“Save” the Jags

[HuronWarrior]

On the topic of the Jaguars, I wonder why and how Lincoln Osis was able to remain senior khan when "Blood Legacy" established that an elected khan had to appoint a replacement and act as war leader of the clans and not leader of their original clan. And why they seemingly never replaced their loremaster who was killed at Tukayyid. For a fundamentalist conservative clan it seems unusual. They had their own Khan and saKhan when Leo Showers was ilKhan, after all. I wonder if trimming characters down just kept the writing easier.

[rebs]

Each IlKhan is different.  Brett Andrews stayed Khan of Clan Steel Viper during his tenure.  Lincoln Osis did the same.   There seems to be no rule about it.

[CJC070]

On the topic of the Jaguars, I wonder why and how Lincoln Osis was able to remain senior khan when "Blood Legacy" established that an elected khan had to appoint a replacement and act as war leader of the clans and not leader of their original clan. And why they seemingly never replaced their loremaster who was killed at Tukayyid. For a fundamentalist conservative clan it seems unusual. They had their own Khan and saKhan when Leo Showers was ilKhan, after all. I wonder if trimming characters down just kept the writing easier.

I think it was mentioned in the series that the Smoke Jaguars did not have the time to formalize the promotion of the Sakhan and look for a new Sakahn.  Remember they had to put the brakes on the war when the last Ikhan died.  The Smoke Jaguars just have as many logistical issues as well as gathering enough bloodname warriors.

[HuronWarrior]

Each IlKhan is different.  Brett Andrews stayed Khan of Clan Steel Viper during his tenure.  Lincoln Osis did the same.   There seems to be no rule about it.

The novels seem to indicate there were rules about it, but Lincoln Osis disregarded them and then Brett Andrews imitated that.

[Sjhernan3060]

Ok so I have found some of my Twilight of the Clans materials and here is what I am thinking, keep in mind the following conditions:
•   The Spirits did not interfere in the Burrock absorption and so have a much larger touman ( and bigger fleet) than would be suspected and have been seeking a way to use it for maximum gain
•   This is right when Osis announces Huntress is under attack at the Council

Plan A)
•   The Spirit Khans declare that Osis is unfit to lead the Clans
o   In a fit of rage Osis trips and bashes his head in killing himself – I am kidding about that but please remind me how that would work?
The Spirit Khans would have to fight him and Osis would be able to choose the manner of combat?
o   Either way in my timeline Osis is removed as Ilkhan
o   Setting up a power vacuum and a need for a new Ilkhan in the face of the IS Invasion
•   The Spirit Khans THEN declare the new SLDF a blight on their honor, ancestors etc etc ( as their founder was a descendant from the leader of the Royal Black Watch) and declare they will destroy them themselves and rid the HOMEWORLDS of them and then with a dramatic swoosh of their red cloaks they exist the chamber hall.
o   The remaining clans then bicker among themselves RE: the open Ilkhan post the Jag OZ etc.
•   The Spirits promptly mobilize their fleet, the Blood Guard Keshik, Alpha and Beta Galaxy and move to the Huntress system.
o   This is a smash and grab operation ( to Smash the SLDF and to grab Jag stuff)
o   The Spirit fleet will attempt to get there before the 2nd naval battle of Huntress happens
o   When they arrive they declare on an open channel broadcast their intention to crush the invaders
   In this scenario I think it’s a pretty good chance the jag fleet would actually fight their “ saviors” – Thoughts?
   The Spirits will attempt to cripple and capture the Invincible Truth and parlay with the remaining jag vessels. Personally I just want to add the Liberator to my expanding Spirit fleet but that would be tricky in this scenario.
   Again suggestions welcome:
•   If the Spirits communicate that Osis is dead and the only chance the Jags have to survive this fight and get revenge on the IS is with the spirits would the Jag vessels join forces/stand aside?
o   The Spirits then land ground forces across huntress in a similar way to how they did in the Absorption War but again relaying the message that “   Osis is dead, revenge can only come through us” trapped between the Jags and the Spirits with no fleet support how did you all see those battles going?
o   Frankly I think the Spirits would have a hard – much harder time of it than they expect. Reminder they would be coming out of years and years of isolation with next to no experience with large actions like this so I would expect a high causality rate at first when they fight cornered IS troops with little coordination with the Jags.
o   Once they wipe out Serpent they then trial for possession of the surviving Jag units through one on one combat with unit commanders, strip out as much as possible from the planet then hightail it out of there !
•   Plan B would involve high-level coordination with a cool jag like Brandon Howell details to follow.

Bumping this scenario up again with the additional question:

If osis is dead does brandon Howell automatically become khan of the jags?

[rebs]

The novels seem to indicate there were rules about it, but Lincoln Osis disregarded them and then Brett Andrews imitated that.

The rules must allow for Khans who want to retain suzrainty within their own Clan while they serve as IlKhan.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Bumping this scenario up again with the additional question:

If osis is dead does brandon Howell automatically become khan of the jags?

Howell can call himself that if he wants to,  but by that point everyone else considered the Clan dead.  So he was effectively a bandit leader.

[Jaim Magnus]

Howell can call himself that if he wants to,  but by that point everyone else considered the Clan dead.  So he was effectively a bandit leader.

I think he's referring to a battlefield promotion on Tukayyid. When the Khan dies (Osis in this case), the saKhan (Brandon Howell) automatically becomes Khan until the next election by the bloodnamed.

RUSSOU Howell (aka the Jaguar) is definitely nothing but a bandit leader, but that is after the fall of the Clan.

[Sjhernan3060]

I think he's referring to a battlefield promotion on Tukayyid. When the Khan dies (Osis in this case), the saKhan (Brandon Howell) automatically becomes Khan until the next election by the bloodnamed.

RUSSOU Howell (aka the Jaguar) is definitely nothing but a bandit leader, but that is after the fall of the Clan.

Correct in the scenario I posed which had ilkhan osis dying right when he asked for help
From the Grand Council would Brandon Howell who was Sakhan automatically become senior khan?

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Right, that would be the normal chain of command then.

[Colt Ward]

Judging from Wolf assets in the homeworlds, it's not just close but is spot on. You're welcome to cite other Wolf galaxies and clusters in the homeworlds. Omega's transfer from the homeworlds, and the devotion of resources to create Tau, left nothing behind of note (as per FM:CC). As for their manufacturing in the OZ, I didn't say anything about it so I don't understand why you're defensive about it. Though WoR does point out they weren't doing much with it.

To answer without clogging a Jag thread-
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/clan-chatterweb/the-wolf-empire-our-khan-beat-devlin-stone-in-a-savage-wolf!-buy-savage-wolves!/msg1668259/#msg1668259

[Guardian11]

Part of the reason Ulric Kerensky was elected IlKhan was the Crusaders, especially among the Wolves, were trying to engineer the succession of a Crusader to the position of Khan in Clan Wolf. If Ulric hadn't engineered Conal Ward's election to Loremaster and Natasha Kerensky's election to Khan the Crusader's plan likely would have worked. Certainly the precedent from Nicholas Kerensky to Ulric Kerensky seems to be that an IlKhan is not supposed to also be a Khan of a Clan at the same time. A precedent which Lincoln Osis broke.

[Colt Ward]

Point of order- Conal was already Loremaster, he was expecting to take the next step up the ladder . . . basically joining the current Crusader leaningsaKhan.

[Crimson Dynamo]

I thought it was a good story and well written. But I didn't like it! I don't feel like it meshes well with the Ambush at Dinju Pass scenario from the Tukayyid scenario pack. That scenario is told from the point of view of Precentor Mari Rennery, who doesn't make an appearance in the story in her Guillotine. It doesn't feel like the mad dash of the Jaguar Grenadiers down the pass that the scenario describes it as. It wasn't as much of a stand up fight that the story tells. Rennery talks about hoping to be able to get one shot on Howell's Timber Wolf before he can advance past her. There is also no mention of Brau Showers in an Adder from the scenario pack. It just didn't feel right to me!

I agree on all counts. An entertaining read, but with literally just one source to work with, it seemed as though the author was doing his own thing. But then again, the Tukayyid scenario pack is many years old and soon to be replaced/updated. I had also hoped we'd see less the initial rush down the pass (which now apparently was a more methodical push) and more of the "death-or-glory assault" on Dinju Heights when 6th Dragoons botched it and the Grenadiers realized they weren't able to save them or themselves withdraw.

Still, really looking forward to the new Tukayyid book. I'm really hoping this product keeps with what Era Report:3052 had with the Grenadiers getting post-3052 rules, indicating they survived Tukayyid or were rebuilt. Hell, maybe it will clarify what the rest of Alpha was doing when the Dragoons and Grenadiers were trying to force the pass.

[Guardian11]

Point of order- Conal was already Loremaster, he was expecting to take the next step up the ladder . . . basically joining the current Crusader leaning saKhan.

I believe you might be mistaken, according to Blood Legacy Conal Ward declined the nomination to Khan, expecting to be offered it again, but he was instead offered the position of Loremaster as "consolation" with Ulric using Conal's declination of the Khanship and election to Loremaster as an opening to nominate Natasha as Khan.

[Sjhernan3060]

On the topic of the Jaguars, I wonder why and how Lincoln Osis was able to remain senior khan when "Blood Legacy" established that an elected khan had to appoint a replacement and act as war leader of the clans and not leader of their original clan. And why they seemingly never replaced their loremaster who was killed at Tukayyid. For a fundamentalist conservative clan it seems unusual. They had their own Khan and saKhan when Leo Showers was ilKhan, after all. I wonder if trimming characters down just kept the writing easier.

Right? From a story POV this served to highlight Osis habit of cronism and micro management in his clan but also served to weaken the flexibility of the Jags.

[Colt Ward]

Ego . . . just highlighting the ego and through that micromanagement.  It is part of why Vlad said he had not really been acting as ilKhan IIRC.

[Sjhernan3060]

In my research on the fall of the jags I have become a bit obsessed with the jaguars heart unit of old timers who came out of retirement to defend huntress. It seems they were tasked to hunt down the IS forces in the swamps and died there. Is that correct?

The star colonel in charge of the unit thought it was pretty dumb for them to be used to hunt down a broken enemy.

Where could they have been better used?

[HuronWarrior]

In my research on the fall of the jags I have become a bit obsessed with the jaguars heart unit of old timers who came out of retirement to defend huntress. It seems they were tasked to hunt down the IS forces in the swamps and died there. Is that correct?

Yes, they were hunting down the South Army Group and stuck in that task until Victor arrived with reinforcements and staged a combat drop on them with units like the 10th Lyran Guards. They probably all fought to the death, based on Archer Christifori's memories of the battle.

Where could they have been better used?

They could have pulled back to refit and reorganize. Myriad Jaguar units had been mixed up or spread all over the place by the initial invasion by Task Force Serpent, and they needed to reorganize the survivors. But Lincoln Osis and Hang Mehta, the top commanders on the scene respectively, were more obsessed with wasteful driving attacks on the broken remnants of Serpent. The North Army Group *maybe* was a threat, but they could have maintained pressure without the wasteful attacks. Star Colonel Wager of the Jaguar's Heart was right about the Dhuan swamp attack; he knew the swamp and like all Jaguars had trained there. There was nothing for Serpent forces to eat and they'd either come out to fight or die, while suffering attrition in the meantime.

Of course ultimately it makes no difference, Wager didn't know that Vic and company weren't far out.

[Sjhernan3060]

Yes, they were hunting down the South Army Group and stuck in that task until Victor arrived with reinforcements and staged a combat drop on them with units like the 10th Lyran Guards. They probably all fought to the death, based on Archer Christifori's memories of the battle.


They could have pulled back to refit and reorganize. Myriad Jaguar units had been mixed up or spread all over the place by the initial invasion by Task Force Serpent, and they needed to reorganize the survivors. But Lincoln Osis and Hang Mehta, the top commanders on the scene respectively, were more obsessed with wasteful driving attacks on the broken remnants of Serpent. The North Army Group *maybe* was a threat, but they could have maintained pressure without the wasteful attacks. Star Colonel Wager of the Jaguar's Heart was right about the Dhuan swamp attack; he knew the swamp and like all Jaguars had trained there. There was nothing for Serpent forces to eat and they'd either come out to fight or die, while suffering attrition in the meantime.

Of course ultimately it makes no difference, Wager didn't know that Vic and company weren't far out.

Right thank you for the reminder about archer and the 10th! I recall that being very well written. Need to dig that up again..

[Sjhernan3060]

Yes, they were hunting down the South Army Group and stuck in that task until Victor arrived with reinforcements and staged a combat drop on them with units like the 10th Lyran Guards. They probably all fought to the death, based on Archer Christifori's memories of the battle.
They could have pulled back to refit and reorganize. Myriad Jaguar units had been mixed up or spread all over the place by the initial invasion by Task Force Serpent, and they needed to reorganize the survivors. But Lincoln Osis and Hang Mehta, the top commanders on the scene respectively, were more obsessed with wasteful driving attacks on the broken remnants of Serpent. The North Army Group *maybe* was a threat, but they could have maintained pressure without the wasteful attacks. Star Colonel Wager of the Jaguar's Heart was right about the Dhuan swamp attack; he knew the swamp and like all Jaguars had trained there. There was nothing for Serpent forces to eat and they'd either come out to fight or die, while suffering attrition in the meantime.

Of course ultimately it makes no difference, Wager didn't know that Vic and company weren't far out.

Refresh my memory all but due to the quick response of the jag counter attack on huntress the initial Serpent forces do not actually have much time to destroy the various factories and depots before the final victory correct? If so wouldn’t the jags have been better served by reclaiming and garrisoning the factories they could have cranked out units right into the battle line for dispossessed warriors. The same could have been done for whatever ammo depots were still flush with supplies. Serpent would have had to bombard from orbit to get them which is something Wilson was very reluctant to do.

[Colt Ward]

No, the wrecked several pretty thoroughly- to the point of collapsing the factory buildings by demo or mech stomping.  Relevant sections would be Sharon Byron (b/c she is stealing info/demos for Kathy) and Masters IIRC.

The Warhawk facility apparently had NOT been wrecked, but that is where the reserve formations were positioned and the Scorpions took it before Masters could get around to it as SL governor.

[Sjhernan3060]

That would have been smart, but the Jaguars were not the "let's be smart and do things strategically Clan."  They were the "you scream and you leap: keep attacking until you win or you die Clan."

While that makes cartoon villains it also makes them fun fall guys too

[Sjhernan3060]

Wait a minute... if Corbett had headed the recall order to go to huntress that def would have been enough to quash serpent. With that success would the clans have tried to absorb the jags rather them let them die?

[Talen5000]

Wait a minute... if Corbett had headed the recall order to go to huntress that def would have been enough to quash serpent. With that success would the clans have tried to absorb the jags rather them let them die?

IF Corbett had headed back to Huntress, then the units that were headed to Tranquil would also likely head to Huntress.

The SLDF would likely have been crushed

The Jags would have had enough forces concentrated to deter opportunists.

The Jags would repair their SDS system. This is reported not just as a SDS system, but a Reagan SDS system.

Beneath this shield, the Jags would have their choice of salvage. Jag techs also have a very good reputation. They might be IS Mechs but thet'd be Mechs.

The Jags, with all this, would likely survive but be knocked back and would lose some outlying territories but in the short term at least they'd be left alone. With a Reagan system in operation, few Clans would have the will to assault Huntress and would hold off pending a formal declaration of some sort.

An Absorption MIGHT still be called but it would go through the official process rather than the free for all which did occur.

[truetanker]

Which reminds me, just where did the Clans, in general, get their SDS from?

Would it be several M-3 Drones ( Pentagon ) with maybe a M-9 ( Pavise ) base?

We do know that there is a M-10 Hughes, of which the Wolf's Dragoon's Hephaestus station might be a clone.

TT

[Sjhernan3060]

Which reminds me, just where did the Clans, in general, get their SDS from?

Would it be several M-3 Drones ( Pentagon ) with maybe a M-9 ( Pavise ) base?

We do know that there is a M-10 Hughes, of which the Wolf's Dragoon's Hephaestus station might be a clone.

TT

I always wondered that too as it was implied to be enough to wreck TFS fleet

[truetanker]

It has to be from the decommissioned vessels that were scrapped from the modification of many of the SLDF Carracks to the (new) Merchant Carrack.

How else would any SDS be made?

Clans have, for one thing, in common : they hated needless waste.

And they never did build any capital weapons!

TT

[Talen5000]

Which reminds me, just where did the Clans, in general, get their SDS from?

Most Clan SDS systems appear to be of the surface to orbital battery type. The Jaguars SDS system was noticeable in that it was reported as a Reagan SDS system which is far more capable.

Two possibilities...1. The reports of a Reagan system were wrong. I suspect if CGL were asked,this would be the approach taken or 2...the Jaguars did have a Reagan SDS system, and being fair...that would fit their style and character, their technological expertise and, as they had their own shipyards and designers, within their capabilities.

Either way, the answer would be the Clans built their own.

[Sjhernan3060]

It has to be from the decommissioned vessels that were scrapped from the modification of many of the SLDF Carracks to the (new) Merchant Carrack.

How else would any SDS be made?

Clans have, for one thing, in common : they hated needless waste.

And they never did build any capital weapons!

TT

With the shifts their culture made re: what is right and honorable in war would most of these SDS have been built Pre Klondike or shortly into the golden century. I could see a desire to maintain or improve on an existing system but not building a whole new thing