1st Armored Division

First Armored Division
Formed	2572
Affiliation	Outworlds Alliance
Parent Command	Alliance Armored Corps

The First Armored Division was one of four armored divisions that formed the Alliance Armored Corps during the Reunification War.

History

Formation

Formed as a result of the order issued by Outworlds Alliance President Grigori Avellar in 2572 that created the Outworlds Alliance Militia, the First Armored Division was a part of the crash armament program that resulted, and was equipped with a mixture of vehicles and equipment sourced covertly from outside the Alliance and those armored vehicles manufactured by Alliance industries which had been realigned by the President to produce armaments.

In the years between 2571 and 2581, military recruitment from within the Outworlds Alliance was extremely low, and the OAM was forced to rely on recruiting foreigners. This would change after events in the first year of the war, but by the time the war began, the First Armored Division was largely crewed by foreign-born troops with military experience.

Reunification War

Tabayama

When the SLDF invasion of the Outworlds Alliance began, the bulk of the First Armored Division was on Kazanka, although two battalions were deployed on Kazanka under the command of Chairman Elaine Perez. The governor of Tabayama was secretly pursuing a pro-Kurita agenda, and actively hampered the efforts of the First Armored to defend Tabayama when the Fourth Galedon Regulars arrived in August 2581; despite the efforts of the First Armored to resist the initial invasion, the location of their DropShips was betrayed by the planetary governor, robbing the First of critical support. However, despite the governors agenda, the population of Tabayama rose up in protest against the Combine occupiers, giving the First a chance to regroup and launch spoiling attacks; this campaign of attacks lasted for weeks, until the Fourth Galedon retaliated by using live fire and BattleMechs to disperse civilian protests. The resulting death toll led to the First Armored engaging the Fourth Galedon directly, recapturing the city of Yamabad and its spaceport, although almost a battalion of vehicles were lost in the battle. Possession of Yamabad gave the First Armored a chance to escape from Tabayama, and Perez led her troops in a collapsing defense that gave her the opportunity to bring two companies of armor and 2,000 civilians away from Tabayama safely, in defiance of a battalion of Fourth Galedon Mechs.

Kazanka

When the DCMS launched attacks into the Alliance in 2582, the greater part of the First Armored had consolidated onto Kazanka; the Nineteenth Galedon Regulars landed in September, they found that not only were the First Armored present in force, but that the militia was larger and better equipped than anticipated, had been trained by advisors from the AFFS and that the planetary defenses were stronger and deeper than expected. This combination of factors allowed the First Armored to turn the swift conquest of Kazanka into a grueling campaign where the First Armored and militia forces continually blocked the Kuritan attempts to attack the civilian population and engaged the Nineteenth Galedon in strength. The Nineteenth had a deeper and more resilient supply chain, allowing them to grind the Alliance forces down, but the First Armored made the DCMS troops fight for five months to capture Kazanka; by the time the First Armored retreated off-world in mid-February 2583, the Kuritan forces had burned through more than a years-worth of supplies in a few short months and the inner Alliance worlds had valuable time to fortify their defenses against future attacks.

Zlatousi

The First Armored had a detachment on Zlatousi in support of the Second Armored Division, who were also involved in fighting against the DCMS attacks in late 2582; the battles were against the Twenty-fourth Galedon Regulars this time, and the only major difference between the campaign for Kazanka and the campaign for Zlatousi is that the Alliance forces had to retreat from Kazanka two weeks earlier, leaving the world at the end of January 2583.

Prinis Prime

The First Armored would face the Nineteenth Galedon Regulars again in August 2583, when the DCMS regiment attacked Prinis Prime in an attempt to occupy the world. This time, the Nineteenth Galedon didn't have the supply chain they'd had on Kazanka... and the Alliance defenses were stronger on Prinis Prime than they'd been on Kazanka. Although the Nineteenth Galedon faced fewer units from the First Armored, who were split between Prinis Prime and Milligan's World, the militia forces on the planet included anti-'Mech trained infantry and the planetary defenses were stronger. Attempts by the Nineteenth Galedon to attack the civilian population were blunted by the militia infantry, who crippled the Nineteenth Galedon's advanced forces, holding them up long enough for the First Armored to redeploy and halt the attack. The Nineteenth Galedon were forced to retreat off-world in November 2583, and the Combine wouldn't manage another major attack against the world during the war.

Milligan's World

Even as the Nineteenth Galedon Regulars were attacking Prinis Prime, the Twenty-fourth Galedon Regulars were invading Milligan's World; those First Armored Division units who weren't deployed on Prinis Prime were on Milligan's World, and the militia on Milligan's World had more infantry than the militia on Prinis Prime, as well as being strongly reinforced with their own armor regiments. Using the same tactics as their compatriots on Prinis Prime, the First Armored forced the Twenty-fourth Galedon off-world in November 2583.

Officers

Rank	Name	Command
Commanding Officers of the First Armored Division

Tactics

Unknown.

Composition History

4 Armored Regiments + 5 mechanized Regiments

Notes

• Special Rules for the First Armored Division can be found on Historical: Reunification War, p. 183.

Bibliography

• Historical: Reunification War