NationStates Jolt Archive

500 Meters Below Ground, Proconsul's Palace, Arretium Nova, Doomanum Nova

The eerie light of the hundreds of computer monitors pierced the darkness of the joint command center. Massive LCD monitors were placed along the walls, displaying maps, unit deployments, intelligence on enemy defenses, and other key data. At the center of the command center was a large console projecting a holographic image of the colony of Phaethos, Doomanum Nova's western neighbor, governed by the Otagians.

On the screen were the locations of all of the Arcologies and Gatehouses, accurate 3D renderings of those structures being created from satellite reconnaissance. Medusa Base, which lay at the center of Phaethos, would be the hardest hit in the opening hours of the war.

This vast fortress had numerous figures representing armored and infantry formation littered about, the positions being based on a satellite passover which took place not a half hour before. Different areas of the base had been designated for destruction already. The bloody start of the war would be coming soon.

Proconsul Scipio looked down at his reflection in the meticulously polished floor. He had grown old. Too old, he feared. For all he knew, this would be the last of his glorious campaigns that had benefited the Empire and he so much. That did not matter. All that mattered was victory.

As night fell, air raid sirens sounded throughout the cities of Doomanum Nova, forcing the colonists to take cover in the vast underground tunnel networks that lie below. The High Command knew that the Otagians absolutely loved biological and chemical weapons. They wouldn't be taking any chances in risking the lives of Imperial citizens.

Scipio then reflected on the safety of his own family. His wife and daughter were safely within the Palace’s bunker, the same one he was in, but in a different section. They were well enough protected, yet he still worried. He had too much to worry about with managing an entire province. It wasn’t quite like managing an army, where one could be assured that each of the men under one’s command could adequately defend himself.

Scipio was ripped from his chance as an aid tapped him on his shoulder,

”Sir, it’s time,” said the man simply.

Scipio only nodded in reply. If all went well, his colony would grow in both size and wealth. If it didn’t…he didn’t want to ponder than possibility. Too much was at stake.

”Very well. I am officially giving the order to commence offensive operations against the Colony of Phaethos. May God be with us.”


Imperial Fleet, Northern Bay

Admiral Decius Junius paced back and forth upon the bridge of his flagship, the DIS Marcus Aurelius. His was the center piece of the mighty 31st Fleet, providing the majority of the big guns. The ship had finished optimizing its brand new 20” Mk. 71 naval cannons only hours before it had left port in the Mainland, and it would soon be putting that armament to the test. Along with several hundred cruise missiles.

He was awaiting the orders to commence fire. In anticipation, he’d ordered that the vessel’s twelve 20” guns be traversed towards their target: Medusa Military Base. The Arcologies, while considered to be large threats, were not on the list of targets for the first night of bombing. Only military targets would be hit this night, and Medusa was easily the largest of them.

”Sir,” came a voice from behind.

The admiral turned to the young ensign, who offered a manila envelope with the Imperial Seal to him. Decius didn’t even need to open it to know what the envelope contained, yet he did so anyways. It did, of course, contain the long awaited orders.

With a sardonic grin, Decius motioned for his weapons officer to give the order to commence fire.

Seconds later, flames spat out of the mighty 20” guns of the Marcus Aurelius, illuminating the night sky. Minutes later, the deck was consumed in smoke as cruise missiles were launched from the vessel’s vertical launch systems.

One could see the spectacle of the fleet firing off the first shots of the war from miles away, cruise missiles soaring into the sky like thousands of sinister candles, the water appearing as if it were ablaze with fire from 12”, 20”, and 6” Mk. 71 guns piercing the darkness.

Fifty miles away, the seen was the same with the Imperial 28th Fleet, consisting of the same types of vessels as the 31st.

All in all, Medusa MB had twenty-four twenty-inch guns, one hundred forty-four twelve inch guns, and well over three-hundred six inch guns raining down fire from the sky, in addition to nearly two-thousand AGM-75 Longbow cruise missiles streaking across the skies towards that base.

The cruise missiles had the duty of sealing off all routes of escape. Within their warheads were nearly fifty anti-tank and anti-personel mines. Hugging the ground and traveling at supersonic speeds, they would hit the roads around the base, the airfields, and the base’s grounds, making it nearly impossible to traverse.

The initial artillery barrage would be concentrated at Medusa’s airfields and hangers, as the High Command saw gaining air superiority as their top priority. Once the airstrips had been torn to pieces, the hangers crushed into a pulp, the artillery would redirect, targeting bunkers, barracks, machinegun nests, troop concentrations. Anything that was visible to satellites. Of course, if there was trouble with that, they would simply turn the whole expanse of Medusa into one giant parking lot.


Southern Lake

Soaring above the lake over Imperial waters were six squadrons of F-78G multi-role fighters. The internal weapon bays of the aircraft were laden with eight AMHARM anti-radiation missiles, each. These aircraft would be targeting Medusa’s air defenses.

With an EB-3 electronic warfare platform flying along side the one hundred forty aircraft, they began to sniff out the bases RADAR emissions. Using passive RADAR receivers to locate the positions of enemy sensors, each aircraft released its payload from over 120 miles away, well out of enemy airspace. The missiles would hug the sea, traveling at mach 2.5 before reaching land.

From there they would use low level penetration techniques to avoid anti-missile defenses. Upon reaching RADAR and SAM sights, the missiles’ warheads would break open, showering the positions with hundreds of cluster munitions.

Once enemy air defenses were down, DIAF would commence its finishing blow on Medusa.


Eastern Doomanum Nova

It was a peaceful night within the forest. So far, at least. Captain Herius Narcisus of the Imperial 3rd Strategic Missile Regiment commanded a unit of four DM-50A1 launch vehicles, each containing two Mars II Intercontinental Cruise Missiles, capable of hitting targets up to 2,000 miles out. He and his men sat lazily about the small, well-concealed camp out in the middle of nowhere, using their vehicles’ engines as warmth.

Camo netting had been used liberally in the concealment of the launch vehicles, and acted as shelter for the men, who sat about several fold-out tables beneath the canopy, smoking cigarettes and playing cards.

Narcisus was the only man in the unit who knew what was coming, so secret was the operation. The High Command definitely did not want to compromise this operation. Crickets chirped amidst the moonlight, and a sharp wind stung the men, who were definitely more at home in the desert.

It was nice enough, though. None of them had ever seen such a pristine environment in their short lives.

Narcisus’ personal radio began to beep, and he walked away from his men without saying a word. He took a step out of the canopy and stretched, taking a whiff of the pine-choked air before answering the call.

”Sir?”

“Captain, your orders have been finalized. Commence operations immediately.”

Narcisus blinked in surprise. He had not expected this to start this soon, at least not tonight. Well, it was a break from the boredom that infested life out there.

”Yes, sir.”

He holstered the radio and stepped under the canopy, turning to his men.

”Brothers,” he said softly. The men immediately stopped what they were doing and gave him their full, undivided attention, ”We are now at war. We have been ordered to commence offensive operations against Phaethos immediately. Man your vehicles! Move!” he shouted.

The men didn’t need to be told twice. They climbed into their launch vehicles quick enough. Within minutes, the crooning of hydraulics interrupted the chirping of insects as the launch tubes were erected. Seconds later, a mighty roar sounded as the solid fuel rocket engines of the massive missiles ignited. The area was consumed in smoke and flame as the missiles exploded out of their launch tubes, rocketing high into the air, quickly shooting through the clouds and out of sight.

Narcisus had his men immediately commence evacuation, putting their vehicles into drive, and heading towards a nearby bunker. There they would stash the vehicles and take cover until they knew it was safe to come back out.

The missiles’ rocket engines propelled them to an altitude of 120,000 feet before detaching and slowly plummeting towards the ground. Now that they were at a good velocity and altitude, their secondary stage kicked in. Scramjet engines ignited on all of the missiles, quickly pushing them to a velocity of mach ten. They would come within range of their targets in a matter of minutes. Once just 100 miles from their targets, the three warheads of each missile would detach, deploying their winglets to allow for them to make last minute course corrections. They would glide towards their targets at high velocity, detonating their massive 10,000lb ONC warheads upon striking.

Their targets? The canal and the bridge keeps. With thirty-six 10,000lb warheads on a collision course with several targets, everyone within the Joint Command Center was tense. Eight warheads were equipped with DU penetrators and a lighter 6,000lb warhead. These missiles, gliding towards their targets, rapidly decending at a velocity of nearly mach ten, would come crashing through the roofs of the bridge keeps.

Meanwhile, the remaining twenty-eight warheads would target concentrations of enemy ships, making use of their massive warheads to smash enemy formations with sheer brute force. A side effect of the massive warheads would be gigantic waves, which would crush any nearby towns and cause nearby ships to capsize.

OOC:Note, these attacks are all occurring simultaneously.

Lieutenant Saul Revos was on duty when the alarm sounded. He jumped to his feet, swinging up the spiral stairs to his Banshee Interceptor in its subterranean hanger. He slid into the cockpit just as the first shell hit, sending tremors through his aircraft. The doors of the launch ramp slid open, the muffled sounds of the shells impacting bursting into a deafening roar. As his jet began to levitate off the ground, he could see bursts of flame brightening the night sky. Thumbing switches across the cockpit and engaging his augmetics, he leaned on the throttle and screamed out into the dark.

The air was bright with the flames spreading across the base below him. From his view on high, he could see the above-ground hangar complex lying mostly in ruins, massive holes gaping in the aluminum and steel shelters. The remains of Thunderbirds and bulk transporters burned in the night, their fuel feeding the flames engulfing much of the base. He could see other aircraft circling the area, some launching from their hidden sanctuaries, others already prepped for combat. He veered wildly, barely avoiding a falling artillery shell. Circling still, he saw another Banshee fly out of her underground hanger, only to fly into a shell, a lotus of fire blooming from her broken frame.

Sighing, he brought up the comm channel.

“This is Saul. What’s the situation?”

“Sir! We’re under naval bombardment; Arcos say that it’s a Doomish blitz. Their radar picked up the opening barrage, which let us get as many troops as possible to safety. Cruise missiles strikes have hit around the outside of the base, but from the lack of an explosion we’re guessing mines. Air strikes took down our radar, as well as most of our air defense grid. Intel also says that the canal and Bridge Keeps have been hit, we’re not sure on casualties yet. We do know there are at least some survivors, they’re prepared to destroy the tunnels at a moment’s notice. The navy got hit hard; they’re moving south to regroup, away from the Doomish forces. We’re estimating roughly 25% casualties.”

“Thanks for the update. Thunderbirds! As soon as this bombardment slows, pick up ground forces, get them out of here, they’ll just get slaughtered by the enemy bombardment. Banshees, prepare to repel enemy aircraft.”

OOC: Surviving aircraft: 31 Banshee Interceptors, 43 Thunderbird transports. Surviving ground personnel: ~165,000, although quite a few are wounded. And be kind about any glaring errors, this IS my first real MT war after all...

[Colony Atlantia,500 meters below the Comona Mountain Range, CINDER-II]

The vast room was lit only by the faint glow of computer monitors displaying feed from orbital satellites and the large 3D display of the Otagian Pheathos Colony, numerous icons represented the Otagian Force deployments in the area, although an area on the southern shore had been obscured due to days of fog and clouds and a misfunctioning IR sensor on a satellite.

How ever the clouds had cleared and positive identification on an Otagian fleet had been made, they were pathetically small compared to the main force.

"Will this complicate the plans General?" Asked a taskforce commander. "No, not even a minor speed bump." said Four-Star General Johnson Urwin, "It's only a few capital ships and a dozen or so escorts." he finished as he smiled and clicked a button on the console.

"General Urwin here, are the preperations complete?" he said through his headset. A slighty staticy voice came over the intercom system, "Yes sir, those ships are right in our sights, easy as shooting fish in a barrel commander. Oh, and those new planes we have, those F-620 "Xeons are gold."

"Geneal!" Came a voice over the from the corner of the table room, a ensign pointed at groups of icons representing cruise missiles and planes from the Doomies reaching their targets. "It's show time gentlemen, all forces level three battlestations, are those bombers in the air?" asked Urwin, who received a thumbs up from the airbase controller, Urwin clicked the button on his headset to send a message to the admiral, "The Doomies have started, begin Operation Hammerhead.", "Yes sir", was the reply from Admiral Sutherland.

[Southern Ocean, 100km from southern coast of Pheathos]

Admiral Michael Sutherland watched as hundreds of guns, ranging from the 24 inchers on his flag ships, down to 5-4 inch guns on the destroyers turned onto the enemy vessels, 288 24inch, 144 14inch, 216 8inch, 288 5inch and 288 4.5inch shells departed from the muzzles of their Mark 71 Naval Cannon, with velocity nearing that of even railguns and steaked towards the enemy ships, making it a total of 1224 shells flew downrange.

Fighters patrolled over the ships, high enough the shockwaves wouldn't harm them. Each of the fleet's arsenal ships, 8 in all, launched 10 AGM-321B Meteor Surface-Launched Anti-Ship Missiles for a total of 80 missiles. Also, 400 Foxarrow Medium Range SAMs fired towards the enemy airspace, using uplinks from long range ground radar and satellite based radar to track even small fighters up to 150km inland.

Admiral Sutherland watched the humungous display of firepower with a stern face, the Otagians would fall, and he would see too it.

Samurai-General Yamamoto frowned over the tactical display. Sattelite feeds were continually updating the 3D display, topography, troop concentrations, even the individual enemy ships, their tiny red blobs connected to the green Otagian vessels by a network of lines, showing estimated firing trajectories. The green blobs fired back, barrages of ASMs and naval shells from 8" to 20" flying between the combatants. Still, the Otagian vessels were outnumbered, and could not hold. Already one of the BBs was slowly sinking to the ocean floor, along with two of the escorts. Several other ships were badly damaged, flecks of yellow appearing in their digital representations. It was time to cut his losses here. Activating his headset, he radioed for the naval forces to begin a fighting retreat as quickly as possible.

His staff bustled about the crowded room, sending orders to troops spread across the colonies. From his position, he could see the surviving troops at Medusa spreading across the nearby wilderness, ferried across the minefields by the Thunderbirds. From there, they would fight a guerilla war to defeat any Doomish ground forces. Still, occupied on both fronts, the Otagian Regulars would be hard pressed to fend off attackers. Bringing up an augmetic display, he quickly wired a message to all Otagian allies in the colonies.

--ATTN: Phaethos under attack. Doomish and TSS forces have been engaged at multiple locations. Full details enclosed. Send help immediately.--
--Phaethos Command

OOC: Sorry about the somewhat crappy post, I don't have much time. Oh, and I set up an OOC thread here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=10037229#post10037229).

Governor Mira Rujic rubs her eyes and stares. "What?"

The newly elected governor of Czardas's overseas provinces had not been expecting to awaken to a rude surprise like this, especially not at three in the morning. Silanche Colony, established some nine years ago, had grown into a thriving colony with more than 36 million inhabitants and a strong navy and air force built and purchased from shipyards and bases around the area. Funded both by its independent defense budget and private corporations, it was prepared for any attack.... but no attack had come, until now.

Rujic looks over the display. "General, what is going on here?" The computer display swims in front of her tired eyes.

The General explains, "It seems that Silver Skyian and Doomingslandi forces are assaulting Otagian holdings."

"Otagian holdings... They border us to the north, don't they?"

"Yes... that they do. And being an ally of The Silver Sky, they might try to attack us."

Rujic snaps into full awakeness. "Right. Step up border security, make sure all our emplacements are working correctly. And put our missile silos on high alert, just in case."

"Yes, ma'am," the General says with some humor. "Anything else?"

"We should announce limited support for The Silver Sky," Rujic goes on. "We'll only support them defensively. I'd write up something requesting diplomatic resolution, but it'll be pointless... their course is set, I reckon."

"Obviously. Do we know why they've started this war?"

"No.... probably land-grabbing imperialism, same as the rest of us." Rujic almost smiles.

"Right, I'll let you get to that," says the General. "And I'll see to a mobilization of all naval and air elements, just in case. We'll get the 3rd Colonial Air Armada in if nothing else."

"All right," Rujic says. "You do that."

~~~~~~~~~~~
The Libertarian Concordance of Czardas would like to announce its limited support for The Silver Sky. We will aid our allies in defensive warfare only unless fired upon or attacked by Otagian forces.

~Governor Mira Rujic
~~~~~~~~~~~

The prefect of the radio and communications installation swivled in his chair, fliddling with the arm rests as he did, trying anything to stave off his boredom. He was almost rocked out of his chair in the frantic beeping of an emergency transmission.

He leaned forward to peer at the numerous black screens with white print. "God damn outdated systems, can't see shit." he mumbled, as he typed through the numerous directories to get to the transmission that was sent.

He pulled up the main screen of the communications and scanned through it. A simple map of current enemy troop movements and written explanations were enclosed. He sighed as he picked up the old dirty phone and dialed in three numbers.

"Sir, communications from Paethos. They are under attack, sending full details over to your office." he tapped in a couple keys and sent the report.

"Understood, recieved."
---------------------------------------------------
An hour later.

One man in a ragged suit and another in a pristine military uniform walked down a dank dry hall. They spoke to each other, the suit held the communications, the uniform pointed at different places on the map he held.

"General, can we really spare the forces to fight some war over a few hundred kilometers?" whined the man, who was in fact the leader of the mining colony.

"We have many forces. Albiet they are scattered all across our colony, we can gather them within a day, and land troops in Paethos in two, total. Give the order, and we can start assembling troops." replied the general with a firm gruff voice.

"What about the P.S. corp? Can't we just have them hunt ships?"

"We can, but if we do not act, then we will lose a buyer of our minerals, a very big one infact." he replied even gruffer.

"Fine... start the pre-emptive P.S. strikes."

"Very well, sir!" The general stood at attention for a moment, saluted then briskly walked off.
------------------------------------------------------
Two hours later.

The large, yet highly obsolete submarine steamed its way through the depths of the bay north of Paethos.

They had been patrolling there for a little over a month now, mainly feeding off small transport ships, and personal vessels. They were a P.S. corp sub, who's mission was to patrol the high seas, and act as pirates, both to disrupt potential enemies without them knowing who did it, and to keep watch on warship movements.

Now they recieved word from command that they need to start preying on Doomish ships. There were three P.S. corp subs in the bay north of Paethos, and they all started to converge on the Doomish ships that were firing on retreating Otagian ships.

Inside the P.S. corp sub, the sub crews loaded in standard torpedoes, traditional long-range torpedoes used to hunt merchant ships. But they were too far out to use their supercativating torpedoes, and for them to be effective. The supercativating torpedoes themselves were shortrange torpedoes, but extremely fast even under the water.

The sonarman yelled the position of a Doomish battleship, and the captian upped the parascope. He swivled the sights until he came in view of the battleship. He yelled for the torpedo status, and got the answer he wanted.

"FIRE TUBES 1 THROUGH 4!"

Four of the six tubes situated on the front of the sub fired their loads quickly, the payload speeding their way at a good speed underwater towards their prey. They were at a long distance, so in theory if the battleship had seen them coming, they could evade most, if not all torpedoes, but who knows about Supercavitating torpedoes. But most likely they would hit one of the escorts that surrounded the battleships.

Soon, the other two subs would engage the fleet, but that would not be for another hour until they arrived.
--------------------------------------------------------
Azahan Colony.

Great battleships, though highly out of their date, prepared to set sail upon the vast ocean that lay before them. Huge transport ships loaded on tanks and infantry, and aircraft carriers loaded on the compliments of fighters and bombers.

Construction crews boarded the transpot ships to, with materials. Once they made landfall, they would construct a main base of their own upon Paethos.

Many more men and machines still had to be collected before they could set sail. In the north, military encampments there were frozen in, and it would take hours to dig them out. The Undercities in their own right were difficult to get to, so that delayed time even more.

But nonetheless, the fleet and a defense force of 125,000 men out of Azaha's 200,000 would set sail for Paethos the next day.

Kurz Weber entered into the Imperial Office, placing a sheaf of papers in front of the emperor.

“It’s started Your Highness. Otagia’s colony of Phaethos has come under attack by the nations of Doomingsland and The Silver Sky, as our analysts had predicted” he announced.

Glancing briefly at the papers, the emperor asked Kurz, “And our preparations, are they complete?”

“Yes Your Highness. As is completely appropriate with the units that are at the greatest risk of going into combat, the Fourth Marine Expeditionary Force in Westamerika was the first to be reorganized, a process which has been completed. Additionally, the three carriers currently in the waters there have been reequipped with the Bearcat. Our routine recon flights have pinpointed the location of all of their military equipment as well. We only need your word to begin sir.”

“Very well, Operation Grenada is a go.”

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

The men of the Fourth Special Artillery Division were engaged in frantic last minute preparation. H-hour was only a few minutes away, and the trains that carried them around had stopped only 20 minutes prior due to security reasons. The massive 11 and 14-inch railway guns were capable of throwing a shell clear to the other side of the Isle of Endymion. That capability would not be required tonight however. Tonight they would be raining shells down upon the Isle itself. Scattered near the railway guns were a set of anti-aircraft railcars, to ensure that air attacks did not strike the guns. Overhead, engines screamed as hundreds of fighters and bombers prepared for their part in the opening salvo.

4:00am. H-hour. As hundreds of cruise missiles launched to make sure of target destruction, and fighters locked up unsuspecting Skyian aircraft, the 72 14-inch railway guns and 216 11-inch guns opened fire. Out at sea, 25-inch and 18-inch guns boomed as the 6 heavy battlecruisers and 2 battleships of the Civitas Americae Navy in the area opened fire as well. The 14-inch and 25-inch shells headed towards their targets, airfields and SAM sites. The heavy plunging shells would make sure that the runways were made useless and the SAMs destroyed. The other, lighter shells targeted barracks and motor pools. Tu-161 fighters prepared to race in, loaded with anti-radiation missiles to ensure that the airborne contingent of the landing proceeded according to plan.

On the coast, 240 Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles drove into the water. It would take them nearly an hour to reach the opposing coast, escorted all the while by 6 heavy cruisers and numerous destroyers. Half an hour later, 360 Mi-28s took off, followed by 372 Mi-24s carrying the airborne contingent.

"Sir, Silver Skyian holdings have been attacked..."

The news reaches a furious General Arachinov early that morning, and he rushes to his computer, looking over the blips. Sure enough, the blue (Skyian) areas are overlaid with red blips, Civitas Americae ships, planes, and vehicles.

"Damn it, this is something they will pay for, big time... The mobilization we ordered at the start of the attack. Is it completed?" Arachinov looks over towards an aide, sitting farther down the line of computers.

The aide looks over a sheet of paper. "Mobilization 42% complete, currently preparing 1st Colonial Fleet."

"Shit. What about missile silos?"

"On Silanche, both are now operational."

"Good. Prepare to launch long-range cruise missiles and strengthen all defenses around Silanche Island. Also send out the 2nd Colonial Fleet and 3rd Colonial Air Armada."

"Right, done." The orders are relayed to stations on the island of Silanche, across a landmass from Endymion.

From two missile silos on Silanche, a total of 450 long-range cruise missiles are launched, shooting up into the upper atmosphere; the missiles are targeted primarily upon power stations, military bases, and large population centers. This will be just the initial strike.

Meanwhile, with the threat of war looming, Silanche's naval forces—the 2nd Colonial Fleet and 3rd Colonial Air Armada—have been mobilizing. As alerts flash red, beeping, and the sounds of air sirens wailing in the distance, pilots and sailors clamber into cockpits, ships, and submarines... the decks of the naval force stationed at Silanche are roiling with activity as plane after plane takes off, launching several hundred fighters into the air within minutes. The naval force expects to uplink with larger Skyian sea forces and thus is not particularly large, but still impressive.

Ships are now beginning to leave the docks in the early morning light, gleaming bows and turrets newly finished... some of the ships had been turned out of shipyards just hours before. The ships and submarines below them loaded with huge expanding warhead missiles and torpedoes set out towards the south at nearly full speed. Speed will be all-important in this venture, and the Czardaian fleet will arrive in three to four hours... quite enough time to link up with Skyian forces if need be.

Meanwhile, the air armada will arrive first. Plane after plane takes off, using the night sky as a shield, but stealth and silence will not be so important here as speed. Heading at top speed, the bombers are protected by several fighter wings, their target the Civitas Americae colony. They would arrive much sooner—within less than an hour, although it would be only half an hour before they could discharge their ASMs and bombs directed against military installments...

Sergeant Michael Sturmbuch reclined back in his chair as he looked on the radar screen of the EZ-1 Graf Zeppelin. The massive AWACS platforms were a rather sweet assignment, as they were technically drone aircraft. Sgt. Sturmbuch was currently about 50 feet underground in a bomb shelter while performing his duties. All of a sudden he sat up as alarms shrieked and the radar screen began turning red at the fringes.

"Son of a bitch, that's a lot of contacts!" he said, spilling some Mountain Dew on himself. Immediately he performed two actions. The first was to hit a button that sounded air raid warnings across all of Westamerika. The second was to hit the "Zap" button.

One often overlooked feature of AESA radar arrays is that they are able to put out a hellacious amount of power on a very tight beam. In addition to tracking a target, this allowed them to screw up the electronics of the unfortunate illuminate. The E-10 was capable of using its radar to kill cruise missiles over a 180km out [OOC: Source (http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/200583234341.asp)].

The EZ-1 was vastly more powerful than the E-10.

"Hey, corporal, could you get me another Mountain Dew?" he called out as the screen began to clear.

OOC: My shell interception system would work, someone on the draftroom suggested it, others said it would work, but only above like 10 inchers. I took the idea and ran with it. They have a 43% success (destruction or deflection) rate against 10-14 inch shells and up too 60% against 14-27inchers. Oh, and 80% of my SAMs and radar sites are mobile and pretty much always on the move. The entire island is rolling hills or plans:
Map: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/68157Silver/tss3.png
Red and Yellow: Cities
Blue: Major Military Bases
Black: Capital
And pointy things are either cliffs or high (500m-2500m) mountains.

[100m Underground, Isle of Endymion Military Command]

Warning lights came on all over the bunker complex startling General Sanderson out of his game of Pong. He quickly ran towards radar operator, "What the hell is going on soldier." Asked Sanderson. "General, incoming from Civitas Americae, cruise missiles shells, and ATA weapons, everything, even amphib vehicles."

"Oh, is that all?" said the General with a sigh of relief, "I thought it was something important. Activate Plan Delta Alpha Bravo Charlie Alpha Two Seven Five, you people know what to do!" Yelled Sanderson.

[Above Ground, Naval Bombardment]

The enemy shells were tracked as soon as they left their barrels, because, although the CA's were technically friend, they were monitored very well The shells reached first, specialized, shell intercepter systems which included large KEMs and 8 inch railguns fired into the paths of the 25, 14, and some 11 inch shells, 10 25 inch shells were knocked off course, while 31 14 inch shells were blasted out of the sky and 93 11 inchers meet a similar fate. But anyway, over 150 shells still hit, taking out stationary defenses and 2 runways and a few hangars and messhalls, but most of the troop concentrations were left relatively unscathed, not to mention the SAMs and radars, railway guns, railway SAM (my own design) systems and cruise missile equipped railcars.

The cruise missiles were easier to deal with, the F-Series" Rocket-Based Air Defence Systems developled by Omz222, especially the Foxdarts which had a hay day along with the Slingshot short ranged SAMs as they rippled into the sky in waves, especially effective were Pop-Rocks ADS Guns that fired cansiter rounds as the cruise missiles neared the shores and passed over the bluffs that dotted the shores. Also land based CIWS picked up the rest, although several dozen Ground Defense Systems and SAM units, along with a few hangars and buildings.

How ever, an amphib invasion was a horrible move without establish any type of edge over the enemy. Hundreds of ATGMs, most Roc KEMs from Isselmere Motor Works ripped out from launchers and vehicles stationed on the shore, and dozens of emplacements ranging from 155mm and 203mm(8 inch) to huge 24 inch shore batteries. opened up on the enemy vehicles and ships and even enemy concentrations and railways from across the bay.


****Finish tomorrow****

"Damn it... looks like that didn't work," Arachinov comments, watching the cruise missiles' guidance get knocked out somewhere over the northern half of the island. To avoid having them land in foreign territory and spark a possible war, he simply presses a button on his desk and all of the missiles self-destruct, forming fireballs in the air as they detonate their payloads as one.

"What's our ETA for that air armada?" Arachinov asks another general, sitting at another LCD monitor in the brightly illuminated bunker.

"It'll be within firing range in ten minutes, sir."

"Good. Have them fire, then."

The air forces, protected by Kestrel radar jamming, increase their speeds to Mach 2.3, approaching the colony. Within a few minutes, they will be ready to launch their ASMs. But first, the onshore and offshore missile launchers on Silanche are preparing their own launch.

More long-range missiles erupt from launchers along the shore, more than 100 of them. But unlike the others, these are equipped with an EMP that will knock out all electrical signals within several kilometers of the point of detonation, as well as being shielded against outside interference by special coding. These anti-EMP missiles have been only recently developed, and in fact this will be the first time they are used in combat.

By now the Czardaian air armada has reached position and let loose volleys of ASMs from hardpoints and bomb bays, with more than 300 of them raining down on power plants and military bases. Anti-SAM missiles are also launched, their RADAR guidance designed to seek out SAM sites with aid from satellite recon and IR. The fighters meanwhile prepare to engage any incoming enemy fighters with AAMs.

[ooc:] Going to bed, see you all tomorrow.

OOC: They'd still be out of range of ATGMs at this point.

The failure of the initial attack was rather disappointing. It meant that reserve firepower and special weapons had to be brought into play. 700 miles away, two Maria Leia-class cruisers loosed their loads of missiles, launching 1,280 ballistic missiles towards the enemy airfields.

Of the 8 heavy cruisers that were escorting the amphibious force initially, 3 were now sinking wrecks. The other five had, by whatever quirk, survived, and now trained their weapons for direct fire on the exposed defenses.

Over Westamerika, two of the massive zeppelins continued playing a game of "Zap the mole" with the Czardaian force. With the self-destruct of the missiles only a few seconds into the game and over 500 kilometers away still, they had switched to zapping the fighters and bombers themselves. While they do so, the SAM batteries stubbornly refuse to turn on their radar systems. The third zeppelin however was now demonstrating the ground detection feature of its radar against Skyian systems, this time by zapping Skyian radars.

In between the Czardaian air armada was a hundred and eight Tu-161 fighters, loaded for bear. Most were loaded with 18 long range missiles and 24 Rolling Airframe Missiles for self-defense, but others were loaded with 20 AIM-120D and 24 RAM. Of course, all of the fighters were datalinked, meaning that there was more than enough firepower to thrash the air armada. Behind the armada were a hundred BF14J Mach 3 naval interceptors, also datalinked. And of course there were two zeppelins far away, casually destroying fighter electronics and sending them plummeting into the seas below.

The setback would be overcome. Slowly perhaps, but quite surely.

Joint Command Center, Arretium Nova

Scipio smirked as he watched Medusa getting torn to pieces by the initial bombardment, the destruction of the Otagian's canal and Bridge Keeps, and other key installations. The operation had managed to achieve surprise, making for a devastating initial bombardment, causing casualties that were higher than expected among the enemy.

However, the night was still young. With the enemy's air defense systems in ruins and and ground forces evacuating from Medusa via air units, the High Command found an oppurtunity to snuff out Otagia's ability to make a counter attack.

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

With six squadrons of F-78E Demon II Air Superiority Fighters already on standby near the Phaethos border, the response would be swift and brutal. They completely outnumbered the surviving Otagian fighters, meaning that gaining air superiority would be quite easy. However, DIAF's main goal right now was the transports. Sitting back 210 miles, well within friendly airspace, each of the seventy-two fighters loosed twelve AIM-210 XSRAAM air-to-air missiles each. The ramjet engines would quickly push the missiles to a velocity of mach six, closing the distance between them and the enemy aircraft in a matter of minutes.

They'd strike hard and fast, using sheer weight of numbers to break the enemy's air power within the first hour of the war. Guided by a combination of infrared, LIDAR/LADAR, and ground and air based RADAR, the enemy aircraft would find the missiles' tracking systems nearly impossible to fool. Evading them would be just as futile due to their superb maneuverability, thanks to systems such as fold-out winglets and 3D thrust vectoring.

Whenever a missile would miss its target on the initial pass, it would slam on the brakes, quickly reverse as it slowed down to a more managable speed, and accelerate once more, going for yet another pass. This would continue until the missiles ran out of fuel.

Of course, with well over 1,000 missiles inbound, the enemy airforce stood little chance...

Meanwhile, several squadrons of A-12B Barbarian close air support aircraft began to take off along with several more squadrons of F-78G multi-role fighters. These aircraft would find themselves responsable for annihilating the enemy's surviving ground units in and around Medusa. Once the enemy fighters and transports were destroyed, they would sweep in with a hellish fury.

Meanwhile, the naval bombardment of Medusa dragged on, the shelling constant. However, twelve 20" guns and forty 12" guns redirected fire, targetting the canal, fireing on key installations and known troops concentrations.

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

Imperial 31st Fleet

"Fish in water! Fish in water, contact grid Charlie-Charlie-Three-Four, closing fast!" yelled the SONAR-man aboard the DIS Triumph, one of the many Dominance-class ASW frigates that guarded the fleet.

The vessels supercav CIWS quickly revved up, peppering the water with hundreds of 30mm supercavitating shells. The slow moving torpedoes didn't stand a chance as they ran into an unexpected wall of explosive rounds, destroying them prematurely.

Seconds later, an SV-68 Sea Banshee ASW VTOL sprung into action, streaking towards the origin of the torpedo launch and dropping a SONAR buoy. The active SONAR took only seconds to locate the obsolete enemy submarine. Once that contact had been located, the aircraft released four supercavitating torpedoes.

They would make use of the SONAR buoy and their own internal SONAR to pick up the subs location upon landing, then begin to supercavitate, giving the enemy sub mere seconds to react.

Now the Imperial Fleet was on guard for any other underwater incursions...

General Hammond looked at his force disposition. Not so good. There wasn't enough of a force to be sure of taking the island. There was of course enough to defend Westamerika. This one would go down in the books as a failed probe designed to help relieve pressure on an unjustly attacked foreign nation.

"All units, cease fire, cease fire and return to base. Defensive fire only. Communications, send that out to Czardas and TSS."

OOC: Finals and last minute projects are about to make life exceedingly nasty here, and the reliability of the internet is rather in question now.

"Dive, dive, dive!"

Immediatly the sub released all its ballast and started to sink like a rock through the water. The sudden pitch of the sub downward caused three of the torpedoes to miss, but the third slammed directly into the con tower of the sub, ripping the sub in half, and destroying it for good.

Meanwhile, the two other P.S. corp subs were almost to the fleet as well, but this was different. They closed in alot quieter thanthe first sub did, and they lurked near the bottom, barely two meeters from the floor of the sea.

With luck, the ships above would only see them as two small schools of fish, if they saw them at all.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Advanced detatchment carrier Alpha

The great carrier steamed through the raging ocean of the northern sea. Waves pounded the prow of the ship, threatening to rip it clean off, but the captain and crew knew better, these ships were made to break ice, no mere waves would crush these ships.

The captian sat in his command tower on the carrier, watching the waves slam up onto the flightdeck, and the ship rock like a stick in the surf. Their misssion was to provide advanced support for Otagians, while the rest of the fleet prepares to launch.

The boat carried six heavy bombers made to launch from carriers, 15 lightning interceptors and, and 20 Thunderbolt Heavy fighters. The ship also carried a compliment of special forces, a contingent of Elysin drop troops, specialists made to drop behind enemy lines. Along with the special forces, they carried on Valkylrie transport/gunship for the transportation of the S.F., and two Vulture Gunships for support.

"How long until we are in range for the bombers to each the enemy fleet?" the captain asked the navigator.

"An hour or two, we should start prepping the bombers."

"If we attatch double the fuel tanks, could we launch the Thunderbolts with the marauders?"

"I believe so, sir."

"Good, do it."

OOC:Azaha, can you wait for Mac to post before you RP your fleet attacking? I don't think he's gonna let a bigass hostile fleet pass through his waters...

IC:

While the Azahans(sp?) were trying to approach more stealthily towards the fleet, the Imperial ships were waiting. Upon destroying the first contact, a firm ASW line had been established. SONAR buoys at varrying depths had been placed in a big circle around the fleet while SV-68s patrolled the line, their torpedoes at the ready.

Scanning with active SONAR, the enemy's subs would be quickly detected upon their crossing through the line of buoys, twenty miles away from the nearest Imperial vessel. This presented them with a dilema: Pass through the line and be detected and quickly destroyed, or change tactics and launch anti-shipping missiles from further back.

This other idea was quite obvious to Admiral Decius. In order to respond to such a tactic, he made sure that his ASW aircraft would be able to respond quickly. Each of the twenty-four Dominance-class frigates had launched both of their VTOLs, which were patrolling sectors near the line that their home vessel was guarding.

OOC: I don't understand... he's letting a big fight happen in "his" waters but wouldn't let others pass through? Where's he at for your current fighting?
And me fleet isnt big ass.. most of it is transport ships. Just a couple fleet carriers and a few battleships.

IC:

"Sir I don;t advise we go any further, sonar is picking up alot of spurratic signals, mines or bouys or something."

The captian strode over and looked at the sonar readings, the wavy green lines and waves made sense to him. "Right... shit... well what can we do?"

"Sir, we can launch the U.S.T's, have them make their way slowly to the mines or bouys and destroy them."

"Right, do it, full stop, prepare the UST's, I want them out there ASAP, they have permission to use the scooters."

"Yessir."
------------------------------------------
10 Minutes later

Three teams of men from each sub exited the subs. The six teams, two men each, rode underwater scooters to their destinations. Unlike the large clunky subs, these scooters were top of the line, quiet and fast. They were also decently small, barely able to fit the two man teams. Each team member wore a special suit, it was a mix of wetsuit and hard suit, the head and torso maintaining the head parts, ahilw the appendages were free to move as they wish.

Quickly and quietly, the six teams spread out, speeding towards the objects that were marked on a small map for them.

100m below Carthago Nova Penisular

Alarms sounded across the room as battle was joined across the colonies, the staff in the control room could only watch as Doomingslandi and Skyian fired on Otagia, as Civitas Americae fired on TSS only to stop when they came under fire themselves, after quite a long time, during which the General incharge of the colonies defence had been transfered by rail from Atlantis,

He burst into the room, "Well?"

"We have weapons all over the place, it appears that the war on Otagia has begun, and that Civitas Americae had been involved"
That got the generals full attention "What do you mean?"
"They fired on TSS's southern Island, theyve stopped but im not sure itl stay that way"

"Better be sure then, man all defences and ready the fleet for immediate deployment, all marine transportable division should be aboard, all other units to standard defensive posistions, get the fighters into the air!"

Across the colony soldiers ran to there rally point, sometimes still doing upthere uniforms, aircraft roared into the sky and missiles were readied for firing, the combined Colonial fleet and all marine transportable divisions left harbour within 4 hours of the order, they dared not stay to take on many more supplies for fear of being caught in port.

At the border with CA the railway line was closed by an armoured gate and the magnetic mines armed, if they needed they would fight to the last breadth to keep foreign invaders from there families

OOC: Carthago Nova is a massive metropolis and the rock is solid granite, the only ladn way in is about 500m across, else you have to go along bridges, either draw or swinging, else there mined to explode if need be

[ooc:] Considering that Czardaian plane electronics are shielded with 'secure' metals to prevent any outside interference—a lot like firewalls on secure web connections—I doubt that Civ's disabling will work here.

[ic:]

As the armada begins to leave its position over the seas, planes begin to rock slightly, some outside equipment failing.

"What's going on?" Orange Condor asks.

"We think they're trying to knock us out of the sky by jamming our electronics," a voice screams back across the radio.

"Oh, is that all? Let's have some fun with them then." Orange Condor grins to himself. "One by one all enabled fighters start switching on ARC, that'll confuse three types of hell out of them." He started it out, toggling a switch to 'on'.

Bombers, large fighters, and the AWACs begin to disappear from Westamerikan RADAR systems as though downed by the electronic failures. (LIDAR would be ineffective due to the darkness, and the absorbent blue paint would hide the armada from LADAR detection.) However, there is still the matter of the zeppelins themselves, which could knock out Czardaian guided missiles such as AAMs, deeming the armada fairly worthless. Only minutes later, Orange Condor sends out a secured transmission to Silver Skyian bases on Endymion.

>>> Hello Silver Skyian forces, this is Orange Condor of Wing Charlie Foxtrot Three incoming. We have a small favor to ask of you. If any of your Brilliant Pebbles are online, would you mind taking out a few zeppelins for us? They're over Westamerika at the moment, and their electronic jamming capabilities are going to annoy all of us. Thanks a lot! Orange Condor out. <<<

The air armada has yet to hear of the transmission from Westamerika concerning their backing down, although detection screens on Silanche have already found evidence of this...

[ooc:] Considering that Czardaian plane electronics are shielded with 'secure' metals to prevent any outside interference—a lot like firewalls on secure web connections—I doubt that Civ's disabling will work here.

OOC: It's like an EMP blast from a nuke, it short circuits electronics, and hardening planes is rather expensive and heavy. And what's this ARC thing?

OOC: It's like an EMP blast from a nuke, it short circuits electronics, and hardening planes is rather expensive and heavy. And what's this ARC thing?
Active Radar Cancellation. It basically hides planes from RADAR screens, I think. Primarily large planes are equipped with it.

OOC: sorry, long tag =)

Bleary eyed and half a world away, Avlos Selkirk sat in the Situation Room of the Premier's Residence. Around the table sat the Viceroys and the rest of the Defensive Strategies staff. They sat around the oval table, sad glares looking at the center holographic display.

Avlos looked at the head of the table, where the Premier sat with his eyes half closed. Avlos had never seen him as frail as he looked at that moment, seemingly weighed down by the actions of the past few hours.

Xerco cleared his throat, and lifted his 70 year old frame up to drink his tea. Avlos could see he was considering what had been discussed ever since the attack had begun - an attack they all knew was coming bt were powerless ot prevent. An attack, because it involved a fallen ally, that hit The Voltarum at its heart. At first, cries of war were shouted - any chance, really, to take a shot at the Doomies would haev been supported - but as the scope of the attack and the range of the participants grew, the DS members fell more and more silent.

A young aide came in and dropped off a memo to the Premier. He skimmed it silently, and then turned to the others in the room: "Sarzo has called for a vote into the actions of The Silver Sky. Looks like our call for a suspension of membership is definitely an option."

General Kiltred Trajan, Viceroy of the Marines and head strategist, had had enough. He stood and spoke: "Premier, if we are to do anything militarily we must do it now. I would fully support any of the actions discussed here... we could move against Doomingsland or The Silver Sky..."

"We will do no such thing, General." The Premier finished his tea and stood. "My original decision will remain. I will make our declarations known tomorrow morning. Now, if you will excuse me... I believe I need some sleep."

He picked up his cane and walked toward the elevator.


To: All Involved Parties

The Voltarum condemns the actions of Doomingland and The Silver Sky in their unwarranted invasion of the Sovereign nation of Otagia.

Our Colony of Aoristos has closed its borders and heighened its defenses. If any nation's military engages these borders, or comes within missile range of our shores, it will be considered an act of war against our Order. This includes Silver Skyian military.

Finally, let it be known that we consider any nation who allies themselves with a nation that commits crimes against humanity, to be guilty of the crimes themselves.

Premier Xerco Longbottom
The Voltarum

OOC: You know, I put, ****Finish Tomorrow**** at the end of my post for a reason, I've got soccer conditioning after school 2-3 times a week, so some days I won't be online until now, and I'll be gone most of friday. oh, and CA, the entire little strech of water between our lands is only 6-12km at best, about an hour drive for an amphib(6-12km/h), these are vehicle or ground mounted laser guided ATGMs, not man portable ATGMs.

Will get a post up shortly.

OOC: You know, I put, ****Finish Tomorrow**** at the end of my post for a reason, I've got soccer conditioning after school 2-3 times a week, so some days I won't be online until now, and I'll be gone most of friday. oh, and CA, the entire little strech of water between our lands is only 6-12km at best, about an hour drive for an amphib(6-12km/h), these are vehicle or ground mounted laser guided ATGMs, not man portable ATGMs.

Will get a post up shortly.

EFV is about 20-30mph, and that's the distance by my calcs.

OOC:Ummm, this isn't taking place in Mac's waters, as far as I know. Either way, he'd let my ships through as I'm an ally, whilst you are an enemy (of me, so I doubt he'd want you coming through his waters). Your ships would most likely be destroyed on sight.

If your woundering where Mac's waters are, consult the map. See that little straight? All that water around there, including in between, is his, and that's the only way into the bay, meaning you have to pass through. Would you happen to have AIM or MSN so we can avoid further confusion?

IC:

Loudness and softness really didn't matter when confronting active SONAR, as the Azahans would soon find out. Because active SONAR relies on sending out sound waves and ranging them as they bounce of objects, the small scooters with the divers were picked up.

They were small signatures, but modern SONAR technology had taken into account the use of frogmen. That sealed the fate of the teams. Upon the detection of incoming enemy divers, the DIS Triumph let loose a few rounds from her 6" guns. Inside these rounds were hundreds of submunitions, designed to burst below the water.

Each of the diver teams were targetted, the round being aimed so that they would impact when they got near the SONAR buoys. With hundreds of these munitons bursting near them, the divers would most likely be killed, or at least their rebreather systems damaged, preventing them from keeping underwater.

An unwanted side-effect of this, of course, would be that the very SONAR buoys that the divers were after would end up destroyed by friendly fire.

Of course, the captain of the Triumph had planned for such an occasion. As a result, upon the destruction of the first SONAR buoys, the aircraft would release several more to replace them mere minutes after they were destroyed.

kenshi715 is my AIM, please contact ASAP.. i r teh confused.

OOC: Ok, can we put this on hold until I can reply, I couldn't tonight, but will tomorrow, sorry.

The divers were shredded along with their scooters. A couple may have survived, but with their equipment breached, they did not live long under certain pressures.

The captians of the two subs cursed loudly as they heard the shells plash in, then detonate.

One captian turned around and looked at his command crew. "What now? These guys are pretty advanced. The bouys they just destroyed are back into place."

The crew tried to avoid eye contact, unsure on what to do. They had been hunting merchant ships for the past few months, and now they had to hunt warships, something they were trained for, but had not done since training.

"Wait for the main fleet? There isn't much we can do."

"Indeed..."
---------------------------------------------------
Advanced detatchment carrier Alpha

"How much longer until we are at max range?" barked the captain.

"Half an hour sir. How are we going to approach this?"

"Load the thunderbolts with two torpedoes each, we would stick four but those extra fuel tanks. The marauders, load them with Fuel Air bombs, but don't forget to load chaff, these guys are highly advanced, we need some radar protection... which the mainland would send us somehigher tech..."

"yessir, communicating with prep crews now."

[size=1][OOC: Azaha, for a question of yours a while back, I can care less about Doom's ships battling in the bay; but if he requests me to destroy a couple of ships it's also no real punishment on me - the bay isn't closed all the time, it's closed when I say so to who I say so - sorta machiavellian, but that's how I am.][/size

HESS Alpan
The Cartagena sat motionless two hundred meters under the surface of the ocean at zero bubble receiving intelligence from sattelite communication bouys constantly monitoring the exit and entrance of shipping in the straights, nominally controlled by the Empire. Unfortunately, it was one of only six submarines that were based off the colonies until the arrival of the fleet still in naval shipyards, being constructed. The Alpan, named after Etruscan goddess of the underworld, was commanded by Hauptain Seiler Vuder, one of the best submarine captains in the Kriermada. Fully outfitted with eight Av.36 Heavy Weight torpedoes in the tubes for snapshots, and then an additional twenty-five, along with a total of twelve Principe III anti-shipping missiles loaded for fire out of the verticle launch system, it was a killing machine. It alone could hold the entrance into the bay if it was really necessary. The Alpan stood silent.

Vuder waited as the printer ejected a new sattelite databursts sent from one of the many airborne warning and control aircraft flying one hundred kilometers off the coast of the Macabee colony. Impatiently he stomped his foot on the ground and ripped the paper prematuraly, but he took no notice. Skimming over it he groaned and he rolled into a ball of paper and threw it into the trash. Quickly he went to the command room and through the communications radio ordered all officers to the officer's mess room. It took him about five minutes to pull everyone together into the mess room and he greeted all the officers with, "Operations will begin in the next two hours."

All remained silent and Vuder continued, "Azaha has a single carrier denoted as advanced detachment Alpha..."

His voice trailed out as one of the officers spoke up, "Just one carrier?"

Vuder nodded and continued, "Yes, just one carrier. Apparently they thought getting into the bay was easy. This should be fairly easy. We're going to move up ten kilometers and pop up to strike from there, hitting the carrier with as much armament as we have. By the time this entire ordeal is done with, it should be either really dead, or crippled enough to force it to return home."

The others nodded and nobody doubted his judgment, and after some ten minutes of chit chat the officers broke and returned to their command posts. Vuder returned to the command room and ordered towards his executive officer, "Right rudder thirty degrees!" The officer repeated the order and the captain fired another order, "Submerge to six hundred meters. Course north at flank speed." His orders were again repeated and then carried out and the submarine was on its way.

...ten minutes later

A single missile crashed out of the water, sending a splash high up into the sky, and beyond it the missile itself. It was a Principe III, it's distinct shape made it obvious, and it increased altitude to around two hundred meters before charging its way towards its target. It was followed by another missile a minute later, and then by another one, up until the submarine's entire stock of twelve missiles were in the air within twelve minutes. Each had a computer to regulate velocity so that the missiles would hit together. Flying low they kept out of enemy radar for as long as possible and when they hit a distance of one hundred nautical miles they began to slow down and descend in altitude and within seventy nautical miles from their target broke apart, releasing each one Av. 36 torpedo which crashed into the water below, aided by a small parachute to allow it to enter the water nose first. From there, the computer guidance would keep the torpedo on track, and last minute sonar and blue-green lidar guidance would make the Av. 36s deadly accurate. That single carrier was in for a suprise from twelve heavy weight torpedoes coming straight at it.

Under the waves, elsewhere, the Alpan turned around and headed back to her original position to await a resupply vessel and continue monitoring the status of the straights...these entrances were most definately closed to the enemies of the Empire.

OOC: Ok screw this, I got absolutely nothing done tonight.....

I'll post tomorrow.

"You are clear for launch, 'pulting in t-minus.." The Thunderbolt Strike fighter had its thrust at full, and the catapult was about to launch when it was thrown off the deck, straight up.

The whole front quarter of the big carrier seemed to explode in a rage of fury, less than a second after, another explosion rocked the midsection, blowing off what remained of the front, and much of the forward-starboard side of the carrier.

Immediatly, the fail safes on the ship slammed shut every and all compartment on the lower decks. Men who were trapped in flooding compartments would drown, and men in rooms with no air would die slowly with lack of air. For now the ship stayed afloat, but the old doors wouldn't hold forever.

The captian was sprawled on the floor of his bridge, along with the rest of his command crew. He got up slowly, and rubbed his head, feeling a bit of blood on his forhead.

"Damage report!" he barked, he himself still out of it a tad.

An ensign pointed out the front of the command tower at the missing front of the ship. The captian turned and looked, and with a gasp, he slowly sat down on his chair. "What hit us?" he asked slowly and calmly.

"We don't know sir.. by the damage done, and the fact we saw nothing on radar, it looks like a torpedo strike."

"God damnit" the captian cursed, "We weren't equipped to hunt subs, and how the hell did they know we were coming? Who hit us? I thought the Doomish forces were occupied with Paethos."

Again he sighed, "Radio home, tell them we've been disabled, and will most likely sink soon. We are going to scuttle the ship at first signof us sinking."

"Yes sir."
------------------------------------------------------
30 minutes later, Port Ricaud.

"We need to ship out now, one of our carriers was disabled by enemy sub fire."

"We can't ship out now, we still have two garrisons that need to be dug out of the ice."

"We can leave without a thousand or so men, we need to launch, now. All our forces are already loaded up. Our fleet is already prepared out of port, and we have about ten transports loaded up."

"What kind of fleet do we have?"

"Eight heavy battleships, ten carriers and two fleet carriers, and about 15 or 20 missile frigates. We've opted to leave the cruisers and destroyers here for homeland defense. The missile frigates can make up for the lack of destroyers for sub hunting."

The admiral sighed and looked out upon the frozen port before him. "Fine, we will launch. Since there seems to be subs guarding the entrance to the bay, we'll head far north over the bay, and away from any land mass, when we get to the relative 'end' of the bay, we will stop, move in, and launch aircraft across the land mass, and straight into Paethos. This will save us the battle of fighting ourway into the bay."

Within an hour, the fleet was underway, heading due north for 10 KM, then running a diagonal course way above the northern landmass of the bay.

"Sir, incoming missiles!"

Saul glanced at his virtual HUD, cursing when he saw the missile alert icons. They were moving fast, but had been detected as soon as they were launched thanks to the arcologies' long range radar.

Firing his afterburners, Saul was pushed back into his seat as he accelerated, towards the incoming AAMs. He could feel his vision blacking out from the G's, but the vHUD remained, indicating the precise location of each missile. At top speed, he and his wingmen streaked towards the AAMs, firing off a salvo of his own as he went, hopefully to take down the Doomish aircraft that had fired on him. His game of chicken only had one possible end, but the gambit would hopefully save as many of the transports as possible.

At the last possible moment, the interceptors broke, launching their entire loads of chaff and flares. Arcing upwards, Saul could feel his bones protesting under the harsh acceleration, and heard the snap as his right femur gave. Why oh why couldn't that have been my augmetics?

Peeling north and gasping for air with what he guessed to be several broken ribs, he checked his radar, praying that the trick had worked...

OOC: I'll let you decide how well that would go, they're your missiles after all. You now have 124 AAMs heading towards your aircraft at a slightly slower Mach 5.5, guided by Arcology radar, lidar and infrared.

"Sir, incoming missiles!"

Saul glanced at his virtual HUD, cursing when he saw the missile alert icons. They were moving fast, but had been detected as soon as they were launched thanks to the arcologies' long range radar.

Firing his afterburners, Saul was pushed back into his seat as he accelerated, towards the incoming AAMs. He could feel his vision blacking out from the G's, but the vHUD remained, indicating the precise location of each missile. At top speed, he and his wingmen streaked towards the AAMs, firing off a salvo of his own as he went, hopefully to take down the Doomish aircraft that had fired on him. His game of chicken only had one possible end, but the gambit would hopefully save as many of the transports as possible.

At the last possible moment, the interceptors broke, launching their entire loads of chaff and flares. Arcing upwards, Saul could feel his bones protesting under the harsh acceleration, and heard the snap as his right femur gave. Why oh why couldn't that have been my augmetics?

Peeling north and gasping for air with what he guessed to be several broken ribs, he checked his radar, praying that the trick had worked...

OOC: I'll let you decide how well that would go, they're your missiles after all. You now have 124 AAMs heading towards your aircraft at a slightly slower Mach 5.5, guided by Arcology radar, lidar and infrared.
The trick that the Otagians tried was one that DIAF had come across before. As a result, the missiles' advanced processors had planned for such a tactic. The missiles' LIDAR and LADAR easily burned through the chaff and ignored the flares outright, and the missiles targetting the fighters altered their courses, continuing on towards their targets at high speed.

Meanwhile, the other several hundred missiles targetting the transports streaked through the cloud of chaff and flair, ripping up the skies as they went in for their final passes. Finding their targets unprotected, one could almost imagine the computer within the missile smirking as it ended the life of hundreds of Otagian soldiers. Of course, computers are incapable of emotion...

Of course, the Imperial pilots now found themselves in a predicament of their own with over one hundred enemy missiles inbound from across the border. They hadn't expected such a swift retaliation. Upon detecting the missile launches, the formation quickly split up, diving, climbing, flying in seperate directions to attempt to confuse the missiles. This was to no avail; the powerful, land-based enemy tracking systems followed their every move.

Their ARC was incapable of cancelling out such powerful radio waves, making them quite vulnerable to the enemy's RADAR.

Of course, there was one advantage DIAF had over the Otagians. Following the swift and bloody Warmaster Air Engagement that had resulted in the defeat of a vastly larger force of the Czardaian Airforce at the hands of the Doomingsland Imperial Airforce and the Warmaster Airforce had tought the empire several lessons about air combat. Namely, the need to stop massive amounts of long range ordnance from reaching their fighters.

This had previously been achieved through a high powered microwave laser system, which worked quite well. Of course, that's only good for stopping one or two missiles. When you have twelve missiles tracking you at a time, you really can't do much about it. Or so it had been.

Towards the front of the aircraft were opened several small doors, which spat out twenty or so small rockets, which then ignited and streaked out into the night sky. Traveling roughly ten or so miles, the rockets would burst in a pattern, releasing their payload: a shitload of flammable gas. They would burst mere seconds before the missiles reached that particular area. Upon flying through the gas clouds, the engines of the enemy missiles would ignite the gas, destroying the missiles in the process.

Of course, that system had never been tested in actual combat. As a result, the fighters still maintained their reliable old laser systems in the event something went horribly wrong...

Having shelled both the canal and Medusa for several hours, reducing both to rubble, the Imperial Fleets ceased their bombardments. The mighty turrets began to turret, the guns reelevating. New targets were being inputted in the firing computers of the Imperial Navy.

With all obvious military targets mostly annihilated by the sheer brutality of the bombardment, concentration shifted to crushing the colony itself.

The target of this new bombardment would be the northern Arcology. This would not be the type of bombardment the Otagians had been expecting, however.

The High Command was fully aware of the Arcologies' toughness and resistance to conventional and nuclear weaponry. However, they were also aware that they were practically coated in sensors and CIWS. They would use that to their advantage.

The opening shots of the second bombardment began to sound as the sun arose; a red dawn. A tell tale sign of things to come. Massive 20" and 12" shells accompanied by smaller 6" shells whizzed across the wartorn skies of Phaethos, begining to touch down over the mighty Arcology. Of course, the next thing that happened would most likely surprise the Otagians.

The shells burst in mid air, scattering hundreds of shaped charge bomblets. Each. Within minutes the entire fortress had been coated with the deadly explosives, designed to destroy tanks. This bombardment was not meant to destroy the Arcology. It was meant only to pave the way for an even deadlier strike.

As the bomblets rained down, enemy sensors and CIWS systems would most likely be annihilated quite quickly.

After thirty minutes of being constantly pounded by over five hundred naval guns, expending well over 10,000 shells, making for literaly hundreds of thousands of bomblets, the bombardment shifted, targetting the housing around and outside of the Arcology. Ammunition switched from shaped charge to conventional fragmenting cluster munitions.

These were not designed for burning houses down, though they did that quite well. They were designed to kill, more specifically, to horribly maim. Thousands more bomblets would be scattered over the next hour, spewing hundreds of flechettes as they burst, tearing through flesh, bone, sinew, drywall, and, in some cases, concrete.

In the midst of that bombardment, something arose from the northern bay. Shooting out from near the fleet, from under the ocean, twenty-four Mars II ICCMs were spat out from a Guardian-class nuclear submarine. These were the same missiles that had wrought havoc upon the canal.

Rocketing high into the air, the missiles would release their payload upon reaching optimal velocity, sending their payloads of three 7,000lb depleted uranium-tipped ONC spike warheads streaking towards the Arcology, pocked and cratered from the prior bombardment.

At such a high velocity, the warheads would certainly penetrate the surface, and most likely dig in quite deep, not nessessarily coming out the other side. That did not matter. Upon their coming to a stop within the thick roof of the Arco, their massive warheads would detonate, blowing massive holes in the roof, possibly causing the entire thing to come caving in.

With that final bombardment completed, fighters began to shoot off of four different Helldawg V-class super carriers. Hundreds of them. Mostly F-78H multi-role fighters, they would be laden with Cornix air-to-ground missiles for busting any enemy armor or air defenses, cluster bombs, and fuel air explosives. The use for the fuel air explosives was a truely cruel one, indeed...

However, the Otagians were sent a single message:


To: Northern Arcology
From: Doomingsland Imperial High Command

We are offering you this one chance for surrender. If you refuse
our most generous offer, you shall be shown no mercy. Reflect
carefully upon this, for the fate of your people now rests on your
shoulders. If you accept our offer, you shall be shown mercy, your
citizens treated for their wounds, your cities rebuilt from the ashes.
We trust that you shall make a wise decision.

bump for Otagia

[Southern Ocean, <100km from southern coast of Pheathos]

The initial bombardment was a let down, ships took evasive action as the enemy shells rained down, several cruisers were hit, but only minorly damaged by shells under 10 inches, but 4 destroyers were knocked out of action and one blown in half along with 6 frigates destroyed and 3 cruisers who were hit my larger shells.

The BBs and SDs took the enemy shells in strides the extreme range of the larger shells caused them to be thrown off a tiny bit by high altitude winds, large columns of water shot into the air as the shells landed, 4 20 inch shells landed on 2 Atlantic-Class and Antietam-Class battleships taking out a single turret on each and a large number of secondary turrets and VSL cells on the Atlantic-Class in additon to ripping a nice hole in the armor and bleching flames., however using Kinetic Energy Missiles for shell defence most of the large shells were knocked off course just enough to miss, however the large shock waves tossed around frigates a bit.

Retribution would be swift and merciless, anothe volley of shells, exactly the same as the last was launched against the ships, this time using shells with GPS and terminal radar guidance to improve accuracy. However, half of the 24 inch shells (144) were fired towards the enemy arcology as a warning, however, they were fixed so that they would not over penetrate and cause too many civilian deaths. Admiral Sutherland ordered his lighter ships, consisting of mostly frigates and destroyers along with some large cruisers to flank the enemy ships, they moved at flank speed. Also, the arsenal ships fired another volley of 160 Meteor ASMs at the enemy fleet.

A group of submarines silently glided towards the enemy fleet at their maximum combat depth.

Admiral Sutherland sent out a single message to the Otagian fleet and ground forces: "Surrender now and your lives will be spared, you will be allowed to return to you homeland when the battle is over, but if you choose to resist...may god help you." The message was repeated twice as the ships continued to chase the Otagian fleet towards their lands.

[Isle of Endymion]

The ballistic missiles were detected as soon as they launched, right away hundreds of ABMs roared into the air towards the ballistic missiles intent on catching them before their boost phase was over. 806 of the ICBMs were taken out by MIM-171 Block B Piranhas before they hit space. Another 463 of the missiles were taken out as soon as they reached space by "Brilliant Pebbles" and GPALS systems, the last 11 missiles were hit by another volley of KEABMs.

Also, CA wasn't the only one who knew how to use AESA arrays offensively, 5 large B-1B bombers converted to AWACS focused their energy onto the single zeppelin that was annoying the ground based radars. The zeppelins attempted to destroy ground based radars as at best, pathetic, all radars on the island and on ships were linked, allowing for only a few radar sites to feed info to all SAM and radar systems, however, commanders enjoyed playing games with the zeppelin by flicking their radar off and moving a short distance before turning on again, thus keeping most radars from being damaged.

The enemy forces heading for the beach would be destroyed, naval ships all the way across the island began pouring fire from 14 to 4.5 inch shells onto the landing force, while the majority of 24 and 14 inch fire focused on the enemy ships, using GPS and passive radar guidance from ground stations the shells would acheive deadly accuracy. Also, large 24inch ground batteries joined in, and the railway guns had been set up and using radar guided shells began to pour fire onto the enemy rail guns, the smaller 5 inchers pelted enemy ships and amphib forces while SAMs rocketed towards the enemy helos.

Further inland, thousands(>2100 total, equal of each) of Foxdart, Firedart, and Flamedart SAMs roared into the air, with ranges from 150-560kms they targeted any and all enemy craft, paying special attention to bombers, and the 3 zeppelins, the missiles, using no active sensors, and relying datalinks to ground or AWACs based arrays were all but impervious to the zapping power of the EZ-1s. Another 800 Firedarts were launched from the Marshall Colony in the north, targeting bombers and fighters

750 AGM-321B Meteor Air-Launched Anti-Ship/Land Attack Missiles were launched from ships and land based systems against power stations, railguns/roads, military bases, and troops concentrations. Another 400 missiles were launched were launched from naval forces from the northern colony.

Finally, 100 SLBMs, carrying 8 1000lb MIRVs with conventional explosives were launched against airfields from submarines 800 miles away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A message was sent to The Voltarum

Your condemnation has been noted, although we find your logic flawed that is an arguement for another day. Please tell use your missile ranges so we can be sure to keep our ships away from a potentially hostile nation.

Thank you

A message was sent to The Voltarum

Your condemnation has been noted, although we find your logic flawed that is an arguement for another day. Please tell use your missile ranges so we can be sure to keep our ships away from a potentially hostile nation.

Thank you

OOC: see the WP board, Sky. And I meant your missile ranges.

OOC: see the WP board, Sky. And I meant your missile ranges.
OOC:Well, my ICCM strikes on Otagia kinda just demonstrated that your whole colony (or at least a big chunk) is within missile range from within mine...

OOC:Well, my ICCM strikes on Otagia kinda just demonstrated that your whole colony (or at least a big chunk) is within missile range from within mine...

OOC: Sigh, this reminds why I never write a message and not proof read it, jesus. I meant plane attack range... I obviously know other missiles can reach my colony from around the world. I emphasized units that were approaching my borders...

The massive shells crashed through the roof of the arcology, detonating in the outer hab-ring of the structure, burying dozens under the rubble. Outside the massive building, the fragmentation rounds wreaked havoc in the largely residential suburbs. Flechettes maimed and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians, leaving the fortified Red Samurai precincts mostly unscathed, their occupants protected by subterranean shelters. The rest of the city was devastated, rubble choking streets and flames spreading through portions of the suburbs.

Meanwhile, the three seperate arcologies detected incoming enemy aircraft and scrambled their Banshees from their underground hangars to intercept the attackers.

OOC: Sorry for the crappy post, Jolt ate my last one, and I'm in no mood to write out the entire thing again.

The initial bombardment was going quite well. The arcology appeared as if it would crumble in a matter of minutes. Then Imperial systems detected the opening of the concealed hanger doors. An even more vulnerable target had just made itself known.

Artillery fire shifted from the actual city and suburbs to the newly opened hanger doors, showering the entrances with mines and high explosive rounds. They were aiming to collapse the tunnels before Otagian air power really had the chance to deploy. In the unlikely event that the exits didn't collapse outright, the mines would hopefully stop any aircraft from exiting, showering enemy aircraft with hundreds of high velocity flechettes as they passed over.

The first Otagian fighters to exit the hangers were immediately engaged by multiple medium range MSRAAM air-to-air missiles, launching upon their detection, meaning that the enemy aircraft were just thirty miles away. This would give them even less of a warning of incoming missiles.

Roughly eighty of these missiles were released initialy, targetting the escaping fighters as they came out.

With fifty F-78Hs engaging the enemy fighters, the rest moved on to do further damage to what remained of the once mighty arcology.

The fighters swooped in and released their fuel air explosives straight through the holes in the roof, putting over twenty thousand pounds of ornance down onto the city in a matter of minutes. The Otagians would soon see the error of their ways.

Upon exiting out the other side of the roof, the bombs would spread out, guided by small fins. Once they reached an ideal area, the weapon would slit open, releasing a large amount of flammable gas into the air. This alone would most likely kill large amounts of civilians and unprotected military personel due to the sheer toxicity of the gas.

The gas would spread out quite quickly, being sucked into any tunnels or oxygen recycling systems. A smaller explosive would then detonate, igniting the massive cloud. The effect of this would be to create a massive vacuum, sucking all of the oxygen out of the arco, and crushing people and buildings alike from massive overpressure. What was left from that would be set ablaze from the sheer heat of the event.

Even the gas that had been sucked into vents and air purification systems would be ignited, most likely causing tremendous damage to those systems.

bump

bump for Otagia....

[Tsk.]

..::Open Diplomatic Message, No Encryption::..
TO: All Parties Involved In Doomingsland/Otagia Colonial War
FR: Sofie van der Berg, Marchess of Tryne
SUB: Imperial Stance

At this time the Imperium would like to announce that it will adopt the stance of an armed neutral. Any belligerent that offers violence towards the Imperial Protectorate of Tryne, civilian air and sea shipping, or any Imperial military units stationed at Tryne will quickly find the offending units destroyed and punative strikes launched. On the other side of the coin, any ship or aircraft of war seeking emergency repairs will be escorted to a safe harbor or airport where the crews will be provided for and the damaged ships or aircraft repaired, although at no point will said ships or aircraft be released back to their governments until hostilities cease.

At this time, the Imperium has nothing more to offer in the way of correspondance. Should any questions arrise that originate from this message, please contact Duchess Asiya Saleh for answers.

..::End Diplomatic Message::..


At the same time as the message was being broadcast to the combatants, an understength composite flight of two F-120B fighters and two F-125G interceptors took off from their base and met up with a lone E-128H AWACS. Heading directly north until they were "feet wet", the Imperial Aerospace Force aircraft then turned north-east up the strait and towards the general direction of The Silver Sky's colony. As far as the IAF command was concerned, it was a perfect opportunity to scout out air defenses that the IAF might soon have to penetrate.

The quasi-squadron settled in at roughly three hundred kilometers from the Silverian coastline and the AWACS began the mission by sweeping the sky for any contacts with its NPI radar. Any fighters in the sky within eight hundred kilometers of the target, assuming they weren't stealthy enough to avoid a general radar sweep, would show up on the contact plot, with larger aircraft showing up even further out. Next, the pair of Shadowfalcon fighters turned towards the coastline and began moving towards it at subsonic speed, the stealthy aircraft under total EMCON because of the fact that their link with the AWACS allowed them greater sensors than what they themselves possessed. It would be interesting to see how soon the Silverian fighters attempted to divert the F-120s from their course; the large, powerful solid-state phased array radars that guarded the Imperial coastline hadn't ever been able to detect an F-120 inside of a hundred kilometers.

Of course, the pilots had no intention of violating Silverian air space, but the air defense commander tasked with defending TSS' skies probably wasn't claravoiyant, so the response of the local air units would probably be a good indicator of how jumpy they were with a war on. Assuming the Silverians weren't so jumpy as to be immediately hostile, the fighter pilots looked forward to playing a friendly game of radar tag with their Silverian counter-parts.

bump for Otagia....
OOC: OTAGIA SAYS: Merry christmas, will respond later. You have no idea how annoying the holiday season is here...

OOC: SS, it's Skyian, and it's impossible to make an NPI Radar(if it stands for "No Probability of Intercept) as all electromagnetic radiation is detectable. Also, being able to detect a fighter(F-15) sized object at 800km is a blatant godmode.

OOC: SS, it's Skyian, and it's impossible to make an NPI Radar(if it stands for "No Probability of Intercept) as all electromagnetic radiation is detectable. Also, being able to detect a fighter(F-15) sized object at 800km is a blatant godmode.
OOC: Since I am the one who has made the AWAS, I will comment... No, it isn't, especially within NationStates where even Aegis can be seen in third-class navies. Even the F/A-22's radar has a range just half of that, and the E-3's radar range is said to be around 300-400km, though the obvious fact is that it is going to be much longer since the exact figure is classified (even if you ignore the fact that the radar has been already therefor years). So no, a much larger radar mounted on an airframe larger than an Airbus A380 can have such a range.

BTW, merry Christmas to you (and to all), and I shall depart!

EDIT: Just for clarification: the range is against a regular +20m fighter (think an older Su-27, and maybe a F-15C/E) without RCS reduction measures. Obviously aircraft with reduced RCS are most definitely harder to detect and the AWACS will likewise have a shorter detection range against those types of targets, but that also entirely depends on the aircraft's actual characteristics and the tradeoffs brought in order to have a much smaller RCS.

[ooc:] You know, I was just about to say something similar... having had an average bit of experience with NS-style aerial combat. Damn you for being able to explain it better than I ever could! *shakes fist* ;)

Anyway, I'm also watching this thread.... FWIW.

OOC: I still find it odd that you can see over the horizion with good ability, unless I underestimate he distance of the horizion.

OOC: I still find it odd that you can see over the horizion with good ability, unless I underestimate he distance of the horizion.
OOC: Hence why the operating altitude is very high, and hence why the range for detecting low altitude targets is much lower. Since it is a given that most NS Mach 2-3+ air superiority fighters will operate at high altitudes, radar horizon isn't that much of a problem.

Also, if we wish to continue this, I'm trying to figure out if there is an OOC thread for this RP...

[OOC: Like Czardas, I'm watching this thread, given that Doom is not one of our favorite friends, as well as the fact that PRA has sold us quite a bit of ordnance, and TSS' involvement and IADF stuff. Like Otagia and Omz, I too wish you all a Merry Christmas, and I'll get out of this thread before I get accused of spam/hijacking. But I will tell Omz that he should check his TGs.]

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=457513
OOC thread. I'll get somthing IC up late tonight or tomorrow, merry christmas.

The quickly opening hangars allowed a dozen fighters from the arcology through before the artillery shells began to land around the gates, preventing the rest from exiting. The fighters launched their AAMs (72 total) before being quickly destroyed by the incoming missiles. Still, the squadrons from the other arcologies were inbound at top speed, another five dozen interceptors, each launching their missiles in a desperate attempt to stop the enemy bombers from unleashing yet more hell on the beleagured fortress. Meanwhile, a dozen of the fighters moved at nearly five times the speed of sound, only a scant fifteen meters from the ground, racing towards the ocean. Each carried a full load of anti-shipping missiles, prepped to fire on the Doomish armada.

The Samurai Commander watched the incoming explosives, the internal cameras monitoring their descent. Due to the construction of the arcology, the bombs were each forced into a single chamber, blast doors preventing the spread of the gas, lock-down preventing it from spreading through the ventilation systems. While the areas effected would eventually be starved of oxygen, the chance that they would be around after any explosives detonated was slim. As the gas detonated, the area hit bulged, walls cracking under the massive stress, bringing large portions of the roof falling into the fiery void.

As the flames and smoke cleared, the Doomish forces would see the hulk of the arco, its upper levels reduced to rubble, numerous casualties buried beneath the morass of concrete and steel, but nearly three quarters of the arcology remained unharmed, over four hundred meters of reinforced concrete standing in defiance of the Doomish bombardment.

OOC: Hope this post is satisfactory, my sleep deprived brain lacks the capacity to distinguish between crap and brilliance. Ah well, will see in the morning...

The fighters attacking the Otagian interceptors scrambled desperately to evade the incoming missiles, but the quickness of the enemy response got the best of the naval pilots. 53 F-78Hs were blown out of the skies from that single barrage, either killing the pilots or forcing them to eject. Roughly twenty pilots survived to hit the ground, immediately taking evasive action, taking cover from enemy patrols.

They had only a DAC-91K machine pistol with an extra magazine to defend themselves. If the enemy found them, chances were they'd wind up dead. There was no way in hell they'd allow themselves to be taken alive.

Meanwhile, the launching of interceptors from the other two Arcos prompted a response from Doomanum Nova herself, with the diverting of three squadrons of F-78Es, laden with long range ordnance. Before the enemy interceptors got within missile range of the aircraft pounding the northern arco, they found themselves being hounded by hundreds of AIM-210 missiles, nearly eight hundred in total targetting the enemy aircraft, hopefully finishing off what remained of Otagia's colonial airforce.

The fleet, finding that the Arco had not succumbed from the last attack, implemented their backup plan. Specialized shells were loaded into the 20" guns of the two Legionnaire-class Command Dreadnaughts. These were massive HEAT-style shaped charge warheads.

The main guns of the dreadnaughts, twenty-four in total, traversed, targetting the gaping hole in the arcology's roof. Flames spouted out from the barrels of the massive weapons, sending the GPS-guided 20" HEAT rounds streaking across the skies towards the already deep hole. Each round would have sufficed in penetrating the concrete. However, the nature of the warhead meant that the hole created by each shell, while deep, would be very small in diameter. As such, the fleet kept up the bombartment for a total of ten minutes in order to create a larger hole.

Once the hole was created, the entire fleet would pour its entire arsenal straight down, filling the chamber with thousands of fuel air rounds...

OOC:As for the fighters your sending at the fleet...

Flying at mach five (that or there abouts) while flying that low will cause the airframe to disintegrate due to a bunch of crap that I don't feel like explaining...

bump for Otagia

OOC: Right. What would a good speed be then at that level?

OOC:Wow, I can't believe I forgot about this. Meh. Anyways, good speed, from what I understand, would probably be about mach 2.5 at the very most.

OOC: For a good low level speed, I doubt you could get any better than Mach 1.3. Depending on elevation (I'm just going to stick with the ground being near sea level) it might change but at sea level its extremely hard to go faster since the air is much more thicker at that level. The mere friction of past Mach 1.7 (I can't exactly remember) would melt the frame. Hence why high-speed aircraft try to fly-high. Hope that helps. :)

OOC: And you would also have to factor in the drag induced by externally carried munitions, if any. Mach 1.2 at sea level in clean condition is the best current operating speed for most high performance aircraft, and with later aircraft, one would have to consider air friction, buffetting caused by dense air currents at low level (which only become more dense as you travel faster through them and which seriously reduces pilot performance through fatigue), and safe operating altitude (speed at which a human pilot could react to sudden changes in environment).