NationStates Jolt Archive

Operation EEOBROHT

[OOC: This is an Earth II thread, where Doomingsland has fallen under the purview of Decree 12 for not being active. Read the Earth II - Revitalization (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=373378) thread for more information. If you are not an Earth II member, please do not post in this thread. Thank you.]

The news of the Doomani collapse was recieved with worry and concern. Already, reports of riots and anarchy were starting to be recieved, something which was very concerning to the Realm, considering that they were next-door neighbors with the Doomanis in Siberia. The cabinet had met in Oslo to discuss this situation, and it had been decided to offer humanitarian aid and peacekeeping forces to restore law and order in the territories.

When the Cottish recieved word that the Russians might try a military conquest of the fallen territories though, the situation was changed completely. If the Russians were able to take the territories of Amur and Yevrey, they would have the Cottish surrounded on three flanks, making the military situation intolerable. In such an event, the High Command argued, the only way of even having a hope of victory in the event of war would be through the use of tactical nuclear weapons, not through conventional warfare. It was an argument it was hard to challenge, and one that ultimately proved to make all the difference to the cabinet.

Amur and Yevrey were in the middle of the Doomani territories in Siberia, shielded from the Russian nation by the state of Chita, which the Russians would have to move through and secure before getting to Amur, and at the same time both bordering the Cottish territories of Yakutia and Khabarovsk. Securing Amur and Yevrey would be far easier for the Cottish than it would be for the Russians, and the Cottish could have substantial ground forces in the territory before the Russians could. The Russians were in a tight position. They would have to get into Chita and convince the Doomanis there that they weren't going to occupy and enslave them, even though that was exactly what they were going to do, and then leave enough forces to secure the territories while still having enough to secure the new territories. They would have to surge forces, move them into position, secure their logistical supply line, and brief the men. All this was extremely time-consuming. In addition, in order to reach the territory of Yevrev, the fastest route took the Russians over Cottish territory where they would need permission from the Cottish to fly over, something they naturally wouldn't recieve. All in all, time was working against the Russians, but not for the Cottish.

For the Cottish, the tactical situation was perfect, as they could fly in the paratroopers from the 4. Airborne Corps, giving the Cottish almost thirty-two thousand troops on the ground deep inside Amur within six hours, while the 14., 17. and 22. Infantry Corps' and the 10. and 12. Mechanized Corps moved into Amur from Yakutia, giving the Cottish a large peacekeeping force in the territory that at the same time would create a large and capable blocking force in the event that the Russians made any attempts on taking the territories. Meanwhile, the 6. Airborne Corps from Magadan and the 32. Infantry Corps and 552. Independent Infantry Brigade from Khabarovsk would move into Yevrey and secure it. All units would have ample air cover from the Royal Cottish Air Force, The operation was called Operation EEOBROHT, after the contingency plan with the same name that the plan had been based on, with the forces moving into Amur being assembled in an ad hoc force called OMEGA while the forces moving into Yevrey being assembled in the ad hoc formation called THETA.

The operation was submitted quickly to the cabinet, having recieved small modifications from an older plan that was located in the Defense Ministry's archives - the Defense Ministry kept plans for every possible contingency, just like any competent ministry tasked with the defense of the nation - and quickly approved by the cabinet and King. The orders went out to the forces in question within the hour, with the forces being ordered to be prepared to enter the territories in question within 24 hours. Meanwhile, in order to keep the Russians occupied from sending too many forces into the territories in question, the 3. Shock Corps and the 7. and 8. Mechanized Corps' began a manouvering exercise not more than thirty kilometers from the DMZ in the central parts of the Yakutia-Evenkia border. If the Russians were at least half smart, they'd have sufficient forces in place to make sure the Cottish knew they were aware and watching, thus keeping those forces from joining the expeditionary forces.

All in all, Group OMEGA consisted of more than 320,000 soldiers and paratroopers, while group THETA consisted of more than 84,000 soldiers and paratroopers. In addition, you had the various support brigades that would eventually move into the territories and assist the soldiers and locals once the soldiers had secured the area. Kickoff for phase one in Operation EEOBROHT, the insertion of paratroopers and special forces to secure important locations was in 16 hours. The operation could be cancelled up to that point in time and space, H-hour, with the Cottish being able to call it all a military exercise.

The Cottish government had also notified the remaining Roman government, the one headed by Emperor Valerius Madeira, and informed him confidencially that the Cottish were preparing to take steps to restore law and order in the territories of Amur and Yevrey, asking the Emperor at the same time to sanction the Cottish plans so that the population of Doomani Siberia wouldn't be hostile towards the Cottish forces, that after all were there to help. With the sanctioning of the Roman Emperor, the Cottish would be able to operate on a far looser leash, and at the same time tell the world community that they did it at the behest of the Roman Emperor.

If the Emperor didn't want to help the Doomani citizens in those territories (or the Cottish), the envoy would dispassionately add as he was leaving that there might be some problems with the Sakha Aerospace plant outside Suntar which would be bad for the Romans as many of the Roman F-20 Enforcer fighter jets in their Air Force were soon due to recieve a scheduled overhaul that would be critical for the continued operational status of the aircraft.

Layartebian military deployments within the Cottish Realm received a stand-by order shortly after the Cottish made their intention to seize Amur and Yevrey. Why they had not gone for Primorsky as well was baffling but that wasn't the job of the Layartebian commanders. They wouldn't be taking part in the conquest but, because of the highly tense nature of seizing land to keep the Russians out, Layartebian military forces would have to be ready. If the Russians and the Cottish went to war it could destabilize the region and the world. It could draw in the Empire, especially if the Russians struck Layartebian military assets to cripple the Empire's force projection in the region, a move that was expected to be in the opening shots of any such war. The ILM had several bases in the region, Yakutsk Air Force Base, Mirny Air Force Base, and Chekurovka Air Force Base, all in the Sakha Republic, and Sangar Army Base, also in Sakha. Based there was an assortment of tactical and strategic aircraft and a full brigade of Layartebian infantry and cavalry forces in Sangar. Several other units would be called up to reinforce these positions though, just in case the Russians got greedy and decided to drag the Empire into a direct war. It had done it before. The 1st QRF, consisting of four companies of 128 men each, was immediately called up and deployed. They specialized in Arctic Warfare but they could fight in any cold climate and forests, especially. Based on Somerset Island, they would simply have to fly over the Arctic Ocean and descend through Cottish territory to the various bases along the way, journeys of only 2,350 to 3,000 miles, at the most. They could be there in hours with their airborne and cavalry units as well. The other group called up was the Layartebian Foreign Legion. The 9th Foreign Legion Regiment, based in Quebec consisted of four battalions of 512 men each for a force of 2,048 men, with cavalry and airborne units. They would be deployed to various positions throughout the Cottish countryside, each battalion consisting of four companies, giving sixteen possible deployment areas. They would defend more strategic targets such as a bridge, an ammunition dump, a fuel depot, an airfield, an air defense site, etc. Equipped with AH-6M Little Bird, AH-101A Mayan, RAH-70A Arapaho, and UH-96A Panther helicopters, they could easy fend off a ground force for a short duration of time while reinforcements arrived.

Already at READINESS CONDITION LEVEL 3, the ILM reinforced all positions that were within immediate range of Russian targets. The ILM top brass fully saw the Russians firing on the Layartebians to drag them into the war, thinking that it was in their best interests to anger the ILM. They had no intentions of actually combating the Russians, this was seen strictly as a Cottish internal manner and sovereignty would be upheld. However, if certain complications arose, the Layartebians would have to act in its best interests. With the 4th Fleet active in the Arctic Ocean, it was now a waiting game. SSBNs and SSGNs waited in launch positions and on launch patrols, each one hoping to be stood down eventually.

The clock was ticking down to H-hour quickly, but the chess pieces were falling into place quickly. The thousands of vehicles and tens of thousands of soldiers were quickly arriving in their staging areas, receiving their orders and preparing themselves for the operation ahead. It was then, early in the morning of August 19th that the first C-15/A Kondor strategic heavy transport and C-12/J Super Hercules tactical transport aircraft started rolling down the runways at the airbases at Aldan and Zhigansk, laden with troops, equipment and vehicles. Hundreds of aircraft would take to the skies before sunrise, getting ready to move the Cottish 4. Airborne Corps from their bases in Yakutia to the northwestern parts of Amur.

The state of Amur was a 363,700 square kilometer large piece of territory, inhabited by some 887,000 inhabitants, most of them in the ten cities in the territory. The territory's geography was, for all intents and purposes, virtually identical to that of Yakutia, Magadan and Khabarovsk, where the Cottish forces that were entering the territory originated from. On the other hand, the state of Yevrey, also known as the Jewish Autonomous State, was a much smaller territory, only 36,000 square kilometers large, with a population of 190,000, and populated primarily by people of the Jewish faith. The religious groups in Israel had been lobbying the Cottish government for a long time to try to get them to liberate the jews from the ultra-catholic Doomanis, and while the Cottish government had made several inquiries as to the possibliity of purchasing Yevrey, all requests had gone unanswered. Then the Doomani state collapsed on itself, opening the road for the Cottish to intervene and satisfy the religious groups in Israel, who had been murring lately. Satisfying them with returning the Siberian Jews to Israel would hopefully be sufficient to shut them up.

Fortunately, the Cottish wouldn't have to spend a lot of money to upgrade the territory to Cottish standards as the Doomanis had done that exact thing - the fact that the infrastructure boost was the reason for the Doomani collapse wasn't one that the Cottish were unaware off, but one that they intended to exploit. If the Cots could save money here, it would be ideal, as the territories would be needed as a buffer zone between the really important parts of the Siberian Realm on one side and the Russian Federation and the United Eastasian Republic on the other side. Friendly as relations might be, the ideologies were still quite different and the Cottish wanted to play it safe. Realpolitik was the order of the day.

Speaking of exploiting. The Cottish diplomats had made a deal with the Russian Federation just the previous night, agreeing that Cotland would get to establish law and order in Amur and Yevrey while the Russians took care of Chita and everything west of that, plus Primorsky, which was south of Khabarovsk. As such, the generals didn't really fear that the Russians would try to interfere anymore, but they would still be on the alert as the paranoid Russophobes they were.

The Cottish entry into former Doomingslandi territories would be preceeded by a small psychological operation, which involved a Cottish diplomat flying to the capital of this former Doomani state to meet with whatever the Amurians had for leadership to offer them Cottish assistance while a number of RF-20/C Enforcers, a reconnaissance version of the venerable F-20/A Enforcer multirole fighter, penetrated the Amurian airspace to conduct reconnaissance of potential enemy positions and to deliver propaganda leaflets to the population in the areas that were to be hit first. These flights were undertaken without being engaged by the Doomani air defenses that the Cottish knew were there, giving fuel to the optimists that believed that this would be an easy operation.

Two hours before the invasion was scheduled to start, the ex-Doomani leaders had made their decision and called the Cottish diplomat back in to their offices to inform him of the situation. They had decided to accept the Cottish offer of assistance and protection, in return for being allowed to head up the new government in this new territory to the Realm. The Cottish diplomat agreed to this, not because he believed that the ex-Doomanis would make good leaders for the new territory, but rather because it would be much easier to dispose of them once the territory was secured by the Army. The diplomat took his leave from the ex-Doomanis as they started calling around to make sure no one did anything stupid when the Cottish started arriving.

By 0445 hours local time on the 19th of August, 2007, the Cottish air armada left the Cottish airspace and entered Amurian and Yevrey airspace, carrying over sixty-four thousand paratroopers between them. At the same time, Cottish armored vehicles and soldiers were rolling through the border checkpoints and into Amur and Yevrey without being challenged by the border guards.

Operation EEOBROHT had begun in earnest.

Cheers ran through the Layartebian bases as a peaceful solution to Amur and Yevrey presented itself. Layartebian forces immediately went into a stand down condition and deployed forces would soon be withdrawn. They remained though, in case the Cottish needed additional peace keeping forces. While the Empire conducted its own operations in Sri Lanka, Doomani territory was beginning to dissipate. The Cottish secured a sizeable chunk of it and now had a border with the Eastasians.

Under the protection of the treaty made with the ex-Doomani, now Amurian leaders, the Cottish air armada passed over the borders unopposed and headed towards their designated drop zones where the various transport aircraft would deliver the paratroopers and their equipment. Most of the paratroopers would be dropped in the western parts of Amur, forming a defensive line to prevent any Russian aggression into Amur. The Cottish didn't expect this, but the plans had been drawn up before the treaty with the Russians had been finalized and it was too late to change them now. So, as the C-12/J Super Hercules, C-15/A Kondors and C-22/A Slegge transports arrived at their drop zones, they moved into neat rows and moved down low and slow as they gourged out Cottish paratroopers, armed to the teeth with Doomani-made weapons.

The Cottish Airborne Corps was made up of three airborne divisions, each with 9,224 personnel and an aviation detachment of two hundred and fifty-six helicopters of various types; a SAM brigade armed with MAM.38/A Sverd medium-range surface to air missiles; and a logistics brigade to handle the logistical stress of such a large military force. In this first airborne assault, the Cottish were sending elements of two divisions into the territory, with the rest of the 4. Airborne Corps scheduled to be delivered within twelve hours.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the three Infantry Corps' and the two Mechanized Corps' that the Cottish Army was dispatching to help secure Amur were flowing over the border, the many vehicles and soldiers being guided through the chaos of tens of thousands of vehicles all trying to get into the same place by the experienced and trained Military Police soldiers of the 660. Military Police Brigade, which was responsible for directing traffic and handling prisoners along the southern border with Amur.

Leading the peacekeeping mission into Amur, as always, were the M51A2 Sabertooth main battle tank, which was closely followed by thousands of M70A1 Dragon infantry fighting vehicles, a relatively new type of vehicle that had already had its baptism of fire in Bjornoya, where it had fought with distinction and valor against the USR invaders and been instrumental in repelling them back to whence they came; and M65A1 Arrow armored personell carriers, a Hirgizstani design that had shown itself to be excellent, like most of the hardware that originated from that country. Cotland had a domestic production license for the Arrow, and a somewhat modified version of the vehicle served with distinction in the Cottish armed forces as the M65 Arrow series, serving everywhere the Cottish had forces stationed, from Siberia to India to Alaska to Israel. Thousands of those too were flowing over the borders too, all the time protected from above by the Royal Cottish Air Force's fighter jets and the Army's own AH-11/B Reaper attack helicopters.

The Cottish had a lot of forces committed to this operation, which was split into two parts. In the east, a relatively small force comprised of eighty-four thousand paratroopers and mechanized infantrymen under the codename THETA had already moved into the Jewish Autonomous Territory, as Yevrey was known as in Doomani circles, and started securing it. The operation was commanded by the commanding officer for the 32. Infantry Corps, a seventy year old native of Israel named Lieutenant General Ariel Sharon.

LtGen Sharon was a Jew himself, and had been especially selected for this task by the High Command. It was hoped that having a Jew lead the mission to "assist" the Jews in Yevrey and that the 190,000 inhabitants, of which some 169,000 people were Jewish.

Three weeks later, and the Cottish forces were in their positions. The airborne forces had successfully deployed and established a presence on the border with Chita, which was in the process of being overtaken by the Russians, and made up a uniformed Cottish presence in the area, stopping any attempt of uprising from occuring. The sight of Cottish soldiers armed with Doomani-made weapons had been a powerful symbol to the inhabitants of Amur and Yevrey, and prevented most of the troubles that could be expected.

In Yevrey, Lieutenant General Sharon had met with the local leadership and talked with them for an extended period of time over a cup of tea and freshly imported fruit from among others Israel. He had promised them free access to the Promised Land for those who wished it, and Cottish citizenship to all citizens of Yevrey and Amur in exchange for loyalty to the Realm. After two days of tough negotiations, the leadership in Yevrey had finally agreed to be incorporated into the Realm of Cotland, under the purview of the Governor of the Siberian Realm. Two weeks later, the last of the soldiers under the command of the Yevrey leaders had been relieved by the Cottish forces, and Yevrey was declared secured. The Cottish forces in Yevrey would be downscaled to just under 50,000 Army soldiers divided into two Divisions and a thousand airmen from the Air Force, manning the air defenses that would be established here.

Air cover would be handled by aircraft based in Amur and Khabarovsk, as the Cottish didn't expect any serious military threat to be posed against Yevrey. The only credible threats were the United Eastasian Republics and the Russian Federation. The Cottish had friendly relations with the former, and both Amur and Khabarovsk created a buffer for the Russians to get past before they could even threaten Yevrey.

In Amur, the Cottish forces were following a slightly different approach. The airborne forces were being relieved by heavier-armed forces to take over the border protection, releasing them from that relatively menial task and freeing them up to handle some more important tasks.

So far, the Cottish forces had rushed down and covered the border with Chita from the border with Yakutia in the north down to the UER border in the south, as well as the area around the capital Blagoveshchensk and the area near Yevrey. This had enabled the Cottish to create a buffer zone, blocking in whatever insurgents and hostile elements there might be. Those would be crushed as they popped up by the heavy divisions that were moving down from Yakutia towards the UER border.

That was two weeks ago.

Now, the Cottish forces had managed to take over the entire territory of Amur, and in conjunction with the ex-Doomani leadership in Amur, they had established an interim leading council which consisted of the ex-Doomani leaders and the Cottish generals. This council would have the administrative responsibility for the daily management of civilian affairs in Amur. Fortunately, the Cottish had managed to take nearly all the infrastructure intact, with the military engineers repairing what little had been damaged.

Operation EEOBROHT was deemed completed three weeks after it started, on September 8th, 2007. What began now was the integration process, with the various aspects of life in Amur and Yevrey being slowly altered to match the rest of the Cottish Realm, but for all intents and purposes, the Cottish had conquered the territories of Yevrey and Amur and assessed their supremacy through the ancient right of conquest, but under the guise of peacekeeping. The fact that the propaganda operation, that had been conducted since before the first Cottish soldier entered the territories and promised the citizens of Amur and Yevrey many benefits and perks, had made much of the conquered people cheer when the Cottish forces arrived and react positively to the news that they were now a part of the Cottish Realm was a bonus.