Beerat Battles
(This page is complete as of the end of "Independent Command". I don't think it will need additions for "Ending This Mess". -ZM)
First Sa'arm Scout Probe
This battle had no ships survive; some crew from Maiden Castle were picked up several weeks later in their escape shuttle. Note that this battle was later held up in Confederacy Navy tactical training as the best result we had records of, when a single Castle took on a Vacuna triad.
Second Sa'arm Scout Probe
This battle had two fatalities on the Confederacy side, and no Sa'arm escaped.
Third Sa'arm Scout Probe
This battle was split into two separate actions when the Sa'arm force split. There were three fatalities but no major ship damage on the Confederacy side, and all Sa'arm ships were destroyed.
- Confederacy: Two Task Forces (Taffies), each with 1 Raptor, 1 Europa, 3 Asian, 3 Africa, 2/3 Castle.
- Sa'arm: Two separate units, each with 3 Vacuna and 1 Courier ship (all destroyed)
First Battle of Beerat
This battle occured while the Asians were in the shipyard getting their new "Baby Hero" guns installed. The Africas had just returned to the Task Forces. The Raptor was a complete loss, and the Europa was crippled but no other ships were damaged. There were 505 total Human fatalities, not counting Majorca.
- Confederacy: Task Force 2 with 1 Raptor, 1 Europa, 3 "Africa-Plus", 2 Shiros, 1 Patrician, 1 Castle, 1 Folk-Hero experimental gunboat
- Sa'arm: 3 ships, a Volumna and two Vervactors. The Volumna launched 2 Vacunas and 9 Lima bombers after an early hit. All Sa'arm forces were destroyed.
After the battle our sensor shell detected another scout force with 4 ships in the outer system. CNS Majorca, the Patrician which went out to meet them, destroyed one and damaged two others, then followed them into hyperspace. We never heard from Majorca again.
Fourth Sa'arm Scout Probe
This battle also had two fatalities on the Confederacy side, and no Sa'arm escaped.
- Confederacy: 1 Patrician, 2 Castles (one damaged)
- Sa'arm: 3 Vacunas (all destroyed)
Note that the three Vacunas were disabled and 'killed', not vaporized. Two hulks were later boarded and recovered for analysis and training.
Second Battle of Beerat
This battle occurred soon after the first run of "Snake" class 4-turret large assault cruisers joined the fleet. The new class had significant teething problems but without their firepower we probably would not have had as many survivors and may have even lost Beer. We had several large ships armed with turret guns, but all of our smaller and/or older ships were built with the "Chase" orientation, with extremely limited ability to fire in any direction except straight forward.
- Confederacy: 8 Snakes, 1 enhanced Raptor, 3 enhanced Europas, 6 "Kent" heavy cruisers, 6 Africas, 6 Asians, 3 "Turtle" monitors, 60 "Shiro-II" large corvettes, 3 "Folk Hero" gunboats, assorted smaller scouts, and various fixed defenses divided into a main blocking force tethered to Beer, three mobile task forces, a command group, a scouting force, and three concentrations of fixed positions.
- Sa'arm group 1: 1 Virtus, 2 Volumnas, 2 Vestas, 10 Vervactors, 51 Vacunas, 36 Limas
- Sa'arm group 2: 3 Volumnas, 6 Vervactors, 27 Vacunas, 18 Limas
This battle was the only one in Beerat where the defenders took infrastructure damage. One Sa'arm colonizer ship from the first group, the Virtus, wasn't finally destroyed until it was attempting to land on Beer and the hulk impacted the planet at high speed causing large-scale casualties on the ground. In addition, Task Force 1 was almost a total loss. The second group succeeded in destroying the shipyard complex. We evacuated many almost-complete ships and all shipyard personnel, but we lost most manned defensive positions and all ships that were too incomplete to get underway. One key "victory condition" that the defenders achieved was that there were no Sa'arm escapees; the Sa'arm systems which built the two invasion forces would not have any way to learn what happened and thus could not plan an answer.
Fifth and Sixth Sa'arm Scout Probes
These "battles" were more of an ambush, with no fatalities, injuries, or even equipment damage on the Confederacy side, and no Sa'arm escaped.
- Confederacy: 2 Shiro-IIs
- Sa'arm: 3 Vacunas (all destroyed)
Third and Subsequent Battles of Beerat
The Beerat Defense Force had been building several designs of larger and more-capable warships at Barton Shipyard, and many of them were complete enough to get underway and evade the Sa'arm fleet which destroyed the yard. Once those ships were completed in a makeshift yard at the Womb, the Beerat System Defense Force had the firepower to whittle down, stand up to, and eliminate every subsequent Sa'arm incursion. Over the years, Beerat saw some immense Sa'arm fleets, but the SDF was able to keep ahead of them.
(Someday this will be a navigation template. It will provide a bar across the bottom of each article with useful navigation links. Until then, this is just a placeholder to get rid of all the red "broken link" indicators. -ZM User (talk) 10:00, 3 May 2024 (PDT))
