359 replies to this topic

[Ashnod]

Garuss Acine, on 11 August 2012 - 10:01 AM, said:

Not all clans underestimated the IS, the Star Adders are a very good example of a Crusader that recoginized the threat the IS was, and just how difficult they would be.

1

They were also one of the few Clans to win at the battle of Tukayyid(a rather crushing victory at that).


2

I have no doubt there were other clans like this, not in the same way, but as has been pointed out. It was the clan's style of bidding that cost them their chance at complete victory, and let the setting develop more.


Sources:
1: http://www.sarna.net...Clan_Star_Adder

2: http://users.anet.co...er/sa-lore.html 'Death of a Clan'

They also trained for hundreds of years prior to the invasion of the Inner Sphere against IS tactics and studying how they fight... The reason they were not in the invasion corridor was they refused to underestimate the IS by underbidding their forces and therefor lost the right to be apart of it. (Sadly because they would of cleaned house)

[Kappa Was Detated]

If you really want to know why the clans lost then read "The Blood Of Kerensky" trilogy. It covers so much of whats going on in the universe of Battletech in the time we are at. It will explain in great detail why the Clans lose. It is very relevant to MWO. It also pushes me to predict that the Daishi, Mad Cat and Mad Dog will be the first Clan mechs included in the game.


First book:
http://www.epubbud.c....php?g=SDLALHSQ

Second book:
http://www.epubbud.c....php?g=92AGP2WZ

Third book:
http://www.epubbud.c....php?g=P4EXZBE7

[Viper69]

I was thinking it was probably a supply line issue. If you cannot take and hold factories capable of making replacement parts for your losses, you have to rely on them being jumped in. No factory in the IS could produce clan tech so unless they jumped in thousands of replacement parts and mechs it was destined for failure anyway.

[Kappa Was Detated]

Viper69, on 16 April 2013 - 05:17 AM, said:

I was thinking it was probably a supply line issue. If you cannot take and hold factories capable of making replacement parts for your losses, you have to rely on them being jumped in. No factory in the IS could produce clan tech so unless they jumped in thousands of replacement parts and mechs it was destined for failure anyway.

Supply lines may have been an issue but from my reading, their supply issues would have been localized in nature. What I mean by that is when they dropped on a planet to fight, the IS would use guerrilla tactics and disrupt their localized supplies. I haven't really read much that deals with their invasion fleet lacking replacement parts. You have to remember that the Clans felt that they were "liberating" worlds as they moved along towards Terra. They did their best (for the most part) to leave planetary industry intact. The IS did have methods of manufacturing clan tech (or a close approximation) through the Wolf's Dragoons. The IS also proved that by picking the place of battle and then getting in close, they could dramatically reduce the superiority of the Clan mech weaponry.

[WolvesX]

CaveMan, on 07 July 2012 - 01:20 AM, said:

The Clan invasion was mishandled by the writers, and their "solution" to the problems the Clans caused with the storyline was even worse. It's frankly a little amazing that BattleTech is any good at all, given how terrible the writers have been, historically (I'm looking at you, Stackpole). Writers made the Clans' arrival entirely too black-and-white, bad guy vs good guy. The Inner Sphere is supposed to be a horrible post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by rapacious nobles who protect their people only to suck them dry of resources, and the Clans should be a double-edged sword who are both enlightened liberators and murdering crusaders. Instead we got Victor the Perfect Prince of the English-speaking-and-therefore-good faction, and his retinue of Mary Sues, fighting ineffectual cartoon villains. The Clans deserved a better shake. If I were in charge, the Clans would have been written a lot differently too (particularly the way Clan honor works, it doesn't make much sense and when carried to its logical conclusion it self-contradicts in destructive ways). Much less about individual pride and more about the honor and success of the clan as a whole. And the invasion fleet would have entirely bypassed the successor states, jumping through uninhabited systems or empty space (as the Clans should have had Star League-era star charts giving them exact knowledge of all systems in the IS), taken Terra by surprise, kicked out ComStar, and then proceeded to wage a campaign of bloody conquest through the Inner Sphere, resulting in a brutal guerilla war. Meanwhile the Clans that didn't become part of the original Invasion would have attacked the Successor States from outside, forging a corridor for supplies and reinforcements to filter in from the homeworlds.

Best post I ever read in these forums!

[Tezcatli]

I personally don't understand how a professional military arm turns into what the Clan became.

[dal10]

The clans are basically a cult of personality made by Nicholas Kerensky. cults become weird...

[Ashla Mason]

Tezcatli, on 16 April 2013 - 08:02 AM, said:

I personally don't understand how a professional military arm turns into what the Clan became.

That's actually the problem; The SLDF was a group composed entirely of proffesional soldiers. When they got to the pentagon worlds and started colonizing they didn't have the civilian infrastructure required to do things like... mine for minerals. Or grow food. Or construct buildings.

So Alexander Kerenesky wound up trying to reasign them (since they didn't need +85% of the population to be soldiers) and naturally they started to get bitchy. Further, the people were starting to fall back on old prejudices and nationalities.

When the whole thing began to collapse, Kerensky and a few thousand of his closest followers performed a second exodus and stopped at a world they named strana mechty (Place of dreams). After Alexander passed away, Nicholas took over leading the disorganized, broken remmanants of the SLDF and took stock of what he had (which was very little at this point).

He wound up reorganizing the SLDF into the clans in order to have an elite task force of troops that would be able to fight with very little supplies against the reble forces and the irregular disorganized forces they would have at their disposal by the time he returned.

It worked and having been proven successful formed the basis of the clans going forward.

[Johnjw72]

1 lack of bacon
2 inter clan infighting/crusader vs guardians
3 fewer numbers added to the whole bidding system
4 recovery of star leage datacatches and salvage of clan tech with anough time to figure it out in non invaded space
5 underestemated comstar with poor inteligence at critical battles

[Zerberus]

Aff. The primary cause for overall failure was indeed the lack of Bacon. This has been well documented in almost all novels, nowhere is bacon to be found.

Edited by Zerberus, 17 April 2013 - 04:47 PM.

[sj mausgmr]

Because the writers didn't want them to of course.

[Theodor Kling]

Viper69, on 16 April 2013 - 05:17 AM, said:

I was thinking it was probably a supply line issue. If you cannot take and hold factories capable of making replacement parts for your losses, you have to rely on them being jumped in. No factory in the IS could produce clan tech so unless they jumped in thousands of replacement parts and mechs it was destined for failure anyway.

As Hindsight already pointed out repurposing Is factories to produce what they needed was not impossible, but of course slow. But nevertheless supply lins, once established, were mostly safe from IS attacks, because they lacked the warships to attack them. In the beginning of the invasion supplies were a problem, but not because of practical issues, just because they didn´t bother to outfit units with enough spare amo and parts for prolonged fighting, because they were not used to it.

[Daneel Hazen]

The clans were overconfident.... too much focus on trashborn BS instead of their real mission.

[dal10]

actually they never should have done half as good as they did. they were outnumbered 2000 to one. those are hefty odds.

[Asheron Storm]

Let's remember also that clan Ghost Bear could be considered successful. They managed to set up a home for themselves in the inner sphere and there was a period of relative peace leading into the dark ages era. Other clans, such as Cloud Cobra, weren't planning on going back to Terra to begin with and those "home clans" made out like bandits. Basically, only Wolf, Jade Falcon, Nova Cat and Steel Viper failed to dominate.. and I may even be wrong about those clans.

[PaintedWolf]

Asheron Storm, on 19 April 2013 - 12:44 AM, said:

Let's remember also that clan Ghost Bear could be considered successful. They managed to set up a home for themselves in the inner sphere and there was a period of relative peace leading into the dark ages era. Other clans, such as Cloud Cobra, weren't planning on going back to Terra to begin with and those "home clans" made out like bandits. Basically, only Wolf, Jade Falcon, Nova Cat and Steel Viper failed to dominate.. and I may even be wrong about those clans.

[Ashla Mason]

Asheron Storm, on 19 April 2013 - 12:44 AM, said:

Let's remember also that clan Ghost Bear could be considered successful. They managed to set up a home for themselves in the inner sphere and there was a period of relative peace leading into the dark ages era. Other clans, such as Cloud Cobra, weren't planning on going back to Terra to begin with and those "home clans" made out like bandits. Basically, only Wolf, Jade Falcon, Nova Cat and Steel Viper failed to dominate.. and I may even be wrong about those clans.

Wolf, falcon, and even nova cat were all reasonably successful in their invasion attempts for various reasons:

Wolf: They took the most territory during the invasion, but in the following years they would suffer losses in territory due to inter-clan conflicts (Both ghost bear and hells horses would sieze territory from them) and the founding of clan wolf-in-exile. Still, an arguement could be made that they were very successful.

Jade falcon: assaulted one of the most powerful nation in the IS and siezed considerable territory in the process. Despite raiding by the wolves, attacks by both steel viper and Ice hellion and an insurrection by their chief scientist the falcons have taken territory and given very little in return.

Nova cat: Probably the least "successeful" of the invader clans, since most of their gains were ceded territories by the Smoke jaguars followed by their abjuration from clan space (Which ultimately strengthend their presence in the IS). Still, they wound up being subjects of the DC for the next ten years or so which isn't quite so impressive as the exploits of the other invaders.

Steel viper... definitley not successful. Like nova cat they were ceded territories and fought (presumably very little based on the scarcity of information about their actions during operation revival) an enemy alongside an opposed ideology. Unlike Nova cat, when Steel viper attacked their neighbor they wound up suffering catastrophic failure and were driven out of the IS.

Once back in clan space, Steel viper engaged in a spectacular temper tantrum against the IS and the invader clans, ultimately leading to the insane free-for-all that was the wars of reaving and the end of the clan.

[pitviper716]

the clan style of combat is ill-suited for extended campaigns. on tukkayid, comstar took full advatage of this by targeting supply depots. simply put the clans simply ran out of ammo early and often. also they were very prone to ambushes and other tactics they consider "dishonorable". third, their leadership was divided into to factions for the most part. this lead to the battle of tukkayid, which was really a proxy battle for the entire inner sphere.

pitviper716, on 19 April 2013 - 10:34 AM, said:

the clan style of combat is ill-suited for extended campaigns. on tukkayid, comstar took full advatage of this by targeting supply depots. simply put the clans simply ran out of ammo early and often. also they were very prone to ambushes and other tactics they consider "dishonorable". third, their leadership was divided into to factions for the most part. this lead to the battle of tukkayid, which was really a proxy battle for the entire inner sphere.

"it's all mine now, damn" sun-tzu liao after his mother romano liao's assassination in 3052

[Atlas3060]

Tezcatli, on 16 April 2013 - 08:02 AM, said:

I personally don't understand how a professional military arm turns into what the Clan became.

I like to think it was the Adama effect. For Battletech the Adama was Kerensky, but he went super cult and some went with him. Those that didn't died, they were in deep space on brand new worlds it wasn't like they could just go home if they didn't like the conditions. Unless your the Wolverines, because it seems like they found their way back.

[Wolf Ender]

IMHO the only reasonable explanation for why the clan invasion failed was because the writers wanted it that way.