15 km off the coast of Lendam
Operation 'Tsunami' flagship, Battleship 'La Centauri'
4.00 a.m.
At 3 a.m., Admiral Hiriem was already on the bridge of 'La Centauri' with his tactical officers. They once again checked the readiness to conduct amphibious operations while waiting for the results of both the assault on the Leifor-Mu Empire border and the assault using paratroopers on strategic points around Lendam.
They were currently taking a short break while drinking coffee to relieve fatigue and drowsiness.
"It seems that all our preparations are ready, huh?" said Admiral Hiriem.
"Admiral, all preparations on our side are ready. We are at -30 minutes to launch the attack. We are just waiting for the results of the other parts of Operation 'Tsunami." Major Sabas, Admiral Hiriem's chief tactician, spoke.
"Our aircraft are also ready to take off from their carriers." Said the XO of 'La Centuri'
"Good, hopefully the other elements will do well. Is there any initial news of the attack elements?" asked Admiral Hiriem.
"Lastly, we have reports that the assault on the Leifor-MMu Empire border has begun with artillery and aerial bombardment." Additionally, all strategic targets in northern Leifor have been subject to bombing. We don't know the results of the attack with the paratroopers yet because they have strict radio silence." Said the XO of 'La Century'.
"Then what are results?" asked Admiral Hiriem.
"It seems that the enemy was surprised that we started the attack so early in the morning. There was no significant resistance to the ground assault on the Leifor-Mu Empire border. Also, of course, no Gra Valkas aircraft intercepted our bombers," said the XO.
"I can imagine their surprise. According to their technology level, they are still not very capable of night combat," said a tactition.
"Right, we are doing this to be able to gain the initiative in our battle this time," said Admiral Hiriem.
"According to the schedule, we will get a go/no go signal in 15-20 minutes, according to the news of the attacks," said Major Sabas.
"Good. Keep me posted for all updates," said Admiral Hiriem. "Let's review our preparations and plans."
"Yes, admiral," replied Major Sabas.
They went back to discussing the preparations for the attack that morning.
---oOo---
Trant City, 15 km from the coast of Lendam
3.00 a.m.
Trant Town is a small town inhabited by about 500 people. In addition, there was a guard post of Gra Valkas that contained about 30 soldiers. If the Mu Empire troops attacked Lendam and began to enter Leifor's interior, they were in charge of holding and reporting. All of their heavy weaponry, in the form of heavy machine guns and several small calibre cannons, was directed towards the coast. Similarly, almost all of the soldiers were manned by those weapons. There were only 4 people, divided into 2 teams, patrolling around Trent.
Although it was still early in the morning, half of the Gra Valkas soldiers were already manning their heavy weapons. This was due to the anticipation of the Mu Empire's impending attack. The other half of the soldiers were resting, some were sleeping, but they were not far from the heavy weapons, and they were resting with their rifles ready to fire.
Suddenly, there was the sound of many aeroplanes passing over the sky. However, the sky was so dark that it was impossible to see the planes. The sound of the aeroplane was only heard for about 5 minutes and then disappeared again.
"Hmm, it seems that Mu Empre has begun its attack. I don't know where they attacked," said a soldier to his friend.
"Yeah, it's a good thing it's not here. We would have a hard time defending ourselves," said his friend.
"Take it easy, this is just a small town, they won't waste their bullets attacking this town. Moreover, it's still dark, we didn't turn on the lights at all, they won't know our position. They will definitely only attack by land." said a lieutenant, their leader.
"Hopefully so, we will have trouble if they attack by air, but if they attack by land, we can still escape as planned," said the first soldier.
The soldiers returned to their vigil in the morning darkness.
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3 kilometres north of Trant city
5 minutes later.
In the darkness of the night, there were hundreds of parachutes lowering the Mu Empire paratroopers and their various war equipment over a meadow located outside the city of Trant. The troops had previously conducted several military operations, so they were very experienced in conducting surprise military operations in enemy areas. It took only 20 minutes for them to pack up their parachutes, jog to the assembly point, and open their crates of heavy military equipment such as mortars, heavy machine guns, and others. They are not armed with light cannons because speed is the essence. Once they took control of the city of Trant, additional equipment and personnel, including cannons, would reinforce them by air.
The Mu Empire deployed 300 troops, divided into 5 companies, to take control of the city of Trant. The Mu Empire troops immediately walked towards the city of Trant, quickly but still stealthily. It took them almost an hour to reach the outskirts of Trant. The Myto Empire's satellite photos and the reconnaissance aircraft's photos from the day before had already provided them with information. Therefore, they already knew the positions of Gra Valkas' troops.
They secretly entered the city of Trant and began to approach the positions of the Gra Valkas forces, which were in the opposite direction of their landing.
"It seems that the Gra Valkas troops did not detect our presence," said lieutenant colonel Myka, the commander of the troops attacking the city of Trant. "Are there other Gra Valkas troops in other places?"
"We detected two groups of Gra Valkas troops, two each, patrolling the city of Trant. We deliberately avoided them, but there was a platoon shadowing them. We can eliminate them right before we attack the Gra Valkas troops in front of us," said a lieutenant behind him who was with a soldier carrying a radio to coordinate the Mu Empire troops.
"Alright, start the attack! We have to finish our work within half an hour!" ordered Lieutenant Colonel Myka.
The lieutenant immediately gave the order to attack.
With that command, the two groups of Gra Valkas troops on patrol were quickly attacked with pistols with silencers so as not to make much noise. The Mu Empire troops' gunfire killed them before they understood that they were under attack.
The mortar-carrying Mu Empire troops, who had deployed their mortars, immediately fired mortars at the Gra Valkas troops. Only when the mortar shells rained down on them did the Gra Valkas troops realise they were under attack. Half of the troops were dead before they could react at all. The Mu Empire's second mortar salvo arrived, accompanied by a long barrage of heavy machine guns, killing the remaining troops. Also, the resting Gra Valkas troops were killed without even waking up.
It only took 10 minutes for the Mu Empire troops to take control of the city of Trant. While waiting for their cannons to be deployed in Trant, they immediately repaired the Gra Valkas' cannons and placed them in other positions to defend the city.
The same thing happened to all of the Mu Empire's paratrooper assault targets. There were 15 places that were attacked, the fastest they could take control of the target was under 5 minutes, and the longest was 20 minutes. Some locations successfully relayed the news of the Mu Empire's attack to the Gra Valkas leadership in Leiforia. This caused panic in Leifor's leadership of the Gra Valkas forces.
---oOo---
Leifor, 20 km from the border of the Leifor-Mu Empire
3.30 a.m.
Since 2 o'clock, a large number of tanks and armoured cars belonging to the Mu Empire have crossed the border and entered the Laifor region, reaching the staging points that have been prepared to join the Mu Empire's existing combat vehicles. Likewise, trucks carrying nearly 100,000 Mu Empire troops that had been partially standing guard behind the border had also moved towards the staging points, joining the nearly 150,000 troops that had long been fighting against the Gra Valkas troops stuck around the border.
At 3.30 a.m., the Mu Empire attack began with a hail of heavy artillery shells from the Mu Empire troops, as well as airstrikes from Mu Empire bombers to all points of the Gra Valkas troops. This caused the Gra Valkas troops to be pinned down, unable to move, moreover, they were in a condition where they were not ready to fight because they thought the time was still too early for the Mu Empire to attack.
In the midst of the two-way attack, the Mu Empire's armored vehicles moved quickly towards the positions of the Gra Valkas troops. Behind them, the infantry troops of the Mu Empire also followed using various vehicles. They stormed the positions of the Gra Valkas forces under the protection of artillery bombardment and the Mu Empire's FFAR and Marin aircraft bombs. The attack was, of course, spearheaded by the Mu Empire's tanks and armoured vehicles. The Gra Valkas troops became disorganized due to the machine gun barrage from the Mu Empire's fighting vehicles, intermittently interrupted by cannon fire from Ta-1 tanks. This was exacerbated by the attack of the Mu Empire infantry troops behind the combat vehicle troops. The Mu Empire infantry picked up individual Gra Valkas troops who were fleeing. The Mu Empire troops swiftly advanced towards the Gra Valkas-controlled area.
The number of Mu Empire troops attacking the Gra Valkas positions outnumbered the Gra Valkas troops, moreover, the Gra Valkas troops had almost no combat vehicles, causing the battle to be very one-sided. In just a few hours, the Mu Empire troops' superior quantity and quality caused many of the Gra Valkas troops' positions to collapse, leading the Gra Valkas troops to retreat and find themselves increasingly squeezed from all sides.
The Gra Valkas army retreated, leaving behind many of its military materials. On that day alone, the Mu Empire's attack managed to enter more than 20 kilometres into Gra Valkas's territory, making Gra Valkas's territory even narrower. A number of Gra Valkas troops also surrendered when their position was no longer defensible. The Gra Valkas' casualties far exceeded those on the Mu Empire's side. The casualty ratio was already more than 1:20 in favour of the Mu Empire.
In the end, the Gra Valkas troops became much more squeezed, and within a few days, almost all the Gra Valkas troops trapped in the encirclement surrendered to the Mu Empire.
More and more Mu Empire troops then entered directly into the interior of Leifor to control more areas controlled by Gra Valkas, especially the coastal area between the Leifor-Mu Empire border and Leiforia. They were attempting to link up with the troops that had arrived on the Lendam coast.
---oOo---
Lendam Beach
Operation 'Tsunami' flagship, Battleship 'La Centauri'
4.20 a.m.
"Admiral, we've received word that all the assaults behind enemy lines have been completed, and all targets have been captured. Likewise, the battle at the Leifor-Mu Empire border is already underway, and our troops are successfully suppressing the Gra Valkas forces that are still defending the border." Major Sabas said.
"It seems that our time has come. Order our fighters to take to the air and begin the assault! All ships will conduct shore bombardments before our fighters attack! Alternate the attack between our ships and our fighters!" ordered Admiral Hiriem.
"Yes, admiral. I will relay your orders. Battlestation! All command, battlestation!" the XO ordered.
Battlestation alarms began to ring out among the Mu Empire ships.
Aboard the Mu Empire's carriers, one bomber after another began to take off, and after circling above the carriers, they waited for all the bombers that took off to join them. They would only attack when the fighter formation, consisting of bombers and fighters, had finished taking off.
On the other hand, the cannons began to move on the Mu Empire's warships, from lowly destroyers to battleships, in order to adjust their course to the predetermined target on Lendam Beach. Soon, a thunderous roar could be heard as the cannons began to spew their fire towards Lendam Beach. The Lendam beach seemed to be covered by the explosions produced by the cannon fire of the Mu Empire's battle ships. The explosions caused all the traps laid by Gra Valkas' side to make the landing on the beach difficult is destroyed. Not only on the coast, the Mu Empire's fighter ships' fire slowly moved inland from the Lendam coast. The few Gra Valkas troops who had gathered to observe the Mu Empire troops were forced to retreat, and some fell victim to the Mu Empire's shore bombardment.
Additionally, the Mu Empire's troop-carrying ships started lowering the landing ships from their decks. The ships extended rope ladders from their decks, allowing the Mu Empire soldiers to descend through them and onto the landing ships. On some of the landing ships, cranes lowered Mu Empire combat vehicles. The LST ships began to steer themselves towards the coast, but they were still waiting for the end of the bombardment and assault on the Lendam coast.
After about a quarter of an hour, the explosions from the shore bombardment from the combat ships disappeared, replaced by explosions from the bombs and FFARs of the Mu Empire's bombers. They didn't just attack around the coast, they attacked deep into the interior of Lendam, almost 100 kilometres away from the shore. The thunderous roar from the Mu Empire fighter ships' cannons echoed again as the planes advanced towards the interior of the Leifor, accompanied by the movement of landing ships and LSTs heading towards the coast.
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Lendam Beach
05.00 a.m.
Lendam Beach, which was devastated by various gunfires, is now relatively quiet. The shore bombardment explosions appeared to be taking place far inland. But as they approached the shore, the roar of the Mu Empire's ships replaced the quiet.
The LST ships were at the forefront of the attack, and their canons (40mm and 20mm) began firing at the shore. Not only that, the projector rockets owned by the LST ships began to bombard the beach around the LST's position. Amidst the barrage of gunfire, the LSTs eventually arrived at the shore. They deployed a ramp from the stern end of the ship, from which the Mu Empire's various combat vehicles descended. The infantry soldiers came down through a special ramp that was also lowered from the left and right sides of the ship, in addition to using rope ladders.
Only then did the Mu Empire landing ships arrive and take out so much infantry and a few light war vehicles. Soon, the landing ships returned to the Mu Empire ships to pick up more troops to bring to Landam's shores.
In less than an hour, the Mu Empire troops were able to secure the beach on Lendam Beach without any return fire from Gra Valkas' side. The transport ships began to approach the coast, and the closer distance meant that the landing ships were able to unload the Mu Empire troops faster. The Mu Empire's various freighters carried various heavy combat equipment, prompting some ships to construct a makeshift harbor for unloading.
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Lendam Beach
Operation 'Tsunami' flagship, Battleship 'La Centauri'
06.00 am
"Admiral, our forces have successfully secured Lendam Beach. For the time being, there are no casualties on our side, only injuries caused by accidents that occurred during the attack." Major Sabas said.
"Good, very good. Are our troops ready to attack inland?" asked Admiral Hiriem.
"Reports from the coast are that the shock troops are ready with their combat vehicles to enter the towns that we have captured," said Major Sabas.
"Does that not reduce the security of the Lendam coast? How many of our troops have we managed to bring down?" asked Admiral Hiriem.
"According to reports, we have managed to bring down almost 30,000 troops. Our shock troops number 10,000. We still have 20,000 men, and that should be enough to secure the beachead. In addition, the ships are still deploying troops. It is estimated that by the time our shock troops move, we will already have 25,000 troops on Lendam Beach." Major Sabas said this while reading the report he had.
"Very good. Begin the attack. As soon as our troops reach 50,000 men, begin the expansion of overall territorial control!" ordered Admiral Hiriem.
"Yes, admiral!" replied Major Sabas.
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Lendam Beach
06.15 am.
A number of Mu Empire troops, along with their combat vehicles in the form of Ta-1 tanks, IF-1 infantry fighting vehicles, K-1 armoured cars, and a large number of trucks, had gathered, and everyone had boarded their respective vehicles. They would link up with the troops that had taken control of many cities and strategic points around Lendam while attempting to take control of the areas they passed through. Through the corridors they created, the next attack could be made to take control of more territory in Leifor.
It appeared that a number of officers were gathering for a departure preparation meeting.
"Gentlemen, I emphasise again the importance of time to reach your targets. We must try to cut the enemy's defence line and also relieve our isolated paratroopers." A general said this to the men, 14 of whom were all colonels.
The colonels were in charge of the armoured battallion, preparing to launch an assault towards the cities or strategic locations under the paratroopers' control just a few hours earlier.
"Until now, the enemy has not appeared. I think this is a milk run. The most important thing here is how to secure the corridor we have created so that the enemy is not flanking us." A colonel said.
"Don't worry, within 2 hours we have enough troops to secure those corridors. You concentrate on penetrating the enemy forces if there are any and reaching your target as soon as possible." the general said.
"Do we still have air force support?" asked the other colonel.
"Of course, the air force has dispatched a number of Marin fighters to protect you. Also, our carrier planes are on call if needed. We currently have complete control of Leifor airspace." The general said.
At that, the colonels whispered to each other about air support, which naturally made their task much easier.
"Have the supply convoys, especially the fuel, been prepared?" asked another colonel.
"We are currently unloading the supply vehicles as well as the fuel tankers. I think in about two hours we will dispatch the first convoy of mainly fuel to you and the infantry to secure the corridor," said the general.
All the colonels nodded happily.
"Alright, is there anything else to ask? Time is of the essence," said the general.
"Nothing, general." The colonels said it in unison.
"Than lets go!" said the general.
Everyone immediately split up, and the colonels left for their respective commands.
Following the conclusion of the departure ceremony, the troops commenced their journey towards their designated objectives. They formed eight corridors as they advanced towards their respective objectives, which would serve as launch points for the next attack on Gra Valkas' territory.
It only took them less than 2 hours to reach their objective points. This was because there was almost no resistance from the Gra Valkas. The Gra Valkas troops withdrew to the secondary defence line once they became aware of the Mu Empire's imminent attack. However, the Gra Valkas troops' retreat was not smooth, as the Mu Empire's aircraft, from both the 'Tsunami' operation fleet and the captured Gra Valkas-owned airfields, consistently attacked them. It could even be said that only a few of the Gra Valkas troops managed to reach the secondary defence line, many were killed, and some were just dissipated, going somewhere to save themselves. It took a long time for them to reach the secondary defence line. The Mu Empire's forces captured or surrendered some of them.
The Mu Empire's airstrikes also targeted the Gra Valkas' secondary defence line. As a result, the morale of the Gra Valkas troops plummeted, in addition to the heavy casualties. Because they did not have fighters that could challenge the Mu Empire's warplanes, Gra Valkas could not do anything. Even the Mu Empire could use their ancient Marin as a light attack aircraft, allowing the Mu Empire bombers to concentrate their attacks on more valuable targets.
All of these sudden and sustained attacks, at all points, caused the leaders of the Gra Valkas forces in Leifor to panic. Moreover, they could not count on any help from Ragna.