Battle of New Avalon (3146)
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| Battle of New Avalon 3146 | |||||||||
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| Part of The Dark Age, Republic Era | |||||||||
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| Factions | |||||||||
| (Attacker) Draconis Combine |
(Defender) Federated Suns |
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| Conditions | |||||||||
| Normal | |||||||||
The Battle of New Avalon (3146), or Fall of New Avalon, was a late Dark Age Era military operation that was undertaken by the Draconis Combine against their old rival, the Federated Suns in July to October 3146.[1]
Contents
Operation Brief[edit]
The military operation took place within New Avalon and nearby worlds.
Operation History[edit]
Factions & Known Units Involved in the Conflict[edit]
Federated Suns[edit]
Draconis Combine[edit]
Origin of Conflict[edit]
From 3139 onward the Federated Suns suffered a series of defeats that saw House Kurita's armies drive ever-deeper into House Davion's realm, first taking the Draconis Reach and later invading the Federated Suns space. These setbacks culminated in 3144 at Palmyra Disaster where First Prince Caleb Davion was slain and the AFFS too badly mauled to prevent the DCMS from building up for further advances into their nation, creating the so-called Dragon's Tongue, threatening New Avalon itself.[2]
Launch of the Operation[edit]
With information flowing too slowly in the post-Blackout era, the Federated Suns military was unable to react in time as further Combine advances brought the Dragon to New Avalon itself. For the first quarter of 3146, Combine forces began gathering and shifted in Palmyra's thumb. In late April, more than two-thirds of the DCMS presence in the salient left their posts for destinations unknown. On 8 July, the Federated Suns' worst fears became reality when Combine invasion of New Avalon commenced, with DCMS DropShips and Pocket WarShips smashing through New Avalon's aerospace defenses through sheer numbers. AFFS aerospace forces put up a thick orbital screen to prevent the DCMS landing, but in vain: the sheer number of DropShips and Pocket WarShips Kanrei Toranaga committed to the offensive penetrated the Davion orbital defenses largely intact. After hammering the ground defenses for three days with aerospace fighters, three DCMS regiments and three detachments from Wolf's Dragoons landed.[3]
Battle[edit]
The Combine and Dragoons forces pushed deep into the AFFS lines... but the Dragoons, after being used initially as shock troops, were later pulled back and relegated to rearguard and mop-up duties. Within two weeks, Combine troops seized critical strategic positions, but the battle for New Avalon was far from over. Much like in the Draconis Reach, the AFFS traded ground back and forth. The First Avalon Hussars, Davion Assault Guards and the New Avalon Crucis March Militia dealt as much damage as they received, but they could not repel the combined might of the DCMS elite and the redoubtable Dragoons. The High command sent out calls for reinforcements, but six weeks passed without any answer, and the new prince, Julian Davion was still traveling back from Lyran Alliance space.[4]
The leader of New Avalon's defense, Erik Sandoval-Groell, the Prince's Champion, rendezvous with Julian, who wanted to assist New Avalon, hiring all the mercenary units he could find, and counting on Clan Sea Fox assistance... but before arriving, the Foxes terminated their contract with Julian, leaving him without the JumpShips to arrive in time.[5]
Three months of ground fighting followed with neither side able to gain the upper hand. The Combine eventually began a successful propaganda campaign to demoralize the defenders, spreading plausible rumors that Julian Davion had been killed fighting the Capellans and that VIPs had already fled the planet. As AFFS morale dropped, Davion soldiers began erring more on the battlefield and Kuritan troops ruthlessly exploited their opponents' mistakes.[6]
In the tenth week of the campaign the Second Robinson Rangers arrived, giving the AFFS defenders a brief morale boost. That uplift swiftly dissipated in the week ten of the campaign, when Toranaga relented to the clamoring of Wolf's Dragoons' for offensive combat assignments, releasing them to vanguard duties. The Dragoons had been underutilized in the campaign due to the Kanrei's reservation about the mercenaries stealing the Combine's greatest glory. Within hours, the Dragoons tore through the Rangers' pickets. The Rangers, the expected New Avalon's saviors, broke and fled, shattered what remained of New Avalon's organized defenses. On October 3rd, the AFFS High Command finally ordered a general retreat off-world, fleeing with key government leaders to June. Most Federated Suns troops escaped as well, though a small number of the Davion Assault Guards stayed to wage guerrilla warfare.[7]
Conflict Conclusion[edit]
With this victory, the Draconis Combine achieved what no other Great House ever had since the formation of the Successor States themselves: the uncontested conquest of a Great House's capital world. DCMS troops wasted no time in vandalizing any monuments, art or architecture which glorified House Davion. In addition, Pope Beneficent XVII of the New Avalon Catholic Church and his College of Cardinals were executed for publicly practicing an "illegal religion" within the Combine's borders. Like the other conquered worlds of the "Dragon's Tongue", New Avalon would be subject to a harsh occupation by its ancestral foe.[8]
The loss of New Avalon to the Federated Suns' greatest historical enemy caused morale and the economy to slump within the nation, and, combined with the fall of Robinson, capital of the Draconis March, and New Syrtis, capital of the Capellan March, seriously threatened the Suns' existence.[9] However Julian Davion refused to give up hope of reclaiming his capital, and by 3149 was actively working towards that end, though his lack of forces made him first focus on the recovery of New Syrtis and Robinson.[10]