Fälttåget Norrsken
Fälttåget Norrsken ("Army Crandish": Northern Lights Campaign) was an operation launched by the Union Defence Force of Elwynn in 1678 to monitor and interdict a mooted Jingdaoese deployment to the nominal territory of the Iron Cult, a colony of escaped Bassarid prisoners of war, marooned on the inhospitable Leng ice-shelf and living on the margins of Elwynnese Leng.
The action of the Jingdaoese, in airlifting a brigade strength force of amphibious infantry onto the Lengish plateau, posed an intolerable threat to the Boreal Air Bridge which served the Raspur Pact as a supply and communications conduit linking Normark in Keltia to the industrial heartlands of eastern Benacia. On 19.V.1678, the Elwynnese government responded by authorising all appropriate steps necessary to ensure that errant Jingdaoese personnel were returned to the open sea and or international airspace depending upon their situation when encountered. Concurrent with this was the declaration of an Air Defence Identification Zone covering the islands of Leng and Raikoth, as well as the connecting ice-caps, wherein all aircraft proposing to enter or transit through the restricted air space would be obliged to register flight plans with the Court of the Prince. Any aircraft detected entering restricted air space without prior authorisation and or failing to maintain continuous two-way communication with Elwynnese and Benacia Command air traffic control networks would be subject to "emergency defensive measures", including interception, for the purposes of visual verification, by quick reaction flights operating from airfields on the Elwynnese mainland.
The UDF garrison on Leng, primarily tasked with protecting the Boreal Air Bridge's interchange at the enu Kalirion air station, comprised of approximately 1,200 personnel drawn in detachments - chosen from their parent regiments by lot - from the 23rd Maritime (Coastal Artillery) Division. Personnel assigned to the Leng Garrison would undertake a three month tour with the promise of a month's leave and a twelve month period of exemption from further deployments in the Boreal wastes. They were supported by a small detachment of mechanical and electrical engineers supplied by the Black Legions primarily concerned with the maintaining the operational readiness of the flying station whilst non-operational aspects such as facilities maintenance, logistics, accommodation, and catering were handled by a multitude of ESB subcontractors who counted as non-combatants.
The other significant Elwynnese presence on the island was the Svordson Reform Settlement, home to 12,000 inmates undergoing penance for various infractions dating as far back, in some instances as the Auspicious Occasion, overseen by 3,300 cudgellers - the ubiquitous paramilitary police of Elwynn.
The sudden insertion of a Jingdaoese marine brigade onto the island obliged the UDF to rush reinforcements to the island in the form of a squadron of 16 GAV-5(P) Nereid patrol craft and a flight of 4 F-9 Ashavans along with their hurriedly flown-in ground crews.
In addition, with reports that the Krasnocorian aircraft carrier, the KB Nikolaj, was making an approach towards northern waters, the Northern Banner Group's Fleet Command Officer ordered all available ships in theatre to get up steam and head out of port at the earliest opportunity. Task Force Z (5 Elwynn-class Corvettes, 12 Swift-class Offshore Patrol Vessels, 2 Type XIV U-Boats, 2 Viviantia-class LSV) proceeding south-westerly from Vanaheim, and Task Force H (4 Elwynn-class Corvettes, 5 Viviantia-class LSV) fanning out from the Cimmerian Isles and following a north-easterly course, would conduct a converging sweep of the approaches to Leng, seeking to locate the Nikolaj and force it to turn about. Comprised of ships drawn hurriedly from flotillas and squadrons hitherto acting independently under Pact and UDF control, the two task forces had limited experience of combined naval operations - the hunt would be a test of their ability to work seamlessly together.
Trapped far behind the line of the pack-ice, which can be found far to the south, the Leng plateau is so singularly and thoroughly inimical to human survival that it would seem ostensibly preposterous to propose that brigade-strength battlegroups might be about to wage a struggle for its possession. Even during the faltering summer optimum temperatures would seldom exceed freezing point even under the all-day glare of Atos. Indeed, the months of the all-day sun are about the only time when it is safe for humans to venture up from the coast and onto the plateau - for in the darkness of the winter months possession of the island reverts back to the spindle-limbed horrors that lurk in the tortured crevasses and jaggedly unnatural rock formations which scar the snow-bound landscape. It is no wonder then that the gloomy imagination of the dwindling and misshaped, malformed, populace of the isle are much given to fantastical ravings about malevolent entities, slumbering in sepulchral lairs deep beneath the frozen earth. Fraternisation with indigenous inhabitants has, as a matter of policy, generally been kept to a minimum in view of the deleterious impact upon morale of garrisoned troops evidenced by previous interactions.
Multiple sonar contacts, faint and distorted by the ice cap and the thermal stratification of the ocean in northern latitudes, were reported by the Elwynn-class corvettes of Task Force Z over a period of twelve days in the 6th month of 1678. Gradually the Fleet Command Officer of the Northern Banner Group was obliged to concede the likelihood that a Jing u-boat wolfpack was active in the Banner Group's area of operations. Whilst the two Task Forces were detailed to continue shadowing the KB Nikolaj with a view to keeping it at a distance, successfully it seemed, with the carrier now zigzaging towards Craitish territorial waters, twenty Coastal Patrol Craft and a squadron of ten Spiegelflügel-Taube Amphibious Aircraft were ordered to proceed to Wolfraven in the Cimmerian Isles - there to establish the new Anti-Submarine Warfare Unit (ASWU). The formation of the new unit was however slightly marred when, shortly after its inception on 12.V.1678, it was discovered that the fuses on the ex-Shirerithian depth-charges had deteriorated to the point that they would now detonate of their own volition, usually upon contact with the surface of the body of water into which they had been dropped, rather than at the pre-set depth. The pursuit was discontinued once it was apparent that the Krasnocorian carrier had departed from northern waters and no further moves towards Leng by hostile forces were reported. As for the Jingdaoese landing parties, inserted by two Jing submarines breaking through the Boreal pack ice, which had arrived in Normoria, these were monitored but no further action was taken against them. Of the two drones] deployed to reconnoitre the landing area, one aborted shortly after take-off owing to the icing up of its rotor blades whilst the second returned with footage that appeared to show the Jing commandos as being more concerned with battling the elements than manifesting any hostile intent. Four days after the landing was detected a requisitioned civilian cargo plane overflew the Jing landing zone, ejecting four canisters filled with pemmican, Brettish Mint Cake, instant chocolate drinking powder, "chocotoffs" (a Batavian confectionery), signalling flares and a series of leaflets written in Jing, Istvanistani and Batavian, detailing radio frequencies to use for contacting the Leng Garrison if humanitarian assistance was required. The reconnaissance effort had also helped to ascertain that the feared brigade strength landing force was in fact little more than a reinforced light-infantry company. With this the invasion scare on the Elwynnese side subsided considerably.
The sector remained quiet during the conflict with Francia but in any event the garrison was reinforced by the arrival of the 22nd "Kustjägarna" Division (22 Div KJ), dispatched crammed aboard chartered SATCo icebreakers, to defend against the sudden appearance of a rogue force, adding another 21,600 men to the effective strength of the garrison with additional munitions and stores. A build-up of Bassarid forces was noted on the western tip of the Leng iceshelf during the closing months of 1678 however this was not deemed to be sufficiently threatening to alter the essentially defensive posture of the Leng Garrison nor to necessitate further reinforcements.
Duties for the Leng Garrison, as of 1679, comprised primarily of ensuring the continuing operational availability of bases supporting the Boreal Air Bridge, maintaining communications with the inland native communities and the Svordson Reform Settlement, ski patrols tasked with ensuring that Leng Spiders did not begin to nest in habitable areas, and dog-sled patrols conducted up to the edge of the zone controlled by the Iron Cult for the purpose of installing and maintaining a line of sensor probes intended to monitor and restrict cross-border movements.
