Richart Johonson

Richart Johonson
Personal
Affiliation	House Johonson
Profile
Rank	Leutnant-General
Title(s)	Baron von Eilenburg
Profession	MechWarrior

Richart Johonson was a high-ranking officer of the Lyran Commonwealth during the First Succession War.

History

When the Lyran Commonwealth launched an invasion of Bolan in early March 2785 he was put in command of all the planetary troops. The attack, dubbed Operation ELBOW JOINT, was considered by the Lyran Commonwealth High Command to be a "preemptive strike," with the Free Worlds League annexation of the Millungera and Saltillo systems in 2783 and 2784 cited as precedent. At the time, Bolan's primary defenders were two regiments from the Bolan Defenders brigade, under the overall command of Colonel Salam Tutt of the Sixth Bolan Defenders, supported by a WarShip flotilla consisting of the Aegis-class heavy cruiser FWLS Manaslu and three League-class destroyers, the FWLS Talwar, FWLS Turk and FWLS Tyberium. The invasion began with Lyran forces using a free merchant-flagged JumpShip, the Lucian Bell, transporting a converted Mule-class DropShip serving as a fighter carrier to seize the zenith recharge station; while Lyran marines seized the station, the two squadrons of fighters transported by the Mule engaged and destroyed the defending patrol ships, but not before one of the shuttles managed to broadcast a warning to the defenders on Bolan.

With the recharge station secured, the bulk of the invasion force under the command of Leutnant-General Richart Johonson jumped into the system in two groups; one arrived at the zenith jump point, whilst the other arrived three days out from Bolan via a Lagrange point. Each group was escorted by WarShips, with a Commonwealth-class cruiser escorting a flotilla of JumpShips transporting a regiment of troops at the zenith jump point and a flotilla of four Mako-class corvettes and a pair of Commonwealths escorting another two regiments appeared at the Lagrange point. The first major engagement took place in space, with the Talwar, Turk and Tyberium engaging the Lyran WarShips accompanying the first group, forcing two Makos—the LCS Nerva and LCS Vespasian—to withdraw and nearly destroying a third, before the two accompanying Commonwealths and their attendant fighter and assault DropShip screen forced the three Leagues to withdraw. The two Commonwealths—the LCS Caledonia and LCS Donegal—engaged after the corvettes, which had ranged too far ahead of the heavier ships in their eagerness to engage the three Leagues. The Lyran ships escorted the DropShips to ensure that the ground forces could land, before launching a series of cat-and-mouse engagements with their opponents; this went on until the second Lyran group completed their burn from the zenith jump point to Bolan's orbit. The four Free Worlds League WarShips engaged their Lyran opponents again, destroying two Makos and forcing a Commonwealth to retreat, but at a cost; both the Tyberium and the Manaslu were crippled, leaving Tutt with just the Talwar and Turk. The Caledonia had taken heavy damage from the Manaslu while the Tyberium, already heavily damaged, had launched a suicidal attack on the Donegal that left the Tyberium breaking apart in Bolan's upper atmosphere, shedding escape pods until the last seconds. The Talwar and Turk were responsible for the destruction of the LCS Aurelius and LCS Vitellius, only breaking off their attack when they detected the Commonwealth-class Furillo burning in from the zenith jump point.

When the Lyrans arrived, the two regiments of the Bolan Defenders—Tutt's Sixth Bolan Defenders and the Tenth Bolan Defenders under the command of Colonel Henri Balkichek—were already dispersed across the major continents on Bolan, with half the garrison actively engaged in wargames. Tutt responded to the invasion sending an emergency HPG broadcast and deployed the bulk of the Tenth to defend Mumbai, the planetary capital city, whilst moving a battalion of the Sixth to support the forces at Mumbai from Quetta, a port city also located on the Sakété continent. Another battalion of the Tenth was assigned a third of the Sixth's supporting elements and tasked with defending Calcutta, the largest city on the Kashmir continent. The remaining two 'Mech battalions from the Defenders were assigned to defending the Overwatch, while the remaining support elements were dotted around townships on Kashmir and Sakété in company strength units, defending such major townships as Multan, Peshawar, Sibi, Sukkur, and Vadora. While there were also security forces and a local militia, Tutt ordered them to avoid engaging the Lyran forces, and instead report all contacts with the enemy and provide information on the location and disposition of Lyran units.

The first ground engagements took place around Peshawar, a city on Kashmir; the Eleventh and Fourteenth Arcturan Guards landed and swiftly took the city, wiping out the defenders and holding in place, leading Tutt to believe that they were readying an assault on Calcutta. Johonson ordered his ground forces to stay mobile to avoid the risk of being trapped by either artillery or orbital bombardment, but also ordered them to strike hard and fast at the League troop concentrations in Quetta and Calcutta, while fighters and assault DropShips conducted sweeps and bombing missions over the towns near both targets. This was followed on the 16th of March by the arrival of the Tenth Skye Rangers, their arrival heralded by the orbital bombardment of the Quetta spaceport by the Furillo, intended to destroy the Bolan Defenders DropShips located at the spaceport whilst also crippling the Defenders' primary refueling point for their aerospace forces. With the forces around Quetta left in chaos, the Eleventh Arcturan Guards made a suborbital deployment from their position to a new point between Quetta and Mumbai, with air support from the Rangers giving the Lyran forces control of the skies; the Eleventh then struck at Mumbai, and by the end of the 17th of March both Calcutta and Mumbai were under siege and heavily damaged, with the Defenders frantically trying to find safe locations while losing artillery duels with the Lyran forces. The next morning the Fourteenth Arcturan Guards assaulted Calcutta, leaving the city surrounded.

League forces under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Omar Malak had fortified inside Calcutta, with the 101st Assault Battalion—one of the battalions from the Tenth Bolan Defenders—intent on making the LCAF pay for every foot of territory gained within the city; in response, Leutnant-General Johonson had Calcutta subjected to heavy air strikes and artillery barrages, leveling the city and killing the defenders. Under the pretext that the Lyrans were a peacekeeping force sent to secure the military supplies secured within the Overwatch—supplies that were enough to support a considerably larger force due to Kenyon Marik's plans to use the worlds of the Bolan Thumb as a launchpad for an invasion of the Commonwealth, before the outbreak of war had forced short-notice redeployments, and which included a substantial nuclear arsenal—and prevent those weapons from being used against the Commonwealth, Johonson called for Colonel Tutt to order his troops to surrender, even as Lyran ground forces closed on the planetary capital city, Mumbai.

Unknown to von Eilenburg, Tutt had already responded to the destruction of Calcutta by ordering the Talwar to bombard the grounded Lyran DropShips from orbit, and the Talwar's initial bombardment began whilst von Eilenburg was communicating with Tutt; in response to von Eilenburg's demands, Tutt issued orders for the Free Worlds League garrison forces to launch scorched earth strikes, determined to deny the Lyrans anything that could be used against the League; Tutt also ordered some of his forces to retreat from Bolan under cover from the Talwar and Turk, and even as the Lyrans destroyed Mumbai Tutt led elements of the Bolan Defenders on a suicidal attack against the Lyran forces there. With the Lyran WarShips bombarding Tutt's troops from orbit, those elements of the Defenders chosen to retreat from Bolan were able to escape, freeing the Talwar and Turk to add to the devastation inflicted by the multiple nuclear weapons launched by the Defenders through further orbital bombardment. As a result, large parts of both Sakété and Kashmir (the northern and southern continents) were still affected by radioactivity as late as the thirty-first century, and the continent of Sabari was still completely uninhabitable. The first nuclear weapons had landed in Mumbai and Peshawar, but additional strikes had also struck at Calcutta and Quetta, reducing all four cities to debris and radioactive ash. The twenty thousand civilians killed by the Lyran firebombing of Calcutta were joined by anything from three to eight million Bolan citizens, killed in Tutt's scorched earth attacks. Just a single battalion from the Sixth Bolan Defenders managed to escape to Zdice, but Tutt's defense of the planet cost the LCAF two thirds of the Tenth Skye Rangers, while both the Eleventh and Fourteenth Arcturan Guards lost a third of their combat strength. While all four Marik WarShips had been destroyed, the Lyrans had lost two Makos, and the Nerva and Vespasian needed two years of repair work before they could return to active service, in addition to the heavy damage taken by the Caledonia.

While Tutt's actions inflicted a toll on the Lyran forces and showcased the fanatical determination of the Defenders as a whole, it also established a precedent that was repeated on many other worlds within the Bolan Thumb, causing devastating loss of life. In some cases, it also led to locals on several planets aiding the LCAF against the Bolan Defenders, viewing the invading Commonwealth forces as the lesser of two evils. Leutnant-General Johonson was promoted for the conquest of Bolan but never again lead a major Lyran operation, and remained a controversial figure in history.

Bibliography

• First Succession War
• Handbook: House Steiner
• Interstellar Operations