Fire Fang (Individual Whirlwind-class WarShip)

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Fire Fang
Vessel Profile
TypeWarShip
ClassWhirlwind
Previous classesDavion

History[edit]

The Fire Fang was a Whirlwind-class destroyer that survived the Amaris Civil War and the Pentagon Civil War. The Fire Fang was serving in the Clan Ghost Bear touman as the CGB Fire Fang during the era of the Clan Invasion.[1]

Task Force SERPENT[edit]

Trafalgar[edit]

On the 15th of December 3059[1] the Second Star League task force known as Task Force SERPENT was following a covert route to the Clan Homeworlds when it encountered the Fire Fang in the Deep Periphery.[1][2] Task Force SERPENT was in a system some four jumps - 120 light years - past the system the Explorer Corps had named Meribah when the Fire Fang and the other ships accompanying her arrived in the same system.[1]

First detected by the Lola III-class destroyer ISS Ranger,[3] the Fire Fang was under the command of Star Captain Manfred Snuka[4] and was accompanied by a sister ship, the CGB Ursus, as well as the Congress-class frigate CGB Shining Claw and the Invader-class JumpShip CGB Winter Wind. While the other three ships were all transporting assorted DropShips, the Fire Fang was transporting a full complement of aerospace fighters.[5]

The Inner Sphere forces led by the Com Guard Cameron-class battlecruiser ISS Invisible Truth were the victors in the engagement, subsequently dubbed Trafalgar, and the Shining Claw was destroyed; the Ursus was also lost, and the Task Force claimed the intact Fire Fang as isorla, along with some three hundred warriors and more than a thousand civilian caste members. The Winter Wind was unable to jump out before being boarded and captured, leaving the Clans unaware of the existence of Task Force SERPENT.[6]

The Fire Fang had attempted to protect the Winter Wind during the battle; the Winter Wind was transporting scores of civilians that the Ghost Bears were relocating to the Inner Sphere, and was disabled early in the battle by the ISS Ranger.[7] The Kyushu-class frigate DCS Haruna had been tasked with delivering several DEST boarding parties aboard the Winter Wind,[8] and ended up taking damage from repeated volleys from the Fire Fang; the Fire Fang was damaged in turn by the Haruna, the Fox-class corvette FCS Antrim and a pair of Achilles-class DropShips, the DCS Dojo and DCS Hainan.[9] Despite the damage taken, the Fire Fang was actually the least damaged of the three Ghost Bear WarShips by the time she surrendered, but had lost two weapon bays as well as both of her autocannon batteries.[10]

Task Force SERPENT performed repairs to the Fire Fang as best they could using volunteers and Clan personnel considered trustworthy;[11] she then served as an active part of Task Force SERPENT, crewed by a prize crew leavened with trusted bondsmen.[12] The computer core aboard the Fire Fang was captured intact, and the records contained within it allowed Task Force SERPENT to develop tactics and procedures for using WarShips to provide tactical support to ground combat, something no-one in the Inner Sphere had been able to practice in centuries; those new doctrines were tested with practice fire against one of the uninhabited planets in the system.[13]

Huntress[edit]

The original plan for the Task Force SERPENT attack on the Clan Smoke Jaguar homeworld of Huntress in February 3060 used intelligence suggesting that the system had a defense force consisting of a pair of corvettes and a cruiser or other larger WarShip, and called for the Fire Fang and the Invisible Truth to engage the cruiser, provisionally tagged as a Liberator-class WarShip, while all of the SERPENT lighter WarShips engaged the corvettes, with the exception of the Essex-class destroyer CSV Starlight, which had taken heavy damage at Trafalgar. Assuming that the Smoke Jaguar WarShips were successfully destroyed, the Fire Fang was to join the Ranger in escorting the Task Force DropShips down to the surface of Huntress and provide fire support if needed.[14]

The WarShips in the Huntress system were actually discovered to be a pair of Vincent Mk. 42-class corvettes and a Sovetskii Soyuz-class heavy cruiser; although other ships were lost, the Fire Fang survived the battle and worked with the Ranger to escort the transports as originally planned.[15] She then went on to provide tactical support from orbit at least once, savaging the Smoke Jaguar forces located near Bagera.[16]

When elements of the Smoke Jaguar Clan Smoke Jaguar touman retreating from their Occupation Zone arrived in the Huntress system in March 3060 the Fire Fang was called into action again, along with the other Task Force SERPENT WarShips. This time, the Fire Fang was facing a Liberator, the CSJ Korat, under the command of Star Commodore Clarinda Stiles[17] along with three Vincent-class corvettes, CSJ Azov,[18] CSJ Ripper[19] and CSJ Simas Osis.[20] Operating alongside the Invisible Truth, the Fire Fang helped to destroy the Korat.[21]

The ground forces on Huntress came under mounting pressure, and nearly called on the Fire Fang and Invisible Truth to perform saturation bombardment on areas of Huntress in late March 3060;[22] fortunately, the arrival of the forces from Operation BULLDOG relieved at least some of the pressure on Task Force SERPENT.[23]

ComStar Service[edit]

Passed to ComStar after Operation BULLDOG ended, in 3062 the Fire Fang was a part of the Com Guard First Fleet, operating from the ComStar fleet base at Luyten 68-28.[24] She remained in service with ComStar until at least 3067.[25]

The Jihad[edit]

Captured by the Word of Blake, the Fire Fang formed a part of their black water navy until she was destroyed in the Dyev system in 3076 along with two other former ComStar WarShips which had been co-opted by the Blakists, the Aegis-class heavy cruiser Righteous Fury and the Congress-class Hollings York.[26]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 The Hunters, p. 191, "Chapter 22"
  2. Twilight of the Clans, p. 18, "Defender"
  3. The Hunters, p. 192, "Chapter 22"
  4. The Hunters, p. 237, "Chapter 27"
  5. Twilight of the Clans, p. 17, "Scenario 1: Trafalgar"
  6. Twilight of the Clans, p. 10, "Beyond The Periphery"
  7. The Hunters, p. 203-207, "Chapter 23"
  8. The Hunters, p. 209, "Chapter 24"
  9. The Hunters, p. 216-218, "Chapter 24"
  10. The Hunters, p. 240, "Chapter 27"
  11. The Hunters, p. 250, "Chapter 28"
  12. The Hunters, p. 253, "Chapter 28"
  13. The Hunters, p. 264-265, "Chapter 29"
  14. Sword and Fire, p. 111, "Chapter 11"
  15. Sword and Fire, 156-157, "Chapter 16"
  16. Sword and Fire, 226-227, "Chapter 22"
  17. Shadows of War (novel), p. 76
  18. Shadows of War p. 69
  19. Shadows of War, p. 50
  20. Shadows of War, p. 70-72
  21. Shadows of War, p. 60
  22. Shadows of War, p. 158 "Chapter 17"
  23. Shadows of War, p. 230 "Chapter 23"
  24. Field Manual: ComStar, p. 44, "The WarShip Fleet"
  25. Field Manual: Updates, p. 83, "ComStar Naval Assets"
  26. Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 128, "Captured Ships"

Bibliography[edit]