, that won't stop me from commenting and nitpicking
And for that matter, why is there no FedSuns accent then?
[Offended Lyran Noises]
Which is the natural reaction of anyone who can actually speak German to the canon Lyran ranks.
Which is also the problem with much of the Warrior trilogy... Plus, Hanse only has been First Prince for two years at that point, so that agent had been inserted eighteen years before that, with probably nothing to do with him. As I've said in the other thread: No, Hanse Davion is not the messiah
And then the novels character-assassinated him, because all enemies of our heroes just have to be unreasonable and weak (see also: Maximilian Liao). *sighs* But hey, those haven't happened yet! So I'd rather go with his characterization from the old House Book.
Huh. That seems like an odd position. Isn't the entire point of feudalism that the Duke is the representative of his liege? Also, are even enough Davions around for every little planet?
You also have a Lyran and a Draconian accent at other points, and I wonder... how does that even work? After all, the states are not monolingual. The Lyran Commonwealth may have German as main language, but they also have planets with English, Gaelic (of course) and even Japanese (New Kyoto) as languages, and likewise there are also German speaking planets in the FedSuns. So given it would have to spread across several languages, how would such an accent even work?
And for that matter, why is there no FedSuns accent then? Well that was blunt. I must say, that scene in general had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, heh.
Why would you even WANT to turn a perfectly fine Atlas into a shitty Charger?
[Offended Lyran Noises]
I know, right? And they say Lyran uniforms are gaudy
*cringe*
Which is the natural reaction of anyone who can actually speak German to the canon Lyran ranks.
I must say, that sounds spurious
...because he had the dumb luck to happen to have an agent in the attacking unit? Unless we see how he personally had the idea to insert that agent, I wouldn't call it particularly clever
Which is also the problem with much of the Warrior trilogy... Plus, Hanse only has been First Prince for two years at that point, so that agent had been inserted eighteen years before that, with probably nothing to do with him. As I've said in the other thread: No, Hanse Davion is not the messiah I have to ask... why? Even attaching a company to the ELH. They are mercs. Why do anything more than what their contract stipulates and thus risk their quite expensive resources?
Whereas my impression was the process hadn't come to that point at all yet...
But they also ignore those with mechs, ASFs, tanks, etc...
The current Coordinator is a very reasonable man who put an end to the excesses of the reign of his father.
And then the novels character-assassinated him, because all enemies of our heroes just have to be unreasonable and weak (see also: Maximilian Liao). *sighs* But hey, those haven't happened yet! So I'd rather go with his characterization from the old House Book.
consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
The novels and the House Kurita sourcebook you mean. Being more reasonable than someone who kills in cruel ways and large numbers for no reason doesn't matter that much when the accepted if not required standard of behavior is fucking awful.
Remember, Zabu was going to be assassinated for not being a pointlessly aggressive asshole.
YuffieK
(Verified Ninja Princess)
With standard Atlas armor, a 400 LTV would leave you 11. 5 tons for weapons and heat sinks. It's at least enough for a PPC, twin mediums, and a rear-mounted small laser with 12 single heat sinks.
May not hit hard, but hard to kill.
Until you start getting the recovered SLDF technologies, Battlemasters, Marauders and Warhammers are the kings of the battlefield. Atlases are just not maneuverable enough... unless you rig it with full jump capacity (For the AS7-D, remove the AC-20 and ammo [-16 tons], replace it with a PPC, jump jets and 3 additional heat sinks.) This gives it a bit better reach and combat endurance, at the cost of short range "You Gonna Die" options. But then again, it does gain that wonderful Death From Above....
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consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
Doesn't hold up. A 4/6 non jumping design doesn't have a maneuvering advantage that consistently matters enough when it actually comes to a fight.
The Atlas is also the second worst 100 ton mech currently in existence( Hi Annihilator!). If you're going to make a 3/5 jumper, go with a Stalker, they're more common, the jump jets take less tonnage, and you don't have to rework an oversized ballistic hardpoint into an energy mount. Besides, it's eighteen tons for a stock AS-7D AC and ammo.
DFA? Nope. Not unless you're out of ammo, armless, and the terrain is broken enough that you can't get a three hex runup, and even then you should probably be kicking most of the time to do as much sustainable damage as possible over time.
Ivan the Not-so-Terrible
AH MEW CHEEKI BREEKI I V DAMKE
- Location
- Mikonyan’s USSR
What? No, the king of the battlefield is the 3/5 Assault. The Atlas is just kinda meh. Stalker and Steiner Murder Banshee all the way.
- Location
- Singapore
The usual I'm not @Valles disclaimer, etc. and Valles should correct me if I've misunderstood, but Valles' assumption seems to be that major planets would have some sort of House Davion or wider FedSuns representative, often sort of an ambassador position rather than acting in lieu of the ruling Duke. In most cases that representative wouldn't be a Davion, branch house or otherwise. It just so happens that the Davion/FedSuns man on the scene here actually possesses Davion lineage. House Sanromea-Davion is a canon branch of the Davion family according to Sarna.
As it happens, saying 'Andurien accent' is a particularly ambiguous line because Andurien is both an interstellar region and the name of the individual planet it takes its name from. Regardless, though, probably the point here is... generalisation. Valles surely knows that the Lyrans aren't all German-speakers, the Draconis Combine isn't completely Japanese, the Capellans aren't all Chinese, and so on. But those are the overarching stereotypes.
I think one possible comparison is people saying... a British or English accent. Which is a very almost-meaningless thing to say, by itself, because 'British' accent would also include, say, Scottish, Irish and Welsh. Saying 'English' accent isn't much better, because that encompasses everything from Geordie to Cockney, to Received Pronunciation. Even saying 'London' accent doesn't particularly narrow it down. Yet people still use the phrases 'British accent' or 'English accent'.
Just because the term isn't precise doesn't mean it's completely meaningless. It conveys information, just not enough. Sentences could use words like Russian/Slavic accent, Hispanic accent, etc, but using terms like 'Lyran' or whatever is in-universe flavour.
There is some timeskip between Valles' written segments - considerable timeskip in some cases, days and weeks.
Entirely besides this, a friend of mine is currently discussing kids, marriage, possibly moving in soon, etc. with their partner, and using the words 'boyfriend', 'girlfriend', and generally they're acting disgustingly like teenagers despite being professionals in their thirties. I'm entitled to use the phrase 'disgustingly like teenagers' because they suggested it first, not me. They were like that after three dates in as many weeks. Ship happens.
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I'm amused that the correctness of your point here is something that the story illustrates without me ever planning or considering it, especially since it confirms/illustrates a bit of Asha's characterization as differs from myself - Original Asha was a party girl who was very comfortable showing off, so this kind of image question would be one both sides of the composite would miss.
That said, the entire party was intended to be very Hollywood Star Ball, so she probably didn't stand out as much as you're thinking.
For when you absolutely, positively have to know exactly what's in that grid square and can't afford to let anything stop you.
...no, you deal with the purse, it's where you're supposed to pack the biggest of your three+ concealed personal defense weapons.
Asha's favorite personal defense weapon is her bare hands anyway. Besides, who needs a gun at a party?
(She'll learn, eventually.)
They really are a slick bit of kit.
I suspect that the retcon version will be that this was the 3rd Sword, and one of the canon five from the 3025 material will turn out to be organized as their replacement after the Coordinator disbands them.
Ayup. Lots of downsides, there.
The Dragon has actually got something like a ton, half-a-ton more possible payload at 5/8 than a 55 tonner, it's just the difference in jumpjets that costs. Since the Dragon doesn't jump, that's a moot point... Though the meh weapon choices aren't.
In-setting, this is a reflection of the limits of Samurai Aggression as a philosophy. Out-of-character, it's the author spending too much time dealing with game AI.
The moral courage to just withdraw as soon as they realized their intel was wrong and there was another formed regiment on-planet could have... But that doesn't strike me as a Combine trait, even aside the general human tendency to try to ride the plan longer than one should.
Battlemaster, famously, and I'd imagine the Cyclops does too.
Of course, that doesn't actually speak to the fact that spending time dealing with what's around his mech makes the commander much less effective as a commander, but...
But you really really don't want to lose track of how much you have left, either.
Serendipity!
And why she sprang for the padded seat.
How often does a tank driver get to crush a mech? Let him live his moment.
Is the dismembered leg of an Ostpod close enough?
Nice chapter. Very conclusive treatment of the raid. Of course, that won't stop me from commenting and nitpicking
Of course not.
This is inspired by the Gray Death books' treatment of Galatea, and my conclusion that 'temp camp' versions of that world's mercenary trade tend to show up where major units like the ELH are based. Despite being a Lyran world, Galatea has a specific Steiner officer assigned to handle mercenary hiring for contracts all across the Lyran state, who is not the local ruler. That's Lt-Col Sanromea-Davion's role, here.
The chain of command between him and Duke Cheel is... muddy... but in practice it works out that Sanromea-Davion does not usually report to Cheel in the course of his duties, and does not need permission to carry them out, but would be obligated to obey any specific orders the Duke gave him.
You also have a Lyran and a Draconian accent at other points, and I wonder... how does that even work? After all, the states are not monolingual. The Lyran Commonwealth may have German as main language, but they also have planets with English, Gaelic (of course) and even Japanese (New Kyoto) as languages, and likewise there are also German speaking planets in the FedSuns. So given it would have to spread across several languages, how would such an accent even work?
A thousand years is long enough that most fully settled regions on a given planet will develop their own distinguishable local accent, even with modern communications and the way people can move around. Those regional accents will be related; somebody who's not from one of them would be able to tell that a speaker was from that planet, but probably only pick up the subtleties if something like 'this continent speaks French, this continent speaks Spanish' happened and those subtle region distinctions aren't actually subtle.
This is a scale model of how the larger 'national' accents work. Asha knows what OWA accents sound like; she can nail a speaker's native planet fairly easily. Somebody who was from, say, the Tamar Pact could identify Isle of Skye vs Protectorate vs Rasalhague instantly, as well as individual Tamar worlds. Both of them listening to a Capellan would only be able to tell their nation of origin, if that, because local accents influence each other into what sounds to an outsider like a blur.
In a Real World example, somebody from England could certainly pick out London vs Newcastle, but all I could say would be 'British Isles, somewhere other than Scotland or Ireland'.
And yes, there's a Federated Suns accent, but when you're in the Suns, it doesn't need commented on.
I, too, am a spiritual Lyran.
Well, in the end, you wouldn't. You'd consider it if you wanted an Atlas that could keep up with your Zeuses.
This one's actually a deliberate accent-related mangling of his actual AFFS rank of Leftenant Colonel.
I must say, that sounds spurious
Shush, leave me my flashy lasers.
...because he had the dumb luck to happen to have an agent in the attacking unit? Unless we see how he personally had the idea to insert that agent, I wouldn't call it particularly clever
Hanse did not place this agent, no. He came up with a plan for how to use him to destroy a Combine regiment, though.
Partly, it's that the contract is to repel the Combine invasion, and Asha saw the opportunity to increase the certainty of that by tossing in a company of kill-scavengers to add to the ELH's efforts.
Partly it's that Asha, the amalgam of a civilian trained in a well-understood field and a 20th century armchair militarist, hasn't really internalized the risks she's running and is concentrating on the opportunity for strategically decisive action.
Both of them were working towards the goal, hence why Sophitia was happy about it, but yeah, Asha's statement was premature. She's hopped up on combat hormones, after all.
The how-to-run-a-merc-unit sourcebooks actually do give numbers for required technical personnel. Checking my notes, all of the Blackwings' equipment combined adds up to a bit under 8600 man hours weekly. Now, you can feel that those figures seem low, and I'd agree, but they're not ignored.
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
Ahhh. A delegate for mercenary matters, as Hoff counts as hiring hall in this fic. Okay, yeah, that makes tremendous sense. A general representative to all words would have seemed a bit like undermining the feudalism to me; I'd say of all the five realms, only the FWL (of course!) is more decentralized than the FS.
Ehhhh. In very small minorities. Overall surely over 95% of the people in the UK speak English. I think its generally understood that "British accent" means "British English accent." And what is more, regional accents often become somewhat meaningless in foreign languages. I would probably never say "spoke Russian/German/Spanish with a British accent", but rather "spoke Russian/German/Spanish with an English accent". So, I still don't think there is such a thing as speaking English with a Lyran or a Draconian accent
The problem is that the Lyran Commonwealth has German, English, Italian, Gaelic, Japanese, Chinese, Russian etc etc etc speaking worlds. I think you'd always first spot the accent of the native language before the region. Sure, the German dialects in the LC will most likely develop in a similar direction, and also the English ones, Italian ones, etc, since they all come from the same starting spot each. But the different languages don't. There would not be a unifying "Lyran" feature in both the Lyran German dialects and the Lyran Italian dialects. Or, at least, I can't see how there would be. Somebody from New Kyoto and somebody from Nirasaki would probably sound a lot closer than a pair from New Kyoto and from Skye, as both New Kyoto and Nirasaki speak Japanese, even though New Kyoto is in the Federation of Skye.
At least, that is how I see matters.
That works with national accents because most nations are monolingual or at least a dialect continuum (Chinese...). That is also why your England example works: All the same language, all English. But Successor States are like completely different patches of often non-related languages thrown wildly around on the map, with no connection among each other.
Leutnant-Colonel is actually a canon Lyran rank.
...Nevermind that in German, the rank combination works the other way around, higher rank before lower rank, so Oberstleutnant (and Generalleutnant, Generalmajor etc...). And that Kommandant, while a literal translation of Commander, always refers to a position, not a rank, i.e. the less literal translation would be "Commanding Officer". And Hauptmann-Kommandant makes me want to set something on fire...
...but that is outside the scope of this fic
Well sure. My solution simply is "those are the combat lasers, and no they don't blind anything because they are that highly focused"
Heh, that makes sense.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
I suspect that basically none of the other merc commanders were dressed like that and the people that were aren't in positions where they need to be taken seriously by local Hard Man In Charge. ;P
However, almost all worlds outside of the Draconis Combine have English as a common second-language and their dialect of it would be heavily influenced by the dialect used by their rulers, i.e. the one used on the capital.
I'm sorry, you think Mercenaries need to be taken seriously? I for one, would not be shocked if some of them turned out in all the styles from Papal Guards to Spartan Hoplites, to yes, Samurai armor. This is an event to show off-and a lot of mercs are more than a little crazy.
VhenRa
MechWarrior
- Location
- Auckland, New Zealand
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Now amusingly... Commandant is a rank in the Irish Army. Their analog of Major. Same for French/Spanish actually.
Now one thing that has been bugging me in this story. The Centurions in starting force.
What about them?
VhenRa
MechWarrior
- Location
- Auckland, New Zealand
- Pronouns
- She/Her
In a force described as 2nd Succession War FedSuns shipment in origin.
VhenRa
MechWarrior
- Location
- Auckland, New Zealand
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ramen II is in the FWL and prior that the CapCon. The Cent was more associated with the FWL during the 2nd Succession War.
VhenRa
MechWarrior
- Location
- Auckland, New Zealand
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Which write up?
Late to the party with the Artillery discussion, but IRL, self propelled artillery (basically tanks with an artillery cannon on them) have a crew of about 5 if they are not self loading. The Panzerhaubitze 2000 of the german military for example has a driver, a commander, a gunner, and 2 loaders.
The Archer artillery system that uses the same gun as the Panzerhaubitze 2000, but is in more of a truck form, rather than tank, has an autoloader magazine, and uses a minimum of 2 people, maximum of 4. The M777 towed howitzer has a crew of 7+1, and is not autoloaded.
I sincerely doubt mercenaries or inner sphere militaries are going to ship out an entire infrantry cohort to hang out with artillery like IRL militaries do. IS forces are all about minimum manpower, mobile raiding forces.
I can't remember what types of artillery she has, but i doubt they require more than around 5 people max to operate, seeing as they are almost assuredly self loading, being capable of firing every round without fail.
In the US at least, a 6 gun artillery battery has 16 men in the comminications department, 5 for the battery commander section, 11 repair techs responsible for the battery and the vehicles 17 forward observers, 3 medics etc...
Thats all for the non-combat portion of the battery.
Then you have 17 ammo guys who fetch ammo, 3 additional commanders, 14 more guys who basically take orders, communicate with the battery command communication officers, and give firing directions.
Then you have 60 guys who actually operate the 6 guns, and drive the trucks that tow them. 12 of the guys are unit commanders/ assistant commanders...
US military operation structure is so bureaucratic and bloated its pretty impossible for BT forces to even be as close in manpower.
For an IS military who can only move so much hardware and people at once in raiding parties, with autloading equipment, I doubt you would need more than 6-7 people per gun, including commanders, scouts and techs.
Basically every machine gets a crew of 3-4, plus 1 scout, 1 commander/communications officer, 1 tech.
The Archer artillery system that uses the same gun as the Panzerhaubitze 2000, but is in more of a truck form, rather than tank, has an autoloader magazine, and uses a minimum of 2 people, maximum of 4. The M777 towed howitzer has a crew of 7+1, and is not autoloaded.
I sincerely doubt mercenaries or inner sphere militaries are going to ship out an entire infrantry cohort to hang out with artillery like IRL militaries do. IS forces are all about minimum manpower, mobile raiding forces.
I can't remember what types of artillery she has, but i doubt they require more than around 5 people max to operate, seeing as they are almost assuredly self loading, being capable of firing every round without fail.
In the US at least, a 6 gun artillery battery has 16 men in the comminications department, 5 for the battery commander section, 11 repair techs responsible for the battery and the vehicles 17 forward observers, 3 medics etc...
Thats all for the non-combat portion of the battery.
Then you have 17 ammo guys who fetch ammo, 3 additional commanders, 14 more guys who basically take orders, communicate with the battery command communication officers, and give firing directions.
Then you have 60 guys who actually operate the 6 guns, and drive the trucks that tow them. 12 of the guys are unit commanders/ assistant commanders...
US military operation structure is so bureaucratic and bloated its pretty impossible for BT forces to even be as close in manpower.
For an IS military who can only move so much hardware and people at once in raiding parties, with autloading equipment, I doubt you would need more than 6-7 people per gun, including commanders, scouts and techs.
Basically every machine gets a crew of 3-4, plus 1 scout, 1 commander/communications officer, 1 tech.
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Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
In the sexist and bigoted future of the 80s? Yeah.
She's female and gay. That's two strikes against her in this kind of machismo culture.