Mars (Individual Vincent-class WarShip)

This article is about the WarShip. For other uses, see Mars.
Mars
Vessel Profile
TypeWarShip
ClassVincent Mk. 42

History[edit]

The Vincent Mk. 42-class corvette later known as the Mars was a Star League Defense Force WarShip which survived the Amaris Civil War and followed General Aleksandr Kerensky on the Operation EXODUS. The Mars also survived the Pentagon Civil War, becoming a part of the touman of Clan Widowmaker. Following the Absorption of Clan Widowmaker by Clan Wolf the Mars and a number of other WarShips were placed in mothballs.[1]

The Mars remained in mothballs until Clan politicking led to the formation of Wolf's Dragoons, raised to perform a detailed reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering mission in the Inner Sphere in advance of a planned invasion. Clan Wolf equipped Wolf's Dragoons with the Mars and a number of other WarShips in the belief that large mercenary units operating in the Inner sphere were likely to be equipped with WarShips, deploying the Mars as the WDWS Mars; the Mars kept her original Widowmaker color scheme, which fortuitously matched the Wolf's Dragoons regimental color scheme.[1]

Wolf's Dragoons swiftly learned that WarShips were effectively extinct in the Inner Sphere, at least in the armed forces of the Great Houses, and left the Mars in mothballs in the Periphery until after Operation REVIVAL, the Clan Invasion of the Inner Sphere. In 3053 the decision was made to retrieve the Mars and the other WarShips from the Bristol Cache in the Periphery, and a small task force under the command of Colonel Mackenzie Wolf, son of Jaime Wolf, was assigned to the recovery mission.[2] The task force discovered when they arrived at the cache that brigands or looters had discovered the Mars and the other vessels and were attempting to loot the ships, and responded to the Dragoon claim to the cache by firing on the task force. Several boarding parties were deployed to reclaim the vessels,[3] but Mackenzie Wolf was killed during the operation to clear the Aegis-class heavy cruiser WDWS Alexander.[4]

The Dragoons subsequently reactivated the Mars and redeployed her to their holding on Outreach, where she formed a part of the Dragoon Naval Command, serving alongside the Alexander, the Congress-class frigate WDWS Beowulf, the Sovetskii Soyuz-class heavy cruiser WDWS Athena and the Lola III-class destroyers WDWS Darius and WDWS Nelson.[5]

In 3067 the Alexander and the Mars were deployed in support of Alpha Brigade, operating under contract to the Draconis Combine along the border with the Clan Ghost Bear Occupation Zone.[6] The Mars was still deployed in Combine space when Blakist-backed mercenaries attacked the Dragoons on Outreach, killing Jaime Wolf and inflicting heavy damage; the loss of the Athena and Beowulf to overwhelming defenses in the Sol system when a large part of the Dragoons and a number of Allied Mercenary Command units launched Task Force Vengeance and attempted to attack the Word of Blake on Mars.[7][8]

The Word of Blake responded with a counterattack against Outreach in force, deploying a task force escorted by a Black Lion-class battlecruiser, an Aegis, two Essex-class destroyers and two Lola IIIs; the Blakist naval forces destroyed the two Dragoon orbital stations,[9] as well as the Darius and the Nelson, and deployed ground forces to assault the Dragoon forces still present on Outreach. General Maeve Wolf broke through the blockade with the Alexander and deployed Alpha Brigade on Outreach, only for the Blakists to respond with orbital and nuclear bombardments of the planet. Maeve Wolf ordered a retreat to Arc-Royal in the last week of December 3067; the Alexander covered the Dragoons' retreat, inflicting damage on two of the Blakist WarShips, but was destroyed during her valiant defense, leaving the Mars as the only remaining Dragoon WarShip still active in January 3068.[10]

The Mars continued to support Delta Regiment in the Draconis Combine, and as such was deployed to Buckminster in early 3070 as a result of intelligence received by the Internal Security Force indicating that the Word of Blake was likely to attack that world.[11] The predicted attack began on the 24th of April;[12] the Blakist task force was escorted by a pair of destroyers, but hadn't anticipated the presence of the Mars or the reinforced regiment of aerospace fighters attached to Delta Regiment. The Mars was destroyed by the Blakist forces, but not before blunting the Blakist attack;[11] the battle on Buckminster lasted until the 30th, but the Dragoons successfully drove the Blakists off, despite taking heavy losses. The Mars loss put an end to the Dragoon Naval Command's existance, as it was their last surviving WarShip.[11][12]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 AeroTech 2 Revised Edition, Color Plate 3
  2. Wolf Pack, pp. 95–96
  3. Wolf Pack, pp. 116–118
  4. Wolf Pack, pp. 125–127
  5. Field Manual: Mercenaries, Revised, p. 113: "Dragoons Naval Command"
  6. Field Manual: Mercenaries, Revised, p. 114: "Alpha Regiment: Dire Wolves"
  7. Dawn of the Jihad, p. 34: "Debacle Over Mars"
  8. Dawn of the Jihad, p. 34: "Mars: What Happened?"
  9. Dawn of the Jihad, p. 35: "Fire In The Void"
  10. Dawn of the Jihad, p. 36: "Outreach: A Survivor's Account"
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 Mercenaries Supplemental Update, p. 120: "Wolf's Dragoons"
  12. 12.0 12.1 Jihad Hot Spots: 3072, p. 24: "Timeline of the Jihad"

Bibliography[edit]