Administrative NotesThe saved game is now running correctly on 0.49.17, the latest development version of MekHQ. The trick is to load and resave it from stable version to stable version; the saved-game conversion only works with adjacent stable versions (it seems). This latest edition has a few nifty features we won't get into just yet—an entirely new method for running contracts is one of the highlights, but it also keeps better track of pilots, and labels units on the battlefield with their name or callsign. (This is particularly useful for me, since we have half a company of Phoenix Hawks now.)
There are some other UI improvements too, and I no longer need to keep any particularly old versions of Java around.
Ares Advance Raid: Briefing and PlanningThe day after our victory party,
Drake sends FedCom a 'yes' on behalf of the company. The day after that (which happens to be Thanksgiving, according to some calendars), Hauptmann Toman stops by headquarters with an armful of maps and documents. Evidently she prefers paper, although we get electronic copies too.
Drake and any interested members of the company (those who can tear themselves away from the holiday gorging, anyway) get down to business, planning the raid.
Setting and ConditionsAres is a temperate, largely earthlike world, although with less surface water, a higher equatorial temperature, and more dramatic seasonal, coastal-vs-inland, and latitudinal climate variations. It has one moon, Aphrodite. Its population is about 4.5 billion, spread across two continents—bustling, by the standards of the day. We're landing on Harmonia, also home to the capital, New Olympia.
Beyond its history as the location where the powers of the Inner Sphere signed the Ares Conventions, the rules of civilized warfare that ~~everyone renounced at the start of the First Succession War~~ everyone still kinda-sorta plays by, Ares is also home to a robust defense manufacturing industry. Of particular note, Bergan Industries produces endo-steel frames for light mechs, and Earthwerks Limited and Salvatore Incorporated are both big players in the DropShip manufacturing world. We may be able to take advantage of that expertise after the invasion, if it succeeds.
The primary defensive force on Ares, at present, is two battalions of the Fifteenth Dracon. Once upon a time, it was the 15th Dracon Regiment of the Star League Defense Force. Unlike many of their peers, the soldiers of the 15th decided not to follow Alexander Kerensky on his Exodus, instead turning mercenary and signing on with the Capellans, whom they have served for about 300 years now. Tactically, they abhor urban fighting because of the risk of civilian casualties, and will allow an enemy to take towns and cities (or stop them before they reach urban centers) rather than fight in their midst. The Fifteenth's four battalions all have slightly different tactical styles, and we're not totally clear on who's deployed on Ares. We'll find out when we get there. Local defense forces include several regiments of infantry and combat vehicles, as well as up to a battalion of light and medium mechs.
The First Federated Commonwealth Regimental Combat Team, for comparison, is a regiment of mechs, three regiments of armored vehicles, five regiments of infantry, two aerospace wings, and a battalion of artillery, plus combat engineers and special forces seconded to them. (FedSuns, and now FedCom, don't mess around.) In addition to the RCT, FedCom is deploying us (2/3 a battalion) and an additional 5-6 companies of raiders to muddy the waters about the location of the main FedCom attack (or indeed whether there's an attack coming at all). The main effort is going to be in our sector, unless things go catastrophically wrong.
TargetsThe crown jewel of Hauptmann Toman's collection of papers is a set of paper maps, tabletop-size, portraying our three primary targets. Recent orbital photography (Toman doesn't volunteer where it came from) contributed to making them.
Target #1 is a system defense command center.
The facility sits on top of a tall hill, on a peninsula extending eastward into a large lake. A highway and rail line connects it to militia bases to the southwest. It is surrounded by tall walls, with only a few entrances. Garrison is likely to be relatively heavy, given the importance of the target: 2-3 lances of mixed vehicles and mechs likely, although they may or may not be stationed at the facility directly. Primary targets are two communications dishes and a headquarters building (small red circles). Fuel tanks that feed the on-site generators (large red circle) are a secondary target.
We intend to land here, so give some thoughts to desired LZs. The dropships will be coming in low and fast, so the pilots will do their best, but pinpoint accuracy is probably not in the cards.
Target #2 is an aerospace fighter airbase. It is about 100 kilometers south of Target #1—roughly two hours at a run, which is going to give our pilots a good shake and rattle. That trip is, however, critical to Operation Blinding Lightning.
That plan will involve us arriving from the north, after the march from Target #1. All circled locations north of the taxiway are primary targets: two comms dishes, a fuel tank farm, and two hangars. (Destroying 2/3 of the southeastern hexes on each hangar will count as completing the objective—destroying doors and collapsing entrances. Additional destruction may earn bonus points.)
If we have time and capability on D-day to return and fight the garrison off of this base, all of this tarmac would make a pretty good LZ for a dropship or two.
Finally, Target #3 is a supply depot hidden in the nearer badlands, at the third point of a triangle about 100km northeast of the airbase and 100km southeast of the command center. Terrain is open, which may play to our advantage: with all our long-range weapons, we might not need to advance to the depot to hit its buildings for effect.
Primary targets are essentially 'the depot', but destroying the circled items (two administration buildings and a communications center) may delay repairs and reinforcements. 8 hexes of warehouse buildings (i.e., any of the buildings on the map) is the primary objective.
Our area of operations will be the area between and around these three targets.
SuppliesRecall that we can land 40 tons of supplies and two (three, counting
Euchre and using the mech pilots as astechs) tech teams. When the situation allows it (i.e., if we're not explicitly doing a hit-and-fade), we can salvage supplies on the field, up to 70 tons of weight between our two trucks. (Trucks is maybe a bit of a misnomer; these are going to be tracked, armored battlefield support vehicles.)
A full combat load of ammunition is 13 tons. That includes some rarely-used stuff like
Teddy Bear's machine gun ammo, the SSRM-2 on
Woad's refit Grasshopper, and the SRM-6s in the Guillotines. There are about nine tons of what I'd call primary ammo in these three lances: four tons of LRMs in
Pepper's Archer, four tons of LB10X ammo in the Emperor, and one ton of LRMs in
Euchre's Lancelot.
Euchre can get by with just the ER Large Lasers in a pinch, and
Linebuster isn't totally useless in the Emperor sans autocannons, but
Pepper's Archer really needs ammo to be combat effective, and the Emperor kind of does.
The Phoenix Hawk 3K and
Milspec's Crab both take ferro-fibrous armor (17.5 tons between the two of them). The rest of the force uses standard armor. (Quite a lot of it.) Should we bring armor supplies along, and if so, how much?
Are there any other spare parts we should consider?
My thinking is about 12 tons of ammo, with the rest being armor. Maybe a few heat sinks, but I think armor and ammo are the two most important things to have. If we accumulate a bit of critical damage over the course of 10 days of fighting, so be it.
Organization and TacticsThe Bastards temporarily reorganize into "Advance Lance" and "Assault Lance", to reflect how we'll be deployed for the next month and a half or so.
In terms of actual battlefield operations, we have one slow lance (the Destroyers), one medium-slow lance (the Bruisers; they are medium-fast but for
Linebuster in the Emperor), and one fast lance (the Outriders). Wherever possible, I want to hit buildings from long range—
Drake,
Euchre, Pvt. Forakis, and
Milspec have the best tools for this, with extended-range energy weapons. Where that's not possible,
Woad,
Hanzoku, and
Wizard have loadouts that can do large amounts of damage quickly at short range, and all three have decent speed and jump jets to enable getting into tight quarters quickly.
Wherever possible, I plan to deploy all three lances together. Overwhelming firepower will help reduce the damage we take, which will in turn help reduce the load on our logistics team. (They have a hard enough job as it is.)
That's about all I have in terms of advance planning. Any thoughts?
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Topic: The Opinionated Bastards: a BattleTech/MekHQ Mercenary Campaign (Dec. 30, 3053) (Read 88864 times)