Battle of Nowa Grudak (1924)

Battle of Nowa Grudak (1924)
Part of Kyotakavian-Svogardan Conflict
Union Guard on the Mbersk Road. (19 August 1924)
Date 29 July 1924 - 1 January 1925 Location Nowa Grudak, Nodstok State, Kyotakavian Protectorate Result PISF forced to withdraw from the Mbersk Road Kyotakavian paramilitaries take control over most of the city SVDF command is left gutted after multiple assassinations
Belligerents
KLA Union Guard	PISF SVDF USC
Commanders and leaders
Regan Klaidev Tomasz Kelskiv Boris Wazkon  † Elaria Vodin Katlania Tzekic Mattias Holgav	Col. Emirus Talian Lt. Col. Terion Gallus  † Lt. Col. Eric Malion Uzluz Rex  † Breton Kalionox  † Ferus Malliox Eurius Nelton  † Kaston Kevrani  † Alexandra Longian  † Darion Zelanius
Strength
3,500 7,800 Total: 11,300	4,000 8,200 2,500 Total: 14,700
Casualties and losses
158 killed, 313 wounded, 14 missing	412 killed, 706 wounded, 29 missing 7 armoured cars destroyed
1,880 civilians killed and wounded

The Battle of Nowa Grudak was a street battle that took place throughout late 1924 in Nowa Grudak. Kyotakavian paramilitaries fought their Svozgardan counterparts who were aided (and chiefly directed) by the Protectorate Internal Security Force and was seen as the last battle of the larger, and long-running Svozgarda-Kyotakavian conflict, before the beginning of the Third War for Independence.

Casualties

A total of 1,442 people were killed over the course of the battle, making it one of the bloodiest of the wider conflict and especially noted for the high number of civilian casualties resulting from indiscriminate mortar attacks that had become a staple of the SVDF by August 1924. This means that the majority of casualties were focused in the southern portion of the city, specifically civilians who were killed by bombardment with very few KLA or Union Guard members killed during such attacks.

Responsibility

Approximately 75% of civilian casualties were killed by Svozgardan loyalists, 7% by security forces and 18% by Kyotakavian nationalists. The SVDF was responsible for around 43% of all casualties, with the KLA responsible for 27%.

Responsibility for killing

Responsible party	Paramilitary	Security forces	Civilians
Kyotakavian paramilitaries
KLA	233	51	103
Union Guard	65	41	53
Svozgardan security forces
PISF	89	N/A	60
Svozgardan paramilitaries
SVDF	57	2	554
USC	12	0	102
Total	471 paramilitary members, 93 security force members, 872 civilians

Assassinations

Throughout the battle, both sides made numerous attempts to assassinate the leadership of paramilitary and security forces of their opponents. Security force assassination attempts usually involved the storming of headquarters or ambushes of senior figures though because of the regular use of both tactics broadly, it can be hard to accurately assess how many were done explicitly as assassination attempts. The PISF had some overall success regardless, successfully ambushed the Southern KLA Commander Boris Wazkon in August 1924 and killing three senior KLA members during a storming of the Northern HQ on Mbersk Road. Both the SVDF and USC made multiple attempts on KLA Leadership throughout the battle, including 4 bombing attempts against Regan Klaidev, leader of the NLP, in a single day. Success was rare however, and Svozgardan Paramilitaries struggled to launch effective attempts into the Southern portion of the city often resorting to indiscriminate mortar attacks that killed numerous civilians.

Kyotakavian paramilitaries had far more success in assassination that their Svozgardan counterparts; the Union Guard rarely made attempts outside of sniping efforts, which successfully killed Eurius Nelton, the successor to SVDF East Commander Breton Kalionox who was killed by the KLA in October. The KLA on the otherhand made multiple bombing attempts on senior leadership of both security forces and paramilitaries with at least 7 were personally targeted at PISF Colonel Emirus Talian though with no success. This however, was an exception rather than the rule, of the other 19 bombing attacks made against leadership figures, 17 were successful, and the KLA bombing campaign ultimately resulted in the decapitation of the SVDF leadership following the Atzan Lane bombing in October, which killed both the Western and Eastern SVDF commanders as well as Deputy Chief of the PISF, Lieutenant Colonel Terion Gallus.

So effective was the KLA assassination campaign that by the end of the conflict, they had killed 4 SVDF Commanders, the USC Commander-in-Chief and the Deputy Chief of the PISF, at least 39 other senior commanders in both the security forces and paramilitaries, and a numerous junior officers which had functionally decapitated the entirety of the SVDF Eastern Command, and substantially damaged the Western SVDF's leadership structure.

Assassination attempts

Responsible party	Attempts	Successful	Success Rate
Kyotakavian paramilitaries
KLA	29	19	65.5%
Union Guard	6	1	16.7%
Svozgardan security forces
PISF	9	2	22.2%
Svozgardan paramilitaries
SVDF	41	3	7.3%
USC	18	1	5.6%
Total	93