----- Four Years Later -----
Date: 2774
Location: Amaris Empire
Title: RWS Tadeo Amaris
Author: Craig A. Reed, Jr.
Type: Sourcebook (BattleCorps Ship Profile)
Synopsis: This BattleCorps ship profile looks at the RWS Tadeo Amaris, an Aegis Heavy Cruiser that served the Terran Hegemony for over a century before being mothballed in orbit around Titan. It was one of the ships given to the RWR in 2763 by Richard Cameron, and was designated the flagship for the Third RWR Defense Squadron. In that capacity, it led the squadron in hunting down SLDF WarShips in the Hegemony during the coup, raiding SLDF supply lines during Kerensky's conquest of the Rim Worlds Republic, and continuing to strike at SLDF fleets during Kerensky's drive to liberate Terra.
It is escorted by an Achilles, an Elephant, and two Leopard CVs. The Elephant is a relatively fast (5/8) heavy tug/assault ship with impressive firepower and equally substantial cargo capacity. The Achilles is even faster (8/12) and can massacre whole wings of aerospace fighters in a single volley. The Aegis and its DropShips carry 28 fighters and 16 small craft (which could be shuttles, or could be Lyonesse/Aquarius-style escort craft). Rather than the RWR's signature Vulcans, they have heavier Tomahawks, Rapiers, and Ahabs.
Notes: A distinct change of pace from the previous Ship Profile, here we have an Amaris WarShip that is wholeheartedly committed to Stefan Amaris, rather than declaring a mutiny in the name of the Rim Republican Army and skedaddling into the Deep Periphery. What's impressive is that not only did it fight in the initial conquest of the Hegemony, but returned to the Republic to participate in the fight against Kerensky there, returning to the conquered Hegemony after the fall of Apollo. The writeup for the Krait indicated that Amaris sent his best ships and crews to the Hegemony, and this is borne out by the Elite status of the Tadeo Amaris' captain/crew, under Amaris' cousin, Richard Amaris.
This profile also puts the lie to the claim that Amaris completely abandoned the Rim Worlds Republic. The Tadeo Amaris probably wasn't the only RWR raider sent to harrass the SLDF's preparatory efforts to strike back at the occupied Hegemony. With the Caspar drones providing security for the Hegemony, the 300+ ships of the mobile Amaris fleet could use uninhabited systems to strike at SLDF troop convoys. In fact, had the RWR fleet remained totally on the defensive within the Hegemony's borders, there would have been no need for a secret staging base (Gabriel) at Odessa. The SLDF could have staged openly.
This might even answer one of my earlier questions - what the heck were RWR troops doing taking hostages on York, way out in the Lyran Commonwealth? If elements of the RWR fleet did travel back to the RWR to help fight Kerensky's takeover, they would have traveled through Lyran space. Notably, one of Kerensky's main staging worlds in the Republic was Circinus, so a raider looking to hit SLDF shipping could have been ranging in the vicinity of York. Why they would have taken human shields there of all places is still a mystery, as is why the LCAF didn't get involved and let Kerensky's troops execute the rescue with the help of Antonius Zalman's resistance crew. (Of the four sources that reference the York operation, three just say "York," and one says "a Hegemony world," leaving open the possibiliy that there's a secondary planet in a Hegemony system named York, and that the accounts aren't talking about the Lyran world at all.)
Author Craig Reed nicely covers the operational realities of the Tadeo Amaris, which resupplies from the ships it attacks, since it spends much of its time operating behind enemy lines as a raider. It's never been detailed, to my knowledge, but WarShip fighter bays must have substantial arrays of repair and machining equipment with which to conduct repairs and maintenance. Having all the WarShips in the squadron equipped with LF batteries (for a double jump) would be vital, as would having an onboard HPG to send reports and receive intel on SLDF fleet movements and shipping from AsRoc/Krypteia intelligence.
The Aegis is something of a glass cannon in the Star League era. Its firepower is awesome - a single broadside can dish out 380 damage in a single round - enough to can-opener even a flying brick like the Texas or the Nightlord. Conversely, it has only 101 armor on its sides, meaning that if two Aegis cruisers went to guns, the almost certain outcome is mutually assured destruction. This reality had to strongly affect combat tactics (or at least it should have) to disincentivize ship-to-ship exchanges, and to focus more on maintaining distance while sending in waves of fighters to cripple a target, supporting it with less accurate long-range fire. I've only played one engagement with an Aegis, and in it, my Yorks were forced to hang back at extreme range, sniping ineffectually with nose lasers while their 100 fighters attempted to overwhelm the 40 fighters escorting the two Aegis cruisers. Had my capital ships moved to effective range with the two Aegis cruisers, they would have been vaporized in short order, leaving nowhere for my fighters to return. Fortunately for its opponents, the Aegis' weak engines (2/3 movement) mean that it's not going to be able to catch any WarShip that doesn't want to be caught.
Given the accompanying art, this vessel, unlike the THS Repulse and the SLS Manassas, is one of the "new aesthetic" Aegis cruisers. If you look at Technical Readout 2750 and Technical Readout 3057, you see that most of the ships were radically redesigned between the two books. It's unclear why Duane Loose redid all the WarShip art originally done by Dana Knutson, but the fact that art directors changed from Dana Knutson to Jim Nelson in the interim may have something to do with it. However, TRO: 3057 didn't come out all that long after the BattleSpace boxed set, and that prominently uses the TRO: 2750 versions.
Initially, fan reaction (for those who cared) was to handwave the aesthetic changes away as being part of the ClanTech upgrades the ships underwent. However, in more recent years, the BattleTech developers have said that the designs underwent cosmetic refits during the Star League era, so that the TRO: 2750 pictures reflect how the class looked when they debuted, while the TRO: 3057 art shows their final form. The fact that the old-look Manassas (from Living Legends) and new-look Tadeo Amaris were contemporaries indicates that the cosmetic upgrades were not universally applied. This could help to account for sourcebook images that use the old art for Clan WarShips in action during Operation REVIVAL - not all the Clan ships got the cosmetic upgrades either.
The profile states that the ship began its service as the SLS Athens, but since its service dates were from 2415 to 2544 (predating the Star League), it must have been the THS Athens.