What if Simulation:IS backed taurians vs Clan Invasion era Smoke Jaguars.

[BrianDavion]

I know I'm somewhat challanging "holy writ" here but for all the Taurians vaunted talk about strong defences etc but... there's simply no real evidance for this, in 3066, iuf you'll recall there was the incident with the fighting Urukhai, and if a revange addled merc unit could land on tarsus and deal that level of damage it's a fair bet the taurian fixed defences simply aren't, in practice, all that great. also given the TDF's embaressing performance in the Conquest of St.Ives, and against Hansen's roughriders, it's likely that the TDF had during the sucession wars suffered from a loss of insisutional experiance. The Taruians would put up a fight sure, but most likely they'd get their heads handed to them.

End of the day? The evidance suggests the TDF may have been grossly over rated

[DragonKhan55]

We've had a lot of hypothetical scenarios thrown around here, including some proclamations about how "the rest of the Inner Sphere won't let the Jaguars glass the TC." It's because we don't have a baseline scenario with all the actual info down. Do the Jaguars have to come through the FedSuns (aka through the entire stravag Inner Sphere) to hit the Concordat? Are they circling around the Combine, the Outworlds and the FedSuns to hit the TC from the side? What's the objective of the campaign - occupation of worlds, destruction of industry, or extermination of the Concordat as a whole?

No one knows.

So let me say what I would do in my specific scenario, in which the Jaguars have come around the Inner Sphere and are hitting the Hyades Cluster (Taurus and every world in a one jump radius) with a Demolition attack - destruction of all industrial concerns above that of present day Earth.

-Warship Stars carry zero ground forces, only carrier/assault dropships

-Roving convoys of jumpships and contracted Potemkin/Carracks from the Diamond Sharks and Snow Ravens act as heavily gunned supply trains

-The Jaguars have 26 warships, enough for six four-ship Naval stars and two more "rovers"

-Each star jumps into a zenith point with 300+ Omnifighters flying CAP and proceed to dismantle every Taurian ASF, dropship and gunboat they can find. FYI, the Taurians were NOTORIOUSLY short on fighters among even Periphery states, often with no more than two squadrons assigned per world/regiment

-Once all orbital threats to the Warships are silenced, Warships proceed to geosynchronus orbit and use Ortillery to level all military and industrial targets in conjunction with ASF strikes.

-Rinse, repeat on other worlds. Once every world within a two-jump radius of Taurus has been subject to the strikes, call it a day and GTFO.

The Taurian attitude and reputation is not overblown, it's just groundbound. The Periphery, 2nd Edition (sourcebook) and Era Report: 3052 indicate that the Taurians had less than 70 total ASF squadrons in it's entire active inventory - and that's across the entirety of the ****** Taurian Defense Forces.

Once the SASF, the TDF fighters and what few dropships they have are swatted away by Jaguar Omnifighters and Warships, that's the entire ballgame. All the tenacity, hutzpah and ornery attitude in the universe does you jack diddly squat if you're on the surface with a rifle or an SRM launcher and there's Warships controlling your orbit turning your bases, factories and what's left of your tech base into rubble.

[DOC_Agren]

The Taurians no matter how much I would love to say could win, until you get to 3025 era worlds closest to the Fed Suns, most of the farther out worlds are cake walks to the Smoked Kitty landing forces.

If the The SJ goes full on Amos "Baby-Killer" Forlough on the TC.

Is it because they can't win on the ground?  Because with the lack of Aerospaces assets in the TC and well even those they have a rough skill levels.  Yes they might get 1 warship and maybe some jumpships, assuming the SJ move in to the TC like they hit the DC.

Once those orbital strikes starts, Comstar is not going to be able to standby, not that there is a great level of operation in the Rim.  Nor will the Inner Sphere standby, you might see new generation of Pitcairn Legion sent to help them fight.  No not to keep the TC/MoC alive, but to act as a speed bumps while FedCom, the CC, and FWL can swing major forces engage these "Invaders".

Now what about the Wolf, Falcon, and Ghost Bear (well they are having some issues as well).  How do they handle the SJ not able to win the ground game, so going SMASH

[MarauderD]

The DCMS had a hard time with CSJ.  The DCMS had better quality troops and better equipment--they won at Wolcott through a stratagem by Theodore Kurita, who also happens to be the only leader to out think Hanse Davion in the lore.

Without a strategic and tactical thinker like Teddy Kurita, TDF would be a speed bump, at best.  If they use nukes, CSJ goes ape with orbital strikes with the support of all the Clans.  This seems like a Kobayashi Maru scenario for the Taurians.  How you lose, rather than if.....

[DragonKhan55]

The Taurians no matter how much I would love to say could win, until you get to 3025 era worlds closest to the Fed Suns, most of the farther out worlds are cake walks to the Smoked Kitty landing forces.

If the The SJ goes full on Amos "Baby-Killer" Forlough on the TC.

Is it because they can't win on the ground?  Because with the lack of Aerospaces assets in the TC and well even those they have a rough skill levels.  Yes they might get 1 warship and maybe some jumpships, assuming the SJ move in to the TC like they hit the DC.

Once those orbital strikes starts, Comstar is not going to be able to standby, not that there is a great level of operation in the Rim.  Nor will the Inner Sphere standby, you might see new generation of Pitcairn Legion sent to help them fight.  No not to keep the TC/MoC alive, but to act as a speed bumps while FedCom, the CC, and FWL can swing major forces engage these "Invaders".

Now what about the Wolf, Falcon, and Ghost Bear (well they are having some issues as well).  How do they handle the SJ not able to win the ground game, so going SMASH

Yeah agreed. Without knowing what the terms of the engagement are, this can go any which way. Even in a vaccum where there are no other folks in the universe except for the Jaguars and the Concordat, the "occupy and subjugate" vs "demolish industrial concerns" vs "Exterminatus" scenarios all play out differently.

[BrianDavion]

One thing to consider is the clans consider the periphary powers at fault for the fall of the star league even more so then the great houses, so the jags would likely be more brutal then useal. they might not even bother with zellbrigen and bidding, treating the TDF like bandits

[EPG]

Even so, the Taurian Concordat was expecting to be massively outgunned and outranged and planned accordingly. That has to be factored into the equation - plus no one has yet given me a valid list of targets that orbital bombardment will effectively remove from the Taurian Concordat, but magically restore to allow the Clans to utilize it for supporting their invasion. Clan Smoked Kittie gets smoked. Yes, a lot of Taurians die to re-teach the SLDF lessons in manners and neighborliness, but that's a price they're very willing to pay. Plus, the TDF emerges with a bunch of warships.

The Taurean’s weren’t expecting to win in an engagement with the Federated Suns.  They were expecting to deter the suns from attempting a conquest by making it too difficult to be attractive, and ensuring anything of value in the Concordant got destroyed.

The Smoke Jaguars in this situation have already decided on a military conquest so deterrence failed.

If the Smoke Jaguars go full genocide, then their list of specific targets is simple: the surface of inhabited planets formerly owned by the government of the Taurean Concordant. 

Each city, industrial facility, power or energy production and distribution hub, every important school (say all of them for age 15 or older) every spaceport, every piece of orbital infrastructure, every military installation. 

Delete from each planet as needed until no organized resistance is possible any longer.

[PeripheryExplorer]

And that still signs their death warrant. Now they have nothing to fight from - they've destroyed everything they've come to restore. Even with total victory (the elimination of all life on Taurian worlds), the Clans STILL LOOSE. The clans need local resources in the Periphery to launch their invasion into the FedCom. They're so-called superior culture is shown as a genocidal sham (which we all knew it was anyway). ComStar wouldn't be able to ignore that and video and images of slaughtered children and burning cities would be played all over the Inner Sphere. The raw amount of consumables the Clans would need to do that to 3050 TC would be astronomical, meaning that the inevitable counter attack by the best units of the Federated Commonwealth will absolutely destroy them. Since they're destroying everything they won't have refueling capabilities or anything else. They won't be able to show themselves as good guys to ComStar, just genocidal maniacs. There will be no deals. ComStar will manipulate the situation so even if a power hated the Taurians, they'd be so moved by the dead children that the Smoked Kitties so gleefully slaughtered that the volunteer lines at AFFC stations will take a solid year and a half to process. Even the Draconis Combine would pause and go "WTF?" The Capellans would be shocked and also respond.

They cannot win. Period. Even in a total victory over the TC (which i doubt) they still lose because that victory denies them what they want. But yeah, this ignores the fact that the TC builds a lot of stuff underground and is used to fighting multiple warship fleets with nothing - not a handful of warships.

[Jeyar123]

I know I'm somewhat challanging "holy writ" here but for all the Taurians vaunted talk about strong defences etc but... there's simply no real evidance for this, in 3066, iuf you'll recall there was the incident with the fighting Urukhai, and if a revange addled merc unit could land on tarsus and deal that level of damage it's a fair bet the taurian fixed defences simply aren't, in practice, all that great.

Well the US often lets drug smugglers get through their borders that cause huge amounts of social and economic damage, are you going to claim the US has an overrated navy?
Also has the damage/subversion the WoB (supposedly trusted ally) did to the TC's system defense been retro'd? No really, has it? I don't know as I admit that it could have been, but at one point the "story" I was reading they had tricked the TC defense to not notice large scale foreign troop movements in system. A catastrophic failure to be sure, but again it really is a case of What the Plan is.

The TC is on the side of storytelling showing what people would do that is most like real people with a will to follow their own path, with a little dash of extra Peter Parker luck tossed in. Smoke Jag are near the apex of hand waving in a sci fi universe to have a focused power fantasy, which since the game focus itself has giant walking robots could be argued as the purpose of the stories, so isn't invalid. If the SJ had to fight the TC at the same level of economic and social realism and luck that the TC normally functions at, I think they would almost seem to implode after admittedly quite a few victories. If the TC suddenly was freed to explore the same handwavium that the SJ normally function at, I don't see the TC being fully able to take advantage of such largess culturally, but even short of such lofty levels, they would be able to truly gut much of the SJ, but the TC would definitely eventually lose if no one doesn't help or the CC or FS don't finish them off (to help the people no doubt). The TC set to high realism and the SJ at high handwavium - yeah then the TC loses then too - much easier too... Obviously.

[BrianDavion]

And that still signs their death warrant. Now they have nothing to fight from - they've destroyed everything they've come to restore. Even with total victory (the elimination of all life on Taurian worlds), the Clans STILL LOOSE. The clans need local resources in the Periphery to launch their invasion into the FedCom. They're so-called superior culture is shown as a genocidal sham (which we all knew it was anyway). ComStar wouldn't be able to ignore that and video and images of slaughtered children and burning cities would be played all over the Inner Sphere. The raw amount of consumables the Clans would need to do that to 3050 TC would be astronomical, meaning that the inevitable counter attack by the best units of the Federated Commonwealth will absolutely destroy them. Since they're destroying everything they won't have refueling capabilities or anything else. They won't be able to show themselves as good guys to ComStar, just genocidal maniacs. There will be no deals. ComStar will manipulate the situation so even if a power hated the Taurians, they'd be so moved by the dead children that the Smoked Kitties so gleefully slaughtered that the volunteer lines at AFFC stations will take a solid year and a half to process. Even the Draconis Combine would pause and go "WTF?" The Capellans would be shocked and also respond.

They cannot win. Period. Even in a total victory over the TC (which i doubt) they still lose because that victory denies them what they want. But yeah, this ignores the fact that the TC builds a lot of stuff underground and is used to fighting multiple warship fleets with nothing - not a handful of warships.

There is so much wrong this this I'm having difficulty unpacking it, but let's try to as well..

1st: The assertation that the clans "Need the Taurians resources". Except... They don't.
The clans didn't start building mechs in the inner sphere until the 3060s (ok ok the Ursus was the first in 3059)  given the length of time it took to reach Tuykkaid, we can say with relative assurasnce that materials from the inital clan invasion of 3049-3052 proably where not having a meaningful impact on the production capabilities of the clans during the inital invasion, maybe long term this would be an issue but somehow I doubt the clans would care. Also you're assuming the clans would need to eradicate ALL LIFE that's uhh... absurd. After some pretty clear examples that a conventional victory is impossiable, and the TDF getting eradicated the Taurians would cease actively fighting, go to ground and wage a irregular war (which to be fair the Taurians are historicly pretty good at) chances are they'd not see liberation, but they might be able to make life hard for the second line garrisons.

2nd: that they NEED these resources to take on the FedCom. Don't think this needs to be said but the clans did just fine against the fedcom coming from the other side, as much as we like to rag on the Lyran units I doubt the fedsuns march milita's and the like would fair much better. I'm about as much a fedsuns Partisan as it gets so I think if I'm saying "yeah no the clans will be fine" then it's true.

3rd: Comstar. Comstar until they learned that the clans target was Terra would ACTIVELY COLLABORATE WITH THE CLANS. assuming comstar will immediatly leap to the defense of the Taurians is a bit of a stretch. If turtle Bay didn't convince comstar, what makes you think Samatha would?

Well the US often lets drug smugglers get through their borders that cause huge amounts of social and economic damage, are you going to claim the US has an overrated navy?

Drug smugglers are "3 guys in a speed boat" or people delivering drugs into port labeled as something else. neither of which are something the USN is built around. Now if the USN has on several occasions let a MILITARY LANDING FORCE land in downtown New York City and run amok? you better belive I'd be questioning the competance of the USN.
If the Taurian defences could not prevent the very type of attack they where designed to stop then yes, we have every right to question them.