Battle of the BMC Buckler

The Battle of the BMC Buckler (19 October 1968) was an engagement of the first Harbinger war between Brachyurian and Fasdian forces.

The BMC (Brachyurian Merchant Ship) Buckler was a bulk cargo ship owned by Hermit Plastics, which like all other companies in Brachyuria at the time was heavily regulated by the government. Before the battle took place, it was undergoing a route to Deketopia to make a marginal profit from a hold largely filled with Tupperware. At the time, suspicions toward Brachyuria and it's warmongering King, Tin Niederhaus, meant that only the Deketopian corporation giant -the Pacific Trading Company- would choose to make any trade agreements with Brachyuria; and subsequently was the only economic reason for the Brachyurian government not collapsing entirely through economic strife during the period of King Tin's rule.

The battle took place a few hundred kilometres south of Brachyuria, in the mouth of the Ravenessian Sounds. A Fasdian naval force of some 17 ships were moving in from the South-West, having already captured two other Brachyurian freighters without incident. Launched from Mictyrus and smaller ports around the South coast, a Brachyurian fleet of 37 ships and submarines had set out on the day of the battle to try to find the Fasdians. A small detachment of this fleet, numbering 16 vessels, caught sight of the BMC Buckler around 3:00pm on the 19th. Two Brachyurian submarines had also sidled up to the freighter, and chose to make a rudimentary hiding position around the turbulent waters below it's propellers. This smaller part of the fleet had intended to find the Buckler from the outset, as a preventative step against further captured shipping, while the main fleet searched for the Fasdians in earnest. However, the Fasdian fleet came upon the Buckler about half an hour later, and left this smaller fleet to engage their enemy by themselves.

Forces
The Fasdian force was led by Admiral Joseph Gareth and consisted of 17 vessels. It had 3 cruisers, Gareth's flagship the FNS Torrill, as well as two others, the FNS Holdsley and FNS Brom. This put a superior number of larger surface ships on the side of the Fasdians, as the only Brachyurian cruiser-sized vessel was part of the larger fleet that did not become involved. The fleet also had 5 Destroyers, 4 Frigates, 2 Corvettes and 5 small missile and torpedo boats. Additionally, the FNS Torrill had one ship-borne helicopter.

The total Brachyurian fleet was commanded by Admiral Frank Hobert and numbered 37 vessels; with 23 Destroyers, 11 Corvettes, 2 Submarines and 1 Battlecruiser, the HMS Xanthodius, Hobert's flagship. The two submarines (HMS Cordimana and HMS Hermit) would from the outset operate independently, and a detachment of 16 vessels, led by Lieutenant Edgar Dorenkamp and consisting of 8 Destroyers and 8 Corvettes, broke away from the main fleet to find the Buckler. It was these 18 vessels that would engage the Fasdians, the other 19 ships, including the Xanthodius, were unable to get within range in the short course of the battle.

The Battle
From their hiding position beneath the Buckler, the Brachyurian submarines launched torpedoes at the Fasdian fleet at a range of 700 metres. The FNS Miles, having been ahead of the main fleet as a rendezvous to the Buckler for it's surrender, immediately launched guided depth charges, and succeeded in destroying the HMS Cordimana before her torpedoes could be guided to their target. Those torpedoes that did hit the Fasdian fleet incurred a few casualties, a single Frigate was sunk completely, along with a torpedo boat, and a Destroyer took a crippling hit, but remained floating. The HMS Hermit fell back, as it had sustained damage, and was only able to escape from a Fasdian helicopter's radar when the Miles, which had been shelling the Buckler since the Submarines had fired, launched it's own torpedoes at the Buckler. The explosion interfering with the airborne radar enough for the Hermit to slip away.

Acting on the request of the Hermit's captain to distract the Fasdians while he made an escape, the naval detachment under Dorenkamp made an attempt to engage the Fasdian fleet from maximum range. Untested "Striking Crab" sea-skimming anti-ship missiles fired by the Corvettes had disastrous results, several hitting the Buckler instead, and the rest missing entirely. This development effectively made all the Brachyurian corvettes out of range, but a follow up salvo from the Destroyers had better effect, sinking two, and damaging three others. Return fire from the Fasdian fleet was largely countered by concentrated fire from the Brachyurians, with their superior countermeasures, but two Destroyers would receive enough damage to render them inoperable, and several other ships took casualties from flying debris.

A second round of firing began on both sides at around the same time, and in both cases was devastating. Of the Fasdian fleet, only the three cruisers and two damaged Destroyers would survive to retreat back to home ports. Of the Brachyurian fleet, only the HMS Mictyrus, a Corvette, would avoid taking significant damage. The Brachyurian losses were so high, that when the Xanthodius met with the detached fleet some ten minutes later, rather than give chase with the remaining 20 ships, Admiral Hobert required them to assist the survivors instead. This allowed the Fasdian fleet to escape, and was not well received by the Brachyurian government.

War crimes allegations (1997)
The sinking of the BMC Buckler has always been considered an unnecessarily hostile act by Brachyurians, and was used by King Tin as a means to whip up anti-Fasdian sentiments during the war and subsequent conflicts. Though the morality of the situation will always be complicated by the nature of both the Brachyurian and Fasdian governments, especially at the time of the incident, this deliberate attack on what was obviously a non-military vessel remained a dark spot on Brachyurian-Fasdian relations.

On the 17th of July 1997, old records were brought up to examine the conduct of both sides of the war. Though the crux of war crime allegations rest on the pivotal sinking of the FMC Harbinger, the uncertain circumstances of the Buckler's demise have raised their own issue. Acting as both a key witness and a chief inquirer into the incident, Charles Oakenbroth headed a movement to see recognition of this act, "as one of many such immoral acts in that so immoral conflict."

Fasdian response before 1997 had been that the Brachyurian navy had deliberately brought the Buckler into harms way, and that the collateral damage to a ship placed between two armed combatants was inevitable. Evidence that the FNS Miles actively shelled the Buckler before the Brachyurian fleet made it's location known would counter this argument, and raised the issue that the Miles had chosen to attack the merchant ship out of spite, or to avenge the destruction of the Harbinger. Fasdian response then shifted to the fact, well documented, that the final blow to the Buckler was actually delivered by the Brachyurians; when faulty targeting systems of the new "Striking Crab" anti-ship missiles hit the freighter instead of the intended target of the Fasdian fleet.

A series of debates went on for the better part of two months, until the 13th of September, when it was agreed that the sinking of the Buckler was in breach of moral wartime conduct, but that the Brachyurian navy had played a hand in events by deliberately using the ship as both "live bait" for the Fasdians, and as a way of disguising their submarine's radar signature. Hermit Plastics, the owner of the Buckler, received an undisclosed sum as reparations, paid mostly by the Fasdian government but with the Brachyurian government contributing a proportion of it as well. The Captain of the Miles was subjected to a Fasdian military tribunal, the result of which has never been disclosed.