CS3056-5

==Chapter 5== 
===Clover Spear - The Story of the '56 War===
Book 1- A Time to Plan, A Time to Plot
“..Contrary to popular belief at the time, Hanse Davion did understand his enemy far better than anyone had given him credit. Many who knew him knew two things about him. One, that he was a man who studied his enemies thoroughly, and the Clans were no exception, and two, he was a man who knew how to take a calculated risk and push it to the limit.
But what made the Clans so vulnerable, was something they had done to themselves, they had become hidebound in the name of ideological purity. Even the “Warden” political faction was to a measure, hidebound in its military doctrine and as such, was unable to cope with what the AFFC had brought to bear, especially as the AFFC invested a lot of money and time over the intervening two years to train multiple RCTs along the Clan front in a variety of firepower intensive doctrines, especially those utilizing artillery on a scale not seen before in the Inner Sphere.
There was an expansion in the number of gun tubes in the average RCT, with those along the frontier being converted to a artillery brigade of two gun regiments each, along with a battalion of Arrow IV equipped ‘Mechs. More of these Brigades were created as independent units designed to support collections of Free Regiments, as well as mercenary units. These Artillery Brigades worked hand in hand with the scouting elements of the RCT, be it LRRPs, Light ‘Mechs, or reconnaissance vehicle elements. In short, the light elements, along with an increased use of RPVs were there to find targets, for these new concentrations of guns.
Moreover, a new family of semi-automatic mortars were installed the battalion level in platoon strength (4 tubes) in Armored and Mechanized Infantry units, There was some talk of installing them in ‘Mech units as well, but it was felt the mortars could neither a) keep up with the ‘Mechs in the unit, and b) the maintenance and logistical concerns of having vehicles and ‘Mechs in the same battalion, however, it was decided to have a battery of the weapons installed at the Regimental Level in all arms, and ‘Mech unit commanders began to value having the “hip pocket artillery”, especially for the way it could speedily lay down the new thermal smoke rounds that were promised to even interfere with the vaunted Clan-tech thermal imaging systems.
New doctrinal changes came about, where AFFC commanders were encouraged to use recon assets aggressively to find enemy unit boundaries, or weakly held parts of the enemy line in any kind of terrain. The idea was to smash these parts of the Clan line with sheer numbers, and then encircle the Clan units, and forcing them to fight an attritional battle of annihilation. AFFC units were told to expect fierce Clan counterattacks at every level, as it was expected that the Falcons and Vipers, once they realized they had been sucked into just such a fight, would seek to either a) break out to resume the kind of long range mobile battle that suited them, or b) would throw themselves at the obviously numerically superior FC forces in an “death ride” to achieve as honorable a death as possible. Furthermore, AFFC units were trained to use night, and close terrain to their advantage, so as to seek a close-range assault that would negate the Clan range advantage.
Taking and holding the initiative was paramount, and the AFFC pounded the idea into their commanders, one that had been stressed in the AFFC for a long time- “Get the initiative and never let go of it.” Airmobile tactics were stressed as well, as it was thought that due to the low speed of Elementals, putting infantry units with heavy weapons into the Clan rear in battalion strength was a means to disrupt the ability of the Clans to form a coherent defense. (This last idea, as we will see, was more miss than hit during the ’56 War, and it needed massive refinement, but it did become a coherent part of AFFC tactical and operational doctrine that survives today).”
* Taken from "Falcon and Viper meet the Anvil: An Anatomy of the ’56 War” (Victory Press, Robinson, 3081) by Prof. Richard Kingman (Kommandant, AFFC Ret.)
“..I was a young Kommandant when we briefed the plan to move a number of RCTs and Free Regiments from the Capellan and Sarna ‘Marches in early ’54. Memory doesn’t serve the exact time and date, but I know it was still winter on Monhegan where the meeting took place. We knew the deception would not last forever, especially with the Maskirovka keeping pretty close tabs along the border, but we had to get those troops to the Clan front.
Simply put, we were going to take a page from RAT, and make the deployments sound like routine rotations to the Clan front. MIIO and DMI had put together some really great deception packages for the media, and we banned the press from covering most of the troop movements, but not all. We knew things would get especially dicey when the dependents for most of the units were asking why they had not rotated to the Lyran Commonwealth along with their families, telling them the Clan front was no place for families was one way we got around that, but again, it only worked until mid-’55. We had our hands full making it look like less units had left than actually had.
We had small radio-technical units ranging the border with the Capellans and Mariks imitating the units that, had in fact, departed. We found out later, we did fool SAFE, but not the Maskriovka, at least, not forever. We don’t know how the leak happened, but by late 3054, sources inside MIIO had stated that the Capellans knew we had moved at least part of the forces slated for Clover Spear into the Lyran State Command. We could only pray the Dragoons could keep up their end of the deception, making the Capellans think that three of their regiments were still on Outreach, instead of all of them heading for the border of the Jade Falcon OZ.
Naturally, when the Capellans found out the truth? All hell broke loose.”
* From “Deception Operations in the Capellan and Sarna Marches during the Buildup to Clover Spear” written by Hauptmann-General Arnold Haugen, for the Military Intelligence Review, Fall ’71 issue, Published by the AFFC Department of Information, New Avalon)
“..EAST SEA was to be fair to the Chancellor, a tricky endeavor from the start. The Davion presence along the border had always been strong, and even with the Clans, they had covered our lost territories very well indeed. Thus, East Sea has remained firmly a contingency plan, with the barest of effort put into it, not to mention, we at the Ministry of Defense realized. The CCAF hadn’t launched a sustained offensive against anyone since 2412. To say there was no institutional memory on how to do such a thing..was…an understatement.”
“Most of our offensive plans at the time consisted of us going into the rebel province [the then official Capellan name of the St. Ives Compact] in case their government collapsed, or the AFFC pulled out, but neither was seen as very likely, we had several variants of plans for that, all under the name of LONG MARCH. So, it was rather shocking when I was at the weekly meeting with the sovereign during the usual weekly state of the CCAF briefing, that the Chancellor asked the now, well known question:
“Ruhe Zhumbei Shi Wo De Mao?” – How ready are my spears?
We were all struck dumb. Even with Marik help, we didn’t think we had a ghost of a chance to pull anything like EAST SEA off. But then, those sorcerers at the Military Intelligence section had gotten to the Chancellor..we all thought they had talked him into an ill-advised war…and there were some, I am sure, who were worried we had another Maximilian on our hands..but then, that Shang woman of his. I never liked her..she was too ambitious for her own good.  But she had good information this time…it seems Wolf’s Dragoons had left Outreach. 
I never forgot the terrible smile of that Shang woman, it didn’t last. Not after Sarna.”
* The Private Memoirs of Shao Lao-Tse, Senior Colonel, CCAF (Ret)
"..I will never forget when the first Rabid Foxes showed up on Blackjack. We had had a lonely war, and it was getting harder to bring people over to our side. We’d had a couple of raids go bad, and that traitor: That so-called “Star Colonel” Mark..he was making weekly statements on the Planetary medianet, telling us to accept the “New Tomorrow”, like he had. Bastard.
We did our best to kill him…twice, and missed both times. We did get his sister. Hey, it sent a message, right? 
The trouble was, the ones the Falcons sent was worse. They wiped out a small mining town in the mountains by the name of Happy Days..killed everyone, even the kids. They called it “the price of resisting our betters.” You can imagine what we thought of that. Two weeks later, we put a LAW rocket into one of the “Falcon Friendship Centers” in downtown Lott’s Revenge, and killed half a dozen of the tanker bastards…especially when we paid the fire department a visit, and told them in no uncertain terms…not to show up.
But that didn’t deter the Falcons, no, they murdered one hundred hostages..and did it in full view of the cameras. We felt low by then. There was maybe a half dozen of us left, we had little food, little ammunition, and no real hope. The last time we had seen the FedCom was when a ‘Merc outfit had tried to raid one of the outlying Falcon detachments…and walked into an ambush. Many of us were ready to fade back into the woodwork, and make the best of it..when fate intervened.
We had heard a dropship pass over our camp, low, from east to west, and were wondering what it was all about. We were worried that the Falcons had found us, and were hot dropping Toads on us to finish us off, but when we looked up, we saw tiny black parachutes against the inky twilight sky. We realized one thing, Toads didn’t use parachutes.
The old man quickly established a marching order, and we briefed a quick hasty ambush at a site we knew well, one we had ambushed some of the collabo (collaborationist) militia a couple times before, before the Falcons disbanded them due to their (I think in some cases, deliberate) incompetence. 
We set out for the ambush site at a near run. We had learned to move quietly, like holes in the oncoming night, One thing the Falcons did admit about us, and it spooked the hell out of them..We were not usually seen unless we wanted to be seen. And that night, we definitely were not seen.
It took us about half an hour for us to reach the ambush site, and for us to set up, I remember quietly chambering a round into my cone rifle, and praying the click of the selector lever being moved to FIRE didn’t give me away. As it was, we needn’t have bothered.
I will say one thing about the Rabid Foxes, they are some really sneaky bastards. Before I knew it, I had been tased, disarmed, and trussed up like many a deer I had taken from these hills.  And what were these Davions doing…Grinning. That’s right..not even a peep of laughter. Not a speck of light..We could tell their grins. They were the whitest thing around.
They dragged the Old Man into a nearby tent, and they had him for a while. He told us later that they knew everything about him, and had grilled him hard to make sure he was whom he said he was. Meanwhile, they kept us tied up for what seemed like an hour.
They were wiry men and women, you could tell that even under all the gear and uniform. Their eyes, though, the eyes were like sharks. Everything they looked at was a look of “How do I destroy this?” Once they were satisfied we were who we said we were, they untied us, but kept us disarmed. They sent out a man who spoke pretty flawless Steiner German. I will never forget what he said:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, playtime is over, It is time for Falcon and Viper season.”
I will be damned if before long, we all weren’t aping their grins. Their quiet confidence was pretty infectious, and they were right..the next year was very, very interesting indeed.”
* “Blood of a Partisan : The Story of a Partisan against the Clans” (Franks, John, Albermale Press, Koniz, 3077
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