Up until now, the Larkinson Clan's approach to glows was just to make use of them whenever convenient. There was hardly any greater thought behind their use because they were just there already.
The Avatars of Myth, which was arguably the greatest user of glows in the Larkinson Clan, just took whatever ch that Ves shoved at them. It was up to them to figure out how to make effective use of the new glows.
This was a rather faulty approach. What actually needed to happen was for Commander lkor to approach Ves and request the addition of a ch that fulfilled a certain role or requirents. The needs of the Avatars had to fit its chosen doctrines and approaches.
"This is sothing that we can work out in the future." Major Verle remarked. "Right now, it's more important to formulate and verify each ch force's respective developnt trajectories. Once we exit the Nyxian Gap, we can review all of the battles we have waged and use the conclusions to confirm our plans."
"You're the expert in this matter. I will defer to your judgent." Ves waved his hand.
He needed to remind himself that he was primarily a ch designer, not a military strategist. There was no need for him to provide his input on every single issue.
That said, his work as a ch designer was influenced heavily by what kind of chs the Larkinson Clan needed to win its battles.
Verle brought up the next leg that propped up his unified doctrine.
"Let's move on to elite developnt. As you can probably surmise, elite developnt is all about training and developing our various elite ch troops. In our case, that is every ch pilot aside from the ones belonging to the Living Sentinels. Our clan is quite unusual compared to other nomadic, spacefaring powers. Usually, a nomadic clan of our scale only employs a single ch force that is exclusively used to defend its fleet. Nothing more, mostly because there is no need."
Originally, Ves only started off with the Avatars of Myth. He later decided to narrow their scope as elites and founded the Living Sentinels to fill up the void. After that, various other forces such as the Battle Criers, Swordmaidens and Flagrant Vandals rged with the Larkinson Clan while still retaining their unique identities.
A ch force with a strong, decades-long martial tradition was more than the sum of their chs, ch pilots and other assets. They ford a cohesive, synergistic whole that employed ti-tested strategies, distinctive training and strong specialization to achieve far greater results than a band of random chs and ch pilots could ever accomplish!
Ves disliked waste and did not wish to throw all of those advantages away. While that had led to the fracturing of the Larkinson Clan's fighting forces, the growing diversity was not universally bad.
"As long as the Larkinson Clan can manage and combine the specialized ch troops effectively, then the disadvantages of fracturing our fighting forces and splitting up our attention are tolerable. We just need to invest sufficiently in not only their individual developnt, but also how to combine them together. That is the third leg of our doctrine which we will discuss later."
"Hmm." Ves tapped his fingers against his desk. "So you are saying that our clan should decisively focus on quality rather than quantity."
"Correct, sir. This fits best with our circumstances. Compared to other organizations, our Larkinson Clan has an abundance of capital. This affords us the luxury to spend enormous sums of money on better chs and ch pilots."
"We could spend that money on expanding the Living Sentinels as well. Right now, the LMC is doing fantastic in terms of selling chs and collecting a lot of licensing fees. There is no reason why we can't invest all of that money into acquiring more chs, ships and manpower."
Major Verle grinned and crossed his arms. "We have already undergone a major expansion. One of the reasons why we are picking fights with Nyxian pirates is to rge the old and new clansn together. I doubt you want to repeat this cycle too much. Also, a large fleet protected by average-quality chs and ch pilots is much harder to manage and defend than a smaller fleet which is protected by a smaller core of elites."
That was true.
"Are you happy with our current lineup of ch troops?"
"Not entirely, sir. If we want to invest fully in elite developnt, then we need to expand our roster with at least two other units. One needs to specialize in long-ranged artillery and wide-area bombardnt. The other one should focus on special operations and stealth operations."
"Neither of the two sounds easy to set up." Ves looked a little pained.
"It's possible but very difficult to set them up from scratch." Verle admitted. "The best option is to acquire existing ch troops that already specialize in these areas."
"Is that difficult?"
"Perhaps. I'm not sure. Usually, artillery ch troops are mainly in the hands of states and ruling powers. Stealth ch troops are largely exclusive to state intelligence agencies. Do you think you can just knock on the doors of a state and offer to buyout either of them? I think not. Our best bet is to travel to a collapsing state and be on the lookout for rats that are trying to flee a sinking ship."
The Flagrant Vandals used to be one of those fleeing rats. Unlike their fellow critters, the Vandals just happened to flee in a specific direction.
"If I had known that, then I would have directed my clan to consider the option of poaching other Brighter units." Ves grimaced.
In hindsight, that was a missed opportunity!
"You don't need to fret over these matters. Wars always take place in the galaxy. While certain conflicts such as the Komodo War are too dangerous for us to approach, there are always smaller conflicts where our clan can safely swoop in and recruit so of the elites nurtured by the losing side of a war. Otherwise, we need to nurture these elite ch units from scratch, and that is a long process as it takes decades to formulate and mature their martial traditions."
"I'll keep that in mind once we cross into other star sectors. It would be best to acquire these new additions before we enter the Red Ocean. What about the Living Sentinels, by the way?"
"As our only non-elite ch force, the Sentinels serve as a counterweight of our elites. We can't defend the Larkinson Clan by relying entirely on the latter, after all. They Sentinels will primarily orient their developnt towards static or defensive warfare. This poses significantly less requirents in terms of capital and manpower, but the Sentinels will have to rely more on quantity to compensate."
"That is acceptable." Ves mused. "Our clan isn't backed by a state. Our clan's population will never surpass that of a settled planet. Limited manpower will always be one of our biggest bottlenecks. That said, with a successful ch designer like in the clan, money won't be a major issue. Even if the ch pilots of the Sentinels are of a lower standard, we can still make up for that by issuing higher-quality chs to them. Of course, our elite ch forces will also enjoy this benefit."
"That's also the largest vulnerability of developing our elites. They never co cheap, sir. Much of what our clan is trying to do rests on the premise that there is an abundant supply of money. From my understanding, business is booming at the LMC. How long will that last? What if our ch company enters into a slump again? The upkeep of elite ch troop is multiple tis higher than a regular ch troop, and that is assuming that waste and embezzlent is minimal."
"While you have raised a good point, I think we can manage the risks. If our clan's inco ever dries up, we don't imdiately have to sell off our most valuable chs and ships. Running them is expensive, but as long as we accumulate enough savings, we can still hang on for a couple of years while we attempt to restore our inco. If that doesn't work, we'll just downsize."
Even though Ves spoke lightly about this problem, he still understood that this might beco a very real threat so day, especially when the scale of the Larkinson Clan had ballooned.
Major Verle moved on to his last point. "The two strategies I've ntioned previously complent our third strategy. Maneuver warfare fits well with our strengths and weaknesses. Take for example the opposite, which is attrition warfare."
He stretched out his palms and pressed them together.
"The most basic ch battles is quite simply a brawl that directly pits one group of chs against another group of chs."
The major began to rub his palms back and forward. The resulting friction generated so rubbing noises.
"Such a battle is waged by grinding each other chs against each other until one side gets tired, loses confidence or runs out of chs."
Ves looked at Verle rubbing his palms as if his fingers were cold and needed to warm up. "The way you put it sounds as if anyone who fights their battles in this manner is stupid."
"It's not stupid. It's just not suitable to everyone, especially smaller powers such as our clan. Our pool of ch pilots is only in the thousands. How can we compare against the likes of states that can call up millions of ch pilots? Much of the Komodo War has descended into attrition warfare because both sides are simply too strong, nurous and prepared. Neither the Friday Coalition or Hexadric Hegemony exhibit any holes in their defenses which can easily be exploited. The only way for either state to win the war is by pitting their strengths against the other state's own respective strengths."
"This is sothing that we should avoid as much as possible." Ves remarked. "The modest losses we have sustained so far has hurt our clan quite badly. We'll be set back a lot if we lose just a thousand ch pilots."
"I agree, sir. This is why our Larkinson Clan should try its best by leveraging our high-quality chs, our ability to generate disparities in morale and our investnt in elite ch forces. There is no better way to do that by specializing in maneuver warfare."
"What does that actually an?"
"Well, that's a bit of a lengthy story, sir. You should have already seen it in action plenty of tis in our previous battles against the Nyxian pirates. In short, it's attempting to win a battle by employing our strengths against the enemy's weaknesses."
The senior ch officer stopped rubbing his hands. Instead, he kept one palm stretched while extending just a single finger with his other hand.
Instead of pressing the finger into the palm, Verle exagerattingly circled the finger around until it poked sharply into the back of his stationary palm!
"We aren't caven anymore, Ves. We humans have developed many more refined tactics and strategies. A battle doesn't have to be won simply by destroying more chs than the enemy. We can instead make clever use of our strong elite chs to attack critical enemy assets. Think of targeting their officers, commanders, carriers, ranged chs and so on. If nothing else, we can always employ our elites as cavalry and attack the flanks of an enemy formation. The Swordmaidens happen to excel in this tactic."
Ves nodded. He could still rember how the Swordmaidens easily caused the strong and troubleso Allidus Archons to collapse by nipping at their flanks.
The Avatars of Myths on the other hand were locked in a frontal engagent against the pirate elites, which was the more stupid way to fight.
Even so, the Swordmaidens could have never pulled off their brilliant feat without the Avatars pinning the enemy chs down.
"We still need at least so of our chs to fight the enemy head-on, right?"
"That is so. The typical hamr and anvil tactic can't work without them. This is why combining different chs and different ch troops is so important. We cannot neglect the role of slower and defense-oriented chs even as we rely mainly on maneuverable chs to achieve our victories."
User Comments
0 comments from readers