Operation Tesiuitl
| Operation Tesiutl | |||||||
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| Part of the Third Uhlangan Civil War | |||||||
 Explosion in the aftermath of the airstrike on the Qaleru fuel depot. | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Cuhonhico | Democratic Iqozi | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Kalala Ulwazi |
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| Units involved | |||||||
| Cuhonhicah Air Force | Iqozi Air Force | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
Total: 200 aircraft |
Thousands of flak cannons & AAA guns 55 MiG-17s 45 MiG-15s Total: 100 aircraft | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
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On 2nd February 1963, elements of the Cuhonhicah Air Force totaling over 200 aircraft launched a surprise strike against targets throughout Democratic Iqozi, beginning the Third Uhlangan Civil War. With relations having completely deteriorated between Cuhonhico and the revolutionary government of Democratic Iqozi the year prior, Cuhonhicah President Camali Chiczin ordered the immediate preparation of war plans. This was to include a massive airstrike at the onset of the invasion intended to wipe out the Iqozi Air Force while the latter was still grounded. Three air wings consisting of B-29 bombers escorted by F-84 and F-86 fighter-bombers took off from Zazisala and Niokazi airbases at just after 1:00 AM and carried out a series of strikes on most major Iqozi airstrips and military facilities in eastern Democratic Iqozi. Despite severe damage to military infrastructure and significant civilian death however only moderate destruction of Iqozi aircraft was achieved. Iqozi intelligence had received forewarning of the attack in the weeks prior by sympathetic Coyotl acting as spies in Cuhonhico and this allowed the Iqozi General Staff to relocate much of their aircraft to hardened hangers in the mountains. A secondary goal of the operation was to humiliate the Iqozi in a way that destroyed the communist government’s legitimacy while also leaving it militarily impotent, though the Cuhonhicah failure in this goal instead galvanized support behind the Ulwazists during the early period of the war.
Background
Cuhonhicah plans for the conquest of Iqozi date back to the early colonial period. As early as 1800, advocates for a “western expansion” cited Iqozi’s much more favorable farmland and its bountiful supply of ivory, which at the time was a major source of income for the newly established colony. The expansionists further argued that the existence of an independent native polity on its doorstep constituted a threat to the Angatahuacan dominance broadly and the planter class directly, as its existence provided a constant alternative to life under colonial subjugation. As the colonial apparatus in Cuhonhico matured into chattel slavery and the racial caste system, fears of an apocalyptic slave uprising aided by the “savages beyond the river” only increased. By the time of independence in 1900 this paranoia became a fixation of culture and government policy alike, with considerable state resources expended on keeping Cuhonhico’s komontu population sedentary and illiterate. These fears came to a head during the First Uhlangan Civil War, at the time known as the Impfondo Crisis, in which komontu menial laborers and slaves launched an uprising along the far western border aided by Iqozi. The Olochtist Party, an invictist Angatahuacan political group which sought a violent war of conquest against the kingdom and a reestablishment of the Heron Empire, came to increasingly dominate Cuhonhicah politics.
The Second Uhlangan Civil War brought a renewed sense of urgency to these efforts, with newly appointed President-for-life Camali Chiczin quickly beginning a program of military and industrial buildup which saw the armed forces balloon to more than 300,000 personnel. The army received more than 1000 new M60 tanks purchased from Belfras during the leadup to the Third Uhlangan Civil War, while the air force was outfitted with more than 1000 new aircraft, including XX fighter-bombers, the first of the Cuhonhicah air fleet to possess jet engines. This gave Chiczin and his general staff supreme confidence in their ability to rapidly overwhelm Iqozi air defences in the opening hours of the war, prompting the initial development of plans for a massive bombing operation. Simultaneously Cuhonhicah pilots had been receiving extensive flight hours over Iqozi since 1956, both engaging in strikes targeted on Ulwazist political infrastructure as well as strategic bombing of rural areas. This further galvanized Olochtist confidence in the success of a swift air campaign as it was assumed that most enemy aircraft and the infrastructure to maintain them had already been destroyed. Operation Tesiutl was thus conceived of as the killing stroke which would leave Iqozi skies totally dominated by the CAF.
The operation was to split the assembled air wings into two groups: Group A was to wipe out airstrips and storage facilities in and around Qaleru, KaNkulunkulu, and ʘa-ha⁄/‘a. Group B was to strike similar targets in Mpongondundu, Mokamla, Chebala and Tufibwala. Aircraft were planned to take off from their hangars in staggered formation so as to ensure every fighter and bomber in the fleet would strike at roughly the same time. This would coincide with two of the CAF’s routine terror bombing runs so as to disguise the intent and scope of the operation, delaying the deployment of Iqozi air assets and causing more to be destroyed while still on the ground. Secondary targets were to include key civilian and military infrastructure like power plants, rail stations and fuel depots which would throw the indigenous population into disarray and further stifle the Iqozi military’s response to the assault.
Operation
At 1:00 AM on 2nd February 1963, just over 200 Cuhonhicah aircraft took off from air bases around Zazisala and Niokazi, intending to conduct one of the largest airstrikes of the war. Organization of air sorties for the campaign however were confused with many squadron commanders not receiving targeting orders until the night prior to the attack. Ten hours before commencement three additional targets were added to iNyangani, meaning that squadrons from Group A would be forced to then go around the city to fly northwest towards the new targets, exposing themselves to the aging but extensive Iqozi air defenses. However, there was insufficient time to either commit additional air wings or change plans, either of which would have required President Chiczin’s direct orders. As a result close coordination across the assembled forces suffered and squadrons were not able to properly synchronize their bombing runs. Furthermore, unseasonably bad weather caused the breakup of formations in the air, with some aircraft becoming so far off track that they were ordered back to base. All this meant that rather than every target being hit nearly all at once, they were struck over the course of an hour in piecemeal formation, allowing the Iqozi ample opportunity to negate much of the operation’s effects.
The first aircraft to reach their intended targets were the 22nd squadron of Group A, consisting of 101 fighter-bombers and 25 heavy bombers, which began bombing two air bases around ʘa-ha⁄/‘a. They caused some amount of cratering to the runways and partially collapsed a hangar storing old turboprop aircraft the royal government had purchased two decades previously, but were forced to turn back to avoid being shot down soon after by Iqozi fighters stationed at a hidden airstrip nearby. Within the next ten minutes other Cuhonhicah squadrons reached their targets throughout Iqozi, achieving similar results. By 1:30 AM only a little over a half of all assigned air assets had struck their targets, with the rest slowly trickling in by 1:45 AM and finally striking the capital around 1:52 AM. Much more extensive damage however had been done to civilian housing in these areas. One squadron, forced to abandon target owing to greater-than-expected coverage by flak cannons on the ground, released cluster munition payloads onto a slum around Qaleru that set fire to more than 70% of the area. Others struck several power stations resulting in rolling outages and a fuel depot.
By around 1:52 AM the squadrons assigned secondary targets in iNyangani had reassembled and began approaching the capital. Initially they had intended to strike an airport and accompanying radar tower. They had started engaging enemy AA batteries initially from maximum range, however owing to poor decisions of the responsible flight commander as well as bad weather, low fuel and munitions, not all made it to the capital, and fewer still made it all the way to their targets. The aircraft chosen for this strike mission, F-86s with newer model engines chosen for their greater performance, as well as upgraded F-84s escorting B-29 heavy bombers, came under extreme AA fire on the approach owing to the Iqozi having already been alerted to the operation. Five such bombers dropped payloads onto Qalaru’s airport and air force command barracks, causing moderate cratering to the runway and killing nine people. While these aircraft were still making their final approach to the radar tower however many of the F-84s ran low on fuel and departed, leaving the remaining air wing much more vulnerable. AA fire was thick enough to shoot down five fighters and a bomber, ultimately seeing the strike called off prematurely to avoid further damage.
Aftermath
Despite causing extensive damage to multiple urban areas and killing tens of thousands of people, Operation Tesiutl failed to achieve its objective of wiping out the Iqozi air force while the latter was still on the ground. Owing to information leaks spoiling the approximate date of the oncoming attack, the revolutionary Iqozi government was able to relocate their most critical air assets to protective bunkers and underground hangars either unknown to the Cuhonhicah or outside of easy strike range. Similarly, the Iqozi were able to quickly scramble air assets to frustrate the operation at its onset, greatly limiting the overly ambitious number of targets able to be struck. Cuhonhico had severely underestimated the new Iqozi government’s ability to defend itself and as a result greatly watered down the effectiveness of each individual sortie. Damage done to air infrastructure amounted to a few partially destroyed hangars and cratering on runways fully repaired within twelve hours. The attack furthermore cemented the credibility of reports detailing an oncoming invasion and allowed the Iqozi General Staff time to warn lower units to mobilize.
At 4: AM just a couple hours later, more than 250,000 Cuhonhicah troops would invade Iqozi across the entire length of its border as part of Operation Nāhui-Olīn. This operation, of which Tesiutl was a constituent part, was the effort to forcibly conquer and annex Iqozi by Cuhonhico. By failing to destroy the Iqozi air force, Cuhonhicah ground forces were subjected to bombardment and infrastructure critical to crossing the Uhlanga river, such as bridges and river port facilities on both sides of the border, were heavily bombed. This retaliatory air operation by the Iqozi greatly slowed down the initial stages of Operation Nāhui-Olīn, which in turn had planned to wrap up the initial invasion before the first rainy season kicked in. Eastern Iqozi was dominated by the Matobe basin and the Nyeleti rainforest which made a full scale mechanized invasion through that half of the country very difficult and dependent on infrastructure the Iqozi were able to successfully destroy. Similarly, a large dam was badly damaged in far western Cuhonhico east of the Uhlanga river, which partially flooded one of the operational staging points in the east.