Stand of the Imperial Guard

Stand of the Imperial Guard
The Stand of the Imperial Guard was an action of the Imperial Guard during the War, aimed at gaining additional time for the preparation of the defensese inside the Abriel System and for the evacuation effort, carried during the Operation Phoenix. The Imperial Guard was completely destroyed during this battle, but managed to achieve it's main objective.

The departure
"-Fleet of the Imperial Guard (as daughter have expected, her mother spoke to every soldier of the fleet). I, the Kingdom's Eldest, Lamem, as the representative of the Imperial Council of the Eldest, would like to state my deep respect to all warriors. I would like to wish you all the triumphant return, but I think that every person in the fleet would have felt these words as false. Instead, I, the commander of the Palace Fort of the Kryb Dynasty, belonging to the Capital Defense Society would like to tell you this: You all know, that the enemy fleet, if left unopposed, will reach the Sord Kryb in seventy-two hours’ top. Here, in the Palace Fort, I have defensive capabilities, but the more time i will have, the better shield for the Capital i can become. I hope that I will have ninety hours. Give me these eighteen hours’ difference, and you will have my gratitude."

- Kryb Kingdom's Eldest, Lamem (mother of the Empress Ramaj), addressing fleet of the Imperial Guard before their crossing of the Sord Kryb (Banner of the Stars V novel).

The first move against the approaching enemy would be made by the Imperial Guard, led by the Empress Ramaj herself. The force consisted of eight squadrons, composed mostly from patrol ships, with a few support vessels, commanded from the Throne ship Gaftonosh, and blocking detachment, composed of six commercial transports, modified to carry the large quantities of the mobile space-time mines.

The Imperial Guard have departed with the groups of mobile fortresses, that assumed positions inside the system around the Sord Kryb, while the Guard ships crossed the Sord.

Upon crossing the Sord Kryb, the Imperial Guard observed at least 200 partial fleets in the plane-space alone, stretching to half the distance between the Sord Semburyuv and the Sord Kryb. The sight caused some vocal reactions even from the seasoned representatives of the Gaftonosh bridge personnel. The battle had to be fought in close proximity to the Sord Kryb, in order to deny the enemy the ability to simply bypass the tiny force.

Course of the battle
Approximately 34 hours later the battle has begun. The staff members onboard the Gaftonosh were monitoring the movement of the Alliance communication vessels, and, after separating the decoy ships, have reduced the number of the possible Alliance flagships candidates to three space-time bubbles. The initial salvo from all of the six transport ships of the blocking detachment was split between those three targets, according to the level of the confidence. The attack was met by the counter-mine mine assault of the Alliance, which destroyed large quantity of the mines. Vast majority of the remaining mines was intercepted by the Alliance’s escort ships, but those, that remained, being spread between only three targets, were enough to destroy one of the targets, which, however was by that moment identified as a decoy. The surviving Alliance mines claimed all transport ships and at least one patrol ship, by erasing leading space-time bubble of one of the eight squadrons of the Imperial Guard.

Immediately after firing the mines, the crews of the blocking detachment transports have abandoned their ships, and have fled to the Imperial Guard transports, stationed behind the Guard's forces. The transports have eventually successfully crossed the Sord Kryb back into the normal space. The crews were to join the Capital Defense Society for their last fight.

By that moment, the Alliance flagship was finally identified.

The Alliance had fired mine counterstrike. The Imperial Guard responded by changing formation to rectangle, formed from eight columns, with three patrol ships in each space-time bubble. Dense formation, combined with the fire from numerous batteries of the mobile laser cannons and mobile antiproton cannons, typical for the patrol ships, allowed the Guard to survive the mine counterstrike of the Alliance without losses.

The third mine strike was fired with much higher number of the mines. However, when the mines approached the Guard’s ships, they separated into the single-ship space-time bubbles, bypassing larger portion of the mines due to large increase of speed. The mines corrected their course, but more than half of them ran out of fuel, and failed the pursuit.

The Abh formed their squadrons in left and right diagonal lines. The diagonal lines formed four subsequent arrowheads around Gaftonosh and its two escorts. The Alliance fleet, that had maintained the wedge formation until now have split the tip of the wedge, and started executing dual pincer maneuver.

The Guard ships fired another mine salvo, aimed at the group of the approaching heavy destroyers. Relatively small amount of the mines in the attack have resulted in the lack of any noticeable effect, but the Alliance command had slowed the destroyers, and increased the strength of the mine attacks. This was the last mine attack, performed by the Imperial Guard. They have run out of mines.

Up until now both sides suffered very little losses. But when the squadrons of the Imperial Guard came into direct contact with the Alliance ships, the situation instantly deteriorated for the Guard. The ships, now operating mostly in single-ship bubbles were lost quickly to the large formations of the heavy destroyers, hiding inside the waves of mines. The reports about the destroyed ships turned into nearly constant stream. At one point entire squadron was lost almost instantly after it ships merged with the Alliance vessels.

Upon the contact, each of the sides of the arrowhead started to change the direction of the movement to their respective side, trying to push the enemy forces away from Gaftonosh and prolong the fight. The tactic worked to some extent, but the Alliance responded to each such attempt with constant fierce counterattacks, quickly reducing the numbers of the Guard ships.

Four battered remaining Imperial Guard squadrons have finally reached the depth of the Alliance formation. By that moment the Alliance had completed the encirclement. The Alliance had withdrawn the vulnerable battleships out of the way and the Imperial Guard found itself facing fresh squadrons of the Alliance raiders – patrol ships counterparts. The Imperial ships were no longer able to maintain any organized formation, and were now a formless mass of space-time bubbles, trying their best to get in the attack range against the Alliance flagship.

Eventually, all Guard forces were destroyed. Throughout the entire battle some crews were able to leave their dying ships (likely motivated by the desire to rejoin other defenders and increase the contribution to the defense, and not by the second thoughts about survival), but most ships were lost with all hands. The fate of those, who managed to abandon ships is unknown, but it is unlikely that even very fast communication ships were able to break away from the encirclement, once it was completed. One of the final accords of the battle was the space-time merge of the two Alliance raiders with the space-time bubble of the Gaftonosh and its single surviving escort. The escort was lost first, and the Gaftonosh fell second. The Imperial Guard was stopped 30 Imperial nautical miles away from its target.

Analysis
Facing 25 to 1 odds, the Imperial Guard ships had virtually no chance to do any meaningful, or even noticeable damage to the advancing Alliance forces. For the experienced commanders, like Ramaj and her command staff, it most likely obvious. What the Imperial Guard was really trying to win, was time, and some chaos in the enemy ranks, caused by the destruction of the flagship. The Guard’s actions didn’t do any significant damage to the Alliance forces, but made it nearly completely expend its mines, at least in the forward elements of the Alliance forces. The assault against Lakfakalle could not be started without first replenishing the expended ammunition. The Guard was asked to give the defenders additional eighteen hours to prepare. The worst-case scenario was that the Guard will give only ten. The Guard gave almost twenty-four.

If the Guard had managed to destroy the flagship, it would not have stopped the invasion, but may have reduced the ability of the Alliance forces for coordinated actions a bit.

At the first look the Alliance command can be blamed in some initial lack of determination, and it’s attempt to rely on mine assaults, instead of engaging in ship-to-ship combat as soon as possible, but on the second look it can be justified. It is possible, that the Alliance had very limited knowledge about the state of defense of Lakfakalle, and the defenders’ strength. All previous attempts to invade the Imperial Capital had been stopped by its defenders on the exit of the Sord Kryb. The Alliance have clearly displayed the attempt to preserve as many ships as possible for its attack on the Capital. It is also possible, that the Alliance had initially miscalculated the type of ships and cadre it was dealing with, not expecting the Empress herself and her elite bodyguard unit to resort to the type of the suicidal attack they had resorted to.