3rd New Earth Protectorate Militia Division

3rd New Earth Protectorate Militia Division
Disbanded	3079
Affiliation	Word of Blake
Parent Command	Protectorate Militia

The First New Earth Protectorate Militia Division is one of the many militias raised by Word of Blake to defend the Word of Blake Protectorate and was assigned to defend New Earth. As of 3075 it was the one of the three unit raised from this planet along its sister units the 1st New Earth Protectorate Militia Division and the 2nd New Earth Protectorate Militia Division.

History

New Earth was incorporated into the Word of Blake Protectorate by conquest on the 7th of October 3068. The Word of Blake forces responsible for conquering New Earth allegedly used tactical nuclear weapons to secure their hold on the planet. Subsequently, one of the garrison units on New Earth, the Pinky's Irregulars, attempted to break contract with the Word of Blake in 3073 and the Blakists responded by destroying the Irregulars. The remains of the Irregulars would remain trapped under the north polar ice cap of New Earth until Skibinski's Salvage recovered ten of the eleven 'Mechs belonging to Pinky's Irregulars in the mid 3080s, along with the bodies of eight of the Irregulars.

Dissidents within the Grumman-New Earth branch began to harbor doubts about the actions being taken by the Word of Blake outside of the Word of Blake Protectorate, and in 3071 those dissidents began smuggling Zephyrs to enemies of the Protectorate, with figures as high up as Vice President Rudolph Brice assisting in the smuggling efforts. More than two hundred Zephyrs were smuggled out from the New Earth facility before the dissidents departed on a long "retreat" at Grumman's headquarters on Terra, and when the smuggling operations were uncovered the entire New Earth facility was placed under lockdown pending detailed investigations. Rudolph Brice was targeted by a Word of Blake detainment team that raided Grumman's offices in the early 3070s; having been identified as being responsible for diverting Zephyrs to both black marketeers within the Word of Blake Protectorate and agents within the Skye region of the Lyran Alliance. Brice narrowly escaped the detainment team and went on the run, with the Word of Blake placing a bounty of 75 million C-bills on his head.

Later in the Jihad as resistance to the Blakists became more organized under the auspices of Devlin Stone's allied coalition New Earth was subject to a heavy raid, intended to test the interior defenses of the Protectorate. The raiding party was spearheaded by Com Guard troops and hit New Earth in late July 3076 and engaged the Tenth Division and the Twelfth Division but failed in destroying the NETC plant. December same year saw the Devil's Brigade failing to destroy the targeted NETC headquarters.

It would be almost two years before New Earth was targeted for liberation by the allied coalition as a part of Operation SCOUR; a contingent of roughly four Galaxies of mixed Clan forces drawn from the Lyran front of the Operation struck at New Earth on the 8th of February 3078, meeting heavy resistance.

The initial attack was rebuffed, with the Clan forces having retreated by mid February; while the media reported that the SDS in the New Earth system had been destroyed or at least heavily damaged, it also reported that up to four Clan WarShips had been destroyed, and that the Clan forces had been forced to retreat due to the presence of not just the anticipated Protectorate Militia Divisions and Militia Division, but also at least one Shadow Division. There were also unsubstantiated rumors that the forces from Clan Ghost Bear, Clan Jade Falcon and Clan Wolf had arrived at different times, with the Ghost Bears arriving early, and then failed to work together. One of the destroyed WarShips was subsequently identified as the Aegis-class heavy cruiser CJF Frost Falcon; another was the Volga-class transport CGB Ursine Boatman, and the third the Vincent-class corvette CSR Huninn, a vessel from the Clan Snow Raven Ice Storm Naval Star assigned to support the Ghost Bear Dominion during the Jihad. During the campaign for New Earth the allied forces destroyed a WarShip the Blakists had suborned in the opening stages of the Jihad, the Eagle-class FWLS Percival.

The Ghost Bear ground forces, drawn from Omicron and Xi Galaxies, were lucky to escape from the trap, and the damage taken made New Earth the last campaign of the Jihad for both galaxies. and Clan Jade Falcon Alpha Galaxy and Clan Wolf Delta Galaxy were also mauled by the WoB forces composed of the Tenth Division, the Twelfth Division, the 1st and 3rd New Earth Protectorate Militia Division and the recently assigned Fiftieth Shadow Division, which forced the Clan forces to retreat.

The Coalition bypassed New Earth but returned in April 3079 after the fall of Terra. At that time only the two remaining New Earth Protectorate Militia (the first and the third) remained to defend the world, and surrendered after a brief encounter with what was left of the Ghost Bear Dominion's Xi and Omicron Galaxies.

Officers

Rank	Name	Command
Commanding Officers of the 3rd New Earth Protectorate Militia Division

Tactics

Unknown.

Composition History

Protectorate Militia Divisions were equipped with enough DropShip capacity for transportation, but not JumpShips.

Rules

As long as a Protectorate Militia force is fighting on its homeworld and is acting as the scenario's Defender, the Protectorate Militia force receives the Force the Initiative and Off-Map Movement special abilities. If deployed as the Attacker in a scenario, the Protectorate Militia force loses its Force the Initiative ability, but retains its Off-Map Movement capability.

If deployed on a world other than its homeworld (such as an Epsilon Eridani force being deployed on Genoa), the Protectorate Militia force not only loses all of its special abilities, but also suffers a –2 Initiative modifier.

Although Blakist-based, Protectorate Militia forces may use standard Inner Sphere force arrangements (Lances, Companies, and Battalions) rather than Word of Blake force arrangements.

Bibliography

• Field Report: Clans
• Jihad: Final Reckoning
• Jihad Hot Spots: Terra
• Jihad Secrets: The Blake Documents
• Technical Readout: 3050 Upgrade
• Technical Readout: 3085 Supplemental
• Total Chaos