Operation Dragonscale: Galran invasion of Elenria

[Greywall]

The final weeks of Spring were marred with bloodshed as the Galran occupation forces slowly strangled the life out of the Frannerri in the Eastern half of their nation. The massive assault on the River Marse would be the last proper stand the Frannerri could realistically make so General Jameson moved ahead of schedule for the next stage of the Touli Warfront. He gathered 25,000 standard infantry, 30,000 light infantry, 100 tankettes, 120 armored cars, 400 field artillery guns and 100 mortars to begin boarding ships to land directly on the Eastern Elenrian coast. 

The bulk of the Galran colonial fleet 20 battleships, 10 battlecruisers, 20 super cruisers, 10 heavy cruisers, 20 ironclad battleships, 40 corvettes, 10 escort destroyers, and all 100 transport ships in the colonial fleet would begin the process of setting the screen of attack. 

Galran heavy ships would approach what was the Eastern most island or sub continent of Elenria. They would shell the coast whether they had defenses or not, civilian life did not matter to the Galran high command after all. 

Following the naval bombardment would see the arrival of hundreds of transport ships, unloading light infantry first then standard platoons and then vehicle support. The initial goal was to set up a beachhead in the Eastern coast of the sub continent and then drive Northbound to what was the heaviest populated area to force occupation. Galra intended to seize the entire island and begin building airbases to bomb Elenria into submission as well as prepare for the possibility of Kumo naval reinforcements. 

Jameson would not be able to use aircraft as almost all air units were preoccupied with the Marse assault and the war in the Eastern side of the Toulian Continent. But he felt confident the Elenrians would cower at the sight of such devastation and that whatever Kumo were present would be easily crushed. 

Galra has expanded the war yet again, opening a front on the Eastern Elenrian island

[Greywall]

Galran attack ships approached the Elenrian subcontinent from the Southeast, their large contingent of transports behind. Pending any Elenrian-Kumo warships would be in their way they would engage and create a path for the initial landing assault. Galran soldiers embolden by their victory over Frannerre were listening to a Ux Voshoz Deacon preaching over them, preparing their souls for battle.

"Today you face the abomination known as Inselni, with their Kumosenkan overlords, these non human filth must not be shown mercy. Unlike the genetically inferior stock in Frannerre, we cannot save these disgusting abominations to our lord god with enslavement and gelding of their males! It must be done with fire and steel! Kill them all, their men, their women and especially their children! Your god demands it, he cries for it, he cries brothers! For you his chosen people! The Galran people! to liberate this land and clean off the filth occupying it. This is not invasion, nay but liberation! Kill all in your path. And your lord god shall usher you into heaven should you die in this task! Glory and all for you and only the proper people of Galran Ux Voshoz!"

Galran troops were electric, many of them talking ill of their enemy already. "I've heard inselni are just cowards, they wouldn't fight the Kumosenkan. Not even one of them will dare face us."

"I've heard the humans that do live there are of lower genetic stock, so don't get too excited for their women. Just slit their throats and move along."
"What about Kumo?"
"What about them?"
"They're 10 feet tall an-"
"And are going die like anyone else facing us, kill all of them too. Might send their government their severed heads to let them know their empire is at an end."

[Greywall]

Galran warships pulverized the Elenrian coastline as transport ships unloaded fireteams of infantry onto the Eastern shorelines of the sub continent, the first wave faced little to no resistance as the Elenrian nor Kumo defenders responded to their presence and storming of the beach. 

They established beachheads across the Eastern shores and began shipping in tanks, field artillery, supplies and building camps. 

"Where are they?"
"Cowards are hiding" 
"Burn them"

The Galrans would set up their equipment and supply bases along the coastline before pressing into the inland of the sub continent. 

[StaolDerg]

The Elenrian Subcontinent, called by locals as Yuandi, was properly broken into two provinces administratively: the larger northern section of Luosen, which encompassed most of the city of Pactstei in its size, and the smaller part in the south the Galrans had landed in: Nanviea. The province was geographically the smallest in Elenria, in addition to being the least populated. This was due partially to the untamed presence of Free Army guerillas actively clashing with Anti-Rebel Army forces often and successfully enough to the point where TAKPOE had given up any hope of conventionally developing the territory, and instead settled in for a drawn-out conflict.

Or according to reports, in any case. The truth was more complex: a ceasefire had effectively existed in the region for the last eight years between both the Anti-Bandit Army troops and their Free Army counterparts due to the fact that neither possessed the ammunition nor the will to actually force themselves on the others’ strongholds. Independent of their respective larger superiors beyond Yuandi’s shores, local commanders had heeded the warnings and protests of the local Communities who both drew their backbones of support, and kept to prearranged, bloodless arrangements that were designed to make more of a scene and enforce the status quo than actual offensive action.

The result was that the Internal Army’s ten bombardment mortars meant to crack the presumably reinforced defenses of the rebels sat largely forgotten underneath their canvas tarps and bathing in cosmoline to keep them from rusting, only for their relaxing crews to confusedly and panickedly rush to scour all the oil off the moment word arrived that foreign warships were spotted landing soldiers off the coast.

They weren’t fast enough. The militias that originally scrambled to investigate were themselves obliterated on first contact, and the infantry platoons that followed behind fled when the old inselni veterans panicked at the sight of the grey ships shooting at the shore like eighty years ago.

Unlike their colleagues to the northwest, the soldiers stationed in Yuandi did not have the presence of rival Armies to cast a shadow over their eyes; here they were under no illusion of what was unfolding before them, and the commanding officer, Brigadier General Shan Duiming, had zero intention to allow a repeat of Aundui Yio’s nightmare eighty years ago at the hands of the Kumo occur here too. An inselni veteran of both the Elenrian Civil War and the last eighty years of chaos in Elenria, Shan unlike most of his peers actually had attended military training at the Rikugun Shikan Gakko military academy in Kumosenkan, and was at least somewhat familiar with modern tactics.

Order of Battle

General Shan Duiming — Nanviea Anti-Bandit Command
10,300 Conscripts
6,500 Light Infantry
800 Standard Infantry (Inselni Firetroop)
380 Special Infantry
1,500 Carabiners Cavalry
1,350 Dragoons Cavalry
10 mortars

Recognizing the situation before him, the older officer immediately made the decision to withdraw north towards Pactstei. While the city’s outer districts were indeed prone to bombardments, he reasoned, the dense urban setting and heavy masonry of the city’s construction would dampen the effects of artillery, and force enemy forces to engage on a more even battlefield in the streets, where Inselni Firetroops would hold the advantage. He further reinforced the city with what little time he had, ordering his cavalry to commit nighttime raids in the hills against hostile patrols and outposts to harass the enemy, and dispatched alarms by telegram to Aundui Yio, and by extent to the new government in Kesternrim for orders, reinforcements, and most of all, artillery.

“I intend to hold this city as it was held centuries before us,” he told a nervous community Elder. “We will buy time for our countrymen and for the Kumo to rally and counterattack. I have myself no understanding for the reason of attack upon us, but I do not think I need one to retain a will to fight: they shot first, and thus have annulled any sense of peaceability. They have chosen fire: let them be burned.”

He soon received a quick reply from Aundui Yio: the promise of immediate reinforcements from the units of the Border Army. He was promised in the span of a week if he could keep the naval port and rail lines to Pactstei open—

Reinforcements
6,000 Standard Infantry
1,500 Special Infantry
1,000 Light Infantry
15 Field Guns

—In addition to the political and economic authority of an Imperial Martial’s presence. He was however permitted to begin immediate scorched earth policy, and he took this to heart at once: with what ammunition he had for his mortars, bridges were shelled or demolished, roads blocked, and the Army base in the province sabotaged with booby traps after being stripped utterly bare of useful materials.