Sum of all fears

[Zoot Zoot]

OOC

Just a note for you Markus, this is not the pre-emptive strike to my own invasion, I watched the sum of all fears last night again and it inspired me to something along those lines... I didn't fancy gassing a georgian village with VX though to start it all off lol.

 

Anyway, hope we can make a good story out of this, if you want to respond militarily straight away, that's fine, but we should keep it local to that little area for the RP's sake and to keep it fun, if not, lets have some escalating responses and tense diplomatic RP.

 

IC

The Amarr Khanid Army had been posted to the Soviet border longer than any other unit with the deployment and their General, Malik ‘Saracen’ Ahmed has finally reached the end of his tether.
 
In the evening, on the far flank of the line, a remote artillery position received orders that were to be destroyed when they were read. Whilst one of the smaller batteries, it consisted of around ten guns and a platoon of men guarding it. Only three miles away from their position, lay a quiet Soviet village and its own Soviet military units present.
 
The orders given were simple; they were to fire ten shells over the border into the village. The trajectories were made to land in areas that did not have houses, people or animals, but they did have a purpose, and to kill was not one of them.  The shells would be duds to distract the Soviets.
 
However, not far from the border, a UAV had detected a sniper team right on the border and a large presence of armed men in support as well as several machine gun and possible anti armour positions. A UCAV in he area was ordered to stand off range, (12 miles), and fired six Griffin Air to Surface missiles at the Soviet positions in that one area. Targeting focused on the machinegun positions and anti armour positions, with one missile per site allocated for the strike.
 
At the same time, snipers who had located their Soviet counterparts on the other side of the border, would open fire, hopefully killing the Soviet Snipers from over a mile away with their long range rifles. Whilst only ten had been identified, it was hoped that over 50% of them would be killed. The range of the shot would make it seem as if the snipers had simply died until obviously, a soldier got closer or the shot missed.
 
The attack as a whole was very localised, within five miles of each other.
 
When other Amarr units got wind of the attack, or even saw it happen before their eyes, they dug down deep and hard and prayed to god that those explosions were Soviet accidents and not the beginning of a war.
 
 

[Markus Wilding]

The strike on the left caused a great deal of confusion once it was determined that the shells were decoys. One the other side, radar crews detected incoming missile signatures and notified missile defense sites in the area as soon as possible. Given the time the message would take to arrive, the missiles would be danger close before the missile defenses could counter them. At least six of the missiles could be blocked, but the rest fell to their positions, causing close to 130 dead, and many more wounded.

 

Two snipers would find themselves with bullets in their heads, while their spotters instantly called in their dead comrades once they heard the impact. Those who hadn't been fired on by missiles turned on their night-vision goggles and began to fire on where the suspect missiles were believed to come from. The final sniper, whose Amarr counterpart had missed, began to return fire, shooting off three rounds from his SV-98 before retreating with his spotter and two others.

 

Soon, the radios of artillery and tank crews along the border would come alive with the panicked shouts of the Azerbaijani soldiers informing their comrades they were under fire. Two RM-70/85M crews, using information from the radar operators, began to perform counter-batter operations against the Amarr missile and artillery positions, or where they were suspected to be.

[Zoot Zoot]

Amarr Prime

 

Jamyl was sat on her bed reading a book when her aid thundered into the room, completely forgetting royal etiquette and protocol as he stood panting from his exertion.

"Your Highness, there has been an incident on the border. It would seem General Saracen has seen fit to order one of our drones in the border region to strike Soviet positions after firing a short artillery barrage into a Soviet village just over the border. The soviets have responded with a counter battery barrage against the offending artillery platoon." he blustered with as much grace as he could muster in his condition.

 

The book fell from her hands onto the floor of the room as she swept up and stormed out of her room and down to the cabinet war offices located beneath the palace. Furious she stormed into the command center in such a rage that everyone in the room, regardless of rank or what they were doing stopped dead in their tracks and went silent.

 

"We are at a defacto state of war with the Soviets. I cannot allow them to be aware that I am not in total control of my military. Issue a private response to the good Chairman and tell him that I personally ordered the strike as a repercussion for the murder of the child by a negligent Soviet soldier. Arrest Saracen and remove him from command. make him disappear. A life of hard labor until the day he dies will be sufficient for this treason."  she said coldly, staring around the room at the ensemble of military uniforms.

 

"Your Imperial Highness, we have just received a report from the front, the Soviet counter battery fire has destroyed the artillery positions responsible for the attack. There were ten or so survivors, six of them are critically injured, including their CO" piped up a young officer at the rear of the room. From the far end of the room, Prince Yonis Ardishapur, a decorated war hero and General to boot, walked into view.

 

"Here is how it is Jamyl, we can over run the Soviet positions with our supremacy in armoured vehicles and tanks, the only way they could stop our advance would be with tactical nuclear weapons. We would of course respond with our own nuclear forces and the situation could escalate into something far too large for something like this. My advise is to do nothing at all. Our military is already on its highest state of alert and this latest incident will only mean one thing, itchy trigger fingers. But the fact is, we hit them, they hit us back. The status quo is restored. But if you are determined to respond with force, then let it be a controlled strike, a command center or something of the likes if you want maximum damage, or just forward supply depot to simply cause an inconvenience." he said in a cool, controlled voice.

 

"Destroy the Soviet command center closest to this skirmish, I will not have this engulf the entire border and begin an open war." she said before sweeping out of the room, incandescent at Yonis not addressing her by her title. He may be family and behind closed doors, its fine, but not in public.

 

_______________
 

Yonis was not content with striking a major command center and simply opted for a forward command center, nothing more than a glorified outpost for some far flung Soviet platoon on the flank of the line. A B-2 in the area loaded with 16 JDAM 109 on a rotary launcher assembly would move closer to the border and deploy its bombs, using laser guidance from a B-1 Lancer which was fitted with an AN/AAQ-33 Sniper XR Pod which could provide the precise weapons guidance from long range.

 

The JDAMS each held a 2000 pound warhead and would utterly destroy the outpost, even if less than half got through. Jamyl was told that it was a major command center that was destroyed as to not invoke her fury.

 

The Soviet Chairman would receive the message from the Empress taking responsibility for the initial strikes through a phone call direct to him, from her. Nothing more would be said other than what was discussed in the cabinet war rooms and then she would hang up.
 

[Markus Wilding]

Tbilisi, Georgia

 

"They WHAT?!?" shouted Marshall of the Union Aleksander Maxim as Chairman Volkov hung up. "This is outrageous! First they accuse us of killing a child, now they attack us! We must mobilize the Georgian and Russian Red Armies, Chairman, this is a clear-cut declaration of war!" Chairman Volkov said nothing as he rose, heading to a display of the Union and it's neighbors. "No, Marshall Maxim. We must exercise caution," he said as studied the map, "do you not remember the incident with Slavorussia two years prior? When we nearly came to war over mobilizations?" Marshall Maxim sighed as he recalled that particular debacle. Just as he was about to propose another course of action, an aide entered. "Chairman Volkov, Marshall of the Union Maxim, news from the front. An outpost in Azerbaijan has been annihilated by a missile. Our defenses could not mobilize in time to counter or protect those inside." Sergei grimly asked how many casualties. "Seventy staff members of the 18th Azerbaijani Infantry and three Unit 1704 operatives dead, another twelve staff members wounded, Chairman." Chairman Volkov slowly nodded and sighed. "Marshall Maxim, prepare orders for those on the front. You, get General Popov and Minister Magorian in here."

 

--------

 

About two hours later, Amarr units could probably see Soviet infantrymen setting up what appeared to be large speakers. A few armored vehicles, with loudspeakers set up on them, rolled to forward positions, but did not attempt to fire. Soon, the crackling of somebody turning on a microphone could be heard through the speakers. If the Amarr units had binoculars that could see far enough, they would probably see a Unit 1704 operative standing at a microphone along the border, speaking in Arabic to them.

 

"Soldiers of the brave Amarr Empire,

 

Your leaders have betrayed you. Your drones and aircraft have attacked innocent Union citizens, causing many casualties among our comrades. You have shot at and killed some of the bravest men to grace this earth. Just recently, your air force destroyed not a Soviet military outpost, but a civilian building. Many women, children and elders were killed in the missile attack. We cannot replace the child who was tragically killed, but neither can you replace those who have lost their lives this night. Your forces have done more pain to us than we have to you. Our Chairman has shown great restraint in this and other situations, and the next time we will not allow wanton aggression or illegal attacks. This is the only warning."

 

That message would be repeated once again an hour later, then the Azerbaijani Red Army would reinforce their positions further, sniper and recon elements mixed in with regular Red Army soldiers. There were no more rules concerning safeties. Everybody was switched off in the Azerbaijani and Armenian Red Armies, and there was full authorization to counter any aggressive actions taken by Amarr soldiers.

[Zoot Zoot]

Rumors spread all the way down the line through word of mouth of passing soldiers coming off patrol of last nights strike against what was said to have been by the end it got to the end of rumor mill, a hospital. Outrage spread through the ranks at the dishonorable action taken by the higher ups against a civilian target, prompting the Empress to send out copies of her orders and video footage of the strike recorded by the air force to be distributed to the military on the front line to quell a potential mutiny. The outrage soon turned to overwhelming support for the strike and provoked a fresh wave of hostility towards their Soviet counterparts with several isolated incidents taking place across the line of Amarr soldiers throwing stones and shouting hateful insults towards the Union forces on extended patrol.

 

The Empress ordered massive speaker towers be constructed at intervals along the border line. Six times daily they would broadcast propaganda directed towards soviet soldiers and civilians in the area. The Empires national anthem would be played at the start and end of each broadcast and it would be followed by pre-recorded addresses by the Empress and other stuff that were made with the intention of creating dissent in the Soviet ranks and a feeling of unease amongst the civilian population.

[Markus Wilding]

Troops on the border would be ordered to pay no attention to the loudspeakers spewing propaganda on the Amarr side, and soldiers struck with rocks were more than happy to show their Amarr counterparts the barrels of their AK-103s. Tensions would flare down eventually, but until they did Amarr units would be able to see BMP-3 APCs travelling with the regular patrols, along with the odd T-90 parked near the trenches. 

 

Throughout the day, Soviet troops would also begin to play the national anthems of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and Dagestan, with troops singing along when they felt it necessary. The few Russian members of Unit 1704 on the border could probably be observed reading a Bible or writing letters home.

[Zoot Zoot]

A series of military drills would take place at several locations along the border involving large numbers of armoured vehicles, infantry, attack helicopters and warplanes. In some cases, live ammunition was used to destroy prefabricated targets of interest for training purposes. They were conducted as close to the border line as possible, but far away enough to avoid splash an shrapnel damage being inflicted on the Soviets.