There is Only War

by An Old Nemesor

In the closing days of 399 M42, a sinister figure enacts an age old plan, and the horrors of the 42nd millennia are thrust into a galaxy far far away. Now, the Republic and Separatist alliance must quickly adapt to their new situations and adversaries, or face utter destruction by those so entrenched in war that peace is utterly incomprehensible to them.

6. Battle of Ryloth: After Action Report

AN: And here is the AAR. Next up is orks vs GAR. Onto comments:

Code Viper: Ironically, the GAR is also fairly similar to the WW2 Japanese. If you ever watched the clone wars, you probably saw the Jedi fake surrender a lot to win. That's called Perfidy, and it's a war crime. A serious one at that, because the next time someone sees a surrender, they are less and less likely to accept it because they remember the last time. It is coincidentally one of the Japanese armies favorite warcrimes during ww2, as they would often fake surrender and walk over hiding a live grenade on them or open fire when close and such.

TheSpawn117: The mandos are humans and xenos working together under one banner in harmony. According to the deathwatch, this is the absolute worst form of heresy, and usually the only thing that will get them all in one place.

AlsoSprachOdin: Thanks for the grammar stuff, as mentioned I don't have a beta or writing degree so it's not the best. Anyways, on numbers that's one of the things I've been struggling with. 40k is usually pretty good with numbers. Crusades are usually easily in the billions and most battles are reasonably large. The battle for amarah prime for example had 220 million imperial combatants, and that was a battle in the middle of nowhere. Star wars however is…less good. You see, the cannon GAR is super tiny. Its 3 million strong in legends and gets an additional 5 million in cannon for a possible total of 8 million. That's…incredibly small on a galactic scale. Even using the usual SW argument of "units=lots of clone not one" in versus debates (and ignoring all the times the words clone troopers were attached to those numbers) even if I assume each clone was actually a clone legion you only get around 70 billion clones. That's still very small by 40k standards. Ryloth in cannon is a great example of this. We see the siege of the capitol and the forces there are…not great. There were a single digit number of tanks and maybe 30 Twilek resistance guys. For the capitol city of the Twilek homeworld. We see what other towns look like in earlier episodes, but the words "sparsely populated" seem to barely cover it. Thus, for any chance even with a really big SW fleet I had to use a rather battered force rather than say what they threw at similar annoyances like the Tau. Otherwise it wouldn't be a battle at all, it would be the imperials just kind of sitting there and laughing at the GAR. But yeah Ryloth in particular has a very small population, and apparently was never able to protect itself accordingly from endless pirate raids. I've made another similar comment in the actual AAR. Oh, and if you see rapid updates after I upload this those are the grammatical corrections you saw. And on drafting, who said hadn't? Of course training and arming takes a bit, but a month or two to teach someone how to shoot straight is all you really need for conscripts.

Battle of Ryloth After Action Report

Date

5-7 Day post convergence

Location

Ryloth, Segmentum Ultima

Combatants

The Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS) The Imperium of Man (IOM)

The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Twilek Resistance

Commanders and Leaders

CIS: Emir Wat Tambor (POW), Captain Mar Tuuk (KIA), TA-175 (KIA), TX-20 (KIA)

IOM: General Al'rahem II (WIA) (Tallarn 3rd Infantry Regiment), Colonel Patton (Minervan 63rd Tank Legion), Colonel Anastasia (Valhallan 97th Artillery Regiment), Captain 11894 (Kreig 33rd Siege Regiment), Admiral Kathis Steten

GAR: General Anakin Skywalker (WIA) (501st clone legion), Commander Ahsoka Tano (501st clone legion), Captain Rex (501st clone legion), Admiral Wulf Yularen, Captain Keeli, General Ima-gun Di (KIA), Admiral Dao (KIA)

Twilek Resistance: Cham Syndulla (KIA)

Strength

CIS: 1 Lucrehulk-class Battleship, 6 Munificent-class star frigates, 50 C-9979 Landing Craft, 72 shuttles, 1716 Vulture Droids, 1,500 troop carriers, 550 MTTs, 6250 ATTs, 1,229,600 assorted battle droids

IOM: 1 dominator-class cruiser, 2 defiant-class light cruisers and air wings, 2 dauntless-class light cruisers, 1 Turbulent-class heavy frigate, 3 sword class frigates, 3 firestorm-class frigates, 12 cobra-class destroyers, 75,000 Tallarn desert specialists and supporting chimera/tauros, 423 death corps infantrymen, 5000 Tallarn pattern sentinels, 500 hellhounds, 4,250 Leman Russ battle tanks, 1,300 salamanders, 40 Macharius heavy tanks, 15 Ragnaroks, 3 Stormlords, 1 Stormblade, 1 Baneblade, 1500 Hydra AA tanks, 2100 Basilisks, and assorted vehicle crews and support staff.

GAR: 48 Consular-class frigates, 30 Arquitens-class light cruisers, 20 Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers, 16 victory-class star destroyers, 8 Venator-class star destroyers, 3 Procurator-class battlecruisers, 1 praetor-class battlecruiser, 10 Acclamator-class assault ships, 1920 Torrent starfighters, Y-wings, 640,000 clone troopers, 1120 LAATs, 672 AT-TEs, 3200 speeder bikes, AT-RTs.

Twilek Resistance: 15,000 civilian militiamen

Casualties and Losses

CIS: Total

GAR: 48 Consular-class cruisers, 17 Arquitens-class light cruisers, 8 dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers, 5 victory-class star destroyers, 3 venator-class star destroyers, 1 procurator-class battlecruiser, 4 Acclamator-class Assault ships, 827 torrent starfighters, heavy Y-wing losses, 185 AT-TEs, 1280 speeder bikes, 577 LAATs, most of Keeli's forces, 106,220 clone troopers.

IOM: 1 Baneblade, 1 Stormblade, 7 Ragnaroks, 1 Turbulent-class heavy frigate, 5 cobra-class destroyers, 2 firestorm-class frigates, 1 sword-class frigate, heavy mauling to the rest of the fleet, 217 Leman Russ MBTs, 300 death corps infantrymen, 25,000 Tallarn infantrymen.

Twilek Resistance: Total

Battle Summary

The battle of Ryloth began several days after the IOM discovered it and dispatched a heavily damaged nearby taskforce to deal with it at the hands of the CIS. Emir Wat Tambor sought treasure allegedly held by the Twilek people and as such decided to invade the world. The planet was lightly garrisoned and due to millennia of pirate raids and emigration had a very small population, leading to the Emir believing a quick and easy victory was to follow. Even the quick response and reinforcements in the form of Admiral Dao's pair of nearby venator-class star destroyers was unable to make up for the lack of a large garrison, and the first 4,000 casualties were soon acquired on the GAR's side when said ships were destroyed. The Forces of the CIS under Emir Tambor quickly began descending to the surface in an attempt to occupy Ryloth, with the principle spaceport of Lessu being the primary goal, but before the majority of the force had yet to be disembarked when the Imperial military elements finally arrived. The arrival was not perfect, and they missed the estimated Mandevelle point by nearly a million kilometers and the last heavy escort missed it by even more, ending up in the nearby star due to the warp conditions and damage sustained by the near constant operations most imperial forces had been experiencing since the fall of Cadia. While the loss of the ship and the two superheavy tanks it had been carrying was unfortunate, the rest of the fleet arrived together and were in close enough proximity to begin their assault.

Emir Tambor immediately fled to the surface, leaving command of the fleet and the landing of his war material in the hands of his more competent subordinate, Mar Tuuk. This move saved the Emir's life as the Imperial admiral, Kathis Steten, knew from experience most naval commanders preferred to command from the ship least likely to be destroyed, which in most cases was also the largest. Having correctly divined the location of the Nemoidian in charge of the fleet elements he quickly had the vessel destroyed with the cruiser's nova cannon, destroying a great deal of the total war materiel brought by Emir Tambor and allowing for the rest of the disoriented small CIS fleet to be mopped up with relative ease.

The nature of Ryloth upon observation caused the commanding officers of the IOM expedition to make a near fatal mistake. The population of Ryloth for a Xenos homeworld was extremely low, especially for a spacefaring one, and what cities were present were for the most part underdeveloped hovels. While the initial strikes and bombing runs managed to eliminate the majority of the population in said cities and in the shallower caves, it was determined that many Twileks resided deep underground. While this was not in itself a problem that could not be dealt with via extensive orbital bombardment, it was decided that it was likely the reason so little was put into the world's defenses was that instead the Xenos had built exterminatus proof bunkers deep below the surface where the select elites could survive unnoticed while the rest of their species perished as sacrificial shields. Indeed, such bunkers had cost imperial forces the opportunity to kill several high-ranking Tau military officials during their second large scale conflict with said Xenos empire. Mindful of the fact that the world had been invaded meant they likely had an inbound retribution fleet, the expedition's high command decided to commit to a hurried invasion into the depths of the world to ensure no nook or cranny was missed. At the same time, it was decided that they may as well extract the likely VIP in charge of the CIS operation they predicted had landed ahead of the voidwar as they were forced to invade the planet regardless.

The imperial forces here split mostly into three components, with the entirety of the Valhallan 97th committing to a siege of the planetary capitol of Lessu in order to capture Emir Tambor while the majority of the Tallarn 3rd infantry sought the surviving Twileks in the main continent's largest tunnel system. Portions of the Minervan 63rd guarded the Valhallans as they began what would become a three-day artillery barrage while elements of the Tallarn 3rd and the rest of the Minervan tank legion would seek out and destroy any smaller tunnel systems not cleared by the opening bombardment, of which few remained. Those elements would link up with the main besieging force around Lessu after their duties were completed and would later provide infantry support for the 63rd after it began its advance into the city.

While the Tallarn 3rd's lightening advance through the tunnel system was a miracle predicated by their extensive tunnel fighting experience and a combination of the small garrison size and low surviving number of combat capable Twileks, the delays in the taking of Lessu lay entirely at the feet of Mechanicus doctrine. Refusing to allow the imperial guard regiments to use the Xenotech light bridge, the enginseers of the guard instead threw together one of questionable quality based upon the material they had salvaged from their previous assignment. This engineering project did not go smoothly, and the delay would cost them the time they needed to exfiltrate. Had the imperial forces used the light bridge they could have flanked the Twileks through the tunnels connected to Ryloth and likely left not long before the GAR forces arrived, but the naval forces grievously overestimated how long they had before GAR reinforcements would arrive, and thusly the Mechanicus was allowed to delay military operations for religious purposes.

On the third day of the siege the imperium at last made its breakthroughs. In the early hours of the morning the final Twilek stronghold was identified and assaulted, forcing the retreat of all survivors towards Lessu and resulting in the death of the commanding officer of GAR forces on world at the time, while simultaneously resulting in heavy injury to the Tallarn general directing forces, disabling him for the rest of the campaign. Seven hours later the Mechanicus at last finished their bridge, and the assault on Lessu began. It was a relatively swift siege and ended in under two hours due to a combination of sustained imperial bombardment leading up to it and the superiority of the armored elements on the imperial side, notably the presence of the three superheavy tanks presented a near insurmountable obstacle for the battered and already heavy damaged CIS remnant. During the assault the evacuation had already been underway by order of the paranoid general. This was due to the escalating series of misfortunate events that he had experienced in the decades he had fought pre and post Cadia, and even though estimates placed the incoming relief fleet weeks or more away if it arrived at all many imperial commanders had long since learned what should and would happen were entirely different things.

This decision would save the majority of IOM assets. When the bombardment ceased at approximately 5AM local time and as it did the heavy guns of the Artillery regiment began to pack up and return to orbit. It was a process that was hurried and made much easier by the extensive combat losses undertaken during their previous engagement with tyranid forces, but still took many hours. Indeed, the evacuation of the second regiment, the tank regiment, had not even begun once the GAR relief fleet entered the system. It would only be due to a series of environmental and mission factors as well as several doctrinal mistakes that allowed for as many of the ground forces to be salvaged as were.

While the disposition and tactics of the ground forces deployed by the IOM in this engagement had been carefully analyzed and reported to the commanders of the relief force, those of the naval elements had not been due to the lack of surviving GAR naval forces in system after the loss of Admiral Dao's fleet. Thusly, while countermeasures had been theorized and prepared while en-route for the Imperial Guard elements, the navy was a foe they were fully unprepared for. For countless millennia carrier doctrine had dominated in the galaxy far far away, leading to battlecarriers being the most common kind of capitol ship. It was rare to find a large vessel at any point of the timeline with some degree of starfighter launching capability at this time, and as a result it was often starfighters that decided the fate of a battle. For the Imperial Navy, it was quite the opposite. The shields, point defense, and armored hides of its warships had long since evolved to the point that many high-ranking admirals questioned the point of even having carriers at all, a split that had caused several fleet battles in the past. The doctrine had instead evolved around the designs and ideals of the big gun group and much of the IN's naval tactics revolved around capital ships engaging in long range slugging matches in various different ways and formations. The only groups ever able to sufficiently challenge the IN enough to get the doctrine reconsidered were the Aeldari with their vastly superior wings of voidcraft and the Tyranids. The Eldar were a group that the IN could never match in fighter combat, and thus saturation point defense fire of thousands of kilometers was the standard tactic for them. The ever-escalating number of Tyranids however was the larger issue, and by the end of m41 the Great Devourer was regularly deploying millions of destroyer and up class vessels for singular battles, something that the IN had no real way to cope with beyond hoping they could kill enough to make a difference before the Tyranids closed to knife fighting range.

From these two deadly foes the IN refined their point defense and anti-starfighter tactics to a near art form, something that put them at a great advantage against the GAR forces that over relied on them. Additionally, the majority of ships present on the side of the GAR were relics of the past era of disarmament and extremely small, barely rating above heavy starfighters by the standards of the IOM. Despite this, the numerical advantage was to much for the IN to overcome, and so it was decided within minutes of contact that the voidwar was lost and the retreat was called. The war thus for the IN became about delaying the enemy as long as possible to recover as many ground assets as could be salvaged before fleeing. That objective was complicated by the quick engagement of their capitol vessels by Wulf Yularen, who sought to break the blockade and recover any surviving Twileks. Admiral Kathis Steten on the IN side saw it as an attempt to force off the fleet so they could bombard the ground assets freely now that so little possibility for collateral damage remained and interpreting it as likely a human clone commanded the fleet respected the tactic, even if it was in defense of an Xenos world.

The initial republic void engagement went poorly due to the time constraint they were under. In a normal battle Admiral Yularen could have exploited his carrier doctrine's flexibility to feel out the enemy fleet and engage at extreme ranges that would better allow him to use his lighter vessels maneuverability, providing a favorable hit and run pace to the fight that would maximize his fleets strengths while minimizing his opponents. However, this was a rescue mission, one with the timer in the red at that, and thus he and General Anakin Skywalker were forced to commit their forces to a frontal assault that was overly costly and played to the brawling methods proffered by the IN. This put the skirmishing vessels that served as the fleet's vanguard in an extremely disadvantageous position where they were even less effective than they already would have been in the face of IN doctrine and thusly they suffered extremely heavy casualties. When the heavier fleet elements came into play the engagement became more even, but still suffered from playing to the enemies favored playbook.

It was in this phase that the vast majority of Clone casualties were inflicted. This early in the war due to the fast-responding nature of the republic it was common for star destroyers to hold both support vehicles and the clones that used them, usually about 2000 troopers in total. That meant that every lost capitol ship lost the GAR 2000 of the clone troopers meant for the siege. The Dominator-class cruiser claimed the vast majority of those casualties with its nova cannon taking out 4 Acclamator-class assault ships with a grav-shell, for a total of 64,000 casualties which would make up the vast majority of actual GAR losses in the battle. The shot had been intended for the flagship of the GAR fleet, but excessive damage during the previous battles that had not been treated due to a lack of time in a fleet yard had caused the inertial compensators to be near inoperable and thrown the shot off, allowing for the flagship to evade it narrowly via maneuvering. In a normal fleet battle such a kill count would be unlikely, but GAR naval doctrine favored much tighter formations than those viewed as safe by the inhabitants of the 41st millennia, allowing for the occurrence. The Cruiser then charged the flagship, hoping to draw capitol vessels from the main melee to aid in the evacuation. Upon realizing this, GAR command staff also realized it also likely meant the Twilek survivors had very little time remaining, forcing them to rush what troops they could in LAATs to the surface, taking further casualties in the process.

On the surface, all but a small fraction of the surviving tanks had already reached the embarkation point and began to leave. The remaining contingent was headed by one of the Stormlord heavy tanks and was charged with stopping the Twileks from entering the city by waiting for them at the exit to the tunnel they were using. General Skywalker thusly ordered his troops to deploy around that area and try to break through to allow the Twileks to escape the Tallarn regiment pursuing them. This was a move made out of desperation and resulted in heavy casualties during the landings. However, due to the air superiority gained by all IOM air elements being busy in orbit they were able to force a foothold eventually and were joined by the ragged survivors of General Ima Gun-di's command led by the exhausted captain Keeli. It would be over an hour until the ensuing stalemate was broken.

As the infantry regiment on the heels of the GAR forces and the Twileks grew worryingly close General Skywalker decided to fake an attack on the bridge. It was risky, as if it worked too well they would have no way to evacuate any of the civilians in time, but they needed to break out before they were trapped in a pincer and this was the only way he could see to do that. The Vulcan megabolter of the Stormlord was simply to powerful to overcome without heavy armor, something he could not obtain in sufficient quantities until the blockade was broken. The fake attack by LAATs was interpreted as the GAR having given up on saving the Twileks due to their situation and thus switching over to trying to kill as many retreating imperials as possible by the surviving officers of the IOM forces, and due to the more fanatical officer in command being taken out of commission via wounding earlier the more level headed colonel of the Minervan tank legion made the call of pull back and save what tanks they could instead of possibly sacrificing all remaining units to ensure the missions completed as the Tallarn general would have.

The Tank Legion retreated quickly due to their mechanized nature, allowing attached infantry to ride on their hulls as they did so. The GAR advance towards assumed safety was much less speedy, taking several hours to reach the bridge due to the exhaustion, wounds, and often age of the surviving Twileks. This allowed the Minervan Tank Legionary engineers and sappers to cover the bridge in charges, preventing any forward advance. The initial imperial plan was to pin them in place with the explosives so the Tallarn regiment could catch up while the tanks evacuated, which worked.

Unfortunately for the Imperials, the void war went exceedingly bad for them around this point. The weight of numbers had begun to show, and losses were quickly mounting. While the hardiness of imperial vessels insured many survived much longer than the GAR equivalent would have, they often did so as burning husks, utterly unfit for combat. One by one the ships were being forced to jump out or perish, leading the Tallarn forces to make a desperate assault against the reaming GAR forces. It had originally been assumed that should they fail the now exposed forces could be dealt with by orbital bombardment, but the voidwar had made that an impossibility. They used primarily mortars and missile launchers to attempt to take down the armor that had survived the dangerous flight to the ground, but he majority of said explosives were deflected by the force powers of Anakin Skywalker.

Sheer weight of numbers began to show though, and the focusing of said Jedi by the lasguns of the Tallarn infantry began to hold more and more of his attention, thus letting increasing numbers of rockets and mortar rounds through. As it became obvious the situation was untenable the Jedi moved back to the explosives where Keeli and a handpicked squad were attempting to disarm them. He sought to in some way help with his abilities whilst holding his increasingly strained focus mostly on the incoming explosive rounds. One of his captains thus was the one to realize that the enemy may have held back on detonating them in order to catch the Jedi in the blast, as the Jedi's mind was rather stretched at this point. The Tallarn troops, now in charge of the ground battle, had switched to that idea out of fear that some act of witchery could deny them their objective now that the fallback of orbital bombardment was lost. Not the most familiar with psykers due to being more superstitious and religious than the average regiment, they only knew of the ones they had fought, and thus did not know that holding back could be risky as technomancy is a psychic discipline. They had encountered heretic and Xenos psykers capable of mass teleportation, illusions, and other such acts though, and thus decided to sacrifice their escape route to ensure the job was done.

The bridge had been rigged with many charges, including several melta variants. The only reason anyone nearby survived was Rex's quick thinking allowing him to alert the Jedi general, who then in turn shielded the surrounding clone troopers from the blast which would have killed them. The blast was powerful enough to collapse the cliff face around the bridge as well as shatter the bridge along its entire length, throwing all nearby clones into the ravine and knocking the Jedi General unconscious. Captain Keeli managed to awaken him near the bottom and thus prevent the deaths of his men, but alone and without Jedi shielding from the hail of explosives the rest of the clones and Twileks quickly perished beneath the Tallarn onslaught. The bridge's collapse was not without consequence for the imperials though. Of the approximately 40,000 Tallarn guardsmen to enter the caves, only 15,000 could be evacuated in the time before the last ship was made to flee. Approximately 25,000 were forced to be left behind and were lost to the enraged clone legions. While they fought with the fury of willing martyrs, they lacked any air or armored support in a mostly demolished city and thusly lost far more men then their attackers did.

With the siege over, the mop up began. Wrecked imperial equipment was collected for study, destroyed ships were boarded and surviving officers and crewmen were stunned and captured, and the planet was searched for pockets of survivors. There were several deep underground, but they were depressingly few. The Jedi general and his compatriots would be recovered from the ravine and join these efforts, and indeed would be the last to leave the world. They would spend several weeks setting up small encampments for survivors and would promise to return with aid but said aid would never materialize. The plight of Ryloth would be forgotten in the wake of what was to follow, but it would remain the first well documented battle between elements of the GAR and IOM, earning its place in the history books.

Outcome

CIS Defeat, Republic Tactical and military victory, IOM Strategic victory.

Consequences

Emir Wat Tambor is captured, leading to morale loss amongst the Separatist council and internal issues amongst the high-ranking officials of the Techno Union. While morale is strengthened among the general populace of the Republic due to a greatly sanitized version of events, military morale continues to plummet. The AARs distributed to naval high command cause a large schism over the use of small vessels and a discussion to take place over the usefulness of starfighters in the face of their ineffectuality against the imperium and devastating losses. The writings of a young naval officer from Eriadu gain some traction due to this change of political climate. While Twileks as people exist in great enough number across the galaxy to sustain their population, much of their culture dies with their homeworld's population, a fact exacerbated by the loss of many taken from said planet to Hutt space due to the assault of its new residents. As a whole the GAR while lower in morale is more determined to fight the IOM, having seen more evidence of its atrocities first hand, strengthening the war effort and encouraging recruitment. Additionally, a great deal of footage had been recorded over the course of the battle, allowing for in depth analysis of Imperial materiel and methods, insight that would be of much use in the upcoming battles. From that footage and the few captives gathered from wrecked vessels and starfighters the imperial lexicon starts to be put together. The 501st absorbs the survivors of Keeli's unit, who keep their browns as the Ryloth campaign badge. Captain Keeli himself would go on to become Anakin's second Lieutenant in the 501st, a voice of unorthodox strategies and opinions due to his experiences on Ryloth. This would become very useful in the months to come when the ever-expanding scope of GAR operations would quickly begin to tax the General's ability to handle alone.

The badly mauled fleet of Kathis Steten is forced to return to drydock for repair after the battle, delaying the transfer of Emir Wat Tambor until a courier vessel could be acquired. This delayed the transfer of the prisoner and thus arrival of vital information for several weeks, at which point the strategic situation had shifted significantly. The Tallarn 3rd with these new losses in the face of those already sustained by the Tyranids would return to their homeworld to seek replenishment, meaning their experience in combating the republic would not be available for use for some time. Several samples of CIS technology were acquired by the adepts of the machine god and would later be analyzed for insight into how to best destroy it. During said analysis more and more concern was expressed over the seemingly independent actions of the primitive combat protocols, concern that was echoed around the cult Mechanicus as more examples were collected across the galaxy.