NationStates Jolt Archive

Thousands of Confederate troops supported by columns of tanks and helicopter gunships launched a massive offensive into Egypttiansstan Saturday night with officials saying they expected a lengthy fight in the densely populated territory after militant rocket attacks continued to land upon Confederate military bases, despite the Chancellor and many other members of the Senate urging Egypttianstanni officials to deploy more forces to the border.

Egypttiansstan is the only province with the Blackhelm Confederacy in which Muslims are not persecuted, and has seen millions of refugees pour over its borders since the Sacrament Law was put into effect. Confederate forces have left Egypttiansstanni forces to defend themselves since the nation was invaded over a decade ago. This is the Confederate military's first deployment into that theater since then.

The offensive set off fierce clashes with radical Mulsim militants and the Egypttiansstanni governor vowed the province would become a "graveyard" for Confederate forces. The immediate aim of the ground operations was to take control of sites militants use as rocket-launching pads, the military said. It said large numbers of troops were taking part but did not give specifics.

The primary concern of Confederate officials is that local Allanean forces will attempt to intervene on behalf of the Muslim forces, as the attack marks a high point in anti-Muslim relations within the Confederacy, a situation which was supposedly banned as per the terms of the Treaty of Albandaea, the treaty ending the recent campaign which threatened an invasion of the Blackhelm Confederacy by Allanea and her allies.

Cornelius Pureheart, the Confederate Head of Senate, has said that he would welcome foreign observers into the area, provided that they do not intervene, to ensure that all rules of war are not violated during the conflict.

Official Allanean Inquiry:

We would like to provide you assistance against the Muslim militants, provided you will guarantee no abuse of civilians will go on. Should you partake in abuse of your Muslim population, our treaty will be considered null and void. If you truly wish to restrain terrorism, we will happily help you.

Paradise City, Blackhelm Confederacy - Cornelius Pureheart appeared on televisions across the Confederacy, appeasing the Allanean inquiry by personally promising to keep the fighting as humane as possible, much to the disdain of the majority of Confederate civilians.

Fighting intensified early this morning as elements of the elite Confederate Third Infantry Division entered the town of Nasqut, twelve miles from the Confederate/Egypttiansstanni border. The military announced that two soldiers were killed, and nearly a dozen militants were eliminated during the fierce firefight.

More rockets landed throughout Sudanette throughout the night, inflicting only light casualties and light damage. The CAF responded with a series of airstrikes on suspected militant positions, effectively silencing the barrages for the time being.

BCNN Reporter Val Ironheel

Top Secret, Eyes Only, Blackhelmian Leadership

We recommend the deployment of Allanean special forces within the area of conflict.
Should you agree to our plan, our counterinsurgence and executive disposal units will begin work immediately.

Top Secret Response

Feel free to deploy immediately. Link up with the Third Division.

Nasqut, Egypttiansstan - Friendly fire incidents were reported early this morning as Confederate forces began to close in on the capital city, New Cairo.

At roughly 0200 this morning, a Confederate air strike hit a hotel hosting several dozen foreign press members, killing five, but more are expected to be found as the day goes on. Apparently, the strike was carried out in retaliation for several rocket strikes being launched from the area around the hotel.

Elsewhere, Confederate casualties have climbed to 87 as forces get closer and closer to New Cairo.

From Nasqut, Egypttiansstan, Valeria Redmetal

In the meanwhile, a single Allanean army jeep rolled up to the Third Division Headquarters, carrying an Allanean officer and his driver.

Once he was introduced to the division CO, he asked:

"I'm Colonel Edgar S. Dobson. Second Battalion, Team Arrowhead. I'm with the Allanean government and I'm here to help. Can you brief me on the tactical situation?"

"They told me we'd be gettin' some a' you 'Llaneans....I'm General Faustus Starsword, and I'm in charge of this division.

At this point, we have the capital city, New Cairo, surrounded and under siege. Our biggest problem is rocket attacks from other villages in the area, and our supply lines have been gettin' hit pretty bad. Anythin' else ya need to know?"

"Well, there's a few ways we can deal with this… the main is giving you guys a whole pile of counterbattery RADAR and UAVs so you can crush the missile attacks or whatever. We're going to use whatever information you give us to locate missile factories, guerilla leadership, and so forth, and then we're going to… deal with them."

"We got plenty of fancy little do-dads to deal with the counter battery job, but whenever we launch, the bad guys are gone. And we've been tryin' to 'deal' with the militants, that's why we're here. It ain't easy, what makes you think you can do it any better than us eh tough guy? You ever been in somethin' like this before? Me an' my men have been stuck fighting these pigs for years...what about you?"

Paradise City, Blackhelm Confederacy - The government has resumed the offensive into Egypttiansstan early this morning, as Confederate soldiers began to surge into Northern Egypttiansstanni cities. Heavy resisted is expected to be met by our forces, but the government assured the press that the Islamists will not be allowed to win, and military should be in complete control of the region by the end of the month. Until next time, this is Valeria Redmetal from BCNN, signing out.

Official Memo from the United States Government Department of Defense, Special Operations Command

Dear Friends!

We in the United States believe the problem of Egyptiannstani terrorism can be resolved by means of a few very simple measures.

1.The river Nile is 6,650 kilometers long. Controlling it will enable us to deny the terrorist formations access to the most heavily-populated and economically-advanced portions of the promise. The simplest way to do so is to establish 85 mutually-supporting firebases along the length of the river, each equipped with either a Libertycannon or a Manticore battery (six cannon or launchers per battery). The batteries will be fortified and protected by a company of mechanized infantry each, requiring 17,000 combat troops to be present along the river at any given time. Support troops may swell the numbers to up to 34,000, but the number regardless remains rather small considering the size of the province. We estimate that, even assuming an attempt by terrorists to storm all the firebases at once, a force of up to 400,000 terrorists can be adequately held off at once by the system of firebases.

2.To augment the system above, we recommend the formation of helicopter bases in the loyal cities as rapid-reaction forces and the deployment of a fleet of fast riverine attack boats to travel the length of the Nile as fire support. Most importantly, we recommend the formation of a joint command center in Cairo to coordinate the operations of these assets, as well as fire support from naval elements in the Red Sea.

3.After the Nile has been secured, it is possible to implement a series of offensive strikes against the desert oases to be planned in the future. We recommend aerial preparation using strategic bomber aircraft (B-52, B-22, P6M Seamaster, TU-22M3), including the use of defoliant agents, followed by isolation of the oases in question and seizure by the means of conventional combined arms warfare.

4.Another option to be researched, not explored in this memo in detail, is the use of offensive mine warfare on the main routes of terrorist transportation to destroy terorrist morale and logistics.

Additional details can be worked out upon negotiations.

Response From Confederate High Command

We would like to begin by saying that we deeply appreciate the help you are willing to provide us in crushing the terrorist threat in this troublesome province.

We would also like to ask if your soldiers would be available to enter the region and assist our own forces in quelling the rebellion. Additionally, our forces use the G7 artillery pieces, and the BM-21 and Boratino missile systems. Would these pieces suffice in terms of these firebases? Also, extensive aerial campaigns are already underway.

Next is the matter of New Cairo. The city is currently under siege by our forces, and further information will be given after the city is taken.

Finally, the use of mines could also possibly hamper our own movement at a later date, and so it must be turned down.

Allanean Response:

The most important feature of artillery systems for the purpose of this application is range. The shorter the range of the rockets or shells, the more batteries you will require to cover the length of the river, so with shorter-ranged systems you will require additional firebases.

We will soon send three mechanized infantry divisions, one armored and one artillery division to the area to help secure New Cairo. Will this suffice?

Our G7 can throw shells up to thirty six kilometers.

And yes, whatever you can send would be welcome. Al-Khalid airbase, outside of Nasqut, will be awaiting the arrival of your personnel.

In the meanwhile, the Allaneans began slowly filtering into the province. The 106th Rudolph Corbelli, 142nd Emperor Thompson, 139th Bernie White and 116th Poul Anderson mechanized infantry division steamed towards the outskirts of New Cairo, where they would fan out and set up camp at four points around the city, ready to begin assaults along several axis of attack as soon as the order was given. The 406th Somali Armor Division was also prepared to begin the assault – but the time had not yet come.

In the meanwhile, batteries of Libertycannon (http://wikistates.outwardhosting.com/wiki/Feldhaubitze,_Model_2008) were town into place. Data on the location of suspected insurgent holdouts were given to the artillerymen… and it started.

* * *

The battery was ready. The six cannon were dug into their positions – with the crew and ammunition protected by an earthwork – and several dozen 155mm shells already prepared to feed into the cannon. The targets – six houses deep within New Cairo that held a rocket factory and insurgent headquarters, two enemy sniper bases and two rocket stockpiles – were fed into the digital fire control systems. All that remained was to fire the rounds.

The battalion commander – a forty-year-old Major that looked at worst half her own age due to the beauty of modern anti-aging treatment – removed her hat, raising it in the air as she stood upon the breastwork.

"Troops!"

The artillerymen made the last adjustments to their pieces.

"It is our job to remake this nation! To help these people free themselves! From Islamofascism! From Communism! As we have started helping the nation of Blackhelm, so we will continue! For Blackhelm! For Allanea! For liberty! BATTERY! FIRE!"

She swung her hat in a wide motion – and immediately, the battery shuddered in the first salvo.

Outside New Cairo, Egypttiansstan - Allanean forces began arriving in the area yesterday, and setting up "Liberty" cannons around the city, hoping to bring about an end to the siege. A barrage into the center of the city was responded to by several dozen Qassam rockets from sites throughout New Cairo. Casualties have yet to be heard.

Confederate officers expressed relief, as the Allanean arrival means more Confederate soldiers will be free to safeguard the dangerous supply routes, which have been a thorn in the side of the military.

At the mouth of the Nile, early this morning, two as of yet unidentified missiles screamed from the thick swamp grass, and slammed into the BCNS Freedom, a Sovremenny class destroyer participating in the blockade. Twenty sailors were killed and many more were wounded in the attack, and the veesel was towed back to Divinity for repairs. Live from the front, Valeria Redmetal.

The calm of the ancient city was now disturbed by the continuous rumble of Liberty cannon and the howling of Quassam missiles as they screamed towards the Allanean positions. The Allaneans were not very scared by this method of war. When a Quassam was detected, a Nautilus laser system or a Shepherd automatic cannon would flare up, taking it down in flight – if it was even aimed in the right direction. Some of the rockets impacted around the Allanean positions, but so far, apart from blowing up one of the Army's trucks, no major damage had been incurred.

And now, the Allaneans' real plan was being prepared. The Allanean Army sent another inquiry to the Blackhelmians:

Are you planning on using Al-Azhar Mosque for anything? We have a plan..

General Starsword recieved the message, and sent back a quick reply.

"I got no plans for it"

Al-Azhar University

“Allahu aqbar! Allahu aqbar!”

Again, as for centuries, the cries of the muezzin at Al-Azhar pierced the air of New Cairo. As for centuries of old, thousands of the faithful students at the world's largest university knelt down for prayer. As for centuries, men all over the city paused their daily affairs, as muezzins throughout New Cairo replied to the prayer with their own.

*

But they were not the only ones who were praying. Far above the cloud cover, in the cockpit of an Arbiter-II strategic bomber, Captain Jonathan Highworth was saying his prayer too.

“For thine is the kingdom...”

The automated targeting program kicked in. The bomb bay doors slammed open, and the bomber pilot felt a light vibration under his seat as dozens of GPS-targeted smart bombs began to drop out towards Egyptianistani army positions. Their targets had long been chosen – and now the half-ton bombs were speeding away towards enemy triple-A sites.

“and the power...”

Highworth saw his wingman's plane pull up next to him, dozens of glide-bombs streaking out from his aircraft. From here, it might seem the bombers were simply carpeting the area – but Highworth knew it wasn't true. In fact, every bomb had an individually pre-programmed target, and would now use GPS to reach within half a meter of the precise spot chosen. Hundreds of flak batteries and ammo dumps were on the list of targets, throwing the enemy into temporary disarray.
and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen "

“and the glory. Amen.”

The last two bombs slid out of the belly of the massive plane, screaming down towards the last target for today – a pair of flak cannon nearest to the Al-Azhar mosque. Highworth could not see them impact – but he know that, as they rode their guidance signal, the one-ton bombs would open up about fifty meters over their targets, showering the enemy's flak systems in a hail of tiny submunitions. The sandbags that such forces as the rebels often used to protect their positions would be no defense.

The entire attack was over in fifteen seconds.

*

At the university itself, the prayer was continuing. The muezzin was of the belief that his duty was to pray – and many of the students inside saw that they could do nothing to stop the brief bombing run. Enemy air attacks were becoming part of life here, anyway. They continued praying – after all, the mosque itself was not going to be attacked, right?

“Allahu-”

And then, the prayer ended. Black smoke appeared from the minaret, as spectacular explosions tore the muezzin's body into pulp. Men ran to cover, some snatching for their weapons.

The Allanean helicopters were still far away – ten Bellicus helicopters and ten of the automated Soulharvesters. They were engaging the praying people in the mosque yard with the fire of their automatic cannon at five kilometers away, approaching as they dove towards the mosque yard. Slung underwing were the infamous 500-kilogram Assault Loudspeakers with which the Allaneans fought their wars.

And the music rang, overpowering the voice of those Mosques across the city, where people were still giving their prayers, unaware of the devilish plan of the Allanean command. Soon, all would know.


Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before;
Christ, the royal Master
Leads against the foe;
Forward into battle,
See, his banners go.


The helicopters approached, their machineguns rattling, pumping hundreds of rounds of steel and lead of high-explosives into the mosque yard, the autocannon joining in in a long, sadistic roar. Allanea was coming.

On the roofs of the city, men scrambled, firing their rifles at the passing metal monstrosities, hoping to protect their beloved shrine. Doorgunners fired Gatling guns in response, wiping entire house roofs free of any people within one swoop of the horrific guns.

Some men fired RPG's at the incoming helicopters, or even MANPADs. Most missed entirely, others had their rounds swatted down with active defense or distracted by countermeasures.

At the sign of triumph
Satan's host doth flee;
On then, Christian soldiers,
On to victory.
Hell's foundations quiver
At the shout of praise;
Brothers, lift your voices,
Loud your anthems raise.

The helicopters descended, flying over the streets. Now they were impossible to track with MANPADs as they gunners fired madly away at any riflemen that dared to point their weapons at the mighty Bellicus.

“Get some! Get some!” - screamed the Allanean door gunners, strafing anything that moved, their shouts inaudible, drowned out by the loudspeakers. Everything would be drowned out by that insane sound, everything but the clatter of the guns.

They cleared the mosque walls, slowing down to a near halt – and now, men appeared from the helicopters, rappelling down onto the walls of Al-Azhar. Some fell to enemy rifle fire – but for every shot an insurgent fired, Soulharvesters fired hundreds of shells and bullets into the mosque's yard.

The special operatives knew their job. They needed no orders as they lay down on the walls, firing dozens of rapid, aimed shots from prone position, like students on a primary school firing range – except their targets weren't paper and their rifles were centerfire.

What the saints established
That I hold for true;
What the saints believed,
That I believe too.
Long as earth endureth,
men the faith will hold;
Kingdoms, nations, empires,
In destruction rolled.

Even as slaughter and confusion reigned in Al-Azhar, several unmarked commercial trucks were maneuvering through the city, driven by Allaneans chosen for their Middle-Eastern looks and accents. Now, these trucks – some painted to appear as refrigerator trucks, others as carrying fish or bread – approached the mosque from several directions. Their rear doors opened, and...

“INFANTRY! FIX BAYONETS! CHARGE!”

It was the end. They would lock the gates from within. They would spend the next several hours fighting for every room, for every nook and cranny of Al-Azhar – with rifle and bayonet, with knife and grenade. Flamethrowers, machetes and DR-83s locked with AK rifles and RPKs in a brutal battle for every room and hall of the mosque.

Dozens of Allaneans died in the surprise assault, but it was nothing like the terrible losses that the enemy had incurred. Helicopter support and the superior equipment and training of the Allaneans, as well as their ability to resupply by helicopter, had allowed them to rule the day.

Several hours later

Brigadier-General Morgan Magnusson, of the William Thompson Division, looked proudly at his handywork. The inner yard of the mosque was littered with the dead – locals, of course, shot in the assult. The once-blue rocks of the court-yard were now red with blood. Dead Allaneans, in the meanwhile, were being loaded carefully into an EV-87 parked in te center of the yard – one of two VTOLs that were busily running shuttle flights to resupply the Allanean garrison with new troops.

Standing next to the general was a young-looking man in a paled blue T-shirt bearing a likeness of Tux, the Linux penguin. The man grinned as he reloaded his Yanitarian-made submachinegun. “So, where is the dean of this fine educational institution? Is he still holed up up there?”

He waved his gun at a small window at third-story level. It was one of the last rooms the Allaneans did not clear – mostly because they were reluctant to blow up the priceless historical manuscripts within.”

“Quite so, Professor Dent. Should we try and fish him out?”

“No, not yet. I want to try and get him alive. Hey! DEAN AL-SAYYID!”

Terrible curses were the response.

“DEAN AL-SAYYID! I AM DOCTOR MORIS DENT! COME OUT! I AM AN ARCHAEOLOGIST! GIVE US THE MANUSCRIPTS AND YOU WILL BE ESCORTED OUT OF HERE SAFELY!”

Again, a string of Arab curses.

“So he calls me a goat-fucking infidel... not nice. DEAN AL-SAYYID! INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE! COME OUT OF THERE!”

This time, Dean Al-Sayyid, provoked, perhaps, by the Allanean, appeared in the window, leveling an elderly rifle...

The archeologist was faster. The Yanitarian submachinegun let forth a satisfying BRRRAP as it ran itself dry in almost two seconds. The empty magazine hit the ground before the Dean did, but only by a margin.

“Oh well. I wanted to do it the nice way... okay, let's all do out jobs. Me and my men move in more supplies and troops and gear, and move out the artifacts. You desecrate the mosque.”

*

Several well-fed hogs now walked the Prayer Hall of Al-Azhar, taking tentative bites at several dead militants who did not merit hanging. The Allaneans knew that by evening, the hogs would not even leave a bone of the enemies' bodie intact. Dogs were tied to some of the marble columns, and several of the Koran books found were also thrown on the ground, and cameras recorded several Allanean soldiers trampling upon them with their heavy combat boots. Other cameras filmed men and women in revealing or perverse outfits, from utterly naked to full-body fursuits, making out on piles of sacred writings

The Prayer Hall of Al-Azhar had been a beautiful place, where thousands could congregate in worship of their God. Once, the carpet had been beautiful, red and gold, and priceless lamps were hanging from the rafters. Now, the lamps had been looted for the benefit of the Allanean soldiers, and instead, there were naked men hanging from the rafters. Some – the staff and clerics at the university – were not merely naked, but literally flayed alive and decapitated, their heads and skins taken as mementoes by the invading Allaneans.

The Allaneans spared no expense in humiliating the enemy as much as possible. Several buckets of pig lard and other pig-related fluids were brought in, and soldiers were now busily smearing them on the walls of the mosque, even as their fellow men prepared defensive positions. .

On the very minarets of the mosque, Allanean banners were flown, to make it perfectly clear to anybody who somehow missed it, who owned the place now.

Finally, the Mosques loudspeakers came on.

HEY! YOU!

This is Brigadier-General Morgan Magnusson. I am the commander of the Emperor William Thompson Mechanized Infantry Division. I know you're preparing to attack this mosque soon. I also know most of you don't know any English, and don't understand my speech. This is because you're illiterate savages. If I respected your culture, I would speak your language. But I don't, and I know some of your friends are going to translate it all, anyway.

I would like you to know me and my men have slaughtered everybody in your Mosque... University... whatever it was. We have desecrated every little bit of it. We brought pigs and dogs into the prayer halls. We hung your clerics from the rafters. We piled your holy books on the floor and had perverted sex on top of them and trampled them with out boots. Videos will be on Youtube shortly, so if you never saw a bunch of furries yiff on a pile of Qur'ans before, this is your chance.

You spent your entire lives fearing and hating freedom, hating those who were freer than you, more successful than you, who had more fun than you did. In your society, you consider loans – and the capitalist system that rests on them – immoral. In Allanea, we revel in our capitalism. We name cities and islands after entrepreneurs. In your culture, women conceal their entire bodies under cloth, for you fear that they may utilize their own sexuality for their own pleasure. In our culture, we revel in our sexuality. In Allanea it is perfectly acceptable for a woman – or a man – to arrive at work naked.

And you know what? That's precisely why you live in mud hovels, and Allaneans live in red-roofed houses. This is why you can't read and write, and an Allanean child knows at least two languages by the time he's an adult. This is why you fight us with rifles and rocks, and we fight you with helicopters and cruise missiles. This is why we are going to win and you are going to lose.

So yeah. There you have it. I'm Allanean. Even as I speak I am desecrating your mosque with pigs, dogs, and perverse sex acts. I dare you to try and stop me.

Oh. One last thing.

May God Continue to Bless Allanea.

The speech ended – and, as the sound operators worked their magic, the sound of heavy metal, amplified by the mosque loudspeakers and a few sets of Allanean Assault Loudspeakers, rose over the city.

As the Allanean helicopters landed at their respective airbases, they were greeted by the angry faces of several dozen Confederate soldiers. At each place, an officer demanded that all looted artifacts be handed over to the Confederate military, as they were all Confederate property. Confederate High Command didn't care at all about the Muslims, they just wanted their stuff back.

Meanwhile, in New Cairo, the Muslims were infuriated by the blatant disrespect shown for their culture, and calls went out to the entire Muslim world for mujahadeen fighters to come and avenge the acts commited at the mosque. Thousands of Muslims across the globe were preparing terrorist attacks on Allanean soil in retribution for the horrible deeds commited.

On rooftops, alleyways, and windows all over the city, SA-18's were being launched at the Allanean helicopter groups moving to Al-Azhar at all hours. Anytime a helicopter could be heard, a salvo of these missiles would be launched. These were not simple devices either, and had proven to be effective at defeating countermeases in the past, most recently downing a Confederate gunship making a pass on the outskirts of the city.

Egypttiansstanni army units and local militia were also now seeing booming support from all over the province. Together, they began setting up a plan with which to take the mosque. It would not be today, however. For now, the Allaneans would be allowed to gloat over their victory.

The attacks today would take place elsewhere. People surged with anger over the attack, and swore to spill Allanean blood wherever it could be found. Several joint Allanean/Confederate bases around the area were targetted, and lliterally thousands of militiamen began assembling their mortars and technicals, ready to shower death upon the invading infidels who had dared to desecrate the mosque in such a way.

More Qassams were launched as well. The largest launch to date, consisting of almost four hundred rockets, were all concentrated against a single Liberty battery. The militiamen knew that this was not Allanea's war, and hoped that if enough casualties could be inflicted and equipment destroyed, the Allaneans would be forced to pull out. By using so many missiles, they hoped to overwhelm the battery defenses and shatter the position.

To the Blackhelm Confederacy
From the Democratic Republic of Comorostan
We would like to assist you in your fight against the infidel Muslim savages. We can provide the services of our Expeditionary Strike Force, comprised of land, naval, and air units. If you accept, the ESF can be off the coast in 48 hours.
May God's Blessings be Showered Upon Your Troops
-Premier General Cyrano Jones

ORBAT-Expeditionary Strike Force
Land Component
12,000 soldiers (does not count support personnel)
80 MA12 Striker Medium Tanks
40 SPG-14 Medusa SP 105mm Guns
25 SPG-27A Archer SP AA Guns (3 Gatling Guns each)

Air Component
30 F-47 Cyclone Fighters
20 A-13 Wasp Attack Aircraft
8 B-64 Zeus Bombers
20 AH-35 Renegade Gunships

Naval Component
1 Keefer-class Aircraft Carrier
-35 Cyclone Fighters
-25 Wasp Attack Aircraft
-15 helicopters
2 Summit-class Battleships
4 Governor-class Cruisers
-1 UH-16 Skyhook Multi-Role Helicopter
2 Trident-class Amphibious Assault Ships
-20 CH-24 "Dragon Fly" Transport Helicopters
-3 Beacon-class Landing Craft

The Allaneans were well-prepared to fight this kind of war. They ended helicopter flights – after losing three helicopters and twelve men. The artifacts were claimed lost - “What do you mean, ancient scrolls? There ain't any on this flight. Probably must have crashed with flight 104...” - but otherwise, the Allaneans were unsurprised by the reaction of their enemies.

*

“Sir, we see a massive column of technicals moving at bearing.... hold that though. We have shitloads of technicals and trucks everywhere, approaching your position! We're taking Quassam fire!”

The enemy missiles were incredibly inaccurate – most Quassams usually fail to hit the country they're aimed at – but they were incredibly unnerving. The crew were ordered into shelter. In the meanwhile, the Allaneans had to deal with the incoming enemy technicals.

It was rather simple.

When the enemy vehicles entered into range, it was the Manticores that fired the first salvoe against them – 100 vehicless, a single incredible salvo of 3,200 missiles. Within seconds, they broke apart, showering the enemy column with dozens of thousands of heat-seeking anti-armor submunitions, zooming in on the small pickup trucks' engines. Fifve minutes later – another salvo, this time with hundreds of thousands of tiny anti-personnel munitions, none weighing more than 150 grams. After that, the missile launchers relocating, fearing a Quasam strike.

Instead, the unmanned helicopters started strafing the few survivors.

By the time the enemies reached the joint bases, they would be severely shaken – and the Allaneans have not even really gotten started yet. Their bases were surrounded by rapidly-laid minefields. As the terrorists approached, they would hit not just tripwires or tiny “Green parrot” mines, but far more sophisticated weapons.

As they stepped through the minefields, their steps would trigger hidden geophones – and computerized NVU-PM devices would immediately trigger bounding mines capable of wiping out entire detachments of infantry.

Few people would live long enough to get into the range of Allanean and Blackhelmian rifles. And the Allaneans had done worse. They distributed shrapnel shells to their friends, the Confederate tankers, and taught them to dig in their tanks, rendering them almost invulnerable to RPG fire. Now, as the enemies approached, the Confederates and Allaneans would use the main cannon of their tanks as giant shotguns from hell, destroying waves upon waves of enemy infantry with blasts of steel balls the size of a child's marble.

But the Allaneans were not content to defend their own bases. A series of high-accuracy strikes occured, wherein guided Small Diameter Bombs were dropped on the homes of known rebel leaders or Egyptianstani Army leadership. Collateral damage was kept low, but the attacks happened every day, to remind the enemy that the Allaneans could not be forced to turtle in their bases.

Press release from the Office of the President

[pictures from the Allanean publication]

That is why Allanean citizens are forbidden to enter the Union, Allanean exports are halted at our shores, and Allanean-owned companies which in past years operated in the Union were shut down by executive order. The Union will not now or ever have anything to do with barbarians who use the name of liberty to cloak repression and sadism. And if there has been any question in the past of renewing our relations with Allanea - though this act of barbarism is hardly their first and I cannot believe it will be their last - let this serve as our answer.

******

The Muslim minority that made up roughly 36% of the Union's population was strongest south of the Old Kingdom; here also, in the Horn of Africa and the southern provinces, were the traditional recruiting grounds for the Union Army, the lands from which it drew its strength ever since the overthrow of Greek fascism. From these countries men had shipped out to fight in the Baltic Wars against Communism, and in the interventions against the Corporate Alliance, and longer ago, on the edges of living memory, in the Great Eastern War; and today still the bulk of the soldiers sent to end slavery in Strator called these lands home. It was old country, less developed and poorer than the Greek-speaking north, rural in places compared to the vast city belts of the Mediterranean coast, but still it had its millions and their wealth.

And, slipping past the net of Government safeguards perhaps deliberately neglected for a moment - for it was still forbidden to trade or travel to the Blackhelm Confederacy, a country regarded as part and parcel of the Corporate Alliance - that wealth was flowing in a thousand channels towards resistance organizations in Egyptianstan. The donations of an ex-soldier, or a family, were pooled with the gifts of businessmen and farmers. And most of all, from the mosques.

"Charities" in foreign lands would receive the money. From there, it was someone else's job to see to it that it became bullets and missiles, grenades and rockets to fuel the resistance.

Although the ESF needed Blackhelm's approval to intervene, that didn't mean they had to wait in barracks. The ships of the ESF Naval Unit, along with the assault ships carrying the ground troops, were en route to a point just off the Egyptianstani coast. There they would wait until Blackhelm gave either the "go" or the "no".

Official Allanean Response to New Manth:

The fighting against terrorists is not oppression, but an act of liberation.
The destruction of terrorist command centers is not an act of barbarism, but a glorious strike for freedom.

We say this to New Manth: Do as you may. Bar your borders to our goods and our citizens. Your nation is yours. But fire a shot at an Allanean ship or a Griffincrest freighter, and you will regret it.

To Allanea
From Comorostan
While we legally require Blackhelm's consent to deploy troops, we would like to begin deploying SpecOps teams and conducting cruise missile strikes in Egypttiansstan. We would like to coordinate with your forces until Blackhelm can be reached.
May God's Blessings be Showered Upon Your Troops
-Premier General Cyrano Jones

((Hey can I join in, I have RP experiance I just like this new country, if so can someone remind me of the city this is in right now, im busy atm to check))

The release had been internal, but of course had made its way eventually to the international press; more surprisingly, perhaps, the Allaneans had made a direct reply. A response was required; the old President sighed as he wrote it, stopping several times in a way that worried his secretary. At ninety the President had been expected to die for years, looked ready to any day; but seemed never to fulfil those expectations.

From the Office of the President

The Union's borders, as you say, are our own business; so too is it your business where your ships may go, so long as they stay outside those borders, and I do not recall suggesting the Union Navy would interfere with your own.

As for the Griffencrest Corporation, that business is a separate one. It is a vital interest of all nations to stamp out piracy and banditry and to ensure the freedom of international trade on sea and on land, and so the Union Navy will continue to enforce the laws of the sea in those areas that it is charged to defend, just as the Army will prevent Griffencrest banditry should it rear its head within our sphere of operations. I trust you in turn will not interfere with these operations.

With these things clarified, I will leave you to your glorious strikes in the name of apartheid, oppression, murder and freedom.

Saad al-Baradei
President of the Greater Economic Union of New Manth

Official Allanean Response:

So... what apartheid is it you speak of? Muslims and Arabs have equal rights to the rest of the population in both Allanea and Blackhelm. As part of our post-war settlement with Blackhelm, Muslims were to be granted equal rights. In fact, our operation is being commanded by an Arab Marshal. THis current war is specifically happening because Egyptiannstani terrorists have committed a chain of attack against Blackhelmian civilians.

Observe now: these people reached out to attack Blackhelmian civilians, and they are now dying. Reach out to attack a Blackhelmian civilian under false pretext, and your people will start dying, too.

ooc: Did I miss a thread somewhere? Last I checked Muslims in the Blackhelm Confederacy tended to get slaughtered "Night of Long Knives"-style...

OOC: Yeah, several threads. Essentially I fought against Blackhelm and he signed a treaty to become 'nicer' in return for my protection and assistance. So his corporation no longer does piracy, and his abuse of Muslims got dialed down a (dozen) notch(es). In return, I buy his products and protect him from aggression.

Allanea, we are still waiting an answer of our previous request. We would like to coordinate with you to begin SpecOps deployment in Egypttiansstan, as well as begin cruise missile and carrier air strikes.

OOC: Question is this country in like a middle Eastern area? Would you mind if Zackaroth bordered it? Most of my country encompasses the middles east but stops at waht is IRL Jordan. Don't know where you put Egyptstan but I assume its around where Egypt is XD.

ooc: I see... well I have perhaps a less forgiving opinion of Griffencrest/Blackhelm than you. Makes more sense now anyway.

On second reading I decided an IC response was in fact quite required.

From the Office of the President

Under Allanean law perhaps just saying sorry and promising not to do it again is enough to forgive a hundred million murders, or the attack and ransack of a dozen nations. But if your troops are retaliating against the death of Blackhelm civilians by slaughtering Muslims, who is to retaliate for them for the deaths of a hundred million of their comrades at the hands of those same civilians of the Blackhelm Confederacy? Has Allanea gone into the business of forgiving on behalf of others, and selectively at that?

On the other matter, you will threaten the Union with war for enforcing its own laws, for not accepting your unilateral declaration that the Griffencrest Corporation's and indeed the Confederacy's past crimes - crimes which hardly touched only on Allanea - should be washed out without a thought? You demand, in short, that we bow to your laws in our own land?

No.

Saad al-Baradei
President of the Greater Economic Union of New Manth

Official Allanean Response:

This is not about your laws. This is about whether you can attack our allies with impunity. This is very simple: on the day that you start attacking Blackhelmian or Griffincrest vessels of any kind on the open seas, we will commence attacking any and all Manthian vessels and aircraft that venture out of your borders, and proceed to attack your homeland. We will bomb and burn and kill until your attacks cease. No matter what you think your law empowers you to do, it does not empower you to attack the ships of Allanea's allies and protectorates.

Tread lightly, Saad al-Baradei.

Justin von Strangald sighed as he read the report at his desk. Another dozen refugees coming in from the new stomping grounds of the Griffencrest assholes. Most likely Muslims escaping persecution. Zackaroth had a a huge Muslim population along with a big Christian population. This caused many problems over the years and things like this only made problems worse. Protests and calls for the government to intervene. Fights breaking out and overcrowding was going to be an issue in the near future.

It was going to a be rough few weeks. The border with Egypttiansstan was going to closed and not let anyone in. However going in...the High leader would be sure to let the border patrol let some..."supplies" into Egypttiansstan. At least until the Allaneaians set up there own checkpoint near the border.


OOC: If this isn't ok I'll delete it. Most of the supplies going through are from Muslims groups. Most of it is rations and first aid supplies but of course it is guns and other weaponry.

Confederate Response to Comorostan

We would gladly welcome your forces into the Confederacy, and would appreciate if your vessels could assist in the blockade being enforced at the mouth of the Nile.

Confederate Response to New Manth

These people have attacked innocent Confederate civilians. It is now wrong to hunt down and destroy those that do harm to innocents?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Confederate High Command was not satisfied with the answers by the Allaneans concerning the missing artifacts, and demanded to search the men and their helicopters. These ancient texts were of high value to the Confederacy, and the Allaneans were not going to be allowed to just walk away with them.

Meanwhile, the attack on the battery had failed horribly, but this was of no surprise to the militia. They had other things to cheer about. At each helicopter crash, mobs had gathered, stripping the bodies of the crews and tossing their bodies into the air, hanging some from rooftops and bridges or dragging others through the streets before setting them ablaze. With the helicopter flights stopped, the Allaneans had no way to recieve supplies. The muslims now just needed needed to starve them out.

Astholm would like to send its Defence Forces into Egypttianistan. They are highly-trained and would be useful to your nation.

“Sir, there are no artifacts aboard this helicopter, as you can well see. You're not going to be allowed to undress our men or rip up the floors. Don't worry, there's plenty of shit left for you at the mosque – there's a library of several million books there, and hundreds of thousands of ancient texts.”

*

At the mosque, the Allaneans knew precisely what was going on – but they had prepared for this. They had had two Libertycannon flown in before the Muslims had stopped resupply flights. Now, these cannon were being prepared to fire.

“Sir, we have mobs at the juncture of these two streets... UAV reports say they're now desecrating the bodies of our boys.”

General Magnusson nodded. “Frankly, I ain't too surprised. We did this to them, too – now they're doing it to us. Give the artillerymen the coordinates.”

*

Outside the city

“Battery! We have the coordinates of a gathering mob at square F-20. They are now distracted with desecrating the bodies of our fallen men. We cannot rescue these men now. It is too late. But we can provide them with a proper burial. Feed the coordinates into the cannon. Let's give our boys some escorts on the road to Valhalla!” - the young officer had been an Asatru worshipper. Within minutes, he saw his troops type away on Tacticomps, the Libertycannon reorienting themselves minutely to fire.

“Boys! For Mother Liberty! FIRE!”

The battery shook with fire, the immense cannon adjusting after every shot. With varying trajectories, ti was possible to fire 3 rounds of ammunition, ensuring all of them would arrive on target simultaneously – which was precisely what the Allaneans intended to do.

Every one of the three locations was being targeted similarly – in addition to the two cannon that were firing from the mosque.

*

At a crash site

“Allahu Aqbar! Death to the infidel!” - the mob took over the helicopter with casual ease, tearing crew members out of their seats, beating the injured and dazed survivors to death with their bare hands. They rejoiced as they lifted the recovered manuscripts and lamps upon their hands, and they rejoiced equally as they dragged the Allaneans through the mud, tearing out their innards, and then raising their hands skywards, covered in the blood and guts of their foes. They rejoiced, for their God had granted them victory over the infidel.

And then everything changed.

The sky overhead roared in f angry explosions as eighteeny artillery shells detonated overhead. The entire neighborhood was showered with hundreds of deadly anti-personnel bomblets.

Within seconds, the celebration turned into a carnage. Several of the houses in the street had collapsed altogether, burying their inhabitants within.

The wreckage helicopter burned now, impacted by several dozen submunitions. Around the helicopter, the ground was littered with the bodies of the dead and the dying where the Allanean artillerymen took their harvest of death. The survivors scattered in horror, fearing another strike.

*

Al-Azhar University

“At my command! FIRE!”

The two cannon shook once more, firing a pair of shells at a flak installation inside the city. The purpose now was simple – to remind the people in the city that the mosque was now an Allanean military base. It would be terribly bad idea to just ignore it being there.

Confederate Response to Astholm

Send 'em over. Keep it small though.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The crowds had scattered under the heavy artillery fire, but they still had taken massive losses. They wanted revenge. The shitty Qassam was not the only weapon in the militia arsenal. Several dozen Fajr-5 missiles were assembled, and launched at the Allanean batteries. The militia hated these artillery posts, and believed that the destruction of at least one would be a major victory for their cause.

In the city, mortar fire began to slam down onto the mosque from all over the city and RPG fire smashed into the walls. Men began to swarm towards the structure, swearing revenge for the attack on the crowd of people.

In another part of the country, the Egypttianstanni army regrouped from its initial defeats. Several thousand men and armoured vehicles began to gather for what they hoped would be the assault that would rescue New Cairo.

No response was sent to the Blackhelm Confederacy.

From the Office of the President

Your allies are wanted within the Union for terrorism, piracy, and numerous other crimes. Whether they are happening now or were stopped a month ago is at this point only relevant for the courts in sorting out when the statute of limitations may, regretfully, apply. Fortunately a number of those crimes are so serious that it would not.

If you are truly so worried about Griffencrest employees facing justice for their crimes, I suggest you keep them in Allanea or some other place where the arm of Union law does not reach. Manth will not violate your sovereignty to seek them out. But should Union forces encounter them either within Manth or on the high seas, Allanean threats will not halt the meting out of justice.

It had been a hellish day for Justin. The weapons being sent over where shipped back. Obviously he didn't want to be caught aiding what some of the media where portraying as savages. True the two larger countries had done the same thing but the Egypttianstanni where always under fire by the media for being outdated and primitive. Infact it had Justin thinking...an excuse to finally bring those bastards into Zackaroth's empire. Or at least a apart of it. He was sure he could sell somethings to Griffencrest to make sure there new friends kept out as Zackaroth grabbed a little piece of the pie.


All the High leader needed was an excuse...


OOC: BC check yours TGs if you could please.

Al-Azhar Mosque

Smoke rose from the University building where several mortar rounds had impacted. The dead Allaneans were now adding to the pile of the slaughtered locals. But the General had been content.

“Troops! They are coming! We have waited for this! To the walls! To the walls! For Mother Liberty!”

The minarets came alive. Where the muezzins had once given their prayers, snipers with heavy rifles were now sitting, taking shots at enemies that were over a kilometer away with bullets heavy enough to stop a charging rhinoceros.

“Here they come!”

The streets leading to the mosque began to fill up with people – hundreds of locals with rifles and RPG launchers, streaming towards the mosque. Already, anti-tank grenades started flying overhead, impacting into the thick walls.

Almost immediately, the walls came alive. Hidden behind the defensive battlements built by Al-Azhar's ancient architects, the Allanean riflemen were now taking aim. Dozens of machineguns had been set up on every wall – and now only a fraction of them was needed, pumping hundreds of rounds every second into the narrow streets. But the main weapon of the Allaneans was kept secret so far.

*

Indeed, the missiles were doing their work. One of the batteries had been hit multiple times, and several of the cannon were put out of commission. The Allaneans, aware painfully of these events, were now sending in reinforcements – four more armored divisions, brought in by Ouroboros cargo aircraft. But they wouldn't be here on time for this early show.

For the Egyptianntani Army was already coming bringing hundreds and thousands of troops. As it approached the river, firebases set up across the Nile came alive, firing hundreds of shells at the incoming troops. Dozens of Soulharverster attack helicopters took to the air. They engaged the enemy with missile fire from far beyond the horizon, hoping to destroy as many of the enemy APCs as possible before they could come in to engage.

The coordinates of the incoming enemy were also shared with the Blackhelm Air Force and Navy, along with requests to bomb as much as humanly possible. This was a golden opportunity – the enemy has come out into the open, the Allaneans stressed. It was time to shoot as many of them as possible before they scurried back into their rabbit holes.

Confederate Response to Comorostan

We would gladly welcome your forces into the Confederacy, and would appreciate if your vessels could assist in the blockade being enforced at the mouth of the Nile.


The ESF will be landing shortly.

Off the Coast
The word was passed down to the commanders. Flights of Dragon Fly helicopters and Beacon-class landing craft began ferrying troops and tanks onto the shore. Meanwhile, individual Skyhook light helicopter transports, adorned in Red Cross markings, began ferrying Comorostani SpecOps teams into the cities and countryside, to seek out targets of opportunity for cruise missile or carrier air strikes. The ESF land forces set up a series of fortress bases along the coast, most near or along the mouth of the Nile.

OOC-are we just using a map of RL Egypt?

OOC: It seems so. Please talk to me via AiM (MicroBalrog) or MSN (microbalrog@hotmail.com)

OOC-thanks

IC-
Aboard the Carrier Elegance
The ESF commander, General Allan Clarke, looked over a map of Egypttiansstan. The ESF was stretched out in a series of forts along the coast and on the banks of the upper Nile. There, supported by naval gunfire and cruise missiles and by carrier air strikes, they waited for further orders. As Clarke looked over the map, he planned out a long-term strategy. This deployment of the ESF to aid Blackhelm had not been incredibly popular back home. The Premier needed a low-casualty, significant victory to bolster support. And General Clarke saw just the right place to strike. Alexandria.

Alexandria
As General Clarke's offensive, Operation Desert Thunder, kicked off, Alexandria was subjected to daily airstrikes by Comorostani carrier- and now also land-based aircraft, targeting military structures and formations. Additional support was provided by cruise missile strikes and SpecOps teams. Two brigades, 6,000 men each, were directed to attack the city from opposite ends in a pincer movement. The idea was the pincers would link up and split the city in half, from there they could conquer it in pieces. Standard divide and conquer. The brigades were fully mechanized, the infantry traveling in MA-24 Mantis APCs, the artillery support provided by MG-27 Medusa SP 105mm guns. The best estimates predicated the city would be in Comorostani hands in a matter of weeks.

The Egypttianstanni Army troops moving towards New Cairo had prepared for heavy air strikes, and were equipped accordingly, bringing almost all of the SAM's they could with them for this strike. Hundreds of SA-6 and SA-8missiles screamed at every Confederate airstrike made, taking down several MiG's in the process. These same missiles would be fired at the Allanean helicopters once they got in range.

The airstrikes, however, were effective. Dozens of APC's now lay shattered in the sand, slowing down the speed of the Confederate advance considerably. The Egypttianstanni army had also lost several SCUD launchers, which were made a high priority by the Confederate government. Still, some of these survived, and returned fire at the Allanean and Confederate firebases.

In New Cairo, the mob once again scattered after taking heavy casualties, leaving the streets covered in bodies. Mortar fire, however, did not stop. Every hour, dozens of HE and frag rounds fell onto the fortified mosque. The militia had now hoped to run up an attrition rate that the Allaneans would not be able to sustain.

The soldiers from Comorostan had landed on the far end of Egypt, in an area still controlled by the Egypttianstanni forces. The local forces were quick to put a pair of C-701 in the air, flying towards the soldiers about to land on shore. Another front was about to be opened up, and the militia was not happy, and were prepared to do anything to prevent that.

OOC-my troops are already landed. The main advance is now heading towards Alexandria.

News out of Egyptianstan was now being followed not only by active Muslims, but by the Greek Orthodox and larger Greek-speaking population as well. Direct Allanean threats of invasion had done this much, and those who had previously limited themselves to the occasional expression of civilized disgust when the subject of Egyptianstan came up were now becoming more supportive of doing more to actively hamper Griffencrest and the Confederacy.

Sober minds among those who had donated clandestinely to the Egyptianstani cause were quite aware that, if the Confederacy and Allaneans were bent on wiping out the Egyptianstani resistance, there was ultimately little to be done to stop them. But popular opinion ran that every man had at least the right to die with a gun in his hand, and money spent to aid resistance to such tyranny, even if the resistance ultimately failed, was still money well spent. Every land mine or modern missile that entered the country was a small victory for righteousness.

OOC-my troops are already landed. The main advance is now heading towards Alexandria.

OOC: You gotta make a landing first my man. These are fired on your way in.

In the Mosque

“Get down into the basement! They can't get us in there!” - the General screamed as he directed his men to shelter. Then, he raised his radio to his ear. “We have incoming mortar fire! Requesting fire and air support!”

And indeed, support came. UAVs took to the skies – tiny machines, none bigger than half a meter in wingspan, too small for AA missiles. They turned their cameras to the ground – and when they noticed an enemy mortar site, an Allanean Nakil 1A3HA would spring into action, spinning its turret towards the enemy and launching a long-range barrel-launched ATGM at the precise location of the mortar. 275 tanks were positioned around the city, only a few kilometers outside the city limits. They were capable of targetting anything within New Cairo.

Elsewhere

The enemy attack was not efficient, but it was highly effectvie. Already six cannon batteries were down. But now, the Allaneans were starting to take the enemy a little bit more seriously. Hundreds of MLRS systems came alive, 'spamming' the advancing enemy forces with fuel-air explosives. From bases near Alabandaea, flights of strategic bombers were diverted. But until they came... the MLRS systems were the main defense.

OOC: You gotta make a landing first my man. These are fired on your way in.

OOC-I did, in the post after you gave me the green light to intervene. The main force is still coming in.

IC-The C-701s flew towards the incoming fleet, the escorting cruisers reacted. Four anti-missile missiles flew out towards the incoming missiles, while the Thermopylae CIWSs began firing. Meanwhile, the forces already on the ground continued their advance towards Alexandria.

The militiamen in the city adapted their tactics to accomodate the Allanean tank missiles, launching their mortar rounds and then quickly dispersing, dissapearing into the city.

Meanwhile, the MLRS attack coupled with the invasion around Alexandria forced the soldiers of the Egypttianstanni Army to retreat.

Around Alexandria, militia forces began laying dozens of IED's, and layed in wait for the army of Comorostan to appear.

As the Egyptiannstani Army was retreating, the Allanean tank divisions began to arrive at Confederate airfields. It would take some time for them to prepare for their assault as they made way to the city outstkirts. They would from lines covering the entire city perimeter, making escape impossible for any militants.

But in the meanwhile, the UAVs continued to hunt for enemy mortar crews. Every time a mortar was spotted, someone would fire at it – sometimes even as it was set up.

Comorostani News: Comorostani forces continue to push forward towards Alexandria, encountering little resistance. However, our forces have suffered some casualties. As of today, 13 soldiers have been killed and 23 wounded by Improvised Explosve Devices, or IEDs. However, General Allan Clarke, leading the Comorostani forces, has expressed the opinion that his forces will be in control of the city by the end of the month.

On the Ground
The IEDs were a nuisance, and in the beginning took several casualties. But as the advance continued, the troops developed tactics to combat them. Casualties dropped, but did not stop. Meanwhile, the air strikes and cruise missile bombardments on Alexandria continued. Meanwhile, Premier General Jones has begun to consider sending in additional troops.

The mortar attacks, although sporadic, were forced to slow down. The effectiveness of Allanean UAV reconaissance was taking its toll on the militia.

Confederate soldiers were preparing alongside their Allanean allies for the push into the city. A few of the men remembered when they first took the city years ago, to crowds of cheering civilians. Too bad it had to be so much different this time around.

Off the coast of Alexandria, missiles were being fired at the Comorostani vessels every few hours, hoping to at least damage the ships enforcing the blockade. Mortar rounds and Fajr missiles flew from the city towards the advancing army, but for the time being, not much could be done until the Comorostani's acually entered the militia's territory. Once they did, the militia leader in the city, Abu Al-Bagat, promised a battle for the history books, in which the forces of Allah would be triumphant over the infidels.

The missiles sent at the fleet weren't a major threat; Comorostani ships packed heavy on the anti-missile systems. The mortar rounds and missiles fired at the advancing forces, however, were slightly more of a threat. The advance slowed, but continued. In Alexandria itself, SpecOps teams continued their search for the militia leader. Once they found him, he would get a whole lot of munitions shoved up his ass.

In Comorostan, the ships carrying the 3rd Armored and 17th Mechanized Divisions left port, bound for Egypttiansstan. The new forces would be landed after Alexandria was secured. In the event that it wasn't secured, they would be used to capture the city.

Al-Bagat was not going to be easily captured. He moved constantly, and left traps behind everywhere he went. Ambushes lay around every corner for the special forces, and the invasion was not going to be easy.

Anti-tank weapons were set up all over the city, in alley ways, roof tops, everywhere they could be used. On top of that, RPK's and Kord's were positioned in windows all over the city, IED's were around every bend, and sniper posts were set up whereever a good hiding spot could be found. The Comorostani's were in for a fight.

Attention all people of New Cairo. You have 48 hours to leave the city. Use predesignated corridors. Leave on foot and unarmed. Any vehicles will be fired on. Leave the city on El Baragil Street or Ramses Road.

Sonic booms woke up the sleeping city as strategic bombers passed overhead, dispersing thousands and thousands of leaflets, in Arabic and English, accompanied with printed maps. Across the Allanean positions, the final preparations were made for the assault on the city.

But the leaflets were not th eonly thing that dropped out on the city. Sixty one-ton GPS-controlled bombs hit power distribution facilities, water treatment and sewage plants around New Cairo. At the temperatures that were common in Egyptianstan, this would soon make life in the city extremely uncomfortable[/i]

The thought process behind the leaflets was simple: the people of New Cairo could leave, even enemy militiamen could leave – but they would have to leave weapons behind. Even if they chose to hide rifles or submachine guns in their clothing or personal gear, they could not carry out mortars or anti-air munitions. If a man tried to bring out a truck or a donkey, the second he appeared within sight of the Allanean lines, heavy machineguns were aimed at his vehicle or beast of burden, tearing it apart at a thousand yards.

48 Hours Later

The attack began. Hundreds of Black Friday heavy artillery cannon, over 150 tons in weight, pointed their light 105mm barrels into the city, and started firing. In the first minute of a barrage, a cannon like that could fire 52 shells – and two hundred of them could fire over ten thousand shells at ten thousand predetermined positions – rebel outposts, suspected missile plants and so forth. The psychological effect – ten thousand munitions going off within a space of sixty seconds - would also be devastating.

“ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL! ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL! ASSAULT UPON ENEMY POSITIONS UPON PRE-ORDAINED AXIS OF ATTACK WILL SOON COMMENCE! ALL PERSONNEL, CONDITION BLACK! YOU ARE ALL NOW CONDITION BLACK!”

Thousands of people fled from New Cairo, many of them being members of the militia passing through with the crowds, planning to live on to fight the infidels another day, in another place. Still, however, many thousands of the militiamen stayed behind. IED's were all over, and if the build up in Alexandria was large, this would make that look like nothing. AT-14 Kornet's were set up, and thousands of RPK's, RPG's, and AK's were dispersed to the men all over the city. Cars all over were rigged with explosives, and booby traps of every kind were prepared to greet the coalition forces as the entered the city.

Meanwhile, Confederate High Command was fuming about the air strikes on the city. The Confederacy was hard pressed as it was, and rebuilding these things after New Cairo was captured was even more unneccessary funds that needed to be spent. This, on top of the allegations that artifacts were being taken, had made the Confederate military elite rather unhappy.

In the meanwhile, the Allaneans had no intent to go into the city – not yet, anyway. Tiny UAVs patrolled the skies, now unimpeded, scouting for enemy build-ups. When a target was noted, an MLRS launcher would immediately fire a guided missile at it, and if one wasn't available, a cannon could always drop a shell on it. In the meanwhile, a request was filed with the Confederate command for a map of the city, marked up with two areas – A and B. Area A would be the area of special value buidlings, like the Pyramids of Giza, area B was the area of the usual 'worthless huts' that the locals lived in. The Confederates were asked to mark up he two areas. The Allaneans had a plan which would preserve Area A from the devastation they would soon visit on Area B.

A message was sent to the Allaneans warning them against levelling the city along with the map. Widespread destruction of their own cities was not something which Confederates took kindly to.

With the constant Allanean bombardments, the militia was careful to hide their troops and plan their ambushes in total secrecy.

Official Allanean Response

We now recommend a strike along several lanes, as follows:

1.Allanean forces of the 22nd Patton Memorial Armored Division will enter the city along the Shari El-Geish, to link up with Allanean forces in Al-Azhar.

2.Allanean forces of the 116th Poul Anderson Division and the William Thompson Division, supported by chemical warfare, will seize Fort Mohammed Ali.

3.Blackhelmian forces of the Third Infantry Division will operate along the Shari El-Tahir, tasked with seizing the Botanic Gardens and University.

4.Following the execution of the above stages, the 406th Somali Armor Division of the Allanean Army will advance up the right bank of the river, with the aim of seizing Manyal palace. Blackhelmian forces and Allanean special operation troops will be simultaneously tasked with seizing the historical areas of Cairo.

5.Allanean forces, specifically the Rudolph Corbelli and Bernie White Divisions will advance down the Shari Ramses. Eventually they will link up with the other Allanean forces in the government district of the city.

6.After the Blackhelmians have seized the left bank and the Allaneans the right, we expect insurgents to have retreated to Gezira Island. We blow up the bridges and gas the island, winning this conflict and taking over the city.

7.We advise on the liberal use of chemical weapons in all government and historical districts. Therefore, all troops are to be equipped with NBC gear.

Please respond with necessary corrections to this plan.

Confederate High Command Corrections

We have a few small adjustments we feel must be necessary to ensure the operation flows smoothly.

1. We wish to insert Imperial Guard platoons in each of your divisions, to assist with the taking of the city and prevent further dissapearances of historical treasures.

2. Our use of VX nerve gas against these people is part of our doctrine of Bellum Levitas, so we should expect at least some of these people to be prepared. Of course, the vast majority of these people will be wiped out, however.

3. We would like for a Confederate division, the Ladismith District Mounted Troops, to be included in the push to Al-Azahr.

This is all.

Official Allanean Response:

1. Feel free to send in platoons to attack on any of our axis of attack. They will not be included in our chain of command due to logistical difficulties, but coordination will of course occur.

Let us prepare for action.

4 AM, D-Day

The wind was blowing to the East. This precisely had been part of the Allanean plan.

It is said that the human organism is weakest just before dawn. Feelings of depression and despair rise; guards become distracted. It is in the pre-dawn hours that most suicides occur; and it is in these hours that most patients die in hospitals. Thus, it is at this time that military offensives must be staged.

Two Arbiter bombers were the means of this particular offensive. The Blackhelmian troops were warned to put on gas gear in case the agentdrifted too far – and, upon the designated hour, the bombers passed over the ancient city. One of them was tasked with operating over the East half.

There, it opened its bomb bays, dropping out hundreds upon hundreds of simple, 240-kilogram bombs. As they plummeted towards the ground, the bombs exploded, spraying Eastern Cairo with thousands upon thousands of gleaming metal spheres – chemical weapon bomblets capable of distributing about a kilogram of sarin each. Between them, they spread 38.4 tons of the lethal gas over the Eastern City – more than enough to kill every man and rodent in the city six time over.

The other bomber had a different task. Its job was to eliminate the New Cairo Citadel as a threat to the Allanean military. That was accomplished simply – the citadel's bastions had been targeted by four heavy nine-ton bombs, designed to breach bunkers and hydroelectric dams. Two more bombs – heavy GBU-60 (http://z4.invisionfree.com/NSDraftroom/index.php?showtopic=2686) bombs – droppd out on what once were the poorest areas of the city, along one of the axes of the Allanean invasion. They rained out thousands of tungsten submunitions, peppering forces within a kilometer of the impact.

*

While the ground shook with explosions, back in the Allanean lines, troops began to pray. Some prayed to Jesus or Jahweh, but most prayed to less conventional gods -some to Asukhon, the Eight-fold Victor, and others to Asirnoth, the Dragon, some to Ranisath, the Messenger God, and others to Sirithil. Today they would engage an enemy superior in numbers upon his own soil – and, with the help of their gods, they expected victory.

As the Allanean attack was starting, the Confederates were also releasing gas into the city. Dozens of cannons were going off, sending canisters full of the deadly VX nerve gas, so common to most Confederate military operations, landing all over their section of the sprawling city.

Once again, the Allanean use of high explosives on the city caused a warning to be sent down from High Command. They really hated paying for the rebuilding. This time, it was a more mild one, however, as they knew it was a necessary assault.

The insurgents within the city were writhing in pain as many of them succumbed to the horrible gas attack. Many others, however, had prepared. The Confederacy was known for its use f gas on its enemies, and NBC suits were bought by the smarter militiamen. Still, however, of a force of almost 200,000 terrorists, only around 60,000 were still alive.

And finally, much like the Allaneans, the Confederates prayed. They, however, were no where near as diverse. Every man knelt, rosary in hand, moving from bead to bead as they mumbled their prayers.

As the Comorostani troops neared Alexandria, they took a page from the Confederate playbook. B-64 Zeus bombers dropped gas canisters and cluster bombs, while the Medusa artillery fired round after round. The troops were ordered in after four hours of nonstop air and artillery bombardment. They were given full leave to shoot anything that moved. The Comorostanis moved in behind tanks, which fired their main guns indiscriminately into the buildings. Troops were encouraged to expend munitions, not lives, and so for every strong point encountered, the troops called in air strikes and artillery. Off the coast, two of the Summit-class battleships provided additional fire support with their 9 16-inch guns.

Confederate High Command Warning to Comorostan

Watch your fire in Alexandria. We are here to reclaim these citites, not level him. We have told this to Allanea, and are now telling you. Collateral damage must be kept low. The Confederacy does not have the kind of funds to rebuild all of the destroyed buildings and repair the dameges done during this campaign. While we are not against the use of airstrikes, please be discriminate in your use of them, and use them only when clearing the building by other means would cause unnecessary casualties, or would be too difficult to accomplish for another reason.

Comorostani Response
We will exercise caution in our use of air strikes and artillery. However, we are trying to preserve lives. We will pay for any unnecessary collateral damage caused by our forces.
-General Clarke

West of New Cairo

A battalion of troops arranged themselves on one of the fighting positions. Unlike the other Allanean troops, they did not wear proper field camouflage. Rather, they favored black parade uniforms, with their shoes shined to a polish, and their bayonets fixed to their rifles already, as if preparing for an inspection. Standing before them was a man looking much younger than his age due to the anti-aging therapy that was commonplace in Allanea.

"Battalion! Atten-tion!"

He paced the length of the rows, looking into the faces of his men. Within several hours, many of them would be dead, and others would be locked in deadly combat against thousands of terrorist fanatics, prepared to die for their God.

"Battalion! You are the elite of Allanea's infantry! You are the Fieldmarshal's Own Personal Assault Battalion! You are sent here because the Fieldmarshal of Allanea, President Kazansky himself, wants you to take the Cairo Citadel. It is on that citadel that the defense of New Cairo depends. The citadel is likely to be fortified and protected by heavy forces. It is situated favorably, upon a tall hill and within the citadel there are multiple priceless relics, which prevents us from shelling it with our heaviest weaponry. Additionally, we need to capture it at least partly intact, so we can use it for fire support. These factors will make our mission… far more interesting. The insurgents, no doubt, are expecting victory in this battle. But they forgot one thing."

"The Fieldmarshal wants that hill! And we will take it for him! Are we clear?"

"YES, MAJOR STOSSEL, SIR!" – the battalion barked at once.

"INFANTRY!" – replied Willhelm Stossel – "TO! YOUR! VEHICLES!"

* *

"Fire! Marksman Jones, take the left one down! Marksman Smith, fire towards the breach!"

The Mohamad Ali Citadel was now in view. The walls were breached in several points where the nine-ton bombs had hit the building, but the citadel was still fighting. Fighting positions on the walls once meant to be held by archers and crossbowmen were now occupied by riflemen with AK rifles, and the high minarets now held snipers and machinegunners instead of muezzins. The Allaneans' black clothing served to conceal them upon the ground to some extent, but at the ranges of urban warfare, camouflage is almost completely useless.

Already now, several of the Battalion's IFVs were flaming wrecks, destroyed by RPG fire to their roofs. Troops, scattered along the landscape, pushed slowly towards the fortress walls.

The process was simple – one half of a squad advances a few meters, covered by their buddies' fire, and drops on the ground. Then, the second half. And again. But that was theory. In practice, every time the men rose from the ground, they lost someone – sometimes to rifle fire, sometimes to machiguns and rockets.

Stossel saw a detachment rise from the ground, taking a dangerous sprint towards the fortress walls – and immediately, one of the minarets came alive with fire. Three men fell to the ground, injured or dead.

He raised his rifle to the shoulder – a customized DRS-84 Designated Marksman Rifle, made in Liberty-City to Doomani blueprints. Through the scope, he saw the enemy machinegunner. The man was wearing a full-body NBC suit, rather than the traditional kefiya of local men. Willhelm pulled the trigger gently – and was rewarded by seeing a spectacular burst of blood erupt from the man's head.

"Gunners! Fire!"

Behind him, the automatic cannons on Allanea's infantry firing vehicle clattered, putting dozens of high explosive shells into the fort's firing slits. The shells were not powerful enough to bring the fort down – but woe be anybody on the other side of those slits.

"Nakil gunner! Ready aim! Fire at will!"

The unit's Nakil tanks aimed their light automatic cannon to the ancient minarets. The clatter became unbearable even to Stossel's protected ears as he saw black smoke rise from the tops of the historic minarets. There would be damage… but it could be repaired, and the firing would now stop – if only for a few seconds.

"FIELMARSHAL'S INFANTRY!" – screamed Stossel, slinging his rifle and baring his officer's saber. "Follow me! Into the breach! For the President! For Allanea!"

The Nakil tanks burst forward, followed by infantry.

In the fort, the terrorists scrambled to replace their fallen comrades in the positions – but by the time they would make it, the Allaneans would be upon them. The tanks were in the inner yard, their turrets spinning, firing high-explosive shells into the auxiliary buildings of the fortress.

The enemy's machineguns came alive once more, sweeping the Allaneans with heavy fire even as they approached the fortress. Dozens of men fell – but the Allaneans could not be stopped now. Thermobaric hand-grenades flew into windows and firing slits.

"Forward!" – Wilhelm slashed at a terrorist with his saber, slashing the man's hand off at the wrist. – "Forward!"

The noise was unbearable – the lone cracks of Allanean rifles, the bursts of insurgent weaponry, the constant racket of explosions. The Allaneans' Lyran vests could fend off a rifle round or even three of them – but they did not cover the entire body, and at this close range, a long burst from an assault rifle could prove devastating even if it didn't pierce the armor.


Next to Willhelm, an adjutant fell, hit by at least a dozen rounds. He turned, to see a terrorist reloading his rifle – he had clearly fired off all he had in a single, long burst. But the Major was quicker then him – his heavy pistol was out of its holster before the sickle-shaped AK magazine was in place, and the terrorist's head became half an ounce heavier before he could fire a shot.

Half an ounce of lead, of course.

Everywhere throughout the fortress it was the same. The terrorists enjoyed a defensive position – but the Fieldmarshal's Own were better trained and much better equipped, and the automatic cannon that supported them compensated for much of the superiority of position.

Still, the losses were incredible. A suicide bomber took out a detachment of men by jumping out on them from one of the second-story windows. Dozens of men died before they could even reach the fortress. And dozens more were already dead in the inner yards of the Citadel. Still, the building was going to fall.

"DEPLOY THE WARHOUNDS!" – the Major swung his arm. The IFV crews scrambled, opening the rear doors of their vehicles. Men emerged – and something almost as terrible as a man could be.

Enormous hounds, unlike any ordinary dogs.

Lyran Warhounds, bred for war and destruction for generations upon generations.

The terrorists let forth cries of anguish and fear as the giant dogs were upon them, crossing the distance between the vehicles and the fortress within mere seconds. They were powerful dogs, over a yard tall at the shoulder and weighing more than a grown men.

Stossel watched as an enormous Lyran hound crossed the yard, jumping towards one of the Jihadists. The man fired his rifle haphazardly, missing the warhound – and then the animal was upon him. Stossel could swear he had heard the man's right hand snap as the dog landed on it, toppling him on his back. Less than a second later, the hound had ripped the terrorist's throat out with one single, brutal motion.

The Jihadists broke ranks, and ran trying to retreat deeper into the fortress. This would be a smart move against Allanean soldiers – it would negate the Allaneans' ground support and force them to engage the enemy at close ranges where marksmanship mattered less and numbers mattered more. But against these fierce animals, it was suicidal. You do not fight an attack dog at close range, no matter what.

Stossel remembered belatedly that that many fundamentalist Muslims believed that a man bitten to death by a dog is denied entry to paradise. This, coupled with the sheer size of the hounds, might have explained the panic that the terrorists were now experiencing as they fled deeper and deeper into the Citadel, with the Allaneans and their four-legged allies fresh on their heels.

"Forward! No mercy! No survivors! "

* *

Shari El-Geish

A powerful explosion shook the column. The Allanean vehicles were protected and armored, of course – but there is very little you can do against a ten-ton IED. One of the Ironheart fighting vehicles was instantly torn apart by the explosion, and the detachment of infantry that were walking in behind it were instantly killed.

Before anybody could react, RPGs were fired from the roofs of nearby buildings, igniting multiple vehicles in the convoy. Most of the rockets were shot down by active defenses, but there were far too many to hold everything off.

"Battalion! Prepare for fire! Kill it all!"

In the front of the column, a 120 ton TR-29 heavy tank spun its turret. It had been hit by multiple RPG rounds, but the armor was far too heavy for the crew to even care. The massive 155mm tank cannon aimed itself at one of the apartment buildings from which fire was coming and fired. Twice.

The building folded like a house of cards.

"Fire! Fire!"

Another vehicle – a TR-29 Flamethrower – turned its turret around, sweeping a building with a stream of fine pumped thermite dust, flaming at several thousand degrees, melting concrete and vaporizing flesh.

"Allahu Aqbar!" – a young girl, no older than thirteen years old, burst into the street. Nobody even managed to react as the girl literally exploded. A stream of steel ball-bearings tore a hole in an infantry detachment.

"Holy mother of-"

It seemed the entire block had come alive with rifle fire. The Allaneans retaliated – the column was accompanied with MAD-U ( http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13553225&postcount=342) fire support vehicles – and what the crews of these vehicles could do was absolutely bloody spectacular.

Even main battle tanks had issues rivaling the sheer destruction that even one Rhino could put out. The column had three. Between them, they packed dozens of weapons. They swept the street with the fire of their gatling guns, wiped snipers off roofs with a hail of 30-millimeter grenades, and fired off dozens of 82mm grenade launchers at once, landing salvoes of high-explosive rounds on nearby streets. And it wasn't everything.

"Fire to the front!"

Several streaks of fire tore out of the Rhinos at once – thermobaric guided missiles, aimed at the cheap apartment buildings that seemed to hold the most rebels. Several terrible explosions tore through the basements of the houses, and the Allaneans watched with sadistical glee as three city blocks were turned into a pile of flaming ruins all at once

The insurgents were devastated. Out of five hundred ambushers, only maybe a hundred remained alive – and the battle had only lasted about thirty seconds. They tried to run – but the Allanean commander had no intent of letting them go.

"Armored Assault Battalion! Canister rounds! Fire at will!"

The tanks' main cannon blazed with fire. Now, they fired canister rounds – in effect, turning the 155mm rounds into enormous shotguns, pelting the retreating insurgents with thousands of steel ball bearings the size of a child's marble.

As the Allaneans advanced, the street before them was covered with the dead and the dying.

On Empires of evil
By Sasha Al’Aun


Perhaps I owe it to my ancestry, or perhaps I’m just a bit more curious than I’m supposed to be but I’ve always had a certain amount of interests for the happenings of the New Manthian state. An amalgam of old and new, anachronisms and half functional modern institutions, the blend of Greeks, Arabs and Atreans manages to drag itself along throughout the troubled times we live. I’ve already approached some of these subjects before, at the request of the readers and you all know my views on the subject, today however, I’m going to change the page, even if just for a bit.

Keeping up to date is a duty for any journalist, from the writers of a gazette in a small isolated hamlet in the Oron Mountains to the influential reporters of the The Orator. It’s something I try not to neglect either by consulting the various news agencies that deliver us the latest data, Newsgroups, or just by browsing the internet, I admit, a less reliable source, but often a bountiful fountain of amusement, both for me and the rest of the team.

A few months ago, as I was reading various articles and comments made by other reporters I ran across a declaration made by the Manthian government regarding the Griffincest Corporation. There wasn’t a lot of fuss made regarding it, after all the stance of our own nation regarding the Corporation and its oil hungry ways being well known, but it did generate some waves in the media in relation to further actions undertook by the Denomination, such as the firm action took against the Strator slavers, ‘officially’ ignored by the Principality, yet presumed cause for the sudden disappearance of various DNF transport vessels from their harbours. This signals perhaps a shift in the Denomination’s policies, one more in line with its allies than the previous political lines previously furthered by the Manthians and all was well that is, until recently.

The embargo imposed by the Denomination and its firm attitude regarding Griffincest (and as an unavoidable result the Blackhelm Confederacy,) didn’t change much in the way of life for the average Manthian, the claims of the Corporate Alliance regarding a monopoly on the oil market lacking any real substance whilst many other alternatives are present to the oil provided by Griffincest, such as the cheap oil provided by the Stevidians or the quickly expanding Halakian Oil Corporation to mention just a few without going into the alternative power sources provided by Damiran or Animarnian Corporations. So all in all the statement and its aftermath shouldn’t matter, right? Even the threats towards the Griffincest shipments seem rather unfounded since it would mean for the Denomination’s ships to go out of their way to hunt GC tankers or any other shipments of the corporation. Yet, there are some that don’t regard things that way…

The recent hostilities between the Blackhelm Confederacy and a minor Muslim nation caused a new set of diplomatic messages from the Denomination, reaffirming previous statements and stances regarding both Griffincest and Blackhelm but this stance is contested, surprisingly not by the Confederacy, mostly silent on the matter, but by the Allaneans!? The statements of the Allaneans came as a surprise, the wounds of the war between them and the Confederacy still fresh, but the content of said statements is enough to make one wonder. I wondered before, not only once, about the seemingly pervasive state of confusion in which the Allanean leadership finds itself and yet again they don’t disappoint in this regard. One has only to look at the facts to understand this.

In their statements, the Allaneans claim ‘change’ in Blackhelm and Griffincest, the virtues of free market and other such wondrous words. Unfortunately, it’s easy to say such words, but easier still to see the fact that they are without meaning. Just checking on the fact that Griffincest is still a member of the Corporate Alliance, a group known for its barbaric approach in business and disregard for humans and life in general is enough to tell us what we need. Did Griffincest make reparations towards the nations whose oil it plunders? That didn’t happen, those oil wells are still up and about, a constant reminder of the blood soaked money in the coffers of the Griffincest Corporation unless one would be naïve enough to miss the dots about how Griffincest operates. And yet the Allaneans defend this!

Why? Why would a nation that until recently was at war with them now acts as if the lives lost mean nothing? Putting aside illusions about free market, freedom and nobility of thought and action the answer can be simple indeed. A piece of the pie. Profits. Power.

In the end, I can understand the Allanean attitude. Greed and power can be good motivators. Very good motivators indeed.

The above article does not represent the views of this newspaper. All responsibility belongs to the author.

As the Allanean military went into the city, the Confederate military priest said one last prayer over the loudspeakers throughout the camp, and then they too stormed into their part of the city. IED's, machine gun fire, RPG's, weapons of every sort were being brought to bear on the men from the second they entered the city, but nothing was going to stop the Confederate charge.

The Confederate military was well acclimated to the style of fighting they were now experiencing in New Cairo, and it was showing well in the fierce street to street now enveloping the city. The Third Division was one of the best in the Conferate army, and between them and the Allaneans, the militiamen were totally outclassed. Still, the insurgents continued to ramp up the rate of fire with every street the Confederates claimed, and men fell every minute, some mortally wounded, others not. Prisoners were not going to be accepted here. Most of these soldiers were one hundred percent for the Sacrament Law, and had already hated the Muslims, watching them cut down their comrades only increased this anger. This was the bloodiest battle of the campaign so far, and many hoped that this would end the fighting in Egypttiansstan once the city was taken.

XM-1 battle tanks, bought years ago from the nation of Pythogria, still showed their value as their main guns shattered the poorly built tenements that many of the insurgents were using as firebases, and the APC's and helicopters overhead raked the roofs and windows clean of the militia. Still, however, several tanks were destroyed, mostly by the massive IED's hidden around every bend. Two helicopters were also taken down by RPG fire, and a third was downed by AK fire and smashed into the river, drowning the crew. These losses, however, were all acceptable to High Command. They could lose many more helicopters, as long as New Cairo was seized.

The Ladismith District Mounted Rifles, fighting their way with the Allaneans through the city to the mosque, were experiencing heavy casualties. The militamen in this area had prepared well for an attempt to link up with the men in the mosque, and the roadblocks, IED's, and interlocking fields of machine gun and rocket fire were taking their toll on the men of the Mounted Rifle division. Fajr rockets were also beginning to make their appearances known in the conflict, pouring off of trucks into the mosque and onto groups of soldiers exposed in open intersections or in the now abandoned marketplaces. The Imperial Guard troops embedded with the Allaneans, some of the Confederacy's finest soldiers, were also taking casualties, but they were giving back far more punishment than they were taking. These were the elite of the military and had trained hard for years for battle, and were not going to be pushed out of the fight by these rag tag Islamist militias.

In Alexandria, the battle had finally arrived. As Comorostani troops entered the city, it would initially seem to be abandoned. Noone walked the streets, no gunfire was heard, nothing. That was all over, however, when the lead vehicle was passed by a well hidden IED. The explosion would signal hundreds of fighters to spring from their hiding places on rooftops and in windows and ally ways all along the entry routes of the Comorostanis. In seconds, hundreds of bullets and dozens of rockets and RPG's would come smashing down onto the column. As this happened, thousands of other men began streaming towards the area of the invasion. The rear vehicles of every column were targetted specifically, so the enemy would be trapped on the streets, and the militiamen would hope to annhilate the men as they scurried for cover. A great victory would be had for Allah today.

The Egypttiansstani army was also beginning to regroup, to launch an attack on the forces laying seige on the two cities. SCUD's were being prepared, and dozens of the SAM launchers were positioned around them to attempt to protect the installations from an enemy air strike. Other groups of the army merely dressed as citizens, and got as close as they could get to New Cairo before they would open up their trucks and pour out their Katyusha rockets. They hoped to soften up the besieging soldiers enough to allow men in the city to force a break out. To assist the breakout, army units left behind in New Cairo began to throw everything they had at the forces in the northern part of the city. They hoped to squeeze the infidels enough to force them to break, and that would allow them to stream out of the city with some of their heaviest equipment.

Confederate High Command Message to all Parties

Remember, these are all cities of great importance to the Blackhelm Confederacy. They both serve as hubs of tourism, which brings vast sums of money onto the coffers of our nation, and they also house countless pieces of history which would be a great tragedy if lost. We ask all involved once more to use caution as they take the cities, as a loss of these treasures would have a very negative impact on our people.

Air and fire support

The Allaneans now had 200 of their infamous robotic helicopters surrounding the city, and they used them to incredible effect. Where the IAF could have brought down no more than ninety attack helicopters during Operation Cast Lead, the Allaneans had over double that number.

The Allanean helicopters flew missions day and night, raining down dozens of guided anti-tank missiles at anything that moved within the city. The moment any truck engine was revved up it was detected by long-range FLIR or UAVs, and a pair of heatseeking missiles were fired at it. Any vehicle moving within the city was presumed a terrorist vehicle and would be destroyed upon detection.

Moreover, New Cairo was spread out over a comparatively small area – there was not a spot in the city that was out of range for detection or fire – even by helicopters hovering outside the city limits. With quality Doomani missiles, the Allaneans could snipe at absolutely any terrorist, any time – and they didn't even have to expose themselves to the enemy's flak guns.

The Allaneans' Gertantel 155mm cannon were on the job, too – firing their shells from far beyond the range of the enemy's Fajr missiles to suppress any battery detected by their tiny spy UAVs, and then relocating after several shots – which was done by simply revving up the engine and moving the self-propelled cannon a few hundred meters. Six hundred Gertantel cannon were parked around the city, pounding any rebel position the Blackhelmians wanted pounded with simple, HE shells. It was thought that these would reduce collateral damage – as compared to blanketing a neighborhood with submunitions, that is.

At the Mosque

A terrible explosion shook the grounds of the Al-Azhar University, and then two more in the space of several seconds as three Fajr rockets impacted within the compound, collapsing several auxiliary buildings. Several dozen men were instantly killed as the enemy's artillery began to take its toll.

"Fucking unbelievable! Lieutenant Kowalski! Do we have counterbattery data on these three?"

"Yes, sir!" – replied a young artilleryman, even as his men typed the estimated location of the launchers into the targeting computers of his two Libertycannon.

"Well, what are you waiting for, then?"

"They are being –"

The two cannon roared – once, twice, thrice. Within fifteen seconds, the position on the enemy Fajr launcher shook with six powerful explosions – and then the city really began to shake.

General Magnusson ran to one of the minarets to get a better view – and even he was amazed.

From the Ctadel, dozens of fiery streaks unraveled towards the city. Major Willhelm
Stossel had served the Fieldmarshal of Allanea well – he had put ATGM crews on the walls of the citadel and the very minarets of the mosques within. The battalion's Nakils were parked on the controlling slope near and behind the Citadel dozens of other tanks were now arriving to park on the slope behind it, too. A small Fort several hundred meters to the East was also rapidly taken – and now Major Stossel was opening the gates of hell itself.

Fifty tanks were now parked upon the slope, and they were no longer using their expensive barrel-launched missiles. Now, they were firing a veritable rain of HE munitions – 500 rounds every minute – all focused on the short length of street between the vanguard of the Allaneans and Confederates and the beleaguered mosque. ATGM gunners were giving support to other Confederate units.

"Yes, Will, you bastard, YESSS!!!" – screamed the general as he saw dozens of buildings swept away within mere seconds as the Allanean tankers simply fed round after round into their enormous 140mm main cannon – "Give it to them!"

But he wouldn't be a general if he weren't able to still give orders. He turned to his men. "Gentlemen, we have a library of several million ancient scrolls here. It is our job to protect it, even if it will end up in our allies' hands and not ours. Divert some troops to bring the scrolls into the lowest levels possible, make sure they do not get destroyed by the bombardment. And radio Stossel and tell him I owe him a beer."

Shari El-Geish

Suddenly, the very name "Shari El-Geish" became meaningless, as a hail of tank rounds swept away the buildings on both sides of the street. Within four minutes the Nakil gunners on the slope had completely run themselves out of ammunition and began to pull out, to be replaced by other tanks – but within that time frame, everything before the Division's front was destroyed – houses, storefronts, roadblocks and sniper windows alike.

The men of the 22nd Patton Memorial Division knew what this meant – it was time to charge.

The heavy tanks moved ahead at full speed, bridging the one-mile gap between them and the Mosque in just three minutes of driving.

For a moment, it seemed that the general's command tank was about to crash into the mosque gate.

Then the tank spun its enormous main cannon to the rear and in fact did crash into the gate, shattering it with a triumphant roar to the cheering of the Allaneans within and braking to a halt in the historic yard, leaving a set of track marks on the blue marble.

The commander's cupola popped open, and a grinning Allanean officer appear.

"I heard that broadcast, Morgan. I do believe that I owe Will a beer, too. A case."

Confederate High Command Message to Allanea

You are as of now being charged for the buildings destroyed along the Shari El-Geish. We have repeatedly warned against the liberal use of weapons to avoid collateral damage such as that which has just been caused. Any more, and further action will be necessary.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The men of the Mounted Rifle division stumbled into the mosque, dirty and bloody, a good number with dead or wounded comrades slung over their shoulders. As they entered the compound, a feeling of relief swept over the group. They were safe now. Before long, their commander, Major General Marcus Baker, set out to look for the Allanean in charge. The rest of the men looked for some water, and would then go to their positions alongside the Allaneans on the walls.

In the rest of the city, the Confederate forces were starting to take real control. The enemy was pulling back every minute. A Confederate soldier climbed to the top of the former Egypttiansstanni ministry of foreign affairs building, the largest structure in the city, and hoisted up a massive Confederate flag. The Green cross and red dragon would be seen by everyone in the city, and Confederate forces eerywhere let out a cheer when they saw it. It would not be long before the city was in Confederate hands.

In Alexandria, the battle had finally arrived. As Comorostani troops entered the city, it would initially seem to be abandoned. Noone walked the streets, no gunfire was heard, nothing. That was all over, however, when the lead vehicle was passed by a well hidden IED. The explosion would signal hundreds of fighters to spring from their hiding places on rooftops and in windows and ally ways all along the entry routes of the Comorostanis. In seconds, hundreds of bullets and dozens of rockets and RPG's would come smashing down onto the column. As this happened, thousands of other men began streaming towards the area of the invasion. The rear vehicles of every column were targetted specifically, so the enemy would be trapped on the streets, and the militiamen would hope to annhilate the men as they scurried for cover. A great victory would be had for Allah today.


The first vehicle to enter Alexandria was a MA12 Striker tank. The IED tore off its tracks. The Comorostanis went into ambush mode, spreading out and reading their AIWs (Advanced Infantry Weapons). When the attacks began, the troops rushed the buildings where the enemy stood. They shot open doors, and killed anyone in the building. The armored vehicles provided covering fire for the infantry. The battle was fully joined by the end of the day. Comorostani snipers were having a field day picking off insurgents, and in some areas it was a case of target overload.

Official Response of the Allanean Command

We have an opposing suggestion:

We suggest that after the fighting is done, we raze all the non-historical buildings in the city (i.e. the locals homes) and rebuild the city according to a new plan, with joint Allanean and Confederate funding, provided from both private and public sources.

The plan will be worked out by the Allanean Department of Research , Evolution, and Developement with the following goals in mind:

1.Gentrification of the locals and introduction of new social structures reducing the chance of future rebellion.

2.City planning conducive to better riot and terrorr suppression.

3.Encouragement of a consumerist lifestyle, especially motor vehicle use and oil consumption, thus increasing both the quality of life of the locals (see also paragraph 1).

4.Introduction of a non-local population and investment.

5.Encouragement of private property in land and homes.

This also means we can blast everything all to hell right now that is not actually valuable.

Confederate High Command

We must turn down your suggestion due to Senate opposition.

By the end of the week, the Comorostanis had made sizable gains in Alexandria on both fronts. Caution was exercised in the use of airstrikes, but sometimes it couldn't be helped. Not that it mattered, as Comorostan was paying for it all.

OOC-this is Comorostan. Old account stopped working. Will still be posting as Comorostan.

The back of the enemy was now broken. With that in mind, hundreds of tankers from the Somali Armor Division started making way up the right bank of the Nile river. The tankers, protected by the thick hermetic hulls of their tanks and sets of gas masks, had no compunction to use their 20mm automatic cannon and sets of heavy machineguns to fend off grenadier teams or put down rocket emplacements. Their onboard mortars smashed up Fajr launchers even a few blocks away – and the escorting infantry fought to enter hotel buildings.

This would be the site of the most ferocious fighting – door to door, room to room. Knives, swords, bayonets and even nunchuks were utilized by the Allanean assault teams along with the more conventional rifles and machineguns. At these ranges, the superior firepower of thE Allaneans was of limited help – and several hundred men died as the tank division pushed slowly forward.

But it was not all in vein.

As the high-rise towers got taken over, they would immediately used – by snipers, machinegun crews, and designated marksmen – to lay down fire into the anciet city itself. All the way out to the horizon, snipers targeted any person walking the streets of New Cairo who wasn't an Allanean or a Blackhelmian.


Most especially, they paid attention to men on the Shari Ramses.

*

The forces going down the once-luxurious Shari Ramses was enormous in strength. Two divisions of Allanean infantry descended down the wide avenue and the streets next to it. They were numerous, and they had support from artillery and MLRS system. All in front of them, the city burned. They cleansed, purged, and destroyed anybody who dared oppose them.

The whole point of guerilla warfare was to use superior numbers and surprise to strike the communications and support lines of the enemy, avoiding open combat.

But now, the Allaneans had outwitted the enemy – eliminating vast masses of terrorists with chemical bombardment and reducing their numbers to about 60,000 men – whom they then engaged in open combat with a mass of superior troops, with better training and weapons, outnumbering them and supported by constant artillery and air barrages.

The result was devastating. On every axis of attack, the Allaneans were pushing forward, pushing the enemy before them to Gezira Island.

With the city surrounded, Comorostani troops advanced down every avenue. The city was ablaze with conflict as the Comorostanis battled insurgents house-to-house. Armored vehicles took on a secondary role as infantry assumed the brunt of the fighting. Total Comorostan casualties were now around 190.

Confederate forces were now racked by casualties as they pushed through the city. The men with the Allaneans were taking serious losses to manpower as they began fighting room to room, but the Imperial Guard was an effective force and was well suited to this fighting too.

Many of the rooms were rigged with several booby traps, and suicide attacks began to ramp up dramatically as the Islamists began to realize that the end was near. Almost everything was starting to explode all over the city. Mail boxes, parked cars, garbage cans, all were being converted into weapons. The worst loss of all for the Confederacy was two whole squads were killed when they were clearing a hotel, which the militia had rigged to explode. The structure collapsed, killing the men inside.

In Alexandria, the militia's were fighting with zeal unseen elsewhere in the campaign. Many of the men here were Egypttiansstanni Army soldiers, organizing their men into militia like groups of men. SCUD missiles were also beginning to arrive on Comorostanni camps, as the Egypttiansstanni Army began to make its way back north to crush the infidels there, and hopefully send a message to the rest of the world to stay out of the country.

In the mosque, Mj. Gen. Baker was still looking for the Allanean in charge. Meanwhile, his men began to mingle with the Allanean soldiers on duty there.

"Ah, General Baker!" – Brigadier-General Magnusson exclaimed, descending finally from one of the minarets. – "I see that you are safe. This is good. I have ordered the papers and manuscripts evacuated into the basements below us – but as soon as possible your men should start rounding everything valuable up and removing it from the city. It's just not safe enough for something that valuable."

*

By now, Allanean flags were waving from the building of the Sultan Hasan Mosque and the Ibn Tulun Mosque. The minarets were manned by snipers, their 20mm rifles sowing death on both sides of the river.

The Cairo Central Station has been taken by armor. Nakil tankers fired few canister shells into the station building, slaughtering the defenders, and then the station was flooded with sarin gas and taken by infantry. Over a hundred men died during the assault and two Nakil tanks were lost to missile fire from the roof – but such was life.

Slowly, the steel ring around the militiamen.

The Allaneans and their allies continued to push forward unto the bridges, into Gezira Island.

"That's what I'm here for General Magnusson!" Baker shouted as the Allanean descended the minaret. "As soon as the trucks get here, we will start bringing them out. How did your men fare during the fight eh? I hope casualties weren't to heavy on your part."

Confederate flags flew all along their side of the river. Now, the survivors of the milita gathered all that they had onto the island in the middle of the Nile. The last stand for the New Cairo militia was about to go down.

The Allaneans sent out a simple response to their Blackhelmian counterparts.

We have two options from here. Either blast the island flat or starve them out, we don't care either way. However, whatever we choose, we should blow up the bridges so they really can't leave. Once you give us the all-clear, we'll do that.

We seriously recommend just blowing up every house on the island, paving it, and building a hotel resort. But that's just us.

OOC: This Gezira Island does not have the opera house or sport club.

Response From Imperial Guard Commander Marcellus Ravenclaw

Fuck High Command, I'll take the heat from them. Level the place.

New Cairo, 12:00 Local Time

That was the only thing that the Allaneans had been waiting for. Now, as the permission has been given, the Allanean officers prepared for their last artillery barrage. It began with several UCAVs passing overhead, dropping 500-kilogram bombs onto the bridges that linked Gezira Island.

Naturally, this firepower has not been enough to totally destroy the bridges – but several bridge spans had fallen into the river. Now the insurgents could not leave.

And, at 12:02 precisely, the same order started echoing across the turrets of dozens of Black Friday vehicles.

“BATTERY! FIRE AT WILL!”

Two hundred combat vehicles turned their weaponry towards the island and fired – a long, howling barrage. 52 rounds per minute. Two and a half minutes. Then, the ammunition aboard the 150-ton self-propelled cannon ran out, and the barrels had to be replaced – but within these short two and a half minutes, a storm of 26,000 shells had swept over the tiny island.

And even as the response crews climbed towards the smoking-hot barrels of Fridays, a new weapon was brought to bear – Manticore rocket launch systems, embedded with the Allanean tank and infantry division. They held their fire throughout most of the battle, fearing friendly fire incidents or excessive damage – but now, they unleashed their wrath in a single salvo the likes of which the guerillas on Gezira had probably never seen – and certainly never would again. Twenty-four thousand rockets arced towards the tiny island, splitting up into hundreds of thousand of thermobaric submunitions, flattening houses as if they were made of cardboard and igniting the flesh of those within.

By 12:05 Gezira Island looked like a sheet of flame – and it was then that the Allanens added gasoline to the fire. Or, rather, high-explosives. The Gertantel 155mm cannon – another weapon that remained almost silent throughout the duration of the fight – fired all they had now. Within ten minutes, they fired 48 shells each – making 28,800 rounds, and the supporting Libertycannon and TR29 Alpha tanks helped round that up to a nice 30,000. Nakil tanks fired their main cannon haphazardly into the ruins as well, contributing about a third of that amount.

In total, in th first fifteen minutes of the carefully-timed bombardment, the island has been hit with 100,000 artillery shells – and then, to add insult to injury, the five Allanean strategic bombers flew over the island, dropping out 25 of their GBU-60 Big Brother bombs onto the island, HMX explosions blowing gigantic craters where neigborhoods once stood.

Such was the end of the Battle for New Cairo.

The island was shattered, and the people in High Command were infuriated. Commander Ravenclaw was ordered to be recalled back to Paradise City, which he protested, and the Allaneans were begininng to be viewed with hostility. Ravenclaw would not leave the city, and demanded that his superiors understand what had happened. In order to force his removal, as well as speak with the Allaneans, General Marcus Blueshield made his way to the combat zone.

Meanwhile, Confederate fores celebrated in the newly captured New Cairo. Losses were heavy, but the taste of victory was sweet. Massive Confederate flags hung from windows and waved from rooftops all over the city, as happy Confederate soldiers began to break out the champagne.

The fight was not over for the entire province, however. Alexandria was still fighting hard, and Port Said was still in Islamist hands, with a heavy Army presence in the area. That was all the way across the province, in militia territory.

The Allaneans in the meanwhile rested, fixed their weaponry and replenished their ammunition.

And in the meanwhile, the Allanean government sent out an offer to the Blackhelmians. Under that offer, the Allaneans would provide the Blackhelmian government with 30 billion dollars' worth of weapons to continue combatting the insurgency, and match it with support for rebuilding New Cairo. If the Confederate government was willing to continue its commitment to improving the human rights situation in Blackhelm in general, CSS membership and large-scale humanitarian aid from the alliance was not far off.

In Alexandria, the militia's were fighting with zeal unseen elsewhere in the campaign. Many of the men here were Egypttiansstanni Army soldiers, organizing their men into militia like groups of men. SCUD missiles were also beginning to arrive on Comorostani camps, as the Egypttiansstanni Army began to make its way back north to crush the infidels there, and hopefully send a message to the rest of the world to stay out of the country.


OOC-sorry, forgot about this thread. This post is the Comorostani response, even thought that account died. Possibly will post Telviran response.

IC-The Comorostani soldiers were the best of the best. They had battled, and conquered, Hijim insurgents, communist rebellions, fascist invasions, and had been at the forefront of every Comorostani military campaign. The Egypttiansstanni militias were some of the best they had faced. Which simply meant the Comorostanis had more trouble killing them. As the fighting in Alexandria shifted to infantry-centric, the Comorostani air units (see ORBAT) shifted to pounding the advancing Egypttiansstanni Army. The support of the soldiers in Alexandria became the task of warships and ground artillery.

OOC: You can always resurrect your nation, you know.

IC:

In the meanwhile, the Allanean Cruiser Strike Squadrons began to arrive in the Mediterranean. Their arrival was not denoted by fanfare – but as soon as they entered range, it was denoted with Tomahawks salvoes. The slow, massive cruise missiles impacted in Alexandria and Port-Said, targetting terrorist bases and ammo dumps.

The Egyptiannstani wanted a holy war? The Allaneans would give them one.

Port Said was being heavily fortified by the Egypttiansstanni soldiers. NBC suits were being distributed to thousands of militiamen, roads leading up to the city were loaded with IED's and ambush points, missiles were set up everywhere, and every window was a sniper nest, every roof top and alleyway an RPG site.

Hidden silkworm sites were positioned along the shore, waiting eagerly for any of the ships to get within their range. Dozens of the missiles would be fired at a single ship, with the hope that a lost naval vessel might force the recall of foreign forces.

In Alexandria, the rebels continued to fight with even more determination than before. News of terror attacks around the world had given the Islamists hope that foreign mujahadeen would come to their aid, and with every lost city block, he men fought even harder. They swore to hold on to the city, whatever the cost.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and rebels began preparing for the final stand, where they would fight, and many would likely die, doing the will of Allah.

The Allaneans had no intention of coming into range of any kind of enemy shore weaponry. They remained in the Western Mediterranean, firing Tomahawk missiles – ranging 2,200 kilometers to the Silkworm's 95 kilometers of range – at suspected terrorist bases.

In the meanwhile, Allanean Arbiter-II strategic bombers flew over Port-Said, dispensing thousands of Arabic-language leaflets. They said, simply:

Warriors of Allah! Egypttiansstanni civilians!

We the Allaneans do not wish you harm. Lay down your arms and leave the city, on foot, and you will be provided food and medical care at any Allanean Army checkpoint. Any combatant who wishes to stop the insanity and become a peaceful citizen again can surrender to the Allaneans, and will be provided free passage to any country of his choice and $5,000 in cash. Anybody providing information on the location of a major rebel leader will be given $50,000 in cash.

As soon as the war ends, we the Allaneans will assist our friends the Blackhelmians in rebuilding your province, building roads, hospitals, and power stations for the entire country, as well as schools and colleges. Prosperity will be again within your grasp.

In the meanwhile, we suggest that you evacuate from the city, on foot, within the next 72 hours. We guarantee that those who do so will not be harmed.

OOC:as per the request from blackhelm in the Jihad thread

From President Andrew Hundley
To All Countries participating in this Attack

I will have a Division of Marines, containg 23,458 men, 1,543 MBTs, 1,786 IFVs and APCs, 234 Cannons, 34 MLRS Units, 210 Attack Choppers, 438 Transport Helos, plus naval support from 2 Carrier Battle Groups, the 7th and 8th, with the Supercarriers USS Mancuso and USS Edmund Burke JR, along with 3 AEGIS class Cruisers, 23 AEGIS Destroyers, and 32 Frigates availiable for the attack on Port Said, with 3 other divisions in reserve if they are needed

High Command Message to Pennsylvanian Forces

We request that your forces begin security duties in the Sohag Governorate. Hopefully your forces can arrive quickly, to quell any possible uprising in the area. Feel free to establish your own base in the region. It is home to roughly eight million people. Good luck friends.

High Command Message to Pennsylvanian Forces

We request that your forces begin security duties in the Sohag Governorate. Hopefully your forces can arrive quickly, to quell any possible uprising in the area. Feel free to establish your own base in the region. It is home to roughly eight million people. Good luck friends.


As of right now the Amphibious Warfare Ships carrying the Divison are 80 miles off the northern coast, we will move them south to the proper area, troops will be there in a week to a week and a half, depending on weather and possible Egypttistani opposition

Some of the people of Port Said began to leave, and many went to the Allaneans with information. The information, for the most part, contradicted itself or pointed towards innocent people as militia leaders and army commanders.

Within the city, preparations were being made for the coming battle. Tanks were hidden in under ground parking garages, and the army, alongside the militia, set up for their final battle.

Those men who left were not touched -even if they were militia commanders, and they were indeed given money. The Allaneans made the calculations, and it seemed it was cheaper to bribe people than to fire shells at them – and in the meanwhile, work had already commenced to rebuild New Cairo, with Allanean money. Three hospitals were being built, as well as fresh bridges to the Gezira ridges.

In the meanwhile, the Allaneans fed the new data into a computerized database. Reports from dozens of people were collated into a single system, that proceeded to sort out the names of suspect terrorist commanders and the locations of terrorist bases. Every report on a terrorist base that had been confirmed by at least three separate witnesses had been put on a map. UAV reconnaissance was used to further confirm the news. Within a week, the Allanean Army had a map of several dozen confirmed terrorist bases, and with every day, new locations were being added to the map.

Naturally, the locals were not told how their reports would be treated. The existence of the database was a secret to everybody, with only its product – an interactive FireTux map of the most likely terrorist bases marked out as red blips – available to Allanean and Allied commanders.

As a Pennsylvanian ReconSat flew over Port Said, it took many hundreds of Thermal images, providing locations on 56 MBTs, 142 APCs or IFVs, 34 Artillery pieces, 343 possible mortar pits, 32 Silkworm Launchers, plus at least 34 fighters at the Airport nearby, this information was immediately fed to Confederate and Allanean Commander, along with the Estimated enemy strength, around 167,000 men, just from the bulge from Pre-War census, estimated Refugees having left, that was just the bulge, it was possible as many as 450,000 Militia and Soldiers were in the city, prepared to fight to the death.

Port-Said

The Allaneans reacted swiftly to the data that their allies had given them. Six batteries of Manticore MLRS systems had been tasked to fire upon Port-Said International Airport, covering the location with hundreds upon hundreds of fuel-air-explosive submunitions. Then, to make certain nothing got off the ground, Libertycannon commenced pounding the Airport's air traffic control towers with shells.

In the meanwhile, self-propelled cannon moved into position, covering an enemy mortar pit each. Their mission was simple – fire two shells at the mortar pit, and then relocate immediately. By the time the smoke cleared, the cannon would already leave, avoiding counterbattery RADAR.

This was only the start, of course.

Six hours later, Arbiter strategic bombers passed over the city again, dropping the same “Big Brother” bombs they had previously used on the Silkworm launch sites. One bomb per launch site was expected to suffice – especially given the fact that everybody within a kilometer of the drop zone was in range of the bomb's deadly fragmentation submunitions.

Port-Said

The Allaneans reacted swiftly to the data that their allies had given them. Six batteries of Manticore MLRS systems had been tasked to fire upon Port-Said International Airport, covering the location with hundreds upon hundreds of fuel-air-explosive submunitions. Then, to make certain nothing got off the ground, Libertycannon commenced pounding the Airport's air traffic control towers with shells.

In the meanwhile, self-propelled cannon moved into position, covering an enemy mortar pit each. Their mission was simple – fire two shells at the mortar pit, and then relocate immediately. By the time the smoke cleared, the cannon would already leave, avoiding counterbattery RADAR.

This was only the start, of course.

Six hours later, Arbiter strategic bombers passed over the city again, dropping the same “Big Brother” bombs they had previously used on the Silkworm launch sites. One bomb per launch site was expected to suffice – especially given the fact that everybody within a kilometer of the drop zone was in range of the bomb's deadly fragmentation submunitions.






Also, the ReconSat that passed over Port Said had some problems in transmitting some photos, so there may be many more Mortar pits, Fighters, Silkworms, and Armored Vehicles within the city, plus many more men, though it is not known due to the Sats malfunction

Also, My Goverment is requesting Permission to land the 2nd Marine Division and 8th Mechanized Infrantry 110 klicks west, and move east, to link up with Allied forces pushing on the city

OOC: Can you um...stop RPing as the militia?. Thanks. None of those numbers are accurate, at all.

With everyone's attention on Port Said, the men and tanks of the Comorostani Expeditionary Strike Force launched their end-all offensive. Everything they had was thrown at the insurgents. The ROE permitted full use of firepower in unimportant areas. And now over half the shells getting thrown were gas.

OOC: Can you um...stop RPing as the militia?. Thanks. None of those numbers are accurate, at all.


OOC: its from ReconSats, and everyone knows how inaccurate those can be ehh?, and i am not RPing the Militia

OOC: its from ReconSats, and everyone knows how inaccurate those can be ehh?, and i am not RPing the Militia

OOC: There is no such thing as the Egypttianstanni Republican Guard, and there is no army moving to relieve the city.

With everyone's attention on Port Said, the men and tanks of the Comorostani Expeditionary Strike Force launched their end-all offensive. Everything they had was thrown at the insurgents. The ROE permitted full use of firepower in unimportant areas. And now over half the shells getting thrown were gas.

The Comorostani forces had failed to encircle the city, which would prove to be a mistake. In small groups, soldiers and militiamen snuck away from Alexandria, hidden in with groups of civilians.

Others would continue to fight to the death, but today, Alexandria was in Comorostani hands. Confederate General Antonius Cartwright flew out with a small detachment to meet the Comorostani and begin to discuss the security situation in the city now that it was subdued.

OOC: What are your losses like?

The Comorostanis had payed for Alexandria. 673 dead, 1,345 wounded. 23 tanks and 45 other vehicles destroyed. But now the Comorostanis were in control. Troops switched over to peacekeeping mode, but with drastic ROE. Any shots fired at Comorostani troops resulted in 10 hostages taken and shot. Killing a solider resulted in 30 dead. An IED was 50. Anything larger was 100 or more. The troops began to insure they had the fear of the populace, and then they would work on their respect.

OOC: There is no such thing as the Egypttianstanni Republican Guard, and there is no army moving to relieve the city.

OOC:ok i deleted that part, i left the Port Said part in just as a estimate for Allanea to respond to, though still remember in a case like this it is entirely possible that ReconSats give wrong info and people from the surronding areas reinforce the garrison, though no reinforcing force, i am still holding to the Port Said report until a functional ReconSat can be sent over to give reliable numbers

also Check your TGs

OOC: Well, at any rate. I shelled some suspected terrorist locations. :D I'm still waiting for an IC response.

OOC: im waiting for a TG back from Black so i can put in a number of troops in the city he is happy with lol, at any rate, good luck with the shelling

The low casualty victory the Comorostanis had hoped for was no shattered, and the Muslims made sure that the news of the soldiers deaths, as well as the Comorostani hostage taking made it back to the living rooms in Comorostan.

Meanwhile, the Allanean bomb runs made their effects, but the fighting men in Port Said were still holding fast. They refused to budge, no matter the cost. Almost a quarter million men were holding up in the area, and they were not going anywhere.

The Allanean decision had been made. For the suicide bombings in the Allanean capitol, the Islamic Fascists had to pay a heavy price. Therefore, arrangements were made – the batteries of cannon and MLRS systems drew closer to the city. The Torturous Slaughter 16th Teutonic Division was also set up as part of these batteries. Three hundred F/A-16 aircraft were rotated into Blackhelmian bases, and half as many B-22 bombers were being refueled there, preparing for what would be only the first strike among many.

Again my nation is requesting to send the 2nd Marine and 8th Mechanized Infrantry Divisions to assist in the attack, please let us know if that is ok

Thank You

High Command Correspondence

Pennsylvania, your forces are not participating in the attack. I thought we made this clear. Your troops are to immediately head south to Sorhag and begin security operations in the area. Thank you.

High Command Correspondence

Pennsylvania, your forces are not participating in the attack. I thought we made this clear. Your troops are to immediately head south to Sorhag and begin security operations in the area. Thank you.


Sorry, i guess i didnt see that, moving the 1st Marine, 2nd Marine, and 8th Mechanzied there now

OOC:i thought that for Garrison duty was only only the 1st Marine, thats why i asked, again sorry about the misunderstanding

Message from Emir Ilhami Darzl of Dakimrod

We are concerned that the innocent population in Egyptianistan are being caught up in the bloodshed the occupation has caused. I request that Dakimrod forces be deployed in Egyptianistan as observers. Though we are of the same faith we make no concessions for the Insurgency which has bought this needless bloodshed and shame to the Islamic faith.

Official Message from the United States Government

Within this year, the first Yanitarian-made Ace (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13281758&postcount=28)-class patrol boats will be delivered to the Confederate government for the purposes of containing the insurgency. In total 25 billion dollars' worth of boats will be transferred to our friends.

New Governor of Egypttiansstan Installed

With the former governor of Egypttiansstan still fighting alongside the rebels, the Confederate Senate appointed Abu Al-Qahira to the position of governor this morning. Al-Qahira was one the few members of the Egypttiansstanni military to side with the Confederacy in the still ongoing conflict, and was formally sworn in early this morning in the city of New Cairo.

With the war against the Orderites now over, the Allaneans could now focus upon the terrorists in Egyptiannstan. At midnight precisely on day after the new governor's installation, the first bombing raid began. The 150 bombers, escorted by fighter aircraft, passed over the city, dropping out a giant amount of BETAB concrete-piercing bombs (specifically, 60,000 of the 500-kilo light bunker busters) upon suspected rebel positions that had been previously listed by the intelligence effort. Every one of those positions that has been confirmed by multiple independent reports had now been struck at least a dozen times.

Eventually, the Allaneans decided it safe to withdraw their troops from Egyptiannstan. They saw no need to fight a complex, prolonged war there.