Operation Red Bamboo
Operation Red Bamboo was the classified Constancian military operation to secure the territory of the Socialist Republic of Banh Nam to better ensure the security of the Imperial State. It was the active component of Operation Eastern Vigil which transitioned into a full invasion on the first day of 1753 AN.
Background
The Socialist Republic of Banh Nam and the Imperial State of Constancia have always had strained relations due to ideological differences. Commerce exists between the two, usually indirectly via Hurmudan traders.
The Imperial State of Constancia knew that it was only a matter of time before the pretender-state imploded due to its own weakness. Wary of hostile neighbors with which the Free State of Constancia and other dissidents could use as a launching-pad for future operations, Operation Red Bamboo was devised accordingly.
The Planning Cell for the Operation was established within the Military Household of the Autokrator, headed by Eutúkhios Khlōrós, a veteran of the Wars of the Dispossessed and the intricacies of the Imperial Court.
Tasked Units
The 509th (Surenid) Army was the operational headquarters for this particular mission, due to its proximity to the target.
It's 5th Armoured Division and 7th Cavalry Division were given primary roles, with the former as the spear and the latter as the tip of the spear.
The Princess Isabella's Own Volunteers, alongside the 508th (Raspurid) Army was tasked as a supporting force, to form part of the secondary assault wave. The division-strength Imperial Constancian Marines were likewise utilized for coastal flank attacks at Dien Noi via all 5 Rhodondra-class amphibious assault ships. Andronikos-class cruisers would provide counterbattery and support fire.
Air support, including combat air patrols, would be provided by the Honourable Air Corporation with aviation assets painted in the livery of the Ēurān Forces of the Home Guard.
Opposition forces
At the time of its collapse, the Banh Nam People's Armed Forces consisted of the Banh Nam People's Army, the Banh Nam People's Public Security and the Banh Nam People's Defence Militia. The BNPA was the official name for the active military services of Banh Nam and was divided into the Banh Nam People's Ground Forces, the Banh Nam People's Navy, the Banh Nam People's Air Force, the Banh Nam Border Guard, and the Banh Nam Coast Guard. The VPA had an active manpower of 230,000 but its total strength, including reservists and paramilitary forces, was at one point estimated to be approximately 1,500,000 men and women under arms.
This complex force structure had quickly degraded over the course of 1752 AN, but the prospect of former regime loyalists and ideologues making a determined stand could not be discounted.
Operational Plan
Lessons harshly learned from the Fourth Euran War were unstintingly applied.
The first order of business of Eutúkhios Khlōrós was to quietly ensure that the involved units had sufficient ammunition, equipment, and supplies. This was achieved via close coordination with the Mesazon and his administration. New production of the Marcellus Paixhans Imperial Constancian Arsenal was shipped by ESB Logistics to ESB Warehouse locations, as well as new canned production of Superabundance Foods, which was noted with a sigh of relief across Euran shops and groceries. Stahl Maschinenfabrik found itself spiking to profitability again as requirements were filled. Transportation priority was likewise secured. A naval exercise involving all 5 Rhodondra-class amphibious assault ships suddenly took place with only a few days notice, and KP Imperial Will found itself doing a courtesy port call at Béihagh. Kara and Mehrshahr likewise found themselves significantly busier, with increased commerce due to an increase in transient population.
The second order of business was to ensure that the line of march was secure as well, with sudden road repairs dismissed as local politicians trying to buy votes before the next elections. Forces began massing at the Eastern Fence, covered under Operation Eastern Vigil, and accompanying callups, activations, and deployments were treated and covered as a training exercise. Forces to be replaced onsite at the end of their tour of duty were reinforced instead.
It was assessed early on that considering the strength of the opposing force, the 509th (Surenid) Army and 508th (Raspurid) Army alone, even at full strength, would be insufficient to ensure local security once the occupation had begun. Aside from the Princess Isabella's Own Volunteers and Imperial Constancian Marines that were already utilized for the second wave, Zeta Corps of the 507th (Nivardom) Army, 50th Corps of the 504th (Prosgeiosi Basileus) Army, Madilah Corps of the 506th (Molivadia) Army, and a corps of the 511th (Razjania) Army were mobilized and activated, along with such other volunteer elements from other units. This new grouping was designated the Kelestan Army, and placed under the command of the Eastern Eura Army Group, and would constitute the third wave.
Expansion of the Rocher de Calmar military complex was already anticipated, requiring full standby and dispatch of the Combat Engineering Corps and the commissioning and deployment of the graduating class of the Imperial Technical Academy to supplement. Capacity that could be spared from ESB Construction was likewise called up and mobilized. Volunteers from the Imperial Constancian Labor Service were likewise enlisted and commissioned accordingly, and attached to the Combat Engineering Corps.
Severe disruption of the transportation networks, particularly on land, was anticipated. The Grand Commissariat of Eura and Corum was placed on full alert. The ESB Group also quietly allowed its Corporate Seafaring Transportation Service to be utilized, with the Marcellus Paixhans, an Ignatius-class amphibious transport dock vessel, the Harmony and Concord, Harmony-class leisure cruise ships, as well as the Doctor Ernst Cryptsinger, Clemency-class hospital ship, being pressed into service. In this regard, the skill of Zenobios Malchus slowly became known.
Airlift assets from the Honourable Air Corporation began to noticeably accumulate at Raspur, Nivardom, and Mehrshahr during the final two months of 1752 AN.
The invasion of Banh Nam
With the activation of Operation Red Bamboo on 1.I.1753 AN, the Kelestan Front against Banh Nam was declared to be in existence, with Eutúkhios Khlōrós appointed to command and curtly informed by Shanene Hadewych that in his immediate destiny was to be found either the marshal's baton or the garotte, depending upon the outcome of the campaign.
Dien Noi, as the capital of Banh Nam, would.be the initial target for the invasion force. An esturine city surrounded by rivers and lakes, the capital was located within the Yellow River Delta, adjacent to the sea and within airlift range of the Rocher District. These factors, taken together, had led Eutúkhios Khlōrós to incorporate a regime decapitation strike into the first hour / first day of the operational concept.
Whilst the regime had, by all accounts, been well along the path towards unraveling by this point did not preclude the utility of eradicating the remaining political cadres present in the city and eliminating the seat of government, lest it serve as a rallying point.
Strike packages from dispersal airfields in the forward zone controlled by the Nivardom Banner Group and Ēurān Forces of the Home Guard were airborne two hours prior to H+0.
Package A (Nivardom Banner Air Group)
- F-17 Axarana ×2
- F-24 Lightning ×11
- F-9 Ashavan III ×12
Package B (Air Command, Ēurān Forces)
- F-19 Greystrike ×36
- F-9 Ashavan II ×72
Each strike package was guided by a AEW-1 Buscadora in Constancian service.
133 aircraft airborne for an extended sortie required every available C-12 Sojourner, 25 in total, in Constancian service to be aloft and loitering in the airspace of newly reconstituted Zjandaria. Such a concentration of aircraft would have been impossible for even the degraded command structures of the Banh Nam People's Armed Forces to ignore. Yet just as the factious military leadership was beginning to contemplate the possibility that they were facing more than a provocative drill, it was then that their communications network, shortly followed by the power grid, gave out.
Battle of Dien Noi
At H-Hour minus 30 minutes, cyber-warfare teams from the Directorate of Electronic Warfare executed a pre-planned kill-switch on the Dien Noi power grid, blinding the city's civilian/military dual-use networks.
Two AEW-2 Centinela, seconded to Trans-Euran Command from the Federal Air Force of Nouvelle Alexandrie, flew doglegs up and down the edge of contested airspace, and whilst on station a variety of unusual electromagnetic phenomena was recorded within amongst the ground stations of the BNPAF.
Whilst Eutúkhios Khlōrós had not pretended to understand the minutae of the brief provided to him by vetted associates from Sarbanes-Lopez CyberSecurity, the presentation, received days before the go-order had been given, had been thorough and persuasive. Sufficient for blessings to be given, and now the dividend was being reaped.
In the Government District of Dien Noi, first few minutes of the blackout were wasted on internal suspicion. The representative of the People's Public Security all but accused the Army of staging a coup; and in turn the senior leadership of Army of the army present in the room suspected this occurrences of the night to be the prelude of a purge by the Party.
However, the most senior official present, Senior General Pham Minh Chien (Chief of the General Staff, BNPAF), grasped immediately the scale of the crisis, whether a coup or foreign aggression, the only recourse was the declaration of a state of emergency. Even if uncorroborated, assuming an invasion was the only "safe" bet. If transpired to be a coup, the mobilisation would at least introduce a counterforce, and were it somehow to transpire to merely be an infrastructure failure, the personnel could at least be reassigned to assist.
The problem, of course, would be in getting the message out. With the collapse of command and control, his only recourse would be to have his adjutants organised runners to main barracks of the city garrison, both army and militia. Moreover he had to strongly impress upon the senior military and political echelon leadership the need to disperse, and to go to ground until the situation became clearer. Until command and control was restored, they would be defenceless and the cadres must be scattered lest they be taken out in one hit. All the same, even as these discussions were being had, time was running out.
At H-Hour minus fifteen minutes, approximately 40 modified octocopters approached the Government District at rooftop level, dropping 60mm mortar shells and thermite charges on barracks and guard posts.
While kinetic damage was light, the psychological impact was severe. BNPAF defenders, anticipating airstrikes, had fled to their bunkers, leaving rooftops clear for the now inbound vertical assault. However, the immediate arrival of runners from the Command Centre sent teams of operators back outside with such man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS) as they had available.
At H-Hour precisely, Strike Package A can be said to have established air dominance over the Dien Noi airspace. Directed by the AEW-1 Buscadora, this force (2x F-17 Axarana, 11x F-24 Lightning, 12x F-9 Ashavan III) functioned as the "Reconnaissance Strike Complex" for the action. Their mission was not general bombardment, but the surgical removal of the threats revealed by the earlier "Mosquito" drone wave.
The Ashavan III and Lightning platforms, carrying the "balance of precision guided munitions" available in the Nivardom Banner Command area of operations, begin a rapid fire-and-forget targeting sequence against the rooftops of the Government District, targeting both the inert SAM batteries and manned gun emplacements as they unmasked. Similarly every MANPADS team spotted on a roof became a priority target for a PGM.
The scene quickly devolved into a cacophony of detonations, right as the helicopters rolled in.
