9th Army (ComStar)

9th Army.jpg
Ninth Army V-kappa
Nickname The Rag Tags
Affiliation ComStar
Parent Command Com Guards

Assigned to the New Earth Theater, from 9 to 10 on the Inner Sphere Clock, the Com Guard Ninth Army faced multiple Clans during the Battle of Tukayyid before being disbanded to reinforce other armies during the Word of Blake Jihad.


History[edit]

Prior to the Clan Invasion, the Ninth Army's deployments in the New Earth Theater covered worlds within the Lyran half of the Federated Commonwealth, Sarna March and Free Worlds League. [1] With the bulk of the Ninth assigned to face Clan Wolf alongside the Tenth Army during the Battle of Tukayyid, [2] the army took extremely heavy losses, with divisions from other armies transferred into it to rebuild to the new post-Tukayyid four division level.

On Tukayyid, elements of the Ninth faced the Thirteenth Wolf Guard Cluster. They also reinforced the Tenth Army's 138th Division. This fighting took place near Brzo and Skupo. The Ninth and Tenth Army linked up outside Brzo, but the Wolves were able to wedge into a gap in the lines of the two ComStar units and separated them. The two forces were separated when the Ninth launched an early attack that pulled them out of position.[3]

After the Free Worlds League Military recaptured the worlds lost in the Fourth Succession War as part of Operation Guerrero in 3057, the Ninth's divisions were moved almost entirely into the Spinward sections of the newly formed Lyran Alliance, dovetailed between the operational areas of Eighth Army on the League border and the Tenth Army's position along the Clan Jade Falcon Occupation Zone. As it faced the smallest military threat, the divisions of the Ninth Army were widely deployed in the pre-Invasion manner, but lack of troops meant most of the postings consisted of infantry and armor Level Is with 'Mech forces concentrated at key trouble spots. [4]

Like all the ComStar armies posted in the Lyran Alliance, the Ninth suffered negatively from the retirement and replacement of Anastasius Focht by Victor Steiner-Davion as Precentor Martial in 3061, facing increasing distrust from the local populace and LAAF High Command in response to ComStar's rejection of Katherine Steiner-Davion as First Lord of the reborn Star League, bureaucratic interference in the Ninth's troop and supply movements caused problems in both its troops combat readiness and morale. The acceptance of Victor as new Precentor Martial also prompted a number of troops with Blakist sympathies, including the 207th Division's CO, to defect to the Word of Blake, stretching the Ninth's remaining troop deployments even further. [4]

Despite the tensions with the Lyran Alliance, the Ninth Army escaped the FedCom Civil War with only minor casualties. While one of its divisions skirmished with Loyalist troops and elements of Free Skye unsuccessfully courted the support of two divisions in Skye Province, the rest of the Ninth managed to avoid all but the most cursory contact with the warring factions.[5]

With the Com Guards having suffered extremely heavy losses during the early stages of the Jihad that left its 12 armies stretched too thin, Precentor Martial Victor Steiner-Davion responded by disbanding the Seventh-Twelfth Armies, transferring the surviving divisions of the Ninth Army to reinforce the First-Sixth Armies and returning them to the full six divisions of old.[6]

Officers[edit]

Rank Name Command
Commanding Officers of the Ninth Army (ComStar)
Precentor V Joyce Mulvenna 3050[1]
Precentor V Margo Koivu 3052[7]
Precentor VIII Sonic Owens 3067[4] [5]

Other Officers[edit]

Tactics[edit]

Unknown.

Composition History[edit]

3050[edit]

3052 to 3057[edit]

3058 to 3067[edit]

Gallery[edit]

Notes[edit]

  • The insignia of the Ninth Army was a scarecrow. [4]

References[edit]

  1. a b c d e f g h i 20 Year Update, p. 70: "5th V-xi"
  2. Tukayyid, p. 90 "Campaign: Clan Wolf"
  3. Wolf Clan Sourcebook, p. 51
  4. a b c d e f g h Field Manual: ComStar, p. 36-37, "9th Army V-lambda: The Rag Tags"
  5. a b c d e f Field Manual: Updates,
  6. Masters and Minions: The StarCorps Dossiers, p. 210
  7. Battle of Tukayyid, p. 132: "Execution"
  8. a b c d ComStar, p. 85, "9th Army V-lambda"

Bibliography[edit]