Whitebay Crisis

Whitebay Crisis
File:WhitebayTitle.jpg Destroyer of the Coraspar Navy after torpedo hit
Date 12 April 1973 – 1 May 1973 (2 weeks and 5 days) Location Whitebay, Brytene Result Coalition military victory
Belligerents
Brytene Template:Country data Allied Connurist States Stasnov Template:Country data Sde Dov	Template:Country data Coraspia
Commanders and leaders
King Cerdic Fleet Admiral Cnut Greystrake Template:Country data Allied Connurist States Jeremy I Template:Country data Allied Connurist States Gerrard Steele Nikolai Bereza Nikita Morgunov Alexey Khamayev File:Flag of Sde Dov 6414.png Abdullah al-Hussein File:Flag of Sde Dov 6414.png Mikhail Chupilov File:Flag of Sde Dov 6414.png Earnest Thinley File:Flag of Sde Dov 6414.png Ferdinand Cruz	???
Strength
Confederate Brytisc Fleet 3x Light Aircraft Carrier 2x Dreadnought 9x Destroyer 2x Submarine Template:Country data Allied Connurist States Battle Group Rose Task Force Ulysses File:Flag of Sde Dov 6414.png Sde Dovian 1st Fleet	1 heavy aircraft carrier 2 light aircraft carrier 3x battle cruisers 1x battleship 8x Cruiser 10x Destroyer 4x submarine 5x landing ship
Casualties and losses
Brytene Carrier - Damaged Submarine - Sunk Submarine - Sunk Destroyer - Holed Naval personnel - 256 KIA Coastal defences - 449 KIA, 201 WIA Total casualties - 906 126-127 civilians killed Battleship - Damaged Cruiser - Holed Naval personnel - 36 KIA	H/Aircraft carrier - Damaged L/Aircraft carrier - Sunk Destroyer - Sunk Battle cruiser - Damaged Landing craft - Sunk Naval personnel - 1,168 KIA Infantry personnel - 101 KIA, 244 PoW Total casualties - 1,513

The Whitebay Crisis was an armed conflict between Brytene, the Allied Castarcian States, Stasnov and Coraspia. In 1973, the port city of Whitebay was blockaded by Coraspia following a dispute over the execution of Coraspar sailors accused of drug smuggling. The Confederate Brytisc Fleet, largely unused and underfunded since the war, were caught off-guard and several of the largest ships of the fleet were trapped in harbour. For the better part of a week, the various navies fought a war of cat-and-mouse around the islands, before the Coraspar navy finally withdrew.

Background

Prelude

On the 21st March 1973, the Coraspar tanker Eloquence docked at the Hlaford Shipyards to refuel and offload a small amount of cargo before continuing its journey onwards. A cursory inspection by Brytisc police almost missed a concealed shipment of approximately 270 kilograms of pure cocaine, which was at the time a Class-A restricted drug in Brytene, but a police dog caught the scent and the 11-strong crew of the Eloquence were taken into custody. Although capital punishment was and is illegal in Brytene, certain of the Coraspar sailors made an escape attempt and accidentally killed a prison guard in the process. Their escape attempt failed and Brytisc media instantly called for harsh punishment. Following a Rihtgemot ruling that, as arms were found on the Coraspar ship when it docked, they could technically be tried as foreign combatants and that, since they had killed an unarmed civilian, that they could be charged with the commission of war crimes. All but one of the prisoners were sentenced to death. This ruling has since been criticised by the Rihtgemot and stricken from precedence.

Cocaine bales brought by the crew shown to the press

They were executed on the 24th of March by firing squad, a controversial move which was widely covered by the international press and received widespread condemnation. The government of Coraspia responded swiftly, dispatching a naval force to the shores of Brytene by way of response.

The Confederate Brytisc Fleet was underfunded and unused at this point, having experienced 30 years of peace and economic slump since the end of the First Atlasian Great War. Caught by surprise, most of the Fleet was still at harbour when the Coraspar navy arrived, and it was deemed unwise to put out to sea and abandon the protection offered by friendly land-based defenses.

With a hostile navy sat outside the main Brytisc port, the lucrative international Edenguard-Empire Bay trade route quickly dried up, with vessels being turned back and in some cases having to make emergency berth at other docks. On April 17, Orenair Flight 422 from Saigon was en-route for a fueling stop in Lundene when two Coraspar jets fired warning shots at the Boeing 707, causing major cabin depressurization and the failure of two engines. In response, the Sde Dovian government sent a contingent of troops to defend the islands. Seeing this, several other nations including the Allied Castarcian States, and Stasnov also dispatched warships to free up the trade routes and restore the flow of global commerce.

Battle

Order of Battle

The Carlossian Fifth Fleet and Connurist Battle Group Rose sailing towards Brytene

The Brytisc Fleet began the battle underfunded, unexperienced, and outnumbered, with only 14 vessels of destroyer size or higher In comparison, the Coraspar Navy was large, well-funded, and well-equipped, and deployed 25 capital vessels, as well as four submarines against a grand total of two Brytisc.

The sole Brytisc advantage lay in the proximity of their coastal defenses. Coastal artillery, missile silos, and fixed-wing runway facilities provided close support to the Brytisc in their immediate coastal waters, but this also brought the Brytisc civilian population into the line of fire.

Battle Group Rose

With the disruption of the Edenguard-Empire Bay trade network, a major source of income for the ACS, Emperor Jeremy I took Carlossian actions as an example and dispatched a force to break the blockade so that the economic state of the ACS was no longer threatened. The force, under Admiral Gerrard Steele, consisted of the following:

• 2 battleships
• 5 cruisers
• 7 destroyers
• 5 submarines
• 1 submarine tender

Task Force Ulysses

File:Moskva-class helicopter carrier.JPEG

Stasnovan Moskva-class carrier underway

The Stasnovan Task Force Ulysses was a temporary formation of the Stasnovan Revolutionary Navy, created specificaly for the mission in Whitebay. It included ships from the 1st 2nd and 4th Fleets of the SRN: One Mosvka-class helicopter carrier, one Stasnovsky Soyuz-class battleship (modernised, and fitted with SSMs), four Kynda-class, two Sverdlov-class (modernised, and fitted with SSMs), and one Kresta II-class cruisers, four Kildin-class and two Kashin-class destroyers, three Krivak-class and three Riga-class frigates, two Victor II-class and two Charlie-class submarine, along with one Ugra-class submarine tender. The 38th Fighter Aviation Squadron was also deployed in Brytene, and stationed in one of the local air force bases.

The Stasnovan force consisted of:

• 1 aircraft carrier
• 1 battleship
• 7 cruisers
• 6 destroyers
• 6 frigates
• 4 submarines
• 1 submarine tender
• 38th Fighter Aviation Squadron

Sde Dov

The Sde Dovian contingent was dispatched on the 18th of April, on the orders of President Abdullah al-Hussein. The ships arrived on the evening of April 19, and immediately began operations. Meanwhile, a chartered Orenair Boeing 707 arrived in Brytene on the morning of April 19, carrying 87 Sde Dovian service personnel and picking up stranded passengers. A squadron of twenty Sde Dovian Air Force F-5s were ferried to Brytene from Sde Dov City, marking the longest mission in Sde Dovian history, stretching approximately 21 hours and 29 minutes. The Sde Dovian contingent consisted of:

• 3 destroyer escorts - Cannon-class, Mount Sde Dov, Ivan the Great, King Muhammad
• 2 frigates - Knox-class, Union and Admiral Chupilov
• 2 destroyers - Fletcher-class,
• 2 cruisers - De Zeven Provinciën-class,
• 1 submarine
• 1 submarine tender
• 91st Squadron, Sde Dovian Air Force - 20 F-5A fighter jets
• 56 Sde Dovian Special Forces troopers
• 21 Sde Dovian military advisors.

The Battle

File:CFSUltra.jpg

CFS Ultra firing, shortly before torpedo strike forced it to return to harbour.

Initial attacks

A standoff situation developed until the evening of the 17th April, when the Coraspar Navy received final confirmation of the approach of the Carlossan Fifth Fleet.

The Coraspar fleet made a general move against the harbour at Whitebay, bombarding the town and the docks with artillery and short-range missile strikes. The CFS Pequod and CFS Tramadol, the only submarines in the Brytisc Fleet, managed to sink a Coraspar destroyer before being engaged and destroyed by the Coraspar submarine squadron, stripping Brytene of its underwater defenses. None of the crew of these vessels survived. The CFS Shieldboss was hit in harbour, suffering sixty-eight casualties.

The defenses held overnight, however, with an abortive landing called off when a Coraspar landing craft was holed right in the quay mouth, blocking the advance of following units. Almost 200 Coraspar personnel were taken prisoner here, although the overwhelming majority were rescued and the Brytisc marines ashore were eventually forced to retreat from the quay with heavy losses. In total, almost a thousand people were killed ashore during the course of the conflict, including upwards of 100 civilians.

The coalition arrives

Sde Dovian F-5s at a Brystic airbase

The following morning saw the arrival of the relief fleets. The Coraspar navy withdrew out of range of Brytisc shore-based defenses. Castarcian fleets attempted to engage the Coraspar Navy, the 20in guns of the Empire-class battleships bombarding them with gunfire. Sde Dovian F-5 fighter jets along with Stasnovan MiG-23Ms performed air patrols over the islands by the afternoon, and shot down five fighters. Three Sde Dovian jets bombed a Coraspar heavy carrier, as well as a battle cruiser at 5:32PM, severely damaging the ships. A Mk.46 torpedo along with deck gun fire by a Sde Dovian Knox-class frigate, gave a damaging blow to the carrier at 5:42PM.

As soon as the Stasnovan Task Forces Ulysses arrived, the deadly surface-to-surface missiles went to work. The two Kynda-class cruiser SRNS Ostrovopol and SRNS Berezenka, along with the Kildin-class destroyer SRNS Stalker, fired three P-5 Pyatyorka and two P-15 Termit SSMs at the enemy naval formation. The results of the Stasnovan barrage were XXX. Meanwhile, the Moskva-class helicopter carrier SRNS Neveroyatnyy, carried out anti-submarine operations with its helicopters, however, no Coraspar submarines were found . Stasnovan MiG-23Ms of the 38th Fighter Aviation Squadron, that was stationed in Brytene, also played a crucial role, providing top cover for Task Force Ulysses and the Coalition forces in general.

File:9501ef80ee3c002793de9820154d40ae (1).jpg

The SRNS Ostrovopol firing a P-5 at the Coraspar fleet.

FILL IN HERE PLEBS

Sde Dovian fighters shot down three Coraspar jets, but one jet was shot down by anti-aircraft rounds fired from a Coraspar ship. The pilot was later rescued safely by a Sde Dovian boat party from the SDS Union.

On the evening of the 23rd of April, the Coraspar High Command issued the order to disengage, and by the following evening hostilities had mostly ceased, with the Coraspar navy out of the combat zone and sailing for home.

Aftermath

The battle had taken a heavy toll on Whitebay. The Hlaford Shipyards had been badly damaged during the bombardment, whilst the Royal Brytisc Fleet had lost almost a thousand personnel and its only two submarines. Among the Coalition forces, two Sde Dovian jets were shot down, but the pilots were safely rescued.

The Admiralty, however, regarded the combat as a victory for Brytene. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Fleet had held its position and even taken enemy personnel prisoner, whilst simultaneously demonstrating its value as a trade hub and the lengths to which foreign powers would go to protect their interests in Brytisc services and commerce.

The Coraspar PoWs were released as part of the peace settlement, finalised on the 1st June.

One of the two Castarcian battleships that formed part of Battle Group Rose was heavily damaged during the fighting and retired and scrapped shortly after. The battle demonstrated the obsolescence of the battleship to the Imperial Castarcian Navy and the remaining vessel was retired in 1976.

Sde Dovian - Brystic relations were improved, with improved military and diplomatic relations building up over the years. Maj. Earnest Thinley, leading the 91st Squadron was elected President in 1984. During a state visit to Brytene in 1993, he laid a wreath at a memorial for those killed during the crisis.

Today

Today the conflict is remembered every 17th April in Brytene, with bonfires and fireworks displays all through the night. April 18 is a public holiday in Brytene, 'Sail-Ho Day', commemorating the arrival of friendly navies to help defend Whitebay. It is considered a hangover day.

A Sovremennyy-class destroyer of the Sde Dovian Navy is named after the battle, and was commissioned on Tba, and is still in commission.

Template:Brytene NavBox