32nd Division (Star League)

32nd Division
Formed	2579
Affiliation	Star League
Parent Command	VIII Corps

History

The Thirty-Second Division was part of the Star League Defense Force Regular Army. The Thirty-Second and her sister division within the provisional VIII Corps, the Thirty-First Armor Division were cobbled together in or around 2579 as part of the formation of Task Force MAILED FIST, the Task Force assembled to implement Operation MAILED FIST - the Star League intervention in the Rim Worlds Republic civil war. Confusingly, over the same period of time General Amalthia Kinkaid, the Commanding Officer of the SLDF operation against the Taurian Concordat was standing up a new provisional corps, designated XI Corps, which also contained a Thirty-First Division and Thirty-Second Division.

The timing of the Rim Worlds Republic civil war was unfortunate for the Star League, and when the SLDF was finally charged with intervening the only forces available were two reserve corps stationed on Terra and those divisions being mustered from new recruits and trained up. As a result, the provisional VIII Corps lacked a backbone and was bolstered through the formation of the 2nd Marik Auxiliary Corps, which added six line regiments from the Free Worlds League Military, and three regiments from the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces mustered together as the Lyran Auxiliary Corps.

Bucklands

By 2582 the Rim Worlds Republic had been in a state of civil war for seven years. The Star League had initiated Operation MAILED FIST in mid-2581, but the SLDF plans had been forced to change after a deep raid by the Fourth Amaris Fusiliers had managed to strike at the Lyran Commonwealth interior world of Alarion.

The result was the reorganization of the SLDF forces and their auxiliaries into three battlegroups, each responsible for the pacification of one of the three provinces that made up the Rim Worlds Republic. Bucklands and the Second Amaris Fusiliers were the first targets of the battlegroup assigned to pacifying the Finmark Province, and the SLDF deployed VIII Corps - still predominantly an infantry corps - to the battle for Bucklands.

VIII Corps planners thought that Buckland's broad plains would give them an advantage over the Rim Worlds Republic military forces stationed on the world. This proved incorrect, as the light armor forces within the Second Fusiliers proved very adept at evading SLDF patrols, repeatedly slipping past patrols and pickets to strike at weak points within the SLDF positions. The sheer tenacity displayed by the Rim Worlds defenders - a unit the SLDF was notionally supporting with their campaign to restore First Consul Gregory Amaris to power - was a shock for VIII Corps, whose infantry-heavy forces frequently found themselves on the retreat despite the numerical advantage the SLDF enjoyed on paper. The net result was an indication of what the SLDF would find happening on numerous other worlds within the Republic - an extended seven-month campaign before Bucklands was pacified and the defending forces finally broken.

Finmark

By late 2584 the SLDF changed tactics again; a number of major Rim Worlds Army units had been destroyed or captured, and the focus for the campaign had shifted to capturing worlds of strategic importance, but the campaign was slowed by the greatly increased resistance offered by the RWA and local civilian populations, prompted by atrocities performed by the Draconis Auxiliary Corps when they captured Nightwish in mid-2584. Archon Viola Steiner-Dinesen of Battle Group Finmark assigned VIII Corps to the conquest of Finmark in 2586; the resulting campaign was actually something of a relief for the beleaguered SLDF, as it was one of the few stand-up fights to occur during Operation MAILED FIST, unmarked by the more extreme defensive measures many other planetary campaigns were marked by.

The battle for Finmark saw one of the seven corvette-class WarShips operated by the Rim Worlds Army crippled and then boarded by SLDF troops, and was the first time the SLDF had encountered any of the small RWA WarShips in combat. On the surface of Finmark the loyalist Fifth Amaris Dragoons put up a valiant and determined resistance against the far more numerous SLDF forces, selling themselves dearly before being defeated by VIII Corps.

Edirne

The next campaign for the Thirty-Second was the first campaign in which they would operate independently; the Thirty-Second was deployed to secure the world of Edirne in 2589 in the face of opposition from local militia and partisan forces.

Zertarum and Battaraigi

For the campaign on Zertarum in 2592 the Thirty-Second was deployed alongside the Thirty-First Armor Division again, with VIII Corps capturing the system and then remaining in place as the local garrison until the Thirty-First was redeployed for the invasion of Cryfder in 2593; the Thirty-Second then went into action again in 2594 for the conquest of Battaraigi. In both cases the Thirty-Second faced only local militia and partisan forces.

Apollo

General Isaacson planned the operation to secure Apollo, the capital world of the Rim Worlds Republic. Isaacson took command of the naval elements of the operation, while operational command of the ground operation was passed to Archon Steiner-Dinesen, who led the landings and the assault on Terra Prime, whilst Duke Selaj was made her second in command and given responsibility for the military strike to secure the island estates within which Gregory Amaris had sheltered for the better part of twenty years.

The Archon's force made slow progress in their assault, landing on the 21st of March 2596, having to deal with conducting an assault in the midst of the monsoon season against the combined forces of the Seventh Amaris Legionnaires and Eighth Amaris Dragoons bolstered by well-prepared defenses that included bunker complexes and gun emplacements. The weather heavily favored the outnumbered defenders, while the various battles turned the ground outside the city into a quagmire, bogging down the SLDF units and sapping morale. The weather also prevented the SLDF from making use of AeroSpace forces much of the time, and it was only with the addition of those forces commanded by Duke Selaj that real progress began to be made.

Duke Selaj had managed to easily defeat the forces besieging the Amaris' estates, only to find Amaris himself to be unpleasant, hostile, and thoroughly ungrateful for his rescue; Amaris regarded Selaj as a provincial minor lordling from the Free Worlds League, despite the far greater wealth and population of the Principality of Regulus, and bitterly resented the time taken to rescue him and the poor conditions he considered himself to have lived in... conditions far more opulent than most of his citizens or the soldiers of the Task Force had endured. Despite the difficulties in dealing with Amaris, Duke Selaj was able to send his troops and liberated Amaris loyalists to join the forces outside Terra Prime.

On the 24th of March the Archon initiated a plan to draw the RRA defenders out; making sure that she was highly visible, she led the Fourth Royal Guards on a sweep around the city, in the hope that she would prove a significant enough target to tempt the defenders into an attack. The plan was that when the RRA attacked, the Free Worlds, Amaris Loyalist and VIII Corps units nearby would arrive to reinforce the Fourth, trapping the defenders in a three-jawed trap. The Seventh Legionnaires and Eighth Fusiliers responded as hoped, moving out to attack the Archon's forces, but a communications glitch meant that the other units didn't receive the signal to spring into action, leaving the Fourth in locked combat with both rebel units.

Troops from VIII Corps did eventually arrive and drove off the rebel forces, but by that point the Fourth Royal Guards had been mauled; the Archon's 'Mech was one of those destroyed in the fighting, and while the Archon survived the battle, she had suffered mortal injuries and was swiftly repatriated to Tharkad, where she died on the 28th of April.

General Isaacson wasn't entirely surprised to learn of the Archon's injuries; he perceived the Archon's behavior since the Day of Rage on Barcelona to have been reckless to the point of nihilism, and her actions had given him cause for concern. With the Archon no longer able to command the ground forces, General Isaacson took direct command of the ground forces for the remainder of the operation. Gregory Amaris remained true to his nature, demanding that Isaacson end the conflict by bombing the RPG forces into submission; Isaacson refused, and conducted a more cautious campaign, intended to reduce the loss of life on both parts as much as possible. Isaacson's strategy was proven effective, and the siege of Terra Prime finally ended on the 3rd of September when the RPG surrendered, ending the civil war.

Officers

Rank	Name	Command
Commanding Officers of the 32nd Division (Star League)

Tactics

Unknown.

Composition History

Unknown.

Notes

It was confirmed by the author of Historical: Reunification War that in general, the Divisions listed within The Star League sourcebook be traced back directly to those Divisions listed within Historical: Reunification War. However, in 2764 there are two divisions listed as the Thirty-Second within the SLDF: the Thirty-Second Infantry Division, XII Corps and the Thirty-Second Mechanized Infantry Division, XIV Corps. It is not known which of these divisions can claim precedence from either of the two Thirty-Second Divisions active during the Reunification War.

Rules

Reunification War

• The 32nd Division suffer a -1 penalty when rolling to determine their Random Experience Level.
• When rolling on the Unit Type table the 32nd Division treats rolls of 2-3 as generating a Combat Vehicle result and rolls of 4-5 as generating a BattleMech.

Bibliography

• Historical: Reunification War
• The Star League