NationStates Jolt Archive

[Operation Freezer]


Operation Freezer was the Cottish plan that was designed to embedd the following islands to the Realm of Cotland: Somerset Island, Prince of Wales Island and Victoria Island. For that purpose, an Amphibious Task Force was dispatched from the naval base at the Faroe Islands to secure those islands. The estimated time of arrival for the fifty ships and ten thousand Royal Marines it transported was approximately five days.

The Amphibious Task Force was a massive force, comprising one battleship, one aircraft carrier, two battlecruisers, ten amphibious vessels, twenty-four escorts, four submarines and six support vessels, and a total of 21,100 sailors and officers, and carrying a Marine Division of nearly ten thousand Royal Marines and its equipment. As it entered Layartebian waters in the Labrador Sea off the southern tip of Greenland, a radio transmission was sent to the Layartebian sector command that they were entering their waters. A few maritime patrol aircraft were expected to check on them regularly, and since the Cottish ships were in friendly waters, they weren't on any special high alert. The ships cruised up the Labrador Sea and crossed into Baffin Bay, moving at 20 knots. Several fishing boats were encountered and warned to stay a few nautical miles away from the naval ships. They did as told, but they were still close enough to watch in awe as one of the new Ormen Lange class heavy battleships that the Royal Cottish Navy had just commissioned was cruising through the waters.

The Ormen Lange had a complement of 3,300 sailors and 180 Royal Marines to man the 457.2 meter long, 91.44 meter wide and 190,000 ton warship. It was capable of cruising at a sustained speed of 36 knots, and was powered by three pebblebed nuclear reactors which powered the propulsion plant and the armament, which consisted of twelve Mk.13/A 510 millimeter electro-thermal chemical primary cannons mounted in four triple mounts, and twelve Mk.10/A 155 millimeter electro-thermal chemical secondary cannons mounted in six dual mounts along the sides of the superstructure. In addition, the Ormen Lange had 160 Mk.51 vertical launch cells, several other launchers for various weaponry, highly advanced combat systems and very thick and capable armor, enabling it to shrug off even the heaviest anti-shipping missile and artillery shells. It was a highly survivable design, and she was about to get her first real combat trial.

Two days after entering Layartebian waters, the Amphibious Task Force was closing on the first target, Somerset Island. This was an uninhabited island, so the Cottish forces would just have to land a small occupation force on the island and raise the flag to claim sovereignty. That was what was about to happen on the deck of one of the Odin-II class assault carrier, which carried almost two thousand Royal Marines and a substantial part of the helicopter force. Six H-21/A Super Stallion II helicopters were prepared for takeoff, loaded with equipment and supplies to last a hundred and fifty men a month. Three of the helicopters were loaded up to the maximum with a company of Royal Marines, one hundred and fourty-four infantrymen. They were to claim Somerset Island for the Realm of Cotland and to maintain sovereignty until they were relieved in a months time. A Nådeløs class frigate would be left behind to maintain naval sovereignty of the island, and to be available in case the Royal Marines would need help.

At ten o'clock in the frosty November morning, the helicopters lifted off and flew the few nautical miles to the island, moving down to the southern part of the island and the long abandoned settlement of Fort Ross, where there were still more or less maintained buildings used occationally by Inuit hunters in the summertime. They were abandoned now though, as the satellite images had confirmed, something which was just as well since the Cottish Marines intended to repopulate the settlement.

Two hours after liftoff, the six helicopters landed at the outskirts of the settlement and waited while a platoon of Marines checked the six buildings in the settlement and secured them. After the all clear signal came through, the Marines and the helicopter crews cooperated in offloading the supplies and transporting them over to the buildings. They also raised the Cottish flag and the naval standard over the settlement, and proclaimed that Somerset Island now was an official part of the Realm of Cotland, after which they sang three verses of the National Anthem. The annexation was filmed for the evening news on Cottish and international news channels. There was no question any more. The Cots had taken over Somerset Island. Now, they would just occupy it until the reinforcements in the form of more permanent citizens would arrive in a month's time.

After making sure the Royal Marines had gotten in order, five of the six helicopters returned to the Odin-II, leaving one helicopter and its crew behind to support the Royal Marines. The first Cottish settlement consisted of less than one hundred and fifty military personnel, but it was enough. As they got prepared for the night in their more or less warm buildings, the Task Force moved on to Prince of Wales Island.

The taking of Prince of Wales Island was a little more tricky. There was a former Sqournshelian army base there, and they weren't very willing to surrender the island according to Special Forces that had been inserted a few days prior. They were being exfiltrated again in anticipation of the upcoming bombardment of the base and its surrounding area.

The two Mexia class battlecruisers with their nine and six 203 millimeter electro-thermal chemical cannons flanked the massive Ormen Lange, being dwarfed by it. Aboard the battleship, the gun crews were assembled on their battlestations, and were loading the cannons as the turrets turned to port to face Prince of Wales Island and the bombardment area. Live feeds from one of the two Q-35/C Mack unmanned aerial vehicles the Ormen Lange carried was being transmitted, showing the target area. This gave the guncrews the data needed to raise the barrels to the correct elevation and ready the gun, before loading the massive two-thousand kilo projectiles into the barrel and closing the breech.

Two minutes later, all three ships reported ready to the Admiral in charge of the Task Force, who was currently on the bridge of the battleship. After looking around to ensure that everyone on the bridge were ready, he nodded to the gunnery officer, who relayed the order. Two seconds later, the massive ship listed to starboard as the recoil of the twelve massive guns forced the ship to rock. The muzzle flames were massive, and an impressive sight. The twelve projectiles had a distance of thirty kilometers to travel, which was less than half of the distance they had the potential of travelling. The sound the twelve projectiles made was nerve-wrecking too, sounding like twelve freight trains moving over you as they passed. After a few seconds, they finally slammed down throughout the base, causing havoc as the heavy shells airbursted or penetrated the ground before detonating. The destruction was instant, and it would just keep on coming!

Even before the previous shells had hit the ground, the guncrews were busy loading another shell into the barrel while the fire control officers modified the elevation of the individual barrels, coordinating the firing to impact at the same area.

By the next two firings, the twelve 510mm projectiles hit just about the same area. They had already devestated the base and killed 70 % of the base personnel, having scored a direct hit on one of the shelters that had housed the majority of the personnel. The 203mm projectiles joined the fray, and after twenty minutes of bombardment, there was little left of the base. Finally, the order to cease fire was given. By now, tens of thousands of munitions had been expended, destroying the base completely.

An hour after the ceasefire was ordered, a battalion of Royal Marines was ordered to land on the island, moving in, air assault style! Tens of helicopters were in the air, supported by fixed-wing aircraft from the aircraft carrier.

The sight that met the Royal Marines as they landed was one of complete and utter devestation. Few had survived, and they were severely injured. Instead of wasting medical supplies on hopeless causes, the Marines did the only humane thing: A bullet in the head. That applied to those who could be saved too though.

After six hours on the ground, the island was considered secured, and two companies were left behind to maintain sovereignty until reinforcements could arrive in a month's time. Meanwhile, the Task Force moved on to the real challenge: Victoria Island.

Arrival at Victoria Island was non-eventful, with nothing out of the ordinary happening, save of course for the Cottish fleet visiting their newest territorial claim. It was a 217 291 km² large piece of land in the middle of the arctic wastelands, but with an extremely low population. According to the latest intelligence, no more than 1,800 people lived on the island, and quite a few of those lived isolated. The exception was the hamlet called Cambridge Bay. Here, roughly 1,300 people lived, making it a strategically important place. If you controlled Cambridge Bay, you effectively controlled Victoria Island. Another good reason for taking over the hamlet was that an important military station was located here, providing radar coverage over the majority of the northeastern parts of the Canadian arctic. The hamlet was also located to the south of the island, making it more accessable.

Therefore, the fleet headed southwards, to reach a position where they could reach the predetermined staging point. After a day of traversing the cold waters, the ships reached the destination and seperated into the two battlegroups that the task force was comprised of: One carrier group which had the aircraft carrier as the flagship, and one amphibious group which had the battleship as the flagship. The amphibious group headed westwards while the carrier group started operating in circles, sending up planes to be ready to support the assault, and to patrol the skies.

By 10:40 AM, the first of the Royal Marines were loaded into the helicopters and readied for the attack while the operators down in the vast cavernous docking bays of the assault ships started up their LCUs and LCACs, getting ready to transport the equipment to shore.

By 11:00 AM, the first of the helicopters, H-11/A Reaper reconnaissance helicopters, escorted by H-10/B Stalker gunships laden with Brimstone missiles and Wizard air-to-air missiles and a small number of H-25/A Super Huey utility helicopters loaded with Royal Marines took off and headed towards land, crossing over land twenty kilometers east of Cambridge Bay and looping west after a while, positioning themselves for assaulting from the north, something a potential defender wouldn't expect.

By 11:30 AM, everyone were in position and the main assault force, consisting of twenty H-21/A Super Stallion IIs and six H-10/B Stalker gunships laden with Brimstone missiles and 70mm rockets in 19-round rocket pods took off from the assault ships and headed directly for the settlement. At about the same time, M50A1 Invader amphibious assault vehicles were released from the protected docks into the three meter swells of the cold arctic waters.

The assault ships were now close enough to be seen from the settlement, and many people were already flocking to the shores to watch. The small Sqournshelian garrison of one hundred also noticed them and started preparing for the worst. Pulling out the heavy weaponry, they prepared themselves with MANPADs and anti-tank weaponry in addition to their rifles and other assorted small-arms, and split up to try to make things as bad as they could for the Cots. A squad of ten moved up on top of a roof and set up shop, having a pair of Stinger MANPADs and RPG-7Vs with them in addition to their small-arms, which consisted of XM-8 assault rifles and HK21E machine guns.

As the helicopters of the main assault force moved in, they didn't expect anything special to occur, checking the flight instruments and trying to give the Marines in the back a smooth ride. That was when the Laser Warning Reciever in the H-21/A Super Stallion II helicopter suddenly started yelping, followed by a loud-pitched whine which signalized that a missile had locked on and was being fired against them. Immediately, they started dropping flares and manouvering while trying to get the ASJ-21 advanced infrared jammer working. It had a ninety-eight percent efficiency ratio at ranges of thirty-five kilometers, and the helicopter was far closer to the missile. However, a faulty component worth RKr 2 in the helicopter's jamming suite due to wear and tear caused the jammer to fail to fool the missile, which locked on and closed fast, chewing in the distance before finally detonating at the rotor assembly, effectively taking out the helicopter and killing the majority of the people inside instantly. The helicopter dropped the hundred meters down to the ice cold ocean where the rest of the people would drown, unable to get out of the helicopter in time. In an instant, fifty-eight men were dead.

Vengeance was to be had though. The Stalkers had seen the area where the missile had been fired from, and locked two Brimstone missiles on the target building. The Brimstone was designed to destroy tanks, and was highly efficient against buildings, something the missiles proved twelve seconds after having been fired. They detonated between the first and second floor of the three story building, the 18.17 kg blast-fragmentation warheads causing so much damage to the building that it collapsed, killing the ten soldiers and the twenty civilians trapped inside.

All hopes for a peaceful takeover were lost when that Super Stallion II was lost. The rules of engagement changed to fire at anything that is threatening, and an order to take no prisoners was also issued. The gunships broke off and moved into the city, firing their 30mm chainguns at anything that had the potential to be threatening. The Stalkers and Reapers of the initial force also started search and destroy operations, moving over the city in search of targets, dropping flares and jamming the airwaves all they could. A few more Stingers were fired, but none hit, all being effected by the jamming. The perpetrators didn't get a chance to fire again either, with the launch sites being destroyed by either Brimstone missiles, 70mm rockets and good old-fashioned gunfire from the chainguns of the helicopters.

With an impressive suppressing fire from the Stalkers and Reapers, the rest of the helicopters got to their positions and started offloading the troops, which moved to secure important places inside the city. The buildings were spread out pretty well, with broad avenues between each building. That served the enemy well, as they could lay down a deadly crossfire against anyone trying to move towards them, something a squad of Royal Marines learned the hard way with six of the twelve Marines being killed and another three wounded. Thinking it over, the Marine officer in charge of the platoon did the only thing he could: He called in naval gunfire.

Off the coast, the Ormen Lange class battleship was just waiting for this request. The target area was too confined for the use of the primary armament, so the secondary would be used. One of the dual secondary cannon mount on the port side, sporting two Mk.10/A 155 millimeter electro-thermal chemical cannons was ordered to provide gunfire for the Royal Marines, having been given exact coordinates by the Royal Marines. Those coordinates were plotted into the two "smart" shells which would be fired, with one hitting each building at just about the same time. The shells were loaded, the mount turned to the appropriate direction while the barrels were elevated to the correct elevation, then final checks before the weapons were fired, sending the two deadly shells on their one-way trip to destruction out from the barrel at speeds of more than six thousand kilometers per hour.

The shells impacted their targets with a few milliseconds between the two, destroying the buildings. Another two salvos did the trick, destroying the buildings completely, allowing the platoon to proceed towards their destination, which was the radar station at the outskirts of the settlement.

Throughout the city, snipers from both sides operated while the Royal Marines and the Sqournshelous soldiers duked it out with rifles, light machine guns, grenades and pistols. The odds were against the Sqournshelians though, since the Cots had landed close to seven hundred Royal Marines, a full Infantry Battalion, in the settlement. After three hours of constant fighting and with losses on both sides, the Sqournshelian garrison surrendered to the Cottish. The Cottish commander commended the bravery the Squournshelians had displayed, and decided that the surrendering soldiers should be spared. After all, the loss of the fifty-eight servicemen had been a legal action according to the unofficial rules of war.

At 19:00 PM, the settlement was declared secured by the Royal Marines. Unfortunately, the Sqournshelians had destroyed the radar station and all intelligence they had before surrendering. It was a setback, but a minor one at that. They had established a foothold on Victoria Island, which was the important part. It was worth reporting back to Cotland about.

This report was what set the wheels in motion for full, with a large convoy of transport ships departing from harbors in Norway and in the Caribbean, carrying everything needed to settle a new province. They would arrive in the area in about a month. At that time, the Cots expected to have fully secured Victoria Island.

Three weeks after landing on Victoria Island, the Royal Marines could say that they had secured the island and eradicated any resistance. It had been a quick takeover, where all settlements (there were only nine) had been occupied and the island checked for any heatsignatures that could match that of human beings thanks to UAVs and satellites equipped with thermal imaging systems.

There were a few pockets of resistance, but the Cottish Navy dealt with them in their own, unique way. A bunch of Imsdal cruise missiles equipped with thermite plasma warheads followed by a few helicopters laden with combat-ready Marines tended to fix the "problem." Within a few days, all resistance cells were killed or captured.

Several secret facilities had been discovered in the frozen wastelands in Victoria Island, including a weapons research center where several interesting plans were found. Those plans would eventually be used as the basis for several new Cottish weapons and vehicles, both aerial and ground. The facilities discovered would also be converted into the use as everything from secret command centers to research facilities to storage areas to secret prison facilities.

In the meanwhile, the reinforcements from Cotland were arriving to settle what was to become known as the Arctic Province. Several new settlements would be established, and thousands of Cots would make the new and rather cold province their new home, motivated by pioneer spirit and a hefty subsidiary from the Government...

Several hundreds of citizens had volunteered to start a new life in the newly aquired territories, increasing the population of the three arctic islands by nearly one hundred percent. This would prove valuable for future Cottish plans, as time would show, and it also gave the Cots a legitime claim to the islands, as living space for an increasingly growing population.

With them, the Cots brought a lot of materials and know-how as to how to make good, solid, and warm houses in the biting cold conditions of the islands. Those skills were used now to make new housing for the many people, and entirely new settlements grew up from the formely desolated islands, protected by the Royal Marines. By spring the next year, a thriving Cottish community existed throughout the islands, with the former Sqournshelians being absorbed into the Realm. There were a few dissenters of course, but they experienced "accidents" or just simply disappeared.

The islands were fortified too, with Prince of Wales Island becoming the main military strongpoint in the Arctic Province, as the three islands were known as in Cotland. Here, a vast naval station was to be erected, with docks, repair facilities, shore facilities, munitions storages and vast communications centers was to become the Cottish Arctic Fleet's homeport. Located deep inside Ommanney Bay, whose mouth would been mined by submarines, the Cottish ships would be safe from both the arctic storms and from potential enemies. The Air Force would also be represented on Prince of Wales Island, where a large airbase would be erected to handle both the aircraft of the naval vessels and those of the Air Force.

Victoria Island would see a substantial military population as well, with several radar stations and listening posts being established covertly to monitor the friendly neighbour that surrounded the three islands. With the recent problems rising in Layarteb, the Realm wanted to be able to monitor things in case things went ugly and the Emperor was overthrown. An airbase was established a bit outside the village of Holman on the southwestern part of the island, and the Army would garrison a division at the military post at Fort Collinson which had been abandoned a while ago. The 18. Air Assault Division would be the force responsible for the ground protection of the Arctic Province, along with the Royal Marines.

Somerset Island wasn't to be very populated by the military, save for a small airstrip for a detachment from the fighter and transport units on Prince of Wales Island, a radar site, a few air defense sites, a couple of listening posts, and a highly secretive research and prison facility. A few small settlements would be established by the people that wanted to live there, and the infrastructure that was required for settlement would be built out by the Government.

Within five years, it was expected that the three islands would have a combined population of 797,000 civilian citizens with an annual growth rate of 2.15 percent, and a military-related population of some 170,000. This included a standing Air Assault division, two Royal Marines divisions, two Amphibious Task Forces, one Carrier Battle Group, one Strategic Submarine Group, six Air Superiority Squadrons, thirteen Tactical Fighter Squadrons, one Aerial Command Squadron, six Tactical Transport Squadrons, one Strategic Transport Squadron, two Aerial Refueling Squadrons, three Electronic Warfare Squadrons, sixty SAM Batteries, eight radar stations, twelve listening posts, two command centers, three airbases, one large naval station, and four secret research and prison facilities, all distributed across the three large islands.