First Battle of Zanzibar

The First Battle of Zanzibar was an armed engagement between the Manticoran Alliance and the People's Navy, which attacked the Zanzibar System as part of Operation Icarus.
== Prelude ==
The Caliphate of Zanzibar was about to finish the construction of the new Manticoran Alliance military shipyards that were supposed to serve as an additional backbone for the construction of Alliance ships.
Meanwhile, Admiral Giscard's Twelfth Fleet launched Operation Icarus, as part of which Task Force 12.2 attacked Zanzibar. ()
== Order of battle ==
=== Manticoran Alliance ===
Zanzibar System Defense, CO Rear Admiral Michael Tennard, RMN
* a battlesquadron of the RMN
* a battlecruiser squadron of the RMN
* a cruiser elementincluding HMS Adonai (CL) and Zanzibar System Navy's cruisers
* a destroyer element, Zanzibar System Navy
* a LAC elementobsolete units, Zanzibar System Navy
=== PN ===
Task Force 12.2, command team: People's Commissioner Everard Honeker and Rear Adm. Lester Tourville
* wall of battle (BB)
* a battlecruiser elementincluding PNS Count Tilly, Vice Admiral Tourville's flagship
* a cruiser element
== Course of battle ==
Vice Admiral Tourville's task force was in the lowest alpha band, traveling at .6 c and heading for a crash translation. By hitting the hyper wall at roughly 180,000 kilometers per second, they carried a normal-space velocity of 14,390 kilometers per second across it with them. Their course had been chosen to drop them into n-space at the hyper limit's closest approach to the planet Zanzibar.
On Commander Shannon Foraker's suggestion the Havenites tractored their Missile pods inside the wedges of their battleships, where they had no effect on their acceleration curves, rather than towing them astern.similar technique was used by Admiral Honor Harrington during the Fourth Battle of Yeltsin's Star.
The vastly superior Havenite task force destroyed the entire Alliance picket with only minimal own losses. ()
== Aftermath ==
The Havenites destroyed almost all of Zanzibar's orbital industry, including the new military shipyards. Task Force 12.2 then set course for the Alizon System, where a similar attack was carried out. ()
== References ==
Zanzibar, First Battle of
Zanzibar, First Battle of