Robert Steadman
Sarna News
Robert Steadman | |
|---|---|
| Personal | |
| Affiliation | Federated Suns |
| Profile | |
| Rank | Marshal[1] |
| Profession | MechWarrior[2] |
Robert Steadman was the commanding officer of the Capellan March's Alcyone PDZ and the Seventh Crucis Lancers as of 3025.[1]
History[edit]
Marshal Steadman was commander of the Federated Suns' Alcyone PDZ in 3025. At the same time, Steadman was commanding officer of the Seventh Crucis Lancers and was stationed on Weekapaug.[1]
Fourth Succession War[edit]
Steadman and the Seventh Lancers participated in the Battle of Tikonov in September 3028 and were assigned with the capture of the southern port city of Bulun. The city was heavily defended by static emplacements and conventional forces, with the First Battalion of MacGregor's Armored Scouts serving to augment the city's resistance. On 27 September, the Lancers instigated fighting to Bulun's southeast and east, drawing out significant portions of both the city's regular defenders and the Armored Scouts. With the majority of the Capellan defenders distracted, a company of Crucis combat engineers crept towards the city's coastal entrance and carefully placed demolition charges along the outer walls' power and communications lines. Just as a large force of Lancers reserves rushed towards the coastal entrance, the engineers detonated their explosives and crippled the local defensive emplacements. With the coastal entrance open and a battalion of seaborne infantry securing Bulun's spaceport, the BattleMechs of both the Seventh Lancers and MacGregor's Scouts met in intense urban combat.[2]
When a lance of FedSuns tanks caught the Scouts' commander Major Keela Dahoona in the open, Steadman and his command company personally engaged the enemy officer in combat. While Steadman gave Dahoona the chance to surrender, she spurned his offer and ordered her lance to make a concentrated attack against him personally. This effort failed, with both Dahoona and her lancemates being killed in the fighting, and soon enough the remainder of Dahoona's forces were destroyed or forced to surrender. By the end of the week, Bulun and its spaceport facilities were under the Seventh Lancers' control.[2]
Steadman's Seventh Lancers were also supposed to participate in a joint assault on the capital city Tikograd's industrial district on 11 October but these plans were badly altered by the actions of the Sixth and Eighth Crucis Lancers. When the Seventh's sister regiments attacked two hours ahead of schedule, the forewarned defenders of Tikograd were able to intercept and badly scatter Steadman's orbital drop. Only the First Battalion's Bravo Company, under the command of Captain Rebecca Sellers, landed within the grounds of the Earthwerks factory and immediately came under attack from Hamilton's Highlanders. Ultimately, Sellers and some of her troops survived long enough to reunite with the Sixth Lancers while elements of the Seventh Lancers arrived just in time to pin down the remnants of the Highlanders. When Colonel Pavel Ridzik witnessed the destruction of the Highlanders, he chose to flee from Tikonov rather than sacrifice his life and the lives of his remaining men, ceding both Tikograd and ultiamtely Tikonov itself to the Federated Suns.[3]
BattleMechs[edit]
Marshal Robert Steadman piloted a Crusader BattleMech during the Battle of Tikonov.[2]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 House Davion (The Federated Suns), p. 137 (PDF Version): "'Mech Unit Deployment Table"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 NAIS The Fourth Succession War Military Atlas Volume 1, pp. 25–26: "Tikonov - Early Actions"
- ↑ NAIS The Fourth Succession War Military Atlas Volume 1, pp. 28–29: "Tikonov - Tikograd"