16 replies to this topic

[Soy]

Ok so, Battle of Tukayyid.

Focht used 12 full Com armies.

"Equivalent to 144 regiments".

Apparently, an IS regiment is around 108-180.

So...

...at the lowest calculation, I'm seeing approximately 15,000 battlemechs used by Focht.

...wtf?

Now... Clans bid 25 galaxies.

Each galaxy contains "on average" 3-5 clusters.

A cluster is 4-5 trinaries. A trinary is 15 mechs.

So if I go... 15 mechs times 4... times 3... times 25....

....thats 4,500 mechs.

So am I to understand that Clans fought 1:3 on Tukayyid?

Is my math wrong? I suck at math, cba.

Someone drop knowledge plox, thx.

[stjobe]

Spoiler

Well, they did lose

Edit: Normally the larger IS organizations weren't composed of just 'mechs - there might have been 15,000 units in total, but how many of those were 'mechs is anyone's guess.

E.g. the Terran Defense Force was twelve regiments, "two or more being BattleMech regiments".

Edited by stjobe, 10 March 2015 - 03:59 PM.

[Soy]

Well thanks for editing in a bit more than the lil joketroll, appreciated stjobe... but...

...I guess what I'm wondering is, was it really just down to IS trickery and Clans sticking to zellbrigen?

Or is there weight behind the notion that Coms basically zerg-balled and posted up in defensive strongholds?

I know a lot of that 'numbers' is stuff like aerospace, armor, etc. But still...

I haven't read enough to really know for myself, so that's why I'm asking.

[Nullmancer]

http://www.sarna.net...tle_of_Tukayyid

[stjobe]

IIRC they managed to fight the Clan forces one after the other, shuffling forces between the operation areas to help out. It's been a while since I last checked it out though - there are no Clans in my BattleTech Universe; it's forever 3025 there and Natasha Kerensky is just a bad-arse mercenary

Either way, I guess you've read the sarna pages on Tukayyid and the Battle of Tukayyid?

[GeneralArmchair]

1: op isn't taking into account that a large percentage of the comstar forces were infantry, aerospace, tanks, and artillery. They weren't purely mechs.


2: it is standard practice for the clans to handicap their own forces. They're arrogant idiots like that.

[Soy]

Nullmancer, on 10 March 2015 - 04:06 PM, said:

http://www.sarna.net...tle_of_Tukayyid

stjobe, on 10 March 2015 - 04:06 PM, said:

Either way, I guess you've read the sarna pages on Tukayyid and the Battle of Tukayyid?

Yeah that's where the numbers I used came from.

I just like to confirm or get a bit more outside insight into stuff that gets posted on, well, wikis etc.

GeneralArmchair, on 10 March 2015 - 04:08 PM, said:

1: op isn't taking into account that a large percentage of the comstar forces were infantry, aerospace, tanks, and artillery. They weren't purely mechs.

Soy, on 10 March 2015 - 04:03 PM, said:

I know a lot of that 'numbers' is stuff like aerospace, armor, etc. But still...

If you would like to expand upon this deeper, please do I'm interested.

[stjobe]

Inner Sphere Military Structure is also a good read for understanding force compositons. When it comes to larger formations, there's a nice example under the heading Regimental Combat Teams:

"The Armed Forces of the Federated Suns' version of an RCT is a large multi-regiment formation that consists of a regiment of BattleMechs, three regiments of combat vehicles, five regiments of infantry, two aerospace fighter wings, and a battalion of artillery."

So out of about ten regiments, only one was BattleMechs. If the FedCom Armies followed that same composition, there would be about 1 500 'mechs, 4 500 combat vehicles, and a hell of a lot of infantry on Tukayyid - a far cry from the 15 000 you'd see if the FedCom armies were pure BattleMech regiments.

So how does that sound? 1 500 IS 'mechs supported by armour, artillery, and lots and lots of infantry holding sway against and beating back 4 500 Clan 'mechs coming in waves of about 500 - 1 000 at a time over a period of 20 days? Sound any better?

Edited by stjobe, 10 March 2015 - 04:25 PM.

[Soy]

Yeah that sounds more palatable. Cool.

You aren't mentioning all the IS dezgra tho! That's the part that makes it sound best.

I refuse to believe those IS wimps could defeat true Clanners in an honorable fight!

PS - Cept Kai Liao, apparently he **** on like 87 Falcon Guards solo. What a freak. I got a poster of him above my monitor now (next to one of Oyster smiling).

Edited by Soy, 10 March 2015 - 04:29 PM.

[Dawnstealer]

Keep in mind two things:

1) Clan forces saw themselves, rightly so, as far superior to Inner Sphere forces. Even so, the Inner Sphere had been fighting the Succession Wars for centuries, so new the game pretty well. The Clans would bid themselves way down when fighting the Inner Sphere, something that's missing from MWO: they would NEVER fight 1:1 because it wouldn't be seen as "sporting." And they still didn't suffer many losses. 3:1 wasn't unusual and for the Clans, they often won those matchups anyways.

2) As others have said, the IS didn't just have mechs in those Regiments. I think I actually have the Tukayyid sourcebook around if you want to know the actual breakdowns.

[stjobe]

Dawnstealer, on 10 March 2015 - 04:28 PM, said:

I think I actually have the Tukayyid sourcebook around if you want to know the actual breakdowns.

The sarna entry on the Battle of Tukayyid is lifted pretty much verbatim from BattleTech 1685 Tukayyid, pp106-109.

Edit: Which Soy would probably be interested in getting a hold of, now that I think of it

Edited by stjobe, 10 March 2015 - 04:39 PM.

[Lord Ikka]

Clans also used Elementals in the battle, so they had "infantry" there as well.

Most likely ComGuard used as little actual infantry as possible and used the as the majority Mechs and armor.

[Soy]

Dawnstealer, on 10 March 2015 - 04:28 PM, said:

Clan forces saw themselves, rightly so, as far superior to Inner Sphere forces. Even so, the Inner Sphere had been fighting the Succession Wars for centuries, so new the game pretty well. The Clans would bid themselves way down when fighting the Inner Sphere, something that's missing from MWO: they would NEVER fight 1:1 because it wouldn't be seen as "sporting." And they still didn't suffer many losses. 3:1 wasn't unusual and for the Clans, they often won those matchups anyways.

This is a good point. Com and IS had centuries of watching major major major ****** up warfare tactics. They had evacuated Tukayyid's population off planet, so even though they were perhaps desensitized to all of the carnage for so long they also knew how to use it and use it well. They had a conscious, prolly moreso than Clans. Or maybe pride just covered Clan's conscious most of the time and they could never drop that 'front' and act real about things, particularly the situations on Tukayyid.

Theoretically...

...if all the Clans knew how Com would play it, or if maybe Wolf had told them whats up, and Clanners played at same ethical level as Com/IS........... Clanners should've won easily, right?

Edited by Soy, 10 March 2015 - 04:50 PM.

[stjobe]

The Com Guards also had a fully functional Star League strategic command post in the Tamo mountain range, the Tamo Bunker, from which Focht could coordinate the fighting across the whole planet.

Not to mention that he had some pretty nifty upgraded Star League-era 'mechs - the "Clanbusters" - in addition to the post-Star Leage-era 'mechs he had at his disposal.

The full list of 'mech variants used by the Com Guards were
UM-R63 UrbanMech
OTT-7K OstScout
ASN-23 Assassin
CLNT-2-3U Clint
WTH-2 Withworth
BJ-2 Blackjack
HBK-5M Hunchback
SCP-10 Scorpion
OSR-2D Ostroc
OTL-5M Ostsol
CPLT-C3 Catapult
TDR-7M Thunderbolt
WHM-7M Warhammer
MAD-5M Marauder
ON1-M Orion
BLR-3M BattleMaster
STK-5M Stalker
CP 11-A Cyclops
AS7-K Atlas

And the "Clanbusters":
BL9-KNT Black Knight
CHP-3N Champion
HSR 400-D Hussar
WVE-9N Wyvern
KGC-001 King Crab

Edit: So no, the Clanners could never have won. We had Urbies!

Edited by stjobe, 10 March 2015 - 05:12 PM.

[Escef]

Clans tend to under-value or bid away aerospace assets, conventional armor, and artillery support. The ComGuard made great use of these on Tukayyid. All the players that whine and moan about artillery and air strikes in MWO? Their foolishness is the same as the clans, the scrub mentality that the enemy force will fight according to your personal rules and expectations.

Of the seven clans that fought on Tukayyid (Wolf, Ghost Bear, Smoke Jaguar, Jade Falcon, Steel Viper, Nova Cat, and Diamond Shark) only 2 pulled off wins: the Wolves and Bears (and the Bear win was only considered marginal). The Wolves paid attention to the reports that came back from Wolf's Dragoons, learned from their Inner Sphere bondsmen, and already had a reputation for twisting the rules in their favor (they are one of the few clans that actually uses their artillery assets). The Ghost Bears learned to be wary of Inner Sphere shenanigans the hard way (thanks to the Black Omen mercenary unit), and overcame some of their logistical issues during the invasion by swapping to laser and PPC dominant configurations on their omnimechs (the clans as a whole had little experience with protracted warfare, most of them had logistics issues throughout the invasion). The Jade Falcons managed to pull off a draw with the ComGuards, due largely to to a mix of (justified) paranoia and unorthodox leadership.

Edited by Escef, 10 March 2015 - 05:21 PM.

[Soy]

stjobe, on 10 March 2015 - 05:10 PM, said:

15,000 x UM-R63 UrbanMech

ps - Escef, Nova Cats put a hurtin on IS, but yeah you're right -.-

Edited by Soy, 10 March 2015 - 05:26 PM.

[Metus regem]

To be fair, not all clan forces lost, Wolf, and CFJ won, and CGB forced a narrow victory. But in those cases, they didn't act with out reason and measure in their own movements.