ARMD would eventually participate in all but one wave of the invasion of the Taurian Concordat.
Wave One 2575
This involved the simultaneous invasions of multiple Taurian systems.
The naval forces of ARMD participated in the fleet battles around many of the TC worlds in support of the main SLDF fleets.
Wave One Ridgebrook
I Corps was tasked with the initial invasion of Ridgebrook. Defended by the over strength 2nd and 15th Taurian Fortress Battalions the primary strategic target was the city of Massif. The city contained the starport, major planetary sea ports and the seat of government; it was the economic and political centre of the planet. Massif was overlooked by two enormous granite mountains ranges which sloped down to the sea surrounding the ports. The 2nd and 15th under Taurian Major Dan Roelink, had spent months fortifying the mountains, turning them into a warren of self-supporting defended caves and strong points.
The TC Battalions contained a full complement of mech companies each, as well as attached artillery units and anti-mech infantry/ armor. The City sat between the mountains like the center of an hour glass with the sea to the north.
The plan was for the SLDF forces to attack through the gap and spread out to take the city and starport, unfortunately for the SLDF the mountain fortresses had been specifically designed to be mutually supporting. The initial attack found the TH units funnelled into a killing ground swept by the fire of hidden assault mechs, artillery and AT guns. The initial 1 Corps attack was cut to pieces for next to no loss on the Taurian side. Aerospace attacks were ineffective as the defensive units were well covered and designed to allow the guns to move from place to place within the defensive line.
After pulling back from the initial attack, the commander of 1 corps decided that the two mountain ranges would have to be taken along a broad front. ARMD was assigned to the left flank of the attack, known as "Blue Beach" while the right flank was called "Red Beach". This would be the first time ARMD was fully deployed since the rebuild in 2500.
1 Corps command believed that although the initial resistance was fierce, the Taurians would not have the tenacity or the supplies to continue providing any sort of resistance against a concerted push of the entire 1 Corps. They were wrong.
ARMD descended into hell. Every defile, every cave, every hill, every ravine, every rocky outcrop was defended with absolute fanaticism. The SLDF forces would push forward to take an objective during the day and leaving forward troops to hold the gained ground, they would retreat to holding camps at night. The next day the advancing forces would be forced into another bloody slugging match. This went on week after week for the next several months.
At night the attacks would not cease, artillery would continuously rain down along the front lines, everything, from a 400mm field piece nicknamed by the ARMD troops "The Whispering Death, as the sound of the shell travelling, continued after the shell had arrived, to mortars, LRMs, machine guns, tank weapons, everything that the Taurian troops could fire, was aimed at the ARMD entrenchments.
Captured ARMED troops would be nailed to poles and lifted onto ridges where they were in full view of their comrades. Electric shocks would be administered to them to cause them to scream. Eventually, the practice stopped when ARMD troops took to shooting their comrades as soon as they were lifted to the view of the front lines in order to put them out of their misery. Once they started silencing their own brothers, ARMD started finding their comrades already dead, strung up, attached to walls with barbed wire, with their bodies badly mutilated.
Civilians would infiltrate from the city carrying explosive charges and grenades. Human wave attacks came in all along the line, civilians would charge into the defensive lines with only the front wave carrying weapons. As the first waves were cut down the next waves would pick up the weapons and continue the attack. On one occasion the 2/13th Infantry fought off an attack at night which was noted for its particular tenacity. As the sun rose the next morning, the 2/13 realized with horror, that in front of their lines lay the mutilated bodies of Star Scouts, teenagers from the age of 10- 15 lay in their hundreds in front of the lines.
Day by day, week by week ARMD pushed into the Taurian defensive lines with casualties mounting. After 2 months the 1/39th finally crested the last ridge of Blue Beach and looked down on the city of Massif. They were soon to learn that the battle was far from over. For 6 more weeks, 1 Corps would slug it out with the defenders trying to take the city. In one horrific incident during an attack on the financial sector, babies were thrown from high rises with grenades tucked into their blankets to land on top of the advancing infantry, their mothers followed from the tops of the high rises clutching bundles of high explosives.
Civilians would rush out from basements and jump onto the legs of advancing mechs, using high explosive to blow out their ankles. Snipers were everywhere, mechs embedded themselves into high rise buildings, firing at point blank range, tanks would emerge hidden from basements, grandmothers would open fire with automatic weapons as infantry passed them by.
It became common to fire on anything that moved, "kill them all" became the by-line of the 1st Corps. The battle of Ridgebrook demonstrated the high price that the Star League forces would pay for the conquest of the Taurian Concordat.
Historical estimates of the casualty rate of the 2 million civilian population of Massif run to as high as 80%. The City was decimated and was still not functional by the time ARMD returned to New Rhodes III in 2598.
Wave One Wrentham
1 Corps was hurriedly moved on from Ridgebrook to Wrentham after the initial invasion went quickly wrong. Wrentham was a hostile world where the population lived in vast underground caverns. The 7th and 12th SLDF Regulars had suffered enormous casualties in the cavern to cavern fighting and attempt to take the dome cities. With its previous experience on Ridgebrook still fresh in the brutalized minds of the Division, they hit Wrentham with savage force. Domes were blown, poison gas was used to flush out strong points in the caverns and tunnels.
By the time 1 Corps declared Wrentham secure, the planet was almost completely depopulated. 1 Corps spent the next couple of years on Wrentham building itself back up from the horrendous casualties suffered in the first wave. News filtered in of defeats and victories across the periphery. One thing was very clear, the Taurian Concordat was putting up the fiercest fight of all of the Periphery states and this was a new kind of war. TC news media called it a "war to the knife" no quarter given or taken.
This was going to be a long and bloody campaign.
Wave Two 2580
ARMD was loaned to IV Corps for their attack on the Pleiades cluster.
Several units of IV Corps had yet to participate in the fighting, the veteran ARMD unit commanders attempted to instruct them in the nature of the enemy that they faced, but in most cases, the well-earned experience was ignored.
ARMD dropped with the 18th Light Horse on Lothair, the open rolling plains of the planet suiting the highly mobile style of both of the Divisions perfectly. Assigned to provide heavy support to the 18th, ARMD participated in the battles of Areaither and Playtime where the highly mobile but light forces of the SLDF ran headlong into the 19th and 50th Taurian Concordat Republic Marines. The Marines refused to be drawn out of their well-defended positions and after taking control of 80% of the planet with no real resistance, ARMD and the 18th were required to assault the Marine positions. The battles were short but brutal. The 3/1 Assault Mech Regiment "The Maori"was utterly destroyed when they were drawn into a cleverly concealed killing field, the 3/3 Otago Infantry ceased to exist when fuel tanks concealed beneath the defensive position they had just taken were ignited, exploding with a force equivalent to a tactical nuclear weapon.
Once again civilians were in the forefront of the fight, with civilian killed and wounded running into the millions. By this point, the 18th and ARMD had simply stopped taking prisoners. Anything mobile in front of their guns was shot until it stopped moving and then shot again as it was approached.
It was outside the city of Playtime that the incident known within ARMD as "The Clearance" occurred. 1st and 2nd Companies "Port Hedland" Chindit Brigade were ordered to clear the civilians out of a small town called Pynt. Initially, the clearance went well with the civilians obeying orders peacefully. Towards the end of the day, there were about 6000 civilian men women and children ready to be picked up by transport to take them to an SLDF designated safe zone. It is believed that a small team of Taurian Militants had worked their way through the crowd and opened fire on the Chindit guards. The Chindits fired back directly into the crowd which panicked and surged towards the ARMD infantry. Several ARMD weapons were captured and turned on their former owners. The increasing sound of firing drew more and more Chindits into the fighting when the firing stopped nearly 2000 civilians were dead.
The Cameron stars on the ARMD banners and flashes made them easily identifiable by their enemies as they were the only unit on the Taurian front authorized to display the star. The terrible reputation that was beginning to be built by the ARMD units begins to spread quickly. The Taurian Concordat media refer to the division disparagingly as the "Cameron Monsters"
Wave Three 2581
Wave three witnessed the two largest naval engagements of the Reunification War. In total, the Star League navy lost around 50 vessels ships (~33%), but the remainder of the Taurian navy (~100 ships) was either destroyed or forced to return home for repairs. The remnants of the Taurian navy required three years to recover from the third wave.
1 Corps and ARMD landed on the planet Flintoft. Resistance was light with the only significant combat coming when the landing force was attacked by conventional aircraft. The industrial centers of Flintoft were rendered useless to the Star League, the entire planet had been demolished when it became clear that they were next on the SLDF invasion list.
Wave Four 2582
During the fourth wave, the SLDF conquered Horsham with very little collateral damage, while the recently created XI Corps took Bromhead and Rollis. Wave Four was initiated while ARMD was still in the process of pacifying Flintoft and they took no part in the attack.
Case Black
Displeased with the lack of progress in the Hyades Cluster, and appalled by the number of casualties, the SLDF High Command recalled IV and VI Corps and replaced General Wexworth with General Amalthia Kincaid. Gravely injured early in her career, Kincaid was an "armchair MechWarrior" with strong strategic skills and had demonstrated her competence with a successful completion of wave four in 2582.
In response, Taurian Defense Command commenced "Case Black", a two-pronged strategy to stop the SLDF. The remnants of the Taurian navy engaged the Third Star League Fleet under Admiral Kristopher Minn. Drawing the fleet as far as Cohagen, Taurian commandos then infiltrated League-occupied space, and assassinated General Kincaid on the planet Firgrove on 3 June 2583. With General Kincaid dead, the SLDF floundered for more than a year before recommencing the Taurian invasion.
Total War
Kincaid was eventually replaced by General Amos Forlough, a veteran of the ongoing war with the Outworlds Alliance. Forlough was unscrupulous, resolving to extend the scorched-earth campaign against the Concordat. However, he failed to inform his superiors of his tactics (or, for that matter, any losses and atrocities committed by his forces). Discipline and defection became significant problems under the leadership of General Forlough; the SLDF instituted severe corporal punishment for any infractions committed, these infractions included important things like being drunk on duty, but not mass murder.
Wave Five 2584
Forlough commenced wave five in 2584, extending and expanding the scorched earth tactics used so successfully by 1 Corps in the war so far. Caldwell and Warren quickly fell to the SLDF; all attempts by the remains of the Taurian Concordat Navy to relieve the beleaguered worlds were thwarted by the Star League.
In order to prevent the complete destruction of the Concordat, Mitchell Calderon ordered his House regiments, thus far held in reserve, to bring war to the Star League. The Taurian Guard, the Concordat Velites, and the Calderon Red Hand were deployed to Deifenbaker to destroy III Corps. Though most of the Taurian units were lost, III Corps was decimated, and unable to continue the invasion. The ARMD 4th division had been deployed to Deifenbaker to provide support and stiffening for the III Corps who were beginning to waver in their determination to defeat the TC.
The 4th Division was deployed in battle formation behind the III Corps lines and ordered to fire on "anything to the front", the implied threat to any who intended to retreat was clear. The Light Medium Mech Regiment "1st Otago Mounted Rifles" suffered the ignominy of being destroyed not by their enemies, but by their allies when the 10th Galedon Rangers overran them in their frantic efforts to get away from the attacking forces of the Taurian Guard. By the time the Guard reached the 4/1's position, there was little left but smoking mechs.
The Light Mech Regiment "6th Australian Cavalry" were trapped and destroyed by the 6th Velites in a series of valleys near the major starport and the Medium Tank Regiment "2nd Light Horse" were completely eliminated by the Red Hand when their scout tanks ran straight into the advancing heavy mechs.
Wave Six 2585-2586
The battered remains of the 4th division were reunited with the rest of ARMD and I Corps in the drop on Lindsay. The snow-covered world proved a frozen hell for 1 Corps, with the well-trained 30th and 31st Calderon Mountain regiment using hit and run attacks against the entrenched SLDF troops. Light mechs slashed in an out of the lines, heavy and assault mechs would appear out of blinding snowstorms and destroy rear supply posts, sentries would disappear only to be found frozen to death sitting inside a mech cockpit days later, poison was used to kill the entire command staff of the ARMD 2/13 Heavy Tank Regiment.
The AFFS conducted scorched earth campaigns against Montour, Sartu, and Mavegh. Attempting to relieve the planet Montour, the remaining Taurian fleet was trapped and destroyed by the Star League Fourth Fleet.
Wave Seven 2587
This attack was even more successful for the Star League, conquering Warren and the surrounding systems without resistance.
Early in 2588, Mitchell Calderon died of a heart attack. His daughter, Marantha Calderon, decided to withdraw all remaining Concordat forces into the Hyades Cluster and Flannagan's Nebula, and prepare for one last stand. The withdrawal of the TDF left New Vandenburg alone with a garrison of 5 regiments.
Seizing the opportunity, General Forlough assaulted New Vandenburg (2588-2589). 1 Corps landed on the planet uncontested and proceeded to defoliate the northern continent. Unwilling to be drawn out, the Taurian garrison maintained its position in the city of Harmony near the defense industries.
Frustrated, Forlough ordered I Corps to dig out the defenders of Harmony with extreme force. The few surviving veterans of the battle of Massif on Ridgebrook look out at the mountainous heavily forested terrain and felt a shiver run up their spines. The SLDF began the systematic rounding up and imprisoning of the entire planet. You were either in an SLDF "protection Camp" or you were an enemy and sometimes even those lines blurred. The TC forces ran a brutal guerrilla campaign for months,
hiding behind every hill and tree trunk. Where they could be brought to battle, the SLDF was generally successful in defeating their enemies. However, in most cases, the TC refused to come out and fight which caused the frustration levels of the ARMD troopers to go through the roof.
The command elements of the ARMD Division, the bulk of the Assault/Heavy Tank Regiment "12th Armoured" and the Infantry Regiment "10th The Wellington Infantry" were hunkered down in two suburbs on the outskirts of Harmony. Taurian Concordat commandos fired shells containing nerve toxin into the firebases of the ARMD troops. This not only decimated the ARMD units, it killed nearly 50,000 civilians in the surrounding housing.
The Final Waves
General Lord Damien Onaga replaced Field Marshall Forlough, and commenced Wave Eight in 2590. With virtually no resistance, Desolate Plains, Brockway and Midale, fell to the Star League juggernaut. All that remained was penetrating Flannagan's Nebula, the asteroid field, and bringing the war to the Hyades Cluster.
In order to accomplish this task, Lord Onaga deployed the elite Star Guard Corps in Wave Nine in 2591. The Star Guard was tasked with clearing Flannagan's Nebula. Fighting within the nebula was drawn out and brutal, with the SLDF requiring four full years to clear the Taurian defenses. Asteroid laser
emplacements were removed by zero-gravity infantry operations, as the debris was too dense for BattleMechs, Aerospace fighters, or capital ships.
With the SLDF poised for a final invasion of the Hyades Cluster, Protector Marantha Calderon surrendered rather than see the Hyades Cluster razed. The Taurian Defense Force and all irregular resistance lowered their arms on 22 September 2596, after a simultaneous radio broadcast was transmitted throughout all worlds currently or previously held by the Taurian Concordat. The next morning, Protector Marantha committed suicide. Her remains were cremated, and her ashes scattered in space.
2598
After 20 years of almost constant combat, the shattered ARMD return home. With total losses in the tens of thousands including hundreds of mechs, the division was in no shape to continue fighting. ARMD command was never particularly supportive of the war of conquest, as descendants of colonials themselves, their natural tendency was to fight against central royal control. However, they threw themselves and the Division into the war wholeheartedly, learning a ferocity they had not known existed within themselves. Less than 5% of the troops who rostered on for the drop on Ridgebrook answered the roll call in 2598.
The traditional recruiting grounds of ARMD were simply not capable of sustaining the kinds of losses that ARMD had been sustaining and ARMD had been supplied with reinforcements by the SLDF throughout the previous 20 years of war. This had diluted the traditions and standards of the Division as there had been no time to focus on the usual history classes when eyeball deep in mud with civilians shooting at you.
2600-2700 the good years
A period of relative peace now existed in the Inner Sphere. Exhausted economically, physically and morally the units of the SLDF returned to their homeworlds to recoup and rebuild. The reunification war had cost the Star League millions dead and created on its borders a zone of hatred and resentment unknown in human history. Entire worlds dedicated their children to the defeat and destruction of the Star League and all it stood for.
All of the economically viable worlds of the periphery had been destroyed, leaving the Star League with a huge problem of feeding and sheltering tens of millions of its defeated foes. The ambition of the Lords of the Star League to conquer heavy industrial and food-producing worlds and absorb them into their economies had come to nothing.
During this period ARMD units are rotated through various garrisons across the homeworlds and the Taurian Concordat and see very little combat.
The second Rebuilding
ARMD had started the reunification war as a combined arms unit mustering in the tens of thousands of armor, infantry and mech warriors. Multiple regiments were part of the TO&E, making up 4 entire combined arms Divisions. Throughout the Taurian War, it became clear that the modern battle zone, although it required a certain amount of non-mech combat troops, was far too lethal for the traditional armor and infantry units and that the Mech was now the king of the battlefield.
With so many units badly damaged across the entire SLDF, recruitment and training became much harder for ARMD and it was made clear that they would not be receiving anywhere near the kinds of numbers it would take them to rebuild to their former size. So the Commanders of ARMD once again began the process of a complete re-organization of the unit.
Many units of ARMD, with proud histories stretching back to the nationalist wars of the late twentieth century, would be disbanded or merged. Infantry would largely play a security role for the deployment of mechs, with small teams of specialist anti-mech infantry. Traditional armor would be done away with entirely and losses in the fleets meant that ARMD could only deploy a single assault transport fleet rather than the 4 previously fielded.
To&E
1st Armored Regimental Combat Team
1 Assault Mech Regiment "39th Regiment - The Choccos"
1 Artillery Regiment "4th Artillery Regiment"
1 Infantry Brigade "1st The Wellington Infantry"
1 Chindit Company "Port Hedland"
2nd Armored Regimental Combat Team
1 Assault/Heavy Mech Regiment "1st Auckland Mounted Rifles"
1 Infantry Brigade "13th Infantry"
1 Artillery Regiment "3rd Artillery Regiment"
1 Chindit Company "Ayr"
3rd Armored Regimental Combat Team
1 Light Mech Regiment "1st Australian Cavalry"
1 Infantry Brigade "14th Infantry"
1 Chindit Company "Karratha"
The 4th Regimental Combat Team "New Zealand"
1 Light Medium Mech Regiment "1st Otago Mounted Rifles"
1 Light Mech Regiment "6th Australian Cavalry"
1 Infantry Brigade "1st The Otago Infantry
1 Chindit Company "Karumba"
1 Assault Transport fleet "McKenna"
By 2700 ARMD could muster 4 RCT and the associated support units. On the homeworlds of the Star League retired ARMD Soldiers and Mechwarriors are warmly welcomed. On the Taurian Worlds, where populations still existed, ARMD were hated with a fiery passion. To this day Taurian mothers tell their children to behave or the "Cameron Monsters" will come to get them.
** Certain portions of this section of the history taken and rewritten from http://www.sarna.net**
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