3070 - June - Naval Operations
In June the Federated Sun's Navy had it's turn to show what the billion's of c-bill investment in building it could do. In Operation Caesar 2 full flotilla's of Fox II corvettes and a squadron of Davion III along with every pocket warship, assault dropship, gunship, fighter wing, marine company and LF battery equipped Tramp class jumpship that the Admiral's could scrape together swept into action on the Draconis Front. Meanwhile the FSS Covenant and her 2 escorting corvettes initiated Operation Paris deep behind the enemy lines. At the same time a large number of heavier ships began assembling as part of Operation Nightfire and headed towards the Lyran Alliance.
Operation Caesar
With the 2nd Destroyer Squadron broken into 2 divisions each of 2 ships as backup the 4th and 7th Corvette Flotilla's began operations within the Draconis Combine. Each flotilla effectively scattered, each corvette forming the basis of a raider mini-flotilla of it's own, consisting of the corvette - carrying full fighter wings, a Vengeance class carrier dropship, 2 pocket warships and 2 assault dropships, 2-3 Tramp class jumpships all carrying a mix of marine transports, further assault and pocket warships and enough carrier dropships to add at least 1 more aerospace regiment to the force. Supply flotillas remained with the Davion III destroyers operating as backup, mostly consisting of Monolith and Star Lord class jumpships who would dispatch the remaining handful of Tramp class jumpships to rendezvous and resupply the raiding flotillas as required. It went without saying that in addition to the Davion III's the supply flotillas had large number of assault dropships and fighter wings of their own protecting them.
Each raider force scattered throughout the Combine's space. The 4th Corvette's ships scattered mostly throughout the Benjamin and Dieron Military Districts while the 7th concentrated it's efforts within the mostly still totally HPG-dark Galedon Military District. Their goal was simply - to capture or destroy every Combine registered jumpship and dropship that they possibly good. They were to avoid combat with enemy warships if at all possible, if not they were to summon the Davion III destroyers to hunt and destroy individual warships or summon additional raider flotillas to help as well if they ran into a major DCA presence. To avoid the chance of them being ambushed in turn they were ordered to avoid a number of key worlds.
Even avoiding district and prefecture capital worlds the raider flotilla's were soon cutting a swathe through the Combine. While the lesser worlds would rarely have many jumpships in system at any time the loss of every single hull was something that the Combine simply couldn't afford right now. During June the raider flotilla's managed to each raid on average 3 systems. Meaning that overall 63 systems received the attention of the raider flotillas across a huge range of the Combines rear areas. The Tabayama Prefecture was particularly hard hit with only the prefectures capital world not being raided and swept clean of jumpships.
In each case the Davion's operation was effectively the same. The raider flotilla would jump into a system and immedietly disgorge it's dropships and fighters. Jumpship's and jump stations would be ordered to stand down. Any that resisted or attempted to flee would then be attacked. The Fox corvettes would smash any assault or pocket warship dropship with the aid of their own and fighter wings while other assault dropships and fighters would escort marines with prize crews to take control of jumpships and dropships. When the raider flotilla jumped out they would take with them the captured vessels which would then make their way to the supply rendezvous and from there back into the Federated Suns.
There were of course running battles at many jump points and often these would give the Kurita jumpships time to jump away and escape - if they had a sufficient charge. However even when this happened it caused massive disruption to the Combines lines of supply and even communication - with jumpships assigned to certain routes and worlds now suddenly either gone or having emergency jumped to the wrong system or a dead system and so out of use for at least a week.
Within a week of the first strikes the Draconis Combine Admiralty were under screaming pressure to "do something". Of course given that the entirely Kurita warship fleet consisted of only 24 hulls, half of which were Inazuma class corvettes there was little they could do. The heavier vessels were concentrated at worlds like Pesht, Luthien, Galedon, New Samarkand and Benjamin along with most of the corvettes. The few corvettes not at capital worlds were often stationed at worlds with shipyards to protect them. The DCA knew that to dispatch single ships was to invite defeat in detail and so instead began to slowly strip a warship here, a fighter wing there to assemble a hunter killer group to hunt the raiders - but they knew that this would take time and worse they could only possibly assemble a single group without stripping the defences of key worlds bare.
Meanwhile the Davion raider flotilla's ran rampant...
Operation Paris
The FSS Covenant and the FSS Trickery and FSS Trickster jumped into the Midway system on the 7th of June - masquerading as the DCS Siriwan (which the AFFS knew to be heavily damaged in orbit over Benjamin) and 2 escorting Inazuma class corvettes. Artfully arranged false panels and an engine room that was being run in a way that was driving the ship's chief engineer to almost a mental breakdown gave the impression of a heavily damaged cruiser limping home, while IFF transponder codes stolen by ROM agents and given to the AFFS backed this up. While these codes were somewhat out of date - Midway's HPG had been particularly trashed and it's communication lines to the DCA on Luthien were almost non-existent.
The planet's primary garrison was the 17th Legion of Vega, but it's green fighter wing was planet side rather than at the shipyards. The yards themselves had a heavy assault dropship force (built around 4 Nekohono'o and 2 Excalibur class pocket warships) to protect them, as well as a strong marine contingent and a naval aerospace wing. As well as these forces the DCS Galedon Warrior was home ported in the system and 2 Inazuma class corvettes were completing at the yards and were theoretically available for defensive operations.
The limping FSS Covenant approached the yards with pre-recorded messages being sent of heavy internal damage from fighting at Dieron. This ruse held up almost to extreme range but when the captain of the DCS Galedon Warrior saw the 9 dropships detaching from the incoming "friendlies" he smelt a rat and began a combat burn towards them to intercept them. Perhaps had he known of the existence of a Kirishima class vessel within the Federated Sun's Navy he might have caught on quicker, but that information had been heavily suppressed even within the DCA. The 2 Inazuma class vessels technically under his command were unable to join him, barely able to go to action stations and begin deploying away from the yards. He was however joined by the assault dropship force from the shipyard.
The FSS Covenant and her escort's 6 pocket warships - all Excalibur class - opened the fighting with a series of long range capital missile volleys at the charging DCS Galedon Warrior, while the other 3 dropships - all Vengeance class - began launching fighter wings that were heavily slewed towards anti-ship operations with 80 of the 120 fighters launched heavy weighted and outfitted with capital missiles/bombs on their hard points. The remaining 40 dropship launched fighters and all of the 24 launched from the warships themselves were amongst the finest interceptor designs and pilots the AFFS could produce.
Hit 3 times by missiles the DCS Galedon Warrior swung to port to fire heavier broadsides and was matched in this by the FSS Covenant. The FSS Trickster and FSS Trickery continued to drive forward firing at the DCS Galedon Warrior as best they could but also attempting to reach the shipyard before their 2 sister ships could become fully operational. The pocket warships stayed with the FSS Covenant and continued to pour missiles into the DCA warship as did more than half the fighters, while their DCA counterparts did the same.
The fight between the DCS Galedon Warrior and FSS Covenant was brutal and over much quicker than most naval engagement. By the end of it the DCS Galedon Warrior was destroyed along with all of it's accompanying dropships, while the FSS Covenant had suffered moderate damage and lost all but 1 of it's escorting dropships.
The FSS Trickster and FSS Trickery along with a full aerospace regiment had crashed down on the still working up DCS Divine and Beautiful Wind and DCS Cherry Blossom's Fall along with most of the DCA fighter wing. The 2 Kurita corvettes had stood little chance and been torn apart by the heavy fighters of the FedSun's Navy bomber wings - and then finished off by their Davion counterparts. While the DCS fighter wing survived longer and managed to inflict significant losses upon the 2 bomber wings which had crippled the 2 Kurita corvettes, they lost access to any chance to refuel or rearm when the FSS Trickery closed with the shipyards and began firing into their base station. When the surviving fighters from the FSS Covenant's fight joined their remaining comrades the numbers were simply too much for the Kurita fighters and they were destroyed.
With the enemy naval assets destroyed the 3 Federated Sun's warships made no effort to seize the shipyards or warships being constructed in them, but instead opened fire and with careful volleys crippling the yards over the course of 3 days. Not even the most optimistic plans of the AFFS High Command foresaw Midway joining the Federated Suns and as such it was more important to cripple the yards to prevent further Kurita warships being built. While the yards weren't outright destroyed and would be repairable, it would only be at huge cost and probably take years. Deliberately the shipyard slips capable of producing jumpships were less damaged, with the hope that this would force the Kurita's into prioritising jumpship production over warship production.
The 3 damaged Davion warships jumped out of the Midway system on the 28th of June leaving wreck and ruin in their wake, making the long way back via dead systems to the FedSun's to be refitted and repaired.
Operation Nightfire
The 1st, 2nd and 4th Carrier Battle Groups (albeit with the 2nd and 4th "Battle Groups" consisting only of their New Syrtis class carrier) formed the core of the forces assigned to Operation Nightfire. They were joined by the 1st Destroyer and 3rd Squadron, 1st Patrol Squadron and the 1st and 3rd Corvette Flotilla's. With 3 Carriers, 10 Destroyers, 4 Frigates and 20 Corvette's as well as a large number of jumpships and dropships of all kinds, the assembled fleet dwarfed any deployment of warships by the Federated Sun's since the 1st Succession War's Battle of Cholame. The fact that it was being launched at the same time as Operation Caesar spoke volumes as to the capabilities of the resurgent Federated Sun's Navy.
Using dead systems the massive fleet headed through the League March and into the Lyran Alliance. While Fleet Admiral Buchwald had been tempted to order it to strike at the WOB forces at New Earth, Thorin, etc or even perhaps Terra itself he had given strict orders. The Fleet was to hide it's presence until it could jump into Hesperus and liberate that world. For this purpose the 1st St Ives Cheveau-Legers, 1st Arcadians RCT, 1st Aragon Borderer's, 1st Kittery Borderer's, 2nd New Avalon Cavaliers and 5th FedSun's Dragoons RCT along with a substantial number of independent battle armour battalions and marine units had been attached to the Fleet for ground operations. Leading the ground elements was none other than former Princes's Champion Ardan Sortek himself, with the rank of Field Marshal. It was due to arrive in the Hesperus system sometime in July depending on it's progress and any potential delays. Consideration had been given to inform the ComGuards or LAAF so that they could assign units to Task Force Nightfire, but had been rejected as a security risk.
