KnightofTempest
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Interlude: Battle of Lancardin
🕑 Added 2024-07-29 10:46:41 +0000 UTCGeneral Arne Jorgensen watched from his command post as the various Colonels and troops got into position around the town of Lancardin. The town was smaller than Ciji, but still very much larger than most of the towns on this ball of mud and rivers that people called a planet. Thanks to being in the Dadaocheng Foothills, it could support a lot more people than much of the rest of the area of the MacGregor Settlement on Oberon Six. Only Dunalban, the previous planetary capital, which sat on the Lone Hills, a small patch of relatively dry uplands amidst the lowland marshes of Oberon, could boast as dry a climate as Lancardin in the MacGregor Area of Settlement.
The Town itself was positioned across seven hills, sort of like Ancient Rome had been back on Ancient Terra, and the defenses of the Dadaocheng Line here were not a single, monolithic, fortress and some outlying bunkers, but rather a series of seven, smaller, interlocking fortresses with a web of pillboxes spreading out around the town. It was the main reason why they were going to concentrate all four of their regiments and attack Lancardin at a single point. The hope was that by concentrating as much firepower in one area as possible, a breakthrough could occur.
To that end, the fleet and artillery sections of each of the four regiments under his command had been pasting the outlying pillboxes and the fortress guns on the hilltops for a good twenty-four hours. They'd lost two dozen aerospace fighters to anti-aircraft fire, but in so doing had managed to reduce the outlying pillboxes significantly and silence the autocannon and LRM Launcher emplacements on the hilltop forts.
Now it was time to attack the point selected for their assault with everything they had. The maps General Jorgensen was looking at from within his command post labeled the section of the city that they would be attacking as the Bunardie Industrial District. It was there where a number of factories and smelteries were located, along with the Town's power plant. If they could capture Bunardie, they could severely reduce the enemy's capacity to fight back by cutting the power to the districts still in enemy hands.
The problem was that the enemy knew that too. Most of the outlying pillboxes, bunkers, and gun emplacements had been located near Bunardie. Some of them, despite the day of bombardment, were still standing, even if they were damaged. General Jorgensen was willing to bet there were also several hidden fighting positions that they hadn't seen scattered around the district. There was nothing for it, however, the die had been cast. Their Lord had already begun his assault on Ciji and progress had to be made on their end.
"Signal the regiments. Codeword Tiger is in effect." Intoned General Jorgensen.
"Aye, General. Codeword Tiger is in effect." Nodded his Aide, a Major O'Neill on secondment from Colonel Oivio's mauled Fifth Guards. She'd proven an effective aide so far, if a bit inexperienced. Still, that Codeword signaled the start of the attack.
"God help them." Muttered General Jorgensen as all units relayed that they copied. He'd never fancied himself a religious man, never really cared much about asking for blessings from God or the Saints when simple preparation was more reliable. There were times, though, like right now, when preparation could only take you so far. So General Jorgensen offered a prayer for the units about to engage, before turning back to the tactical map.
He had a battle to win, after all, and this was no cathedral. . .
XXXX
The moment that Codeword Tiger came into effect, Colonel Mahmoud El-Fadil sent his men forward under a hail of covering fire. Any bunker or gun emplacement that showed themselves would be getting a Ferronickel slug courtesy of the Rampage Assault Mechs of Sixth Guards. He knew the others had ordered the same tactics. It was the best way they could figure out to get their infantry to the still-standing outlying bunkers reasonably intact. It was going to be the infantry that would have to clear the way for the mechs into the town. The simple fact of the matter was that a Battlemech could not clear a bunker without bombarding said bunker into oblivion.
And if the aerospace fighters of the fleet or the Long Toms of the accumulated artillery battalions of four regiments couldn't demolish those bunkers, their mechs wouldn't be able to do it either. They needed the infantry to clear them. Fortunately, many of the outlying bunkers, pillboxes, and gun emplacements had been demolished by the day-long bombardment, so the infantry would have an easier time of things than they would have otherwise.
Unfortunately, just as he thought that some of the remaining gun emplacements opened up on his infantry from a bunker further up the hillside nearest to the town. They smashed apart a trio of APCs and an escorting Hipparch before Mahmoud and two other Mechs silenced the three emplacements with ferronickel slugs from their Gauss rifles. As they did that, another hidden emplacement opened up destroying an LTV-Four with an artillery strike before one of the Griffins in Delta Company of Alpha Battalion fired off a salvo of LRM Fire that silenced the gun.
"Colonel, do you see that?" Came the voice of Major Divya Gill, the commander of Beta Company Alpha Battalion. She'd opted to put in one of the new sensor suites that the Grand Duke's Technicians had reverse-engineered into her Dragoon before they'd left.
"Can't say I do, Major. Can you describe it?" Questioned Colonel El-Fadil.
"I'm getting a bit of a reading from behind that factory up on the hillside. It's almost like there's something waiting back there. Either a group of combat vehicles or maybe a couple of mechs." Commed Back Major Gill.
"If that's the case, Major, just what are they waiting for?" Frowned Colonel El-Fadil.
"I don't know, Sir. But the new sensors are insisting there's something there." Informed Major Gill.
"All right, move up to flank the infantry just in case." Ordered Colonel El-Fadil.
In the meantime, he commed over to Colonel Bartek, who was anchoring his right flank. Hopefully, he could get him to do the same and move his mechs up to cover his infantry instead of just using his combat vehicles. He'd probably be able to, August Bartek was a relatively reasonable commander.
He'd pass the advice on to him and see what happened. . .
XXXX
Ella Grimm had been hoping that they'd send their infantry forward ahead of most of their support. At first, that was what had happened. They'd sent the APCs ahead of their mechs, escorted by a smattering of Combat Vehicles, cocky, just like she'd thought they would be. The plan was to wait with her hidden Mech Detachment behind the Polychromatix Corporation Laser Optics Foundry, ready to strike.
Her detachment was running cold, an Old Pirate trick that her Dad had shown her long ago. The idea was to keep the reactor at minimum output so that the factory's powerplant would mask their own heat signatures. Normally this sort of thing was done with things like Dropships or Aerospace Fighters, but her Dad had shown her how to do it with Mechs, just in case she needed to ambush someone who had better sensors than she did on their mechs.
That fits the theme of the New Ålborg Grand Ducal Guards to a T. They had better sensors, better weapons, better armor, better everything. Even their allies from the Combine were only just managing to put a dent in the enemy forces, though she'd heard that some of the enemy Regiments had been pulled off the line, judging by unit insignias on forces in the field. It wasn't anywhere near enough to stem the tide, however.
The plan was to wait until the enemy Infantry got stuck in against the Combine Infantry in the bunkers before launching a counterattack to push the enemy away from their infantry attacking the bunkers and then hopefully annihilate the New Ålborg Infantry before the enemy could relieve them. The Combine would provide support with their hidden artillery park that they'd scattered about the ChemPlex Industries Industrial Combine Complex further into the Bunardie district. It was a good plan that Ella felt had a decent chance of working.
Unfortunately for the plan, however, two of the enemy regiments must have cottoned on that something was off. They'd moved mechs up to support the infantry. The other two had stopped in place, awaiting orders or something. Ella could work with that, but it wouldn't be easy. Hopefully, the Combine Artillery would recognize the stopped Regiments for the sitting ducks they were, because Ella was going to have to hit the mechs that had moved up with everything she had as a priority target.
Soon enough, however, the enemy infantry had begun dismounting their APCs to assault the bunkers. Ella waited for the Combine Sho-sa in the complex, Takahiro Shibayaku, to give the signal to assault. Tense minutes ticked by until, over the radio, the signal was given.
"Red Dragon!" Came Sho-sa Shibayaku's voice over the comms.
"You heard the man, let's do it!" Commanded Ella as she powered up her mech to full power.
With that, Ella Grimm hit the jump jets on her Mech, the Snow Queen, and the carefully laid ambush had begun. . .
XXXX
Ella Grimm's Snow Queen was a special thing, taken from the very limited stock of Rim Worlds Republic-era Equipment that her father had carefully hoarded, not even her brothers had been given mechs from the cache, only she and her father had them. Her Snow Queen was a fully functional, Ice Blue-Painted, Royal Phoenix Hawk. It had belonged to the commander of the SLDF detachment assigned to the Rim Worlds Republic Army Base that her Great-Grandfather had found dug into the Lone Hills all those years ago on the orders of First Lord Richard Cameron as part of some sort of secret initiative.
Her father had seen the mechs maintained with the small supply of spare parts, but it wasn't until things like double heat sinks had started being produced by New Ålborg and sold that he could actually begin putting the majority of the mechs and combat vehicles into service. Now it looked like the regiment's worth of vehicles would never fully be operational.
However, what this meant was that the Snow Queen was not only equipped with an Extended Range PPC but also with an Extended Range Large Laser, Double Heat Sinks, an Endo Steel Chassis, CASE Ammunition for the Machine Guns, Ferro-Fibrous Armor, and a Guardian ECM Suite. It was a thing of beauty, a match for any Battlemech on the field, even the reverse-engineered Rampage Assault Mechs of the New Ålborg Grand Ducal Guards.
She was leading a full Company of Twelve other Battlemechs, a mix of locally produced Marauders and Atlases or Combine Surplus Jenners and Dragons. They came out all guns blazing and locked onto a quartet of escorting New Ålborg Battlemechs in the first few moments of the counterattack. All hell broke loose among the assaulting regiments, and Ella Grimm was the cause.
Her father would be proud. . .
XXXX
Colonel August Bartek had agreed with Colonel El-Fadil's assessment about moving up Mechs to support the infantry. It was always better to be safe than sorry, after all, and the mechs could provide covering fire as easily with their Gauss Rifles from a forward position as they could by hanging back in the rear.
As a full company of Twelve Enemy Battlemechs, led by an odd-looking Ice Blue-Painted Phoenix Hawk surged forward from right where Colonel El-Fadil's Major had said they would be, August was glad he had done so. Immediately, the Dragoons he'd moved up fired their Gauss Rifles and Short-Ranged Missiles, hoping to down some of the enemy before they could get shots off.
Unfortunately, the Missiles that were aimed at the Phoenix Hawk seemed to go haywire, losing tracking and exploding against the hillside or detonating prematurely, almost as if there was some sort of active ECM on the Phoenix Hawk. One of the ferronickel Gauss Slugs managed to hit the Phoenix Hawk but ricocheted off somehow after only damaging the armor plate.
Fortunately, the attacks against the other mechs were more successful, downing a Jenner and a Marauder before the enemy opened up. In a flash, two of his Dragoons went down in a burst of charged particles or a beam of coherent light, from ranges that they were used to being able to hit their opponents but not being able to be hit back.
"That Phoenix Hawk's a damned SLDF Model!" Spat Major Sieger from Beta Company.
"Comms Discipline, Major!" Chided Colonel Bartek. The Neu Leipzig Native was right, though, there was no way that wasn't from a cache somewhere.
"All Gauss, Target that Phoenix Hawk! Don't bother using missiles, the ECM will just make them miss. Save them for the others instead!" Ordered Colonel Bartek.
As he gave that order, Colonel Bartek squeezed off a Gauss Round himself that spanged off the right shoulder of the Phoenix Hawk as it hit its jump jets for another leaping flight. The Ferronickel slug cracked the armor plate and sent the Phoenix Hawk on an uncontrolled tumble from the momentum, but it didn't go down, instead, levering itself back up and erasing one of Major El-Fadil's Dragoons that tried to fire its Gauss Rifle at it in a burst of charged particles. Then it dashed away behind one of the still-being contested bunkers to avoid Gauss Fire from Colonel El-Fadil's Rampage.
There was no time to worry about that, however, because the other mechs were now in range to fire back. They'd been so distracted by the SLDF Phoenix Hawk that they hadn't noticed the other enemy mechs closing. Tunnel Vision was unacceptable, but then, they were pretty unblooded outside a few skirmishes with armed police and scratch militia on Placida. Colonel Bartek would have to throw them into remedial training if they survived this.
He fired off a burst of Ultra-Autocannon rounds that perforated a Jenner, killing it, even as his Gauss Rifle shot through the cockpit of a Marauder. His single Medium Laser fired out as he advanced on a Dragon that was closing on one of Colonel El-Fadil's Griffons, drawing its attention enough that the Griffon could get out of dodge. A burst of Ultra Autocannon Rounds and a Gauss Slug killed that Dragon, only for the Damned Phoenix Hawk to pop up out from cover and take the Griffon he'd just saved through the reactor with its PPC, forcing the Mechwarrior within to eject and scramble for cover to avoid the massive explosion of his reactor cooking off.
Colonel El-Fadil shot at the Phoenix Hawk, but it was already running for cover once again and his ferronickel slug only managed to bite into the reinforced concrete of a bunker. Colonel Bartek fired a full salvo of weaponry, Gauss Rifle, Ultra-Autocannon, and Medium Laser into an Atlas that was about to lay into Colonel El-Fadil with its Autocannon and all four Medium Lasers. The full Salvo breached the Atlas' Armor and forced the Mechwarrior piloting it to initiate an emergency reactor shutdown to avoid sharing the same fate as the Griffin that had just blown up.
Another burst of Ultra-Autocannon Rounds took out an Enemy Jenner but the damned Phoenix Hawk popped up once again to destroy a Griffin and one of his Dragoons before darting back behind one of the still-contested bunkers. Colonel El-Fadil shot an enemy Marauder to pieces, and Major Sieger in Beta Company hit an Atlas with a full salvor of SRM Fire that blew it in half in exchange for two more Griffons and a Rampage taken out, but the enemy was retreating, and Colonels Helgren and Devlin had finally moved up after their moment of indecision. Colonel Bartek figured they'd won.
Then the artillery rounds began to fall on Tenth and Eleventh Guards, and he knew that this wasn't over yet. Counter Battery Fire was being directed at what looked to be a parking lot for employees of a chemical factory where the Combine had set up, but already tenth and eleventh guards had suffered a number of casualties. They had no choice. They had to withdraw to reorganize and come at the Town again afterward.
The necessity didn't make the order taste any less bitter. . .
XXXX
The Battle of the Breach, as it was being called, had been brutal and would set the tone for how much of the fighting for Lancardin would play out over the course of the second and third days of the battle. Ella Grimm, it seemed was full of surprises, just like her brother had been on Titania.
The Grand Ducal Guards would gain ground, only for a surprise counterattack from seemingly nowhere to push them back. First, it was Ella Grimm in her Snow Queen with a cold ambush. Then, as soon as the New Ålborg Forces were ready for another assault, it was a group of Combine Combat Vehicles pouring out of an underground car park and aided by what was left of their artillery after the brutal first assault had whittled them down with counter-battery fire.
By the end of the second day, however, the outlying Bunkers were in New Ålborg's hands. It had cost all regiments dearly to do it, however. Sixteen percent Casualties were killed, wounded, destroyed, and damaged on average among all four regiments. The fighting didn't end there, either. When they pushed into the town proper on Day three, they were beset by hidden traps and ambushes. Camouflaged Gun Pits in shops hiding hidden thumpers or machine gun nests, infantry firing rockets from third-floor windows, that sort of thing.
Just reaching the remaining hilltop forts took most of the day, and once again, that damned Ice Blue Phoenix Hawk sallied out at dusk with another Company of Mechs supported by more Combine Combat Vehicles to make things difficult. However, the battle damage it had suffered in the Battle of the Breach hadn't been repaired, showing that the Oberon Guards didn't have the capacity to replace damaged ferro-fibrous armored plates.
By the end of the third day, however, casualties reached a fraction over twenty-one percent across all units, but they were in control of five of the seven hills. It wasn't until dawn of the fourth day of combat that anyone even noticed what had happened. While the Grand Ducal Guards had been consolidating after the previous days' fighting, Ella Grimm, and the remainder of the Second Oberon Guards and the Twenty-Eighth Galedon Regulars had used the cover of night to slip out of Lancardin, heading into enemy territory.
General Arne Jorgensen had no choice. He would leave Colonels Helgren and Devlin to finish taking Lancardin while he took Colonels El-Fadil and Bartek to chase after the enemy. Helgren and Devlin were clearly more suited to rear echelon duties like this at any rate, judging by their hesitation at the Battle of the Breach. He'd be reassigning them to desk jobs once this war was over. Meanwhile, he could take the more competent colonels and their regiments to chase down Ella Grimm. They would catch up with her east of a Town called Jingang, at a place called the Black Canyon.
They would have their showdown there. . .
XXXX
Ella Grimm was no fool, she knew when she was beaten. Initially, she figured that so long as she could slip pursuit and try and make her way back to Dadaocheng City to link up with the remaining forces under her husband and father, she would be all right. Now, though, she was cornered in the Black Canyon with no way out and a preliminary artillery barrage ongoing.
That barrage had actually come as something of a blessing in disguise, as it had knocked out Tai-Sa Hotaru Akiyama, the commanding officer of what remained of the Twenty-Eighth Galedon Regulars. Mind you, there wasn't much left of the Twenty-Eighth Galedon Regulars in the first place. A single understrength company of combat vehicles, two companies of Infantry, and one single lance of two thumper artillery cannons plus crews mounted on the backs of commandeered trucks.
They were insistent on fighting to the death, but with their commander knocked out, there wasn't anyone of higher rank than a Tai-i to actually order anything. If there was one thing the Combine was good at instilling in its troops, aside from the zealotry they all seemed to possess, it was obedience to orders. That meant that Ella was, right now, the one calling the shots.
That was a problem because as of an hour ago, it seemed like her father had officially had enough and raised the flag of rebellion against the Combine. He'd kicked Alexander and his forces out of Dadaocheng City in a surprise attack, but now Alexander was calling for all available units to travel to Dadaocheng City and help him to deal with the 'Traitorous Dogs of Oberon'. Fortunately, Tai-Sa Akiyama had been knocked out just before that announcement had been made, which had let Ella suppress the information from filtering out to the Combine Troops.
She'd had to move swiftly to consolidate her control of the situation, making sure to keep Tai-Sa Akiyama sedated so she couldn't ask inconvenient questions, posting her own guards on the one working long-range comms unit they had, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, it seemed like she wouldn't be able to keep a lid on the information forever. Mind you, the New Ålborg Grand Ducal Guards might just kill them all before the information had a chance to even get to the Combine Troops.
Trapped between a rock and a hard place, Ella Grimm took the path of least resistance but which was guaranteed to at least see her survive. She brokered a deal with the Commander of the New Ålborg Forces to surrender the Second Oberon Guards as well as deliver Tai-Sa Akiyama to their custody.
It had to be done in secret, in the dark of night. They loaded Tai-Sa Akiyama's sedated form into a Hovertruck, covered her with a tarp, and then marched out as swiftly as they could for the enemy lines. Ella told the Tai-Is of the Combine Forces that she was launching a raid-in-force of the enemy lines and that they were to hold here and ensure the enemy didn't try to infiltrate the canyon in her absence. Fortunately, it seemed the subterfuge worked and by the time the Combine troops realized the entire Second Oberon Guards had left them to surrender, she was already in custody.
As the fifth day of fighting dawned, the artillery barrage started up again in a more intense fashion. Ella didn't care. They honestly shouldn't have even been in this war, to begin with, save that her father had seen too much profit from toadying up to the Coordinator. Now they would all pay the price for that greed. If the Combine didn't burn Dadaocheng City to the ground to punish her father's treachery, Jozef Poniatowski would move in and likely not look kindly on her father for starting this whole mess in the first place. She doubted he'd be allowed to retain control of Oberon Six. One way or another, the Oberon Confederation was doomed.
Ella Grimm would simply have to get the best deal she could for herself in the process. . .
XXXX
By the time noon had come on the fifth day of fighting, the artillery barrage ceased. General Jorgensen was eager to have this over and done with and Colonel Mahmoud El-Fadil was glad to be the one who would finish it. Ella Grimm had been a tenacious opponent, but she had surrendered and managed to bring not just the remnant of her regiment, but also the Tai-Sa of the Twenty-eighth Galedon Regulars as well. Apparently, all that was left was a few companies of Combine Stragglers.
"Let's get this over with. All units advance!" Ordered Colonel El-Fadil.
He moved in with his Rampage taking point. There wasn't much that could truly threaten him left in that canyon if Ella Grimm's debriefing could be believed. Honestly, sending Battlemechs in was sort of a waste in his opinion. They could have left this to the infantry and combat vehicles. General Jorgensen wanted to make a statement, however, so in they went.
As soon as they entered the Black Canyon, they were fired upon. Infantry with rocket launchers climbing the sides of the canyon, tanks further back in dugouts, a pair of Thumper Artillery Pieces that had clearly been hauled away from Lancardin on trucks. He even saw a couple of infantrymen wearing explosive satchel charges like suicide vests.
All of it would be in vain. The tanks knocked out a pair of APCs and an Ignis Infantry Support Tank but couldn't scratch the mechs. The suicide bombers were killed long before they could throw themselves under a hovertank. Even the thumpers only scratched the paint of his Rampage. Colonel El-Fadil sighted down on one of the enemy Tanks, a Scimitar, with his Gauss Rifle. The Ferronickel Slug cored the vehicle from bow to stern, causing a massive explosion. He sprayed a further two enemy Combat Vehicles, a Sabaku Kaze and a Saladin, with Ultra-Autocannon Rounds, causing them to go up in flames.
Then the fire slackened off as his regiment added their own weight of fire to the battle. It was a massacre. The ragged remnants of the Combine launching a suicidal attack rather than surrender all for the honor of their coordinator. A bunch of sound and fury signifying not a whole lot. Even the majority of the vehicles they had put out of action would be repaired by the time that they attacked Dadaocheng City.
The last Combine Soldier to fall killed himself. He drove a civilian hovertruck that had previously been used to haul one of the two thumper artillery pieces out to the canyon into the side of one of the Hipparchs, causing the truck's hydrogen fuel cell to explode and forcing the crew of the Hipparch to bail out as the Scout Vehicle caught fire. They would be the last casualties to fall on the Dadaocheng Line. Now, all that remained was a straight shot to Dadaocheng City and Oberon Six would be theirs.
As Colonel El-Fadil looked out over the ruins of the Combine Camp in the Black Canyon, he could only think that the sooner this ended, the better for everyone it would be. . .
XXXX
AN: All right, so here's how the Battle of Lancardin Played out. Ella Grimm actually hit upon a couple of decent strategies in this fight, plus her SLDF Era Royal Phoenix Hawk gave her an advantage over most other Mechs currently in service. It's just too bad for her that the Grand Ducal Guards had such a hefty material and personnel advantage over her.
Now she's hoping to get as good a deal as she can for her surrender. Maybe a pension or even a job in the new administration, something without a landholding or title attached to it, obviously, but where she can actually have a somewhat secure future. That will be up to Jozef, though. She certainly isn't looking for anything as expansive as what Hendrik Grimm will be asking for. She knows he won't get the governorship of Oberon Six or anything like that, and she doesn't think she'll get that either. A spot in the Grand Ducal Guards or a position in the bureaucracy is much more reasonable in her opinion.
At any rate, the next chapter will be an interlude showing the battle of Dunalban, then we'll be back with Jozef for the assault on Dadaocheng City proper.
Stay tuned. . .
Comments
andrew rousseau
Hmm, maybe a position in the guard, keep ella in one of your elite near fanatically loyal units to keep and eye on her, and hendrik really regrets not trying for a marriage, lmao
