statki kosmiczne Hegemonii oraz Gwiezdnej Ligii

[SeeM]

Wiedząc, jak mało popularny jest Aerotech i ogólnie tematy kosmiczne, zapytałem się starszych w wierze na forum CGL o stare statki kosmiczne. I się nie zawiodłem: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/the-su ... msg1880035

2398 - Age of War begins.

2443 - First Mech combat.

2445 - DroST IIa - Early generic troop transport. Totally not a Firefly. Wink wink. More a representative of an entire category than a single class, this tells us that early AoW armies took a long time to unpack after landing, most likely relying on airstrikes from assault shuttles, guns from grounded Droppers, and any heavy weaponry the infantry sections could unpack in a hurry to defend the LZ while the armored units were prepped. Honestly, sounds bloody as hell to me, especially if defenders can get artillery on your LZ.

2445 - DRoST IIb - Early light carrier/assault ship. Has no business being this scary this early. Seriously, a DRoST IIb would be a serious concern to anything that isn't a PWS even in the Dark Age.

2449 - Manatee - First Mech carrier. Cannot fight, only useful for large cargo bay and being the only option for rapid Mech deployment.

2458 - Black Eagle - First medium-sized Mech carrier, can actually survive a fight. By that I mean it's a frickin badass. It's no DRoST, but any shipyard that chose to resurrect the design wouldn't need to make any changes in order to make it a competitive seller.

2468 - Czar - Large troop transport. Cannot fight, very slow to offload vees. Think DRoST IIa, but bigger.

2531 - Gazelle - First ship with vehicle cubicles for rapid deployment. Still not advised to fight, but useful for second-wave landings. If this had been developed before the Manatee, it would have been a game changer just as much as Mechs were.

2537 - Leopard - Second-generation light Mech carrier. Leagues better than Manatee, integral fighter complement makes it more flexible than the larger Black Eagle.

2540 - Pentagon - Black Eagle was so popular, they turned it into a dedicated escort for Congress-class frigates.

2571 - Star League formed. Age of War ends. Hooray.

2577 - Reunification War begins.

2582 - Achilles - Assault ship. Less guns and armor than the Pentagon, but faster. Like the Leopard, carried small craft makes it a very flexible ship. Perhaps cheaper/easier to build than the Pentagon? That would explain why it becomes so widespread.

2581 - Leopard-CV - What happens when a standard Leopard wants to be a DRoST IIb when it grows up. Much smaller and probably cheaper than the older ship, plus parts commonality with regular Leopards would streamline logistics.

2593 - Triumph - Looks like they liked the Gazelle, but wanted to reduce the number of collars needed. Much larger cargo hold also reduces the number of bulk haulers needed.

2595 - Lion - Not a replacement for the Black Eagle but a supplement, to be used when your mech forces need armor support from the moment of landing. Probably a response to Periphery forces trying to swarm LZs. Like the Triumph, a big cargo bay reduces the need for bulk cargo ships.

2597 - Reunification War ends. Hooray.

2600 - Dictator - One of the first lessons of the war was that moving entire divisions in a coordinated fashion suuuucks when everybody is broken up into lance or company-size groups.

2600 - Elephant - "Tug", my infamously-toned ass. Fast, more armor and guns than any DropShip yet in existence, and over a battalion of ground troops? This screams to me that the Navy wanted the ability to deal with surface problems without glassing the place, or worse, calling the Army.

2602 - Confederate - It's a Leopard, but round and with less guns. I guess the SLDF thought vertical landing was that important.

2613 - Fortress - This is the Lion to the Dictator's Black Eagle. My guess is that someone in the Army saw the one-ship-fits-all Elephant and got jealous. Remembering that proper(read: Army) deployments mean large self-supporting task forces, they were able to strip away much of the engines, armor, and guns, making the end product MUCH cheaper than the Navy's toy.

2638 - Fury - Even the Star League could think small sometimes. Probably used to provide Leopard landings with conventional troop support.

2647 - Titan - Some admiral visited a museum with a DroST IIb and wondered why something like that couldn't exist today. Then they made it exist, and the Navy's never been happier. I'll bet that admiral was a Mckenna. Shame about the heat sinks.

2655 - Intruder - This exists because some jobs are too big for an assault shuttle, and too small for an Elephant. For ground forces, conventional wisdom says to wait until you've got a secure LZ before you bring down your bulk cargo. Intruders are for when it doesn't matter how hot things are, you need those office supplies on the ground NOW.

2660 - Colossus - This came from a desire to move an entire RCT on a single JumpShip, but was never popular because it was so expensive. I'm not sure I buy that, given that the SLDF bought plenty of far more expensive things that they hated. Personally, I think it more likely that they didn't like how the low armor made unsupported deployments(an RCT's bread and butter) hazardous. Either that, or contractor politics.

2673 - Pueblo - It's not every day the Camerons decide to use a DropShip to do a WarShip's job, but it actually makes sense here. Bug-Eyes go to great lengths to convince everyone around them they're naught but humble cargo DropShips...but the Pueblo cuts out much of the operational drama through the simple expediency of actually *being* a DropShip. The heavy guns and armor make sense for a ship that's likely to be all alone when things go south, and I'll bet that the impetus for the Pueblo's creation was the loss of one or more Bug-Eyes that never made the news, but nonetheless sent major shockwaves through the SLDF's flag rank community.

2693 - Major SLDF budget increase - focus on Hegemony defenses - This actually helps the Colossus story make more sense. If it came in the middle of decades of budget crunch, the ship might not have actually been all that expensive, but simply been the final straw for a navy that had to deal with expense after expense after expense. I get it, I've been there myself.

2708 - Union - As amazing as Black Eagles are, they have to be retired someday, and 250 years of service means the Army and Navy both are very different beasts from the ones that first accepted the Black Eagle into their ranks. The Union might not have the firepower of its illustrious ancestor, but it's more flexible and a lot smaller and cheaper, and for an army with vastly larger transport needs than anyone from the Age of War or Reunification War could imagine, this counts for a lot. History would also show that Unions can be built just about anywhere, very important when the non-Royal SLDF was encouraged to buy local when possible.

2738 - Kerensky becomes Commanding General

2756 - Lee - See below.

2762 - Overlord - Part of Kerensky's plan to streamline the transport arm, the Lee and Overlord were meant as a two-pronged replacement for the various heavy DropShips of the Star League, particularly the Dictator. Lees would smash their way through any orbital defenses and establish initial landing zones, Overlords would bring the forces needed to expand those zones into genuine holdings, and then it would be safe for the rest of the force to come in on bulk haulers and offload at their leisure.

2765 - Periphery Uprising begins - This was probably a boom time for DropShip manufacturers, as the SLDF suddenly needed to move practically their entire army to the distant Periphery realms for their first major war in centuries. Talk about an explosion in demand.

2766 - Amaris Coup - This is when everything changes. Every Hegemony-built hull is now irreplaceable. Even if Kerensky could reach the yards that produce those ships, the sudden loss of huge chunks of the tax base supporting him means he has to go cheap. Lees and Colossii are no longer the order of the day, instead Navy purchasers are going after every single bargain bin Leopard, Union, and Overlord they can find - and so that's what yards across the Inner Sphere are gonna produce.

2767 - Rim Worlds Campaign begins.

2769 - Rim Worlds Campaign ends. Hooray.

2772 - Hegemony Campaign begins.

2776 - Hegemony Campaign ends. But wait, there's more!

2777 - Terran Campaign begins.

2779 - Terran Campaign ends - These three campaigns are the final nails on the coffins of the advanced Hegemony-built DropShips. Amaris forces and SDS drones alike know the value of the high-tier ships and focus on destroying them, while the yards that could have replaced them are smashed during Kerensky's offensives.

2782 - Vengeance - A replacement for the more combat-oriented Titan, the Vengeance drops the speed, guns, cargo, AND armor in favor of simply carrying as many fighters as possible. I suspect that the initial design request for the Vengeance went through either at the height of the Terran Campaign, or immediately afterwards, but before the decision had been made for the Exodus. It's a shame this arrived too late to feature heavily in the Exodus fleet, as a vessel that had zero utility but to carry fighters in multiples of ten to and from a battle zone would have been perfectly at home in the pre-Invasion Clans.

2784 - SLDF Exodus

2786 - First Succession War begins.

2786 - Excalibur - A cheaper alternative to the Colossus that would be finalized too late for the SLDF, but would be eagerly snapped up by the Successor States.

2801 - Condor - This ship isn't really anything special(aside from a truly magnificent cargo bay), but it was released at a time when the Houses were buying up pretty much anything that could fight. As long as you didn't attract the nukes, this was a great time to be a builder of war machines.

2815 - Seeker - Were Mechs starting to become scarce yet? If so, this ship makes sense, as it provides a way to launch an independent raiding force without using up that precious resource. The 31st-century "upgrade" should be considered a crime of DropShip Abuse.

2816 - Avenger - Achilles DropShips were never lostech, but they're still expensive. As resources become scarcer, a budget attack ship makes sense.

[Kret]

Rewelacyjny materiał.