TO: General Arturus Steiner, Margrave, Isle of Skye
FROM: Warrant Officer First Class Jacob Skipper, Skye Rangers Transport Division
DATE: 08.11.01
RE: Skye Rangers Aerospace Assets
Sir,
In the past two months, I have traveled the Isle of Skye at your behest, evaluating the Aerospace Assets available to the Skye Rangers. I have ignored all civilian Dropships and Jumpships, as past experience has shown that they are worse than useless to a military force. Below are my main observations.
1)- Fighters. The loss of several of our Dropships to OpFor fighters during the Tharkad Exercises both crippled our ground forces and illuminated a major
deficiency in our forces. Currently, Colonel Winters and his Fighter Command must support the equivalent of five Regimental Combat Teams, provide cover for our 65 Dropships and 14 Jumpships, and patrol our systems with less than a brigade's worth of fighters (92, to be exact). Even if they were all captured Clan Omnifighters, this would be an impossible task with so few resources. Our recommendation is that all possible haste be given to the procurement of planes and training of pilots to bring our Fighter Command to a strength of at least two, and preferably three brigades.
2)- Stations. The fighter pilot term for space stations of any sort is "Billion credit Bull's-Eye". Agreed, these craft are often under-defended and cannot project power well, if at all; but the development of permanent space infrastructure is an issue of growing import in the Inner Sphere. The Isle of Skye currently has five space platforms deployed--the Shipil Yards above Skye, and Olympus-class recharge stations at the nadir jump points in Skye, Summer, Ryde, and Hesperus. Also, Defiance Industries of Hesperus II has been rumored to be exploring expansion into space, but company executives were not willing to confirm or deny these rumors. It is recommended that we begin the construction of enough Capitol-class System-Defense Stations to cover our four main systems, and look at expansion to all of our systems in the years following that. Any assistance we can give to Shipil and Defiance Industries will likely to prove of benefit, in the form of discounts on merchandise.
3)- Jumpships. Our current fleet of 14 Jumpships is adequate for our needs at this point. The crews aboard each vessel are among the most professional I have seen in my 24 years of service, and Captain Hatti Morel of the Texas Star should be reviewed for the Order of Katherine Steiner. All of our ships are equipped with the new lithium-fusion battery system, allowing almost unlimited "hot-loading" of the K-F drives, decreasing the time needed for recharge by a full order of magnitude. As we increase our fighter and Dropship fleets, however, we will want to look at expanding our Jumpship fleet as well.
4)- Dropships. Next to fighters, this our area where the most improvement is needed. We simply do not have enough ships and crews to carry all of our forces into battle, even with 65 Dropships. The total capacity for our BattleMechs and fighters is more than adequate, but even with a full deployment of our Dropships, we can only land approximately one-half of our Infantry regiments and less than a quarter of our Armor regiments at any one time. As the recent Tharkad exercises pointed out, this is unacceptable, and will get our troops killed more quickly than a PPC shot at point-blank range. Priority should be given to rectifying this problem, with the purchase of more of the upgraded Gazelle-class armor transports that won
renown here in Skye back in 3056, and negotiations to buy Nagumo-class troop transports from Hinsdale Electric, in the Draconis Combine. Also, as the Fighter Command is upgraded, we must look at the purchase of carrier craft, preferably either Vengeance-class or captured Clan Titan-class vessels.
5)- Warships. At some point between now and the ending of the Truce in 3067, the Isle of Skye must acquire at least two Warships, or risk being swept under by the Jade Falcon touman. Because it is unlikely that either Defiance Industries or the Shipil Yards can spool up Warship production in only four years, the best bets for obtaining these men'o'war are to either ally with the Arc Royal Defense Cordon and Clan Wolf, and ask for Warships in return for services and materials; or we lean on Katherine Steiner to assign some Fox-class corvettes or even a Mjollnir to the Skye Theater. Don't laugh, sir--it could happen. Also, we cannot discount the possibility that Precentor Martial Steiner-Davion will order SLDF forces in to bolster our defenses.
6)-STRATFOR. Your wisdom in allowing the creation of a Strategic Force is unparalleled and already bearing fruit, General. Both of our Claymore and six of our Avenger-class Dropships are currently at Readiness Level 3, and can be under way on a mission within an hour of recieving the "Go" command. Our seventh Avenger is in orbit above Skye, as our test-bed. We are currently experimenting with hull-mounted laser emplacements and refitting of cargo bays to be used as ammunition lockers (for resupply of other craft, as well as increased weapons loads for on-board systems) and bomb bays. We will keep you posted as to the results of these experiments. As you will recall, our STRATFOR did exceedingly well during the Tharkad War Games, fulfilling all three missions of fleet defense, ground bombardment and support, and fleet attack. The damn referees refused to credit our ground support missions, unfortunately, claiming that they violated the Ares Conventions. Maybe they forgot that the Clans never signed the Ares Conventions?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please find attached the full TO&E for our Aerospace assets, and our preliminary budget request for the 3064 fiscal year.
Respectfully,
Warrant Officer Jacob Skipper
Skye Rangers MFB Command - Transport Division
- Authored by: Jacob "Jinx" Skipper
