TBC33

Chapter 33 - The Broken Commonwealth

First Skirmish,  Battle of Kowloon, 3149

December 3149

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Attacking forces: Mixed Clan Jade Falcon and Hell's Horses

CHS Armageddon, Potemkin-Class Troop Cruiser

CHS Armageddon, Potemkin Class Troop Cruier

3 Carrier class Carrier Dropships
2 Triumph Pocket Warships
5 Noruff Class Assault dropships
3 Clan-Refit Mule Pocket Warships
5 Overlord A3Class Assault DropShips
3 Miraborg Class Fighter Carriers DropShips
2 Outpost Class Dropships

Defenders:

(Initially)

KCGS Ia Drang, Landmark Class Destroyer

18 SL-19 variant Slayer Heavy Fighters
2 Electronic warfare modified Mk VII Small Craft

(Reinforcements)

Warships:

Landmark Class Destroyers in formation

KCGS Isthmus Da Nang, Landmark Class
- 18 Fighters, 2 Smallcraft
KCGS Minsky's Folly, Landmark Class
- 18 Fighters, 2 Smallcraft
KCGS Golden Lake, Landmark Class
- 18 Fighters, 2 Smallcraft

Cutters:

Sampan III-Class Cutter

KCGS Charles Vanh, Sampan Block III*
KCGS Coriander Deen, Sampan Block III*
KCGS John Sithers, Sampan Block III*
KCGS Sarah Jennings, Sampan Block III*
KCGS Tranh Truk Ngo, Sampan Block III*
KCGS Janice Hoang, Sampan Block III

Sampan II Class Cutter

KCGS Arnold Knickerbocker II, Sampan Block II
KCGS Allison Graften, Sampan Block II

Note: Sampan Block III* units carry; 12 SB-27 fighters and 2 small craft to act as electronic warfare units.  Smallcraft can be reconfigured in minutes to serve as cargo, fuel, or passenger/marine assault platforms.

Battle Plans

The attackers' plan

CHS Armageddon is here to set up a forward strike on the Kowloon system, specifically the naval shipyard near Boojum 3.  In keeping with 'learning lessons' their cargo bay is loaded with several hundred kinetic kill vehicles meant to be deployed in the outer system and set into motion ahead of the main thrust, while the virtual fleet of combat dropships is here to protect the main ship and conduct strikes and raiding against any forward-located comm relay, monitoring station, or unescorted dropships and/or commercial jumpships entering the system or attempting to leave. The size of the mission dictated the size of the unit sent, in this case, a vast area needed to be secured for the incoming invasion force.

The choice of emergence was intended to take advantage of a commentary event that would (it was estimated by Falcon planners) obscure the arrival of the pre invasion party by scattering most detection signals along a multi-million kilometer frontage.  Unfortunately, the Coast Guard were conducting sensor exercises in that area.

Overview from Kowloon

Overview: what the hell is going on? (what the Hell's Horses is going on?)

The Hell's Horses/Falcon Alliance fractured back in the 3130s, but sometimes fractures just don't stick. The Horses in the 32nd century are all about that taking any advantage they can get.

Malvina offered really nice terms and there was up until 3146, no reason to believe that warships would be needed as anything more than glorified fire-support bombers-after all. The Lyran Fleet was both crippled, and moribund, they weren't at feud currently with Clan Ghost Bear on their other border, and...well...the Falcons under Malvina had adopted their brand new philosophy, even improved on it, and better still, was having roaring success kicking the everloving dogsnot out of all comers with it.

To understand the situation requires some understanding of history-in particular, why Moussolini chose to line  up with the Third Reich for World War Two, or why Vidkun Quisling really thought the Germans had the right idea in that same conflict, even with loads of evidence that there were glaring flaws in the whole idea of fighting the entire rest of the world.

IOW, they still think they're on the winning side, and that being on the losing side is a fatally bad idea.  The roughly equal showing at Gibbs did not dissuade this impression, especially since it took both Lyran and Wolf navies to pull what amounted to a rough draw in casualties.

Nonetheless, they are keenly aware of the effectiveness of the ongoing commerce-raiding campaign, and would really like to hurt the people who keep blowing up their merchant and logistical shipping-so there's a bit of a personal grudge there.

Mathematically, there's a problem.  none of the invading clans (except the Snow Ravens) bothered to build shipyards capable of servicing warships, and the nearest one belongs to the Sea Foxes...or to their opponents.  thus, only sending one ship, instead of a proper battlegroup.

As Elizabeth Ngo once infamously said, "If you can't afford to lose it, you can't afford to use it."

The ability to assemble a significant force quickly to achieve local superiority is the main reason that Kowloon never stood in line for either salvaged, or newly built Pocket Warships.  With over 500 million 'rockjack' or spacer or Belter residents in the system, one inhabited world and outposts/facilities on several moons and such, in addition to the billion and a half planetary Kowloonese, the need to move in the Kowloon binary requires in-system jumps (much like Mizar's system, only imagine the population spread out across that intervening area.)  "Jump Ferries" run between the major facilities/sub-colonies and Kowloon, with long-range shuttles where jump ferry service is unavailable.

One knock-on impact of this, is that Kowloon produces a LOT of trained space navigators, pilots, and has a bustling industry in cottage manufacturing in addition to the major industrial centers.  For the majority of Kowloon's history in the Lyran Commonwealth, this cottage industry was more or less equivalent to subsistence level activity with periodic spikes in local wealth due to successful mining claims, and so it went largely unnoticed until the succession of Elizabeth Ngo to the Ducal seat in 3053.

Because of the sheer size of the system, most of the industries produce locally for local customers still, with only a few (like Ngo Industries, Groves Armaments, Ia Drang Aerospace, and a few other third-tier manufacturers) exporting goods for outside capital.

Notably, while major defense contractors still have very little presence in the Kowloon system when taken from the whole of the Lyran Commonwealth, there are ties to most of the ones still in business, as Ngo Industries remains a major tooling and industrial infrastructure consulting firm, providing much of the difficult and complex tooling to the major manufacturers in the Commonwealth (in competition with Krupp of Terra).

Upshot is, the Jade Falcons probably should have sent a bigger force-this isn't a system that's going to fold if you blow up the capital (the last time someone did that, well, the result wasn't what was expected or desired by House Amaris.)

Back to strategy and why Kowloon built small-core jumpships instead of assault dropships or purchasing pocket warships...

To patrol the system requires jumpships.  period.  it takes long enough at newton's speeds that anything LESS covering that much range would need a patrol radius of over two years, or cryosleep capability, and such a government would be unable to enforce their will on the Rockjacks, (or defend against them) as the Rim Worlds eventually found out in 2769.

In relative terms, Kowloon is probably the best place to get skilled combat jumpship crewmen in the entire Lyran Commonwealth (or at least, to recruit candidates), because the Coast Guard has dozens of jumpships constantly doing in-system jumps and jump calculations to nonstandard points and transitory locations.

The addition under Duchess Elizabeth's tenure of black boxes as standard equipment on Cutters negated the need to rig 'temporary transmitters' through jumpship cores for the Coasties (though the training remains in use).

FTL comms, plus FTL local Jump, equals the ability to move large numbers of ships spread out for patrols into a concentrated fist in seconds instead of weeks.  It provides unparalleled responsiveness, and accounts for why a large warship with heavy dropship escort isn't facing a lone 'heavy cutter' in piecemeal to annihilate at leisure.

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Note from Author

The Kowloonese model uses a 9 meter penetrator with a simple guidance module, RCS thrusters, and drop tanks to accelerate at 3 gravities for anywhere from 14 days to 30 days.  The penetrator is made of vacuum forged tungsten, depleted uranium, and a carbon-copper mesh jacket to conceal it during the inert, terminal phase after the fuel runs out.  Interception is really only possible in that initial boost phase, after which, the only way it can miss, is either to get a steering command, or to...well...miss.  the entire assembly is dead-rock-simple and costs less than most warship munitions including nukes.

The Jade Falcon version, uses the engines from an aerospace fighter and (again) drop-tanks, and requires assembly at the launching site before deployment.  the hull is a gutted and stripped aerospace frame with a much more expensive and complex computer guidance system, sheathed in Starslab standard armor with a carbon/copper mesh coating.  Due to the much more expensive and complex guidance module, the only way to stop the Clan version, is to access it and tell it to stop.

The Kowloonese version has a miss radius of 100 meters due to vagaries in calculations, the Clan version has a miss radius of 10 meters.

IOW like most tech things, The Clan version of the same concept is better...from a certain point of view.

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