Interlude 8 (A)
"Did you know that General Kersten is looking for you?"
"Now?" It was a change of pace. ... not that he'd exactly made a point of getting beyond exchanging pleasantries with the man. "What about the Blackwell test?"
"Oh he's invited himself along to that." Yvonne replied adjusting the horn rimmed glasses she was wearing, "Something about necessary military capacity since your unit will be fielding these models... Blackwell tells me you'll be the first outside of the Wolf Dragoons, and the first with, what did you call them?"
"Sturmjaeger." Abner declared.
"Storm Hunter." She looked between the two of them. "For the record the name is in English." Gene replied.
"It will be more popular in the commonwealth if you give it a good german name." Abner recommended nodding his head. "I think it will be popular either way," It was an assault mech after all, and Lyran reached for his coffee. "But the marketing is important." Gene nodded for the Professor's benefit.
"The Brevet General?"
"He hasn't made time before this." Yvonne remarked, reaching for her own tea cup, "What do you make of that?"
"We just showed off Gauss rifles, I would want to know what else the other unit in the Operation has admittedly."
"Do you have any objections?"
He wondered if he actually had a choice, "I don't have any objections field marshal." Besides that hadn't been what he had wanted to talk about anyway. "I didn't have time to finish the," She was looking at him, "This is related to the Marauder 2. It utilizes a certain of degree of parts compatibility , but I didn't expect or plan to have access to certain weapons, but given we are talking an assault chassis, and since Cosara and GM aren't manufacturing the King Crab any longer it should be possible to mount a pair of class twenties in the arms, two tons of ammunition in the side torsos."
She smiled, "Were you hoping originally to simply buy King Crabs on Northwind?"
"No. I understand that they're strictly in refit and repair these days." He shook his head, "The other project I have one of the techs working on based on spare parts but until we have an actual chassis to install them on it'll have to wait."
"What do you need it for?"
"I expect the Combine to try and banzai charge light mechs, I want something that if they do manage to get close .. a pair of hundred tonners for close area defense in an urban environment is what I came up with based on what I expected would be coming in inventory."
"I see." She nodded, "for the time being let us focus on the brevet general, and his involvement. It is in all likelihood that this goes beyond inter unit cooperation... and given today's demonstration it won't just be Blackwell, General Motors has decided that they do wish to be present."
That was a change, but not an especially shocking one. The whole strategy at play here seemed to have been one of making an impression on GM to carrot them into playing ball.
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The Marauder II's cockpit layout was for the most part similar to the layout he was familiar with, there were minor differences. Functionally though, for what they were doing today, there was no difference to what they had done yesterday There were some differences in the hardware in the transition to the Hi Rez II and the comms system was Blackwell's own in house system... as opposed to retaining the Dalban Star Link used in other Blackwell Industry products.
"How do you things look?"
"Solid." He replied keying the mike.
There was a pause on the other end of the connection. Then Yvonne came back on, "The Blackwell representative asks why you wanted two LRM 5 intead of a single LRM 10?"
"Am I weapon's free?" He replied, a question for a question.
The Field Marshal paused, presumably to double check with the mustachioed man who's range theyd been monopolizing the last few days. "Yes colonel."
He reached up to flip the arm switches, and painted separate targets. He had run the mental math through the targeting computer. The two stand ins for light mechs were about half a klick out, well beyond their engagement envelope. Ten missiles cycled from vertical launch in the upper torso of the Mad II and peppered the heads of both machines. Not enough to confirm kills on an enemy mech but enough to insure that whoever was getting their bell run would know that he had them dialed in.
"Well that's just you showing off." She remarked, drumming her fingers on the console in front of her, near the mike, "But it does make sense when you put it that way."
"Its a skill thing." He responded, "admittedly having two launchers makes the gyro's job easier," Having them in opposite torsos, and saving tonnage. Gene didn't presume to understand how the LRM 10 class of launcher had remained viable given how inefficient it was. Inertia he supposed, "Its not ideal for less experienced pilots, but it provides some indirect fire."
"You mentioned seeing if the Krupp could be installed on the frame."
It was funny how yesterday she had put that to the side, "Ideally we could put one in the right torso to make sure the Krupp would work." The Krupp was an 120mm but classed as a 10, instead of the GM Whirldwind's class five designation.
He got the feeling Yvonne must have been prodding GM's rep up in the control tower because she came back over the radio, "Ah well its such a pity we don't have to experiment more with the chassis as it is." It definitely seemed as if Yvonne must have been needling the General Motor People, and possibly for that matter the Blackwell corporation. He knew that GM was angling to get access to the prototype LBX class 5in his marauder before they left new Avalon, and the field marshal was probably holding that as a trump card in terms of getting them to play ball.. and of course she had also shown up to new avalon with 30 Marauder II chassis, most in standard configuration, but others loaded to specifications he had written up short hand on Robinson. All of the machines had probably been stock originally, but regardless that many machines was an implicit demonstration that Blackwell could in theory enter full scale production of the BattleMech in the near future.
More to the point it was the demonstration that Blackwell would be contributing to the now inevitable counter attack against the combine. This was all about politics, and it wasn't as if GM hadn't been all too happy show battlerom footage from Elidere of their arguably most famous mech, at least their most iconic in appearance mech excelling on the battlefield. It certainly didn't hurt that his 'White Horse' was in silhouette profile much closer to the common 3R that the inner sphere as a whole knew, than the black horse brawler with its abundance of medium lasers.
With little else to do, he painted the fake locusts and fired the arm mounted ppcs confirming the lights as destroyed, and ran through the test for the medium laser suite. Testing and evaluation for the rest of them was more or less the same. He wasn't running a course of maneuver for the machines, that would have taken all day, but the transition still took time.
Then again the reason there were this many was because Yvonne had gone to New Valencia before they had found the Brian Cache, and so had been bringing addition assault mechs to round out DMM' heavier weights.
For Yvonne Davion up in the control deck the plan had been to use that as a horse trading implement with Lord Sandoval, and that cache find while certainly useful meant she was now adjusting the plan. Not that she couldn't make it work, the intended company of assault mechs meant for the DMM could still be used. Given combine aggression, and the need to retaliate it was the perfect opportunity to publicly show off the new machines, and there would be little the head of the capellan march would be able to do.
Brevet General Kerston had been in command of the Eridani for almost two decades, and to say was an experienced officer went without saying. In many respects the Eridani had been the wolf dragoons before the wolf dragoons had appeared on seen, the difference was that unlike the dragoons the Eridani hadn't demonstrated any miraculous ability to restore their manpower, or equipment in the manner the Dragoons had. "Well General, what do you make of the new machines?" She inquired as Kerston straightened from looking over the projected holographic projections of individual armaments.
What Blackwell had done in conjunction with the wolf dragoons wasn't unheard of. Certain Chassis were known to be robust enough that one could accommodate a greater mass, and the stress of going up a weight class... "In my opinion, for Dragoons, or other similar weight units, the design makes sense. I think the loss of speed does limit its tactical application compared to the Marauder. Its true that as with an Atlas or another hundred ton design if it is in range then smaller lighter mechs would be hard pressed to stand up and fight," But left unsaid was that the Eridani Light Horse had survived as a regimental combat team for two hundred plus years while still largely conforming to SLDF doctrine.
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Note: Due to Covid there is a chance that i will be increasingly MIA. If this shit continues through next week I will probably post scraps to the other misc thread dail, but basically as things sit right now. I was prior to monday several updates ahead of schedule, but am now basically just copying and pasting the updates. I have not had time to sit down and respond to people's posts as a result of being sick.
