3071 - June - Omnimechs
With full scale combat operations underway against the WOB Protectorate the rest of the Federated Sun's awaited news from the front. By now the common citizens of the various planets that made up the FedSun's fully expected to hear back that their troops had proven victorious. After all they had smashed the Liao's and humbled the Bull's and Kurita's as well. Still the WOB maintained a sinister aura around them that left more than a few nervous about the possible outcome, particularly with the WOB's use of nuclear ordinance in the past.
On the 2nd of June First Prince Victor dispatched the newly returned Princes's Champion Galen Cox to Robinson and then Kentares with a proposal for the Duke's of Robinson and Kentares. While Kentares was en-route to Robinson, the First Prince thought it polite to run it by the head of the Draconis March before broaching the matter with the Duke of Kentares. If these meetings went well Cox was to hurriedly head to Kestrel and then back to New Avalon to brief Jackson Davion the Marshal of Armies.
The news from Sherwood that the Court of Elders of that planet has voted in favour of raising a LCT sized formation from amongst the world's militia is welcome news, not only to the Davion High Command on New Avalon but also to the people of the Federated Suns. The patriotic gesture is extremely well received and demand for Sherwood products goes up across much of the Crucis March. On Sherwood itself the calls for volunteers soon swamp the very limited recruiting stations available for the planets militia and it is soon obvious that enough recruits are coming forward to make up not only the 1st Sherwood Foresters LCT but also potentially a second formation. Quickly additional supplies, cadre officers and equipment are routed to Sherwood and the Earl of Sherwood is informed that as well as being promoted to Leftenant General and given command of the new 1st Sherwood Foresters he will also command the new demi-brigade, with the 2nd Sherwood Foresters LCT to be maintained as a cadre unit for his own formation and as the planets garrison.
On Kestrel Duke Cunningham's plan to reinforce the Kestrel Grenadiers continues, with his own Ducal Guard unit, the Planetary Guard and Kestrel CrMM being carefully sifted for troops of the requisite calibre. Roughly a third of his own Ducal Guard (all of them veterans of the Grenadiers) are considered viable candidates, with roughly another company being siphoned off from the Kestrel CrMM. The Kestrel Planetary Guard's large (for a Planetary Guard) battlemech formations are another matter. While enough troops to form an entire battalion of volunteers have rushed forward few of them are of the required quality. The Duke orders the examiners to pick only the best. This winnowing process will take until the end of July but at which time a composite under strength battalion of mechwarriors along with supporting forces will be dispatched to the 1st Kestrel Grenadiers RCT on Gandy's Luck.
The Tortuga Combat Region saw more and more Clan Nova Cat convoys disgorging the Clan's civilians onto the prepared enclaves. Along with these Civilian Caste came a number of Galaxy's to garrison the new worlds. The Omicron and Omega Galaxies took up residence on the three worlds that had been prepared for them. Not only did the descending dropships bring Clan Nova Cat's peoples, but many of them contained prefabricated factories and industrial units which were swiftly set up - although it would be some months before any real output began.
Within the Pirates Haven Cluster the two LCT's of the Messengers of Shiva conduct a number of raids and sweeps of the various possible pirate hide outs. Most of these turn up nothing more than years or even decades old campsites, but the 1st Messengers of Shiva LCT manages to catch a small pirate band consisting of five battlemechs and two tanks and roughly three "platoons" of infantry unaware. Faced with overwhelming force the pirates put up almost no resistance and the 1st Messengers take them and their gear into custody.
Despite low level WOB activity the first of the former WOB Protectorate worlds - Caph - is formally reabsorbed into the Federated Suns on the 4th of June. The new Duke is recognised in all of his titles by First Prince Davion and the 1st Caph Grenadiers formally admitted to the rolls of the AFFS.
The eight Fox I corvettes of the 3rd Corvette Flotilla complete their upgrading to the new Fox II standard by the end of June, as does the FSS Weldon which had went into the repair slips following Verde. The FSS Weldon for now is the only ship left in it's Division until replacement ships can be built.
At Filtvelt the FSS Dayton, a Davion III destroyer, completes construction and is immedietly assigned to the 5th Carrier Battle Group. The FSS Dwight is laid down in it's place.
The FSS Nopah, FSS Kawich, FSS Csomad, FSS Ares and FSS No Return complete at Galax. The FSS Nopah and FSS Kawich are immedietly assigned to the 3rd Division of the 9th Corvette Flotilla, while the FSS Csomad, FSS Ares and FSS No Return are assigned to begin forming a 3rd Division for the 7th Corvette Flotilla. The FSS Chanute, FSS Mirage, FSS St Robert, FSS Farwell and FSS Altdorf are laid down in the vacant slips.
The FSS Sarah Davion completes at Kathil and is dispatched to join the 1st Carrier Battle Group. This now brings the 1st Carrier Battle Group to one New Syrtis II carrier, one Avalon cruiser and two Davion III destroyers, the single strongest Carrier Battle Group although Fleet Admiral Buchwald is keen to add more ships to the Carrier Battle Groups as soon as possible.
At New Syrtis the FSS Denver, a Davion III destroyer, completes and joins the 4th Carrier Battle Group. The FSS Detroit is laid down in it's place.
The single largest prize for the new naval construction is of course the FSS Marlborough. The huge Iron Duke class battleship is the first battleship constructed in Davion shipyards from the keel up - if you ignore the Defender class battlecruisers that were the former heavy ships of the fleet. The FSS Marlborough is assigned temporarily to a Training Squadron at New Avalon to work up it's crew, but the plan is to dispatch it to join the FSS Iron Duke in the 1st Battle Squadron once it has sufficient experience. The FSS Warspite is laid down in her place.
The other naval news is the completion of the repair slip over Tikonov. As soon as the FSS Divine has managed to repair it's jump engines sufficiently it is ordered to jump straight to Tikonov to begin repair work.
Enterprise at long last announce formally that they will be bringing their latest omnimech developments to market in the coming months. For several years insiders have been revealing a large scale attempt by Corean to adapt at least one and possibly more of their existing designs to an omnimech design. Yet despite constant rumours little has actually been revealed until now. Corean officially announces that they have completed work to produce the Centurion-O and Valkyrie-O and will be offering both for sale. The AFFS to no-ones surprise immedietly places an order for the entire production run on both omnimechs for the next ten years. Behind closed doors the various members of the board are relieved to have this order placed as the project to turn all but the Legionnaire into an omnimech has been a huge strain on the companies finances. The attempts to produce a viable prototype for the Devastator, Trebuchet and Fireball as well as the Centurion and Valkyrie had been almost ruinous and for now have had to be put on hold. The company announce that the initial switch over to the new omnimech variants will begin with a rolling upgrade of their existing plants. Initially the two plants which will begin the upgrade are the single Centurion line on Augusta and the larger plant on June which has three Centurion lines and two Valkyries. Augusta is due to be completed by October, June will have at least one Valkyrie line complete it's upgrade at the same time, but the rest will only finish upgrading over the coming months. Once those plants are upgraded Corean's other two facilities will begin upgrading so as to ensure a constant supply to the AFFS of key war material.
On Outreach Blackwell Industries see it's Marauder II IIC line finally go operational, although production will be only half what was expected well into the new year as "gremlins" are worked out of the machinery and staff trained up fully. Blackwell then announces that it will be putting the "Royal" Shogun class assault battlemech into production as it's next project. The Davion High Command and in particular the Department of the Quartermaster are furious. Again and again they had pushed for a more balanced approach and for a wider variety of designs to be placed into production and yet again and again the company owned by Wolf's Dragoons had ignored them. A delegation was immedietly dispatched to point out that the rebuilding of Blackwell and indeed Outreach had been done only through the good graces of the Federated Suns and that those graces had now run out.
On Defiance GM's small Lorica production facility has tripled in size to meet the demand from the ComGuards. Further expansions however of the Lorica variant are placed on hold and instead Further expansions are to add a small Hauberk production facility to the plant - although not for sale to the ComGuards.
At Capella the final new aerospace line goes operational, producing Tomahawks. This gives Mujika-Wangker Aerospace five Corsair lines and one Tomahawk line at the plant there, providing a large quantity of high end medium class aerospace fighters for the local units of the League March.
Jaguar Industries finally completes their Warhawk assault omnimech line. Clan Sun Jaguar immedietly begins construction of a Mad Dog line on their new enclave on New Huntresss. At the same time they begin building a Stormcrow line at their existing plant on Valois.
The Draconis Combine Civil War undertakes a confusing upswing when the 3rd Genyosha and 14th Pesht Regulars, both Minoru loyalists, launch a full scale attack upon the 42nd Galedon Regulars on Xinygang - a nominally Minoru loyalist regiment. Soon however it becomes apparent that the 42nd is in fact serving the Black Dragons and has been purging the prefecture capital of all Kurita loyalists. With something to prove the 3rd Genyosha hammers into the 42nd's lines and makes a point of executing all Galedon troops that fall into their hands. The 14th Pesht Regulars while not quite as fanatical make up for their lack of experience with a willingness to throw themselves into combat. In brutal fighting the two loyalist units destroy over half the 42nd Galedon's strength.
The badly damaged 1st Proserpina Hussars begin launching raids throughout the Benjamin District against any Hohiro loyal commands. They also make efforts to promote and rally Minoru loyalists throughout the district. Their largest success is when they manage to catch a battalion of the 26th Benjamin Regulars isolated from the rest of the regiment on Dover and hammer it badly, destroying two thirds of it's mech's before withdrawing.
On Dumaring the battle between the Hohiro and Minoru loyalists continue with neither side making much headway. Although at the end of June the 7th Arkab Legion finds an unguarded pass into the mountains and notifies the 3rd Proserpina Hussars of it's existence.
On Arcturus June marks the beginning of the Battle of June, with both Clan Wolf and the Lyran Alliance throwing everything they have into the fighting...
