Sakhara 3.1
Justin blanched as another DropShip touched down, he had known that his father had been high up in the diplomatic service, but the fact that his family had been able to send mail along with the dropship was the telling factor. He looked at the student council president, his cousin, "Di-"
"Of course I didn't read them." She growled, "I left a letter for my father and I hope to have a response, but I have no idea how long that will take. You are invited to the Prince's New Years Honors by the way, with your cataphract, I should add. The First Prince is very interested in the new designs."
Oh, oh, that was a surprising. She, also, might as well have told him not to fuck up, but he knew that. He'd been about to comment on the Rifleman designs being overhauled, but she saw them as they came into view. "That must be why they were able to just scrounge around for parts then, and assemble from common parts." She muttered, seeing other examples of the several machines in the high visible text colors.
"I like the Rifleman," Henry declared adjusting his scarf as the wind picked up, "We'll introduce them and a few other designs over the next few weeks, but realistically your class needs to be preparing for graduation," before either could protect, though he doubted they would, he decided to head off any claims of that being months away, "and for your duty stations. There will be large scale combined arms actions where I expect your class to interact and operate effectively alongside tanks and airpower." He paused, "Oh look there is Colonel Coleridge, I'd better go see what he wants."
Justin watched him cross the field, "Why do I have a bad feeling about that?"
"I would expect either he means to pit us against the Longswords or he had yet something else in the works." She paused, "What exactly did I miss?"
"We practiced lance on lance... that didn't go well," He replied, "The RAC's mechwarrior component is supposedly cycling back from the periphery soon, from wherever they were, that's about the only rumor to speak of." Justin stretched and racked his hands behind his head walking backwards, "So the longswords?"
She shook her head, "No, that's important I'm sure but the invitation to the prince's honors far outstrips that. The cataphract has the first prince's attention, so you need to make a good impression." She remarked.
Her advice was not grounded in anything other than stating the obvious. The main attraction would be the machine itself, but if he could pilot it well then that would win Justin some acclaim, he certainly could use some positive fame to trade on.
Justin predictably began to protest, "You know, well look," He declared a bit more firmly, "the RAC is starting to deploy Cataphracts like mine, and there isn't any shortage of the smaller engines in the warehouse," He declared deflecting by arguing that his mech was unique... which wasn't the point. Clay had sent a dozen Long swords to New Avalon as bequest., so of course there would have been other examples of the machine, and it was entirely natural that those machines would begin fielding his household guard as such.
--
Clay looked at the class, "So as you are aware my recent absence to New Avalon dealt with the ongoing efforts in BattleMech logistics. We will leave aside the assault class mechs, they are not relevant to today's lecture." There was some grumbling. He tapped the holographic display causing it to unpack into a fusion engine schematic. "This is a Nissan 200 Fusion Engine. It is is one of the more common fusion engines, and can be used to power Assault BattleMechs but is more commonly found powering venerable Medium designs like the Hunchback, the Enforcer, or the Centurion. Never mind when the engine is used to power tanks for the moment, it is the medium mech which is the matter." The engine hologram reduced in size and a battlemech wireframe appeared. "This is a Dorwinion Standard Chassis, the single largest issue with auto cannons is that they require ammunition, and if logistics ships you the wrong ammunition say for another model of auto cannon it does you no good." The Fifty ton Battlemech's representation took an animated step forward. This is arguably my most serious complaint about the Enforcer, and Centurion debate. The Fusilier doesn't carry an auto cannon, it instead mounts two Zeus LRM 15 launchers. It thereby uses the same engine as the Centurion and Enforcer indeed uses other common parts, and highly in my opinion, doesn't add a third auto cannon or weigh in on the auto cannon debate at all, it is an effective fire support platform capable of close range self defense or support." Provided by Four readily available ChisComp model Medium Lasers. "So what is the unique logistical challenge of this mech?"
It was an easy softball question.
The answer was feeding the missile launchers.
While the Star League had never been able to standardize launchers, long range missiles, and their short range counterparts had been standardized. There were many different sorts of launchers but they fired a standard chassis missile.
"The boxes in front of you are notebooks, and range tables, and calculations for how much in the way of supplies units in different conditions on average consume. This a look at operational warfare, not tactical war gaming. This is not a look at tactical engagements but rather the maneuver of company and battalion elements and what it takes to keep them operation over a period of weeks and months."
It was a look at how many trucks you needed, how many trailers carrying how many tons of things other than ammunition. The table detailed estimates on how much food a unit needed, and that varied depending on the environment. How many tankers of water did you need reflected local conditions... and if the atmosphere of a planet was uncooperative things like filters for atmospheric cleaners .
These students, Justin, Alexandria, Don Juan too were all graduating in the spring. They'd be lieutenants soon, and thus needed to have some idea that war really was more than just finding the other guy and shooting him before he shot you. So to acclimate them to operational concerns for their final semester at Sakhara, they were going to be war gaming much longer campaigns.... and what would make this interesting would be in next semester's continuation of this would be that their packets that they'd receive after the return from break would have realistic unit tables.
Their units would reflect the mixed lances, companies, and battalions that were the norm in the succession wars. They would have to account for that, keeping track of individual machines that had individual specific weapons. Position and maneuver were also going to be counted on a map that only showed certain features to the two student 'players', which referees made rulings that might not come into play that session.
--
He was repeating it silently in his head.
Logistics were what won wars. That's the mantra, that's the doctrine, that is the orthodox truth of the 19
th and 20
th centuries, it was the truth of pre modern and early modern war. Armies marched on their stomachs then, and the tides of iron needed fuel and ammunition in the 1900s and so needed carrying capacity fr in excess of what their grandfathers had needed. Logistics predated industrial warfare.
To that end, the Enforcer was not something Clay intended to try and replace. It had its niche it was in production and it was set up, so it used different guns, it used enough other common parts that it was fine... the logistical reality of things meant he was trying to rush back to star league era technology.
The Count of Sakhara leaned on the console behind the transparent ferro aluminium window of the observation deck. The consequences of his drive towards logistics were something he hadn't realized... so far as he could observe the scrapping of parts for either their C-bill, or BV cost was irrelevant... what he wouldn't realize until years later was that there was a cost, creating those HPGs and selling them deposited ground mobile hpgs into the inner sphere, or in the periphery, and that that would have consequences.
Consequences he wouldn't start to see for years even.
So the billions of c-bills went towards purchasing the infrastructure to produce engine factories, like for the Nissan 200. He had already told the lawyers they could license out designs to Kallon, to Achernar, to Corean, he'd extend that to GM if it came to it. The 240 engines being assembled in front of him were for aircraft for export, the same for tanks, and the same for battlemech spares. The truth was... the truth was Ian had issued summons to Colchester for General Kerston to visit him on New Avalon.
... Colchester was two jumps from Sakhara. Henry watched the holographic lights unfurl into a stylized 19 on an angry horse. The officer behind him straightened. "I'll allocate you personnel and resources by the 1
st of the year colonel."
The fight was lost, the story told with truth and lies. Maybe some men had slipped away from the Rim World's total victory, but perhaps only a handful too few to be anything more than walking ghosts of a dying era. They were however still professional soldiers not knights as too many battlemech pilots were. "We'll be ready sir."
"I'll need the company ready for exercises for the weekend." He answered in response, and was met with a positive, confident affirmative.