Battle of Sabier
| Battle of Sabier | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Prodavan Sovereignty Crisis | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Vionna-Frankenlisch |
 Prodava | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Colonel Hector Rutherford (WIA) |
Hakar Majani | ||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
|
Royal Fishersfield Regiment |
10th (Rawari) Tribal Division | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 2,400 | 14,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 642 | 1,476 | ||||||
The Battle of Sabier was an early battle of the Prodavan Sovereignty Crisis fought between Colonel Hector Rutherford's Royal Fishersfield Regiment and Hakar Majani's 10th Division of the Prodavan Army. The RFR sallied out from Hill 451 against forces of the Prodavan 2nd Army. They met the vanguard of the Prodavan 10th Division which was mainly made up of Rawari tribesmen. The RFR was badly mauled in the fighting and pulled back to Hill 451 but the gamble bought time for 20th Corps of the Imperial Army to take up positions around Hill 451.
Background
On the sixteenth of March, 1991, Prodavan forces made a decisive thrust towards Kundakçı and engaged with the Ceasian Twelfth Legion at the Battle of Zumbawi, the Ceasians managing to hold off an overwhelming assault and pull back to Oliv where they dug in. This left Hill 451, an elevated plateau with a tall hill atop it, as the furthest forward allied position. Hill 451 held one of only four (at the time) Sphinx Communication Relay, capable of carrying wireless, encrypted communication for thousands of miles. The Relay was vital to the early war effort. Hill 451 was held by a single regiment of rifles, the Royal Fishersfield Regiment, along with a platoon of the Royal Special Operations Service. The RFR was a new regiment in the old style and comprised of men from Fishersfield, a major suburb of Edrington, it was led by Colonel Hector Rutherford, he was sixty-two at the time of the battle.
On the morning of the seventeenth, one of the RFR's patrols met with Prodavan troops and was forced back to the hill. Rutherford feared the worst and gave the order for the regiment to sally forward from the hill and try to push back the Prodavans that appeared to be approaching them. At 10:12 hours, he reported the first contact.
Battle
Rutherford's scouts met with the Prodavans at 10:12 hours on the seventeenth and managed to mark the Prodavan positions on a map. These positions were relayed back to the main bulk of the regiment and artillery support was brought to bear, the regiment was equipped with 12 25-pounder field howitzers from the Second Europan War and they played havoc with the badly dug-in Prodavan front line.