Remove ads

Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

Reader mode
new to the quest and it seems interesting though I do have a few questions
1. what's kane's status
2. are we in any position tostart trying to reclaim jerusalem since managing to rebuild a major holy site of the three main abrahamic religions would be great just PR wise and it would be even better if we an make t similar to the ,ecca and edina situation where NOD warlords have to overstretch themselves one upping the GDI
 
Balmung1 said:
new to the quest and it seems interesting though I do have a few questions
1. what's kane's status
2. are we in any position tostart trying to reclaim jerusalem since managing to rebuild a major holy site of the three main abrahamic religions would be great just PR wise and it would be even better if we an make t similar to the ,ecca and edina situation where NOD warlords have to overstretch themselves one upping the GDI
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Unfortunately Jerusalem and Rome and the like are red zone, so the structures inside are almost certainly green rocks at this point.

We were only able to save Mecca and Medina because they were yellow zone and the damage was being mitigated by caretakers, but the inhospitable landscape of a red zone means no one was able to survive to do the same for Jerusalem and Rome.

At least that's my understanding, the QM could come in and disprove that argument.
 
Balmung1 said:
new to the quest and it seems interesting though I do have a few questions
1. what's kane's status
2. are we in any position tostart trying to reclaim jerusalem since managing to rebuild a major holy site of the three main abrahamic religions would be great just PR wise and it would be even better if we an make t similar to the ,ecca and edina situation where NOD warlords have to overstretch themselves one upping the GDI
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Kane's still hiding out at Threshold 19 in Italy.

Jerusalem, as has been mentioned, is completely Red Zoned. My thoughts on reopening the Suez include pointing MARVs in the direction of reclaiming that area eventually (after clearing the Canal path/shores), but the city/region is no go at this point.

Rome is in Italy, and it's all Red Zoned as well (IIRC due to the Liquid Tib blast in TW3?). More importantly, it's a tad close to Threshold 19 and I'm not sure anyone in GDI really wants to poke that bear quite yet.

And to cover bases, Istanbul, Alexandria, and Antioch are also in Red Zones.
 
Phht said:
Rome is in Italy, and it's all Red Zoned as well (IIRC due to the Liquid Tib blast in TW3?). More importantly, it's a tad close to Threshold 19 and I'm not sure anyone in GDI really wants to poke that bear quite yet.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
GDI isn't going to be making specific moves towards Rome, no. However, it will be continuing its plan of Red Zone harvesting and abatement in Europe though. Which will eventually push towards Italy and Threshold 19 over the Alps through France and Germany. It'll just be more gradual rather than trying to expand the Glacier mines or MARV hubs already in the area.

On the topic of taking territory though, instead of talking about the major land campaigns that are underway or planned, I want to take a look at amphibious campaigns that could be conducted to ease GDI's supply lines. For those, a few areas stand out.

1.) Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are likely the last best options for NOD naval basing in the North Atlantic. I suppose there is Quebec, but with Newfoundland in the way, projecting power from Quebec would get difficult quickly. Should Newfoundland and Nova Scotia fall, then the North Atlantic would be entirely secured for all intents and purposes. This would free up an enormous number of naval vessels to fight elsewhere.
2.) The South East Asian archipeligo. The Japanese and US fought fiercely over Guadalcanal for a reason. With an air and naval base located there, it becomes feasible to cut (or at least threaten) the supply lines from the Continental US to Australia. Take the island chain and GDI gains a valuable base to push back attempts to attack that supply line and deny easy access to it from the enemy. Unfortunately, GDI is in the position where the Solomons would be some of the last islands to be assaulted. Still, should the forces become available, taking the myriad of islands in the area would be highly desirable.
3.) Hawaii. While there's nothing around it for a few thousand kilometers, taking Hawaii would allow for effective control of the Central Pacific, changing the routes that can be taken by GDI's merchant marine to be more direct rather than following along the Pacific Rim.
4.) Western Australia. It's a distinctly secondary concern at this time, but Western Australia is the biggest impediment in the way of trying to ship cargo from South Africa to the Eastern Australia Blue Zone. Take it, and circumnavigating the globe at GDI's discretion becomes a lot easier.
5.) The Carribean. With the MARV hub and Super MARVs at Mobile Bay, GDI routinely sails a lot of cargo through contested waters. With the erosion of the Red Zone that initially cut off Mobile Bay from the American South front to be Yellow Zone instead, this location is moderately vulnerable as both the land routes and sea routes are at risk of being cut off. Fortunately, in Q3 2060, GDI sent a division over land to reinforce it, but the fact remains that its an enclave surrounded by enemy territory. There are two options to relieve it. The first is to occupy the land held by Gideon. The second is to secure the sea routes in the Carribean. As it stands in the short term, Gideon has worse things to deal with than trying to destroy Mobile Bay again.
6.) The Galapagos. As the midpoint between the North American West Coast and South American Blue Zones, it's ideally placed either cut off travel between the two locations or greatly support escort operations depending on who holds the island chain.
 
Decim said:
On the topic of taking territory though, instead of talking about the major land campaigns that are underway or planned, I want to take a look at amphibious campaigns that could be conducted to ease GDI's supply lines. For those, a few areas stand out.

4.) Western Australia. It's a distinctly secondary concern at this time, but Western Australia is the biggest impediment in the way of trying to ship cargo from South Africa to the Eastern Australia Blue Zone. Take it, and circumnavigating the globe at GDI's discretion becomes a lot easier.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This one doesn't actually have to be a naval invasion at all, as long as we're willing to dump a turn or two of Tib dice at this particular problem. An inhibitor equipped MARV hub at the bottom center of the boomerang should let us turn enough of the Red Zone Yellow for us to mount a land invasion, and circumvent all but the most hastily prepared defenses. Dice gods willing, Operation MULLBERRY has the potential to be the biggest breakout since the Ardennes.
 
NickAragua said:
Hey guys, question, when did we introduce point defense lasers for predators?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, the Rapid Fire Laser Weapons Development first shows up on the list in Q1 2056, and was completed that quarter. Q2 2056 has Laser Point Defense show up, it's completed Q3 2056. Remote Weapon System Deployment Predator shows up Q4 2056, and started that turn. RWS installations on new build Predators starts Q1 2057 as part of the deploment. The deployment project is completed Q2 2057.

...as ninja'd by the QM.
 
Decim said:
GDI isn't going to be making specific moves towards Rome, no. However, it will be continuing its plan of Red Zone harvesting and abatement in Europe though. Which will eventually push towards Italy and Threshold 19 over the Alps through France and Germany. It'll just be more gradual rather than trying to expand the Glacier mines or MARV hubs already in the area.

On the topic of taking territory though, instead of talking about the major land campaigns that are underway or planned, I want to take a look at amphibious campaigns that could be conducted to ease GDI's supply lines. For those, a few areas stand out.

1.) Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are likely the last best options for NOD naval basing in the North Atlantic. I suppose there is Quebec, but with Newfoundland in the way, projecting power from Quebec would get difficult quickly. Should Newfoundland and Nova Scotia fall, then the North Atlantic would be entirely secured for all intents and purposes. This would free up an enormous number of naval vessels to fight elsewhere.
2.) The South East Asian archipeligo. The Japanese and US fought fiercely over Guadalcanal for a reason. With an air and naval base located there, it becomes feasible to cut (or at least threaten) the supply lines from the Continental US to Australia. Take the island chain and GDI gains a valuable base to push back attempts to attack that supply line and deny easy access to it from the enemy. Unfortunately, GDI is in the position where the Solomons would be some of the last islands to be assaulted. Still, should the forces become available, taking the myriad of islands in the area would be highly desirable.
3.) Hawaii. While there's nothing around it for a few thousand kilometers, taking Hawaii would allow for effective control of the Central Pacific, changing the routes that can be taken by GDI's merchant marine to be more direct rather than following along the Pacific Rim.
4.) Western Australia. It's a distinctly secondary concern at this time, but Western Australia is the biggest impediment in the way of trying to ship cargo from South Africa to the Eastern Australia Blue Zone. Take it, and circumnavigating the globe at GDI's discretion becomes a lot easier.
5.) The Carribean. With the MARV hub and Super MARVs at Mobile Bay, GDI routinely sails a lot of cargo through contested waters. With the erosion of the Red Zone that initially cut off Mobile Bay from the American South front to be Yellow Zone instead, this location is moderately vulnerable as both the land routes and sea routes are at risk of being cut off. Fortunately, in Q3 2060, GDI sent a division over land to reinforce it, but the fact remains that its an enclave surrounded by enemy territory. There are two options to relieve it. The first is to occupy the land held by Gideon. The second is to secure the sea routes in the Carribean. As it stands in the short term, Gideon has worse things to deal with than trying to destroy Mobile Bay again.
6.) The Galapagos. As the midpoint between the North American West Coast and South American Blue Zones, it's ideally placed either cut off travel between the two locations or greatly support escort operations depending on who holds the island chain.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
All of this sounds like a good reason for a naval buildup, but it'll probably be at least five years before the Navy is up for any of this without a gigantic global-level diversion of effort of the kind that has everyone very alarmed about the risks of taking Karachi.
 
Once we finish the current crop of shipyards, I am going to advocate to continue to research ship classes so we can shift to a more steady investment instead of the blitz we are currently stuck in. Yes, they likely won't be super airships based on the one we captured, but naval strategy is procurement strategy, and we need ships in sufficient quantities for global operations.

Plus building those future helicarriers or whatever they end up being, is going to take a lot of time. Just building the first escort carriers is going to take more than a year. Building a fleet carrier or a battleship that flies? That is something that sounds like a five to eight year lag time from shipyard to active vessels.

The US' most recent fleet carrier the Gerald R. Ford took four years to build from laid down to launch with another four years after that before it was commissioned due to several teething problems. When we start building the new classes of flying ships, they are going to take time to get right, and in the meanwhile we should continue our investment in getting the Navy ready to apply the Anaconda Plan on a global scale.
 
I'm not sure what's realistic or not but I'd be fine with a set schedule for new navel ships once we are out of this crunch.

Something like 1 new ship with the docks fully built every 2 years or two refits of older ships every 2 years.

We screwed up. We should endeavor to make sure that mistake doesn't repeat.
 
Last edited:
I'm going to put forward an idea that we can contemplate spending the next 4YP building towards (barring Kane interrupt or the like, naturally, or Plan Goals) after Karachi whenever and the end of the Regency War. It's probably way too ambitious, but the thought came to mind regarding Hawaii, Southeast Asian islands, and Western Australia.

Operation Infamy - Retaking and securing (GZ/BZ) Hawaiian Islands, turning Oahu into a military and logistics hub for future operations.
Operation Trailblazer - Retaking and securing American Samoa, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu (plus potentially other islands in the region). Serves to better secure convoy routes West Coast>Hawaii>ANZ and South America>ANZ.

These two would get the groundwork set and provide GDI with field experience in doing amphibious operations again (I mean, when's the last time they actually did an amphib assault against potentially hostile shores instead of landing forces to a pre-secured position? TW1?). The subsequent operations serve to reduce Bintang's operational area and try to draw her forces out to be atritted.

Operation Mulberry - Retaking and securing Western Australia. Doing this would significantly increase the difficulty of her striking at ANZ>South Africa/Madagascar convoys, and forces her to strike closer to India with ANZ>Oman convoys.
Operation Cartwheel - Taking and securing the Solomon Islands. This further secures the Hawaii>ANZ convoy route by pushing potential supply bases and airfields further away from the route and providing additional warning range for Nod attacks.

(Optional) Operation Typhoon - Dropping a MARV hub at Lae and de-Red Zoning northern Papua/Papua New Guinea and GZing it as rapid as possible in order to be able to use the area as support and launch point for operations into the Indonesian YZ islands. Also potentially dropping a hub at Port Moresby and having a MARV clear the Kokoda Trail and clear a path to Lae while others work on clearing southern Papua/Papua New Guinea.

At this point, the question becomes, which direction do we go after the Indonesian islands from.

Operation Barrier - Hitting Java, East/West Nusa Tenggara, and Timor-Leste would push the defense line from ANZ further north, though not enough that hydrofoils or the like could contest her control of the Malacca Strait. With this plan, we'd probably want MARVs clearing an area more in NW Australia after Mulberry in order to better be able to provide support to the invasion.

Alternately, there's coming from the Solomons westward.

Operation Oboe - Taking and securing West Papua, North Maluku, and Maluku.

Whether Barrier or Oboe is picked, they would be used as a springboard to take Sulawesi. "Mop up" after that would be to carry out the other operation option to finish securing the area. This restricts Bintang into Indochina and the Philippines (maybe Taiwan?), and hopefully would've provided a number of occasions to attrit her forces, air or sea. This would provide staging areas to begin contesting Malacca Strait and South China Sea as well as future operations against the Philippines.

Subsequent operations could focus on de-RZing Java (hydrofoil bases at Jakarta and Surabaya would enable GDI to heavily contest/control the Java Sea, so Mountains, Governors, etc could push up and contest Malacca), strike south from Japan/Korea at Taiwan, and a pincer invasion of the Philippines from north and south. These moves all constrain Bintang's operational area and forces her to cede sea control or put her forces into battle where we can eliminate them. It also opens fairly secure convoy paths from the northern West Pacific BZs directly down to ANZ.

Campaign would technically end with the capture of Indochina (and hopefully elimination of Bintang). This would have the bonus of isolating the Chinese Nod forces from the sea routes. Successes here could result in Sri Lanka being put back on the table as a target.

What's my wish list of needs for that?
Island-class Assault Ships
Victory-class Littoral Combat Ships
Zone Defender Revision
GF Zone Armor
Marine-pattern Zone Armor
Hammerhead Wingman
Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits
Guardian Mk II
Armadillo HAPC
MBT-7 Paladin (Hm, under the system I came up with, that would be MBT-11, with MAT-7 being Mammoth Mk III, MHT-8 being MARV (-8C being Super MARV), WBT-9 being Titan Mk III, and WAT-10 Mastodon.)
Modular Rapid Assembly System
Advanced ECCM
Possibly new generation hovercraft transport
Laser Sats
 
Those that have, get.

It is not the most dramatic story. It's not the story of the outnumbered defenders holding out until the cavalry arrives. It's not a story about faith or courage or willpower.

This story is about Goliath beating David.

Gideon couldn't afford to make mistakes. Every error weakened his position, and he was already operating from a disadvantage. The soldiers and equipment he lost at Savannah were not available to help him at Chicago. The forces he lost at Chicago could not defend against GDI's offensive into the South. Reinforcing some positions meant weakening others, and that gave GDI the opportunity to strike at Jacksonville.

The Battle of Jacksonville was not a triumph of tactical genius. It was the inevitable result of a better trained and better equipped force attacking a city defended by militia fighting alongside the decimated survivors of Nod's elite formations. I suspect that the casualties were lopsided; when you are attacking in overwhelming strength, with every advantage, you aren't going to lose as many soldiers.

Those that have, get. The losing side takes more casualties, which means that they'll take more casualties in the next fight and the next and the next. The officers of the White Lions Chapter died making a doomed banzai charge, just like the soldiers of Imperial Japan. The comparison is appropriate; just as it was in WWII, no amount of zeal or commitment could overcome simple arithmetic.

Quite some time ago, I said that GDI was winning the war. That we had already won in the most important ways. The question was never whether we could defeat Nod in a conventional war; GDI is three for three in Tiberium Wars. The question was whether we could win the peace. Once we started conducting successful outreach operations to the Yellow Zones, the outcome was already decided. All we're doing is working out the details.

Stahl defeated us. He launched a series of attacks that damaged GDI's forces in South America, outmaneuvering GDI and then ambushing our attempt at a counterattack. His operations were tactically brilliant and strategically...strategically his victory was irrelevant. GDI doesn't have to overrun South America. We can defend the Blue Zone, take in refugees, and win on other fronts.

The American South will not continue to be a significant front. The Indianapolis attack was an enormous success, and the details only confirm that Gideon has already lost. The destruction of the Indianapolis transportation hub will buy him months, but he will not be able to rebuild his Barghests or his Black Hand or his shattered armored divisions in that time. The losses Gideon has already suffered remove him from the ranks of the major warlords, and there is no one to save him. Stahl only gives crumbs for the sake of appearances, while Europe is even weaker than Gideon.

Ithillid said:
Part 2: The Tools of War
In war, as in almost all activities, one of the most valuable tools is the supply of trained manpower. Before the First Tiberium War the Brotherhood of Nod spent decades building an army of highly trained, well-equipped, infantry and the technical and material basis for a diverse high tech global military. The developments after the First tiberium War began to diversify them away from that. Those carefully tended trained men were squandered in decades of civil war and internecine strife. By the Second Tiberium War, NOD's professional soldiery was a pale shadow of its former self, which was then thrown into the meat grinder battles of the war, and by 2034, it was effectively wiped out.
From 2034 onward, the professionalization of the Brotherhood's military was heavily reliant on the religious aspects, and was increasingly forced to specialize, and theologize their positions. Rather than training a particularly knowledgeable force, NOD has tended to rely heavily on rote learning and technical assistance. While both have their consequences, they have produced forces that are both extremely compact in terms of valued members, and one that can stiffen masses of relatively untrained militants.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Nod's trained manpower is evaporating.

Gideon lost his armored units and he lost his Black Hand and he lost his Barghests. You cannot turn an illiterate militant into a trained technician. We're suffering losses, too, but we have a functional education system; Nod can't replace their losses so easily.

In terms of strategy, I want to close fronts. Reduce Nod in the American South to the point that it is weaker than Europe before the Regency War. Reduce Europe so that the survivors are nothing more than guerilla bands hiding in caves. Each closed front means that we can apply more of our resources to the next front, and the next, and if it works it will create a cascade effect that allows us to apply overwhelming force to Nod's most vulnerable regions.
 
Phht said:
I'm going to put forward an idea that we can contemplate spending the next 4YP building towards (barring Kane interrupt or the like, naturally, or Plan Goals) after Karachi whenever and the end of the Regency War. It's probably way too ambitious, but the thought came to mind regarding Hawaii, Southeast Asian islands, and Western Australia.

Operation Infamy - Retaking and securing (GZ/BZ) Hawaiian Islands, turning Oahu into a military and logistics hub for future operations.
Operation Trailblazer - Retaking and securing American Samoa, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu (plus potentially other islands in the region). Serves to better secure convoy routes West Coast>Hawaii>ANZ and South America>ANZ.

These two would get the groundwork set and provide GDI with field experience in doing amphibious operations again (I mean, when's the last time they actually did an amphib assault against potentially hostile shores instead of landing forces to a pre-secured position? TW1?). The subsequent operations serve to reduce Bintang's operational area and try to draw her forces out to be atritted.

Operation Mulberry - Retaking and securing Western Australia. Doing this would significantly increase the difficulty of her striking at ANZ>South Africa/Madagascar convoys, and forces her to strike closer to India with ANZ>Oman convoys.
Operation Cartwheel - Taking and securing the Solomon Islands. This further secures the Hawaii>ANZ convoy route by pushing potential supply bases and airfields further away from the route and providing additional warning range for Nod attacks.

(Optional) Operation Typhoon - Dropping a MARV hub at Lae and de-Red Zoning northern Papua/Papua New Guinea and GZing it as rapid as possible in order to be able to use the area as support and launch point for operations into the Indonesian YZ islands. Also potentially dropping a hub at Port Moresby and having a MARV clear the Kokoda Trail and clear a path to Lae while others work on clearing southern Papua/Papua New Guinea.

At this point, the question becomes, which direction do we go after the Indonesian islands from.

Operation Barrier - Hitting Java, East/West Nusa Tenggara, and Timor-Leste would push the defense line from ANZ further north, though not enough that hydrofoils or the like could contest her control of the Malacca Strait. With this plan, we'd probably want MARVs clearing an area more in NW Australia after Mulberry in order to better be able to provide support to the invasion.

Alternately, there's coming from the Solomons westward.

Operation Oboe - Taking and securing West Papua, North Maluku, and Maluku.

Whether Barrier or Oboe is picked, they would be used as a springboard to take Sulawesi. "Mop up" after that would be to carry out the other operation option to finish securing the area. This restricts Bintang into Indochina and the Philippines (maybe Taiwan?), and hopefully would've provided a number of occasions to attrit her forces, air or sea. This would provide staging areas to begin contesting Malacca Strait and South China Sea as well as future operations against the Philippines.

Subsequent operations could focus on de-RZing Java (hydrofoil bases at Jakarta and Surabaya would enable GDI to heavily contest/control the Java Sea, so Mountains, Governors, etc could push up and contest Malacca), strike south from Japan/Korea at Taiwan, and a pincer invasion of the Philippines from north and south. These moves all constrain Bintang's operational area and forces her to cede sea control or put her forces into battle where we can eliminate them. It also opens fairly secure convoy paths from the northern West Pacific BZs directly down to ANZ.

Campaign would technically end with the capture of Indochina (and hopefully elimination of Bintang). This would have the bonus of isolating the Chinese Nod forces from the sea routes. Successes here could result in Sri Lanka being put back on the table as a target.

What's my wish list of needs for that?
Island-class Assault Ships
Victory-class Littoral Combat Ships
Zone Defender Revision
GF Zone Armor
Marine-pattern Zone Armor
Hammerhead Wingman
Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits
Guardian Mk II
Armadillo HAPC
MBT-7 Paladin (Hm, under the system I came up with, that would be MBT-11, with MAT-7 being Mammoth Mk III, MHT-8 being MARV (-8C being Super MARV), WBT-9 being Titan Mk III, and WAT-10 Mastodon.)
Modular Rapid Assembly System
Advanced ECCM
Possibly new generation hovercraft transport
Laser Sats
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think this is way too ambitious, especially given that we have some major new technologies we will be invested in deploying across the board, and will have major space and refugee-related commitments to put resources and dice towards.

Also, this kinda comes across as the Treasury trying to dictate military operations, rather than supporting them. I think that our next military goals will be refitting, securing our gains, and deploying new platforms (Zone Armor, new vehicles, new ships).
Also, getting a lot more income to fund the other departments - InOps especially will need a lot of funding for new people and equipment.
My priorities for the post-Regency War era are:
-Housing (and food) for refugees. We're going to be getting tons of them.
-CapGoods (especially Isolinear), next-gen Fusion
-Vein Mines (to find out how bad underground Tib actually is) and other +income things (tentacles, etc)
-Space Habitation: Columbia, Shala, and then probably moon habitats
-Zone Armor rollout


Also, we did an amphibious assault when setting up Chicago, and an amphibious reinforcement -to-assault for the battle at the SA YZ MARV hub.
 
Phht said:
I'm going to put forward an idea that we can contemplate spending the next 4YP building towards (barring Kane interrupt or the like, naturally, or Plan Goals) after Karachi whenever and the end of the Regency War. It's probably way too ambitious, but the thought came to mind regarding Hawaii, Southeast Asian islands, and Western Australia.

Operation Infamy - Retaking and securing (GZ/BZ) Hawaiian Islands, turning Oahu into a military and logistics hub for future operations.
Operation Trailblazer - Retaking and securing American Samoa, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu (plus potentially other islands in the region). Serves to better secure convoy routes West Coast>Hawaii>ANZ and South America>ANZ.

These two would get the groundwork set and provide GDI with field experience in doing amphibious operations again (I mean, when's the last time they actually did an amphib assault against potentially hostile shores instead of landing forces to a pre-secured position? TW1?). The subsequent operations serve to reduce Bintang's operational area and try to draw her forces out to be atritted.

Operation Mulberry - Retaking and securing Western Australia. Doing this would significantly increase the difficulty of her striking at ANZ>South Africa/Madagascar convoys, and forces her to strike closer to India with ANZ>Oman convoys.
Operation Cartwheel - Taking and securing the Solomon Islands. This further secures the Hawaii>ANZ convoy route by pushing potential supply bases and airfields further away from the route and providing additional warning range for Nod attacks.

(Optional) Operation Typhoon - Dropping a MARV hub at Lae and de-Red Zoning northern Papua/Papua New Guinea and GZing it as rapid as possible in order to be able to use the area as support and launch point for operations into the Indonesian YZ islands. Also potentially dropping a hub at Port Moresby and having a MARV clear the Kokoda Trail and clear a path to Lae while others work on clearing southern Papua/Papua New Guinea.

At this point, the question becomes, which direction do we go after the Indonesian islands from.

Operation Barrier - Hitting Java, East/West Nusa Tenggara, and Timor-Leste would push the defense line from ANZ further north, though not enough that hydrofoils or the like could contest her control of the Malacca Strait. With this plan, we'd probably want MARVs clearing an area more in NW Australia after Mulberry in order to better be able to provide support to the invasion.

Alternately, there's coming from the Solomons westward.

Operation Oboe - Taking and securing West Papua, North Maluku, and Maluku.

Whether Barrier or Oboe is picked, they would be used as a springboard to take Sulawesi. "Mop up" after that would be to carry out the other operation option to finish securing the area. This restricts Bintang into Indochina and the Philippines (maybe Taiwan?), and hopefully would've provided a number of occasions to attrit her forces, air or sea. This would provide staging areas to begin contesting Malacca Strait and South China Sea as well as future operations against the Philippines.

Subsequent operations could focus on de-RZing Java (hydrofoil bases at Jakarta and Surabaya would enable GDI to heavily contest/control the Java Sea, so Mountains, Governors, etc could push up and contest Malacca), strike south from Japan/Korea at Taiwan, and a pincer invasion of the Philippines from north and south. These moves all constrain Bintang's operational area and forces her to cede sea control or put her forces into battle where we can eliminate them. It also opens fairly secure convoy paths from the northern West Pacific BZs directly down to ANZ.

Campaign would technically end with the capture of Indochina (and hopefully elimination of Bintang). This would have the bonus of isolating the Chinese Nod forces from the sea routes. Successes here could result in Sri Lanka being put back on the table as a target.

What's my wish list of needs for that?
Island-class Assault Ships
Victory-class Littoral Combat Ships
Zone Defender Revision
GF Zone Armor
Marine-pattern Zone Armor
Hammerhead Wingman
Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits
Guardian Mk II
Armadillo HAPC
MBT-7 Paladin (Hm, under the system I came up with, that would be MBT-11, with MAT-7 being Mammoth Mk III, MHT-8 being MARV (-8C being Super MARV), WBT-9 being Titan Mk III, and WAT-10 Mastodon.)
Modular Rapid Assembly System
Advanced ECCM
Possibly new generation hovercraft transport
Laser Sats
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I like the operations and I don't think they're too ambitious, but that wish list is a bit much. The Island-class Assault Ships seem like a must for amphibious landing but the rest are not strictly needed for us to conduct those operations.
 
Last edited:
Phht said:
I'm going to put forward an idea that we can contemplate spending the next 4YP building towards (barring Kane interrupt or the like, naturally, or Plan Goals) after Karachi whenever and the end of the Regency War. It's probably way too ambitious, but the thought came to mind regarding Hawaii, Southeast Asian islands, and Western Australia.

Operation Infamy - Retaking and securing (GZ/BZ) Hawaiian Islands, turning Oahu into a military and logistics hub for future operations.
Operation Trailblazer - Retaking and securing American Samoa, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu (plus potentially other islands in the region). Serves to better secure convoy routes West Coast>Hawaii>ANZ and South America>ANZ.

These two would get the groundwork set and provide GDI with field experience in doing amphibious operations again (I mean, when's the last time they actually did an amphib assault against potentially hostile shores instead of landing forces to a pre-secured position? TW1?). The subsequent operations serve to reduce Bintang's operational area and try to draw her forces out to be atritted.

Operation Mulberry - Retaking and securing Western Australia. Doing this would significantly increase the difficulty of her striking at ANZ>South Africa/Madagascar convoys, and forces her to strike closer to India with ANZ>Oman convoys.
Operation Cartwheel - Taking and securing the Solomon Islands. This further secures the Hawaii>ANZ convoy route by pushing potential supply bases and airfields further away from the route and providing additional warning range for Nod attacks.

(Optional) Operation Typhoon - Dropping a MARV hub at Lae and de-Red Zoning northern Papua/Papua New Guinea and GZing it as rapid as possible in order to be able to use the area as support and launch point for operations into the Indonesian YZ islands. Also potentially dropping a hub at Port Moresby and having a MARV clear the Kokoda Trail and clear a path to Lae while others work on clearing southern Papua/Papua New Guinea.

At this point, the question becomes, which direction do we go after the Indonesian islands from.

Operation Barrier - Hitting Java, East/West Nusa Tenggara, and Timor-Leste would push the defense line from ANZ further north, though not enough that hydrofoils or the like could contest her control of the Malacca Strait. With this plan, we'd probably want MARVs clearing an area more in NW Australia after Mulberry in order to better be able to provide support to the invasion.

Alternately, there's coming from the Solomons westward.

Operation Oboe - Taking and securing West Papua, North Maluku, and Maluku.

Whether Barrier or Oboe is picked, they would be used as a springboard to take Sulawesi. "Mop up" after that would be to carry out the other operation option to finish securing the area. This restricts Bintang into Indochina and the Philippines (maybe Taiwan?), and hopefully would've provided a number of occasions to attrit her forces, air or sea. This would provide staging areas to begin contesting Malacca Strait and South China Sea as well as future operations against the Philippines.

Subsequent operations could focus on de-RZing Java (hydrofoil bases at Jakarta and Surabaya would enable GDI to heavily contest/control the Java Sea, so Mountains, Governors, etc could push up and contest Malacca), strike south from Japan/Korea at Taiwan, and a pincer invasion of the Philippines from north and south. These moves all constrain Bintang's operational area and forces her to cede sea control or put her forces into battle where we can eliminate them. It also opens fairly secure convoy paths from the northern West Pacific BZs directly down to ANZ.

Campaign would technically end with the capture of Indochina (and hopefully elimination of Bintang). This would have the bonus of isolating the Chinese Nod forces from the sea routes. Successes here could result in Sri Lanka being put back on the table as a target.

What's my wish list of needs for that?
Island-class Assault Ships
Victory-class Littoral Combat Ships
Zone Defender Revision
GF Zone Armor
Marine-pattern Zone Armor
Hammerhead Wingman
Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits
Guardian Mk II
Armadillo HAPC
MBT-7 Paladin (Hm, under the system I came up with, that would be MBT-11, with MAT-7 being Mammoth Mk III, MHT-8 being MARV (-8C being Super MARV), WBT-9 being Titan Mk III, and WAT-10 Mastodon.)
Modular Rapid Assembly System
Advanced ECCM
Possibly new generation hovercraft transport
Laser Sats
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Definitely overambitious on the wish list, but getting the current tranche of ship designs into the construction queue should be doable by the end of 2064 (Escort Carriers, frigates, LCS, and amphibious assault ships), to be perfectly honest. It'd just require committing a constant 8-10 dice per calendar year to naval construction. About a 25-30% commitment of the military dice pool. Given what a strong Navy means for force projection, it'd be money well spent.
 
Lightwhispers said:
Also, this kinda comes across as the Treasury trying to dictate military operations, rather than supporting them. I think that our next military goals will be refitting, securing our gains, and deploying new platforms (Zone Armor, new vehicles, new ships).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'd be presenting it from a perspective of "Hey, guys, we do tend to just stumble around with your R&D etc unless something shiny appears, a major problem starts forming, or you really point us repeatedly in a direction, so we're going to give a heads up as to what kind of capability we're hoping you guys have in 5-6 years barring major issues with Karachi, the Regency War, or Kane, and what of the current slate of projects we think would work well towards that goal that we'll be working on over the next 4ish years at a minimum."

Voidseer said:
I like the operations and I don't think they're too ambitious, but that wish list is a bit much. The Island-class Assault Ships seem like a must for amphibious landing but the rest are not strictly needed for us to conduct those operations.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The assault ships are a given, since I'm not entirely sure we have existing ones? We probably ought to, if we did amphib ops during that MARV hub battle and at Chicago, but who knows how old and worn out they are at this point.

As for the rest?
LCS would be useful for close support of assault forces, and would be useful in the more coastal waters of the Southwest Pacific where we'd be fighting Bintang.

The Zone Defender revision would make the GF armor sets cheaper and easier to build. Also might be a prereq for developing specialized suits, such as for maritime operations (the Marine-pattern Zone Armor)? GF Zone Armor would enable a firepower and survivability increase during the initial assault waves at a minimum. Marine-pattern armor would likely make "beach landings" easier if hovercraft can't take then all the way to shore.

Hammerhead Wingman would both be useful for ASW work and providing additional air assault firepower for the ground troops. Fighting on islands away from regular air support means needing all the help you can get. Ferro Aluminum armor refits might not be necessary if we're phasing out the older designs that would need the modification (though no sign the Pitbull is getting replaced yet, so likely not a bad idea to do anyhow).

Guardian Mk II is all about adapting the existing design to better handle Zone Armor. Given that I'd really like a lot of Zone Armor in the amphib assault forces (and we all want it in the GF in general), an APC that can more easily handle them is a good idea. The Armadillo is basically an assault APC version of the Guardian, so having that around increases vehicle survivability more, but I wouldn't expect it to majorly replace the regular version on assault ships.

The Predator is basically end of life upgrade-wise, so we need to get a replacement for it. And if we're doing that, might as well package it in with the work to improve GDI's amphibious assault capabilities. Now, if GDI puts forth an amphibious tank (perhaps based on an amphibious Guardian Mk I/II?), then the Paladin becomes optional to me for now.

The MRAS, given that it's basically the C&C4 crawlers concept, is largely a wish list item, not necessarily something that actually need. It would likely be useful during the campaign, but not vital.

Our current gen hovercraft transports date back at least to TW3, almost certainly 5+ years prior to that, and with all the other evolutions and advances, it might be time to look at a new design while we're working on things. Also possibly revive the infantry hovercraft concept like they had to some degree in TW1 (C&C Renegade).

And laser sats is mainly for "Haha! Our ion disruptor prevents your ion cannons from hitting our ships with ion cannons! Prepare to die!" moments to be followed by "Ah, but do they stop lasers?" and orbital death beams strike. At least in my mind, that's how they'd work. ;)

That's largely my thoughts on why things were on the list. I did leave off the Light Combat Laser, which could come in highly useful and reduce supplies needs by replacing existing ballistic weapons in certain roles. When it comes down to it, I'd probably push the LCL Development over MRAS.

...as an aside, I find it amusing that GDI uses Green/Blue lasers and Nod uses red. We in Star Wars here? Is this Jedi vs Sith or Empire vs Rebels (hopefully the former and not the latter, though Nod would probably say the opposite)? Wait, did the CIS use red? Ooooh, Republic vs CIS. But that'd mean that GDI's Director is actually Kane in disguise. Oh man, I'm going down a rabbit hole of conspiracy now.
 
Phht said:
m not entirely sure we have existing ones? We probably ought to, if we did amphib ops during that MARV hub battle and at Chicago, but who knows how old and worn out they are at this point.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
So, you have various components to do amphib work, ranging from the hovercraft, to various forms of bombardment barges and the like. What you don't have is a modern version of a Mistral or an America class.
 
Phht said:
...as an aside, I find it amusing that GDI uses Green/Blue lasers and Nod uses red. We in Star Wars here? Is this Jedi vs Sith or Empire vs Rebels (hopefully the former and not the latter, though Nod would probably say the opposite)? Wait, did the CIS use red? Ooooh, Republic vs CIS. But that'd mean that GDI's Director is actually Kane in disguise. Oh man, I'm going down a rabbit hole of conspiracy now.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Fun fact, the higher the frequency of light, the more energetic it is. Which implies that that the lasers in use by GDI are more powerful since Blue/green are higher frequency than red.
 
Lasers could very well be invisible, UV ones, but glass downshifts frequency of some of it once for GDI and twice for NOD for that thematic coloration.
 
Decim said:
Fun fact, the higher the frequency of light, the more energetic it is. Which implies that that the lasers in use by GDI are more powerful since Blue/green are higher frequency than red.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If you're talking about lasers in air, it's sort of complicated. What you've said is true, but air absorbs differently at different spectra, so effective power varies by wavelength and the distance the beam has to travel. It's also measuring power per photon. A UV laser might be more energetic per photon, but a bigger red laser that shoots lots of photons might deliver more total energy.

In principle, the optimal color for use in air is probably yellow if you want something with good range. That's where air has the lowest absorptivity, and it's why sunlight looks a bit yellow. More of the light in that part of the spectrum gets through to us.

There might be cause to use other wavelengths for particular effects because different target materials (like armor plate) react differently to different wavelengths. Those effects could be worth a reduction in range.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top