Battles of the Magnate War

Ground Campaigns

Bilad Campaign

Result: Draw. Bilad stopped from sending reinforcements to major ground battles for significant period, but no significant infrastructural or institutional damage was caused.
The ground war on Bilad Al-Rafigayn, commonly referred to as the Eid al-Adha War was one of the major ground campaigns of the League front of the Magnate War. The campaign was started as an attempt to deprive the Minkowskan led LCM of Sarrevan and Biladian ground forces, and began on November 27th, 2169 on the first day of Eid al-Adha; and it would not end until November 19th of the following year. The Eid al-Adha War as a whole was

Exarch Antonia Savina, a talented but conservative Eternal Dawn commander, who had been promoted out of several of the bloodiest ground battles in the Magnate wars, was tasked with stemming the flow of reinforcements to Finnegan's Folly and Sarreva by Bilad Al-Rafigayn ground soldiers, and hopefully disrupting their training and logistics tail. Her record was excellent until that point-high force preservation and mission objectives achieved, with minimal disruption beyond that although she still retained a ruthless streak common to many Magnate commanders, albeit not taken to the extremes of the Syn military commanders.

As most of the production of Series VII Replicants had been tasked to Sarreva and Finnegan's Folly, Exarch Savina was given a handful of elite soldiers for headhunting and sabotage missions, and the rest of her transports were loaded with units "surplus to requirements"-old build Series V Replicants, which although physically inferior, slower-reacting, and less skilled than the Series VII, were more flexible due to their design-the Eternal Dawn had not successfully been able to excise consciousness in the Vs and had left it in, considering them a "temporary measure". This would later prove helpful in this battle as they were somewhat less vulnerable to guerillas and ambush tactics than the newer VIIs although inferior in all other respects.

Her objectives were twofold-the primary one was to seize and/or destroy Biladi infrastructure, and the second one was to destroy Biladi training grounds and senior personnel to gut their military institutions.

On the other hand, the Bilad Al-Rafigayn defense forces were caught mostly off guard

Forces

League Combined Militia & Bilad Al-Rafigayni Self Defense Force
Commanding Officer:

Numerous Infantry units

4 Armored Cavalry divisions

3 Wings of Peltast-L class Mobile Suits

10 Wings of Mughal Aerospace Fighters

Orbital and artillery support

Foreign Mujahadeen

Magnate Continuum Invasion Force
Commanding Officer: Exarch Antonia Savina, Eternal Dawn Templar

500 Light of God (Lux Dei) Special Forces

5,000 Eternal Dawn Templars

140,000 Series V Combat Replicants (surplus to requirements)

Series II Combat Replicants, cloned onsite, unknown number

Orbital, artillery, aerospace, and armor support

Losses

League Combined Militia & Bilad Al-Rafigayni Self Defense Force
Losses:

Magnate Continuum Invasion Force
Losses:

~190 Lux Dei Members

~1,200 Templars

140,000 Series V Combat Replicants

Unknown amount of Series II Replicants

Lots of materiel

Aftermath

Exarch Savina's retreat after significant losses, to preserve the majority of her 'nonspecializeds', prevented her from delaying Bilad any further, and her objective to headhunt Biladi senior officers and training cadre caused significant losses in the numbers of the Lux Dei she was assigned to no significant gain-significant infrastructure was disrupted but the majority of the disruption was easily reparable with a few weeks' work, and the dead training cadre were insignificant to cause a severe hit to soldier readiness. However, her objective was as much psychological as military, and in that way it was successful. It proved that even non-frontline worlds could be hit in force, and caused several League powers to retask greater amounts of units to domestic defense. Along with many other probing raids or significant assaults against other League rear areas, it forced the League to ensure that rear-echelon objectives were significantly defended.

Savina herself found herself heavily criticized for putting the lives of her subordinates over the mission objective, as it was quite possible that she could have accomplished all objectives at the cost of 100% of her men and materiel. However, despite High Command's displeasure her loyalty to her troops made her a popular figure, and she was merely shuffled from ECHELON back into the ranks of the Eternal Dawn's Templars where she served competently but in an undistinguished manner for the rest of the war.

Fleet Actions

The Heaven's Stair Campaign

November 2172 - July 2177
Result: Minkowskan infrastructure and logistics damaged and disrupted.

Forces

Magnate Irregular Fleet
Commanding Officer: A maddened wookie or something

Peak of several dozen raiders.

Minkowski Navy
Commanding Officer: Admiral Rakesh Zhang, Minkowski Navy

Peak of more than one hundred craft up to cruiser scale.

Losses

Magnate Continuum Joint Operations Fleet

Everything

League Combined Fleet

A bunch

Aftermath

The Magnates snuck some fabricators into Minkowski and set up shop in the asteroid belt. Minkowski spends years fighting a gruelling anti-piracy campaign.

The Battle of Finnegan's Folly

June-July 2176
Result: Magnate pyrrhic victory. Magnates forced out of system but League fails to prevent theft of the Citadel.

Forces

Magnate Continuum Joint Operations Fleet
Commanding Officer: Fleet Arbitrator Sauer

lots

League Combined Fleet
Commanding Officer: Admiral Rakesh Zhang, Minkowski National Guard

more

Losses

Magnate Continuum Joint Operations Fleet

Significant elements of Expeditionary Force lost

League Combined Fleet

more

Aftermath

The Battle of Finnegan's Folly was the defining event of the Magnate war: very long, very slow, and ambiguous in result. League ships and fabricators began trickling into the system through the month of June and it rapidly became apparent to the quagmired Magnates that their position was untenable. They accelerated plans to activate and evacuate the Citadel and departed with it in the early days of July, mere hours before the League fleet breached their defenses and reached Near Orbit in force. The Magnates, having limited FTL capability deployed the bulk of the Fleet assets of the Expeditionary Force in the system in a desperate holding action to contain advancing League forces, while remaining fleet assets escorted the Citadel out of the system.

The battle left the Magnates with a significantly diminished Expeditionary Force, but they had achieved their strategic objectives. In the wake of the battle and the other concluding actions of the war, neither side could marshal enough force and transport to initiate a new operation before the Breakdown ended and the threat of Core support forced the Magnates to abandon their plans for conquest.

The Battle of Canaan's Breach

August, 2176
Result: Magnate forces destroyed, Altus suffers significant damage to orbital infrastructure.

Forces

Magnate Expeditionary Task Force
Commanding Officer: Admiral Daedalus Canaan

lots

Altan System Defence Militia
Commanding Officer: Fleet Marshal Terris O'shale (Retired)

more