Turn 61 - There’s Men of the Cross and the Hammer
You receive some grim news in a dispatch from Nowa Warszawa. An elementary school in a neighborhood that was predominantly former Kuritans has been firebombed and shot up in a drive-by attack by apparent Home Army extremists. A hundred and twenty three kids are either dead or in the hospital with life threatening injuries and a splinter faction of the Home Army has declared responsibility, announcing that they will not cease their attacks until all Kuritans and former Kilburrough slaves are exterminated.
Local law enforcement is already on the case, the garrison has mobilized to assist in the hunt, and mainstream leaders from the Home Army have already unequivocally condemned the attack. Several of the attackers had already, as of the time of the dispatch, been captured or killed resisting capture.
The swift response seems to have prevented any tit-for-tat responses, for now at least, but it appears that the underlying conflict on Nowa Warszawa is still simmering, despite most parties desiring it to simply go away there are lunatics and fanatics who would love to stir the pot.
You also receive a report about an attempted pirate attack on Calliope IV. 2
Tramp jumpships have been captured and the pirates wiped out. Both vessels are former DCMS and based on computer files found on board had been traded to the pirates in exchange for large numbers of pirate ASFs. The two jumpships were in nearly pristine condition despite their great age, as the younger of the two vessels is over three centuries old.
The survey missions to GX-C9 and New Capricorn have been dispatched, the first reports are expected in several months.
The two
Caravel jumpships in service are seeing very heavy use ferrying goods and people about. Indeed, your entire Jumpship fleet is extremely stressed, with all vessels in constant use to support operations and the economy. Engineers have developed a dedicated Jumpship production yard system that is far less flexible than the current shipyard design. Effectively, each ‘yard’ module would be able to build a single type of Jumpship and nothing else, albeit a bit slower than the current yard. The upside is that the yard module itself is far faster to build and is 100% stand alone.
Type | Cost to Build/Time to Build | Production Time |
Caravel Yard | $20,000,000/1 Year | 4 years |
- Advantages of conventional modular yard for Jumpship production
- Less expensive to build overall
- More flexible, can build any Jumpship class that can fit in the yard bay
- Faster, average construction time is 2 years
- Advantages of dedicated unitary yard for Jumpship production
- Quicker to construct the yard itself (1 year as opposed to up to 10 years for the first Jumpship slip)
The Imperial Senate is not very appreciative of the PR offensive you undertook to ridicule their power grab, with a number of very irate Senators whining that it is just not cricket for the Empress to do so, before being promptly smacked down by being directly confronted over the power grab itself and their self-aggrandizing power play. Needless to say, the Senate gets a rather bloody nose in the public eye. Of course, the Eldest doesn’t help soothe their egos when he adopts the classic Grifftiger smug ‘I told you so and you should have listened to me’ stance, while licking his claws and generally looking like the smuggest giant tiger that ever smugged… smugly.
But now it is time for your favorite yearly entertainment. Budget time! Now with more Thanh action!
General Stewart leads things off. “Your Majesty, as always I will be begging for more expansion of production capacity, for mechs, dropships, and strategic materials. Since General Griffith is off on Ravenna, I will also be handling ground forces.”
She takes a deep breath. “We can build 4 each of Heavy or Assault Mechs, and Light/Medium Mechs, regiments that is. We recommend the following.”
- 3 Light Horse Regiments to complete the 2nd Infantry Division
- 1 Pathfinder Regiment to complete 1st Brigade, 3rd Armored Division
- 1 Assault Regiment to complete 5th Brigade, 3rd Armored Division
- 3 Standard Mech Regiments to begin filling out the line forces of the 3rd Armored
“For conventional forces, the recent unrest on Nowa Warszawa has led to requests from local commanders for additional Colonial Divisions to be deployed there, and the TTP is requesting a second Colonial Division as well. In addition we would like to start building up 3rd Infantry. Therefore we are requesting the following.”
- 6 Colonial Mechanized Regiments
- 6 Colonial Cavalry Regiments
- 12 Colonial Infantry Regiments
- 7 CAS Regiments
- 4 Armored Regiments
- 4 Mechanized Regiments
“In addition, we believe it is time to start building up the Imperial Guard once more. To that end, we propose the procurement of a single new Imperial Guard Regiment to get the process started.”
She takes a seat, as General Reyes fires up her Powerpoint. You’re tired of making mental jokes about Powerpoint after all these years, the good general still hasn’t learned just how much you loathe seeing that damn logo.
“Your Majesty, we have 2 new carriers commissioning this year and will require a pair of Assault Carrier Wings for them to provide them with the desired striking power. In addition we would like to procure a second Planetary Defense Wing to beef up our defenses of the TTP. Finally we would like to station a Training Wing in the TTP to allow us to recruit from that pool of manpower in the future.”
Then it’s your daughter’s turn, and she’s quite obviously not all that pleased to be stuck in the CNO slot. “Your Majesty, we have multiple priorities at this time. In order, now that we have the capability, we would like to begin construction of
Oasis II Heavy Recharge Stations at the Griffon Zenith point, the Nowa Warszawa Zenith point, and the Calliope Zenith point. We also are now responsible for orbital security for the TTP and the easiest way to accomplish this is to procure a pair of
White Tower orbital fortresses to place in Planetary Orbit. This will require additional ASF acquisitions as well. We are waiting for full survey information, but we would also recommend placing a
White Tower at the New Capricorn Zenith point in order to strengthen our defenses against pirate attack.”
She checks her notes. “As for Dropship procurement, I intend to follow through with Admiral Benjamin’s plans to retire our older platforms. To that end we are recommending the following procurements.”
- Standard Dropships (24 slips)
- 24 Bainbridge class Parasite Destroyers
- Large Dropships (18 slips)
- 8 Independence class Parasite Carriers
- 5 Shannon class Parasite Cruisers
- 5 Majestic class Parasite Battleships
- Retirement of
- All Troodon class vessels
- Upon completion of this years building program
- All Lightning class vessels
- All Warrior class vessels
- All Tyrannosaurus class vessels
- All Megaraptor class vessels
- All Devastation class vessels
“All retired vessels will be transferred either to the reserve fleet here in the Griffon system, made available to planetary militias, or transferred to the Aerie for training purposes.”
She looks up from her notes. “In the future I intend to reduce our combat dropships to the
Bainbridge,
Shannon,
Majestic and
Independence classes only, retaining HMS Renown and the
Royal Sovereigns for special duties only. The PGL and PPG types will be retained for now, but without any new construction of either. The
Bainbridge is the smallest dropship that is fully combat worthy, lesser vessels are just nibbling around the edges and are too vulnerable to justify.”
She then sits down rather primly, and General Stewart returns to the podium. “In light of future procurement, we recommend upgrading our ASF production, Mech production, and all strategic materials. We are especially bottlenecked on Ferro Carbide, Ferro Aluminium, and Ferro Fibrous, with a lesser bottleneck on Endo Steel.”
Bridget is as bouncy as ever. “Your Majesty, we have developed a unitary
Caravel production yard that can be built in a single piece. Production efficiency is approximately half that of our usual yards, and they are extremely specialized, but they only take a single year to build, allowing us to rapidly boost our production numbers of 4 collar jumpships. Other than that, we stand ready to build whatever you need us to build, wherever you need us to build it!”
Once the Bouncy One sits down, Isoroku takes her place at the podium. “Your Majesty, now that we have HPG capability, I would like permission to open negotiations with both the NRI and the NRR to place HPG facilities in their territory, under our control. This will allow us much faster communication with our allies, with all of the attendant benefits.” He pauses, checking his notes. “In the meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture recommends holding a benefit concert for the victims of the violence on Nowa Warszawa.”
Jake doesn’t bother going to the podium. “Your Majesty, we’d like to see about boosting our support within Parliament, but more importantly we recommend broadening our focus on educational improvements to Calliope IV and the TTP.”
Mary is absent, dealing with some issues in the labs on Nowy Gdansk. Her assistant is present, however. “Your Majesty, we have three research teams ready and waiting. While it is tempting to focus on low hanging fruit, we have a Warship yard coming online next year, and no Warship’s to build in it. We would like to strongly recommend that all three teams are assigned to work on Compact Core technology, so that in five years we’ll be able to start laying down and building our own Warships.”
Harry is off in the TTP working with local COINTEL people, he left a memo advising that he’ll have new recommendations next year, but that this year he recommends simply holding course.
Jane is looking tired but happy, the legal reviews and such she is working on are fun for her. “Your Majesty, the only thing I’d recommend is to consider creating a regulatory framework for commercial jumpships, which will significantly ease the burden on our military fleet by allowing commercial interests to build their own.”