With the massing of our paramilitary flotillas now reaching capacity that we can start to take direct offensive operations on our terms, this means we're taking advantage of opposing forces operations along with making our own opportunities to supplement our cause. But before we get too ambitious, we must secure our own base of operations and logistical routes against increasing corporate security, in turn causing higher stress and attrition on the authorities response capability. I'm encouraging any paramilitary forces to report any potential target that threatens our established routes but in the meantime I've labelled a few that could get the ball rolling.

Swift's Mining Co.1 is a Daumann IFF'ed installation, its seems to be involved in the Aluminium mining operations that Rheinland has invested in. With the recent uptick of corporate exploitation that the corporations have been involved in with Hammersee penal colony. Recently flooding in with both native and foreign prisoners that seem to have heavy involvement in force labour on orbiting production facilities. The proximity of this station near Bielefeld as it sits less than 10 Klicks from the defence perimeter, its been known to fire on passing patrols and heavily restricts the movement of our forces, causing immediate diversions in supply and combat patrol traffic. I will submit this station for potential targeting.


Another Daumann installation is Arnsberg Research Institute, it sits between the trade lane corridor of the Saarfeld and the Harzfeld, its equipped with a guardian defence system causing quite the issue for our LWB neighbours and unlawful smugglers making their routes via the "Widerstands-Rettungsring" as it seems to be equiped with an area-of-effect disruption system that causes havoc on cruise engines and active camouflage systems on our clandestine vessels. Likely involved with the rest of New Berlins manufacturing operations so this may be something worthwhile hitting if we want to put a strain on their ability to recuperate their asset losses. It is highly advisable we contact the Hessians and see if they would also be encouraged to push the Corporates back from the Dresden gate to give ensure they think twice if they believe Dresden will return to their hands... And an eye for an eye for Bautzen.

Approximately twenty-four hours ago, we achieved a stunning victory over the Rheinwehr with the assistance of our oldest allies, the Red Hessians. The Blue Uhlan was on patrol in Cologne when we received an emergency communication from a Red Hessian ship in Dresden requesting immediate support from any available ships. I ordered the crew to make best possible speed for Stuttgart and we managed to arrive in Dresden just in time to provide assistance to the Hessian Cruiser Mimir and Bundschuh Gunboat Luneburg. The Mimir and Luneburg, with the assistance of the Hessian Battleship Jotunheim had managed to corner a pair of Bismarck-class battleships against the minefield around the New Berlin Jump Gate.

Since the Hessian units were the larger of the forces deployed, we operated under their operational command. From what I understand, the Mimir was a relatively new ship and wished to test their mettle against the two Bismarcks, and the Jotunheim agreed to allow the smaller vessels to take the first crack at the Rheinwehr vessels, with the understanding that they would move in if any of us took substantial damage. Moving in to assist the other light vessels, we found that the Rheinwehr vessels had severe issues in managing to track our more maneuverable ships, judging from my own experience the crews of both ships must be very recent recruits with no practical combat experience.

We focused our fire on the KKS-Paul first, and managed to destroy it without any difficulties, with the Mimir according itself very well during the engagement. Switching fire to the KKS-Roteblüte, we found that the command crew of that particular vessel seemed to be having severe issues with tracking our ships, repeatedly transmitting in the blind that they were seeing several more contacts on their scopes than were actually present. With that particular ship nearly destroyed, the Jotunheim called out that yet another battleship had jumped into Dresden through the New Berlin Gate. This one, the RNC-Neuwiesbaden, handled itself a little better than the first two and managed to hold out long enough for yet another battleship to arrive on the scene.

The Blue Uhlan’s sensor officer called out a report on the most recent arrival, and managed to designate the newest vessel as the KKS-Kaiser. I have to admit that I was rather shocked to hear this report as the Kaiser is appropriately named, as it is the Emperor’s Yacht and from my understanding is rarely deployed in direct combat roles outside of large fleet actions. The commanding officer of the Kaiser ordered the Neuwiesbaden to make back for the jump gate, even threatening a court martial and possible execution if they didn’t comply immediately. Both ships started to head back into the minefield and make for the gate, but it seems that the Neuwiesbaden had some sort of critical propulsion failure, and was incapable of making through the gate before it suddenly veered wildly off course and was destroyed.

The Kaiser’s commander, seeing the situation decaying rapidly proceeded back through the gate, and smelling blood we gave chase. The Mimir got through the gate ahead of us, and by the time we transitioned back to real space, they had already cut off the Kaiser’s escape route down the trade lane leading away from the gate. The Kaiser clearly had a more experienced crew, and managed to inflict some damage on the Mimir, but the ship sustained heavy damage and I could see it from the bridge of the Blue Uhlan as a series of life support system failures rippled through the ship, leaving it floating dead in space and not even worth the effort to destroy completely. Watching as escape pods began to eject, I ordered the crew to begin operations to recover all pods that we were capable of carrying, which amounted to a significant portion of the crew from the Kaiser as well as portions of the crew of the other three ships.

Having offered our Hessian comrades safe haven at Kaiserslautern all four ships headed there immediately, and on the way I spoke with the captain of the Kaiser, Konteradmiral Erich von Richter. After talking with him and discussing my own time in the Rheinwehr, I believe I may have even served with his father early in my career, he made a request of me that I was happy to approve. Upon our arrival at Kaiserslautern I presided over a court martial of all three of the commanding officers of the other three battleships, who had miraculously all survived, with the jury made up of both officers from the crew of the Kaiser, as well as a few of the other former members of the Rheinwehr that were on Kaiserslautern.

All three captains were found guilty, with the sentence to be determined by the captain of the Kaiser upon their return to a Rheinwehr facility. As per standard operating procedure when capturing the crew of destroyed Rheinwehr vessels, we offered any that chose to defect a position among the Bundschuh, and the others were taken via a shuttle to first Kreuzberg and then to Bonn where we typically exchange them for prisoners that have been taken by the Rheinwehr that are more sympathetic to our cause, using the local Junkers as intermediaries. I would say about a third of the prisoners agreed to join us, with the rest choosing to be exchanged which included the Konteradmiral.

Having ordered an armed guard on the prisoners until they could be exchanged, I joined the rest of the Blue Uhlan’s crew in the station bar, joined by most of the crew of the Mimir, Luneburg, and the Jotunheim. Upon the bar running out of alcohol, the post battle party broke up, with the crews mostly returning to their respective ships immediately, though from our talks with the other ships all of us are awaiting the return of several crew members from the station. From discussion with the other ships’ captains involved in the combat, I learned that only the Mimir suffered light damage, with all other vessels suffering nothing more than superficial hits.

I would like to personally recommend that the Blue Uhlan’s crewed all receive a special dispensation from command immediately, they all accounted themselves with the professionalism that I would normally expect to see out of a veteran Rheinwehr crew not a relatively fresh crew made up of volunteers from among the various Bundschuh cells, and would recommend that all other crews adopt the same training regimen that the Blue Uhlan has been carrying out. I’ll be attaching guncam footage of the destruction and disabling of all four enemy vessels below to be dispersed as propaganda to the rest of the Platform.