OBT Forum

I would still keep the fighters in their own Titan C Dropship. Too many eggs in one basket. also, I would have based it on the Colossus dropship, instead of the Overlord. The Colossus weighs in at 20000 tons.

Its not based per say its an upgrade of. i should rewrite that to make it more plain. My other combined arms one was based on Colossus but it couldn't fit a full Cluster without having no storage.

Tactically I think it works better with one strategically it probably isn't

if I was to remove anything it would be the fighters like you suggest.

A huge and terrifying ship for sure.  The only thing I might change is the name, Citadel was a failure (plus Nazi connotations, not even the Clans would want that), so i'd suggest Olympic or Downfall (the two parts of the planned invasion of Japan) but otherwise, damn damn good and I really like the background too.   A bit of a risk of 'all your eggs in one basket' but there's a precident in their past with the Lee/Colossus doing the same role and with the Clan's Safcon rules, such a monster would rarely actually be threatened. 

Although I can see the Inner Sphere gunning for them during REVIVAL in an attempt to get the troops inside, but these big ladies would be heavily escorted for sure, they are not just a tactical resource but a pretty darn useful strategic one too.

Oh it makes perfect sense Unfortunately there's no naming convention with Droppers.  Following Overlord with other invasion/assault based like Bagration, Olympic or Citadel would work fine.  Smaller craft could be battles, Armada, Midway, Tobruk etc, there's thousands to choose from

Well you are trying to deliver a cluster into battle? How is Constellation for a group of stars forming recognizable pattern.

Synonym for Colussus such as Juggernaut

My idea for the Keshig Project was to name them after the different types of bodyguards that the Mongol Khans used. The larger force was the Khevtuul or Night Guard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kheshig

Was bored during a lunch break and did this.

Hope ya folks enjoy

Location – Trell system.
Date 8/04/3050

Thirty six fighters streaked towards their targets ahead of the four DropShips that were accompanying the attack wave.  Captain Jace Lee glanced at his LIDAR, his Stuka was one of the latest ones built, a brand new D6 and its sensors were top of the line.  They told him all he needed to know. His forces were in formation, spread over several hundred klicks, fuel status was good, they were all using droptanks for the approach, saving the internal tanks for the fight to come and hopefully, the journey home.

If there was a journey home that is.  The LIDAR also showed something else that Lee never thought he’d see in his entire military career outside of models and pictures. A WarShip, a honest to God WarShip was burning in system.  It was still several million clicks away and screened by the returns of craft that were undeniably fighters.  Ahead of it though was his target, a mass of fighters  and Droppers, including three simply huge DropShips that easily outmassed the 12th’s Overlords three times over. 

“Cap, who’d these guys say they are again?”
“Jade Falcons, these are the pirates who hit the periphery and Barcelona, intel thinks they have some Star League tech.”
“That explains that bloody ship.”
“She’s not our target today, lets just get these droppers and the 12th won’t have to break out a sweat.”

There was a chorus or replies and Lee looked at the data on his HUD.  There were fighters screening the Dropships, all unknown, of the Droppers only one was ID’d as a ‘Titan’ class Dropship, the others the Tarcom was having problems IDing.  Four were small and the Warbook labelled them as a kind of Leopard, two were roughly ID’ed as Avenger’s, the weight was about right but the look was all wrong from the visual display.  The three big ones though were a mystery, the Warbook kept jumping back and forth between Excalibur and Aqueduct.

“Hey Cap, I heard these idiots asked us for a troop deployment.”
“Heh, yeah, damn weird, CO told them to get stuffed.”
“You think they know about..”
“Guess so, with those big bastards carrying Mechs, there’s a lot of them, they know.”

Everyone knew about Victor Steiner-Davion coming to the 12th Donegal Guards, there had been a big parade and the brass had put on one hell of a show and everyone was proud as all hell that the Prince had chosen their unit.  But now that was a liability, with so little intel on the Clans and them burning hard in system, they HAD to know that the Prince, the heir to the Federated Commonwealth was there, it was too much of a prize to pass up.

“Just makes our choice of targets easier, we’ll go for the big droppers. Gold group, keep their fighters off us for as long as you can. Nike group, focus your fire, don’t get drawn into a dogfight with any escorts, punch through and hit the droppers!”

CJF Inferno

The Citadel class DropShip rumbled as she burned in system and Star Colonel Adler Malthus couldn’t help but grin as he looked at the display screen.

“So it seems these dogs want to fight after all.  They refused our Batchall and if our intelligence is accurate, we have a great prize before us.   Signal Star Captain Jocasta Von Jankmon aboard the Crusader Triumphant, tell he I leave direction of the battle to her. And, as they have refused the honour of a Batchall, she may treat them as the vermin they are.”

The Crusader Triumphant was a Oberon class ship, she would direct the fighters of all three Citadel’s as well as her own compliment as the formation tightened up slightly, the three big dropships forming into a shallow arrow whilst the two Roc assault DropShips moved forwards.    It would be any second…now.

“Holy crap what was that!” 
That was from one of the Seydlitz interceptors leading the 12th Donegal Guard’s fighters into battle, the small fighters scattering like a flock of pigeons as their squadron leaders fighter exploded as some kind of laser hit it and ripped the fighter’s fuel tank apart.  Just well outside the range of anything anyone had seen before.

“All units, break break break! Keep them off our backs and stick to the plan, the big green and yellow bastard’s the target!”

The 12th Donegal Guards Pilots were good, they broke into fighting pairs, jinking and turning for all they were worth as the two fighter formations met.  Jace grunted as he pulled back on the stick, the g-forces shoving him into the ejection seat, missing the hull of the Avenger Tornado as she thundered past, her guns bellowing silent defiance at the Clan craft that were raking her with fire. 

The Stuka’s 'Bitching Betty' was nagging Lee about a target lock and a glance at the rear camera saw a hostile trying to slot onto his six and the three rear mounted medium lasers started spitting ruby bolts into the black as he pulled the big fighter into a sharp turn.  The hostile returned fire, bright green lasers snapping at his fighter’s fuselage.  And then the Clanner was gone in a brief flash before it became an expanding cloud of metal as Lee’s wingman snap turned and let rip, there still wasn’t a fighter around that could take a Defiance Disintegrator salvo to the face. 

“We’ll make one pass, focus fire on the nose and then go for the engines, watch out for defensive fire!”
“Cap! Break left now!”  Lee yanked hard on the joystick, the RCS thrusters firing for all they were worth as they hauled the 100 ton fighter into a tight turn as light filled the space he was just in and something big thundered past him.  It was like someone had taken a Stuka and shortened its neck and made it somehow more aggressive.  The Warbook had no idea what it was, but it was faster than Lee’s Stuka and was already snap rolling away, its weapons blitzing fire into the Avenger FCS Pride of Connaught, the small DropShip already heavily damaged, armour melting off her in rivets as the Clanner fighter’s lasers bit in deep to her wounded flank.  Before Lee could even shout a warning over the radio, the Pride’s flank erupted as her LRM ammo cooked off.  He couldn’t give the death of the ship any more attention though as the threat warning receiver came alive.


Lee had to focus simply on staying alive as he closed the range with the massive dropship that was rapidly swelling in his window even as its defensive armament let rip back filling the space around his fighter with a torrent of bright energy beams and streams of tracer rounds.  The range of the weapons was terrifying, even with the new ‘ER’ stuff the Regiment was testing and getting its Tech’s to learn how to maintain was inferior to these weapons and Lee was throwing the Stuka around for all it was worth, his world shrinking down to the controls, the LIDAR and the incoming fire.

Some kind of particle cannon blast raked along the Stuka’s hull and warning alarms screamed, the big fighter shaking violently from the impact, but the armour held.  Barely.  Shrapnel pinged against the hull as proximity fused shells burst nearby and Captain Lee snarled as he mashed his finger down on the firing button, spitting man-made lighting back at the giant dropship that was trying to kill him. 

But it wasn’t the dropship that killed him.  Captain Jace Lee of the 12th Donegal Guards was so focused on evading the criss-crossing webs of fire from his target and to keep his guns hitting, that he didn’t even see the Scytha slot into his six at less than 200 meters and pour fire into the rear of his fighter.  The Stuka’s armour was flayed by laser fire before the ultra 20 type cannon let rip.  He felt the joystick shake, heard the damage indicators howl and then nothing as the fuel tank ignighted, blowing his Stuka into tumbling debris that would join the battlefield as the Jade Falcon forces bulldozed through their opponents and began dropping on strategic targets on Trell I.

Sweet little short story

Agreed!

Like the Oberon name for a class what is it in your mind