Cat had a good time at the party, especially after the new company commander left. The alcohol was flowing and whatever she'd done to offend Amos, he seemed to be over it, though he still seemed a little stand-offish.

She managed to wangle a dance from Nate as well as a promise he'd send her some more dessert rations when he had the time. It was a new Year and one worth celebrating, they were still alive after months of fighting. She raised a glass of something old and powerful to honour the spirits of the lost during the last year. So many names. So many people. She gasped as the spirit burned her throat on the way down, a mild pain, worthy of the sacrifice of the others.

"Why did you go get killed Crispin? You should see the a***ole they put in charge." she whispered to the void, before smiling in fond memories and moving back to join the others.

January 4 to January 6, 2024

The party was over, and the sobering problems of retaking Hoff still presented themselves as a problem to be solved the next day.  The fighting 6th, settle in on a choice bunker that was positioned on the NE corner of the base.  It was one of the closest to the base making it convient, and the nearness of the mountains made it less exposed and easier to defend.

6th Battalion HQ set up shop in the base proper, while 2nd Company took up residence in one of the bunkers watching the back door.

The other two bunkers were 'guest' bunkers, allowing a place for the fatigued Davion militia and other elements of the Eridani 151st Light Horse Regiment to house up and rest.

Over the span of the next few days there were two to four companies of mechs stationed at the base, it was very impressive on paper till you accounted, that they mostly partial units or units in need of repair.  Conventional support was moved in the share the bunkers and business quickly started to settle back to the task of taking the next base.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


6th Battalion had looked over the numbers, the Eridani and Davion militia was going to have to make an effort to pry the starport out of the Combines hands.  It was that or the combine was going to starve out the militia and Eridanis by choking out their supplies, and then it was just a matter of time before they would have to capituate and surrender.

At the moment, various elements of 6th Company were gathered for the next leg of operations.  The Eridani's needed to whittle down the Combine's support in the area.  A broad expanse was highlighted.  Artillary was dropping during the taking of the base, and accurately without spotters.  To ensure the safety of the base, and to deny the Combine artillary support, the Eridani's needed to take them out.

There was a Dragoon Light Company patrolling the area.  The Dragoons were hard hitting and dangerous and not to be underestimated.  They were expected to be a good fight for the Eridanis.  The Eridani needed to engage, and hold their attention for (10 turns) the length of the operations and then were allowed to withdraw at the commanders option as opportunity allowed (you may not be in range of enemy weapons when you withdraw).

While the the Wolves were being distracted by 6th Company, their air cavalry will engage the conventional support protecting their artillary.  Taking out mobile enemies of opportunity will be their priority targets.  Taking out their artillary pieces will be considered a secondary objective for them.

The static targets... are to be left to the Bravos, who in the confusion of the attack will take the opportunity to call down artillary on their fortifications and field pieces.

It was thankful to probably both persons that the walk was a short one, because it was quickly apparent how awkward it was.  After a while, Johan spoke, but he never turned to look at Camille.  "Your injuries and fighting spirit do you credit, but it is clear these...these pilots don't know how to act around their betters.  Doubtless, Lieutenant Carlyle was a bit too...too distracted by having Mechwarrior Day on his lance.  So, rest assured, once I am in command, I will be reorganizing the unit and transferring Ms. Day to where I can keep my eye on her."

He paused here, putting a second hand...no doubt intended to be reassuring on Camille's.  "After that, you should be more easily accorded the respect and pro...protection...er, not that you need it...that you deserve."

He had just finished saying this when the pair arrived at the infirmary.  He finally turned to face her to say.  "Unless, you have anything else you may need, good night, corporal.  I hope you feel better soon."  He dropped her hands and turned to go....

This message was deleted by the player at 16:48, Thu 12 Jan 2012.

"thank you, but for now all i need is our doc and some rest"
and you elsewhere
She limped free of him, gave a nod, and grimaced as she ehaded for the medical bunk assigned to her untill she was truly fit for fight.

well at least she'd get a medal somewhere someday, and the promotion was nice too.
"take care to get the res toyu need as well, i doubt they'll let us sit here for long"

Having received word from his sources, Cowboy made his way over to Scooters new 'office' with a simple wooden box containing his favorite sin.  Waiting for him to get done with Oliver and Devlin he places the box down when they are done talking, "The shipment should be coming in tomorrow Scooter so I need your help.  I've got next to nowhere available in tonnage to shift to carry around two full tons of ammo.  What I need you to do is segment my existing bin into two half-ton bins with a rapid switch allowing me to flip between my regular rounds and the precision ones with ease to hit those hard targets that those things are made for."

After the unit returns, Devlin makes his way over to Scooter's office.  He knocks on the door and enters.

Hey Scooter.  I need some refit done. I need ta swap that medium pulse laser out for the extended range medium laser.  I like a knife fight but dang, I gotta be able to smell their breath to use this thing. 

Scooter nods, and agrees, the lab boys have enough data on the pulse later, and are ready to swap it out for ER lasers to field test so they're willing to make it so.

No cost swapping the RA PML for a RA ERML.

Any thoughts that the company will miss Lt. Armstrong were quickly confirmed with the first briefing led by...okay, not so much led maybe...1st Lieutenant Hinklemeyer-Schmidt.  He had brought in a stack of papers and pictures that he spent a great deal of time putting up for the others to see...not that anyone could see anything sitting from the back rows of the meeting room.

The meeting was held even delayed further by the loud...and very obvious...snoring of the Irish VTOL pilot named Flanigan, who was still hung over from the party.  The lieutenant visibly fumed and went red in the face a bit...even threw something at the guy, but missed...to the humor of the attendees.  Finally, it was an extra loud snore on the part of Flanigan that woke him up and the meeting got started.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  I have made some strategically optimized reassignments in the company to make better use of synergies.  The new lance assignments will be as follows..."  Moaning and groaning ensued for anyone placed in the Strike Lance, while the others simply smiled at their good fortune.  Halo was being reassigned, and her spot was being filled by Reaper.

He continued, "...those assignments are final.  Now, HQ, courtesy of Lieutenant Armstrong, has provided us with a mission to take out the artillery units of the Combine...or at least to distract the company of mechs guarding it.  The mechs are not part of the standard Combine, but a mercenary unit of the Wolf's Dragoons...."

This was the last part of his presentation that made any sense to anyone.  What happened next was not only confusing, but self-contradictory, lasting over an hour.  No one was sure if he even knew what he was talking about...let alone understand him.  In short, it was a disaster, and it was embarrassing for the new lieutenant.  The company was so shell-shocked that it was unsurprising no one raised his/her hand when he called for questions.  The lieutenant dismissed everyone and left.

There was a whole lot of murmuring and nasty talk in whispers, when Peggy stood up and walked to the front.  She cleared her throat for attention and delivered a much clearer, much more succinct.  The company came to understand their new assignment (as Kitten had posted it in msg #279).

Adam knew that the first briefing by Johan might be interesting and thus he had brought his vocorder and a pad of paper with pen to take notes.  He did actually try to take some notes simply because he was trying to figure out if the man was a certifiable genius that the unit was underestimating or if he was just certifiable.

By the end of the hour he had his answer...

Looking to Svend, Camille and Oliver he tilted his head and said to them, "We've got a lot of work to do and not much to do it with.  Reaper, talk to Backdraft and Goth here about how we'll handle this.  I'm going to round up Valkyrie and Dom to give us a hand."

Sandy looked more puzzled than anyone else.  It was synergetic to move her out of the Dancing Horses?  Since when?  She kept giving Adam a puzzled look and wondered if this was some sort of obscure brush off, or solution for alleviating a messy officer/enlisted tryst.

Holly was totally lost during Schmidts briefing.  The bit about all the VTOLs carpet bombing the starport, in preparation of the LAM delivered infantry to capture drop ships intact while the mechs fought off ... naval (?) assets and something about Bravo taking out a railgun before the operation...

She was certain he had lost the real briefing and was ad libbing from a holo vid... maybe several holo vids... maybe several bad holo vids... really really really bad holovids.

It was nice that Pagan was more... understandable.  April was still pretty far away or she'd laugh and write this off as a big joke.

When she was done she had her hand up...
"M'am.... mmm... sir?  The nightmares are being assigned close support.  Have final assignments been determined yet?"

Shell shocked was pretty much how Halo felt.  Lt. A-Hold had just totally FUBARed a debriefing with... alot of...

Words failed to come to her for something appropiate.  None of it made sense.  None of it.  Lt. Kelswa made alot more sense, but there was a nagging concern.  She didnt correct the, obvious, mistake in lance assignments.

Adam was... ignoring her... Adam was already consulting with West like he was part of the lance.  He knew... the Sonuva***** knew...

words are too pastel to describe her emotional state at the moment, she totally lost focus for the rest of the meeting.  Holly was paying attention though.  She would fill her in on anything important she needed to know.

Amos looked around. He wanted to speak with Devlin about their new lance commander. "So whatda think about our new LT." He rolled his to the left to where Jillian Anderson was standing. "Thought you'd be in charge of the lance."

Adam shook his head to Sandy slightly during the briefing and waited till after setting the rest of Pursuit to task to head over to Holly and her stepping close to Halo speaking quietly, "Schmidt's idea, not mine, and since his mommy pulled some more strings to get him promoted yet again I can't do anything about it...yet."

"And yeah Holly, word is you and the Irishman are flying support for the Lt. and it isn't this Lt." he filled her in on what little he had been told.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:58, Fri 13 Jan 2012.

"Aye aye leftenant!" Reaper replies to Cowboy with a big smile, the short man moving over besides Backdraft and Goth. Stretching out his hands in front of him, he cracks his knuckles audibly and looks between the two through the sheer lense of his glasses.  Having heard the mission along with everyone else, he seems to be mulling it over and only after a great deal of thinking does he finally decide, ”I don’t suppose we can get a cartography map before we get there?”

A shrug.

"Have you guys used any tactics lately I might not have heard about?" he asks.

After the briefing Camille sighed, she'd known ahead of time, still she really didn't like the changes, She'd run with Sandra a couple times now, she was about to grow accustomed to the way the other worked when she got yanked out of their lance and into another, still Camille ahd sat down with the rest of what had sued to be her lance.

"sorry to see you go, hopefully mr. high and mighty will get promoted again soon so we can get someone with a little more here"
She tapped her forehead with a single finger.

"and all because the bastard thinks I need protection"
she was clenching her fist and then dropepd it on ehr thigh, which caused a grimace... she still hadn't fully recovered after her injuries.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:06, Fri 13 Jan 2012.

Svend could only shake his head at the new LT and wonder how long he would last now that the spotlight was fully on him. The thought made Svend chuckle. He then focused on the new guy and the job of getting him up to speed.

"Look here, youngin'. The smarter we play this the better chance we stand. We can discuss tactics in a more private location. No sense chatting it up after this FUBARed briefing."

Jillian briefs her Lance.

"Morning all, settle down. I am Ensign Jillian Anderson, and for my sins command has decided to stick me with you lot.
As you may know, Anderson's normally flies LAM's, so this ground-pounding stuff is new to me. Apropros of that, Corporal Masters, you are specifically ordered to tell me if you believe I am making a serious mistake."

She paused long enough for him to reply, then continued.

"All right. The mission is codenamed 'Hit and Run'.
The purpose of this mission is to prevent enemy forces, believed to be one lance of the Dragoons, from interfering in operations by Bravo company against enemy artillery covering the approaches to the starport.

We can do this by keeping them busy, or by destroying them. Command requires busy, and I would like destroy.

Terrain is light urban, with only minor elevation changes, it's spaceport surrounds people, and greensward. Pay attention to these roads here and here, they are almost walls to LOS.

Own forces are our lance, enemy forces are a lance of the Wolf Dragoons. The Wolf Dragoons are an elite unit, but intel believes that they may have green replacements in the lighter slots, making for a mixed force. The force we meet, will, of course, be all elites.

The ops plan, which will naturally not survive contact with the enemy, is to close up to within nutrino detection range, remaining out of line of sight, calling our own artillery down onto them, causing them to close to destroy us. If they do advance, as I expect them to do as destruction of spotters is about the best tactic against artillery, we will conduct a reverse-slope ambush here at Point Beta," she pointed it out on the map, "ideally by succession, then advance as the enemies actions permit.

Formation will be conventional, with myself in the Hatchetman and Wolfman in the Whitworth forward as close mechs, and you other two at 100 metre separation to put those PPC's and Large Lasers to work.

Initial point is here, point Alpha, with engagement expected here, point Beta, forward rally here, point Gamma, and retreat rally here, point Omega.

Concentration of fire will be important to the success of this mission, and I trust you all have the discipline to follow mob orders."

She waited for the laughter to die down.

"In any case, the idea here is to defeat the enemy in detail, with all four of us mobbing each one of them in a succession of point-blank ambushes for as long as possible.

"I have prepared a set of nested tactical postures under various scenarios, enemy retreats, flanks left or right, and so on. Load them up on your mechs computer to reduce tactical reaction time."

Ooc- Mechanically this is already covered by the +4 Jillian provides to initiative, don't expect more.

"Support is two pre-planned artillery stonks, one HE to wake them up, and one smoke to cover our withdrawal if neccessary. I have asked for, but not yet recieved approval of, an air cav strike to enable us to break contact if closely engaged.

ADA, infantry and EW support are not available, and repair and replenishment is not expected to take place within the scope of the mission.

Secondary objectives, none. Bravo company is not expecting friendly mechs within their ZOA, so no direct support of them is contemplated even if the mission is unexpectedly successful.

Lastly, tech support has requested that we not dent our mechs too badly, so when the enemy shoot at you ask them very nicely not to scratch your paintwork, okay?

Questions?"

Ooc- Tiger, I saw your post, but the Whitworth with its ML's and Srm's is a close range mech, and Joker probably wants to stand off with his PPC to avoid damage.

Patrick scratched his head a bit looking at his meeting notes.  They certainly didn't seem to make any sense, but they came right out of the new 1st lieutenant's mouth.  He tried turning them upside down and over around again, but still it was tough to grasp...they seemed to belong more on fortune cookies than anything else.  They read:

Cat sat in the briefing room almost unbelieving at the words coming out of Johan's mouth. She looked at Sandra, who was to be a new member of the lance rolling her eyes as Johan left. Her head sunk into her hands. Who knew that babysitting a Lieutenant could be so dangerous? She was sure this wouldn't end well.

She knew he was weak as a pilot just from seeing him on the battlefield. She began to wonder if his family knew how bad he was, before she concluded that they did and that's why he's in a merc unit as opposed to a nice safe House one.

She found herself wishing someone would frag the Lt. and put someone competent in charge. Not that she'd do it....but she hoped someone else would. He was dangerous with a Lance to command. With a whole company she feared what he'd be capable of. It was luck that had brought them this far despite the severe losses, she didn't want to know what might happen when the luck ran out.

Of all the people to appreciate the new accomodations from 6th Company it had to be the first and second infantry platoons that supported the mech and calavry from ground side.

A real base meant shelter and solid walls to stand sentry on, at least some of the times.  They would still be in the field, and in the bush from time to time watching the main roads in and picking the perimeter with a near invisible trip wire of flesh and blood eyes to watch for Combine approach, but it also meant the occassional 'soft' detail of sentry duty at a base, where you could trade off with a partner to step in and warm up a little.

The food was better, and the supplies were nice.  The Combine was in a hurry to move out all their big toys, that alot of the smaller ones got left behind to the delight of the foot sloggers (new equipment availability as outlined in the barracks are officially in effect).

At least that was the way it was for MOST of the infantry.  The Bravos were different, they werent put out on picket duty or garrison duty unless things were REALLY slow.  They got the dirty ugly ones, the ones some would say was near suicide.

This was one of those jobs.  The Top brass was itching to move in and take the Starport, but wisdom said to take out the supporting assets in the area first.  The Combine had four thumpers in the area that have been giving the militia a drubbing and needed to be dealt with.  It's existence meant that at any time they could shell the base with impunity.  Once, sometimes twice a day, the whistle of artillary would hint at the arrival of Combine shelling on the base.  It was rare for someone to be hurt, and no one had died from it yet, but it was bad for morale to have to tip toe around in a base that was suppose to be safe and secure.

Primary Objective
Toni wants those (4) Thumpers taken out. (2 experience each character, for each Thumper taken out.)

Secondary Objective
Return from mission with out injury (1 experience)

---

The lay of the land...

The Artillary pieces are in a broad field, of a dozen bunkers or so, each night they are moved around and a shell game of sort is played with the Eridani to figure out where they really are.  Short of an all out assault theres no way to get close enough to confirm destruction.  So the Bravos are being sent in on the ground to make it so.

6th Battalion is making a dedicated diversionary attack to draw out defenders from the base, and Air Cavalry will be flying about making a few combat passes at the bunkers to keep local garrison busy for a minute or two.  The Bravos are to be inserted during this time and have at MOST five minutes to do their dirty deeds and bug out.  Failure to achieve this objective means being way behind enemy lines with a long walk home.

The Insertion...

The Bravos have choice of options on how they want to arrive on the field.

---

The Dirty Deed.

Doing it with Artillary
(Players are alloted (4) salvos of four thumpers ~ Each additional salvo will cost the Bravos a point of Prestige.)

There are four field pieces deployed, in light fortifications (20 cf).  Each time the fortification takes a 'direct' hit, the field piece has a chance of being disabled.  Standard Artillar rules are involved

{tn 10+ when the fortification is between 11 and 20}
{tn 8+ when the fortification is between 1 and 10}
{Automatic when there is no fortification}


Doing it with C8
A carefuly placed block of C8 will have a tn 10+ of disabling the field piece.  This tn, is increase by +2 for each extra block used, to 'make sure'.  There is no extra time involved in planting the block of C8, it's just a bigger block to set up.


Those are the two obvious options, if the players are creative and think about it, there are others.

---

Extraction.

The Bravos all need to get to an extraction point if they're coming out the way they came in.  They need to get to this point during a 'window of opportunity'.  Come too late and the diversionary attack is over, and your ride wont be showing up.  If this occurs you need to find alternate means out.  If nothing else, it'll be a long walk out.

---

Cold weather rules are in effect.  Cold weather clothing will slow you down, but if you need to be in the cold for a long time (like if you miss your ride), youre going to wish you bought it along.

More to be added later, you may ask questions during Tony's Briefing.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 15:44, Sat 14 Jan 2012.

ooc:
curious and fun question:

do we have access to solid foam grenades (the kind that explode and cover an area in foam which then turns granite hard?)

just thinking, lob one into the barrel, set artillery piece to fire... RUN like the devil was snapping at your arse!
This message was last edited by the player at 17:22, Sat 14 Jan 2012.

Do they really exist (in real life)?  If so get me a link.

I'll let you swap an artillary salvo for one if they do.  No mess no fuss, get close enough to drop it in the barrel and move on.

OOC
But even if they do exist in RL, it may not in BTech... everything can be deemed LOSTech if Kitten desires :)

I'm actually not certain grenade slike that exist per se... Cans do (for construction patch work, and could probably cover the job just as well)

like this:
http://www.bison.net/en/produc...3-construction-foam/

I know it doens't sound all that tough, but it is seriously hard once solid, and takes a relatively short time tto solidify to a certain point, it takes about 24 hours or so to fully solidify and bond, but as said is relatively solid within a short while (a few minutes).

whether it's ever been considered for military use or not, i've no idea, can't find anything about it.