NationStates Jolt Archive

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Coverage from Tsar Nicholas VII's public address this morning
Comrades of the Peoples Empire, it is with increasing annoyance that the Peoples Empire has noted much cross-border raiding, pirate activity, and a general aura of unpleasantness from its southern neighbor, Kazakhistan. Until quite recently in the scheme of history, the nation of Kazakhistan was a province of the now-deceased Empire, considering the state to which it has descended in recent years, it is obvious that independance was a mistake on the part of both our own government and that of Kazakhistan.
Therefore, it is with great reluctance that I, as Tsar of the Peoples Empire, and in complete agreement with Primier Ivan, hereby declare that the Peoples Empire will re-occupy (after an interval of a hundred years, but its still a re-occupation, so dont complain.) the territories of East Kazakhistan and Atyrau.
And further more, the state of Kazakhistan is hereby declared a province in rebellion, and a part of the Peoples Empire of Dontgonearthere.
As such we, request, nay, demand, the immidiate surrender of the government of Kazakhistan, the standing-down of all military personell and the surrender of all military equipment. Failure to comply with this order will result in extreme unpleasantness bordering perhaps on excessiveness, but certainly not exceeding it as we of Dontgonearthere are, after all, a very friendly and hospitable people who would most certainly never dream of employing horrible and extremly painful means to achieve our desired ends.
That is all.

In other news, Capitolism, is it contagious? More after these commercials...

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Ferdinand Petrovich, captain, 22nd Gds Inf., 2nd Division, was tired. The initial campaign had been met with, amoung other things, mechanical breakdown. This meant that his company was going to Central Asia on foot. Perhaps a fifty years ago this sort of thing was normal, but it gave him blisters to have to run from Moscow to Altay.
According to Major Stetchkin this sort of thing was good and Patriotic, but since one of the companys tanks was nicknamed 'Stetchkin is a Wanker', it was fairly obvious what the men thought of his opinions. The typical Dontgonearthereian sense of humour had surfaced in more than one location, as the strains of the newest marching song floated through the valley he and his men were traversing, sung in purposfully accented English.
Hay vish I vas back home, but zhey shay I must to go,
Must to go to Kazakhistan, Kyrgistan, Afghanistan,
Is a wery long vay to go,
Just to meet thys Shtan.
Petrovich was sure it would sound better if sung in proper Russian, but he wasnt about to question anything that kept the soldiers moving at this point. It was his own head at stake of they DIDNT make it.

Meanwhile, the rest of the army had arranged itself on the Kazakh border, a variety of menacing tubes pointed south and east, depending on their location. Most of these tubes ended with some sort of rounded metallic object which was backed by gunpowder. The tube we wish to focus on his backed by an eyeball. This eyeball belongs to Field Marshal Alexie Kalinov, somewhat affectionatly refered to as AK by his men, chiefly because of his manner of speaking. He sounded like an assault rifle.
"Alright! The main advance! Will be down THIS! Valley!" You could FEEL the punctuation when he spoke, "We will sieze! The town of...Chapayev! This is where! We will show these! Savages what the Imperial Red Army is capable of! To your stations!"
The Field Marshal struck a dramatic pose. The moment was definitly enhanced by the passage of a pair of the new MiG-15 fighter jets passing overhead. Right now they were being used as scounts, little else in the sky could match their speed thanks to the new jet engines.
The Marshal smiled to himself, listening as the sound of a few thousand diesel engines warming up echoed down the valley.
It was good to be the Field Marhsal.

"Saint George and Marx! These bastards ar-" Exactly what Vassily thought of the Kazakh resistance was cut off by the reverberation of something large bouncing off the IS-2's frontal armor. It was a few moments before anybody could hear anything. In that time Captain Marikov located the 37mm AT gun that had pinged them, and blew it into tiny, tiny, pieces.
For all their poor equippage, the Kazakhs were determined, giving ground slowly and at great cost. Mostly to themselves.
Thus far the only pieces of equipment capable of taking out the IS-2/3's, let alone the newest T-55's, had been handily wiped out by the pre-dawn artillery barrage, which had handily blanketed the area in everything from 122mm howitzer shells to 250mm rockets. The only big guns the Kazakhs had were ancient, easily from the 1920's at least and not fit for use against modern tanks anyway.
Marikov laughed, apparently amused by the rather pitiful resistance thus far.
"Maybe this plan wasnt too bad. We could be in Almatay by the end of the month, eh, comrades?"
"Tch. Depends on which interfering foriegn bastards decide to come knocking, eh? I dont suppose anybody'll be too keen to come out here though. They'd need bloody huge planes just to make it this far, and there's no airports between here and Kabul."
"Ah, comrades! Kamikov is a politician now! Another few decades of tanking and he'll be fit for the Duma!"
The tank crested a rise, still a few miles distant from their target. Captain Marikov banged on the hatch.
"You footslogging bastards better get off here! Unless you want to find yourselves with new assholes by the time we get to the city! Looks like theyve got plenty of machine guns up on the walls!"
Ikust was clearly visible, its walls virtually blazing with machine gun fire, most of it rather wild, aimed up, down, left, right and every direction between. A few rather forlorn looking tanks were scooting around the edges of the city. Kamikov grunted something about a T-70 and chuckled. Apparently the Kazakhs thought SOME tanks were better than none.
Then, the world exploded.
It took the crew of the tank a little while the realize what was going on. Somebody was dropping VERY big shells around their heads, easily in the 220mm range, maybe larger. All of it was HE, which most likely meant pre-30's, nothing to worry about, unless...
"SHIT!" Marikov felt the twitch in his fingers, the slight dizzyness, the...blood.
He coughed, spattering his viewport. Kamikov had already slumped over, and Vassily looked unconcious, but it was hard to tell...
Marikov scrambled for his atropine injector, rapidly loosing conciousness while the tank ploughed on in a wide circle, Kamikov having elected to die with one track at full speed and the other nearly stopped.
The plastic tube was intact, still full of the life-saving liquid. Marikov assembled his thoughts as quickly as he could. What was he supposed to do now? He had thirty seconds or so more of useful conciousness if he was lucky. He had to...
Ah yes, that was the sticking point. Jabbing several inches of rather large needle into ones chest and HOPEFULLY hitting ones heart. But it was to save his life, right?
Marikov closed his eyes, gulped down a mouthful of blood, and j-j-j-jamed it in.
Dontgonearthereian casualties were heavy at the battle of Ikust were high, chiefly Sarin poisoning. Only three of the Soviet tanks were destroyed, all of them by mines. Most of the losses were with the infantry and the older model IS-2/3 tanks, which, unlike the T-55, did not have NBC protection.
Reeling from the blow, the Imperial Peoples Army withdrew strategically for the time being, re-evaluating the threat posed by the Kazakhs and pondering how best to punish this particular transgression. As if simply existing in the first place werent bad enough, now the buggers had gone and started throwing around chemical weapons.

The Soviet counterresponse to the chemical weapons attack was brutal, showy, and, although not very effecient at all, it got the point across.
At one thirty AM, three days later, distant droning came to the ears of those within the town.
Looking to the North, the invisible source of the drone quickly resolved itself into shapes, namely, a rather impressive number of Tu-4 bombers, each lugging a load of several tons of high explosive. Those in town naturally dived for the nearest cover, armoured bunkers, houses, whatever they could find. It was, after all, only natural to seek cover when an object was about to drop five hundred pounds of generalized death on your head. The city quickly lit up with tracer fire as various caliburs of AA gun lit up, raking across the sky to try and reach the high-flying bombers.
All but the largest guns fell far short of their targets, the Tu-4 flew at altitudes not readily attainable by most casual AAA. However, there were plenty of aircraft.
It was mostly over in a matter of minutes once the planes arrived, the city (or rather, where the city had been) was pretty much a large field of craters, even those in the deepest bunkers were certainly not in good condition, all things considered. The mounts of rubble and dirt attested to where the town had been, but few survivors would have recognized the area. Bits of it were still on fire.
The sarin having long ago dissipated, the Imperial Red Army promptly moved in to claim what was left of the town, shooting any survivors who happened to have been lucky enough to be in one of the few structures still standing.
Observing their strict orders, the Russian infantry quickly and quietly picked up the brass from their AK-47's, ensuring that no snoops who might happen to be lurking in the area would happen upon one of the Peopes Empire's greatest military secrets. It wouldnt keep forever, but the longer they kept the Kalashnikov from everybody else, the longer they had to develope something slightly better.