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This Is My Wrench...

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#61 Bill Bullet

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Posted 12 August 2015 - 03:01 PM

View PostRogueSpear, on 12 August 2015 - 06:43 AM, said:

Glad to hear you're coming back Rabbi, we're looking to get some new blood in some of the old RPs to kickstart us into posting more often (Hint hint)


Indeed! Perhaps you'll stop by a certain bar and have a drink or two?? (nudge, nudge)

#62 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 12 August 2015 - 08:42 PM

Busy, busy, busy...

It's a lot of work, running a battalion of battlemechs. More so when it's a business. Even more so when there's a big war on with some REALLY deadly enemies.

So yeah. Apparently I'm the last to know. Everyone else has known for at least a couple of weeks, that these 'clans' have invaded the Inner Sphere. Thankfully, they chose to do so at the far other end, so it's not an IMMEDIATE problem for us. But it's on the near end of the horizon. We're moving out soon to Tikonov, to reinforce the planet's garrison.

Here's a fun Capellan fact for you! As of the beginning of this creepy invasion, no mercenary units may retain salvage parts and supplies for battlemechs, dropships, aerospace fighters, tanks, or artillery. We have to account for it to the C-Bill and turn it all in, at which time we'll be compensated for it financially. That's all well and good, you say? We can just buy what we need to repair and rearm, you say? Huh. Yeah, try buying those parts at ANY price right now. The whole military support industry is focused on this invasion, and with the Davions and Kuritas of the Inner Sphere paying top dollar for anything vaguely resembling an SRM, I can't get squat on our fine little backwater. All of our existing orders are now backorders, and estimated fulfillment dates are unknown.

The logistics of even our simple little operation? Fairly staggering. Look, we all know that it costs money to buy armor, and then it takes time for metalworking techs to craft it appropriately to fit whichever mech, and then to install it. It takes money to buy more SRMs and 5-class autocannon rounds, and then you have to pay your ordinance techs to load you up. And even when they're sitting idle (which is rare around these 20-100 ton dumpsters), you still have to pay these dudes. Powerplant specialists? They think they're gods, as do a lot of other techs. They work some manner of black voodoo magic to keep those things running, and they're paid accordingly.

Consider that even repair parts are just the tip of the maintenance iceberg (I've never SEEN a real iceberg, but I hear that they're impressive). Remember me mentioning before using sheets of graphene sheathing and molybdenum disulfide grease to lubricate mating surfaces between myomer bundles? Yeah, that stuff ain't free. And you get what you pay for. The microgravity-made graphene sheaths are a LOT higher quality (some guarantee their integrity to less than 100 molecular-level imperfections per square meter), and they cost more than a date with the Steiner sisters. There are over 100 square meters of that stuff in the legs of an LCT-1V Locust alone. The grease is relatively cheap, though.

Corrosion is the enemy of all things metal. Treating those spots where corrosion begins? It's the enemy of my bank account. Even here on the dry side of the continent, what little moisture is in the air (and what MAD moisture was in the caves) sets corrosion immediately to work on every slight scratch and surface imperfection on a battlemech, inside AND outside, just as fast as it can. Treating corrosion on the heavy steel plate armor? Easy, though time-consuming. Wire brushes work well, followed by a fancy pickling solution treatment, and then primered and painted. Like auto body work, but with a 15 meter tall auto designed to kill at a rate of X hundreds per hour. That fancy ferro-fibrous armor? It's a little more complicated than that, though thankfully it's harder for corrosion to start on that stuff. Internal structures are complicated. There are BUNCHES of aluminum forgings around low-load or non-load areas--lighter weapon mounts, cockpit, electronics shelves, etc.-- that don't corrode as quickly or easily, but require a bit more hazardous treatment. And would you know, they're almost ALL internal to the mech, so that's an ENCLOSED SPACE operation to treat. You can go ahead and triple the tech's pay for that day, and cut his hours back to about 3-4 (unless you want him dead). And don't even get me started on treating corrosion on magnesium castings. Treating scratches on optical sensor lenses. Polishing cockpit glass. Hell, there's a separate technician specialty for life support systems maintenance, and even sub-specializations for those that work in various environments. A zero-atmo Life Support Tech (LST) is different from a corrosive/oxidizing atmo LST, is different from a submerged enviro LST, and so on. Having a few general specialists is great, as long as you plan on sticking to parades on nice planets.

Oh, and those fancy cranes and testing kits and so on? They all have to be maintained, too! And guess who does that! ANOTHER tech, who also demands mad money, who insists on using the highest-quality parts and materials, and who is absolutely positive that his/her specialty is the single most important to the unit's success.

The materials? Expensive. The tools? EXPENSIVE! (That boresighting kit I mentioned before? Costs a little more than a turnkey LCT-3S, ammo and all.) The techs? EXPENSIVE! Simply maintaining the maintenance team is almost as expensive as replacing your entire complement of mechs every two years.

Even putting together a competent team is a hassle, especially when most of the good ones that are available, are available because they don't play well with others. Get a bunch of very high-self-worth type-A personalities together, all with big chips on their shoulders, and then tell them they're not worth as much as the prima donnas that sit in the nice comfy cockpits and drive. See how far that gets you.

And that's why, as of a couple hours ago, I've made a new policy decision. ALL mechwarriors in my employ WILL participate in scheduled routine maintenance, ESPECIALLY preventive maintenance, of their assigned battlemechs. And all technicians WILL participate in mission tactical planning and briefings, as well as simulator exercises.

Oh yeah, the Confederation also locked in all mercenary mechwarriors to their current contracts, in the cases that those contracts were to the Capellan Confederation as of the date of the invasion or on any day afterward. So, the government money continues to flow, and I'm stuck with a bunch of guys and gals who don't want to watch the war from the bars of Tikonov.

Given the intel I've already been briefed on these badasses, though, I'm betting we'll get a piece of that action sooner than later. More on them soon. For now, I'm LONG overdue dinner with Natalee...

#63 GroxGlitch

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Posted 13 August 2015 - 08:21 AM

This is absolutely fantastic RAbbi :D Can't wait to read more!

#64 Bill Bullet

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Posted 13 August 2015 - 08:30 AM

For someone in Capellan employ, I'm noticing a serious lack of [[redacted]] statements. :P

#65 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 18 August 2015 - 07:52 PM

So, uh... Wow?

Strike that previous talk about our purpose on Tikonov. Apparently, the strategic types are crapping themselves over this 'clan' invasion deal, and their plans are changing day-to-day. Mostly, they're crapping themselves over the prospect of ComStar getting directly involved. And there's a LOT of talk about them doing exactly that.

So, rather than jump directly into the fray with these 'clan' enemies, who they're very afraid would wipe their backsides with any proper Capellan military, they're doing the smart thing. They're gonna sit back a bit, train up based on the latest intelligence, and wait for the proper moment to ... I dunno, do SOMETHING?

And that's now where WE fit in. Our contract has been rewritten about a half dozen times in the last week. It's as concrete as it's going to get now, and it has us doing something actually REALLY interesting. We're now an official OPFOR (opposing force) for a new battlemech maneuver training center that's being hastily constructed on Tikonov. We're moving out in about two weeks.

So, there will be housing provided there, courtesy of the Confederation. Officers' accommodations actually seem pretty nice. Even the barracks and non-bachelor housing for non-officers will be a new construction and relatively well appointed. We're going to have to hire all sorts of staff, though there'll be no shortage of willing labor on site. We're actually already interviewing over the distance for a lot of positions, especially in logistics positions.

Here's where it gets exciting, though. We're temporarily using the latest force-on-force combat simulation gear, and will be employing 'clan'-specific tactics in force-on-force engagements against proper Capellan military units to prepare them for possible combat against those enigmatic enemies.

No one in Capellan territory has yet gotten hold of any of the 'clan' mechs, but we're told it's just a matter of time. Transponders on our mechs will be spoofed to provide signatures matching those 'clan' mechs already observed in combat. Engagement ranges for the simulation weapons will be tweaked to match theirs, etc. It's pretty swell. Top benefit, though? We're going to be reviewing a LOT of data already acquired on the 'clan' enemy, and training to match their units' compositions and tactics to every detail.

We haven't seen much info on that yet, by the way. What we know so far is that their mechs are pretty advanced, and mostly superior to anything fielded in the Inner Sphere so far. They're running 75-ton heavies at Dragon-like speeds with Stalker-like armaments, and it's brutal.

Oh yeah, this also means some serious customization is going to happen to our mechs to make them work anywhere near as well as those enemy ones. Engine upgrades for speed (we'll save the weight, anyhow, for sake of not needing REAL armaments and ammo), some serious reworking of actuators and joints to allow the same kinds of ranges of motion, etc.

Did I mention that this is a VERY lucrative contract? If so, did I then mention that we only got it because the Governor here felt he owed me one after that whole imprisonment thing, so he pulled a string? Or that he also kinda wants me out of here, for sake of his conscience (at least, I suspect as much--he's not a half-bad guy, actually)? The hate mails are flowing from a handful of other merc unit owners around the Confederation.

The cracks about my mother ALMOST hurt. Then I think of all that money, and how well my people will be paid, and how cool it's going to be on Tikonov, and then I light a cigar with a burning 1,000 C-Bill note, and I laugh.

Well, I did that once anyway.

First cigar. Last cigar. Those things will kill ya.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. Natalee's coming along, but Bryson's not. Kind of a bummer, that last part. His home is here, his business is here. Much as I'd love to have him along, I couldn't coax him into it at any price. If you're ever on that end of the planet, though, he's the guy to see.

Nat moved on to Tikonov earlier, and should be arriving there today. She's getting on the ball with staffing and initial logistical details, so we'll have a smoother landing there.

More to follow. I'm having a big first-look meeting with my key staff in about 10 minutes to go over some new intel on the 'clans'. This will be our first look at video footage of their machines in combat, along with some really good sensor data from a couple of Beagle probes that made it back from that fight. Should be intense...

#66 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 19 August 2015 - 09:32 PM

First, let me just say that I'm not unimpressed with our new designation. As my own heritage runs back at least that far, being reflagged under a title first held by a Soviet (Ukrainian) command that fought in the Second World War on Terra (roughly 1100 years ago, though I'm no history buff) is kind of cool.

We're to be reflagged as part of the send-off ceremony taking place next week, ahead of shipping out for Tikonov. We'll become the 83rd Cavalry. This was originally a division under the 30th brigade (unit designations were apparently a bit WEIRD on mankind's home world in the 20th Century) in Eastern Europe (then the Carpathian region in Ukraine). Hurray for history! Some of the guys were pulling for the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (an American command that pulled a mission very similar to our own new one), but that didn't sit all too well with the Capellan military brass.

Once this war is all over, of course, we'll be free to redesignate. For now, it's actually in the fine print of the contract that they get to rename us, at least for official correspondence and such. If we're answering to it, we may as well get into it.

Nat says that she got to Tikonov without problem, that our quarters are phenomenal (I HAVE A HOT TUB!), and that everyone in that part of the Confederation is at pucker factor eleven right now.

On to the WHY of that pucker factor...

We got some footage of combat with some of the clan lights. They hit like mediums, they take hits like mediums, but at least they also mostly MOVE like mediums. Naming convention is pretty simple--whoever saw it first got to name it. We've seen some encounters with Kit Fox and Adder mechs. They seem variously customized, which is odd for what appear to be more-or-less proper military units.

Something interesting about this. THESE mechs were caught out in ones and twos. What we're seeing is groups of five, and very effective ones at that. It's unclear how these mechs were operating, organizationally.

Anyhow, seeing a light mech whip out TWO PPCs (we believe they're extended-range models, too) and tear a hole in a Warhammer's torso is pretty interesting. Seeing it do so without overheating? Wild.

These things aren't some mystical war gods, though. They're just the next few small steps in the evolution of battlemechs, we think. Armor isn't much different. Weapons work basically the same. And for now, at least, it seems that their light mechs are more focused on firepower than speed, which may be a decent advantage for us (well, 'us' meaning various IS commands) going forward. Of course, their heavies and assaults are supposedly considerably quicker. And those lights are pretty heavily armed (TWO PPCs!).

But hey, we get to try to BE those guys!

That's kind of a challenge in itself, though. What we're seeing is some REALLY impressive fighting on the part of the clan mechwarriors. These guys are GOOD. I'm going to be pushing my people really hard here. Might turn us into a decent outfit before it's all said and done.

Though I already kind of AM. There are some worn-down mechwarriors in my employ right now. Glad they'll be swimming in loot, rather than bat guano (we discovered at least three previously-unknown species of bat, by the way, at least one of which was not only completely blind, but in fact had NO EYES AT ALL, curing our little spelunkering trip). Tired from the round-the-clock work getting these mechs ready for transit.

See, if you're getting ready for a combat drop, you can stow your mechs pretty much as you see them parked. But when you're setting out on a freight dropship (because all the combat-capable ones are on far more important jobs), things get strange. The mechs aren't going to get hot-dropped in a live-fire zone. They're going to be carefully offloaded, and we'll have a couple weeks before our maintenance compound is ready. They're going to be occupying a lot of space if they're not packed up right.

SO, we have to partially disassemble them! Arms come off all but a few (Locusts get over on this, for instance, because their arms are so small to begin with). Legs get squatted on the 'bird walkers' (Locusts do NOT get over on this). Weapons MUST come off by law. No live ammo goes with, even Gauss ammo (a technicality never really addressed by a competent legislative body). The little remaining ammo we had was bought at market price (prices were locked at the outset of the war, though) by the Confederation. Any corrosives have to be stored separately in orbital transfer containers, which then have to be VERY carefully marked, weighed, declared, etc. All the engines have to be run-down, scrammed, and defueled. And so on. If you've never tried to move military equipment via commercial cargo, trust me that it's an ENORMOUS pain.

Even more so for some frustrated mechwarriors that are just starting to learn the ins and outs of battlemech maintenance, and the techs that have to put up with them.

Some have been real troopers, though. I may have to reconsider my junior leadership positions.

More on that later.

For now, sleep. Then more redeployment prep, ceremony rehearsal, uniform fitting (no, we DIDN'T have uniforms before this contract, actually), briefings, coffee, whining. You know. The usual.

#67 RotS Targe

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Posted 21 August 2015 - 08:25 PM

Welcome back! Love where things are going, feels great to see this being picked back up

#68 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 21 August 2015 - 09:09 PM

:::--Real-life moment here--:::

Bounced jobs a couple times in the last year and a half. Spent just a little bit of that unemployed, too. Lost my Dad not quite 2 years ago to a long story of what I think was medical malpractice, but mostly to a ridiculously bad abdominal aortic aneurysm. Things are finally settling down.

ALSO spent well over 2,000 hours in Borderlands games, because they're lots of fun too.

I'm back. Glad to be.

:::--Discontinue touchy-feely--:::

Okay. This isn't 100% confidential, but it's not front-page stuff either. Let's keep it between me and all of you for now. One of the parts of the new contract is, that as they become available for use in training, we trade-up our old-skool battlemechs for captured working-condition clan mechs.

There's been a pretty solid intelligence effort underway in Draconis Combine space by our folks, you know. Oh, it's no secret that there is ZERO love lost between Liao and Kurita. But the DCMS has had a particularly tough time of this invasion so far. Enough so, that in a few limited cases, they've not been able to get around to salvaging right away after a hard fight. And in a few of THOSE cases, when they DID get around to attempting salvage, they might have found that less than 100% of the enemy equipment was still there to BE salvaged. And so on.

A LOT of the intel we've been getting has come from what we'll call 'loyalists' in contested Kurita space. Apparently, so has a lot of gear.

So, first up is this "Hankyu". Seriously, I don't name the damned things. Apparently, we've gotten a couple of them smuggled out of hot space, and they're waiting for us on Tikonov. And maybe one of the "Cauldron-Born", too?

Who DOES make up these names, and what the hell are they smoking?

It appears that Clan Smoke Jaguar isn't, maybe, the top dog (or cat?) among the clans, and so they're bleeding some gear here and there into our hands.

Oh, don't worry. None of this is going to be combat-ready mech. It's gonna be quite an effort to get them moving under their own power again.

I'm just psyched, because some of those Hankyu mechs are ECM-equipped, so we've gotta fit Guardians on them all (assuming the original clan equipment doesn't work, and I'm gonna go ahead and assume not). The job HAD looked like trying to stuff Guardian ECM sets into a few of our LCT-3Ms, which would be an absolute nightmare! If a laser isn't properly shielded and insulated in such a small mech, hitting the DISRUPT switch for Guardian can (and often DOES in some cases) cause an abrupt and unintended discharge.

Story time. Some half-assed, short-lived merc outfit deep in Rasalhague space, on some backwater. Dude's tinkering with his Cicada. He reckons, there's an ECM-capable CDA variant out there, but it's not HIS variant. He WANTS to roll one of those into a fight. He yanks a couple of heat sinks, stuffs all the gear in there. DOESN'T BOTHER with any of the (ridiculously tedious) calibration work, DOESN'T BOTHER with frequency harmonization, DOESN'T BOTHER with shielding. Dude wasn't even a proper tech, just some mechwarrior with a wrench (rather than some tech with a battlemech) or three. First drop, he rolls out from the DZ and immediately fires-up Guardian (in case you didn't know, it WILL get you killed if you go 'DISRUPT' aboard a dropship or jumpship). The Blackjack directly behind him does a SPLIT (fried hip actuator controller), and his large laser fires off directly into the back plate of a LCT-1V in his lance, cutting a hole straight into ITS medium laser's primary power cables. The guy's relay for his laser got melted closed, and he had to punch out when the thing wouldn't stop overheating. There's a video of it somewhere on the 'net. It would be funny, except that it basically took a (particularly weird) recon lance out of the fight right away.

ANYHOW, we're gonna have cool toys to play with on Tikonov, is what I'm saying. We'll be among the first in all the Inner Sphere to pilot these clan mechs!

#69 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 07:53 PM

Quick update. Among the other changes coming, we're getting an official insignia to go with the designation. After a good bit of back-and-forth, we settled on the image below as a basis for the new insignia. Obviously, the symbols of an old Terran nation long-gone will have to be replaced, but it's the start. This was the insignia of the "Guards' units of the Ukrainian armed forces after they became independent of the Soviet Union. The 83rd Cavalry was part of the 30th Mechanized Brigade, which was awarded "Guards" status after the Second World War, and remained in Ukraine.

Two things have to happen here. First, it must be modified in some small but significant way to reflect CAVALRY specifically. Second, it must be Capellan/Liao.

:::--Anyone want to do an ART for the good cause?--:::

That's where we're at. Lots going on. Update soon, I assure you.

Posted Image

#70 Bill Bullet

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 09:15 PM

Get in touch with the user Hayden. He's a crazy talented fella who repaints old BT unit insignia and his thread has attracted a lot of like minded fellows. They're all lore junkies so I bet you'd find someone who'd be interested!


http://mwomercs.com/...-unit-insignia/

Edited by Bill Bullet, 24 August 2015 - 04:58 AM.


#71 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 27 August 2015 - 08:00 PM

Progress? Yeah. We've got some of that.

Hey, I don't know if everyone knows this, but the little venture on Tikonov is a JOINT one. That is, we're part of a Capellan commitment to a venture also involving the Lyran Commonwealth and the Federated Suns. We're a relatively small contingent, by the way, but we've nonetheless been tasked with providing an OPFOR and intel, and operating an integrated force maneuver training center. The 83rd's mission there is simply to be the battlemech maneuver force at the IFMTC, which is organized under the Tikonov Martial Academy Training Group. At this point, just about everyone in the Inner Sphere is willing to work together, to some extent or another, to deal with this invasion. It may be the great unifying event of our generation.

Or not.

So, I've now got troops underway. Within the personnel clauses of the contract, including the war time policies of the Capellan Confederation holding many mechwarriors to their contracts, is one that allows certain of them to buy out of their contracts in exchange for certain other regular military or civil service obligations to the Confederation. A few of the folks opted to exercise that clause, and so I'm down five mechwarriors and two very senior technicians. Nat already has more interviews lined up, but the interviewees are mostly green. That's kind of a good thing, though.

See, it's sometimes easier to train someone with no experience at all, than it is to train someone who's set in his ways doing something. And with this mission, we're ALL going to have to learn to do things a little differently. After all, we're useless unless we learn to fight like the clan units do. We've got to reorganize our field leadership to match theirs. We have to organize our lances into stars (clans seem to have a fixation on the number 5, and are organized into five-mech lances, or 'stars', at the first level of command). We have to learn, from the rapidly-growing body of tactical and strategic intelligence, how they use their organization to their own advantage, and we have to learn, most importantly, to BE them on a battlefield.

But they seem to have roughly the same weight classes, and distinctions of them, as we do. Increments of roughly 5 tons, from 20 to 100, for their battlemechs. Light, medium, heavy, and assault classes. Right now, we're looking at forming four stars to start, one of each class. That leaves us a couple extra mechs, all told, so we'll have operational spare mediums to rotate. We're preparing for those to be the workhorses, at any rate.

More great news, too! There are a few more clan mechs waiting on Tikonov for us to trade into. These are all the so-called OmniMechs, by the way. Our techs are going NUTS over these things, raving about how versatile they are. It's a modular design concept, where every major segment of a mech (each arm and leg, head, three torso sections) is an interchangeable pod, which allows for some relatively quick field repair (just replace the whole pod now, and let higher-echelon techs exchange and repair it) and reconfiguration (swap the pods from a long-range support configuration to an urban brawler, in less time than it takes a solid IS team to replace a single UAC/5). Some heavy called "Cauldron-Born"? A couple other mechs, too, but this one has gotten my attention. It's quick for a heavy, basically Dragon-quick, and it's ridiculously heavily armed. Supposedly we've got two waiting on us, and a few spare sets of omnipods, all captured in good condition and ready for service. Bye-bye, Thunderbolts!

I got to have a good lunch yesterday with Bryson. I'm gonna miss the dude. Since it's looking like the Tikonov move is going to be a long-term thing, even if the war doesn't last, I may not make it back to this planet. He's made it abundantly clear that he's not leaving. We left him with a really nice parting gift. We had his first adjustable wrench (it's a little 4" one that he had as a kid) gold-plated and mounted in a really nice shadow box, along with some holo images and recordings of best wishes from all of our tech staff. Most of them have known him longer than they have known me, and at least a few owe him their lives or their freedom.

So, I'm about to board a dropship for the transfer. Taking care of some last-minute personal stuff. Just had a video chat with Nat, and she's pretty pumped about finally settling into the new place. We had to have a room added. A nursery.

Yeah. I'm gonna be a father. Scarier than war...

#72 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 29 August 2015 - 05:19 PM

Sweet. We're in system. Still held up at the jump point, awaiting clearance for transfer to orbit, but we're here. I have a few minutes, and a little bit of personal bandwidth, so I thought I'd fill in a little more detail before we're back to more briefings on the training area...

First, MORE MECHS! A few medium Clan omnimechs are coming our way. There are something like eight already. I had a message waiting on me when we arrived, from the Deputy Director for Logistics. Seems they're relatively certain there will be considerably more available soon, and they're wanting to haggle that part of the contract to go ahead and claim our current mechs ahead of time.

I ought to make something clear. As for those pilots in my employ that brought their OWN mechs, they'll retain them. The ones that are being exchanged one-for-one with the Commonwealth and the Academy, they're the ones I own. The ones that came my way from that investment in the little archaeological expedition. You'll recall there were three (3) each Locust, Shadow Hawk, Griffin, Wolverine, Thunderbolt, and Battlemaster. A couple of those got traded for a couple Jagermechs. There was also that Jenner I've had for a while, that I had to scramble to fix up right before it got impounded and I was arrested. Yeah. All told, about 18 mechs. Add in the ones belonging to guys (and girl) that signed with me, and we have 22 aboard right now.

The 18 mechs that I had are all being traded-up, one-for-one, by weight class, with the Commonwealth's contingent at the Academy, for Clan omnimechs. I understand that these are primarily coming from the Clan Smoke Jaguar (they all have creepy animal names like that, in case you didn't know). A few others will fit in there, too, in order to get a better overall picture of their capabilities. But for now, it seems we're going to be 80% or more fielding CSJ equipment.

Oh, and we're going to have full field artillery and air support in the IFMTC. I'm going to also have to hire some infantry--no shortage of willing participants on Tikonov, of course. Not a right-away kind of thing, but at some point down the road it'll be necessary.

Bad news from Homestead. Got word from a cousin of Bryson's, that his shop was attacked again, and that there have been a few of those out in the region. Hasn't been one garrison mech seen that side of the mountains yet, either. I think he's just being a bit paranoid, but he's going on about some conspiracy theory stuff. Tin foil hats and all.

Neat news about those clan mechs' cockpits, too! They're a little weird, and slightly smaller on the inside than ours, but they're apparently going to work. We're going to have to use THEIR neurohelmets, though, which means everyone's going to have to fit and calibrate again. If you DIDN'T know, that's a most-of-the-day process when it DOES go right. It's also downright exhausting, if you do it correctly. Gotta get a range of body temperatures, various activities, sugar levels, lots of stuff. Ever wonder why they don't let clinically-depressed people run any mechs at all (not just battlemechs) that require neurohelmet interfaces? Because the serotonin level disparities make calibration even harder, and can confuse the best software we have available for these neurohelmet systems. Even if someone's not feeling down, per se, if there's that minor imbalance in brain chemistry, you're a no-neuro guy. Hope you like tanks! And since happy people don't usually volunteer to pilot 100 ton death-dealing machines, that leaves only the really type-A competitor folks. And a few of the rest of us with chips on our shoulders, or with little-to-nothing to lose.

Might be a slightly frivolous expense, but Nat went ahead and hired a decorator/designer to come deal with the nursery situation. She's been SUPER busy with HR stuff. Got to do a live video chat with her a little bit ago. SO psyched to get on with this! We're both REALLY excited.

Say, have you ever heard of someone in this century sending a hand-written parcel? Apparently, there's a letter from an uncle of mine awaiting me planetside. Showed up yesterday while Nat was hard at work in the office.

And finally, found one of my new tech hires. Guy's a little weird, like he doesn't socialize much (hell of a way to spend your time on a jump ship), but he knows heavy and assault mech leg and hip actuators really well. I figure we're gonna need someone on board that can learn quickly and has a natural talent for these things, and he seems a wiz. Doesn't hurt, either, that he got my attention by complimenting my reconstructive surgery (with a wrench) skills.

Guess no one liked that guy...

#73 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 31 August 2015 - 09:36 PM

I gotta tell you, that transfer time from jump point to orbit is brutal. You never get used to it. Here we are, a stone's throw away (relatively speaking) from out new home planet, and though it took us virtually no time to make the jump LIGHT YEARS across the inner sphere to get here, now it takes a week and a half to get the rest of the way to orbit.

But we made it!

The drop from orbit went smoothly. There's Commonwealth all over the place, now. We're setting up in a coastal town on the Western end of the Kazan' continent.

A little history, if I may. Tikonov was settled hundreds of years ago primarily by folks from the Asian continent of Terra. It was named, in fact, for the last Premier of the Soviet Union (General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, an old Terran nation), one Oleg Tikonov. Not sure what his patronymic would have been. Anyhow. The four major continents of Tikonov are named for old Soviet cities: Pskov, Ufa, Krasnodar, and Kazan'. Kazan' in particular interests me, so it's cool that we're going to be living there. The city of Kazan' was home to significant numbers of Muslims, at times the majority (primarily ethnic Volga Tatars, though also some Uzbeks and other Central Asian Muslims), as well as some Jewish population. It's said (:::--I know this from personal experience, and let me say, Kazan' is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL city, has the single most gorgeous mosque I've ever seen, and was the first place I got to see the RF President and Gogol Bordello on the same stage, only an hour apart--:::) that one could walk from a Jewish to Orthodox Christian to Muslim place of worship in 10 minutes without breaking a sweat, and be welcomed at each without question.

Kazan' was home to considerable industry, including military. The old Kamov design bureau build some helicopters there. Also, the Soviet (and between iterations of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation) military's school for armor officers was nearby, too, along the highway to the airport. The Kazanka and Volga Rivers met there, in front of the Kremlin, and just upstream was a small palace of sorts, from which Tsar Ivan 'Grozny' oversaw the seige and recapture of Kazan' from the remnants of the Golden Horde.

ANYHOW, we're here now, on the Kazan' continent of Tikonov, and I'm buried under work. Nat was a sweetie and gave me a first day's pass on household stuff, like picking out better furniture and coloring the nursery and all that. Oh yeah, and we have a maid and cook. Two meals a day prepared for us, dishes and laundry and all that taken care of while we're at work. So that's pretty cool. We're basically living the lives of Federated Suns officers. I'm sure the regulars would be offended, except the only regular officers of any house we've seen, are all logisticians and intelligence types.

Second Crucis Lancers RCT is the main garrison unit here, and they're apparently going to inherit a good bit of our trade-in gear, but we don't have much reason to be in contact with them. For now, they're staying out of a 150-km radius of our site. Sooner or later, I'm sure they'll be rotating through for training as well, but not any time soon.

That letter I mentioned earlier? I read it. Turns out that Uncle Leonard is still ALIVE! Looking for a way back to Commonwealth space from the Draconis Combine, but safe and sound at any rate! Not sure why he'd choose to hand-write a letter, and he didn't leave any contact info in there to reply. For that matter, it's just a little strange that he'd be able to even FIND me to get me that letter. Odd. Who knows, maybe he'll pop in one day? That is, assuming the security folks here would even let him. Just in case, I left word with the academy's public relations staff that he might do so, and that I'd like to be made aware if/when he shows, as he's one of VERY few living blood relatives I have. Boy, will he be thrilled when he hears I'm going to be a DAD!

Oh, and of the 18 mechs I brought along, we're now replacing at least 13 with Clan mechs, mostly (but not all) Smoke Jaguar types. And, just to really get into character for this OPFOR thing, we're now officially referring to them by their Clan names. SO, we've got 2 Arctic Cheetah, 1 Dire Wolf, 2 Ebon Jaguar, 2 Storm Crow, 1 War Hawk, and 1 Mad Dog. Those are all Smoke Jaguar. Add to that, 2 Timber Wolf and 2 Shadow Cat. We're still talking initial organization, to make it all make sense by Clan organization. More word tomorrow on whether there are any more coming.

I couldn't tell you which omnipod configurations we're getting. But DAMN are these omnimechs something brilliant!

See, the omnipods allow for REALLY quick field reconfiguration, as I may have mentioned before. The interface between them is standardized for each mech, so each left arm, for instance, has the exact same mounting provisions to attach it to a left torso, and each left torso has the same attachments for the left arm. And so on. There are three torso omnipods, that make up everything including the waist gimbal and all. There's a head omnipod, which in a couple cases includes a weapon mount. There's a pod for each arm, and one for each leg. Each is sealed and self-contained. Where ammo passes through between two omnipods, even THAT has provisions to seal it against the environment. It's downright brilliant! Modular battlemech design! Engineers all over the inner sphere have been slapping themselves in the head over how simple but brilliant it is. The individual omnipods are a bit of a pain in the backside to maintain, and far more troublesome to reconfigure than are components of our battlemechs, but that's hardly a problem for a tactical unit. It's freakin' GREAT!

A couple other things they do just blow my skirt up. For instance, their autocannons are really cool. All of them fire more like the Ultra AC/5, in that they fire multiple rounds. The rounds are smaller and more efficient, tonnage and space-wise, than regular AC ammo here. Overall, not a HUGE difference in ammo storage capacity, but it's significant enough. And apparently some of their autocannons have the capability to double-fire, like the UAC/5, and occasional jams HAVE been observed in battle. Something we're going to have to deal with, is building a whole new checklist for such things.

In case you didn't know about mechwarriors and memorizing checklists and emergency procedures, and all that, I'll get to it next time.

Right now, I'm due in a conference room at the other end of the admin building. Time to interview some potential new talent.

Oh, and the guy from the jump? Hired. Started work today, and is taking to omnimechs like a fish to water. It's like he's worked on them before or something. Bit of a loner, but he gets along well enough anyhow, and he's eager to learn. Can't beat that.

Right. Interviews. Cheers!

#74 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 06 September 2015 - 09:14 PM

Coming along nicely!

We've begun simulator exercises, now that all my pilots' neurohelmets are properly calibrated again. The change in tactics is a lot to get used to for some of the folks. It's smaller units, more aggressive. Interesting, even fun, in the simulator. Not so much in real mechs, I should think. There's a lot of fast thinking that has to go on in these things.

Everyone's getting settled in pretty well. The support and logistics staff is filled out, and we're picking up a fifth Star worth of mechwarriors and mechs (in addition to the spares we already had, which will bring us up to about 29 end-strength). Housing is pretty top-notch. Food here has been good, too. The local cuisines on Tikonov get a lot of crap from others, having been drawn from old Russo-Soviet cookbooks back in the day and adapted for the local plant and wild life. That said, I haven't had bread this good since I lived with Uncle Leonard, and the soups are to DIE for!

Not much else to talk about just now. It's going to be a while before we find out if we're having a boy or a girl. Still haven't heard from Bryson. No more strange appearances of handwritten letters.

Oh, one little thing though. Charles. won't let us call him Charlie or Chuck; he insists on being called Charles. That's the new tech I met on the jump and hired. Not sure if you know this or not, but techs can be every bit as hot-headed and short-tempered and type-A as any mechwarrior. Charles, doubly so. He comes off as the shy, quiet, socially awkward, weird kid, who just happens to be some sort of savant at something. You know the type. Guy with an engineering degree decides to be a janitor because he can't stand gatherings of people and is obsessed with things being clean? Sorta the same here. That is, right up until someone gets shown up by him, takes it personal, and starts to screw with him intentionally. Charles is also now part of the hand-to-hand combat instruction team. Pure street fighter, or at least it's no style I've ever heard of. Makes the old Krav Maga folks look like pansies. But I'm down one structures tech for a month and a half at least, while more than half the bones in his head get surgically repaired and healed.

And he used a big ol' wrench (which he first wrested from his assailant, though). Almost like the kid is studying and trying to impress me or something.

Anyhow.

More later. Off to a lecture on indirect fire support for junior officers (sooner or later, I guess I have to know how it works in the formal armed forces, if I'm to take part in training them).

#75 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 20 October 2015 - 08:51 PM

{{{JUST FYI}}}

I haven't forgotten about this. And I DO intend to go on with it.

Things are going to get a little ... different ... at this point, I think. Some things I've wanted to do with the story, etc.

Next installment will likely have its own thread, when I'm ready to move on with it.

What I CAN tell you for sure is, that there will be a new narrator. Third-person omniscient isn't out of the question, but I think a new first-person with a different insight on the matter is in order. So, we're going to learn a lot more about our narrator by letting someone else tell us. And we're going to learn a LOT more about the direction of our story, which has only just begun...

#76 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 25 October 2015 - 05:52 PM

[[[Transcript of personal entries ends.]]]

[[[Transcript of official entries of Special Chancellory begins.]]]

[Chancellor A]: Alright, Mister Prosecutor, we have established the history of the organization in question. THOROUGHLY. What other evidence do you have, or would you like to face the Chancellory yourself for having wasted our time?

[Special Prosecutor]: Of course, Mister Chancellor. I only needed to establish the conditions under which the key players in this conspiracy came together.

[Chancellor B]: And we have no evidence yet of any conspiracy. I assume that you will be providing such evidence?

[Special Prosecutor]: Yes, of course. But first, I must establish the motivations of some more key players. After all, I AM seeking conspiracy charges against several people. May I continue?

[Chancellor A]: You may. But we recommend that you begin tying these records to the charges you seek.

[Special Prosecutor]: Of course, Chancellor. Let us move on to the next personal record, then. This one was discovered at the academy on Tikonov, in the private account of one Charles Dugas, a technician from the 83rd. If you'll kindly turn your attention to the primary monitor...

#77 InsaneRotta

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Posted 26 October 2015 - 01:13 AM

Haven't read all of this. Yet! But it's friggin awesome! :D

#78 Hex Pallett

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Posted 27 October 2015 - 05:24 PM

Holy **** you're back!! <3

#79 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 08 November 2015 - 07:50 PM

Yeah. Sorry, things are still weird here. Updates are going to remain far between for a while yet, especially with Fallout 4 releasing in about 25 hours...





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