15 September, 3050Outside the bounds of a legal contract, but well inside the bounds of simple self-preservation, the Rangers hastily joined Grayson Carlyle's strategy session to deal with the incoming Jade Falcon forces.
The larger plan of action is for the GDL to absorb the main enemy attack. Grayson will not and won't ask the Rangers - not under contract - to take that sort of duty. His plan of action is to put his command company (GDL 1) along the highway as the Falcons cross the bridge. He will be supported by his second company (GDL 2) firing from the high ground to the east. His special forces infantry units and their carriers (GDL 3) will occupy a covered position to the west. If and when GDL 1 must fall back from the highway into the industrial farms to the south, GDL 3 will hit the Falcons in a close action from the flank, while the forces of GDL 2 will drive down from the hill to the Falcon left rear. Hopefully, being hit on all three sides will break the attackers.
However, there is a fairly major issue with this. The rivers are narrow, but deep and fast-flowing, and the only reasonable path of retreat for the Gray Death Legion is to the southeast, towards Braunfield (erroneously labeled "Bakersfield" on the map). Grayson is fully expecting a flanking action through the warren of hills and small forests to the northeast. This route is heavily shielded by terrain, and with the main Legion forces engaged, it would be very difficult to tell if a Falcon force was attempting to move south and cut the Legion off from safety by seizing the Braunfield Bridge. Therefore, a blocking force is required to hold this position and stop any Falcon advance through this area. That's where the Rangers come in.
Colonel Atadye committed Midnight, Crusher, Dancer, and Freya Lances to the action...
...and nearly lost them all.
Fully expecting a fight according to the rules of engagement shown by previously-encountered Falcon forces, the Rangers were rudely surprised by the members of the 124th Striker Cluster combining fire and overrunning their position. As posterity showed, Star Colonel Abraham Chi-Li, the 124th's CO, had lost his childhood friend Adler Malthus to the "treachery" of Kai Allard-Liao in the Great Gash Incident on Twycross, and thusly ordered his troops to disregard Clan honor and to show total ruthlessness to any Inner Sphere warriors they came across. The Rangers and Legion had the ill fortune to be the first targets of their ire. On the back foot from the get-go, Dancer and Crusher Lances took immediate casualties. Incredibly, from the Ranger air support arm, a Corsair is shot down and crashes directly into Freya Lance's
Grasshopper piloted by Sylvie Callahan, who was unable to eject herself from the conflagration. With the 124th's Trinary heading towards the bridge over which the Gray Death had to retreat across (indeed, just as their vanguard was entering the battle area from their own disastrous engagement), LT Hartmann alone countercharged the Clan spearpoint. Taking fire from 4 heavy Clan Mechs, while skylining her Mech on a ridgeline, she kicked the head off of a Star Commander's
Summoner, and broke the Clan advance. The survivors fell back, allowing her to recover, jump behind a
Hellbringer, and kick its head off as well. This action gave the Rangers the time and space required to fall back, and kept the Falcon forces from advancing all the way to the bridge and cut off the Legion's line of retreat. However, while the Rangers and Legion fell back in good order - albeit having taken roughly 30% casualties - the battle was a clear loss for the defending forces.
15-17 September, 3050Your memories of the rest of the day following the Battle of Braunfield are hazy, filled with running, shouting, explosions, and sharp short engagements as the Rangers and the surviving elements of the Gray Death Legion's 1st Battalion fell back to the regimental rally point near Holstan. Behind you, immediate contact was broken as the Falcons turned and secured the major road interchanges of Braunfield and Pattersen. As morning dawned on September 16th, it was clear that while the pursuit wasn't immediate, it would soon be forthcoming. Carlyle reacted decisively by sending out nearly all his surviving infantry as scouts to give advance warning, and hoping to find useful supplies nearby. Luckily, as the Mechs of the Legion and Rangers were frantically worked upon by their tech teams, the scouts reported back by noon that day that they had found an AgroMech repair facility. Those frames were quickly "liberated" and brought back to the Legion cantonment, rigged with booby-traps, and taken north and west between the lines to act as delays and warning signals that the pursuit was restarted.
As it happened, the Techs barely got two days to work before scouts reported explosions to the north, and the cantonment was thrown into a flurry of activity as the chase was on.
18 September, 3050Killiring Crossing, SudetenThe Legion and Rangers withdrew mere hours ahead of the 124th Striker Cluster's vanguard. For nearly 200 kilometers, Legion units would detach themselves and set up quick ambushes or traps to slow down or divert the pursuing Clanners. Units would move out with two or three Mechs, and would come back alone, or not at all. The Legion started the march with 19 operational Mechs, and by the evening of September 18th, were down to just ten. Colonel Carlyle knew that the climactic engagement was going to happen as the column crossed the Killiring River; the friendly bank of the river would be back in range of friendly artillery, which would scrape the Falcons off the Legion's back. He also knew that the Legion's 2nd Battalion was engaged elsewhere, ensuring that no widely-flanking force could endanger the FedCom supply stores the Legion would need if there was a future battle, and that the Pandora Militia was stationed securing the Ranger and Legion DropShips. That left the remainder of the Numenorean Rangers as the sole unengaged force capable of helping the survivors of the Battle of Braunfield escape to friendly lines.
Using his authority as commander of Sudeten defense forces, Carlyle ordered the commandeering of a civilian-owned Mule-class DropShip. He is requesting that two lances of fresh Ranger Forces be deployed via airdrop at the Killring River crossing to form a rearguard so that the combined Ranger and Legion forces can withdrawal across the river under the cover of FedCom artillery fire. Clan forces attacked in a large pincer movement to both flanks, while sending a spoiling force well upriver and which doubled back along the river to attack from the extreme left.
The Rangers were hugely fortunate in that Skaraborg Lance decided to airdrop in a position near the river crossing to hold that fort while everyone else fell back. What this meant is that the trio of flanking Clan Light Mechs (and their elementals) who would have *otherwise* had a clear path to hit the flatbeds and coolant trucks, instead ran into a pair of Awesomes and several retreating Mechs. If Skaraborg had been more aggressive in deployment, there would have been nothing there to stop the Clans from running rampant through the technical crews. Aside from this, the action went largely according the plan. The technical crews and conventional units were evacuated across the river successfully. The main thrust of the Falcon forces was down each flank, and both actions required a countercharge. The first was by Dunedain Lance. The second was by Grayson Carlyle himself, and it resulted in his being shot out of his
Marauder. Luckily, LT Hartmann was able to recover him, and under concentrated fire from three heavy Mechs, she and Grayson took shelter in a nearby body of water for some time, while other friendly units drove back the Clan forces from the Ranger left. There are those who speculate that a major tiff between Grayson and Lori Kalamar-Carlyle (which would not end until after Grayson's rescue of Lori on Pandora over a year later) dates from this incident.
On the right flank, the countercharge of Dunedain Lance all but annihilated that unit. The Lance began the game with a total of 4 Mechs available to it, and ended the game with roughly half of a
Crusader. However, this sacrifice kept the Clan pincer from completing, and meant that the Mechs coming in from the center-north later in the game vacillated between hitting Dunedain and moving to reinforce the partial breakthrough on the Ranger left flank, which meant that they instead supported neither side effectively before the Falcon withdrawal order was given. Basically, Dunedain died hard and allowed the Rangers to concentrate fire on one flank while tying up many Falcon guns. This means that several Clan units which were mostly untouched by the time the withdrawal was complete weren't able to make it into close contact with Allied forces. This loss of effective firepower *absolutely* would have turned this into a bloodbath, though the vehicles would have still successfully evacuated.
While the mission was accomplished, casualties were high. Half of the Gray Death Mechs were and all of thier infantry were killed. Half of Dunedain Lance's Mechs were lost, and the other half were crippled. Skaraborg Lance deployed three assault Mechs and lost one, while Dancer and Midnight Lance each lost one Mech of four. However, there were no casualties at all among the technical teams and support vehicles. The Falcon force took 70% casualties overall, and failed to accomplish their mission, so overall this was a success, albeit a costly one, for the allies. Amazingly, the Gray Death Legion recovered an entire intact point of Elemental Battle Armor during this engagement. A Legion
Griffin, under a swarm attack by the battlesuits, fell back across the river into friendly territory, and the Elementals remained so focused on crippling the Mech that they failed to notice their change in circumstances. The MechWarrior kept a level head, and by the time his Mech fell over, the Elementals looked up to find a dozen Battlemechs and several militia artillery tubes pointed directly at them, and surrendered grudgingly but without incident. The Elementals would eventually find themselves turned over to Federated Commonwealth authorities, but the intact battle suits would form the foundation of the famous Gray Death Battle Armor program in the years to come.
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Topic: Operation SUDETEN Unit Record; August 3050 - October 3050 (Read 2266 times)