NationStates Jolt Archive

Verdant Archipelago Union News Network

[Fanfare with rock beat]

“And now on 99.3FM is Schadenfreude with Franklin Davis.”

[/Fanfare with rock beat]

“Good evening and welcome to Schadenfreude. Tonight, we have a special guest, Lieutenant Colonel Gertrude Steiner of the Unified Army, who is about to participate in a wholly new form of exercise with the Royal Azazian Army. Colonel Steiner, would you mind telling our listeners about Operation Didactic Destruction, and what makes this so different?”

“Certainly Franklin. Didactic Destruction is the newest inter-service training exercise between Union and Azazian forces. We’ll be training in real-war conditions… the scenario is that Azazian troops are advancing to cross a river and break our lines at that point. Their objective is to secure a bridgehead and cross in force… our job is to hold the bridges and keep the Azazian bridgehead contained. To that end, the Azazians will be fielding a force approximately twice the strength of our own.”

“Really. How realistic is this scenario given that we are close allies of the Azazians and the exercise is actually taking place on Azazian soil?”

“The object isn’t nessisarily realism, it’s to test our equipment and doctrine. But Azazian equipment is quite similar to that used by potential OpFors, whereas we simulate enemies of the Azazians, so it’s not as unreasonable as it seems. As for the tactical situation, it’s quite plausible. Our armed forces are rather small, so it is very likely that in any war, we’ll be outnumbered and on the defensive.”

“Facinating. Could you tell us what is the revolutionary aspect of this exercise?”

“It is the first completely live fire training operation we’ve had. All ammunition is live, and the bullets are real.”

“Uh… isn’t that dangerous.”

“Not at all. We’ll be using a prototype virtual reality simulator so though dying will hurt, it won’t be permanent.”

“I… see… can you give us more of the details?”

[Chuckle]
“No.”

Tap
A
Gorrila

Unidentified Island
United Kingdom of Azazia

The Royal Army existed for most of the history of the nation of Azazia, either under the royal family of the native Azazians or the direct military force of the English-descended monarch. However, it was only in recent times that the Royal Army had become the official ground fighting force of the United Kingdom, the two had come into existence at the same time with the same legislation calling for an Azazian empire in the Pacific. The problem was that nobody in the Royal Army had any true experience. For almost the entire history of the islands, called many things from Republic to Commonwealth to now Untied Kingdom, the Royal Navy has always been the first line of offense and defence for the state. In almost every engagement, the power of the Royal Navy was itself sufficient to force an opponent to its knees.

However, the current strategists at the Ministry of Defence argued that in order to become an imperial army, the troops would need to be trained against battle-hardened veterans – especially those of their friends and allies. Throughout this time, the Commonwealth had established a colony in the Verdant Archipelago, and when the name changed, the colony became a royal crown colony – either way, relations between the peoples on the islands grew to the point where many at home considered those living in the now independent and united Verdant Archipelago Union their brothers and sisters. And as such, it only made sense to Minister of Defence Daniel Blair to train his men and women with the help of those brothers and sisters – who had for years fought amongst themselves.

Colonel Matthew Barkley stood nearly six feet tall, wearing his battle uniform and helmet he looked like a giant amongst the unusually small command staff in his HQ. Before him lay a map of the battlefield, a proving ground owned by the Ministry of Defence. The northwest corner proved especially hilly with two small streams flowing through a thick forest, converging to form a wider river with a flatter – though still hilly – valley on the western side. His regiment had been tasked with securing the three bridges crossing the river and its tributaries and advancing into the territory held by a strengthened VAU battalion.

The opening commencement ceremonies had taken most of the day, with the usual pomp and circumstance of diplomats making the best out of this brutal contest, and that left him with only a few hours of workable daylight. He had faced some combat in his career, but mostly against poorly equipped third-rate armies, where he could dominate by beginning an operation at night. Here, however, he faced a much tougher and perhaps even better equipped army. The center of the “map” was ringed by three large hills, flanking the only real road running from west to east. To the northeast sat the convergence of the streams, the two bridges crossing them sitting just to the north of the convergence, through a thick forest.

The obvious route sitting before Barkley was the straight shot across what was named Bridge Alpha, almost directly to his east over a small rise. The ideal situation would be to roll his tanks over that hill swarm across the bridge and blitzkrieg into the rolling hills beyond. But, there was one glaring flaw in that plan, the three hills underneath his force would pass would provide excellent positions to fire down upon his units. The hills needed to be secured first. Then came the securing of his flank. The small forest near the convergence of the tributaries hosted Bridges Beta and Delta, Beta the one furthest to the west. If he moved his force straight across, the enemy could move in behind the hills and come through the forest road and run amok in his rear, cutting off the line of supply and potentially destroying his artillery, which was placed beyond a hill running parallel to the river just south of the convergence.

He glanced at his watch, now only minutes remaining before he could commence giving his orders. With the time he now had, he opened his canteen and took a long swig of cold water, which could be in due time replenished from the springs at the northwest of the map. His alarm started to give off its quiet chirp.

“And we’re off.” He muttered to himself.

Barkley moved over to the commander of his first armoured battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Valery Chekov – a diminutive man with cold blue eyes and dark black hair. “Valery, I want you to take your recon screen and move it north across Bridges Beta and Delta. If it’s clear, take your column up through that forest and hold position on our side of Delta, out of sight as much as possible – camouflage and all. Radio me when you’re in position.”

The Russian officer nodded and moved off to his command already barking orders to his green troops. Moments later the diesel-electric engines of the reconnaissance vehicles started up, signaling that the Royal Army was now on the move.

Meanwhile, Barkley had called over Lieutenant Colonels George Whittlebey, and Charles Sumner. “George, I want you to take the second recon screen and move it with your troops down the south of Alpha Bridge. Stay clear of the bridge for now, who knows if the Voo troops (as the VAU troops were so affectionately called) have anybody there yet. What I want you to do, however, is get some men atop Hill 55 [located just across the river to the south of the bridge] and secure it. I want that hill in our possession by morning. Charles, when George’s guys have Hill 55, I want your force to start moving across Alpha and you’ll push down the center road. Just be wary of mines, I hear these guys love their bloody mines.”

Barkley’s last mechanized infantry battalion was already in place down to the south, sitting behind the hills across from the river. He needed them to hold, and block any possible attempts by VAU forces to swing underneath him. In time they’d move, but Barkley first wanted to make sure he got his lead forces into their positions. Now it was only a matter of who could get where first… and how many men would he lose.

OOC: I rarely tags, but this is an interesting thread, especially considering that I haven't seen VA in NS in about a month. A question for the topic though, how will armour, artillery (including mortar), and the use of CAS from army aviation affect the simulated battle?

OOC: I've been busy =) But now school's out, I'm back from asia, and I'm unemployed.

We're both deploying mechanized units with supporting armour... I don't know azazian doctrine, but we're going to keep the company of armour as a mobile reserve to plug any breakthroughs, active defence style. The mech companies will take up defencive positions and try to limit their exposure as much as possible. The attached mechanized airborn unit will perform in a cavalry role, patrolling the eastern bank iof the river.

The question of artillery is particularly interesting, FOOs will be deployed on the west bank to engage azazian units with artillery fire. On paper, we don't have a very large artillery compliment, merely two five-gun batteries of Kataphractoi heavy SPAs. Fortunately, the Kataphract is an extremely heavily armoured gun system specifically designed to engage in counterbattery fires. In addition, from long and hard experience with slow to respond artillery and mortars, every APC we use is armed with a 125mm mortar that can operate in both direct and indirect modes. This provides every 10 man section with direct fire support tasked to them primarly, and gives them a limited breaching tool as well. The mortar can also fire modified gun-launched ATGMs similar to LAHAT.

We are unequipped with CAS, but do have some rather frightening SAM/AAA units that should keep Azazian aircraft off us. Not to mention that our tanks can engage aircraft successfully with their main guns and gun launched missiles.

VAU Command Airship Definitely Not a Phoenix


When Lieutenant Colonel Steiner entered the briefing room aboard the DNP, as tradition required it, no one came to attention or saluted or even acknowledged her presence with anything more than a nod. She wore standard battledress with her sun-hat rolled up in a shoulder strap, just like anyone else in the room. Tradition. The only compromise to her rank was the single tiny gold and brown roundel on each side of her collar, indicating her rank and service.

The Verdant Archipelago was at war with itself for over four hundred years, and the new unified army has stolen traditions from each of the four city states. This tradition came from an old Jacksonian rhyme, “Brass breeds brass.” Insignia attract sniper bullets. VAU generals look and act the same in the field as privates.

The colonel sat down in her chair, and flipped on the screen of the computer terminal. She opened a program, Microsoft Military Messenger typed in her user name (SmackusMaximus – she had chosen it while still a stupid third lieutenant) and password, and entered a chatroom 12987214905. The other users were waiting there already. She waited impatiently for the messages of the others to arrive… the network was capable of almost instantaneous transmission, but transmissions were intentionally saved for a period of several seconds and then compressed and released all at once to avoid interception. Once the battle started in earnest, she would switch to audio communication, but for now, the low emission text was almost as easy.

Welcome to MilChatroom 12987214905
You are the eleventh (11) user to join this room
Current users: 1337|-|4x0R, CuteLieut89, francoj, tehundergarmentsoftehstrategos, sweetsexysarge, gisonzigjni, GunBunny, DarthVader99, snipergirl, Candu, SmackusMaximus

1337|-|4x0R says: Welcome to the net, sir.

CuteLieut89 says: You’re late, you were supposed to log on at 1325 hours.

SmackusMaximus says: I know, the starting ceremonies ran late. How are we doing?

Candu says: We have inspected the bridges. Unfortunately, they aren’t suitable for demolition – we could easily rig them to blow but then the Royals would notice the explosives and refuse to cross. We don't want that. So we put a small beacon on each support, the Kataphractoi will be able to hit them, no problem, and the royals won’t see the beacon. We wouldn’t notice, if we were going in, it's under water and doesn't broadcast until remotely activated.

SmackusMaximus says: And the construction of fighting positions?

Candu says: Our dozers are digging as fast as they can, but we’re going to have to make do with field expedients. We are focusing on foxholes and distributing ballistic blankets. We have also laid wire linking the hull down positions for the BV-18s. We also have an ADL set up covering each bridge.

SmackusMaximus says: Artillery?

GunBunny says: our two Kataphractoi batteries are dug in, hull down, with ARVs linked. They’re wired up, and are currently zeroing in on the bridges and other chokepoints. We have several fireplans worked out, Deny, and trap are targeted on the bridges, Herd is for dealing with any enemy artillery. The BV-18s are tasked to deal with local calls for fire initially, and are released for other fires when idle. We have thirty OP sites set up west of the river and ten FO teams over there. Final Protective Fires for all positions have been calculated. We have twenty untasked ARVs that we can speedload and send to any position very quickly.

SmackusMaximus says: AD?

GunBunny says: We don’t think the royals have any CAS, but the three mech companies hiave been assigned two ADs each, with the other four under centralized battalion command.

Smackus Maximus says: Speaking of the mechs, how are they doing?

snipergirl says: As Captain Ladha says, we’re mostly dug in on the northeast side of bridge 26, with the majority of our BV-18s on the hill, ready to sweep Hill 25 clean. We’re dug in and using lots of camo and thermal netting, so we should be overlooked until we open up.

gisonzigjni says: We aren’t dug in quite so well, but still are in nice hull down positions on Hill 43 and around bridge 33. Our crunchies are just finishing up their foxholes.

sweetsexysarge says: We’ve spread our, like you suggested, patrolling with Ibis Company along the east bank.

1337|-|4x0R says: between Cat and us, we should be able to detect any crossings, though I think I’m gonna request a small swarm too.

SmackusMaximus says: Ah… alright. Granted. 20 gnats released to you. Armour?

DarthVader99 says: Dug in. Waiting. We’re on a reverse slope so we CAN give fire support… biut we’d prefer not to.

SmackusMaximus says: I’ll keep that in mind, but we may not have a choice in the matter. I have some good news though, our radar net is finally UP. Nothing moves, stealthy or normal, without us seeing it. And lets finish this fast… martinis on the Definitely Not a Phoenix when this is over, and I’m buying!

Sergeant Paul Cane looked over the clean-shaven boys sitting around before him, each holding on to his weapon like a mere toy as if entirely unaware the destructive force behind the combinations of steel and composite plastics. At his side lay the Arsenal Mk.32 battle rifle, which would spit out lethal 6.5x45mm rounds to tear into enemy flesh, to kill fellow soldiers and common brothers. Although only in his thirties, Cane had fired once before upon men with his rifle, though it had been the heavier, but smaller caliber, AR-28 pulse rifle. That time had been back during the annexation and pacification of the Juristan Republic, which saw him lay down withering fire, killing hundred upon hundreds of civilians who had risen up to overthrow the new Azazian government. Since those days, the Commonwealth Army had become the Royal Army and the unwieldy and cumbersome pulse rifles had been put back to the drawing board while the lighter battle rifles were unveiled and put into the hands of boys pretending to be men.

Fortunately here, the battle wasn’t real – though it looked and felt real, at least the waiting did. A death here would merely mean embarrassment back at the barracks, and would mean more screaming at the boys before him. But he would need their help, and they his, to get through the coming days. He angered his knees by rising abruptly from the rock he had claimed as a seat and headed towards his boys. He saw from the other side of the small clearing the lieutenant heading over as well, likely it meant time to saddle up and head on out.

The lieutenant, too, was a new kid with a toy gun. Cane had been before him and watched the fresh-faced academy graduate plop into his first command. In one hand was a piece of paper, the other his rifle. Cane nodded to his superior as acknowledgment of his presence, and had it returned with a warm smile.

“Gentlemen,” the lieutenant began, “I’ve just received our orders and we’re on the move. Our mission is to secure Hill 55 beyond the bridge. A hill well within the control of VAU forces. We are going to shortly be receiving data from the drone reconnaissance vehicles and that will give us the route by which we move. For now, though, I want everybody to make sure their gear works, and stow it all. We’ll be moving out shortly.” He moved over to Cane to make more complete plans with the only man under his command to have seen actual combat.

“Sergeant, command believes the enemy forces lay beyond the river and are entrenched on the far side of the bridge. They want us to get up on Hill 55 so we can provide direct observation of the battlefield, and even spot some artillery if need be. But that means we’ll be crossing the river.”

“Sir, we don’t have the boats—“

“Already taken care of, I requisitioned some from command before I left, they’ll be arriving shortly on a Kv.7, which we’ll use to take us near the river. We won’t be on long, I don’t want to tip off anybody that we’re moving across. But it will be at night, do you think the guys are up to the task?”

Cane nodded. The squad had all passed training, they were all excellent marksmen with their rifles, they were all prepared for the rigors of combat, and they were theoretically ready to cross by inflatable boat to enemy ground in the pitch-black of night. Of course, theory had no bearing on the actuality of the situation in combat. “I think they’ve been trained as best they could be, sir. I expect things to go wrong, but I don’t believe that failing the river crossing shall be one of them.”

“Very well then, Sergeant. Go remind them of all they need to do.” Cane nodded once more and left, saluting going out the window in combat situations, as did most other signs of rank – unknowingly similar to their VAU counterparts.

Several kilometers to the north, Specialist Keith Landry gave a quick slap to the sleek and smooth body of the RH-17 reconnaissance drone that would soon be providing some information on enemy forces positioned near the main bridge. Landry’s task in the Royal Army was to maintain and operate the remotely-piloted drones that provided real-time intelligence to the men on the ground. A “geek” throughout all of his years in the nation’s educational system had led him to being an excellent mechanic and systems engineer for the Royal Army, who would in several years pay for him to complete his schooling.

For now, the RH-17 earned him that tuition money. And in the operation forthcoming he would prove his worth to the country and the army. Once back in the small command center, nothing more than scattered computers in a hollowed-out Kv.7 hull, Landry booted up the control programme for the pilots smoking outside the hull. He ran a final diagnostic check and with everything ready to rock, he opened the hatch and found the pilots looking right at him with his thick black glasses. “Your bird is ready, guys.”

Through the thick forests, between squawks of birds in high above branches, underneath the darkening sky and the calm breeze a low rumble echoed as a small column of tanks moved forward down a dirt road, the lead vehicle using an extended chain device to thrash the ground ahead to detonate any potential mines left behind by the VAU forces. Although the enemy was reported to be on the other side of the river, the tank commanders decided not to put themselves in more danger than necessary – with the exception of having their hatches open, allowing the cool breeze to circulate out the hot, stuffy air inside the cramped 69,000 kilogram main battle tanks. As they approached the first bridge the units linked up with the eight wheeled armoured reconnaissance vehicles, who had first reported the prior route secure.

The Kv.7s sported a small profile turret housing a 30mm chain gun, designed to shred infantry and light armoured vehicles to shred. Inside a diesel-electric engine powered the armoured transmission controlling the eight wheels that moved it over the ground quieter than the prior treaded recon vehicles would ever have been able to achieve. Per Barkley’s orders, the vehicles, having linked up with the lead tank units, would begin crossing the river’s tributary after an equipped team swept it for mines, bombs, anything out of place.

Further to the south Specialist Landry noted the high-definition video screens in the control room as the pilots carefully maneuvered the remote drone over and around hill tops, keeping closing to the tree lines, endeavoring to appear as if nothing more than commonplace ground clutter. Suddenly the screen changed as the tiny white cursor drew a box around a specific area in the screen, and instantly the image grew in size, grainier, but still quite clear. And Landry gasped.

Even further to the south the men idled in their hastily prepared positions, waiting to sweep in from the south west during the heat of the battle. They were Barkley’s reserve unit, ready to exploit any gap in the VAU lines that might occur. The tanks stood quiet and motionless, their engines off and power being provided by batteries. A few riflemen chatted around a fire in a small foxhole before their squad sergeant spotted the glow and reamed them out for endangering the whole unit.

All in all, the units began to creep towards their objective, taking their time to not get caught into any traps laid by their counterparts. At the command headquarters Colonel Barkley sipped a cup of black coffee ordered from the mess tent. With the battle likely to start tonight, and having been forced awake for the opening ceremonies the caffeine would certainly become a necessity in the coming hours.