r/battletech • u/ProfitOpposite • 8d ago
Question ❓ Wait, a Trinary isnt even that many mechs?!
I watched the first episode of the animated series for the first time today. Malthus infamously states how he has an entire Trinary ready to strike.
Id never thought about it hard before now, but I look up how many a Trinary is, and its... three Stars... fifteen mechs? *Thats it?!*
Id always assumed a trinary was like... orders of magnitude larger than a star, not just a multiple of three! Dont get me wrong, any lance would get splattered by a Trinary, but conquering an entire planet? Feels a bit thin.
Loreheads, is this right? Do i have the right numbers? Whats going on
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u/LadderMadeOfSticks 1st Canopian Cuirassiers 8d ago
We know that Malthus has more than three stars of Mechs because they also attack using aerospace assets.
I suppose we could conclude that he has a Naval Trinary in orbit, meaning that he has up to 18 vessels.
But remember: the whole cartoon is canonised as an Inner Sphere Kids show. Clearly the writers in Lyran space don't care about military accuracy.
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u/GreenNukE 8d ago
That's his bid for the batchall. He's expecting the defender to bid a comparable force and the winner takes what is wagered. This is a clan practice intented to conserve resources rather than commit mutiple galaxies for every trial of possession. The principle being that if my trinary can beat yours, it would not change the result if both sides raised their bids and both sides would take higher losses. This would be wasteful; weakening both sides and leaving them vulnerable to attacks by 3rd parties. If you don't like the result, you can trial again with a better bid.
The IS is not so constrained by material or man power and the Great Houses will generally commit all that can be spared that are justified by the value of an asset. The quality of their forces are generally inferior, but the disparity in quantities compared to the Clans is enormous. Clan forces can potentially cut through hordes of IS mechs, but they need to pace themselves and guard against attrition. They cannot afford to be swarmed or beaten down by minefield or artillery.
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u/Cykeisme 8d ago
Tbh both sides practiced ritual warfare, one side just less codified.
If an invasion of a border world leads to the garrison being defeated, and the spaceport plus city center left in control of an enemy force (especially if they have BattleMechs), the planet just acknowledges their new owner, and cedes economic control to them.
Unless there is oppression and atrocity that demands resistance, the populace has little reason to do so.
It's not as formal as a "Trial of Possession", but it's accepted among many contested borders in the Inner Sphere, and serves the same purpose of minimizing civilian casualties and loss of valuable infrastructure. Despite what the edgier scifi readers may think, having fewer civilians die is a good thing.
That's a large factor behind why the Wolves and Ghost Bears were so efficient during the invasion... they needed less garrison forces, and rarely needed frontline clusters returning to pacify previously conquered worlds, because they treated the populations in their Occupation Zones with respect (which is all an IS population wants).
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u/yanvail 7d ago
This needs to be the top comment.
It's important to remember that centuries of absolutely devastating warfare precedes the "current" era of Battletech. The First Succession and Second Succession wars were fought with absolute brutality and no-holds-barred, leaving to the loss of hundreds of billions as I recall, and hundreds of worlds. So when the Third Succession War rolls around, and the logistics and technology has been ground down, there's this kind of collective realization (though unspoken) that this can't go on.
By the end of the Third Succession War (where Mercs 5 starts), even in the Inner Sphere planetary conquest has become almost ritualized. As r/Cykeisme says here, while there's no formal trial and fights are definitely less clear-cut than the clan approach, most planets basically accept their fate once their military defenses have been defeated, and often in border worlds that can take the form of a single lance or company taking out another similar force.
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u/G_Morgan 7d ago
Or you can just nuke cities from orbit and then cry about Dezgra spheroids when rebellions get even fucking worse.
Like the Clans know that New Vanderberg had to be flattened to the last building during the Reunification wars. What did they expect Turtle Bay to do?
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u/iPanzershrec certified mckenna-class battleship 7d ago
Turtle Bay was less "The Clans did it" and more "Cordera Perez got unreasonably angry"
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u/ProfCupcake quimaybe? 7d ago
Someone on that bridge should've just decked the guy for giving that order.
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u/recoil_operated 6d ago
I haven't read the books, but in MW5 Sarah Weaver calls out the entire crew for not challenging him when he gave the order for an orbital strike.
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u/Cykeisme 6d ago
Tbh I like this, because it reminds us that as alien as their culture and society are, the Clanners are just as human as everyone else... along with this very, very human failing.
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u/MithrilCoyote 8d ago edited 8d ago
and to be honest, a clan cluster with elite pilots (which the 95th striker cluster was)) would have been overkill in facing the Somerset Academy Training Battalion, which was what was defending the planet in the cartoon. odds are Malthus already had some basic intel on the training battalion (we see in the Blood of Kerensky novel trilogy that the clans had very effective non-violent interrogation methods, and could obtain a lot of intel from captured IS personnel)
given the tech disparity between the battalion's succession wars mechs with the clan machines, and the major skill disparity between a bunch of trainees with a cadre of experienced instructors vs elite clan warriors, 15 mechs up against 30+ was a reasonably fair (by clan standards) offer for a trial. and the falcon commanders would have bid internally, reducing the numbers further. probably seeing only two stars or even a single star being used instead.
of course in the real version of the events, the 8th arcturan guards and 2nd New Ivaarsen Chasseurs were also present, and took the brunt of the rest of the 94th cluster.
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u/FoamerHype 8d ago
"You dare refuse my batchall?"
Besides, he had reserve mechs to terrorize ostriches when he needed to. 🐦⬛
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u/Hexis_hunter Jiyi Chistu my beloved 8d ago
A trinary is the clan equivalent of a company which is 3 lances so it's significantly more than the inner sphere equivalent
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u/ProfitOpposite 8d ago
Thats what i said. 15 mechs. Not much...
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u/StrumWealh MechWarrior 8d ago edited 7d ago
Thats what i said. 15 mechs. Not much...
Yes, it’s 15 BattleMechs… plus all of the supporting personnel, equipment, and any additional support vehicles.
For comparison, a modern US armor company consists of 14 tanks, a cargo carrier, an APC, and a couple of additional vehicles. An Inner Sphere company (3 lances/12 ‘Mechs, plus supporting personnel, equipment, and additional vehicles) and a Clan trinary (3 stars/15 ‘Mechs, plus supporting personnel and equipment, and additional vehicles) are the equivalent formations.
The numbers aren’t unrealistic.
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u/CantEvenUseThisThing 8d ago
I think OP might be more thinking about how 15 mechs isn't a lot of mechs for conquering an entire planet
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u/Big-Replacement-979 8d ago
But most planets have population in millions. Sommerset had 1 million in 3050. You think 15 mechs wouldnt be enough to take over Austin, Texas, if nothing existed outside Austin?
Besides, it was a batchall, loser of the ritualistic duel was expected to hand over the planet.
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u/linusiscracked 8d ago
Especially if Austin was spread out an entire planet
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u/MorgannaFactor Blood and Cred 8d ago
That would actually make it harder to find and subjugate everyone. Most planets in BT have one big city around their spaceport and whatever operation lead to the colonization , and then some small settlements around if it's a fully habitable world for stuff like farming. Easily conquered with a Trinary.
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u/StrumWealh MechWarrior 8d ago edited 7d ago
I think OP might be more thinking about how 15 mechs isn't a lot of mechs for conquering an entire planet
The trinary that Malthus mentions is what he has ready to go in terms of’Mechs, and is essentially just his starting bid. As a Star Colonel at the time of the invasion, Malthus commanded an entire cluster and also had at least a few DropShips, AeroSpace Fighters, and most likely a WarShip or two (which would have served as their transportation) available. And we know that Malthus did bring the ASFs into use (and likely the DropShips as well), so it wasn’t just the previously-mentioned trinary that took the planet.
Somerset, at the time, was a relatively backwater border world whose only significant military force was a training battalion and, later, two largely depleted regiments.
Against a relatively fresh battle-ready cluster, the FedCom forces on Somerset at any given point were outgunned, arguably outnumbered, and largely isolated.
If Malthus had sent the same cluster-level forces against a better fortified world (say, Hephaestus 🤔😅), it would have been a much different story.
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u/Beef__Strokinoff 8d ago
Until you remember that a lot of worlds barely have a company of mechs for their defense- and then remember that early on, Clan mechs easily traded several times above their weight class through superior technology and morale shock. A Trinary could easily rout an unprepared Inner Sphere battalion, and had done so many times before- treating a Trinary like it's small potatoes is a lethal mistake.
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u/PsyavaIG Magistracy of Canopus 8d ago
Gotta remember the scale and scope in BattleTech. A single Locust is worth nothing on Tukayyid. A single Locust against a Company of Infantry is a terror
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u/Hexis_hunter Jiyi Chistu my beloved 8d ago edited 8d ago
Yes but the clan orders go a point, a star, a binary, a trinary, a cluster and a galaxy a trinary is only two spots above a star it's just the equivalent of the inner sphere just larger due to the nature of clan structures
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u/CycleZestyclose1907 8d ago
As I understand it, Binaries - two Stars of mechs instead of three, aka 10 mechs - instead of Trinaries are not uncommon in Clan Clusters.
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u/the_cardfather 8d ago
Does it bug anyone else that everything else is in a system of fives but there is no 5 star formation? Like I get there are supernovas and I get that 25 mechs is overkill for most clan doctrine engagements but it just seems like it should exist.
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u/Hexis_hunter Jiyi Chistu my beloved 8d ago
Yeah but also that would probably be a worthless designation due to how clan bidding works so
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u/Ecnerrot1 8d ago
A binary is one spot above a star, and a trinary is one above that
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u/Hexis_hunter Jiyi Chistu my beloved 8d ago
Oh aff my bad I forgot about that my brain defaults to it just being two stars for some reason
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u/wymarc10 7d ago
No? They're different sizes, but the same level of organization. Point > Star > Binary/Trinary > Cluster > Galaxy
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u/Varulfrhamn 8d ago
Wait, so does this mean that a decent number of merc companies, besides behemoths like the Dragoons, could realistically conquer worlds if they really wanted to?
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u/Sir_Daxus Only Loyal to Great House C-Bill 8d ago edited 8d ago
Carlyle conquered a world with 7 mechs, some meat fresh for the grinder and one set of titanium balls.
Edit: okay in retrospect it was several sets of titanium balls, more like 10, but that's less funny so I'm keeping it as one.
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u/firehawk2421 8d ago
Could, and do. This is a relic of the early days of Battletech where a single lance was supposed to be a threat to a minor planet. That changed pretty quickly, these days you only get that in some of the independent periphery worlds, but it's still part of the setting that remarkably small forces are considered serious threats.
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u/Kautsu-Gamer 7d ago
That is true as warfare reverted to the Renessaince Italian era where designated battlefields decided control over area instead of requiring conquer all land.
Each planet has key military targets according Ares Conventions, and majority of the population just lives their lives regardless which Lord holds those key locations
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u/Kazen_Orilg 7d ago
Yes. Depending on the planet. Many planets have smaller populations with mostly wilderness, like a Wyoming population density. There are a small handful of relevant military targets. 1-2 Dozen mechs can easily battle the fate of a whole planet. Now.....how long you could actually hold that? Many political polity's that are stronger than a pirate federation have regional military strongholds that will send out 5-10 lances or more easily if there is trouble. So you might be able to take a planet with a dozen mechs, and take some resources, but you probably are not holding it for a long period of time.
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u/JureSimich 8d ago
Yes, at least in the earlier eras.
Problem is, games would not be as fun in that case. Conquer a planet, loot a few Wasp torsos and legs, and never get to an assault unless it's a Charger...
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u/Ancient-Lead-7258 7d ago
While I think many merc companies could conquer a planet, the ability to actually hold the planet would really depend
And with the Inner sphere houses, I’d say, definitely not, even if a house wasnt to send an entire regiment towards you
They could realistically just starve you out of actually making the planet valuable
You’d probably be better off becoming a pirate at that point
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u/iamfanboytoo 8d ago
The key to remember is this:
Most people don't care about interstellar politics.
Someone 'conquering' a planet is met with a shrug by 95% of indigs. To them, who sits in the baron's mansion and what flag waves at the capitol building is far less important than the potholes on Main Street getting fixed because not all of us have hovercars Sharon.
So conquering a planet is a matter of defeating whatever forces the current interstellar ruling body has placed on it, NOT about subjugating the entire population.
We know this because the exceptions, like Turtle Bay and Tishimongo, are so rare and noteworthy.
If you want a longer version of this, read my post about neofeudalism and why it explains everything that feels unrealistic about Battletech. u/maxwellalbritten could look over it too.
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u/wymarc10 7d ago
New boss same as the old boss. At least during the 3rd Succession War.
During the Clan Invasion attitudes changed as the Clans tried enforcing their radically different society on conquered worlds, but Somerset was early - FedCom didn't even really know they were being invaded yet.
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u/Breadloafs 8d ago
You're looking at this from the wrong perspective.
That's 15 whole first-line Jade Falcon mechs in top condition with veteran pilots. There's not a lot on Somerset in 3050 that can do much against that. People like to pretend clanners ain't shit, but a trinary is enough mechs and enough dudes in one place that the planet's defenders don't really have a chance.
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u/LeviTheOx 8d ago
Yeah, Somerset only has an academy training battalion, so a first-line Clan Trinary to defeat them and secure the spaceport, capital, and academy grounds is a comfortable but at least sporting bid.
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u/Wolvowl 8d ago
Yes the number is right. The thing is that at this point in the setting, especially on the Periphery border, you were lucky to have a lance or two of mechs guarding it. This between and between the Clan technological and skill superiority at the start of the invasion led to the fact that they would bid down to relatively small forces to take a world to prove themselves superior warriors. As they would hit hard targets or the campaigns went on they would bid larger forces but at this point in the invasion and Sommerset being relatively backwater outside of a semi noted military academy probably led to the low bid.
But in truth welcome to wargames where the numbers are made up and make no actual sense
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 8d ago
It is fun trying to figure out what the numbers SHOULD look like.
For instance I'm partial to cutting the inner sphere population done by an order of magnitude while bumping the clans up by an OOM.
10 or so billion clanners by 3050 is possible if the Clans were bumping like bunnies to expand their labor pool and you assume Zellbring meant they didn't take many casualties despite constant wars. (Hell maybe do an AU where genetic engineering and iron wombd weren't reserved for warriors. Clans trying to make smarter scientists, more dexterous technicians, hardier laborers)
600 billion in the IS also bringd the average planet down to the high tens or low hundreds of millions. Which IIRC is around what you need for a self sustaining late 20th century economy. But at that scale you'd have precious little surplus not devoted to keeping up your own planet and quality of life. Thus, much like feudal systems, most planets can't offer much surplus to their central government. The exception is important hubs with populations in the billions and planets where surviving mech works and ship yards exist.
That would still leave the clans stupendously outnumbered but maybe more like fighting someone ten times there size rather than 6000 times their size like in canon.
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u/DireWolf331 8d ago
If I remember correctly from one of the source books, the scientist castes of each Clan, in addition to overseeing the Eugenics program of the warriors, also arranged mating partners for each member of the lower castes in a sort of pseudo Eugenics program based on various factors. These factors were generally based on evaluations of an individual over the course of their adolescence to adulthood to determine that the optimal mate for Technician Caste member "Amy" age 23 is Technician Caste member "Eli" age 22 to produce a potentially superior Technician, for example.
However, even though marriage essentially doesn't have any legal status among the Clans, many lower caste members still have husbands and wives based on traditional romance and love, insofar as such things exist amongst the Clans that is. And so long as lower castes members still fulfill their requirements to their official mating partners to produce offspring, the Clan Councils generally couldn't care less what the lower castes do in their free time.
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u/Realistic_Smile2469 8d ago
A Trinary wouldn't be expected to take and hold a planet.
The thing they could do is break important objectives. City hall, space port, etc. And on small worlds (less than 1 million) that would be close to success. You'd still need to land occupation forces (mostly infantry) and keep the Trinary there so if any real resistance forms, you could go smash it with that Trinary.
This breaks down when you get past a population of a 50m to 1 billion or more. There were be just to many important location for a Trinary to cover and they be drowned by enemy infantry. They'd run out of ammo before they took anything and the moment the withdrew they'd lose any gains.
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 8d ago
Yep. On anything but an extremely sparsely settled world with a few central population centers you'd need a pretty big formation to be anything more than a roving natural disaster to be planned around even on a totally demilitarized world.
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u/Balfuset Taurian Concordat 6d ago
Dunno if anyone else has mentioned this, but one of the biggest parts of Clan doctrine is bidding for conquests and other such things. The idea being that individual leaders will 'brag' as to who can conquer X planet or whatever with the least amount of resources. So an overconfident Star Commander bidding just fifteen 'Mechs for a planetary conquest is VERY on brand for the Clans
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u/Flocculencio Róngyào guīyú Kǎpèilā Bānglián! 8d ago
It's reasonable given that the Clan way of war is to challenge, fight and the loser gives way. The concept of occupation forces wasn't really a thing they would have been putting a lot of consideration into.
Also, numbers wise, given that this is a backwater planet without major House units stationed on it a trinary is probably overkill.
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u/WillyBluntz89 FWL - no one hates Marik like another Marik 8d ago
Question, though. Would you like to go up against 15 clan mechs using IS tech at the start of the invasion?
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u/Nickthenuker 8d ago
With at least 2 companies of Assault mechs and the expectation that at least half of them won't be making it back, possibly.
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 8d ago
I'm imagining ComStar breaking out it's stockpiles being like one of those zombie or soldier movies where a guy switches on a light and you see the arsenal he has in his basement.
Foch - "let's arm up. Take whatever you need"
Someone starts duct tapping more AC20 ammo to an Atlas in the back corner.
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u/Nickthenuker 8d ago
More like Gauss ammo, that's already a less than 2:1 numerical advantage I'd like at least some LosTech to help even the odds.
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u/wymarc10 7d ago
Lol good luck. A backwater garrison like Somerset would maybe have a heavy or two, but an assault mech? Forget about it.
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u/Cykeisme 8d ago
If it's relatively open terrain, that is almost certainly not enough
IS assault 'Mechs will be particularly vulnerable to the range disadvantage, too, because the mobility disadvantage would be the most pronounced :(
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u/Attaxalotl #1 ProtoMech Fan 8d ago
Remote-Control Hetzers hidden in bushes, around corners, under piles of gravel, etc.
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u/WillyBluntz89 FWL - no one hates Marik like another Marik 8d ago
55 Hetzers
55 Savanna Masters
55 Shrek PPC Carriers
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u/serenading_ur_father 8d ago
Yeah there's a passage in one of the Blood of Kerensky books where they talk about how it was unthinkable to garrison a world with more than a company just a few years ago.
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u/ZeroWolfZX 8d ago
Chalk it up to the cartoon being Lyran/Inner Sphere propaganda entertainment.
But answering it seriously, the Clans use Batchalls and bidding specifically to determine the minimum force necessary to accomplish a particular objective. A commander might bid down from a much larger force to a Trinary, Binary, or even smaller formation if they think that's enough to beat the defenders. The objective could be a military base, a city, a defending formation, or forcing the planetary government to surrender, they don't necessarily have to physically occupy the entire planet. For a serious planetary invasion, you'd be looking at Clusters and potentially multiple Clusters or Galaxies, with ’Mechs, Elementals, aerospace assets, DropShips, etc.
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u/blizzard36 8d ago
It depends on the planet. One of the key points of the Clan honor system was that they were supposed to reasonably match forces with the opponent. So while a Trinary is crazy small to take a major planet, even accounting for the massive tech advantage in the early invasion allowing them to take on much larger forces, other planets may not have much.
Summerset for example pretty much just had the battalion of cadets and training cadre from the Academy. A Clan Trinary is very much a reasonable force against that. Dustball was a vacation area, so local security forces were all there was. Again, a Trinary was more than enough. Pretty much all the places they fight in the cartoon are all places that weren't considered major locations prior, and so probably had defenses a Trinary would be on par with.
Or to put it this way... an unexpected elite company coming from the north would be an insanely small force to try conquer the Lake Michigan area. But they may be able to handle the Lake of the Woods.
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u/rzenni 8d ago
A Trinary is indeed 15 mechs. Keep in mind, most planets in the original Battletech/Mechwarrior versions were protected by a company, which is 12 mechs. Particularly rich planets might have a regiment, which is 108 mechs.
So 15 mechs is no joke. It battletech, that's actually enough to take a planet. Also keep in mind, Malthus' trinary are elite Clan Warriors in Clan Frontline OmniMechs. In the early days of the invasion, a Trinary would very realistically be expected to take on a battalion of 36 Inner Sphere mechs... and win. Maltus's Summoner is worth around 2250 BV, Steiner's Axman is around 1450.
Realistically, you'd expect that Summoner to win that duel in maybe 6 rounds, which is about 60 seconds.
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u/wymarc10 7d ago
Not to mention the skill differences. The Frontline falcons at this stage of the invasion would be averaging 2/3, vs an IS garrison's 5/6. Add in the clan range and speed advantages and it becomes clear how they were so effective.
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u/maxwellalbritten Jade Dao Gang 8d ago edited 8d ago
You are right, and the number of units assigned to take over a planet is always one of those things you just have to kinda ignore in BT. Like, how many troops did the US send to Vietnam or Afghanistan during those wars? And those were single countries, let alone planets. Even the largest battles and campaigns* in BT don't come close to those in terms of numbers.
*except maybe the Amaris Civil War or Reunification Wars
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u/cavalier78 8d ago
There are a few in-universe justifications for that. First, most planets are fairly undeveloped, and nobody gives a crap about Space Afghanistan. You really just need to control the city with the starport.
Second, the people of the Inner Sphere have been mostly disarmed for centuries. The current governments all fear civilian revolt, so no planet has massive standing armies. Insurgencies exist, but they’re very poorly equipped.
Third, war crimes against resisting populations are a pretty common occurrence.
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u/RhynoD 8d ago
Forth, they reinforce over and over and over again that mechs are the "lords of the battlefield" and nothing else really comes close to matching them. A handful of mechs could level a city and there's not much anyone can do about it without their own mechs to stop them.
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u/laxrulz777 8d ago
This was my thought. Imagine a mech attacking Chicago and all Chicago has to defend it is 4 tanks and a helicopter. I'd favor the mech too
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u/Castrophenia Bears and Vikings, oh my! 8d ago
I mean, if the tanks have the equivilent of an AC/5 or 10, they can easily become an issue for the mech
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u/Hades-Arcadius 8d ago
Isn't that why fast movers like the Hetzer and Saladin are still interesting even with thin armor...all it takes is one good shot for most smaller mechs.
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 8d ago
Meanwhile, tanks are not so inferior to mechs that they can be disregarded entirely and canon implies that for every mech regiment there's an order of magnitude or more vehicle and infantry formations.
Suffice it to say battletech does not consistently think out it's numbers or what they should mean.
My own head canon is that most planets are barely worth a damn because of small populations and most of their surplus going to sustaining the local economy and living conditions.
But even then the double handful of big named worlds should be developed and populous enough to simply eat the entire Clan Touman and ask for seconds.
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u/RhynoD 8d ago
Yeah the lore isn't super consistent. On the one hand, every mech is a "walking arsenal" that is totally unmatched on the battlefield. And on the other, Greyson Carlisle kills a mech with a machine gun and mech pilots act terrified of infantry getting into their mechs to plant charges.
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u/Quick173 8d ago
I like to think that it is a function of lift. The jumpship and dropship resources require to move a hundred thousand troops are just not available. Therefore you have mechs which are compact, mobile and can pack huge amounts of firepower. This enables comparatively small sized forces to fight over a planet.
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 8d ago
That would work for small worlds but it would also mean any semi important planet worth it's salt should be nearly immune to conquest because their local industry would have to be sufficient for their own needs, which means their local industry should be able to crank out enough boring but reliable primitive tech to simply drown a handful of mechs in AC/5 equipped tanks and atmospheric jets to simply smother multiple mech regiments.
Of course we also know the inner sphere has tons of vehicle and infantry regiments as well. But those too have to transported.
Look, I love battletech but it definitely has numbers issues.
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u/StJe1637 8d ago
you need people to actually drive those tanks which need training. And 100 shitty ac5 armored trucks might blow up a mech but half of them are going to die and people aren't going to sign up for a suicide mission
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 8d ago edited 8d ago
That argument is gated behind several different conditions and assumptions.
First, if we're in the era of the IS where technology is so widely regressed that a planet can, at best, crank out poor man's Vedette's, then we're in an era of the inner sphere where nobody is going to be able to spare top of the line mechs in tip top repair to invade said technologically regressed world.
Which means whatever mechs do show up are going to die to a lot less than 50 angry AC/5 equipped tractors and whatever other cheap but suitably nasty equipment your PDF has stockpiled.
By the time better mechs become more common again and are worth sending to raid a world that can't do better for defense, technology is also improving generally across the IS and a planet might procure better weapons for their defenses.
As for the poor trade in manpower. That's the tagline of the series. 'Life is cheap. Mechs aren't.'
In Battletech it takes years to train up a mechwarrior. But tanks and other ground vehicles are probably trained up in about in the time that's done in the real world, less than half a year.
Likewise, in the time period this sort of hardware makes the most sense, mechs are nearly irreplaceable. So merely having a force in being that can suitably threaten a company of mechs can be enough to drive them off unless you have something they really want or need.
States are also very good at getting men to do things like jump into death traps or charge machine gun lines so long as they don't ask them to do it too often or for no discernible reason (like defending their homes).
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u/MithrilCoyote 7d ago
it is worth noting that the major worlds do tend to see heavier forces.. they're usually garrisoned by a full regiment of mechs, and invaders tended to show up with at least one regiment of mechs and a dozen plus regiments of infantry, tanks, and other non-mech support. indeed proper invasions of the less important border worlds tended to see a lot of infantry and armor support even if the mech forces involved were on the small side. when you read the early novels set in the succession wars you see this being indicated heavily. it's just generally glossed over in the sourcebooks of the same age since the game is very mech centric.
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yeah. That's true. I mean, don't me wrong, a regiment is still a hillariously small force to hold down a planet, but it's more plausible that they have the supporting staff and infantry tagging along to take and hold key facility's on the planet surface and otherwise DGAF what the locals think.
Edit - Battletech seems to have an issue where everyone forgets that it's not all about Battlemechs.
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u/Reasonable-Clerk-325 8d ago
Third point is a moot because it already happen irl, especially in Vietnam, it really should have been big power willing to supplies the rebels to keep fighting the invasion force, which rarely happen in battletech, usually when a planets got occupied all the resources goes into the counter-offense armies, not the guerrilla
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u/dieseljester MechWarrior (editable) 8d ago
Well yeah, considering that in the 3025 “classic” era you can basically take a lance to a planet, drive off the local militia, and then run your flag up.
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u/CycleZestyclose1907 8d ago
Yep. You don't even try to control every city and field directly. Many planets that have changed hands repeatedly have a "new governor? Same as old governor" attitude.
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u/dieseljester MechWarrior (editable) 8d ago
What was it that one time a world changed hands so fast between the Draconis Combine and the Federated Suns that currency was minted with both logos on the coins? 😜
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u/2words-4numbers ✷ AD SECURITAS PER UNITAS ✷ REPUBLIC OF THE SPHERE ✷ 8d ago
The people of the BattleTech universe aren't anywhere near as fanatic as the Viet Cong or Taliban. For the most part, on most border worlds, at least in the late Third Succession War era, a change in government was little more than a change in who gets your taxes.
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u/AlphSaber 8d ago
I thought I read someplace that for some planets that are frequently taken they have all the required documents already generated and they just pull out the appropriate one as needed.
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u/zekromNLR 8d ago
I am imagining just a stack of documents with blank spaces, and a drawer full of stamps for filling in the blanks as required
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u/Pro_Scrub Everybody gangsta until the Charger charges 8d ago
The guy who hoists the flags is getting tired
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u/Tribaldragon1 8d ago
Watching a DCMS Panther head cap the local Steiner spawn's Warhammer
"...hey Google, what's the income tax rate in the Draconis Combine?"
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u/maxwellalbritten Jade Dao Gang 8d ago
That's what I said, you have to just kind of handwave it away.
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u/2words-4numbers ✷ AD SECURITAS PER UNITAS ✷ REPUBLIC OF THE SPHERE ✷ 8d ago
That's not a handwave, that's a natural progression of the established state of the universe.
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u/wymarc10 7d ago
It's not a handwave, it's a realistic response to worlds that have changed hands a dozen or more times and uninvolved national leadership.
Nothing changes but the letterhead. Until the Clan Invasion at least, and later in the war civilian uprisings and gurellia resistance DID become a problem for them.
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u/BetaPositiveSCI 8d ago
For the Clans, this is just to fight a duel to decide posession.
The Inner Sphere would need to actually send thousands. Most planets are a lot less densely populated than Earth.
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u/RhynoD 8d ago
Thousands? No, not even the great houses have that much to throw around. A couple regiments maybe, if it's an important enough planet.
Mind, that's a few hundred mechs, but probably a few thousands of soldiers when you include infantry, conventional armor, and all the support staff. But the Clans have that, too. A trinary isn't just mechs, it's support staff (they just don't "count" because the Clans are dicks).
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u/BetaPositiveSCI 8d ago
I meant if they were going to take a planet with Earth's population and settlement levels, they can send a lot less for some backwater definitely. Even a planet as important as Hesperus II only has 300,000 people on it.
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u/BetaPositiveSCI 8d ago
Oh and the Lyran Guard have 75 mech regiments, working out to around 13,000 mechs. They'd never deploy anywhere near that many at once but that's what it would take if they wanted to say, go conquer Luthien
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u/Peace_of_Blake Moderator 7d ago
When? They're only 35 at the Amaris Civil War and then take heavy losses in the Succession Wars.
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u/BetaPositiveSCI 7d ago
3025, and they kept that pretty consistent despite the losses. By 3062 they still had 73
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u/135forte 8d ago
Mechs are generally the smallest portion of a force though. Like the battle of Galtor was hundreds of mechs, with even more non-mech forces. A lance of mechs taking the one major population center/space port isn't that impressive, the couple companies of tanks, fighters and supporting infantry.
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u/dmdizzy 8d ago
You might wanna check your real world- or video game-based understanding of numbers at the door. This is a setting where 15 mechs is actually a pretty fearsome force in most situations outside of open total war. Planetary populations are mostly civilian, and the three centuries of existential destruction after the fall of the Star League has reduced military assets to a fraction of their previous quantity. Furthermore, actually attacking those civilian assets is frowned upon by literally everyone who isn't a pirate.
Numbers don't start to approach the numbers you're seemingly expecting unless it's a huge plot-important battle like the Battle for Luthien or the ilClan Trial.
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u/BBFA2020 8d ago
The reason why a lance of mechs can conquer the entire planet is largely due to dropships. Most dropships can lap the entire planet multiple times and no one typically has the firepower to shoot 1 down.
The SLDF were feared was because of its navy. Thats it. And they learnt that if you are not trying to glass entire planets with orbital beam weapons, holding or subjucating it is very difficult (looking at you Reunification War). Even then the SLDF still had immense space lift capabilities.
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u/Swert0 8d ago
It also has to do with the removal of warships and nukes from regular use.
Without the warships aerospace fighters become less used and difficult to deploy off world. Without them to screen dropships have free reign.
Without nukes entire battalions worth of mechs aren't being vaporized in an instant.
And isn't if large scale fights with hundreds of mechs didn't happen - they were just exceptionally rare.
Battletech by the third succession war has lost most of its warfighting capability beyond the small scale skirmishes mechs are perfect for.
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u/BBFA2020 6d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah, the Battletech that we know and love is essentially the perfect storm to elevate the BattleMech.
Massive loss of warships and aerospace fighters mean dropships became uncontested as combat transports. Scarcity also forced everyone to stop shooting dropships as they are the only reliable vehicle that can get stuff from orbit / moons / jumpships to planet side (though the lack of wmds and heavy weapons made it hard to destroy a dropship anyway) . Jumpships were also largely spared as they were mostly unarmed.
Then the same scarcity of space transport also limit how many people you can bring with you on a space journey. A tank needs a crew of 3 to 4 to operate. A lance of tanks needs 12 to 16. A mech only needs 1 guy. That means only 4 folks. Now if you need rotation shifts, the crew load (food, water, essentials etc) increases significantly.
But carrying 6 to 8 staff per Tank vs 2 mechwarriors per Mech? The Mech win. Even if the Mech is more complicated, carrying 4 additional techs to the ship is still a lot less bothersome than the crewing needs of a tank.
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u/Spirited-Relief-9369 5d ago
For the Clans? Absolutely. Their entire society is built around the concept of Mechwarriors as humanity's raison d'être. The other Castes - Laborers, Merchants, and Scientists - are all expected to continue working all the same regardless of which Clan their efforts are supporting. If the invading forces manage to defeat the defenders, the planet - and its tax revenues, whatever form they take - belong to them.
Realistically, you could probably expect a drop in productivity, but not too big of one. Because the civvies know that, depending on the conquering Clan in question, the penalties can range from extra work hours to make up the difference, all the way up to Battlemechs taking enthusiastic walks through recalcitrant neighborhoods to literally stomp out resistance.
And while the Inner Sphere is generally, marginally, better about not letting Mechwarriors do whatever the fuck they want with the rabble, commoners also know that they are by and large expendable. So long as they don't collaborate actively with their occupiers, their former lords won't hold it against them (much) if/when they are reclaimed.
Of course, it's also worth noting that the Clans habitually fight in carefully staged and (nominally) fair duels/pitched battles. Once the Trinary has defeated or driven the defenders back, they'll expect the battle to end there and for the matter to be settled. Skilled defenders will be offered a chance to become bondsmen, and eventually joining the winning Clan as warriors, thus preserving their honour and furthering their legacy.
The Inner Sphere defenders, on the other hand, have no issue with fighting drawn out guerilla campaigns, all the better to keep the invaders to occupied with them to actually occupy the planet (pun intended). Battles can be won or lost, but the war isn't over until it's over - and they didn't hear no bell!
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u/Zealousideal_Fly8402 8d ago
but conquering an entire planet? Feels a bit thin.
Conquering a planet is not necessarily about garrisoning the entire land mass. If you read the sourcebooks for the Clan Invasion, you'll see a lot of planets that were conquered with even less force...
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u/Hellonstrikers 8d ago
It helps most planets had maybe 1 major city with maybe a lance to defend it, especially towards the periphery.
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u/DicesMuse 8d ago
Just keep in mind... Clan Tech at the time were also "Orders of Magnitude" more potent than Inner Sphere tech. A Clan Star was equivalent (relatively speaking) to two Inner Sphere Lances (10 mixed tonnage Mechs). That and Clan Mechs were designed as 5 pilots each prowling around seperately to see who could get the highest kill count (as they were typically capable of doing so individually), where as Inner Sphere pilots had to coordinate to work together to get a single pilot kill. A trinary of 15 Clan Mechs would be equivalent in force to that of an smaller Inner Sphere Battalion and is quite the flex honestly...
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 8d ago
Nitpick, but that's not even 200% superiority. Ton for ton a clan mech would have to take on 10 inner sphere equivalentd to make it an OOM. To be fair, that's probably the minimum they'd need to truly survive IS attritional warfare given the numbers gap.
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u/JuggernautBright1463 8d ago
Depends on how many Mechs your opponent has. 15 Mechs is sufficient to take a thinly Garrisoned border/Agricultural world which would typically have a Company at Most under the Local Baron with maybe some supporting armor.
That said Battletech is very inconsistent about how many Mechs you need to take over a particular point of interest (or a planet with a handful of them).
A really good Trinary of Clan Omnis though could take a Battalion of Succession War Mechs and maybe two Companies of Civil War/Star League mechs
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u/RiversFlash2020 8d ago
Sounds about right. As I recall, the Clans were just beginning to strike at the edges of the Inner Sphere after stomping some unfortunate pirates and Periphery forces. So they were probably used to winning with small forces at this point. They definitely brought more to the later battles.
Battletech tends to favor small scale battles and I think the lack of resource after centuries of war is one of the reasons. This varies per era, of course.
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u/TheseusOPL Rasalhague Dominion 8d ago
"Conquering" means taking out the garrison and government in the capital. You'd have the second line and and Solahma troops to mop up resistance and complete the conquest.
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u/Primary-Latter 8d ago
When the planet in question only has a few hundred square miles of population density worth talking about, fifteen mechs is plenty.
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u/Calm-Musician-3148 8d ago
Point
- One Mech.
Star
- Five Mechs.
Nova/Double-Star
- A Star of Mechs and a Star of Elementals.
Binary
- Two Stars.
Trinary
- Three Stars.
Supernova
- A Binary or Trinary of Novas/Double-Stars.
Cluster
- Usually around four Trinaries, but it can be as few as three Binaries or as many as five Trinaries.
Galaxy
- Many Clusters, but not specifically defined. An army group.
Touman
- The entire Clan's military assets.
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u/Vrakzi Average Medium Mech Enjoyer 8d ago
Point
- One Mech
Or 5 Battle Armoured Infantry
Or 2 Aerospace Fighters
Or 2 Conventional Vehicles
Or 25 Conventional InfantryOne of the interesting things with Clan organisation is that it's actually more combined arms friendly as a structure, despite the Clan's doctrines being quite hostile to combined arms warfare (other than Battle Armour).
A Front-Line Cluster might have an independent Command Star, three Trinaries of Omnimechs, a Supernova Binary and an Aerospace Binary, for a total of 60 Omnimechs, 50 Elementals and 20 ASFs.
Meanwhile a Garrison Cluster might have a single Trinary of regular Battlemechs (not Omnis), a Trinary of Tanks, a Trinary of other vehicles (mostly APCs and IFVs), and a couple of Trinaries of Conventional Infantry, for a total of 15 Mechs, 30 tanks, 30 other vehicles and 750 CI.
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u/bloodraven42 8d ago
I havent watched the animated show, but 15 clan mechs is a lot, especially against the inner sphere. When the clans initally formed leading up to the Exodus Civil War, the total number of mechwarriors they had was at most 800, period, and they took five planets against technologically equivalent and numerically superior opponents. And had enough left after to keep the whole show going. The inner sphere was far from equivalent.
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u/WestRider3025 Canopian Queerasser 8d ago
Not really technologically equivalent. The Pentagon worlds lost a lot in the 16 years between the Second Exodus and Operation Klondike. They were as nuke happy as the First Succession War, just in a much smaller region. Most of the really good tech went with Nicholas, got nuked, or was in the Brian Caches that were secured well enough that the Pentagon Powers didn't manage to get into them.
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 8d ago
In the Exodus civil war they were also operating with the benefit that many of the people caught in the fighting just wanted it to end and would accept who so ever could make that happen. That desperation was part of why old Saint Nicky had the latitude to reshaped an entire society to his personal likings.
And of course those who did want to fight weren't necessarily all on the same side.
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u/Calm-Musician-3148 8d ago
15 clan mechs is a lot, especially against the inner sphere
Tell that to Kai.
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u/Cat_Wizard_21 8d ago edited 8d ago
So the cartoon isn't lore-accurate first off, it's explained as being an in-universe dramatization/propaganda piece.
Somerset was invaded by the 94th Strike Cluster, which was an elite unit comprised of 15 trinaries (so 225 mechs, assuming no over/under-strength Stars), 3 dropships, and a warship. Presumably also some support units but those aren't explicitly listed. Quite a bit more substantial than Malthus' one trinary that the cartoon focuses on.
Also Clan mechs absolutely rocked the socks off IS mechs early in the invasion until ComStar opened the vaults and figured out some effective tactics leading up to Tukayyid, clan mechs with elite pilots against mostly rookie IS pilots even more so.
EDIT: 5 Trinaries and 75 mechs, not 15/225. Leaving original wording up, I will not hide my shame.
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u/bisondisk 8d ago
wait wait wait dumb question: how the FUCK did they fit 225 mechs on 3 dropships!?!?!?!?
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u/Cat_Wizard_21 8d ago
2 of the dropships were Overlords which are the bigass eggs of doom, they can carry a lot.
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u/zekromNLR 8d ago edited 8d ago
Excess mechs are presumably stored on the warship. With a Union and two Overlords, you only need to make three trips to ferry 225 mechs, and on the third trip only the Union is needed, as a Clan-spec Union carries 15 and a Clan-spec Overloard 45 mechs.
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u/WestRider3025 Canopian Queerasser 8d ago
Some kind of math error. They only actually had 75 Mechs in the Cluster. 5 Trinaries, not 15.
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u/WestRider3025 Canopian Queerasser 8d ago
Sarna says 5 Trinaries, not 15, and 5 is also the usual max for a Cluster.
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u/Cat_Wizard_21 8d ago
Oh shit yeah, I don't know how I got 15 there.
Either way, 5 trinaries with aerospace support is plenty to steamroll a lightly defended world.
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u/PhatassDragon1701 8d ago
I mean, it is a lot. A full company of mechs is 3 lances, so 12, and maybe plus a lance for command or made of odds and ends vehicles so roughly 16 combatants. So 15 clan mechs is a significant military force. That and planets usually didn't have more than a company or battalion stationed on them for protection, and usually not all together in one location. So 15 mechs could take a world. The 4th Succession War is recently in the rearview mirror at the start of the Clan Invasion and the Inner Sphere is only starting to move away from the limited field engagements of the 3rd Succession War and back to full scale conflicts thanks to Hanse Davion.
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u/iilethalkevinii ALM-XF 8d ago
Ye, a trinary is not a lot, BUT this is the clans and the first contact of the Jade Falcons, so Good Ol' Nicky was on the pretenses of Clan batchall etiquette, so only bid a relatively meager initial force for capturing the War College on Somerset. Of course, there is the rest of Malthus' Cluster on his Texas Class battleship, The Falcon's Nest, but that's for later bids. The Texas class can carry 6 dropships and he only dropped one to send the Trinary, so he has more like 90 Mechs In total, but probably less since he also has Elementals, too.
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u/AcmeCartoonVillian 8d ago
Fifteen clan mechs with expert warriors in 3049 is a force that can defeat 30 or more inner sphere mechs.
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u/Bookwyrm517 8d ago
I'd like to point out that a Inner Sphere Company is just 12 mechs, so they're not much better.
And while we shouldn't take Malthus seriously, since it is a/the cartoon, it is worth remembering that there are a lot of ways he could have more forces that he's simply not using at the moment. My guess is that Malthus would have had at least a cluster (anywhere from 3 to 5 Binaries or Trinaries) under his command, but he bid away most of them for the right to take Sommerset.
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u/FionaKerinsky 8d ago
Malthus, in traditional Jade Falcon style was also an over compitant a-hole. I won't spoil anything but let's just say walking the talk wasn't as easy as expected.
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u/SamLooksAt 8d ago
I mean it's literally got the same name as a system with three stars... 😁😁😁
Not sure what else it was likely to be.
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u/SykesDragon 7d ago
Aside from major hubs, that's far excessive of whatever minor trade planets and rural planets might have. Most forces would likely consist of vehicles and a scarce compliment of light and medium mechs in the hands of some people with influence or a leader of rapport. 15 clan mechs would likely outnumber and be significantly superior in tech to whatever a small world could muster. It's not a question of can you win, it's how long do you hold out.
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u/alexcreeds2 7d ago
Yeah i mean... a trinary of clan mech is so much power compared to the periphery/ non core world's defenses at the start of the invasion
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u/maxwelllllllllllllll 7d ago
IS Mechs are operating at about 50% of the tech potential of the clans at the start of the invasion. And that’s for front line units. Reserve units are rocking literally rusting bolt buckets. Most planets have a company garrison at best so a clan trinary would literally carve up rookies in junk piles and likely wouldn’t even take much damage.
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u/bad_syntax 6d ago
In 3025 an all elite clan trinary (most were 100% elite) could easily trash an inner sphere green, sometimes even a regular mech regiment. Heck, there were entire Comstar divisions lost at Tukayyid with less than a star of clan stuff lost.
The mechs were 2-3x the BV of IS 3025 stuff, and with elite pilots they got a LOT better. Add in the range/speed advantage, and how split up most inner sphere units would have been, and its not quite so far fetched.
Also keep in mind there are 2500+ planets around 3050, and only 500 mech regiments across the whole inner sphere. That is why stuff was so easy to conquer, most of those worlds had next to nothing on them and were almost worthless except for position and clan bragging rights.
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u/earthkiller 2d ago
A trinary has always been the clan equivalent of the old Star league company. If memory serves me right, the old Star League had 6vmechs per lance. That would make the old Star League Company 18 mechs. The clans reasoned they didn't need 6 points, and when they drew a star, it had 5 points, thus each lance has 5 points. A mech is a point, 5 elementals are. Point, and 2 aerospace fighters are a point. Units with two stars are a Binary aka 2, and a traditional Trinary (company equivalent) is 15. Typically a cluster is made up of 3 binaries or 3 trinaries or a combo of each plus a command star. Then 3 clusters plus a command trinary are combined into a galaxy. Above the Galaxy is the clan Touman
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u/hxt009 8d ago
clan unit designation arnt as ridged as sphereoids, trinary is around 3 stars, so yeah It could be 3 stars of mechs which would be 15 mechs.
or it could be 1 star of mechs and 2 other kinds of stars like a star of elementals which has 25 units, or a star of infantry which is 125 soldiers.
which given the fact that somerset in 3050 was a backwater planet on the outskirts of the inner sphere with only around a million people spread across it. seems like it would be reasonable to occupy the central govenment with a force of that size.
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u/ngshafer 8d ago
I know, right?! "A full Trinary stands ready to conquer your planet" and it's literally just a reinforced company!
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u/admiralteee 8d ago
Broadly speaking (and not specifically this example) Battletech has always had a problem with scale, specifically "X amount of military to control a planet".
"Control" is a broad term anyway. Just think, could a US Army CAB "control" a planet. An entire planet. Even one with a small amount of population centers and lowish population numbers? There simply isn't the armed presence or power projection to cover all of that. Add in any form of resistance, any scale of organized corruption etc - the problems in gaining anything of value from the planet increase by orders of magnitude.
Battletech and most authors treat "taking over, or controlling, a planet" as if it were a boardgame. Like Risk or AnA.
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u/Cassius_Rex 7d ago
A Trinary is 3 STARS.
A Star is 5 mechs (5 people) OR 5 Elemental Points (25 people) OR 5 Aerospace Fighter points ( a fighter point being 2 fighters so an Aerospace Star is 10 fighters, 10 people).
A NOVA IS 5 mechs and 5 elemental points (10 people). A Supernova is 2 to 3 Novas.
And mixed stars exist, like mechs, 2 fights and 5 elementals ( which equals 5 ' points)
The Wolves had Garrison Clusters where Trinaries were 1 mech Star, 1 elemental star and 1 fighter star. So forth and so on.
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u/RogueVector 8d ago
Yes, a Trinary is typically fifteen mechs (there are other configurations, like ten mechs and five battle armour points of five elementals) and its been long established by this point of the lore that small units can effectively 'conquer' entire worlds because most planets are centered on one or two major cities and then outlying villages that are basically helpless to battlemechs.
The very first book in Battletech (Decision At Thunder Rift) had the events revolve around a backwater world being held (and the conquered) by the forces having a lance of mechs each.