Second Battle of Zanzibar

The Second Battle of Zanzibar was an armed engagement between the Zanzibar System Navy with its accompanying Manticoran Alliance picket force and the Republic of Haven Navy, which attacked the system as part of Operation Gobi.
Like the first battle for the system eight years earlier, the battle ended in a crushing Zanzibaran defeat and the destruction of most of the system's orbital industry.
== Prelude ==
After the Royal Manticoran Navy's devestating Operations Cutworm I and II, Secretary of War Thomas Theisman chose to take the offensive from Manticore with similar actions. Thus, Admiral Lester Tourville prepared Operation Gobi, while Admiral Giscard prepared a trap for Honor Harrington in the Solon System. ()
== Order of battle ==
=== Manticoran Alliance ===
Zanzibar System Defense:
* wall of battletwo battle squadrons of SD(P), a battle squadron of SD, including Battle Squadron 31 probably (RMN)
* screen:
** a battlecruiser squadron (RMN)
** a heavy cruiser division
** LAC elementsouter (500 units) and inner
* fixed defences
=== Republic of Haven Navy ===
Task Force 21:
* wall of battleequivalent of four SD(P) squadrons
* a CLAC squadron
* a battlecruiser elementequivalent of two squadrons
* lighter screen
== Course of battle ==
Admiral Tourville hit the defenses hard, starting right out by sweeping the asteroid belt with remote arrays, followed by LAC strikes on the predeployed Manticoran pods. He also brought along fast colliers stuffed with additional missile pods, which he left tucked away in hyper, coming in just far enough to draw the Manticoran and Zanzibaran mobile units away from their support bases and engaging them at long range until both sides had burned most of their ammunition.
Then Tourville pulled back across the hyper limit, reammunitioned, and came back in before the defenders could replace the expended defense pods or get their pod-layers back in-system to rearm.
What followed was described by Lord White Haven as "a massacre". ()
== Aftermath ==
When the Havenite forces left the system, almost all of Zanzibar's orbital infrastructure had been wiped out, including the new naval shipyards which had been completed only a short time before. The same applied for the Zanzibaran Navy.
After his second successful attack on Zanzibar, Admiral Tourville was offered the Congressional Cross, though Admiral Theisman had his doubts that he would accept it. ()
== References ==
Zanzibar, Second Battle of
Zanzibar, Second Battle of