Operation: DANTE

Operation: DANTE was the name given to a series of tactical ballistic missile launches by former units of the Estovakia Confederation under the command of the in January of

Background
During the Estovakia Confederation's two-year existence, it developed a close relationship with the, being a rare case of its kind, a rebel enclave within a colony. As a result, they received a veritable bounty of military supplies, including mobile tactical ballistic missile launchers, and an unknown amount of missiles, which they stored inside the mountains on the northern border, under joint Confederation-URF command, with the intent of being used against the  in the event of an invasion.

These missile bases, dug into the sides of mountains, were designed for long periods of operation, with a multitude of spare parts for the missiles and their launchers, and in general, the more skilled specialists tended to run the base, the Confederation forces acting more or less as a security force for them, many of them having no idea how to repair or use the missiles.

However, when the Confederation was attacked in October,, the officer commanding the missiles convinced the Confederation officer, who was hell-bent on launching them at the  forces, not to fire them, that the missiles would be worth far more later on in an insurgency against the  forces.

Operation: DANTE
The rebels' chance came in January,, when, with the threat of the , the began withdrawing troops from Estovakia Province, towards more loyal areas. After a recon team reported to the base that the was withdrawing, the order to launch was given. The launchers, with missiles ready, moved out of their mountain bases, and after the got everything correct, six missiles in total were launched at the retreating  convoy, as the seventh launcher was ill-maintained and suffered an explosion on launch. After the launch, the launchers moved back inside the mountains, coming out only one more time before the pinpointed the location of the missiles and destroyed them. While the launchers had been destroyed before they could do any further damage, the damage done to the unprepared convoys was bad, with the estimates dead at several hundred, and the road clogged up with destroyed vehicles.