What if Simulation: Taurian Concordat vs IlClan 'Star League'

[Vehrec]

The story repeats itself, it's like a poem, it rhymes, as the great George Lucas said.  So let's bring it back, and complete the cycle.

The declaration of the IlClan and the Third Star League have brought a sense of urgency to the Tauian Concordat and Caulderon Protectorate.  To meet this threat, both star nations unit to form a military that can, by 3157 meet the goal of interstellar defense, against a combined threat from not only Clan Wolf, Smoke Jaguar, Jade Falcon, and Ghost Bear, but up to two additional clans (Hell's Horses and Snow Raven) but also at least one Inner Sphere power as well (the totality of expeditionary forces available to the Federated Suns in 3152).  Against this 'Seven Nations Army', the two halves of the old Concordat have to draw plans for mobilization, production of special weapons, delivery systems, and military fortifications that might slow or halt the onslaught that may be coming.

But, what should those plans be?  Should the TC/CP alliance plan for protracted war, in the Maoist style, relying on guerilla warfare and pulling all thier actual battlemechs back to Taurus itself?  Total War, involving every citizen and mass-mobilization and arming of the populace?  Space War, pinning their hopes on the development of new nuclear weapons, Bomb-pumped lasers, and other Future of the 80s Spacewar tactics?  Or should they prepare for a War of Elites, trialing tens of millions of citizens to distill the greatest combat instincts into a hyper-elite that can match the clans one-for-one, leaving nothing to chance and no stone unturned in their search for potential aces?

And does the Star League have any interest in this war at all, or are the Taurians drawing up plans as grand and pointless as Haiti's 19th century fortifications?

[O5P_Ghost]

3157?? The ilclan has WAY more problems closer to home with the Capcom, FWL and even the Dracs to worry about some periphery nobodies

[DOC_Agren]

Given they are spooked:

My first plan would be to plan on a guerilla warfare plan per planets, and then start working on plans to engage this possible invasion force in space.

[Fire Scorpion IIC]

....against a combined threat from not only Clan Wolf, Smoke Jaguar, Jade Falcon, and Ghost Bear, but up to two additional clans (Hell's Horses and Snow Raven) but also at least one Inner Sphere power as well (the totality of expeditionary forces available to the Federated Suns in 3152). ....

Okay so let's use hypothetical scenario where ilClan/CapCon situation has resolved and FedSuns offered Wolves to join Star League in exchange for alliance against Taurians

FedSuns plus just one other faction like Rasalhague or Ravens would be enough to erase Taurians from existence, firepower would simply be overwhelming

But to have FedSuns plus all these other Clans would be insanity, it's a force that a full size Successor State would be incapable of resisting let alone Taurians

Only thing Taurians could do in either case would be to go for negotiated surrender, preferably through Snow Ravens

[Vehrec]

Okay so let's use hypothetical scenario where ilClan/CapCon situation has resolved and FedSuns offered Wolves to join Star League in exchange for alliance against Taurians

FedSuns plus just one other faction like Rasalhague or Ravens would be enough to erase Taurians from existence, firepower would simply be overwhelming

But to have FedSuns plus all these other Clans would be insanity, it's a force that a full size Successor State would be incapable of resisting let alone Taurians

Only thing Taurians could do in either case would be to go for negotiated surrender, preferably through Snow Ravens

Let's presume that the Taurians are willing to generate WW2 USSR levels of GDP-Military output if it comes to war.  Maybe they think that the IlClan will seek to Annihilate them, not merely subordinate them to it's will.  In the short term, however, they are willing to 'merely' devote 12% of their GDP to the military.  That's 3x as much as current US spending, 6x as much as the NATO-recommended amount, and more than twice what Poland is preparing to spend if they can get their checkbook open far enough.  And about half of what North Korea spends on it's military.

Furthermore, I specified only expeditionary forces for a reason-lots of regiments are non-expeditionary, though I suppose you can argue about which ones fall into that category.  I certainly wouldn't count any light RCT in the expeditionary box, since they're primarily defensive.  I'm not sure how much of these forces I'd count as expeditionary though-I simply don't have the books or the time to attempt a breakdown of such things.

[RifleMech]

I think the Taurians are panicking. The Clans are going to be busy rebuilding and fighting the Capellans. And the FedSuns are barely holding on. Even together, they're in no shape to launch an invasion with everything else they have going on. I also don't think the FedSuns saying, "Help us and we'll join." will fly. Alaric feels more, "Join us or die."

Since Wolf's Dragoons have a beef with Alaric they might offer their services as trainers and advisers to the Taurians at a discount. 

[cray]

The Concordat won't exactly be presenting a unified front, per Dominions Divided. The Pleiades Star Cluster rates its Concordat occupation as somewhat less amusing than antibiotic-resistant syphilus and has a low key guerilla war going against the occupation.  The cluster would be happy to be assigned back to the Federated Suns by an ilClan-led Star League, while its key industrial worlds like Maia won't exactly work hard against an ilClan (hypothetically) backed by the Suns.

Of course, the Concordat could always massacre even passive resistance elements again like it did in the 3090s and 3100s. That'll shut up all the Federated Suns' stealth guerilla terrorist agents. (The resistance has to be FedSuns agents. The Pleiades is the Concordat's ancestral homelands. The people of the Pleiades really must love the Concordat, or so the political officers of the Taurian Hussars tell the occupation troops.)

[Starfury]

The Taurians have far bigger problems then a far away ilClan. They've lost a large amount of territory to various Houses, their military is finally just now recovering to Jihad era levels, and they have to deal with their new found expansion into the Pleiades as cray mentioned. They also have to somehow convince important independent worlds like Stereope to join back with them and sort out the ransom and salvage they gained from the Duke of New Syrtis. Oh and plan on incorporating the Calderon Protectorate back into the fold to top it all off. Oh and pirates of course. Most likely they'll start to take back planets from the Capellans and Davion that neither of those Houses really care about.  The ilClan isn't even on their radar.

[EPG]

I don’t see how the Taurians can hold up at all.  They could probably stalemate one of them, which would be a victory leaving the Taurians independent.  They would loose against any two of them. 

Against 3, the best they can hope for is to loose so quickly that casualties are fairly light for the invaders leaving them in a charitable mood.

Against 4-7 they should just pre emptively surrender before their negotiating position deteriorates.

[BrianDavion]

So between the "two taurian nations" they have about a dozen mech regiments.

assuming your looking at all the clans plus a great house? that means you're looking at in the ballpark of 100 regiments or equivilant. even if we assume the TDF is able to raise 5 regiments a year (more military and training capacity then any periphary state has shown) that's still not eneugh to be able to defend against this force. in a diurect military fight the TDF would lose. better to focus on defences but pray the clans have better targets

[Vehrec]

I will note that I said the 'expeditionary' forces of House Davion, which are a lot thinner on the ground than they used to be.  A light RCT is a mostly defensive unit, and shouldn't be counted as an expeditionary unit, IMO.

And of course, part of this whole question is what is the best possible defensive scheme at hand?  Should they embrace a nation-in-arms scheme, conscript every able-bodied person between 17 and 45 to build up the reserves in a rapid manner?  Should they embrace new technologies, and explore the 'nukes of the 80s' scheme I outlined with bomb-pumped lasers and neutron bombs as their schemes to scare away clans who consider a radiation induced death ignominious and base their anti-nuclear defense for warships around contact-hits being required?  Should they try to out-clan the clans, creating the ultimate gunslingers by sifting the dross and chaff away, and duel every challenge to victory?  Or maybe just read from Võ Nguyên Giáp's work, he seems to have figured out some ways of doing Protracted War that worked out...not perfectly, but achieved their ultimate goals.

The point of this is not to suggest that a conventional war might be won (though if you think it can with mass mobilization, by all means, assemble the means of such mobilization!) but to investigate by which means war might be warned off, by creating the biggest, prickliest front that will swear to the Clans that if they want Reunification war 2, they had better be prepared to fight with those kinds of costs and losses in mind.

[BrianDavion]

I think their best bet would be diplomatic TBH.  the "doomsday sceniro" seems to be "the fedsuns aligns with the clans to conquer the taurians" the only real path to stopping this is to STOP the fedsuns from aligning with the clans.

And that means diplomacy.

[XaosGorilla]

If this is happening before the Concordat-Protectorate merger than moving as much technology & manufacturing to the Protectorate as possible would be a good idea.   Combine this with a low level insurgency + some form of diplomacy. Eventually,the allied factions will be too busy dealing with their own problems & the Concordat can be liberated.

[BrianDavion]

If this is happening before the Concordat-Protectorate merger than moving as much technology & manufacturing to the Protectorate as possible would be a good idea.   Combine this with a low level insurgency + some form of diplomacy. Eventually,the allied factions will be too busy dealing with their own problems & the Concordat can be liberated.

Ahh yes low level insurgency vs the clans, that has a long history of working! ohh wait

[Vehrec]

Diploimatic efforts with non-enemy powers are of course paramount (but since the Federated Suns are the Ur-enemy, there is not much hope for diplomacy for them).  The FWL successor states at least, have common cause with them against the Clans.  The CC has been going from strength to strength lately, even if it's not the friendliest local power, so there's another local diplomacy target.

As for the success of the clans facing low level insurgencies, they're not actually good at it.  What they have instead is a sort of 'mild insurgency is met with high-level atrocities and genocide that quell the insurgency' which leaves as it's unsaid political implication that the reason the US wasn't able to win insurgencies in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan was because they didn't burn enough villages, push enough people into concentration camps, or otherwise preform the atrocities that the Clans are willing to do.  This is a pretty horrible brainbug for the authors to be infected with, this kind of 'hard man, hard decision, gets results' thinking that holds up building mountains of skulls from those who resist you as the apex of peacekeeping and successful management of politics.  Now, pointing out that this is a political stance held by the authors of Clan stuff might get me in trouble with the mods, but ce la vie.

[BrianDavion]

since the Federated Suns are the Ur-enemy, there is not much hope for diplomacy for them)

The fedsuns don't care about the Taurians. if the TC asked for trade and peace, the fedsuns would proably be just fine. The TC/FS rivailry has always been pretty one sided