The Battle of Sandusky Bay

On the 20th of September, 2027, two Marì battalions landed on the south bank of Sandusky Bay, Ohio. These two battalion were the 427th Rifles Battalion and the 192nd Amphibious Battalion. Totaling nearly 2,000 men, this invasion contingent represented a sizable portion of the Marì's military presence in western Ohio.
The plan of the attack was to seize the city of Sandusky in no less than a week. Heavy resistance was expected near the city. Local Ohio Army National Guard units had been reinforced by U.S. Army Reserves from eastern Ohio. Enemy forces were thought to be roughly equivalent to Marì forces. The Edison Bridge which connected both sides of the Bay had been destroyed, so the only effective way for the Marì to deliver supplies and reinforcements into the combat zone was by sea. Amphibious insertions call for a very specific kind of combat unit, so the 427th and the 192nd went into their mission knowing that reinforcements would be unlikely.

Men of the 427th Rifles landing on the shore of Sandusky Bay.
The landmass in the background is known as "the Bogs".

The initial landings went smoothly, with no casualties or resistance of any kind. Colonel Glhoûn, the officer in command of the Sandusky contingent, suspected that the American forces were laying in wait on the outskirts of Sandusky, where they would have a defensive advantage.
A makeshift base of operations was established in the small town of Bay Harbour. Glhoûn planned to use the Marì's trademark tactic; using America's infrastructure against itself. As Marì forces pushed east towards Sandusky, ammunition and rations could be delivered via U.S. Route 6.

A rifleman of the 192nd sprints for cover during a firefight with American
reserves north of Castalia, OH.

There were several skirmishes along Route 6 during the advance on Sandusky, but by the 22nd, Marì forces had reached the freeway interchange that marked the boundary of Sandusky. It was in the city that the Marì met much heavier resistance. Seventeen men were lost attempting to cross a 400m span of open space which connected the interchange to a local elementary school. It took three separate mortar shellings over a 12-hour period to finally flush out the American defenders and open a window large enough for Talossan forces to enter the city.

From here, the Sandusky contingent split into the 427th and 192nd Battalions again, with units being tasked to patrol the eastern outskirts of Sandusky, while others fought through a loosely bound array of suburban blocks and lone warehouses. It was east of Mills St that Glhoûn realized he would need more men. On the 25th of September, Marì command deployed reinforcements for the Sandusky contingent. 350 paratroopers of the 16th Airborne Regiment dropped into the suburban chaos and a mechanizes infantry troop was dispatched from Toledo.

The battle soon descended into a slow back-and-forth of house-by-house combat. It took the Sandusky contingent another week to secure Columbus Avenue and another fortnight to drive the remainder of the Army National Guard out of Sandusky. On the 16th of October, Sandusky was declared a city under Talossan occupation.