Turn 56 - The Armies Fight
Combat Report - Operation Golden Devil
Phase One - Engagement at Orbital Shipyard Complex
Friendly Losses - HMS Grom, 14 Aerospace Fighters
Enemy Losses - 176 total combat dropships, 864 Aerospace Fighters
Results - Destruction of Target
The engagement began with bearing-only launches of Barracuda capital missiles which had been equipped with nuclear warheads. These launches were deliberately timed to look like ‘panic’ launches from well beyond effective range, as the Dracs had never seen us use this weapon before. As a consequence, many of the Drac ASFs were still in their launch bays when the Barracuda’s reactivated, acquired targets, and slashed in to attack. Most Drac ASF losses occurred at this point, as less than a hundred enemy fighters managed to launch, massively outnumbered by the 10 wings we had deployed from the Royal Sovereigns.
Further capital fire caused enormous additional damage, nearly crippling the Drac forces even before they got in range to reply. A single enemy Avenger managed to kamikaze into HMS Grom, resulting in the destruction of the parasite destroyer with all hands.
The personnel of the shipyards were given an hour to evacuate prior to bombardment, unfortunately not a single shuttle or escape pod was launched in this period. Naval comm-scanners indicate that there were intense bursts of weapons fire inside the yards, evidently as security forces prevented the workers from fleeing. Six jumpship slips and associated dropship manufacturing facilities were confirmed completely destroyed.
Phase One - Engagement at Nowa Warszawa Orbitals
Friendly Losses - HMS Tufan, 67 Aerospace Fighters, slight damage to multiple vessels
Enemy Losses - 108 total combat dropships, 864 Aerospace Fighters
Results - Orbital victory and destruction of all orbital infrastructure
The enemy was better prepared for this engagement, but the initial barrage of Barracudas and sub-capital weapons still caused enormous damage, leaving the enemy at combat loss grouping before they had a chance to respond.
Unfortunately the enemy had very large numbers of aerospace fighters in the sky, and were able to shoot down a number of our own ASFs despite the enormous firepower disparity thanks to the fighting happening within the engagement envelopes for our dropships. HMS Tufan was lost to accumulated damage, her crew was successfully taken off and demolition charges utterly destroyed the wreck leaving nothing behind to salvage.
Phase One - Raid Nowa Warszawa (Ground engagement)
Friendly Losses - Loss of 14 vehicles, 28 dead, 192 injured
Enemy Losses - Damage to multiple enemy Mechs, ‘significant’ casualties amongst Friendly Persuader’ civil protection battalions.
Results - 1st RRF successfully withdrew to dropships, both SpecOps regiments are now active in support of Home Army.
Our first ‘combat drop’ on enemy soil went mostly smoothly, although several doctrinal changes are recommended (see appendix A). The 1st Rapid Response Force was able to dictate the battle, refusing to engage unless in a position to swarm isolated enemy formations and leading the enemy on a wild 600 kilometer chase around agricultural regions of the planet.
The Special Operations Regiments were able to completely break contact during this period, and at last report had joined forces with surviving Home Army groups that had been holding out against the Dracs' brutal rule. Over three hundred children were evacuated on board the Roadrunner when the Rapid Reaction Force was pulled off the planet.
Appendix A mostly consists of highly technical recommendations, mostly in regards to better methods of combat loading the dropships, distribution of ready supplies, and other things that are generally handled at much lower levels than the crown.
-----
In short, Operation Golden Devil was a triumph. You suspect that the relatively weak ‘thunder run’ operation may have lulled the Dracs into a false sense of security, allowing the heavy punch to land successfully. Sensors detected fewer than a hundred remaining Drac dropships in-system when your forces jumped out following the battle, although estimates are that the remaining two orbital shipyards can build 160 dropships a year, not counting ground factory production. Getting trained and reliable personnel to crew that many vessels, of course, is a different story.
You also receive intelligence summaries from discussions that your SpecOps forces had with the Home Guard. Native Nowa Warszawans are a distinct minority on their own planet now, between purges by the Dracs and the importation of over a billion sterilized slaves from Kilburrogh. You boggle at that number, as evidently Kilburrogh has such an enormous population that they are able to export over 45 million slaves a year, packed like sardines into modified Mammoth dropships. The vast majority male, and all medically sterilized as evidently the ruling caste on Kilburrogh is unwilling to permit others to ‘breed’ their cash cow product lines.
You spend several very satisfying hours shooting effigies of the Dragon on the firing range upon hearing that.
It’s only several days after the force returns that you receive one further piece of bad news, your granddaughter was injured in the fighting when her Chasseur was destroyed by an enemy Jenner. She successfully ejected and was picked up safely, but suffered a broken collar bone, broken arm, concussion and lacerations.
Your first instinct is to go immediately to the hospital where she is recovering. Your second instinct is to go there in the guise of visiting all of the wounded. Which you wind up doing.
Of course, Tien is your granddaughter, and Jeremy’s daughter, AND a member of 1st RRF. The moment you entered the front door she somehow convinced the orderlies to sneak her out the back door so that she could join the rest of her unit on a ‘proper’ bar crawl, injuries be damned. She had zero interest in dealing with an overprotective ba.
You, of course, had anticipated this, had all of the bars in the local area being watched by the Special Branch, and as soon as you knew where the revelers were you crashed the party along with other members of your old squad from back when you were young and invincible. These kids wanted to party and thought their elders would just slow them down?
You’d show them young whippersnappers that old age and treachery, plus a cast iron bladder and liver, beats youthful enthusiasm every time.
You were INFANTRY, no vehicle crewmen alive would beat you at a bar crawl, damnit. You may be the Empress now, but you haven’t forgotten your roots.
Of course your bodyguards do not approve of this, but screw em, there is a principle at stake, and you’ve got Sergeant Major Ngo at your back.
Kids these days.
You are quite glad that your guards have orders to take pictures of everything, because the expression on your granddaughter's face when you slide onto the barstool next to her and steal her whiskey is priceless. You think she was bracing for getting yelled at or mom’ed in public only to blink when all you do is throw back the shot in a single bracing gulp, slam the shot glass down on the bar, and order two more, one for you and one for her.
And in the end you and the old gang stand triumphant, with RRF troopers groaning in defeat as drunkenness claims the last of them, and you just know that all of them are going to wake up with killer hangovers in the morning. You, meanwhile, once you deal with a full bladder from wisely mixing water into your drinks and cheating like a cheating cheater who cheats, cheatingly, will sleep the sleep of the just and righteous after teaching these whippersnappers a thing or two.
You and the rest of your old unit spend the rest of the night reminiscing about old times, when things were simpler. You need to do this more often.
And you don’t even need to worry about the press or public image, because as far as you can tell the moment the news broke of the great victory the entire system decided to engage in mass revelry.
Yes, you took losses, and tomorrow you’d steel yourself and visit the families of the dead, but dammit, this was a win, and you are going to celebrate it.
Several days later you are back in the Palace, your granddaughter properly chastised and with a new perspective on her ba, and Admiral Benjamin is back in your office with another ops plan.
The navy is proposing a recon in force of the Kuroisora system. A straightforward recon run for your single Sentinel with a strong escort force. Only a single Monolith would be dedicated to this mission.
Combat Report - Operation Golden Devil
Phase One - Engagement at Orbital Shipyard Complex
Friendly Losses - HMS Grom, 14 Aerospace Fighters
Enemy Losses - 176 total combat dropships, 864 Aerospace Fighters
Results - Destruction of Target
The engagement began with bearing-only launches of Barracuda capital missiles which had been equipped with nuclear warheads. These launches were deliberately timed to look like ‘panic’ launches from well beyond effective range, as the Dracs had never seen us use this weapon before. As a consequence, many of the Drac ASFs were still in their launch bays when the Barracuda’s reactivated, acquired targets, and slashed in to attack. Most Drac ASF losses occurred at this point, as less than a hundred enemy fighters managed to launch, massively outnumbered by the 10 wings we had deployed from the Royal Sovereigns.
Further capital fire caused enormous additional damage, nearly crippling the Drac forces even before they got in range to reply. A single enemy Avenger managed to kamikaze into HMS Grom, resulting in the destruction of the parasite destroyer with all hands.
The personnel of the shipyards were given an hour to evacuate prior to bombardment, unfortunately not a single shuttle or escape pod was launched in this period. Naval comm-scanners indicate that there were intense bursts of weapons fire inside the yards, evidently as security forces prevented the workers from fleeing. Six jumpship slips and associated dropship manufacturing facilities were confirmed completely destroyed.
Phase One - Engagement at Nowa Warszawa Orbitals
Friendly Losses - HMS Tufan, 67 Aerospace Fighters, slight damage to multiple vessels
Enemy Losses - 108 total combat dropships, 864 Aerospace Fighters
Results - Orbital victory and destruction of all orbital infrastructure
The enemy was better prepared for this engagement, but the initial barrage of Barracudas and sub-capital weapons still caused enormous damage, leaving the enemy at combat loss grouping before they had a chance to respond.
Unfortunately the enemy had very large numbers of aerospace fighters in the sky, and were able to shoot down a number of our own ASFs despite the enormous firepower disparity thanks to the fighting happening within the engagement envelopes for our dropships. HMS Tufan was lost to accumulated damage, her crew was successfully taken off and demolition charges utterly destroyed the wreck leaving nothing behind to salvage.
Phase One - Raid Nowa Warszawa (Ground engagement)
Friendly Losses - Loss of 14 vehicles, 28 dead, 192 injured
Enemy Losses - Damage to multiple enemy Mechs, ‘significant’ casualties amongst Friendly Persuader’ civil protection battalions.
Results - 1st RRF successfully withdrew to dropships, both SpecOps regiments are now active in support of Home Army.
Our first ‘combat drop’ on enemy soil went mostly smoothly, although several doctrinal changes are recommended (see appendix A). The 1st Rapid Response Force was able to dictate the battle, refusing to engage unless in a position to swarm isolated enemy formations and leading the enemy on a wild 600 kilometer chase around agricultural regions of the planet.
The Special Operations Regiments were able to completely break contact during this period, and at last report had joined forces with surviving Home Army groups that had been holding out against the Dracs' brutal rule. Over three hundred children were evacuated on board the Roadrunner when the Rapid Reaction Force was pulled off the planet.
Appendix A mostly consists of highly technical recommendations, mostly in regards to better methods of combat loading the dropships, distribution of ready supplies, and other things that are generally handled at much lower levels than the crown.
-----
In short, Operation Golden Devil was a triumph. You suspect that the relatively weak ‘thunder run’ operation may have lulled the Dracs into a false sense of security, allowing the heavy punch to land successfully. Sensors detected fewer than a hundred remaining Drac dropships in-system when your forces jumped out following the battle, although estimates are that the remaining two orbital shipyards can build 160 dropships a year, not counting ground factory production. Getting trained and reliable personnel to crew that many vessels, of course, is a different story.
You also receive intelligence summaries from discussions that your SpecOps forces had with the Home Guard. Native Nowa Warszawans are a distinct minority on their own planet now, between purges by the Dracs and the importation of over a billion sterilized slaves from Kilburrogh. You boggle at that number, as evidently Kilburrogh has such an enormous population that they are able to export over 45 million slaves a year, packed like sardines into modified Mammoth dropships. The vast majority male, and all medically sterilized as evidently the ruling caste on Kilburrogh is unwilling to permit others to ‘breed’ their cash cow product lines.
You spend several very satisfying hours shooting effigies of the Dragon on the firing range upon hearing that.
It’s only several days after the force returns that you receive one further piece of bad news, your granddaughter was injured in the fighting when her Chasseur was destroyed by an enemy Jenner. She successfully ejected and was picked up safely, but suffered a broken collar bone, broken arm, concussion and lacerations.
Your first instinct is to go immediately to the hospital where she is recovering. Your second instinct is to go there in the guise of visiting all of the wounded. Which you wind up doing.
Of course, Tien is your granddaughter, and Jeremy’s daughter, AND a member of 1st RRF. The moment you entered the front door she somehow convinced the orderlies to sneak her out the back door so that she could join the rest of her unit on a ‘proper’ bar crawl, injuries be damned. She had zero interest in dealing with an overprotective ba.
You, of course, had anticipated this, had all of the bars in the local area being watched by the Special Branch, and as soon as you knew where the revelers were you crashed the party along with other members of your old squad from back when you were young and invincible. These kids wanted to party and thought their elders would just slow them down?
You’d show them young whippersnappers that old age and treachery, plus a cast iron bladder and liver, beats youthful enthusiasm every time.
You were INFANTRY, no vehicle crewmen alive would beat you at a bar crawl, damnit. You may be the Empress now, but you haven’t forgotten your roots.
Of course your bodyguards do not approve of this, but screw em, there is a principle at stake, and you’ve got Sergeant Major Ngo at your back.
Kids these days.
You are quite glad that your guards have orders to take pictures of everything, because the expression on your granddaughter's face when you slide onto the barstool next to her and steal her whiskey is priceless. You think she was bracing for getting yelled at or mom’ed in public only to blink when all you do is throw back the shot in a single bracing gulp, slam the shot glass down on the bar, and order two more, one for you and one for her.
And in the end you and the old gang stand triumphant, with RRF troopers groaning in defeat as drunkenness claims the last of them, and you just know that all of them are going to wake up with killer hangovers in the morning. You, meanwhile, once you deal with a full bladder from wisely mixing water into your drinks and cheating like a cheating cheater who cheats, cheatingly, will sleep the sleep of the just and righteous after teaching these whippersnappers a thing or two.
You and the rest of your old unit spend the rest of the night reminiscing about old times, when things were simpler. You need to do this more often.
And you don’t even need to worry about the press or public image, because as far as you can tell the moment the news broke of the great victory the entire system decided to engage in mass revelry.
Yes, you took losses, and tomorrow you’d steel yourself and visit the families of the dead, but dammit, this was a win, and you are going to celebrate it.
Several days later you are back in the Palace, your granddaughter properly chastised and with a new perspective on her ba, and Admiral Benjamin is back in your office with another ops plan.
The navy is proposing a recon in force of the Kuroisora system. A straightforward recon run for your single Sentinel with a strong escort force. Only a single Monolith would be dedicated to this mission.
- Sentinel Class Scout Cruiser - 1
- HMS Sentinel
- Shannon class Parasite Armored Cruiser - 6
- HMS Shannon
- HMS Northampton
- HMS Imperieuse
- HMS Orlando
- HMS Australia
- HMS Undaunted
- Royal Sovereign Class Parasite Battleship - 1
- HMS Ramilles
- Newport-C class Attack Transport - 1
- AKA-01
| [] | Approve Operation Llama |
| [] | Deny Operation Llama |
