Rise of The Terran Alliance- Crosspost

Chapter 16- Battle of Volgograd

Chapter 16- Battle of Volgograd

A proton bomb falls only a hundred yards away. The explosion sends fragments flying down the street. At his position, Captain Stasevich of the ASAT team ducks to avoid shrapnel.

As he gets back up, Stasevich looks down the street and sees ranks of B1 battle droids marching into the street. His face hardens, and a second later, the green blade of his lightsaber springs to life.

"Charge!" he bellows, and he charges down the street, firing a blaster pistol with his free hand as he holds his lightsaber tight in the other. Behind him, 50 Soviet troops charge with him, bellowing war cries as they fire into the ranks of the battle droids.

Stasevich reaches the battle droids and lunges into them, cutting one down with his lightsaber. He then twirls and cuts down two more with a single stroke before continuing his rage, cutting down any battle droid in range. His men are right behind him, firing into the ranks of the battle droids, and continuing their fire as some of their number are hit by blaster bolts. At the same time, across Volgrograd, other similar sized units fight back against the droids with everything they've got.

The Battle of Volgograd has already lasted an entire day. A total of 280,000 battle droids and 2,700 heavy droid units had landed about 40 miles from Volgograd.

The droid armies had conducted recon flights of the territory, as they had at their other landing sites. They had quickly discovered that Volgograd was heavily defended, with 100,000 Soviet troops and 5,000 tanks and artillery pieces defending the city. In order to soften up the city, the Separatists had launched a massive attack by 200 Vulture droids and 400 Hyena bombers against the city.

Unfortunately, a large portion of the Soviet Air Force's interceptors had been destroyed before the landings had even begun. Much of the task of trying to defend Volgograd against the massive air strike fell to surface to air missile sites. However, a number were destroyed while trying to engage the incoming droid fighters and bombers.

The Soviet SAM sites were able to bring down about 60 Vultures and 50 Hyenas. However, many of them were destroyed by attacking Vultures while the remaining Vultures and Hyenas attacked the city. Many Hyenas attempted bombing attack specifically against Soviet troop positions, but a number just carried out indiscriminate bombing attacks against random spots in the city. Vultures also conducted strafing attacks with their laser cannons and firing torpedoes.

The result had seen almost a quarter of the Soviet troops killed or wounded, a third of their tanks and artillery destroyed, and almost 30,000 civilians killed or wounded, and heavy damage to Volgograd itself. Further air strikes had caused far less casualties to the defending army, but had also caused about 40,000 more casualties among the civilians, and had destroyed or extensively damaged about a quarter of the city.

The ground battle had started about 4 hours after the first airstrikes. At first, the Soviet troops had resisted well, and prevented any advance by the droids into the city. This was in part due to close air support strikes from the Soviet Air Force. However, a few hours after the start of the ground battle, the Separatists had launched air strikes on the closer Soviet airfields, destroying a large number of the aircraft the had been providing close air support for the Soviets.

With much less close air support, the Soviets now found themselves at even more of a disadvantage. The strikes against the airfields also destroyed most of the fighters that had been working to keep droid fighters and bombers away from the Soviet ground forces. With those fighters greatly depleted, the Soviet troops again found themselves under attack by droid fighters and bombers.

Now, 20 hours after the ground battle began, the Soviets are in a dire situation. Despite bringing the droid army down to about 210,000 battle droids and 2,000 heavy droid units, only 54,000 troops are still able to fight, and only about 1,500 tanks and artillery pieces are still intact. Worse than that, the Separatists have landed 80,000 more droids and 500 heavy droid units. Reinforcements are on their way, but the situation in Volgograd is dire. Soviet commanders are beginning to fear this could end up turning into a repeat of the Battle of Stalingrad fought in this city almost 50 years prior.