Clan Fighters and Doctrine – thoughts and ideas.
In the centuries of their isolation the Clan’s military doctrine massively drifted away from the combined arms approach of its SLDF progenitors and in turn this changed the Clans military from top to bottom, ultimately crystalizing in their Zellbringen honour system, Trials and Bidding.
Doctrine to quote NATO is "Fundamental principles by which the military forces guide their actions in support of objectives. It is authoritative but requires judgement in application"
And whilst the Clans military is very rigid for the most part we see different levels of adherence to Zell to outright deviations of it that are barely accepted. Some Clans stuck with Zell no matter what others played it loose, often to their benefit whilst some, like the Hellions evolved their own ideas on how it should be, often influenced by their own doctrinal ideas.
But as a whole, the Clans doctrinal ideas could be said to be at least derived from Blitzkrieg, where you use speed and firepower to overwhelm an opponent and break up any resistance which can then be cut off and destroyed piecemeal. This is mostly done through the application of superior firepower and technology, combined with generally superior personnel and the fights would be short, sharp but very violent.
This shows itself in Clan Mech’s being gun heavy but ammo light, it’s enough for a short battle but as the Clans had not waged a true Campaign against a foe for a long time, and because their doctrine and ideology were folded into one, the Clans learned how to fight battles but forgot how to fight wars.
Wars are not just decided by the side with the biggest guns and the most advanced equipment, but built on the foundations laid down by logistics and supply and here the Clans fall flatter than the Wehrmacht in World War II. Ammunition constraints were not a problem in Clan Trials as they probably wouldn’t last long enough, and if both sides were expecting a longer fight, then they just configured their Mechs with energy weapons.
The Clans also assumed that their Inner Sphere opponents would fight by their rules, which echoes Ancient Japanese Samurai in the first few battles against the Mongols. Warriors would declare their intent, stating their challenge, only to be riddled with arrows by the Mongols who wouldn’t give two figs for the way the Japanese wanted to fight.
The Zellbrigen mindset and the Trial system of combat shaped the Clan’s war machine and many of the 3050 designs are monuments to it, with Clan Mechs generally outrunning, outgunning but not out lasting their opponents and this was the same in the air and space of the Inner Sphere and Homeworlds.
Omnifighters – Short legged attack dogs.
Clan fighters worship two gods, firepower and speed, with all other considerations quite secondary. Until later books came out there wasn’t a single Spheroid fighter that could match its Clan equivalent in terms of firepower or speed. But this came at a cost in terms of protection and endurance.
In modern parlance the Clan fighters are an interceptor. Their job is to go up, remove a threat, come down to refuel, go up again, repeat and rinse. Obviously the OmniPod technology renders such role defining terms obsolete, their limited fuel tanks between 3 – 5 tons of fuel at the most, mean that Clan fighters tend to lack endurance, much like traditional interceptors had in the 1960s – 1980s. Indeed, whilst as Inner Sphere fighters weight goes up, so too does their fuel bunkerage with them adopting 5 tons of fuel in many light fighters and even more in some, the opposite is true of the Clans, with them being common with the Sulla onwards, both the Jagatai and Sabutai drop to 4 and then 3-ton fuel tanks respectively. Even the Jengiz and Scytha only have 4-ton fuel tanks and this limits their loiter time compared to the roomier tanks on Spheroid fighters, especially when you take the higher speed and thus fuel consumption of Clan fighters into account.
Most Clan fighters also lack armour protection compared to their Spheroid equivalents. For example, the 60-ton Gotha and Stingray both rival or exceed the Visigoth, Jagatai or Sabutai and the Clan fighters make extensive use of ferro-aluminium to save weight and increase protection. This may well have come from the fact that with how potent the Clan’s guns are, armouring a fighter against them would come at too great a cost to firepower or performance as one or both would have to be sacrificed to add a suitable level of protection to proof them against Clan weaponry.
But in return for limited endurance and thin armour, Clan fighters are generally very well armed, with many of their heavy or assault fighters packing enough firepower to make Assault DropShips and WarShips not only sit up and take notice, but make panicked and distressed noises as well. With their superior technology the Clans have a range and firepower advantage and most fighters, once they can take heavier weapons immediately take advantage of this. As an example, the Avar prime’s ER large laser can threshold any fighter in service save the monstrous Hydaspes, and it wasn’t until many years later when the Eisensturm made its debut that the Inner Sphere had a fighter that could withstand a hit from an ER large laser without suffering internal damage. At short to mid-range, a trio of medium pulse lasers can also punch through many larger fighters hides or help in strafing attacks, whilst a Streak 6 is waiting to fill any holes made. All this on a 35-ton fighter. But as weight goes up, the Scientists just seemed to pile more and more weapons onto a fighter, regardless of it being able to effectively use them. Let us use the Turk Prime as an example. This 50-ton craft mounts a pair of ER PPCs and a pair of ER large lasers and only has 14 double heatsinks. At the ranges the Turk can engage it has to use half its guns, reducing the others to dead weight for a full alpha strike would almost certainly shut the fighter down and risk a loss of control and a crash. The larger Jagatai also mirrors this with a pair of ER PPCs and large pulse lasers as well as an LRM-20 firing forwards. Fortunately, it also has 18 double heatsinks but it still largely reduces up to 12-tons of forwards firing armament irrelevant and this comes at the cost of limited endurance and thin armour for a 70-ton craft.
All this, to me, speaks of fighters that are, like their Mech counterparts, built to win a fight and win it very quickly trading durability and endurance for a massive punch and higher performance curve. And this works well in the Clans highly regimented and structured style of combat laid out and adhered to in their doctrine. And it all comes falling apart when asked to fight in a war.
Striking from an unexpected angle in REVIVAL and in some cases facing opponents who would fight according to an interpretation of Clan styles of combat greatly benefitted the invaders. Against poorly defended targets or opponents caught utterly by surprise the Clans were able to quickly secure what would become the Occupation Zones, but when asked to fight for longer than a few hours or sticking to Zell when their opponents were not out of a misguided sense of superiority caused the Clans troubles. Forced into a high operating tempo, Clan fighters and Mech’s quickly found themselves running out of ammunition or fuel, forcing them back to supply points or bases to refuel and rearm, and this in turn meant that more fuel and ammunition was being used, far more than even the most pessimistic expectations of some of the Invader’s leadership. With limited logistic facilities and a supply chain six months long from the Homeworlds to the Inner Sphere, it’s no wonder than the Clans were forced to halt and stop to recuperate and take stock of what they now held, even as their war machine was parched for want of fuel and munitions.
The Quicksilver program is working to fix some of these flaws, but we can assume that major structural changes like enlarged fuel tanks would not be permitted, nor would changes to a crafts cooling systems, which in turn leaves the designers working with the weapons to get the best out of the craft. But still, these short-legged craft are going to need to be replaced and the Clans would have to accept the delay in switching over production as a necessary evil to get longer legged and more survivable craft into action. The battle for a world can be won in space and in the air over a planet, the SLDF knew this, the House Lords know this, the Clans will have to re-learn it.
