Great Northern Gata War

Great Northern Gata War
Location Northern California, around the San Francisco Bay Area Result Military Stalemate Territorial changes Formation of DMZ as de facto border of Workers' State
Belligerents
Workers State of New Dornalia	Grand Army of the North, Kingdom of the Evenstar
Commanders and leaders
Gerald Sheridan, Diane Paulson, Mike Rudiger, Tom Park	Alicia Jacinta-chibi, Paul Jorgensen, Tomasina Gil
Casualties and losses
250,000-600,000 Dornalian dead	600,000 Grand Army dead

The Great Northern Gata War was one of pre-MacIntyre Dornieland’s deadliest conflicts, characterized as a war over Northern California, focusing on the Bay Area especially.

Origins

The Great Northern Gata War, according to historians working at the National Archives, began on July 12, 2130 when General Gerald Sheridan, heading the First Northern Californian Front and the Second Northern Californian Front, was tasked to launch a punitive expedition against Generalissimo Alicia Jacinta-chibi’s Grand Army of the North. The Grand Army had dominated much of Northern California, headquartering itself in the Bay Area and also dominating the region as far south as Merced in what proved to be a very fluid border.

The expedition was launched ostensibly in retaliation for raids upon Dornalian farmers and trade convoys in Northern California by the Grand Army, culminating in The Great Exaction, upon which Alicia’s men threatened to exact a tax of 10% of the total value of all goods on any Dornalian merchant’s supply train. Evidence also shows that General Secretary Holtzmann, head of the Communist Party, wished to eliminate a potential threat from the north once and for all--especially given the intelligence reports which noted the Army was receiving support from the Mormon Union and the Kingdom of the Evenstar. Finally, the very fluid border gave the Dornalians a reason to attack.

Initial Contacts: 2130-2132

Operation Vineyard

The initial series of offensives, collectively known as Operation Vineyard, was initiated on July 12, 2130 with a series of coordinated offensives on Grand Army targets around I-5 and Route 101 Corridors, including Merced, Salinas and other Northern cities. The offensives took the Grand Army by surprise, and in the critical Battle of Modesto, the Dornalians won a decisive victory against the Grand Army utilizing their superior resources in artillery and air power consisting of pre-Apocalypse helicopters.

The Retaliation

Not willing to collapse just yet, Generalissimo Alicia leveraged her own advantages. Namely, she recognized that the Dornalians were moving rather aggressively, and as such the momentum of their offensive would need to be blunted in order to buy time for herself to persuade the Kingdom of the Evenstar to join her in battle. Additionally, intelligence indicated that General Sheridan and his colleague General Diane Paulson were uncoordinated and very much rivals unable to put aside their differences, rushing ahead with or without concern for flank security or concern for the fact that they were not protecting supply lines or entering into a very rugged environment.

As such, she initiated a series of strategic withdrawals and guerilla actions, including one from the city of Stockton. Alicia gambled on the Dornalians’ ambitions leading them to occupy Stockton and also to push onto San Jose and even into the heart of the Bay Area itself as they were slowly retreating.

Now, a more sensible commander would have consolidated their forces before pushing closer to the Grand Army’s heartland, especially given IntSec reports that the Kingdom of the Evenstar began supplying ammunition and artillery pieces en masse to the Grand Army. And, they would have also paused and moved carefully around the dense terrain of Northern California, particularly the mountains and the very built up urban zones near San Jose and the Bay Area. And, General Sheridan would have been sensible enough to remember that supply lines needed to be defended and secured.

However, General Paulsen, head of the 2nd Northern Californian Front, disobeyed orders and rushed north into Lodi, regarding General Sheridan’s instructions to pause in Stockton as “cowardly and against the People’s Will.” Simultaneously, the Morgan Hill Trap was sprung, wherein Dornalian forces going up 101 were attacked as they entered the city by Grand Army Forces.

Before long, the Dornalians became embroiled in a great mess, with the enemy beginning to inflict serious casualties in the Battle of Lodi-Stockton, the Mount Diablo Campaign, the Battle of Oakland, and the Battle of Morgan Hill.

Taking advantage of the terrain (the area within the Bay Area suburbs of Union City and Hayward was particularly dangerous, as was the treacherous poison oak covered landscape of Mount Diablo) and Dornalian unpreparedness--plus new artillery and weapons supplied by the Evenstarians--the Grand Army also took the time to begin inflicting mobile “pinprick” attacks, using coordinated artillery strikes, snipers and booby traps and ambushes using her “Silverados”--the elite technical-mounted cavalry patterned after Jacinta La Valienta’s own elite soldiers. It was during this period that the legend of the “Ghost Guns of Oakland” formed, after Dornalian forces were hit by artillery pieces based out in Oakland.

The Line Thickens: 2132-2136

The Hardening

Eventually, the Dornalians were forced to fall back, and before long trench lines began forming ranging from Aptos to Angels Camp, as Dornalian troops fought their own series of defensive actions to stop the general counteroffensive including the critical Battle of Knights Ferry, which stopped the Grand Army from making a flanking attack on the Dornalian rear.

The name of the game was now trench warfare pure and simple. In a regression in tactics, Dornalians found themselves engaged in extended artillery duels with their enemy counterparts as well as fierce, often inconsequential battles involving limited raids and offenses for often ephemeral gains. Tanks and AFVs were also used on a limited scale, mostly concentrated to the Eastern Front due to the fact that, in the end, the Dornalians were fighting in hills, mountains and cities. Fighting conditions were miserable, with wildfires, poor sanitation, and a supply situation that only became tolerable later in the war.

Additionally, the legend of the “Ghost Guns” became worse. Historians have noted these were little more than well organized highly mobile batteries, using advanced pre-Apocalypse artillery pieces such as M102 and M777 howitzers towed by trucks moved at night to harass and attack Dornalian forces. Commanded by foreign and domestic soldiers however, the Ghost Guns were often well camouflaged, making them a nightmare for any soldiers in the region.

During this time, multiple offensives were attempted to try and break the stalemate. These included the Second and Third Battles of Morgan Hill and the Mount Diablo-Pleasanton Offensive, as well as an attempted sea landing at Pescadero which was defeated soundly by Grand Army naval patrols, likely aided by the Evenstarites. The First Battle of the Sutro Baths Ruins also occurred, with a Marine attack being repulsed in a nasty combination of artillery fire and resistance which included spears and swords made of car bumpers. One of the most brutal offensives was the Battle of Franks Tract, a failed attempt to punch through a “quiet sector” which resulted in failure. The Battle was memorialized in the novel Purgatory by James Jepsen, which depicted scenes of men battling using dinghies and boats in fighting which “resembled the old Japanese legends of men in boats fighting as if they were on land.” As bad as things were for the Dornalians, the Grand Army, for all their defensive acumen, also sustained heavy casualties. Still, with events like no less than Nine Battles of San Jose, no one was really getting anywhere except six feet under.

Air and Sea Battles

Still, amidst all this, there were other achievements. THe Dornalians stepped up their attempts to intercept merchant convoys supplying the Grand Army on the sea. This culminated in battles such as the Battle of the Farallons, a rare Dornalian victory which allowed the Dornalian People’s Navy to deploy seaplanes and ASW helicopters. Additionally, aircraft were used to bomb enemy forces and land convoys, and statistics noted that the Dornalian Army and Air Force deployed the most ordinance of any Dornalian war up to that point. This initially involved crude “Alpha Bombers” made out of ultralights and copies of Cessnas, before escalating into more elaborately organized raids using an eclectic assortment of planes, ranging from pre-APocalypse California National Guard F-16s to “Big Ugly” Fighters, which were essentially fighter bombers modeled on the MiG-19. The enemy of course, retaliated in kind and air battles became common over the skies of Northern California. Although the Air Battles over terrestrial NorCal were often inconsequential, the Dornalians found more luck at sea overall.

The Endgame and Truce: 2136-2138

Operation Perseus

Even in 2134, attempts had been made to negotiate peace between the Grand Army and the Dornalian Expeditionary Force. However, the truces were always bogged down in negotiations, and eventually, offensives and raids became more about gaining position than anything else. Complicating the war however, was the breakout of the Great Southern Gata War with the Junta, which had begun to erupt in earnest. Dornalian soldiers’ morale, while steady, was also beginning to drop, and there were calls to fire General Sheridan and an uptick in “fragging” incidents and drug use. At the same time, the Grand Army was running low on able-bodied men and women, and were resorting first to hiring mercenaries and then teenage and child soldiers to fill the gaps. Additionally, the Dornalian seaborne offensives were strangling their ability to access supplies from the sea. The endgame was in sight.

To prove that the Dornalians, even after years of weariness, were still in the fight, the Dornalians launched Operation Perseus. First firing both Generals and replacing them with new ones, the offensive sought to utilize actual combined arms strategies for once to bring the enemy to heel. Beginning on July 9, 2136, Operation Perseus, conducted by elements of the 2nd Northern Californian Front, sought to punch through at the “Soft Underbelly” of the Grand Army’s defenses--the Route 26 part of the line, named after the pre-Apocalypse California Route 26 which went through the area. Operation Perseus utilized, essentially, the same tactics that the Grand Army used against them in reverse. Coordinated mobile artillery strikes plus air superiority and so on proved to be useful against the Gatas in the region, and while things were difficult, the Great Pivot which resulted pushed the Grand Army back all the way to Route 88. Additionally, combined with resistance against a Grand Army offensive from Lodi, Generalissimo Alicia now had a serious problem, as the newly awakened Dornalians threatened to catch her forces in a pincer move.

Operation Theseus

The next move was Operation Theseus, which were a series of coordinated offensives across the line designed to punch through the lines. Theseus opted to bypass San Jose, although artillery fire and defensive actions would keep Grand Army forces there occupied. In the meantime, the 1st Northern Californian Front pushed forward, aiming directly for Pleasanton and Livermore. Fierce fighting soon erupted in the two cities. Not helping was the fact the region was experiencing a heat wave, and further proving advantageous to the defense was the fact there were still mountains to cross. Even the addition of air power--which was carefully rationed after Grid 229--and some smart thinking involving “actual tactics” and “actual common sense focus on a single point of attack” by the commanding officer, Colonel Park, only managed to make things slightly easier.

By January 2137, the Dornalians began the push to take 580 and also the suburb of Brookshire, which would grant them access into Hayward. Much of the fighting at this point was once more dominated by hilly terrain and mountain warfare, which made the war slow going.

Operation Bellerophon

Operation Theseus even had an aquatic component, which planned to storm San Francisco Bay and to destroy the Grand Army’s access to the sea once and for all. This of course, was a problem due to the Bay’s notoriously treacherous currents and the numerous pre-Apocalypse installations in the Bay, which were fortified by the Grand Army. Even reactivating the USS Iowa, according to military strategists, did not guarantee the safety of the incoming force.

Eventually, it was decided that storming San Francisco Bay was not a wise idea, especially given a hydrographic survey conducted by the PNS Goldfish, which nearly escaped multiple attempts to sink it with depth charges. However, a very fiendish other idea soon came about as a result.

This other idea was Operation Bellerophon, a naval landing designed to attack San Francisco itself. San Francisco served as the headquarters of Generalissimo Alicia, and until now protected by AAA and multiple layers of artillery coverage.

Still, the Dornalians went ahead and staged the Second Battle of the Sutro Baths Ruins, launched in September 2136, where this time, the Iowa’s cannons proved vital in helping to suppress enemy shore defenses, resulting in the Marines taking a hold at great cost. This also, in coordination with the Farallons Patrols, ensured a somewhat--emphasis on somewhat--clear path for Dornalian soldiers to land in the Richmond District, beginning with the highly risky Battle of Outer Richmond where the Marines and Army stormed ashore. The centerpiece of this action was the Cliff House, where Marines from K Company, 2nd People’s Navy Naval Infantry attempted to dislodge a well fortified unit of “Silverado” infantry. The landing is marked by an iconic image of Naval Infantry Sergeant Paolo Obregon using climbing equipment with one hand and firing a pistol with the other, as the Marines and the Army resorted to climbing up the sheer rock walls to ensure success. Obregon and many others died in the assault , but the Cliff House was taken with the immortal words “Objective Talisman is secure. Repeat, Objective Talisman is secure.”

The fighting soon became slow going, albeit of a very bloody sort as the Marines and Army units in the area faced fierce resistance as they basically entered into the belly of the beast, often firing cannons at point blank ranges to destroy enemy fortifications and engaging in sniper duels. The Iowa’s cannons and the cannons of other ships began firing indiscriminately to provide support, and often traded fire with shore batteries in Golden Gate Park and other areas. Iowa was a frequent target, and was forced to rotate duties along with smaller vessels due to being attacked so often by artillery, often leaving the Dornalian forces with less than ideal fire support. This alongside the odd tank was the only form of support the Dornalians had--air cover was denied due to extensive AAA networks within San Francisco itself.

By January 2137, the Dornalians would only make it as far as Park Presidio Boulevard and Lincoln Way, and were engaged in heavy fighting around Golden Gate Park and the Presidio. Generalissimo Alicia herself retreated to Alcatraz Island, and began preparing for a last stand.

The Great Truce

By the time 2138 rolled around, the Dornalians were pressing, however bloodily, into the Bay Area. Interstate 580 had finally been taken, and there were plans to stage an all out assault on Hayward. Meanwhile, there was a push in the north from the “left hook” of Operation Perseus to “Go to Vallejo,” although as always, resistance was fierce and the offensive began to lose momentum around Grizzly Island. Finally, the Richmond Beachhead had pushed outwards, with the Presidio finally falling after months of besieging, thus cutting off the ability of forces south of the Golden Gate Bridge to obtain supplies from north of it. Another iconic image is that of Pvt. Peter Leung raising the Dornalian flag above the Presidio. Faced with the prospect of multiple attacks on all fronts, a very bad supply situation, the withdrawal of support from the Evenstarites, and with both sides reaching their breaking point (the Dornalians were beginning to experience mutinies in some rearline units), Generalissimo Alicia and the Dornalians signed a truce in September 2138. The Truce essentially ceased hostilities for the current moment, and allowed humanitarian relief supplies to come into the Bay Area. It also deferred the question of the Border for a future time, but set up a demarcated DMZ which effectively straddled Route 88 and several older highways.

Casualties

The War was costly, and well over several hundred thousand Dornalians died in the conflict--estimates range from anywhere from 200,000-700,000. The exact number is not known, due to the destruction of records in the National Archives caused by the Anti-MacIntyreist Coup. As for the exact death toll on the Grand Army side, the Grand Army possibly lost up to 600,000 men, although the figures could be much higher. As for civilian deaths, these will never be fully counted. However, given the wildfires, refugee trains, and the nearly-endless spamming of artillery, historians have noted that it’s pretty obvious that a lot of civilians didn’t make it out alive--gata or otherwise.

Legacy

Commemorations

Truce Day is honored every September 4, the day upon which the Truce was signed. It’s one of the minor holidays, meriting some closing of County and Federal Offices and also prompting big sales at the mall. There are also numerous memorials to the Ghost Guns in the Bay Area and in areas settled by gatas from the region, including the Battle of Oakland Memorial Park Statue (which was reanimated recently by a kirin).

Popular Culture

The Great Northern Gata War is remembered throughout San Francisco and NorCal by both sides and their descendants, as both sides declared victory at its end.

Gatas

On the gata side, Generalissimo Alicia is hailed as a folk hero, whose heroic resistance against Red Army shelling and imperial domination is hailed in song and story. A gata musician cut a full length Doom Metal concept album not long after the event, named Fury and Thunder. Very much a propaganda work, it continues to be in print as a masterwork of gata culture.

Dornalians

On the Dornalian side, historians initially saw the conflict as an honorable one, although post MacIntyreist historiography denounced it as “Marxist Aggression at too high a cost.” A number of the NorCal War memorials--many of which often feature artillery cannons--made after the MacIntyre Administration took power were actually funded and backed by Mac as a way to “commemorate a heroic defense against Communism.” This view was of course, controversial, and still arguably is. Revisionist historians and modern Dornalians take a nuanced view to the conflict, honoring those who served whilst condemning the communist politicians that sent many to their deaths. A good example of the recent view is the movie The Cannon Hunt, about a squad of Marine Commandos sent to chase after a Gata Artillery Unit believed to be one of the Ghost Guns of Oakland, and This is My War, about the disastrous Battle of Franks Tract.