Operation Thunderbolt
Operation Thunderbolt was the name given by the Saelian Coalition to an offensive against the Suon flying city of Takanal during the late Tebburus Unification War.
The Saelians launched a massive force consisting of millions of Flying Discs of varying sizes. The suons had a significant escorting force with Takanal at all times of course, complete with aircraft and Taidakic Field airships. Using the city's airports have deployed a huge number of aircraft to score attrition against the saelian forces. Additionally, Takanal had a significant range advantage and managed to fire off a number of missiles before the Takanal entered the saelian air force's range. These long range strikes have destroyed a significant force before the saelians could even fire a shot at Takanal. It would prove to not be enough.
The saelian air force approached rapidly from many directions. The many AA weapons mounted to Takanal would be constantly firing due to the massive number of saelian flying discs present. As Takanal is a very powerful fortress, any attempts to take down the city itself would prove futile. They instead opted to capture it. In the resulting chaos, they managed to destroy most of the AA weapons of the flying city - again, at the cost of immense casualties, this time much more significant. Many saelian discs landed on the airbases of Takanal and began unloading a huge number of ground assault teams. Now with air superiority, the saelians could support their forces on the city and have destroyed yet more defences. The suons desperately tried making the city rapidly retreat back towards their own approaching air force.
This made reinforcements impossible for the saelians. Many boarding craft would be delayed significantly because of this, and so they would suffer heavy casualties once again on the ground offensive. Despite this, the prolonged assault allowed them to capture large areas of the flying city. By destroying a number of Aetherium crystals contained on the city, they were able to slow it down, but were careful not to destroy too many as that would cause the city to crash into the ground. Suons launched counterattack after counterattack, but the saelians retained the offensive. Finally, the suon air force would arrive and provide reinforcements to the desperate defence of the flying city and further cripple the saelian air force in the process, but the Saelian Coalition, now in control of significant parts of Takanal, could bear a large number of AA weapons to against the suon forces. This has destroyed most of the suon air force, causing the rest to retreat. Although this crippled the saelian efforts to control the flying city, they managed to capture more and more sections until the entire Flying City came under their control. The rest is history.
During the suon counteroffensive attempt to reclaim the rest of their planet, Takanal fell back into the control of the suon nationstates eventually.
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