A Wolf in the Jungle. [PMT/Macabees/GD]

[United World Order]

Holy Panooly Demarcation line, Army Group 'Center',
1st Ordenite Army Group

The 1st Ordenite Army Group was to be involved in what was to be determining the future of the continent and Reich control on Holy Panooly it's self. What was deemed as 'Operation Wolverine' would account for the full scale invasion of the Golden Throne satrapy of North Panooly by the Ordenite Wehrmacht and what ground forces it could muster on the continent. Of course Operation Wolverine was a plan that had been formulated since the separation of the country into two separate countries and In the past few months, tensions had been on the rise as had been noted through Ordenite intelligence efforts on Holy Panooly and the ever present force build up of the Golden Throne on the demarcation line. On the eve of the now on-going war in Kashubia against the PUF, Operation Wolverine was being revised and tweaked for possible future implementation at a later time. Operation Wolverine would call for a three prong offensive into North Panooly and initial objectives would be to engage and route any enemy garrisons on the Demarcation line and secure a head way into the country before pressing on with individual objectives assigned to the individual prongs which were labeled, A, B and C. These prongs after breaking through the demarcation line would advance up their own designated routes until reaching their final overall objectives which were all tied to ending up in the vicinity of Panooly City the de-facto capital of the satrapy.

The 1st Ordenite Army Group was labeled as the prong that would drive up the center and attached to it was the single Waffen SS field army that had seen action in the first RSU war and had even been on the ropes to deploying back to RSU when the first week of combat in Kashubia occurred. When the orders came that Operation Wolverine was to begin, the 1st Ordenite Army Group immediately begun advancing from the center of the Demarcation line and forward, engineer units were up front in order to minimalize casualties from possible mine fields and any other booby traps laid for the defense of North Panooly. Any encounters with Macabeean forces would at first be engage if engaged as vehicles equipped with loud speakers would project a message asking for the peaceful surrender of Macabeean soldiers and that they would not be engaged nor harmed in captivity. Of course this message would most likely not garner the response Ordenite forces would hope for and would likely be given the order to engage and destroy Macabeean units who didn't accept surrender. Unlike how the war was being fought against the Mokans and their allies in Kashubia, the Ordenites now advancing into North Panooly would conduct the war in a 'gentlemen' like fashion.

The Ordenite Luftwaffe were most likely to score the first real shots in the war as they were given access to intelligence sources on Macabeean and Panoolie defenses and positions, SAM sites and radar structures along with defense structures, communications and command and control targets would be targeted by the array of bombers and Lu-45 war hawks in the disposal of the Luftwaffe in Holy Panooly. Cyclone reconnaissance hunter drones would be deployed in masse by their handlers to keep real time data and surveillance on Macabeean and Panoolie defenses and troop movements on the ground in order to keep the offensive well informed and prepared for any counters the enemy may do in the opening moments of the invasion. Army Group A would be driving up the western coast and flank of Army Group C and would conduct in the same manner as its objectives would be more focused on taking over coastal towns and cities in lightening speed and denying the harboring of the Macabeean Navy. Army Group B would drive up the eastern coast and do the same as Operation Wolverine called for the capturing of both coasts to deny the harboring of the Macabeean Navy's assets in Holy Panooly.

The Kriegsmarine in South Panooly upon Operation Wolverine being a go would assume defensive posturing in South Panooly's territorial waters in anticipation of a possible engagement with the Macabeean Navy due to the out break of war. It seemed that war would once again consume Dienstad and that the Golden Throne essentially being handicapped due to a war with Scandinavian would have to defend it's self against a hungry wolf.

[United World Order]

Die Amt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten von Vereinigte Weltordnung

To: Whoever it concerns within the Imperial bureaucracy within The Golden Throne.
Subject: Declaration of War against The Macabeean Satrapy of North Panooly and The Golden Throne of Macabees.

---

It has come with unfortunate circumstances that the Reich Ministry of Foreign Affairs with I, Valentin Voelker it's Minister have to write this communique to those within The Golden Throne of Macabees. Recent geopolitical changes and moves conducted by several Dienstadi powers have conflicted and caused an out break of war between them and the Fourth Reich. It comes with a heavy heart that the Golden Throne of Macabees is also now one of the causes of a more recent outbreak if not escalation of the already on-going conflict in Kashubia. As a representative and a official voice for the Reichsfuhrer Richtofen, he has put into motion with the best of interest in survival and the self preservation of the Fourth Reich and it's place in Dienstad, a declaration of war which now exists between the Fourth Reich and The Golden Throne along with it's 'satrapy' in North Panooly. Our Fuhrer has exhausted every possible measure and tool to preserve peace between our two empires although it seems that peace was not destined to last.

It cannot be overlooked about the increasing level of aggressive posturing against a sovereign territory of the Fourth Reich, in question being South Panooly which was rightfully annexed from the collapsing Templeton Fascist regime in Holy Panooly. Those in the Golden Throne consider the annexation and occupation of the South a act of imperialism and that the Fourth Reich did not submit to the terms the Golden Throne wished the Reich to follow by in coordination with the partitioning of Holy Panooly. The Fuhrer could not and would not allow the Reich to follow through with the terms The Golden Throne had encouraged our Reich to follow by, It could not allow the endangered population of pure blood Aryans although not of Ordenite blood, the White Panoolie shares many traits and similarities with a Ordenite. Therefore initial interactions between the two newly formed states were rocky and on the edge of cold relations until further interactions between the Reich and the Golden Throne ensued and thus the continent was experiencing a moment of peace.

However for reasons not even the Fuhrer or I understand, the Golden Throne decided to allow non state actors such as the People's Unified Federation which since the beginning of the 1st war in the former Red Star Union had been classified as a rouge pariah state. The fact that the Golden Throne despite what it had built up with the Reich a progressing fellowship between the two powers had thought it could take advantage and exploit the Reich and it's claim on Holy Panooly through allowing PUF involvement. The sweeping of Panoolie rebel forces towards the south in hope they would leave sovereign Macabeean territory and instead raise havoc and spread destruction in the South showed the true colors of the Macabeeans and it's arrogant head of state, Fedor. Recently as well it has been seen that the Golden Throne with it's decisions to pursue some sort of façade in the distant region of Gholgoth had begun acting increasingly aggressive towards the Fourth Reich with it's bolstering of occupation forces that were positioned on the Demarcation line as if the Golden Throne was looking to stab the Reich in the back in Holy Panooly and while the Reich would be pre-occupied bringing the downfall of Mokastana and it's criminal empire in Dienstad, Fedor and his noble stooges looked to claim back their former 'glory' through a invasion of South Panooly.

Now the Ordenite Wehrmacht as this declaration of war is being written are now crossing the Demarcation line in Holy Panooly and bringing an end to the Macabeean puppet otherwise known as it's 'satrapy' North Panooly that has seen a drastic increase in the persecution and senseless murder of thousands of innocent White Panoolies trapped in the hellish, anarchic jungles. The Fuhrer wishes to let those know in the Golden Throne and especially the Royal Family in Fedala that this war was brought upon themselves and the blood of hundreds of thousands now soak their hands. We hope that Fedor, his family and those in the Imperial bureaucracy come to their senses and immediately sue for peace and the surrender of the North Panooly Satrapy to the Ordenite Wehrmacht. The Fuhrer and I sincerely hope that you accept our terms of surrender upon agreement for peace and that a meeting between the two parties can be arranged at a future date to discuss Holy Panooly's future and the disarmament of the Macabeean military on the continent.

Sincerely signed,
Valentin Voelker, Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Rupprecht Strobl, Reich Minister of Defense.

[The Macabees]

— The Air War, Panooly Frontier

To say that the Golden Throne was unprepared for an invasion of North Panooly was an understatement. Indeed, it was only weeks earlier that the highest commanding officers in the Panooly Theater had deemed an Ordenite attack unlikely. But, the Macabean military along the Frontier had prepared for this situation exactly and so this newborn conflict in Holy Panooly promised to be quite interesting.

The Reich's offensive did its damage. Three-fifths of Macabean aerial assets were broadcasting their IFF codes, in what was an effort to maintain calm and stability along the border, and these made handsome targets.

There was some fortune in the Luftwaffe's decision to focus primarily on suppressing Macabean air defense and targeting command structures, as it allowed many patrolling aircraft to quickly flee and regroup deeper north, where they would be under some protection from the Fuermak's air defense network. Just as importantly, some of the Blackjesters were also able to withdraw, which would give the Macabeans some ongoing battlefield surveillance. Still, many other aircraft were simply demolished. Of the twenty Lu-45 flying their patrol routes along the Frontier, eleven aircraft were damaged severely enough to send them plummeting into the savage jungle. The Blackjesters also suffered heavily, being a relatively important asset and also suffering from a lethargic pace. Of the three flying a front-line route, only one survived — and heavily damaged at that. A second one was able to survive, thanks to it having been positioned farther up north.

The surviving nine Hawks rendezvoused with the two Blackjesters, two Lu-45s ultimately escorting the limping GLI-44 to a northern airbase. The remainder kept a defensive formation north of the front.

First echelon air defense and command assets suffered as well. The Reich's Luftwaffe had done good intelligence work, allowing them to strike out at several dozen mobile surface-to-air missile (henceforth, SAM) batteries. These were battalion-level forces that were typically concealed and moved on a half-daily basis. And so while the enemy's knowledge would be necessarily constrained, they were nonetheless able to inflict quite a bit of pain on the Golden Throne's first layer of their half-built integrated air defense system in North Panooly. Adding to this, they were able to strike several command posts, but these were perhaps some of the most difficult targets to find and hit, as they were usually protected not only by SAM batteries, but also by natural defenses that forced enemy aircraft to fly deeper into Macabean airspace. With the enemy focused on these difficult assets, the Laerihans hoped that they would be able to organize some kind of emergency defense.

Having fought the Panooly war as a counter-insurgency, the distribution of aircraft in the Satrapy tended to skew in favor of a heavier load-out of GLI-76 Falcons and GLI-34 bombers. The Falcons were light, agile multi-role fighters who would have a tough time in a one-on-one dogfight with the Lu-45 Hawk. They were better equipped for air support, when protected by a screen of Lu-45s. Of the 1,088 fighter aircraft in North Panooly, only 416 of them were Hawks.

The Golden Throne scrambled the defenses it could. Because the Laerihans preferred subterranean bases, there was a slight time lag in their response that corresponded to the process of opening the runway doors. This would give the Ordenites a larger window to strike at Macabean ground targets unimpeded. Nevertheless, thirty-six Hawks were scrambled, which immediately engaged in stand-off harassment of the Reich's aerial forces. Using their AAM.176 long-range air-to-air missiles — six carried by each aircraft —, they began fighting back to force the Luftwaffe's attention away from their suppression operations.

Until someone came up with a better plan, the Golden Throne's limited air force limited itself to firing two AAM.176 missiles per target, only to open the engagement range again, and in this pattern they continued to harry the enemy. And, using whatever time they could earn, the Laerihans continued to prepare further aircraft for combat in a desperate attempt to build an effective defense against the attack.

Beneath this ad hoc aerial umbrella, the Golden Throne's front line on the ground began to react to the overwhelming force applied by the invading three army groups.

Forces from the company- to the brigade-level had already started to deploy a host of reconnaissance UAVs. Small and with low signatures, they darted into South Panooly. They did not engage any forces willingly, nor did they set out to survey the invading army. That task was already being taken care of by the surviving Blackjester, and a fleet Blackjester that had deviated from its early warning patrol route around the kríergrup. Instead, they scouted enemy fire support bases and anti-air defenses, relaying the information to artillery batteries which could engage in suppressing fire.


— 323rd Regulares, Panooly Frontier

The 323rd was one of three (the 81st and 760th being the other two) mechanized infantry divisions deployed along the Frontier. The combined strength of regulares was a mere 90,000. These were reinforced by three armored brigades, a reserve unit of Theohuanacan auxiliaries, and the 3rd Mechanized Division of the Panooly Reunification Army (PRA). This added perhaps another 61,000 combat personnel.

Their initial strategy would be simple enough. The 323rd and the 81st, along with the reserve division of auxiliaries (the 450th Theohuanacu Auxilarie Terch), were arrayed from the western coastline to the central region of the front. These would organize a stop-and-go withdrawal, with the intention of slowing down the enemy while re-deploying to a new, shorter line that cut directly from the northern end of the Delapesca peninsula to the western coast. Hopefully, between the damage committed to the Ordenites in the process and the reinforcements flown into the theater, by the time the new line was reached the Macabean defense would be more able to bring south four of the five remaining divisions already in-country, which would add no more than another 90,000 men.

And it would hopefully win enough time to allow the airlifting of reinforcements into the northern regions of the satrapy.

By necessity, the withdrawal process would be slow and gradual. There was a string of border forts and bunkers that the Reich's forces would come across first. These were almost always positioned along the main roads and highways, as the rest of the terrain was relatively inhospitable. The thick jungle made it difficult for larger tanks to traverse through it, and the visibility of any man on the ground would be restricted, making them a less likely route of advance. This would at least help to bottleneck the enemy, or force them to move through much more difficult geography. The defensive emplacements were manned by perhaps a quarter of their maximum personnel, with the intention of slowing down Wehrmacht forces just enough to allow enough time for the establishment a second temporary defensive line just ten kilometers to the north, where a string of dozens of small villages would make for good traps to further whittle the invaders.

Two major types of defensive emplacements existed along the Panooly Frontier by this time. One were low profile concrete bunkers, equipped with 160mm artillery guns and countless machine gun nests that could engage directly with attacking forces. These were compartmentalized, to help minimize the damage of bunker busting type bombs. The other were surface forts, where Macabean soldiers were posted along the front. These were typically larger than the bunkers, but less heavily protected.

The border defenses were connected via a series of tunnels, and these led to common subterranean corridors that opened thirty kilometers to the north. From those locations, the tunnels could be collapsed.

Apart from the bunkers, three heavy tank battalions — one belonging to each regulare division along the border — deployed along the main road arteries, with blocking forces set up along smaller roads. Each battalion set aside two companies to perform rear guard actions while the rest of the division moved to the new line northward. These were large arcakompanie, outfitted with four Arca platoons — 18 Nakíl 1A3Ms each company (120 total) —, and combined with a total of six cavalry companies (600 infantry, outfitted with the SOV.17 infantry fighting vehicle). The Nakíl heavy tanks were positioned to block the roads and highways, with one platoon forward and the other two platoons to their rear, ready to maneuver against Ordenite armored forces. The infantry arrayed themselves within the forests, ready to ambush Ordenite columns slowed by Macabean armor.

They were of course supported by a deep, mostly-mobile, and varied artillery and air defense network. At the brigade level, Ejermacht forces could count on three battalions of self-propelled artillery — a total of 2,400 self-propelled artillery pieces along the front. In addition to this, there were two light artillery battalions per brigade (but not at the brigade level), which made for an additional 2,400 pieces. Finally, there were 1,000 multiple rocket launch systems, organized as independent battalions at the brigade level. Artillery had long been favored in the Fuermak's doctrine, which accounted for the particularly heavy arrangement. To the 4,800 total Macabean cannons, the Panooly division brought with it an another 1,350 fixed pieces.

Each brigade was also equipped with two anti-air battalions — one light and one heavy —, for a total of 960 mobile Praetorian II launchers and 640 SPAAG-1s. Of course, many of these had already been targeted by the Luftwaffe.

About three-fourths of the Praetorian launchers moved north, while the rest engaged Ordenite aircraft using a mixture of P.746.A and P.746.B surface-to-air missiles. The latter of the two used a single-stage booster to engage aircraft flying low, trying to avoid radar detection. These fired and moved, when able to, from prepared forest clearing to the other. Tactically, two sites often worked together to lure the Luftwaffe into suppression strikes, whereupon a silent SAM site would suddenly open up to ambush the attackers.

The artillery did the same, although most were already positioned several dozen kilometers north, from where they could violently bombard the Reich's forces. The Ejermacht's self-propelled howitzer of choice was the 160mm León, based on the Lince chassis. Light and agile, it excelled at the art of survival. The fixed pieces were more difficult to move, and so half of them stayed in place in various fire support bases organized in-depth along the Frontier. Both pieces fired the standard TIR.33.155 TCR round, which were accurate and modular — they carried anti-personnel and anti-tank submunitions, where even one round could engage multiple targets. Sappers hurried through the jungle, behind Macabean lines, clearing more temporary fire support bases for units withdrawing north. The light artillery would set up fifty kilometers north, and the Leones would continue to fire and withdraw, fire and withdraw.

The majority of rocket pieces were conserved, with their units withdrawing to new positions 50 kilometers to the north (a one-and-a-half day feat, mind you). About 100, however, were used to saturate Ordenite assembly areas behind their lines, with the idea of disrupting their flow of men to the various emerging combat zones. Rockets carrying dozens of small tungsten fragments screamed red just above the shaking treeline, and in the distance explosions formed into fire balls that could just barely be seen by commanders — sitting in moving vehicles — using their optics pieces.

In tandem, the emplacements and the combined arms forces in the jungle would do their best to grind down the invaders. Between the southernmost edge of the front and the northern Panooly coasts there were 900 kilometers worth of real estate, which all considered was not that much. It would be imperative to slow the advance just enough for Imperial reinforcements arrive.


— 18th Arca Brigade, Panooly Frontier

The three armored brigades in-country would be key to the defensive operation. The 7th was arrayed farther to the west and was withdrawing northward, along with the 31st that was deployed in the rear. These would not engage Ordenite forces, with the Ejermacht preferring to preserve the core of its armored strength until the Ordenite spearheads broke through the initial defensive line organized along the front. The 18th, however, was slated to perform an immediate counterattack, with the intention of working together with elements of the 2nd PRA Division and Kríergrup Indras to trap and bully whatever elements of Army Group B were deployed along that sliver of South Panooly territory that crept up the eastern coastline.

The 18th struck just north of the base of that stretch of territory, the counter-attack beginning about two hours after the commencement of hostilities. Its strength amounted to 2,000 cavalry infantrymen, 222 Lince main battle tanks, and 56 Nakíl 1A3M heavy tanks. They attacked a narrow width of the front, using the heavy Nakíl tanks and armored infantry to attack at four points. Supporting them were a battalion of Lince tanks. These were small and very low-profile, wearing netting and using their low detection signature to strike with a deathly stealthiness. Armed with lighter 103mm cannons, with a three-round second-stage revolver autoloader, the Arca. V was a tank killer through-and-through. With the armor of a heavy tank and the weight of a medium tank, it was a formidable foe, and even more so because it could travel through softer soils with much more ease than the more typical heavy main battle tanks used by other armies. The Linces occupied themselves with the engagement of enemy armor, while the Nakíls could support the cavalry with their heavy 140mm guns.

The brigade also relied on three self-propelled artillery battalions, or 300 howitzers. These provided intensive fire support, using cluster munitions to drop thousands of anti-personnel and anti-armor submunitions on Ordenite forces.

Along the Panooly Frontier, units from the company- to the brigade-level had already started to deploy their reconaissance UAVs. These were small and partially made out of radar transparent materials, made to survey enemy forces stealthily. These did not waste their time trying to follow the invading enemy army. That was already being done by the surviving Blackjester, with a second one deviating from its early warning patrol route off of Kríergrup Indras. Instead, the GF11 Archers scouted deeply for enemy anti-air and artillery batteries. Along the 18th's front, they searched to reveal what they could, relaying the information back to the brigade's artillery for suppressing fire.

'Indras', which had deployed just northeast of Holy Panooly as an effort to implement the Golden Throne's soft blockade along that vector, supported with heavy cannon fire from two Ingerier class battlecruisers and their combined eighteen 355.6mm cannons. These belonged to a raid eskúadra that was moving south to provide heavier support for the counter-attack.

Together with the gun support of two 42,000 tonne battlecruisers, the task force was able to organize aerial raids in forty-five minute intervals. These were made up of a wing of aircraft, meaning thirty-eight GLI-76 strike aircraft. Armed with two AAM.176s and an assortment of air-to-surface missiles, the Falcons struck at Ordenite defensive positions and at nearby units who could quickly reinforce the points of attack. They attacked from a stand-off range, using cruise missiles to harass Ordenite forces and wear down their strength. With a little bit more time, 'Indras' would be able to bring more of its firepower to bear, but it had to orient one of its two kríerflots towards that eastern Panooly coastline.

On the northern tip of 'the strand' two battalions of mechanized infantry, belonging to the 2nd PRA Division counter-attacked timidly in an effort to contain those advanced elements of Army Group B. It served mostly to tie up some Ordenite forces and to alleviate some of the pressure on the counter-attacking armored brigade. Armed with older Macabean equipment and not as well drilled as a first-rate army, North Panooly soldiers were largely reservists who had at most fought in the pre-Satrapy militias. About 4,000 men and 88 Nakíl 1A1GU+ main battle tanks struck along the entire northern border of that eastern sliver, supported by the entire division's artillery that was firing from fire support bases located on the Delapesca peninsula. They were further supported by another Ingerier, its nine guns concentrated on bombarding enemy positions. It was a large enough counter-attack, at least, to draw some attention.

What they could not do in local fire support, the three remaining Ingeriers battlecruisers began striking at targets throughout the strand. They aimed to delay in-the-rear movements and re-deployments.


— Kriergrup 'Theohuanacu,' North of the Thacu Islands

Three kríergrups were called upon to organize a soft blockade on South Panooly. It restricted military access to the seas around Holy Panooly, but also upheld and protected the free movement of merchant ships. This, clearly, was no more.

Only days ago, the Golden Throne had agreed to allow Mokan bombers and submarines to pass through the blockade. They would now benefit from an early status upgrade. Mokan ships would be allowed full passage privileges, in tune with Stevid and Imbrinium. The Reich's attack on North Panooly would backfire at least here, where it would no longer benefit from the umbrella of protection that the Golden Throne had afforded them. They would come to sorely miss it, now that the alliance that had formed against it around events in Kashubia could now target the Reich elsewhere at will.

Perhaps more importantly, however, the Reich would have to deal with three kríergrups positioned to fully blockade and starve Ordenite South Panooly. 'Indras', as we know, was deployed to the west of the Territory of Indras, blocking that northeast passage towards South Panooly. 'Ixchel' was located just north of the Thacu Islands, and it was charged with taking control of the intervening sea between Theohuanacu and Holy Panooly. It targeted Ordenite ships deployed in ports and in open sea, using its ample anti-shipping assets to target the entirety of the enemy's naval power on that side of South Panooly. Finally, 'Theohuanacu' had stretched to cover the southern approaches to Holy Panooly, and it was now redeploying to face the Ordenite territory so that it too could provide its fire support to further suppress the Reich's combat power in the territory.

Altogether, the three fleet groups had a strength of 2,412 ships, including 36 aircraft carriers, 38 battleships, and a three-type assortment of 132 battlecruisers.

They were protected by a deep, multi-layer screen of Carranzei class cruisers and an aerial early warning network. The latter was composed of three rings, with up to five Blackjesters flying at any given time for each kríergrup, escorted by twenty-four GLI-76s. Additionally, each kríerflot was responsible for hunting Ordenite u-boats with an assortment of cruisers and their LAMPS.

Completing this naval blockade were 32 Type A diesel attack submarines silently posted in deep waters off around the three kríergrups. They waited, without moving, for enemy submarines or ships to be discovered by their passive detection systems, whereupon they could strike. They could stay submerged under water for over two weeks. These were the defensive-aspect of the Kríermada's submarine net. The offensive-arm was composed of 19 Cartagena class SSNs, which prowled the seas off of South Panooly actively in search of enemy u-boats. The Reich's ability to severely damage naval forces larger in number than its own was well known.


— North Point, Theohuanacu

Oh, how times have changed. Finally, there was stability between the three great powers of central Greater Díenstad. The Holy Empire and the Golden Throne had gradually come to a defensive military alliance, and Imbrinium was ready for peace with the country it had gone to war with over Stevidian Greal. Together, they made a powerful trio that could guarantee peace in the central sector of the region. There was only one major impediment to that dream, and that was the Fourth Reich.

With His Imperial Majesty Fedor I still in Gholghant, it was left to the kríerlords to organize an emergency defense session between the military and political representatives of the great central powers. The kríerlords, in any case, gave the responsibility to the Imperial Governor of Theohuanacu. He immediately called a meeting, reaching out to the Stevidian and Imbriniumian governments to send representatives to North Point. On their part, the Macabeans would send the Governor and Lasagos Geeros Boro, the theater commander. There was much to talk about, in all actuality. This was a good opportunity for the three countries to bridge further gaps and cooperate on the elimination of a major source of instability. Much to talk about, indeed.

The Imbrinumians had offered the Golden Throne the support of eight million men. They would supposedly be there to help reinforce the territory, while the Golden Throne could redeploy its military strength on the continent to the south, where the pirate rebellion had gained in intensity. But, eight million are a lot of men. Imbrinium had, in fact, originally requested to deploy to North Panooly. The Golden Throne felt that that would dissuade an Ordenite attack on the Satrapy. But why would they not want to build their strength in preparation for an attack? To lure; it was an incentive. The Empire had reined itself from declaring war on the Reich, as one last show of respect for the early diplomatic headway the two countries had made. But, they only needed a good casus belli to break all ties, and the Ordenites had just provided them with one.

The ambush had been set, and now it had been tripped.

There was only a slight political snag. Imbrinium's forces were tied down by the immediate rejection of their manpower support. The same rejection had gone Stevid's way. The Golden Throne did not need saving, it could handle the invasion itself. That, however, did not mean it was stupid. The meeting would serve to help develop an eventual invasion plan for those forces, supported perhaps by the Holy Empire's forces as well.

At any rate, the meeting would serve to decide on the proper course for the unfolding conflict.

[United World Order]

Narrative on the Ordenite Wehrmacht experience and combat efforts against the Golden Throne.

The Oberkommando des Wehrmacht knew full well that a head on invasion would be costly against the Golden Throne in Holy Panooly. However Operation Wolverine was seen as a 'last resort' in the failing attempt at resuming normal relations with the Macabeeans. Across much of the Ordenite advance into North Panooly, the defenses put up against them were doing their toll on the Ordenites. When the Ordenites first encountered actual resistance the machine gun nests and hidden bunkers firing artillery at them was not exactly what was expected as whole companies of men would be ravaged in the initial fighting. However that did not mean the Wehrmacht would simply just give up or not come up with solutions to the defenses employed against them. A popular tactic employed when static fortifications were encountered was that if they could not be feasibly destroyed and or seeking out it's destruction would be deemed to costly, the fortifications would be bypassed as best as they could. Ordenite formations across the entire continent were bypassing strings of fortifications that would have to be grinded through, instead the Luftwaffe was typically employed to hit these fortifications with their on-board air to ground arsenal. Typically however these fortifications upon being bypassed would be left behind Ordenite lines and would be starved out as these defenses would be sealed off from any sort of relief effort as the ever advancing Ordenites were not wasting time in this sudden assault.

Macabeean armor would also prove to be a challenging opponent to the Panther II and Tiger II tanks that were known for their reputations in Kashubia against Mokan and Marshite attacks. However the Macabeeans were known for their tanks such as the Nakil, thus the Ordenites would have to hit hard and fast against the Nakils and the Lince's that the Golden Throne were putting up against the Reich's own forces. Anti-tank teams would also serve important roles in helping clear the jungles and country side of enemy armor, armed with their Panzerfaust 300's they sought out Macabeean tank formations and engage them from a distance until armor support could arrive. Firefights between the Ordenite Army and the Macabeeans would be varying due to the terrain, although the Macabeeans could expect to be facing heavy machine gun fire and mortar fire as well due to the availability of mortar support within the more smaller units.

Ordenite Artillery would be looking out for counter battery fire while responding to Macabeean artillery units with support in getting more precise with their shots from the Cyclone Reconnaissance Hunter drones. The howitzers would focus on bombarding crucial aspects of the Macabeean defense such as it's frontlines and known military traffic routes that were in range. The MLRS assets that the Artillery battalions would have to offer would be put to use in the saturation of Macabeean troop concentrations and their own artillery. What villages were encountered along the advance would be swiftly surrounded and then shelled out with Artillery and mortar fire until it was deemed safe for Ordenite forces to move in to capture. The more lighter elements of the Ordenite assault such as the Panzer V light tanks would be used for infantry suppression and assistance in surrounding and cutting off Macabeean defensive positions and concentrations of forces in the way of the Ordenite advance.

The Luftwaffe's initial victories against the Macabeeans and their air force on the continent were essential in the further operations done to further the advance into the North. While air defense suppression was taken into high regard, the Luftwaffe's fighters also begun to seek out enemy aerial assets to destroy. Tornado ECRs were soon enough scrambled into the fight to help further disadvantage the enemy with jamming measures and other methods were done to take the fight to the enemy electronically. A bombing campaign was also occurring as the bombers of the Luftwaffe sought to deliver hard blows to the infrastructure of the country as roads deemed highly strategic to the enemy further in land were targeted by bombs. The Kriegsmarine offered what it could to the attack on North Panooly as it's submarines that were armed with cruise missiles launched attacks on targets further in land which were mostly military related but also infrastructure. So far however the advance was going on as planned and ground was being taken as the three prongs continued pushing forward.

[The Macabees]

...about twenty-four hours after the commencement of hostilities.

— 56th Estratskuadron, Skies West of South Panooly

The 72 Grup Koda that the Kríermada had managed to insert into South Panooly would turn out to be quite useful Note 1. Their mission was to scout and report the locations of the Reich's deep air defense batteries, largely in preparation for an event just like this one. This was invaluable information that would have to be leveraged to help the severely outnumbered Macabean ground army resist for as long as possible.

Theohuanacu presented a remarkable opportunity for the Golden Throne to quickly organize a bombing operation that could severely punish the Wehrmacht's rear-guard and supply elements. This could not only help stall their offensive, but it could deliver quite a bit of damage to combat units that the Reich was keeping in reserve. Coupled with the routine Stevidian bombings — which, moving forward, would not suffer from the shadowing of Macabean fighter jets —, a round-the-clock bombardment could be devastating for an army that was cut off from the rest of Reich. Before that could happen, though, the Ordenite air defense network would have to be suppressed. And that was much easier said than done.

To help accomplish the task, all of 7th Mosso — the Koro Kirim unit operating within South Panooly — was reallocated to the same task. It was considered that their best use would be to help guide munitions onto high priority targets, not only because of the widespread radar jamming that was affecting the front, but also for the sake of avoiding undue losses at a time when any soldier behind enemy lines commanded a high premium. And so all 72 Grup Koda, 100 Mekugian regulies Note 2, and 66 koro kirim left over from the initial deployments prior to the country's collapse Note 3 were worth their weight in gold. Spread out throughout the country, the 238 operatives worked in teams of two-to-four, moving in the shadows where they could to find enemy SAM and artillery batteries and guide aircraft-launched munitions onto their targets.

Beginning midday, the day after the initiation of the invasion, the Laerihans began routine bombing missions on Ordenite SAMs, radars, artillery batteries, command posts, and military bases.

One, of course, must test the waters first. Two groups of 64 GLI-34 bombers took off from airfields deep inside the irradiated blight of inner-Theohuanacu. Organized into thirty-two formations, they were escorted by 64 Lu-45s, their load-out made entirely of air-to-air missiles. They traveled until reaching a position just off the eastern coast of the territory, all aircraft protected over the expansive air defense network of the Imperial fleet. And they released their missiles.

Tremendous was the best way of describing the strike's firepower. Designed to be low-observable, the sleekly-shaped cruise missiles might still have had trouble penetrating the Ordenite missile defense system had their radar jamming not also affected their own systems, to some degree or another. Perhaps the Golden Throne could administer the Wehrmacht some of its own syrup. The bombers fired about a third of their loud out, which amounted to a hefty sum of very nearly 1,300 missiles, where upon they began to shift course back to Theohuanacu. They turned around as tightly as aircraft as large as them could, and the Lu-45s flew a protective screen on their left side. From where they were, they could see the glint of a Blackjester off to the east — the fleet's eyes and ears, its crew was no doubt patiently testing a battery of different counter-countermeasures, trying to defeat the Wehrmacht's EW. Below them, Kríergrup Theohuanacu bristled menancingly.

Oh, what a breathtaking sight the fleet must have been to those pilots. 'Theohuanacu' had dedicated an entire kríerflot to the task of securely closing the southern approaches to Holy Panooly, and as more and more elements began to come within range, greater and greater was the grand show of grand cannons firing and missiles launching. Tendrils of smoke poured over their decks, as the ships rocked in the sea's stormy waters. Lightning struck at some distance, the bolt crashing into the water below, just narrowly missing a large ship nearby. The exchange of suddenly flashes of eye-piercing light and the rhythmic brushstrokes of fire created a horrifically tantalizing painting. It made good footage to show those at home.

The bombers would refuel over Theohuanacu, the territory, and then make a second sortie. Finally, it would repeat a third sortie and then fly home, whereupon they would be prepared for the next day's mission. That was the plan, at least; this plan would have to adapt to how the Reich responded, of course. A new wave would be sent every four hours, with the intention of running six sorties per day. This would be it until more bombers could be brought in-theater, knowing that most based in Theohuanacu were already in use in the suppression of the pirate rebellion.

Together, though, the naval and aerial bombardment of South Panooly was made intense enough to pick away at the Reich's air defense and reserve strength.

— 323rd Regulares, Panooly Frontier

The initial day of fighting was tough for both sides, but the 30–40 kilometer withdrawal of Macabean forces was inevitable.

Despite the roadblocks and the pre-planned blocking tactics committed by Macabean reserve forces, the sheer manpower of the Reich's offensive was able to overcome these obstacles. Even the ad hoc defensive line established 10 kilometers north, using a line of town and villages along the Frontier to catch advancing forces in intensive urban combat, was largely ineffective in the grand scope of things. The Reich's forces were undoubtedly bloodied, but their numerical supremacy made whatever successes the Fuermak had largely anecdotal. Alas, there hadn't been much hope for the first day's resistance to begin with.

Combat had been truly horrific. Ordenites advancing through the jungles, in attempt to flank blocking forces, would find out the hard way that there was a reason why their Macabean foes had blocked the roads. The dark brown soils of southern North Panooly had been littered with anti-personnel mines, placed where it was the hardest to see and reach them. From the trees' branches and leaves hung small grenades, half-hidden behind the foliage, and many other booby traps would make the navigation of the rainforest a hellish experience for whomever attempted it. And when they finally reached their targets, those Ordenite infantrymen would be subject to withering fire from hidden infantrymen who were supporting the heavy Nakíls. Fire fights erupted every which direction and, if it wasn't an enemy force, it was an artillery or aerial strike that claimed the lives of dozens of men at a time.

Losses were heavy. The eerie carcasses of over 100 destroyed Nakíls littered the Frontier's road network. Hundreds of Macabean corpses were left behind too, although without a doubt the Wehrmacht had suffered greatly as well. The Macabean defense had been tenacious and intense, and the Reich paid a pretty and bloody penny for the ground they gained. Indeed, even when they did not encounter any fighting along the roads, the Ordenites would see them nevertheless heavily mined and frequently blocked by obstructions that would take them a considerable amount of time to dismantle.

But, this had all only just begun.

Ordenite artillery was just as vicious in their counter-battery fire as the Fuermak's. As it stood, the two armies slugged and struck at each other with their brute force and, if the pattern persisted, the battle would only end via attrition at this point — a battle that the Fuermak would clearly lose, given their numerical inferiority. Something had to change, and the way that the defending force decided to do that was by restricting the number of pieces firing at any given moment to a fraction of the total. The other pieces would move and settle, wait for the Ordenite artillery to fire, and then immediately engage them to deny them even the most minimal window of opportunity to scoot. By necessity, the fixed pieces would take the counter-battery fire and a mobile piece would counter-attack. This would diminish the intensity of the artillery fire, but perhaps it would offer the Golden Throne's cannon pieces enough of an edge to matter.

There was now consistent and heavy jamming along the front, much to the sheer irritation of anyone attempting to use their radar. The Golden Throne's forces of course responded with their battery of counter-countermeasures, but they also knew that it was better to minimize the impact of the enemy's tactics on themselves and turn the harm around onto them. On the ground, G11/Ds laid down a thick smoke around SAM batteries and fire support bases to disrupt the Wehrmacht's forward observation operations — men had reported seeing and shooting at UAVs —, and eventually it was decided to withdraw the self-propelled guns north while the fixed pieces held the rear. The Ejermacht would try to take as many as they could north with them, but many of those fixed artillery guns would be taken by the Wehrmacht. The withdrawal simply could not wait for them. Of course, the abandoned fire bases they were left at were thoroughly and maliciously booby-trapped and mined, and so when the Ordenites attempted to recover what they could they'd be sourly surprised.

And like this the Praetorian SAM batteries too attempted to survive as they dodged the intentions of Ordenite bombers and artillery cannons. With the Ordenite's heavy jamming, these would have a hard time targeting anything than the aircraft doing the damage. And so while a few struggled and attempted to engage the enemy bombers by using anti-jamming techniques to find clean frequencies, many others instead turned their attention to the EW aircraft the Ordenites were using to jam the battlefield. Using anti-radiation missiles set in home-on-jam mode, the Ejermacht's air defense network continued to harass the enemy's efforts throughout their advance.

Along the front, the Ejermacht had established a strong defensive line based on pre-war fortifications and a series of hastily constructed fire bases. 20 kilometers to their north, Macabean artillery redeployed itself to provide fire support to front line units. Here the resistance would get a little bit more heavy, with the bulk of the defending army entrenching itself and preparing to stall the Ordenite offensive. In the meantime, sappers prepared new positions another 30 and 50 kilometers northward.

As the battle on the ground ensued, the Laerihans decided to use the enemy's jamming against them. The GLI-76 Falcons were smaller than the Lu-45 Hawks, meaning they carried less ordnance, which these days was oftentimes the deciding factor given the propensity for beyond visual range combat. However, up close, the Falcon's agility made it a formidable foe for enemy aircraft who were forced to fight it at close range. The Reich's jamming would impede its own early detection as much as it would the defender's, and so the opportunity was used to deal some damage to the Luftwaffe.

Some 130 Falcons participated in the aerial counter-attack. They took off from northern bases and quickly closed the distance between them and the enemy. Armed with short- and medium-range air-to-air missiles, they swooped into the Reich's inner envelope to engage the enemy one-on-one. They twisted this way and that, using their agility to dance around the Ordenite Hawks and dropping blankets of chaff around them to disrupt the enemy's targeting efforts.

Far out of sight, 80 Macabean Lu-45 Hawks waited armed with beyond-visual-range missiles, in case the Luftwaffe tried something sneaky.

---

Map 1: Status of the front on day two of the Ordenite invasion of North Panooly. The red arrows represent the projected path of the 18th Arca Brigade in their counter-attack.

---

— 18th Arca Brigade, Panooly Frontier

Trees cracked under the pressure of the now constant naval bombardment that came off the coast. More and more elements of Kríergrup 'Indras' were re-positioning themselves to help halt the invasion, with a combined nine battlecruisers now providing off-shore fire support. Four Grospek-class battlecruisers also complemented the bombardment, the ship class being a variant of the Ingerier, but outfitted as a missile boat instead. They were now striking at Ordenite targets within the 18th Arca Brigade's area of operation, firing conventional munitions and missiles alike.

More of the fleet group's carriers were joining the battle too, and their air raids began to pick up in intensity. Whereas the day before it had been 64 GLI-76s in forty-five minute intervals, the fleet group was now sending 128 GLI-76s in one-hour intervals. These continued to strike Wehrmacht forces caught in 'the strand', using long-range cruise missiles to attack but also stay within the fleet's air defense envelope. They watched enemy air traffic warily.

On the ground, 18th Arca had renewed operations the morning of the war's second day. Fighting had continued into the night, but the counter-attack was allowed to temporarily stall for the benefit of regrouping. It was only for a few hours, regardless, for at four in the morning the brigade's combined armored power was already on the hunt again.

The Linces focused on engaging Wehrmacht armor. Small and hard to detect, they were used to snipe enemy armor at long-range. The Nakíl's offered support for both the Linces and the attached armored infantry units, their heavy cannon being the perfect weapon for direct suppressing fire. The fighting here was chaotic and unforgiving, with an ample use of smoke to conceal movements and disrupt targeting efforts. The Ordenites countered with anti-tank infantry teams and their own armor, but Macabean tanks were well protected. Their active protection systems could both blind targeting systems and stop missiles from impacting via timely fired grenades, and on top of that both tanks armor schemes along the rear and side were optimized against HEAT warheads. Not to mention that each tank carried a small mortar, which was designed to help in the suppression of anti-tank teams. But, even the hard to kill can still die, and so it was inevitable that the 18th Arca suffer considerable casualties. Still, by focusing their strength and with the help of their off-shore and in-the-air allies, the brigade had made significant headway the first day.

Today, they would exploit these gains.

Pushing in the Wehrmacht's rear was really the only option for 18th Arca at this point. By the next day, its original staging point would most likely be overrun, which made the option of a straightforward withdrawal unattractive. To avoid being cut off, the brigade would have to turn north, use their mechanization to move as quickly as possible, and then turn back west and jump back into friendly territory. It was a bold and risky plan.

With the support of an intense and coordinated air support and off-shore fire, the 18th continued its advance west. They had, remember, launched their counter-attack only two hours after the invasion, and so most Ordenite units were operating within an offensive framework. For the Ordenites to properly respond to the threat, some of those elements would have to be stopped and redeployed, and that takes time. The Macabeans exploited that time as much as they could, forcing the Wehrmacht to stay on its toes and constantly update its reaction. The armored infantry were riding in their Ejíard's, keeping pace with the tanks and only dismounting if expecting to clash with organized Ordenite resistance. The Ejíards, for their part, helped suppress enemy infantry, allowing the Nakíl's to focus on heavy direct-fire support and the Linces on destroying Ordenite tank units. The attached artillery shot-and-moved as it could, but limited in some regards by the speed at which the brigade was moving — it made them easier to target and kill.

The skies screamed in agony as humans spat fire at each other below.

In the north, the two mechanized battalions belonging to the 2nd PRA Division continued their counter-attack as well. Again, their efforts were more lack-luster, both because of the quality of their training (and outfitting) and because their intentions were simply to tie some elements of Ordenite Army Group B down, while the 2nd Arca brigade continued to wreak havoc behind their lines. However, by the middle of the second day, divisional headquarters deployed a third battalion from its reserve to the front, with the intention of reinforcing the counter-attack and maintaining pressure on the Reich's forces.

If all went well, the 18th could punish the Ordenite wing, force them to use valuable reserves in protecting their flank and rear, and the brigade could emerge from it all ready to join defensive operations. It was a beautiful ideal, but one could only wait and see if the horror and tragedy of reality would overcome.

---

---

1. ...?p=29704992#p29704992, "In fifteen minute spaces, three groups of twenty-four 'Grup Koda'...washed up on shore..."
2. ...?p=25216901#p25216901, "Lazaro, and about one hundred other Macabee regulies, would be in charge of piecing..."
3. ...?p=22151174#p22151174, "...the collection of intelligence from the six hundred special forces soldiers already secretly in the country."

[United World Order]

A narrative on the Ordenite Wehrmacht experience in war with the Golden Throne of the Macabees in Holy Panooly,
Day 2.

The offensive into North Panooly had been paid with blood within the first twenty four hours of official fighting. The three prongs of the Wehrmacht invasion into the North had covered over ten kilometers of land and had completely overrun all initial demarcation line defenses. Despite some of the initial set backs which were the intricate labyrinth of Macabeean and native defense positions that were encountered and hit head on by Ordenite infantry and armor cost the lives of many who faced them. The situation above in the skies of the continent were also worrying Ordenite Army commanders as it seemed that the Macabeean air power in the region was more than previously told. However the Luftwaffe was putting up the fight of it's life against the ever present supremacy of the Macabeean airforce, it's initial victories seemed like more of a cake walk then the current situation now be facing them in the air. The Luftwaffe had already scrambled most of it's formations on the continent for this invasion and were directed by their superiors to destroy targets of opportunity such as the remaining enemy aircraft that weren't safe within the barrier of safety created by the Krierarmada. What was still able to be considered operational amongst the air defense network would be further bolstered by reserve forces that begun pledging their mobile AA forces to the defense of the current ground operations, assisting in suppressing enemy air movement in key areas of the continent.

The stubborn defense put up by the Macabeeans was tough and certainly tested the Wehrmacht's abilities in conventional warfare. Although with every defense position that couldn't be cracked and was therefore bypassed by the Wehrmacht's mobile mechanized forces was another slight victory for the Ordenites as their offensive was still alive and moving. The jungles were essentially a death trap as the casualties taken from booby traps and intense fighting against prepared Macabeean troops was taking it's toll. However the offensive could not afford to simmer down in intensity and momentum as they had their future's and South Panooly on the line. One could not ignore the breakthrough made by a considerable force of Macabeeans in the Ordenite offensive line, with a third of Army Group B seeing it's self cut off initially as it had to fight hard in order to not suffer immense losses. Local artillery units that were available were focused on this breakthrough and with acceptable reconnaissance and surveillance done by drones, Ordenite artillery was able to follow them with their fire and maintain pressure on the armored brigade.

A less hardened and more weakened counter offensive by some elements of the native military forces was also put under notice by the ever continuous advancing Ordenites. The Oberkommando des Wehrmacht and Oberkommando des Heers and it's Generalfieldmarschall Helmutt Manstein saw that a opportunity was revealing it's self to them. The Ordenites would of course take this opportunity and run hard with it, as the 18th Arca brigade would soon find it's self once again becoming the hunted.

Generalmajor Gunter Gall, 49th Panzerdivision,
less than twenty kilometers south of 18th Arca Brigade.

The 49th Panzerdivision had essentially been left in reserve before the initial fighting begun, however it like all the other Ordenite formations advancing north it too was keeping up with the advance at hand in the North. For good reason and chance had unknowingly positioned the 49th Panzerdivision less than twenty kilometers south of the 18th Arca brigade, the brigade that was currently wrecking havoc behind Ordenite lines and would surely soon enough attempt to break out to friendly lines. Generalmajor Gall had been informed of this and had received orders to seek out the 18th Arca brigade and hit their rear guard before the element of surprise was lost. Heavy Panzer Battalion 03 that consisted of over 55 Panther II tanks and 30 Tiger II heavy tanks accompanied by their mechanized companions would be the spear head into the enemy brigade's rear. They would essentially be advancing ahead of the rest of the division in order to make contact with the brigade's rear guard in order to keep the rest of the division up to date with the movements of their enemies.

Of course because of the precarious position of the brigade which was trying to drive a wedge into the Ordenite advance would see it's every move coldly calculated by Ordenite anti-tank teams and the Luftwaffe. No rest or qualm would be given to the 18th Arca brigade as every moment they were still behind enemy lines, they were walking a tight rope with the Ordenites ensuring that no where was safe as they were being scouted and hunted by anti-tank teams and smaller formations of larger Ordenite divisions that were set aside to deal with them. In the greater picture of things, the 49th Panzerdivision was on the tail of the enemy brigade and were closing in by the hour on their prey. Ordenite artillery units continued to put up what pressure they could on the Macabeeans, training their heavy howitzers and even their heavy rocket units on the Brigade's whereabouts to keep them on their toes.

Despite the fact this was giving the 2nd PRA division more breathing room in it's counter attack that was obviously a stalling maneuver. Divisional commanders within Army Group B had determined that once the 18th Arca brigade had been decisively defeated that the 2nd PRA division would be swept away in the fierce counter attack that would ensue due to Generalmajor Gall's 49th Panzerdivision. Farther north of the 18th Arca Brigade which was in the general area of where they had planned to break out from towards more northern Macabeean defense lines, the 31st Panzergrenaider division that had several hours ago cleared a small cluster of villages that were still offering resistance to Army Group B's advance on the eastern seaboard, The 31st was also in the way of where the 18th Arca Brigade was looking to break out from and that was enough to encourage the Generalmajor of the Panzergrenaiders to divert two whole battalions to seal off any way of escape for the brigade and that they would hold the brigade back while the 49th Panzerdivision wrecked havoc on them from their rear.

Only time would tell if the 18th Arca Brigade's thrust through the Ordenite rear would see it's self suffering quite a set back and how they would be outsmarted by the Ordenites, a set back that would surely cost them if they could not adapt fast enough.

[Imbrinium]

Site R, Indra

For weeks there has been a flurry of activity at site R, with shipments coming in from Imbrinium to the ports and shipped by truck to Site R. Along with the twenty four hour landing of aircraft coming in and leaving. Gone were the Wessex H.U 5s packed back up and shipped back to Imbrinium to a secret location. Arriving was a heavy construction battalion to expand the airfield and base areas.
This explanation would include two longer runways and a larger staging area and revetments for future aircraft deployments. Munitions bunkers were being built in a secure area and the base was being built up to with stand an attack by ground if needed. New radar sites and barracks where being built also.

The Crown with permission from The Golden Throne the Site R airbase was to be expanded from its current size to almost three times it size. Able to handle fighters, heavy bombers, and support aircraft to be stationed there, along with a protection force to keep watch over the base, this base will be the front line in support of operations against the Reich and its forces in the middle central region.

While the original SAS group had been replaced by now a full SAS battalion, but also was a full long range recon company and two combat search and rescue squadrons. Soon to arrive also was a company of special naval warfare commandos to conduct strike and search and destroy missions in Holy Panooly.

Even though the runways and base explanation wasn’t complete the first fighter squadrons would be arriving in less than 24hrs to begin operations.

OPERATION LONESOME TIGER:

Operation lonesome tiger is the insertion of ISAS teams and OAH SADSOG personal into Holy Panooly to conduct raids and recon in support of The Golden Throne and the Crowns objectives.

Three MC-53s taxied one by one each with a 32 man platoon of SAS, they would jump from 1000ft into the dense jungle. The mission was to find and fix and delay the enemy along three alternative routes while the major invasion routes are taking out by major air raids by the RIAF.

The three teams will parachute out at 500ft over three clearings; at this height the aircraft won’t paint a big target on the aircraft. It was first thought to insert the teams in by helicopter but the range was too great and refueling at low altitude was out of the question.

The three MC-53s one by one moved onto the runway.

“Ranch house this is Cowboy 31 requesting permission to takeout”

“Roger Cowboy 31 this Ranch house permission granted squawk 32.5 with your IDENT.”

Cowboy 31 went into full throttle and the slow roll picked up into a fast roar and the plane left the runway in to the darken sky.
Right after Cowboy 31 took off the other two aircraft code named cowboy 32 and 33 took off and headed at very low altitude at times only a 150ft above the ground. The three aircraft turned west and took out over the coast.

“Ranch House this is Cowboy 31 feet wet”

“Roger Cowboy 31”

Moments later the other two cowboy aircraft responded with the same radio traffic, they were crossing over the channel that ran between the two nations.

About third minutes later ranch house came of the radio just minutes before radio blackout.

“Ranch house to all cowboy aircraft signal stables I repeat stables I authentication whiskey tango”

“Cowboy copies stables and authentication whiskey tango confirmed RTB time now”

The three MC-53s turned back out over the channel and headed back to base. A couple of hours later the three aircraft landed and taxied to the staging area.

The three SAS team captains walked over to the JTOC and ask the SAS battle captain what was up.

“Guys I don’t know what to tell you this came down from the top and when I say top I mean I’m pretty sure it came down from the crown.”

“Orders from the JSOC were to wait on all operations till after more support aircraft make it down here.”

The captains looked at each other with ok whatever look and grabbed their gear and walked back to their barracks.

The next day: Arrival

There had been cargo aircraft flying in and unloading and heading back out. A flight of tanker aircraft where the first to arrive they where a quarter full of fuel when they came into the final approach of the Site R.

“Ranch house this is Jiggs 43requesting final on SQK 35.8 how copy”

“Roger Jiggs 43 have you 60kms out requesting final approach, turn to heading of 165 and drop to 5000 hold and you have 5kms VFR let me know this station when you are 30kms out”

The Jiggs aircraft called Ranch house again when they were 30kms out.

“Jiggs 43 to Ranch house control 30kms out request final approach”

“Roger Jiggs 43 have your flight on final on runway 23L drop to 3000 and hold to your final your path is clear on final.”

“Jiggs flight copies all”

Shortly later the large tanker aircraft made their final and landed and taxied to the new staging area.

A few hours later the first squadrons of the 385th fighter wing started to land with their M.Cs 82s a multi-role fighter that where being moved to Indras. The royal Imbrinium air force was moving the whole 385th wing to site R.

Behind them were two more wings one F/B 60 Rebels, F/A 60Bs Rogue, F/A 60As and two squadrons of E/60Ds Threshers for ECCM and SEAD operations. Over three hundred and fifty fighter aircraft to help TGT gain air superiority and SEAD operations, along with tactical bombing operations.

There also movements of A-10 Sea hogs for close air support and tank busting. Jointing these aircraft would be a wide range of support and logistical aircraft to support and control around the clock air combat operations.

These pilots had a long flight covering three different countries and days of flying to make it to site R to only to jump back into the pilot’s seat thirty six hours later to start operations to help The Golden Throne hold back the Reich and give their forces some breathing room.
Imbrinium main land;

At air bases all around the western and southern Imbrinium bomber crews from the royal air force and royal naval bomber wings made the last briefings and final checks before beginning the first operations against the Reich in its operations to dominate the central region.

The royal navy’s bombers main goal was to find and fix and destroy any and all surface vessels of the Reich’s navy and civilian shipping. Some five hundred naval bombers in the first sorties only move to twenty four a day hunt for the ships that support the Reich’s forces.

The royal air forces goal was to take out ports and air fields both in the UWO and those of in Holy Panooly. The secondary goal was mass bombings of the Reich forces on the ground and support actives of the operations moving north.

These missions whereby the most seasoned bomber crews in the region and they would use tactics that kept them alive in the last war.

[The Macabees]

Map 2: Status of the front on day three of the Ordenite invasion of North Panooly.

---

— The Storm

Dark clouds thundered and bellowed over the Panooly skies, swept ever eastwards by strong, typhoon-like winds that howled like the untamed beasts that they were. Mighty and massive, the storm was inconsolable and had been deemed one of the worst in centuries. Hurakán Mateo it was called by the Macabean press. It wreaked havoc upon the western Panooly coast, pulling wooden-framed homes and their possessions with it into the air like a ravenous, all-consuming black hole. In any other situation, the damage would have been catastrophic. That day it was merely an inconvenience, for the storm did not favor the Golden Throne and her armies.

The Macabean fleets arrayed north and south of the Thacu Islands seemed puny and insignificant. As the storm worsened overnight, the mighty Kriermada's perpetual barrage was gradually quieted into a whimper. Her ships dispersed, some of the heading to friendly ports in Tarn, Tlaloc, and North Point. But these days friendly ports were few and far between, with Palenque and Tiwanaku in revolt, and those that did exist were already being overwhelmed by the absurd number of commercial ships that too sought to escape the hurricane's wrath. Most military ships instead headed south to fan into the broader waters between the continent and the Pennsylvanian islands, with only small fleets daring to brave the narrow strait that separated the northern tip of Theohuanacu from Adaptes Astrates. But in their quest for safety, the Golden Throne's ships had drifted too far to play a major role in curbing the Reich's invasion — until the storm cleared, at least.

It wasn't just the fleet that suffered. The Ejermacht and Laerihans were in the midsts of an airlift operation to fly reinforcements into North Panooly. With remarkable effort, they were able to airlift about a battalion and a half of Theohuanacan mechanized infantrymen, but their vehicles weren't scheduled to arrive for another week. Essentially naked, these troops were nonetheless rushed south to bolster the garrison in Panooly City and help in the preparation of the city's extensive defensive works.

Bombing runs out of Theohuanacu suffered as well, having come to a halt. The Laerihans had hoped to continue escalating their campaign over the week, but the storm had put those plans to a stop. While it did not necessarily hinder preparations, since most cúevs (airbases) were subterranean, Hurakán Mateo worked to deny the defenders the air support they desperately needed to hold back the Ordenite advance. They would have to rely on sorties flying in from Indras and from their own local air support, but these assets lacked the large bombers that were stationed in Theohuanacu. They were more tactical in nature and even they were restricted largely to the eastern side of the country, their performance inherently restricted by the ongoing jamming and the storm's violence committed on both sides' communication systems. The Luftwaffe would undoubtedly be restricted as well, but the Werhmact was less reliant on air support given their numerical superiority.

Only the fleets blockading South Panooly's eastern coastline continued their assistance. More and more of their fleets had sent their raid skuadróns forward to join in on the bombardment of enemy positions throughout the southeastern area of Holy Panooly. But with the counter-attack in that sector going poorly, more and more of their attention was gradually siphoned in that direction.

Otherwise, the Panooly battlefield was isolated from the world, and whatever the Golden Throne had on the ground right then would have to suffice. Tough times were ahead.

— 323rd Regulares, Panooly Frontier

Eight soldiers quietly trudged out of the jungle's shadow and onto an unpaved road, now muddy under the weight of spring's bountiful rains. Their heads were down and they look pretty beat up, their armor plating heavily scuffed and damaged. One of them was missing an entire segment of armor, their arm piece to be precise, and you could see the thin multicolor wires winding down the frame of the suit. They sparked here and there, the torrential rain falling on them hard and without remorse. Their faces were hidden behind helmets, but there was no doubt that these men were exhausted. Their legs moved slowly and their rifles sagged, and that with power assist even. Clearly, almost three full days of combat were taking a toll on them.

The sound of gunfire incessantly clattered behind them. Then the isolated boom of a landmine or singular grenade going off, betraying the presence of Wehrmacht infantrymen trying to move through the jungle somewhere behind them and closer to the front. Of course, neither of these things were like the back-and-forth spewing of artillery. It was a permanent thunder, matching and amplifying that which carried with it true lightning over the Panooly skies.

Splitting the forest in half, the road led into the dark. There would be no sunlight for many days now and the thick foliage made things only more morbid. Their eyepieces, of course, fed them all the targeting information they needed to "see" their enemy, but their dreary surroundings did nothing to lift their moods. Boots half-sinking into the wet dirt, even the power assist feeling the tug of the earth's pull, the eight infantrymen slowly made their way northward. Ahead and behind them, an assortment of abandoned vehicles littered the roadside. Most were burnt out or abandoned supply trucks which had most likely broken down and were considered low-priority by the limited towing assets available. There were even a few Nakíl's here or there, who had most likely suffered similar fates. These, however, were destroyed from the inside and even the armor modules had been ripped off, lest any technologies fell into enemy hands. There were no Linces — these were high-priority assets. The trees sagged around them, not even the rain serving to bring life into them in a world slowly dying.

At least the rain had stopped the fires. At first, the Fuermak had hesitated at the idea of burning the forests, but now the withdrawal was getting desperate. But the few sparks they had raised had been quickly washed out by the storm and efforts had generally backfired. Instead, the retreating army continued to boobytrap the forests and fortify the roads with makeshift barriers and obstacles. Some of these would be garrisoned by company-, sometimes platoon-sized, armored infantry units. The tactic cost the Ejermacht a good chunk of its heavy armor strength, but slowing the enemy was down was imperative at this point.

Indeed, ahead of them and as they penetrated farther north, they came across a small pond of hedgehogs built of riveted steel. These blocked the path in several layers, meant to slow the movement of Wehrmacht armored vehicles. Engineers would have to come and remove them before the Ordenites could do anything but trickle around them. On the other side, at just under sixty meters, sat an entrenched Nakíl. Its 120mm cannon pointed firmly and menacingly towards the south, and its hull was largely hidden by a tall sandbag structure. Covered in netting and foliage, it reduced the risk of discovery by eye — assisted or otherwise. The infantrymen were well aware of it, informed by their battle management system as they were. There were another two, one on each side, and a fourth Nakíl further to the rear. Entrenched infantrymen were hidden in the forest, revealing themselves not even to the eight friendly soldiers begrudingly pulling themselves towards the blocking position.

If there was anybody other than the Macabean soldiers there, they did not hear the conversation that transpired. And not only because of the accelerating torrent of rain that drowned out all else, even the birds who nested in the trees. The lead Nakíl had pinged the sargént leading the eight-man platoon. The latter accepted and the voice of who must have been the Nakíl's kapitán spoke into his ear. "Kíezos."

"Kartuma."

"Where are you boys coming from?" The tank commander was evidently taken aback by the fact that there were only eight of them.

"6th Taktektón, kapitán," responded the sargént, standing third from the front of his moving men. Taktektón were platoon-sized units that acted largely independent of their parent units. Used in rare times, the battle along the frontier was so extensive for the handful of divisions protecting it that they had been forced to approach the problem on a level that called for the appreciation of the minutiae. But the truth here was grimmer yet. "Our battalion is bottled up in Canagüa by jerry blocking forces. We're about it as far as what got out. The others are resisting like hell in there. The shelling is nonstop, although they've dug themselves pretty deep in there."

"Those Werhmacht kids are going to have to put some work into lodging them out, huh," responded the kapitán. "Maybe we can still save them if we got some fuggin' reinforcements." He seemed to mutter that last part.

The sargént looked above him and shook his head. "No chance of that with this storm. We're gonna have to do for now. Shit, feels good to earn your money, right kapitán?"

"Not really," was all the tank commander said about that. "Where are you guys headed anyways? The main bodies of the division have already moved about fifteen kliks north and they're still going. We're organizing a new defensive line up north, I guess. I 'spose we're just going to keep trying to stop them with speed bumps all the way up to Panooly City, maybe all the way to the fuggin' coastline at this pace." He laughed. It was the nervous kind.

It was true, the Ordenites were making progress. The front had already curled back by 80–90 kilometers total and it looked like they were poised to lose another 70–80 kilometers by the end of the day. The Ejermacht could not afford to lose too many men in enemy pincer attacks and so they melted rearwards at an ever quickening pace in an effort to conserve strength until further reinforcements could arrive. It was a dangerous game and it asked a lot from men like the kapitán, who would most likely not return to see his wife or children ever again. They were there to slow the enemy, not stop them. Their task was a heroic one and it would be forever commemorated in some monument erected by His Imperial Majesty, as if it was he who had fought and died in the apocalyptic jungles of Holy Panooly. For now, the war in Holy Panooly teetered on a blade's edge.

The sargént wasn't too thrilled about it. "Let's hope they get a chance. Otherwise it's us who gets pushed off the cliffs and into the ocean. If I were you, I'd just focus on killing as many as those fascist bastards as possible. That's the only way we're going to win this war on our own." The small column of eight had by now walked beyond the tank and was reaching the rear of that blocking force. The sargént stopped suddenly, his men continuing their northward trek to catch up with the withdrawing forces. He looked back at the Nakíl, sitting there boldly in the middle of road ready to rain hell on an enemy spearhead caught unawares. It would be a short-lived, but splendid, manner of death. "Good luck and may God bless you."

"Likewise, buddy," was the last thing the sargént ever heard from that man.

— 18th Arca Brigade, Panooly Frontier

The fascists had the numbers to grind down the pace of the brigade's advance through their rear. 18th Arca's northward march was slowing down and the front was receding at an alarming rate. Failure to break out of the trap they had laid for themselves would imply encirclement, and even with the aid of the Kriermada's Kríergrup 'Indras' that would be a battle with an outcome likely to be that of death.

A counterattack had of course been expected. The whittling of their initiative had not. The enemy's superior numbers had taken their toll and it became evident that the Wehrhmacht had the manpower to both maintain momentum on the general offensive and to deal with the rogue 18th Arca which was wreaking havoc on its right flank. The 2nd PRA had finally sent a third battalion into the fray, moving it from a reserve position to the front in the early afternoon. It didn't have much of an effect, perhaps nothing more than at least stalling an Ordenite breakout along a section of the front that was already latitudinally aligned with Panooly City. Much was relying on 18th Arca's success. And yet it did not look as if things would go their way. No, for the Reich's 49th Panzergrenadier Division had not just counter-attacked, but broken through along the 18ths rear. The race for encirclement was on and it was a competition the Macabean brigade was losing.

Seeking to avoid heavy rear-action engagement with the enemy, out of fear of unsustainable losses, the 18th shifted its trajectory eastward. They moved towards the coast in their own personal anabasis. There at least the growing presence of the naval fleet group could shield them some and provide them invaluable fire support. They could also entrench themselves with their backs to the sea, where it was at least safe from enemy attack. In other circumstances perhaps it could act as a route of escape, but hopes of that were scarce given the storm's sheer power. Finally, it also allowed them to bypass some of the resistance, since it had come with a sudden change in the direction of their path of advance. No longer were they closing distance with the Frontier.

Small-unit rearguard holding tactics were employed to help stave off encroachments by forces of the 49th Panzergrenadier. The Linces, low in profile and in weight — much more nimble in the intractable mudlands of Holy Panooly in rainy season — stalked in platoons of four. Their cannons were smaller, using telescoping kinetic rods to approximate the power of a larger gun alongwith the ability to fire three rounds within mere seconds.

The Lince used a quickfire rotating chamber to accomplish that. But these were one-time use in combat, as a tank commander could not afford to wait the amount of time it took to load three more rounds. And so they employed hit-and-run tactics more often than not, tending to counterattack aggressively against advanced enemy armored and mechanized units and then quickly withdrawing to widen the gap again. Reserve forces of Nakíl's were kept in proximity, in case of the need to expend them in favor of protecting the more valuable Lince tanks. When it seemed as if the tank killers were at risk of being overwhelmed, the bulkier, heavy Nakíl's simply stepped into brawl while the Lince's withdrew.

A difficult job it must be for the man who decides whose men to sacrifice and whose to save. Or, perhaps, too easy of a job.

Still, the 49th Panzergrenadier was a strong force and its pressure could not be contained. And there were still other Ordenite units in the area as well, whose rear elements were doing their best to pin the brigade down. The retreat to the coastline was without stop, traversing the distance that very evening. Some many dozen kilometers west of it, the 18th then turned north and northwest again to reposition its flanks so that one would face Ordenite forces that were being pinned down by the 2nd PRA and the other would face the enemy's attack from the south. There it would make its final stand.

They had been encircled, but there was still a glimmer of hope. A breakout in the north and a linkup with the 2nd PRA was an attractive opportunity. Perhaps they could even be evacuated by sea. Both options would have been easier had it not been for Hurakán Mateo. Here allied fighter jets could still operate with some ability, groups of 36 or 48 GLI-76s striking Ordenite military positions and anti-air defenses. There were strong fleets in support. They could possibly do it should the storm subside for even a single day. And yet, the enemy's 49th was only being harassed. The 18th Arca. would have to confront it from an encircled position, centered around the town of Berbejo. The name was fitting for the battle, it being the first armored melee of the war yet and one that promised much entertainment. It's outcome was firmly in Fate's hands and it was not yet clear who she would favor.

[United World Order]

North of the 18th Arca Brigade encirclement, Eastern Holy Panooly.
31st Panzergreinaders meet the 18th Arca Brigade...

Diedrich pulled down the main hatch that closed shut above him within the inner hull of the Panther II tank that rumbled as it was on the move to the developing engagement that was going on with the 18th Arca Brigade. The 31st Panzergreinaders only armored battalion was sent to confront the change of direction that the 18th Arca brigade was taking. The blocking force would meet head on with some of the lead elements of the 18th Arca brigade and the Panzer battalion went into action as they came face to face with mechanized infantry and approaching Lince's that were already opening fire on the Ordenite Panzers. Fighting was harsh in the jungle enviroment, however being near the coast opened up the terrain to flat and clearer land. Vegetation was still there but for the most part, it was open and something that always worked in tanks favor in battle, something Dietrich was thankful for as he sat tight within the belly of the beast. Once the Panzer battalion had come in contact with lead elements of the 18th, this information was made known to the rest of the battalion and the division as Panther II's duked it out in the open against Macabeean Linces and Nakils. Of course the battalion had a inner detachment of Panzergreinader infantry in TPz 255 armored personnel carriers, they would be useful as they engaged in several firefights with enemy infantry that made up the 18th Arca brigade. Despite the mortar fire, the Panzergreinaders were able to lay down heavy suppressible fire on the Macabeeans. A Lince that was accompanying a squad of Macabeean infantry fired it's main gun which hit a near by TPz 255 armored personnel carrier, literally tearing right through the engine block and turning the APC into a burning hulk of melting metal and twisted steel as it burned.

"Enemy panzer to the right, clear kill shot." Dietrich informed the crew as he manned the eyes of the Panther. The Panther II had stopped as it set it's sights on it's prey, the barrel of the Panther's main gun rotated as it stopped once it lined it's sights on the side of the Lince, who was not yet aware it was being targeted. The Panther's main gun roared as a shell went right towards the side of the Lince, of course it's active protection system kicked in luckily and blew the 144mm shell out of the sky in a burst of fragmentation grenades. "Fuck, it's main gun is moving, reverse!" The Panther suddenly jolted as it went in reverse, the automated loader, loaded another 144mm shell in the mean while. Once the Panther had stopped, the Lince it had shot at moved. The Panther's main gun rotated to keep the enemy tank in it's sight, soon enough the Lince took the bait and stopped again. The Panther's gun fired again and this time made a direct hit on the Lince as it suffered a mobility kill. "The crew is bailing!"

The Lince's hatch swung open as a crew man stuck his head out before squirming out of the top of the hull. Another crew man would follow as the Panther's machine gun peppered the disabled Lince with bullets, one of the crew man fell off the tank after being hit several times in the chest. The first crew man made a run for it as the third and last crew man also tried his luck, the machine gun barked once more and the last crew man out suffered a worst fate as he too was gunned down. Mean while in support of the Panzer battalion a near by section of Elephant Self Propelled Gun Artillery had zero'd in on the 18th Arca as it unleashed a barrage of 155mm artillery fire, raining shrapnel and explosions through their ranks and the battlefield. This would be the finishing blow as the Panzer battalion tore through the 18th Arca's lead elements, it wouldn't be long before the battalion would be reinforced by another battalion of Panzergreinaders this time as the blocking force had done what had originally not been expected to succeed. The 31st was also dealing with the advancing 2nd PRA division that was attempting it's own breakthrough to reinforce the 18th. However it stood against most of the strength of the 31st which now was 5 battalions of mechanized infantry and it's support units.

Outskirts of the encirclement of the 18th Arca Brigade, Shores of Eastern Holy Panooly.
The 49th Panzerdivision seal the 18th Arca Brigade within the towns of Pilote, Berbejo, Gaudalquivir, and Varacas...

The blocking move was executed flawlessly by the 31st Panzergreinaders and with a breakthrough in the 18th Arca by the Panzergreinaders only armored battalion, things were looking grim for the cornered brigade. An entire Armored regiment of the Panzerdivision was henceforth also successful in cornering the 18th and sealing the encirclement for good. Of course the tank regiment was accompanied with a mechanized battalion and artillery compliments that would suffice in supporting the encirclement and the destruction of the 18th Arca Brigade. Advancing steadfast towards the town of Gaudalquivir were the lead elements of the tank regiment as Panther II and Tiger III tanks rolled forward against the brigade in heavy fighting. The regiment would also be able to close in on the neighboring towns as well, Pilote, Berbejo and soon enough with the help of the Tank battalion from the 31st, Varacas. Heavy artillery fire from batteries of Elephant Mobile Artillery and even accompanying rocket artillery in the form of Panzerwerfer II's that laid down devastating destruction across the battlefield. With the Tank regiment facing several occupied towns that would make up the 18th brigade, accompanying infantry units would be in the heart of the fighting to secure the towns and push the 18th either into the sea or capture and or kill them. Return fire from the brigade was imminent as the Linces and Nakils responded in kind to the armored advance in kind with their fire power, large scale firefights would also occur with the engagement between the respective infantry, all the while Ordenite artillery fire would keep the Macabeeans on their toes and help in demolishing their ranks and morale. As much pressure as the 49th and 31st could put on the 18th, it did as the encirclement would certainly mean the doom of the Arca brigade. However, the general offensive into North Panooly continued as usual. The Ordenite advance was going as planned as the majority of the Fuermark defense continued it's withdrawal south to new battlements to attempt to stall the offensive more. War was in full swing here as it was over all within the region of Dienstad.

[The Macabees]

Map 3: Status of the front on day four of the Ordenite invasion of North Panooly.

---

— Panooly (City), Siege Preperations

By the fourth day of combat operations, the enemy was upon Panooly and from the northernmost tip of their columns heading directly towards the capital city they could see its still faint outline. Panooly was a large city of modest means. With a pre-war population of twenty-three million, it sprawled across the horizon for kilometer upon kilometer, over a thousand square kilometers in all. If the Reich's soldiers, those closest to the southern approaches of the city, could see anything at all, it would be the outdated skyscrapers that decorated Panooly's downtown sector. Made of an ugly concrete in a style that went sterile over forty years prior, they represented the the large Guffingfordi and Macabean corporations that had used the Templeton regime to establish an economy of exploitation that slowly sucked the country's natural wealth from out of the ground and into rich men's bank accounts. They would be faint visions now, wrapped in a nebulous fog and separated from the front lines by a still consider amount of countryside and then the extensive southern suburbs of the city.

Much of the pre-war population had been evacuated during the previous days, but four days wasn't truly enough to move twenty-three million souls. So, while fascist artillery dropped and the sound of gunfire neared, most of Panooly's inhabitants remained. Now, while Macabean soldiers dug in, the 1st Panooly PRA division was ordered to help transport inhabitants of the southern suburbs north. It was hoped that by the time the fighting reached the outskirts of the city, most of the people directly within the killzones could be evacuated. It was a tall order, but saving some was always better than saving none.

The evacuation was an odd thing, though. Panooly was known for its predominately white population. There were always servants of colored status, and with the fall of the Templeton regime came the rise of the shanty suburbs along the northern and northeastern arcs, but it was the whites who still claimed the capital as their domain. The irony of the white class, oppressive as they were when they had Dominic Templeton to protect them, being saved by a division of colored soldiers was lost on no one. And while some of those being evacuated may have thought that they'd be better off under Ordenite rule anyways, few were under the impression that staying put during the battle was a good idea. Regardless of how the Ordenites would treat them — well, undoubtedly, if they were of the correct skin color —, all knew the risks that came with staying in the city while houses were leveled and buildings toppled. They had learned the lesson from Delapesca, which had been effectively razed during the civil war that had transpired only a few short months ago.

The Ejermacht made good use of the three, and now four, days of combat.What remained intact of the 323rd Regulare Mechanized Infantry Division deployed itself just south of the suburbs. It was reinforced inside the city by the 450th Theohuanacu Auxilarie Terch, a battalion and a half of independent regulares, and, once it was the time, the 1st and 3rd PRA divisions.This gave the defenders a little under 67,000 soldiers with which to hold the city. To this could be added another 10,000 hastily trained and armed militants that were recruited from the peripheral shanty towns. How much help these latter units would be was questionable, but cannon fodder was cannon fodder regardless.

The 323rd arrayed itself in a backward-bending arc just south of the fringes of the city. Its units on the flanks rolled up in such a way so that they were almost facing east and west, to prepare for the encirclement of the city that was to come. Along with the 450th Auxilarie Terch, these were the best troops available and so they would have to bear the brunt of the Reich's preliminary attempts to take the capital directly.

Troops garbed in their power armor dug in within trenches that cut across the barren landscape. Much of the terrain in the area had been modified, with the country's large forest cut down in this sector to allow for the construction of defensive entrenchments and fortifications. Major roads were blocked at several points, which would force the Ordenites to either go around or disassemble them. Acoustic and chemical sensors were hidden nearby these obstacles to forewarn the defenders of when the enemy had approached them. Then, the 323rd could call in artillery support from the self-propelled guns that had withdrawn north. The division's surviving fixed artillery, which was few in far between now, was organized in concealed positions to the rear, within the suburbs themselves, ready to open fire once the first armored and infantry columns had broken through the regulares and entered the city.

The 450th was arrayed within the surburbs itself, and its lines stretched all the way back to the center of the city. The auxilarie terch would act as a reserve, with the intention of counterattacking against any Wehrmacht spearheads that managed to break through the 323rds lines. It also entrenched itself within the city, using buildings in strategic intersections and along major roadways to fortify themselves. They liberally carved holes and dug tunnels when needed, to allow the easy movement of troops from one block to the next, in case enemy soldiers tried to use the minor streets to flank auxilarie positions. These were also booby trapped with mines, IEDs, and other explosives designed to make the enemy's advance through Panooly a snail's pace stroll through hell.

For their part, the 1st and 3rd PRA was organized deeper into Panooly, reinforced by the 1,500 regulares that had been airlifted into the theater before the storm had reached its peak. These men would use the urban landscape to compensate their own lack of experience. It was the PRA that also took responsibility for the ten thousand militants that had been brought to the battle. These were organized in small groups and were permanently attached to a company, or sometimes a battalion, of PRA forces. The regulares in the city positioned themselves north of the militants and PRA to discourage any premeditated withdrawals, retreats, or routs. The fighting would take some days to reach the actual city, so these men had some more time to prepare themselves for the coming fighting, but if the Wehrmacht could successfully encircle the city, then the PRA and allied militant soldiers would be fighting on the frontlines much sooner than they expected. Unsurprisingly, then, they worked to fortify the western, northern, and eastern approaches to the city while they could, often pressing local civilians — especially the whities — into conscripted labor gangs that were used to dig trenches, IEDS, and tunnels.

To the Golden Throne, Panooly was a symbol of their influence and its loss would be devastating propagandistically. In this spirit, the siege of Panooly promised to be a terrible, tenacious, and ferocious ordeal that would claim the lives of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, on both sides. Woe to those who had to live it.

— Flanks East and West of Panooly

Wehrmacht forces advancing east and west of the city, attempting to bypass it and, without a doubt, to encircle it, would meet the 81st and 760th regulares — the former was arrayed along the west and the latter in the east. They were reinforced by the 7th and 31st Arca brigades, as well as by the 312th and 527th Theohuanacu Auxilarie Terches. In the rear, the 51st Airborne Division had withdrawn to briefly rest before it was thrown back into battle again. After considering losses in the previous days of fighting, this gave the Ejermacht some 95–110,000 combat personnel with which to resist the Reich's advance.

With the 51st in reserve, ready to either reinforce the flanks or to be deployed to the city, the true numbers were closer to 80–95,000 troops deployed along the flanks. It was a dangerously small force to defend against an enemy that outnumbered it perhaps four, or perhaps six or seven, to one — depending on the casualties they had taken. The enemy's blanket radar jamming and the storm had worked, to some extent, to these soldiers' advantage, helping to protect them against airstrikes, but there was only so much they could do. They had to continue to withdraw in order to avoid complete destruction, and soon enough there wouldn't be much more room to retreat anyways. The Jumanotan Frontier was only a few hundred kilometers north, which meant that the withdrawal would soon have to move east. This meant that the Wehrmacht, if it pushed on the western flank, would be able to roll up the Ejermacht's defenses in the direction it wanted to go anyways. And it would force the Ejermacht to further segment its forces between the city and the rest of the country.

The situation was very tenuous and the Fuermak would have to come up with a solution soon, otherwise the defense of Holy Panooly would dissolve entirely into besieged pockets by the end of the next week. The hurricane was moving east, with its eye soon to pass over the center of the country. This would make matters even more challenging because, jamming aside, it would allow air forces in the country to renew operations. Without its assets in Indras and Theohuanacu, the Laerihans could count on 750–800 aircraft of its original 1,100, due to the heavy losses it had suffered during the previous days. And less than half of these were air superiority fighters, the rest were the GLI-76 multi-role fighter.

To help alleviate the situation a bit, command in Indras took advantage of the weaker presence of the storm to the east to strategically redeploy another 200 GLI-76 aircraft into North Panooly. They flew to airfields on the Delapesca Peninsula under the cover of Kríergrup Indras, much of which was still vigorously bombarding Ordenite positions in eastern South Panooly. These were moved during the early night, between one and two in the morning, knowing that Hurakán Mateo would soon make aerial operations out of Indras very difficult.

Along with the additional aircraft, four terches (divisions) worth of Zarbian auxilarie were deployed to Delapesca by a combination via air- and sealift from their bases in the Michcuatl Islands, just off the eastern coast of South Panooly. Again, they took advantage of the drifting storm and of the Macabean fleet's presence to move so much material in such a short period of time. The daring operation awarded local defenses another 120,000 combat troops, although being where they were they would first have to march up the peninsula and then join the fighting from there. In the short-term, they could at least further bolster the 2nd PRA division, which had lost over a thousand and a half men already in their lackluster counterattacks along the northeastern sector of the front, just above the location where the 18th Arca was struggling. It'd be a day, at least, before these forces became relevant, but they were welcome reinforcements regardless which could double Macabean defenses on the capital's flanks.

With the hurakán moving east as it was, these were probably the last reinforcements the Ejermacht and Laerihans could expect from the east until the storm subsided further.

— Berbejo Pocket

The 18th Arca was trapped. In the north, the 31st Panzergrenadier division was counterattacking with an armored battalion. In the south, and now to its west, the 49th Panzerdivision was quickly sealing any escape routes back across the front and into allied lines. The brigade had already lost over a quarter of its infantry strength and over sixty tanks, which brought its strength down to a little under 1,500 mechanized infantry, roughly 32 Nakíl 1A3Ms and just over 180 Linces.

These forces were consolidated within an area defined by the towns of Varacas to the north, Guadalquivir to the west, Berbejo in the center, and Pilote to the south. Varacas was held by two companies (about 200 men's worth) of mechanized infantry, after they had ejected local garrison forces. There were five companies (about 500 men's worth) of infantry holding Guadalquivir and a similar number in Pilote, with the remaining 300 infantrymen held in reserve at Berbejo, which was being used as the brigade's temporary headquarters. All of the brigade's infantry sported power armor and, dismounted as they were, their APCs provided additional armor support. Armed with a 35mm chaingun and two anti-tank missile launchers, these APCs were organized within the towns behind heavily fortified positions, from which they could ambush enemy forces moving through narrow rural streets. These forces would have to endure the heaviest of the fighting, although they would be aided by the naval cannons of Kríergrup 'Indras' for as long as the moving storm allowed.

Its armor had always been the Ejermacht's pride. Since the War of Golden Succession, if there was one thing the Golden Throne was known for, it was its tanks. These would not shy away from a good tank battle today, and so they arrayed themselves in a crescent that ran from south to north, with their backs against the coast to the east. About 60 Linces and 8 Nakíls deployed around Varacas, in the north, and the rest arrayed themselves in preparetion to meet the 49th Panzerdivision in battle.

The Lince was a more agile tank due to its unique design features. It had the armor protection of a Nakíl, but was much lighter, much smaller, and more difficult to detect and hit. They were the hammer, while the Nakíls were the anvil. In practice, the Nakíls would directly confront an enemy unit of tanks using their long 140mm guns to engage at ranges of up to 2–3 kilometers, terrain permitting. The Linces would wait to the side, or to the rear, and join the fight once the enemy was deeply engaged with the Macabean heavy armor. Using their speed and agility, the Linces used raiding tactics to hit on either flank, firing their 3-ready rounds and then withdrawing again to safety. The Ordenites were more than capable tankers themselves, and so these operations came with losses, but the Linces needed to do whatever it took to inflict as much damage as they could.

Farther to the north, across enemy lines, the 2nd PRA division's counterattack was faltering. It had taken heavy losses and, for all intents and purposes, offensive actions had ceased. There were still a few isolated attacks, but overall the division had switched back to the defensive. Based in Delapesca, the 2nd PRA moved another two battalions to that sector of the front, but it reserved these to help contain the inevitable deluge of enemy forces once the 18th Arca's position was fully reduced. With the 2nd's initative curbed, the 18th was not essentially on its own.

While the brigade continued to enjoy the support of growing air strikes precedent from Indras and the immense power of the fleet, it was unquestionable that it would eventually be destroyed if a solution to their predicament wasn't found over the next day or two. Overnight, the storm had moved further east and so an amphibious withdrawal was now almost impossible. It was surely risky, in any case. This left another option: a northward breakout attempt to link up with the 2nd PRA.

The 2nd PRA's own situation, though, made any talk about a link-up a wild fancy. The 18th would have a hard time pushing through the 31st Panzergrenadier on its own if it also had to protect its rear and flanks from the 49th Panzerdivision. It's one hope was to use some of the elements recently landed at Delapesca to renew the counterattack from the north. One of the Zarbian auxilarie terches was rapidly moved up the peninsula to reinforce the three PRA battalions, but they wouldn't be in place until the next day at the earliest, and even then they would be understrength until the bulk of the division could move into place. It would have to do.

While it fought to maintain cohesion within the new battlespace, demarcated by the four towns it had chosen to hold, the Arca brigade prepared its one final card: a breakout planned for the very next morning.

— Deep Behind Enemy Lines

Isolated from the main battle, 7th Mosso wrought havoc deep inside of the South Panooly. With bombing missions temporarily suspended until the storm started to weaken, the Koro Kirim unit — reinforced by Grup Koda IV and 100 Mekugian regulies from Berach X — struck out at strategic targets at their own. They too had suffered casualties throughout the previous days and their strength now came to a total of perhaps just under two hundred operatives.

The men of 7th Mosso were spread out throughout the country, operating in teams as small as two and as large as eight. Avoiding firefights with large concentrations of the enemy, they turned their attention to Ordenite supply routes and SAM emplacements. They used the jungle to set up ambushes against truck convoys heading north to bring reinforcements and weaponry to Wehrmacht forces fighting along the front. Tactics varied, but invariably there was always a blocking force to hold the enemy while hidden operatives then struck from concealed positions with heavy ordnance. Given Mosso's limited manpower, these raids could only impact a fraction of the Reich's total logistical network in South Panooly, but a nibble could go a long way if it was allowed to persist for long enough. It was hoped that this, joined by attacks on anti-air defenses, could at least do enough damage to help weaken the Reich's position in South Panooly before the coming counterstroke.

It was known to the Golden Throne that much of the south's colored population had been forcibly migrated to labor camps, where they were put to use to help the Reich's war effort. In an effort to liberate what were essentially allies, the Mekugian bandag (company) struck one of these camps in the early morning on the fourth day of fighting. They had spent the previous day and night tracking movements in and out of the camp to get a feel for its defenses and the strength of the Ordenite military in the immediate area. Before the sun poked its first rays above the horizon, the bandag attacked.

Mortar fire fell upon the labor camp from the north, hitting and suppressing the guards in their towers and barracks. While this continued, three squads of régulies lightly attacked the camp's northern walls. The attack was designed to be a feint, so they stayed behind cover where they could and never moved too close. The heavest Mekugian force came from the south. Using heavy anti-tank ordnance, they blew the gates to the camp open and soon entered into a firefight with the defenders. Aided by their power armor, elite training, and over a decade of combat experience in their role, they advanced into the camp with confidence in the hope of overwhelming the Panooly guards. Finally, while the firefight continued, about sixteen régulies struck the western walls of the camp with anti-tank missiles, using their attack as an opportunity to sow further confusion and give the appearance of being a stronger numerical force than they actually were.

What would they do with the liberated prisoners? Thanks to pre-war efforts to train a centralized resistance to the Reich's rule in South Panooly, any who were successfully freed could be directed to weapons caches where they could arm themselves and then melt into the forest. Their weren't enough Macabean operatives in the area to train and lead them, but the more colored who were liberated the less there would be to help the enemy's production, and the more resistance the Reich would face from behind their front lines. If enough of these camps were hit over the coming days, perhaps a truly dangerous insurgency could be catalyzed and then the Ordenites would begin to face a real supply problem.

In this fashion, the Golden Throne's limited forces in Holy Panooly did what they could do gradually claw away at the Wehrmacht's strength and security in the hope that it would make a difference when the war reached its climax in the next week. And even if the war in the north did not progress in a direction favorable to the empire, 7th Mosso's actions in the south would nevertheless act to destabilize the Reich's position over the long-run.

[United World Order]

40km South of Panooly, North Panooly,
Army Group Center.

Over the last four days Army Group Center had fought ferociously against the defenses of the Macabeeans and Panoolies and had rolled them up for almost 200 kilometers. Army Group Center through the four days of vigorous combat had sustained a hefty amount of casualties but due to the rapid success of Operation Wolverine so far these losses were deemed necessary to the strategic defeat of the Golden Throne on Holy Panooly. The center push towards the capital had advanced quite rapidly despite the opposition by the Macabeeans and Panoolies and now the farthest in land Wehrmacht units were just under 40 kilometers away from the southern reaches of the prestigious city. Despite the 'gentlemen' like handling of the war up to this point, the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht had already made a key objective of Operation Wolverine was that the city of Panooly was to be razed to the ground during the taking of it. Thus on the fourth day of combat in North Panooly and with Army Group Center only 40 kilometers away, they had decided to stop their advance and settle into the country side and that a war of attrition would now be under taken by the Wehrmacht. Of course the flanking Army Groups were also given time to catch up with the main drive as he flanks were experiencing more tougher resistance and with the eastern flank having to deal with the bombardment from the Macabeean navy off the coast that was supporting Macabeean forces on the ground. For most of the fourth day, Army Group Center would dig in and establish it's self on the front lines as it began deploying it's artillery contingents for preparation to shell the city of it's defense garrison.

This time was also used to re-fuel the massive mechanized force that Army Group Center was comprised of as was most of the Wehrmacht. Rest was given to the soldiers as they were allowed to use this time to sleep some and eat from their rations. In the mean time however the Luftwaffe was also in preparation for the sorties it would have to do in the vicinity of Panooly in support of the siege. The storm was still a threat although the majority of the hurricane was now hovering over central Holy Panooly as was the eye of the storm which encompassed the surrounding areas including Panooly it's self. However luftwaffe support would still be limited though reconnaissance efforts were what was happening as part of what the Luftwaffe could afford to give for the siege. Drones and lots of them could now be deployed to seek out vital battlefield reconnaissance on the defenses of the city and where everyone was in regards to the enemy. The Luftwaffe had also moved some of it's assets further north as to keep within the confines of the advancing Wehrmacht force, at least 300 Lu-45s and just under 100 bombers were able to be re-deployed to artificial airfields that were made during the main advance over the past few days. By 22:00 on the fourth day with night fall rapidly overshadowing the landscape in darkness, that and the still moving storm. Something definitely was brewing deeper in the south behind Wehrmacht lines, It was something big and if the storm had decipated sooner then Macabeean intelligence would of most likely known about it by now. 'Goliath' Heavy Artillery Battalion 88 was a special kind of unit that until now had not seen relative combat operations in the past, the 'Goliath' was a considerably massive 800mm siege cannon that also consisted of rail-gun technology that was available in Germania and had been sent in pieces to South Panooly before the war and even have been sent to Kashubia before the recent out break of hostilities.

The 'Goliath' was crewed by over a hundred personnel and it's massive shells were loaded by a industrial crane that was augmented with the siege cannon. These shells which were 800mm, were made of a large shell casing from which inside of it were several dart like ordinances which were commonly used in rail-gun technology and weapons. Once a shell had been fired from the 'Goliath', the shell would shoot into the air and after a certain period of time while still in the air and before reaching it's target will open up like a cracked egg and thus unleash it's true destructive pay load, several dart like rods which would use the kinetic energy from the launch to propel it's self further until it reaches it's target and ultimately explodes. The dart rods themselves were quite long and bulky in length which was contributed to the size needed to wield it on a siege cannon, the resulting aftermath of a direct hit from these dart rods would cause a deafening explosion that could be heard for hundreds of meters around. Once sufficient intelligence could be obtained on Panooly and what defenses and troop concentrations could be identified from the drones or from satellite imagery a target was chosen deep within Panooly and the relative trajectory and mental math was applied in the preparation for the firing of the 'Goliath'. The loading of a single massive shell would also be under taken by the industrial crane and once the preparations were over with, the super weapon would be ready to fire on command.

The 'Goliath' would soon enough be given the command to fire as it's massive cannon bellowed and roared as the massive shell ordinance was projected out of the cannon at a rapid speed as it coursed towards it's target. Army Group Center would then allow it's artillery batteries the authority to begin shelling the city entirely, the artillery given to Army Group Center was well fitting for this as besides the 'Goliath', hundreds of heavy howitzers, Panzerwerfers and the dreaded 600mm siege mortars would then be employed to the shelling of the city over the duration of the night on the fourth day. Thus beginning the Siege of Panooly.

East and West Flanks of Panooly, North Panooly,
Army Group West and Army Group East.

Army Group West and Army Group East had progressed quite well despite what set backs they had and the toughness of the opposition on the flanks especially now as they would begin continuous combat operations to break the flanks of the Macabeeans and Panoolies in order to envelop Panooly all together and roll over the Golden Throne and it's military in the north. The Wehrmacht on the flanks had a considerable mechanized and armored force which had been given to them in order to rapidly break the flanks and enable a envelopment to occur. It was hoped that with the Panzerdivisions and Panzergreinader divisions being employed on either, western or eastern flank that they would have the capabilities to deal with any threat that would be put against them. Over the last few days casualties had been mounting and the forces of the Wehrmacht on the flanks had lost a minor amount of it's armor in the raging battles against Macabeean armor, however with the size of the Wehrmacht force that was ravaging North Panooly these losses were deemed acceptable. The Regulares and their armored and other support units on the flanks would eventually be engaged by the combined might of the 12th, 27th, 85th and 104th Panzergreinaders who would be accompanied by the 51st, 32nd and 77th Panzerdivision and more. The flanks over all accumulated to over a dozen or so divisions on either flank and were the driving force that would hopefully overwhelm and destabilize the Macabeean defense around Panooly city which would then allow Army Group Center to commit to taking the city its self hopefully by the following week.

18th Arca Brigade Pocket,
Berbejo, Pilote, Guadalquivir, Varacas.

The 49th Panzerdivision and the 31st Panzergreinaders were pushing hard on the pocket that had been created on the eastern coast which incorporated four towns in which the remnants of the 18th Arca Brigade made their last stand. The rapid push made by the armored regiment that was pitted against the 18th Arca by the 49th Panzerdivision and what infantry support it also got smashed into the towns defenses as heavy fighting occurred. The power armour wielding Macabeeans were quite a hassle to put down as their armor deflected bullets and shrapnel, however a single shot in the center mass by a Panther II's main gun or several rockets from a Panzerfaust 300 seemed to do the trick. The 49th was hell bent on spilling into the towns and cracking the defense of the brigade there and with cohesion from the 31st Panzergreinaders who had sent a Armored battalion that was primed to tackle Varacas in the north, the two forces meeting soon enough during the battle had developed a curtain of sort to dis-encourage the Macabeeans any hope of a break out. The 2nd PRA as noticed by the 31st had been drastically weakened and it's forces were full out routing from engaging the 31st who had dealt it quite a bit of damage in battle, this would allow the 31st to offer more support to the destruction of the 18th Arca. A mechanized battalion from the 31st was thus redeployed once it was assured that the 2nd PRA was not a viable threat to the battle and this battalion would be sent south to join the Panzer battalion that was fighting the defenders of Varacas and further tighten the noose the Wehrmacht had over the 18th. The 49th Panzerdivision also sent more of it's force to crush the pocket as well, with at least a third of it's entire division being put fourth to the cornered 18th Arca brigade. The towns of Berbejo, Pilote, Guadalquivir and Varacas were now in considerably more danger as the 49th and the 31st continued their onslaught.

[The Macabees]

Map 4: Status of the front on day five of the Ordenite invasion of North Panooly.

---

— Northwestern Suburb of Panooly (City), The Fifth Column

A black, unmarked HIM-TAC came to a sudden before the broad copper-gates of a vast estate with a blue lapis central dome around which sat four towers on either corner. The night's shadow hid most of its façade behind a black curtain and, as soon as the HIM-TAC had arrived, four armed men had disembarked and quietly slipped into the dark.

Almost as soon as it had come to a stop, the vehicle screeched into reverse and backed up what must have been over one hundred meters. It shrieked to a halt again, but without warning the HIM-TAC accelerated so much so that its tires were lost within a smoky haze of the sulphuric burn of rubber. It thundered down the paved road, picking up speed with every inch it gained, and then crashed right into the gate like a battery ram. The wide doors flew back, one of then torn off its hinges behind an ornamental column that hid the machinery. The four soldiers who had exited the vehicles a minute earlier did not hesitate to move in, pushing through tendrils and wisps of light gray smoke radiating from either side of the gate.

With uniforms bare of patches, rank, and insignia, the four soldiers quickly made their way up a long driveway that led to a porte-cochère made of fine brick, with grand, rounded arches reminiscent of those from great civilizations. This was obviously a rich man's house, and in Holy Panooly that usually meant a white man's house.

Two-in-two, one team on either side of the paved path, they trotted up to a wide double-columned portico, which guarded a grand double-door made of a dark reddish-brown timber. Upstairs, lights were already being turned as those sleeping were awoken by the commotion. Shouts could be heard and the faint trample of feet up and down staircases betrayed chaos. Perhaps they had seen this coming. It would not matter anyways.

Clack, clack, clack. Gunfire emerged from the other side of the estate grounds. That was this squad's apparent cue, for they bolted then. One team was lined up behind a wall that ran adjacent to the portico, but not within line of sight from the house's front door. The other moved with pace toward the doors, whereupon the lead man opened them with one strong kick. On his tail and with his weapon's stock firmly on his shoulder, the second man in the team crouched as he entered the house. Two people blurred in front of him and he shot them down wildly with his rifle. Only maids, colored girls of course, who had been running from fighting emanating from the rear east-wing of the manor. The soldier who had shot them down looked at them, for a second or two, but then moved on at his partner's urging. By then the other two soldiers had moved in as well, and the four of them headed down a main hallway through the west-wing.

Servants darted out of rooms, but if they fired it was only a few rounds by mistake. For the most part, staff caught in the halls fell down to crouch by, or sit on, the floor, their backs to the wall. They stared at the four men in fear, some trembling, others crying, and many praying. But the squad kept moving, clearly seeking out a specific prey.

Up a wooden-framed staircase that curled like the shell of a snail they went, and they continued their hunt on the second floor. Here there were no maids, no workers. Here lived the elite.

A white man half-dressed with the slacks of his uniform and little else came out of what must have been his quarter with raised hands. "Now look, Mr. Jayden is a very wealthy and important man. I'm sure that you don't want to mess with that kind of power. I'm sure we can work out some kind of arrangem—" Clack, Clack, he fell.

From out the door ran out a woman, also half-clothed. She was felled by a quick spray of bullets.

The hall, apart from distant screaming and gunshots coming from the east-win, fell into silence. Advancing together, the four men slowly made their way down until they stood in front of a set a tall bedroom door that opened in the middle. They gave no warning before kicking them open and storming in. Against a far wall, to the left of a deep, wide closet, huddled a man in silk pajamas with his wife and three children. A little girl and her two small brothers clung to their mother's satin nightgown, their tiny fingers white as they fervently gripped the cloth. The mother stared at the intruders defiantly, like a lioness protecting her cubs. Standing now, the man took a step forward to put his family at his back. "How dare you attack me, my staff, and my family like this? Who do you think you are?" He reproached. "Are you here to loot? Take what you want, but know that I shall see that justice befall you—"

He was cut off. "Representative Edward Wilkinson, for your participation in conspiracies against the state and for collaboration with the fascist enemey you have been found guilty and have been condemned to execution."

They all looked at the one who had spoken in wide-eyed terror. One of the boys was crying now, soaking his tears in the mother's gown. Edward Wilkinson, party leader of the Panooly Action Party, looked exasperated. The two sides stood there for a brief second, one unsure of whether they were truly about to commit a massacre and the other in shock.

"You monsters!" screamed the mother, right before they opened fire.

The gunfire was wild. There was no order in how the killings were done. First went down Edward, but they sprayed at the family as well. It was not a clean deed. Their muscles spasmed and twitched as blood flowed from the corners of their mouths and from their wounds, collecting in a giant pool all around them. One of the boys was dead, but they continued to shoot into his body for some time, the adrenaline tipping the balance between instinct, fear, and reason. The shooting continued for thirty seconds before it came to and end, upon which the four gunmen turned to leave and continue the carnage elsewhere.

Those of color were spared. Others ran or were gunned down where they cowered. Back through the west-wing they went, cutting a bloody path back to their vehicle. Through their veins coursed the feeling of men who had lost touch with humanity, they were men who had reverted to their most primal state. But they were a people who would never again the accept the white man's bridle.

Back in the armored truck, the Macabean HIM-TAC, one of the soldiers took off his helmet and then his mask. A colored soldier, PRA. He put his head in his hands and breathed in heavily, finally letting it go with a long sigh.

Elsewhere in the city, gunfire still ruptured. It betrayed something systematic. Neither the Golden Throne nor the Satrapy would allow Panooly City to fall, even if its defense required the assassination of those who sought to bring it down from the inside. The fifth column would be smoked out of the city like rats.

— The New Storm to the West

Hurkán Mateo was moving eastward at a frightening pace. Heavy rainfall fell over the western coastline of Holy Panooly and the palm trees still swayed in high winds, but the bulk of the hurricane was passing over the interior of the country now and the eye moved onto the eastern shore. This would hamper operations in the east for another few days at the very least, but with the situation in North Panooly deteriorating the time to tip the balance was now.

Millions of men, originally earmarked for the fighting in Tiwanaku and Palenque, were restlessly poised for invasion in bases up and down the western coast of Theohaunacu. They were little more than eager and naive boys and girls, freshly recruited from the newly acquired territories of Zarbia, Indras, Monzarc, and Eastern Guffingford. With twelve weeks of basic training under their belts, they were rated combat-ready; ready, at least, to be bloodied against the corsair strongholds of the south before they were shipped out to the real war — the invasion of the Scandinvan Empire. It was a brutal method of weeding out the weak and creating a core of veterans, but such was the Macabean way.

These men had been originally amassed for the sieges of Tiwanaku and Palenque, but the destruction of the pirate enclaves would have to be delayed. The Reich's assault had caught the Golden Throne off guard and with hundreds of millions of men being deployed to Gholgoth, there was a dearth of manpower, the severe dearth of manpower had tied the Ejermacht's hands. Either Holy Panooly would fall in two weeks or less, or the empire would have to make some short-term sacrifices and prioritize its different theaters of involvement. Therefore, while Hurakán Mateo raged, five hundred thousand soldiers — teeming with the energy and emotion of those whose romantic ideals of war hadn't been shattered by the reality of actually serving in one — were readied to strike as soon as the storm lifted. With the western coast now free of the worst from 'Mateo,' the time to attack had finally come.

Tomorrow: D-Day.

Not all had even the twenty-four cushion, though. More forces were needed to hold back the Reich's tide which poured into the north and threatened to wipe local defenses away. If the Ordenites hadn't renewed their intense jamming all along the front, the Macabeans did. They used this to help screen small numbers of medium air transports, escorted by fighter jets, that penetrated Jumanotan airspace — technically neutral — to bring in as many fresh boots as possible to reinforce the Ejermacht units that had been thinned by five days worth of heavy fighting. Navitek-aligned aerial assets flying out of Tarn and Jumanotan fields responded by trailing Macabean aircraft, but the company made no effort to otherwise protest or contact the government they paid taxes to.

Claxons and alarms sounded throughout all bases, pushing soldiers to run to briefing points assigned to them in the days leading up to the invasion operation. From there they were funneled through warehouses and doctors offices, all part of last minute equipment and health checks before they were landed on Panooly soil, where any mistakes and weaknesses would be paid for dearly.

Albatrosses roared as they passed overhead, their massive engines working hard to take them across the straits to Holy Panooly. They came in waves, escorted by Lu-45 Hawks.

Guided by special forces soldiers in South Panooly, these fully-laden bombers struck discovered SAM sites and radar installations. They bombed command headquarters, supply depots, known concentrations of enemy armor, and other high priority targets. But South Panooly was not their only target. With the flanks east and west of Panooly City ceding more and more territory every day, the systematic campaign also turned its sights on the Ordenite assault forces pushing north in western North Panooly. Enemy formations directly on the front and their supply lines were struck mercilessly, to slow the enemy's advance as much as possible. South Panooly urban centers were not spared either. Government, military staff, and local security buildings were struck with impunity, especially in Qadesh, the south's capital. Civilians were not safe. Known sympathizers of the Reich, namely the white political figures of the south, saw their homes targeted, collateral damage in residential neighborhoods be damned.

It was a systematic campaign of destruction. Some two hundred heavy bombers were re-routed from flights over southern Theohuanacu to participate in the campaign, waves of twenty making runs day-and-night in an effort to release some of the pressure off the boots struggling along the ever retreating Frontier.

Added to the brew were the two Kríergrups redeploying to again fully close the blockade on South Panooly, which had been temporarily lifted to avoid Mateo's rage. Missile-carrying battlecruisers and dreadnoughts struck targets of their own, and ships with large enough guns joined in on the bombardment as well. These focused more intensely on military targets, namely those that were actively driving north in their bid to encircle Macabean forces congregating within and just outside of Panooly City. Like the bombers, they opered day-and-night, periodically lifting their intensity to resupply and to keep the Ordenites on edge, never knowing when exactly the next session of missiles and shells would come.

All the while, Fuermak leadership contacted their allies in Imbrinium and Stevid: Operation Goliath's Fury was a go.

— Operation Northern Mist

A lone GLI-76 multi-role fighter, escorted by two Lu-45 Hawks, cut through rainy skies like a wiper's blade.

The three aircraft were somewhere over the straits, west of the Gordonopian-occupied Thacu Islands. If they continued as the crow flies they would be over South Panooly within hours, but their intentions were not to go that far. Like the other bombing missions, they would remain at stand-off range, using the naval screen below to help protect them against Ordenite fighters looking for retribution. But, unlike the other bombing missions, this GLI-76's weapons bay carried something unique. Behind the slick aluminum hatch that guarded the plane's flat belly was a new weapon — the Joyeuse, a missile said to be so stealthy that it could penetrate the airspace leading to Berlina if the Golden Throne so wished. Hyperbole, undoubtedly, but it spoke to the missile's import, as did the use of a mere single jet fighter to deliver it to its target.

This particular missile was not the Joyeuse. At least, it wasn't the final product. Rather, the Haize had delivered an early prototype as a means of testing some of its capabilities. It had been stripped from some of its more high-security features, lest they fall into enemy hands before the cruise missile even entered mass production! Nevertheless, it featured just enough of the new technology to return data that could be used to optimize the design before it was finalized.

Its target was a SAM battery, guided via a laser placed by a Koro Kirim operative looking at it through a digital device from a distance. Not a high-profile target; not even one of the Reich's largest SAM batteries. The purpose of the run was to test capabilities against a modern integrated air defense system, but no one was under any illusions that the Joyeuse prototype could perform miracles. No, this was just a low-key attack on a target relevant enough to warrant the test, but not so powerful and important that the test would simply be shot out of the sky before it could even enter the terminal stage of its flight.

For days this strike had been planned and, finally, the moment of truth had arrived. Content, apparently, with the distance they were at from their target, those ominous bomb bay doors opened slowly. Suddenly, a missile fell from its bowls and plummeted perhaps a hundred feet until its rocket engine kicked in, propelling it forward towards death. Then, another tumbled out, and then another, until all-in-all three prototype Joyeuse sped towards their target.

The lone GLI-76 closed its bomb bay hatch as it and its two Lu-45 escorts swiftly turned about to return to base.

— The Berbejo Pocket: Breakout

Pressure is mounting. Resistance is faltering. News from the 2nd PRA, as we get it, is that their attack has failed and that they are due to withdraw in short order. Bad news for us, I fear. If we do not act now, we will be destroyed. Regardless of what happens, it was a noble cause.

— Recovered journal entry, author: unknown

As the eye of Hurakán Mateo passed over them, the 18th Arca Brigade found itself in desperate need of a miracle. Their foray into the rear of the Reich's frontline may have succeeded in temporarily slowing the eastern flank of the Ordenite offensive, but it had condemned the brigade to encirclement. This was a risk they had accepted in the beginning, but Mateo had forced a recalculation and by that time it was too late. No rescue could be undertaken. The storm made it too dangerous for the Kríermada to organize a timely evacuation via the coast. Indeed, the navy was now largely silent, not even able to lob a few shells in support of the men and tanks fighting for their lives on the ground. And as the 18th's position got weaker and weaker, their enemies got stronger. If there was any chance of survivable at this point, it was a chance the brigade would have to take now.

Fighting within and outside the towns and villages around the pocket was intense, but tactical and irregular. Ordenite and Macabean armor dueled, with the 18th's Linces focusing more so on enemy panzers and its Nakíl's using their cannons to suppress assaulting Wehrmacht infantry in conjunction with their own infantry-support and mortar-fire.

The battlespace was getting smaller, and with it was going the room to maneuver. Adding insult to injury, artillery support was withering. Kríergrup Indras was silent and apparently parts of it were traveling north, to support a new theater in Kashubia. The brigade's artillery, in turn, had suffered greatly at the hands of their enemies. Counter-battery fire could be stymied, responded to, and avoided, but the reaper cannot be battled against forever. Sooner or later, he comes for you. Days of dueling with their foes had done justice to the quality of Macabean training and equipment, but losses had inevitably been suffered and as the force shrunk, their casualties grew. Now they were but a shadow's shadow of what they could once claim to be.

To help mitigate this predicament, the 18th made heavy use of mines. Using mortars and remaining artillery tubes to disperse then en masse, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines lay thick across the coastal grasslands and beaches. Made with strategic corridors and safe zones, these fields were designed to funnel their enemies into kill-zones or else slow their rate of advance by forcing them to clear the mines first.

But, any defense could only ultimately fail. The brigade's destruction was days, if not hours, away; no amount of defending could change that truth. What the 18th needed was reinforcements, or liberation, but the front had already moved far north of their location and there were no signs that the general initiative of the war was going to change anytime soon. Persistent jamming and the storms had cut communication with headquarters in North Panooly and with fleet, except for a few minutes here-and-there of a clear signal, and so the brigade's command was operation in the dark. Indeed, it seemed as if North Panooly's fall was perhaps no more than a week or two away, and for all they knew the empire was doing nothing about it. With no one to rely on, the 18th Arca Brigade would have to execute a hail-mary — a final game-winning move facing abysmally low odds.

In the early morning hours of the fifth day of the war, about a battalion's worth of men — 1,000 total — and about 170 tanks, including just over 150 Linces and 20 Nakíls, attack Ordenite forward elements to their north. The sun had not yet even peaked over the horizon. The sounds of war had drifted in and out of sleep, sputtering, warming up for the gruesome, stomach-churning heavy fighting that would no doubt ensue soon.

Preceded by no barrage, for they did not want to give a warning and, quite simply, they no longer had the cannons for one, the Macabean armor struck first. The Linces prowled the coastal plains, their low, sleek silhouettes traveling the dimly-lit grasslands like tigers on the hunt. They sought enemy armor for prey. The Nakíls supported the advancing infantrymen, some still in their power armors and others, who had lost theirs from damage, malfunction, or from a scarcity of batteries, did not. They hit hard and did not wait to break down the enemy, instead focusing on traveling north towards the lines of the 2nd PRA as quickly as possible.

Communication with the 2nd PRA proved to be difficult. If the storm did not break the connection, the cryptic Panooly responses did little to inform the 18th on whether they could count on the division's support.

Little did they know that the 2nd PRA, which had suffered considerable losses during the previous days, had been ordered to make an organized withdrawal in a northwards direction to absorb other Wehrmacht forces pushing against their position. Much of the four Zarbian auxiliary divisions that had been landed on the Delapesca peninsula the previous day had been moved to the 2nd's rear, but they were earmarked to partake in the next day's counterstrokes and the Ejermacht did not want to play their hand early. Instead, the 2nd PRA was used to absorb the enemy's advance until it was time to bring forward fresh meat for the grinder. The 18th was not only working on its own, but the allies the brigade was trying to reach were moving in the opposite direction with every passing minute. But, the 18th Arca could not afford the time to wait. They could only pray.

A long pass against low odds, indeed.

[Imbrinium]

For years the gears of war have turned they slowed then the speed up then slowed again now them were ramping back up and the drums of war once again screamed loudly. With drums so loud that no one in the kingdom could ignore with reserves being called up and now a limited draft imposed there was few that could turn away. The non-citizens were also affected with the limited draft affecting more of them than citizens, the others affected where those that do not accept the kingdom as it is in the conservative views of itself.

Riots blanketed the evening news with the youth taking to the streets wanting to change the way the government and kingdom have ran for hundreds of years. Today the kingdom is in two wars but the public only knows about one fully. The troop deployments are kept to a point a secret from the kingdom.

Deep within the MOD’s command sites and secure rooms at Cormond castle and were the MOD plans and orders rang out day and night. These orders controlled forces around the region and out of the region. Commanders of the IAF along with commanders of the TGT military worked together on the war in Gholgoth region in a joint command center special built and held the secret from most in the country.

The Crown asks the top commander at the closed secret site to ask and the past on a message to the TGT high command and government stating that the Crown was behind you and what do you need.

The TGT commanders brought back a list and those requests were granted the first was to help support its forces in Kashubia. The next was to help crush the Reich forces on the advance in Holy Panooly and its support base supplying them. The Crown agreed and has brought not only the Kingdom of Imbrinium in another regional conflict but also it smaller sister state Philotas Islands.

The air force had asked Macabeean commanders in Holy Panooly what they needed the commanders responded by asking for more troops and tactical aircraft to stem the tide of Reich armor heading north. With this, responds comes the largest air deployment of the Rapid Deployment Forces in the military’s modern history. The deployment of a little over three combat corps in north Holy Panooly, while most will be light troops they would also be mobile and could react quicker to a crisis as they popped up.

They orders went out to the commands and commanders of where they were in the deployment role of when they would ship out. The air force responded with the MOD in calling upon the civilian airliners within the country to help deploy some 600,000 troops within in the window of what was being called for.

Along with the army doing their part of sending help to Holy Panooly the air force was stepping up plans already set in place to send more aircraft to Holy Panooly. The 93rd tactical fighter wing was already in the planning stages of moving to Holy Panooly but the alert pushed their alert to thirty-six hours before deploying a hundred CA-10Cs which were a close twin of the legend A-10s, the CA-10C had a lot common with the old A-10s except for the avionics and engines and rear wings, everything was the same as the original A-10.

Phase1

The first operation of the Crown entering the war with the Fourth Reich is a massive bombing raid. This raid would originally take of bases inside the kingdom then bomb their targets and most would return to forwarding bases in other allied countries. The navy’s bomber wings would take off from bases in the kingdom fly to knock out targets at sea and attack the Reich’s eastern coast before some returning to home while others will fly to forward bases in the Golden Throne.

The air force bomber forces and fight escorts would have the longest trek, leave their home bases and flying to New Empire and Stevid then move toward their targets in Kashubia and Holy Panooly then move back to forward bases in western Theohuanacu these mission and forward bases will come in handy for twenty-four-hour bombing campaign.

The main goal was suppression of the Reich’s ground and air power in Holy Panooly and Kashubia. Losses are expected to be high among the bomber forces but it’s what is needed to put a quicker end to this needless war.

Phase 2

The landing of some three rapid deployment corps was not easy, the MOD had to commandeer some half of the nation’s high capacity civilian aircraft both passenger and cargo. The timetable was moved back with such a large force going from 36hrs to 96hrs before all of the forces would be on the ground. Escorting the cargo and passenger aircraft moving the mass of men and equipment was over a thousand fighters these fighters where to escort and stay either in Theohuanacu and Indras and conduct supporting missions in Holy Panooly.

All over the kingdom fighters, cargo aircraft, and support aircraft took off for their missions. Through the evening and night and the next day, the planes took off made their way to three bases in Northern Holy Panooly. Some twenty hours later the first aircraft made their landings at three different military bases set up to handle well try to handle the mass influx of troops coming in with supplies running short.

The bases they three corps landed at where Cüev XC, Cüev CX, and Cüev CLX and that was also the corps HQs 91st Corps, 8th Corps, and the 503rd Corps. These Corps headquarters would be the tip of the crown’s involvement into Holy Panooly.

The Para divisions were not only bringing much-needed manpower to hold the line but much needed armor even though it’s in the form of light tanks and light armored airborne equipment if would help to have an up to a battalion of armor within each Para division.

There were also other units rapidly being pushed into Northern Holy Panooly these units where support divisions and commando brigades and OAH SADSOG units. New gear was also being tried out in the dense jungles and that’s exo-suits made by Trilon Defense Corp in the kingdom.

[United World Order]

18th Arca Brigade Encirclement, Berbejo,
North of the 33rd Panzergreinaders.

The encirclement made by the brave and critical thinking men of the 33rd Panzergreinaders and the 49th Panzerdivision, was wearing down the numbers and morale of the 18th Arca that had made the grave mistake to flank and attack rear Ordenite lines. Causing temporary chaos before the 49th Panzerdivision began to engage the 18th Arca, then coming the 33rd Panzergreinaders as well. In just over a week worth of fighting, the 18th Arca were reduced to a hollow battalion's worth of survivors, and a good amount of armor that could possibly allow them to break out of the tightening encirclement. The fact that many of the brigade's combat able personnel were wearing power armor and proved a drain on ammunition for the abundant amount of AT weaponry available in mass for Ordenite troops, knowing the need for heavy AT factors to keep the unit alive. The enemy tanks the Macabeeans put on the field were certainly worthy opponents to the Tigers and Panther's at the disposal of the Wehrmacht on the ground, mostly coming from those of the panzerwaffe who are the armored portion of the Ordenite ground force. Fortunately for the two divisions encircling the badly maimed 18th Arca brigade that what was left was now advancing on a section of the 33rd Panzergreinaders position which was north of Varacas. As the rest of the two divisions made there way up from Pilote and then sweeping up the neighboring towns of Berbejo and Gaudatquivr, while also having to deal with enemy mines and booby traps to wear them down. However it was evident that the 18th Arca brigade had found it's equalizer and destroyer as the Ordenites assaulting the brigade took as many as 300 prisoners during most of the battle. The 18th had fought fanatically and quite stubbornly against the 33rd Panzergreinaders and 49th Panzerdivision. The towns that were being defended by the brigade as their last stand were heavily in ruins and scarred from the intense fighting that was taking place, with Ordenite artillery firing on the Macabeeans with clear impunity as the numbers of the brigade withered and withered away.

The remnants of the Macabeean armored brigade which was now a crack battalion of them that could still fight with the numbers of their actual armor being highly outnumbered by the enemy. They threw themselves before the crack of dawn at what they considered the weakest point in the encirclement which they picked out as what was a 33rd Panzergreinader company that was handling the specific part of their positions just north of Varacas which was still being heavily contested before. The company was taken completely by suprise in the dead of the night as the battalion sized force swooped down upon them with what they could muster as they obviously looked to breakout to the north, probably to the PRA division that not too long ago retreated from it's engagement with the 33rd as it could not change the course of the battle. The Linces were quick and had good speed which was making it difficult for those with panzerfaust weaponry to effectively take them out, however the more slow moving heavy hitting Nakils would definitely be targeted ruthlessly. The company consisted of it's rifleman squads and heavy weapons along with the AT capacity the company had as the battalion engaged them on the move in the middle of the night. Due to the suprise break out from the surviving battalion worth of Macabeeans from the 18th Arca were actually breaking through the company, those breaking out were mostly the elusive and fast hitting Linces that flanked and manuevered the battlefield with the agility that could only be compared to a big cat of the jungle.

Although with those that were able to break out, the fact that the front line had moved past the 18th Arca several days ago meant the remnants of them were stuck deep behind enemy territory and that despite if they were successful in their break out, they would eventually meet their inevitable fate at the hands of the highly professional and fanatical fighting Ordenite Wehrmacht troops. What Macabeean armor was able to penetrate the company's positions and break out from the north would face more of the 33rd Panzergreinaders who would be immediately re-positioned for combat. The 33rd's heavy armored detachment which numbered at least battalion size similar in strength to the very battalion breaking out from the north of Varacas. The Linces would soon enough see themselves become prey once again as they would be picked off by the Wehrmacht's tank killers, those being the Sturmpanzers and Sturmtigers that were essentially tank hunters of the Wehrmacht and could stop a armored push with just good positioning and firing. However more Panther II's and even Panzer V light tanks would also be on the prowl for these Linces, as the experienced and battle tested tank crewman of the 33rd faced off and dueled with Macabeean armor that was rapidly being destroyed in their break out as more of the 33rd further sealed off any hope of escape for the survivors. By the time sun light began showering the landscape, the forward elements of the 49th Panzerdivision who had rapidly advanced and caught up and further trapped the survivors in a even smaller battle space, as the Ordenites squeezed the survivors that were still stubbornly resisting their ultimate defeat. Defeated faces and with hands raised, some even carrying make shift white flags signalling their surrender began to show up. It was evident that the survivors of the 18th Arca were done fighting and were exhausted with the intense non stop fighting they were involved in for over several days. The twisted gargantuan heap of what use to be tanks littered the jungle brush and extended even in and around the cluster of towns the majority of the battle was fought over.

Despite the ruckus the 18th Arca brigade had made over the first few days of Operation Wolverine, supply and troop flow on the eastern push of the Ordenite invasion into Northern Panooly didn't stop and were not as disrupted as many would think with a Macabeean fleet off the coast, but the storm had been a major blessing to the Ordenites, despite the storm also worked against them as well in some cases. The 33rd and 49th did take there fair share of casualties during the fighting that eventually led to a minor Ordenite tactical victory over the Macabeean Army on the continent as the destruction of the pocket freed up more manpower that could be thrown at the flanks, which were the pincers that would provide the fell swoop for the taking and razing of Panooly City.

Narration of Ordenite Wehrmacht operations against Erjmacht in Holy Panooly,
OP WOLVERINE D+6, Western and Eastern Flanks.

Frank Rennicke - Der alte Soldat

The pincers which advanced steadily and with cold calculation up the western and eastern approaches had for the past week seen massive success in sending the Erjmacht and their forces back up north in several running battles with enemy units along the way. Village after village did the Ordenites have to clear out as they drove through the Panooly country side and through paths that cut through the vast jungles. It was more than obvious that the Macabeeans were committing to a delayed retreat and were purposely trying to slow down the Ordenite pincers that threatened to see the capital Panooly cut off and enveloped if nothing was done. The outcome of the destruction of what remained of the 18th Arca Brigade would further free up more Ordenite forces who could now head up north to catch up with the main drive, however something that had been discovered by Ordenite Army reconnaissance was that the neighboring peninsula on the eastern coast which held the ruins of Delapaseca was being used as a staging ground for reinforcements. The Abwehr had noted that these reinforcements were on the edge of where the peninsula meets the main land and if allowed to be free of engagement, could very well cut the eastern pincer in half and possibly stop the tide of supplies coming in. Therefore it had been decided in quick order by the Gruppenstab that these reinforcements should not be allowed to easily interject themselves into the on-going fight and that a small task force would be dispatched to make sure these reinforcements were stalled and under heavy engagement for as long as possible. This task force would be comprised heavily of the 49th Panzerdivision and the 33rd Panzergreinaders who had earlier defeated the 18th Arca Brigade in combat and were to now join with the 83rd Panzerdivision and the 104th Panzergreinaders to block off the reinforcements from entering the theater. What support that could be offered by the Luftwaffe was given in the form of surgical strikes on these reinforcements by Luftwaffe fighter bombers backed up with ECW capable aircraft to keep anti air fire from the ground from being as accurate against these attacks. Heavy Artillery Battalion 88 which was in charge of the 'Goliath' which was a 800mm siege gun that was capable of hitting targets with a 800mm rail gun rounds which had been showcased as it had already fired 5 of these rounds at Panooly city it'self and with impressive results. The 'Goliath' however would now see it's destructive power used against this new threat as with the help of it's crew and machinery that assisted in it's movement, rotated the massive gun towards it's new position with the target area calculated and entered into it's electronic guidance systems. It would not be long before the Goliath fired it's massive main gun and a single 800mm rail-gun round shot into the heavens and towards it's target, hundreds of kilometers away.

On the western flank, the Ordenite pincer was moving at a steady pace besides the delayed action pitted against them with ambushes and running battles with Macabeean armor and infantry. The western pincer was seen by the OKW as the most important drive of Operation Wolverine and the Siege of Panooly, as it's forces once it was able to punch through what the Macabeeans had put in front of them would be able to cut off the city from the west and the northern coast, allowing the center and eastern advances to help bring Panooly City to it's demise. Aerial superiority was still heavily contested, especially with the storm passing over the continent and even then the storm was looking to move away from the continent soon. Macabeean bombers were engaged periodically from Ordenite ground AA, in which mostly consisted of the FlakPanzers which among the various Ordenite units in battle were many and could likely blot out the sky with flak rounds along with their missile capacity, most of the time, they would be able to suppress the bombers and make them leave the area and if they were lucky, a bomber would be shot out of the sky. Imbrimium bombers were also a problem as the Kingdom began to send aid to the Macabeeans, however with the Kingdom they not only launched attacks in Holy Panooly, but Kashubia and even attempts were made to strike the eastern coast of Germania, however these attempts would be exactly that, attempts. Defenses on Germania would be more than likely to defeat any such attacks on the homeland by the Kingdom and their bombers.

[Philotas Island]

Eucratideia City the Capital of Philtoas Island:

The vote went well even though the main players had no worries that it wouldn’t, the powers thousands of kilometers away in the crown knew that the vote would go their way also. The more liberal parliament of Philtoas Islands even though not truly in support of this war knew that going against the royal families either in power in the crown in Imbrinium or the duchess here wouldn’t end well.
In the last, the liberals won big which was the first time they seated in more positions in parliament which would normally mean a lot but under the time of war there isn’t much changing to be done if they knew what was good for them.

The Duchess Livia Óengus looked out to the bay from the castle’s patio that wrapped around her office. The castle took avenged of the sun with its wide open windows and breezes from the ocean. The duchess was almost lost in her thoughts of the future of the men and women she was sending to war. In her mid-thirties and with no children she longed for children and her father was still pushing for the duchess to marry and have children from his bed. Her brother wasn’t much better off still in the navy after serving long than his term for a royal family member to lead the country he had no intentions of retiring now an admiral in the royal Philtoas Islands navy. Duchess Oengus knew her brother would be headed off to war with her order and approval of the parliament.

Naval bases around the Islands

Supplies were already being loaded onto the next supply convoys being readied to head east, with more fuel, food, parts and everything else an army needed to wage war on a far away land the main fleets headed out almost four days ago but the work never stopped.

No one really knew what to expect now would the Reich dare travel so far to attack the islands or had it had enough of long range fighting.

Four days from port

The fleet headed to the waters southwest of Holy Panooly slipped through the water like a knife the ocean was somewhat calmer than expected it made it easy for the ASW ships to hunt down anything other than friendly of natural submarines though nothing was left to chance. The fleet under the command off Admiral Dionisio Cattaneo with the second in command was admiral Sebastiano Óengus although a duke he rarely if ever went or used his title.

There was a mass of ships moving at medium speed through the ocean as the aircraft fly CAP overhead making sure that the path in the skies was clean. On the surface, the anti-submarine picket line looking and listening to the ocean under its veil of waves.
The marine commanders and naval commanders look over the plans of when and where the forces were going to land and the joint mission with the crown. The plan was simple enough land drive straight across the country and meet with the crown forces in the middle trapping forces up north to be wiped out.

[The Macabees]

Map 4: Status of the front on day seven of the Ordenite invasion of North Panooly.

---

Day seven...

— The Storm Subsides, Northeastern Holy Panooly

Behind them lay the irradiated wasteland of Guamlumpeiron, to the east lay the golden oriental North Panooly beaches, and before them stood the Ordenite horde. Even with last-minute Zarbian reinforcements, the line that stretched from the Jumanotan Frontier to the western edge of the Delapescan Peninsula was beginning to buckle. With perhaps a week more of time, North Panooly would have unconditionally fallen to the Reich. It was a week it seemed they no longer had, for suddenly the Wehrmacht's once seemingly unstoppable offensive came to a grinding, screeching halt. Had North Panooly been saved?

Truth be told, the Macabean position was still as tenuous as the slippery, desperate grip of a man about to fall to his death. Holding an ad hoc defensive line that ran the northern third of Delapesca, and the remaining lands east of the Guamlumpeiron ruins, were the four Zarbian auxiliary divisions that had been air-lifted into the combat zone three days before. They were at full strength personnel-wise, but some of their heavier equipment had not made it with them. Furthermore, they were reinforcing a 2nd PRA division that had been decimated during the previous days of fighting. If their hopeless counter-attack, in support of the18th Arca division, hadn't already chewed through their ranks, the subsequent onslaught that followed the 18th's eradication made sure that there were barely even bones left. They had perhaps two regiments worth of healthy men left; no more than three thousand, really. Together with the Zarbians, these one hundred and thirty thousand men or so held a front manned by an estimated two hundred thousand Waffen SS.

West of what was once the vibrant city of Guamlumpeiron was an area that ran to the Jumanotan Frontier and which was held by thirty thousand battered infantrymen and the remnants of two Arca brigades that had already been viciously fighting for six days. Their destruction was imminent until, just as it had elsewhere along the front, the bulk of the Wehrmacht ceased their advanced and pulled out from their frontline positions.

After a series of mild attacks by poorly seasoned South Panooly Defense Forces, the front fell silent. But, even in silence there was always violence.

Sporadic gunfire continued to erupt from either side. As Macabeans, Ordenites, and South Panoolies licked their wounds and dug in, they did not shy away from probing each other's defenses either. After all, when an enemy sits on his heel, prepared to recoil, what better strategy than to nip and test his capabilities?

Villages became the sites of small skirmishes between infantry companies and tank platoons. Some days the Macabean edge of the front would erupt in a hail of artillery fire, and others it was the Wehrmacht's holdings that'd shake with the thunder of battle. The Zarbians proved overeager. Elite, well-drilled, and well-armed, the Ordenite Waffen SS proved a strong and intimidating foe — they were the crack military units of the Fourth Reich, after all. Zarbian attacks were defeated almost every time and often with heavy losses at that. These men had all seen combat in Indras for months at a time, but the insurgents were a different, weaker enemy altogether and so were the Waffen SS superior in all senses. This would be a violent sort of bloodying for the auxiliaries. Still, the Zarbians probed, as an enemy on his toes was better than one poised to consume you left uncontested.

At night, the wounded cried where they lay. If they did not succumb to the loss of blood, it was the salivating carrion critters that woud ultimately get them.

In the meantime, the weak and severely understrength Macabean regulares, Linces, and Nakíl's that held the battered line entrenched themselves as best they could. Any last artillery guns, fixed or mechanized, were fortified behind thick mounds of tightly packed dirt and rubble, as were the tanks and other armored vehicles. Here the jungle was dense, green, and crawling with snakes. They could fall into an open hatch or an unsuspecting soldier, and that said nothing of hungry, prowling pumas which tip-toed around man-placed mines and grenade traps. With gritted teeth, the Macabeans made their last stand where it would hurt the Ordenites the most to root them out.

Curiously, it was on the Jumanotan Frontier where the situation was the tensest. Orange-Stoner and Finkirk personnel had been arrayed along the border in a series of fortifications, trenches, and forward operating bases, and there was a noticeable anxiety among them. Despite the auxiliary division deployed to the isthmus in aid of counter-insurgency efforts there, Jumanota's ambiguous territorial status had left room for dangerous levels of uncertainty. Would the Macabeans attempt to cross over the Frontier if they were pushed up against by Wehrmacht forces? Would the Golden Throne attempt to use Jumanota as a jumping-off point for an operational counter-stroke? Or, would the Reich see it as an extension of North Panooly and thus invade it? There were too many variables, too many ambiguities, and if the war spilled over the Frontier it could cause ripples elsewhere — Tarn's mercenary firms had cultivated themselves a formidable force and the question was whether they would use it if a company like Navitek paid them to.

Withing this environment of spiraling uncertainty, the remnants of Macabean North Panooly teetered on the edge of ruin and glory. If the counter-offensive to come was unsuccessful then whatever balance remained would surely be lost and the Satrapy would fall to the Reich.


— A Two-Front War: Tugayalpa Kessel

Drogau had heard rumors, tall tales of the infected, but he had never seen one with his own frightened eyes.

Its — one has hard pressed to call it a 'him' or a 'her' — large, lopsided muscles had in places ripped through pale, cracked skin that had long since been drained of blood. Snarling like a rabid dog all the while, its face dripped with a thick, mucous-green drool that traveled down the chin and cheeks like a struggling, gurgling fountain. As it stepped closer, Drogau could see the red vains that had come to dominate the thing's eyes, so that not even an ounce of white was left. Indeed, one struggled to find even the cornea, as the only other color was the red-tinged grayness of large disk-like pupils that, despite their movement, seemed lifeless and most certainly souless.

These 'things' felt no urge but the one to kill. Drogau found this out soon after his battalion, holding a cluster of small towns around the Taguyalpa 'q-zone', had been encircled and cut off by Wehrmacht panzergrenadiers the previous day. The quarantined zones had fallen victim to the war just as much as anything else in North Panooly had, and whether they were maintained at all nowadays was a question better asked of the Ordenites. Only around Tugayalpa were the Macabeans still cordoning off the small infected area, where over the previous months thousands of...creatures...dying, decaying from exposure to KN755 had been herded into like cattle. Now the abandoned town's perimeter was held by no more than one hundred men posted in makeshift pillboxes and hidden machinegun nests. The remainder — most of the regiment's strength — dug in on the main line, that facing their Ordenite enemies. Their faces were grim. Today could be their last.

It was certainly Komor's.

A terrifying roar was all the warning he got when a three hundred pound thing pounced upon him like a savage lion while their platoon was on patrol around the inner perimeter. A powerful swipe of its arm was enough to knock poor Komor unconcious, and by the time Drogau and the rest of the platoon had pumped enough metal into it to kill it, the young, innocent Komor had had his entrails torn out and chewed to bits.

Even as this thing lay dying, its brown-tinged blood oozing out from the dozens of wounds that peppered it like large pores, it seethed and writhed. Bared teeth were like broad knives, and its eyes were so strained that they looked as if they were about to explode from out of their sockets. Drogau shook as he watched it die. It wasn't that he hadn't seen war, or violence, before that day. Indeed, he had seen plenty of it, having fought in the Zarbian March and Theohuanacu. Drogau had been posted to the Guffingfordi Frontier when tensions were highest with Stevid. He was no stranger to the most petrifying, mortifying qualities of battle, like the blade-like flash of pain that shoots through one's git as you stare down an opponent only two feet away, his rifle pointed at you and his face showing no chance of mercy or hesitation. Drogau had walked to the edge of death and had come back. But, never had he seen something like this.

Unsurprisingly then when they all unloaded their magazines on the thing like jittery little schoolgirls.

The monster's twitching, bloodshot eyes suddenly shifted and peered into his, and he felt violated by a terror so great that it made him want to empty his bowls right there, no matter what hole his bile game out of. Strangely, the fear did not subside as the creature's life slowly sucked out of it. Those unnatural movements it made as it died only made it seem even less human and more monstrous. Drogau was glad when Leutnant Gámara tossed a grenade between the monster and the floor, even after chunks of its colorless, rotting meat landed on his uniform.

Poor Komor's body was blown to bits along with it, but when the sick, gargling sounds of the infected creature had finally ceased all seemed better. Still, most men could not help but dart their eyes in the direction the 'animal' had come from, searching in the smoking ruins for more of its kind.

Of course, had they been wearing their armor Komor may still have been alive. But it had been some time since they had power armor to wear. The suits ate power like a tank and, even before being cut off, the regiment was having a hard time keeping its soldiers' suits in combat-ready conditions. The fighting had been bad and few armor modules had been left unshattered. Eventually, Drogau and his comrades had learned to part ways with their armor and, with more difficulty, the power assist of their suits. Unfortunately, there weren't enough combat vests to go around either. More often than not, they fought in their BDUs now.

Against the Wehrmacht, fighting without armor was dangerous enough. But, truth be told, it wasn't them that the men feared. No, at least the Reich's soldiers were human. Besides, fresh probing attacks on perimeter positions during yesterday's evening had been performed by SPDF forces, not by the Wehrmacht. The South Panoolies were not bad soldiers — not as bad as their northern compatriots —, but they weren't exactly on par with their allies either. No, it wasn't for them that the Macabean regulares slept with one eye open at night. It wasn't because of them that patrols along the inner perimeter were given to the regiment's best soldiers. No, it was the infected that instilled the regulares with a feeling of absolute, unquenchable dread; it was the fear of 'the monsters' that caused them to flinch with every unexplained movement in the dark, shadow-swallowed brush under the moon's dim light.

Even those who had never seen one with their own eyes had learned of their legend. They had heard the story of the one soldier who was torn in half from the waist when he ventured, against orders, into Tugayalpa, looking for a girl that he had heard cry out from the rubble. Or that of the captain who lost his genitals when they were bitten off, along with half of his pelvis, when one of those creatures jumped out from the bush he was peeing on. They would all soon know the story of Komor, as well.

Perhaps the regiment could only afford to place a hundred men along the inner perimeter, but these always tended to be the most vigilant hundred, for this foe was, and would be, forever etched into their mind.


— The Siege of Panooly City

Panooly City slowly died beneath the glowing embers of burning buildings. Her people were going insane under the pressures of survival, and the pogroms had only made things worse. The dead littered the empty, desolate streets. Some were soldiers struck by artillery, but most were civilians who had suffered terrible fates. Some were politicians of the old regime that had thought themselves safe in the capital, where the white man had dominated for centuries, but most weren't politicians at all — they were simply white and, these days, that seemed to be crime enough. There weren't enough hands to bury or burn all the dead, and so bodies left ignored rotted away under the uncompromising heat of the sun and the inhospitable fires of battle. Disease and plague were rampant, and supplies, medicine and otherwise, were unlikely to arrive anytime soon. The situation was deteriorating and quickly.

Gunfire echoed from all directions like bad feedback. Day and night, Macabean and PRA forces clashed with SPDF and Wehrmacht units that had penetrated into the surrounding suburbs, inching forward by the hour. They fought over intersections, apartment blocks, and even churches, armed to the teeth and as determined as they were. Back and forth they went, driving each other out of every nook and cranny, both sides killing one another with merciless impunity.

Somewhere, in a western suburb, a barefoot colored child stepped in a puddle of thick, red blood with a splash, as he ran from one collapsed building to another. It could have very well been his parents'.

A long, throbbing wail split through dark clouds like a howl and it ended finally with an earth-shaking explosion that erupted to the north. The Ordenites had been lobbing 800mm shells into Panooly City for over three days, leveling apartment blocks and flattening rows of homes out on the fringes of the city. It was a constant terror suffered by whites and coloreds alike, and they had escaped in hordes into the subways, until over thousand men, women, and children who had been sleeping there were killed by a gargantuan artillery shell that struck the old, inadequate station and caused it to collapse. Panic sowed into the crowd, and if they had stayed indoors before, now they huddled in the deepest, darkest corners of their bedrooms, praying for the battle to end. They trembled knowing that even there, even in the smallest crawlspace that they could find, they were not safe.

It wasn't just the artillery shells. Macabean and PRA forces used what they needed, when they needed, and that included apartments and homes. The Macabean regulares were well behaved, but away from their officers the Theohuanacans were prone to unsavory crimes, and that was not to speak of North Panooly soldiers. One must understand that the Panooly have always been a persecuted people, ever since the first colonists had arrived from across the great sea three centuries before. Their hatred of the whites had been ingrained in them by their very victims. If a male looked the wrong way, he'd be gunned down. White women were not safe. Shrill screams permeated the nights.

Of course, Panooly City had always been a stronghold of the colonial regime. Templeton had been only an extension of those who had ruled before him, and the country he oversaw had always been one to protect the white minority. And while much of the pre-war colonial population had since then fled to Theohuanacu, Guffingford, or South Panooly, so many remained that they could not possibly be bullied without a fight. It was here that the Hakara Hunters were born.

Armed with TK-60s, Hali-42s and -53s, and an assortment of other small arms scavenged from dead bodies or purchased through black markets, the white-exclusive Hakara Hunters crept through dreary city streets and waited within the rubble, looking to prey on roving indigenous death squads. If one side was violent, the other was even more so. They fed off of each other, competing for the most gruesome, bloodiest ambush or the most bone-chilling massacre. A small war within a war had developed, with the Hakara Hunters and the informal militias clashing with each other at an alarmingly accelerating rate. Macabean regulares and Theohuanacan auxiliaries intervened where they could, but with the city fully encircled and the Ordenites pushing to crush the Macabeans' organized resistance, Panooly City's social fabric was unraveling. If the capital did not fall apart now, its postwar future was looking equally as bleak regardless.

In the chaos of it all, a dark-skinned man wearing dirty, ripped jeans and dirt-encased sandals stabbed an older white male in the neck, a spurt of blood erupting onto his face as the adrenaline screamed out of him.

While the populace resorted to eating itself alive, a bitter battle had developed in the suburbs and, despite the Wehrmacht's partial withdrawal to South Panooly, the fighting had not lost its intensity when the enemy's ranks had been replaced by SPDF. Attacks had lost in efficiency and in frequency, but where they occurred they were just as quick and deadly as they had always been.

Trench lines were dug across boulevards and intersections leading to important buildings, and a well-protected urban pillbox could just as well be one's coffin. A well-thrown grenade could mangle an entire squad of men huddled together, which defended the last inch of ground like lions defending their pride. In the close, uncomfortable combat that pervaded the battle, knives were just as common as firearms and men grappled with each other with instinctual, but all the same inhuman, aggression. Throats were cut, tendons slashed, and sometimes what it took to survive was pummeling another man twenty times 'til he collapsed and bled out. War brought the most savage out of humanity, but war was Elysium compared to what Panooly City had become.

Had it been confined to the suburbs perhaps there would have been a thin veneer of a silver lining. But the city's center, with its historic colonial splendor now largely reduced to rubble and barely-standing ruins thanks to the incessant aerial and artillery bombardment the city had suffered since almost the beginning of the war. Buildings stood with half-torn façades across a toothless skyline.

And for what? What had been gained in thanks to this tragedy?


— Operation David's Fury

Three squadrons of three tilt-rotors a piece sliced through the haze of smoke rising from the jungle ablaze below. These were small aircraft and their contents were completely enclosed within its sleek, seemingly seamless shape. Its rotors whipped around in relative silence, though the roar of fire and war would have been sufficient to mask the noise of their approach alone. The régulies were on the move.

The earth shuddered and a bright flash eclipsed the horizon until all that was left was one massive artillery round followed by the flaming tail of a rocket engine. What had spat that oversized shell protruded from a far cover of tree-tops like a rifle from out of the brush, aiming to kill. 'Goliath,' the Ordenites called it. And a goliath it was. If the size of its shells had not been evidence enough, satellite images confirmed it as an enormous colossus of an artillery gun which sat on a built-up rail carriage with its very own defense system to boot. These defenses included carriage-mounted machine guns and various-caliber anti-air cannons that could cut through a man on the ground just as well as it could through the steel skin of an aircraft flying low overhead. Indeed, the Goliath's defenders, aided by nearby SAM batteries, had already taught a squadron of canopy-skipping Falcons a lesson in humility, downing two of the Laerihans' multi-role fighters and forcing the third and fourth to turn back empty-handed.

That particular failed incursion had at least led to the discovery of an attached garrison of unknown size. This, coupled with the gun's crew, could mean that the area was crawling with up to three hundred Wehrmacht personnel. Additional on-site reconnaissance by a squad of Mekugian régulies had uncovered a little more of their nature, but nothing much all things considered. The attackers would be wading in the dark.

Ninety of them in all flew briskly in the quickly cooling night, where the moon was just barely creeping into position as it followed a sun which was descending slowly into a slumber.

Below, the fighting continued on as it had for days. Despite the Macabean bombing campaign, Ordenite artillery still enjoyed the protection of a formidable air-defense system that had not yet been completely cracked by the Laerihans. Artillery guns and anti-air batteries boomed incessantly, battering Panooly City with a hellish barrage that seemed to go on forever. It defied the Laerihans' air campaign.

The Reich had done a good job of protecting its radars and it had a reserve that, although in the process of being depleted, still made it very difficult to dismantle the network. 7th Mosso had harassed where it could, attacking SAM batteries and artillery sites, but the Wehrmacht's withdrawal into South Panooly had made these operations significantly harder and the mosso's strength had fallen to just over one hundred and fifty men. The efforts of the unit's koro kirim, régulies, and grup koda were instead changed to focus on the Wehrmacht's logistics system, as well as on the extraction of friendly soldiers whose units had been overrun by the previous days' lightning advance. Behind-the-lines raids on combat positions were left almost exclusively to the Imbrinumian operatives who had just recently been inserted into the combat zone to guide their own air campaign over South Panooly.

No matter, theater command would find another way to approach the Ordenite artillery and air defense problem, and especially Goliath. Urseline IX, an eleven hundred-man strong tabor (battalion) if Killian régulies, was flown into the northernmost allied-held sector of North Panooly in the morning of the previous day. Urseline's distinguished Bandag Grieve, or Grieve Company, was chosen for the strike.

As the world groaned around them, the nine tilt-rotors stealthily dropped their power armored contents at three separate landing zones about nine kilometers north of the target. The thirty men in each group quickly moved through narrow, muddy jungle paths to convene at a pre-determined location a further seven kilometers south. Each pieletón moved separately and individually to minimize detection and attrition. The less men tied down by an inadvertent Ordenite patrol the better. Besides, if one column was found its purpose could be confused with any of the 7th Mosso's small units which had been terrorizing these parts since the beginning of the war. With their extensive training, they would certainly say as much, if tortured.

All ninety congregated at last where they had agreed to, at a small cave next to a winding river that cut the surrounding jungle in two. The remote location was found by the 7th during one of their movements and then relayed to the battlefield network via an encrypted satellite transmission. Easily defendable and relatively isolated from known enemy patrol routes, it made an excellent rally point.

They quickly moved on to slowly close in on Goliath, advancing through chest-high brush and foliage that crept with venomous snakes and poisonous spiders. Encased in metals and polymers, the Killian régulies seemed not to notice.

Once but a few hundred meters from their targets, the force split to conduct the attack in two groups. The oepration was designed as a straightforward in-and-out raid, and as such any heavy fighting would fatally bog the mission down and condemn it to abortion. A firefight that could not be dissolved quickly was one that invited Ordenite reinforcements, after all. Accounting for this, forty régulies assaulted the garrison without warning, surrounding it on three sides with a fire team of four on the unguarded end to shoot withdrawing enemies as they came to rally outside, in case they decided to regroup and reinforce Goliath's crew, or to retreat. This would temporarily neutralize an immediate source of heavy and organized resistance.

In the meantime, the other fifty Killian operatives positioned themselves out-of-sight and just on the edge of the clearing around the giant gun's rail emplacement.

One of them, who was wading crouched through thick, twisting tropical plants, removed from his pack a hard-cased laptop and another a small device that he mounted on two bipods. When set up, the Killian with the device flicked something on its belly and out from it shot a wire-thin laser that was practically transparent. The one with the laptop gave hushed directions and the other one adjusted the laser as needed. Finally, the device's position was adequate enough for the two of them to stop and wait...


...Hours before, just off the eastern, cliff-facing wall of North Point's Stirborough Castle circled a GLI-34 Albatross. It was well-guarded by two Lu-45 Hawks that orbited around it with a deadly grace. When the sun completely disappeared, a tanker rendezvoused with the GLI-34 as the latter's flight path straightened out in the direction of the Gordonopian-occupied Thacu Islands.

The refueling happened quickly, and the tanker soon disengaged and circled back to its air base somewhere in northern Theohuanacu. The two fighters that had been protecting the Albatross turned back to escort it. Two more Hawks had come to relieve them and follow the bomber on its route. It was a flight of several hours as the three-bird formation rumbled above the great Macabean fleet, which had reconvened, as Hurkán Mateo weakened and passed east, to once again enforce the blockade on South Panooly with aggravated vigilance. Then, just as the northernmost tip of Thacu archipelago came into view, the Albatross turned its nose just enough to point it toward South Panooly.

She flew a while longer until her bay doors opened. A long cruise missile came tumbling out and, when its rocket suddenly came alight, it zoomed away toward the distance. but not until another one came down following it.

Five missiles were fired in all. They traveled the 1,100–1,400 kilometers at a frightening pace, bullying their way over a red and orange battlefield already contaminated to the neck with artillery fire, local aerial battles, and the brutal allied bombing campaign. One was soon knocked out of the sky by a missile launched from a SAM battery on the surface and a second one fell shortly afterward. Then, 'Goliath' came into their view...


...Lined up at the edge of the treeline, the waiting régulies heard the hiss of the SAM battery mere seconds before they saw the rippling fire of the launcher emptying its trailer. The damn thing had been hidden behind thick foliage. In the distance, there were two explosions and the trees shook for a fleeting moment. By then, the smoke around the battery and the gun had cleared. Just as the attack had seemed a failure, though, the fifth and final missile appeared suddenly as it dove straight at the giant rail-mounted artillery gun. And just as victory was about to be declared, and just before the missile was about to crash into the emplacement and destroy it, a here to hidden trailer-mounted CIWS tore it to shreds.

With that, the fifty men along the treeline pounced. The CIWS was struck by three TA-80 light missiles coming from three different so that when it turned to engage one the other two struck from behind. Neither was the SAM battery forgotten. It was suppressed with mortar fire before the vehicle could be destroyed with a well-placed rocket.

Nearby, the battle between the garrison and the régulies platoon intensified. But that unfolding skirmish was succeeding in keeping the garrisoned Wehrmacht away from their prized gun.

Goliath's crew, for their part, were pinned down by a squad applying an intense suppressing fire with automatic weapons, including a heavy 13.3mm machinegun. Many of the crewmen were armed themselves and they, of course, fired back. Those without weapons at the ready quickly found one. It was a resistance that was slowly silenced, as the other four squads of Killian régulies crept closer and the defenders gradually backed into an ever-shrinking area. Still, despite the elite warriors they were facing, the Ordenites were putting up a remarkable and brave fight. Behind walls and from within impromptu structures they stood their ground.

With a hailstorm of rockets and grenades, the area to the rail-mounted cannon was slowly cleared. Goliath itself was pocked with bullet holes and scoured by rocket impacts. With a screeching creak, its barrel began to crack around the base and the stress was so much that it continued to shrilly screech and wail until the thick steel cannon cracked in two. The barrel hit the floor with such a great thud that it sent smoke, dust, and debris in all directions until visibility had fallen to almost nil.

A loud cheer went up amongst the Killians and they pressed their opponents harder, clustering the remaining crewmen together and showering them with bullets and mortar fire. But just as they were about to snatch victory a cry came from the rear. Gunfire unexpectedly erupted from out of the brush. With hardly a warning a platoon of Wehrmacht infantrymen struck the flank. It was the quick action of the superbly-trained Killians that allowed them to hold and stave off the instinct to flee. But the firefight was bogging down. Fearing that there were other unaccounted for patrols nearby, and knowing that Goliath would be out of action until the barrel could be replaced, the Killians withdrew back into the dark, impenetrable forest and allowed the Ordenites to follow if they dared. There, they did short work of those who foolishly chose to engage.

The formation fighting the garrison disengaged as well, melting toward a different direction. They would rendezvous with the rest of their bandag at the rally point, but not before committing to a winding retreat to shake off any pursuers.


— Operation Hunter's Strike

Calm seas welcomed an armada of catamaran landing craft as these approached the tree-bound shores of South Panooly. If seen from the sky's limitless expanse, one would see three distinct swarm-like groups headed towards three separate beaches that traveled down the country's western coast in quick succession. Most spectacular of all were the four raiding eskúadra that spanned behind them, just north of the Thacu Islands, which breathed a charring inferno of direct fire.

Three fleet groups had kept a tight blockade of South Panooly since the beginning of the war, excepting a brief relaxing of the pickett as a result of Hurricane Mateo. Although they could not stave off all tragedies, like that which befell the 18th arca brigade, their incessant fire support was possibly the key reason why the entirety of North Panooly hadn't yet been overrun by enemy forces. Indeed, they had been pounding Wehrmacht positions in both the north and the south for seven days now, relenting only when forced to by the bad weather. The kríermada would play a key role in the counter-invasion, for which Kríergruppe 'Ixchel' — which had already been assigned the role of denying the waters around the Thacu Islands to the Kriegsmarine — had donated the bulk of a kríerflot's offensive power. Battlecruisers and battleships alike struck targets as far deep as 10–20 kilometers to harass Wehrmacht units which were likely to react to the amphibious landings that were just about to make landfall.

Beneath this hellish, fiery blizzard of destruction pushed on the landing craft. Any soldier who could peek over their vessel's metallic walls now saw the hazy, flickering, mirage-like beaches before them, and behind those beaches lay the ocean of untamed, overgrown wilds that was South Panooly's rainforest. The craft traveled at twenty knots, closing the distance between them and their target quickly. It couldn't come soon enough for the infantrymen within those boats. Some looked at their feet and others swallowed nervously. For most, this would be their first taste of combat.

Lucky for them, they would be aided by three teams of twelve Koro Kirim apiece who had traveled from their inland area of operations. With them, the offshore bombardment gained precision.

The voyage to the shore was not a short one, but when the craft finally began their final approach they toggled an array of water jets that sped them up to the very edge of the water. As soon as they were in position, men, tanks, and APCs began to pour out of them. The beaches were left undefended, except for the sudden thunderous belch of enemy artillery that peppered the landing party's positions and sprayed them with razor-sharp shrapnel. Wearing only their uniforms and an armored vest, these infantrymen — Zarbians — wore no power armor on this day, for it could not be afforded to them when there was the Gothic theater to prepare. Large-cannoned warships responded in kind with deadly intensity, as they concentrated their fire to pummel a few batteries at a time. Under this criss-cross of fire the man and their supported vehicles moved up the beaches and into the small shoreline towns through which ran a narrow coastal highway that connected them together.

Each beach received a regiment's worth of infantry supported by a company of the Nakíl 1A3Ms. These heavy, nearly seventy tonne beasts paved the path, with the heavy APCs sporting their deadly 45mm autocannons following up from behind. Dismounted infantry used the big metal vehicles as cover as they trotted into empty streets which were beset by a deep, relative silence. The cannon fire was still withering, and the enemy artillery was still pounding the area as it could, but the only people who allowed themselves to be seen were those who peeked out from their windows or from their balconies to see the advancing Macabean army.

Loyalties would have to be guessed for the time being. These beach-front municipalities tended to be disproportionately white-owned, but they were summer flats and often rented out to the poorer classes, which were overrepresented by the colored. And the possibility of hidden Ordenites waiting to spring a merciless ambush never escaped the mind of the Macabean on the ground.

While landing craft returned to their ships for refueling and to be loaded up again with men and material, the three separate regiments quickly secured their first-hour objectives. They seized key buildings in the towns they were occupying and posted men on important intersections, and even on street corners where they could keep an eye on movement in and out of the apartment buildings that flanked the narrow streets. Larger spaces were commandeered almost immediately so that they could be used as temporary supply depots and barracks, at least until larger inland towns and cities were captured.

A second wave, using a second batch of CLCs, washed up on the three beaches about an hour into the operation, and this would continue throughout the morning and into even the evening. Indeed, within the next four days a total of half-a-million soldiers would be landed on the western side of South Panooly, if all went well. They would be supported by 1.5 million allied troops who were being inserted by their own supporting naval forces. But for those who had just come off the beaches and had poured into the adjacent region, those forces to come were still only a plan, not a reality. For them, the only reality was the next objective.

Men and women in uniform worked without even the briefest pause to prepare for the next phase. UAVs were launched for reconnaissance work and self-propelled artillery guns that had rolled up into town joined their naval brethren in suppressing the Ordenite cannons which boldly continued to harass the invasion forces.

As soon as the next wave came to reinforce them, the forces that were slowly accumulating onshore began to fan out and advance toward their primary first-day targets. These were larger towns or smaller cities perhaps 15—20 kilometers inland, and although every man there wished beneath his breath that they be just as undefended as these strips of sand they had just stormed, they knew deep inside that the Wehrmacht had a hidden card to play — because there was no way they were just going to let the Macabeans have such a dangerous beachhead without a good fight.

[United World Order]

Panooly City, Suburb frontlines,
OP WOLVERINE D+7.
1st Waffen SS Army 'Panooly' continue putting pressure on the defenders of Panooly City.

Panooly City stood as the capital and prized possession of the Satrapy and the Golden Throne for decades and in just a week it was beginning to look as if the once vibrant metropolis would become nothing more than rubble and corpses before the end of the war. The 1st Waffen SS Army 'Panooly' had besieged the capital for just three days now and had so far pierced through the first thin layer of defense outside of the capital and now took the fight into the suburbs. It had for the past 48 hours been a grueling and most grotesque battle in the suburbs that deeper within it nested the whole metropolis of the city, which was also succumbing to the intensity of the fighting that was taking place within and around the city. The Waffen SS had since the beginning of the siege of the city had enveloped it whole with help from Ordenite Army units who had just two days ago began withdrawing from the front lines and were thus replaced across the theater with the South Panooly Army. Two divisions from the SPA were given to the siege to reinforce the Waffen SS who were already there and had fought there way through most of the preliminary defenses and had broke into the suburbs. Despite the slight overstretching of the Waffen SS army in enveloping the city whole, because of the city's massive size. The Waffen SS were still holding the numbers advantage in the battle that raged in the urban environment, such conditions were favorable for the Waffen SS who had in their history had participated in similarly intense urban warfare in combat. Panooly City was no different, constant warfare was waged in the surrounding suburbia as the Waffen SS picked apart the defenders piece by piece in several raging battles that either ended in a breakthrough or a fall back which inevitably would result in a repeat. It seemed that every structure in the suburbs were being used as hardened positions by the defenders, the Waffen SS regularly had to resort to flushing them out and that usually meant battering it with concentrated artillery before storming the ruins in the aftermath.

Endless piles of rubble were what both sides fought for with every inch of their life. The rumble of a advancing Sturmmörserwagen other wise known as the Sturmtiger or "Assault Tiger" part of the 1st Panzer Sturmmörser Kompanien of the 71st Waffen SS Division, accompanied of course by two Panzertrager's with their full compliment of Waffen SS soldiers. The pitter patter of machine gun fire peppered the way there as the bullets harmlessly pinged and bounced off the armor the three vehicles had which could defeat small arms fire. A rocket then followed as it was deflected by the armor of the Sturmtiger, the rocket had come from what was a apartment building which stood strategically at a intersection, intersections in the suburbs were highly contested and fought over ferociously. The Sturmtiger came to a halt as the two Panzertrager's moved off of the main road that was in the defenders direct line of view. The buildings on either side of the street were heavily damaged if not completely collapsed, the Panzertragers had no difficulty traversing over rubble. The Sturmtiger's main gun which was chambered in 380mm and rounds which were entirely rocket assisted, fired off a single shell towards the center mass of the apartment building. A rocket had seconds before been fired off by the defenders as it went off course and clipped a partially collapsed building. A earth shaking explosion erupted from the apartment building as the shell made it's mark, the building erupted in a large cloud of debris and dust as the top half of the building seemingly collapsed on its self.

Twenty soldiers of the 2nd Waffen SS Assault Troop poured out of their Panzertrager's as they steadily advanced forward up the street towards the intersection. It seemed that a small handful of the defenders inside the collapsed apartment building had miraculously survived. They wandered out of the rubble, painted in dust and looking rather pale. One of them was still holding their weapon as he raised it at the Waffen SS soldiers, before he could even pull the trigger the Waffen SS opened fire on him and the survivors, all of them laid dead on the ground within seconds. As the battle raged on all around Panooly City and just as the Waffen SS and their South Panoolie counter parts were beginning to crack the defenses and make holes through the suburbia and into the inner metropolis where more of the defenders waited for them. The 7th Waffen SS Panzerwerfer Brigade were brought up into the suburbs in areas that had been completely rid of the enemy and which was firmly in Wehrmacht hands. The 6th and 11th Panzerwerfer Brigades would also begin to arrive deeper into the battle space in Panooly City. These three artillery elements would be utilized to decimate concentrations of Macabeean defenders and render their positions to ruins with their concentrated and rather terrifying rate of fire, salvo after salvo of 280mm rockets would soon enough be unleashed on the defenders fall back positions and positions within the inner metropolis.

The Waffen SS were also carrying out their own orders in the midst of the fighting as they had just 36 hours ago received a directive from their Field Command that they were to begin the elimination of the colored populace within their area of operations. In these hours, hundreds of coloreds were murdered in cold and calculated ways that were typical of the handiwork of the Einatzgruppen that were now fighting on the front lines. Many more would surely perish as the war continued on as Holy Panooly's future hung in the balance.

Delepasca front, North Panooly.
OP WOLVERINE D+7.
The newly re-purposed 2nd and 3rd Waffen SS Army enforce a blocking action against Zarbian reinforcements from Delepasca.

The Delepasca front was a tedious part of the overall battle space despite the fact that the Waffen SS in the area outnumbered the Zarbians and PRA, 2 to 1. The Delepasca front stretched from the opening into the penninsula and the area to the north of it which fed out of the peninsula. Already the Waffen SS on the Delepasca front had been battle tested by several failed Zarbian attacks at their front lines, the Waffen SS severely outclassed the Zarbian regulares and their PRA counter parts in every sense, although it was highly brave that the enemy continued to throw themselves at the Waffen SS in savage attacks. Their were already a plethora of smoldering villages that had and still were being fought over between the two sides as it was mostly the Zarbians who continued to take the role of the aggressor as the Waffen SS sat back in their positions and continued repelling them again and again. The Waffen SS would not only keep themselves on the defensive however, as the 3rd Waffen SS Army which were positioned more north to face the east of the ruins of Guamlumpeiron probed the defenders in the area in a succession of lightening strikes by Waffen SS assault groups typically made up of a battalion each and regularly included decent armored support in their strikes. Artillery would be a big helping hand in the holding of the Delepasca front in which the guns of the Waffen SS would repeatedly pound the regulares and PRA nearly every hour as they hoped to inflict maximum damage to their troop strength and morale, hoping that maybe they would break and run. However their would still be the problem of Kriergrup 'Indras' and with no available Kriegsmarine assets to attempt to dislodge them, the Waffen SS on the Delepasca front would stay mostly on the defensive as to not run a risk of being completely in range of the Kriergrup's immense firepower.

Many of the vehicles including the armor were beginning to use more natural camouflage and deception in order to combat returning Macabeean air power that was starting to reappear in theater due to the passing of the storm. The Waffen SS's organic anti-air units which were made up of FlakPanzer V's which were clustered in battalions, they were sufficient for at least suppressing roving Macabeean close air support which were used heavily by the regulares in order to relieved the pressure put upon them by the Waffen SS. The Luftwaffe were still able to give support to the troops on the ground as they had developed a network of haste made airfields to launch their Lu-45s which would give close air support and help drive away Macabeean aircraft from the battlefield when they could. Static defensive positions were given high priority to the Luftwaffe to destroy especially if this static position was hosting a artillery piece or tank of sort, free fall bombs and incendiary munitions were also used on enemy held villages.

Of course with these two Waffen SS armies having before their re purposing been part of the Einatzgruppen assigned to the country, they continued to fulfill their original duties as they continued the pacification of the colored population in order to sever any growing native resistance to the actions of the Wehrmacht in Holy Panooly. Cold calculated mass murder was routinely done by the Waffen SS on the Delepasca front as was being done by the Waffen SS in the Panooly City siege. It was not only the Waffen SS that were carrying out these sudden atrocities as so were the Ordenite Army who in their two days of scrambling to the south to meet the anticipated Macabeean counter stroke against South Panooly were also carrying out the killings.

Upper Western South Panooly, Macabeean beachhead,
7KM inland.
After a 48 hour scramble back to the South in anticipation of a counter stroke, the Ordenite Army begin to lay into the Macabeean green troops.

Glorious Soldiers

In the last 48 hours, 1.5 million men made a rapid withdrawal back to the South as their was anticipation of a counter stroke with a attempted amphibious landing was going to be had somewhere along the western coastline of South Panooly. Along the way they passed up their replacements which were the South Panooly Army, who were only half their strength and were less experienced and trained then their foes they would face in the north on the frontlines. However that wouldn't be their concern at least for now as their most biggest concern was what they would face back south as their was anticipation of a possible amphibious landing occurring somewhere along the western coast. Most of the three prongs within those 48 hours had returned to their starting positions in South Panooly and were now being repositioned within the country as their was a expectation of some sort of invasion. No more than 4 hours ago was it made known the location of the now beach heads that lined the upper western coastline as the 1st Ordenite Assault Group had been hastily organized with it's forces comprising of the 99th Heersgruppe and would cover all three of the beachheads and hopefully be enough to stop them in their tracks and send them back into the ocean. Through initial reconnaissance efforts which consisted of constant UAV surveillance of the developing theater, the Macabeean landing forces had made it several kilometers inland securing the initial coastal areas and pushing further. All the while there were constant trips to and from their mother ships out at sea to bring more men and more equipment to their beachheads. It was assumed that these forces already landed were now heading for the more bigger towns and cities that were in the direction of their advance. The 99th Heersgruppe had in short manner positioned its self to best meet the advancing Macabeean invaders as their ad-hoc positions were arrayed in a way to stretch from the border of South Panooly to the end of the third beachhead, however this was seven kilometers in land as well which would mean that the 99th were a literal wall standing tall to welcome the invaders.

The Panzergrenadiere-Artillerie-Abteilung 17 were the first initial resistance offered to the beachhead landings as their self propelled artillery guns pounded the beachheads as best they could while receiving counter battery fire from much more powerful naval guns. However this was far from the only artillery the 99th had at it's possession and had purposely held back it's full firepower as they waited for the invaders to get deeper into the jungle and for more of their men to get ashore. Camouflage and deception were key to the Wehrmacht especially now and during most defensive operations they undertook, the vast jungles were great for this and allowed much of the 99th Heersgruppe to literally blend into the jungle expanse despite more precision strikes from naval guns which had already scored hits on several defense works which now needed to be repaired. The first engagements between the Macabeeans and the 99th Heersgruppe was in the outskirts of the city of Mutaba, the outlying villages and towns were where the engagement had initiated from and was now the sight of a fierce opening battle with a company sized force which had stumbled upon the positions of the Panzergrenadiere Abteilung I of the 74th Panzergreinader Division. It was then that the battle truly intensified as did the rest of the general theater as the 99th Heersgruppe unleashed their firepower in concentrated barrages on the enemy. The coastal highway which stretched further in land before branching out deeper into the vast jungle regions of South Panooly, was a known and highly anticipated congestive artery that the enemy would want to secure and use for their eventual logistics network that would stretch from their beachheads and out into the interior of the country.

Another point of immediate conflict was with the rather large and bustling town of Karama which was directly neighboring the highway and offered any of the two sides of took the town a tactical advantage to secure a good stretch of the highway as it ran from the coast. Of course much of the highway was riddled with anti tank mines and ad-hoc defensive positions with Panzerjager lying in wait with AT weaponry and even a Panzer IX with it's powerful 144mm main gun which could battle with even the heavyweights such as the Nakil and those of the Lyrans. Bridges whether over rivers and or streams that were in the way of the enemy were secured before a controlled demolition was done to collapse the bridges as positions would then be arrayed on the opposite side from where the bridge was demolished from as Panzergreinaders, tanks and APCs awaited the enemy for a fight. With engagements now on-going, artillery from the 99th Heersgruppe were working over time as they fired shell after shell in near continuous barrages with small lulls in between which were mostly the self propelled artillery guns moving from one position to another after a barrage. Reconnaissance was continuous as UAVs and even smaller reconnaissance teams scoped out the enemy and their positions as battles began to develop and the blood was beginning to flow as casualties on both sides began to flare. Ordenite wounded and or dead were transported by a armored ambulance when the opportunity allowed them too and would be taken further in land for treatment and or burial, much of the casualties were from the naval bombardment and air power being shown by the Macabeeans thanks to the Kriergrupe who were covering the western shores with their warships and aircraft carriers. Of course the 99th Heersgruppe was not completely on the defensive on the entirety of the beachhead front, the 5th Panzerkorps attached to the 103rd Heerarmee after several initial engagements with Macabeean forces coming from the most western beachhead were able to punch a small hole in the enemy advance and then began to exploit that hole with deadly results.

This would come with it's fair share of casualties with the naval and aerial superiority in the area, the 5th Panzerkorps eventually had their offensive come to a screaming halt outside of two towns that were initially captured by the landing forces several hours prior. Resistance was heavy and mounting and so the 5th Panzerkorps would now go on the defensive and keep the Macabeeans on their toes in regards to the first day of their amphibious invasion.In regards to the rest of the Wehrmacht forces in country, they were being re-positioned throughout the country as the Oberkommando des Heeres had passed down orders to prepare for a more severe out right invasion of South Panooly. It looked like the Panooly Reunification War was now truly flaring up and the tide of the war up in the air between the two opposing parties, it was hard to tell still just who would take the initiative in the war, with the continent bracing for a more intense war then seen in the past seven days.

[Philotas Island]

The last four weeks have been busy for the PIAF the fleets were ready then men were ready if nothing more than to get off the ships they’ve called home for the last month and a half since leaving the Philotas Islands.

The fleets have kept a very low profile not even conducting UAV or aircraft taiscéalaíocht but choosing to go at it with the naval commando’s getting to shore or close to shore and doing their pre-invasion hydrographic reconnaissance with the Marine commando recce units they had found four locations where invasion forces could land and help their fellow TGT soldiers north of the in their own invasion.

The TGT invasion to the north of the planned invasion location of the PIAF was drawing the prey out for the hunters. The plan was to expose the Reich’s forces on the fastest routes mainly the roads where the advanced recce teams placed various systems like MINISID, MICROSID, and I-REMBASS along with some Remote Miniature Weather Station to send information back to the fleet about the movements of the Reich and the weather.

At three other spots UAVs were used and made sure the Reich knew they were in the area the reason being to deceive the Reich into thinking the PIAF was planning on landing its troops. There wasn’t enough time to truly give the deception operations enough time and effort to make sure the bait was taken.

12hrs. to invasion

Four special operations teams slip ashore and quickly move inland, attached to the SOF teams was a team of two pathfinders and two air controllers to help set up landing zones and drop zones for the air assault part of the invasion.

At twelve hours out everything was locked it the fleet had moved into their final positions of three fleets per beach landing sites this would be able to put a Corps per beachhead the first hours of the invasion.

Twelve hours later the day and time had come and the invasion was on. The first shots rang out with missiles from the fleets with missile strikes on fixed positions of the Reich and it southern Holy Panooly forces. This would be followed by airstrikes taking out as much as they could come across ground-wise and opening up a piece of the sky of their own to hold and control.

Helping out this bombing logistical and military targets was some five hundred bombers of the Crown’s Royal air force out of Theohuanacu. Their job was to launch Hellion 2 cruise missiles and drop conventional bombs on special targets. Losses would be expected for those deep penetration missions when those came, the stand-off missions as for now would see some losses from air to air conflicts and some SAMs.

Operation Iompróidh gaiste (Bear Trap)

This was the time this was it, all the planning all the time had come to this point in time. The fleet turned and the first of the fleet’s air arm took to the skies right behind them lower and slow was a fleet unto itself of helicopters from attack to transport to heavy transport, in front where the V-22 series and V-44 series and other tiltrotor aircraft.

As the landing craft and amphibious armored vehicles carrying the bulk of the landing force, the fleet started on their shore bombardment with short-range missiles and the heavy guns of the fleet. while the arsenal ships positioned themselves behind the fleet with the heavy cruisers launching hellion 2s at long range targets.

The landings:

The air mobile marines were the first ashore behind the lines of the landing beaches about 3kms amid the cover of smoke, the drop went quickly as possible with the helicopters and tiltrotor spending as little time as possible in the ground the quadrotors took the longest unloading vehicles such as the Wesel 3s and Growlers and Mutts to set up a perimeter. Behind them was the four beaches. The marines would have to hold on for a few before the landing craft and vehicles hit the beach with the main body. The helicopters and tilt rotors would return to the fleet reload and fly back out to reinforce the troops on the ground.

The LSTs lead the landing force their job was to run a ground open their front huge steel doors and the combat engineers and armor would pour out right behind them would be the AAAVs and other armor vehicles carrying the marines ashore.

As the LSTs ran aground and the doors opened with the armored engineering vehicles rolled out clearing the beach of anything that could stop the ground troops from making it off the beach. The beaches setup into for sectors those beach command sectors where called Ader, Bona, Liger, and Portus.

The first marines landed and rushed ashore and approached the line of departure, code name Sippar. This would be leaving the beachhead and making their way inland. The next phase line was 500 meters from the LOD.

The air mobile marines orders were to try and establish a corridor to the beach and dig in and wait for either for the main force to make it to them and move forward or a counter attack from the Boche take place. The next few hours would make a difference on D+3hrs.

[The Macabees]

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Map 5: Status of the front on day ten of the Ordenite invasion of North Panooly.

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Day ten...

— The Siege of Panooly City

If the Ordenites thought that the utter eradication of the city was serving to rid themselves of the defenders they were sorely mistaken. Every collapsed building became a twisting maze of a fortification from where Macabean and Panooly soldiers could stage ambushes or set up chokepoints that could hold an advance up for hours, even days. A man could be navigating the dark corridors of a shattered building whose steel beams were toppled over each other, and suddenly he would be dead, struck by the fiery brass of an enemy bullet. It was a death trap that the Ordenites were creating for themselves. It would be their Panooly Stalingrad.

Defending infantrymen used the vast sewage network, along with additional smaller tunnels that had been excavated by pressed labor in the days preceding the siege, to move between and behind enemy lines. Militiamen led by Macabean regulares emerged from the apparent shadows to ambush Ordenite columns in areas of the city they had thought taken.

If the enemy tried to use the sewage lines they would find themselves cut off by delayed explosives that would trap them with their backs against the rubble. Packs of defenders would then overwhelm them where they stood.

Every roadside pile of rubble became a protected machine gun nest, every shelled intersection a kill zone, and every room a bloodbath. The battle was more of a crawl and the 'frontline' was losing definition, as gunfire raged throughout Panooly City. And for all the Ordenite artillery did to submit punishment atop the rats that held the city, this had become a weakness. If they had been well entrenched before, now the city's garrison was all but impregnable and certainly well protected from enemy cannons. Indeed, underground or indoors, beneath tons of broken concrete, steel, and glass, as they most often were, they were more practically immune. They lurked there, hidden in the dark, inside tight corners, and behind doors, like gun-wielding traps waiting for the poor creatures to step into it. As trained as the Ordenites may have been, in close quarters they were fighting against foes with infinite patience and an intimate knowledge of the battlefield.

Rumors had spread of genocide. Some men had claimed to see the consequences firsthand. Alleyway mass graves of rotting, revoltingly fetid corpses they said, with perhaps dozens or hundreds of bodies. The stories varied almost as much as their tellers, but they were growing more and more frequent. Indeed, so much so that the colored civilians who had been in hiding began to move with the defending troops, arming themselves, and joining the fight. In their homes they waited. Some, especially the younger men, joined the militias. Even a woman's battalion had been raised. And these smuggled weapons behind enemy lines as well, inciting revolts and ad hoc insurgent attacks.

From afar and above, the Macabean bombardment was intensifying with every passing moment. Ordenite anti-air was still prominent, but the Laerihans struck from a distance with stand-off missiles aimed at their radars, command posts, supply depots, and their troops. The rain still swept over the country, but the worst had passed and the empire's air force swept in relentlessly.

It was fire and brimstone that ruled here. Dispair. Destruction. Death. The air clung with its stench, it dripped all around like a black rain.

The worst of it all, though, was not the genocide or the bombs, but the civil war that had begun anew. Even amidst the battle, the Hakara Hunters brawled with black militiamen who were trying to move through the city streets to the front. Panooly City was consuming itself from the inside, like a cancerous carnage that was spreading throughout it and into the blood, and culture, of the people who lived it. There was not a building unaffected by damage. Not one child had escaped loss, whether it be a father, a mother, an uncle, or a friend. White or coloured, the cost of the siege was the same. And in a time where unity was needed above all, the Hakara Hunters joined the enemy. They terrorised the civilian coloured population and ambushed militiamen dispatched to destroy them. Whether the city fell or not, its fate of suffering a hollow existence for some time was inevitable.

Still, with gritted teeth the Ejermacht and her allies dug in. No defensive position was left unused. If Panooly City fell, it would be a prize that came at too high of a cost. And with the growing air support, the tenacious defense, and the promise of a relief operation conducted by the landing forces, the city was not pre-destined to be taken. It could very well survive.

As day turned into darkness, the city glowed a reddish orange and played its song of war.


— Sektor Gualumpeiron–Delapesca

The first days of engagement with the Ordenite Waffen-SS across the frontlines represented a steep learning curve down which the Zarbian auxiliaries had slid. But all officers and NCOs must go through proper training, and until the Zarbians had grown a crop of such leaders through the Ejermacht's system, these ranks were filled in large part by Macabean provincials who were often taken out of regulares units. These were seasoned men (and women), soldiers who had seen war, and they learned quickly, altering their approach of slowly wearing down the Reich's forces over time.

Rather than frontal attacks, Zarbian units down to the company level began to better coordinate with each other and naval support. Kríergrup Indras was coming back into full action as the hurricane continued to dissipate, and it now could level concentrated fire throughout the eastern coastline. Not only did this include its cannons and missiles, but also those of its aircraft. The Laerihans, based out of Indras and the Michcuatl Islands, did its part too.

Now the Zarbians probed and slowly felt their opposition, maneuvering as small independent units to flank their foe in the jungles and irradiated wastelands around Guamlumpeiron. If the enemy was too strong, or if they had been ambushed or pinned down, they could count on an astounding level of offshore firepower. But they kept their attacks limited and small in scale, their intention only to chip away at Ordenite manpower and morale until the counterstroke came. All the while, their heavy equipment traveled up the Delapesca peninsula to add to the front's strength in armor, artillery, and anti-air support. With it came reinforcements as well.

Like a small river, more Zarbian auxiliaries trickled into the sektor. It was whatever could be spared and some of the units were Theohuanacan — borrowed temporarily from counter-insurgency operations in Indras. They took up position deep behind friendly lines, gathering strength, and remaining ominously silent and uninvolved as the world around them burned. Another two hundred thousand men were lent to the front in all, composed of seven divisions worth that brewed like a teapot bursting with pressure and ready to go off. In hastily constructed bivouacs and F.O.B.s waited tens of thousands of men and thousands of vehicles, and artillery cannons to boot. It had been two days already and, like snakes, they were still moving up the peninsula from ships that disembarked them in hastily, and only partially, repaired port of Delapesca. And it was all in preparation for Operation Intrepid Lightning Bolt.

But that was still two days away. For now, they hid as well as they could behind friendly lines. The Macabean line north of the peninsula would now be dotted by tented and camoflauged bases, some real and others not.

Around Guamlumpeiron limited Zarbian elements were surrounding and cordoning the city and the villages within thirty kilometers of it. How many of the infected escaped was unknown, but both soldiers and civilians had suffered attacks and undoubtedly some of these creatures had even infiltrated through Ordenite lines. They were smarter than some gave them credit for. The virus, in some senses, had augmented them beyond their human limitations. A blessing, some would say.

Even so, they had to be destroyed and Guamlumpeiron isolated again. So ten thousand soldiers lassoed the suspected core of the afflicted's migration of the past few days, attempting to trap as many of the infected as possible. Those that they missed would have to be found and hunted down over time, hoping all the while that no civilians ever suffered the fate of coming face-to-face with one (or its pack). Many of the most rural and isolated Panoolies had never been vaccinated and so the virus would once again spread, even if in a much more constrained fashion. But these monsters were just as deadly through violence as they were through the disease they carried, and there more there were of them the more of a danger that they posed. There weren't enough troops to both eradicate them and hold the line against Ordenite forces, and the reinforcements could not risk revealing too much evidence to Ordenite intelligence, and so it would have to be a problem that was dealt with piecemeal until the war was over. A bloody shame, quite literally.

One had to pity the locals for all that they had endured in the past two years alone.

A virus that had taken over a third of North Panooly's population. Three wars and an insurgency that had claimed the lives of thousands. A genocide under Ordenite oversight. How many of the true aborigines, the descendants of the ancient Plánol people, would be left after all of this? Surely, not many. This was a demographic collapse of catastrophic proportion, it was the destruction of the country's labor force, a massacre of its tradition.

But the gears of war droned on, and death was yet running rampant. The fleet thundered as it bellowed fire, striking positions deep behind Wehrmacht lines. Macabean UAVs navigated dense jungle, flying low to avoid detection while they reconnoitered their immediate areas in search of enemy positions, artillery, and anti-air emplacements. Gunfire continued to sound and men continued to cry out. The air was thick with a smoke that smelled of rot, carrying with it a constant whiff of the slaughtered. Holy Panooly died beneath the feet of soldiers who hardly took care to notice of what destruction they had wrought on one of the most glorious and long-lasting civilizations in the region's history.


— The Western Beachhead

The breakout was tedious. The Ordenites waited in the mud, behind felled trees, and under dark shadows that swept the jungle. Inch by inch, Ejermacht forces pushed deeper into South Panooly at a crawl's pace.

Artillery rounds burst overhead and shredded through the treeline, launching bursts of broken branches and asphyxiating debris in a series of perpetually successive shockwaves. The bombardment was intense, relentless, and merciless, as both sides pounded each other with their heavy guns and mortars. To this one must add the escalating Macabean air offensive, as more bombers were making more runs on South Panooly. Big bombers dropped their munitions from dozens, if not hundreds, of kilometers away. Flights of GLI-76s, escorted and then supervised from distance by Lu-45s, made runs into South Panooly itself to provide an incessant tactical air support for the advancing troops on the ground. Some of them ran wild weasel missions against the difficult-to-root-out air defenses that they were braving as they skimmed close to an ocean of palm-leaved canopies. Any Luftwaffe aircraft were either sought out by the prowling Lu-45s or destroyed on the ground when their bases were hit by bomber- and vessel-launched cruise missiles.

Kríergrups Ixchel and Theohuanacu, to the south and north of the Thacu Islands respectively, had tightened their blockade on South Panooly again. Ixchel had, in fact, stripped its blockade of Tiwanaku and Palenque to bare bones in an effort to simply overwhelm the Ordenite defenders with fire support.

Still, the combat was grinding and casualties mounted. Men died on the ground, in tanks, traveling down tight, winding roads or through dense foliage, caught by the sweep of gunfire or a well-placed landmine. Thus they moved carefully, slowly and. like fingers on a hand, small units cooperated with each other to tackle Ordenite defenses in a methodical way that paid for lives with time. Soldiers toiled, fought, killed, and died while missiles tore into the metal and composite frames of the aircraft flying in the skies above with a shriek like that of a thousand harpies.

But they were not all that was shrieking, as mangled soldiers from both sides cried and howled in ear-piercing pain.

Entire companies had been chewed up and some battalions that had been fighting over the past three days had been drained of much of their strength. These were rotated back to the beaches where they could be replenished by reinforcements which were arriving by means of landing crafts emerging from the deep blue sea. New units were pushed up to the front in the meanwhile, where they continued the breakout offensives.

Not all things had fallen to the grim realism of attrition just yet, however. To the south, another front had opened. A Philotan flotilla escorted a considerably sized invasion army that landed on shores south of the Macabean operation on d-day plus two of Operation Hunter Strike, undoubtedly adding considerable pressure on Ordenite defensive lines in South Panooly. The ultimate intention was to link up and encircle Ordenite and South Panooly forces on the western half of the theater, and then slowly break the defenders down until they surrendered or were otherwise liquidated, but there was still quite some work to do before that was possible. For now, both invasion forces felt along the Wehrmacht's under-pressure front, placing more and more strength on specific points that were deemed weaker or more geographically advantageous for a breakthrough. But, as aeager, young Macabean and Philotan men continued to land upon the beach, it was becoming evident that a breakthrough was just a matter of time.

But, oh, what a bloody time it would be.

The big storm may have passed, but the skies still rained enough to blind a man down to twenty feet or less. Darkness consumed them as the auxiliaries worked their way through a jungle thick with slick wet foliage, slithering snakes, and deadly landmines. Nakíl 1A4s and Shalmaneser APCs, outfitted with the feared 45mm 'Swift Kill' autocannon, provided support to forces that relentlessly attacked the defensive positions the Ordenites had hastily filled during their forty-eight-hour withdrawal back into South Panooly. If they were held up, they called in air and naval support, which would bring in fireworks and explosions as they wrought their particularly distressing form of destruction.

It was a grueling task. One that would cost many lives and change, forever, many more. Here the auxiliaries who survived this hot, humid, and miserable war would graduate into battled hardened men — and women — ready for more harrowing battlefields yet. They fought to survive. They fought for empire — loosely. But, most of all, they fought in blindness, that sour adrenaline pumping into their bodies, suppressing and augmenting their fears all the same, pushing them forward like a man walking against high winds. In their minds existed only the thought to prevail.

The 45mm Mark 30 'Swift Kill' Autocannon Gun System

— Operation Kacer

Kacer.

Noun. Hammer.

For two days, the fighting in the west raged, pulling and drawing at Ordenite forces that had just redeployed from their offensive in North Panooly. Slowly their forces moved, committing strength to holding the Macabean and Philotan invasions. Then, as they struggled there, South Panooly was struck from behind. Operation Kacer involved the amphibious landing of a total of 750,000 troops on the northeastern shore of South Panooly, with the intention of pushing west to link up with the western invasion force and cut off Ordenite and South Panooly forces holding the north. But that had yet to happen, for the landing crafts had not yet even hit the beach.

It began with a tremendous bombardment undertaken by most of Kríergrup Indras. They struck at what seemed like every square inch of Ordenite-held eastern Holy Panooly, but in reality concentrating most of their firepower on Ordenite positions and assets — known and suspected. Truth was, by now most of the assets both sides held in-country at the war's first spark were common knowledge — partly a truth because by now most of the original assets had been revealed in the course of the fighting, and too because the rapid Ordenite re-deployment to South Panooly had forced them to cast aside any semblance of secrecy or deception. The Kríermada exploited this to their advantage, pummeling enemy defenses for twenty-four hours prior to the landings. Aircraft, both naval and Laerihans, joined in, striking both near and deep in search of something to kill, something new to destroy.

Like in the west and in the north, the aerial bombardment was conducted by a mixture of aircraft. Heavy bombers engaged from long-range, using missiles to strike at targets far into the country's sprawling jungleland. The pressure was relentless, and if the Ordenites moved they were struck. The idea was to force them to stay put, where they could be outmaneuvered and destroyed, or to at least limit their movements to smaller groups that would limit their ability to reinforce portions of the front that were about to collapse.

It was against the low glow for this combined bombardment that the first wave of the landings took place in the early morning of the tenth day of the war.

The sun had still not had time to risen and even its rays failed to make their presence over the horizon. Only the stars and the moons provided any form of illumination, aside from the flames that ravaged eastern coastline of North and South Panooly. An uncomfortable heat plagued the air and one could not tell whether it was because of the weather or because of the bombardment.

In these conditions they landed, whereupon — much like in the west — they quickly moved to neutralize coastal defensive positions and local towns that straddled the landing beaches. These small battles were perhaps not the worst thing these soldiers would experience, but neither were they captured without a fight. South Panooly and Ordenite defenders who were armed to the teeth dug in and battled for every building, street, and town block. Even with the intense naval and aerial support, these many small firefights took the better part of that morning and afternoon to complete. But as soon as the defenders had been destroyed or dislodged, the Macabeans set up their forward operating bases and continued the offensive without any sort of respite. Indeed, by the time most of these coastal towns had fallen, several more waves of infantrymen, tanks, and other armored vehicles were coming onshore and were almost immediately deployed to begin breakout operations.

Here, also much like in the west, the southern Macabean flank was soon secured by Imbrinumian landing forces. They came onto South Panooly's beaches in much greater force, their numbers considerably larger, which allowed some of the defensive pressure against the auxiliaries to be relieved if for no other reason than the fact that the Wehrmacht was now fighting against four different landing parties and were still tied up along the northern front. Of course, the ever intensifying bombardment did not help their cause either.

As chaos ensued, a small party of tilt-rotors left a small aircraft carrier that had crept closer to shore.

They traveled close to the surface of the water with deathly-silent rotors and their bodies were made of strange angles that hardly reflected the moon's light. They followed a route that skimmed the northern arc of the Macabean invasion force, keeping clear of the ongoing fighting to their south.

It did not take them long to find themselves right over the flames that danced along the jungle's canopy. Still flying slowly and quietly, the aircraft traveled perhaps another eleven kilometers inland before hovering right above a portion of the dense rainforest that remained miraculously unaffected by the growing and insatiable fires that had begun to overcome the area. There, two companies of Grup Koda, or about two hundred fully power armored men, repelled — in their fashion — down into the dark confines of the country's forbidding geographic below. Organized as the 37th Mosso, they would reinforce their brethren of the 7th (which was already conducting deep interdiction and ambushing operations against Ordenite supply lines and artillery, and anti-air, emplacements) by harassing the Wehrmacht to the rear of their eastern positions and by providing crucial intelligence to the invading forces that would need as much information as they could get, unless they too be caught unawares by the crossfire of enemy fortifications and trenches.

By the time the sun came down again on the tenth day of the war, it was hard to imagine any corner of this forsaken country left untouched by this haunting, murderous, and unmerciful conflict.

[The Macabees]

OOC: This post was written by Imbrinium. He's currently at an FTX so I am posting for him.

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Hours after the invasion of South Holy Panooly began, with the Royal Imbrinium Navy RIN bomber forces along with support units from the air force, began with a planned strikes on the Fourth Reich ports and naval bases in the UWO.

When the firsts shells were falling in South Holy Panooly, by then some five hundred PIRN bombers where already in the air headed toward their targets in the Fourth Reich. The bombers would come in north of Mordent being supported by land based fighters from both the Crown and the EMAF. The bombers would then track south by southwest, along the Hailandkill coast, to within 1,500km of the Reich’s coast.

The first targets were northern airbases and naval bases along the coast. This would be a long-range missile attack using Hellion 2s mainly as standoff attack, but this wouldn’t be the last of the attacks. It was only the first of a number of planned attacks on the fourth Reich.

There were going to be accepted losses, but it wouldn’t be known how many.

Fiach Gargoyle operation:

Just days before the Philotas Islands invasion in the west, special operations teams slipped ashore to conduct pre-invasion hydrographic reconnaissance, along with emplacing such systems as MINISID, MICROSID, and I-REMBASS. Along with some Remote Miniature Weather Station, these would send information back to the fleet about the movements of the Reich.

There were a number of places picked, but the overall goal was to hit at the heart of the Boche in Southern Panooly by reinforcing the eastern Macabean amphibious operation. The Imbrinumians would strike just south, much like in the west. There were a number of countries who had volunteers who wanted to join in freeing Southern Holy Panooly and they would be given their chance, with the Crown forces on their left and right flanks. These regional expeditionary divisions made up a force to be reckoned with, and the IAF would make sure they got to see their share of the fighting.

The RIN moved swiftly toward their target landing beaches, as they came into range of the landing craft. They rolled toward the shore beneath VSTOL and Helicopters carrying the para-marines and marines to their LZs behind the beach areas. The first forces landed and set up a buffer zone between them and the beachhead.

Amphibious forces focused their early efforts on taking nearby coastal towns, from which they could strike at larger, first-day target cities inland. While they did this, para-marines were landed farther inland and they took it upon themselves to take, and hold, local towns, and using these to stage disrupting attacks on Ordenite forces attempting to organize a counterattack. Around a crossfire of enemy surface-to-air missiles and friendly naval and aerial firepower, Imbrinumian forces worked to prepare themselves to align their actions with the Macabeans' planned great breakout operation that would begin the very next day.