The battle of Nopah Citadel

Overview

The Battle of Nopah Citadel was a significant battle waged by members of the 2nd Royal Special Assault Brigade as part of the efforts to support the liberation of the Terran Hegemony during the Amaris Civil War. The action was noteworthy due to the use of large numbers of Land Air Mechs as the primary component of the battle, as well as the tactics used.

Planetary History

The planet of Nopah was a Terran Hegemony world located roughly 60 light years from Terra. While originally a barren world, large swaths of the surface had been terraformed into agricultural land. The planet became a breadbasket world supporting many of the nearby systems.

Significant portions of the continent Non remained barren and the Star League established a significant communications and research facility in the base of a mountain called The Citadel. The Citadel's northern and western approaches were defended by a series of small armoured bunkers as well as the natural mountainous terrain. The southern and eastern approaches faced a wide desert area and were separated by a 300m wide gorge that was 200m deep in the area immediately in front of the Citadel. A bridge connected the two sides of the gorge approximately 3 km southeast of the facility with a narrow, exposed road leading up the far side from the bridge to the facility itself.

This facility was steadily increased in size over the years, eventually accommodating codebreaker division of the SLDF's Intelligence Command. During the reign of Jonathan Cameron the facility, itself now referred to as Nopah Citadel, received extensive defensive upgrades including a wide array of ground-to-air and ground-to-space weapons. In addition, reinforced battlements and supplemental artillery batteries were installed. Air support was provided by the nearby aerospace base. Small landing areas for transports were blasted into the side of the mountain in order to minimize the reliance on the narrow road leading to the main gates of the facility.

The main facility was garrisoned by a battlemech battalion and an infantry battalion with room for an addition reinforced battlemech battalion and two additional infantry batallions.

The Citadel was supported by aerospace base and mini-Castle located approximately 120km south of the facility called Feldspar Field.

The Citadel facility was tasked with the development of new interception and code breaking techniques and technologies as well as the processing of intercepted member-state encrypted communications. Using builtin auto-routing systems in the League's HPG network, facilities like the Citadel were able to surreptitiously able to copy and read the sensitive communications of the other states.

There were several min-Castles Brian scattered across the remainder of the planet, with two located near the capital city,

The Amaris Coup

During the buildup of Republican troops prior to the coup, the garrison at Feldspar Field was slowly replaced by Republican troops. The Citadel commander, however, actively resisted the placement of Republican troops into the facility. After months of protest, the commander was forced to partially relent and allow a battalion of battlemechs and a battalion of infantry to aid in the garrisoning of the Citadel. Unbeknownst to the SLDF personnel, the infantry battalion consisted of members of Amaris' elite Special Forces, tasked with capturing important assets intact.

Within 30 minutes of the start of the coup, Republican special forces troops had slaughtered most of the Citadel's SLDF troops in the barracks and captured the facility's command centre fully intact. A smattering of the code breaking team attempted to resist and destroy their work but their efforts were, for the most part, very ineffectual. The remainder of the code breaking team as well as the scientists working on the communications technology refused to help the Republican forces and were summarily executed.

Without the code breaking team, the facility, while impressive, was largely useless to Amaris' forces. In order to remedy that fact, numerous scientists, engineers, and mathematicians were rounded up from around the Hegemony with their families and were brought to the Citadel. Many of the storage areas deep within the complex were turned into prison cells where the prisoners were kept. Faced with the death of their families or helping the Usurper's forces, the prisoners went to work helping to decode and translate the intercepted communications.

Liberation

SLDF Landings

On May 25th, 2774, elements of the 99th Battlemech Division, 92nd Mechanized Infantry Division, 203rd Mechanized Infantry Division, and the 51st Dragoon Regiment.