Inkana Civil War

The Inkanan Civil War was a conflict that took place in RL time between the end of May and the beginning of August, 2005. It involved six power nations that fought each other evenly, and experienced difficulties and defeats in various parts of the conflict. The following is a detailed analysis of this war.

Summary

The nation of Inkana erupted into a civil war when a group of rebels in Southern Inkana under R.E. Lee formed a republic, known as the Confederate States of Inkana. The new republic fired the first salvos of war when a Hastings-class strike frigate attacked a Royalist naval ship. Forces loyal to Emperor Ferdinand Joseph soon mobilised and received support from Sarzonia and Isselmere-Nieland, with both countries sending large naval forces and armies. However, the Confederates received support from Generic Empire and Doomingsland, and the war shifted from naval warfare to ground combat.

While Sarzonia built its reputation as a forceful nation on the strength of a powerful navy, the army only served to harm that reputation. It, as a whole, proved to be poorly trained and led, and suffered crushing defeats at the hands of the Doomingslandi army. The Sarzonian Naval Air Forces, which had acquitted themselves well in previous conflicts, found themselves facing a nation with a more powerful and skilled air force than they expected. The SNAF suffered massive losses at the hands of a single Doomingslandi squadron.

After the war turned precipitously against the Royalists, Isselmere-Nieland was forced to cut its losses and withdrew from the combat theatre; however, Sarzonia continued to fight on in spite of massive losses, anti-war protests, and commitments in other areas.

Causes of the war

While it is easy to claim the decline of the Inkanan economy as the first cause of the war, the reality is that there was much more to the situation. The rebels under R.E. Lee claimed that Ferdinand Joseph was insane and intended to install a democratic form of government, whilst the Royalists intended to maintain power.

Ferdinand Joseph was widly regarded as a poor leader. Over-indulging in luxury goods, and making bombastic claims that he was a god to the Inkanan people were just some of many reasons that most Inkana citizens disliked the portly Emperor. Culture also played a very important cause of the conflict. The Northern part of Inkana is mainly of German desent, while the Southern states are of English desent. Both sides had always looked upon eachother with scorn, considering their part of the nation superior to the eachother.

The six southern provinces, now known as the Confederate States of Inkana quickly secured support from Generic Empire and Doomingsland, while Sarzonia pledged its support to the Royalists, setting up the conflict as a battle between countries that seemed to be jostling for a shot at each other.

Shortly after Sarzonia announced its support of the Royalists, Isselmere-Nieland, a longtime ally of Sarzonia, signed on to support the Royalists. While the rebels’ association with Generic Empire and Doomingsland in their efforts to install a democracy in Inkana might have drawn some questions, Sarzonia's support for an imperial government was viewed by political analysts as being a larger effort to weaken the influence of Generic Empire and Doomingsland.

Doomingsland and Generia's reasons for entering the conflict are somewhat complex. While the Imperial Inkanan government seemed the more likely candidate for support by these two empires, they instead chose to support a democracy, something almost unheard of in regards to these nations. Most speculate the reasons for this were to undermine the Woodstock Pact's influence within the region, an area very close to both Doomingsland and Generia. This does make much sense. However, others speculate their support in this matter was due to a promise by the Republican government to establish a more conservative state.

Yet other reasons exist, as well. After the Battle of Georgestown, the city was leased to the Empire of Doomingsland in exchange of technology.

A cause gone wrong

The first shots of the battle between Sarzonia and Doomingsland that served as a key subtext of the war happened at New Cumberland when a Sarzonian special forces team tried to seize control of a shore battery and turn the gun against the city. A unit of Doomingslandian Legionary Hunter-Killers was waiting for them. The team’s mission met with total disaster when all but two members were captured or killed. Staff Sergeant Dave Holloway was tortured and eventually killed by the Doomingslanders when he refused to reveal information about the Sarzonian battle plans. Meanwhile, Isselmerian-Nielander fleets pounded nearby Smith Beach with a massive strike. The Iseselmerian offensive prompted a response by the Doomingsland Imperial Airforce (DIAF) in the form of several squadrons of F-78C air superiority fighters, flying out of bases in Generia. In a demonstration of their training, professionalism, and superior tactics, the Imperial Airforce won a lopsided victory against the Isselmere-Nielander Airforce making use of a tactic that DIAF had been using for ages: a combination of AWACS aircraft and beyond visual range air-to-air ordnance. This allowed for DIAF to use a relatively small force to inflict tremendous casualties amongst the Isselmerian-Nielander forces, losing only two AWACS aircraft in the process. This proved to be a prelude to Sarzonia's humiliation in the skies of Inkana.

The failed special ops attack served as a prelude to further problems when a squadron split off from the rest of the fleet to attack Georgestown under Captain Johan Taylor. Using a Publius-class battle carrier as the flagship, the squadron launched an amphibious assault that was hotly contested and led to the loss of hundreds of troops before the beachhead was finally secured. The Incorporated Sarzonian Army fought an uneven exchange against Doomingslandian Legionary forces in Waterston, losing more lives than the total of Doomie forces they fought in an exchange that highlighed the inexperience of Sarzonian troops in urban combat. In essense, the Sarzonians won a Phyrric victory at Waterston; coming face to face with dug in, battle-hardened Legionary Hunter-Killers, losing dozens of men in the opening minutes of the battle. After proverbially licking their wounds, the Sarzonians planned an assault on Doomingslandi positions in Georgestown.

Colonel Mike Quinn's strategy focused on attaining air superiority and launching aerial strikes to support armoured combat units serving as the point of a spear, but General Wes Pinckney ignored his subordinate's suggestions, favouring an all out assault and not calling for the aerial attack until the army was under heavy fire from Doomie armoured units. The delay wasn't the only problem facing the Naval Air units of the ISN. Sarzonian pilots and naval commanders soon realised that Doomingslandi fighter aircraft were not only years ahead of their own outdated technology, but their fighters were also supremely skilled. However, where the army's failures were largely due to poor training and cultural differences, the air combat units suffered largely from the technology gap. The evidence that the air force gap was mainly technolgical, the two kills by Sarzonian aerial units came as Doomingslandi fighters were taking off.

The Battle of Georgestown

The Battle of Georgestown would prove to be perhaps the Incoprorated Sarzonian Army's biggest fiasco in history. A fundementaly flawed strategy by General Wes Pickney called for an amphibious assault on the coastal city of Georgestown. Entrenched there was the Doomingslandian III Marine Legion, a battle-hardened unit that had seen much action in the recent decades. Sarzonia's assault on the city kicked off without even so much as an effective airstrike due to the fear of killing or injuring civilians. Upon landing, Sarzonian forces found themselves under a tremendous amount of fire from dug in Imperial Marines in the line of hotels that sat across the beach. After some delay, Sarzonian vessels proceeded to pound the line of structures with artillery fire, blasting a hole in the Doomie lines. The Marines response was quite effective: land based self-propeled howitzers aided by forward observers opened fire on the Sarzonian vessels, damaging them quite badly and forcing them to withdraw.

This left their land forces dangerously vulnerable. The Imperial commander, Imperator Maximus Alexius Doomanus, wasted no time in exploiting this weakness. Imperial artillery fire shifted from Sarzonia's navy to their land forces. With only one place to run, the Sarzonian army surged forward through the gap, straight into a Doomie trap. Maximus allowed for a good portion of the Sarzonian army to enter the city, allowing time for the Marines that still manned the hotel line to consolidate and prepare for a counter attack.

By charging headlong into the city, the Sarzonians had unwittingly allowed themselves to be surrounded on three sides. This changed quite suddenly at dawn that morning, when Imperial mechanized infantry surged across the gap created by Sarzonian artillery to "slam the door on their ass". Imperial forces were able to quickly close ranks with the Sarzonian rear guard, overrunning them in minutes, taking many prisoners. With that, the Sarzonian army was completely surrounded on all sides.

His plan fully in action, Maximus decided that it was time to finish off the Sarzonians, leading the remainder of the battle from the front, personaly killing numerous Sarzonian personel. Presure on what remained of the Sarzonian force increased drastically as they were crushed from all sides by a steadily advancing Imperial offensive. The superbly trained and fanatical Imperial Marines made a good account of themselves, performing flawlessly in battle; a sharp contrast to the Sarzonian soldiers, who's poor training and motivation truely shined brightly in Georgestown.

Finding itself suffering heavy casualties and running out of supplies, the Sarzonian garrison at Georgestown, Republican Inkana officialy surrendered the evening after it had landed to the Doomingslandi III Marine Legion, bringing about one of the Incoporated States of Sarzonia's most humiliating defeats to date. Little is known of the fate of the men taken into Doomie captivity following the battle. An official inquiry by the Sarzonian Government into the issue of missing Prisoners of War was stonewalled by the Imperial Government, who claimed to have taken no prisoners during the Battle of Georgestown.

This, of course, contradicts numerous eyewitness accounts made by Sarzonian personel that had succeeded in escaping the city before it fell to Imperial forces.

The impact at home

For the Sarzonians, the failures in Inkana itself were only the tip of the iceberg. With Sarzonia's emphasis on freedom of the press, reports by Generian News Network of Sarzonian atrocities against Inkanan civilians resulting from the bombardment by the ISS Publius and other naval combat units reached Sarzonian televisions. Shortly after the initial bombardment campaign had begun, a group of students marched into the Sarzonian capital, Woodstock, and protested the war. The protest soon turned violent when a Molotov cocktail exploded beside a Woodstock Police Department officer's riot gear and a police lieutenant opened fire with rubber bullets. A Ferret IFV refitted with a water cannon also fired to disperse the crowd, which demanded Sarzonia withdraw from the war and demanded the impeachment of President Mike Sarzo, who was blamed for getting Sarzonia into the war.

The anti-war protests were not confined to Woodstock. Following the explosion of the Royal Shipyards of Isselmere-Nieland-built ISS Alert (a Castle-class nuclear powered heavy cruiser), another crowd gathered to protest the use of nuclear reactors and weapons. The fact the ship was not built by Sarzonia's Portland Iron Works was lost on the protestors, who gathered around the headquarters of Sarzonia's largest company and dominant corporate earner. This was not the only problem facing PIW managing director, Rear Admiral Barbara Tucker (ISN-Ret.) Several engineers defected to Doomingsland and took designs with them to buttress the Imperial Doomingsland Navy. The defection of several PIW engineers served as added insult to the several injuries that had befallen the Sarzonians, in a war that seemed bereft of hope.

In Generia and Doomingsland, the response was quite different. Both, being very militaristic states, recieved widespread support on the homefront. Sarzonia was not well-liked by either the Doomingslandian or the Generian populace. Doomingslanders saw the war as a crusade against the infidel (Sarzonia).

All around military failures

The central theme for the Sarzonian government throughout the war was a lesson in the dangers of interservice rivalry and the pratfalls of a poorly-trained army fighting against seasoned soldiers. Besides the infighting among Navy and Army leaders and the intensity of anti-war protests, the army also had to deal with an army that literally fought its first live combat on the shores of Georgestown. The difference in training (lifelong for Doomingslandi troops, a matter of weeks for Sarzonian regulars) and experience was plainly obvious.

The problems weren't confined to the army. The Sarzonian navy, long the favourite child amongst the Sarzonian miltiary branches, was seen by some as resting on its successes and didn't seek out and sweep the seas of either the Doomingslandi or Republican navies. It also stood in silent blockade instead of provide the fire support Quinn called for. The lack of unity among the branches was also demonstrated when Pinckney and Commodore Travis Moraine, then later Admiral Brynne Napier and Quinn, all clashed on how to prosecute the war. The Sarzonian air force and naval air units also faced problems, though theirs were technological. Sarzonian fighters proved to be outdated and several Sarzonian squadrons went down in flames against a single Doomie squadron. However, several military observers cited the air force as providing the Sarzonians with their only bright spot in the war.

Major combatants

Royalists

• Empire of Inkana
• United Kingdom of Isselmere-Nieland
• Incoporated States of Sarzonia

Republicans

• Confederacy of Inkana
• Generic Empire
• Empire of Doomingsland (IMPERIVM DOOMANVM)