Battle of Patria

Battle of Patria
Part of Great War
DL5A dive bombers from MRS Enterprise conducting an attack, likely on the battleship Seorakasan
Date 2-4 August 1951 Location North of Patria Harbor, Territory of West Islands, Anagonia Result Decisive alliance victory
Belligerents
Meridon Anagonia	Kaskaida
Commanders and leaders
Alexander Walsman Beau Lewis Kataoka Makoto Anagonian commander	Geum Changmin
Units involved
Marinan Fleet Task Group Carrier Task Group 6 Carrier Task Group 8 Surface Task Group 11 Battle Force TBD Unit	Striking Group Central
Strength
6 fleet carriers 10 escort carriers 10 battleships 2 large cruisers 24 heavy cruisers 31 light cruisers ~100 destroyers Various smaller PT boats and submarines About 1000 aircraft	2 fleet carriers 4 hybrid carrier-battleships 22 battleships 4 battlecruisers 15 heavy cruisers ~80 destroyers ~600 aircraft
Casualties and losses
4,000 including: 3 battleships 2 heavy cruisers 4 light cruisers 9 destroyers	40,000, including almost all involved warships and aircraft

The Battle of Patria (Kaskaidan: 파트리아 해 해전 Pateulia hae Haejeon, lit. 'Patria Sea Naval Battle') was the conclusive battle and one of the largest naval battles of the Great War. Fought in waters northeast of Patria Harbor in the Anagonian territory of West Islands between the combined forces of the battleship-centered task force TBD of the Confederate States Navy and the Marinan Fleet Task Group of the Meridonian Navy against Striking Group Central, a formation which comprised of roughly eighty percent of the fleet of the Kaskaidan Navy.

By this point in the Great War, Kaskaida had been fighting for nearly twenty years and was stretched thin in terms of resources and manpower. The war in Hiakemiria had recently been concluded, with alliance assets tied in that theater expected to be redeployed to the Kaskaidan front. The Kaskaidan admiralty determined to rapidly capture the Anagonian territories of the West Island and create a naval cordon from Ashilosa to Sarda in the south that would almost completely isolate Anagonia by sea. Compiling virtually all of its capital ships into a singular formation, it sortied south from ports in northern Ashilosa and defeated a number of Anagonian surface fleets sent to intercept it.

With the success of Meridonian amphibious assaults in western Sarda compromising its viability as a chokepoint, the Marinan FTG sailed through the Sardan Strait into the Great Dragon Sea to support the Anagonian Battle Force TBD. An Anagonian surface group encountered and severely damaged the support grouping of Kaskaidan aircraft carriers in a night action on the night of 2 August into the morning of 3 August. Battle Group TBD and Striking Group Central's forward elements skirmished during the afternoon of 3 August before the Marinan FTG moved to pincer the Kaskaidan forces. Although it was entering a pitched battle against the numerically inferior Anagonian battle line, Meridonian carrier-based aviation devastated the Kaskaidan battle line, whose cohesion unraveled under relentless air attack and without the cover of its few aircraft carriers. After seven hours of engagement, the remnants of Striking Group Central surrendered to the Anagonians aboard the battleship TBD.

The battle helped to cement the supremacy of carrier-based aviation over big-gun battleships in Meridonian doctrine (though Anagonia continued to utilize battleships in its own fleets), and highlighted the dangers of unsupported surface formations. Kaskaida sued for peace shortly after the battle was lost, ending the Great War; and would never again operate as a significant naval power.