1720 Battle for the Palace of the Elenaran
24.II.1720: the final day
The Palace of the Elenaran, after weeks of a dismal siege, faced being stormed by supporters of the government. Improvised artillery, Sanaman mortars and anti-tank weapons, and a number of bulldozers covered in hastily welded sheet metal have been assembled in side streets leading towards the palace. A number of commercial light quadcopter drones, bought with funds donated by sympathetic university students in South Lyrica, have been equipped with cradles to carry grenades, mortar rounds, and or incendiary materials. Storming parties formed around members of the Hurmu Constabulary and the Community Defence Volunteer Force with experience from the Barikalus-Hurmu war will follow the armoured bulldozers into the palace grounds, with the disorganised but armed parts of the populace to follow up the breakthrough.
The attack failed to knock out the majority of tanks and artillery pieces but a half dozen notable flare ups and the detonation of a poorly secured munitions dump throws the Peacekeepers into a state of alarm and chaos.
Next, the frankly horrifying assembly of improvised artillery pieces resume their work - lobbing all manner of LPG cylinders and flaming barrels in the direction of the palace.
It rapidly became apparent that not enough work had been done to correct the deficiencies identified during the first bombardment. The flung projectiles veer off in all manner of directions. Detonations were felt in adjacent neighbourhoods as well as observed to be throwing skywards plumes of dirt and smoke in the palace gardens and the cemetery. An embarrassing number of lobbed projectiles splashed harmlessly into the adjacent ornamental lake.
Nonetheless the HPC defenders of the perimeter of the palace were obliged to seek shelter in their shallow foxholes.
With a weary sigh, the Constabulary officer in charge of coordinating the bombardment now gives the signal for the crews with Sanaman made 82mm mortars to take up the bombardment. By a series of flags waved from rooftops and telephone calls, the message is relayed, and four dozen mortars begin to discharge in unison.
Amazing what untrained amateurs can achieve with minimal preparation and direction. The mortar rounds fall short, in some places even amongst the volunteers forming up into storming parties. Casualties are reported.
Further angry flag waving and insistent telephone calls bring the bombardment to a halt.
Whilst the postmortem on the bombardment efforts is hastily convened, the HC commander has some gunmen sent up onto the roofs to ensure that enough rifle and small arms fire is directed at the defenders of the palace in order to keep their heads down.
This sniper fire proves to be altogether more effective. Picking off a number of the HPC defenders who had been examining the newly formed craters in their midst, and forcing the others to hurriedly seek out cover once more.
Jamshid-e Osman, having elected to remain at the palace and supervise its defence, has the dread sense that the assault on the Palace is in the offing. Reports of a number of knocked out MBTs and field guns at the HPC cantonments only confirm this. Orders conveyed to the HPC commanders, namely to form volunteers into marching columns and relieve the palace, elicited responses that underscored the fragile morale of HPC at this stage, where the outcome of the fighting is unclear.
Instead, Jamshid found himself in the slightly surreal position of contacting Rosamund via a messaging app and asking for the dispatch of a relief force.
For the Modan Brigade, divided between Huyenkula and Kaupang International Airports, the first challenge is to overcome the blocking detachments set up by the trade unions movement outside the airports, where the pickets organised to shutdown travel during the general strike are now armed and supplemented by barricades, felled lampposts, overturned vehicles and torn up pavement slabs.
The first attempt to roll out of Huyenkula Airport was met by a fusillade, stopping the column in its tracks. A nasty firefight ensued.
The Light Infantry Regiment of the 1st Demi-Brigade cut the wire of the airport perimeter at Huyenkula and attempted a flanking attack on the armed union militants.
The attack carried successfully, and the blocking detachment is swept away, allowing the 1st Demi-Brigade to begin to deploy.
Our gaze returns to the Palace of the Elaneran, where Ramzan Q̇adar Khan Abakhtari has arrived to assume personal command of the assault. After berating all those involved in coordinating the attack thus far, he directed all mortars and improvised artillery pieces to deliver a single coordinated salvo.
This has a devastating effect, pummelling the palace and sending shards of masonry tumbling groundwards.
Elated, Ramzan ordered for the armoured bulldozers to roll out and knockdown the gates leading into the palace gardens, with the formed up storming detachments following close behind.
The defenders of the palace only had three Hornet 84 mm recoilless rifles and an obsolete Tankgewehr rifle with which to repel an armoured assault, yet they used these to good effect. Knocking out the first bulldozer and forcing the remainder to pull up short of the gates and shift gears into reverse.
The storming parties, confused, scatter and go to ground, seeking cover where they may. A number of the more adventurous keep up a steady exchange of fire whilst the more fainthearted edge their way back towards their starting positions.
Ramzan is not a happy man, having witnessed this sorry performance.
The attackers attach cables and attempt to tow the now burning bulldozer out of the way.
Everyone attempting to attach the tow cables is picked off by unnervingly accurate rifle fire from the palace. A round from a recoilless rifle struck the unarmoured tow-truck sent forward to recover the bulldozer, and now it too is burning merrily.
Disgusted. Ramzan called for volunteers to join him in a charge to clear the gate at gunpoint. It is a desperate expedient, but Ramzan is by now acutely aware that if the attack fails to go in before Alexandrian and Constancian relief forces arrive in the capital, it will all be over for the government unless the palace falls.
The sudden onrush of the attackers caught the defenders of the gate and perimeter off guard. Desperate close quarter fighting ensued, but after a too and fro battle, the attackers secured their lodgement. The storming parties were now rallied and surged forward, forcing their way into the ornamental gardens of the palace.
Jamshid, sensing that the moment of decision was at hand, urgently recalled the defenders of the perimeter back to the palace in order to make their last stand.
So as to buy time for the HPC personnel to retire into the building, it is now Jamshid's turn to gather together a small party of chosen men and lead a countercharge. With covering fire provided by a Wren machine-gun placed in one of the many spires of the palace, Jamshid's attack goes in.
And the fact it was conducted over level terrain was always going to count against him. The attack is decimated, faltered, and forced to retire. Jamshid himself is carried into the building severely wounded. A number of the HPC detachments withdrawing from the perimeter are cut off and compelled to surrender.
Sensing victory, Ramzan called for the green and red banners of the revolution to be unfurled and for the armed rabble to join the attack. Meanwhile he urged the storming detachments to go forward and assault the entrance to the palace.
The momentum of the attackers is unstoppable. A Sanaman recoilless rifle, virtually identical to the Hornet, is brought forward and blasted into the entrance hallway of the palace, and a dozen grenades were thrown in afterwards for good measure. The carnage revealed within, as the attackers forced their way into a smoke filled atrium, was indescribable.
Gunfire reverberated from within the palace as the defenders withdrew inwards, seeking to find a rallying point.
But it was of no avail, the momentum of the attackers was unstoppable and Jamshid-e Osman himself was found prostrate on the floor. Elated, the attackers proceeded to pummel him with the stocks of their rifles until his skull was audibly heard to crack.
Outside in the grounds, more and more armed volunteers, joined by protesters, opportunists, and the merely curious, have begun to congregate. All sensed that this was a momentous occasion, which was confirmed as the body of the Babkhan, Jamshid-e Osman, who only recently had been Prime Minister was brought out to be reviled by the mob.
A tussle erupted over the corpse of Jamshid, as a number of rebel fighters appeared to harbour an intent to desecrate the corpse. In this they were opposed by others who wished not to be associated with barbarism.
Those who fought to preserve the corpse were denied and instead it was torn limb from limb, with elated members of the mob carving up and carrying away bloody portions as trophies.
Ramzan Q̇adar Khan Abakhtari would order that the culprits be found and dealt with - severely - but the reputational damage had already been done.
