FIFTY FIVE DAYS AT FORT BONESAW

Warden Defenders at Fort Bonesaw.

Community Submission.

WAR 96, DAY 702-755, FORT BONESAW, Morgen's Crossing --- For fifty-odd long and ruthless days, tired and hungry Warden riflemen have crouched in the ruined industrial heart of Morgan's Crossing. The once great facilities, established a mere handful of days after the start of the war, now reduced to rubble. Armed with bayonets and demolition charges in hand, they wait for day, for liberation, or for death.

The breaching of Morgan's crossing came at last around the 700th day of the war. For months, Colonial Legionnaire forces had at-times held a tentative grip upon the southernmost part of the region, specifically the Relic Base at Warmonger bay. From here, forces on both sides skirmished as the Colonial advance finally stalled against the extensive bunker networks of IG. For days, artillery duelled, super heavy tanks would clash from both sides, and intermediary skirmishes on occasions quieter followed, setting a tense routine of sorts.

Mesean forces however did not eventually achieve their stunning breakthrough through destruction, but through bypass. Exploiting a similar strategy to their early success at Evil Eye, a daring naval assault would strike at the meekly defended port of Quietus, after which armour and infantry forces moved rapidly to secure the unfortified outlying settlements. Seeing the opportunity and exploiting the neglected defences on the eastern Ultimus road, mechanized units broke across the lines into the heartlands of the region. To do so, they disengaged from the powerful but immobile defensive works around Lividus to take the regional capital at Allsight.

Night falls at Fort Bonesaw.

However, this rapid and daring offensive strategy, which seized the region for Colonial forces, had one key flaw. Because colonial forces were bypassing rather than attacking strongpoints, a number of fortified positions with deployment facilities remained in their rear, albeit, isolated and cut off; Fort Bonesaw, the bypassed IG citadel, and the fortifications in the southern suburbs of Lividus of Fort Cone. By leaving these strongpoints intact, Legion forces attempting to move onwards and exploit their momentum to attack the manufacturing sector of Clanshead Valley were left difficult to supply by land, and fighting on too many fronts. This posed an issue, and so Colonial forces set to the task of destroying the pockets they’d created.

Whilst initial sweeping efforts met only disorganized if desperate resistance, Warden troops rallied quickly and resisted. For the men of Fort Bonesaw, this initially meant counterattack, and with their armoured train, they charged into Allsight, cannons blazing, but were eventually immobilized by the destruction of the locomotive. With time, the battle wagon exhausted its ammunition, and was destroyed as well. Now bloodied but unbeaten, the rag-tag defenders from dozens of different regiments settled in for a siege.

Though more extensive defensive works had been planned, the Northeast portion abutted a cliff, and the Southwest was awkwardly sighted with a few blind spots. As such Measan armour breached these fortifications, and ran amok, smashing logistics vehicles, destroying tanks, and damaging facility buildings. Chaos ensued, a scorpion tumbling from the cliff attempting to engage the defenders, then destroyed by anti-tank fire. Yet the defenders rallied, and with bayonets and rifles, drove out the attackers. At one point, armour on the southwest side rolled into the railyard cannons blazing, and a Starbreaker cannon was employed sitting on its construction platform to destroy two Lance battle tanks, along with lighter tanks beside.

Satchel teams then infiltrated from the Northern sector, blasting away the pre-positioned artillery battery, leaving the fortress with a vast stock of 120mm shells, but no gun to fire them. This would come back to haunt the defenders in time, but they never-the-less fixed bayonets, and charged the breach, fighting the remaining Colonials back. For hours, and then days, this continued. Each Colonial attack broke some part of the defences, overran some wall, shattered an important bunker, and each time the desperate men of Caovia threw themselves at the breach, contained the attack, and dug make-shift trenches to replace them.

Tank defending the Bunker Base Core.

Despite this desperation, by the 720th day, it seemed they would hold. Stripped of armour, but still dug in like ticks, the tank and infantry attacks slowly petered out. Yet, just as the Wardens set to their hammers and began to make good their defences, the earth shook. 120mm shells, using pallets of ammunition looted from the outlying towns or ferried by sea, fell like rain, a storm of bursts and flying shrapnel. Workers, to this point still using the factory to produce fresh Starbreakers, shells, and supplies, were blown to bloody rags, and the artillery rapidly levelled many industrial buildings. One survivor compared the barrage to the hammering of a kettle drum.

The large power stations were hit early, followed by recycling centres, many of the vehicle works, and almost everything else above ground. The entire industrial park ground to a halt, and from here on, Fort Bonesaw would hold with only what it had remaining. The lost 120mm, with 400 shells sitting in its ready rooms, was missed badly for the opportunity for counter-battery fire, and probing attacks by the garrison only interrupted the shelling for a few days before the guns relocated behind the defences of Allsight. A single colonial infantryman exploited the chaos of the bombardment, and as defenders sheltered, snuck into the armoured train car still in the sidings. Havoc reigned as base-turrets, bursting shells, pushed cannons and the train exchanged hell in the firestorm. The defenders radioed what was expected to be their last message on day 732, in amongst the heaviest part of the barrage;

Warden communications during the siege.

Yet without warning, and as suddenly as it had started, the shelling stopped. The colonials were out of ammunition. The defenders of the IG fortress, fighting their own desperate battle, along with those of Fort Cone in Allsight were still harassing supply shipments up the road into the Colonial towns, and the supply of shells drained rapidly. One side without a gun and shells aplenty, the other with guns, and no ammo. Perhaps without knowing it, the men of these fortresses had saved the Garrison of Bonesaw.

Initial efforts by the Wardens to reclaim the sector targeted the southern route through Quietus, but here the Colonials had dug in hard. Using their own tactics against the enemy however, a bold force of cruiser tanks charged the northern sector and seized the Relic base of Eversus. Seeing this, when the next dawn broke, the tired, battered, weary garrison attacked. One last time, men with satchel bombs looted from Colonial infantry charged the town hall, and the one time more, the machine guns answered them. Yet just as the garrison’s attack was faltering, the tanks of the 300th, and many more besides, charged guns alight from the west. The battle was sharp, and short, and the town-hall fell.

It was blinking, battered, weary and exhausted that the scruffy defenders of Fort Bonesaw stumbled across the rubble to greet their liberators. Some men cheered, others wept, and yet more said nothing at all as the tanks wasted no time, rallying briefly before they charged south, and to the relief of Lividus. They arrived in time to save the nearly completely-reduced Fort Cone, but were just minutes late of reaching the great fortress of the IG regiment, which fell after an equally heroic defence to determined legionnaire forces. Now these same weary, tired men labour, to re-light the fires of industry, and support the still-fluid battle raging to the south. The fronts continue to swing, and commenters on both sides puzzle over who still will triumph. Yet win or lose this war, regardless of if the timbers of this fort survive it, these embattled, courageous men will never again be strangers to another. Their bond has been sealed in the fire of battle.

Colonial Shelling of Warden Positions.

Destruction and aftermath of the battles for the Forts.

Written by: Edward#1667

Edited by: [PRESS] Henry Stewart

Date of Publication: 4/11/2022

This article is a Community Submission, posted in the submissions text channel on the PressCorps Discord. Community Submissions feature independent reporting, and may be modified for reasons of clarity and grammar.

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