The Karshkan Campaign 1934

[Greywall]

Following the heavily barrages from Grinvelian artillery, infantry and light armor moved in to find light resistance. They swiftly took the enemy trench line and drove deep into Roskanan territory, "This is it?" one soldier asked, he was answered with Roskanan artillery strikes that savaged the advancing troop. 

"Fall back! Fall back!" an officer ordered, the rapid strikes decimated several Grinvelian soldiers and destroyed a few light tanks and Mk2 Clanker tanks. The assault was put on hold as Grinvel counter artillery fired to cover the assault group's retreat. Fiegler lost a significant number of soldiers in the assault, it left him in awe, the Rosarks were fighting smarter now. No longer meeting them might for might, this forced him to reconsider his options. He couldn't shell them all day given the strained supply lines. For now he accepted the counter barrage and getting what men he could back for a stalemate. 

[gelb]

Standing atop the pockmarked ground as the Grinvel forces fell into a near full retreat, the Roskanan forces let out a collective cheer before rapidly diving underneath any cover they could find as the enemy's counter barrage slammed into the ground around them. Once the dust settled and the barrage inevitably stopped, however, the Roskanan forces' morale was hardly withered. This victory was massive for them, even if it wasnt marching directly into Grinvel country they had proven that their enemy could be beaten.

And if their enemy could bleed, they would damn sure kill them.

So the soldiers immediately got to work putting Wilhelm's brand new strategy into play. New defenses were erected around the old: sandbags instead of concrete, foxholes instead of trenchlines, and truck-mounted machine guns instead of bunkers. All defenses could be easily stripped down and moved back should the Roskanans get overwhelmed, but more importantly they could be rapidly moved to a frontline that would soon be on the move straight into enemy territory.

[Greywall]

Fiegler had the Grinvel forces under his command dig in, makeshift fortifications were erected and armored units were ordered to fill in the gaps where the infantry wouldn't be able to hold well at. He sent word to Mueller that his invasion in Roskana had stalled because of the supply line issues and demanded he be given more motorized support. The Field Marshall ignored the prince's orders. Fiegler simply prepared his forces to dig in and wait for the slow mule powered supply line to fulfill their needs at the front. 

What few trucks he had ate up the fuel his aircraft and tanks would need, forcing him to abandon using the trucks. Everything was going South, to end the war they said. Fiegler had a feeling it was too good to be true. His soldiers after being battle-hardened over a year fighting non stop victories were now forced to live in trenches and foxholes across the battlefront. He sent word to his father, the Kaiser instead, informing him of the Field Marshall's decision to refuse more logistical support for the Grinvel invasion of Roskana. His father wrote back. 

"There is a much larger goal at stake, the entire war will be won by Grinvel and you have played a part in that. Be patient" 

The short hand letter was thrown into a fire, Fiegler was stuck now. 

[gelb]

Wilhelm read through the stack of reports sitting on his desk, all straight from the front, with a soft smile on his face. For too long had incompetence been the damnation of an otherwise powerful army and it brought the young General great joy to know that he was helping turn the tide of the war. Although he was taking victories, he made sure not to let hubris and high morale blind him to the reality of the situation: they were only winning due to what seemed to be a breakdown in enemy logistics. Several enemy tanks had been found abandoned and sabotaged on the roads into what was enemy territory, and men had even reported the enemy tanks seemed to be far more conservative in their maneuvers, almost as if they were saving fuel, making it abundantly clear to Wilhelm that he had to push as much of an advantage as he could before the enemy could get fuel to the frontlines.

So those were the orders he gave.

Battalions of the newly-developed "motorized brigades" were ordered to probe for weak points in enemy lines and force their way through, using artillery and the cover of night to provide as much advantage as possible if necessary, and attempt to secure footholds in cities and former bunker groups that could be used for makeshift supply hubs.

Orders were passed out, and soon the troops found themselves loaded up on makeshift benches in the backs of former Roskanan supply trucks and speeding across the wasteland that was once their home. Piles of bodies covered former no-man's-lands as miles of destroyed roads paved the way forwards unto the enemy. Although this absolute devastation of the landscape made travel difficult for the large and heavy trucks, their movements were still far faster than any non-motorized force could have managed.

By dusk, their scouts were already probing well into enemy fortifications, attempting to find anything they could exploit to their fullest advantage.

[EpicToaster1]

May 4, 2024 22:45:29 GMT -5 gelb said:

Wilhelm read through the stack of reports sitting on his desk, all straight from the front, with a soft smile on his face. For too long had incompetence been the damnation of an otherwise powerful army and it brought the young General great joy to know that he was helping turn the tide of the war. Although he was taking victories, he made sure not to let hubris and high morale blind him to the reality of the situation: they were only winning due to what seemed to be a breakdown in enemy logistics. Several enemy tanks had been found abandoned and sabotaged on the roads into what was enemy territory, and men had even reported watching tanks stall and their crews bail out in the heat of battle, making it abundantly clear to Wilhelm that he had to push as much of an advantage as he could before the enemy could get fuel to the frontlines.

So those were the orders he gave.

Battalions of the newly-developed "motorized brigades" were ordered to probe for weak points in enemy lines and force their way through, using artillery and the cover of night to provide as much advantage as possible if necessary, and attempt to secure footholds in cities and former bunker groups that could be used for makeshift supply hubs.

Orders were passed out, and soon the troops found themselves loaded up on makeshift benches in the backs of trucks and speeding across the wasteland that was once their home. Piles of bodies covered former no-man's-lands as miles of destroyed roads paved the way forwards unto the enemy. Although this absolute devastation of the landscape made travel difficult for the large and heavy trucks, their movements were still far faster than any non-motorized force could have managed.

By duskt, their scouts were already probing well into enemy fortifications, attempting to find anything they could exploit to their fullest advantage.

Mod Intervention

Gelb, quick heads up, the tanks are not what are being abandoned. Grinvel's military is abandoning the use of trucks to conserve fuel for the tanks. There is nothing stating that tanks are being abandoned.

As well, the trucks that are being left behind at the time are also behind the front lines, there is no possible way you have troops behind Grinvel's line to steal their equipment. Their armored troops are taking priority, so their basic motorized troops are what are lagging behind.

[gelb]

May 5, 2024 16:58:57 GMT -5 EpicToaster1 said:

Mod Intervention

Gelb, quick heads up, the tanks are not what are being abandoned. Grinvel's military is abandoning the use of trucks to conserve fuel for the tanks. There is nothing stating that tanks are being abandoned.

As well, the trucks that are being left behind at the time are also behind the front lines, there is no possible way you have troops behind Grinvel's line to steal their equipment. Their armored troops are taking priority, so their basic motorized troops are what are lagging behind.

 ((Shit my bad, ill edit the tanks part. But the trucks are my own ones rn, Roskana had a huge stockpile last i checked so thats what Im using to transport troops to the frontline. Dont ask me why we had...50,000but those are the trucks that are being "converted" into troop carriers from their more logistics focused role

[Greywall]

The Rosarks probing the Grinvelian lines would be met with fierce resolve, while they didn't lack manpower the Grinvelians were told to manage their ammo and food stores. The assaults began eating into ammo stores that would being replenished slowly by carts pulled by horses and mules. Riflemen had to be careful as they were restricted to just five clips of 8mm ammunition a day, machine guns were ordered to only fire on presented enemies and not lay down extensive suppressive fire. 

Artillery would be limited to one barrage as well. Fiegler once again wrote needed more munitions or he would be forced to withdraw South to constrict his lines. With proper supplies he would have been marching on Auran today, but he was instead holding a defensive position on an offensive being leeched to death by Southern command. 

[gelb]

As Roskanan probes reported heavy resistance but extremely limited firefights, General Wilhelm would order his forces to push harder into Grinvel Territory, using ambush tactics and assaulting at dawn and dusk to take as much advantage of the enemy's dwindling supplies as he could. Never holding enemy territory long enough to be hit by counterbatteries and armored divisions, Roskanan soldiers would often assault a position with little more than several fireteams and a tankette just to force the Grinvel forces into firing at them before quickly retreating back to friendly lines. Their supply lines were rough to maneuver but still holding due to the vast number of logistics and troop transport trucks they had, allowing their new "shock and awe" tactics, as Wilhelm had coined the strategy, to thrive with heavy bombardments of 170mm Artillery cannons softening up any trench line the Forward Observers could find.

But Wilhelm knew he couldnt lead an all out push into enemy territory yet. Although Grinvel forces were running low on supplies they had more than enough men, tanks and bunkers to decimate any advance the comparatively under armored Roskanan military could muster. So for now his strategy was buying time for the factories to produce tanks and for the R&D teams to unveil what they kept telling him was something that would change warefare as Roskana knew it.

[VoxApocrypha]

City of Ouhred, State of Karshkan.
Winter, 1945.

---

Ouhred represented the logistical heart of the Roskanan West, and the Karshkan state.
The frontline was creeping closer, or it had been - until the Grinvelian army had entrenched themselves into positions outside the city proper. This represented an opportunity, and General Anderson's arrival would see Wilhelm rotated off of the line for the time being for re-training, as a noticeable number of command staff were. Anderson saw that, with this pause, there was an opportunity to ensure that the frontline did not move further into their own territory. This city was considered a critical regional capital with substantial industrial potential.

He had studied this art, defending a city.
With his order, with the authority of the military superseding that of the civilian authority in the city as of that moment, the city was placed under an immediate evacuation notice. Only critical staff would be allowed to remain, to operate the factories, the critical infrastructure. However, this did not extend to fighting age men, of whom were rallied into operative units of five to ten men, as the army would begin to pour troops into the city, as well as supply trucks carrying ammunition, explosives, entrenching equipment, tank traps, and as well large amounts of sandbags. The civilian work groups, being made up of volunteers and temporary conscriptees, were tasked with establishing roadblocks and blocking off the alleys and roads that the Roskanans were not going to be using.

Trucks and buses were stopped in the road, key broken off in the ignition, and the batteries taken out. Concrete road barriers were moved to cover alleys and side-streets, as well as to form lines. Checkpoints allowed entry and access to areas of the city, and demolition charges were used to crater roads inside the city. Every building they did not intend to use, they barricaded the interiors and left them, preventing easy access to the structures while they would fortify buildings with solid firing lines and overlapping fields of fire. Long roads were broken up with deep trenches and tank traps inside of them. Barbed wire was strung out over many of these trenches, in order to make them virtually impassible without needing to clear them extensively.

Every area of the city was surveyed, to map and mark predetermined areas for the use of local artillery. Mortars, field batteries, howitzers, and then a substantial portion of their siege artillery, 38 of their fifty heavy guns, were being pulled in to set up in, and around the city. Below the feet of those working above, and with the plans for the city map, Roskanan engineers and troopers raced through the underground sewer lines, water tunnels, and maintenance pathways. They began to dig tunnels into buildings around them as well, into the basements of innocuous or otherwise blocked off structures so that they could move troops and material around the city rapidly.

This was an environment where Bicycle infantry could, and would excel, and they were deployed en masse into the city and organized into units of three to five, assigned areas of responsibility with preplanned routes of retreat should their sector be overwhelmed. Virtually anything that could be spared was being put in and around this city to ensure that it would not fall, and if it did, it would come at a immense cost to Grinvel.

[Greywall]

Fiegler's long campaign in Roskana had crept into the brutal Northern Reserian winter, with his supplies being partitioned Southward for the Marrish and Koian fronts, he thought he could wait out the Roskanans but doing so was risky. Instead he was going to gamble taking them out of the fight to buy time so the Southern campaigns could do what was needed. 

The city of Ouhred, they had slowly crept toward this important location. Fiegler placed his air units for a major aerial bombardment followed by armored and motorized infantry moving in to seize key points near the city in order to seize major districts of the outer city limits. Taking Ouhred could cripple Roskana, force a showdown at Auran, it was the breaking point. 

Grinvelian air units began their attack as armored units made their move, he also committed 12,000 standard infantry and 10,000 heavy infantry to move in behind the motorized infantry to secure major points. It was time to finally end centuries of hatred by crushing the Rosarks once and for all. 

Grinvelian infantryman attacking a Roskanan position.

[VoxApocrypha]

General Anderson did not see the city's outer limits as being as defensible as the rest. They were not the heart of the city or its outer districts were buildings and dark corners were abundant, and they'd not ultimately lead to the city falling wholesale would they be lost, though it'd dramatically complicate defending it further. He expected he probably would lose that area without it being pumped full constantly of new soldiers to make holding it down for Grinvel, or taking more ground, increasingly difficult. He could not afford to reinforce it endlessly. For now though, they could probably hold it. 


Their object was to stop them at any point possible, even if it came at heavy cost, to buy as much time as possible for the defenses of the city to be bolstered. In the skies, the Roskanan's had concentrated the majority of their air force into the air above the city of Ouhred, and their ultimate objective was to deny the enemy air superiority, particularly with a focus on intercepting bombers. Ground based anti-air defenses, primarily being machine guns were being emplaced in the city to ensure that the enemy wouldn't be having any smooth flights overhead.



He had details for clean-up duty in the wake of each air raid - any structures destroyed or damaged would be still somewhat useful, their debris more so as it could just be added to more barricades that'd prevent movement, or otherwise block alleyways to stop infantry translation from street to street with ease. Unless a structure was wholesale reduced to rubble there'd always be use for it, and the rubble, doubly so. New fighting holes can always be dug.


Along roads where they expected the Grinvelians to advance, they would as well plant and detonate demolition charges to booby trap the roads under the heavy snow, chaining them together so that it'd destroy entire sections of roadway once detonated and likely obliterate large sections of any convoy that came through. Perhaps not a permanent solution, but it'd make any attempt to advance hazardous as hell. 3,000 combat engineers would be put to this task. When contact was made with the first echelons of the enemy advance, radio contact sent back to command would prompt a counter-attack near immediately to halt the assault.


Because these areas were not heavy on building cover and sewer tunnels just were not a thing that far out, the majority of action taken to stop the armor was taken by the present heavy infantry that General Wilhelm had previously been in command of. He leveraged their strength, and the power of what landships and other vehicles he had in the area, to try to block their enemy where possible, or to kite them into positions where they would be at significant danger of subcumbing to either the natural elements as the snow made movement incredibly difficult for infantry and vehicles alike, or where their artillery could lay into them. Though he told his troops to take care - the same natural elements that would hamper Grinvel would hamper them were they not careful, and he made sure his officers knew such. Many a campaign had failed in the winter. He would not allow ignorance to be the cause of his own failure, not here.

When the Grinvelians would attack with their own artillery, what Roskanan artillery that could respond would react by sighting in on the muzzle flash of the Grinvel guns, and shelling that area once identified, though in some cases there was a substantial range disadvantage, and the siege guns were being held back to defend the city proper once fighting reached the outer limits of their range.



It was leveraging a lot of strength that could be needed elsewhere and would be difficult to replace, but some 8,000 heavy infantry were already in front of the advance in either static positions of hidden in the dense foliage that separated farming bluffs, private properties and sections of square land or in the small clusters of buildings that made up villages and small work areas leading up to the city's outskirts.

An additional 30,000 of the Roskanan dragoons, and then another 20,000 of the Roskanan motorized heavy infantry moved out to meet, stall, and block the Grinvelian advance, supported by 50 tankettes, 3 landships, and 40 armored cars to move along the roads, with 200 field guns, 80 howitzers, and 200 mortars for indirect fires, these being available from multiple surrounding areas of the warfront and the city outskirts, or brought in by the motorized units. General Anderson took care to keep tabs on this as much as possible - he expected this could easily either spiral out of control, of fizzle out into skirmishing. 

[Greywall]

An intense firefight erupted, Grinvelian armored units quickly crossing toward the city met the buried explosives sending many of the vehicles scattering and opening fire at the Roskanan forward defenses. 

Grinvel troops found themselves heavily under fire with the armor being kept back, they were ordered to push up firing as they advanced and sought cover. After several hours of heavy firefighting Grinvelian artillery began pulverizing Roskanan positions allowing the Grinvel ground troops to resume their assault. 

As the battle began to pick up speed, winter snow began to fall below to the hell being created by the two armies. Grinvel mine clearing teams would be pulled up behind the firefights, as the Grinvelian forces closed into the city the winter snowfall began to pick up and turn into a harsh winter storm. 

Grinvel soldier firing at Rosarks

[Greywall]

Casualties

Grinvel: 400 standard infantry, 20 heavy tanks, 10 light tanks
Roskana: 500 heavy infantry, 200 dragoons, 10 tankettes

[VoxApocrypha]

Many of the Roskanan units were rather thinly dispersed, and because the Grinvelians had to advance along roads primarily in order to actually move their vehicles without getting caught in the brush and foliage, stuck on old cobblestone walls and such, the pockets of infantry moved in around them to engage at range with their rifles and marksmen weaponry. Mortars as well laid into Grinvelian mine clearing teams when possible, though as the snow began to grow more intense both sides were now operating with reduced visibility.

Grinvelian artillery would land on the positions dug by the heavy infantry, and while it'd do its damage, the heavy infantry were more than happy to abandon them once the shelling reduced their usefulness, though they'd deny the enemy safety within by leaving landmines behind inside of them, usually hidden under cloth or dirt. Whether they'd last, who knew, but at least some might. With Grinvelian armor meeting resistance and being stopped on the roads by the high explosive booby traps, the Roskanans would target the stalled Grinvelian armor with artillery and mortars. Roskanan counter-battery fire would respond where-able.

More Dragoons, another couple thousand. As soon as the fighting had begun to pick up speed, the snow had come in and put momentum back at a slow pace, at least for the Roskanans. Winter was a harsh mistress, and as the snow fell, it was quickly covering the roads up again. The roskanans were more than happy to try to abuse this though, and began to lay even more traps. Behind the line of contact, the engineers began setting up more explosives.

10 field guns were towed to the front, with barrels lowered for direct-fire use and shells loaded, hidden in concealment around snow-mounds and bombed out houses where they'd not be immediately noticed so long as their concealment was maintained, and the snow held long enough for winter-netting to be put over them. They'd act as anti-tank guns, or at least that was the hope.

[Artsy Astra]

Marrish forces would arrive not long after the engagement had begun after being directed by friendly forces in the South to move in support of Ouhred, they arrived on supply trucks with their artillery towed behind them. General Naeve Korbin would direct his men to shore up Roskanan defenses in the city before requesting further direction from General Anderson to better assist his defense. 

The reinforcement group was comprised of:

7,000 Heavy Infantry,
5,000 Standard Infantry,
1,000 Special Infantry (Marines),
200 Field Artillery,
200 Howitzers,
40 Tankettes (TMJ-32),
10 Heavy Tanks,
5 Fighters,
1 Mono Interceptor,
10 Recon Planes.