INCOMING TRANSMISSION
COMM ID: Sub-Lieutenant Konstantin Petrovin
LOCATION: Zhukovsky Station, Omega-52 System
After the altercation in Tau-23, I decided to make the best of my trip home. I visited the Sigma-13 System, the battleground of the Eighty Years War between Imperial Rheinland and the Gas Miners Guild. From what weve managed to obtain from Sirian databanks, this war was fought in a partisan style and ultimately led to the complete collapse of both the Rheinland Military and its government. It might be contested that the Rheinlanders have learned from the mistakes they made there, but history tends to repeat itself, and no doubt we have been employing some of the same tactics against our enemies. All of that aside, the place is rather scenic.
I started my tour at a small alcove in one of the moving oxygen pockets. While treacherous, I was able to steer my Partisan between the most dangerous sections and witness the destruction within. There appeared to be the remains of a small taskforce of ships: at least one heavy cruiser, two smaller escorts, and a squadron of fighters. I got down to making observations and drawing conclusions, finding rather interesting results.
The heavy cruiser there was the RIN Kassel, one of the most flaunted ships in that forgotten navy. Records indicated it had served with distinction for in upwards of fifty years prior to the point of its destruction, during which it was responsible for the systematic destruction of countless GMG convoys and heavy ships. There was severe damage to its engine nozzle and the main bridge looked as if it had been hit with a warhead from point blank, the explosion starting well behind the bulkhead. On top of that, the location of the power core was practically nonexistent; two gaping holes were all that were evidenced of its placement, and the fore and aft portions of the ship had literally popped off in opposite directions, possibly due to the ensuing explosion.
The two smaller escorts, the RIN Vineta and RIN Thetis, were almost completely destroyed, with little but their bows intact. There was severe damage to the bridge sections, and the spray of pieces behind those bows indicated core combustion.
As for the fighters, they formed a string of broken vessels extending out of the oxygen cloud. Each intact fighter had severe damage to the engines and maneuvering veins, almost to the exclusion of the rest of the ship.
There are many things that can be deduced from these findings. The Kassel itself was a high-priority target, not only because of its effectiveness in the field but because of its perceived worth; the destruction of such a vessel must have been a severe blow to Imperial morale. The Rheinlanders must have known this since it was allotted such a sizable escort, but the GMG took care of the whole group expertly.
The trail of fighters leading to the main graveyard indicates that the group was operating by itself and was being hounded by GMG fighters. They would try to catch fighters in tight formation, or draw them away from the rest of the group where they were picked apart. The damage centered on the engines indicates that they sought to gain mission kills rather than operational ones; a disabled enemy is a powerless enemy. This allowed them to work quickly, quicker than the Rheinlanders could think.
The oxygen clouds have been moving from place to place in the Sigma-13 System, but the drifting patterns of the wrecks indicates that they have been moving with that particular cloud, perhaps since the moment of their destruction. This would reveal another masterful stroke by the GMG: the Kassel and its escorts were not only hounded away from their main fleet, but were herded towards a dangerous zone of space. While the fighters could slip through the pockets, albeit with some difficulty, the cruisers would be hard pressed to maintain their defenses in such an environment, their shields constantly being drained by the exploding gas.
Damage patterns on the ships seem to tell even more of the story. The engine nozzles, the weakest link in any engine assembly, were targeted first. The GMG must have pushed the Kassel and its escorts into the cloud and then shot apart its engine in order to trap it there, not only exposing it to constant environmental damage but dissuading other Imperial Navy units from coming to its aid. Next, the bridge was targeted with as much firepower as the GMG could muster, taking out a sizable portion of the bow, including the secondary bridge. With command and control completely decapitated, the ships crew must have been in a state of anarchy and panic, too confused to man the guns, or the escape pods. One last salvo into the power core from the closest possible location on the hull detonated it, splitting the ship into multiple parts and killing anything left alive inside. The escort cruisers must have suffered the same fate, and in very short order, hinting at an enviable level of coordination on the part of the GMG.
All in all, the tactics demonstrated here resulted in the complete annihilation of the RIN Kassel and its battlegroup. Partisan warfare, striking fast, hard, and with precision, despite considerably less resources than the enemy, was the victor here.
My next stop took me to the more obvious location of the fighting, the Yanagi Cloud. This place was the location of the last major battle of the Eighty Years War in which what was left of the Imperial Navy was almost completely destroyed, save for the RIN Westfalen. While the Junkers and ALG have tampered with the debris in this field, there is still some information to be gleaned. Many of the wrecks of the capital ships exhibit the same trends of targeting subsystems as was seen with the Kassel. Cruisers were hit in identical places, and battleships were deprived of their heavy forward armaments so that GMG gunboats could join the fight unmolested. Fighters exhibit the same crippling damage in the engines and maneuvering veins as their counterparts elsewhere, and the proximity of the capital ship hulks suggest that they hardly had time to flee formation before they were set upon by ruthless attack groups. The Westfalen no doubt survived only by the merit of turning tail before the rest did.
The last destination of mine was the site of the old Kruger Minerals station. This station was synchronized with the local star, but an oxygen cloud recently moved over it, making observation somewhat difficult. This target was civilian in origin, doubtless defended but far from what the Rheinlanders would consider the frontline. This would have served no difficulty to the GMG, however, which used the extensive network of jump holes in the system to stab the clumsy fleets in the back at every turn.
Whats left of the station was a complete disaster; twisted metal and bits of metal indicated a violent end to anyone left aboard. Targets of interest seem to have been the defensive weapons on the habitation levels, and then the hangars which they guarded. There was an obvious attempt at sealing in the occupants before they managed to escape. This belies the same brutality that was seen at the wreck of the Kassel; the GMG showed the Rheinlanders absolutely no mercy, and simply tried to kill as many of them as possible. Its likely that this was the main objective in order to win the war, but as history shows it took the complete destruction of the Imperial Navy in order to accomplish this. Needless to say, the Rheinlanders refused to bend to fear or a list of casualties, which forced the GMG to sustain their terrorizing mode of warfare until every last ship had been vented. While the popular revolution did take place afterward, this method was not necessarily practical, as evidenced by the fact that it took eighty years to see results.
In any case, the gas canisters were not the targets. While some had been destroyed, probably by stray fire, there were intact tanks, indicating that the GMG did its best to salvage what was left of their livelihood even as they ended the lives of their enemies.
All in all, the GMG have shown an astounding aptitude for tactical operations and yet are somewhat lacking in the strategic sense. Our enemy spans all of Sirius, and we fight for the liberation of all people, rather than a single system. However, I feel that some of these lessons can be taken to heart.
Ive traded my Partisan in for an Insurgent, as per the orders of Comrade Captain Alvarez and with the blessings of Comrade Commander Warner. I intend to put it to good use.
![[Image: comm1a.png]](http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/3585/comm1a.png)