Operation Trojan

Operation Trojan was the largest military operation undertaken during Masterly's War, and the battles that occurred as a result of it eventually led to the death of the 912th Tasaar emperor and the expulsion of the Tasaar from Oasis. In terms of forces committed it is the largest battle which humanity has been a part of since the end of the Triton War.

### Order of Battle

Operation Trojan was planned around efforts by Task Force Dauntless to eliminate the Emperor of the Tasaar. An uneasy truce resulting from the restoration to power of Dal'Korri tus Sendavan allowed Tarkan forces to fight alongside human forces on large scale for the first time in history.

Human forces involved in the operation actually numbered significantly less than Tarkan forces, due to the extremely poor state that the Systems Union Ground Forces elements on Oasis were; recovering from the Glassing of Babylon and the Battle of Redville.

The Grand Tarkan Army and SRT committed, from the north, the garrison of the city of Vulcinis, as well as the 15th Corps which had been trapped in the city after the Tasaar landing, these elements poised to drive southward towards the city of Loran. From the island of Han'tel, the Tarkan 19th corps and SRT Han'tel chapter planned to commence naval operations to liberate Tasaar-held islands and land on the eastern part of the Vulcinis peninsula. In the south, the Tarkan First and Second Armies were deployed offensively as vanguard troops, and most of the SRT's "Western Front" made up the reserve and second-wave troops.

Bringing up the rear were the Terran third and fourth armies; the third army with the task of helping the Tarkan forces establish a beach-head into the city of Loran, and the fourth with the task of assisting the Tarkan First Army to seize It'zan from the Tasaar. Overall command on the ground went to General Roderick West.

All told, approximately 300,000 troops, with 200,000 being Tarkan, 70,000 being human, and the remaining 30,000 composed of SRT forces, were arrayed against a force of between 50 and 100,000 Tasaar troops across the frontline. Despite outnumbering the enemy on the ground, however, the situation in the sky was quite grim, with just over 1,000 Tarkan and Human vessels facing off against at least triple their number of Tasaar vessels.

### Battle

The operation began on March 24th when Tigran Sarkis, Alexander Grodzki, Xagvud Darwin, Derek Lee, Jacques Maret, Bex Sunda and Ahmet Mehmati Oglu infiltrated the city of Loran and attempted to kill the emperor of the Tasaar. The emperor survived this initial assassination attempt, but Tigran Sarkis ordered the assault to begin immediately.

Within an hour, the Tarkan Second Army reached the outskirts of Loran. The Loran River which the city sat upon proved to be a tough obstacle, as it had been heavily reinforced and was bristling with anti-tank weapons. Lieutenant Par Xecass, a Tarkan officer, was one of the only soldiers to reach his bridge-head objective with most of his platoon intact. Linking up with elements of Task Force Dauntless, Xecass joined Sergeant Alexander Grodzki to annihilate a Tasaar strongpoint guarding a major bridge into the city. Both Xecass and Grodzki were praised after the battle for their heroism and courage, because their timely attack on the Tasaar strongpoint caused the entire Tasaar defense of the city to collapse into block-by-block fighting.

By the time this had occurred, Tasaar forces were already being pushed back heavily on other fronts, and with Vulcinis relieved and tens of thousands of Tarkan reinforcements descending from the north, things were grim. However, the Tasaar put up significant resistance at It'zan, even once the Tarkan Second Army had cut them off from Loran. The Tasaar forces in the It'zan region held on to the city stubbornly, and the Tarkan First Army stalled in the mountains and heavy forests in the east. It'zan was the last Tasaar position on Oasis to fall; the battle for that city continued until nightfall, while Loran was declared secured by 1pm.

The operation was declared a success when Derek Lee and Tigran Sarkis killed the Tasaar emperor; despite a favorable situation in the air, the death of the Emperor was an extremely detrimental morale blow, not to mention it robbed the Tasaar of their only remaining supreme naval commander. Due to the rigid power structure of the Tasaar, no one took command, and the Chancellor of the Army was heavily embattled in It'zan and did not even receive information of the loss at Loran until later in the day. Tasaar forces withdrew en masse and fighting stopped completely by midnight.

### Casualties and Result

Throughout the battle an estimated 8,000 human and Tarkan soldiers lost their lives, compared to a significantly higher 18,000 Tasaar casualties (of which at least 10,000 were prisoners). Operation Trojan was a tremendous success, and is seen as both the end of Masterly's War and the beginning of the Tasaar War.