[Dalmacija Campaign] Operation Medusa I
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[Dalmacija Campaign] Operation Medusa I
Summary: Supported by a preliminary cruise missile strike on radar and communications sites, the Shirerithian and Natopian air arms have made their opening move in the first expansion of the war away from the Florian Front. An aerial armada of 712 aircraft of two nationalities and various types are converging on the Jingdaoese region of Dalmacija with the intention of obliterating a crucial portion of the Jing defensive system.
Narrative:It had begun without warning at about ten minutes before 10pm on the night of [insert date]. A series of sharp, repetitive tapping noises at 10 broadcast in the shortwave radio bands. The signal was immensely powerful, typically at over 15 MW, and its random frequency hops began to disrupt HF/shortwave band users, including air traffic control and long range radio broacasting, across almost the entirety of the Apollonian landmass from Port Clyde to Yangyudao. The overpowering signal, which would continue in operation ceaselessly, both day and night, appeared to originate from the Novaya Sorensk SDI Facility located on the G islands in the mouth of the River Elwynn.
It was Benacia's first calling card to the eastern foe. It would not, as events transpired, prove to be the last.
At two minutes to 10pm the waters of Hyperion and Bruges Bay erupted as ten Poltroon Class submarines, of Wolfpacks Blumentopf and Dampier, lofted four Banshee cruise missiles apiece towards the Apollonian continent. Their targets were radar facilities as well locations of intense signals activity suspected of being naval and Imperial Armed Forces command and communications centres. The U-Boats, their silent vigils off the coast of "Occupied Kildare" at an end, turned about to reverse their heading and dove towards the maximum depths achievable in their respective bays - but the sooner they were off their respective continental shelves, the happier they would feel.
The Banshees had been the go-to weapon of the war for the Shirerithians so far, having achieved a notable scalp in the destruction of a Florian aircraft carrier as well as the less notable, indeed barely discussed, cratering of a few airfields in Antya Region and the Florian Republic.
The most notable feature of the missile was it's, Minarborian derived, pair of retractable wings. The wings, plus the tuned-down ramjet allow for the missile's sustained flight at just below Mach 1 over a distance of around 2000km. The engine's rocket function served purely for the few seconds required after breaking the surface of the water to accelerate the missile to ramjet speed.
The Banshee missile's extremely low-level flight path was assisted by an active terrain-following radar in the nose combined with a contour-mapping inertial guidance system for the final plunge onto target, where an air-burst would eviscerate whatever persons or structures were caught in the blast radius with a lethal hail of shrapnel.
At twelve minutes past ten, those Jingdaoese radars which remained operational, would have detected intense aerial activity over south-western Arboria, as the first of sixteen strike packages of F-8 Shrikes, flying on a bearing that could be traced back to dispersal airfields in New Aquitane, gained altitude to rendezvous with the ungainly flying boats, the Taube, of the Imperial Navy which had been adapted into the air to air refuelling role.
Behind, and above, flew the F-9 Ashavans, the latest iteration of a venerable design dating back to the Grand Commonwealth, armed with eight Meteor and six Sidewinder missiles, alongside two external fuel tanks and a targeting pod.
As each four plane strike package of Shrikes fuelled up they would abruptly descend, disappearing to go fast and low, hugging the contours as much as the heavily forested terrain of southern Arboria would permit.
Their mission was to make a dash for the airfields and runways of the 3rd Air Support Corps (or the 4th or 5th: whichever happens to be in that vicinity) around Port Nevermore (Yuanbeicheng) in the Dalmacija Region.
As they crossed the border into Jingdaoese territory the Shrikes dove as low as 200 feet before opening up their afterburners to crash through the sound barrier. It had been decided that the Shrikes would each 'loft' two inertially-guided 1,000-pound bombs onto the hardened aircraft hangers. Lofting entailed releasing a bomb at about six kilometres from the target as the Shrike climbs steeply and turns away. Whilst the intention was to sneak in under the radar, figuratively as well as literally, this approach surely put the attacking aircraft at a certain amount of risk from every holy fool with a high calibre machine gun along the entire flight path. The bombs, once released to follow their arcing trajectory, would be guided to target by an onboard GPS receiver - following directions to a set of coordinates delivered from orbit, another boon from cooperation with the Natopian space programme. Some called the tactic visionary, others suggested it was the greatest piece of lunacy since the charge of the Lunatic Brigade in the Cabbage Crisis (about which it is best not to enquire).
By five minutes past 11pm, as chaos engulfed the northern edge of the air defence zone of the Jingdaoese Region II, the remaining radar operators, barring any ongoing distractions, would undoubtedly have noticed their screens filling with blips incoming from the north-west. Attempts to differentiate the two incoming waves, and to distinguish between the B-49 Deltas and the B-66 Vulcans within them, might well have proven to be hampered as the leading aircraft in each four bomber 'spade' formation jettisoned canisters of chaff, densely packed strips of aluminium foil that would scatter and disperse over a wide area as it fell towards the sea, reflecting back the radar signals and effectively spoofing the receiver dish of the ground based radar units.
The last time that these bomber aircraft had attempted to penetrate enemy airspace had been during the War of Jingdaoese Immolation where, true to form, they had been unopposed in their mission to bomb Port Nevermore, indeed the Tegong had stepped in to complete the destruction at the behest of the crazed Heavenly Light. No-one was expecting the Jing to be so cooperative this time, and apprehension mounted as the bombers descended to a medium altitude of 20,000 feet to begin their approach to target.
These targets were not to be found in Port Nevermore this time. Instead the streams of attacking aircraft branched at their last common way point and began to plot a course towards hardened silos, identified from Natopian orbital imaging sources, which were believed to be facilities MB3 and MB4 of the Jingdaoese National Redoubt Defence Program.
These sites, housing a reputedly immense stockpile of medium range ballistic missiles that would pose a credible threat to Kezan as well as to capital ships or transports should any attempt to force a passage into Hyperion Bay.
Meanwhile, somewhere far above the maelstroms converging on a small segment of the Apollonian continent, at least forty pairs of a particularly specialist predator circled. Biding their time, they waited for the enemy's first line of air defence, the venerable Raven fighter aircraft, to make itself known.
(OOC: There's no kill like an overkill. Throwing everything all in, like a mad combination of Operation Crossbow and Operation Mole Cricket 19, may seem questionable but correlates with a certain style of leadership.)
Attacking Forces
Wave 1: No. 1 Group (Bomber Command)
192 B-49 Delta
72 B-66 Vulcan
Wave 2: No. 2 Group (Bomber Command)
96 B-49 Delta
168 B-66 Vulcan
Wave 3: No. 15 Expeditionary Group (Strike Command)
10 B-52 Big Badaboom
64 F-8 Shrike
Combat Air Patrol
Spacefleet ((NDF) Aerospace Command)
80 N-1 Fighters
No. 16 Air Combat Group (Strike Command)
30 F-9 Ashavans
Air to Air Refuelling
1st Maritime Patrol Group (Eastern Armada)
6 Spiegelflügel-Taube Amphibious Maritime Patrol Aircraft/refuelling tankers
All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.
Re: [Dalmacija Campaign] Operation Medusa I
REFEREE RULING: As over 48 hours has passed with no Jingdaoese response, I am compelled to assess the result of the engagement with the facts as I best see them, as follows:
The Jingdaoese response, on the night, depended largely on the initiative of the commander at each Kuki squadron, faced with news of a large buildup of Sxiro-Natopian air assets on radar and an order to place their aircraft on standby. Here their assistance by Jingdaoese Army command ended, its lines of command and communications being severely disrupted by the initial cruise missile strikes whose targets had been finely selected by years of prior ELINT collection and analysis. Where news did come through, it was in the form of panicked landline telephone calls by the commanders of the northernmost airfields informing the southernmost that they were under attack by the first waves of F-8 Shrikes. The fact that they subverted their normal chain of command to pass along the message, with all its disciplinary implications, was indicative of the gravity of the situation - those receiving the calls, having been trained in the same environment of martial deference which was particularly pronounced in Jingdao, were only too acutely aware of this. The sound of bombs going off in the background and calls being abruptly cut off mid-message were also hints in themselves. This was the real deal.
Enter, then, the Raven IV - an aircraft which was, if nothing else, a monument to the perseverance of its designers. Despite the prototypes having an aerodynamic profile so square and ungainly that it barely made it off the ground, this was one thing on which the lead designers had been unwilling to compromise. The task of refining the design into a thoroughbred combat fighter, therefore, politely skirted around this requirement and descended into a vicious cycle of increasing the engine size to overcome the substantial drag of the airframe, which in turn required strengthening to withstand the added physical stresses, increasing the weight of the aircraft so much that the engine size had to be increased again, this being so detrimental to the aircraft's fuel economy that it required a widening of the fuselage to an almost perfect tubular profile to accomodate extra fuel, which added more weight and required an even bigger engine still. At some point in this process the economy of scale finally kicked in and something resembling an equilibrium was reached, resulting in an absolute brick of an aircraft which stubbornly buffeted and fluttered its way around the transonic velocity range thanks to the sheer wide-bore power of its engine. Forgiving the Raven IV was not, and its pilots were soon trained to devote one eye to the cockpit's combined angle-of-attack and G-meter at all times, drilled by rote in the aircraft's hard limits and instinctively aware of the points at which the airframe would give up marshalling the air around it and suddenly begin shedding its control surfaces and/or falling into an unrecoverable spin as if succumbing to a Riccine fit of histrionic self-loathing. Those who failed to fly in the prescribed manner were often subjected to a grisly demise by the aircraft itself, without so much as a Tegong tribunal or an execution squad required. In this the aircraft was said to be a perfect manifestation of the Jingdaoese spirit, actively culling those who fell short of full purity in the realm of aeronautic skill.
For those who mastered the aircraft's foibles, however, there were certain benefits to be had - chief among which was the tendency of the plane to withstand multiple air-to-air missile strikes of the kind which would shred a craft of mere aluminium composite to pieces, on account of its massively strengthened fuselage and wing spars plus duplicated hydraulic control lines, the latter added hastily as stop-gap measure to exert increased power over the aircraft's control surfaces without redesigning the system but having the unintended benefit of redundancy and continued function in the event of a catastrophic loss of hydraulic pressure. Then there was the radar in the nose, a crude contraption by most standards whose operating parameters could only be changed in a maintenance hangar on the ground - but the sheer wattage of the thing, fed by an alternator linked directly to one of the engine's huge turbine discs, tended to overpower attempts to jam or spoof its signal at all but the closest ranges. Indeed during ground tests it was reputed possible to place the aircraft at one end of a runway and a pan full of rice and water at the other, the radar's concentrated beam microwaving it to a boil in a matter of minutes.
Although equipped with four cannons of decent calibre, the Raven IV's missile armament had been added as something of an afterthought; semi-active guidance and a narrow boresight were as far as the designers were able (or willing) to advance the technology, the Kuki squadrons largely using it as something to pass the time until they closed with the target and subjected it to a hail of cannon shells. Thus, much of the advantage gained by the Raven's robust construction and its powerful radar in the battle's night-time conditions, was lost again when it came to the actual shooting.
Much of this was merely academic to the Third Air Support Corps of the Imperial Jingdaoese Army located in Northern Dalmacija, which only managed to scramble 32 Raven IVs before the low-level toss-bombing attacks fell upon their airfields, destroying 68 Ravens on the ground and leaving the remaining 24 unable to take off due to the condition of their respective runways, cratered at multiple points by satellite-guided bombs.
Despite this, the airborne Ravens pressed on with their defence and managed to down 11 Shrikes, five Ashavans and two N-1s, a large portion of the latter breaking off from their top cover duty for the incoming heavy bombers and joining the fight down below. Between these aircraft - mainly the Shrike whose high-power incendiary gatling cannon was most reliable at destroying the Jingdaoese Ravens that night - the Third Air Support Corps' fighter capability was effectively wiped out, allowing the heavy bombers assigned to attack ballistic missile site MB3 to proceed to their targets without taking a single shot in anger. Their full payload delivered, damage to site MB3 was substantial - although the missiles themselves were located in underground silos, the sheer concentration of bombs caused the silos to either cave in or be buried by the rubble of the supporting structures above which were comprehensively destroyed. These missiles being designed for land or sea attack, no resistance was offered. Barring a complete rebuild, the site was put permanently out of service.
Further south in Central Dalmacija, the Jingdaoese Fourth Air Support Corps fared a little better in the initial stages of the Sxiro-Natopian air assault. Here the airfields remained intact, although the local command structure had taken its fair share of targeted cruise missile strikes and suffered a similar communication breakdown to that in the north. Despite this, the added time and distance from the northern conflagration allowed the Fourth's Kuki Squadrons to get off the ground in rather better order, vectored toward the last contact given before the radar network went down - namely the first wave of heavy bombers approaching their target at ballistic missile site MB4. With their dazzlingly-powerful radars, the Jingdaoese Ravens acquired and rose to meet the incombing bombers which were descending for their attack run. The Ravens managed to get in a few decent attack passes, downing 38 B-49 Deltas and 22 B-66 Vulcans in a moment of sheer panic for the bomber wave, before its assigned escort of N-1 fighters descended from the edge of the atmosphere and engaged the Jingdaoese in a protracted dogfight. With the missile complement of both sides expended in a matter of minutes, the battle quickly degrated into a gunnery contest between Jingdaoese guns and the N-1's laser cannons. In actual contact the Jingdaoese cannons fared batter; the N1's lasers were primarily designed to destroy thin-skinned aircraft by introducing metallurgical weak points and letting aerodynamic stresses - or pressurisation failure in suborbital vacuum - do the rest and tear the target apart. The sturdy Raven IVs were hard targets for this kind of attack, but they were eventually overcome by Natopian tactics; the N-1s drew the Ravens to high altitude where they had the performance advantage, wearing down the Ravens which began to run out of fuel and attempt a return to their home airfields - where more N-1s were loitering in wait for them. This latter group of Natopian fighters, rotating between a picket of the Jingdaoese airfields and friendly Spiegelflügel tankers in the north, remained on station for long enough to prevent the safe return of the surviving Jingdaoese fighters. Ultimately, 88 Raven IVs of the Jingdaoese Fourth Air Support Corps were destroyed in a series of aerial battles or crashed for lack of fuel, with the loss of only 18 N-1s. 36 Ravens survived to flee south, to the airfields of the Fifth Air Support Corps in Southern Dalmacija which had been mercifully spared the Sxiro-Natopian onslaught.
Despite their losses, the heavy bombers attacking ballistic missile site MB4 pressed on and delivered their payloads. Owing to the reduced numbers of attackers and a the strained nerves of those who remained, the bomb pattern was more sparse and less accurate - only four-fifths of MB4's missile silos were put out of action.
At sea, the Poltroon-class submarines which had begun the whole operation now nestled comfortably in the deep water, untouched by the Third Battle Fleet of the Imperial Jingdaoese Navy at Yuanbicheng whose Sheng-class cruisers, while powerful on the surface, had no anti-submarine capability at all.
SUMMARY
Sxiro-Natopian losses
- 20 N-1 Fighters
- 5 Ashavan Fighters
- 11 Shrike Fighter-Bombers
- 38 B-49 Delta Heavy Bombers
- 22 B-66 Vulcan Heavy Bombers
Jingdaoese losses
- 188 Raven IV Fighters
- All of Ballistic missile site MB3
- 80% of Ballistic missile site MB4
- 90% of radar capability in North and Central Dalmacija
- 100% of Third Air Support Corps command and communications capability
- 80% of Fourth Air Support Corps command and communications capability
Unit dispositions altered
24 Raven IVs of Jingdaoese Third Air Support Corps remain operational but grounded by runway cratering in northern Dalmacija
36 Raven IVs Jingdaoese Fourth Air Support Corps relocated from central Dalmacija to airfields of Fifth Air Support Corps in southern Dalmacija.
Strategic result
- Total Sxiro-Natopian air supremacy over Northern and Central Dalmacija (above the 22nd parallel)
- Jingdaoese ballistic missile capability in northwestern Apollonia largely eliminated
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Re: [Dalmacija Campaign] Operation Medusa I
Apologies for the late response. Seems like it was a good fight.
Just a bit confused: the Natopians have joined the war now?
Just a bit confused: the Natopians have joined the war now?
Honoured Servant of the Jingdaoese Heavenly Light and the Kaiseress of Shireroth
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Re: [Dalmacija Campaign] Operation Medusa I
White Wolf Pack 1 & 2 and Buffalo Pack 1 & 2 have left the docks and moving towards the Central Sea in an attempt to eventually join the Third Battle Fleet further northwards and harass any Shirerithian vessels.
Honoured Servant of the Jingdaoese Heavenly Light and the Kaiseress of Shireroth
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Re: [Dalmacija Campaign] Operation Medusa I
(OOC: This means they'll pass through the slaughterfest in Carama Bay?)Jonas Windsor wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2017 6:31 pmWhite Wolf Pack 1 & 2 and Buffalo Pack 1 & 2 have left the docks and moving towards the Central Sea in an attempt to eventually join the Third Battle Fleet further northwards and harass any Shirerithian vessels.
All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.
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Re: [Dalmacija Campaign] Operation Medusa I
No, they are able to fly...Thorgils Tarjeisson wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2017 4:49 am(OOC: This means they'll pass through the slaughterfest in Carama Bay?)Jonas Windsor wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2017 6:31 pmWhite Wolf Pack 1 & 2 and Buffalo Pack 1 & 2 have left the docks and moving towards the Central Sea in an attempt to eventually join the Third Battle Fleet further northwards and harass any Shirerithian vessels.
That said, the fleets which are already on patrol, helped by the Redoubt facilities and radar systems, will surely succeed to keep the Bay safe from any real threats.
Honoured Servant of the Jingdaoese Heavenly Light and the Kaiseress of Shireroth
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Re: [Dalmacija Campaign] Operation Medusa I
Orders concerning the defence of Dalmacija
1. The Dalmacijan provinces of Bangou and Qianjin, good for over 50 million of our national subjects, has been placed under martial law and direct control of Armed Forces.
2. The Sixth Field Army (102,770 men) shall be reverted to strengthen defences and patrols at the coastline. The Young Wandering Society shall deploy over 220,000 of their local members between the age of 10 and 16 to aid in patrolling the coastline.
3. Maps and road signs will be removed from the two provinces.
4. Imperial Engineers shall be sent to strategical important places to prepare the possible destruction of bridges in an attempt to slow down any invasion force, until the Armed Forces have arrived to push them back in sea.
5. A million mobilised men of the Yobi-gun shall be sent to the region and further trained to aid the Armed Forces in the defence of the region.
Honoured Servant of the Jingdaoese Heavenly Light and the Kaiseress of Shireroth