OBT Forum

Neat write up bud, just remember the Aerospace Naming Conventions of the Clans for second line fighters are battles of Alexander the great.

Have to take a more in depth look when i get home but very nice.

I left Mechs out because that would be a titanic job and this was something I thought up in the bath, also I think the Clans would be less willing to let folks poke around in their Mech stockpiles.

But that aside what ya think?

Yea I wasn't meaning in terms of creating designs. Was meaning its an untapped resource for deconstructing for components in new machines or melting down entirely.

I mean why do you need all these old Star League designs sitting around collecting dust. At least C variant them and put them out into the field.

I was trying to find out the amount of troops the Society unleashed but can't find firm numbers anywhere. Now they knew of caches others forgot so I might be giving the Clans grief for nothing.

1 – Use several of the largest Brian Caches and convert them into small factories as was successfully done by Clan Mongoose to produce the Great Wyrm Mech.  These facilities can be used to scrap the old Cached craft and render them down into useful materials for distribution elsewhere.

Don't think this would be a good choice as would flood the market with tons of new designs that would be hard for Clan's to maintain for all the different components needed.

2 – Use the converted Caches to scrap the older craft and use new built facilities to build equipment for immediate redistribution. 

I think this is the top choice.

3 – Use the converted Caches to update the older craft to modern Clan standards.

This is the choice for poorer clans ala Blood Spirit

Intersting!  Now we know that the Kerensky Cluster Civil War was brutal as all hell, and that the Clans would have been using SLDF stuff afterwards for a long time but once they started replacing it during the Golden Age, a lot of SLDF stuff was retired, scrapped or put into storage.

Of the survivors of the Civil War, Clan usage and scrapping, having roughly 1/3 of them left over in storage or in very much tertiary units could be a good ballpark figure.  The rest have gone on to the great Hangar in the sky, better than slowly rusting in peace in the Brian Caches.

But don't forget that with my numbers I just pulled them out of my ass, but they could be useful? If you think I was just blowing smoke, say so I'm not going to be offended

I actually think my numbers are a fair bit high, but wanted to toss out a number to start with.  Considering the devastation of the Hegemony industry and the losses incurred in its reconquest I could see the numbers being decreased to as much as half what I suggested, but there's a huge amount of crunch there and large amounts of cached equipment could go a long way to making up those losses.

Most clans seem to have around 750 ASF (I, in another thread, calculated the Scorpions to have ~800 ASF in 3059 and they are noted as being ASF-lite, iirc).  So that's ~13,000ish ASF among the clans.  In the few clans we actually see TO&Es second line forces seem to make very heavy use of SLDF designs (granted those products were put out before real 2nd line designs were introduced).  So you could see as many as 5,000 SLDF-era ASF in active service - and that's before we start talking about losses over 250 years, which could suggest there shouldn't be any SLDF designs remaining (my suspicions of ~12.33% yearly loss rate for ASF is a massive amount over such a period of time).

I'm not sure what the actual numbers should be, but ~4200 seem a little high, though the difference between serviceable and broken may produce numbers closer to what I would expect.

The Good
1. A review of all Brian Caches would be a good idea marauder648 and so would some sort of effort to bolster second line fighters which the Clans in my opinion under value.
2. Quicksilver has addressed this with some Clans commissioning new aerospace fighters to bolster these reserve formations once neglected but now with the invasion have taken on increasing importance.
3. Your Alexander the Great names while not following the theme exactly as you went weapons not battles work and I like them
4. There would be stored equipment as you describe available to the Clans certainly

The Bad
1. I am leaning towards the recycling of many of these units although I can see some being kept for museums (Goliath Scorpion) or special reserves. Diamond Shark might even advocate selling some. Would the Clans possibly keep them as a proxy prize for ComStar or some other would be challenger? A prize certainly but one with limited value.
2. XL Engines on Quicksilver BattleMechs and Aerospace Fighters are generally a no no. However, there is such a thing as high end BattleMechs which feature XL Engines. I had envisioned these assets serving with tween formations (Diamond Shark Spinas for example) that mix front line and second line equipment. Sort of half way to front line units but also incorporating garrison assets these units
3. Quicksilver Fighters already exist BUT I need to review them so please stand by.....

The Drifting
1. We are getting a little away from the Warship topic and into aerospace here