Vote Results:
*click*
And, in other news, First Prince Hanse Davion has announced the return of the 9th FedCom Regimental Combat Team from the Tortuga Dominions. "Our men and women have worked hard and sacrificed much, but the residents of the southeastern parts of the Federated Commonwealth will no longer have to worry about continuous bandit raids."
"From that source, anyway." Hyena adds.
Tensions continue ratcheting up in the Capellan March as diplomatic repercussions from a repelled Free Worlds League assault on the agricultural world of Gan Singh continued making themselves felt. Federated Commonwealth officials denied reports that they were funding reprisal raids into Free Worlds League territory stating that "unlike our counterparts in the Free Worlds League, we respect the territorial integrity of our neighboring nations."
Scrub rolls her eyes a little bit.
*click*
"... and now, back to Commando: Reprisal, starring Elle McDahlin and Arnold Blankferrer."
"Johnny! Don't you understand what this will do to our family? What it will do to us?"
"Yes, but my country needs me."
"Your son needs you. I... need you."
"The only thing my son needs is a swift kick to the behind and to get a job. And as for you, do you think I do not know that you are sleeping with my best friend?"
*one and a half hours later*
"There is one thing that you forgot... "
"What's that?"
"You need to keep cool!" *blam* *heat sink burst* *screaming*
*Johnny comes staggering out of the mech bay, his rescued daughter helping him stay upright. Hanse Davion walks out of an arriving dropship*
"Johhny, the Federated Commonwealth needs you. I've got an RCT command waiting for you."
"No. I am done with destroying lives. It is time to rebuild them."
Hanse nods. "Sure, Johnny. Until the next time."
*Johnny walks away, smirking as he turns back*
"No. Chance."
*click*
"And here we have Suhayb "LordMortis" Ragheb, the mercenary-turned-Solaris jock, driving his favorite mech, the Hunchback. It's not a big machine, it's not a flashy machine, and it couldn't hit a target out past two-seventy meters, but what it does, it does well. I heard a rumor that he left his previous employer... not because of ethical conflicts or low pay, but because they were considering replacing the autocannon on his mech with a gauss rifle. Now that's dedication, folks."
"And this Quickdraw is in trouble, he just doesn't know it yet. As soon as he comes around that corner LordMortis is going to have him for lunch... and blam, there goes the left torso. No, wait, there goes the whole mech. When those ammo bins go, they go big. Bet he wishes he'd sprung for some of that fancy new cellular ammo storage tech coming out of the Draconis Combine."
"Stay tuned for the post match analysis, this is Duncan Fisher, signing off."
*click* *meow*
December 22, 3042
Yamamoto Forest Preserve
Basalt, Federated Commonwealth (Suns)
Cujo isn't really sure how this exercise is supposed to help the RCT: it's Delta company's Sweep lance and Alpha Company's Urban lance against a whole mess of infantry and tanks (something like 50 units in total), backed up by a short lance of mechs. The infantry and militia units are in the center, while the RCT's units are coming in from the southwest and northeast.
Simulated operations against infantry are always a little weird. We load our MGs and autocannons with paint rounds and our SRM launchers with simulated inferno rounds (giant paint globs). The general rule is, if you get tagged by a mech-launched paint glob in any way, you're "out".
Our job is to take out all the support units in the center of the battlefield, while their job is to prevent us from doing so, but the opposing force is greatly superior in numbers and firepower, if not in troop quality. Alpha-Urban will start the fight off - a Crusader, a Phoenix Hawk 1D, a Blackjack and a Whitworth. Delta-Sweep will join in about a minute after, with Cujo's Wolverine, another Phoenix Hawk, a Griffin 1S and a Cronus.
The main good thing about this for us is that the battlefield is heavily wooded and we've all got jump jets, so it'll be tough for the hostiles to get around while we run or jump circles around them. Until our leg actuators blow out.
Round 1, 2, 3, 4:
Urban-One, Two and Three advance from the north, while Urban-Four in the Phoenix Hawk moves in from the east. We hold off on the jump jets just in case we need them. Our Blackjack snipes at what looks like a fire-fighting mech, blowing off a bunch of weak-looking armor plates, then splatters a couple of infantry guys with its AC/2s.
To the southeast, the Phoenix Hawk takes a large laser to the left torso, but blows the arm off a construction mech. Guess it's good practice for the local mech drivers on "what to do when military units come after your civilian mechs".
Round 5:
"Sweep Three, pick up that loose Vedette. Sweep-Four, get that Drillson." Cujo orders her lance as they make their way onto the battlefield.
Urban lance's Blackjack "destroys" an ordnance transport, while the Phoenix Hawk "hips" the construction mech whose arm it took off previously, although said mech remains upright. Between Cujo and the Cronus, the Drillson gets thoroughly disabled, taking its numerous SRMs out of the equation (it missed all of its shots at Cujo anyway, but...). Cujo looks with some amusement as a Savannah master tries to get around the back of our two mechs, but rams into a tree instead. With a hovercraft that light, that guy's lucky it's still intact at all. Sweep Three, in the Griffin 1S, follows orders fairly well and tags a loose Vedette with lasers (and gives it a light tap with a boot to emphasize the point).
Round 6:
The hostile Commando, for better or worse, has attracted our Phoenix Hawk 1D's attention, and continues taking fire, a large laser to the right torso. The rest of the weapons fire is mostly ineffective, except the Whitworth tagging a couple of infantry APCs with lasers.
Round 7:
Our Blackjack continues its reign of terror over the support vehicles that are staggering through the woods, disabling a coolant truck. Our Whitworth continues working on the mechanized infantry platoon, finishing off every last one of them.
Urban lance's Phoenix Hawk takes another laser from a distant Gladiator, losing most left arm armor, then works on the Loadermech that's decided to charge it, nearly taking off its arm. Cujo sets a fire adjacent to our mech (well, at least the computer flags that forest as being on fire), which ought to improve the smoke cover. Our Phoenix Hawk uses that distraction to kick the loadermech in the leg, knocking it over.
Round 8, 9:
Nothing much interesting, just some infantry getting paintballed.
Round 10:
Our Blackjack disables a MASH truck (well, at least it's only disabled), while our Crusader paintballs a significant number of motorized infantry. Urban Lance's Phoenix Hawk finally finishes off its Commando opponent, legging it with a laser. Our mech takes a kick to the right torso from a "STEVEDORE", whatever the hell that is. Some kind of civilian-model quad mech with absolutely zilch for weapons, but kicks like a mule.
Round 11:
Cujo and the Cronus take apart a construction mech (well, it's perfectly intact, but the simulated damage causes its computer to send it crumpling to the ground). The Cronus pops a flatbed truck mounting an SRM launcher with the large laser as well. To the north, Delta-Sweep's Phoenix Hawk covers a motorized infantry platoon in paintballs, taking them out of the exercise.
Round 12:
The 1D Phoenix Hawk takes a risk, firing up its jump jets, but lands successfully right behind the Gladiator. The enemy mech is capable of taking a little more damage than the pixie's medium lasers can deliver, but ...
The Cronus disables a coolant hover truck trying to sneak away to the north.
Round 13:
In the northern section of the battlefield, our mechs mop up the remaining "active" infantry and an ordnance transport, enabling them to advance south to engage the rest of the hostiles. About time too, as Cujo takes a simulated gyro hit from the Gladiator, along with a head shot (simulated), knocking our Wolverine to the ground.
A Shadow Hawk moves up to engage the Cronus, but gets plastered with lasers and grounded as well.
Round 14, 15:
Cujo gets the Wolverine back up, returning the headshot favor to the Gladiator with a medium laser. Our Cronus continues keeping that Shadow Hawk down on the ground, while the Phoenix Hawk knocks the STEVEDORE over. Repeatedly, until one of its legs comes off (according to the computer).
The Shadow Hawk eventaully gets up, after using its autocannon to brace itself. That doesn't do the autocannon barrel any favors. And then it gets knocked back down anyway.
Round 16:
As our northern elements advance, they finally engage the bulk of the enemy infantry, backed up by a Black Knight and some assorted vehicles. Our Crusader disables an APC with an SRM launcher bolted on top using LRMs, while our Blackjack takes down a Scimitar hovertank that comes out.
Cujo attempts to clear away, but takes a beating and the Wolverine goes down again. No armor breaches, but still pretty annoying. Her parting shot temporarily disables the weapons systems of the Scimitar to the south, though, so there's a little bit of payback.
The Gladiator continues taking a beating from our Phoenix Hawk, with the Cronus joining in as well, but remains upright for now.
Round 17:
Delta Sweep's Phoenix Hawk silhouettes itself on top of a hill and the mechwarrior immediately regrets it, as the Black Knight across the river opens up. Luckily, most of its shots miss, but still. The mechwarrior takes it out on a hapless group of infantry just below the hill, splattering them with paintballs.
To add insult to injury, as Cujo tries to get up, the computer spikes her heat up to indicate that the surrounding woods have been set on fire. As a counter, our Cronus blows the left side off a Harvester Ant that's been lobbing LRMs our way.
Round 18:
Our Blackjack blasts the Gladiator with light autocannon fire from long range. With its left torso section almost gone from previous attacks, the computer declares both the torso and arm gone.
Cujo puts out a litany of un-officer-like curses on the general channel as her Wolverine's foot actuator reports being destroyed by a salvo from a Scimitar hovertank. As her mech teeters and crashes to the ground again, she puts a couple of lasers into the hovertank, immobilizing it.
The "STEVEDORE" stops moving after several of its legs register as disabled.
Round 19, 20:
Cujo just isn't having any luck with getting up, barely managing to get up to a knee.
The main military component of the opfor is finally within weapons range, and a Manticore takes one of our Phoenix Hawks' left arms off with a PPC shot, while a jump infantry platoon manages to jump out of the way of our Cronus' "inferno" SRMs and pelt the same Pixie with small arms fire. A few get tagged by lasers, but overall, that's some good infantry work, Lou.
After we take out an incoming Stinger and a couple more support vehicles, the referees call the scenario in our favor. According to the simulation results, we took some damage, with Cujo's Wolverine eating the worst of it with an engine and gyro hit, while one of our Phoenix Hawks lost an arm. The opposing team lost 20 units total, mostly infantry platoons, support units and industrial mechs, although they also lost a pair of light mechs and a Gladiator heavy (a real historical museum piece, 55 tons and slow but armed like a Phoenix Hawk). An amusing bit is that our Blackjack almost ran out of AC/2 ammo, which basically never happens.
In the after-action debriefing, we've got a chance to point out where the FedCom forces went wrong in this exercise:
[] "Your heavies almost never had a chance to engage us, despite the battle taking over three minutes. They were just too far out of position. You need to re-evaluate your asset defense doctrine."
[] "Your field gunners need better positional discipline. Our mechwarriors observed them relocating very frequently, even within range, rather than firing said field guns. Tell them to chill out."
[] "The planetary militia units need a serious equipment upgrade, they're literally using 500-year-old equipment and industrial mechs in combat roles. What if we were actual Kuritans coming in?"
"On the plus side," Cujo points out,
[] "Whoever was in that Stevedore deserves a medal for being able to sneak up on our Phoenix Hawk"
[] "I'm still pissed I got taken out by a museum piece mech and a hovercraft"
[] "That jump infantry kept their cool despite us setting their cover on fire"