Operation Four Horsemen analysis

[Colt Ward]

Going to split this off so the Republic thread can try to recover . . .

Double checked my numbers. I had one unit size off. The Tactical Response Cluster was only attacking five times its strength when it charged Four Horsemen. And the description of how they managed that requires someone to believe that the RAF had no superheavy doctrine, no combined arms doctrine, and no training against Wolves ability to just move faster. Then after TRC defeat five times it’s strength, 3 weeks later it had the strength to help tip Stuttgart in Wolves’ favor.

A look at the RAF forces involved . . .

I think the numbers are off here simply due to the RAF's mech short regiments.  The 10th Principes is the most experienced unit in TF Four Horsemen, but it is just 2 battalions of mechs (FM3145 says E/F & 100%) and a 'brigade' each of armor & infantry.  Which means IF they are 100% mech strength after the run in with the two oversized solahma clusters they would have 72 mechs.

The 16th Principes are not in FM3145, but the 15th is in that book and listed as the newest Principes and 'recently' formed, still 2 battalions of mechs in the organization, green and 59% strength.  Conjecture would be they are stood up at 50% strength for mech forces so a cadre forms to gain experience and bring in more recruits as they process . . . we just do not know when the 16th came into being as I could not find information in ilClan- unless someone knows their entry.  Regardless, Principes are formed on 2 mech battalions so at most- without solahma losses- they would be 72 mechs.

The 13th Hastati Sentinels already had a brush with Vicker's Wolf task force, being brush aside they fell back into the Caucus mountains with a comment in HotW about how the armor BDE was pushed into retreating and was surprised the Wolves did not follow to finish them off.  The 13th itself is described as being rebuilt for the campaign but unlike the Principes they would have 3 battalions . . . FM3145 lists them as R/F at 85% strength though their gear is better quality than the Principes formations.  Unfortunately for the 13th, HotW says they bore the brunt of the two oversized solahma clusters during the mountain break out which makes me doubt they are at the FM3145 experience or strength listing.  Typical combat experience would be most the greenies used as replacement to fill the ranks were culled in the clash, so likely they are 2 battalions as well at best for another 72 mechs.

Before moving on to Plunder Company (a actual ad hoc battalion), we have to look at the superheavy situation . . . ilClan talks about Four Horsemen being the largest combat concentration of superheavies seen to date.  Ramiel's POV bit talks about how there were 7 lumbering forward together in his area, though one was the ride of the Knight in charge of Four Horsemen.  I do not recall their tactical deployment, but their basic transport is the Duat and IIRC it can move six . . . which might be a 'company' of superheavies.  So for each of those 3 RAF regular regiments listed above, we might take a single company from each to be a 6 superheavy 'company.'

Which gives use 180 regular mechs and 18 superheavies before Plunder.

Plunder has 3 Ares & 1 Posideon, supported by mechs, armor and BA . . . as a oversized battalion it could be those 4 superheavies, 2 companies of mechs, and 2 mixed companies of armor & BA.  We know they took damage and lost 3 mechs to the 15 Clan mechs & vehs they saw.

This means, TF Four Horsemen probably had 203 mechs (some with minor damage) and 23 superheavies (one CO's personal ride) when they clashed with TRC & 2nd Wolf Assault Cluster.

Both Wolf formations were elite, the 2nd would not have been at full strength but probably close due to being able to draw replacement gear from stockpiles.  The TRC was made up of 8 Supernova Trinaries (w/o a break down of Novas vs Stars) of mostly light & med nova/stars with the occasional heavy or assault star (probably Gargoyles!).  The 2nd had 2 assault Omni Trinaries (IIRC, these were Tomahawk II trinaries in Bonfire), Elemental Trinary, Omnifighter Trinary, and 1 mixed trinary that included vehicles.  Weird thing is the 2nd Wolf Assault Cluster is . . . off . . per FM3145 since it says all the vehicle stars in frontline Galaxies had been replaced by mechs and the 2nd is in Beta Galaxy.

Ignoring that the mixed trinary could have had 2 veh stars and 1 BM star (or vice versa), you get about 150 Wolf Omnis . . .

Which gives you a mech ration of 4-3 disregarding the superheavies.  Using the old 1 company = 1 binary of force strength comparison, a combat ratio of 1.2 for the RAF leaving out the superheavies IF the 16th is at full strength and the 13th was at 2/3rds strength after rebuil & solahma run in.

With that analysis, I think this might be fun to try out in MegaMek though I do not know if superheavies are implemented.  A representational battle would not be hard to churn out.

[Church14]

Initial RotS force if at full strength:
2 regiments, 1 battalion mechs
6 regiments tanks
7 regiments
36 ASF (this is out of a ???? To me. I could easily believe they were elsewhere, but could also believe they were waiting to be called when enemies arrived)

It’s been six years since FM3145. Given RAF had the luxury of the wall for rebuilding, it doesn’t hold to me that they would be meaningfully below 100%

Before losses incurred in the campaign and swapping out superheavies….
252 mechs from the main formations, 288ish with Plunder.
648 combat vehicles
243 infantry units in some mix of BA and infantry.

Losses? Hard to tell. HotW just says Chance refused to chase 130th armor.  Nothing on losses there. The only hard number on losses around wrecking ball were from engagements none of these forces were in. Ilclan has Horsemen smash two solamha clusters.

Assuming the XIII armor took a beating and the solahma over performed in the face of an overwhelming force? Wipe a regiment of tanks and a battalion mechs.

For Wolves, your number seems reasonable. 2nd had been fighting hard, but wolves per HotW would have mechs to swap to to keep going while their rides were repaired. And that was only ten days ago. TRC is fresh. 2nd Assault went from Regular to Elite between FM3145 and ilclan… so good on them. TRC doesn’t have a hard statement on quality in ilclan, but it feels odd that they wouldn’t be an elite unit. Just digging through mech values, I’m finding wolf mechs tend to be about 30% higher that RotS. So 4-3 on mech counts would be parity before skill differences.

So, If the only thing that mattered was mechs, it’s about 5-3 advantage in numbers to the RotS. Once you compensate for skills and equipment, that’s about dead even for mech strength. Rolling in tanks… 500 plus tanks, with 200+ battle armor / infantry support is gonna tilt it wildly in favor of the Republic. Even when accounting for a pretty scary 135 points elementals.


Interestingly, there’s hard contradictions between HotW and ilclan for these events. Ones Beyond “unreliable narrator.” For now, using HotW since novels should take precedent.

But two contradictions found so far:
- 130th armor did not fight Vickers in ilclan
- 2nd Assault did not fight against four horsemen in ilclan. Not unmentioned, I mean we have maps of unit movements and they were not there.

[Colt Ward]

The Four Horsemen had ASF coverage but they lost it the further from their bases they went, the 2nd's aerospace trinary clashed with them.  The RAF's ASF coverage was so occupied/broken that the TRC was able to use a DS overflight to drop BA across the superheavies and heavy hitters of the mechs- maybe some armor too.

Still off though, especially by the time they run into the TRC/2nd . . . the ad hoc battalion- Plunder & Saber Company- was a mix of mechs & armor so not a full 36 though it did include 4 superheavies.  The 13th was was described as 'understrength  but reconstituted (ilClan pg 41)' to start the campaign and took the brunt of damage from the solahma clusters (Hour pg 162).  ilClan goes further to say the TF Four Horseman 'took costly losses' against the two reinforced solahma clusters, with the Hastati and ad hoc BN involved in that fight . . . and Plunder company got off 'light,' only losing 3 mechs.  Even if a re-inforced company (3 superheavies, lance of armor, and 2 lances of regular mechs?- it would still be 20% of that total) it is still double digit percentage losses in that single company- that got off light.  I still think the 13th Hastati being down to 2 battalions when they encountered the TRC is a solid guess.

I also discounted the armor, if you read the description of the terrain it was NOT armor territory and thus most would have had slower movement and much more restricted than the superheavies (which were escorted by light hovercraft rather than tracked of any sort) . . . in fact, due to the armor I would say that is part of the reason Bekker hit them there- little cover for armor and they would be tied to the limited roads.  The limited armor with the 2nd Wolf Assault Cluster- supposing 2 stars of vehicles at most- would be easier to employ b/c a smaller footprint and they were in placed in position under concealment when the RAF showed.

One thing I skimmed when looking at it, the Principes were where a 'significant' number of superheavies were amassed.  The 13th Hastati did not get any so they just get regular mechs.  But the 16th is the biggest problem since they were not in FM3145 nor Shattered Fortress, but the preceding Principes regiment- the newest- was at 55% strength for mechs and considered green.  The other Principes were 100%, 110%, 95%, 90%, 95% with their supporting at different levels & skills.  Looking at entries, I honestly wonder if it should have been the 16th Hastati- a organization that DID exist in FM3145, has two battalions of heavy/assaults, many Omnis, that are trained to hit the Wolves or Falcons AND trying to build a 3rd battalion.  But remember between 3145 and 3150 the RAF stood up the new Fides forces, which meant drawing cadre and replacement/expansion material from the rest of the RAF.

The end of the battle has a critical distincition, the Horsemen force was routed- not destroyed on site.  Vickers had ordered other solahma clusters out of the way of Horsemen's advance and Bekker had placed them along the northern flanks of their advance in preparation.  When the superheavies and mechs got hammered and the TF commander fell, the TRC rallied and pushed through the Principes to divide the Hastati (2 up 1 back formation?) routing the survivors (ilClan pg 42).

Finally, the last we have is for the 10th to be elite, the 16th would be green/regular, and the 13th was regular but at the start I would expect a green/regular break down with them being reconstituted . . . and most of the green mechwarriors to have fallen to the Wolf solahma clusters, so the survivors that faced the TRC would be regular skill.  Too many of the Principes 'new' units in FM3145 were green at the time and not blooded, the 13th Hastati & 16th Principes did not see action when the outer wall fell by what I could tell.

[Church14]

XII being under strength and reconstituted sure. It’s called out, so RAF numbers go down a little. 

The RAF just running a massive formation through terrain where 60% can’t fight? That’s asking us to believe that the RAF is terminally stupid. No. I cannot discount vehicle assets. That, and they’d been fighting through hilly and mountainous terrain for a while and engaging wolves with vehicles. Discounting them breaks with previous entries on Terra.

I also hadn’t brought up that the TRC is a much lighter force than average. Mostly lights and mediums, mixed with a few heavies/assaults. So the 8 trinary strength is a bit better on paper than in practice.


But we also have their anti superheavy strategy. Which was to engage ares (which most variants wax too close ranged for my taste) at point blank with multiple targets (which superheavies can handle) which would then also be in range of all the supporting assets with the superheavies. That tactic should have resulted in massive losses for the TRC.

[Colt Ward]

Problem with the armor not being able to fight is they have to travel from point A to point B, which sometimes means you travel through restricting terrain.

Yes, the armor could fight but in order to maintain the (limited) speed of their advance they are going to be sharing a road network with all of their support infrastructure.  MOST of the armor is going to be traveling down the road network that connect Georgia to Bangalore though one of the Principes split off to drive to the Persian Gulf and back to the axis of advance.  The armor that will not end up tied to the road network is going to be fast (why hovercraft cover superheavy flanks) and should mostly be fusion engine designs so they do not have to return to the road for refueling.

But Bekker chose where to fight Kirthar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirthar_National_Park), terrain that is very much NOT armor friendly.  It is a place where Asian mountains reach down to the ocean.  If you look at the campaign map and IRL ones . . . there is no major road through that park.  If you look at the pictures it is a very rough place and a place that would be very easy to break track.

I will admit, checking the maps I am wondering why the RAF would push through that park.  My best guess is that the logistics, most the armor, and infantry continued to push down the Karachi, to Hyderabad, then over into India or use lesser roads from Karachi into Nakhtarana/Gadhada down the Indian peninsula to Bangalore.  The RAF's TF Four Horsemen would have marched form where they destroyed the two solahma clusters in south Georgia, into Iran going down the road through Tehran to Karachi which fits with them cutting off supply lines of the Wolves by pushing a force to the Persian Gulf.  Only reason I say Tehran-Iranshahr-Karachi is because it is along coastal plains which allows the armor to deploy and makes it harder to jam a cork in a mountain pass to slow or even halt the RAF's advance.  This is backed up by the remarks about Bekker staging the solahma clusters to the 'north' of the RAF's route of march.  Finally, this sort of matches up with ilClan saying the RAF was marching east . . . though the arrow shows them coming down the road from Khuzdar- maybe they went cross country from Zahedan and sent logistics down secondary/tertiary roads rather than hooking back north.

Pushing west through the Kirthar mountains with mechs and support would keep known Wolf forces (found by ASF recon) from sweeping down on the flank of the RAF column on a road march.  The armor and infantry combat power would be greatly multiplied in the Bangalore Redoubt with India also being more favorable armor terrain than most of Iran, Pakistan & Afghanistan I can see trying to push heavy and assault tracked armor down the road rather than fight a battle where anything that is immobilized would have to be stripped & abandoned.  If you look at the map, the RAF are actually traveling directly through the Kirthar mountains while the Wolves start off in the park, hit and draw them through the mountains and over rivers.  Hovertanks are going to be about the only thing following the mechs through those mountain river canyons.  Even diverting heavy armor from the road back north to support the mechs, while they are going up mountain valleys rather than up and down the mountains it would still take a while for them to get there and they would have issues with rivers in the area.

I think this comes down to pre-positioned Wolves vs RAF mechs with very little hovertank & hoverbike support and while the mechs may get devastated it would be the main armor & infantry and mech survivors routing.

[Church14]

Oh. An update. Ran across this by accident for something else. Kalidessa K reports to Alaric that Four Horseman took 70% losses before some mechs and tanks retreated. She also makes note that they fought damned hard before retreating. They didn’t just break and flee.

Only way to suffer casualties that high is if vehicle assets did engage in meaningful numbers. And I mean it’s impossible to suffer casualties like that without most of the armor engaging. Which makes sense since we see at least one of those (130th armor) fight adeptly in mountains not long before the operation. Also that the superheavies are as slow as the armor in mountains.

And yeah, Epsilon Galaxy and two mook clusters were in the area, but weren’t used. So four horseman would have eventually been run down, but 2nd Assault and the TRC weren’t enough to do it. Not even remotely close.

[Colt Ward]

Look at the terrain, tanks are no going through that ground in any sort of numbers . . . hmm, I might have to crack open paint and make some theoretical maps.  The appearance in fiction supports that b/c all we are told about is the light hovercraft that were covering the flanks of the superheavies-  IIRC Bekker's view from a top the Knight's superheavy did not include any shattered armor.  I also thought we had part of TF Four Horsemen retreating back into mountains and being sealed off again, but I could not find that in a quick Hour or ilClan skim- RecGuide pilot entry maybe?  The other thing is for a force that size, the battle is going to be something like Kursk where it takes place over days to get that result even though Bekker managed to wreck the TF command group in the opening moves.

How I see it-
The mechs are covering the left flank of the armor & support moving south down the road.  Due to Aero coverage they know Wolf dropships were landing east of that single main road and so pushed the mechs into those mountains.  As described in ilClan, the Wolves slashed in through the Principes mech forces to hammer at the Hastati which is also when/where the command group gets wrecked.

The RAF mech forces pull back through the mountains trying to reconsolidate and slightly disengage- basically whoever was in command at that point wanted to get the Wolf thrusts out of the RAF mech formations.  Not sure how they would be able to regroup without Wolves remaining engaged/intermixed if they wanted due to greater tactical speed for most of TRC and the DS dropped Elementals.

IF whoever was in charge kept trying to pull back out of contact they would have been retreating into their own damaged machines that might have been falling back to the support area which I imagine would have turned into the armor & support setting up on that north-south highway to the west of those mountains.  I think once the mech forces were shaken/broken and falling back is when the supporting garrison/solahma clusters that had been pulled out of the way would press in to keep the RAF from just facing one direction for a enemy.  Epsilon Galaxy is frontline, was involved in Australia taking a major redoubt IIRC . . . but by FM3145 was a slower formation since they had a lot of Lyran salvage from the actions in Bonfire of Worlds.


So in general I agree, TRC & 2nd Assault Cluster just broke the tip of the RAF spear- the mech formations pushing for India- which left the supporting weight of the armor and infantry without the 'decisive arm' of mechs to respond to the Wolf envelopment attacks.  For armor to lead an attack they would have needed more room to open a broad front and allow their numbers to come into play . . . if they were hit still spread out along that highway mixed in with their support elements it would have caused further problems.  Which is possible with the TF commander getting hit leading the mechs, were they able to let the HQ element on the road know, and was the second in command notified they were in charge . . . and did that subordinate commander survive the mech forces getting attacked?

[Church14]

Which all requires us to jump through hoops and fill in a bunch of things we can’t know. It’s easy enough to posit competing theories to yours.

Tactical movements in ilClan show each RAF unit operating as a single force. TRC was broken up into trinaries, so if the RAF were split, you’d think we’d see it too.

We have a tiny snapshot of wolves attacking superheavies with hover and BA support because BLP wanted a scene to show how superheavies were more RotS garbage that wolves wouldn’t struggle to handle because to him the wolves can do anything. I might’ve missed it but there wasn’t anything really in that scene saying there weren’t mechs and tanks 300m back waiting to jump the TRC and 2nd.

We have nothing confirming that the armor was anywhere else, and we have the movements shown in ilClan that they were operating as a cohesive whole. Is it hard to believe the armor stayed with the 2/3 superheavies? Not really. It’s harder to believe that the 2nd assault was in any shape five days after the skirmish with Mongols, ten days after getting pasted in Blue Heron, and after fighting the Redburn Guards. But somehow they were, and we are here now.

EDIT: I should make it clear I’m not just dismissing what you’ve looked into. It’s actually pretty impressive. And I believe you’re doing you best to figure out a plausible way for the scenario to pan out. I just simply don’t see it. We have to dig far deeper than the author ever did to find a way to excuse poorly thought out sequences.

[Colt Ward]

Lol, confusing authors my friend- BLP is not the Wolf 'author,' that is Stackpole.  He was more of the Nova Cat author.

If you follow the campaign maps in ilClan, it shows only the 3 mech battalions advancing into the mountains from where general arrows advanced from road to the edge of the mountains.  BUT . . . that map has problems.

Shows a single battalion map marker when there should have been 7 plus the ad hoc if the Hastati were disbursed, otherwise it should have the Hastati as a mech regiment, 4 battalion symbols for the Principes, and the ad hoc.  The XVI Principes is instead shown as XI Principes though I have not checked the report for ilClan to see if that had already been mentioned.  Nothing for armor or infantry, though it is also the same for the Caucus mountain break out map even if the 16th is properly denoted.

Like I said, I saw the pictures and topo maps of that area . . . you are not getting any sizeable number of tanks through those mountains that way, and definitely not in a tactical manner.  Heck even getting mechs through some areas is going to take some effort.  Which is why if the armor and infantry were following after the mechs, they would be met on the plains north of the Arabian Sea that run into the mountains.

[Church14]

Lol, confusing authors my friend- BLP is not the Wolf 'author,' that is Stackpole.  He was more of the Nova Cat author.

If you follow the campaign maps in ilClan, it shows only the 3 mech battalions advancing into the mountains from where general arrows advanced from road to the edge of the mountains.  BUT . . . that map has problems.

Shows a single battalion map marker when there should have been 7 plus the ad hoc if the Hastati were disbursed, otherwise it should have the Hastati as a mech regiment, 4 battalion symbols for the Principes, and the ad hoc.  The XVI Principes is instead shown as XI Principes though I have not checked the report for ilClan to see if that had already been mentioned.  Nothing for armor or infantry, though it is also the same for the Caucus mountain break out map even if the 16th is properly denoted.

Like I said, I saw the pictures and topo maps of that area . . . you are not getting any sizeable number of tanks through those mountains that way, and definitely not in a tactical manner.  Heck even getting mechs through some areas is going to take some effort.  Which is why if the armor and infantry were following after the mechs, they would be met on the plains north of the Arabian Sea that run into the mountains.

Yeah, I never took BLP as a wolf guy until the awkwardness that is HotW. Always thought he was the Jag guy, which is likely why they ditched the RotS. But HotW is a straight Wolf puff piece. I think BLP bought his own character hype.

Worth noting that there are no vehicle markers for any RotS force in ilClan unless the unit has essentially zero mechs. Even when it’s clear the whole Triarii/Hastati/Principes are moving as a cohesive whole. I also actually forgot about plunder company because it’s missing from the map.