OBT Forum

In Luthien, discussions regarding the next step to take led to the conclusion that it was best at the moment to concentrate offensive operations against the Smoke Jaguars. Not only had the IlKhan been one of them, but they had also been the Clan that had led the invasion - at least in the Draconis Combine.
It was decided to attack 3 systems, systems that the infiltrated forces had reported were not protected by WarShips and the local defenses were about a Cluster of front line forces strong, already worn down by constant guerrilla and commando attacks.

Jeannete
Defender - Fourth Jaguar Dragoons
Attacker - 5th Taurian Guards, 10th Ghost Regiment, Ryuken-yon and the ex-TCS Ajax, now the DCS Benjamin

Easy victory, not only were the Smoke Jaguars tired and under-resourced due to constant attacks by guerrillas and the various infiltrated DEST teams, but their immense aggressiveness led them to a suicidal frontal assault on the invading forces, pathing the way for their destruction within hours.

Chupadero
Defender - 214th Jaguar Dragoons
Attacker - 2nd Taurian Guards, 7th Ghost Regiment, Ryuken-Go and the ex-TCS Jerome (Pinto class), now the DCS An Ting

Unlike the 4th Jaguar Dragoons, the 214th was more careful and tactically flexible (for a Smoke Jaguar unit), which led that it was only 15 days later the system was considered safe, meaning casualties were also higher.

Jeronimo
Defender - 3rd Jaguar Cavaliers, Nu Galaxy, the CSJ Korat (Liberator Class ) and the CSJ Lioness (York Carrier Class)
Attacker - 3rd Taurian Guards, 6th Ghost, Ryuken-San and the TCS Detroit (Concordat Carrier Class)

By a fluke of bad luck, two days before the invading force arrival, Nu Galaxy escorted by 2 WarShips had appeared in the system. The DEST cell operating the black box that maintained communications with the outside was destroyed, leading to the reinforcements not being reported.
Note - unlike OTL, Nu Galaxy has been reconfigured as a front-line unit, with the most modern equipment the Smoke Jaguars were producing at this time, and was composed of the latest generation of Trueborns that the sibkos had trained.

To further make things worst, the Kuritan and Taurian forces emerged right on top of the Smoke Jaguars' WarShips, with no way to escape.
The Detroit only managed to launch about half of its ASFs before the combined fire of the Korat and the Lioness destroyed it.
Adding to the difficulties, these Clan WarShips had good defenses against ASFs, and a higher number of ASFs than usual. The first wave of ASFs, could only do limited damage to both WarShips, which by now were beginning to pound down the DropShips that were speeding at full power towards Jeronimo, trying to escape.
Only the use of all the ASFs of the 3 regiments, and  the fact that the 3rd Taurian Guards carried nuclear weapons , allowed both WarShips to be destroyed, although 2 Lee (Taurian), 3 Overlord and 1 Triumph (Kurita) were destroyed, as well as a considerable part of the ASF component of the 3 regiments.
While these new classes of Warships (both the Liberator and York classes being post-SL Clan designs, not previously seen in the Inner Sphere until now)had considerable anti-ASF weaponry, they still lacked dedicated AMS systems, making them vulnerable to Alamos salvos.

Unaware that a Galaxy was present on the planet, the attacking forces decided to continue the mission to liberate Jeronimo in spite of the losses suffered, that amounted to 4 ’Mech battalions and 2 vehicle battalions, during the run towards the planet.
Unfortunately, when they landed, they were confronted by the full might of the Nu Galaxy, 3 brand new, fully equipped, front-line Clan Clusters, reinforced by the Cavaliers (Cluster size force), all the while with the Clans enjoying a comfortable superiority in ASFs, which was a total reversal of the usual situation
A week later, one of the Mriya arrived at Jeanette, making use of its LF, with news of the disaster, prompting a quick rescue force including the WarShip present (the DCS Benjamin, Ajax class Destroyer) and the 5th Taurian Guards (that used Mriya JumpShips with LF) to be launched. During this time, the forces on the planet were trying to survive, executing a continuous running battle, and denying, if possible, the decisive battle the Jaguars wanted so badly. While they had lost much of their ASFs, they still had many of the Flak/SAM units, thus negating partially the Clan air superiority, even if that meant they had to concentrate some of their forces, making them vulnerable to ground forces.

When the relief forces arrived, the plan was only to extract the allied forces. However since the majority of the Smoke Jaguars had decided to press on their attack after the detection of the incoming forces, with the hope that they could destroy the survivors before having to face a new battle, they offered an easy target for orbital bombardments before being finished with a daring combat drop of the Taurian brigade on top of those still fighting the allied forces. Around one battalion strong was rescued just before collapsing, the only remains from two DCMS regiments and a Taurian brigade (equivalent to a full RCT).
The few forces that dispersed, were later tracked and destroyed, thanks to the use of the Taurian high altitude drones with neutrino emission detectors, that were able to find even the most well hidden units, as long as they had their Fusion reactor activated. Unfortunately for the Clanners, they didn’t have much experience in ‘going underground’ and two weeks later the planet was declared safe.

Note.: The Taurian high altitude drone with passive neutrino sensors was already shown in chapter 68 - first used against the Wolf’s Dragoons (in training).

In the last quarter of 3057, the infiltrated DEST teams started to report that Clan Ghost Bear and Clan Hell Horses units were invading worlds that until now were under control of the Smoke Jaguars. By the end of the year, no force of the Smoke Jaguars could be found on the worlds where the Draconis Combine had eyes on.
Only much later was it learned that because of the severe losses this Clan suffered (3 Galaxies in Luthien, another in Jeronimo and enough front-line Clusters to amount for another Galaxy), the death of the IlKhan and the Khan, the other Clans, sensing a weakness, decided to take advantage of it. By February 3058, the Smoke Jaguars were no more, having been absorbed/destroyed by the other Clans.

Ever since I had appeared in this universe (3015) and had been given access to a computer, I had been thinking of what could be done by adding the technology from the universe I had come from.
It took me decades to be able to do something. My first company, V4RU, had nothing to do with computers and even when I became first a member and then the CEO of VMI, I had the same problem as it was not a company dedicated to producing / developing computers.
Only when I bought a stake in O-P Computer Electronics in the 30s, was I able to start investigating other chip building techniques. Finding / hiring like-minded researchers was extremely difficult, not even counting the limits imposed by extremely tight security.
It didn't help that my background was as a programmer, with little knowledge in this peculiar field.
Only in the mid 40s did we see the apparition of new techniques by some small laboratories , which allowed for the reduction of chip sizes.
But it was only in the early 50s, with a company / lab specifically dedicated to the problem and built on Coromodir V, that the first components, smaller and faster than the original ones, started to be produced. Obviously because of the lack of applied researches in this field for centuries, they were fragile and could only be produced at a small scale and were not yet up to the military specs, meaning they could only be used in some places that needed much computer power and were considered safe. Fragile, being for me a very relative term, since by my standards, they were incredibly robust, but by local standards (with BattleMechs lasting hundreds of years), they were fragile and short-lived.

It was also in the 50s that we finally started building industrial models of the equipment we had taken from the Argo. For all intents and purposes, they were a kind of highly advanced and versatile 3D printers, capable of building almost anything within the dimensions of the unit,  provided (quite obviously) they had access to the necessary raw materials and blueprints. Difficult and time-consuming to build, extremely expensive, they were the ultimate state-of-the-art technology from the Star League. A small factory on Coromodir V was, to my knowledge, the only one that produced them in 3058, and even then, less than a dozen unit per year.

Whether integrated in the Concordat or not, Kamea's plans (and mine) were to make the Aurigan Province as independent in terms of resources, factories, universities and even military capabilities as possible. To this end, Coromodir V, Mechdur and Detroit had been chosen as the major industrial centers. Since Coromodir V was personally controlled/owned by our family, I had spent the time from the early 30s until now quietly moving as much as I could of new and/or more profitable departments of the companies I controlled or had a stake in there or into the province

Not that we were planning to get our independence back, far from it, but we wanted to leave a solid and secure inheritance to our children and Kamea would always consider the Aurigan Province as her own.

However, we (me and Kamea) only achieved a partial success in that objective. For one side, while the Calderons and Edward in particular were our allies and friends, ultimately, they were the ruling family of the Concordat, and to maintain / secure their power they couldn’t let any other family, not even their closest allies gain excessive power. So, several of the movings we had planned had been blocked, and several big contracts distributed to competitors. The construction of the Concordat class frigates or of the Winchester II Heavy Cruisers and the work on the Texas battleship, were awarded to shipyards controlled by the Calderon family, for example.
And while our political opponents, while good at this game but lacking in the industrial ones, were not blind enough to let us grow too much, without some counter moves. In that they were supported by the Calderons – to a point.

Evidence that the Calderons had started to take measures to guarantee their supremacy was pointed to me by Kamea – I’m a bit blind in that area, I confess. She noted several facts that seemed to prove it:
- in the Marian Hegemony Crisis, we didn’t receive any benefits, even if our forces (with our Heir included) were the only ones apart the federal ones involved.- following the creation of the Fronc Reachs – the territory between us and the Magistracy / FWL, no world was added to the Aurigan Province with the best ones directly under the Calderons’ control and the rest ‘gifted’ to our political adversaries.
- while we needed to pay in full the upgrades in the Mechdur shipyard to be able to make Ajax Destroyers, the one in New Vandenberg received generous federal subsidies for that.
- only federal units had been sent to fight the Clans, gaining experience and controlling the advanced tech captured. That turned in a spectacular blow-back with the disaster in Jeronimo.

Yep, the Calderons had started to limit our growing and to secure their position as the leaders of the Taurian Concordat.

Note: the following is based on some ideas I get reading the excellent Cannonshop Ngoverse.

I had launched several pet projects to expand the capabilities of the Coromodir system. These included a new variant of the Snowden-L, with a bay for more mining ‘Mechs of a variant that used cheaper fission reactors, a special type of DropShip / thug that was basically a cockpit, engines, K-boon connector and an articulated rib-cage that could ‘capture’ the Snowden and move it to the desired position and / or transport it via JumpShip to another system.
To complement these, a ‘ferry’ was designed – a very small JumpShip, using a very old, experimental, type of K-F drive that could only jump up to 3LY, (thanks to the use of modern alloys and techniques of construction) with two K-boom connections and super-capacitors in place of LF battery, to transport the above mentioned units to the Coromodir Oort cloud.
That type of K-F drive, with only 10% of the range of those in use today, even if it used much less energy, had long been considered an evolutionary dead-end and abandoned, but for the ferry job between the inner part of a system and the distant Oort cloud, it was perfect, being much cheaper and smaller than a conventional one.
All of these models were the product of the work of Dr. Murad, the locally resident genius.
So far, none had moved past the theoretical design and / or proof of concept, but together, they would greatly facilitate the expansion of the local economy, provided that we could develop and produce them locally. After all, the tech, tools, trained personnel, and raw materials were already there, I was “only”  missing the budget to finish these projects.

The idea of the ferry type JumpShip came out during a dinner with the Murad family. Her adopted daughter, Gabrielle, was working on K-F drives theory and was a very good story teller. She talked about the early 15LY range drives, the experimental 50LY one and even about the tentative to obtain one more compact, simpler and less energy hungry. The last one proved to be an evolutionary dead-end that never exceeded the 3 LY range, quickly forgotten by almost everybody. At the time I was starting to look on the resources of the Oort cloud – too distant to be obtained by DropShip only and using conventional JumpShips would be too expensive and attract too much attention. The story brought me some fresh perspectives and was the start of this project.

The much anticipated continuation of the Federated Commonwealth counter-offensive against the Clans began in February 3059.
Hanse and Morgan Hasek-Davion had gathered 50 of their best RCTs near the border with the Jade Falcons, reinforce by extra artillery and Battle-Armor units. All units had been upgraded to the latest technology and the assault had received a full naval support with WarShips (80% of the Federated Navy being deployed for this operation), Pocket WarShips, Assault DropShips and extra units of ASFs.

The remaining WarShips, the second echelon regiments and mercenary forces would remain behind to protect the  borders.

The delay before launching the attack came from all sort of logistical and organizational problems. For example, in order to maximize the impact, the Federated Commonwealth took the risk of producing two vessels of their newest and still untested designs, even before fixing the design quirks. Other units had to go through a complete retrofit of existing units like one Mjolnir that had serious problems with the intra-system engines.
 Another basic “problem” was that the moving of so many RCTs took time and this without taking into account the time spent upgrading the units and re-training the personnel, even if it had been backed up by the massive industrial capability of the Federated Commonwealth. Luckily, in the two last decades, the number of JumpShips in all the Inner Sphere had grow considerably, which, unlike in the 4th Succession War, allowed to move so many forces at the same time with only minor disruption in trade.

Such delays had also given a boost to the Fighters branch with more Royal grade Stukas available for the FC Navy (and for some RCTs) while the first full production run of AAMs reached the frontline units.

As with the Draconis Combine and the Concordat operations, and prior to any offensive moves, several units of the Rabid Foxes and Loki had been inserted into the targeted systems. Now, months later, had they not only identified the Falcons bases, ammunition depots and parts, but they had also prepared sabotage and assassination operations for when they would be activated. Thanks to communication through the Black Boxes, the AFFC High Command had a fairly detailed picture of the forces present. It had also been decided, from the very beginning, to attack only one Clan, in an attempt to drive it out of the Inner Sphere, or to weaken it enough to make the other Clans turn against it.
On February 23rd, 3059, 10 systems controlled by the Jade Falcons were suddenly invaded. Each system, received the full might  of 5 RCTs with extensive support. At the same time, infiltrated units were ordered to do as much damage as they could.

Black Earth, Golandrinas, Somerset, Apollo, Wotan, Maxie's Planet, Butler, Romulus, Seiduts, and Evciler had been selected because none of them was protected by more than 2 Clusters and  therefore they were quickly cleared, with the Falcons losing about 3 Galaxies (out of the 10 they had in the Inner Sphere) as well as the WarShips CJF Black Talon and CJF Blue Talon, with 4 other WarShips escaping with varying degrees of damage.
Particular attention had been directed to neutralizing the Snow Raven Storm Crow Naval Pursuit Star CSR Mountbatten (Texas), CSR Kerensky's Hope (Cameron), CSR Ark Royal (Conqueror), CSR Storm Crow (Sovetskii Soyuz) and CSR Nestling (Carrack), which was stationed at Planting, and could counter-strike, even if records of Clan cooperation were nearly non-existent – with the exception of the attack on Luthien. To deal with this threat, a Strike Fleet had been gathered with several heavy Ships, the FCS Alexander Davion and the FCS Lucien Davion (Avalon), the FCS Mjolnir (Mjolnir), the FCS Fox and the FCS Ian Davion (Fox), the FCS Jaipur and the FCS Midale (New Syrtis block 2) and the FCS Invincible (Tarkad). All the Federated Commonwealth WarShips were equipped with LF and positioned at Derf.
Note.:  The New Syrtis Block 2 Class is a modernization of the previous Class, with LF, AMS, DHS and Ferro-Aluminum Armor
At the last minute, the MIIO lost track of the Snow Raven combat group, which had  vanished. Much later, it was discovered that the Snow Ravens had made a deal with the Ghost Bears and moved to help defending their territories in the Inner Sphere, in exchange for getting the Bears territories in the Homeworlds, with the Bears moving their entire Clan to the Inner Sphere.

Unlike in OTL, the deal between the Snow Ravens and the Ghost Bears includes the squadron of Snow Raven warships that until now patrol the area controlled by the Jade Falcons and Steel Vipers, to move to patrol and help secure the area controlled by the Ghost Bears. The helping build the Leviathans and moving the Ghost Bears population to the Inner Sphere (the OTL deal), is also included. For that the Snow Ravens receive all the Ghost Bears territories in the Homeworlds, and access to any future shipyards that the Bears built in the Inner Sphere. The reason of the different deal is caused by the inclusion of the Snow Ravens in the invasion, by then IlKhan Leo Showers.

On March 17th, 3059,  at Romulus Nadir jump-point, a big Jade Falcon force, including several WarShips emerged, immediately heading for the inhabited planet. As soon as it was detected, a message was sent to Derf. A few hours later, the Federated Commonwealth Strike Fleet also appeared at the Nadir jump-point, immediately beginning the pursuit.
Because the Jade Falcons were indeed heading towards more offensive operations, with most of the units already embarked or in their way to gathering areas, their reaction was faster than had been expected, all the Falcon Khan had to do was to change the objectives from invading new worlds to attacking where the AFFC was now.

The past year had been a nightmare for Marthe Pryde. First, was Elias Crichell’s scandal of his false combat certifications, which had led to his execution and Marthe's promotion to saKhan.
After that, in a gambit to augment the available WarShips, the clan moved several ones that were playing escort roles on the Exodus Road to the front lines.
That backfired spectacularly, when the Taurians raiders started to hit the area, with the Falcons losing several JumpShips. In particular, the loss of the CJF Arrowhead (a Star Lord),  with enough equipment to equip two full front line Clusters, had delayed the resuming of the invasion by several months. That the other Clans had also reported losses and also had to delay their operations was of no help. The only answer was to to move the WarShips back to protect the supply lines, removing several warships from the front-l lines.
Then the Federated Commonwealth launched its offensive, just as Vandervahn Chistu  was about to order the new offensive operations. By the end of this operation, not only had the  Clan lost 10 systems and about 3 Galaxies, but also 2 WarShips with 4 others being damaged. The counterattack had been a disaster, with the ambush on Romulus and the subsequent destruction of 2 other Galaxies and 4 more WarShips, including CJF the Turkina's Pride (Cameron) and the CJF Falcon's Nest (Texas), as well as the death of Vandervahn Chistu, promoting Marthe to Khan of the Jade Falcons. The fool had advanced blindly in the jaws of the Federated Commonwealth trap, never understanding that the technological gap had been reduced and that the forces he faced were first class, not second rate ones, like during the first stage of the invasion.
It was of little comfort, that he and his force had died well, concentrating all the OmniFighters, from the Warships and Galaxies alike, to protect the force to arrive mostly intact to orbit, and them, for the ground forces to land. Unfortunately for them, the AFFC forces have dispersed or hidden, not presenting a viable target to the warships weapons. And them, the AFFC warships arrived, and in the following space battle, the clans are defeated, even if extracted a heavy toll, enough to force the Federated Commonwealth fleet to return home to much necessary repair, removing the massive warships from the front-lines for several months, if not years.
On the ground, the battle as not gone much better, the numerical superiority of the AFFC, supplemented by great numbers of artillery and some space support, from the surviving and still operational warships, dictated the victor.

Demonstrating their numerical superiority, the AFFC had resumed its attack, occupying 6 new systems and destroying 3 more Galaxies, and 2 other WarShips, the CJF Green Lantern (Congress) and the CJF Lightning Strike (Vincent). Again, they launched 3 RCTs in each one of their target, leaving the more damaged / exhausted units to defend each of the recently conquered / freed systems.

Left with only about 2 Galaxies, one of which was composed almost entirely of second-line forces, and with the Steel Viper moving to take advantage of their  weakness, Marthe had had no choice but to abandon the Inner Sphere and return to the Pentagon, to try to recover and survive.
To that end, she had given orders to Samantha Clees, her saKhan, who was in Eden, to launch a crash training program for the Trueborns of the last generation who had failed the tests as MechWarriors and even to test Freebrons who showed qualities. At the same time, he had given her orders to open the Brian Caches available to equip all the forces thus created with whatever they obtained from the Caches, since the Falcons with only 4 Galaxies, 3 of which being mostly garrison forces, desperately needed more troops and equipment, unless they wanted to suffer the fate of the Smoke Jaguars.
Now, Marthe just hoped to get to the HomeWorlds in time, to prevent the Clan absorption, and if possible rebuild her forces. One thing was certain - it would be many years before she could return to the Inner Sphere.

Between mid 3060 and late 3062, the conflicts on the various fronts were little more than light raids / reconnaissances “en force”.
One of the reasons was that all participants were busy repairing / refitting WarShips, in order to give them better defenses against attacks from ASFs loaded with Alamos.
On the Draconis Combine front, by late 3060, the Taurian Concordat had rotated its forces. Three new brigades of Taurian Guards had replaced those hitherto on the Clan front, and among the replaced WarShips had been dispatched the TCS Amanda Calderon a modified Soyal class Heavy Cruiser (see chapters 40 and 51), which had meanwhile been converted to a Heavy/Fleet Carrier, after extensive trials had resulted in the decision to remove the Medium Mass Driver and take advantage of the space to increase the ASF force to 72 units, with abundant fuel, spares and ammo.

The 11th Taurian Guards Brigade faced the Hell's Horses in Nykvarn in March 3061, in the biggest battle of these period, defeating the 12th Mechanized Cavalry Cluster, part of the Alpha Galaxy, and capturing the heavily damaged CHH Gold Knight (a Lola III class Destroyer). The Taurians superior number of ASFs, the presence of the TCS Amanda Calderon, as well as the large number of Battle Armors - more than twice as many as the Clanners had locally - contributed to this victory, even though several new BA models - including some up to 1,500kg (Rhino and Gnome) - deployed by the Hell's Horses were an unpleasant surprise.

The fact that for the first time, a Clan used AAMs, and in great numbers, was a warning of what the future would be. On the positive side, the Taurians captured models of the new BAs and the AAMs used by the Hell's Horses, which they immediately sent to the Concordat for analysis.
The TMI finalized the re-deployment of the HPG satellite network that connected the Concordat to the Combine in March of 3061. All satellites were moved to other uninhabited systems and at same time, replaced by more modern models, with improved stealth, anti-tampering protections, and longer duration fission reactors. As the Concordat suspected, some had been tampered by the Federated Commonwealth, to let them listen to the traffic between the Concordat and the Combine.

In the Coromodir system, although it was not possible, for the moment, to build a shipyard, a large dockyard was taking shape  around Coromodir V, equipped with a dozen slips and able to service the Concordat largest civilian and military ships. A smaller one is in construction in the Detroit system, planned to be operational by 3065.

In 3061, both Jaime Wolf and Natasha Kerensky retired from active service, due to their advanced age . Jaime was replaced in overall command by Mackenzie Wolf and Natasha by Maeve Wolf, who promptly changed the name of the unit to Wolf Spider Battalion.

The Wolf’s Dragoons had the same problem as other nations that had ex-SLDF warships - they had to upgrade them with defenses against ASFs. However, Outreach was lacking a shipyard, and the Federated Commonwealth had theirs occupied for a very long time, meaning they had to turn to my family.
This explains why in late 3061, the WDWS Alexander (Aegis class) docked onto the shipyard at Mechdur, for a refit. The other Wolf’s Dragoons WarShips were to be modified one at a time, so as not to overload the shipyard, which already had a long list of orders. The quid pro quo for such a service remained secret for some time.

On September 12, 3062, Takashi Kurita passed away, being officially reported to have died in his sleep.
On October 22, 3061, Dalma Humphreys, the Duchess of Andurien escaped an assassination tentative. The assassins were stopped at the last minute by MIM agents that had been ordered by the Magestrix to protect the Duchess.
The assassins, later identified as Death Commandos with cyborg-like enhancements, were defeated by the PA(L)s of the MIM agents. Unfortunately (for the Magistracy), they couldn’t hide their presence in the Duchy of Andurien any longer.

Having their two last WarShips finally repaired and refitted, the Marik forces used them, with a massive escort of ASFs, Assault DropShips and Pocket WarShips to renew the war with Oriente.

Note: The first part is based on a discussion in Cannonshop's excellent War is a Grave, regarding FASAnomics

I will have to give this and that a closer look. It is always an interesting subject.

3063 was not a good year for military operations, at least from the point of view of the Taurian Concordat.
In April, the CCAF launched a final assault on Andurien, supported by the two Feng Huang Heavy Cruisers they had.
With a powerful escort of Pocket WarShips - which for the first time included 2 of a type never seen before, in the region of 25,000 tons – plus Assault DropShips and ASFs, they had no difficulty reaching orbit.
Although discreetly reinforced by the Concordat, the Magistracy and the Federated Commonwealth, there was little the Andurien forces could do against the CCAF, which not only used several Warrior Houses in this operation, but also a large number of advanced equipment, which until then had only been seen in WoB hands.
With the battle lost, the royal family tried to escape in extremis, to a Canopus JumpShip that was waiting at a pirate point, but their DropShip was destroyed by one of the big Capellan Pocket Warships, that not only showed an acceleration in excess of 5G, but was armed with a (spinal mount?) HNPPC. Observations, later shared by the Canopian JumpShip, that only escaped thanks to being equipped with a LF battery,  reported that said ships also had 6 AR-10, 12 ASFs, and a robust conventional weapons suit.

Confirming that the WoB had settled into the Capellan Confederation, a TMI reconnaissance operation using Mryias and Orcas (both with LF) detected a previously unknown shipyard in a supposedly uninhabited system, 29.3 LY of Sian.
Two WarShips undergoing repairs were detected, a Baron (ex-SLDF Destroyer) and a Vincent (ex-SLDF Corvette), as well as several JumpShips receiving maintenance, including 2 Magellan.

In the Free Rasalhague Republic, a planned offensive to liberate Gunzburg from the Clans ended in a bloody battle in space, and the invasion/liberation was aborted.
It seemed that Clan Wolf had more WarShips present than reconnaissance had indicated and that they had a credible anti-ASF / anti-Missile defense together with OmniFighters equipped with ECM and AAMs, nullifying the advantage enjoyed by the Inner Sphere forces.
Also detected for the first time in use by the Clans was a pocket WarShip, based on an Overlord-C, equipped with 4 Barracuda tubes, which had been dedicated to attacking the larger ASFs.

As if that wasn't enough, news broke out that one of the Clans not previously involved in the invasion, Clan Goliath Scorpion, had begun invading the Outworlds Alliance. What was strange about this invasion was that they seemed to be using almost only second-line equipment, i.e. SLDF upgraded with modern systems, what were called IIC variants.
Consultations with the Wolf's Dragoons allowed the identification of  the Rho Galaxy, usually acting as a garrison force, supported by only one WarShip, Potemkin class, the rest being JumpShips.
Desperate calls for help from the Outworlds Alliance reached Taurus, and it was decided to send a support force, consisting of the 1st Aurigan Guards (the Revenants), supported by 6 Pinto class WarShips. The reason of so many Pinto escorts, was that Mechdur alone built 4 each year, every year. Each Pinto had a Union CV so the number of ASFs of the expeditionary force was not bad. Unfortunately, better ships were already busy inside the Draconis Combine or occupied defending the Concordat.
With the marriage of Antony Calderon with my daughter Sara Arano-Bassot decided, the relations between both the ruling families had once again improved.

In the recent years, the new management of the Wolf's Dragoons (Mackenzie Wolf and Maeve Wolf) had lobbied long and hard for the Dragoons to be accepted in direct offensive operations against the Clans and not only assigned to training roles. That they could, in theory accept missions from the Capellan Confederation or any side of the ex-FWL, was well know, but they also knew that if they were to do that, they would be placed in a not contracting list by all the big players. And finally, they had the ban on anti-Clan operations lifted by mid 3063.

That coincided with the order by Edward to send the Revenants to the Outworlds Alliance, and I quickly secured the first WD contract, obtaining the services of the Wolf Spider Battalion to go with the Revenants. That the WDWS Alexander (Aegis class Cruiser), that had just finished its refit was also available was just perfect. I obtained the WD contract rather cheap and easily, because they needed to pay for the WarShip refit, and this contract was the perfect way to do so.

Note.: The Wolf Spider Battalion is a Battalion only in name. In reality it is a Clan Cluster unit, with about two thirds of the ’Mechs being Omnis, the rest fully equipped with Clan weapons and systems. The rest of the unit is made of OmniFighters, BattleArmor (Clan) and stealth PA(L)s in the case of the Seventh Kommando. They are transported in two heavily modified Overlords.
 
The reason of my actions was that the leader of one of the Revenants Mech battalions was my son Paul Arano-Bassot, going for the first time in harms way. A quick series of talks both with Edward and the TDF HQ solved any problems that my initiative might have had. That I paid the Wolf Dragoons bill, in good part sealed the deal with Taurus.

The Revenants only had 1 Lee, the first Block 2 produced, the rest of the DropShips were mostly smaller ones, because so few Overlords were produced in the Concordat.


At the last minute the Alexander also took 2 Leopard PW (the model with a spinal Naval Laser), because the Dragoons only had 2 of is 4 collars full with their units.
Unfortunately, the Aurigan Province and the Revenants didn’t have any Mriya, so the civilian JumpShips were almost all improved Leviathans (8 collars each).
My departing gift to Paul was my Mech (a modified Nightstar 9Jb), that received one last upgrade. Replacing both Medium Pulse Lasers with Clan ER Medium Lasers, provided free weight for an Angel ECM suit, and the Small Laser being replaced by a Clan Small Pulse Laser with AMS capability at the cost of half a ton of armor.