SP and NCP Militia units hold joint training in Ananto
Bozo River Facility shows value as World Class Maneuver areaBozo River Combined Arms Training Center, Ananto
May 12, 4515Members of the RSMoK and the PCAK practice beach landing and breaching sea walls during Operation Anantonese Dominance last fallIn a six month deployment meant to train both militias to stand up as auxiliary defenses of Kalistan, Units of the recently reformed Revolutionary Socialist Militia of Kalistan and the Provisional Conservative Army of Kalistan conducted joint training exercises between August 4514 and February 4515 at the Bozo River Combined Arms Training Center. Both forces formed within a short time of one another, and both have committed to serving as partisan forces in the Armed Forces of Kalistan.
The operation, dubbed Anantonese Dominance was aimed at both training and sharing tactical doctrines between the two militias, but also fraternizing and increasing the bonds between the two Units. Corporal Howard Hibiscus, a partisan commando from the RSMoK said, "Well, as far as I know, this is really the first time the Conservatives have had a militia for us to train with. When the PCAK was around before, the SP was not active, and well, before that it was just the Socialists. But I've made a lot of life long friends during this rotation, for sure. We may disagree politically, but everyone agrees that we are here to fight for the Republic, and so we're pretty much on the same page."
Units of the RSMoK included units from across Kalistan. Units ranged from Light Infantry Battalions to motorized cavalry, to artillery. The only units that did not rotate into the training facility were the LAFA units which remained on coastal duty during the exercises. PCAK units included three battalions of Infantry, as well as irregular units of support and armor, in which the PCAK also specializes. Both groups fired for rotary wing craft.
Lt. Gerard Grandin, who is a battery commander for a unit attached to the 3rd Battalion of the Ananto Artillery regiment said, "The good thing about training with the Conservatives is first of all, we get to know one another, and at night, we might have some spirited discussions, but then we always shake on it and realize we ain't going to solve ideology over beers out in the field. But the Conservatives bring a lot of capabilities we don't have. While we specialize in manuver and shock, and various irregular tactics, the Conservatives have a much more highly trained armor focus. We were able to show them some things, they were able to show us some things. I mean, you don't get this kind of experience running wargames at the OCS. And since we are militia, we are able to do things that the Regulars aren't, so we can learn how to disable tanks, and they can learn how to blow up bridges and fork comm, and things like this."
PCAK Armor enters a hot zone and fires in support of Conservative militia units on the moveLtCol. Angelica Bellomo, Commander of the 5th Batallion, PCAK gave
The Kalistani Republic a run down on the training cycle:
Lt. Col Angelica Bellomo, Commander, PCAK V Bn wrote:"We started of kind of slow. We had the Socialists and the Conservatives bunk together in the field barracks. At first there weren't a lot of training exercises. The goal was to increase familiarity and camaraderie between the two groups who might otherwise be somewhat standoffish of one another. There were tensions at first: some of these young people can be hotheads. But after the second week, things cooled down and we got into training. The officers devised stress test exercises that included very long, multi day forced marches, field bivouac, lack of food, lack of sleep, and extreme physical exertion. Much more than most of these young kids are used to, for sure. Hell: Much more than the salty officers are used to.
"Following the stress tests, which most of my troops called hellish, we let them rest once more. They realized they had been through this trial all together and that they had more in common as a team than as opponents. We made them solve problems as a team, we made them think as a squad. Most of these squad units became fiercely loyal to one another. And then we took them out into the field, and started with squad on squad tactics. We did this for a month or more, and soon we were into late October. Then we brought the platoons together into Companies, and put one against another to capture or hold some objective. Other times we would practice maneuver. the troops received classes in demolitions, in psyops, in signals intelligence. They also fired artillery, fired the main guns on the tanks. You name it. It was a rigorous, miserable six months. But these men and women made it through. I think doing these joint training exercises from time to time will be nothing but advantageous."
Militia PFC David Jefferies, infantryman in the RSMoK agreed with the Lieutenant Colonel. "We learned so much. I think Kalistan is far better defended now that they have stood up the militias. I mean: Since they basically canked the NSP, there's a lot of kids in the RSMoK who would be doing National Service, but had to join the militia instead, because there's no work for the NSP. So this job keeps us from suffering from lack of a job, you know? And it teaches us some valuable stuff, and also we get to shoot at sh-t and blow sh-t up. You know what I mean? The militia has a long tradition in Kalistan. This is an important job, you know?"
Conservative and Socialist Partisans aimed at fake Lourennaise targets during live fire exercisesThe operation, which had the strategic goal of training the militias for a possible invasion of Kalistan used the most obvious "enemy": The Government of Lourainne, as its faux-target. "Ha ha, yeah, we called em all sorts of bad names, stuff I can't say in the paper," said Militia Staff Sergeant Valarie DelGado. "Stuff I wouldn't want my mom or my Meeting to know I said. Well, I mean come on: They've never invaded but they did kill the President back in the day and they sunk a bunch of ships. If anyone's gonna invade its gonna be them, and if we don't train, we ain't gonna be ready to kill them by the boatload... It's all in fun though. I don't have a problem with the Lazies, personally. But I do know you can't trust a man who complains about weed but never smoked it. Just sayin..."
To all accounts, Operation Anantonese Domination went off without a hitch, and looks to provide a blueprint for future cooperation between the two militia forces in the future.