The War in Uudestaan
 Destroyed bridge over the Sergei | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Military history of The Obsidian Order Military history of Uudestaan | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Conflict: | Battle of Uudestaan | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Date: | 9th December 2052 - 14th March 2053 (STS) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Place: | Eastern Uudestaan | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Result: | Successful defence by Uudesan forces | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The War in Uudestaan, also known as the Battle of Uudestaan (Keili: Taistelu Uudesta), (Kardasi: Breyet’I Uudesia) was just one theatre of the Dominion Wars but remained highly significant to the overall outcome of the war. The theatre encompassed almost the entirety of the eastern side of Uudestaan; the main combatants were the defending Uudesans against the invading Obsidian Order. The invasion of Uudestaan, along with a near simultaneous invasion of Pastocia, marked the entry of the Obsidian Order into the Dominion Wars, and some say marked the beginning of a brutal but ultimately unsuccessful bid to seize control of much of the New Americas. Unfortunately, the Cardassians were forced to launch the attack only when both Uudestaan and Pastocia had deployed large numbers of their troops abroad and their Dominion allies were beginning to weaken. This resulted in the invasion of Uudestaan taking place on the 9th of December, well into autumn, and before long, Cardassian units were beginning to struggle badly through an early and severe winter. The weather played a significant role in their defeat by the much smaller Puolustusvoimat (UDF) and the Cardassian withdrawal from the war effectively sealed the Coalition victory over the Dominion
Known as the “Patriotic War” in Uudestaan (Soten Isänmaallinen) it is already considered a likely defining point in Uudestaan’s history. Almost the entire country was affected in one way or another, and many tens of thousands of Uudesans died. It also blew apart Uudestaan’s centuries-old isolationist policies, resulting in the country, perhaps not smoothly, turning into an open and active member of the international community. For the Obsidian Order, the military failure exposed the weak grip on reality and carelessness of the incumbent Legate Parn which lead to his removal and the ascension of Legate Tarnal who made peace with Uudestaan and Pastocia.
Contents
Overview
The Battle of Uudestaan began almost without warning on the morning of the 9th of December, 2052 (STS) when the Obsidian Order invaded their Uudesan neighbours. A ceasefire was declared on March 14th the following year with the Cardassians in heavy retreat, but before UDF units could cross the Obsidian border. The Cardassians invaded on two fronts, to the north and south of the vast Luuranko Mountains. To the north they were assisted by small numbers of Star Warsian forces who were redirected from the conflict in the Setian Colony.
See The War in Pastocia/The Sunset Forces/Terre Argente
The Uudesans initially fought alone with a large percentage of their forces away from their homeland, tied up in Coalition actions in the west. However, within a few months, Uudestaan was able to free these units to fight against the Cardassians, as well as receiving considerable support from MDKCorp, as well as being leased use of dozens of top-of-the-range military equipment such as fighters and tanks, provided by the Tschazanovite Union through Nurdbotia.
The war was summed up largely by the tactics employed by the Marshal of Uudestaan, Jorma Harkonen, where, knowing he could not defeat them in open battle, he effectively led a huge amount of the Cardassian Orders deep into Uudestaan, trapped them, then bled them to death. This meant that, in the south at least, the UDF did not engage the enemy in any considerable or deliberate force. Despite numerous clashes and strikes, the only major battle of the war was The Battle of Kuljalla Pass, where the UDF finally met a point where they just had to defend to the last man. This battle broke the Obsidian drive and marked the end of their occupation. It caused by far the biggest loss of life for both sides, equating roughly 56% of all of Uudestaan’s military losses in the conflict, and besides being a defining battle, it was also one of the most bitter and hard-fought battles in the entire Dominion War.
The Cardassians employed various tactics to break the will of the Uudesans during the war, including sabotage behind the lines, even as far as the Uudesan capital Åsa, as well as suppression in areas under Obsidian control. The civilian population was generally not deliberately harmed, bar ruthless retaliation against local villages or groups that often followed Obsidian losses to Uudesan resistance fighters and Rajavartiolaitos, early in the conflict. What was however internationally considered an atrocity was the sabotage of the Valheellinen Dam, thought to be personally ordered by Legate Parn to “demoralise” Uudesan defenders at Kuljalla, it led to the deaths of over twenty thousand Uudesan civilians.
Background
Uudesans and Cardassians had existed as neighbours for hundreds of years, with the former claiming to have been living in the area for well over 8,000 years, considerably longer than the Cardassians are regarded to have lived there, although this is disputed due to Cardassian history being secretive and very patchy to those outside of the Order. The two had had several border-land conflicts, but never entered full scale war before. But as the Dominion Wars started, it was clear that they were not on the same side.
Uudestaan - deeply angered by the actions of Anubinia and the Holy Dominion - keenly supported the idea of joining forces with nations like MDKCorp against them, should military action become necessary. However, the Obsidian Order, arguably the most powerful military power in the area, was approached by the Holy Dominion who expected the like-minded Cardassians would link arms with them and put an end to the Coalition. At first the Obsidian Order brushed the Dominion off, but then eventually signed an apparently uneasy agreement with them. Even with that agreement in place, Obsidian involvement looked far off even as the Dominion Wars kicked off.
Uudesan President Kaarlo Ehkimoinen on the other hand was very keen to flex the UDF and contribute to the war, even though fighting had not yet reached Uudestaan, and any combat Uudesan troops would see would be some considerable distance away. However, he had a huge wave of support from the Parliament and from his people, who wanted to see the end of the regime in the Dominion that they considered potentially lethal to the entire region. Unfortunately many of the UDF’s senior officials, for example Harkonen, were extremely cautious about sending elements of the comparatively small UDF outside the country, leaving its defences undermanned. The sole raison d'être of the UDF was homeland defence; it was never structured to be an offensive army. Many UDF officials, being mostly Loistava ergo mostly conservative and isolationist, were highly critical of the liberal Ehkimoinen and believed that he’d undermine Uudestaan just to please Uudestaan’s new neighbours and allies. This led to serious arguments between the Government and the Military, who were technically obliged to follow the Government’s orders.
These arguments were finally settled by the attack on the coastal city of Gorlan by supposed Dominion forces (evidence since actually points towards an Urallian attack made to look like the work of the Dominion). This forced Uudestaan to retaliate against the Dominion. General Harkonen, on behalf of dozens of colleagues, promised forces would be set aside to aid Coalition allies, but demanded the Government consult the military in greater detail first before pledging forces and actions. Harkonen was the most trusted military figure in the entire country, so it came to little surprise that he was listened to. Perhaps surprisingly however, Parliament voted to grant him the title of Marshal of Uudestaan, granting him, and by extension the UDF, the freedom to act almost independently of the Government – the one exception to the Uudesan Constitution that stated that all Military matters must be controlled and authorised by the Government.
Harkonen feared that the Cardassians would launch an attack and he was not wrong. Legate Parn struck an unusual and secret pact with the Queen of the Unimatrix, where between them, they would turn on all of their neighbours, Coalition or Dominion, and defeat them all. What Legate Parn did not let on that he was already planning on using his Unimatrix and Dominion “allies” purely as fodder for the guns of the Coalition and other PEEL powers, for example COMECON and the MuDeAl. Once they had largely killed each other off, the Obsidian Order would mop up and effectively inherit rule of the north of the region.
Uudestaan made contingency plans for this eventuality, but it feared war with the Obsidian Order, and did not make their defence operations apparent, in fear of actually provoking the Obsidians into attack them. It still came as a surprise when on the 7th of December, a communiqué transmitted to Uudestaan by a power in the Morbo Strait (thought to be Zedoljev) claimed that an agent of the Obsidian Order had approached them warning them that Uudestaan was about to be attacked. The agent then went on to disclose information about Parn’s greater plans for the region, including the disposal of the Unimatrix as well as the Dominion. With the news, Uudestaan hastened its defensive operations, and began evacuating citizens out of the south and east of the country. But by the 9th, this operation was brought to a crashing halt by the massive invasion of the country.
Operations
Initial Invasion period – December 9th-20th 2052
Without any formal declaration of war, and nearly no word of warning (bar the informant), the Obsidian Order launched a heavy barrage along much of Uudestaan’s eastern border, targeting military installations and troop concentrations in the Nimmaja Region in particular, with perhaps the Provinces of Pirelli, Lahja and Solajeki baring the brunt of the onslaught. The artillery was backed up by Cardassian air units launching various strikes on UDF ammunition dumps and supply depots, but the Uudesan air defences had stiffened more than expected, and the strikes were not as effective as planned. The defenders were able to destroy 9 Cardassian JS-59 attack aircraft, but claimed to down a further 12. The Ilmavoimat (Uudesan Airforce) airfields at Korelli, Illjakää, Märlii and Dosun in Lahja, and Majaiiä in Pirelli came under sustained attack. Aging L-36F fighters stationed at Korelli, Illjakää, Dosun and several other fighter stations rose to challenge the Obsidian air units, but struggled to gain any upper hand, loosing over 18 aircraft for only 5 victories. Of the airfields attacked, only Dosun and Illjakää escaped heavy damage, but luckily for the Ilmavoimat, bomber stations in the area had been cleared of their valuable aircraft the previous night. The attack aircraft were sent back over 100 miles into bases in the Koyta Province. However about 35 Uudesan aircraft were destroyed on the first day, either in the air or on the ground.
The main attack started at roughly 0830, where units of the Obsidian 8th, 13th, 16th, 20th, 23rd, 25th and 31st Orders crashed into Uudesan defences along more than a 100 mile stretch of the Nimmaja border. The Cardassians, outnumbering the Uudesan defenders by roughly 3:1, broke the UDF’s lines in no less than eight separate places, concentrating particularly on areas of the line filled by reservists and volunteers – the Obsidian’s superb intelligence operation on the ground gave their armies an almost perfect assessment of the UDF’s deployment. Their rapid advancement quickly led to the encirclement of hundreds of the better equipped or trained UDF forces too. By the end of the day, Cardassian units had swept across dozens of miles of open land, and had already engaged defenders at the city of Koriana, a Lahja city more than 30 miles from the border. Despite fierce resistance, the city fell by midday on the 11th; the defenders losing over 350 men, with 700 taken prisoner. Meantime, well over 2,000 of Uudestaan’s border defenders were dead or wounded, and over 5,000 had surrendered.
Earlier, on the 10th, further Obsidian forces, later than planned due to a delay in the formation of the Star Warsian forces, invaded the far north of the country. By this time however, Harkonen had swung his “entrapment” contingency plans into full effect and pulled all his available forces back from the front, covering each other and civilian refugees as they retreated. Not being able to lead from the front however, his plans failed in certain areas, where the sheer speed of the Cardassian army, coupled with the relative inexperience of the UDF soldiers and officers, caught out many and led others to panic, abandoning their heavy equipment in several cases. Harkonen could have guessed that the Cardassian goal was to sweep across southern and northern Uudestaan and crash into the rear of MDKCorp, leaving the Uudesans high and dry, but he was confident that if he could lure the Cardassians away and into attacking the mountains, the Uudesan strongholds, then Uudestaan could resist anything the Obsidian Order threw at her, from land or air, and whittle away the Obsidian army. So, knowing that any attempt to use what precious few soldiers he had against the Obsidian Order in open battle would be disastrous, he pulled back most of his forces to or beyond the Sergei River, but even then he knew he would not prevent the Cardassians from crossing.
On the night of the 11th, President Ehkimoinen demanded a reprisal raid into The Obsidian Order. Several squadrons of fighter-bombers and heavy bombers took off to launch various raids against Cardassian military targets. The strikes met limited success, heavy casualties and did not contribute greatly to the outcome of the war, except that Uudestaan lost several dozen aircraft that could have perhaps been better used in ground support for UDF troops inside Uudestaan. Indeed, the 211th Bomber Squadron, part of a wing sent to attack Cardassian cities near to the border, suffered 100% casualties in the attack, apparently before the target was even reached. Another Uudesan bomber was said to have crashed into a Cardassian housing complex, killing 37 civilians on the ground. Similar raids into the Obsidian Order by the Ilmavoimat were not attempted for the rest of the war. It was also one of the last times that UDF operations were heavily influenced by the Government.
By the 13th the Uudesan 3rd, 6th and 8th Armies had swung south, mostly to protect hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing towards the large southern city of Minardi and perhaps further, over the border into Nordland. The 23rd Order detached some of its units to chase them, and elements of the 6th and 8th Army were ordered to stay behind outside the city of Tyyrell to slow them down. While these elements eventually fled in complete disarray, they sufficiently delayed the Cardassians enough to allow a large percentage of refugees to flee to the relative safety of Minardi or over the border. It also allowed the remains of the 3rd, 6th and 8th Armies to reach Minardi and bolster the city’s defences. These would be needed for the substantial siege that would be taken against the city in the coming months.
See also: Battle of Tyyrell
To Be Updated
Leadership
Occupation
Industrial Output
Casualties
| Dominion Wars |  |
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|---|---|---|
| Military forces of the Holy Dominion Anubinian forces | Star Warsian forces | Argenten forces | Yeti forces| Incarnatian forces | Weinerstein forces | Yugopatomian forces | ||
| Military forces of the Coalition Bishmanian forces | MDKCorp forces | Nurdbotian forces | Pastocian forces| Rubakavan forces | Setian forces | Hudsien forces | Uudesan forces | ||
| Military forces of Third Parties Bamonian forces | Ivorilan forces | Slimmoan forces | Zedoljan forces Obsidian forces Urallian forces | ||
| Timeline | Background | The Region At War | Aftermarth of the Dominion Wars | ||
| Theatres of the War The War in Anubinia | The War in Yugopatomia | The War in Uudestaan | The War in Pastocia/The Sunset Forces/Terre Argente | The War in Weinersteinston/StarWarsia | The War in Incarnatia | ||
| Major Operations | ||
