Tyrnea Smurf, on 15 November 2013 - 03:38 AM, said:
Yeah they had to come up with something to explain the massive logistal hole in the Clan Invasion as presented. In the 3020'd the Federated Suns not only proved to be good at moving long distances quickly (Hanse is credited with the creation of the Command Circuit of Jumpships) But also masters of large scale movement warfare (He attacked the Capellan Confederation with 40 RCT's (which I showed earlier would be nearly as large a force as Comstar would use at Tukayyid) Now suddenly the Feds are all thumbs and can't move their massive military might.
Well, it should be pointed out that there were several factors involved that impacted the Federated Suns performance in this regard,
First, by this timeperiod the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth had largely combined their forces into the Federated Commonwealth, including military assets. While both sections of the nation did try to keep some units 'pure' nationally-speaking, the main idea was integration. While the Fedsuns forces were very good at efficient military operations and operated on a merit basis, the Lyran side of the military was largely a status/social-driven military that (before the alliance) had been viewed by other militaries of the Inner Sphere as less than skilled at war (the Lyrans relied on having the larger number of larger battlemechs to win the day rather than tactics and skilled use of smaller forces). The former Lyran officers would be an obstacle in the former Fedsuns' officers way of doing things. To make it a bit simpler, the FedSuns' attitude of 'get it done' and the Lyran attitude of 'look good doing it' merged such that the FedCom system attitude became 'get it done, but make sure you look good doing it'.
Second, the majority (almost all) of the FedCom side of the war happened in Lyran space, and the command structure of that section of space was still heavily controlled by Lyran nobles who had their own preferences in how military shipping went through their system. This would have hampered any command circuit and likely large troop movements would be disrupted by Lyran nobles trying to use such a force arriving in their system for political gain (insisting the force hold off until they could personally and publically be present to send it on it's way, forcing the commander of the force to fill out several hundred forms to gain authorization to leave, directly attempting to take command or attach their own forces to gain prestige, ect.).
Third, in the large-scale troop movements that highlighted the FedSun's strategic abilities in the Third Successor War, the FedSuns were on the offensive, and had prepared for the movements in advance. In the Clan War, the FedCom militaries were the ones on defense and trying to catch up to the Clan's attack. In war, the attacker has the advantage of knowing where and when the attack will start and can make all the planning needed to control the timing of various operations, while the defender has to protect over a wide area and/or is left trying to shift forces to trouble spots quickly and without warning.
Lastly, by the time of the Clan War, a significant amount of time had passed since the Third Successor War. The FedSun officers, soldiers, and sailors who had trained and operated in the large-scale war operations were now either retired, dead, or in higher command positions. Those actually doing the jobs would have been trained under the new combined military doctrines of the FedCom academies (see the first point above) and, while familiar with the ideas of large-scale, multiple RCT rapid movement across strategic space, would likely not be as capable as their former comrades who were trained in a pure FedSuns military designed around combined arms. Both for reasons of experience and the kind of command bureaucracy they had to operate in.
Edited by Jakob Knight, 15 November 2013 - 05:37 AM.
9
This topic is locked
