[FH] Breaking News - Chronicle of Operation Colossus 6-of-6

Closing thrusts in the east

While we were drawing back to the line in the west the forces in the east were
still trying desperately to stave off the final collapse of the resistance in
Ojika Jima, Tsuru and Yokaichi. South of the
settlements a combined New Israeli-Dutch relief force gathered for a
final breakthrough attempt. On the morning of the 22nd, General Levin
initiated an attack with all the precise planning and timing he is renowned
for. He sent the first of his two divisions north to the high ground above
Tsuru and the second to block the corridor the Krak's were progressing down
from Yokaichi. At the same time, a paratrooper force was landed amongst the
artillery. Their raid was a suicidal one, but it ensured the destruction of
the Krak guns and prevented them from engaging the Dutch armour now moving on
Yokaichi. Combined forces of armour, paratroopers, infantry, artillery and
engineers attacked the alien salients from the front flanks and rear,
effectively cutting them off. The fighting was intense and awkward, as it
sprawled across large patches of fine sands and minefields. The worst of it
lasted 31 hours.

While the relief force had successfully cut off and destroyed the Krak forces
outside Yokaichi they had failed to actually reach any of the embattled
settlements. The bulk of the alien units in those places remained intact,
though they were greatly reduced in number. Many had been run forward to plug
gaps the human assaults had opened. There were still sufficient numbers
however to prevent the human units from reaching the settlement walls.
Recognising that their last hope lay with direct assaults General Levin moved
forward and personally lead the attack on the forces circling Tsuru. He was
immediately engaged in heavy combat that stretched into the night. At 01:00 on
the 23rd January the Generals death was reported to the local HQ (now in
Landon). At this point Field Marshal Neve Steijns became the ranking officer
in charge of the assault. She continued directing the action, as best she
could from Landon, through the early hours of the morning. At 08:13 she
received news that the division attacking Tsuru had broken, the city's
resistance had collapsed and that the city had fallen to the Krak. At this
point she lost her nerve. She panicked and ordered all units in the area to
retreat back behind the local sections of the Margaritifer line. This order
effectively meant the defeat of the human forces in the Isthmus and the end of
the campaign.

It is probably a mark of how close the fight had been and how depleted the
alien forces were that the human retreat was not exploited by the Krak
command. There were a few forays, to pursue and destroy small numbers of
retreating human units, but largely the Krak forces concentrated on pacifying
the settlements and strengthening their own side of the conflict zone. This is
not to say the human losses weren't staggering. Over the course of the last
three weeks the Krak had fought one of the largest and most heavily equipped
human armies in history to a standstill, leaving numerous points in the
Isthmus dotted with hundreds of burning or abandoned human vehicles. And all
this from an orbital landing.

By the 24th January the utter exhaustion that affected both sides was
undeniable and fighting drew to a close. We will never know for sure
exactly how many were wounded or died in this first xeno-campaign on
Mars. The estimates that are available suggest that 1,077, 847 human
combatants were killed, wounded or declared missing. The Krak are likely to
have lost as many as 300,000 dead and another 450,000 wounded. The ESU alone
lost over 50% of all their tanks located in the Sol system during Operation
Colossus. The days between the 3rd and 24th of January 2194 must surely be
some of the bloodiest in human history.

Return to Nirgal

I had expected to stay with my tank crew for at least a few more days after
the unofficial ceasefire, thinking fighting may well erupt again. However, it
was not long into my lay over in Pikalevo that I began feeling poorly. It
started with mild, blotchy discolouration around a small but deep cut I had
received helping to rescue some wounded on the withdrawal from the Huon
Plains. I had caught myself on a ragged piece of armour plate and while it was
painful I had thought little of it amongst the suffering of the burned and
mutilated we were helping. The doctors later told me that even if I had fussed
over it, it's unlikely we could have done anything to prevent what happened
later. After the blotches came a mild fever and nausea, which I rather
shamefacedly put down to a curry Todd had shouted me from a local street
vendor. It wasn't until my temperature soared and I went into convulsions that
the seriousness of my condition became apparent. Again I must thank the boys
from my tank. They physically carried me to the local hospital through the
press in the streets. I was diagnosed with Mars Fever; one among thousands
over the next few weeks. The same bacteria that had been such a boon in
terraforming were deadly if they penetrated an open wound. Thanks largely to a
lack of open conflict (until this latest action), a wide spread vaccination
program (and genetic engineering for some
multi-generation Martian families) few cases of Mars Fever had been seen
in over twenty years. It was back now though and with a vengeance. It was
particularly prevalent amongst those who had been given only low grade
vaccination shots (such as the imbedded media, who were not expected to be in
harms way to the same degree as a combatant) and those who had also had little
time to acclimate before coming under the stress of the combat zone. I was
informed I had the milder of the two variants. The type A strain was so
virulent that the patient's only chance of survival was to return to the
cutting edge medical facilities on Earth! (safely ensconced in decompression
chambers) as quickly as possible. I asked if that made sense for Martian born
victims, wouldn't the increased gravity present its own problems? I was
politely informed that Martians don't get type A. I wondered if Kra'Vak did. I
then discovered that while type B was not nearly as deadly as type A, it could
still be fairly incapacitating and I would be stuck on Mars for a long while
to come. Me and thousands of others by the sounds; that did little to comfort
me.

After a week in the wards at Pikalevo I was deemed well enough to travel and
shipped back to Nirgal. The boys had wished me well the day before, they had
been posted to one of the security points up on Vinogradov. As I was no longer
critical a bed on the CASEVAC VTOLs wasn't wasted on me and I was jolted back
across the Martian countryside in a converted 'Surveyor' ATV. My condition
combined with the rough ride to give me terrible motion sickness. I missed
Jose's driving dreadfully.

My return to Nirgal was a little less splendid or mobile than my arrival a few
weeks before. My impression of the city was that it was emptier and a lot more
downcast. There were still uniformed people on the streets, but they were
fewer in number and often had casts, bandages or crutches. It took another
fortnight before I was released from hospital, under strict instructions to
return as an out patient every other day. The plump proprietor of Margery's
Bizarre welcomed me back and promptly began fussing over me as if I had lost
an arm and leg in some heroic
assault rather than suffer from low-grade Martian blood poisoning. Maybe
she had an inkling of just how long I would be in residence.

After a few more days of building my strength I set about compiling my notes
and writing up this saga. It was cathartic to have it out in text not just in
my head. It also served to stave off a potential drowning in the copious
supply of chicken and lentil soup that was being forced upon me.

I had originally intended to use my time in Nirgal to interview a range of
veterans and to chase up accounts of the action around the other hotspots on
the Isthmus. The anticipated objective of the exercise was to try and coalesce
the desperate parts into a single coherent narrative. Alas my condition wasn't
going to indulge me and I tired quickly every time I ventured out. I did wile
away a few days in the library, plaza coffee shops and on the University
lawns, chatting at length with a lively mix of characters. Having heard what
they had to say I felt quite unequal to the task of capturing their version of
the heady weeks we had just survived. Accordingly, I have left it to others to
report on the fall of Severns, Shevchenko and the various naval battles that
took place far to the north of the melees I witnessed. While I was unprepared
for a full accounting I will recount a little of what I learned, to highlight
the fact that while I am deeply attached to those I travelled with, the
actions of others far removed were no less heroic.

Severns falls

The Krak forces centred on Severns had consisted of eleven brigades. The first
four were mostly infantry and were permanently stationed along the northern,
suburban walls. Three of the remaining seven brigades were mechanized and were
largely restricted to the crater floor. Another armoured brigade was allocated
to the southern rim, which was not as built up as the north; and the remaining
armoured brigades were stationed around the edges of the settlement, generally
harassing the
walls and raiding specific sites as needed. A final drop-troop brigade
was summoned as needed and could be reliably found in the thick of the urban
fighting.

The Krak initially made contact with the settlement in the evening of the 3rd
of January. They slowly overwhelmed it the following three weeks. The city's
port was the last area to fall and that was abandoned to the aliens on the
22nd. As was the case in the south of the Isthmus, some of the heaviest
fighting in Severns occurred late in the campaign. On the morning of January
19, human forces (mainly Anglian and Euri) shelled the city and made thrusts
into central Severns, reoccupying Government House. The RNACAF also made
limited attacks on Krak airfields in the area. Despite the spirited nature of
the actions the air and artillery strikes caused little real damage. Krak
units from the outlying brigades were scrambled to attack the human forces in
the west and along the southern wall. By the evening the Krak infantry had
secured all the northern gates to the city and the mechanized brigades had
encircled the human fighters in the southern suburbs.

On January 20th, the Krak counter attack began in earnest. The
drop-troop brigade completed the southern encirclement in the area
called "Ammo Hill" (the site of a particularly bloody skirmish). The infantry
brigades attacked the fortified positions around Government House, recapturing
it close to daybreak on the 21st. They then advanced through the merchant
warehouse district down towards the port. Having torched much of the southern
sector of Severns (and thereby dispatching the fighters trapped there) the
mechanised brigade moved along the broad
avenues in the southeast of the city to link up with the drop-troops. By
the evening, the mechanised brigades controlled much of the open ground in and
around Severns' main docks.

It was not a one sided fight however. The Human forces remaining in Severns
still amounted to 4 brigades, one of them the elite armoured 3rd IFed brigade.
This brigade caught a sizeable Krak infantry force on the main northern road
to the port that had been moving to reinforce the units in the docks. The
alien force was destroyed. The 3rd IFed brigade moved from there to capture
the heliport. A detachment (equipped with
light FSE-made APCs and Mistral-5 GMS/Ps) covered the operation by
engaging Krak MBTs bottled up in the squares and plazas to the west of the
heliport. The professional lethality of this unit is legendary and rightly so.
In this case it proved paramount as they immobilized the alien enemy.

On the 22nd the remnants of the human forces all drew back to the area around
the heliport and docks. The 3rd IFed covered the Anglian engineers as they
destroyed the bridges and canal walls around the heliport. The Euri's were
tasked with destroying as much of the infrastructure in the dockyards as
possible, which they did, but at a terrible cost. Only a single boat load
escaped the docks. In contrast, the majority of the troops holding the
heliport were evacuated, though a core group of the IFed remained behind to
stave off the Krak until the VTOLs were clear. They then planned to withdraw
through the sewers to the open land south and seaward of Severns and harass
the Krak from within. Only careful attention to troop and supply movements
over the coming months will show how successful they were.

War in the air and sea

During the course of the three weeks of intense conflict, the Kraks
demonstrated the crucial importance of EW superiority in modern conflict.
Their control of the airwaves gave their troops the ability to thwart and
harass the human forces with increased ease and to grant themselves EW
superiority over all fronts. This superiority complemented the strategic
effect of their initial invasion by facilitating widespread tactical
operations.

In contrast, the human EW never managed to mount an effective attack. A number
of airwave denials were attempted, but as might be expected the Krak were
little affected by our crude attempts. Compared to their mastery of EW it was
as if a modern rifleman was being set up by a medieval yokel with a pitch
fork.

The war at sea was not as unrestrained as it might have been. Movements of
both Krak and human vessels were often more to harass supply lines and
intimidate rather than direct assaults. Even those that did feature intense
fighting often began as a land combat that was pushed out onto the water. This
is not to say there were no notable naval engagements during the course of
Operation Colossus. There were at least ten major battles on the waters around
the Isthmus. I have already related the battles on the Kolyma More and Xonak
Daryâ on the 11th of January. Another particularly fierce battle was that of
the 13th when Europian and Anglian vessels, patrolling in the Binzert Channel,
were attacked by Krak air and grav forces. Five human ships were lost, causing
heavy casualties, another was nearly sunk and twelve more were damaged. The
humans acquitted themselves admirably however and the numbers of large grav
vehicles in the area were so depleted that Canelli was not threatened again
during the course of the campaign. Other notable naval actions occurred around
Ariza and Al Jamsah. Deserving of particular note was the unleashing of six
Euri frogmen in Ariza harbour (they were from the Jiangxi Division on
secondment from the Huoxing fleet). Three of them were captured (and probably
slaughtered), but not before they had disabled every Krak supply vessel in
port, contaminated the Krak supplies, and immobilised three squadrons of Krak
medium tanks that were sitting atop the harbour wall. This did a lot to weaken
the Krak hold on the island and ultimately laid the way for the Euri's to
retake it, forcing the aliens to abandon their positions there and retreat
back onto the mainland.

Final words

I do not know if any will enjoy this rather long winded account of what I saw.
As I said at the start it has been years since I had to put my rusty skills to
the test. I feel compelled to admit that in many ways I do not care if it
fails to capture the Earth bound readership. In my long weeks of convalescence
it has been quite a relief to use this article as an excuse to pour my
nightmares out. To turn them this way and that; and simply to report what
happened. I owe the boys that much. As such I am completely unrepentant for
the sometimes sentimental or indulgent tone.

I am not one for sentimentalising the military. Reverence without question is
a dangerous attitude for a society to have towards its military, as many a
petty dictator has proved. In my years as a war and frontier correspondent I
saw atrocities which have underlined how nationalistic zeal can go badly awry.
I have not seen that here. It has not all been plain sailing, far from it,
people from different nations will inevitably scrap. But ultimately, in this
our truly darkest hour to date as a species, I have seen much to give me hope.
So this is for the boys in my tank, and the many thousands of men and women
like them who saw action these past months on Mars. This is my
acknowledgement, my salute to their valour, courage, humour and humanity. They
have honoured us with their sacrifice and humbled us with their commitment.
May they live to sleep in warm beds and dream SAMless dreams.

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