Battle of Arvo

## Ship numbers

### Attacker fleet numbers

Biluan Armada: 12 Battlecruisers, 7 Support Cruisers, 31 Cruisers/Light Cruisers, 31 Destroyers and 54 Attack Corvettes

### Defender fleet numbers

Task Force Manticore: 5 Battlecruisers, 5 Light Carriers, 3 Support Cruisers, 19 Cruisers, 30 Destroyers and 21 Corvettes

### Bases and defence platforms

Merit-class Citadel PlatformInterdictor-class PlatformArvo Spaceport

## Casualties

### Attacker ships destroyed

1 Battlecruiser, 7 Support Cruisers, 14 Cruisers/Light Cruisers, 31 Destroyers & 31 Attack Corvettes

### Defender ships destroyed

1 Battlecruiser, 10 Destroyers and 17 Corvettes

### Defender crews casualties

3,492 Sailors, Deckers & Shipwrights

  The **Battle of Arvo** was a decisive naval engagement between the Commonwealth’s Task Force Manticore and the Biluan Mind’s main Attack Swarm. The battle itself was fought on January 7th, 2270, lasting over three hours of intense combat and high losses on both sides. Found within one of the Commonwealth’s industrial heartlands, the Obsholla System, the confrontation had the Biluan forces on the offensive, whilst the Commonwealth leveraged on support of its defensive structures supporting the fight.

  After heavy and desperate fighting, the battle was decided with the Biluan retreat from the system. The Swarm counted with 135 warships, along with a collection of smaller transport vessels for its attack swarms. Meanwhile, Manticore numbered 83 commissioned vessels, several torpedo-boats from Arvo Spaceport, defensive installations and a Merit-class Citadel defense. The aftermath saw unknown casualties taken by the aggressors, yet Commonwealth losses were counted to be 3492 sailors and station deckers.

  The outcome of the battle marked the end of Biluan gains in their war against the Udkavongo & Commonwealth allies, giving the initiative back to humanity and allowing Manticore to break through Biluan space, scout its territory, and come to the aid of the slaughter happening in the Udkavongo worlds. Incidentally, this would be the last major space confrontation performed by Biluan initiative. After the Battle of Arvo, most of the swarms within hostile space were recalled to hold their own home front, buying precious time for the Udkavongo resistance to assemble and reorganize until Commonwealth reinforcements arrived.

## **Prelude**

  To truly comprehend how the battle came to be, however, one must understand what led to the decisions that shaped the strategy displayed on both sides.

  2267 had marked the end of the first chapter in the Great Southeastern War, or at least, the Commonwealth participation in it. Task Force Manticore, after fighting in places such as Tyntregal, Bijh and Minerva, it then became stranded at Yaanus System, in an act of suspected sabotage that delayed fleet movements for months on their way out of Yaanari territory. Following the end of the conflicts at their southwestern & northeastern borders - Against the Yaanari and Zracon, respectively -, the fleet was ordered to return to Ortus for much needed repairs, refits and upgrades in technology.

  Up to the North, the Biluan-Udkavongo Invasion had been swinging strongly at a Biluan advantage. Having started mere three years before the Commonwealth signing of peace in the South, the swarms had already taken several key systems and worlds from Udkavongo forces, culminating in the fall of Udkall, the Udkavongo capital-world, in 2265. The war had been dragging on in a bloody massacre, yet it was only in December of 2267 when Manticore was retrofitted, rearmed and deemed ready for campaigning once more. In the initial days of 2268, however, Biluans made another major move at the Udkavongo front, invading and occupying Favib Vvada, initiating another series of shocking atrocities that forced the hands of Commonwealth officials to make moves against the Mind, despite the true lack of a coordinated approach. In May, Manticore engaged in a skirmish attack at **Sethelbak**, breaching Biluan space and therefore leaving their main breeding grounds at a vulnerable position.

  The feint orchestrated by Ibrahim, although rushed and risky under the circumstances, had successfully diverted the attention of the Mind to focus on the Commonwealth’s naval assets before it could fully neutralize Udkavongo forces. In an unexpected move, the 4th. Attack Swarm (Labelled such by Commonwealth forces, since it was nameless throughout its existence), known as “***The Biluan Armada***”, with over 100 warships, parted to intercept Task Force Manticore; Now, the race was on.

  2269 had initiated with a fighting retreat on behalf of the Commonwealth, delaying the Armada as it devised a proper engagement plan to lure Biluan forces into a trap. Over the course of the year, Biluan ships ravaged through the **Daranma**, **Churassix**, **Yultup** & **Cormaggas** Systems, all the while the main body of the government had its hands full trying to quell internal and external outrage sparkled by the Drackovich scandal, aggravated only further due to the steady encroachment made by the Biluan advance. The main lesson learnt in Sethelbak, however, was about to be used for the Commonwealth’s advantage; luring the enemy in, incapacitating its ability to retreat from the system, and then jumping on it with overwhelming firepower from all sides… at Obsholla System, home of Arvo. The system also housed another important asset apart from a spaceport and a shipyard; a Merit-class Citadel defensive platform. In few weeks, the Biluan Armada would arrive, and it was then Manticore’s job to hunker down and bunker up, preparing an ambush in the system as the authorities organised mass-evacuations and built defensive torpedo-boats.

## **Battle**

  The battle began without any kind of buildup at 04:09 (Ortus Time), as the 4th. Combat Swarm warped into the system, it was intercepted by the Interdictor station and had its navigation systems thrown haywire, between Manticore, Arvo Spaceport and Merit Citadel.

  In the opening minutes, the fight became sporadic, but it mainly concentrated with the Biluan attempt at focusing fire against the Commonwealth installations nearby the planet. The spaceport suffered the most attacks, and although Merit had also been targeted, its defensive measures completely blocked any attempts at breakthrough towards Arvo itself. The Biluan fleet, however, had also re-equipped itself since their last incursions against the Commonwealth decades before; boasting advanced *Coilguns* and Flak-like Autocannons capable of eviscerating small-craft and screen vessels if concentrated correctly, playing right against the newest trump card from Manticore, the carrier crafts. Shortly after the Biluans managed to regain basic controls of their engines, fighter and bomber pilots from Ibrahim’s fleet pounced upon their enemy vessels, aided by long-range bombardments of Battlecruisers and Cruisers alike, all the while screening elements of Manticore closed the gap to interdict enemy boarding pods or launch torpedoes of their own. The protection of Arvo Spaceport was the main priority of this fight, and Manticore was now hammering its enemy against an anvil of platforms with everything it had.

  As the first hour of fighting closed, the Biluans had suffered high losses with their over-aggressive Attack Corvettes, but still maintained itself as an extremely dangerous foe. Arvo Spaceport had suffered blows, but was still operational. Manticore had lost some of its screen, yet it pushed on regardless.

  Despite the support of repair & resupply drones from Merit and the Mithril-class Support Cruisers, Task Force Manticore was still suffering numerous hull breaches. Unlike in previous one-sided battles, Ibrahim could not afford to fight conservatively, sacrificing several Akulas for time to counterattack and change the Mind’s focus from the spaceport. Meanwhile, corvettes such as *CSV Horizon* broke through the Biluan rear, and began wreaking havoc into the swarm’s support cruisers. Aided by their larger destroyers, the human fleet exploited the gap and enveloped several screens at a small range, marking targets for bomber pilots from Faust-class Light Carriers to deal the killing blows to the Biluan warships. No longer could the Mind tolerate the encroachment, and soon after, the Armada disengaged its offensive against the installations and focused all of its power against Task Force Manticore.

  The fight carried on for another half hour as a battle of attrition, one that the Mind was clearly losing. In that short timespan, the bulk of the screening force (That including Corvettes, Destroyers and Small Cruisers) had been either completely destroyed or battered enough to be considered disabled from combat, leaving the capital ships standing unsupported to fare against the small-craft. The Commonwealth, however, wasn’t doing much better, losing over half of its Akulas on an already strained line of battle. The remaining Biluan ships loosely clustered together into a shell formation, hoping to deter any smaller vessel whilst holding ground against capital ships; The end of the battle was looming…

  In a decisive attempt at breaking the Biluan line, Admiral Ibrahim scrambled a spearhead of vessels to break the stalemate. In the middle of the battlefield, the Battlecruiser assets of Manticore reorganized themselves into a V style formation, whilst the five Commonwealth Light Carriers, fitted with some weaponry for broadsiding, formed one great vertical wall behind them, clearing any remaining opposition in the way with its mounted artillery. Amidst the chaotic charge, one of the Battlecruisers, *CSV Jupiter*, became the attention of targeted fire from nearby vessels, detonating with 94% casualties after several hull breaches, autocannon barrages and an attempted ram by a Biluan cruiser, yet the attack carried on. As the ships tore a hole through the line, the charge had worked; Now the Biluans had been cut into two pockets… The battle had been decided.

  As the third hour dawned, however, the Mind saw the overwhelming defeat looming in the distance. Instead of sacrificing its entire combat swarm in a fight to the last in Obsholla System, it focused all of its efforts on overwriting the disruption mechanisms of the Interdictor Platform, looking for a way to disable the Commonwealth trap and retreat from Obsholla unobstructed. In some 20 minutes, after losing all of its support cruisers and sacrificing half of its cruiser force to protect the capital vessels, the armada found a breach in the Interdictor, and mass-warped out of Obsholla in an emergency maneuver back to Biluan territory. Defeated in the Commonwealth, the battle had single-handedly changed the tide of the war for the Mind, and the initiative had then swung to the defenders at last.

## **Aftermath**

  Following the defeat of the Biluan armada at Obsholla, the Commonwealth could leverage on taking the initiative without needing to contend with a potential overwhelming enemy in the short term. In terms of losses, Task Force Manticore had sustained relatively light casualties, having only its screening force been truly battered by the battle. In a matter of few weeks, the navy had repaired, rearmed and buried their dead, venturing out into Biluan space later on that same year. To contend with the defense of the home-front - In case some other foe decided to attack whilst Manticore was far from Commonwealth territory -, the initial design drafts for the Stockholm-class Defensive Platform were formed and shortly after adopted by the admiralty, proving as a smaller, but more cost-efficient, platform to operate than the enormous Merit-class.

  Months after the battle, the Commonwealth had started conducting its own raids against the Biluan territory, gathering intelligence about the Mind and crippling its ability to wage offensives for the remainder of its existence. During that timespan, other Biluan forces still present in Udkavongo space started evacuating, and the worst phase of occupation for Udkall and of the other planets had finally passed.

  Arvo signalled a change in naval doctrinal development, but also granted a much needed victory for Shu Lin’s administration to remain in office after the elections of 2271. No longer were Battlecruisers, torpedo-Akulas or Lempicki-class Cruisers the stars of the fleet, but the fighter and bomber pilots housed in the illustrious Light Carriers within Manticore. From then onwards, the new rulers of the void had passed on to a newer generation, and a stellar hive had its expansionist dreams ruined, and its days numbered.