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Battle of Callavell

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The Battle of Callavell was a fleet action that took place during the Age of Apostasy.

History

The combatant fleets both used Imperial vessels, as this action was fought during the civil wars of this age, and it featured the largest number of heavy ships of the line that had been seen in action in the Segmentum Solar.

Considered to be one of the largest set-piece naval battles in history, the Battle of Callavell is used as an instruction model by Naval Training Academies throughout the galaxy. Taking place during the Third War of Retaliation, loyalist ships under Admiral Jielsson engaged a renegade fleet under Lord Pelver in the Callavell system.

The run-up to the battle took many months and involved much patrolling and skirmishing, and even when the two fleets were within the same system they skirted each other for several days before rushing into confrontation. A decisive feature of the resultant battle was the use of the heavy weaponry of the ships themselves rather than ordnance or fighter/bomber waves. The loyalist battlefleet managed to encircle the renegade forces and punished them with crossfire. An attempted renegade breakout almost succeeded, but was held off largely by the efforts of the Retribution Class Battleship Saint Augusta. All pretense of military tactics dropped, the renegade fleet then scattered, pursued by the loyalists. It was here that the attack craft of the loyalist fleet came into their own, and they harried and even crippled several of the fleeing vessels.

The enemy fleet dispersed, the loyalist fleet went on to retake the system, mainly by initiating planetary bombardment upon the holdout worlds.

Strengths and Casualties

The loyalist fleet, though victorious, did take heavy losses. The Renegade fleet started the battle with forty-six ships of the line. It fled in disarray having lost twenty-one ships to complete destruction and sixteen to crippling strikes.

The loyalist fleet started with the lower number of thirty-seven and suffered fifteen ships completely destroyed and thirteen crippled.


Sources