War of Remnants

One of the many of the wars fought behind the Censor's Veil, typically considered to be a bit of a requiem to the Second World War. It was waged between the forces of the victorious Allies against the final bastions of the Nazi regime remnants, in both the South America and the Antarctic.

The Conflict

Prelude

The Second World War was waged between not just the conventional armies of the Allies and the Axis, but also between their supernatural societies. The situation there was a bit more complicated, however, in that the 11th Directorate of the KGB and the Department of Eschatology of the US Government have never truly cooperated.
Instead, the concurrent Second Occult War was a three-sided conflict, between the 11th Directorate, the Department of Eschatology and the Ahnenerbe, with the Arcane Ordo Europae and it's allied Erithian Catholic Church maintaining strict neutrality following the brief clash with the Ahnenerbe in 1938 that ended up permanently discouraging the Germans from engaging those organizations again.
Eventually, the Ahnenerbe was scattered, leading to the remnants of the Ahnenerbe abandoning the country and fleeing to South America. This was known to the Department of Eschatology and the 11th Directorate, however both sides has mostly decided to ignore it, and instead focusing on pillaging captured stores of magical knowledge of their defeated enemies and preparing to fight each other.
This changed in early months of 1946, when both sides began to uncover intel suggesting a larger stash of Dawn War-era artifacts that has been evacuated from Germany, some of them having been stolen from other countries during the war. The traces led to the south, to a secretive base located somewhere in the Antarctic. Leading to the Department of Eschatology organizing an expedition that became known to the world of mundanes as the Operation Highjump.
The Soviets intervened soon after by deploying their own task force. Its presence was entirely scrubbed from history due to the lack of any conceivable non-magical reason for a presence of such a fleet so far away from the Soviet Union.

Deployment

The initial deployment was composed of a naval task force of the US Navy manned mostly by the initiates from the Department of Eschatology that was headed towards the Antarctic. The 11th Directorate launched its own naval operation a few weeks later, in hopes of seizing the treasure stash for themselves.

Battlefield

The war was waged mostly around the south-western tip of the Argentina, and on the waters between it and the Antarctic continent.

The Engagement

Battle of Peter I Island

The initial engagement of the War of Remnants occured at 30th of December 1946 near the Peter I Island, a small volcanic island in the middle of the Bellingshausen Sea, 450 kilometers away from the continental Antarctic.
Americans hoped to to start their search from that area, completely unaware that it was changed by the Nazis into their base in the region, their forces having dug out a small airbase there. It was achieved by partial melting of the glacier covering most of the island and some earthworks.
The Americans didn't expect any significant resistance from the Ahnenerbe forces that were considered to be completely defeated and demoralized. As a result, their reconaissance of the area was rather limited.
This turned out to be a costly mistake when they end up failing to detect the airbase due to a magical camouflage.
It allowed the forces of the Kampfgruppe Agartha (serving as a garrison of the Ahnenerbe's holdings in Antarctica) and Kampfgruppe Germania (defending Inalco region and main base of Thule remnants in the South America to ambush the approaching fleet.
Germania's air unit was deployed and engaged the American fleet, the aircrafts from the USS Philipine Sea deployed to repel the attack. Once the majority of the American airforce was dragged away from their main fleet, the airplanes of the Kampfgruppe Agartha were deployed from the Peter I Island Airbase, surprising the Americans completely.
Alongside its naval component, that was approaching the American fleet from the direction of their naval base in Antarctica. This, too, was completely overlooked by the Americans. Largely due to the faulty intel from the Department of Eschatology that completely overlooked the exact number of the ships relocated by the Ahnenerbe to the Antarctic region.
This led to a successful attack on the Task Force 68.
Seaplane tender USS Pine Island was hit and subsequently sank by Henschel HS293 radio-guided glide bomb launched by one of the Kampfgruppe Agartha's bombers. What's more, USS Phillipine Sea was forced to retreat due to coming under fire from the Rudolf von Sebottendorf, the heavy cruiser and a flagship of Ahnenerbe's remaining naval forces.
Philipine Sea nearly joined HMS Glorious at the very short list of aircraft carriers sunk by artillery fire from large surface vessels. It only managed to retreat at the cost of USS Beasley, a destroyer from its escort, sank by Rudolf von Sebottendorf.
In the end, the Battle of Peter I Island ended with Ahnenerbe's victory, the Task Force 68 forced to retreat to reorganize their forces after the rather embarassing defeat. This wasn't going to last for long.
Americans ended up retreating from the battlefield and avoided engagement for the next few months, instead limiting themselves to reconaissance flights while rapidly reassessing the exact composition of enemy forces.

Soviets Arrive

Soviets arrived in the area three months later, in first days of April 1947. Like their American counterparts, they expected a treasure race against their new enemies, only to march right into a regular war with the old ones. The message about the Ahnenerbe operations in the area and their victory over the DoE during the Battle of Peter I Island was yet to spread through the world.
The 11th Directorate forced realized very quickly that they were thoroughly unprepared for it, being forced to operate away from their supply bases and against enemy that possessed significant airforce.
This lead to an establishment of a temporary alliances between the Task Force 68 and the Special Operations Group 03, one that caught the Ahnenerbe forces off-guard. The defenders learned of Soviet expedition before the Americans did due to resorting to a much more costly magical methods of intel-gathering, but didn't attempt to attack the Americans before the Soviet arrival due to expecting the two sides to come to blows rather than agree to an alliance.

Battle of the Bellingshausen Sea

The newly-formed Russo-American alliance forces were deployed once more against the Ahnenerbe's holdouts in Antarctica at 24th of April, starting the Battle of the Bellingshausen Sea. The plan was to capture the Peter I Island airbase while forcing the enemy to fight a defensive battle against now much more stronger enemy force. The plan was good, however its execution was going to be bloody. While the Task Force 68 was busy fixing the gaps in its reconaissance, the Society was preparing their own plans.
While the initial airstrike on the Peter I Island was successful (leading to significant damage to the airstrip and destroying most of its AA defense), the mages of the Ahnenerbe gathered up in their continental base on Antarctica retaliated by powerful magical ritual that generated a raging sea storm that began to head towards the battlefield. When it finally arrived, it ended up scattering significant part of the allied fleet, with the Kampfgruppe Agartha's warships managing to avoid the worse and arrive at the battlefield while remain a cohesive fighting force.
USS Brownson was heavily damaged by a direct hit from Sobbetendorf artillery during this phase of the battle, and only narrowly avoided sinking. USS Sennet - the Task Force 68's sole submarine - was nearly sunk by a depth charge from one of the German destroyers during an attempted torpedo attack at the enemy cruiser.
The main engagement of the battle occured two days later when the Kampfgruppe Agartha's forces encountered the Russo-American alliance's main forces, leading to several hours long artillery duel, with weather still bad enough for the American airplanes to be grounded. It was during that engagement that the flagship of the Russian task force - cruiser Krasny Kavkaz - has been sunk. Once again, by Sobbetendorf. However this time, the German heavy cruiser suffered damage of its own. Z52, one of its escort ships, was also sunk by an artillery round from Krasny Kavkaz.
This led to its eventual sinking of Rudolf vor Sebottendorf, which happened at 28th of April and was caused by a torpedo attack from Philippinne Sea's airforce detachment, due to the German fleet failing to retreat far enough before the magical storm dissipated, allowing the American forces to once again operate effectively. This led to effective destruction of the Ahnenerbe's naval forces, as the remaining destroyer and a single u-boot that were left of it were forced to surrender.
Following the battle, the Peter I Island base has been captured by the Allies following a brief ground battle, which occured at 3rd of May 1947. The marines that captured it managed to find a handful of documents that the Thule forces failed to destroy in time, that served as crucial clues to the location of the vault of relics that was the goal and the reward of the whole campaign.
While most of it was safeguarded in the Ahnenerbe base in Antarctica before the American arrival, the enemy has been using airplanes to move as much of it as possible to the Inalco base in Argentina. As a result, the Alliance split their forces, with the Russians ending up assaulting the base in Antarctica while the Americans instead attacked Inalco. This decision heavily favoured the latter, as while the enemy resistance was going to be much more fierce, it was also certain that Ahnenerbe evacuated the most valuable goods first.
However, having lost their flagship and most of their command staff (aside from those of their ground forces), the Russians had little choice in this matter.

Battle of Agartha

The Russian landing at the outskirts of Agartha Base in continental Agartha has been met with heavy resistance. While the enemy lacked heavy equipment, the fact that Russians couldn't deploy any tanks due to the environment and their complete lack of airforce made things much easier for the Thule. The sinking of Krasny Kavkaz has also robbed the Soviets from its artillery support.
Agartha Base has been eventually captured following two weeks of combat (in freezing temperatures, no less - although Russians were at least mostly used to those). This led to effective termination of everything that was left from Kampfgruppe Agartha at this point.

Siege of Inalco

Americans launched their ground assault on Inalco itself (having completely ignored Argentinian sovereignity thanks to copious ammounts of concealment glyphs in the process) following several days of preliminary airstrikes. The attack was met with the fierce resistance, with the Ahnenerbe forces having an advantage of fortifications and heavy weaponry. Eventually, however, most of the latter has been disarmed by growing lack of ammunition and fuel several days into the battle.
While the Americans eventually succeeded in capturing Inalco, the battle's results were ultimately inconclusive. The remnants of the Ahnenerbe's forces managed to escape the battlefield through unknown means (believed by some to be a quick (or not) trip through an unindentified Elsewhere), while managing to hold onto at least some of the Dawn War relics that spawned the war as a whole. While American spoils were plentiful, they were far from complete.

Outcome

In the end, all three participating elements of the War of Remnants ended up announcing their victory. Even the theoretically defeated Ahnenerbe considered its survival (with some of their most treasured relics) to be a victory, with their defense buying the organization enough time to relocate most of their assets into safety. The Americans and the Russians both managed to capture at least some fo the relics, however.

Aftermath

Following their rushed retreat, Ahnenerbe losed its internal cohesiveness leading to formation of several splinter group (such as the New Thule Society), with Ahnenerbe being merely the largest surviving shard. This event led to the creation of Inalco as understood today, a loose confederation of evil troublemakers divided between several ideological sects that hate each other slightly less than they hate everyone else.

Conflict Type

Military Campaign

Start Date

08.12.1946

Ending Date

22.06.1947

Conflict Result

Tie (all sides claim victory)

Belligerents

Russo-American Coalition

• 11th Directorate
• US Government Department of Eschatology

Ahnenerbe

• Inalco

Strength

Task Force 68

Ships

Aircraft Carriers:
USS Philippine Sea

Destroyers:
USS Henderson, USS Brownson, USS Beasley

Submarines:
USS Sennet

Amphibious Command Ships:
USS Mount Olympus

Seaplane Tenders:
USS Pine Island, USS Currituck.

Tankers:
USS Canisteo, USS Cacapon.

Supply Ships:
USS Yancey, USS Merrick

Icebreakers:
USS Burton Island, USCGC Northwind

Others

~3500 soldiers
33 Aicrafts

11th Directorate Special Operations Group 03

Ships

Cruisers:
Krasny Kavkaz

Destroyers
Ognevoy, Ozornoy, Nezamozhny

Supply Ships:

Three, name unknown.
Tankers:
Two, name unknown.

Others

~5000 soldiers

Kampfgruppe Agartha

Ships

Heavy Cruiser:
Rudolf von Sebottendorf

Destroyers:
Z52, Z54

Submarines:
U-234

Others

~2200 soldiers

Kampfgruppe Germania

Ground Forces

Soldiers: 4000
Tanks: 3-5
Tank Destroyers: 10-15
Armored Cars: ???
Self-Propelled AA Guns: ???
Self-Propelled Artillery: ???

Air Forces

Fighters: 22
Bombers: 12

Others

Unknown number of magisters [at least two confirmed]

Casualties

Task Force 68

Ships

Sunk:
USS Pine Island, USS Beasley

Damaged:
USS Sennet, USS Brownson

Pine Island's sinking was covered by the censor, resulting in the ship remaining a functional Shade until its decomissioning in 1950. It was officially recomissioned in soon after and lasted in service until 1971, however in truth it was a replacement ship provided by the Department of Eschatology.
USS Beasley's existence was instead covered entirely, with the memories of her non-initiated crew members (and US Navy records) altered to place the appropriate crew members in other ships of Task Force 68.

Others

429 soldiers, 92 sailors, 12 airplane.

11th Directorate Special Operations Group 03

Ships

Sunk:
Krasny Kavkaz


The cruiser has continued serving in the field as a Shade until its 'official' decomissioning a few years after the war.

Others

~2000 soldiers

Kampfgruppe Agartha

Ships

Sunk:
Rudolf vor Sebottendorf, Z52


Captured:
Z54, U-234[

Others

~2200 soldiers.

Kampfgruppe Agartha

Ground Forces

Low, exact numbers unknown.

Air Forces

Four fighters, two bombers.

Others

Unknown

Objectives

Capturing the cache of Dawn War relics deposited by the Ahnenerbe somewhere into the region.

Repelling the Allied attack.