TCS Update:
The first year of my TCS game is over, and relevant data (except
Jane's, which I am way behind on, so don't bug me yet) has been
diseminated to all the players.
There were ten space battles, and two groundside campaigns of
varying lengths during the first year. Taking these in chronological
order, we have:
1) The opening battle of the Old Islands War, which has no
official designation since it is supposedly still secret. Since
everyone has heard about it anyway, I can now confirm that on or about
turn 8, two squadrons of Sansterran fighters attached to St Genevieve
System Command attacked, without warning or provocation, a flight of New
Home couriers. Three of these couriers were destroyed, or disabled and
captured. The fourth escaped. This incident was repeated less than a
day later when a second flight of New Home couriers arrived in St
Genevieve. The results were the same. In both cases, the fighter
pilots attempted to disable the New Home couriers with conventional
weapons, but when they found that they could not, they resorted to
attack with nuclear missiles.
2) The First Battle of St Genevieve. This battle was the first
openly acknowledged battle in the Old Islands War. New Home sent a
quick retaliatory strike against the St Genevieve System Command. The
strike consisted of 10 fighter carriers, plus their 300 Wasps and ten
Petras. The fighters were deployed at the 100 diameter limit, and then
proceeded to attack the Sansterran fleet near St G. Meanwhile, the
Petras provided cover for the carriers, which moved away from the FEBA.
The wasps proceeded to disable six Sansterran battleships and several
hundred Barracuda fighters before withdrawing. Casualties taken by the
Wasps approached 50% from all causes. Not one wasp was destroyed by a
Sansterran fighter. The New Home attack force withdrew from the system.
At this point, Sansterre began preparations to invade New Home.
3) The Second Battle of St Genevieve: Neubayern and New Home
each sent a force into St Genevieve system to expel Sansterre. This
force, consisting of Neubayern's Second Strike Fleet, Third Fleet,
Fourth Fleet, and Second Assault Fleet, plus 18 New Home Reapers and 900
Wasps, plus their carriers, proceeded to stomp the Sansterran forces
into the ground. The only bright spot in this battle for Sansterre was
the degree to which his Barracudas completely dominated a force of
Neubayern fighters ten times as large as it was. Sansterre was
expelled, most of his jump-capable ships fleeing back to Sansterre,
while his riders were captured by the attacking forces.
At this time, both Neubayern and New Home were trying to convince
Sansterre's ally Amondiage that this war was none of his business. It
has now become clear that Amondiage's reaction to the war was a response
to Neubayern's entry into the war, rather than a response to New Home's
offensive operations (described as "probably going to _really_ surprise
Sansterre and everyone else!" by Sir James Bathory, Director of
Amondiage).
At any rate, at about the same time as the above attack on St Genevieve:
4) The Battle of Neubayern: 200-odd Amondiage Swords jumped to
the 100-diameter limit of Neubayern. They accelerated toward Neubayern,
fought his System Squadron in passing, and executed a nuclear
bombardment of Neubayern's starport and ship-building industries. The
survivors then fled the system. Most of the attacking Swords were
damaged severely, but only a relative handful were actually destroyed.
Neubayern captured 23 that were too severely damaged to jump away. The
remainder spent several to many weeks working their way back to
Amondiage for repairs.
5) The Battle of New Home: 150 Amondiage swords appeared near
the 100-diameter limit of New Home, and attacked New Home's System
Squadron. The New Home fighters available (mostly obsolete Mosquitos)
were destroyed, while the remaining New Home Reapers jumped away from
the battle after doing as much damage as possible. After the defeat of
the New Home System Squadron, part of the remaining Amondiage Swords
were detailed to executing a bombardment of New Home similar to that
done to Neubayern. They succeeded, but nearly all the Swords that so
attacked were destroyed by New Home's impressive planetary defense
batteries. The survivors returned to Amondiage by diverse routes.
a) Beginning about now, Neubayern Marines and Army units began
to remove the Sansterran Marines garrisoning St G. This campaign
continued for three weeks before the situation changed.
6) The Battle of Sansterre: The New Home Fleet in St G,
together with a rider squadron lent them by Neubayern, proceeded to jump
to Sansterre immediately after Second St G. They found the Sansterran
Fleet in disarray, with the strongest elements damaged or destroyed the
week before. They knocked out the entire Sansterran System Squadron,
except those that fled into the dubious protection of Sansterre's
planetary defense batteries. One of Sansterre's "Guppies", a 900,000T
transport, was destroyed by New Home Reapers, in spite of the protection
afforded by the planetary defense batteries. After the response to that
attack by Sansterran planetary defenses, the New Home admiral placed
nuclear demolitions on all captured Sansterran ships, and left the
system.
At this point, Sansterre changed his mind about invading New Home.
Sansterre immediately surrendered. As was later obvious, this
surrender was premature. Most of Sansterre's jump-capable ships were
relatively intact, and Sansterre's planetary defenses were sufficient to
make invasion impossible.
In any case, quiet ensued for two more weeks. During this period,
Amondiage and New Home began to discuss the possibility of peace. Both
New Home and Neubayern had been hurt badly by the war to date, while
Amondiage was now all alone, with a significant part of his fleet either
damaged or destroyed. Before anything solid came of this...
7) The Third Battle of St Genevieve: Neubayern, worried about
the possibility of another raid by Amondiage, ordered his forces in St
Genevieve to guard all four gas giants to prevent Amondiage from
refueling there for an attack on Neubayern. Amondiage took advantage of
this by attacking St Genevieve with 1000-odd Swords. This force was
rather more than Amondiage had been known to possess BEFORE the fighting
had begun, much less after the depletion of the attacks on Neubayern and
New Home. (No resolution to this apparent discrepancy was ever
discovered). The Amondiage Fleet attacked the Neubayern Fleet guarding
St Genevieve, capturing or destroying the entire force. Then it
proceeded to intercept the fleet coming in from the outer gas giant and
defeated it. Then it turned (this was a VERY small system - the outer
gas giant was in orbit 4) to intercept the remaining two fleets, which
had joined together and were proceeding toward the 100-diameter limit
from the sun at 1G. They were caught near the jump-limit, and the
riders provided cover for the tenders and other jump-capable stuff until
they had escaped. The riders were all captured. This was, BTW, the
only time in the Old Islands War that Amondiage allowed the "line of
battle" to interfere with what he was doing. It has since been learned
that his fleets were under orders to capture as many of Neubayern's
riders as possible, in order to provide a suitable defense of St G while
the Amondiage Fleet was elsewhere. The next day, Neubayern's BatRon1
jumped into St G on a routine rotation. It was attacked, and forced to
flee.
The Neubayern Army on St G had, by now, nearly rooted out the last
of the Sansterran defenders. The removal of their ortillery by
Amondiage forced them to back off for a short time. During that three
day period, Amondiage secured the remainder of the system, and returned
to St G. The Amondiage admiral ordered the Neubayern Army to surrender
on pain of nuclear bombardment. The Neubayern Army did so, and were
interned there building new domes for Sansterran colonists until they
were repatriated to Neubayern six months later.
At this point, Neubayern began planning an attack on Amondiage.
Colchis attempted such an attack. And New Home and Amondiage continued
to discuss peace, this time with Amondiage clearly in the stronger
position.
Then, the situation changed, when Serendip Belt brought its main
Fleet units into Topas to expel the Neubayern garrison that had been
there since early in the year. Amondiage found itself with insufficient
resources to prevent an attack such as he executed against Neubayern.
Neubayern was being forced into a corner by attacks from both sides, and
so was more likely to actually attack Amondiage with the intent of
destroying them completely, thus removing one enemy from the equation.
Net result: both Neubayern and Amondiage backed off a little, and peace
descended on the Islands for a few months.
Well, almost. Serendip Belt moved an Army onto Topas in opposition
to Neubayern's Army on Topas. Serendip Belt's Fleet controlled local
space pretty thoroughly. Neubayern kept two squadrons at the edge of
the system.
A military coup occurred on New Colchis. They threw out one
dictator, and replaced him with another ("Meet the new boss, same as the
old boss.")
After several months of wrangling over details of cease-fires and
conferences, and shapes of tables, and such, the Old Islands powers
(Amondiage, Colchis, Neubayern, New Home, Sansterre) and St
Hilaire/Esperanza met on New Home to discuss a permanent peace, and the
formation of the Old Islands Alliance.
Meanwhile, alarmed at the New Home/Neubayern alliance, New Colchis
new government and Serendip Belt met on Elysee to discuss their own
alliance.
ASIDE: By this time, all the worlds in the Islands have fallen into
one camp or another except Zuflucht. New Colchis had scarfed up Elysee
and Besancon during the Old Islands War. St Hilaire had extended a
rather meaningless dominion over Nebelwelt and Wellington. New Home
found itself in control of Sturgeon's Law. Amondiage and Sansterre took
control of St Genevieve and Achille, which control Amondiage now
maintained by itself in the wake of Sansterre's surrender. Neubayern
had taken control of Berlichingen (more or less). Serendip Belt found
itself more or less in control of Topas, though the legitimate
government plus their Fleet continued to exist on Amondiage.
Net result of several weeks of discussions: The Old Islands
Alliance, consisting of Colchis, Neubayern, New Home, Sansterre, and St
Hilaire/Esperanza. And the Elysee Concord, consisting of New Colchis
and Serendip belt. But during those few weeks...
b) Serendip Belt ordered its Army on Topas to disarm and intern
the Neubayern Army there. The Neubayern Army fought back. So now we
have the beginning of a ground campaign which will continue for three
months or so.
And...
8) The First Battle of Topas: The Neubayern Squadron in Topas
jumped out within a day of the attack on the Neubayern Army. A week
later, the Neubayern squadrons appeared right by Topas, and attacked the
Belter fleet there. At this point, the Belters discovered that their
fleet had indeed fallen on hard times, as a force of light cruisers and
even lighter riders proceeded to decimate their main fleet. The Belters
won the battle, or at least held the field after the Neubayern survivors
jumped out. But they lost the majority of their heavy fleet units, and
discovered that their light units could not compete with modern TL12
warships. The Neubayern commander used the attack as a diversion to
deploy several hundred of Neubayern's fighters down to the Neubayern
troop concentrations on Topas.
Since the Belter fighters were distinctly inferior to even
Neubayern's poor fighters, the Neubayern Army enjoyed a reasonable
facsimile of air-superiority for over a month. During that time, the
Serendip Belt Army ceased offensive operations while they prepared
defensive positions to be used in case of space attack, and reinforced
to the tune of another 200,000 men.
At the same time, the Belt recovered the damaged Neubayern ships,
which could be repaired and returned to service much faster than the
Belt ships could be refitted to modern standards. So the mainstay of
the Belt fleet was a handful of Neubayern light riders for a while. The
Belt also accelerated its renovation program, refitting every ship
possible to TL12 standards.
And Neubayern ordered the arrest and trial of the admiral who had
fought the Belter fleet. Before she could be brought to trial, she
disppeared from her holding cell, and has not yet reappeared.
New Colchis moved a force of several hundred ships into Topas to
show solidarity with Serendip Belt, and to discourage Neubayern.
So now we have the Alliance and the Concord arguing over who should
get to keep Topas. Neither really wants to fight over it, neither
really wants to give it up.
When Serendip Belt shifted back to the offensive, the Alliance
finally decided to rescue the Neubayern troopers on Topas. The newly
formed Alliance Fleet, operating under the command of the New Home
admiral who led the attack on Sansterre, moved into the Topas system.
The Alliance Fleet refueled in one of Topas gas giants, then jumped to
the positions that the Belter Fleet occupied. Unfortunately, the Belter
admiral, fearing an attack on Serendip Belt with most of the fleet away,
jumped home to the Belt. The Alliance Fleet appeared next to the New
Colchis Squadron, and attacked, driving them to jump away with heavy
damage after less than two hours of combat.
Meanwhile...
10) The Battle of Elysee: Neubayern's Fifth Strike Fleet,
operating under Alliance Fleet Command orders, attacked the New Colchis
Squadron at Elysee. Since they outnumbered and outgunned the New
Colchis squadron by a factor of 15 or so, the battle was very short, and
very one-sided. Of course, the fact that most of New Colchis large
units present were only 1G ships didn't hurt, since that meant they
couldn't escape. A week later, New Colchis ships fleeing the Second
Battle of Topas arrived in Elysee to find a Neuybayern Fleet awaiting
them. They were out of fuel, and mostly non-functional, and mostly
surrendered immediately.
Meanwhile...
The Serendip Belt Fleet arrived back in the Belt. No Alliance
forces in sight. The Chairman of Serendip Belt immediately ordered the
Fleet commander's arrest. The Fleet, under new command, returned to
Topas to find the Alliance firmly in control. They worked out a local
cease-fire, then returned to the Belt. The Alliance Fleet brought in
Sansterran troop transports and withdrew the Neubayern Army from Topas.
Then the Alliance Fleet withdrew back to Neubayern.
The Serendip Belt, upon hearing that the Alliance had withdrawn from
Topas, ordered the removal of his own troops from that system.
Meanwhile...
New Colchis, perturbed by the capture of several hundred of his
ships, declared war on Neubayern. This war continues, though there has
been no fighting to date. New Colchis has imposed severe restrictions
on all merchant traffic into New Colchis system. Various Alliance
members (Sansterre and St Hilaire) responded with similar measures.
Upon protest by New Home and veiled threat by Amondiage, Sansterre
revoked its commercial restrictions. St Hilaire, being far enough away
not to annoy anyone, maintains theirs.
Serendip Belt continues to rearm. Neubayern continues to wonder
when Amondiage is going to repatriate all those captured NFN warships.
Sansterre continues to redesign his fleet.
And through all this, Joyeuse sat quietly on the sidelines and
smiled. At the end of the year, Joyeuse offered his Wyvern light riders
for sale. The positive response from almost every quarter gave an
indication of how much damage had been done to the fleets of the Islands
this past year.
Score card: Population losses: Neubayern 210,000,000 dead.
New Home 63,000,000 dead.
Final disposition of territories:
Amondiage : Amondiage, Acadie, Achille, St
Genevieve (the latter two shared with the Alliance).
Colchis : Colchis.
Joyeuse : Joyeuse, Quichotte.
Neubayern : Neubayern, Schliesen Belt,
Berlichingen(more or less).
New Colchis : New Colchis, Herzenslust, Elsysee,
Besancon.
New Home : New Home, Sturgeon's Law.
Sansterre : Sansterre, St Denis, St
Genevieve(colony on main world).
Serendip Belt : Serendip Belt, Gloire, partial
control of Topas.
St Hilaire/Esperanza : St Hilaire, Esperanza,
Nebelwelt, Wellington.
Topas : government in exile on Amondiage,
possibly able to return home now.
Zuflucht : independent, has acquired a large
number of obsolete warships from Serendip Belt in an attempt to fight
off a takeover by St Hilaire that never came.
There have been several interesting ideas for getting more out of
their resources from diverse people. Serendip Belt and New Colchis have
a trade pact. New Home and St Hilaire have one. The Alliance members
are considering an Alliance wide trade pact. Other, less obvious things
are happening behind the scenes.
And Serendip Belt and Neubayern are still arguing about Topas :-)
---Steve
^Z