NationStates Jolt Archive

The moonlight reflecting off the water was blotted out by ships, hundreds of ships. The Squornshelan fleet, which had been massing at it's bases in and around Murmansk and Severomorsk, was finally moving out. The sheer amount of ships was staggering, with nearly one sixth of the massive Squornshelan Navy being deployed along with numerous cargo and transport vessels.
They sailed North for 500 km or so, and then turned West, and eventually South, passing into the Norwegian Sea. As day broke, they continued South, towards the Atlantic Ocean, aiming South of Iceland and North of the Faroe Islands. They were careful to avoid the territorial waters of all other nations, not wanting to cause an incident.
Their destination, although not all of the crews knew it yet, was Mauritania, in West Africa. The Empire of Squornshelous had seen fit to act to restore order in the area, which was currently in disorder after the collapse of the Binthorian government.


Squornshelan Naval Order of Battle:
Improved Nimitz Class CVA - 12
Improved Enterprise Class CVA - 7
Improved Kitty Hawk Class CVA - 6
Improved Kennedy Class CVA - 5
Intruder Class DD - 45
Invisible Class DD - 30
Oliver Hazard Perry Class FF - 35
Spruance Class DD - 35
Arleigh Burke Class DDG - 35
Ticonderoga Class CG - 30
Improved Iowa Class BB - 2
Improved Prinz Eugen Class CA - 3
Lurker Class SSN - 15
Vogsphere Class SSA - 40
Zarquon Class SSA - 65
Behemoth Class SSBN - 10
Squalus Class SSBA - 10
F-14E Super Tomcat - 720
F/A-18E Super Hornet - 1440
AV-8B Harrier - 180
H-1N Firestorm - 405
Troop Transport - 350
Arsenal Ship - 50
Tanker - 70

In Nouakchott...

The streets are in turmoil, the sudden departure of Binthorian troops has left the city in turmoil. Most control in Mauritania was now held by rival wargangs each trying to gain control over Mauritania. One such group was run by a man named Mehmet, an AK wielding militiaman wearing a bent binthorian army helmet. He was oblivious to the advance of Squornshelan forces on his nation. For now all he cared about was pillaging ex government buildings and attacking other gangs.

The situation was the same across all Mauritania, infrastructure had imploded after the withdrawal of binthorian troops. No one in Mauritania knew what was fast approaching them...

As the Squornshelan fleet put Spain and Portugal behind them, they had still not been questioned by any country they had passed. Unfortunately, in order to keep that clean record, they would have to make a lengthy detour around the Canary Islands. As they closed within striking distance, three seperate spy satellites were transferred to geostationary orbits above Mauritania, tracking every movement that went on miles below. On board the taskforce's cruisers and carriers, a massive cruise missile and aircraft strike was being perpared.


OOC: Attack comes my next post, probably around 4 or 5 pm EST tomorrow.

With the invasion taskforce finally in position just East of the Cape Verde Islands, the time for the attack had come. The first steps to be taken were the destruction of any remnants of naval and air forces in Mauritania. Once those had been taken out, there would be no threat to the taskforce and it could operate without fear of any counterattacks.
With thirty aircraft carriers present, the force had 720 F-14E Super Tomcats, 1440 F/A-18E Super Hornets, and 180 AV-8B Harrier jumpjets at its disposal, along with 70 surface vessels equipped with cruise missiles. In addition to the surface fleet, 125 submarines of various types prowled beneath the waves, ready to unleash over 1200 cruise missiles and over 700 ballistic missiles at the touch of a button.
The first strike was a master work of timing. Working in complete radio silence, about 60 Vogsphere and Zarquon class antimatter attack submarines closed in on the naval bases along the small coastline of Mauritania. They prepared a devastating salvo of torpedoes and anti-ship missiles to destroy anything in the water. As they neared their targets, 10 full wings of carrier aircraft lifted off. A Squornshelan carrier wing consists of 24 F-14E's and 48 F/A-18E's, giving a total of 240 Tomcats and 480 Hornets. They stayed low, just above the waves, hoping to avoid radar detection until it was too late. Another three wings maintained a patrol over the vast fleet, guarding against attacks. On board the Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke class vessels, a missile salvo totaling 650 missiles was prepared, mostly targeted toward inland air bases, which were out of comfortable range for the carrier aircraft.
The missiles were launched at a precise moment, timed to hit their targets at the same moment as the planes and subs, and programmed to fly over only rural areas to avoid alerting anyone to the attack.

At exactly 1 am local time, all hell broke loose.

In Nouakchott smoke filled the sky, somewhere in the streets a child wailed. All day the Mauritainians had been firing old soviet missiles at the aircraft going overhead. They had no longer got a navy, they would have to fight the enemy on land at a futile battle.

21 People had died in the city earlier that day when a cruise missile hit another building before it reached it's target. In the streets gangs of militia with AK - 47s atempted to keep order. All across the country hundreds had died in such attacks.

An aircraft strafed over the city mowing people down. The resistance leader cursed as he saw the destruction being done...

Admiral Elias Chekov, commander of the entire invasion force, smiled as the reports began flowing in. the damage done to Mauritania was staggering, while the only cost to Squornshelous had been a handful of planes shot down by shoulder launched missiles. As the planes began returning to their carriers, a final casualty report was issued: 15 Tomcats had been shot down, along with 21 Hornets, leaving 51 servicemen and women either dead or captured.
Chekov began planning the next stage of the invasion. The battleships and cruisers, along with some of the destroyers would move in close to a trio of selected invasion beaches, one in North, near the city of Nouadhibou, one just North of the Capital of Noukhachott, and one in the South, just North of the mouth of the Senegal River. After any resistance along the beaches themselves had been softened by bombardment, they landing craft would move in to deliver the troops. They would also have strong air support from helicopters and F-14's. The troops would be delivered at dusk, so the bombardment ships began moving into place. They would use both rockets and shelling.

After the bombardments, several thousand landing craft moved into place, carrying everything from infantry, to tanks, to construction materials. The first wave was comprised of Squornshelan Marines, a specialized division of the Army that operates as mechanized infantry, closely integrated with the armor. Equipped with the finest in body armor, H & K weapons and other technology, they moved quickly through the night, viewing the world through multifunction goggles that acted as infrared, nightvision and binocular lenses.
They moved quickly to take control of strategic locations where engineers moved in to construct temporary bases. They would take no prisoners until daybreak, when they would have somewhere to put them, so anyone who crossed their path with any sort of weapon died.
At dawn, once solid beachheads had been established, the heavier equipment, such as artillery and MBT's was landed. Attack and cargo helicopters were moved to three new airstrips built during the night, and large numbers of troops began to assemble themselves for deployment across the country.

In the streets of Nouakchott, it was chaos. Bodies littered the streets from the air assault. The resistance commander was tired, he had been evacuating civilians all night and had not got any sleep...

A battered car entered the city, it had been driving all night. A very weary looking man got out and ran into the resistance leaders house shouting "INVASION!, INVASION!". He sat down and started to speak with the resistance chief:

"Enemies are landing on the beaches, they have airfields and tanks, we lost 245 of our fighters on the beach in a big battle. They shall come straight for us, we need to set up more hospitals for the wounded. They overwhelmed us, now they are headed in this direction. We know that they are Squornshelan, and they invade from the north. We should go in to the countryside to wage guerilla war. We don't stand a chance here".

Resistance chief:"You are right, we have about 20 hours to evacuate, get everyone out of the city!"

Little resistance was met as Squornshelan troops took the capitol city and the other coastal towns of Tiguent, Coppolani, Portendick, Tikattane, Nouamerhar, Iouik, and Tanoudert. The only place where resistance was fierce was in the North at the city of Nouadhibou. It's position at the end of a narrow peninsula meant the resistance fighters were cut off, and had no way to retreat into the Eastern Deserts. Little by little, the Squornshelan forces advanced on the city though. Heavy artillery was in place to the North of the city, and an amphibious landing was carried out on the Southern tip of the peninsula. Precision bombings were carried out by Tu-22M3 "Backfire" and Tu-160 "Blackjack" bombers flying from bases in Murmansk, being refueled over the Mediterranean to allow them to reach their target safely.
With the rest of the coastline under Squornshelan control, There was no more need for beach landings, and the troop transports docked in the available harbors to unload troops and equipment. Soon, carrier F-14's were flying regular patrols over the desert, hoping to find band sof resistance fighters, as the army organized itsself to push inland in a three pronged assault, towards the city of Atar in the North, and towards Aleg and Rosso in the South.
In Murmansk, more forces were on the move. 72 F-15E Strike Eagles and 120 F-22A Raptors were on their way to airbases in Mauritania to joibn the other Air Force planes being unloaded from the ships that had carried them all the way from Murmansk: an assortment of A-10 Thunderbolts, MiG 27 "Floggers", EF-111A Ravens, EA-6B Prowlers and FB-111 Aardvarks. These planes would support the lengthy ground war that was sure to come, along with the Apache and Firestorm helicopters also being unloaded.

All my equipment can be found here: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8672932&postcount=17

OOC: Okay, here's the deal. I am going on vacation for approx. two weeks and I won't be able to get computer access for RPing, so I'm gonna put this on hold, we can either pick up right where we leave off or make up some IC reason for the delay. Either way, I won't be posting here again until I'm back.

As soon as the army had set up bases of operation along the coast, a mission vastly facilitated by the withdrawal of the native forces from that area into the deserts, they began to plan the best course of action to take the country with minimal loss. It was decided that fighter/bomber and helicopter patrols would be sent out to locate the centers of resistance.
Once those areas were found, the ground troops would move in. It would be inefficient to have tanks and humvees rolling around wasting gas trying o find a bunch of geurillas hiding. At first light the next morning, more than 250 aircraft, including 72 FB-111's 108 MiG 27's and 72 A-10's took off and sped into the desert. The flew extremely low, using downlooking radar to locate probable hideouts and visual and IR inspection to see what was there. They had orders to destroy anything that appeared to be a hideout or stronghold of any kind, and record its location, so that ground troops and helicopters could follow up in the area.

In the resistance HQ, somewhere in the middle of the Mauritanian desert...

Leader:How many more troops have we lost

Aide: Three hundred, our guerilla campaign is too out in the open...

Leader: Reduce attacks, and make them less concentrated. Do we have any of those who disguised themselves as civilians left?

Aide:Yes,

Leader: Start to attack enemy convoys and suplly bases, I'll see about terrorism tactics in the meantime...

----------------------------------

At a Squornshelan supply base, near the coast...

(Night)

The enemy had thermal imaging goggles, once the militia were over the hilltop they would have to be quick. There were 60 of them, 10 had RPGs, whilst there were also 9 Snipers, and the rest had AK-47s and AK-74SUs. Everything was quiet... down in the base, a foreign guard coughed as he patrolled the perimeter.

"NOW!" yelled one of the rebels.

10 RPGs streaked down the hill, crashing into fuel canisters in the base, whilst another blew the chainlink fence in one section. Snipers started shooting mainly at officers as they poured out of the building, and those with assault rifles moved to engage enemy troops.

The RPGs each had 5 extra rockets, on top of the first salvo, and soon a second wave poured into the base. Three rebels were instantly thrown back in a spray of blood as they approached the base by good aim from Squornshelan troops. The next move from the rebels was suicidal, an old russian car packed with explosives drove over the hilltop and drove straight into the base. The driver was killed before he got past the fence, but that didn't matter, the bomb was remote.

The rebel officer who had carefully executed this attack pressed a button on a handset he had kept in his top pocket. He watched as a massive fireball engulfed the base. More and more Squornshelans were arriving, so the rebels fell back before they were all killed, dissapearing into the desert night

The day after the attack on the supply depot, the Squornshelan regional commanders met to draft a plan to secure the areas currently occupied by Imperium troops. It was agreed that while the action in the Eastern area of battle was going well, with Squornshelan strike forces moving quickly from place to place to destroy the as of yet unorganized resistance bases, there were obviously some remnants of the Mauritanian armed forces in the coastal areas. It was decided that while the land based aricraft continued to patrol the West, carrier planes, especially AV-8B Harriers would maintain air patrols over the occupied area, along with helicopters. In addition to this, the number of checkpoints around cities and bases would be doubled, and a systematic search to hunt down the attackers would begin. Almost the entire country was now occupied by Squornshelan troops and it only remained to weed out the rebel fighters before a new government could be set up and Mauritania would be under control.
Millions of pamphlets advertising propaganda about the humane and nonviolent way that the Democratic Republic of the Congo had come under Squornshelan control. The pamphlets drew parallels between the collapse of the ruling powers in Mauritania, and the handover of the Congo by Tyrandis. It showed pictures and gave descriptions of the peaceful way of life of the newly Squornshelan Congolese and the benevolent rule of the Squornshelan government. The hope was that the ordinary people, wanting an end to the fighting, would reveal the identities and locations of the rebel factions.

In a village north of Nouakchott...

The rebel convoy moved into the village. A Squornshelan air patrol had just gone over, but the three trucks were well disguised as food transports and had not been detected.

The rebel lieutenant jumped out of the truck. The ground was littered with white sheets. The leader picked one up and spat on the ground...

"Lies!, this is all lies... if the Army of God (Catchy rebel name...) catches anyone from this village defecting to the Squornshelans you will be shot. They may have the cities, but we hold the countryside, and our rules are to be enforced, these are the orders of Grand Leader Abdul".

(Another Rebel)"We need to make a move... fast!, that patrol we saw has doubled back".

The rebels slung their AKs and jumped back into the trucks before moving off back into the desert, following a more obscure route back to a desert hideout.

A few weeks after the strike on the supply depot, there were both good and bad signs. While several groups of rebel militia had been captured, the cooperation that had been hoped for from the villagers was not going well. In one village, the chief elder had spoken to the Squornshelan Lieutenant whose squad had visited.
"My people know that you try to bring peace, but we are afraid. You are here now, but you cannot be here always to protect us. If we help you, the Army of God will kill us when you are gone."

Similar reports flowed in from across the countryside. It was time for a difficult descision to be made by the ground forces commander, General David Renault. He consulted with two of his aides before deciding.
"With this Army of God keeping the villagers under their influence by fear, we are faced with the need to quickly and efficiently destroy the rebels in and around our occupied zone. In order to do this, we may need to send in the marines again."

"General, sending in the marines would terrify the local villages! They'd see us as no better than the rebels!"

"I know that, but we may have no choice. In the long run, we can pull the marines out when the rebels are destoyed, and return the country to a peaceful way of life."

"I think that sending in the marines is a good idea, right now we're being much to gentle with this country. We need to stop handling them with kid gloves."

"You're talking about future Squornshelan citizens. General, I don't agree with this idea."

"Unfortunately, Major, I do. We will send in the marines on a twofold assignment. Their primary goal will be to destroy the rebel forces, while at the same time, they will be a show of force to the rebels and the villagers. Let them see that no band of AK toting farmboys can stand up to the military might of Squornshelous."

The Squornshelan Marines, who had been out of action since the first days of the invasion, were quickly and secretly moved to the areas where the most attacks had occurred. Squornshelan Marines are drafted into military schools at the ae of 5, and indoctrinated to be perfect soldiers. Some radicals even claim that the government alters their genes to improve their fighting ability. Their uniform is pure black, and no skin shows, as they were IR/Nightvision/Bincoluar goggles at all times, accompanied by gas masks. Their suits are self contained, and covered in polymer body armor. The objective of this uniform is both to defend them against almost any weapon an enemy can attack them with, and to terrify anyone who comes face to face with them. Barely two weeks after the Army of God had begun to threaten the villages, the marines stormed into the peaceful hamlets, setting up firebases in and around some of them, conducting regular patrols in others. Anyone acting supiciously was taken into custody, or more often, shot on sight.

OOC: Just to give you an idea, if you've played the game Killzone, the Squornshelan Marines bear a striking resemblance to the Hellghast

ooc: I have no idea what that means but it sounds fairly fearsome...

In a cave, somewhere in the depths of Mauritania...

"Sir, the patrols of the foreign rebels draw closer... we saw one group of black clad troops moving into Arkhan Oasis".

Leader:"This is not good, that is our main water supply, we must retake it".

"An attack there would lead the Squornshelans to know where we are, I suggest we move our HQ north to another more obscure oasis region".

Leader:"You're right, we need to move now... get more terror squads into Nouakchott, and shoot all the inhabitants of a village somewhere... let them know we mean business".

------------------------
In a village near Nema...

This village had been under surveillance for several days, and the black clad troops had been seen moving in. The rebels outnumbered the squad in the village about 10 to 1, and now they decided to seize the opportunity to attack. Thirty of the rebels had RPG-7 launchers, and two of them targeted the 15 huts in the hamlet. In the meantime 50 snipers on a dune on the far side of the village prepared to pick off any marines who tried to make a line on that side of the village. At the bottom of the dunes were heavliy guraded motocross bikes, to make a quick escape.

The RPGs went off, the village erupted into fire, yells could be heard in amongst the flames. The snipers started to open fire on units that fled the inferno. Now the rebels with AK-74 assault rifles moved to attack. There were 400 of the troops with these weapons, and they advanced on the village, using an old outlying field wall as cover from the deadly counterfire. They dropped as a second salvo of RPGs thundered into the town. The rebels knew that many marines would easily have survived the flames, as they fanned out into the rubble and used it as cover.

The main attacking body drew fire from the marines, which only gave the RPGs and snipers something else to attack. Once the rebels moved into one building, they found what they had been looking for. All the inhabitants of the village were hiding in a building, obviously afraid. The rifleman opened up on them, not leaving a soul alive.

On the hill, a retreat was sounded, an intercepted communication, revealed air support was fast approaching the village, the rebels quickly moved out, they made a stupid error and just ran back across the field, with almost 70 being mowed down in the process. The rebels had got what they came for, and now started to head off in all directions into the desert...

Total Losses:
RPG Squad: 19
Snipers: 34
Other: 123

The first thing that the Squornshelan forces did after securing the general area was to allow photographers and embedded journalists into the village. No attempt was made to clean up or move the bodies before they arrived. The rest of the nation would see exactly how the "Freedom Fighters" were treating their fellow countrymen. The usual strict nondisclosure policies among the troops were also relaxed slightly, so that news of the slaughter could spread by word of mouth. The roughly 40,000 marines in the country also changed their tactics. They went out into the desert wilderness for weeks at a time with local guides to show them oases and hideouts. They would observe and hunt down the insurgents on their own ground. 50,000 regular army troops also moved into the towns and villages.
IN an effort to make use of their vastly superior equipment, large and ery well defended bases were set up where tanks, helicopters and V/STOL Harrier jets could be kept. both field artillery and mobile howitzers acompanied the troops, working from strategic positions. Gradually, as the number of Squornshelan troops and equipment increased, the Army of God began tofind it much more difficult to move around and coordinate their efforts, as messengers and small groups moving from hideout to hideout were captured more and more often.

After a few weeks of these intensified operations, the attacks by the Army of God had decreased in both frequency and in total damage. Although there will still almost daily gunfights in the more densly populated south, and casualties continued to come in. It seemed that the invaders were coming very close to eliminating the AoG as a legitimite threat. However, very few high ranking rebel officers had been captured, and with the large amount of territory under Squornshelan control having been carefully searched for clues, it was hoped that soon, any day now, a new piece of information would surface that would lead the marines to a base hidden in the desert where they could destroy the leadership of the insurgent forces. Hopefully once the head was cut off the snake, the body would die shortly afterward.

OOC: I'm thinking of an informer who tips off the troops off to the location of such a base, and then a climactic, multi-post final battle, where many of the insurgent leaders are either killed or captured and the rest escape over the border. What's your take on all this?