Author Topic: BattleMech Ownership  (Read 16216 times)

Raellus

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #90 on: 24 May 2020, 16:25:29 »
Ideally, you want a surplus of man and machine but if you had to choose, allot harder to hind the former.

I just want to clarify that you are claiming that it would be more difficult to find a trained mechwarrior than a 'Mech before I respond.
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SteelRaven

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #91 on: 24 May 2020, 17:11:34 »
I just want to clarify that you are claiming that it would be more difficult to find a trained mechwarrior than a 'Mech before I respond.

I'm saying a trained and experienced Mechwarriors is ultimately the more important commodity, though it's not often treated as such in game with the exception of long campaigns and RPs where your 'Warrior earns their skill points and it honestly hurts you when someone gets head capped or otherwise seriously injured.     
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Raellus

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #92 on: 24 May 2020, 17:45:48 »
I'm saying a trained and experienced Mechwarriors is ultimately the more important commodity, though it's not often treated as such in game with the exception of long campaigns and RPs where your 'Warrior earns their skill points and it honestly hurts you when someone gets head capped or otherwise seriously injured.   

I got you now, and I happen to agree.

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SCC

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #93 on: 26 May 2020, 00:33:29 »
What do you mean, "untrue"? I can't see a good reason to intentionally produce a large surplus of mechwarriors.

What would be the point have having thousands of trained mechwarriors on the books without mechs to put them in? If mechwarrior training is anything like modern combat aircraft training, it would be very expensive. Why invest that kind of time and money in intentionally producing a large surplus of mechwarriors when there's minimal chance of a return? What will the state do with all of those overqualified academy graduates, stick 'em in a tank or the infantry? That's just not a smart allocation of capital, financial or human.

It would be a good idea to have a modest surplus of pilots to act as replacements for wounded mechwarriors, or in case production exceeded projections, but a large surplus would be extremely wasteful.
So, first of all the modern fluff makes MechWarrior an officer-level position, so it's not hard to believe that all (State Trained at least) MechWarriors are also officers, which means that a MechWarrior can fill any officer slot, not just being a MechWarrior, so logistics, planing, operations, intelligence analyst, all are roles a MechWarrior could be asked to fill (They might not be that good at them, but they can fill them).

Secondly you want a two-to-one ratio of pilots to 'Mechs so that if a pilot is sick or injured the 'Mech is out of action as well.

Arkansas Warrior

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #94 on: 26 May 2020, 01:23:01 »
Mechwarrior isn’t an officer level position, though.  I tend to agree that it should be, but we routinely see sergeants, and occasionally even corporals, piloting mechs.
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Raellus

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #95 on: 26 May 2020, 11:23:46 »
So, first of all the modern fluff makes MechWarrior an officer-level position, so it's not hard to believe that all (State Trained at least) MechWarriors are also officers, which means that a MechWarrior can fill any officer slot, not just being a MechWarrior, so logistics, planing, operations, intelligence analyst, all are roles a MechWarrior could be asked to fill (They might not be that good at them, but they can fill them).

That last line is the salient point. As a general rule, people trained as pilots are not going to perform particularly well as logistics, planning, intelligence, etc. officers, at least not early on. They're going to require additional schooling in order to be truly effective in their new roles, and that incurs additional costs. This seems doubly wasteful, especially if said officers are subsequently pulled from their new rolls to pilot BattleMechs. Although there is some degree of cross-polinization, in modern, IRL militaries, officers tend to specialize and remain in a particular department for the balance of their career to avoid brain-drain. Over-producing MechWarriors and then farming them out to other departments would be a very inefficient system. Routinely having officers bouncing around from school to school, billet to billet, would create instability, and double-schooling/training them to adequately fulfill multiple roles during their careers would be expensive and time-consuming.

It's not a perfect analogy, but such a system would be like sending someone to law school and then, once they've graduated, making them a surgeon at the local hospital. They're either going to do more harm than good in their new role, or they're going to require extensive and expensive additional training to get good at it. And then, once they're a decent surgeon, you pull them to make them a trial lawyer?

Secondly you want a two-to-one ratio of pilots to 'Mechs so that if a pilot is sick or injured the 'Mech is out of action as well.

This is an interesting point. It also further muddies the waters of private mech ownership, though.
« Last Edit: 26 May 2020, 11:50:40 by Raellus »
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Colt Ward

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #96 on: 26 May 2020, 11:57:24 »
I would say that typically mechwarrior families did not send their kids to the academy- it took someone with better connections to get in than just being a owner family.  Look at the fluff for the Kittery Training Battalion- folks with abilities but w/o the connections to get in a Academy.

But mechwarrior families DO tend to have more than 1 mechwarrior for the machine- you have the current operator and the heir who learns on the machine when it is home.  For example, while Justin Allard still had Yen-lo-wang as his mech, Kai did practice with it before going to NAMA.
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massey

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #97 on: 26 May 2020, 12:34:05 »
I think at this point we have to distinguish between House mechwarriors and nobles/owner-operators.  They are two very different things.  If you're a nobleman or an owner/operator, you want to be really careful with letting someone else pilot your machine.

The Armed Forces of the Federated Suns (along with every other House military) can call upon all sorts of units.  They've got battlemechs owned by the national government itself (just like the US government owns all the F-22s and Nimitz class aircraft carriers).  They've got regiments that are the personal property of whatever Davion is on the throne at the moment (we don't have that -- the US President doesn't have a thousand Abrams tanks that he paid for out of his own pocket and that he keeps when he leaves office).  They've got mech regiments that the Davion on the throne has as a result of his other titles (i.e., Duke of New Avalon has X number of regiments supported by the tax dollars of the people of New Avalon).  They've got mech regiments that other high ranking nobles provide to the AFFS in exchange for recognition of their titles.  They've got mech regiments that other high ranking nobles provide, but are generally limited to guarding their own planets (they probably can't pull units on garrison duty in the Capellan March that belong to the Duke of New Syrtis and send them to invade the Draconis Combine).  Then you've got smaller units that lesser nobles have contributed, and owner-operators who provide maybe a single mech.  We don't know what the numerical breakdown is, but all of them exist in significant percentages.

If you're talking about a House-owned battlemech (Enforcer #2364), then yeah it makes sense to have multiple pilots available.  Sergeant Joe may be a perfectly adequate pilot, but it ain't his mech.  If he gets put out of action for a while because he's got pneumonia, you don't want his Enforcer inactive for too long.  Get somebody else in there.  However, if this is a privately owned mech, that sort of policy is super dangerous and unstable.  If I'm an owner-operator, there's no way I'm letting some jackass House mechwarrior in my battlemech.  That's how I support my family and he'll probably tear it up.  The risk of becoming Dispossessed is too great.  If you're a noble, then your mech pilot spots are highly coveted.  Baron Ricky provides a company of battlemechs to the Duke.  Every pilot in that company has a family with money and connections.  This guy's uncle is a federal judge, that guy's dad is on the Board of Directors for a prominent company.  Baron Ricky isn't sticking some rando in that mech as a backup pilot, even if the guy has a 2 gunnery.

Being a mechwarrior is a position of political power.  Letting a backup pilot get in your machine decreases that power.  If you have multiple machines, letting someone you didn't hand-pick pilot it also decreases your power.  The more pilots you have for each machine, the less their families owe you for getting their kid that spot.

Arkansas Warrior

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #98 on: 26 May 2020, 12:50:43 »
I would say that typically mechwarrior families did not send their kids to the academy- it took someone with better connections to get in than just being a owner family.  Look at the fluff for the Kittery Training Battalion- folks with abilities but w/o the connections to get in a Academy.

But mechwarrior families DO tend to have more than 1 mechwarrior for the machine- you have the current operator and the heir who learns on the machine when it is home.  For example, while Justin Allard still had Yen-lo-wang as his mech, Kai did practice with it before going to NAMA.
Yes and no.  The Academies are also where you get officer candidate school.  Owner-operators probably hold a noble title, and would presumably want to be officers, not just rank-and-file mechwarrior sergeants.  Could a self-taught owner-operator just walk into a unit?  Probably.  Would they command anyone without having gone to OCS?  Unlikely.


Historically, the officer/enlisted split comes from the difference between the nobility and commoners.  Nobles serving as enlisted was rare enough that the phenomenon had a name; the Gentleman Ranker.  That may be a common split in BT as well; noble owner-operator officers commanding enlisted who had the aptitude but are driving state-owned machines.
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massey

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #99 on: 26 May 2020, 13:04:25 »
Yes and no.  The Academies are also where you get officer candidate school.  Owner-operators probably hold a noble title, and would presumably want to be officers, not just rank-and-file mechwarrior sergeants.  Could a self-taught owner-operator just walk into a unit?  Probably.  Would they command anyone without having gone to OCS?  Unlikely.


Historically, the officer/enlisted split comes from the difference between the nobility and commoners.  Nobles serving as enlisted was rare enough that the phenomenon had a name; the Gentleman Ranker.  That may be a common split in BT as well; noble owner-operator officers commanding enlisted who had the aptitude but are driving state-owned machines.

I'd presume that if you have an actual title, an officer position would be part of the deal.  Whatever treaty or agreement that your family signed long ago said that they'd provide X amount of units, and you'd have Y rank in the military.  I can't imagine that you'd provide a lance of battlemechs and yet wouldn't be in charge of it as well.

Maybe the second son or somebody like that, who isn't expected to inherit the land and title, might enlist and just bring along a single mech.  For somebody who isn't in the line of succession, that might be your expected career path.  "Go join the army and make something of yourself."

Raellus

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #100 on: 26 May 2020, 13:36:56 »
The Armed Forces of the Federated Suns (along with every other House military) can call upon all sorts of units.  They've got battlemechs owned by the national government itself (just like the US government owns all the F-22s and Nimitz class aircraft carriers).  They've got regiments that are the personal property of whatever Davion is on the throne at the moment (we don't have that -- the US President doesn't have a thousand Abrams tanks that he paid for out of his own pocket and that he keeps when he leaves office).  They've got mech regiments that the Davion on the throne has as a result of his other titles (i.e., Duke of New Avalon has X number of regiments supported by the tax dollars of the people of New Avalon).  They've got mech regiments that other high ranking nobles provide to the AFFS in exchange for recognition of their titles.  They've got mech regiments that other high ranking nobles provide, but are generally limited to guarding their own planets (they probably can't pull units on garrison duty in the Capellan March that belong to the Duke of New Syrtis and send them to invade the Draconis Combine).  Then you've got smaller units that lesser nobles have contributed, and owner-operators who provide maybe a single mech.  We don't know what the numerical breakdown is, but all of them exist in significant percentages.

I find this summary really helpful. Thank you.

Regarding nobles as officers, historically (in modern times), that practice has turned out mediocre militaries. It's one thing to learn from one's father/mother how to drive (i.e. pilot a mech), it's quite another to learn how to lead others on the field of battle (or operate as part of a group). Isn't there some fluff about one (or more) of the Successor States under-performing in a martial sense due to its practice of assigning officer billets to nobles (rather than trained professionals)?

What makes more sense to me is that nobles are automatically admitted to the states' MechWarrior academy as a matter of course. This would have the added benefit of binding said nobles closer to the state (at least, in theory). It would also explain fluff that characterizes certain Successor States approaching warfare in a particular, distinctive way. 
« Last Edit: 26 May 2020, 13:41:20 by Raellus »
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Colt Ward

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #101 on: 26 May 2020, 14:22:55 »
The Armed Forces of the Federated Suns (along with every other House military) can call upon all sorts of units.  They've got battlemechs owned by the national government itself (just like the US government owns all the F-22s and Nimitz class aircraft carriers).  They've got regiments that are the personal property of whatever Davion is on the throne at the moment (we don't have that -- the US President doesn't have a thousand Abrams tanks that he paid for out of his own pocket and that he keeps when he leaves office).  They've got mech regiments that the Davion on the throne has as a result of his other titles (i.e., Duke of New Avalon has X number of regiments supported by the tax dollars of the people of New Avalon).  They've got mech regiments that other high ranking nobles provide to the AFFS in exchange for recognition of their titles.  They've got mech regiments that other high ranking nobles provide, but are generally limited to guarding their own planets (they probably can't pull units on garrison duty in the Capellan March that belong to the Duke of New Syrtis and send them to invade the Draconis Combine).  Then you've got smaller units that lesser nobles have contributed, and owner-operators who provide maybe a single mech.  We don't know what the numerical breakdown is, but all of them exist in significant percentages.

This is the way it broke down to me-
First Prince- AFFS, as set by whatever treaties integrated the Terran, Capellan and Draconis Marches into the Fed Suns which were ruled by 'princes.'
Prince of the Crucis March-  Crucis Lancers brigade, maybe the Ceti Hussars
Duke of New Avalon-  Avalon Hussars brigade
whatever of New Avalon City & surrounding regions- Davion Brigade of Guards
Duke of the Capellan March- New Syrtis Fusiliers
Duke of the Draconis March- Robinson Rangers

To me, those are the personal formations though the AFFS would provide support.

Then you get the regional commands though technically they are not part of the Regulars.
Marshal of the Crucis March- Crucis March Militia (CrMM)
Marshal of the Capellan March-  Capellan March Militia (CMM)
Marshal of the Draconis March-  Draconis March Militia (DMM)

Then you get stuff like the 1FSAC Regiment that are a national independent formation and assigned to a March by command.  The Marshal and the Duke/Duchess of the Marches are not always the same person.

The AFFS roster does not typically include the personal regiments though some have a history of being bought into national service-
1st Kestrel Grenadiers- originally the Cunningham family
New Ivaarson Chassuers- maybe Stephenson family
Chisholm Raiders-  planetary militia brought into national service

It does leave those niches where a noble has a battalion or company for their contribution to the national force- though with the naming conventions of the 3SW era, "Kingston's Killers" while otherwise known as the Marlette CrMM's 2nd Company, 3rd Battalion are the contribution of Viscount Danny Kingston of Yokelville on Marlette along with his retainers.

Raellus, for your last statement . . . yes, the Lyran Social General is a factor though it happens in all inherited titles.  Then again, Caleb S-H-S-Davion blew his timing against the Caps and then Dracs . . .

Problem is, you have a LOT more nobles than you do national service academies.  We probably have some sort of ROTC analogue for universities & colleges never mentioned in source material- or ones that get a throw away line.  To compare, here in the US we have Westpoint (Army), Anapolis (Navy & Marines) and Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs) . . . but you also have private or public (depends on timing) military schools.  The Citadel, Virginia Military Institute, Virginia Polytech, and Texas A&M.  FREX TAMU is the largest of six 'senior military colleges' as set by law- currently 45% of the Corp on average receives a commission.  During WWII the Corp produced 20,229 individuals who served in combat, over 14k who were officers- more than Westpoint & Anapolis produced at the time.  Much to some ringknockers' dismay, Aggies have a enviable combat and career record despite being 'outsiders' from the national service schools.

Then you throw in that most US schools have a ROTC program as another source of officers.  Finally, OCS is NOT an academy education which AW is conflating.  OCS graduates are joked about as being 9-week wonders, the program takes college grads and turns them into officers though they lack the development of the academy grads.  This path is typically where with a college degree they enlist and in contract are promised OCS if performance norms are met.  After ROTC they will still send officers to a branch school- it might actually BE OCS since before that they are not strictly part of the US military- to learn their field.
Colt Ward
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"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

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Arkansas Warrior

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #102 on: 26 May 2020, 14:31:59 »
I'd presume that if you have an actual title, an officer position would be part of the deal.  Whatever treaty or agreement that your family signed long ago said that they'd provide X amount of units, and you'd have Y rank in the military.  I can't imagine that you'd provide a lance of battlemechs and yet wouldn't be in charge of it as well.

Maybe the second son or somebody like that, who isn't expected to inherit the land and title, might enlist and just bring along a single mech.  For somebody who isn't in the line of succession, that might be your expected career path.  "Go join the army and make something of yourself."
You'd still need to go to the academy.  Except maybe in the LC, you can't just show up at 18 and be like "Hi, I'm Duke Gregor von Konigsburg III, where's my Major's commission and battalion to command?"  Maybe part of your feudal arrangement is a guaranteed academy slot for all your children, maybe you can pull some strings to make sure they don't fail/get kicked out, but very, very rarely are you going to just get an officer's commission and a unit with no training in command.  I'd think even second sons would want to be officers.  Everybody laughs at Sergeant Sir Reinhart von Konigsburg.  Fool probably failed OCS and has to slum it with the commoners.  Hmph.  Even if he rises to Sergeant-Major, the whispers are always going to follow him.  Can't go to a high-society party without hearing whispers about how the poor sod had to work his way up the ranks with grubby, classless hoi polloi who didn't even own their mechs.  I mean, can you imagine?  Had to go to the NCO club, where the trashy waitresses don't even know proper wine pairings.  Nobody laughs at Colonel Sir William Clarence.  Dude had three older brothers, so he took the family's training Stinger, his practically honorary knighthood, and went to the academy.  Now look at him; he's commander of one of the Prince's most elite RCTs and drives a factory-fresh Victor.  Practically a rags-to-riches story.  Why, I hear the Prince is considering naming him military governor of the world that got captured last month.  Can a Marquesship be far behind?  His father the Duke would be so proud.
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Marveryn

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #103 on: 26 May 2020, 14:55:01 »
I'm saying a trained and experienced Mechwarriors is ultimately the more important commodity, though it's not often treated as such in game with the exception of long campaigns and RPs where your 'Warrior earns their skill points and it honestly hurts you when someone gets head capped or otherwise seriously injured.   
the problem with that idea is that your missing out on the amount of disposed mechwarriors are sitting on there ass hoping to gain a battlemech.  There a reason why mech are more precious then lives.  At the time period that this started with your had a surplus of mechwarriors without mechs forcing some to go into infantry in hope of gaining a mech through salvage. 

massey

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #104 on: 26 May 2020, 15:20:54 »
You'd still need to go to the academy.  Except maybe in the LC, you can't just show up at 18 and be like "Hi, I'm Duke Gregor von Konigsburg III, where's my Major's commission and battalion to command?"  Maybe part of your feudal arrangement is a guaranteed academy slot for all your children, maybe you can pull some strings to make sure they don't fail/get kicked out, but very, very rarely are you going to just get an officer's commission and a unit with no training in command.  I'd think even second sons would want to be officers.  Everybody laughs at Sergeant Sir Reinhart von Konigsburg.  Fool probably failed OCS and has to slum it with the commoners.  Hmph.  Even if he rises to Sergeant-Major, the whispers are always going to follow him.  Can't go to a high-society party without hearing whispers about how the poor sod had to work his way up the ranks with grubby, classless hoi polloi who didn't even own their mechs.  I mean, can you imagine?  Had to go to the NCO club, where the trashy waitresses don't even know proper wine pairings.  Nobody laughs at Colonel Sir William Clarence.  Dude had three older brothers, so he took the family's training Stinger, his practically honorary knighthood, and went to the academy.  Now look at him; he's commander of one of the Prince's most elite RCTs and drives a factory-fresh Victor.  Practically a rags-to-riches story.  Why, I hear the Prince is considering naming him military governor of the world that got captured last month.  Can a Marquesship be far behind?  His father the Duke would be so proud.

That's true to a degree, but if your family provides a company of battlemechs, you're gonna be in charge of it.  Yeah, maybe you'll have to go to the mechwarrior academy equivalent of Arizona State, but you'll be in command.  After all, it's your stuff.

And there's probably a real difference between the guy who is going to inherit the title, and his younger brother.  Major Oldest Son is there to get experience in ordering people around, make some connections in the officers' lounge, and fulfill his family's military obligation.  He'll probably stay in the military until his dad is ready to retire, then he leaves and goes back home to be Count von Snooty the VIII.  Lt Younger Son has to get by on his merits.  He might be a better officer, but he didn't show up with his own battalion.

As important as it is for your officer corps to be competent, you're not gonna turn away the guy who brings his own army with him.  Major Oldest Son may have scraped by at a private "degree factory" academy, and he's only got one level in Tactics and Strategy (however the rpg is working now, he's got the minimum). but being rich and having a lot of privately owned mechs forgives a lot of sins.

Colt Ward

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #105 on: 26 May 2020, 15:35:37 »
Its also where you get the family retainer who is a excellent professional soldier . . . they are there to, in private, keep Major Oldest Son from committing any gross errors while he ticket punches.  In fact, Count Daddy may arrange for him to punch the 'combat' ticket in the easiest theater or manner possible- pirate hunting!- and then promptly get Major Oldest Son transferred to the regional staff or if possible army staff on Tharkad.  By the time that rotation happens, Lt Younger Son (who was in fellow Count Buddy's company in another 'regiment') has some experience and been promoted.  Now Count Daddy brings his competent Younger Son who has been told to make a career of the military 'for the family' is placed in charge of the battalion and the influence of Major (or is it now Lt Colonel?) Oldest Son and Count Daddy (and maybe friends, like Count Buddy) influences the LCAF to post Major Younger Son and the battalion to more a active theater.  Get the family noticed in the press, reports to the Archon, building reputation and fame for the family which Count Daddy and Lt Colonel (or is it Colonel now, part of the Quartermaster's department?) will leverage to improve the family's position.

Think of the officer Vedet Brewer had positioned to be 'his' men in the LCAF, feudalism goes hand in hand with the patronage system.  He searched through DefHes employees' kids for any military talent and then sponsored their academy admissions along with helping their career along.  Granted the lord of DefHes has quite a bit of leverage in the LCAF, but the example holds.
Colt Ward
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"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

"Greetings, Mechwarrior. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Daoshen and the Capellan armada."

Major Headcase

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #106 on: 26 May 2020, 15:50:39 »
The older editions of the RPG and novel sources mention three "common" sources of House Mechwarrior training and general recruitment.
First is of course the Military academies, which produces the best trained and most reliable mechwarriors. Downside is exclusivity.
Second was University offered Military elective courses (aka ROTC) easier to get into just with hard work and natural aptitude. Downside is limited training opportunities.
Third was Regimental training, where a soldier tested into a mechwarrior slot during his service as something else (often technical personnel) who are trained by the unit on assignment, often partnered with a mentor in a type of Apprenticeship. Downside is severely informal training in combat skills only.
Regimental training seemed more common in either semi-autonomous units, like the foxes teeth,  or planetary defense units. I cant imagine a unit like the Davion Heavy Gaurd using it; if they found a mechwarrior savant in thier grease pits they'd just send him to an ROTC program I'd imagine.
Again this seems to be for general pilot recruitment of mech-less operators and doesn't cover the many more archaic paths a mech owner has available.
It's a touchy thing applying modern examples because we have no modern equivalent to private mech ownership and the enshrined culture surrounding it. Btech is a complicated mesh of modern military practicalities and neo-feudal accomodation. And cultural imperatives dont always make the most practical sense...
In the US we have common gun ownership, but a person cant walk up to a Marine recruiter and say "i own a rifle so that makes me a Marine? Right" well... I guess he could, actually... once...  ;D

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #107 on: 26 May 2020, 20:53:35 »
The older editions of the RPG and novel sources mention three "common" sources of House Mechwarrior training and general recruitment.
First is of course the Military academies, which produces the best trained and most reliable mechwarriors. Downside is exclusivity.
Second was University offered Military elective courses (aka ROTC) easier to get into just with hard work and natural aptitude. Downside is limited training opportunities.
Third was Regimental training, where a soldier tested into a mechwarrior slot during his service as something else (often technical personnel) who are trained by the unit on assignment, often partnered with a mentor in a type of Apprenticeship. Downside is severely informal training in combat skills only.
Regimental training seemed more common in either semi-autonomous units, like the foxes teeth,  or planetary defense units. I cant imagine a unit like the Davion Heavy Gaurd using it; if they found a mechwarrior savant in thier grease pits they'd just send him to an ROTC program I'd imagine.
Again this seems to be for general pilot recruitment of mech-less operators and doesn't cover the many more archaic paths a mech owner has available.
It's a touchy thing applying modern examples because we have no modern equivalent to private mech ownership and the enshrined culture surrounding it. Btech is a complicated mesh of modern military practicalities and neo-feudal accomodation. And cultural imperatives dont always make the most practical sense...
In the US we have common gun ownership, but a person cant walk up to a Marine recruiter and say "i own a rifle so that makes me a Marine? Right" well... I guess he could, actually... once...  ;D

guardiandashi

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #108 on: 27 May 2020, 02:12:48 »
The older editions of the RPG and novel sources mention three "common" sources of House Mechwarrior training and general recruitment.
First is of course the Military academies, which produces the best trained and most reliable mechwarriors. Downside is exclusivity.
Second was University offered Military elective courses (aka ROTC) easier to get into just with hard work and natural aptitude. Downside is limited training opportunities.
Third was Regimental training, where a soldier tested into a mechwarrior slot during his service as something else (often technical personnel) who are trained by the unit on assignment, often partnered with a mentor in a type of Apprenticeship. Downside is severely informal training in combat skills only.
Regimental training seemed more common in either semi-autonomous units, like the foxes teeth,  or planetary defense units. I cant imagine a unit like the Davion Heavy Gaurd using it; if they found a mechwarrior savant in thier grease pits they'd just send him to an ROTC program I'd imagine.
Again this seems to be for general pilot recruitment of mech-less operators and doesn't cover the many more archaic paths a mech owner has available.
It's a touchy thing applying modern examples because we have no modern equivalent to private mech ownership and the enshrined culture surrounding it. Btech is a complicated mesh of modern military practicalities and neo-feudal accomodation. And cultural imperatives dont always make the most practical sense...
In the US we have common gun ownership, but a person cant walk up to a Marine recruiter and say "i own a rifle so that makes me a Marine? Right" well... I guess he could, actually... once...  ;D

I think we are talking about different aspects of training.

I consider the Academy's to be the lowest level of routine military (Mechwarrior training) (essentially like going to a trade school, or associates degree today.

the Universities provide a higher level of training and education more like a 4 year degree or above.

if you look at the RPG mechwarriors are NOT officers by default, however they are usually sergeants or above.

if you look at ATOW,
MILITARY SCHOOLS The following master schools cover military training options available to most factions in A Time of War.
Military Academy (830 XP + Field Costs) Military academies represent the fi nest in training for career-minded characters in the military. Every major realm boasts at least one interstellar-grade military academy like House Steiner’s Nagelring on Tharkad, or the Draconis Combine’s Sun Zhang MechWarrior Academy. As the place where MechWarriors learn their craft and all recruits are viewed as potential offi  cer candidates, military academies have stricter entry requirements than simple enlistment.  (Prerequisite) {snip}

Military Enlistment (720 XP + Field Costs) Where military academies represent the upper crust of military training, military enlistment represents the much more common standard, employed by interstellar realms and individual worlds alike to train the majority of their ground troops. Focused on conventional forces, such as infantry and cavalry, these training centers—found on any world or in any realm that maintains a standing defense force— lack the sophisticated training programs that turn out MechWarriors and aerospace fi ghter pilots, but still produce quality support troops for any army. Prerequisites: None

Family Training (570 XP + Field Costs) Suffi  ciently powerful noble houses and affl  uent citizens can often circumvent the requirements of academies and service to the state by instead performing their military training “in-house”. This so-called “family training” is particularly common among the minor noble houses of far-fl ung worlds where the military forces of their nominal rulers are few and far between, leaving such worlds without defense. Given the expense, many noble houses or wealthy families who pursue this eff ort often present what amounts to a watered-down academy experience due to a lack of regular, qualifi ed instructors or state of the art equipment, yet many nevertheless have turned out warriors competent enough to serve in their homeworlds’ defense. Prerequisite: {Snip}

OFFICER CANDIDATE SCHOOL Any military, paramilitary or police force operates under a strict chain of command, but only the most qualifi ed can be offi  cers. Offi  cer Candidate School (OCS) is technically a branch of whatever academy or other institution the character is attending, but is paid for as an option after choosing all other Fields, with the following rules:
Offi  cer Candidate School (550 XP + Field Costs) Prerequisite: Character must have used the Intelligence, Police or Military Schools only, and possess at least one Basic and one Advanced Field. Characters require this training to access the officer ranks in the Rank Trait.

in mechwarrior RPG second edition the academy package gives fewer skills and lower maximum skill levels than universities, and what are in ATOW listed as military academies were university level packages.

SCC

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #109 on: 27 May 2020, 06:47:09 »
That last line is the salient point. As a general rule, people trained as pilots are not going to perform particularly well as logistics, planning, intelligence, etc. officers, at least not early on. They're going to require additional schooling in order to be truly effective in their new roles, and that incurs additional costs. This seems doubly wasteful, especially if said officers are subsequently pulled from their new rolls to pilot BattleMechs. Although there is some degree of cross-polinization, in modern, IRL militaries, officers tend to specialize and remain in a particular department for the balance of their career to avoid brain-drain. Over-producing MechWarriors and then farming them out to other departments would be a very inefficient system. Routinely having officers bouncing around from school to school, billet to billet, would create instability, and double-schooling/training them to adequately fulfill multiple roles during their careers would be expensive and time-consuming.

It's not a perfect analogy, but such a system would be like sending someone to law school and then, once they've graduated, making them a surgeon at the local hospital. They're either going to do more harm than good in their new role, or they're going to require extensive and expensive additional training to get good at it. And then, once they're a decent surgeon, you pull them to make them a trial lawyer?
I'm no expert, but I'm fairly certain that there are no non-line officer training courses, particularly in naval and air forces and especially in fiction, everyone gets the same training, heck I'm fairly certain IRL dedicated non-line officers a not a big thing because it leads to officers with no understanding of the real world in positions of pwer.

This is an interesting point. It also further muddies the waters of private mech ownership, though.
That's because you're using the wrong model of 'private' ownership in most cases, look up Minobu Tetsuhara to get a better idea.

I think at this point we have to distinguish between House mechwarriors and nobles/owner-operators.  They are two very different things.  If you're a nobleman or an owner/operator, you want to be really careful with letting someone else pilot your machine.
-snip-
Being a mechwarrior is a position of political power.  Letting a backup pilot get in your machine decreases that power.  If you have multiple machines, letting someone you didn't hand-pick pilot it also decreases your power.  The more pilots you have for each machine, the less their families owe you for getting their kid that spot.
You're drawing the line in the wrong place, 99%+ of the time a noble owns a 'Mech it's tied up in his title, he won't be an owner/operator. His overlord won't be able to put just another pilot in the cockpit, but that overlord can demand that when the 'Mech reports for muster there are two pilots.

I'd presume that if you have an actual title, an officer position would be part of the deal.  Whatever treaty or agreement that your family signed long ago said that they'd provide X amount of units, and you'd have Y rank in the military.  I can't imagine that you'd provide a lance of battlemechs and yet wouldn't be in charge of it as well.

Maybe the second son or somebody like that, who isn't expected to inherit the land and title, might enlist and just bring along a single mech.  For somebody who isn't in the line of succession, that might be your expected career path.  "Go join the army and make something of yourself."
MechWarrior families would most likely have priority for slots at academies. And I doubt that most obligations would allow you to provide a unit like that, outside of it being a feudal levy as opposed to a federal unit. Second son wouldn't be able to enlist with a 'Mech unless it's an extra, in which case I have to wonder why you aren't joining a Merc outfit.

That's true to a degree, but if your family provides a company of battlemechs, you're gonna be in charge of it.  Yeah, maybe you'll have to go to the mechwarrior academy equivalent of Arizona State, but you'll be in command.  After all, it's your stuff.
I'd go with the idea that if you're required to provide a unit of 'Mechs you get to pick who commands them, but they still have to actually have whatever training is required unless this is a feudal levy, in which case you'd be able to grant a commission, but no one else would recognize it.


Colt Ward

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #110 on: 27 May 2020, 09:37:46 »
I'm no expert, but I'm fairly certain that there are no non-line officer training courses, particularly in naval and air forces and especially in fiction, everyone gets the same training, heck I'm fairly certain IRL dedicated non-line officers a not a big thing because it leads to officers with no understanding of the real world in positions of pwer.

Huh?  Officer career tracks in the navy have non-command such as Engineering which gets them made Chief Engineer on a ship, and then to be promoted past they they end up as part of the shore establishment but the key point is non-command officers do not end up in charge of combat forces.  If you chose a non-combat track, you accept slower promotions and the inability to be promoted to certain positions (like CinC).

Military Academies also provide a 4 year degree- consider the Kai & Victor school summaries in the beginning of the BoK trilogy.  They are going to be rated higher than most university's ROTC programs- they spend more time in a 'military' environment and in training than the average university ROTC (known dot-heads from several different programs).  It helps contribute to a 'class' division sort of structure in the officer corp- as I mentioned with the ringknockers, aka West Point graduates- where you have cliques based on where/how you became a officer/mechwarrior.  Biggest one I think mentioned in fiction would be the Nagelring/Sanglamore in the LCAF, though you get some of that in the League with their balkanization (supported w/fiction) and IIRC Goshen encourges a certain spirit by not being one of the big FS schools.

While the NAMA, Nagelring, Princefield, and Capella Conservatory (note the Dracs do not!) teach conventional branches (armor, infantry/BA, aero) along with mechwarriors, its more likely the armor & infantry officers come from more sources just to make up the numbers- Kathil University might have a excellent armor ROTC program b/c of GM's production on planet compared to some Outback planet's university.  In fact, I would expect such a thing to be the case because of the on hand resources, Kathil CMM, and usually a national command as planetary garrison.  The point is the couple of hundred officers the big national service academies turn out would not cover the needed numbers of armor & infantry officers.  Which IMO means national service academy grads in infantry & armor are likely to be more clique-ish.

This does raise another point . . . the House Lords recruited SLDF commands when they broke up . . . which means you probably had vehicle crews brought in the same way.  Lol, you are a minor noble b/c great grand-daddy was a track commander for a Von Luckner . . . though your family and the families of the loader, driver, and gunner no longer operate that tank since it took a lot of damage in the 2SW and your lord, Count Ding'dong demanded the fusion engine for his mech instead of repairing it and instead got you a Bulldog medium tank as a replacement.
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Raellus

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #111 on: 27 May 2020, 10:23:41 »
I'm no expert, but I'm fairly certain that there are no non-line officer training courses, particularly in naval and air forces and especially in fiction, everyone gets the same training, heck I'm fairly certain IRL dedicated non-line officers a not a big thing because it leads to officers with no understanding of the real world in positions of pwer.

That's not the case. My brother is a career officer (20 years) in the U.S. military. He got in via ROTC. After graduation and commissioning, he attended his first specialist course. He washed out and moved on to his second choice field. He's been in that same field the balance of his career. His best friend in the service did not wash out and he is in his original field to this day. My brother's been to multiple training and post-graduate college courses during the course of his career. His branch has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to train him up to do a particular job. When he's deployed, it's to do that particular job. When he's stateside, he's doing that particular job. If he asked for a transfer to a different field, the answer would be "we didn't invest all of that time in money on your current specialization to allow you go somewhere else". 

In the BTU, yes, neo-feudalism is widespread, but the military is still a highly technical enterprise- more so than it is today. Such a military requires specialization and extensive training to function. So no, you're not going to produce generic officers that can do any job in the military competently. It's just not realistic.
« Last Edit: 27 May 2020, 10:26:20 by Raellus »
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Arkansas Warrior

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #112 on: 27 May 2020, 10:46:12 »
That last line is the salient point. As a general rule, people trained as pilots are not going to perform particularly well as logistics, planning, intelligence, etc. officers, at least not early on. They're going to require additional schooling in order to be truly effective in their new roles, and that incurs additional costs. This seems doubly wasteful, especially if said officers are subsequently pulled from their new rolls to pilot BattleMechs. Although there is some degree of cross-polinization, in modern, IRL militaries, officers tend to specialize and remain in a particular department for the balance of their career to avoid brain-drain. Over-producing MechWarriors and then farming them out to other departments would be a very inefficient system. Routinely having officers bouncing around from school to school, billet to billet, would create instability, and double-schooling/training them to adequately fulfill multiple roles during their careers would be expensive and time-consuming.

It's not a perfect analogy, but such a system would be like sending someone to law school and then, once they've graduated, making them a surgeon at the local hospital. They're either going to do more harm than good in their new role, or they're going to require extensive and expensive additional training to get good at it. And then, once they're a decent surgeon, you pull them to make them a trial lawyer?
It's more like assigning the junior associate at the law firm the job of overseeing maintenance or bookkeeping, and it does happen in the modern US military. I was in the Headquarters Company of an aviation battalion.  During the time I was there, our headquarters staff officers were quite often aviators, not specialist staff officers.  Our S1 (Personnel) officer was sometimes an aviator, sometimes not.  Our S2 (Intel) was, IIRC, always an aviator, though at one point I think it was a guy who had been to Intel Officer school and Flight School.  Our S3 (operations) officer was *always* an aviator.  Our S4 (logistics) officer was, IIRC, always an aviator.  Our S6 (signals) officer was always a signals specialist, IIRC.  It always seemed to me that who went where had as much to do with who we had on hand as anything; if we had an Intel guy we'd stick him at S2, but if not we'd fill the slot with an aviator.  There are certainly specialists who aren't going to be aviators; chaplain comes to mind, as would a medical officer if we'd had one, but in those cases it has more to do with medics and chaplains being strictly non-combatants whereas aviation is a combat branch.  Now, how much of the Human Resources paperwork did the pilot in the S1 slot do? Probably not a whole lot.  He had NCOs who knew how to do that stuff for him, all he had to do was sign off.  Not, that's not to say he didn't learn on the job and (eventually) have a good handle on how his stuff worked, just that he didn't need to be a highly qualified HR paperwork guy; he just needed to be able to oversee the folks who were highly qualified.
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Colt Ward

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #113 on: 27 May 2020, 10:47:57 »
Honestly, part of the problem (and I meant to cover this in the last post) is that early fiction had some mechwarriors as non-officers . . . which is a huge issue when a infantry butter bar LT (or super butter bar) who has never ridden in a mech, been out of ROTC/OCS/academy for 2 weeks finds themselves cut off from higher with their platoon and a 10 year sergeant in a mech.  The officer can give orders to the mechwarrior . . . and have little to no idea why the orders are bad.  Bluntly, this is the source of a LOT of memes and jokes such as . . .



which typically results in . . .



Honestly, its a flaw that has been ignored from the beginning . . . but to be fair, its not just 2LTs.  I have served with some mickey mouse senior NCOs, though that problem could be solved by all mechwarriors being at least warrant officers which side steps some of the problems.  BTU should be filled with mechwarriors telling stories like- "this one time some infantry LT kept trying to get my attention.  He said he tried to get me on the radio, dumb a did not realize we were on different nets, then stepped in front of my trying to flag me down . . . demanded I climb down out of the cockpit to discuss what I saw of the terrain and our OpFor, told him it was against orders to dismount in the field.  We argued about that for 5 minutes before he swore he would write me up, and lift him up in my mech's hand to he could.  I drive a fricking Enforcer 4R, what HAND can he see!?  Told him to wedge in between the armor & cooling cowl on the laser . . . lifted him up, let him look around, and then set him down . . . so m'fer slid down the laser and into the biggest mud puddle I could see.  Then took off running before he could do anything else f'd up."
Colt Ward
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Arkansas Warrior

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #114 on: 27 May 2020, 11:14:11 »
That's true to a degree, but if your family provides a company of battlemechs, you're gonna be in charge of it.  Yeah, maybe you'll have to go to the mechwarrior academy equivalent of Arizona State, but you'll be in command.  After all, it's your stuff.

And there's probably a real difference between the guy who is going to inherit the title, and his younger brother.  Major Oldest Son is there to get experience in ordering people around, make some connections in the officers' lounge, and fulfill his family's military obligation.  He'll probably stay in the military until his dad is ready to retire, then he leaves and goes back home to be Count von Snooty the VIII.  Lt Younger Son has to get by on his merits.  He might be a better officer, but he didn't show up with his own battalion.

As important as it is for your officer corps to be competent, you're not gonna turn away the guy who brings his own army with him.  Major Oldest Son may have scraped by at a private "degree factory" academy, and he's only got one level in Tactics and Strategy (however the rpg is working now, he's got the minimum). but being rich and having a lot of privately owned mechs forgives a lot of sins.
This is a bit of a tangent, but I'm not sure how often a noble ever actually provided a company (or more).  You occasionally see companies with hereditary connections; the McKinnons seem to have a hereditary role as commander of the Fox's Teeth, and have since the unit's inception, and the rest of the company seems the same, generation after generation serving in more or less the same slot in the same company, but they were never McKinnon's retainers per se.  They just had a hereditary right to the Fox's Teeth 2nd Lance CO slot (or whatever).  Now, we do see high-ranking nobles providing larger units.  The 1st Capellan Dragoons regiment from the Duke of Kathil, the Syrtis Fusiliers, the Robinson Rangers, Vedet Brewer's 1st Hesperus Guards, etc.  But those usually aren't feudal levies per se; Brewer does seem to have raised his unit all on his own, but the others are, in essence, financially supported by their Duke, but still part of the AFFS.  They generally bear a certain amount of loyalty to the Duke, but New Avalon still assigns their posting, sends them replacement machines and personnel, etc.  Now, in their capacity as Field Marshals of their respective Marches, the Dukes of Robinson and New Syrtis are often able to control postings, personnel, etc in their units to a degree that worries New Avalon, but that's because of their rank, not their title.  Contrast the 1st Capellan Dragoons; after he sold them to the AFFS proper, the Duke of Kathil (who was not an AFFS Field Marshal) couldn't control assignments to the unit or postings thereof, though he did, FM:FS tells us, "try to keep them mindful of the origins".  In the lead-up to the FCCW, this meant sending them a shipment of hovertanks (he couldn't do mechs because that would've raised eyebrows).


All that to say, it seems like once you get past a certain level (the lower bound is nebulous, but certainly once you get to the point of regimental formations), bigger nobles tend to 'sponsor' units more than actually raising feudal levies.  It offers them less control, the federal government can still assign the replacement personnel they choose and put the unit where they choose on the equipment priority list, but the noble still has a certain (variable) amount of leverage on these things, and they'll probably side with their sponsor if it comes down to it (the 3rd Robinson Rangers being a notable exception, but they were filled full of Kat loyalists-that federal government ability to send replacement personnel coming into play).  All that makes sense; Prince Davion probably doesn't want the Duke of Backwoods to have his own regiment running around outside federal control, and one presumes would heavily encourage the federalization and sponsorship model, though the Duke of Kathil was able to hang onto his personal unit until 3009.  Note that my knowledge tends to be FedSuns-centric, other states will vary.  Grayson Carlyle being Landgrave of Glengarry and Colonel of what is explicitly a mercenary unit is an interesting (and highly unusual) case, though one suspects that if they'd ever taken a contract to attack the LyrCom, that would have had consequences for Carlyle's title.


Edit: Now that I think about it, the 'sponsorship' model is pretty similar to what was called "Scutage" in classical feudalism.  Nobles could pay a fine rather than providing troops.  At first it was rare, real men showed up for service, only wimps paid their way out, etc etc.  But as time went on, nobles grew decadent, rulers grew frustrated with the varying quality of feudal levies, etc etc, kings began to prefer that nobles just pony up the cash so that the king could then hire an army of mercenaries.  I wonder if things are similar in BT.  How often did Hanse Davion tell some random noble "Look, Duke, I appreciate your enthusiasm.  You want to serve your country.  Rather than raising a battalion from LoggerMech drivers on your world, how about you just send me the D-bills and I'll use them to rebuild the 2nd Battalion of the 20th Avalon.  We'll make sure the CO sends you a very nice postcard and the DMI keeps you up to date on the unit's glorious progress that you have enabled.  That way you can stay home and run your fief, which will also benefit the nation."
« Last Edit: 27 May 2020, 11:23:46 by Arkansas Warrior »
Sunrise is Coming.

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massey

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #115 on: 27 May 2020, 11:26:01 »
I think we have to keep in mind a few things.

1.  Battlemechs are half modern military unit, and half magic sword.

2.  Nobody can directly administer an empire as large as a Successor State.

3.  Most nobles are more concerned with maintaining their own power than attacking an enemy.

Everything else flows from these central factors.

For the first point, Battlemechs are incredibly resilient and long-lasting.  While the game mechanics make blowing up mechs a fairly simple task, the fiction tells us that they last for centuries.  You could find a mech sitting at the bottom of a lake for decades, drain the water out, tighten a few screws, and start 'er up.  It appears that even if you don't maintain them at all, it doesn't take long to get one in working order.  Even if you find one that's been blown half to pieces, with enough time you can put it back together.  There's as much "farmboy finds ancient artifact and goes on adventure" in them as there is modern military stuff.

On the second point, the Successor States are vast.  The Successor Lords are extremely powerful and wealthy, but so are Dukes and Counts and other nobles.  While the Successor Lords are the most powerful people in their realms, they aren't more powerful than all their vassals together.  Not even close.  Power is maintained by respecting boundaries.  You have an ancient agreement with Duke Blowhard.  He supplies you with 8 regiments to defend the realm as you see fit, and in exchange you recognize his rightful claim to rule over these 10 planets (the Duke himself has agreements with various Counts and Barons on those worlds, recognizing their claims as well).  Now, as a Successor Lord you could wipe out Duke Blowhard's forces pretty easily -- except there are like 30 other Dukes who are watching you, and will withdraw their support (and their armies) if they think you're screwing him over.  A Successor State should not be viewed as a modern country.  They should be seen as 50% nation, 50% NATO/Allied Forces during WWII.

On the third point, nobles want to stay in power.  Conquest is all well and good, glory of the nation is great, but not if it comes at their own personal expense.  Neo-feudalism is not an efficient system for raising big national armies, but it's a very efficient system for maintaining stability.  There are tons of checks and balances going all the way down.  The aforementioned Count Ding Dong loves being pretty much an absolute monarch of his planet, and he's entrenched very deep.  Everybody who is anybody on that planet owes their position to Count Ding Dong, and he makes sure nobody underneath him gets rich or powerful enough to be a threat to him.  Likewise, Duke Blowhard keeps an eye on Count Ding Dong and all the other Counts.  Unless he's right on the border of a neighboring Successor State, Duke Blowhard is probably more worried about one of his Counts getting too big for their britches than he is getting invaded.  This means that raising a larger army on a national scale is very tricky.  Every noble is worried that they're going to lose ground relative to their peers.  In times of emergency (Clan Invasion), people generally understand and accept the new situation.  But once the initial panic is gone, they start stewing over the fact that you asked them to send another 3 regiments above their normal duties, and you can go to hell if you think they're gonna keep that up, not without getting a few more planets in exchange.  And their neighbors then think "well he sure isn't getting any of my planets".



All of this combines into something where decentralizing mech ownership makes a lot of sense.  The more your underlings bicker with one another, the less you have to worry about them.  The less centralized their power is, the less of a threat they are to you.  Of course, you don't want the guy up the food chain to get too much power either, because that eliminates the need for you, so the next time he asks for backup mechwarriors or something like that, you give him the finger.  You even stick up for your rivals as well, because if he does it to them, he'll do it to you.

Raellus

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #116 on: 27 May 2020, 12:03:25 »
Massey, your points are all well taken. I don't disagree with any of what you outlined in principle, but I'm trying to reconcile that model with canon, using RL history as a baseline (which I acknowledge is fraught).

In medieval feudalism, internecine conflicts were the rule. There were near constant conflicts between nobles of roughly equal standing, and occasional rebellions of minor nobles against major ones extending all the way up to the monarch, in many cases. The Magna Carta illustrates what could happen when a group of nobles decide to oppose centralized power en bloc. Although you do see similar small-scale, internecine conflicts in canon, what tends to get more attention is long, large-scale, multi-system wars between major states- i.e. the Succession Wars. I suppose a rough corollary would be the Hundred Years' War (which was really a series of wars between states, also including plenty of intra-state conflict). Both required large-scale mobilization and centralized control. AFAIK, in the case of the Succession Wars, the nobility chose to support the long, grinding, costly conflict rather than refuse to do so. It seems like it would be pretty easy, with the bulk of the state's forces engaged against those of the rival state(s), that a reticent noble would be able to get away with refusing to obey orders from on high pretty easily. If more than a few major nobles realize this and follow suit, the state collapses from within. AFAIK, this didn't happen too often in the Successor States. That, to me, suggests more centralized control than feudalism allows. 
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SteelRaven

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #117 on: 27 May 2020, 12:23:07 »
Another thing to keep in mind is that generations of War has taken a toll on society, why the Succession Wars are often refer to as almost Mad Max in space (Maybe Boarderlands? ) Things are constantly getting destroyed and people are constantly getting killed and this is the type of chaotic environment where we see the 'warrior king' phenotype and in a way embraced.

As for rank, I just took for granted that MechWarrior are considered a separate parallel branch of their military and follow a different chain of command with few exception. Exception usually being nobility.   

 
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Colt Ward

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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #118 on: 27 May 2020, 12:41:59 »
We do get it, but sometimes it gets buried in a sentence of fluff.

FREX, 1SW talks about how the Duchy of Orloff?  or was it Oriente? did not support the steps the new Marik was taking after his father & Captain-General died.  New Captain-General ordered the FWLM to abandon that Duchy . . . so along came the Capellans and all they had to face were the provincial navy and guard.  The Capellans were 'used' to hammer a minor noble who was out of step with the ruler.  The Duchy became dependent on the national forces for protection and weakened their overall position in the parliment.  This has happened at other times and places- Duke Kelswa refused to flee Tamar and so he was left to face the Wolves with the regulars who mutinied, mercs and his personal guard/militia.  Duke Hasek tried to keep the Capellan March out of the FCCW, but Katherine was having none of his 'neutrality.'  Duke (or was it Archduke) Morgan Kell successfully pulled the same gambit with the ARDC though was a bit hampered b/c Nondi pulled out all the 'loyal' units to cover other sectors.

Keep in mind, we do not see 99% of the nobility or planetary governments in fiction or fluff- we get the top tier, House rulers and significant regional rulers like the Duke of Robinson, Prince of Regulus, Warlord Dieron, and Duke of Skye . . . guess it says something about the Cappies set up that I cannot think of any one region outside of Ridzik getting the Tikonov region.  Honestly, if you want some good mid-level wheeling and dealing the MWDA novel's arc that covered putting the League back together did pretty well because Jessica was dealing with regional governments like Tamarind and independent worlds like Alula Australis.  When the Clan Protectorate was forming, local nobility (cannot recall whose son) was part of the diplomatic parties the Foxes & Cats sent out, basically testimonies by trusted neighbors saying it was working for them.

The Black Dragons conspiracy, Lyran succession during Guerrero, FedCom Civil War, and fracturing of the League all dealt with factional disputes/rivalries inside each House that involved power politics by nobles.  Katherine got as far as she did because parties in the Estates General wanted more power than they had under the FedCom- Fisk and others wanted things to return to pre-FC 'glory' where they had more control.  Or at least where the levers of power were more accessible!  For a noble being exiled from court is like a lobbyist who is unable to get to Washington DC- how can they influence policy and exchange favors (you promote my son in the Lyran Regulars to battalion command, my cousin Company Commander will see that your daughter is accepted to the Royal Guards as part of his company).  While decision cycling maybe a flawed concept for battle management, it absolutely works in regards to politics, policies, and staffing.  I am a lot more likely to be able to influence which company gets the latest contract for Latest Widget if I am in the same city where the decision is being made than if I am half of human space away on my home planet where it takes days at least if not weeks for HPG messages to reach me.  Ambition is the name of the game . . . all in the cause of a stronger nation of course!


Ultimately IMO BT's 'neo-feudalism' in regards to mechs & ownership comes down to a mix of late Middle Ages feudalism (aforementioned scutage & professional companies for nobles trying to leverage that into politics), patronage system (Brewer/Nordstrom Dark Age example), and modern professional militaries.  Further complicated that each House does things differently and the timeframe adjusts where the point is on the scale of those blends.
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Re: BattleMech Ownership
« Reply #119 on: 27 May 2020, 12:47:52 »
Massey, your points are all well taken. I don't disagree with any of what you outlined in principle, but I'm trying to reconcile that model with canon, using RL history as a baseline (which I acknowledge is fraught).

there is a measure of Doing Too Much™ in this thread overall. battletech's history - improbabilities, foibles, and all - is a closed system that is only needs to obey its own internal logic (and often it chooses to not even do that). The early history of the BTU especially is a thin layer of wallpaper on top of nearly-as-thin layer of drywall. is it pretty? yes, absolutely. is it deep? no, not especially. it's not even close to real history, lacking the obvious components of million of independent actors exerting their own gravity on the system over centuries. technically those actors do exist, but only as the crowd does in the pod racer stadium in the Phantom Menace - as painted matchsticks zoomed out to hide that there are no details with only a handful of close shots meant to give the impression of the deeper goings on. the illusion itself (both in the movie and the btu) is impressive, but it's not designed to be scrutinized in any real depth.

asking these questions begs answers that probably were never or barely considered. can we try to build the answers from source material? sure, but there isn't a btu archive with real primary documents analyze. we're attempting to construct complex sociopolitical models from scraps summoned from the aether and the barest reflection of macro historical models (insert allegory of the cave joke here).

the sunnier side of that coin is that any reality you decide upon is likely plausible.

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