This lot was eager, Grayson decided, but that was almost all he could say for them. All were volunteers from either the Militia or the Guards, and many had years of experience, including combat experience. But they were not yet a unit in the sense of belonging and working well together.
The bitter rivalry between Guards and Militia continued within the ranks. In one of his first decisions, Grayson directed his sergeants not to separate the services into different companies, but to form squads and platoons without regard to the men's original affiliation. If the Lancers were to have any identity of their own or any of the pride that identity would encourage, they would have to start thinking of themselves as Lancers rather than as Guards or Militia. There were eighteen fistfights during the first standard week and three knifings. The fact that each man still wore his original green or brown uniform, with only a blue armband to distinguish him as a Lancer, didn't help.
Grayson was learning that there was far more to organizing a 'Mech Lance than teaching thumb-fingered recruits how to pilot a BattleMech. The details of the unit's T.O. & E. threatened to drown him in extra work hours and a deluge of paperwork. The T.O. & E the Lancer's Table of Organization and Equipmentmake or break the fledging unit, and Grayson was becoming aware of the importance of staff paperwork in a way he never had been. Always before he had wondered why his father's staff included a small army of civilian secretaries and military orderlies, and why one of the Lance staff officers, Lieutenant Hanesly, had been designated as personnel officer. Now he knew why a personnel officer was needed for a 120-man company.
Grayson's days had been one fifteen-hour work period after another, with short naps grabbed on the cot behind the office in Sarghad's armory building that had been set aside for his use. Mara had called him repeatedly on the small visor installed in the office, but he had lost count of the standard days since he'd seen her. There was simply too much to do.
A BattleMech Lance is much more than four Mechs and the men who con them. T.O.'s generally list only the pilots and Techs assigned to a particular unit, but, in fact, even a small scout Lance requires a platoon-sized body of support crew.
First and foremost in the Trellwan Lancer's make-up was the infantry, the groundpounders Grayson was training to take on the enemy 'Mechs. Not all 'Mech units had foot soldiers attached to them, however. Carlyle's Commandos had had ground troops because it was a garrison force, and there were garrison duties that would have been impractical for a ten-meter-tall 'Mech. The Lancers were to be ground troops trained in anti-Mech warfare with 'Mechs for support, which reversed the usual role for a combat BattleMech unit.
The idea had been General Varney's. Grayson's skill during the Battle of Sarghad had proven to the Military Council that ground troops could be used against 'Mechs. Grayson's ten years of training supported the idea. Ground forces could face 'Mechs and win, but it took a remarkable blend of skill, training, and courage to do so. This combination did not occur naturally even in elite units. Grayson faced a daunting task, and he still questioned his ability to carry it out.
The Lancers' T.O. called for two combat platoons of 60 men each. Though there were more than enough volunteers available, so far Grayson had only two short platoons of 40 each, scarcely more than a pair of platoon sections.
After some work and several false starts, he had decided that the experienced sergeants on his team were able to handle no more than those 80 men. Untrained and leaderless soldiers would be far worse than no help at all.
Also in training were 35 men with various degrees of technical and mechanical training. This was the beginning of what Grayson hoped would be a 60-man technical platoon, astechs able to work under the direction of the Lance's Techs to keep the BattleMechs armed, patched, and functioning.
Finally, there were five men in training as MechWarriors. They were under Grayson's direct command and he worked with them for hours each day, familiarizing them with the Locust's controls and drilling them in tactics and procedure. One of them, a young Trell named Yarin showed an intuitive sense of balance and motion that might produce a MechWarrior in about ten years. Grayson thought this part of the program was worse than useless. It would take years to bring these five up to any kind of proficiency in 'Mech operations, so it seemed absurd to spend so much time training new pilots when the unit had but a single light 'Mech on its rolls. But Grayson's own orders from the Military Council were clear on that point. What good was a 'Mech unit without MechWarriors?
His work was made easier by two experienced sergeants... Sergeant Ramage from the Militia, who had fought Hendrik's raiders as a private ten years before, and a Guards Corporal named Brooke, whom he had promoted upon learning the man had worked in a machineshop before joining the army. Another Militia sergeant named Larressen had no combat experience, but he seemed sharp, intelligent, and unafraid of speaking his views. Ramage and Larressen became platoon leaders for platoons A and B, while Brooke was placed in charge of the Tech platoon.