Pleiades Hussars

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Pleiades Hussars
Nickname The Challenge of Brinksmanship[1]
Affiliation Taurian Concordat
Parent Command III Corps (Taurian Concordat)

The Pleides Hussars were originally formed during the Age of War. At that time they numbered five regiments, but the Reunification War saw their numbers reduced to the point that they could only form a single regiment from the survivors. Gradually they rebuilt after the Reunification War, and in 2620 troops from the Hussars were used to form the Pleiades Lancers. In 2765 they were stationed on Woogi.[2]

History

Second Star League Era

The Pleides Hussars benefited from Grover Shraplen's assumption of the Protectorship of the Taurian Concordat, in defiance of their actual proficiency and experience; this favoritism was an extension of the efforts Shraplen had made to cultivate a good relationship with the Hussars while they were stationed on his previous holding, MacLeod's Land. Extended a great deal of responsibility and trust by the new Protector, the Pleiades Hussars received some of the first upgrade packages of advanced technology introduced to the Concordat, and had actively continued to both defend worlds in and around the Hyades Cluster while continuing to engage in active brinkmanship with the AFFS.[1]

In the late 3050s and early 3060s, this active brinkmanship saw the Hussars perform three times as many reconnaissance maneuvers along the Concordat/Suns border - and into the Federated Suns proper - as any other regiment, and resulted in the Hussars and the Federated Suns military staring at each other across numerous potential battlefields. The Hussars were involved in at least eight narrowly-avoided major incidents as a result of their activities, and in the majority of cases either the Hussars had backed down to avoid giving the FedSuns forces an excuse to launch an invasion, or the FedSuns forces had backed down to avoid appearing as the aggressors to the other members of the Second Star League. In 3062 or 3063 the brinkmanship went a step to far, and the First and Third Battalions of the Pleiades Hussars found themselves engaged in an actual battle with the 11th Avalon Hussars RCT on Midale. Both battalions took heavy damage, with the Third Battalion effectively destroyed; as the Hussars regrouped, Colonel Maxwell Albritten decided to fold the survivors and equipment from the Third into the First Battalion, bringing the First back up to strength but leaving the Hussars short a battalion.[1]

The Pleiades Crusade

In August 3066, the second regiment of the Fighting Urukhai, DeMaestri's Sluggers, made their way through Flannagan's Nebulea and the Hyades Cluster and launched a savage attack the military production facilities on Taurus. The Taurian Guards destroyed the Sluggers, with the survivors interrogated, tried and imprisoned. The Concordat learned that the units of the Capellan March of the Federated Suns had gained knowledge of a route through the Nebula and the Hyades Cluster from a Taurian rogue turned pilot, and that knowledge of the route was becoming commonplace among the AFFS. The Concordat's response was to strike back at the Federated Suns.[3]

The TDF quickly captured Hyalite and Lothair, followed by Midale and Brockway, with the Pleiades Hussars in the forefront of the attacks. The ease with which the worlds were taken transformed punitive raids into campaigns of conquest; Bromhead and Lindsay were targeted next, with the Hussars defeating the defenders on Lindsay completely in less than two weeks.[3] Joined in the closing stages of the battle for Lindsay by the Pleiades Lancers, the Hussars swept up Lancers[4] then went beyond their orders and decided to strike out at their ancient homeworlds within the Pleiades Cluster.[3]

Duke George Hasek redirected some of the forces he had been moving in response to the initial Taurian attacks, and used a number of mercenaries to strike back on the Pleiades worlds; the Hussars and the Lancers refused to be driven back, hanging on desperately to the various worlds. Even as the Federated Suns recaptured all six worlds taken prior to the Pleiades, the Hussars and the Lancers remained determined to continue fighting, and public opinion within the Concordat began to shift, moving firmly behind the Pleiades assault. As public opinion shifted, so did the TDF; military production from four different industrial worlds went into resupplying the Pleiades units, despite the strain this placed on the TDF. Protector Shraplen remained determined to hang on to the Cluster until the next conference of the Second Star League, intending to argue for the return of the Cluster to the Concordat, counting on the support of the Capellan Confederation for his cause.[3]

The Hussars were managing to operate at roughly half strength thanks to the determined support of the rest of the TDF, having already pulled in the remains of the Pleiades Lancers.[5][4]

The Jihad

Following the invasion of the Federated Suns in 3074, the III Corps had lost more than a quarter of its operational strength by 3079. Based out of the world of Merope within the Pleiades Cluster, the Hussars were holding firm but at only 70% of full strength.[6]

Post-Jihad Era

It was reported that as a result of the combat seen during the extended war with the Federated Suns and then in Operation MATADOR the Pleiades Hussars had been reduced to roughly half of their established strength by mid-3081. Despite the level of losses taken, the Hussars were actually one of the highest-strength units in the Taurian Defense Force at this point.[7]

When Operation MATADOR struck, the AFFS targeted worlds outside the Pleiades as their major targets, leaving the Hussars to fend off some probing raids but nothing more significant. Able to rebuild up to two full battalions in strength, the Hussars continued to launch retaliatory raids of their own while entrenching themselves in well-concealed, hardened bases scattered throughout the cluster.[8]

Despite their successes against the AFFS, the Hussars were unpopular with the majority of the population of the Cluster; the fervor felt by the Hussars to reclaim their homelands wasn't felt by those living there after several centuries of living within the borders and government of the Federated Suns, and by 3085 Colonel Albritten of the Hussars had resorted to deporting thousands of Davion loyalists in an attempt to try and gain the acceptance of the remaining population.[3]

Dark Age

The Pleiades Cluster was subject to a number of purges in the 3090s and the early thirty-second century, but even after the purges and fifty years of Taurian occupation the Hussars were still seen as a hostile foreign force. The result was an ongoing insurgency across the worlds of the Cluster.[9]

In 3119 the border world of Brockway was raided by pirates. The pirates' first target was the Monterey-Lapland viaduct, the twenty-kilometer infrastructure link between the Lapland Archipelago and the rest of the continent; destroying a section of the viaduct left those elements of the Pleiades Hussars who had been engaged in wargames on the Archipelago cut off from the mainland so far as the pirates knew. Believing they now had freedom of movement, the pirates then began looting the Monterey spaceport in a relaxed fashion, failing to establish a viable security perimeter as they did so.[10]

What the pirates didn't know was that the Pleiades Hussars had access to two lances of Lamprey Transport Helicopters; the first notice the pirates had of the presence of the Lampreys was when the eight VTOLs flew over the spaceport, deploying squads of battle armor via combat drops and attacking every pirate BattleMech they could see with SRM volleys. It took the Hussars' infantry ten minutes to capture the pirate DropShip and begin turning its guns on the pirate forces as well.[10]

The pirates retreated into the hills around Monterey, attempting to use the thick forests for cover; the two lances of Lampreys worked in tandem, one lance deploying conventional infantry while the other harassed the pirate forces; the airmobile infantry herded the pirates towards a box canyon, where they were comprehensively destroyed. One lance of pirate 'Mechs was destroyed, while another was salvaged by the Hussars - who lost no Lampreys in the action.[10]

By the mid-thirty-second century the Hussars had become adept at navigating the hundred different systems of the Cluster; operating out of their main garrison on Maia, the Hussars made extensive use of their knowledge of pirate points throughout the Cluster to ambush insurgent groups that had launched terrorist attacks before the insurgents could vanish back into the local population; however, even as late as 3145 the Hussars were still having to deal with an active insurgency throughout the Cluster.[9]

Officers

Rank Name Command
Commanding Officers of the Pleiades Hussars
Colonel Jamison Firth 3025[11]
Colonel Boris Tharn 3050 - 3054[12][13]
Colonel Maxwell Albritten 3064 - 3067[14][15]
Comptroller Maxwell Albritten 3085[16]
Colonel Heather Gullarson 3145[17]

Tactics

The Hussars like open field warfare.[14]

Composition History

2765

Pleiades Hussars (Regiment/Veteran/Fanatical)[18]

At this point in time the Hussars was deployed to Woogi system. [18]

2786 - 2821

Pleiades Hussars (Regiment/Veteran/Fanatical) [19]

Note: At this point in time the medium-weight unit was stationed on Illiushin. In 2821 the command was reduced to 29 percent of its strength and was deployed on Sterope. [19]

2830

Pleiades Hussars (Regiment/Elite/Fanatical) [20]

Note: At this point in time the medium-weight unit was stationed on Sterope with an operational readiness of 84 percent. [20]

2864

Pleiades Hussars (Regiment/Elite/Fanatical) [20]

Note: At this point in time the medium-weight unit was stationed on Sterope with an operational readiness of 18 percent. [20]

3025

The Pleiades Hussars (3 Battalions)[11]

  • CO: Colonel Jamison Firth
  • 1st Battalion (Regular/Reliable) - CO: Subaltern Boris Tharn
  • 2nd Battalion (Regular/Reliable) - CO: Subaltern Robert Taylor
  • 3rd Battalion (Green/Reliable) - CO: Subaltern Elena Barkley

3050

The Pleiades Hussars (3 Battalions)[12]

  • C0: Colonel Boris Tharn
  • 1st Battalion (Regular/Questionable) - CO: Subaltern Walter Oehlers
  • 2nd Battalion (Green/Questionable) - CO: Subaltern Arthur Lehman
  • 3rd Battalion (Green/Reliable) - CO: Subaltern Gene Lind

3054

The Pleiades Hussars (3 Battalions)[13]

  • C0: Colonel Boris Tharn
  • 1st Battalion (Regular/Questionable) - CO: Subaltern Thomas Tepper
  • 2nd Battalion (Green/Questionable) - CO: Subaltern Francis Whitten
  • 3rd Battalion (Green/Questionable) - CO: Subaltern Gene Lind

3064

Pleiades Hussars (1 Regiment/Regular/Fanatical)[1]

  • CO: Colonel Maxwell Albritten
- The 3rd Battalion was totally destroyed on Midale, and the 2nd Battalion is currently related as Green.

Pleiades Seventh Air Division (1 Wing/Regular/Fanatical)[1]

  • Wing Commander: Cornet Dianne Gaul
- The Wing is mainly used for escort duties and is one of the few Taurian AeroSpace units to be permanently attached to a 'Mech regiment.

Four-Seventeen, Jansen's Armored Brigade (1 Battalion/Green/Questionable)[1]

  • Armor Commander: Subaltern Rom Lann
- The 417th was only on temporary assignment to the Hussars, and there were rumors of bad blood between the armored forces and the 'Mech battalions following the action on Midale, although the exact reasons for this rumored bad blood are unclear.

12th Pleiades Infantry (2 Battalions/Regular/Fanatical)[14]

  • Infantry Commander: Brigadier Leo McCoy
- Founded in the Pleiades, just like the Hussars themselves, the 12th has a long history of serving alongside the Hussars and the bond between units is strong. In addition to providing field combat support, the large medical staff within the 12th includes jump-qualified personnel and was responsible for extracting injured MechWarriors from downed 'Mechs in the field.

3067

Pleiades Hussars (1 Regiment/Veteran/Fanatical)[15]

  • CO: Colonel Maxwell Albritten
- The Hussars were at 77% of full strength at this point, and had some of the newest technology available to the TDF within their ranks. Not only was 21% of the Hussars equipment upgraded to Star League tech levels, 2% of the equipment in use used Clantech, and 18% of the 'Mechs in use were OmniMechs.

Pleiades Seventh Air Division (1 Wing/Veteran/Fanatical)[15]

- Operating at 72% of full strength, a third of the equipment in use by the Seventh used upgraded or advanced technology.

Four-Seventeen (1 Battalion/Regular/Questionable)[15]

  • Armor Commander: Subaltern Rom Lann
- Hovering at two-thirds of full capability, a quarter of the 417ths equipment used upgraded or advanced technology.

12th Pleiades Infantry (2 Battalions/Regular/Fanatical)[15]

  • Infantry Commander: Colonel Steve Milner
- At this point the 12th were operating at 55% of full strength, the lowest rating of the various sub-units that made up the Hussars.

3079

Pleiades hussars (Regiment/Veteran/Fanatical)[6]

  • Although the Hussars had been reduced to 70% of operational strength, 30% of the equipment in use by the regiment featured advanced technology at this point.

3085

Pleiades Hussars (Elite/Fanatical)[16]

  • CO: Comptroller Maxwell Albritten
- Based across Maia and Electra, the Hussars had rebuilt to 65% of full strength at this point, with 34% of their equipment utilizing advanced technology.

Pleiades Seventh Air Division (Wing/Elite/Fanatical)[16]

- Despite the constant raiding, the 7th were still operating at 70% of full strength, and 46% of their equipment had been upgraded.

Four-Seventeen (1 Battalion/Veteran/Questionable)[16]

  • CO: Subaltern Rina Koizumi
- Down to almost half strength, the 417th were operating at 55% of full capability, although 52% of their equipment had been upgraded.

17th Pleiades Infantry (Regular/Fanatical)[16]

  • CO: Colonel Brant Jadyn
- The 17th had managed to rebuild more substantially than their counterparts, and in 3085 were up to 85% of full strength.

3145

Pleiades Hussars (Veteran Reliable)[17]

  • CO: Colonel Heather Gullarson

Ninth Pleiades Air Division (Elite/Reliable)[17]

  • CO: Senior Air Master Aaron Martins

Twelfth Pleiades Assault Armor (Veteran/Reliable)[17]

  • CO: Colonel Lawrence Flores

Twenty-second Pleiades Infantry (Veteran/Fanatical)[17]

  • CO: Colonel Marilyn Hernandez
- At this point in time the various units of the Hussars were operating at between seventy-five percent of full strength and five percent above full strength.

Rules

3064

  • When using BV to determine the composition of forces, 10% of the BV allocated to the Pleiades Hussars must either be spent on infantry or lost.[21]
  • If at any time the Pleiades Hussars find themselves outnumbered by odds of two-to-one or greater, the Hussars gain the Overrun Combat special ability.[21]
  • If at any time the Pleiades Hussars find themselves outnumbered by odds of two-to-one or greater, the Hussars gain a +2 Initiative Bonus.[21]
  • Any characters assigned to the Pleiades Hussars gain the Disadvantage Quick/Hatred of House Davion.[21]

3085

  • When fighting against AFFS forces or allies of the Federated Suns, the Hussars can choose to place 25% of their forces in reserve. Those forces will be unavailable for the scenario, but the remainder of the Hussars gain a +3 Initiative Bonus for the entire battle.[22]
  • When fighting in the Pleiades Cluster the Hussars will not retreat; the Hussars ignore all Forced Withdrawal rules in such battles.[22]
  • If the Hussars are fighting in the Pleiades Cluster and are outnumbered, the Hussars receive a -1 To-Hit modifier for all physical attacks and weapon attacks.[22]

3145

  • The Hussars receive a +2 Initiative bonus when operating inside the Pleiades Cluster.[23]
  • The Hussars receive a -1 Initiative penalty when operating outside the Pleiades Cluster.[23]
  • The Hussars halves the time taken to transit from a jump point to a planet within the Pleiades Cluster, rounding down to the nearest hour.[23]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Field Manual: Periphery, p. 62, "Pleiades Hussars: The Challenge of Brinkmanship"
  2. ↑ Field Report 2765: Periphery, p. 25
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Field Manual: Updates, p. 192-193, "Pleiades Crusade"
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Field Manual: Updates, p. 193, "IV Corps"
  5. ↑ Field Manual: Updates, p. 193, "III Corps"
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Field Report: Periphery, p. 12, "Taurian Concordat"
  7. ↑ Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 115, "Taurian Concordat"
  8. ↑ Field Manual: 3085, p. 142, "III Corps"
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Field Manual: 3145, p. 195, "III Corps"
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Technical Readout: 3145 Mercenaries, p. 14, "Lamprey Transport Helicopter"
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 The Periphery (1988), p. 81, "TDF Deployment Table - 3025"
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 20 Year Update, p. 77, TDF Deployment Table - 3050
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Objective Raids, p. 49, "TDF Deployment Table - 3054"
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Field Manual: Periphery, p. 62, "Pleiades Hussars Unit Profile"
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 Field Manual: Updates, p. 202, "TDF Deployment Table - 3067"
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 Field Manual: 3085, p. 150, "TDF Deployment Table - 3085"
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 Field Manual: 3145, p. 201, "III Corps"
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Field Report 2765: Periphery, p. 25, "III Corps - Regimental Status"
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 First Succession War, p. 140
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 Second Succession War, p. 100
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 Field Manual: Periphery, p. 152, "III Corps"
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 Field Manual: 3085, p. 192, "Pleiades Hussars (Taurian Concordat)"
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 Field Manual: 3145, p. 210, "Taurian Concordat"

Bibliography

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