NationStates Jolt Archive

[The Return]

After the reports of anarchy in Cymrea, an ally of the Realm, it was decided that some sort of action had to be taken. The islands of Norfolk Island and Christmas Island off Australia became areas where the Cots could establish refueling stations for the naval vessels operating in the Pacific. Given the peaceful relations between the Realm and Cymrea in the past, and the fact that the Realm had possessed both islands in the past before selling them to Cymrea, resistance was expected to be minimal. However, it appeared that anarchy had erupted and it was decided to take no chances. Therefore, the two Amphibious Battle Groups and the three Carrier Battle Groups operating in the Pacific were ordered to deploy to the two islands, with one ABG and one CBG moving to each island, with the third carrier group remaining in the Pacific to maintain a Cottish presence in the world's largest ocean.

Six days after the news of the anarchy had been recieved by the Cots, the first ships reached their positions off Norfolk Island. The carrier had already sent a RF-20D Enforcer over the island to gather intelligence, and the reports weren't looking good. It seemed that anarchy had indeed erupted and that groups of armed people roamed the islands, killing and looting indiscriminatingly. There weren't really any government left, so there was no way of letting the people know that the Cots came to restore law and order to the island. Therefore, a pair of B-42D Vigilante bombers were loaded up with Mk.80/A leaflet canisters filled with leaflets informing the people that the Cottish military would restore law and order, and urged the populace to lay down the arms.

Four hours after the leaflets had been deployed, the Cots started the second phase of the operation, the actual deployment of troops. The plan of action called for a total of two battalions, sixteen hundred Royal Marines to land on the island to pacify the two thousand civilians. The rules of engagement were unclear, since they would be going in under the 'guise of humanitarian aid. It was as of yet unclear how the people would react, but it was clear that if push came to shove, the shove would be primarily from the former soldiers stationed at CFB Kingston.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f18/Chancellor_Rune/Nationstates/NorfolkIsland-Official.png
Norfolk Island

The Cots would move in with two of the most experienced battalions, each with roughly eight hundred infantry. One of the battalions, 2nd BN, would assault the military base from the air, proceeding in H-21/N Super Stallion IIs and H-25/A Super Hueys, covered by H-10/B Stalker gunships laden with 70mm rockets and ammunition for the 30mm cannon in the nose. The Marines were laden with weapons and ammunition, and would secure the base so transport aircraft could land later.

The second battalion to be sent, the 3rd BN, would land the good old-fashioned way via amphibious assault vehicles of the type M50A1 Invader, securing the beaches so the LSTs and LCACs would be able to land with trucks and other vehicles, as well as equipment, supplies and more personnel. These were be deployed from the LSDs and LPDs and given a head start before the air assault battalion took off from the deck of the Marauder class assault ship. The Invaders deployed smoke as per doctrine, denying any potential enemy a clear shot at the main invasion force behind the lead Invaders.

In the air above, F-20/B Enforcer multi-role fighters and F-26/A Predator light tactical fighters were patrolling the airspace, ready to assist the Marines on the ground if that became necessary. The Enforcers had been deployed from the carrier, codenamed Doghouse, which was operating to the north-east of Norfolk Island. The fighters would circle the island, in altitudes from 300 to 8,000 meters, ready to deploy weapons if necessary.

http://img464.imageshack.us/img464/9114/day10900hrsxq6.png
Actions as of 0900 hours, Day 1

The first troops on the ground on Norfolk was assault force "Delta", which airlifted in and rappelled down from the helicopters quickly and moved to secure the immediate perimeter. A few Cymrean soldiers dressed in tattered uniforms and with CM-8 assault rifles in their hands spotted the Marines, and the Marines spotted the Cymreans. Fortunately, the Marines had enough discipline not to open fire, and instead, a small detachment consisting of a kaptein and three enlisted moved over to the Cymreans relatively quickly, holding their weapons ready in a non-threatening manner, sending a clear signal that the Cots didn't wish to open fire, but that they would if they were forced to.

The men met and shared a few words, basically the kaptein informed the men that they were there to assist in restoring law and order to the island, and that they had no wish to harm the populace. That was accepted by the soldiers, and it didn't take too long for the Cottish battalion to secure the southern parts of the airbase. Unfortunately, not all the Cymreans were interested in talking. One company in particular was openly fired upon by the Cymreans guarding that particular sector of the base, killing three Marines and injuring seven others. The Cots returned fire, and it wasn't long until the sounds were heard all over the base. A lot of confusion followed before the Cottish battalion commander got to the Cymrean commanding officer and had a quick conversation with him. It ended with the Cymrean troops being ordered to cease fire and to cooperate with the Cottish Marines. They had been on the ground for fourty minutes, and already seven Marines lay dead along with twenty-ish Cymrean soldiers.

At the beach off Kingston, the first of the Invaders started rolling up from the water, scaring the living daylights out of the civilians that watched the situation unfold. A roaming gang spotted the Invaders roll up, and decided that they were trying to invade their turf, leading to the conclusion that they had to be killed. The fact that they had only pistols, shotguns and submachine guns didn't matter. The result? The 30mm chainguns on the Invaders killed the gangbangers relatively quickly, leaving some twenty badly mangled bodies and a devestated area. Two Invaders stopped and dismounted their Marines to let them clear the area, which was done without casualties on the Cottish side thanks to the L42A2 carbines firing lethal 6.8x43mm rounds and the ever faithful Mk.1 fragmentation grenade. The landing zone was cleared, and the Invaders rolled in from the waves, crawled up the beach and onto the road, and into the nearest population center, the administrative town of Kingston.

The town which consisted mainly of office buildings and the island's only shopping mall was cleared in a manner of hours, and gave the Cots control over the only means of contacting the outside world. TV signals and phone-lines were disconnected, and the ships and electronic warfare aircraft in the skies above flanking the island started jamming any signals not belonging to the Cottish Marines.

The eight Elestee class landing ship tanks started moving in with the low tide, deploying the trucks and other vehicles inside. LCACs and HLCACs also moved in and out constantly, bringing vehicles, troops and supplies to the island. It was soon time to move north to stop the anarchy...

Norfolk Island
Eighteen hours after the first Cottish Marine set foot on the island, all major population centers had been secured. While there had been a few minor clashes with locals trying to defend their homes, most of the roaming gangs fled when they saw the heavily armed Marines approach. In addition, with the capture of all methods of outside communication by the Cots, they essentially had captured the island. The Cymrean soldiers were quickly but quietly disarmed and disbanded, kept under guard at the base for the time being. The next thing generalmajor Kittelsen, the commanding officer of the Marines occupying Norfolk Island did was to declare a state of martial law on the island and that a curfew be in effect except from 0900 hours until 1400 hours. Anyone caught outside beyond that time would be detained and/or shot. All phone lines were cut and cellular phone relays taken offline. So were any satellite transmissions, the warships jamming any potential transmissions. On the television, only one channel still broadcasted, sending Cottish patriotic music and explaining the people that the Cottish military had returned to Norfolk Island to restore peace and order, and that the people should comply. It explained that the Realm of Cotland had annexed the islands and that Cottish law was now in effect.

Patrols were established and sent out to guard the newly aquired island while four teams - fourty-eight operators - from the 2nd Special Operations Force - the Marinejegers - started counter-insurgency operations. They operated in teams of twelve, moving from place to place either by helicopter or, more favored by the men, in CTLAVs or on foot. At the end of the first day of operations, the four teams had killed, between them, a total of ninety-four insurgents and captured twenty. Those twenty were restrained, gagged, and blindfolded before they were loaded up into helicopters and brought out to one of the ships in the small fleet that lay off Norfolk Island for interrogation. Seven would never be heard from again...

Christmas Island
The greeting at Christmas Island was less than welcome. The defenders of that island were more organized and determined, having allowed the ships to come really close before the shore defense cannons started opening fire. Before the Cots knew it, 127mm shells were landing all around the ships, and a few smaller attack boats came out from the port, their weapons firing. The Cots, already being at battlestations realized they were too close for missiles and that they had to return to the good old-fashioned way of fighting. On the foredecks of the frigates and destroyers, the Mk.10 155mm ship-based ETC cannons trained to the correct direction, the angles of elevation being adjusted as they turned. Ammunition was loaded via the autoloader and everything double-checked by the computers before that green light on the weapons console in the CIC started shining. A maximum of two seconds later, the NCO manning the console would press the circular red button with those small white capitol letters "ILD" [FIRE]. A few milliseconds later, the barrel of the cannon erupted into a hail of fire and brimstone, sending a lethal projectile out of the muzzle at 1,066.8 meters per second, directly for the target roughly six kilometers away. The Mk.10 155 millimeters were joined by the larger Mk.11 203 millimeter ETC cannons on the Mexia class battlecruisers, each cruiser sporting nine of the Mk.11s and six Mk.10s. The bombardment of the shore defenses and the attacking patrol vessels made for the first real gun-battle the Royal Cottish Navy had been in since the attempted invasion of Cotland in 1942, when sixteen battleships and twenty heavy cruisers had battled the equally strong naval force of the nation of Sunnmore.

When it was all over two hours later, with the last of the shore defense emplacement blown up and sixteen enemy patrol craft traded for three Cottish frigates and one Cottish destroyer, the smell of cordite lay heavily over the ships and the air around them. It had been a glorious but costly battle. Four ships sunk and nearly three hundred men dead before they had even set foot on the island. That would happen in two hours, with a full battalion being landed via air after a small bombing raid. Another two battalions would land in amphibious assault vehicles, and a company of tanks would also be deployed, just in case. Christmas Island would prove to be more difficult to capture than Norfolk Island.

Christmas Island
The first troops were flown in via helicopters, escorted by F-26/A Predators light tactical fighters equipped with 70mm rockets and 25mm cannons, and by H-10/B Stalker gunships laden with ammo for the 30mm chainguns and 70mm rockets. The defenders were ready, and the F-26s had several Starstreak MANPAD missiles and a lot of small-arms fire after them. It was a risky game which cost five Predators, but it exposed the enemy for the following Stalkers which litterarily raped the enemy with rockets and 30mm fire. The initial sweep cleared a zone for the helicopters to land Marines, mostly at coastal defense areas but also at government strongholds. In the first hour of having boots on the ground, an estimated sixty Marines were killed in exchange for roughly two hundred enemies. However, the Marines had more than eleven thousand still waiting to get off the ships. The enemy had perhaps two thousand combatants. In the war of attrition that was to come, the Cots had the advantage, both technologically and in terms of manpower.

Norfolk Island
A week after the first Marine had set foot on the island, fighting had pretty much ceased. An estimated six hundred islanders had been killed, leaving a native population of nine hundred, and about ninety Marines had been killed. Those losses had been replaced quickly though, and the Cots once again had Norfolk Island under their rule. Naval engineers had already arrived to start planning to expand the old Cymrean base to suit the Cottish need, while the Cymrean soldiers and those who didn't wish to continue to reside on Norfolk were loaded into the troop transport ship Steffen Iversen for "repatriation" back to the former nation of Cymrea. It was a total of three thousand soldiers and five hundred civilians.

Two days after the Steffen Iversen had left Norfolk Island, escorted by two Infernal class destroyers, they were far from every spec of land and at deep waters. It was dusk, and it was time to make sure no one would speak of what had occured on Norfolk. A single Scorpion class submarine lurked in the depths, stalking the Steffen Iversen. The two escorts knew of it, and they knew that it was time to get out of the way. The two ships kicked their pebble bed nuclear reactors to maximum and increased speed to their maximum speed of 39.8 knots, moving quickly away from the Steffen Iversen which could do only 21 knots, at best. The thirty crewmembers were all briefed on the situation, and they silently left the ship in a lifeboat, the rest having been sabotaged. The ship was moving at a plesant 12 knots, making it easy for the submarine. At a distance of seventeen thousand meters, the periscope broke through the water and zoomed in on the Steffen Iversen, the crew in the command center all seeing the images the digital periscope collected. Numbers were punched into the firing computers, and the eight torpedo tubes were prepared. Four of them were loaded with Mk.68 heavyweight torpedoes while the other four were loaded with RGM.5/C AMESM anti-shipping missiles. Three AMESMs and two Mk.68s would be used in this operation.

After the final preperations were made, the submarine kept a constant speed of six knots at twenty meters. The outer doors were opened, and in the command center, the firing button was pressed five times, allowing two grey-painted torpedoes and three cannisters to be forced out of the tubes with pressuzied air. The torpedoes increased to 45 knots while the cannisters rose to the surface and jumped up due to the momentum. Just as they were falling back down into the sea, a hail of fire kicked in from the rear of the cannisters, propelling the missiles to a speed of Mach 3.8. The missiles skimmed the surface and covered the distance of 16,800 meters quickly before slamming into the center section of the Steffen Iversen, penetrating the thin steel bulkhead before the 363-kilogram blast-fragmentation warheads detonated, killing scores of people in the blast alone. A lot of confusion followed, and it dawned on the people aboard that the crew had abandoned ship and that the escorts were gone just as the two torpedoes reached the ship, having increased in speed to 60 knots shortly before.

The 300-kilogram PXBN warhead from one of the torpedoes alone was sufficient to sink the ship, and with two detonating underneath the ship almost simultaniously, the keel was broken in two different places, effectively splitting the ship into three different parts, killing hundreds immediately and trapping hundreds more inside the doomed ship. The middle section, which was where the majority of the people resided, sank first, taking only one minute and sixteen seconds to flood enough to go down. The bow sank after three minutes, while the stern sank last after five minutes. Almost two thousand, seven hundred died, leaving seven hundred souls left in the balmy Pacific waters. The Cots had no intentions of rescuing them, and the ship had been sunk far from the shipping lanes and at a place where the seabed was more than five thousand meters directly down, making it unlikely that the wreck would ever be found. The survivors would be left to drown or, for the lucky ones, to be taken by sharks. The Cots would never make this public, them having plausible deniability since only the upper echelons of the area command, the sub commander and the thirty crewmembers knowing about it, and those thirty would soon join those dead in the sinking, to keep from having any loose lips. As far as the world was concerned, the Steffen Iversen was just another ship mysteriously lost at sea...