Turn 48 - We Are The Holy Ones
Turn 48 - We Are The Holy Ones
You have a rather lengthy meeting with your son and Admiral Benjamin discussing several military topics. Evidently Jeremy had been put in charge of a working group to coordinate assault transport requirements with the Navy.
He starts off with some really good news, and a memo from Mary in the R&D area. Two specific projects from the Aerie had been completed slightly ahead of schedule, albeit at a higher ‘burn rate’ in cash than otherwise meaning that they’ll still cost your budget this year as much. Specifically the improved gauss rifle and improved long range missile systems. Then you find yourself rolling your eyes and mock-threatening Jeremy with a rolled up newspaper when you find out that they’d done it in order to finalize a new Assault Mech design to replace the still not built Ritter and Longbowman designs, specifically the Gryphon Assault Trooper mech, armed with a pair of the new improved gauss rifles and a pair of the new improved 20 pack long range missile systems, allowing a single mech to fill both the direct assault and fire support roles.
Then comes the meat of the meeting. There are two different deployment profiles that are being considered for getting Armored Divisions into play in system invasion scenarios in which they would need to make opposed landings. Your current arrangement with convertible cargo dropships has been judged to be quite useful for shuffling forces within the system, or for non-contested landings and such, but woefully inadequate for actually forcing a landing against hostile forces.
There are several options being presented. All of them have different attack transports for conventional and mech forces. The question becomes how many eggs do you want in a single basket, thus vulnerable to interception.
“Your Majesty, we have two different concerns for a successful landing, especially a contested one. First, we need to secure the LZ, and second we need to be able to support the forces involved in the invasion. Since we’ve never actually had to accomplish this mission for real, we’ve been limited to simulator work on it, along with exercises. Conventional forces, tanks and such, are vital for the success of an invasion, but of very limited value in the initial landings as they take an excessive amount of time to deploy from their transports and are of limited combat effectiveness until they are formed up in their formations. Mechs, on the other hand, can deploy rapidly from their transports and are combat capable from the instant the bay doors are opened. Indeed, with drop packs, they can be inserted from orbit.” Jeremy is handling the presentation while Admiral Benjamin looks on.
“For our conventional armored forces, we propose the Tarawa-class Regimental Assault Transport. This is a 30,000 ton spheroid dropship, capable of carrying an entire Standard Armored Regiment as well as a squadron of aerospace fighters. Three Tarawas would be required for 3rd Armored, while 1st and 2nd Armored would require 6. As an aside, for future Armored Divisions we are recommending a force composition similar to 3rd Armored for any unit that may be tasked with initial planetary invasion duties.”
He puts up a slide showing the details for the Tarawa
“As you can see, it includes a substantial artillery battery, a full dozen Long Toms and 8 Arrow IV’s. Once grounded, the Tarawa would provide immense support to attached units in the initial phases of the campaign until the battle moves out of range of the LZ.” Jeremy grins slightly. “Similar to the Fortress concept from SARAH’s files.”
“Now we come to the battlemech transports, and here we have two different options. One is to make use of Battalion-level transport assets, capable of carrying an entire battalion of 36 mechs plus attached battle armored infantry. Thus, each regiment would require 3 of these transports, which we have dubbed the Osumi-class Battalion Assault Transport. The advantage of this approach is that it minimizes the total number of drop collars a Division would require for transport, but at the risk of the loss of entire Battalions in the event of the loss of a single transport. The alternative is to make use of smaller Company level transports, each carrying a dozen mechs plus their attached battle armor assets. This would require 9 dropships per regiment as opposed to 3 for the Osumi, but with our forces spread out amongst more platforms the loss of one or two would be less devastating. The design we’ve worked out for this is the Albion-class Company Assault Transport.”
“We thus have three options, standardize on the Osumi, accepting the tradeoff of greater vulnerability to losses, albeit from an exceptionally well protected platform, for greater efficiency in terms of collars, standardize on the Albion, reducing our vulnerability to losses due to lost dropships but requiring substantially more collars, or build both and use them as appropriate, for example if an enemy has very strong orbital defenses we may want to use Albions for the initial landings, but if we have orbital supremacy we would use Osumis.” Jeremy shrugs. “I would recommend the mixed approach, but that, Your Majesty, is up to you.” he smirks at you, the scamp.
He grins at your reaction, then continued “For the purpose of sustaining an invasion for any length of time we would need plentiful logistics, however for a combat logistics platform we are facing the same trade offs as for the assault craft themselves, they are most efficient the larger they are, but the larger they are the greater the loss of a single one would be. Therefore, Admiral Benjamin’s people have developed the Sosumi-class Combat Logistics Transport, on the hull of the Osumi-class BAT.”
“And finally, we got something special for you, Your Majesty. The boys and girls in the Rapid Reaction Force have been agitating for more offensive roles, arguing that their combination of high speed and relatively low logistics footprint made them ideal for raiding. We decided to model that role, and it worked out quite well. However it requires a very specialized transport to make it viable. Enter, the Coyote-class Fast Attack Transport.” his grin at this point is positively vulpine.
All in all it is a rather productive meeting.
And then Parliament decides to do their thing (™) (all rights reserved) (you have a headache) (I’ve fallen and I can’t get up) (where’s the beef).
The first bill is rather… well, you had been half-expecting it, half-dreading it, ever since the explosion on Pollux. A number of Delegates, seized with the politicians desire to Be Seen Doing Something About A Crisis in order to loudly pound their chests about Doing Something About A Crisis When Other Side Will Not because obviously this Crisis Is Incredibly Important And Therefore All Who Support Me Are On The Right Side Of History, have decided to introduce legislation flat banning the private ownership, use, sale, or possession of ‘any substance capable of, or a component of a compound capable of, or a component of a mixture capable of, being used to manufacture fireworks’. Every single farmer everywhere promptly facepalms, as do miners, industrial workers, and people with a shred of common sense. The politicians in question, however, are all from safe urban districts where their voters probably think that the food in the grocer’s shows up magically from within the trucks that deliver them.
They are very entrenched, very loud, and very stupid. You’ve had to deal with these morons before, yet they never seem to completely go away.
The idiotic bill is dead on arrival, most Delegates and Senators aren’t nearly as stupid as these idiots, but it still is a waste of your time and energy.
The second bill, however, is a cat of a different coat indeed. It is actually, and yes, you are very surprised by this fact, topical, relevant, helpful, and considerate of potential ramifications. You very nearly drop the bill in shock at this, because it wasn’t written by the Eldest, nor by any of your own parliamentarians. Mirabile Dictu, somebody in the Chamber of Delegates is actually, le gasp, COMPETENT.
The bill in question concerns mineral resource rights in the Asteroid belts. Currently the system is fairly ‘first come, first served’, with the first individual or company who surveys a given asteroid granted mineral rights to mine said asteroid, said rights being transferable. The bill actually addresses several potential problems with such a system, while still incentivizing exploration and mineral claims.
In brief, the bill legally allocates all potential claims, be it for minerals, volatiles, or even bodies large enough to support facilities and potential future settlement, directly and permanently to the Crown, establishes a Crown Commission to oversee these claims, and establishes a fixed process by which prospectors can register their discoveries and thus be granted exploitation licence to said discoveries from the Crown. It quite rationally addresses the adjudication of disputes between prospectors over first discovery, establishing a review process by which the Crown Commission would investigate and make a fair determination in such disputes.
It is a very rational bill, and you kind of like it. However it’s been proposed by the opposition, and there are elements among your supporters who are unwilling to give the opposition any win whatsoever, regardless of how good an idea it is.
You have a rather lengthy meeting with your son and Admiral Benjamin discussing several military topics. Evidently Jeremy had been put in charge of a working group to coordinate assault transport requirements with the Navy.
He starts off with some really good news, and a memo from Mary in the R&D area. Two specific projects from the Aerie had been completed slightly ahead of schedule, albeit at a higher ‘burn rate’ in cash than otherwise meaning that they’ll still cost your budget this year as much. Specifically the improved gauss rifle and improved long range missile systems. Then you find yourself rolling your eyes and mock-threatening Jeremy with a rolled up newspaper when you find out that they’d done it in order to finalize a new Assault Mech design to replace the still not built Ritter and Longbowman designs, specifically the Gryphon Assault Trooper mech, armed with a pair of the new improved gauss rifles and a pair of the new improved 20 pack long range missile systems, allowing a single mech to fill both the direct assault and fire support roles.
Name | Cost | Materials | HP | A/D | Specials |
Gryphon Assault Trooper | 1172 | ES, DHS | 188 | 38 | Armored 1, Missile 2, AMS 1, TAG |
Then comes the meat of the meeting. There are two different deployment profiles that are being considered for getting Armored Divisions into play in system invasion scenarios in which they would need to make opposed landings. Your current arrangement with convertible cargo dropships has been judged to be quite useful for shuffling forces within the system, or for non-contested landings and such, but woefully inadequate for actually forcing a landing against hostile forces.
There are several options being presented. All of them have different attack transports for conventional and mech forces. The question becomes how many eggs do you want in a single basket, thus vulnerable to interception.
“Your Majesty, we have two different concerns for a successful landing, especially a contested one. First, we need to secure the LZ, and second we need to be able to support the forces involved in the invasion. Since we’ve never actually had to accomplish this mission for real, we’ve been limited to simulator work on it, along with exercises. Conventional forces, tanks and such, are vital for the success of an invasion, but of very limited value in the initial landings as they take an excessive amount of time to deploy from their transports and are of limited combat effectiveness until they are formed up in their formations. Mechs, on the other hand, can deploy rapidly from their transports and are combat capable from the instant the bay doors are opened. Indeed, with drop packs, they can be inserted from orbit.” Jeremy is handling the presentation while Admiral Benjamin looks on.
“For our conventional armored forces, we propose the Tarawa-class Regimental Assault Transport. This is a 30,000 ton spheroid dropship, capable of carrying an entire Standard Armored Regiment as well as a squadron of aerospace fighters. Three Tarawas would be required for 3rd Armored, while 1st and 2nd Armored would require 6. As an aside, for future Armored Divisions we are recommending a force composition similar to 3rd Armored for any unit that may be tasked with initial planetary invasion duties.”
He puts up a slide showing the details for the Tarawa
Name | Cost | Materials | HP | A/D | Specials | Yard Type |
Tarawa-class Regimental Assault Transport | 182,394.8 | FA, DHS | 694 | 404 |
| Large Dropship |
“As you can see, it includes a substantial artillery battery, a full dozen Long Toms and 8 Arrow IV’s. Once grounded, the Tarawa would provide immense support to attached units in the initial phases of the campaign until the battle moves out of range of the LZ.” Jeremy grins slightly. “Similar to the Fortress concept from SARAH’s files.”
“Now we come to the battlemech transports, and here we have two different options. One is to make use of Battalion-level transport assets, capable of carrying an entire battalion of 36 mechs plus attached battle armored infantry. Thus, each regiment would require 3 of these transports, which we have dubbed the Osumi-class Battalion Assault Transport. The advantage of this approach is that it minimizes the total number of drop collars a Division would require for transport, but at the risk of the loss of entire Battalions in the event of the loss of a single transport. The alternative is to make use of smaller Company level transports, each carrying a dozen mechs plus their attached battle armor assets. This would require 9 dropships per regiment as opposed to 3 for the Osumi, but with our forces spread out amongst more platforms the loss of one or two would be less devastating. The design we’ve worked out for this is the Albion-class Company Assault Transport.”
“We thus have three options, standardize on the Osumi, accepting the tradeoff of greater vulnerability to losses, albeit from an exceptionally well protected platform, for greater efficiency in terms of collars, standardize on the Albion, reducing our vulnerability to losses due to lost dropships but requiring substantially more collars, or build both and use them as appropriate, for example if an enemy has very strong orbital defenses we may want to use Albions for the initial landings, but if we have orbital supremacy we would use Osumis.” Jeremy shrugs. “I would recommend the mixed approach, but that, Your Majesty, is up to you.” he smirks at you, the scamp.
[] | Name | Cost | Mats | HP | A/D | Special | Yard Type |
[] | Osumi Battalion Assault Transport | 115,204.32 | FA DHS | 452 | 252 |
| Regular Dropship |
[] | Albion Company Assault Transport | 65,938.32 | FA DHS | 330 | 160 |
| Regular Dropship |
[] | Approve both |
He grins at your reaction, then continued “For the purpose of sustaining an invasion for any length of time we would need plentiful logistics, however for a combat logistics platform we are facing the same trade offs as for the assault craft themselves, they are most efficient the larger they are, but the larger they are the greater the loss of a single one would be. Therefore, Admiral Benjamin’s people have developed the Sosumi-class Combat Logistics Transport, on the hull of the Osumi-class BAT.”
Name | Cost | Mats | HP | A/D | Specials | Yard Type |
Sosumi Combat Logistics Transport | 106,538.32 | FA DHS | 417 | 217 |
| Regular Dropship |
“And finally, we got something special for you, Your Majesty. The boys and girls in the Rapid Reaction Force have been agitating for more offensive roles, arguing that their combination of high speed and relatively low logistics footprint made them ideal for raiding. We decided to model that role, and it worked out quite well. However it requires a very specialized transport to make it viable. Enter, the Coyote-class Fast Attack Transport.” his grin at this point is positively vulpine.
Name | Cost | Mats | HP | A/D | Specials | Yard Type |
Coyote Fast Attack Transport | 83,496.24 | FA DHS | 370 | 220 |
| Regular Dropship |
All in all it is a rather productive meeting.
And then Parliament decides to do their thing (™) (all rights reserved) (you have a headache) (I’ve fallen and I can’t get up) (where’s the beef).
The first bill is rather… well, you had been half-expecting it, half-dreading it, ever since the explosion on Pollux. A number of Delegates, seized with the politicians desire to Be Seen Doing Something About A Crisis in order to loudly pound their chests about Doing Something About A Crisis When Other Side Will Not because obviously this Crisis Is Incredibly Important And Therefore All Who Support Me Are On The Right Side Of History, have decided to introduce legislation flat banning the private ownership, use, sale, or possession of ‘any substance capable of, or a component of a compound capable of, or a component of a mixture capable of, being used to manufacture fireworks’. Every single farmer everywhere promptly facepalms, as do miners, industrial workers, and people with a shred of common sense. The politicians in question, however, are all from safe urban districts where their voters probably think that the food in the grocer’s shows up magically from within the trucks that deliver them.
They are very entrenched, very loud, and very stupid. You’ve had to deal with these morons before, yet they never seem to completely go away.
The idiotic bill is dead on arrival, most Delegates and Senators aren’t nearly as stupid as these idiots, but it still is a waste of your time and energy.
The second bill, however, is a cat of a different coat indeed. It is actually, and yes, you are very surprised by this fact, topical, relevant, helpful, and considerate of potential ramifications. You very nearly drop the bill in shock at this, because it wasn’t written by the Eldest, nor by any of your own parliamentarians. Mirabile Dictu, somebody in the Chamber of Delegates is actually, le gasp, COMPETENT.
The bill in question concerns mineral resource rights in the Asteroid belts. Currently the system is fairly ‘first come, first served’, with the first individual or company who surveys a given asteroid granted mineral rights to mine said asteroid, said rights being transferable. The bill actually addresses several potential problems with such a system, while still incentivizing exploration and mineral claims.
In brief, the bill legally allocates all potential claims, be it for minerals, volatiles, or even bodies large enough to support facilities and potential future settlement, directly and permanently to the Crown, establishes a Crown Commission to oversee these claims, and establishes a fixed process by which prospectors can register their discoveries and thus be granted exploitation licence to said discoveries from the Crown. It quite rationally addresses the adjudication of disputes between prospectors over first discovery, establishing a review process by which the Crown Commission would investigate and make a fair determination in such disputes.
It is a very rational bill, and you kind of like it. However it’s been proposed by the opposition, and there are elements among your supporters who are unwilling to give the opposition any win whatsoever, regardless of how good an idea it is.
[] | Support anyways |
|
[] | Oppose |
|