The commander did not ask questions about a fighter's background. He cared about one thing alone; Ability. If a potential recruit to his ranks stuck to his rules and requisites, and gave his best on the field, then he cared nothing for personal issues.
"Today I want you all to pay attention and, hopefully, take something from this tutorial which you can apply to your squads. It will keep you alive. It will save you expense, time, un-necessary effort, and more importantly your lives". He switched on the briefing room viewer and pointed to the statistics chart it showed. "From the information you can see it is clear at the lower end of the scale that junior fighters place quite a bit of store in high end auto-repair. This is fine when you are duking it out with opponents who are low level and fielding weaponry that is unlikely to take out your craft in one shot. The auto-repair will deal with low end damage and keep you in play long enough to get your kills. Not such a bad thing. There is where the method ends". The commander changed the view file. "Here you can see comparative stats for the higher level areas of combat. Your opponents are now blasting away with some serious hardware. Their weapons are now very capable of working with increased equipment facilities. They are harder hitting and the critical hit factor is significant. If you are still forsaking faster power units in favour of high end auto-repair then you are opening the door for a lethal blow.
In the upper leagues you MUST beat your enemy to the punch. If not, your tech will make minor repairs right up until your quicker foe gets that one shot kill, and BANG! You are out of the game and into the nearest morgue. Speed kills. It's an old adage that rings as true today as it did many centuries ago". The commander paused for emphasis, and looked hard into the eyes of the 'wreckage jockeys', a term his veterans used for all new aspiring 'green as grass' novices.
He cleared his throat and took a long pull from a bottle of sour mash whiskey placed openly on the nearby chart table. The viewer changed once more and the grizzled senior officer turned his scarred face towards it. "Another serious f**k up that many slow thinking pilots lean towards is this; Mech placement. Gods alone know how many times I have run up against some idiot who thinks that sticking his best mechs and better gear right up front to smash an early victory will win the day. F***ing WRONG!!! The higher up the ranks you get, the more approved formation slots you have. The five-mech ranks begin at the rear, so if you have a five mech rating then you want a solid wall of death waiting for anyone unlucky enough to reach. IF your best gear is in the front, then for it to be effective it needs to smash your opponent's entire squad. This means it will take damage earlier. If your enemy has row upon row of quality metal under his hand then your better stuff will be pounded into dust early on. You will find that all important 5 mech wall of yours, stupidly fitted out with your last chance hardware, will get bitch-slapped of the terra firma. You will cry. You will hold your head in asinine shame. You will, at best, find me chewing on your nuts for being a pillock. You will, more commonly, find yourself DEAD"!
The veteran let this sink in for a second or two before continuing. "Use your head. Get your weaker units up front. Give them your pick and mix softer weapons. Work from the front to the rear. As your opponent chomps through your lines, make the ba**ard work for it. Front to back, getting tougher and tougher until, just as he thinks he has your number, you unleash that final rank of the best hardware you can throw at him. Let him burn out working through then drop the hammer and maul him to death with your elite line. Crush his hopes and wipe him off the map. He will hate you. He will feel robbed of victory. YOU will take home the spoils". He finished with a defiant tone of cruel exaltation. He surveyed the new faces and prided himself tat there were mutterings of 'Yeah', and good f***ing point'. He saw their keen naivety and almost felt the pull as their collective attentiveness soaked up his words.
Okay, so it was just a brief talk. Yes, it was very different to put it into practice under fire, but, as his own commander told him when he himself was in training; 'preparation and planning prevents a piss poor performance'. Maybe some of them will think him past it or blustering. He knew there were always those who would not learn the easy way. He also knew some would use this information and prosper, perhaps one day leading their own battle clans. Those few were the reason he made such speeches. For those, he was thankful.
He gave one more pull on his bottle and nodded to the recruits. "Boys and girls. You have the building blocks to become wealthy fighters and respected pilots. I hope you take something from this and develop. Do me proud", he breathed. "dismissed".
Submitted by Steve Ross#162076