Clan Wolf and Clan Burrock
Clan Burrock had bid hard to gain the honour of facing the power of Clan Wolf. Although the Wolves had much of their strength in the Inner Sphere, they still possessed fifteen strong Clusters in the Homeworlds, backed by twelve WarShips, though some of these launched under emergency circumstances.
Working in favour of the Burrocks were the extents of Wolf territory, which limited the force required to take any one world and the pragmatic attitude of the Wolves and their Homeworld’s commander, Katya Kerensky. The Wolves knew they would only escape with so much and planned accordingly, not planning to fight a protracted campaign. However, despite their pragmatism, they would to fight on every world.
The final asset in the Wolf’s favour was Khan Kell’s large convoys, which had brought forward the Falcon industry the previous year. Four of these convoys had arrived in November of 3062 and returned to the Inner Sphere on the 1st of April, taking much of the Wolves assets in the Eden system with them before the Burrocks even arrived.
These extra transports showed how the Wolves already advanced program for relocations to the Inner Sphere allowed for the rapid and mass evacuation of large segments of population and industry. The four large convoys in the Pentagon freed up other transport assets to support evacuations in the Kerensky Cluster, greatly benefitting Wolf efforts.
CirceThe Burrocks dispatched their Stoneheart Keshik and Delta Galaxy’s 208th Cavalry Cluster to wrest control of Circe from the Wolf’s 7th Battle (Zeta) and 7th PGC (Lambda). Fighting was relatively static for most of the campaign, where the Burrocks desire to break the Wolves was met by strong defensive preparations. When the wolves pulled out, they took 1.4 million of the nearly 11 million who called Circe home.
DagdaThe Burrocks were able to move quickly into the neighbouring Wolf enclave on Dagda with Alpha and Delta’s 85th Cavalry and 177th Light Cavalry. Defending the enclave were the Zeta’s 74th Battle and Lambda’s 2nd Wolf Regulars. The Burrocks took and kept the initiative, battering the two Wolf Clusters to less than 40% strength. Despite this, the Wolves evacuated over 1.5 million of the more than 17 million lower castes.
EdenEden was the main battle between the two Clans, with large naval and ground forces engaging. Clan Burrock sent a fleet of eight ships to face the Wolves eight, with the Wolves more experienced crews negating the firepower advantage of the Burrocks.
The Burrock fleet consisted of the CB
Absolute Truth (
Nightlord), CB
Ares' Might (
Aegis), CB
Exodus Avenger (York), CB
Cameron's Flame and CB
Yodan (
Lola III), CB
Renown (
Potemkin) and the CB
Cho Polu and CB
Pompeii (
Volga). Facing them were the CW
Eden (
Black Lion), CW
Dagda (
Cameron), CW
Circe (
Liberator), CW
Tamar (
Luxor), CWS
Nature's Wrath (
Lola III), CWS
Trailblazer and CWS
Valiant (
Vincent) and CWS
Night Warrior (
Carrack). Though more powerful on paper, the four heaviest Wolf vessels were undergoing construction or reactivation, had untested crews and were not close to being combat ready.
The Naval battle rapidly degenerated into a swirling chaotic mess, which benefitted the Burrocks in allowing their troops to land, and the Wolves in allowing their final convoys to escape. Boarding parties were the order of the day, as the Wolves sought more ships to evacuate with and the Burrocks seeking to deny the Wolves the ability to evacuate whilst enriching themselves in hulls. The Wolves stormed the CB
Ares' Might, CB
Yodan, CB
Cho Polu and CB
Pompeii whilst the Burrocks swarmed under the CW
Eden and CW
Circe. Other losses were the crippling of the CB
Absolute Truth, the destruction of the CWS
Valiant and CWS
Night Warrior and the forced jumping away of the savaged CW
Dagda.
With the battle for near space scattering further afield, the Clusters of Clan Burrock landed along the edges of the Wolf enclave, unwilling to test themselves by dropping into the Wolf’s maw. Alpha’s 2nd Light Cavalry and Delta’s 4th Rapier made rapid progress once they entered Wolf territory, as the Wolves had pulled back into relatively tight entrenchments near the capital. Once the Burrocks came to grips with the main Wolf lines on the 15th, they quickly shattered the cohesion of the 6th Wolf Regulars of Lambda Galaxy, forcing Zeta’s 3rd Wolf Guards to cover the holes in the 6th’s lines and accelerate Katya Kerensky’s plans for departure. With the 3rd Guards covering the final retreat, the Burrocks were forced to regroup for a final strike, but missed the opportunity when the 3rd rapidly loaded up and departed.
The Wolves had used the large convoys and their final days to remove nearly 70% of Eden’s military industry, seven orbital facilities, including a shipyard, and more than 1 million civilians. Though they missed much, Clan Burrock still took a vast prize of 68 million civilians, huge orbiting yards and the remaining ground facilities.
GloryAlpha’s 1st Rapier and Delta’s 3th Sentry Clusters utilised pirate points to hit Glory hard. Zeta’s Blue Keshik and Lambda’s 8th Grenadiers fought doggedly around the drop port for eight days, before lifting off with approximately half a million of the 4.3 million civilians of the enclave.
Grant’s StationThe 1st Sentry Cluster (Alpha) and the 9th Sentry of Delta struck Grant’s Station to find most of its departure fleet sitting ready for the taking near the world. Quickly securing the transports, the Burrocks landed and over the course of six weeks hounded the 73rd Wolf Striker (Zeta) to destruction. No Wolves escaped Grant’s Station.
HoardThe 7th Sentry Cluster of the Burrock’s Alpha Galaxy sparred without much success against the 51st Garrison Cluster of Clans Wolf’s Iota Galaxy. With few transports assigned, the 51st was only able to evacuate 139,000 civilian before quitting the world.
PaxonThe 2nd Wolf Lancers (Iota) turned the Paxon enclave into a den of traps and tricks that prevented Beta’s 100th Cavalry Cluster from ever finding its feet. The 2nd Lancer’s counter attack on the 16th allowed them the space and time to board and depart the system with 700,000 of the enclave’s 4 million civilians.
RocheClan Goliath Scorpion, in honour of their long friendship with the Wolves, denied the Burrocks the right to land in their enclave before advancing. This meant that the 86th Light Cavalry of Beta Galaxy had to fight its way in, scattering badly after the fighters of the 8th Wolf Regulars (Iota) scattered its transports. With little real pressure coming from the slowly reforming Burrocks, the 8th was able to evacuate nearly 600,000 of the isolated outpost’s population.
Strana MechtyThe Wolves had absolutely no intention of leaving anything of value on Strana Mechty and opened the fight above the world in a most unconventional way.
The Clan vessel
Prinz Eugen though monitored, was never closely observed, as its guards had never allowed a prisoner escape, engendering a sense of false security in their routines. Three days before the deadline arrived, a Wolf Elemental Trinary from the 12th Wolf Regulars of Iota Galaxy, stormed the vessel in a lighting attack during a routine prisoner transfer, quickly securing the
Texas-class vessel. The following day, a full crew was brought on board and the prisoners were given the chance to act as Solahma crew or take a spacewalk.
Eighteen hours before the Homeworlds War began, the
Prinz Eugen began a slow burn towards Strana Mechty, one that went undetected in all the surrounding movements. Originally intended to cover the Wolf retreat, as taking it was far easier than getting forces aboard the
McKenna’s Pride, the old
Texas was re-purposed two hours out from Strana Mechty.
As Clan Burrock’s 2nd Rapier Cluster of Beta Galaxy began landing manoeuvres, it took long range fire from the
Prinz Eugen before the Battleship suddenly turned hard towards the SLS
McKenna’s Pride. Word had reached Clan Wolf that ilKhan N’Buta was overseeing the war from the Clan’s flagship in a symbolic gesture. This would become a nearly fatal hubristic action by the new and seemingly overconfident ilKhan, a rare slip by the otherwise masterful N’Buta.
The
Prinz Eugen burned straight at the
McKenna-class Battleship and an epic engagement between the powerful guns of the
McKenna and the armoured hide of the
Texas began. The better maintenance and line crew on board the
McKenna’s Pride provided the upper hand, but the
Prinz Eugen maintained the velocity and position advantage throughout the fight. Seeing that victory was slipping away, as the McKenna brought more and more of its broadside to bear, the Wolf crew rammed the SLS
McKenna’s Pride, striking a vicious glancing blow to the Clan flagship's port quarter.
The Prinz Eugen began to come apart following the collision, as her magazines began a series of sympathetic detonations scattering pieces of the giant vessel across the atmosphere where they largely burnt up.
On board the
McKenna’s Pride, the engines had been knocked out by the
Prinz Eugen’s strike and the vessel was raggedly cartwheeling and losing a fight with Strana Mechty’s gravity. The Ebon Keshik used their familiarity with the ship, their suits strength and bloody mindedness to get the ilKhan from sections of the ship where centrifugal force was reaching five g’s to a life pod. The Ebon Keshik then fired him to safety and endeavored to save the vessel. Just minutes later, the flag vessel of the Clans began burning up in the atmosphere, it huge hulk creating a massive impact crater 12 kilometers northeast of Katyusha City.
Whilst the titanic clash of two of the Clans most well known vessels was happening in the skies above them, the 12th Wolf Regulars had driven the 2nd Rapier back as they scattered on landing. The 12th then departed through clear space lanes with all of the enclaves vital military industries and 1.25 million civilians, leaving more the 22 million behind.
TiberClan Burrock’s Beta Galaxy’s 2nd Sentry Cluster landed on Tiber to face the 18th Wolf Regulars of Iota Galaxy for control of the military industries there. In a relatively even fight, the Burrock Cluster was able to drive forward and capture more than half of the facility’s operational lines, as well as all of the nearly 6 million civilians in the enclave, as the Wolf forces on Tiber had been purely focused on industrial extraction.
TranquilThe second major engagement of the Burrock-Wolf fighting, Tranquil was targeted by the Burrock’s main carrier group of the CB
Exodus Crusader, CB
Exodus Ranger, CB
Exodus Sentinel and CB
Exodus Lancer, all
York-class Destroyers. The defending fleet consisted of the CWS
Emerald Tornado (
Whirlwind), CWS
Relentless Pursuit and CWS
Killing Blow (
Vincent) and the CWS
Full Moon (
Potemkin).
The Burrocks overwhelmed the Wolf fleet, destroying the
Killing Blow and driving off the
Emerald Tornado and
Full Moon, but not before the latter played possum in order to allow its marines to capture the
Exodus Sentinel before the Wolves jumped both vessels away.
On the ground, the Burrock’s 8th Sentry Cluster of Beta Galaxy was roughly handled by the 1st Wolf Guardians, who had established masses of AAA around the main facilities to ensure that vital materials would get off world, as well as activating limited SDS capabilities. This largely neutralized the air support that the three remaining carriers could provide.
Clan Wolf managed to get half of Tranquil’s industry and nearly 2 million of the 28 million inhabitants of the word away.
SummaryThe Burrock-Wolf campaign was the most mutually bloody of all the campaigns fought during the Homeworlds War, as each Clan struck hard and used every tool it could against the other.
The already activated and extensive relocation system of Clan wolf proved itself, as Clan Wolf took more than two-thirds of its industry remaining in Clan Space with it, along with yards capable of producing and repairing WarShips, JumpShips and DropShips and over nine million civilians. The cost was high though, with huge orbital facilities left behind and losses running to six WarShips, 1 entire Cluster and nearly 50% of all troops in the Homeworlds. Offsetting the naval losses was the capture of five Burrock vessels.
Clan Burrock received a hard lesson on organisation and military competency, but gained enormously from both the lesson and the spoils it did secure. Burrock industry would expand by nearly a third, transport production would nearly double, and its population would expand by 70%. The cost for taking from the Wolf was high though, with units engaged suffering 39% losses, or 20% of the entire Touman. Additionally, six WarShips were lost, though three were taken in boarding actions from the Wolves.
The Aftermath
By the beginning of May 3063, only eight Clans remained in the Homeworlds. Nearly 9,000 Warriors were dead and another nine million civilian caste members had been lost in the fighting as well. Seventy WarShips were destroyed and the industry and trade of nearly every world in the Pentagon and Kerensky Clusters was in chaos.
Over the course of May, each Khan took stock of both losses and gains and each Clan examined the new order to determine where it stood relative to its peers. None doubted the resolve and strength of the Star Adders as the leaders of the new order within Clan space; however, two primary rivals began to emerge.
Clan Snow Raven was the first, becoming ever more paranoid about its naval security and the need for vast resources to support its naval building efforts. Any hint that their resource base may be threatened was enough to guarantee Raven hostility. Their politics and actions leading up to and during the war caste them in poor light and thwarted attempts to build a political power base with other Clans.
Secondly, Clan Coyote opposed the Adders by virtue of their long enmity and the Clan required a focus following its heavy defeat on Huntress, which opposition to Clan Star Adder provided. The Coyotes, now holding assets that brought them back to close to their Golden Century strength, believed that they could assume their dominance of the Grand Council as a regained right. However, they found that few were willing to listen to them, due to their performance and arrogance.
The real power within the Grand Council rested with the Star Adders, who had the full support of Clans Cloud Cobra, Fire Mandrill and Goliath Scorpion and the support, albeit conditional, of the Burrocks and Blood Spirits. With control of the Grand Council assured, ilKhan N’Buta set their next meeting for the 1st of July and required all Clans to report on their strength and holdings.
The accounting of strength demanded by the ilKhan was slightly different from earlier such requests, with each Clan to provide its total population, as per normal, but also its production capabilities based on several standards developed by N’Buta. This would allow the ilKhan to gauge the strength of each more accurately.
The first standard measurement was the Standard Combat Cluster (SCC), set by the ilKhan at 60 OmniMechs, 30 OmniFighters and 150 Elementals. Huge by many Clan standards, the SCC pointed to some of the later reforms that ilKhan N’Buta would seek to make within the Core Clans. The second military standard was the Lola WarShip Standard. As the Lola III was the most common vessel in Clan Space, each Clan would report total ship numbers and then its fleet strength in LWS’s.
Lastly, production of OmniMechs, OmniFighters and Battlesuits would be lumped together into single Military Output Standard (MOS), which accounted for resource input and material output of each Clan’s military industrial base. These Standard Industrial Outputs were complex to calculate, but gave the ilKhan a powerful tool for evaluating the Clans, as did the Total DropShip and JumpShip Yard (TDJY) numbers for each Clan and the number of WarShip Construction Yards (WSCY) and WarShip Servicing Yards (WSSY).
Once the ilKhan received the data, the pecking order of the Clans became rapidly evident. Clan Star Adder stood above all, based on the strength of their ground forces, which made up for their lower population and industrial figures. However, placed second was Clan Snow Raven, based on their naval strength, something the Clans undervalued, despite the key role they played in the recent war.
Third, stood Clan Blood Spirit, rapidly coming out of its isolation whilst working with Clan Star Adder and feeling its new strength. The Cloud Cobras stood next, despite the losses of their campaign against the Hell’s Horses, as a more balanced Clan and the industrial powerhouse of the Homeworlds. Clan Coyote ranked fifth, feeling itself superior to most, but reality would set in over the coming years, forcing an internal revaluation of what the Clan stood for. Clan Burrock stood sixth, despite what it gained from Clan Wolf, with the small size of its Touman limiting its voice and the losses from the Wolf campaign adding to the lack of perceived power within the Clan. Considered more powerful than the Goliath Scorpions, Clan Fire Mandrill lacked flexibility their Scorpion brethren possessed but their gains and larger pre-war size kept them ahead of the Scorpions.
CLAN Population MOS TDJY WSCY WSSY SCC WarShips LWS Strength Rank
Clan Blood Spirit 153,825,000 33 25 1 5 32 8 11 397 3
Clan Burrock 237,125,000 35 26 2 4 28 15 12 372 6
Clan Cloud Cobra 180,075,000 60 15 2 5 27 19 24 395 4
Clan Coyote 229,250,000 33 18 5 31 9 10 383 5
Clan Fire Mandrill 127,400,000 25 3 2 26 7 8 306 7
Clan Goliath Scorpion 162,925,000 30 21 6 18 22 35 270 8
Clan Snow Raven 244,300,000 58 77 6 11 29 44 71 519 2
Clan Star Adder 163,800,000 49 27 2 7 48 12 16 595 1
1,498,700,000 323 212 13 45 238 136 187 |
