WoWS3 Chpt 4

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==Weapons of War Saga: The Final March- Chapter 4 - ==
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===Meeting the new Envoy===
Helena’s office
New Lazarus, Star League in Exile (System)
February 6th, 3142
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Helena’s perspective
“Situation update.” Helena sipped her coffee.
“We’ve got six Pintos and six Trackers working up the forward supply stations you ordered. The ground troops your sister sent, well there are some grumbles with how much they are sitting idle and I must admit I’m finding I have a fair bit to learn about the needs of an Army rather than a Navy.”
“Their CO, are they suitable for a higher staff position?” Helena asked.
“Honestly I don’t know enough about the ground side to know for sure. Your sister did warn us most of the best leaders she had that survived were scooped up by the various Clans.”
“So really we need an outside opinion. Someone who’s got the credentials and the credibility.”
“Redburn looks to already be up to his neck.” Foster contemplated.
There was a gentle knock at the edge of the doorway.
"Hope I'm not interrupting." The Envoy unit was dressed…differently. Dull gray fatigues that might be any color, hair cut short.
"Which one are you?" Foster asked.
"Pestilence. Kolossus sent me…and yeah, the body's newer. Can I join you here for a chat?"
“Of course. You are always welcome.” Helena gestured to an empty seat.
“I just spent the last ten years in the Free Worlds League-that is, all three states claiming it along with the one that actually won that war. You'd see aging, but that body didn't quite make it and I had to upload through relays for the following eight months."
“How bad is it on that side of the Sphere? With the state of the HPGs the flow of information is irregular to say the least.” Helena asked.
"Improving. A lot faster than I think Alabaster or Kolossus predicted. Now, they don't have any sort of 'rampant military genius' available for recruiting…but I will say, as 'Pamela Dawson' I served Nikol Marik pretty well in the field. Mostly working cadre training and organizational roles, not front liner stuff, I did it well enough that Al Wolf thought enough of my organization to send an actual hitter to put me down…and Kolossus says you need a ground warfare specialist who knows how to train infantry, tank, and Mechwarriors."
“The people my sister sent, well they’re better than anything I had but it’s clear they’ve been headhunted heavily. So none of them really seem up to the task of what I need. So if there is anything you can offer I would certainly be grateful.” Helena nodded.
"Okay, I'll need a new name, and do you have a plastic surgeon? I'd as soon not have my prior experience noted by foreign intelligence, but here's my resume'." she plopped a ROM-only databloc on the table. "It's certified. I think I can do something with your…'leftovers' but I'd like to also propose some recruiting strategies and have a look at what you plan to use for a training establishment, ground troops are different from Spacers."
“Something I have become very painfully aware of.” Dave Foster admitted.
"Don't feel bad, you've likely got some SUPERB commandos. Spec Ops in ground warfare is a force multiplier, what you need to push this through is conventional troops, which I'm qualified to handle, and a conventional force structure designed for this kind of war.", Pestilence told them.
"What kind of war?"
"Expect Casualties, Ma'am. The potential enemy listing includes several Clans, factions on the ground in the Republic itself, the Cappies, the Draconis Combine, possibly others-they're going to wage mass warfare, what the old records call 'Total war', and that kind of warfare kills people in the millions. OUR job is to minimize that on our side, and maybe find ways to minimize it on the other side too." Pestilence explained. "Wars on the ground are fundamentally a contest of will, the will to prevail, the will to survive, the will to strike back, and the will to fight in general. The role of the Ground Commander is to find ways to strengthen the will of his or her own forces, while degrading that will on the other side. Means we don't have to kill EVERYBODY if we can make them stop wanting to fight bad enough."
“Which is our other pain point, intelligence and diplomacy, frankly we need to get people on side because even if we had the best person possible for that job, well like you say there are a lot of potential enemies. Vicky is at least reporting something resembling progress with Redburn’s Republic Remnant.” Helena commented
"Okay, so…recruiting. Public Affairs officers, diplomat-training for some other staff roles, and formal diplomatic relations with at least two, possibly more neighbors to narrow your defensive fronts…Oh yeah, that's a lot of work to do, How much time-frame have you got on this?" asked Pestilence
“Fortunately for the moment the Republic does not seem to be under immediate dire threat, but who knows how long before the Falcons and Wolves start looking this way again. The Capellans seem more interested in the Federated Suns for the moment but they’ll start coming this way again at some point too. The Combine fortunately seems to be busy with an internal matter. So I’d say we still have years before things get bad but how many, I am not sure.” Helena answered.
Pestilence was taking notes, she looked up, "then we've got time for recruiting and training, I'll start with a survey of the officers you've got and lay down a series of questionnaires for possible direct recruiting for Ground Force training and deployment. This will inform how we structure your ground forces, they can't just be a bigger collection of Commandos, though we'll need some specialties there, too. How many ground bases have you established for Army training, Director-General?"
“So far I have four sites specifically for training setup. Six bases for more general purpose troop housing. Construction is still ongoing for two more of each.”
"Stop construction, we'll use that for training the engineers you're gonna need…and are the impact areas well away from civilian…anything? Because artillery units will need live-fire courses, as will ground force troops in general, tanks and Mechwarriors will need maneuver areas as well, and force-on-force training requires quite a bit of real-estate to go with it-and it's best NOT to have it anywhere civilians can observe, never mind get hurt."
"That sounds like you intend to be using live weapons, not simulators, quiaff?" David asked.
"I expect when it's in full operation your training establishment will suffer a five percent casualty rate if it's functioning properly." Pestilence stated, "We do the best we can to limit and lower it, but yeah, live fire, live operation, real injuries and real casualties. One casualty in training, if the training is good enough, stops ten in the field."
“Yes. Fortunately that is something we do have some guidance on. SLDF regulations and manuals are not something we’re short on. It is just putting it all into practice and modifying it for the current situation because much like the Naval Manuals, the ground manuals were written for an industrial and population base that could sustain attritional warfare in a way we can never hope to match with current resources.”
"Well, that's a few books we'll have to edit hard." Pestilence stated, "The SLDF model's well known to every enemy you've got, or will ever have….but hey, I've been playing with the crazies in the sandbox long enough to maybe help you with the editing chore…as for the enormity of the task, you do know how a child eats an elephant, right?"
"Not familiar." Foster shook his head.
"One bite at a time." Helena mused aloud.
"Gotta start biting if we're going to eat that elephant."
“Agreed. One of our biggest issues is the troops we do have available just have not had much to do besides train to the old manuals or how the Sons of Plunder adapted them. So start putting them through their paces and get with Juanita. I want a strike plan on my desk where we can do some ‘on the job’ training.” Helena nodded.
"That's not an issue, it's a place to begin." Pestilence grinned ferally, "I'll have the workups ready by fourteen hundred on Friday…If I may attend to it, Ma'am?"
“Of course. This time we get to set the pace. So I want as many kinks worked out as you can find before we really start this for real.” Helena looked at the Envoy.
"Naturally…your Majesty, there's a tradition when you give an order..?" she prompted.
Helena frowned. "Tradition?"
"Dismissed." Foster said.
"That's the one." Pestilence stated, "Regular forces live and die on military ceremonial a lot more than anyone really wants to admit. Discipline is central to the kind of organization that can manage invasions and occupation operations without atrocities."
"Ah…You're…Dismissed."
Pestilence stood, and rendered a hand salute, which Helena belatedly returned, before the Envoy unit hurried out the door to get to work.
"They get stranger every year." Foster observed.
"Pardon?"
"That's a copy of Amanda Roberts who just walked in sounding like Patton, Your Highness. Remember back-even I didn't think Amanda would…become like that." commented Foster
“Well for me, it’s just another day at the office. I’ve been dealing with AIs that are actually older than I am for a very long time. A lot of them have changed in that time and quite a bit. So Amanda, or the Envoy, or whatever she wants to call herself wanting to seek individuality and evolution is nothing unusual to me. It is just a natural consequence of so many copies from the same source all trying to find their own way.”
"I wonder if there's a few others we can…recruit." Olivia noted.
"Let's table that for now, and see how Pestilence actually does at the job." Foster cautioned. He paused, "She will need to pick a new name. Nobody's going to be happy serving under 'General Pestilence'."
“True It is a rarity when we have time like this so let’s use it while we can.” Helena agreed.
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===Reorganization===
New Lazarus Surface Base
February 11th, 3142
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"WELL..it's a start… Of sorts." The Advisor was new. She appeared to be a young-faced middle aged woman in good, maybe even TOO good a shape. "These materiel reports are wrong though. This isn't a coherent organization structure, it's a listing of museum pieces."
“Ma’am?” General Harold Thurston Howel the Fifth was feeling his age.
"Thirty-six models of Battlemech scattered across four weight classes with almost no commonality of parts between them in one regiment." she enunciated, "That's not a military unit, that's a history parade."
“Ah, yes. Well that can not be helped. We shipped with what equipment we were allowed. The Clan peacekeepers were not too keen on us leaving in the first place. So we had to make do.”
"Then we fix it. Pick one design in each weight class, the rest go to recycling, we'll build new gear, to a Standard.":
“I’ll start working up the list right away but we may need the machines for training.”
"As for personnel, see that nice building over there? The one with all those big, common rooms in it?"
“Yes. I am familiar with the concepts of classes and lectures.”
"Those are now Classrooms, while we're waiting on the standard equipment, personnel will be attending those classrooms, to develop familiarity with the designs we're keeping-theory until we have practical examples, drill will focus on basic military skills and integration-I see a lot of 'officers' whose main qualification on their sheet, is that they can interface with a neurohelmet. So officer training for the rest of what an officer or NCO actually does."
“Another side effect. Most of our best were poached by the Clans or had minders on them, so could not come with.”
"Then, I'm going to be very busy. First we'll establish what skill-sets we have on hand, then we'll work on developing new ones." The Advisor explained, "You can teach someone to be intelligent. It's possible, and we're gong to do that, along with teaching discipline."
“Indeed. Elizabeth Cameron has made our orders clear and most of us are happy to be here because it is better than living under the thumb of the Clans and we’re not colonists or explorers. Helena’s people, well they’re eager and they’ve tried to put together a militia but they’re even worse off than us.”
"Funny thing about that…you might find this experience is portable."
“It is also a warning. For a lot of my people, well they will fight but this is not their home nor is this really their cause. As such I would not count on our units being particularly committed while Helena’s volunteers I’d be worried about the opposite. They will fight beyond reason and they lack any real tactical or strategic acumen.”
“I’m curious, General, on paper you seem to have all the credentials needed to be Helena’s Commanding General. Why not?”
“Because as the ancient texts say, know thyself. I know enough that most of what you’ve just done is really wasted breath but the truth is to do what Helena needs, well I could do it but the results and time required versus the foes she faces… No, you’re better suited to this than I am. And as much as I try to remind myself that what happened to my forces on Silesia was not my fault, I’m not the leader I used to be, hell maybe I never was. So the best thing I can do is ensure you can count on me to make sure the paperwork is filled out correctly.”
“So why stay on?”
“Because like I said I’m no colonialist or explorer and this is better than wasting away under the thumb of the Clans. Plus I wouldn’t mind another crack at the Clans.”
“Well, I’m probably going to have to work with worse reasons.”
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===Doctrinal Differences… ===
"Previous SLDF and SLDFIE doctrines focused on either attritional, or dispersed small unit tactics, with not a lot in between. The first relies on massive numbers and an excellent supply line, the second, on a focus toward raiding and commando-style small unit actions…which, incidentally, is also the basis of the Clan way of war. This is also why so many forces evolved over the last five hundred years toward technology items as a replacement for tactical and strategic flexibility."
"You say a…'replacement' Ma'am? HOW-"
The Advisor waved a hand across the white-board, "List off reconnaissance-capable assets in your previous organization." she said, "That is, units you ONLY dedicated to recon."
The gathered officers began listing off 'mech, vehicle, and airframe types until the white-board was full and she was opening a second screen.
She finally held up a finger. "This is over a hundred different models of gear…so why were the Sons of Plunder so often taken flat-footed? Write that question down, because that's going to be the first section of your next two thousand word minimum Essay…due at the end of the week. But keep it pinned, because the next question revolves around firepower and mobility."
She blanked the screens. Two words appeared.
'Dogma'
And 
'Doctrine'.
"One of these is often confused for the other." she told them. "Dogma is unquestioned, it remains dogma in spite of conditions changing. The Christian assertion of Resurrection is Dogma, the Islamic dietary laws? Dogma. Dogma is based on faith and belief and 'faith', is rooted in the continuance of belief without supporting evidence, or in the face of contrary evidence." she laid her pointer on the podium, "Dogma, gets people killed, and leads to defeat."
She raised it, and pointed at the second word. "Doctrine, is simply a recipe for HOW TO DO THINGS, broken down to the level that even a very poorly educated person can comprehend what to do and how to do it...and doctrines must be Flexible to allow for changes in conditions that were not imagined by the people who wrote them."
"We all know that!!"
"Yet, your reconnaissance units routinely failed in the war, while your enemies gathered intelligence and struck where you were weak, time and again…so we will begin with the obvious things you already know and find the answer to how you can do it better, and more importantly, how the men and women you train and lead, can do it better."
The screens blanked again.
Size
Activity
Location
Unit
Time
Equipment
"You should all recognize this format." she stated, "it was in the handbook going back to the Terran Alliance. In the listing you all gave of 'recon assets' I saw a collection of 'light strike units'-units primarily built not to obtain information, but to skirmish ahead of the main line. The purpose of a recon unit, is to obtain information, not start or continue fights with enemy units, but to avoid being detected while filling out this basic format....and delivering it to higher echelon."
Mobility
Stealth
Perception
"First, to be useful, a recon element must be mobile. Second, it must avoid being detected, and third, it's got to be able to see…or that's the common layout across most of the Inner Sphere. I'm going to present a thesis for you to dismantle, Ladies and Gentlmen-the thesis, is that Perception is more useful, than Stealth or mobility."
"How would such a unit communicate it back?" one of the older officers scoffed.
"AH! Someone has remembered the zeroth law!!!" The Advisor beamed. "If you can't communicate, you can't maneuver or fight, and seeing is worthless if you can't turn what you see, into an action! Very good, very good…"
Communications/Signals
She circled it.
"So, how do we solve it? Grant versus Lee in the nineteenth century demonstrated the fundamental difference between tactical focus warfare, and Strategic focus warfare…you can win battles, and in so doing, lose wars."
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===Techniques of Teaching===
Outside the classroom
"What's she doing in there?" Helena asked.
"Socratic method." David said, "She poses them questions and theses and makes them come up with their own answers. Then, she will likely make them test those answers out in scenarios, possibly against one another. It's a very basic form of evaluation training."
"SO……not good?"
"No, it's great. It worked for me when we were structuring the Privateers." he asserted. "These are at least nominally senior officers, or will be holding senior positions. People generally DO make better decisions, if they understand what they're deciding. What I find interesting, is that she really internalized the difference in philosophy between 'soldier' and 'warrior'. I get what she's after here."
"What is she after?"
"She is going to turn insufficient warriors into highly proficient Soldiers." he turned to her, "Kilo for Kilo, a force of good soldiers, even with poor equipment, will eat a host of excellent warriors, even when those warriors have better gear. It is a fact that the Clans, including my home Clan, often refuse to admit to themselves."
"Why?"
"Social, non-military roles." David explained, "Warrior led organizations where being a Warrior class person is a requirement for other forms of leadership tend to demand a different…mindset. I realized it when I was still a fledgling just out of Sibko. A Warrior often cannot do the most practical thing in a stressed environment because it undercuts his other positions, the Sons had the same problem, for much the same reason."
"Lean too heavily on a Lieutenant and they'll take your position?"
Foster nodded, "Precisely. Billie Siegel and I were lovers, and she sometimes served under me, or later, over me…but there was always a professional…gap. Things neither of us could trust the other with. I eventually stopped caring about position, which got a lot more done, but usually got credited to someone else." He smirked wryly, "Working out who should GET that credit became my 'game' in the Touman, but it also limited my possibilities for promotion."
“And the Inner Sphere has also largely become a Warrior based society, with their own ceremonies and traditions. Otherwise they would have buried the Clans in bodies long ago and made them irrelevant with the population differences.” Helena completed the thought.
“Yes. Remember when I said I fear for humanity if you should turn your mind against it. What you are building here is why. You’ve standardized your Navy to maximize your ability to support it. You’ve clearly thought about the same with the factories you’ve asked for from Murakami and Kolossus for your ground forces. With two inhabited systems, you will have a military that will be able to start tipping the scales within a few years.”
“We could still use some proper heavy hitters in my Navy.” Helena smirked.
“Your AIs can do plenty of hitting, especially with the refits you’re making them go through.”
“Zulu’s shakedown going well?”
“She’s proving…interesting to find a good fit as far as human crew. She’s not Cossack but her need to experiment, well… Like I said, it’s making it interesting to find people who can handle that.” Foster shook his head.
“I’ll see if I can get her to tone that down.” Helena smiled.
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===Honors of War===
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"They called them 'Honors of war'...
…back in the time of your great grandfathers." She strode around the classroom, "Before that, they called it the 'Ares Conventions', and before that, there were other treaties and agreements to define what was, and was not, acceptable in armed conflicts between governments."
Somehow, an AI from the Navy had been dragged in to help handle a Military History course set up for Army troops. Not so much as the instructor, as more of a 'regular lecturer'.
"Notably, few of those treaties and agreements were truly observed in the spirit in which they were written, more often, efforts were made to find ways to invalidate, circumvent, or otherwise excuse what would reasonably be termed 'gross violations of human decency'."
She stopped, "Usually by the side who lost."
"Ma'am?"
"You heard me, typically in history the most egregious violations have been by the losing side in a conflict, this doesn't include post-war violations, mind you, but during the actual conflicts, historically, the worst violators of treaties designed to limit what actions are taken by combatants have been acts of desperation, most often, by the losing side…but not always. A purge of civilians that kills thousands is not a show of strength, it is instead an advertisement of weakness. Successful armies don't need to resort to biological weapons attacks, persistent chemical weapons, or indiscriminate nuclear detonations. Only armies that have gotten themselves into a bad position, tend to see those as viable. We'll open up today's lecture with the pamphlets on your desks, gentlemen, we're going to go over the parallels between three campaigns…"
She turned, "...none of which accomplished what was intended by the sides that participated in them. This is to demonstrate two things: First, that it's unlikely things are as bad as they appear, second, that actions have consequences and third, to help you determine when those consequences are actually worth the gamble."
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Classroom 12A, halfway across the complex…
"You go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had. That's an aphorism at least as old as ancient Rome." The Envoy was leading this one. "Napoleon Bonaparte, commenting on logistics as it existed in the late eighteenth through mid nineteenth century, quipped 'An Army travels on its stomach'. North American military philosophers had a simple Mnemonic for this; 'Beans, Blankets, and Bullets', a mnemonic derived in large part by the experiences of the United States Civil War and the Crimean War immediately prior."
"In the internecine civil wars that have been ongoing in the former Free Worlds League, and the reunification of that League by Nikol Marik, more offensives failed due to lack of basic supplies, than succeeded due to competence on either side…and these were limited wars, struggles over small stakes, in lightly populated border regions, skirmishes, not what we're going into. The Navy can protect commerce and supplies to an extent, but Army units are responsible for handling it once past the atmospheric interphase."
She snapped a swagger stick in her palm, "Most often, this was done badly-thankfully, for both sides. As Logistics professionals, your job is to do it well, and let the other guy make the mistakes. Soldiers…or 'warriors' who don't have beans, blankets and bullets don't fight effectively against opposition who do. It doesn't matter how good your marksmanship is, if you can't fire because you have no ammunition, it doesn't matter how well you can pilot your 'mech, if it has broken down due to lack of maintenance and spare parts, it doesn't matter if you're the best fighter pilot who ever lived, if you don't have fuel for your airframe…and warriors tend to burn through those things rapidly, and frequently will do so when it's unnecessary if not properly held to a level of discipline…"
She wrote a three word phrase.
Return on Investment
"What is 'return on investment'? It's a simple evaluation of when to burn those beans, blankets and bullets. The idea, is that you always angle or aim to get more out of an action, than you're willing to commit…and that you know when to pull out, fall back, and regroup. Thousands of battles have been won in the last few centuries, only for the winners to discover they have exhausted their ability to move forward. This is what can be termed 'Strategic Defeat through wasteful tactical victory'. This principle is shown in conflicts ranging from the Age of War, through the Succession Wars, it featured heavily in the defeat of the Word of Blake during the Blake War, and it was a factor in the defeat of the Star League In Exile Remnant this century near the Outworlds Alliance. Units that should have been pulled back, were left with orders to 'hold at all costs', resulting in costly defeats and the destruction of assets that the Basileus Katrin Cameron could not afford to replace…coupled with wasteful offensives that netted no positive impact, because they, too, cost more than could be replaced."
Scale your Operations to your resources. 
The Advisor underlined this…twice. "The Principality of Romulus versus the Marik Commonwealth, 3086. The conflict was over a collection of unaligned worlds ranging between the two nations' borders. Each side committed both more than they could afford to lose, and less than what would be needed if they won. The result was a grinding stalemate that lasted three years and saw neither nation victorious,or even in a superior position before negotiators from the Republic arrived to broker the peace."
She held her stick in both hands, "What you may NOT know, is that there was no shortage of combat equipment or personnel on either side. This was not a stalemate due to lack of mercenary support, both sides hired as many as could be grabbed. The problem, was that neither side analyzed the strategic situation rationally, until they had already lost so many troops and so much materiel that their home defense formations were coming up short. Short enough to be vulnerable to other neighbors, such as the Marian Hegemony."
"The succession wars in microcosm?" one of the non SoP officer candidates asked.
"In a very real sense, yes." she agreed, "Except…the shortage wasn't hardware-not really. The problem was inability to move it from where it was, to where it was needed…not because of a shortage of transport, but because so much was being diverted to other places, including black market sales to enrich the officers and officials assigned to oversee those supply lines. This happened to both sides on a catastrophic level."
Former Lord Major Sylva Stillwell raised her hand, "Rampant corruption?"
The Envoy nodded, "Institutionalized corruption. Generational even-it's not unusual. In the Lyran Commonwealth, much of their military failures can be attributed not to poor soldier training or poor equipment, but to a similar state of corruption at every level-they call it 'Social General' disease, but the former League States all have their own flavor of it as well-and they think, much as your colleagues in the Sons thought, that it was their basic rights to do so……and it is encouraged by third parties. Sometimes, it is even enforced."
"How?"
"Colonel Pamela Dawson worked for Nikol Marik's faction, and one of her first major initiatives was after the brutal beating administered by the Wolf Clan in their invasion of League territory. She led a purge of the supply officers, administration personnel, and assorted rear-line assets, digging up corruption. This was successful, Nikol Marik regained much of the former Free Worlds League and gained control over more…traditional…member-states, restoring the League." The Envoy explained, "The reaction from an outside party who benefited from the previous, disorganized and enervated state of affairs, was to send assassins-not to kill Nikol Marik, but to kill Lt. Colonel Dawson. These assassins were successful."
She gave a slight smile, "Though they were not successful in undoing Nikol's military reforms, merely by killing the most obvious implementer of them. Dawson applied the concept that a military body, is an organization rather than being the product of a single strong personality-later this quarter some of you will be tapped to assist in selecting subordinates and training them. This is critically important, the culture of a military service has a significant impact on how vulnerable it is to corruption, incompetence, and structural compromise. The best armies are nearly invulnerable to this, the worst, even with the best training and equipment, are completely vulnerable to it."
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