|
IIRC, given the smaller manufacturing base and materiel available, the Clans' invasion takes up essentially all of their best units - that is to say, Clan tech is better but they went all in when they came to the IS. This means that if, in a skirmish, the IS loses three lances and the Clans only lose one Masakari... well, the IS can bring up another three lances from their reserves and/or from other Successor States, but the Clans may not have a replacement for that Masakari. Being able to kill ten times as many 'Mechs as you lose sounds awesome, but it isn't exactly an automatic win when you're outnumbered a hundred-to-one. The Clans have reserves they can bring up, but they're all demonstratably inferior units piloted by the warriors that are either less skilled or too old to hack it in the front-line units. The IS 'Mechs are shittier all around, but they have a fuckload more of them than the Clans do; even Urbanmechs are scary when there are fifty of them. Such a victory would be devastating to the IS, and would let the less-involved states make some serious gains (the Capellans surrounding Earth? Yes please!), the Clans would run out of gear and pilots before the IS does.
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 05:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 02:48 |
|
|
The Merry Marauder posted:Nah, only the vaporization part is WarShip specific. With no Dragoon cavalry to save the day in this universe, literally nothing but their code stops a Clan assault with irresistible force on say, New Avalon or, indeed, every major factory site in a Successor State. Actually, you kind of hit a crucial point here (though in a different way). There's no Dragoons in this universe, and ComStar isn't providing them aid. That means the Clans have literally zero intelligence going into this invasion. They have no idea if the House capitols are where they were hundreds of years ago. No idea on important military locations, overall technology levels, where factory worlds are... they just know where Terra is, and that's pretty much it. That's a HUGE disadvantage strategically. And gaining intel has always been the Clan's weakest suit, after logistics.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 05:25
|
|
|
Chronojam posted:I was under the impression they did not know how to build many models of PPCs, which are why there are so few "brands" of different kinds of weapons, and specific planets are very important, and attacking factories is a crime against humanity. When I run stuff in the Battletech universe I typically treat the stuff in the TROs as more of a sample of the more common stuff than as a "This is all that exists" approach. Especially when it comes to tanks of all types or infantry weapons. And many of the weapon manufacturers exist in multiple locations. I think Diverse Optics has/had factories on dozens of planets.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 05:33
|
|
|
Tempest_56 posted:Actually, you kind of hit a crucial point here (though in a different way). There's no Dragoons in this universe, and ComStar isn't providing them aid. That means the Clans have literally zero intelligence going into this invasion. They have no idea if the House capitols are where they were hundreds of years ago. No idea on important military locations, overall technology levels, where factory worlds are... they just know where Terra is, and that's pretty much it. That's a HUGE disadvantage strategically. And gaining intel has always been the Clan's weakest suit, after logistics. Huh, that is true. The Clans don't have very good intel assets this time around. They might not know where anything important is, and are working off of old information from when they left the Inner Sphere. Of course, that only lasts until they take some prisoners of war as bondsmen and interrogate them. Sorta like what the Steel Vipers should be doing to Lieutenant Samantha Clover and Caesar Steiner and all the others they captured from the 2nd Donegal on Somerset, and what the Hell's Horses are supposedly doing to Myndo Waterly. Then they'll have some modern day intel to work with, but until then... PoptartsNinja posted:Actually, even including Terra, ComStar's actual [i]production[i] capabilities are quite limited. They've got stockpiles and warehouses, but they're no closer to restarting old assembly lines than, say, the Marian Hegemony is. Huh, really? I guess that makes sense. Don't they have the ability to restart their factories, though? Since Terra hasn't been fought over in at least a couple of centuries and they're further ahead in their tech base due to being the tech cult with the universities of Terra under their control?
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 06:03
|
|
|
DivineCoffeeBinge posted:IIRC, given the smaller manufacturing base and materiel available, the Clans' invasion takes up essentially all of their best units - that is to say, Clan tech is better but they went all in when they came to the IS. Yeah, but the Clans have the ultimate trump card of Warships. IS has exactly zero, and Comstar has only a few.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 06:10
|
|
|
While Hesperus II's Star League-era production facilities are considered the greatest in the Inner Sphere, Earth has dozens of factories of equal level they just haven't bothered cleaning up and getting running yet. After the Clans bloody their noses and a few more invasion waves come in, we might see the proto-Wobbies taking serious inventory of the treasure troves they've been neglecting. That was a big difference between canon post-schism Comstar and the crazies, the former were just about to dust off their Star League production facilities before they got kicked out of the system while the latter got to enjoy a industrially-revitalized, strategically vital Terra. And all the marvelous technological rear end-pulls that entailed. I'm not even going into the possibilities for the Red Corsair memory core, mostly because I have no idea how it went down since I wasn't there when PTN and the cool kids went a' Megamekin'. As an aside, I'm pretty much the opposite of Cythereal. I can't stand the Clans and find a lot about their culture too cheesy to handle and more than a bit daft while I think the clearly less-thought-through IS is more varied and characterful with screwy cultures and random dodgy Japanese, Chinese, and German tossed in for good measure. Also a big fan of mercenaries though I suppose a lot of veterans are probably a bit sick of them from their dominance in old fluff. There's no room for independent commands smaller than regiment level in the Kerensky's Vengeance timeline but that's fine by me. Doesn't hurt that the first 3D computer game I ever beat was a bundled copy of MW2:Mercs. About the only Clan I like is Clan Diamond Shark because those guys mean business. Literally. They're also complete dicks in a very entertaining way, unlike the Falcons or Jaguars. EDITS: Also I really dislike the Clan "real names" for most of their 'Mechs. Exceptions include anything whose IS designation was picked by the Combine and the Stone Rhino. While the Clans have no intention of starting up a new Star League in this timeline, they don't seem predisposed to glassing everything. They'll be a more persistent enemy once they start up production in their occupation zones and I'm willing to bet that the first wave of the invasion is just to set up a staging ground to attempt their eventual subjugation of the entire Sphere. Runa fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Aug 13, 2011 |
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 06:29
|
|
|
Zeroisanumber posted:Yeah, but the Clans have the ultimate trump card of Warships. IS has exactly zero, and Comstar has only a few. Air superiority isn't conquest (see: Afghanistan). You still need boots on the ground, even if those boots are giant 'Mech boots with actuators. The Clans could turn the IS to glass, sure, but that kind of defeats the purpose of coming to the IS to reform the Star League in the first place. If the Clans wanted to just Blow poo poo Up, they would have done it already. That's not what they came here for. They came here to conquer, and you can't do that from space.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 06:45
|
|
|
Zeroisanumber posted:Yeah, but the Clans have the ultimate trump card of Warships. IS has exactly zero, and Comstar has only a few. Warships aren't invulnerable, and ComStar has several very solid Warship designs, plus the advantage that even normal IS fighter pilots are capable of beating Clan fighter pilots with even numbers, and ComStar's fighter pilots are both better and have better tech. Against the thinly armored SL-vintage Clan vessels, this is a massive advantage.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 06:49
|
|
|
Comstar and actually a lot of states have good aerospace assets, better than the clans in a lot of places, Snow raven is about the only clan that could compete, And see most warships not having any anti-aero weaponry equipped. In the canon timeline the last warship in successor state hands (The Lyran battlecruiser Invincible.) was one of the only that had a lot of anti-aero (battlemech scale) weapons which was why it survived. Then it gets lost in a jump mishap until the WoB finds it again and pummels Tharkad with it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 07:10
|
|
|
In terms of "conquering and subjugating every planet in the Inner Sphere," there was never any hope. However, the Clans could have won if: 1: They had a lot of intel. In the canon timeline, this was the fact, as Natasha Kerensky had sodded back off from Wolf's Dragoons to Clan Wolf, taking with her all the info that they'd acquired. In this timeline, the Clans don't have any intel whatsoever, but they do have the advantage that none of the Inner Sphere has any Tech 2 stuff unless it's an ancient heirloom lovingly kept away from the fighting or salvaged from a cache. The only Tech 2 they'll be facing is ComStar. 2: They'd committed a lot more forces at the outset. This might have been an impossibility with the divide between crusader and warden clans, but in this timeline (with most clans apparently Crusader,) it might have been possible. 3: They had pre-emptively declared the entire Inner Sphere dezgra and said "there's no honor to be had down there except conquest. Start training to fight dirty, because we're going to win this." The Clans never did this as a whole, and they suffer for it when their honor codes get abused; but moreso, in their entire mindset of commiting vastly insufficient forces at all times. 4: They had gone straight for Earth. You may be asking "how," well, here's how: the Inner Sphere is loving ginormous. There's an untold gajillion stars in it, and only a few of them are on the beaten path. Stay off the beaten path and use uncharted/unused stars for refueling, and you could drop the entire Invasion Fleet on top of Sol System at once. It would be brutal, it would be destructive, but if they showed up out of the blue with no warning and no hesitation, they could have done it. Take Earth, you take the HPG network. Take the HPG network, and you've just deafened, blinded, and struck dumb the entire Inner Sphere. After you've done this, you need to bring in a massive wave of technicians; upgrade Sol system's gajillion factories to produce Clan-tech to replace the stuff you've lost, and start moving outwards. Make your initial war a war against ComStar; take the systems they have that are off the IS's grid (you should have their star-charts if you took Earth,) and you simultaneously wipe out your biggest competition and take the highest tech base, most readily-suited to supporting your own technology level. But, of course, being the derpy derps they are, the Clans start bulldozing instead of launching a surgical strike, and they announce to all and sundry that they have come to kick rear end and take names - and they're very low on rear end.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 07:11
|
|
|
They also have more than enough names being so stingy with their supply.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 07:38
|
|
|
My objection to point 4 at the very least is that they still have to make it there on data that is horribly out of date and they still run the risk of being spotted the closer to Earth they get. Any misjump could be a problem, they could jump to an area they thought was uninhabited but it turns out it's been colonized since they left the IS, or they could just run into a a stretch where your only option for jumps nearby is an inhabited system. Just because there are a shitload of systems in the IS it doesn't mean all of them have an uninhabited system within 1 jump that also has a suitable star for recharging. On top of that, they'd still have to contest the defenses of the Sol system and any part of the ComStar fleet that was in system. You're basically trying to combine the logistics of a super-size Normandy assault with the relative stealth and risks of the Doolittle raid. That's a lot of eggs to put in one very shaky basket, especially when you believe your side to already have all the advantages in a war.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 07:41
|
|
|
Not to mention that "take Earth" is only a part of the Clans' motivations. Yes, they want to reclaim Earth and form a new Star League, but they also want to prove that they are better than you (and by "you" I mean "the Inner Sphere"). The Clan Mechwarriors have been raised literally since birth on a steady diet of inculcated superiority, and they need to validate that. The whole rationale behind the Honorable Clan Fightin' System is twofold - it's to save materiel, true, but it's also to emphasize skill as the most important aspect of combat. These guys have been told for generations that they are vastly superior to those backwards fucksticks in the IS; they're not about to pass up the chance to prove it. It's not enough for the Clans to win; their entire culture demands that they win with style. This is tactically and strategically dumb, granted - but it's integral to their mindset. It's kinda like saying to medieval Japanese Samurai "hey, you guys would be more effective if you ditched all this 'honor' crap and traded in your bows and swords for cannons. Oh, and it'd also be helpful to you if you started looking at peasantry and low-born soldiers as scum and let them into your little aristocratic Awesome Warrior Club." Sure, it's factually true, but they're still gonna tell you to gently caress right off.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 07:55
|
|
|
Zaodai posted:My objection to point 4 at the very least is that they still have to make it there on data that is horribly out of date and they still run the risk of being spotted the closer to Earth they get. Any misjump could be a problem, they could jump to an area they thought was uninhabited but it turns out it's been colonized since they left the IS, or they could just run into a a stretch where your only option for jumps nearby is an inhabited system. Just because there are a shitload of systems in the IS it doesn't mean all of them have an uninhabited system within 1 jump that also has a suitable star for recharging. As far as I'm aware of, astronomic charts haven't changed much since the Star League days, because astronomy hasn't changed much. Calculating the new positions of stars and jump coordinates is just a matter of math, and the Clanners have actual computers instead of overclocked PS3s. Misjumps are a possibility, but much less of one for the Clans than the Spheroids. Unlike the Spheroids, they actually understand those fancy Kearny-Fuchida Drives they're using, and can enact proper maintenance and repair on them. As for there being absolutely no route to Terra from the north of the Inner Sphere that doesn't cross an inhabited system, I call B.S. You might have to go out of your way, but you'll be able to find an unbroken chain of stars to Sol 30LY at a stretch, suitable for jump-drive charging (or, you know, they can use slow reactor charging; again, they understand their K-F drives, unlike the Spheroids.) The only place I think it's actually possible you might find no stars suitable for charging within 30 LY is actually in the very center, around Sol itself. Even then, they could make a jump into dark space and do a reactor charge, or a double-jump off of batteries. quote:On top of that, they'd still have to contest the defenses of the Sol system and any part of the ComStar fleet that was in system. Frankly, if the Clans were using their technological prowess to its fullest potential, which is what I'm assuming in this "Clans actually use a brain" scenario, ComStar's systems would be the Clan's bitches. Their defenses would be disorganized and cut-off. Even so, the Clans should win a space fight, even if it is costly, and should be able to take Earth itself. Once you do that, it's over. Nobody can communicate at faster than the speed of dropships, and command circuits become impossible, so it's always going to be a slow boat trip. quote:You're basically trying to combine the logistics of a super-size Normandy assault with the relative stealth and risks of the Doolittle raid. That's a lot of eggs to put in one very shaky basket, especially when you believe your side to already have all the advantages in a war. Yeah, that's pretty much it. But frankly, the Clans are idiots if they don't realize that if this turns into an attrition war, they're going to lose, badly. Even with their tech advantage, they need a hail mary play along the lines of delivering the whole Normandy Invasion via the Doolittle Raid, as you so eloquently put it. Thing is, though... I think it's a Hail Mary they're actually capable of pulling off.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 08:26
|
|
|
Don't forget that the Clans don't want to reestablish the Star League this time around, they want to come in and gently caress everything up to fulfill their douchetastic leader Aleksandr Kerensky's revenge.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 08:35
|
|
|
ShadowDragon8685 posted:But frankly, the Clans are idiots if they don't realize that if this turns into an attrition war, they're going to lose, badly. But the Clans are idiots. They were always idiots. It's just that they were idiots with the best guns. In essence, I think you're conflating a tactical objective (capture Earth) with a strategic objective (have our revenge on all those Sphereoid douchenozzles who wouldn't line up behind Great Leader Kerensky) - or, more precisely, you're emphasizing the military objectives over the sociological/psychological objectives. The Clans - in order to refound the Star League - don't just need a military victory, they need to prove that they're better, that those portions of the IS that haven't already been blown the gently caress up should shut the gently caress up and follow them because resistance is futile and also dezgra. They have every expectation that once they win a bunch of battles the IS will say "Look how superior they are! Let's sign up!" because they cannot, culturally, conceive of anyone doing anything else - after all, they've always lined up behind the most skillful Warriors without complaint, so why wouldn't everyone else? It's a hearts and minds kinda issue, which admittedly makes the Inner Sphere into the Viet Cong. To a Clanner, if you kill his sibko you're clearly badass and deserving of respect... but to a Sphereoid, if you kill his brother, you are scum and must be hunted down and killed for glorious revenge. Those two wildly divergent mindsets are the key; the Clans just don't grok that anyone could think that way.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 08:53
|
|
|
Plus, if they surprise attack Earth and manage to capture it, they're going to have a ton of losses from that battle. They're then sitting in the middle of a burned out fortress with no reliable resupply point at the center of enemy territory that is controlled by some very pissed off armies. It's still a pretty lovely plan for them even if they succeed, which I doubt. Also, I didn't mean the stars would change, I meant that systems that weren't colonized when they left might be colonized now. Then at that point, they're busted. One mistake in all those jumps and they're hosed.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 09:00
|
|
|
Zaodai posted:Also, I didn't mean the stars would change, I meant that systems that weren't colonized when they left might be colonized now. Then at that point, they're busted. One mistake in all those jumps and they're hosed. Actually that's a good question, how much colonization had been going on since the fall of the Star League? Was there any ever official information on that or was it assumed that the Successor States were too busy blowing each other up to really colonize new worlds?
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 09:01
|
|
|
DivineCoffeeBinge posted:It's a hearts and minds kinda issue, which admittedly makes the Inner Sphere into the Viet Cong. To a Clanner, if you kill his sibko you're clearly badass and deserving of respect... but to a Sphereoid, if you kill his brother, you are scum and must be hunted down and killed for glorious revenge. Those two wildly divergent mindsets are the key; the Clans just don't grok that anyone could think that way. That's a drat good point. While the Clans are coming into the invasion with a lot of aggression, ambition, and pride, the people of the Inner Sphere would rightly see them as an existential threat. One side is driven by ideology and a sense of superiority fostered by a warrior culture that actually gimps their ability to operate on a strategic scale. The other is fighting tooth and nail to survive against the greatest single threat they've ever faced. In terms of solid conviction and reason to fight, the IS has much more solid ground. They're fighting to protect everything they know and love from an enemy that means to enslave them en masse, the Clans are just here with an ancestral chip on their shoulder and a derisive chuckle bubbling from behind their shinier lasers.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 09:16
|
|
|
Not to mention Earth is a very, very, very hard target. It's got a functional SDS and something like ~40 Castle Brians, all of which are armed with anti-capital and anti-dropship weaponry. Add that to what is probably thousands of (SL-tech) battlemechs, and it's not the kind of place you take in a lightning strike.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 13:56
|
|
|
GhostStalker posted:Huh, that is true. The Clans don't have very good intel assets this time around. They might not know where anything important is, and are working off of old information from when they left the Inner Sphere. Of course, that only lasts until they take some prisoners of war as bondsmen and interrogate them. Sorta like what the Steel Vipers should be doing to Lieutenant Samantha Clover and Caesar Steiner and all the others they captured from the 2nd Donegal on Somerset, and what the Hell's Horses are supposedly doing to Myndo Waterly. Then they'll have some modern day intel to work with, but until then... Even then - it's a sorely underplanned invasion. They're attacking hundreds of worlds with information that's nearly 300 years out of date and the say-so of a handful of POWs who may or may not be giving reliable information and who all have a limited scope. Ceasar Steiner is badass, but he can't tell them any more about Hesperus beyond that it's a factory world and has strong natural defenses. And he can't really give any info at all about the Combine. And there's no way the Clans can effectively trust or verify the information he gives. In essence, the Clans are invading a massively large unknown area without a map, attacking opponents who vastly outnumber and outproduce them, and are launching the invasion with little more than token logistical support. Their only advantages at this stage are surprise and heavy on-site firepower. They've lost as soon as the IS is able to create a coherent response.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 14:12
|
|
|
And someone wondered why I consider the Clans the underdogs in the whole invasion. Even in this timeline, the invasion is all but guaranteed to fall into the "glorious, but doomed" category. Still, here's hoping they can pull a rabbit out of the hat.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 15:02
|
|
|
The problem with hitting Earth first is that it requires near-perfect knowledge on the part of the Clans. How do they know that over time, the IS will grind the invasion to a halt? From their perspective, it's made up of virtually anarchist states as likely to stab at each other as repel an invader. And in comparison with the Clans, there's little discernible will to fight amongst the IS states, at least from their perspective. Why take a risk and gamble everything on one invasion when you think you can win over the long haul? There's also a high risk of getting bogged down in Sol system. Short of a near instant take-out of the HPG network, Earth is well-situated to send out a distress call. If Terra's defenders are sufficiently tenacious and willing to destroy assets instead of losing them, and if Comstar either accurately assesses or overestimates the Clan threat, Sol could become a trap instead of a masterstroke. As for those convinced that the Clans are likely doomed in PTN's timeline, I'd say that relies on assumptions that PTN has changed very little of the canon situation. What would happen if they possessed a few more worlds, a larger population, or some other advantage we're not yet aware of?
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 17:22
|
|
|
Narsham posted:As for those convinced that the Clans are likely doomed in PTN's timeline, I'd say that relies on assumptions that PTN has changed very little of the canon situation. What would happen if they possessed a few more worlds, a larger population, or some other advantage we're not yet aware of? I thought PTN said that this time around the Clans are not interested in capturing Earth as a mean to prove their superiority and are more unified in their goal: they want to conquer what they can and burn everything else. Given their technological superiority, if they ignore Earth altogether and just wage a standard war of conquest, it will probably be difficult to find and exploit a weakness in their strategic plan. So, even without changing too many factors in the background, the Clans might already have a good chance of taking the IS. edit: Rick_Hunter posted:I thought the SDS was only activated (and innovated) once the Wobbies took over. Right now it's just....a relic. radintorov fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Aug 13, 2011 |
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 17:35
|
|
|
raverrn posted:Not to mention Earth is a very, very, very hard target. It's got a functional SDS and something like ~40 Castle Brians, all of which are armed with anti-capital and anti-dropship weaponry. Add that to what is probably thousands of (SL-tech) battlemechs, and it's not the kind of place you take in a lightning strike. I thought the SDS was only activated (and innovated) once the Wobbies took over. Right now it's just....a relic.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 17:46
|
|
|
Rick_Hunter posted:I thought the SDS was only activated (and innovated) once the Wobbies took over. Right now it's just....a relic. Kerensky never got past it in this timeline. That thing is still operational, which means that between that and the 40+ WarShips ComStar is hanging on to, the Clans don't really stand a chance in a straight up fight.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 18:35
|
|
|
The Clans are very effective if you look at what they did when they came out into btech: completely loving up the interhouse balancing act that was going on. While the houses have had losses and gains for most of the IS it was stable. That was until the clans came in and wrecked two biggies and with no indication what the gently caress was going on. The clan invasion is very effective of completely turning IS politics on it's head, but beyond that, it wasn't very well concieved, and Clan Wolf knew it from the start. <canonwise>
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 19:46
|
|
|
DivineCoffeeBinge posted:It's kinda like saying to medieval Japanese Samurai "hey, you guys would be more effective if you ditched all this 'honor' crap and traded in your bows and swords for cannons. Oh, and it'd also be helpful to you if you started looking at peasantry and low-born soldiers as scum and let them into your little aristocratic Awesome Warrior Club." Sure, it's factually true, but they're still gonna tell you to gently caress right off. These same samurai who were about willing to sell their grandmothers and pretend to be Christian in order to get their hands on musketry. Civil war kills 'honor' really quickly. Seriously, all that Bushido poo poo was post unification and, yes, deliberately stupid. The shogun didn't want actual warriors running around, so he took away the guns, took hostages, built whorehouses, and enforced biannual 'visits' into which the lords were 'encouraged' to sink all their money. Even after all that, once the Opium Wars made it apparent that isolation wasn't an option there were a lot of these 'samurai' desperate to get their hands on guns, either to keep the foreigners out or to force modernization. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 19:58
|
|
|
PoptartsNinja posted:confused its ultras with the LB-2X (which I strongly considered swapping its armament with) Why would you want to make yourself roll all those location hits? 
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2011 21:48
|
|
|
Sair posted:Why would you want to make yourself roll all those location hits? A Cardassian plot of course.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2011 00:14
|
|
|
Another comedy option: so long as PTN is doing non-canon IIC mechs, how about a Crab IIC? Sarna says it's a Star League design - the classic Crab, that is.
Cythereal fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Aug 14, 2011 |
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2011 00:23
|
|
|
Sair posted:Why would you want to make yourself roll all those location hits? The point of the Kraken is already to get TACs and head hits from really far away. LB-X weapons make it better at that. The actual problem with the Clan invasion is that the Clans are really good at fighting, but really bad at war. Because they don't do it, ever. The IS does nothing but war, because they're all squabbling dicks. It's like being a cop called to a domestic violence dispute, except the violent couple have lasers and missiles.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2011 00:30
|
|
|
Totally pointless fact: the Caspar SDS is named after Caspar Wienberger, one of the guys behind the Star Waes program and bit player in the Iran-Contra affair.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2011 01:25
|
|
|
Defiance Industries posted:Kerensky never got past it in this timeline. Yes he did. He landed on Earth, but lost the ground war against Amaris' house troops. There's actually a plot point coming up that relates to... well, pretty much everything. Other things coming between missions: Finding out what happened to the Red Corsair and what became of the Northwind Highlanders. Edit: Also, update will be soon. To answer an earlier suggestion, I may look into finding a volunteer proofer (or proofers) for the next mission. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Aug 14, 2011 |
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2011 01:51
|
|
|
1. In some books the mechs are used a lot more creatively. This is obviously plot fluff but thing like jumping on knees, sidestepping etc is something that gives you a lot more mobility than a tank. IF you accept that the weapons in this universe are completely unguided and kinda slowish, then master mechwarriors in mobile mechs do make some sort of sense. I think the issue here is that the clans have ample amount of great pilots and mechs, while the inner sphere has a lot of soldiers and maybe tanks (and more people in general) but not nearly as many mechs percentage wise. With the rules of the universe beeing what they are, there should be many planets where a decent force of clanners will obliterate any defense. From my understanding the IS just can not hold against the clanners without concentrating their forces - and by that giving up a lot of territory. For their limited technology and production capabilities they are simply overstretched (not amongst themselves, but toward a concentrated invasion force). Since they seem unwilling to give up on territory, a concentrated assault from the clanners is a good plan and actually something that will put more and better forces at any point of attack, leaving you with the typical invasion corridors. 2. The Clans have logistic support and intelligence. It is rarely mentioned in the books but for every lovely warrior they have they will have scores of techs and even clanwatch intelligence people, hell they even do research. I think it's just never really mentioned because it is boring. 3. Clan novels are really terrible. The protagonist is always the same character with a soft touch, not really comfortable with the total disregard for life that clanners should have, while the antagonist the "the typical clanner". This leads to rather schizophrenic situations in which a dude literally kills hundreds of people by venting a hangar and the next day does something retarded like run after an ejected enemy so he doesn't land in the crossfire or some bullshit because he can't bear the death of an innocent opponent in a loving warzone. Or he does some noble act to save civilians which a trueborn would just never do. Yes I am currently reading the Ghostbear novels and yes they are terrible terrible terrible. Boner Slam fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Aug 14, 2011 |
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2011 02:11
|
|
|
Boner Slam posted:The (Clan) protagonist is always the same character with a soft touch The best "heroic" Clan character was the Nova Cat Galaxy Commander from Impetus of War; who wound up saving the day and saving the Northwind Highlanders JUST TO PISS OFF THE SMOKE JAGUARS. The entire plot was: Highlanders: "Let's go raid the Smoke Jaguars in the Periphery!" Highlanders: "Oh no, there are Smoke Jaguars here (who are secretly preparing to attack the Nova Cats)! Let's trick the Nova Cats into attacking them!" Highlanders: "We have tricked the Nova Cats into attacking the Smoke Jaguars!" Nova Cats: "We are attacking the Smoke Jaguars!" Highlanders: "LOL!" Nova Cats: "You used Dishonorable Trickery to get us here... but it was pretty funny and we won, so whatever. Later!" Highlanders: "Neat, we didn't all die!" PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Aug 14, 2011 |
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2011 02:19
|
|
|
Regarding the concentration of forces and forcing the IS to give up a lot of territory to do it: The Clans would be even worse at defending captured territory than the IS. They've got less personel overall, and their few garrison units are people they have no respect for as actual warriors. So either they leave their flanks and rear (and big rear end supply line) undefended, or they start bleeding off front line troops to secure planets they conquered on the way through the Sphere. The Clans are set up to win battles, they are not set up to win wars. That's basically what ComStar realized at Tukayyid.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2011 02:29
|
|
|
Boner Slam posted:3. Clan novels are really terrible. The protagonist is always the same character with a soft touch, not really comfortable with the total disregard for life that clanners should have, while the antagonist the "the typical clanner". To be fair, I think this is because most non-protagonist Clanners tend to be Smoke Jaguar-grade assholes and BattleTech seems to *try* to keep its protagonists relatable. And it might just depend on the Clan, with some like the Jade Falcons being bastards, others not so much. BattleTech isn't *quite* as based on black-and-very-dark-grey morality as, say, Warhammer 40k. Although as you pointed out and others have in the past, I think we have a distorted view of most factions, especially the Clans, because for most people non-military stuff in these settings (and non-political stuff for BattleTech, I guess) is irrelevant and boring.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2011 02:34
|
|
|
PoptartsNinja posted:
I'm willing to try my hand at it. v v v That does not look promising in the least. landcollector fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Aug 14, 2011 |
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2011 02:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 02:48 |
|
|
... lucky damned helicopter. I knew I should've left them out--they're never useful except when they're extraordinarily deadly. Edit: 
PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Aug 14, 2011 |
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2011 02:50
|
|