OBT Forum

If oaths of fealty meant much, there wouldn't be quite so many cases of civil war or assassination.  The neo-feudal concept seems to take its oaths of fealty no more seriously than lords in the actual medieval times, when families would blatantly have, say, the sitting lord support the king and one of his sons support a rebel, so that whoever won the family would keep its lands.  Despite its manifold historical inaccuracies, Braveheart's depiction of mercenary nobles is fairly realistic. 

If I understand what you are saying, whole units are transferred to the SLDF until their death or the end of their contract (the one with their States or a new one with the SLDF)?

That's what happened.  A large number of units were permanently transferred to the SLDF, while others were only attached as auxiliaries and returned to their state at the end of the war.

And if they are transferred for a long period of time, why should we worry about their expertise? Training and going along with the SLDF should allow these units to become more efficient if they really want it.

Because you can't fix stupid.  Training only goes so far.  If you have crappy raw material (read: soldiers) to work with the odds are you're going to have crappy soldiers at the end of the training routine.

Does retraining equal suicide missions versus the Periphery? You decide!

Stupid...
Right but do you think there were that many stupid soldiers?

They're Davions of course there are.      

When I said stupid I actually meant more then just stupid- it can include poorly educated, poorly motivated soldiers, drug users, trouble makers, etc.  Depending on how they recruit the problem could be minor or major. 

Does retraining equal suicide missions versus the Periphery? You decide!

No, but not having training "stick" could account for the SLDF's high casualties. From what I've gathered from H:RW, upper level command was HAF only, with the constituent SLDF regiments composed of House troops a real mixed bunch (the book's 1st Chapter Fiction is enlightening). So mixed commands, a distinct "alien" high command, mixed re-training results, and you have the right recipe for high casualties.

I don't think suicide mission should even enter the conversation - they'd be pretty alien to Age of War "warfare" thinking.

In other words the leaders of the Human Sphere might not have foreseen a long war but the common soldier did. Some students of history may have been reminded by the Outer Reaches Rebellion of the folly of such an "easy" campaign.

I think you're over thinking this to the point where you're trying to connect Apples and Oranges. The Outer Reaches Rebellion was no closer to the Reunification War than the Reunification War was to the Amaris Coup. You're talking about centuries of progressive technological and infrastructure development, and different warfare "realities."

Some good stuff there gang. Lets get back to crunching preliminary numbers for the Supplemental. Next up is House Kurita. I liked what we did for House Davion so lets stick with the format. So we will be looking for four things now. 1 – Prewar numbers (2575), 2 – Postwar numbers (2600), 3 – Age of War units (disbanded and folded into the new SLDF), 4 – Active Military Academies (during the Reunification War).

The Prewar (2575) goal for the DCMS is 94 ‘Mech regiments.

The Postwar (2600) goal for the DCMS is 85 ‘Mech regiments.

I’ll let Irose tell us about the Draconis contribution to the SLDF.

Now Threat Assessments 2785 has the DCMS fielding 134 ‘Mech Regiments by the start of the Succession War. So we’d need to make a cut of 40 regiments to make our 2575 goal size.

Otomo (1 regiment) no change

Sword of Light (5 regiments) no change but future reduction possible
Interestingly enough H: RW has these regiments around, is it possible that their barbaric behavior during Star League operations got them disbanded later on, either by 2600 or 2650 when the Arms Restrictions were passed

Proserpina Hussars (4 regiments) no change

Arkab Legion (3 regiments) no change

Sun Zhang Cadre (5 regiments) -3 regiments from 2785 with future reduction possible
Originally we calculated that this formation was approximately 5% of DCMS total force strength. The 3 regiment reduction reflects a 94 regiment military and another regiment could be subtracted Postwar the closer the DCMS gets to 80 regiments.

District Regulars
Well I’ve only cut three regiments thus far but have no fear the District Regulars are here. I envision most cuts come from these units and lets start with the Ronin or Shadow Regiments which weren’t around at the time. That gets us about 20 regiments cut right off the top so now we are making progress. Let me throw in my notes from TA2785 to show my reasoning behind some of the Regulars numbers.

Reasoning for the Combine’s District Regulars is as follows beginning with the Pesht Regulars because they are the best indicator. If you look at the Pesht Regulars in 3025 from HKSB and even in 3057 from FMDC the highest numbered regiment is the 10th. So my theory is that no more than 10 regiments of the Pesht Regulars were ever created. Meaning that the Edict of 2650 capped them and perhaps the other three District forces at 10 regiments each. If each District is composed of five Prefectures you’d have two Regulars patrolling each. Following the Arms Amendment of 2752 which double the size of House militaries every District Regular was expanded except for Pesht. As they have no neighboring power why expand them anyway is what I figure. I have calculated the strength for the other District Regulars (Benjamin, Galedon, and Rasalhague) at 21 regiments a piece. This works as every one of those formations has the correct numeral designation. Even the Benjamin Regulars whose top number ends at the 17th has the 22nd as its next unit in FM DC.

So with that in mind I kept the Pesht Regulars at 10 regiments still while reducing the other four Districts to 16 or 17 regiments a piece. Rasalhague and Algedi receiving smaller numbers because of their lower star systems and territorial areas. BTW the Algedi District is an established semi-canon formation from Battlecorps. A story entitled Broken Blade which is set during the first battle for Hesperus circa 2787 has one of the attacking units as an Algedi Regulars. Historical Reunification War incorrectly throws in a Dieron Regular unit but we know that can not be right as they were established after the fall of the Star League. We can speculate that the Algedi District has at least two Prefectures including those that will fall in Dieron territory eventually (Algedi or rather Kuzuu per H:RW and Ashio). If we steal the Proserpina Prefecture for the Algedi District it evens things out a bit more IMO. Final proposed numbers below.

Pesht Regulars (10 regiments)
Galedon Regulars (17 regiments)
Benjamin Regulars (17 regiments)
Rasalhague Regulars (16 regiments)
Algedi Regulars (16 regiments)

I’ll also throw in a list of Draconis Combine Military Academies for Threat Assessments 2785. Got to research each please throw in your thoughts on each.
Sun Zhang Mechwarrior Academy (New Samarkand)
Aerospace and Interstellar Institute (Midway)
University of Proserpina (Proserpina)
Pagoda for Luthien Officers (Luthien)
Wisdom of the Dragon (Kagoshima)
Kensai Kami (Bicester)
Internal Security College (New Samarkand)
Minoru Kurita University (??)
Sun Tzu School of Combat (??)
Galedon Military Academy (Matsuida)
Benjamin Military Academy (Irurzun or Kajikazawa?)
Rasalhague Military Academy (Radstadt)
Pesht District Gymnasium (Pesht)
Proving Grounds (nation wide)

I do agree with Halvagor.