OBT Forum

The integration of the Aurigan Reach in the Taurian Concordat was finally concluded on October 4, 3047, eleven and half years after the Agreement in March 3036.
The changes to the Aurigan side were fewer than one would have expected, mostly because the Aurigan legislation was loosely based on the Taurian one and because we were already partly economically integrated..

However, some problems needed to be addressed. For starters, the fact that there wasn’t a ‘Province’ in the whole Taurian Concordat or anything close to that. After that, that said Province was to be governed hereditary by the Arano-Bassot family also needed to be included into the Taurian law. And many other big or small details, all vital for the good and pacific integration of both realms. Thomas took advantages of the need for so many changes in the Taurian laws to add a few of his owns with some of them being discarded after later review by the Concordat Courts. One of the big problems caused by the integration was that the Arano-Bassot were at the top of the power families, just under the Calderons, something the other families didn’t like very much for obvious reasons. A lot of political soft power and a few behind the scenes negotiations were needed to get the legislation to pass, and even then with a closer margin than Thomas liked or would have thought (which probably meant more troubles ahead of us) Thankfully, for Thomas, the status of the rest of the Reach nobles, already left without much power by Kamea, was not touched upon by the new legislation, and they were considered as the equals of the Concordat ones. On the negative side, all these nobles were a group of unhappy people with some power, that sooner or later would need to be dealt with.
While many problems still existed, the decision to advance with the integration was made from both sides and from history, it was known that wanting  all the problems to be fixed would mean running the risk of the unification never happening. After all, the Federated Commonwealth merge occurred with plenty of problems to be fixed. 
During these eleven years a subtle campaign to win the hearts and minds of the Aurigans (and the Taurians) to the new future was run, with a remarkable success, aided, no doubt by the Aurigan royal family doing everything they could to ease the transaction – they would be governing the province after the unification, had signed the accords, and were not interested in troubles, after all.
The fact that during the past twenty years, first the Bassot companies and in the last decade the Concordat, had invested heavily inside the Reach, also helped. For example the shipyard in Mechdur, that before could barely repair a JumpShip at once, turned before the unification in a full shipyard, starting producing Invaders, while at same time being able to provide maintenance to six JumpShips at the same time. In reality, it had been planed that the first JumpShip should be built before the integration, but the Comstar / HPG Crisis had delayed that. And even if the population of the Reaches might still be lacking the skills to work there, they benefited from all these investments.
With so many things that still needed to be done, it was going to take several decades for the worlds to be fully integrated in the Concordat, but the process that had started eleven years ago, was coming to  a new phase.
The ceremony held for this unification was festive in Taurus, and dignified in Coromodir – understandably, the ruling house had less to celebrate as they adjust changed from the supreme rulers of a nation to rulers – with a superior – of a province.
Soon after, the TDF forces and the Taurian diplomats started to ‘visit’ the free / independent worlds in the area that existed near Detroit and Herotitus. These worlds that the Aurigan Reach had in the past considered too poor to annex and that had mostly been abandoned by the Concordat, the Capellan Confederation or the Magistracy of Canopus long ago, were now from a security point of view, to be absorbed.
After all, it wasn’t a good idea to have independent world inside the Concordat, and unlike the Reach or the investment program going on, they could be taken and brought to better standards without crippling the finances.

Good to see your still working away on this paulo brito!

Outreach
Harlech City
Early 3051
Office of Colonel Natasha Kerensky

Natasha Kerensky and Elizabeth Nichole were in a comfortable looking sofa, sampling the contents of the well equipped whiskey stock of Natasha.
‘So, Nichole, how is it to train the Reachers?’
‘That depends, Natasha. The former Royal Guards, now the Reach Guards, are a standard battalion of moderately competent fanatics, but lacking in imagination and with standard equipment. They take the punishment and might one day improve’.
‘And the little Prince’s pet troops? Are they a decent adversary?’
‘The Revenants? God, they are a nightmare. They have hardware you don’t find in other forces, Battle Armor, almost a battalion of these buggers, Fighters armed with AAM and AShM variants of Arrow IV missiles,  a lot of EW equipment and other things that nobody has.  And they are starting to know how to use them.’
‘Well, everyone is starting to produce these new toys, it is just a matter of time before we also get some. I’m confident that you will find a way to overcome these toys.’
‘Well, while everybody is indeed starting production of these, and the key word is starting, the Revenants have already plenty of them and are developing a doctrine to use them and they have used us to test it and train their personnel. They also have  another variant of the Arrow IV,  the FASCAM one, that deploy minefields on demand. Real nasty, until now I have see that one at ‘home’. On top of that, they also have a new arty smoke shell. This one also messes with IR, Radar and Lidar. Some of my techs think they use a mix of hot, persistent particles, magnetic ones and a new type of aerosol with a real impact on Lidar systems. They successfully mixed all these in a single warhead and when fired in numbers, they turn your forces almost blind. They like to use them just before launching an ambush or to stop a rush.
‘I see I need to arrange some exercises against them, I always liked a challenge. Something more to report?’
‘The troubles begin in space, with these heavy Fighters loaded with their special missiles, they can defeat many invaders there. After that, they have these armed satellites and SDS lite forts with Naval Lasers. I’m telling you, only a force with WarShip support could invade a world like that. And that is just the beginning.’
‘Oh? Tell me more.’ said Natasha refilling the cups.
‘The Revenants have a bigger than normal Aerospace Fighter component. All, even the light ones are armed with these dammed missiles. On top of that, in the atmosphere, they use some modified old cargo planes, with DropShips like sensors and comms, that give them better sensor range and allow for better coordination of the Fighters. Normally they are very fragile, but you can’t get to them. If you try, you end in a trap against Heavy ASF with plenty of these triple dammed missiles. I only  was able to win against them a few times.’
‘New toys and new doctrine. I see the Little Prince has been busy.’ commented Natasha.
‘Don’t tell me. As soon as they achieve air domination, they deploy high altitude – out of the range of ground weapons – high endurance drones, with passive sensors, IR and neutrino detectors my techs speculate so that they can detect our forces anywhere.’
‘Have you tried scenarios without them having air domination?’ asked Natasha after a bit.
‘Yes, they are eager to try these also. No good. It is slightly better, because they don’t deploy these radars, but our own aerospace forces couldn’t do much as they deploy a lot of Leclercs in the flak configuration supported by Valis with SAMs. My aerospace forces hates the Revenants by now. They are trounced most of the time.’ said Nichole with a melancholic air.
‘And other than the these bad news, what new surprises do they have in stock?’ asked Natasha, after emptying the cup and with an interested look.
‘Let me see… They love arty. Between these smoke shells and minefields on demand, they can stop any assault very fast. Trying to destroy it is complicated as it is very mobile  and always protected by strong forces. They like to use the new Leclerc variants for that, one that is equipped with a Gauss Rifle and can do nasty things to the Light ‘Mechs sent against the Arty. Somehow, they also have a new heavy camo net, that can help conceal the tanks way better than the normal ones.’ said Nichole, taking the bottle and refilling her cup.
‘And on the ’Mechs side? Also bad news?’
‘Apart from the fact that they have a lot of them equipped with Beagle or Guardian ECM units, and  that they most of the time refuse decisive battles, not so much. The Prince as you like to call him, prefer to send fast units to deal with our depots and kill us with a thousand cuts strategy. He has modified some of the Maultier hovers to fast carry battle-armor, using them to execute said raids to destroy our depots. The silver lining is that they are just starting using that new doctrine and toys, so, we got them several times because of failed coordination, wrong sense of timing everything that happens when you are not yet proficient in a job.’
‘Ouch.’ said Natasha with a sympathetic look ‘and how did the Arano-Bassot behave on the battlefield?’
‘Only the daughter fought. Kamea is busy ruling the Province, and Jean-Luc is more in the HQ, coordinating his brainchild. But I have seen both in the range and they are good, very good in fact. The young one is not bad for her age and experience, piloting one of these new Toro ’Mechs they started to deploy which is basically an advanced Wolfhound with jump-jets. By the way, my ’MechWarriors want to get some of these.’
‘What I think is strange, is that they are showing you, well us, so much new hardware and their new doctrines. Normally these are state secrets, not show in front of mercenaries, much less ones that are resident in another nation.’
‘Oh, the Prince, wants us to know his ideas, he calls them Air-Land Battle 3050  and he want your and Jaime’s input. In fact, he asked to know what you both think about the results if they were to be used against forces from Home.’ looking intensely at Natasha, Nichole continued ‘I think that the Prince considers a serious possibility that an invasion will take place in the near future.’
‘So, he knows something and is preparing. That makes sense in a way. The Revenants are gearing to a very different kind of warfare and we need to adapt or be left behind.’ Said Natasha refilling her cup again. ‘Any bright-side on that depressing report, Nichole?’
‘Some. For starters, we are a better unit than the Revenants, if you remove the fancy toys and novel doctrine. They are still adjusting / learning to implement it and several times it failed. It is  also very expensive to implement and much of that demand that they obtain early air supremacy. My suggestion is that we invest in EW and enlarge our aerospace arm. We also need to advance with our Battle Armor program faster.’
Wolfnet analysis and conclusions – no recommendations at this time

Technologies that started to be produced by several nations.

Battle-armor
AAM Arrow IV
SAM Arrow IV

Technology / designs used by Comstar / Terra / WoB / Taurian Concordat

PA(L)

Technology / designs only used by the TDF / Revenants - The Revenants because of their close association with VMI get almost all the Concordat tech early on
AWACS - cargo plane with DropShips class sensors and comms suit. It is not a factory made conversion, more a field modification, probably made by the V4RU VMI department. Only one observed.
Drones - long endurance not manned drones that fly at altitudes higher than any ’Mech weapon can reach with IR and Neutrino passive sensors. Factory made, only 3 observed. Probably prototypes / first production run for field test. Numbers show not enough for a continuous field survey.
Heavy / advanced camo net -  similar to late SLDF Royal models, but apparently a bit more advanced.
FASCAM - minefields deployed by arty / Arrow IV.
Advanced 'smoke' shells - smoke shells with hot particles + magnetic particles and a mix of improved aerosol that do a mess to any laser system (Lidar, rangefinder, or other)
Maultier BA - modified Maultier hover transport modified to move Battle Armours Factory made models.
AShM Arrow IV - very good to destroy DropShips, outside the range of said DropShips weapons.

While other nations use passive deployed sensors, the Revenants use more and more advanced ones.
Note – While the Revenants are integrated in the TDF after the merging of the Aurigan Reach with the Taurian Concordat, they still have a considerable margin of independence.
Wolfnet considers unusual that the Revenants show so much new hardware and doctrine to the Wolf’s Dragoons. It seems  that for unknown reason, the decision makers from the Taurian side or the Arano-Bassot regents want this knowledge and their capabilities to be known and understood by us.

I always wanted to do a warship salvage program for the Great Houses at the time of the invasion rather than just build new. As you study the old memory core wouldn't be good to try to restore some of the old derelicts sitting around your empire? It stands to reason that a few were in poor shape as a result of the Succession Wars but with the Gray Death discovery working its way around why not try to restore some of your old fleet before or while building new??

The Federated Commonwealth, sick of the pirate attacks launched from the Tortuga Dominions, finally decided to settle the matter once and for all.
The Lexington Combat Group brigade was sent, with extensive support from CV DropShips, assault DropShips, the first Pocket WarShips built in the FC - Overlord A-3 - and the two Mako Corvettes, that fortunately had just undergone a complete refit.
A large group of space marines, special forces, and several tug-class DropShips were also sent.
A force perhaps excessive to eliminate pirates, even considering the size of the groups that operated from Tortuga, but the AFFC Navy took advantage of the occasion and the fact that it was a relatively low intensity operation, far from the usual opponents eyes, to test new doctrines and gain much needed combat experience.

Note: Because in this AU the collaboration between the FC and the DC don't exist (no Clan invasion so far) the Overlord A-3 has 2 AR-10 tubes instead of 1 AR-10 and 1 Kraken-T.

The operations started with almost simultaneous emergence at both Nadir and Zenith jump-points of Tortuga Prime. At each site, one Mako Corvette accompanied by an Invader JumpShip carrying 1 Overlord A-3, 1 Avenger and 1 Leopard CV exited hyperspace and quickly took control of the present JumpShips and the few forces that the pirates had locally.
Two hours later, the rest of the invading force emerged at the Nadir jump-point, and immediately headed for Tortuga Prime III.
Even though the operations at the jump-points was very favorably to the Federated Commonwealth, at least one pirate JumpShip was stationed at a pirate jump-point, very close to the planet and because they detected the invasion in time, managed to escape.
The rest, even if they fought viciously and with the energy of despair, knowing well what was waiting for them, had no chance. The mercenary unit in charge of this operation had recently modernized their equipment, and easily won total space and air superiority. Paula Trevaline's body was taken from the wreckage of her Banshee, Lady Death.
This situation was repeated in the other five systems of Tortuga Dominions - Morgan's Holdfast, New Port Royal, Fletcher's Feast, New Hati and New Gascony. For some obvious reasons, the few pirates that escaped each time did not alert their fellow groups in the other systems of the Dominion, preferring to depart to distant and safer places at full speed, rather than facing once more the Federated forces (I guess this is what you get when you use a hammer to smash a nut with a sinking morale). In the end, only 3 JumpShips carrying half a dozen DropShips escaped destination unknown. Several thousands of slaves were liberated, about a dozen JumpShips and two dozen DropShips were captured in diverse state, some needed parts and a tender ship with skilled technicians to be operational again, but that could be arranged.
Note: In this AU, there was no 'clean-up' operation in 3042, executed by 9th FedCom RCT – at that time the FC was distracted with the HPG Crisis. And as such, Paula Trevaline is the leader of the pirates in 3051, when this operation is executed.

Following up, several regiments of militia / second rate units took home on the just conquered planets, and a half supported program of colonizing the 6 systems started with some terraforming and water purification systems being delivered.

How does the Taurian Concordat know about this ?
During the last decade the ex-agents of MIM that moved to the Reach had started a school in seduction, compromising and infiltration, to be attended by selected members of the Reach Intelligence – very beautiful woman with the right mentality. This school was later expanded to the full Taurian Concordat, and a full collaboration with TMI  started.
One of the best results was the seduction and subsequent compromising of a high level clerk with very high classified clearance in New Avalon. The information of said source was transmitted back to the Concordat via selected JumpShips of the growing Taurian commercial fleet, that routinely visit the Federated Commonwealth.

Several studies and simulations showed that although the Taurian WarShips were better defended than the SLDF ones against Aerospace Fighters (including those carrying Alamos), they still needed increase defenses to stand a chance to survive against a determined adversary.
While having a lower range and power than the capital missiles and without the capability of being armed with nukes, the Arrow IV SAMs were still very effective against ASFs.  They were also much cheaper and took a lot less of volume and mass compared to the more conventional options. And until the heavy AMS systems reached production phase (which was still a long way to go), they were the best defense option available.
ABRD (Arano-Bassot Research and Development), based on Coromodir, was working on adapting the tracking and targeting systems of the AMS to be used with Pulse and ER Lasers. The difficult part was to let the weapons switch from AMS mode to the ‘normal’ one and vice-versa. If / when successful, these systems could be used in WarShips and DropShips, to defend them against all kind of missiles from SRMs and LRMs, to Arrow IV anti-ship, or even capital missiles, greatly improving the defenses of said Ships. While very promising, the program still had several problems to resolve.
Because of this, a change in the configuration of the new Winchester II Heavy Cruiser was submitted just before it entered production, changing the layout of the weaponry.

Winchester II - final weapon configuration
Capital Weapons - 11 NL55, 4 NAC/30, 8 NAC/20, 2 NAC/10, 6 AR10 Launcher
Secondary Weapons - 16 ER Medium Laser, 22 ER Large Laser, 20 LB 10-X AC, 12 Arrow IV SAM
At the same time, all WarShips models, including the ones already in service (except the low-cost Pinto) also received 12 Arrow IV SAM, to substantially increase their defenses against ASFs.
This change was not well received by the shipyards as it would create  delays in the construction of the first WarShips with all the needed changes in planning and logistics, without forgetting increases in the costs.

Meanwhile, things were moving ahead on the political front too. The immense power that the Arano-Bassot family had in the Concordat was not seen with good eyes by the other groups, with the exception, of course, of the ruling family. This led to continued protests, and in order to calm down the situation, Thomas ended up withdrawing the New Vandenberg government from Jean-Luc and hand it over to one of his most influential supporters groups that was against the situation.
Jean-Luc and Kamea, who had been waiting a long time for this to happen, were neither surprised nor offended by the position Thomas had to take, viewing it as a necessary measure to maintain power. Just as it was clear that it did not affect Jean-Luc's position in the various companies in which he had a stake, this being much more important for the family.
The exception being the Arano-Bassot shares in the New Vandenberg shipyard, that they are also ‘forced’ to sell to a conglomerate controlled by the politicians that had forced the relinquish of the government of the same system. The Arano-Bassot family, instead of fighting that in the tribunals, accepted the deal pacifically and immediately invested the received funds in the shipyard in the Mechdur system. That group also wanted to buy the Arano-Bassot shares in VMI, but they didn’t have enough funds for that after having to buy the shares of the family in the shipyards. For now. They had a lot of political pull and financial might, but not enough money to pay for it. Their goal was to  keep the Arano-Bassot within the Reach province.
However, their plan would lead them to nothing as in the last decade, Jean-Luc had used his influence and Kamea tax incentives and in some cases subsidies, to attract several Taurian companies in the Reach to create branches, if possible in Coromodir V, the former planet of the Espinosa family now fully controlled by the Arano-Bassot family.

The TMI was also getting better at finding info about the other powers even in the Inner Sphere.
For example, in recent years the intensity and severity of attacks by pro-Capellan guerrilla groups on the worlds that the Concordat had captured in the war in the 3030s, had increased substantially.
Unfortunately for the Concordat, their security forces had little experience in counterinsurgency operations (COIN). Only in Ward, which had been captured by the Reach, was the situation slightly better. This was due to the fact that due to years of having to deal with pro-Espinosa fanatics, Reach security forces had more experience in COIN operations.
During their regular exchanges with the  MIIO, the TMI discovered that the same thing was happening in the Sarna March, Romano Liao had clearly adopted a different strategy this time, one that made raids in retaliation unlikely.
On November the 2nd, of 3051, Hanse Davion suffered a mild heart attack. Although he recovered almost completely, he was forced to reduce his work rate substantially, with Melissa Steiner-Davion taking over many of her husband's duties. At that time, Victor Steiner-Davion who was on active duty in the  12th Donegal Guards RCT, had been called back to New Avalon, but it was apparently decided that he would not take the throne before gaining more experience.
Curiously, around the same time, Katherine Steiner-Davion also entered NAIS for prolonged medical treatment, but it was not specified for which illness.
Rumors were that the AFFC had started to field ’Mechs equipped with more variants of Ultra and LBX cannons – LBX-2, 5, and 20 and Ultra 2, 10 and 20. So far none had been confirmed, but if one took in consideration the ‘love’ the Davions have for ballistic weapons, it has to be expected.

The TMI confirmed that all nations had initiated searching programs where there had been ancient naval battles, apparently looking for wrecks of WarShips that were possible to recover. At the moment, they had no information on the results, only that the ongoing searches were extensive.

TTI (Taurus Territorial Industries), a long time adversary of VMI, now had a solid support in the political group that opposed the Arano-Bassot family inside the Concordat, heavily lobbying for selling their own production to the TDF and the militia.

The principal focus of the company had been  in the last decades the aerospace and vehicles divisions, with their ‘Mech department being neglected. However, in the last years of the 40s they had upgraded their production and assembling lines and by now, they were able to produce not only the brand new and advanced Assault ‘Mech, having got the contract for the Pillager -PLG-3Z but also Locust (1V) and Wasp (3A), while still producing older designs. Thanks to their investments, they were able to produce about 10 new ’Mechs per month, on each line.
But their true jewel was the new Wolverine WVR-7TC, replacing the old 6R line. A brand new variant, the result of the in-house research team and  a very capable medium even if a bit too ammo dependent.
The engine had been replaced by a XL model and the armor upgraded to FF, while both torso sides received CASE. For weapons the SRM-6 was kept, while the Medium Laser was replaced by a Pulse one and the AC/5 by a Gauss Rifle.  The Heat Sins were also upgraded to 10 Freezers, turning the ’Mech in an oversinked one, capable of pushing its limits even in the most demanding grounds. The only limitation was that both the SRM-6 and the Gauss Rifle only had one ton of ammo each.
After evaluating the first prototype, the TDF ordered two changes before it would buy some. They wanted the Laser to become an ER one and the Gauss Rifle ammo to be increased to two tons. The changes were easy to implement and once done, the TDF immediately bought the entire first year of production.
The cheap Wasp and Locust were bought in bulk by the TDF to fill the quotas of Light ‘Mechs in several units and the rest was sold to Militia units or exported, for cash strapped mercenaries that needed ’Mechs but didn’t have the money for the most expensive ones.
Pinard Protectorates Limited (PPL), that already produced the Toro II under license, started the production of several variants of the Phoenix Hawk. The budget one was the standard PXH-1, the other two were the PXH-TC1, that removes both machine guns and respective ammo, upgrading the Heat Sinks with Freezers, while upgrading the Laser to an ER one while adding a Small Laser and a Beagle Active Probe. The TC2  only differed from the TC1 by exchanging the BAP for a Guardian ECM Suite.
Continuing their long policy of cross-licensing with VMI, PPL traded the licenses of these ’Mechs in exchange for the rights to produce the Jack II and the Colibri (the PA(L) produced by VMI), also with Coromodir Heavy Industries, even if for now VMI and CHI didn’t have the budget to start the production of new lines.
Several mercenary units with long-term contracts with the TDF like Gordon’s Armored Cavalry were also offered to become house units, meaning that by early 3052 the number of mercenary formations inside the Concordat was at an all-time low, none bigger than a battalion.

At the same time, Jean-Luc found evidences in the files from the Taurian R&D that decades ago a team had found out a leak towards making sub-capital weapons and even produced some workable models. After the mandatory cursing, he began working on securing the funds needed to produce these weapons while passing the information to the teams working on WarShips and Pocket WarShips.


Note.: ‘Mech production in the Taurian Concordat in mid 3052
Light - Jenner (DHS), Toro II (Wolfhound F-2 with FF, ES and JJ), Stinger (3R), Locust (1V), Wasp (3A)
Medium - Shadow Hawk (DHS), Griffin TC (ERPPC, LRM10, 2ML, DHS), Talos II (2ERLL, 4ML, DHS), Phoenix Hawk (-1, TC1, TC2)
Heavy – Archer (4M), Marauder (2R), Warhammer (7A), Penetrator TC (2 more DHS and ECM), Thunderbolt (5Sb)
Assault - Marauder II TC (2ERPPC, 2ML, 2LRM10, JJ), Hellfire (2ERPPC, 2LPL), Shogun (2H), Pillager (3Z)