NationStates Jolt Archive

Coastal Defense Base #235
Taymyria Coastline, RCR
23:57 PM KRAT
Jacob Svegi looked at the watch once more. The guards hadn't patrolled this part of the city for quite some time now, something which was natural since they hadn't been paid by the corrupted central government in Voronej for weeks now. Jacob had never been a fan of the Russians, and especially not of the current communist regime.

The Russians had brutally taken over his old fatherland when he was a young man. He remembered hearing the screaming sounds of Russian jet engines flying overhead, shooting down the F-16s that had tried to defend the old Cotland while Russian tanks and infantry massacred the remaining infantry that had tried to defend the city of Cotlandstad. It had been a futile fight though. He knew that now, twenty years after the fall of the short-lived Republic of Cotland, which had replaced the Empire of Cotland, an institution Jacob had helped bring down. What a mistake, he had come to believe in his old days. Forced relocation to Siberia, constant struggling under the Russian yoke in the permafrost of Siberia, doing pointless work in the Gulags. It had all helped him reconsider.
In the gulag he worked in, # 468 which was located north in the area of Taymyria, he was forced to do construction work in the shore defenses the Russians were building. They seemed paranoid, to say the least. One of the Russian KGB officers that watched over the slave laborers (even though the Russians denied them being that, it was what they were) had said that there was a distinct irony in it. The invading Cottish solders would be massacred by structures constructed by Cottish workers.

Not today though. Jacob looked down from the watch and back at the other men with him, all of them Cottish slave workers. They had all been opposed to the Empire, but had come to reconsider in the twenty years in the forced exile. Now, they wanted to strike a striking blow to the Russian defenses, opening the way for the salvation to come.

Throughout the coastline in Taymyria, Cottish slave laborers were preparing to riot against their oppressors, fueled by a twenty-year old rage and the sense that they had nothing to lose, but everything to gain. Having opened back-channel communications with the Realm of Cotland a few years ago when things started to crumble, the ex-Cottish had been given assurances that the Realm wouldn't abandon them. That was proven when supplies of arms and advisors started to trickle in a few months ago, and the slave laborers were prepared for battle, just waiting for the opportunity. Now, it had finally arrived. Jacob had been informed of a vast fleet waiting in the Barents Sea, safely in international waters, just waiting for his team to do its job. They didn't intend to let their brothers down.

"Let's go." Jacob said in heavily accented Cottish, trying his best to remember the language after having been forced to speak only Russian for so many years. The men nodded and followed, trying to remember their basic training so many years ago in Fort Fresik, the old basic training facility for the Imperial Cottish Army before the fall of the Empire. In their hands, they had freshly delivered L2 pistols and L10 submachine guns, loaded with .45 caliber and 5.7x28mm ammunition, respectively. These weapons were decommissioned from use in the Cottish military, but were just the weapons the freedom fighters needed.

They moved quickly down the facility they had worked on making, meeting no one as they moved along in the dark of night. They had all helped build this place, so they knew exactly where everything were. In fact, they knew it better than the Russian conscripts that were supposed to guard the place, but who were busy getting drunk on homemade vodka in the barracks.

After moving down a set of stairs, Jacob motioned for the men to stop, trying to get his bearings right in the semi-darkened concrete jungle. After a few seconds, he was certain he knew where he was, and motioned for the men to start moving again. After a few meters, they reached the place they were supposed to take out. A steel door in the concrete structure was all that stood between them. Closing his eyes and praying a quick prayer for the success and freedom of his people, he prepared himself for the things that were to come. This was going to be the first and - hopefully - decisive blow to the Russian oppressers.

Opening his eyes, he looked at the other seven men with him. They all nodded and held their weapons tight, ready for whatever was to come. Nodding, Jacob checked the door carefully. It wasn't locked. Smiling weakly, he took a deep breath. Then, he ripped the door wide open.

The men poured in, pouncing hard. The door opened up to a corridor, fifteen meters long, before it reached the control central for the shore defenses in this sector. The eight men ran quickly down the corridor and into the control central where sixteen men were sitting on various monitors, either surfing the internet or talking with each other. Whatever they did, they weren't doing their job. The ex-Cots didn't really care though. They moved in and started shooting, dealing out at least a little bit of punishment for twenty years of living hell.

Jacob spotted a Russian officer trying to press some button, and gunned him down with a spray of sixteen 5.7mm bullets, emptying the magazine. Cursing slightly, he replaced the magazine with another, having fifty rounds readily available to send into the Russians at a velocity of 712 meters per second, at nine hundred rounds per minute. After about two minutes of constant shooting, the Cots stopped shooting. The Russians had all been dead after twenty seconds, but that hadn't stopped the Cots from mutilating the bodies with bullets, spit, kicks and profanity. The control central had been cleared, and after a quick check, they found out that no alarm had been raised. Other ex-Cottish freedom fighters were hitting various places through the coastline at that moment, taking out shore defense guns, missile sites, control centrals, radar installations and powerplants, paving the way for the liberating forces.

Picking up a encrypted radio set one of the advisor teams, in truth Cottish special forces from Forsvarets Spesialkommando, Jacob tuned into the correct frequency and spoke into the reciever.

"Viper Pit, this is Echo Charlie Sierra one. Target neutralized. I repeat, target neutralized."

After a few seconds, a voice replied, speaking in a clear, neutral voice, obviously accustomed to the lingo used. It was most definately a military person on the other side of the radio.

"Echo Charlie Sierra one, this is Viper Pit. Copy last transmission. Complete operation and proceed to the next objective. Good job. Viper Pit out."

Jacob smiled, and nodded to his men.

"Good job guys. We've proven that we still have a fight in us. Let's wrap up things here and get out of here. There's still a officer's club we have to take out."

The men laughed as they started moving out of there, one of them leaving a bag in the middle of the room. It was packed with twenty kilos of C4 explosive, attached to a timer detonator. It was set to detonate in twenty minutes.

HMS Barbados (R-159)
Codename "Viper Pit"
56 nautical miles northwest of Coastal Defense Base #235
The flight deck of the HMS Barbados, one of the newest Enterprise class nuclear-powered supercarriers operated by the Royal Cottish Navy at age 9 years, was busier than it normally was this time of night. Aircraft were being readied for operations, with crew were moving around, getting the planes ready. The deck was crowded as the entire airwing - consisting of among others fourty F-20/B Enforcer multirole fighters, twenty-four F-25/B Typhoon air superiority fighters, sixteen B-42/D Vigilante bombers, and eight EF-20/F Enforcer electronic warfare aircraft - was getting ready to take off to join the air armada which had taken off from airbases in Murmansk a few hours ago, and that were currently topping their tanks from the many K-10/A Yggdrasil refueling aircraft that had been dispatched.

The whole operation was being controlled from the rather large Combat Informantion Central deep within the heavily armored hull of the Barbados, a five hundred and four meter long behemoth of an aircraft carrier. Here, all the information from the many AWACS and reconnaissance aircraft in the air was being gathered and analysed, interpented into data that would aid the Cottish operation, which had been codenamed Operation Prodigal Son. It would involve the transport of two full Army Corps, three Marine Divisions, hundreds of ships and thousands of aircraft.

On the RADAR screen, the operator could see the hundreds of aircraft at various altitudes, circling in formations, waiting for the orders to engage. The first phase of the operation would be for the local freedom fighters, all of them ex-Cottish citizens which had been trained to fight by Special Forces that had been inserted into Russia through various means over time, to conduct acts of sabotage in the landing area while Cottish air power reduced the offensive and defensive capabilities of the Russians.

At 01:00 AM KRAT, those orders came, and the pilots were only too happy to finally be doing something instead of just waiting. The first attack wave, designated Strike Force Alpha, consisted of sixteen squadrons and three hundred and thirty-six warplanes, laden with missiles and bombs. The freedom fighters must have succeeded well in their missions, the commanders thought, because only a few SAM sites lit up and started tracking the incoming aircraft. They wouldn't for long though, since the EF-20/Fs also detected the SAM sites and fired off AGM.23/A AARGMs at them, anti-radiation missiles which would take them out.

The Russians weren't well represented in the air either, having only a few fighters up in the air, patrolling. Those were engaged by the fourty-eight F-25/A Typhoons from the Air Force which accompanied Strike Force Alpha, opening the show with a volley of AIM.14/A BVRAAMs from well within range. The missiles were naturally detected in the Russian aircraft, and a short dogfight ensued. It was destined for the Russians to lose though, since they only had a few aircraft in the air.

The Navy didn't intend for that to happen though, since that could jeapordise the Cottish plans. That was why they fired off a volley of deadly RGM.6 Imsdal missiles at all known airbases, radar stations and control centers when the orders to attack came at 01:00 AM. By 01:11 AM, nearly a thousand Imsdal missiles of various types were in the air, targetting Russian air bases throughout the area known as Taymyria on the maps. Those Imsdals struck the radars, airbases, control centers, et cetera at terminal speeds of in excess of Mach 7, dropping thermite or submunitions, or penetrating with the 544-kg advanced unitary penetrator warhead that was mounted on the BGM.6/A Imsdal.

Strike Force Alpha was designated to take out the initial defenses, with Strike Forces Bravo through Foxtrot being supposed to take out the defenses and mobilised units in the bridgehead area. They did as they were ordered to, taking out SAM launcher by SAM launcher, shore defense cannon by shore defense cannon, gun emplacement by gun emplacement, troop formation by troop formation, command center by command center, et cetera with their missiles, bombs and guns. The strike was the largest in the sixty-four year history of the Royal Cottish Air Force, and one of the larger in the history of the Royal Cottish Navy.

By 06:00 AM, the first strikes had been concluded with massive destruction throughout Taymyria. The strike had crippled most of the Russian air power, which hadn't been so good to start with, and totally destroyed the SAM net the Russians had. Anti-aircraft artillery and hand-held SAMs would be the greatest threat to the Cottish aircraft from now on. They had taken casualties though. Twenty aircraft had been shot down, with sixteen of the air crews managing to eject safely. Of those, eleven were found and taken care of by the freedom fighters, while the other five were either killed or captured by the Russians. Those captured would be rescued later.

At 06:50 AM, the first grey-painted ship hulls started appearing on the horizon, moving quickly towards the shores. Helicopters flew over them, also moving towards land. To the few Russian soldiers standing on the shores, supposedly defending them, it seemed surreal. It would be very much more real soon though, when the first of the 203 millimeter shells from the Mexia class battlecruisers and the 155 millimeter shells from the cruisers, destroyers and frigates would start impacting the shores though. The first Royal Marines would be on the ground by 07:10 AM.

The first Cottish soldiers to land on Russian soil were the men of the 4th Battalion, 7th Infantry Brigade, 6th Marine Division, who were driving their M50A1 Invader amphibious assault vehicles directly up the beaches, ignoring the few Russian soldiers still there who were firing their small-arms at the landing vehicles. Their small-arms would do little good against the armored sides of the Invaders though, whose hulls could withstand up to 20mm direct hits. The low calibers of the Russian small-arms were no match, but they still posed a threat. That's why they were located on the thermal imagers and engaged with the 30mm chainguns and 12.7mm heavy machine guns each Invader was fitted with. The first shots on land were fired on the beaches of Taymyria.

The same occured in places throughout the coastline. Three full divisions were going to land on various places along the coast, opening three seperate bridgeheads that would be joined to form the northern front, the entryway for the Cottish military to land in Russia.

At the same time, Royal Marines and special forces started raiding Russian military positions, taking them out one by one, shooting soldiers and designating targets for the air armada overhead to take out. The many years of inter-branch training paid off now, with targets being destroyed only moments after being designated by the special forces and Royal Marines.

By 11:30 AM, the Royal Marines had managed to secure a beachhead five kilometers inland on all three locations, opening up for the full divisions to be offloaded into Russia. That would be expected to be completed within eighteen hours, with LCACs and LSTs moving in shuttle traffic, offloading trucks, tanks, artillery and supplies. Soon, brigades from the Army would be deployed to the Russian lands too, assisting the Marines, all of it taking place under the watchful eyes of the Royal Cottish Air Force and Royal Cottish Navy.

Resistance had been remarkably little, the Cottish commanders thought as they looked at the situation map on the evening of the first day of Operation Prodigal Son. Only about a hundred Cottish soldiers had lost their lives in battle, with optimistic estimates of a thousand Russians. It seemed that the Russians were fighting on a fluid front, giving up territory in order to buy time to consolidate their forces. The commanders didn't really mind. That tactic gave them time to build up their own forces and to continue to wreak havoc on the Russian military infrastructure in Taymyria.

By 07:00 AM on the second day, the three Marine divisions had been fully deployed to the theatre, and they were moving forward to secure more territory as the first of the large transports that carried the Army units started to be offloaded. Three armored divisions, three mechanized infantry divisions, three motorised infantry divisions and one air assault division from the Army were assigned to participate in the operation, totalling in at 67,212 combat soldiers and 24,045 support personnel, along with the three Marine divisions, which had a total of 29,742 combat personnel available. A total of 121,000 personnel and a total of 1,400 tanks, 1,500 artillery pieces, 500 attack helicopters, thousands of armored fighting vehicles and tens of thousands of trucks, all of them cold-weather tested and proven, would participate in the campaign on the ground, using superior firepower, tactics and determination to achieve victory.

The battle for Siberia had begun.

On the third day of Operation Prodigal Son, the time came to capture the first major settlement and open up a way of getting in larger amounts of supplies. The town of Dudinka, the administrative center of Taymyria was situated at the lower reaches of the Yenisei River, and populated by a little over 25,000 people, of which one quarter were slave laborers that were used for moving cargo from the docking ships onto the railroad line that connected the small, but important town to the Transsiberian Railway. It was here that the Russians had decided to make their stand, and it was here that the Cottish military would first taste battle with the Russians. The Realm had been in armed conflict with the Russians before, but that had been between warships in the Pacific Ocean many years ago. They had yet to actually fight against the Russian infantryman, but that was about to change.

The Russian 35th Infantry Division, consisting of twenty-four thousand relatively poorly trained and equipped conscripts, serving out their four years of forced conscription had entrenched itself around and inside the town. Opposing them were the Cottish 3. Marine Division and the 15. Mechanized Infantry Brigade, totalling 9,914 Royal Marines and 2,265 soldiers. While the Russians were numerically superior to the Cots, they were only armed with their personal weapons and mortars, and with the vehicles attached to the division. The Cots on the other hand had plenty of artillery, air support and tanks, as well as better training and motivation than the Russians.

The Cots decided to try to surround the city and force a surrender from the Russian division commander, and as such a force of twenty-four of the mighty, seventy and a half ton heavy steel beast called the M51A1 Sabertooth main battle tank and twelve of the smaller thirty-two and a half ton heavy M60A1 Spectre infantry fighting vehicle were dispatched to cover the southern flank while infantry and tanks positioned themselves along the eastern side of the river Yenisei, taking advantage of the hilly terrain. Positioned safely away from the city, the M21A2 Valkyrie heavy self-propelled howitzers, which fired massive 203 millimeter projectile to ranges of in excess of thirty-five kilometers, and M52A2 Haubits self-propelled howitzers, which fired the more standard 155 millimeter shell to ranges of up to fourty kilometers away. They were complemented by the lighter M777A2 towed howitzers, which fired 155 millimeter projectiles to ranges of upwards of thirty kilometers, that the Marines had. The artillery was positioned behind the main force, and were capable of shelling the crap out of the town of Dudinka if need be.

The armored force of twenty-four tanks and twelve IFVs first encountered the Russians at 08:47 AM KRAT in the southern outskirts of the town in form of a pair of G11/A armored reconnaissance vehicles, lightly armored and armed reconnaissance vehicles purchased many years ago from the Kriegzimmer storefront. The Russians vehicles noticed the armored force and dropped smoke, hoping to hide from the advancing Cottish tanks as they started driving back into the town as fast as possible, which in this case was just over 94 kilometers per hour. Sadly for them, the Cottish Sabertooth tanks were equipped with forward looking infrared equipment which could penetrate the smoke cover, giving them good targets for the main armament, which was a single 120 millimeter ETC cannon of the type Mk.22/B, a powerful piece of armament. The cannon could fire several types of projectiles at high speeds. In this case, the commander of the lead Sabertooth selected to fire a HEAT round, which was loaded in a matter of seconds. The armored force was roughly three thousand meters from reconnaissance vehicles, well within range of the armament which had a maximum range of six kilometers. The targets were confirmed, ranged and locked before the gunner pressed the trigger, which fired the cannon. It recoiled back the thirty centimeters that it was supposed to, sending out the HEAT projectile at a speed of 1,706.88 meters per second. Less than two seconds later, the projectile pierced through the relatively thin armor of the G11/A and detonated, killing the crew instantly. Less than a second later, the second G11/A suffered the same fate. The first targets had been neutralized, but at a price. The Russians had been warned of the advancing Cots and the element of surprise had been lost.

After notifying the brigade commander, the unit continued towards the area it was set to occupy for the moment, a hilltop near the river which gave the tanks a good view of the river and city below, giving them the opportunity to shell the city. Since it was relatively close to the city, the tanks would be supported by the ninety-six infantrymen that rode inside the Spectres. Additionally, they would be given support from the air in form of fighter aircraft and attack helicopters, and from the artillery that was setting up twenty kilometers behind them. Once the unit reached the position, the tanks moved into firing positions while the infantry was dismounted and started establishing defensive positions, supervised by the infantry sergeants and officers. Each eight-man squad was capable of independent operations, and was centered around the two light machine guns each squad had. Those were established in defensive positions, and the soldiers prepared for a long time in the cold snow.

By 10:00 AM KRAT, the Cottish forces were in position. Already, small firefights had broken out between infantry units with relatively even casualty rates. The Royal Marines were the first ones to fight man to man against the Russian infantry, and they put their weapons to good use. Soon, the tanks started assisting. A message to the Russian division commander was sent over the open radio frequency, offering him and his men leniancy if he surrendered his division and the city without further bloodshed. Ten minutes later, he refused, probably after being threatened by the division political officer about the consequences to himself and his family if he should surrender the division. The message was recieved by the Cots, and a minute later, the artillery barrage started. 203 millimeter and 155 millimeter shells started targetting Russian positions, determined by the UAV images that were being relayed to the division and brigade headquarters.

The battle for Dudinka, and effectively the entire northern Taymyria had begun.

Order of Battle - Battle of Dudinka
Realm of Cotland

3. Marine Division
Personnel (infantry): 5,760
Personnel (crew): 3,202
M20A1 Samaritan ARV: 4
M38A1 CTLAV: 124
M38A3 CTLAV/AD: 96
M50A1 Invader APC: 80
M50A2 Invader C4I: 18
M50A3 Invader CEV: 8
M51A1 Sabertooth MBT: 50
M56A1 Dragon MLRS: 16
M57A1 ACE: 16
M58A1 RSV: 48
M59A1 Equalizer ADU: 48
M100 MTV: 124
M101 HEMTT: 60
M777A2 LW155 ART: 128
15. Mechanized Infantry Brigade
Personnel (combat): 1,882
Personnel (logistics): 383
M21A2 Valkyrie SPH: 12
M38A1 CTLAV: 34
M51A1 Sabertooth MBT: 48
M52A2 Haubits SPH: 36
M58A1 RSV: 48
M60A1 Spectre IFV: 96
M60A3 Spectre C4I: 9
M60A5 Spectre ARRV: 2
M60A6 Spectre MRTR: 24
M60A7 Spectre CEV: 4
M100 MTV: 40
Order of Battle - Battle of Dudinka
Russian Communist Republic

35th Infantry Division
Personnel: 24,000
LV-08PVNS: 1,200
BRDM-2: 3,200
G11/A Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle: 900
Trucks: 5,400

By 19:40 PM, the town of Dudinka had been shelled back to the stone age by the heavy artillery the Cots had brought to the battle. The enemy fired back, using the mortars and heavy machine guns they had available, cleverly deployed in prepared defense positions. It still wasn't enough to counter the massive loss of lives the Russian general had experienced though. Four thousand of his men lay dead already, most of them victims of the remarkably accurate artillery fire, but some were killed from close-quarters battle.

That close-quarters battle had been seen mostly at the hilltop overlooking the river, dubbed Hill 53 by the Cottish tactical maps. Here, the Russians sent wave after wave of soldiers in a human wave-tactic, costing many lives. The constant rattle of the heavy machine guns mounted on the tanks and IFVs were accompanied by the less audiable sound of single shots from the L100A1 assault rifles the infantrymen had, using the great accuracy and long range the bullpup rifle and the new advanced 6.8x48mm round developed by the Layartebian Defense Corporation offered. The same round was used in the L102A1 light machine guns that were deployed in defensive positions, mowing down the Russian infantry that tried to advance. The Cottish forces on the hilltop had lost nine soldiers already to enemy fire and mortar shelling, but they still held fast as the tanks continued firing their lethal 120mm shells into the city, which was now burning rather vividly.

Unbeknownst to the Russians, a group of highly secretive persons commandeered one of the M777A2s that was deployed to the north of the city and ordered the crew to take a rest. At the same time, all Cottish forces around the city were ordered to get their protective NBC-gear on, having been told that the Russians might try to use chemical weapons against the Cots. Twenty minutes later, the group brought a special, black-painted 155 millimeter artillery shell from a locked metal case they had in their truck and loaded it into the comandeered artillery piece. After targetting it at the location of the divisional command post, they double-checked everything before finally firing the weapon at 20:00 PM.

The artillery shell moved up through the 6.045 meter long barrel and cleared the muzzle at a speed of 827 meters per second. The shell moved up in a ballistical arch, reaching a top nine kilometers away from the firing position before starting to move back down again in a steeper angle. Finally, 14.886 seconds later, the shell reached the target area and deployed. Instead of exploding like you would expect it to do, the shell broke apart two hundred meters over the command post and apparently did nothing. As the parts of the projectile fell down on the ground, the Russian soldiers looked at it but just thanked their lucky star that the weapon had been a dud. They had no such luck.

What the Russians didn't know, but would experience within seconds was the effects of Lewisite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewisite), a chemical weapon agent that appeared as a colorless, odorless, clear liquid and that had a rather nasty effect. It penetrated the field uniforms of the Russian soldiers easily and hit the skin, causing immediate rashes and swelling with the side effects of causing intensive pain and itching. The Lewisite hit everyone in the command post, including the division commander, and effectively disabled the divisional command. The amount of Lewisite, 75 litres was insufficient to kill those present (unless they were removed from the area and treated with Dimercaprol within 2 - 3 days), but enough to try to force a surrender. As such, it was a very effective way of causing confusion and break the morale among the enemy troops. Six more Lewisite shells were fired against the defensive positions along the frontline, more or less disabling twelve thousand enemy troops.

Tommorrow, it would be time to move troops into the city.

[OOC: Note that the writing in red is considered Top Secret IC.]

Operation Prodigal Son
Day 4, 06:15 AM KRAT
Outskirts of Dudinka

The movement over the river Yenisei was spearheaded by infantry from the Royal Marines' 1. Battalion of the 3. Infantry Brigade, 3. Marine Division, who moved quickly over the river in the assault boats that were organical to the division. The assault boats, in reality nothing more than 7.5 meter long zodiacs with powerful engines on moved quickly over the river behind a protective cover of smoke provided by the artillery a few moments ago. Each boat could take up to twelve Marines, all of them lying on their bellies with the weapons ready, and the division had sixty of them. The Marines were tasked with securing the other side so the bridging units would be able to deploy their bridge-laying elements so the heavier equipment could get across.

The amphibious assault vehicles of the Marines crossed the river themselves after the other bank was secured by the infantry, and formed the first wave of attack into the city itself. The FLIR equipment was used extensively to see through the carpet of smoke that had been deployed, and provided target information for the heavy weapons, providing great accuracy to the chainguns.

The first thing the Marines of 2. Squad, 4. Platoon, 5. Company, 1. Battalion found as they jumped out of the boat they had been travelling in over the river was an eerie silence. They had expected to be met with a hail of gunfire, but there was nothing. Finding it odd, the squad leader, sersjant Inge Rotvatn motioned for his squad to spread out in a firing line and move forward, checked that his L100A1 assault rifle was locked and loaded once more and brought it up to his shoulder, finger on the trigger. All his men were dressed in their NBC Protective Warfare Suits, protecting them in case the Russians tried to use chemical weapons according to the officers.

The L100A1 bullpup assault rifle was a new weapon in the Cottish military, having been introduced under the 2006 Defense Reformation Act which had seen a full restructuring of the Cottish military. The L100 was in a bullpup design, and brought with it a new round. The 6.8x48 millimeter LDC round was a Layartebian-designed round, with the Cottish-used rounds being produced in Cotland thanks to a special deal signed with the Layartebian government. Twenty-eight of these rounds could be available at any given time, providing naturally that the magazine was full. Using the new round in conjunction with a 488 millimeter long barrel made of chrome-plated, high-quality steel which fired the round out at a speed of 890 meters per second, the L100 was considered accurate out to 635 meters, and the round could reach an amazing 870 meters! If you added a scope optics, such as a red-dot or aimpoint scope, that accuracy could be increased.

Sersjant Rotvatn currently had a 4x ACOG scope attached to the top of the 757 millimeter long rifle, and looking through it, he spotted no hostiles in the immediate area. Motioning for his squad to move forward, the twelve men of the squad moved away from the riverbank, into the city.

They had barely entered the first block when they could hear shreeks of horror and pain, and as they emerged from the smoke carpet, they saw the origins. About sixteen Russian soldiers, either lying or sitting down, twisting in extreme pain. One of them was up and ran around as if trying to run away from whatever it was that made him experience the pain. Looking at each other, the Royal Marines held their fire, wondering what the hell was going on here. Had a Russian WMD been released on their own?

The Russian must have spotted them, because suddenly he started running in their direction, scratching himself all over his body, but mainly in his face. As he came closer, the Marines saw that he was completely covered in blisters and blood. Many of the blisters were bleeding, bursted by the scratching. The man looked, to put it mildly, like he was a walking dead.

Scared, Rotvatn aimed at the mans head and squeezed the trigger. The rifle kicked slightly as a 6.8x48mm round was propelled down the rifled barrel and emerged at a speed of 890 meters per second. Rotvatn was a crack shot, and the L100 was a accurate and reliable weapon, so the round hit its target squarely in the head instantly, travelling the sixteen meter distance in less than a millisecond. The man was put out of his misery with the back of his head exploding, sending red blood and grey brain matter in a nice spray pattern down the street. The man was dead before he hit the ground.

Reacting to the gunshot, the rest of the Marines aimed their weapons at the other Russian soldiers and started shooting, sending the remaining fifteen Russians to the afterlife. That was, if the communists believed in such a thing.

With the Russians dead, Rotvatn ordered the squad forward to check the dead, and he found that all the men were covered in blisters. The effects of the Lewisite had hit with full force, incapacitating the Russian soldiers within a few hours. The chemical agent would remain in the air for another 40 hours, forcing the Cottish soldiers and Marines to remain in the NBC gear.

After a quick sweep of the area and killing twenty-nine more Russians, Rotvatn reported back to the command that the area was clear and ready to accept vehicles. He also reported his findings, and was informed that the Russians had tried to use chemical weapons against the Cots, but missed. The officer on the other end commented sarcastically that the persons who had deployed the chemical weapons were the best shots in the Russian Army, and that he wished all Russians would be as good to shoot as they. Neither knew that a secret Cottish force known in the highly classified databases as Black Tiger had been responsible for the deployment of the chemical warfare agent. Neither would they. History would remember that the Russians had managed to gas their own, not that the Cots had used the chemical warfare agent against them.

Operation Prodigal Son
Day 5, 11:30 AM KRAT
Cottish Command Post, 40 kilometers north-east of Dudinka

The official surrender of Dudinka came after three days of combat actions, during which three hundred and ninety-two Cottish soldiers and Marines had been killed in action with another six hundred more or less wounded, and with in excess of one thousand Russian soldiers killed in action and a staggering sixteen thousand wounded in action! The majority of those soldiers had been incapacitated by the Lewisite that Black Tiger had deployed, but that information was unknown to the Cottish regular soldiers and Marines.

The surrender was signed by a Colonel in the Russian 35th Infantry Division, the General in command having been killed by the political officer for opening negotiations. Said political officer had subsequently been killed by the Colonel who was now standing in attention in front of the Cottish leadership in the tent that served as the command post. Four Cottish generals of various rank and a number of colonels and lower-ranked officers were standing on the opposite side of the table where the surrender document laid, waiting to be signed.

The signing of the document would in effect surrender the soldiers and equipment of the 35th Division, the town of Dudinka and all its inhabitants to the mercy of the Cottish military, who had threatened to level the city with firebombs unless the town was surrendered within twelve hours. At the same time, Cottish infantry and tanks were entering Dudinka, getting more and more territory for every passing hour. The Russian General had been wise enough to call it quits while he still was in a position to negotiate, but had sadly been assassinated by a fanatical political officer who had dubbed the General a traitor to the Party and to Rodina, the Motherland, as he shot the General. As a result, the Cottish forces had gotten time to move into strategically important positions, removing any option the Russian division might have had.

The Russian Colonel looked at the two officers that had accompanied him, both of them infantry officers, still dressed in the filthy battle uniforms they had worn while fighting the Cottish forces. Flanking the three Russians were two Cottish infantrymen, also dressed in battle uniforms, with their L100A1 assault rifles readily available in case anything bad happened. The Russians had been stripped of their weapons the moment they came into Cottish-occupied territory, but they could still be dangerous. The two Russian junior officers had a neutral facial expression, but the Colonel knew that inside, they were angered, shocked and scared, all at once. Looking back at the waiting Cottish officers, he spoke in strongly accented English.

"I, Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Dajtalova hereby surrenders the thirty-fifth Infantry Division of the sixteenth Army to your mercy."

With that short statement, he picked up the pen laying on the table and signed the document in the places necessary, all under the watchful eyes of two brigaders and one generalmajor from the Royal Marines, and one brigader, two obersts, two oberstløytnants and six junior officers from the Army. When Colonel Dajtalova had signed the document, he returned to attention while generalmajor Ingvar Danielsen, commanding officer of the 3. Marine Division turned the document around, picked up the pen and signed his name on the document on behalf of the Cottish Royal Marines, then handed the pen to brigader Helge Willhelm Olsen who signed the document on the behalf of the Royal Cottish Army. With the document signed, generalmajor Danielsen spoke for the first time.

"On behalf of the Cottish Expeditionary Force, I accept the surrender of the town of Dudinka and all Russian forces within the town and the vicinity. You and your fellow officers will be treated as your rank demands, while your soldiers will be transported to POW camps and be treated humanely."

He didn't mention that such a treatment of the soldiers depended on whether they behaved or not. A stay in a Cottish prison wasn't a plesant one. Being in the custody of the Cottish military was even worse.

"You are dismissed." The general said in closing to all in the tent. The Cottish officers exited the tent quietly, while the three Russians were taken into custody by the guards and handed over to the Military Police, who were establishing themselves nearby.

An hour later, the sound from the loudspeakers speaking in Russian roamed through the town of Dudinka, informing the Russian soldiers that their leadership had signed the surrender documents for the town and that they were to lay down their weapons and come out. At the same time, the Cottish forces in and around the city were informed of the surrender and were told to transfer any prisoners to the Military Police. Within a few minutes, the Russians were surrendering in droves, coming out from every conceivable place with their hands up, in some cases with their assault rifles held over their heads. Many of them were covered in blisters and were in a very bad shape. That didn't save them from being stripped down to check for any concealed weapons or intelligence before they were handed over to the MPs.

The Russian soldiers were marched under armed guard to a newly erected camp a relatively short distance away from Dudinka, where they were interned as Prisoners of War under the watchful eyes of the Military Police. Those who had been exposed to the Lewisite were given Dimercaprol in an attempt to counter the effects of the Lewisite, and they were all given a blanket each to stay warm. The Russians would be very miserable in the time to come.

The news of the surrender of Dudinka also spread to the civilian population, who had taken refuge in basements and fallout shelters for the past three days. Now, they started emerging, trying to reconstuct their lives. Relatively little civilian infrastructure had been damaged in the siege, but the civilian population were for the most part relatively hostile to the Cottish forces.

However, those the Cottish soldiers had been sent to rescue were very happy to see the Cottish flag on the right shoulders of the soldiers patrolling the streets. Seven and a half thousand expatriated Cots resided in the town, and they were out in force to greet their liberators. They offered what little they had of food and drink to the soldiers, and gave information about locals the Cots had to be careful around. Over the next few days, those people would disappear mysteriously.

With Dudinka secured on the sixth day of Operation Prodigal Son, the Cottish military turned their attention southwards. Three large bridgeheads had been secured, and forces were pouring in to the area. In addition, the Hirgizstani approval of the request to station Cottish aircraft in Hirgizstani air bases in the nearby Yamolo-Nenets shortened the reaction time and supply routes for the Cottish forces considerably. With the limited amount of people residing in Taymyria, namely less than fourty thousand civilians, approximately a hundred thousand Rusian soldiers and sixty thousand expatriated Cottish slave laborers, and roughly one hundred and twenty-one thousand Cottish soldiers on the ground in Taymyria, the area would be occupied and secured relatively quickly.

Operation Prodigal Son
Day 13, 23:07 PM KRAT
Somewhere along the Taymyria-Evenk border

The tanks stood on a hilltop overlooking a vast amount of empty, barren, frozen land on all sides. Thirteen days ago, this tank which belonged to the Cottish Royal Marines had been offloaded hundreds of kilometers away from here, on a beach in the northern parts of Taymyria. Over the past two weeks, it and its crew had fought in three seperate engagements with Russian forces, crushing them each time.

The latest clash, which happened yesterday saw the complete and utter destruction of a Russian tank division in an epic battle that had lasted two full days, and had pitted the Russians up against all three Cottish armored brigades and one of the mechanized infantry brigades that operated in Siberia. The superior Sabertooth MBT had preformed admirably in the battle, but a full sixteen of them had been lost to the Russian anti-tank weaponry. A terrible loss, but an acceptable one.

That battle had been the last battle for Taymyria before the remaining Russian forces withdrew over the border into Evenk. Taymyria had, effectively, been won, and a hundred thousand Cottish citizens were returned to the Realm. Sixty thousand Russian POWs had been taken, and fourty thousand civilians had to be intergrated into the Realm. Or would they? There were talks about deporting those fourty thousand to other parts of Russian not currently being targetted, but at this point in time, it was only talk. Whether it would become any more, time would tell.

For now, the Cottish soldiers were content with knowing that tommorrow, they and the rest of the Corps would be moving into Evenk while the Royal Marines would move into Krasnoyarsk. Combined enemy strength was expected to be the remainder of the 16th Russian Army that had been decimated in Taymyria, and the 32nd Russian Army, an army consisting mainly of conscripted infantry. Numerically superior, but technologically and logistically obsolete.

Operation Prodigal Son
Day 45, 15:35 PM
Southern Evenk steppe

The scene of the battlefield was one of complete and utter chaos. Six hundred Russian and four hundred Cottish tanks clashed in what already was the world's largest tank battle in many years. The Cots employed two armored brigade against a full Russian tank division, and the effects were pretty stunning. Tanks manouvered wildly in the frozen wastelands of Siberia, orange muzzle flames emerged from the barrels of the tanks. Smoke billowed from burning wrecks, and the air smelled of diesel exhaust, cordite smoke and death. Cottish 120mm and Russian 125mm projectiles and anti-tank guided missiles from both sides flew all over the place, spreading death to those the weapons hit.

The air support that had been requested long ago finally arrived in the shape of two A-28/C Hammer close air support aircraft who dove down on the battlefield, firing the deadly 32mm 6-barreled electro-thermal chemical cannon at the Russian tanks, followed shorly by a few bombs as a parting gift. Next came a flight of four F-20/A Enforcer multirole fighters, which fired their AGM.19/A Brimstone missiles at the designated Russian tanks, using the 2-way encrypted datalink to seperate friend from foe.

The battle had been one the Russians had wanted for a while now, a final showdown in what the Russians were supposed to be good at. They had lured a full brigade to the fray yesterday, having had the element of surprise and the luxury of choosing the battlefield. Unfortunately for them, the Cots had found out before the trap had been completely shut and initiated a counterattack. More and more forces had arrived from both sides, turning this battle into the battle that would decide the fate of Siberia. Would it end up in Cottish hands, or would it remain Russian? After four Russian divisions had been crushed along with one and a half Cottish brigade, the Cots held the upper hand and prepared to deliver the coup-de-gráce in form of an attack with the remaining tanks and IFVs, supported by the artillery and air force.

The tanks seperated from the battleline and moved at full speed towards the Russian command post location, the heavy front armor of the tanks shrugging off both the 125mm tank shells and the majority of the missiles the Russians fired at them. The sight was scary as hell, and it wasn't soon before the demoralized Russians broke ranks and fled. The Sabertooths continued down the battleline at 75 kilometers per hour, firing their cannons and machine guns as they moved on. No Russian lives would be spared this time around.

Operation Prodigal Son
Day 47, 20:00 PM
Southern Evenk

Two days after the end of the decisive battle of Evenk, the last of the survivors from the 32nd Army had been rounded up and executed by the Cottish Army. It was shortly after this that the Cots heard that the governments in Evenk, Krasnoyarsk, and even Ust-Orda Buryatia, a province far to the south had signed an official treaty of surrender with the Cottish government in return for a hope of mercy for them and their inhabitants. In other words, the primary military actions in Operation Prodigal Son had been concluded. The Army would hurry southwards and occupy the areas specified though, assisted by the expatriated Cottish citizens, who had been reinstated as citizens of the Realm of Cotland. Another six million citizens had been added.

The Russian families would be deported from Siberia to the neighboring Russian territories that weren't currently occupied by the Cots or their allies, and they would be banished from the Realm. The deportation would take relatively little time, only three months from the end of hostilities to the last Russian citizen was forcefully expelled. Those who absolutely refused to leave the area were detained and placed on a ship, never to be seen again....

The next target for the Cots were Severnaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands, and Wrangel Island. However, those would be taken over by the Royal Marines, who were currently moving back to Taymyria and their ships. Not by the Army, who was busy deploying the armored units to the new borders while the motorized infantry established order inland. It had been a successful campaign, and one that had brought glory to the Realm.