Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

[SuperHeavy]

nteresting that Kilburrough doesn't seem to know that we are at war with the Dracs. When we decide to invade later on, we could exploit this, pretending to be have joined the Combine, and maybe use that to get our forces as close as possible before they realize something is up. But that is a long way away.

Oh they know, they are just willing to sell to us as well. Probably because they have enough orbital firepower to cripple the Dracs just to control the orbitals so the Dragon's retribution is quite limited.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Turn 57 - A High Price

Your military commanders come to you with an audacious plan. They propose to strike hard at the heart of the Dragon on Nowa Warszawa. The proposed plan would use 4 Monoliths and 3 Tramps, giving 45 collars worth of lift.

• Operation Bronco
  • Space Forces - Overall Command - Admiral Thanh Griffith
    • Task Force 1 - Jumpship Protection
      • 2 Shannon-class Armored Cruisers
        • HMS Shannon
        • HMS Immortalite
    • Task Force 2 - Strike Element
      • 1 Renown-class Flagship
        • HMS Renown
      • 10 Royal Sovereign-class Battleships
        • HMS Royal Sovereign
        • HMS Empress of Nowy Gdansk
        • HMS Ramillies
        • HMS Resolution
        • HMS Repulse
        • HMS Revenge
        • HMS Centurion
        • HMS Barfleur
        • HMS Bellerophon
        • HMS Penelope
      • 8 Shannon-class Armored Cruisers
        • HMS Northampton
        • HMS Imperieuse
        • HMS Orlando
        • HMS Australia
        • HMS Undaunted
        • HMS Narcissus
        • HMS Galatea
      • 7 Majestic-class Battleships
        • HMS Majestic
        • HMS Prince George
        • HMS Victorious
        • HMS Prince Jeremy
        • HMS Jupiter
        • HMS Mars
        • HMS Caesar
    • Landing Force
      • 1 Tarawa-class Regimental Assault Transport
      • 7 Newport-class Landing Ship - Regimental
      • 6 Newport-C-class Attack Transport
      • 3 Roadrunner-class Fast Attack Transport
  • Ground Forces - Overall Command - General His Imperial Highness Crown Prince Jeremy Griffith
    • 1st Brigade, 1st Armored
      • Would link up with the already deployed Special Ops regiment on planet
    • 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored
    • 5th Brigade, 1st Armored
• Objective
  • Seize and hold a continent on Nowa Warszawa
    • Based on our intelligence and sensor data we believe that the target continent is not the capital area for the Dracs, but is rather an industrial and agricultural center for the planet.
    • Reports from extracted Home Army forces indicate that there are several factory complexes on this continent dedicated to the production of the Jenner battlemech and the Sabre ASF. Denying these factories to the enemy is the primary goal of this operation.
• Plan
  • Force will arrive at the L5 Pirate point. Task Force 1 will remain with the jumpships while they recharge, then remain once the jumpships depart to bring in possible reinforcements as needed.
  • Task Force 2 will take control of the orbitals and engage in precision orbital bombardment of targets on the main continent, focusing on identified military bases.
  • Task Force 3 will prepare for a combat drop
    • The Pathfinder Regiment will make an orbital drop to secure the LZ
  • Task Force 3 will perform a combat drop
  • 1st Brigade, 1st Armored will secure the LZ
  • 2nd and 5th Brigade, 1st Armored, will begin aggressive combat operations aiming to capture or destroy the identified factory complexes.
  • Based on the overall situation, General Griffith will determine if it will be possible to hold the continent against counter attack and will decide whether or not to withdraw.

You look at Jeremy, who nods at you. “Mom, we can do this. Moreover, we have to do this. We can’t risk giving the Dracs time to recover, but rather we need to keep kicking them while they are down. If we waited until we had all the forces we’d want to have, we’d wind up chasing our own tails because there will always be good reasons for waiting just a year longer. We need to go now, and put it to the touch.”

[]	Approve Operation Bronco
[]	Deny Operation Bronco

In support of Operation Bronco, if you decide to go forward with it, you can ‘activate’ the Home Army, making use of your Special Forces units to coordinate strategic strikes against Drac targets across the planet. This will put the resistance fighters at great risk. If you wind up having to pull back after bloodying the Dragon’s nose like this, the resulting purges and crackdowns would be ruinous.

[]	Activate the Home Army
[]	Tell them to keep their heads down

This is a MAJOR decision point in the quest. I will require at least 10 votes for the winning decision about Operation Bronco. If the questors decide to go forward, the next several posts will primarily be combat reports and decisions, with the questors controlling Thanh and Jeremy.

 

[SuperHeavy]

[X]Approve Operation Bronco

If the Dracs are not moving a force into our system in a retaliatory strike like I feared then we have the forces to push a beachhead. While we have sub-capital weapons and they do not any incoming fleet should get chewed up even in a worse case scenario where we have to retreat.

[X]Activate the Home Army

We need their local knowledge and as many boots on the ground as possible. If we have to leave the Dracs would crack down anyway and we can take quite a few with us.

 

[kashim3]

[X]Approve Operation Bronco
[X]Activate the Home Army

 

[Jarow]

[X] Approve Operation Bronco

Super nervous about our chances, but I have to agree with Jeremy - we do need to do this.

Not quite sure about the other part; doing it would be a significant help to our goals here, but given my perception of low likelihood of overall success on Bronco it seems too early (though, as someone in Discord mentioned, it's not really our choice either way, and they might activate themselves regardless)

 

[kelgar04]

[X]Approve Operation Bronco
[X]Activate the Home Army

We do this time we take the fight to the ground.

 

[Decim]

[X] Approve Operation Bronco
[X] Tell them to keep their heads down

I'm not happy about this, to be honest. Launch a major raid? Sure, I'll absolutely get behind that. Conquer a continent for good? Fuck no. We'll have three line regiments on Griffin's Roost during this operation. We don't have any reserves, at all. We'd be best off just blowing up the factories, smashing whatever units are around them, and then leaving.

We are, more or less, in the position of the USA in 1942-1943. Our ground forces are woefully deficient for what we need them to do (that is, cover both garrison and offensive duties appropriately. So, that means keeping strategic goals in check.

Personally, I'd have taken a different route. Secure the rest of the system, including the jump points, then move onto landing on Nowa Warszawa. Space, air, then surface of the planet. As is, that giant DCMS force of 800+ dropships and attendant jumpships really worries me. We don't know what's up with that, so I'm inclined to play the naval game harder than the ground game, even if they are all the light dropships in the inventory and thus only about as strong as Home Fleet.

 

[Tel Janin Aman]

People seem ready to go, hopefully it is the right move. We are producing our own jumpships right? How many collars do they have?

 

[ShadowArxxy]

[X]Approve Operation Bronco
[X]Activate the Home Army

Jeremy is absolutely correct; the Combine-in-the-Periphery has been handed defeat after defeat at our hands, but they still have massive strategic depth and a scary amount of raw production. To take WWII as the analogy, *we* have America's technological supremacy and outsized economy, but *they* actually have the mega-production aspect and we do not want to drown in Shermans.

And we're not conquering a continent, we're liberating one. There is a HUGE practical difference when you're operating *with* the aid of a large scale local resistance.

 

[Jarow]

We are producing our own jumpships right? How many collars do they have?

We're producing two Caravels (our own custom design) every four turns. Caravels have 4 collars each, so we have an effective average production of 2 collars a year. Forgot to put jumpships on action list last turn, but a crit success started them for free so we do have them currently under production.

 

[darkcloudt2]

[X]Approve Operation Bronco
[X]Activate the Home Army

If we are doing this then we will have better chances going all in, I would have liked us to take out the dracs space assets first.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The Dracs were able to toss 100 Jenners at us when they invaded, so we are likely going to face at least that many on the Nowa Warszawa, and that's not counting other ground forces like infantry, tanks, aircraft, etc. Do we even have ground forces capable of fighting that many? And we are fighting on their home turf; they know the lay of the land and have defensive fortifications. Doing a hit and run on factories is one thing, but trying to hold the continent when we would almost certainly be heavily outnumbered (and by more experienced ground forces) would be... I don't see this going well for us.

[X] Approve Operation Bronco

Approving on the assumption that we are going to do a hit and run and we're not going to stick around to get swamped.

[X] Tell them to keep their heads down

Activating the Home Army would put the entire planet's population at risk. We aren't even certian if we will be able to secure a single continent! No.

 

[Thors_Alumni]

This is a bad idea but on the other hand we really need to keep up the pressure on the Drac's. I honestly want to say no but on the other hand, Yea.

[X] Approve Operation Bronco
[X] Tell them to keep their heads down

 

[Thors_Alumni]

It should be pointed out that LordSunhawk means for this to be a raid. not a conquer and stay objective mission, The force is also bringing along enough dropships to take as many people away to safety as possible. The mission is to destroy the factories and liberate as many people as possible while inflicting damage onto the Drac's while reinforcing the stay behind battalions.

 

[Ridli Scott]

[X] Approve Operation Bronco
[X] Tell them to keep their heads down

 

[Artifex]

[X] Approve Operation Bronco
[X] Tell them to keep their heads down

 

[Winter_Wind45]

[X] Approve Operation Bronco
[X] Tell them to keep their heads down

 

[PsihoKekec]

[x] Deny Operation Bronco


We are not ready yet, the chances of getting buried under the Jenner avalanche is too high, better to utilise the naval superiority and enable air strikes to damage the plants and leave subtle hints that the future full scale invasion will target the head of the snake.

 

[lordmcdeath]

[X] Approve Operation Bronco
[X] Tell them to keep their heads down

We steal everything we can carry, burn everything we can't, and destroy as much of production as we can.

 

[Brogatar]

[X] Approve Operation Bronco
[X] Tell them to keep their heads down