OOC here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=491403
Karachi, Pakistan
A few days ago, Latif Salih was a cadet at the Pakistani Naval Academy. As the country descended into chaos, he found himself no longer training to be a ship's crew, but rather being forced into fighting. When the Marines showed up at the Academy and started handing out rifles, he didn't have much of a choice. They couldn't just leave on ships, they had to fight out of the city in order to get out of the newly independent nation of Sindh and get back to what's left of Pakistan. But Karachi was a big city, and no Navy personnel had managed to get far from their bases despite naval gun support, and air support from Pakistani Navy operated Mirage 5s and JF-17s of the Pakistani Air Force that were able to reach the city from their bases to the north. The army was bogged down in fighting along the front, and had to take troops off the front to deal with a Sikh insurgency and an Islamic State affiliate. The Navy was essentially on their own in Karachi.
In the street, Latif heard the rumbling of a diesel engine. Sindhi forces were moving up a tank. One of his fellow cadets turned soldiers yelled at Latif to grab the RPG-7. He did so, and left the building, an apartment building with shops on the ground floor, in order to hunt down the tank along with a second man carrying additional rockets for the RPG. In the street, a T-80 was advancing, flanked by infantry. Latif wasn't able to bring the RPG to bear in time and the infantry engaged. The two men ducked back into the building, pinned down by enemy fire.
Down the street, the tank rotated its turret to face the apartment building. A sound of thunder echoed through the street as the tank fired its main gun, putting a high explosive shell through a window on the second floor of the building. Latif was knocked unconscious by the blast. When he awoke, he'd find himself in a hastily constructed POW holding area.
Elsewhere in Pakistan
The frontline in the north was starting to close in on the city of Hyderabad, not to be confused with the much larger city in India it shares a name with. This was also to be a site where Dayganistan would start to establish its peacekeeping presence, hoping to establish a safe zone where civilians can flee the battlespace.
To facilitate this, helicopters and transport aircraft were busy making flights to and from the airport to the south of the city. They were ferrying in an ad-hoc brigade combat team headed by the 32nd Airborne Brigade, as well as supporting elements. As air force ground crews unloaded infantry mobility vehicles from transport aircraft, combat engineers were busy filling Hesco barriers, or digging out gun pits in the empty fields east of the airfield which will soon be manned by CAESER self-propelled howitzers. The howitzers wouldn't exactly scream "peacekeeping," but the brigade combat team commander, Brigadier General Reza Hosseini, had requested them in case of an attack on the safe zone.
In his command tent, Brigadier General Hossieni surveyed satellite imagery of the area. The airport was a good place for a base of operations, but the force would need a presence elsewhere. He identified a highway interchange to the north of the city, and ordered a company of paratroopers to move to that location and dig in defensive positions. On the opposite bank of the Indus River was another highway which would need to be defended as well. Another company of paratroopers was dispatched there, to set up defensive positions in a patch of empty desert just to the north of an industrial area.
The Brigadier General, an older man with a greying beard, was visibly frustrated as he looked at his satellite photos and maps of the area. He had his entire airborne brigade at his disposal, plus supporting forces. The combat engineers fortifying the airfield could be pressed into an infantry role if needed. But even with his force, there were just too many places to secure. He had to establish a defensive perimeter around Hyderabad, as well as get patrols out to the nearby towns and villages in the hopes of discouraging hostile action on the part of either party. He would need to spread his troops thin to do both. He sighed. It would be easier when the armored infantry brigade combat team he was supposed to work alongside arrived, but unfortunately it took a lot longer to move tanks and tracked IFVs than paratroopers and MRAPs.
Meanwhile, near Karachi, the 2nd battalion of the 14th Commando Brigade was establishing their own positions near the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant. Their mission, for the time being, was to defend the power plant from any potential hostile action. A simple task for the time being, as neither side fighting in Karachi had much to gain from sabotaging the power plant. They would just lose electricity for themselves. The bigger concern was terrorists infiltrating the power plant in order to steal material to make dirty bombs. The commandos questioned their mission to defend the power plant. The prevailing attitude among the troops was that this was more of a mission for regular infantry or military police. However, when the battalion commander briefed his men, it became clear that they were being forward deployed to eventually enter Karachi. Soon, military police would, in fact, take their positions around the power plant and battalion would move to enter the city, reinforced by a mechanized infantry battalion. The commandos were justifiably nervous. The fighting in Karachi had, thus far, been portrayed as particularly desperate and these men and women were being asked to step into the crossfire.
