Federal Republic of Oumeiguo Strategic Deployment Forces Command (SDFCOM) KY-98 "Illuminating Eye" (空中预警机·七十八 燦眼) Loitering ISR (L-ISR) Reconnaissance UAS
The Oumeian Department of Defense (DOD) maintains four major branches: the Continental Aerospace Force (CASF), Continental Army (CA), Continental Navy (CN), and Strategic Deployment Forces (SDF). Established in 1978 as the Air Land Force, itself rebranded from the earlier Advance Land Force, the latter is not so much a branch as a collection of units of the armed forces: the Continental Army's 88th Airborne Corps (八十八號空降兵军; previously tl. as "88th Paratrooper Army") and 4th Armored Corps (號), the CASF's Composite Air Strike Force/9th Air Force (九號航空隊), and a specialized air-landing unit/5th Air Logistics Regiment (號) comprising a mixture of conventional airlift assets and specialized "ultra-class Continental Lander Units". The Continental Navy, already a "force in readiness", provides the mailed fist of the SDFCOM's Army and Aerospace Force components. Between the Federal Republic Marine Corps's Regimental Landing Teams and and the ultra-carriers of the CN Battle Force, the Continental Navy can muster up to two wings of tactical aircraft, a composite helicopter wing, and four mixed mechanized battalions of shock troops at a week's notice to respond to any contingency.
The 88th Airborne Corps ("Freedom's Anvil") is a four-division force comprising two airborne (airdrop light/motorized and airdrop light/heliborne) divisions, a "universal/medium" (airdrop mechanized) division, and a "legacy" heavy (air landing mechanized/armored) division. Additional Corps-level elements include three artillery brigades, helicopter and aviation brigades, and support and combat service support brigades. In total, the 88th Airborne Corps numbers about 90,000 personnel, and serves as the DOD's principal contingency corps. The 4th Armored Corps ("Liberty's Hammer"), comprising 1st, 3rd, and 5th Armored Divisions, as well as the 7th Infantry Division (Motorized), is the "better half" of the SDFCOM. It serves as the "Counterattack Corps" and can be deployed anywhere in the world within a fortnight using high speed cargo ships. The other formations of the Continental Army, such as the National Guard, as well as 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 9th Corps who are not assigned to SDFCOM require at least month's notice before combat deployments. Together, both the 88th and 4th Corps form the Rapid Deployment Force (快速部署聯合任務部隊; tl. as "Rapid Deployment Force" or "Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force") of the DOD.
Within the SDFCOM exists various unconventional aircraft, notably the
Q-84 "Dark Sword" (暗劍) stealth bomber and
J-88 "Sharp Sword" (利劍) stealth fighter, once secretive projects began in the 1970s to defeat then-future air defense systems. These are either carried into combat aboard modified Continental Lander Units called Continental Assault Carriers, which themselves are also an unconventional aircraft, or deployed from major airbases with tanker support. More conventional fleets of airliner-based tankers, cargo haulers, and medical evacuation exist on a rotating basis within SDFCOM, although three permanent air warning squadrons are assigned directly to support the RDF. Prior to 1999, this squadron count was four, split evenly between "LARS" attack radar (超視目标獲得雷达系统; tl. as "Long Range Attack Radar System" or "Long Range Target Acquisition Radar") and KJ-77 "Sentinel" (空中预警管制机·七十七 "哨兵") AEW&C. With the deployment of the KY-98 reconnaissance drone in 2Q99 the second LARS squadron (192nd Air Command and Control Squadron; ACCS) was placed into mothballs for spare parts for their cousins in the 191st ACCS. After full deployment of the KY98 drone series in 2008, the 191st and 192nd ACCS airframes were handed off to the Seaguard and Customs Service for use in the drug interdiction role.
A highly unusual plane, the KY98 is designed to be "low observable" and provide a "loitering ISR" capability for the SDFCOM, by providing moving target indication (MTI) of aircraft, vehicles, warships, and low altitude spacecraft.
This requirement for a deep reconnaissance robot had been outstanding since the mid-1960's as a means to observe the interior heartland of the USR, but the requirements were fully developed with experience of combat use of the LARS and Sentinel AEW aircraft during the Balochistan Crisis of 1984-85...
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During this time the Balochi Oil Fields, a Sinopec-owned extraction operation, was forcibly seized by the Nahadist government of Balochistan by 2200 4 JUL 84, a Wednesday by local time, or Thursday morning for the Changji Stock Exchange. The reason given for the sudden seizure was an outstanding need to repay debt interest from the Balcohi-Azimid Wars of 1973-1983, as the standard rate for the field's lease paid by Sinopec was incapable of meeting the growing national debt. This debt had rapidly grown between 1983 and 1984 due to the ongoing trade disruptions from the Directorate War. Previous fees collected from transiting the Balochi Strait had been cut off, due to threat of sea mines and cruise missile attacks, thus depriving the Balochistani government of a sizeable amount of liquidity. Negotiations on raising lease fees had been ongoing over the past year, but with the outbreak of the Directorate War, they had stalled out. Sinopec seemed intent on stonewall the Balochi government and hoping to wait out the growing credit crunch. The long-standing dictator of Balochistan,
Sardar Huseyn 'abd Ormizd ibn Goshtasb al-Qareshi (1937-2029),
announced in a television and radio broadcast half an hour before the opening of the Changji Stock Exchange that the Sinopec-owned Balochi Oil Company fields would be seized and the full amount of shares of the Balochi Oil Company would be paid out to shareholders at the end of the day's trade. Upon receiving a code phrase contained within the broadcast, the "al-Qeshem" and "Zoroaster" Mechanized Divisions rolled into the oil refineries aboard main battle tanks, and paratroopers of the "Darius" and "Cyrus the Great" Airborne Divisions had secured the main terminals aboard trucks, while the oil fields were "taken" by airborne drop of parachutists. Simultaneously the marines of the the "Marduk" Brigade seized several rigs and ships of the Balochi Oil Company and Sinopec at sea, using UZR supplied coaxial rotor helicopters.
Anti-aircraft tracer fire from the Sinopec mercenary forces was quickly silenced by
assault aviation of the Balochi Army Air Corps, while
helicopter gunships laid into the weather protected forecastles with machine guns of tankers and rigs, as lightly armed PMCs were cut down. Video footage of distant explosions became sensational, as the scene was made more chaotic by the darkness of local night.
By midday in Changji, the share price of the Balochi Oil Company had dropped by 30%, as video of these events rolled into news channels via satellite throughout the morning and afternoon. As promised, the total amount was credited to the shareholders of Sinopec, now a mere 1/3rd of its starting trade value on early Thursday morning. Commensurately, oil prices spiked, resulting in significant revenue flows to Balochistan due to placing several longs on the futures market six to eight months prior. The Nahadist Revolutionary Control Council issued a statement 48 hours later, delineating that any crossing of territorial waters or land borders of Balochistan, referred to as a "line of death", by "mercenary relief forces" would be met with the "absolute defeat". Sinopec executives gathered for an emergency meeting with the State Council including the President and Defense Secretary of Oumeiguo, and by EOD Thursday the Oumeiguo President and Sinopec had met with the World Bank President, Cornelius Altheim of East Styria, who staunchly refused any suggestions to halt Balochistani trades on the Soviet Financial Payment System (SFPS), Celestial International Payment System (CIPS), TIKPI (Thaler Independent Accounting and Payments Internetwork), or FRYS (Frisian Regional Interpayment System). This was "so as to give some time to sort things over". Sinopec executives were incensed by this, and demanded an intervention force be deployed, resulting in the activation of the SDFCOM (then called the REDCOM or Readiness Command) and the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF).
Within 30 hours of H-hour, the first brigade of Oumei paratroopers had arrived in the Barchan Desert, in the neighboring country of Thule. Over the next month, a continuous buildup of armed force by the REDCOM led to the eventual air- and sea-landing of 8 divisions of the Continental Army, the 1st Marine Division of the FRMC reinforced by a National Guard armored brigade, six brigades from the Thule Armed Forces, a rapid motorized division from the Haudenausonee, two brigade equivalents from Sinopec's private military subsidiaries, a mechanized division from the Azidim Caliphate, and a light airborne division from the Republic of Vinland. Two Continental Navy marine assault carriers and a rotating ultracarrier battlegroup, as well as a Royal Navy armored carrier, and various surface ships from a dozen other nations arrived. This coalition had, rather unimaginatively, referred to itself as the allied nations.
Prototype deployments of the LARS long range targeting system, as well as the relatively fresh Sentinel AEW&C, provided battle management capacities exceeding the Celestial War-era "radio and plotting board" methods of the Balochistani Air Force. A secret deployment of the
Q-83 bomber by the 1108th Test and Evaluation Group was made to Thule by December 1985, with a more obvious showing of the
nuclear powered Airborne Assault Carriers of REDCOM, and their J-4 Phantom fighter squadrons, taking eyes off the Q-83s. Naval operations conducted by the Continental Navy, and the Royal Navy as part of its Celestial Ocean anti-piracy mandate, had been ongoing for some time now. Air raids by Balochistani tactical fighters, armed with the incredibly new Soviet X-35 "Uranus" anti-ship missile (likely handbuilt, as production lines would not be spooled up completely by 2Q86), had already damaged
two frigates of the Royal Navy by accident, and sea mines had begun to proliferate in the Balochi Strait, drawing Frisian and Gallic attention.
By November, the might of over twenty nations was pressing down on Balochistan, with Oumeiguo assembling approximately a million men, 3,500 tanks and APCs, 2,500 howitzers and rocket launchers, and over 1,800 aircraft, including a rotating "air battle force" of six Airborne Aircraft Carriers and ultracarrier battlegroups, to break Sardar's regime over its knee. This was opposed by Sardar's nearly 40 mechanized, infantry, and armored divisions, a million and a quarter men, 5,000 tanks and APCs, over 3,500 howitzers, and nearly a thousand tactical fighters, bombers, and interceptors. Having previously used chemical weapons against the Azidim Caliphate in an attempt to break a decade long stalemate, troops of all sides were ready for ABC combat, and
equipped accordingly. Notably, UZR and Jade Empire attaches arrived at Sardar's palace/command bunker in Mithradat, while
trainloads of heavy equipment arrived, including
experimental jammers,
advanced SRBMs, and
Soviet air defense advisors. Despite the ongoing Directorate War, the Royal Navy contributed an RCT:
42 Commando, Royal Marines, while the Alemannic Confederacy contributed an air-mechanized helicopter brigade,
141.Luftgrenadierbrigade, Frisia an armored brigade of "Alan" main battle tanks from
the 10th Armored Division, and Ynglia sending a
Yeomanry Regiment (mixed mechanized infantry-tank brigade). An attack helicopter battalion of the Royal Army,
equipped with the new "Gallan" gunship, would form the basis of the mobile anti-armor/tank destroyer force of the Alarian Division. This would be notable for being the only time, since the Alarian Empire's breakup in A.D. 564, that all four major indigenous powers of Alaria fought side by side.
By the end of November, an OPLAN had been assembled for the opening engagement, codenamed Mithril by REDCOM. The plan called for the seizure of the at-sea fortified oil rigs by naval special forces including Gallic SAEL teams and Oumeiguo Shark teams, destruction of first line air defense radar pickets, followed by "a methodical deconstruction" of the Balochi Army and Republican Guards through tactical aviation, before driving towards the oil field, located approximately 200 kilometers from the border with Thule. The Commanding General of REDCOM, GEN Hsiao Hei-Ching, was confident that this would work given the advantages in technology enjoyed by the allies over the Balochi and their Soviet sponsors.
While satellite observation had spotted the use of novel combat systems in Balochi inventory, these were mainly focused on tracking potential WMD systems, which were believed to be common Pluto and Mercury missiles. The identification of the Antaeus air defense system had, somehow, evaded Oumei DOD planners, likely due to a combination of low resolution and semi-constant cloud cover hindering efforts at VID, the bulk of these systems were classified as Cubes, Beeches, and Circles. Something that could penetrate the clouds of monsoon season was necessary. LARS radar flights near the border, guarded by Gallic
JAS.15C and Oumei
J-12 tactical fighters, would observe movement of Balochistani Republican Guards between firing positions as generally in accordance with their training. To assist in targeting, the LARS radar system could identify armored vehicles by return type, classifying vehicles as tracked tanks, APCs, trucks, SAM systems, et cetera. In most cases, these would be linked with a second database that identified a system as a threat and its specific classification, such as a
Wasp or
Yenisei, and they could be plotted based on their locations at a certain level of threat. Unfortunately, this system was rather unreliable, and due to the prototype nature of the LARS it often gave inadequate information that could often be resolved only by classification from ELINT or SIGINT, as part of the electronic order of battle (EOOB).
As observed, the Balochis were seen mobilizing "tracked SAMs" approximately 35 kilometers from the border positions, and thus their positioning of their Cube missile systems was considered inadequate as noted by LARS operators in the run up to Operation Mithril. These would eventually be classified by Cube air defense systems, with a maximum range of 25 kilometers in the best conditions, due to their use of Cube fire control radars in tracking the airliner sized LARS and "Cabin Boy" radio-electronic intelligence aircraft. Given the redundancy in the Soviet derived air defense systems, operators assumed the Balochis were using a variant of "forward pass" or "cooperative engagement", with the 1S91 radar systems being used to provide acquisition data for forward "blind" shooters. In reality, the systems were the then-brand new Antaeus air defense system, with a range nearly triple that distance, carrying anti-radar and TVM guided missiles. EOOB classification failed to detect them as unique, due to their backwards compatibility with Cube C3 systems, and use of Balochi radiomen belied their Soviet manning to SIGINT operators.
This would be the first of several mistakes during the Balochistani Emergency...
On Christmas Eve 1984, the Allied Nations began a simultaneous air and sea attack along the "line of death" at 0430 local time. LARS radar flights directed artillery against division and corps-level headquarters using cruise and tactical ballistic missiles. Balochistani naval commandos of the Marduk Brigade, although swift in seizing the oil rigs, were rapidly dispatched by naval commandos of the Allies using grapnel guns to board the rigs, after the SAG's escorts engaged in
"sweeping the decks" with 5" and 3" high explosive airburst rounds. Several Frisian built
Sardar-class,
Mosquito-class, and
Bumblebee-class patrol boats had sortied within three hours of the initial attacks on the oil rigs, during the break of dawn, and fired several missiles at the looming Allied armada, all missing either by interception fire, chaff, or poor aim. The response came swiftly, and shortly after breakfast time, most of the Balochi Navy had been destroyed by aviation, with the exception of the "Naga" Marine Division and coastal defense batteries. Balochi Air Force attacks, focused on the survival of their aviation, had rapidly scattered to their dispersed combat basing in the meantime.
Along the border with Thule, the lead divisions of the Balochi Army were battered by long range missile attacks and rocket artillery. Intricately plotted frontline air defense systems, such as the Arrow-2, were outmatched by long-range helicopter guided missiles of the Continental Army. Aerial aircraft carriers, deploying a wing-sized force of J-4 tactical fighters, with J-12s from land bases, hit multiple airfields. The Q-83 bomber, flying solely before dawn, struck multiple high priority Corps and Division-level command posts, as well as numerous hardened aircraft shelters. Soviet advisors, well aware of the threat of tactical aviation, had given up trying to force the Balochi Army to establish decoy positions, and focused their efforts on the Republican Guards who seemed relatively more motivated. LARS combat systems, providing a heads up for REDCOM's air targeting cell, enabled the use of Gallic railroad following cruise missiles and Frisian mine dispensing rocket launchers to disrupt reinforcement attempts by the 30th Corps of the Balochi Army, opposing the Alarian Division. Remaining behind the Line of Death, the Allied armies waited as their initial bombardment continued well into the day.
At noon, Sardar issued a radio announcement, stating that the "
mother of all battles has begun" and
vowed to defeat the "imperialist aggressors".
In the background, Soviet air defense troops had established several mobile command posts and batteries around Mithradat, and began jamming operations against the REDCOM's Airborne Aircraft Carriers, Sentinel AWACS, and LARS. These disruptions forced the LARS pilots in particular to wander closer to the border, seeking to burn through the jamming, and exposed to fire by the Antaeus air defense system. At 1447 local time, one of the two prototype LARS command aircraft, and two Sentinel AWACS, callsign Magic 1-1, came under fire by a S-300V using TVM and anti-radiation missiles respectively. One AWACS operations crew recognized the inbound threat as a high speed missile, and warned the flight crew in time to deploy the towed decoys while shutting down their radar in the process, and successfully fooling the ARH missiles. The second crew was not so lucky and turned their radar off at the last second, long after the missile had already arrived in the killbox, and the wreckage of their jet was discovered only after the ground campaign began. The LARS crew, alert to any threats but also unable to detect incoming missiles outside of visual information and what their SLAR could see, received an air warning from the first Sentinel crew that the air guard, Overlord 2-1, had been "zapped" and that the Balochis had a "diabolical new rocket".
Immediately after receiving this radio transmission, a 9S15 Obozor radar which was co-located with a forward area S-75 mobile battery, pinged a Cabin Boy ELINT aircraft as an unknown long range air defense radar, and forced an immediate issue of orders by all heavy flights to pull back from the border area, including tankers. The LARS threat warning receiver flashed a "search" radar warning, followed by an "FCR" warning, the latter triggered by a 9A82. It is not known why the S-300V crew chose to employ their onboard TELAR radar despite using TVM guided missiles, but it served as sufficient warning that the towed decoy was deployed and the LARS rapidly retreated from the combat zone shortly before firing of the Antaeus's surface to air missiles. Besides that, fourteen other Allied aircraft were shot down by a combination of surface to air missile and ground fire, and a dozen damaged, including
one Frisian pilot in particular who received a 6.5x39mm round to the helmet. As a result of the tankers being withdrawn early, four aircraft crashed with low fuel.
In all, the first day of the war went well.
Within minutes of the loss of Overlord 2-1, GEN Hsiao met with the air targeting cell and EOOB planners, who had little serious explanations for how this new development had occurred without their knowledge. Enraged, GEN Hsiao ordered an immediate retaliation strike, which was agreed to be performed on Christmas. The target list included Mithradat itself, which housed an experimental nuclear research reactor, and several long-range bomber bases which had been beyond the range of conventional attack without tanker support, a now near impossibility until the threat of the new SAM system had been defeated. The former targets were assigned to the 9th Fighter Wing of the Royal Army Air Corps, which had deployed with several squadrons of JAS.16C tactical fighters, supported by tankers and AWACS from REDCOM. The latter was assigned to the Airborne Battle Force, equipped with 78 J-4 tactical fighters, and towing a squadron of eighteen Q-83 bombers carrying "bunker buster" bombs.
The planning for this retaliatory operation was rushed, due to the need to organize a rapid strike before Balochistan evacuated their bombers across the border to the USSR, and the Continental Navy was left completely in the dark. The RAAC, sharing knowledge of the plan with the Royal Navy, received a go ahead from the battlegroup commander of the HMS Saint Marcion (CVN-61), which was transiting to the Far East Theater to support the Directorate War, for several high speed reconnaissance flights by
S.5 "Shooting Star" carrying SLARs, and at least two sorties by the onboard VAQ attack jammer squadron. The REDCOM Air Battle Group, conversely, received their orders only 14 hours before their sortie. Unused to the "Navy style" of "flying by the seat of your pants" that the RAAC and RN had adapted from, the former being born during the time of decentralized air operations, the CASF pilots struggled with rehearsal and planning of the strike.
Meanwhile, in Mithradat, the Nahadists were punch drunk over their small victory, having struck such a "decisive" blow to the Allied expedition, and within the opening shots of the war. The Soviet attaches, decidedly more sober, were concerned that the destruction of the Balochi Navy in so rapidly a time might open up the south to a naval landing by the Allies, but Sardar ignored these concerns, encouraging the "little Green men" to "drink and be merry". Ever grinches, they refused, and shuffled out of the bunker ball room to continue "planning the war". A large television panel in the main command center, Sardar's "War Room", showed everything from Sinopec's stock price to television news broadcasts, and Allied air movements. The hardened C3I command structure, installed by the Soviets in the early 1980s and heavily automated with experimental photonic computers, was capable of tracking, coordinating, and attacking incoming air threats along multiple axes in fully automatic modes. All the operators had to do was move to positions with decent views of the sky, setup their radios, and let the computer do the work. Designed to defend against "mass raids" of thousands of aircraft, the SAMI combat system was proving effective, having already netted nearly 30 to 50 possible Allied aircraft with little more than a few Cubes, Circles, Wasps, and Arrows, several hundred S-75 and S-200 missiles, and half a dozen S-300V war shots, in the past 36 hours. Although highly effective, SAMI's ammunition expenditure projections suggested that Allied aviation would overwhelm Balochistan by sheer volume after five to eight weeks, thus more proactive measures were necessary.
By midday on Christmas, following several more overnight attacks by Allied aviation, a second wave of daylight aviation raids over the Balochi-Thule border began, and the Allied armada ventured closer to shore. Hoping to free up pressure on the Eastern group of forces, GEN Hsiao ordered more air strikes near the main oil terminals of the al-Qaresh peninsula, jutting into the Balochi Strait. As the Saint Marcion neared the combat zone, she conducted several strikes in support of these operations, destroying four S-75 and one S-200 fixed site battery with cluster bombs and LGDPs from her onboard
JAS.14D Tomcat fighter-interceptors and
A.6 dive bombers. The 16" naval rifles of
HMS Dalia, a pristine Celestial War era battleship were it not for her radar-guided 1" Gatlings and cruise missile box launchers, pounded several bunker complexes and fortified areas along the al-Qaresh peninsula (part of the greater Mithradat urban area) as the RAAC's tactical aviation moved in at near supersonic speeds less than 200 feet above the ground. Nearly 90 aircraft flocked in the sky above Mithradat, hitting the research reactor with iron bombs and several associated air defense sites, for a loss of three strikers and none Navy. Of the four pilots who ejected, three were taken prisoner by Balochi Marines, while one evaded capture
by blending in with a nomadic tribe of ethnic Sarmatians. This last pilot, believed to be dead until a Gallic journalist found him in 2005 while covering Sardar's 20th anniversary speech, would eventually be discovered to have adopted the ancient polytheistic religion of the Sarmats after being nursed back to health from a broken leg incurred when performing a supersonic ejection from his stricken JAS.16C.
The egress route was blocked by a now fully alerted pair of interceptor bases, and
sporting Soviet Sokol fighters, with Green Army trained Balochi pilots, proved a more significant challenge. Heavily burdened by bombs, the strike JAS.16s found themselves dumping bags and pylons into the sea, burning towards the defense zone of the Royal Navy. Gallan RAAC JAS.15Cs tangled with the Sokols instead, and despite being outnumbered nearly 3:1, racked up 13 kills for a mere 2 losses. Analysis by RAAC test pilots in the latter half of the decade suggested that the pilots themselves, although competent, struggled with the primitive "pre-digital" cockpit and analog weapon control systems in the heat of the moment, while the "glass cockpit" design of the newly introduced JAS.15C provided a much greater reprieve. Such sentiment was shared by Eagle pilots in memoirs, who recalled similar difficulties with the analog cockpits of the JAS.15A.
In contrast, the operation by
the Air Battle Force, conducted using overnight flights after a VTO lift, around the border of Balochistan to the H-6 Air Base Complex, housing a demi-regiment of maritime strike bombers, chemical dispensing cruise missiles, three support fighter bases, and multiple dispersal fields, went more smoothly. With the destruction of several forward radar outposts, the Air Battle Force was able to gain position quickly, and attack from extreme range using their onboard magazines of a dozen
air launched ballistic missiles each to
demolish the support bases. A strike by J-4s, although considered outdated tactical aircraft by the mid-1980's, was highly successful in suppressing the local air defenses. This ostensibly provided easy access to the heavy bombers and their lethal chemical weapon cocktail carrying cruise missiles, although followup strikes by J-4s were necessary in some cases, as the hardened shelters would resist single, and occasionally double, impacts by the 2000 lbs laser guided bombs carried by Q-83s. At least three J-4s would report "brilliant flashing" from the ground, and one aircrew crashed after the pilot and WSO were blinded mid-flight, while several laser guided bombs had missed after being released. The causes of this were initially unknown but later identified as a prototype Soviet blinding laser system.
During the post-strike egress of the Air Battle Force, a final challenger appeared, in the form of Antaeus battery engaging one of the ABF's flying aircraft carriers with two lobbed shots by active radar guided missiles. Evasive action avoided a direct impact by the first missile, although a detonation off the side of the port wing injured four ordnancemen and damaged the tails of two docked J-4s, caused three aviation fuel tanks to leak, and tearing open part of the wing of a trailing Q-83. The second impact hit the anterior port side, near the officers' mess, causing an internal fire and depressurizing a portion of the main ventral cabin. Rapid damage control efforts by the CASF air crew restored pressure to the helm and auxiliary access areas, through which firemen managed to evacuate six wounded pilots and two cooks, all suffering from smoke inhalation injuries and splinter. Airborne Aircraft Carrier AAC-0002 would descend to 1,800 feet immediately afterwards, forcing her flock of 8 Q-83s to abort their tow, but continuing her return home otherwise unbothered. The ground crews later discovered how close the missile was to causing an engine fire on the outboard portside VTO sponson, which could potentially have made it impossible to land in a recoverable state.
In all, Christmas went well, even if the Allies were having a rough time of it.
Post-strike assessments, by
high altitude supersonic reconnaissance flights of the Royal Army's Atomic Force, revealed the reactor had been damaged to the point that future operation was impossible. Several air defense missiles, including S-200 Vega and S-300 Antaeus, were fired at the Gallic recce jets to little effect, which also provided substantial EOOB intelligence for Cabin Boy and Cabin Joint reconnaissance aircraft orbiting in international waters, allowing for a tentative identification of the S-300 complex as a new combat system. Now realizing the threat of Soviet interference in the Balochi War, emphasis returned to destroying frontline forces, while GEN Hsiao consulted with DODIA (Dept. of Defense Intelligence Agency) technical specialists and Department of the Secret Services (DSS) on the possibility of a "fifth generation computer-automated air defense complex" centered in Mithradat. Their conclusions were that, between 1981 and 1983, the Union of Soviet Republics had shipped several unknown telecommunications systems to the center of Mithradat. Despite hitting multiple electrical substations outside Mithradat, these systems remained powered and operational, indicating backup electrical generation.
By the end of Christmas week, air operations near Mithradat were now being conducted solely by Q-83 stealth bombers, less one damaged during the H-6 base strike, and successful in degrading the capabilities of the Balochi Air Defense Troops to protect their capital city. Special operations troops from
Gallia,
Frisia,
Oumei, and
Vinland would be deployed inside the borders of Balochistan to seek and destroy these air defense systems near the border of Thule, in order to pave the way for a mass air-ground offensive to retake the oil fields. Although unlikely to achieve the "paralysis" initially sought by air planners in REDCOM, it was expected that the gathered Allied armies had more than sufficient brute strength to bulldoze the Balochi Army and Republican Guards, and destruction of air defense sites deep inside the border (>100 km) would allow for relatively unfettered air operations despite occasional Balochi Air Force resistance. The Q-83s, being ideal air defense penetrators, would attack deep into Balochistan to continue holding the air defense troops' attention and further degrade their command and control.
The Soviets, after their disastrous showing around Mithradat against the RAAC, had taken the time to reinforce their foothold around Mithradat by relocating two of the three S-300V batteries to strategic areas outside the city. A roving battery was kept in the north to continue operations against Allied aircraft, which had decreased from nearly 3,000 sorties in the first week to slightly less than 2,000 by the third. While several train loads of freshly produced missiles had arrived, Sardar demanded that these be used for protection of the capital, and ultimately emphasized defense of the supercomputer complex built into his main command bunker. The reasons for this would be revealed only after the war, but ultimately proved fortuitous for Balochistan, unbeknownst to Soviet air defense planners.
By the end of December, approximately two and a half weeks into the air battle, the Office of Special Collections (KSI) of Gallia had compiled a report on the possible use of a
photonic computer complex for management of their air defense. Such a computing system would "likely be the size of a large structure", "contained underground in a hardened complex", and "be capable of advanced computation". This was dismissed by REDCOM as "pointless speculation", although the alternative of the possibility of a superconducting supercomputer was supported by the massive helium storage stockpile located within Mithradat, but was considered immaterial to the immediate war effort. , SAMI was only capable of projecting air combat losses based on only reported ammunition expenditures, and automatizing the engagement process, similar to a Royal Navy air defense cruiser, but requiring a whole-nation fiber optic or microwave connection system. Derived from the OGAS computer system of the USR, the SAMI complex was capable of fighting the air war, but still required a central air defense command center staffed by humans responsible for setting target velocity and altitude gates. With its "federated" network the SAMI air battle management system could track up to 100-200 targets in each air defense "sector", controlled by a local air defense command post, and divided the Balochistan skies into a dozen such sectors. As the Allies began emphasizing strikes near the FLOT, the thousands of tracks detected had begun to overwhelm the processing power of the SAMI system, resulting in fewer and fewer engagements beyond blind shots by local commanders and MANPADS teams, with the exception of occasional "zapping" by the mobile S-300V Antey, which now had almost two dozen Allied jets, including the Sentinel AWACS, under its belt.
On New Year's Eve, 1984, a RAAC JAS.15C conducting a supersonic SLAR run over the Thule desert detected a mobile Cube battery at a range of 80 kilometers, and engaged it with cluster bombs after VID using an infrared search pod. Unknown to the fighter's crew, what was engaged was the Antaeus battery, and resulted in the destruction of the main command post and two TELARs. Although not known until after the war, this event dramatically decreased loss rates of Allied aircraft from this point onwards, which at the time was attributed to Balochistani Air Defense Troops (finally) running low on air defense ammunition. Unfortunately, this would be overshadowed later that night by one of the most devastating losses of Allied airpower over Mithradat. During a Q-83 strike on several power facilities and command posts, believed to be housing Sardar himself, a Soviet air defense commander had become coy to the unique signature of the "stealth fighter" on the Balochi air defense radar. Despite using a near 20 years outdated system, and one he was only partially familiar with, this air defense commander managed to hit a Q-83 using the command guidance mode of his missiles. Detonating a rocket several meters off the port wing, the aircraft immediately began to invert after the pilot, COL Wu "Invincible" Di, Continental Army Strategic Air Forces, ejected and crashed several miles outside of Mithradat
in a farm field. Despite heavy jamming support and defense suppression from Gallic RAAC pilots, the command guidance system had been perplexingly difficult to confront, with it only being known after the ground war that the Balochistani missiles had been upgraded with a recently developed laser CLOS system.
For the second time, in almost as many weeks, Mithradat had won a great victory in the mother of all battles, with COL Di paraded around on television shortly after his capture.
Air operations over Mithradat were suspended until Thursday, as REDCOM found itself grappling with RAAC air commanders' insistence that "one plane is not a great loss" and "if you're that worried, the Royal Navy has plenty of nuclear weapons to use", much to the chagrin of CASAF air planners. Following this, a "maximum effort" would be expended, as the air war exited its second week, and the Federal Navy committed a second ultra-carrier and three supercarrier battlegroups to the operation. With the addition of Continental Navy aircraft, REDCOM was able to split its air planning into two main cells. Allowing the Gallic RAAC and Frisian Loftmacht to contribute maximally to the northern area of operations, with the latter taking command precedence, REDCOM focused on the command centers in and around Mithradat, and began selectively "peeling the onion" around the capital air defense zone. Sinopec executives, seeing their trade prices stabilize at between 1/3rd to 2/5th's of the pre-war value, began to sleep a bit easier at the turn of the year, confident the Allied operation would conclude before February. The Balochi oil and gas fields represented nearly three-fifth's of Sinopec's total extraction output, and contributed to it being the fourth largest oil extraction firm in the world.
For the next week, air operations across Balochistan intensified after the lull brought about by the Antaeus deployment, picking up speed as air planners saw their operational loss rates drop. By January 6th, the Allies had successfully conducted multiple chaff corridor raids, using the ultracarriers' unprecedented ability to muster a full fighter wing, combined with the recently recommitted Air Battle Force, and land-based strategic cruise missile carriers from Oumei proper, to overwhelm Mithradat's local air defense sector with nearly 1,000 incoming tracks every night, over New Year's weekend, culminating in the destruction of several major computer complexes for the SAMI air defense system, reducing its effectiveness, although this would the final substantial victory against the air defense network. Under pressure from the Gold House, Sinopec executives, the DOD ordered REDCOM to begin offensive operations by mid-January to retake the oil fields. GEN Hsiao protested, stating that Operation Mithril called for a six to nine week bombardment campaign and that they had only just finished "peeling the onion" of the Balochi air defense. At threat of dismissal, Hsiao complied and stated that ground operations could begin on the 20th, with the plans organized under Operation Adamantine.
Despite the insistence of the Alarian Division, and the Gallic contingent in particular, the DOD refused to provide weapons release authority for tactical nuclear weapons except in the event of "sustained" ABC chemical attack by the Sardarites. The Balochi General Staff were now beginning to dig in. Now, truly, the Mother of All Battles would begin in earnest. All in all, the war was going as good as could be expected, even with the Allies' facing intense pressures from corporate interest. Air operations would continue for the next two weeks, fully focused on degrading Balochi troops in the north now, before the ground troops began their offensive actions. Gallic
A.10 attack aircraft proved exceptionally effective in this role, employing 5" rocket pods and cluster bombs with deadly results.
Balochi conscripts, however, had not been idle and prepared numerous defensive earthworks, which would need to be defeated. Allied REDCOM commanders anticipated as few as 3,000 and as many as 12,000 casualties during ground operations, even with destruction of Balochi command posts, based on their Soviet training. Unfortunately for the Allies, their time table was ultimately moved up as Sinopec began to put pressure on the National Congress, while several major media outlets reported multiple Alarian banks had made substantial profits off of the futures market from a series of nested bids on Sinopec's stocks, with the ultimate bidder unknown at the time. With its stock price dropping from a high of ¥41.54 on 3 JUL 84 to a low of ¥18 on 28 DEC 84, but recovering to ¥27 by 14 JAN 85, Sinopec found itself being bought on the market by anonymous trade firms. In an attempt to avert this, executives began calling up members of the National Congress Armed Forces Committees, both in the People's Congress and the States' Congress, urging for immediate ground action. Although initially scheduled for the following Sunday or Monday, ground operation time tables were pushed up to Wednesday, to retake the Balochi oil fields. Meanwhile, Sinopec began leveraging from Sinobank, as well as others, to buy time for the Balochi fields to be retaken and their mysterious hostile takeover...er to be fended off with an increased stock price.
On 18 JAN 85, the first assault troops of the Allies crossed the border into Balochi territory, 120 kilometers from the oil fields, under the cover of nearly 1,800 Allied aircraft and 500 attack helicopters. A massive artillery barrage of 2,000 guns and rocket launchers preceded their advance, while tactical ballistic missiles struck the
long-range guns of the Balochi Army and their
imported Kampalan equivalents. Within 24 hours, the Allies had punched through almost a dozen divisions of the Balochi Army and began hooking north, as LARS radar aircraft provided accurate targeting data of Republican Guard motor battalions racing to try to fill in the gaps. Where they met equivalent sized units, the Balochis were somewhat effective, stopping the Allied advance in four separate areas but being surrounded by nearby battalions or otherwise forced to retreat after arrival of Allied aviation.
Flying fewer than 40 sorties a day, the Balochi Air Force mustered two major air attacks, disrupting an Alemannic light motorized column and an Oumei Marine tank company with sixteen and two casualties each. The Balochi Army Air Corps flew at least 800 sorties during the air operation, doing slightly better, but still failing to disrupt the Allied assault. Ground troops of the Balochis, besides the Republican Guards, were wholly ineffective at attacking, often meeting HE-VT airburst rounds. SRBM strikes by the Balochi Rocket Corps remained the deadliest weapon in Sardar's arsenal, inflicting 952 of the ~1,850 dead and 1,091 of the 2,931 wounded, during a rocket attack on an ammunition pier in Thule, which
caused a detonation of nearly 3 kilotons, when a Oumei SAM system failed to successfully intercept a ballistic missile's incoming conventional warhead. As the ground war dragged on into the weekend, Allied troops halted 80 kilometers in to regroup and consolidate their advance, as well as to supply ammunition and fuel, as the SRBM strike had severed significant fractions of theater munitions and as well the Balochis had begun surrendering en masse. Meanwhile, the Republican Guards consolidated their positions within, around, and near the oil fields.
By 22 JAN 85, the following Monday, the Allies were prepared to resume their advance, when surprise orders came from DOD to halt all combat operations and begin withdrawing. Over the weekend, several Sinopec executives had committed suicide, with the CEO, Li Huang,
throwing himself from his 44th story office window in the Sinopec Tower in downtown Changji. Several firms and investors over the past eight months had approached the major shareholders of Sinopec, purchasing their shares at then-inflated prices of ¥42, the nominal pre-war peak share price. Sinopec had subsequently been ordered to divest the Balochi gas and oil fields, and appoint a new board, with the present corporate officers seeking legal injunction for a period of six months. This time had run out and, at the closing of trades on Friday, Sinopec had a new majority owner:
Sardar Husayn.
The Allied troops, quietly fuming, were ordered to fall back to the border a mere 30 kilometers from the main oil fields. The Oumeiguo government, and in particular the National Congress, were left completely stunned. Congressmen immediately protested the sale but found there was little legal recourse to be had. Injunctions were possible, but these were primarily intended for investing purposes not protectionist ones, and Sinopec was unable to raise sufficient capital to fend off Balochi stock purchases. A post-mortem by the Congressional Research Institute found that Sardar had orchestrated a series of longs on the futures market with regards to oil, helium, and LNG commodity prices in the beginning of 1984, aiming for early August, and commensurately shorted the position of Sinopec's stocks by at least a quarter, ultimately raking in substantially more than this, all using leveraged capital from several Alarian banks. Bypassing trade sanctions by using Frisian and Gallic national banks, which were still connected to Oumeiguo markets, Sardar used this to purchase significant stocks through December and January in Sinopec as the air war had raged. Much of this was routed through the SAMI master computer system. Being derived from the Soviet OGAS, the SAMI was not just an air defense system but also served as a Market-Master-in-Miniature (MMiM) in Soviet terminology, allowing it to "plan and organize offensive economic operations". Ultimately all of this, however, was a result of Sinopec attempting to orchestrate a pro-corporate coup d'etat against Sardar by influencing internal politics while using insider knowledge of the Balochi Customs Agency to "starve the beast" of Sardar's regime by depriving him of tax and lease fees, which were ultimately connected to oil exports. Eventually, the plan went, the ever increasing interest on national debt would drive Sardar to bankruptcy. From this, a pro-Sinopec government could be formed which would establish favorable economic policies to Sinopec.
Sardar Husayn, however, put paid to this plan with his victory in
"the little boardroom brawl", and had rewritten the rules on international warfare. Balochistan made history as an economic-political pioneer, being the first third position economy nation to use the
new field of "corporate raiding" in such a manner. Sardar ultimately divested Sinopec's ownership of the Balochi oil field, and acquired it "fair and square", using the field as a means to "right the ship of state" and establish a long running premiership lasting well into the first quarter of the 21st century. In the aftermath, Sinopec was broken up by the National Congress into six different firms, one for each continent, multiple major laws were passed on international and stock trades, and similar methods of corporate raiding ultimately declined through the decade as such primitive methods became impractical. Although many imitators appeared in the following 20 years, no one matched the success of Sardar Husayn in such deftness.
The latter 21st century has seen a return of these raids in spirit, if not in such crudity, with
Cerberus Capital Management and the Soviet Tchaikovsky Group leading the pack.
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tl;dr Saddam Hussein fights Standard Oil, basically wins through stock market chicanery, which results in the Super Congress breaking up Standard Oil into half a dozen subsidiaries so they don't embarrass the government again, and forcing the military into making a stealth JSTARS/AWACS hybrid, so they aren't clapped in the ass by Soviet super missiles again.
All in a day's work for
Ba'athism Nahadism's strongest soldier.
) but has much more pleasent lines than the Nimrod AEW. Cheers!
Need AEW but might not have a runway, well here's the plane for you.
