Battletech Clan Invasion of UC Gundam Earth

[CSJM]

There could also be some twists with the Clans' timing. If, for example, a large Clan fleet appears at the edge of the solar system and threatens, say, the mentioned Jupiter installations, a significant part of forces surrounding Earth could be directed to eliminate them. And if then another Clan group arrives at a pirate point near Earth...

Just theoretizing here.

[Ford Prefect]

Do you really think that the response to 'twenty or thirty ships are threatening to attack Jupiter!' is going to be 'welp, we better send thousands and thousands of ships, tens of thousands of mobile units and two and hundreds of millions of soldiers to deal with it, thus leaving the entirety of the Earth Sphere essentially defenseless'?

[CSJM]

No, but that's still a possibility. Depends on what the Clans do on their way - if they annihilate something important, the response may well be of the Disproportionate Retribution variety. A still greater possibility is the Clan threat being not recognized as such, especially considering the disparity in force - I'm not sure what happens in the series, but have a suspicion that if the events get underway before the Clans manifest themselves as a threat, the Earth will have a hard time getting its defences together.

[Ford Prefect]

Uh, the reason why they might not consider the Clan invasion a threat is because it's not a threat. What can less than a hundred thousand men do to a target with a population of over eleven billion? There are thousands of colonies, an entire industrialised planet. Even if they decide that their best course of action is to smash and burn everything they can, what can they? What can this invasion possibly achieve?

[Imperial Overlord]

Clan FTL isn't a tactical advantage, but having their industrial and population assets out of reach while being able to attack Gundam Earth is a strategic one, for as long as that advantage lasts.

Could you elaborate on that?

Sure. Mechwarrior 4th edition had rules for mech fighting without using the Btech mapsheets that were based around the character scale rules and influenced by the dueling system in the Solaris VII supplement. In it they address the issue of weapon ranges and machine gun effectiveness against armour as a product of game play rules and not something that was literally true in universe. It's no different from the issues table top 40K faces, except that it was explicitly stated early on in 40K and later on in Btech.

[CSJM]

Uh, the reason why they might not consider the Clan invasion a threat is because it's not a threat. What can less than a hundred thousand men do to a target with a population of over eleven billion? There are thousands of colonies, an entire industrialised planet. Even if they decide that their best course of action is to smash and burn everything they can, what can they? What can this invasion possibly achieve?

For the Clans, Earth is a symbol, IIRC. It's their planet of origin, and seizing it is a great accomplishment. The fact that it's not the same Earth anymore probably won't matter much. That's what the invasion aims to achieve. What it can achieve is the point of this discussion. If the Clans find out that they're not even fighting the same people that cast them out to the edges of the galaxy, they might pull out all stops and just blast everything they come across, doing quite significant damage to the "industrialized" planet. And God forbid if they manage to kit themselves out with Gundam tech.

[VF5SS]

they might pull out all stops and just blast everything they come across

The problem with that is the defenders have arguably much better weapons. Blast them and they blast you right back.

And God forbid if they manage to kit themselves out with Gundam tech.

How? How can they even begin to reverse engineer Gundam technology?

[CSJM]

Not reverse engineer. Just plain pick up and use. I mean, Zaku's are still piloted, right? And their weapons are not mounted, they're held? And bits and pieces of any Gundanium alloys or whatever is used in that timeframe should be perfectly salvageable, and they can get that technology, perhaps capture partially intact suits. They need not be able to actually produce the things, so long as they can utilize parts of them.

[Stark]

So you're saying guys using Gundam cast-offs with a massive numerical inferiority are going to beat the Gundam guys?

[CSJM]

Well, if you put it that way, then likely no. But the Clans do have the mobility advantage, and the ability to quickly pull back if things get hairy - the most advanced JumpShips carry two batteries so that they can do a quick double-jump if it's required. Presuming we speak of an entire war - the Invasion, not just a single encounter at the Earth - the Clans will have vast superiority in regards to strategic possibilities. If the first encounter results in their defeat, which it likely will, the survivors will bring information on the new enemies, and with a little luck, examples of their technology. Some Clan good at innovative approaches, for example Jade Falcon, may figure out ways of defeating this new enemy, and after several consecutive waves the Earth's defence will be broken. If it won't break itself by then, of course, what with the internal conflicts brewing within.

[Imperial Overlord]

Some Clan good at innovative approaches, for example Jade Falcon, may figure out ways of defeating this new enemy, and after several consecutive waves the Earth's defence will be broken. If it won't break itself by then, of course, what with the internal conflicts brewing within.

Did you just call the most conservative of all Clans innovative? Hahaha. Let's all remember for a moment how the Clans fight. They jump in, they formally challenge the defenders, their commanders bid down their forces, and then the low bid attacks. They aren't going to swoop in and capture and reverse engineer some tech that luckily lands in their hands. They're going to strike for the heart of their enemy's strength and get nuked/beam cannoned/whatever the fuck Gundam uses and then they're going to realize they're in a very dirty war. That's after they get their asses handed to them, not before.

[CSJM]

Did you just call the most conservative of all Clans innovative?

Hm, the novels left me with a different impression. Oh well. Must've been something in the translation.

And yes, once they realize they're fighting a very dirty war and get their asses handed to them, they'll begin to strategize, out of necessity. They'll attempt to study their enemy, they may well be fascinated by the advanced mechs deployed against them, and they will try to obtain the technology for themselves, or develop an adequate method of fighting against it. As long as the initial attack force isn't destroyed down to the last ship, the Clans will find out that things have changed, and they'll take it into account when they make another attempt.

[Ford Prefect]

And God forbid if they manage to kit themselves out with Gundam tech.

Seriously, I've seen what they did to the Glaug. It wasn't pretty.

Honestly, the best thing the Clans can do here is get rolled and then run away, never coming back. The One Year War is a time of significant technological advancement in weapon systems. Both sides up up rolling out some pretty significant mobile suits over the next twelve months, and circumstances are different. I don't think the Zekes and Feddies will actually work that closely together, even if they're cooperative in fighting the Clans, so I'm not suggesting that the Zekes will scale down beam weapons faster or anything, but the difference in threat might encourage them to focus primarily on their top level MS, like the Dom or Gelgoog, as opposed to their mobile armour programs.

That said, Dozle Zabi and the Big Zam would probably be a total monster without Amuro and Sleggar around to kill it.

[Stark]

A Glaug can beat up an Awesome, remember that Ford.

Man, we should post some of those pictures.

[Ford Prefect]

That's not for the weak of heart, Starkers. Also at the moment I'm in a Zen-state where I imagine all the Clanners will be using Timber Wolves, which aren't total sins against nature.

[Batman]

ANY BT Mech is a sin against nature. And the Timber Wolf was the 75 ton one the Inner Sphere dubbed the Mad Cat, right?

[SAMAS]

Some mechs aren't all that bad. And I don't mean just the Macross/Dougram ones.

[Stark]

ANY BT Mech is a sin against nature. And the Timber Wolf was the 75 ton one the Inner Sphere dubbed the Mad Cat, right?

It's a glaug with no dickgun and a b17 cockpit yeah.

[Ford Prefect]

And the Timber Wolf was the 75 ton one the Inner Sphere dubbed the Mad Cat, right?

Yeah, that's the one. I guess technically speaking it has a design as bad or worse than most battlemechs, but at the same time it's fairly iconic for someone who grew up on the Mechwarrior games. It sort of sets the what I would call the 'aesthetic' for the setting (reverse jointed legs, gun arms, boxes of missiles on the shoulders), while it's huge B-36 inspired cockpit gives it a unique look. I wouldn't say I 'like' it, but I think it's representative of one of the very, very few halfway decent Battletech designs. That isn't, you know, totally taken from Macross.

[Batman]

I just asked because I occasionally get the TIMBER and the DIRE Wolf confused. And while the Macross leases where easily the most attractive of the bunch they DID manage to come of with a number of decent designs on their own. The Zeus, Starslayer or Centurion don't look half bad, nor that jump capable 75 ton Liao mech from MC2 the name of which escapes me at the moment.

[Balrog]

No, not every Zaku, just most of them. And, no, the chances are that they would not make such a treaty with the Clans - they made the treaty only after they realised that if they kept going as they were, they'd kill everyone living on Earth and in its orbit in the next couple of weeks.

Which is what will happen if they go nuke-happy again and the Clans respond in kind.

The Clans have two thousands robots, four thousand fighters and sixty thousand infantry. They will all be dead before it's an issue.

Based on conservative estimates of the first four clans, but even considering those numbers the only area where Gundam really outnumbers the Clans is in total population, both civilian and military. Both sides have hundreds of warships; the Clans might even have more since, for Gundam, some of the DropShips might as well be warships given their size and tonnage. Both sides have thousands of mechs/fighters, each with their own strengths and weaknesses (i.e. Zakus have max acceleration of .6 G, Clan fighters can accelerate anywhere from 3-4 G up to 10+ G for the lighter ones). Elementals shit all over Gundam infantry, but there might not be enough of them to make much of a difference. Gundam is more willing to nuke-spam, but if they piss the Clans off enough to start using their own, they have more to lose. And if the initial and reserve Clans get a beating, the Clans can lick their wounds, regroup and come back at their leisure; the idea of someone reverse-engineering something they have no understanding off is laughable, whether it's Gundam, Trek, or any other scifi group. Even if they pick up a few technicians, all they're going to know is know how to fix K-F drives, not how to build one from scratch.

How exactly do you figure that Gundam doesn't come close? 500TJ is like 120 kilotons.

And it took a big-ass gun that had to be towed into place for a Gundam 'warship' to come close to putting out that kind of firepower. It'll one-shot another Gundam warship good, but then again even conventional weapons like those on Zakus have no problem destroying enemy warships.

I'd quote the "1 Capital weapon damage point = .5kt" from the Jihad rulebook but since I don't have the source with me to verify, some conservative math. Space combat in BattleTech normally takes place at speeds of thousands to tens of thousands of kph (BattleSpace pg17). Naval autocannons, a common weapon on many WarShips, fire shells that weigh anywhere from a couple hundred kg to over a ton. Even if the muzzle velocity of those guns were so negligible, that the crew might as well just throw their ammo out on airlock into the path of an oncoming WarShip, at those speeds the resulting kinetic energy from an impact could range anywhere from triple-digit MJ to triple-digit GJ. Given that the shells would undoubtably going faster once they leave their barrels, we're talking terajoules per shot easily, of which most WarShips have dozens of comparable weapons, each able to fire multiple shots in the span of a minute.

And unlike a Gundam warship, which are rather small and lightweight in comparison, you can't take out a BT WarShip with a few shots from what amounts to an AC20. I'm not entirely sure about acceleration, Clan ships are capable of 2-3 G in battle while nothing is really given for Gundam ships, but considering how they positively lumber around during fights in comparison to Zakus (esp. in the clip above), I doubt it's more than even at best.

Stuff like the Apsalus and Big Zam actually carry multi-megaton main guns, though they wouldn't figure into such an early time period.

Big Zam, you mean the rather large mech that runs out of power after twenty minutes? I don't recall its gun ever being that powerful, especially considering how much trouble it caused Zeon just to get a superweapon up and working with firepower a whole order of magnitude less.

This is setting aside the fact that the Clans have frankly pitiful range, and that the Earth Sphere forces have shockingly superior ECM.

According the the Jormungand page, an effective range of 300km is still well beyond most other weapons in the Gundamverse. Of which many BT Capital weapons have ranges are measured, even in gameplay terms, in hundreds of kilometers. But then as it goes with minovsky particles, we're not exactly going to have long-range artillery duels to begin with anyways.

[VF5SS]

I wouldn't say I 'like' it, but I think it's representative of one of the very, very few halfway decent Battletech designs.

I have a soft spot for the original designs from the first 3025 Technical Readout Book. At the very least, most of the Battlemechs look like they can do most of what the game rules required of them, like stand up.

But honestly, I there some rule that FASA had to hire the worst artists ever? Does this even look like the robot is flying?

Do you even know what flying looks like?

ok this guy sort of gets it

then again the Spiderman is one of the easier Battlemechs to draw

[Zor]

And if the initial and reserve Clans get a beating, the Clans can lick their wounds, regroup and come back at their leisure; the idea of someone reverse-engineering something they have no understanding off is laughable, whether it's Gundam, Trek, or any other scifi group.

Which is going to take some time for the Clans to do, about two decades to be precise. Remember that they will have to grow a shitload of new recruits , raise them from childhood and train them, flunking the bulk of these new warriors out.

Zor

[Ritterin Sophia]

(It should be noted that when BattleTech talks about Mech-/Vehicle-/Battle Armor-scale machineguns, they're talking closer to 20mm Vulcan guns or at least the minigun, not something like an M2 Browning.)

That's nice, except before fall of 0079 beam weapons aren't portable enough for MS, so unlike later unit the early Zeon suits actually have sufficient armor to survive 60mm autocannon fire.

Typical Anti-MS Machineguns range from 90-120mm during the OYW.

(i.e. Zakus have max acceleration of .6 G, Clan fighters can accelerate anywhere from 3-4 G up to 10+ G for the lighter ones)

It'll one-shot another Gundam warship good, but then again even conventional weapons like those on Zakus have no problem destroying enemy warships.

Look what you just did, you posted the erroneous 'Official Stats' and then followed up with a source that blows those stats completely out of the fucking water.

[CSJM]

Then the mechs will start using LB-10X's. There are no range limits for ballistic weapons in space, after all. Just targeting problems.