Ustus Tillbert
Sarna News
Ustus Tillbert | |
|---|---|
| Personal | |
| Affiliation | Lyran Commonwealth |
| Profile | |
| Rank | Hauptmann-Kommodore |
Ustus Tillbert was a Hauptmann-Kommodore in the LCAF navy.
History[edit]
Ustus Tillbert was leading the naval defense of the Bolson Shipyards, one of the Lyran Commonwealth's largest JumpShip manufacturers before the First Succession War.
The Bolson Shipyards in the New Kyoto system were located in orbit above Wang-Chiu, the largest of New Kyoto's moons. With industrial facilities increasingly subject to attacks as the First Succession War, the New Kyoto shipyards were an obvious target, and the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces bolstered the defenses in the system by dispatching a large group of assault DropShips and corvettes to the system.[1]
The Free Worlds League dispatched a task force sent to attack the shipyards in February 2787,[1][2][3] one of many Commonwealth-based naval and aerospace manufacturing facilities to be attacked early in that year as the Great Houses began the First Succession War.[2]
A natural target for the League to strike at, the defenses in the New Kyoto system had been increased to no less than five squadrons of corvettes and an aerospace fighter formation, the Fifty-third Aerospace Interceptors regiment, by the time the League task force arrived.[2] The task force consisted of the Cameron-class battlecruiser FWLS Rasalas as lead vessel,[1] along with two cruisers,[2] three squadrons of destroyers[1][2] and two reinforced wings of aerospace fighters.[1] The Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces had assigned command of the defenses to Hauptmann-Kommodore Ustus Tillbert, who had divided the naval and fighter forces into five separate groups guarding five different approaches to the shipyards.[2]
The task force arrived at the zenith jump point in the New Kyoto system on the 14th of February and made a three-day high-speed approach from the jump point to attack the shipyards. The Lyran corvette screen attempted to intercept and block the League task force, with the Lyran Mako-class corvette LCS Augustus becoming the first casualty of the engagement after being mobbed my AeroSpace Fighters and then flanked by the destroyers FWLS Ripper and FWLS Tomain.[2]
It took the FWLS Rasalas six minutes of battle to break through the corvette screen and begin bearing down on the Bolson Shipyards, but a suicide run by a Lyran Chippewa fighter into the belly of the Rasalas inflicted substantial damage, destroying the fuel store aboard the Rasalas that powered her drive and maneuvering engines. With no control over her trajectory, the crew of the Rasalas abandoned ship and the Rasalas rammed directly into the heart of the Shipyards, perishing along with the yards in a massive explosion.[1][2]
In total, the attack on the New Kyoto shipyards cost the League the Rasalas, seven destroyers and most of the task force aerospace fighter contingent; for the Commonwealth, in addition to the loss of the shipyards themselves, the LCAF lost almost a dozen corvettes and the bulk of the Fifty-third.[1]