- Location
- Wherever I feel like being
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It actually helps keep track of where your enemies are along with your allies. If both sides were firing red lasers, it'd be harder to who was shooting where.
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
Battle result: severe loss of life for gdi and nod even though the respective armies did not even make contact until they both tried to retreat from what they perceived was the enemy army that they were getting readily beatin up by but was actually there reinforcements...
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- Location
- Wall Gazing
Looking to the future there are two general types of military operations I see the GDI doing. The first as described by @dptullos is to close fronts. In particular Mexico, the American South, Europe, and Eastern Australia. These are the four fronts we are primarily advancing on in the Regency War and are the four we are focusing our efforts to close. There are other similar fronts in South America, West and South Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Canada. Of these I expect Canada followed by South America to be the next focus once the currently active fronts are closed.
Reasoning being the Arabian front has already been effectively closed thanks to our efforts with Mecca and the neutrality that brings with the Caravanserai. With regards to the Ten Rings in West Africa subordinate to Mehretu in South Africa, there is the problem of extended insurgency, Mehretu being the insurgency and infiltration master. The whole point of closing fronts is to draw down the required forces in those locations, and because of Mehretu's skill set, we would need to dedicate significant COIN forces even when we push the Green Zone to the African Red Zone. Unless a systematic dismantling of Mehretu's organization occurs, which is highly unlikely thanks to both the cell like organization of his forces and the decentralized structure of the Ten Rings, it seems more likely that we would focus on securing the Americas before moving on Africa.
That leaves Majors in Canada and Stahl in South America. The problems with fighting the former is the sheer scale of the campaign and the environmental conditions. The problem with the latter campaign is Stahl himself. Still those are surmountable problems, especially with Canada as it is unlikely for there to be significant support from Krukov to Majors due to the blows Krukov has received recently. It is also in our best interest to ensure Krukov can't feed his economy with the resources from Majors. So that is likely to be the initial target. North America also happens to be were a lot of the GDI's forces are currently located for the Mexican and American South fronts and as such those forces could be easily redirected north.
The second general type of military operation is described by @Decim here and their description is honestly better than the paragraph I was writing about it. However in addition to their list, I would like to add the Horn of Africa as a potential target to secure the Gulf of Aden and the Bab-el-Mandeb Straight, along with acting as a logistical link between the Arabian Blue Zone and the Madagascar, Mozambique, and South African Blue Zones. This is especially relevant thanks to Mecca, as that is a key part of our economy and currently any shipping too or from it must go through the Bab-el-Mandeb Straight and the Gulf of Aden.
One thing I don't think has been previously mentioned is the island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden was turned into a Blue Zone in the results of Q1 2060, post the first quarter of Steel Vanguard. That is a very strategic position to project naval power in the Gulf of Aden, along the East African coast and in the Arabian Sea in general. It is also good spot to prepare supplies for any amphibious invasion of the Horn of Africa.
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Amphibious assault vehicle you say?
First, OMG the Mistral is a baby assault ship! It's half the tonnage of a Wasp or America.
And that tracks pretty well with my thoughts on things. I figured they actually made a replacement for the TW1-era assault ships, but between TW2, Firestorm, Nod Reunification, TW3, and the early 2050s, no more were in service or in a state to return to service. GDI Navy might not have really noticed/realized until 2056 when the YZ-5a fighting could've used one and none remained. And replacing them probably wasn't a priority compared to everything else until they realized things like Karachi and Colombo were on the table as serious ideas.
I have kinda penciled in the Sarajevo-class assault ship (LLAN-1) as that replacement design. Named after the final battle of TW1, with other GDI battles being used as names as much as possible, then historical battles of GDI member states after that.
Imagine an Atlantis-class CVN, with the command tower wings majorly shortened and the entire thing shifted to the side. Replace the forward flight deck with more helipads and add more aft (or cargo elevators for moving walkers for loading). Designed in the mid-2020s following the failure of the HoverTech design program and pivot to a Walker program. 24 were in service when TW2 kicked off, serving in pairs (6 pairs at sea, 6 doing refit/repair/training) with one carrying most of the airlift assets, the other serving as a carrier of sorts (A-12 Orca Bombers and A-14 Orca Fighters as the air group). Between TW2, Firestorm, and Nod Reunification conflicts, 9 were lost, 1 nearly lost (she would be partially repaired before it was decided she was too expensive to decontaminate/repair and would be scrapped in the late 2030s). Two more would be decommissioned due to budget in the 2040s, were supposedly starting to be scrapped when TW3 kicked off, and both disappeared in the fighting. Actual fates unknown.
Due to the switch to more conventional designs, GDI needed an assault ship with a well deck, but in the early 2040s the Treasury wasn't willing to pay for new ships when there were existing ships, so a major rebuild of the Sarajevos started to add a well deck and alter the interior spaces to better use the volume freed by not using Walkers (much) and Carryalls (and possibly a Dropship). Six had completed the rebuild by 2047 and two more were undergoing the rebuild when TW3 kicked off. The yards and both ships were destroyed by Nod in the early fighting. Two rebuilds served in the Mediterranean supporting operations in Egypt and then against Temple Prime. Both would be lost in the Liquid Tib blast.
The remaining 8 would see extensive action across the globe against Nod and Scrin, with four being deployed off Italy to support operations against the Threshold Towers and other facilities there. All four would be lost by war's end. The remaining four (3 rebuild, 1 original) would not be in service by 2055. Possibly too worn out, or cumulative damage or fatigue rendering them constructive losses, or getting sunk serving as convoy escorts (with A-15 Orca and Hammerhead air groups, no embarked troops).
As for yards... One was still in GDI at the time of TW3. Any others were closed and sold off due to budget cuts in the 2040s. Some of them might have been Red Zoned by TW3, or otherwise modified too much to be of use as a shipyard. The remaining Yard was rendered a total loss by early TW3 fighting (also possibly ended up in a YZ by the end of the war).
Due to the switch to more conventional designs, GDI needed an assault ship with a well deck, but in the early 2040s the Treasury wasn't willing to pay for new ships when there were existing ships, so a major rebuild of the Sarajevos started to add a well deck and alter the interior spaces to better use the volume freed by not using Walkers (much) and Carryalls (and possibly a Dropship). Six had completed the rebuild by 2047 and two more were undergoing the rebuild when TW3 kicked off. The yards and both ships were destroyed by Nod in the early fighting. Two rebuilds served in the Mediterranean supporting operations in Egypt and then against Temple Prime. Both would be lost in the Liquid Tib blast.
The remaining 8 would see extensive action across the globe against Nod and Scrin, with four being deployed off Italy to support operations against the Threshold Towers and other facilities there. All four would be lost by war's end. The remaining four (3 rebuild, 1 original) would not be in service by 2055. Possibly too worn out, or cumulative damage or fatigue rendering them constructive losses, or getting sunk serving as convoy escorts (with A-15 Orca and Hammerhead air groups, no embarked troops).
As for yards... One was still in GDI at the time of TW3. Any others were closed and sold off due to budget cuts in the 2040s. Some of them might have been Red Zoned by TW3, or otherwise modified too much to be of use as a shipyard. The remaining Yard was rendered a total loss by early TW3 fighting (also possibly ended up in a YZ by the end of the war).
As a note - for now I have CV and LVA/LVD refers to ships capable of housing and handling conventional aircraft, VTOL aircraft, and helicopters. CVL and LLA/LLD would be ships capable of housing and handling only VTOL and helicopters. CVE and LEA/LED would only be capable of housing/handling helicopters (staging V-35 Ox for COD or the like might be possible, but you couldn't store them onboard).
The Regency War: Part 5 - Mighty Fortresses
- Location
- The Underdark
The Regency War: Part 5 - Mighty Fortresses
Theater: South America
Unlike the other regions, the War in South America has been going poorly for GDI. While Escoffier is talented enough as a general, Stahl is one of the best in the world and has used the confusion of the refugee wave he sent to GDI lines well, preparing to win a series of major victories -- ones that have made GDI bleed heavily in the region.
With the Initiative goaded into offensives after the defeats and frustrations of the first three months of fighting, Escoffier launched an attack north, driving across the open plains of northern Argentina in an attempt to cut the neck of Stahl's position at the critical city of Rosario, the open connection between the front line spread across the continent and the Brotherhood's industrial hubs at Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo on the Brazilian coast. Stahl anticipated the offensive; it was the obvious weak point, a place where GDI had to go if it wanted to win the war in South America.
At the same time, the offensive was championed by politics. Local groups had long been frustrated by GDI's inability to secure the region, especially after the attacks on Rio over a decade ago. With Stahl's recent demonstrations of skill and ability however, that had reached a fever pitch, and even GDI's tendency to ignore local politics does have its limitations.
With the navy unable to detach anything heavier than a hydrofoil to support the invasion, GDI's air and ground forces had to do the heavy lifting on their own. Preparations began as early as the 7th of May, with additional squadrons of Firehawks and Apollos being transferred in from the West African theater, along with the vast majority of Apollo Wingman drones so far produced. These movements were part of a grand shuffle that shifted forces roughly clockwise around the Atlantic Front - moving assets away from the battlefields of North America and Europe, where the fighting had been intense but successful with GDI gaining victory after victory. Similarly, additional ground assets had been redeployed (mostly flown in from North America as well), including an armored division which left much of its equipment behind, and re-equipped from the local caches and depots.
By the end of May, the preparations were complete. With few points of contact between GDI forces and the enemy and Stahl having maintained a very mobile defensive force, GDI troops began to advance rapidly northwards on a narrow front, pushing from Green Zone positions near the Atlantic Ocean towards Buenos Aires and Rosario to strike a killing blow by cutting the critical supply chain off from the rest of the Brotherhood in South America.
Rather than try to fight GDI in a pitched battle, Stahl instead stalled for time, conducting a rapid fighting retreat using both standard Scorpions and a small number of the new plasma gun carriers. Stahl had made significant modifications to the latter compared to Gideon's initial design, opting to remove many non-critical systems in exchange for armoring the vehicle to a minimum acceptable standard.
GDI's initial advance was rapid, but with a pair of modifications to standard battle drill. A deep thrust along a narrow front comes with the risk of getting flanked on the axis of advance; so Escoffier secured his right flank with the Atlantic ocean, and every few kilometers the lead elements of the assault force peeled off to establish a secure position on the left flank. Doing so inevitably slowed down the advance, and offered Stahl valuable hours to react and concentrate his forces for a counter attack to pin Escoffier against the coast and cut GDI's own supply lines. Being no fool, Escoffier had expected this tactic, but the weight and ferocity of the assault was greater than anticipated.
The counterstroke began with a massive barrage of missiles streaking in from the north and west -- both the short range missile barrages of the stealth tanks (acting as ballistic chaff to distract missile defenses), and the cruise missiles that Stahl is growing infamous for. The response was simple: spread out, dig in, and wait for air support. Even in a massive crossfire like the one the assault force was facing, most of the missiles would not hit, and each missile has a relatively limited blast radius – especially against enemies with even a bare minimum of entrenching. Every meter of reduced threat in turn reduced the volume of the space that the defensive guns on the Predators needed to cover. And so even as tiberium-core missiles burst above and around them, GDI troops held firm, finding what cover and concealment they could as they waited both for the inevitable Nod follow-up, and for their own fighter- and bomber cover to reach them. While a combat air patrol was above the region, Stahl had waited for a low point – the existing patrol was low on both fuel and ammunition, and their replacements had not yet arrived.
With shrieking slivers of hateful green raining down upon the Initiative, Stahl's own troops made their move; orange bolts blasted into Initiative positions as his plasma tanks hit the leading edge of the advance, while along the flank up until about a hundred kilometers from the edge of the Green Zone, Stahl's troops hammered home. Hull-down binary propellant cannons sent streaks of fire forth, and at the same time, hidden pockets (passed over during the initial advance) erupted into swarms of Gana, rushing out to engage whatever unit was closest. While outnumbered, outgunned, and operating independently, they were collectively one more measure of mayhem on an already chaotic and disrupted battlefield.
Even with the Initiative troops having fallen to digging entrenchments with a will, the unexpectedly fierce shock attacks had their intended effect; they were too slow, too confused, and too disorganized to set up a proper defensive line. Rather, each of the dispersed companies – and in few cases battalions – were fragmented.. While they supported each other as best as possible, it was a piecemeal response, with the middle ranks often being unable to effectively coordinate. While Escoffier was able to order the broad strokes, and call in support from across the Blue Zone, the commanders at regiment- and brigade-level and higher were often unable to do much. A lieutenant, captain, or (to a lesser degree) major can each fight on nothing more than laser- and wideband short-range communications. A colonel or brigadier on the other hand needs larger and far more powerful communications devices, which are both relatively easily tracked and a priority for destruction by the Brotherhood as a consequence. While such tracking is far from precise enough for the equipment to be targeted from tens or hundreds of kilometers away by a missile launcher, a shadow team bold (or foolish) enough to be willing to break cover during a missile barrage to go hunting can certainly find them, and at least attempt to take them out.
With over a hundred thousand men engaged north of the Green Zone in a poor position, retrieving them was a high priority. Every remaining asset that could be spared surged north, wave after wave of aircraft surging for the combat zone at best possible speed with afterburners lit. Under normal circumstances, the Apollos would go first, sweeping the airspace before Firehawks and Orcas made their entrance. Here however, while the first wave was Apollo-heavy, the first squadrons on the scene were two of Firehawks and one of old A-15 Orcas. Scrambled from a nearby airbase and without the time to build speed and altitude they came in relatively low and slow – easy prey for the Barghests waiting for the response. A swarm of them dove in from high altitude, their plasma guns ripping green streaks across the sky. While two Barghests fell as GDI pilots snapped lucky shots with their QAAMs, they were joined by over half a dozen Firehawks in the first moments of battle, as well as four of the Orcas.
Soon enough dozens of other squadrons from across South America began to arrive on the scene, and scattered over the battlefield in dribs and drabs, hitting targets and then turning to return to base for re-armament. With hundreds of fighters behind them, rather than trying to close for better missile efficiency many GDI craft instead caracoled – closing only to long range, salvoing off a load of missiles into whatever looked threatening, and returning to base to clear the way for the squadron that had arrived seconds or minutes after them to shoot their own volley.
But as they returned home, the threat was not over. Stahl's men elsewhere had noticed the squadrons heading home and, on their own initiative, sortied interdictor and interceptor groups to harry returning squadrons as they raced for the border of the Blue Zone with the bulk of their munitions expended.
Even with the full weight of the Initiative's local air arm assisting, the battle on the ground was going poorly. Pinned down and strung out along a long front, with nothing to their rear but the sea, the only way out was a call back to a more brute-force and callous time: the line of fire. GDI's orbital assets hammered down with every weapon available as they passed over the region and unleashed indiscriminate fire into the strip of land that the Brotherhood was attacking from. Searing blue ion cannon flashes cut across the land, and kinetic impactors sprayed down like an artillery barrage from the ages before explosive fillers. The Brotherhood positions became a blasted alien moonscape, filled with craters of jagged glass, a result of the flash heating of an ion cannon strike, followed by the pummelling of orbital kinetic fires.
With the battle raging in northern Argentina, it was time for the stealth squadrons to strike. Staged out of a small airbase at the southern tip of Brazil, a full wing of Vertigo bombers took a circuitous low-and-slow route out over the Atlantic ocean, aiming for the same industrial centre that Stahl had failed to strike in an earlier engagement. With every fighter and drone GDI could send busy with the main force of Stahl's own as they tried to support Escoffier's army, the airspace above Puerto Madryn was unfortunately open, only contested by a partial squadron of A-16 Orcas which had been mauled in the previous fighting and had half their strength unavailable. When the Vertigos hit the edge of the defensive fields approximately fifty kilometers short of their target, the Orcas manoeuvered to intercept, and volleyed off air-to air missiles. While a half-dozen of the Vertigos either exploded or began falling towards the surface, the others pushed through the barrage, tail guns blazing away in arcs of screaming tracers as the Orcas closed and brought their railguns to bear. Inert bolts punched lengthwise through the bombers' hulls, but without any added payload in the penetrators each Vertigo took precious seconds to bring down as icepick after icepick raced through, searching for something vital.
While a further four Vertigos fell under the hail of railgun fire, others limped onward to the release point, launching a wave of munitions towards the industrial park, before turning and trying to break away. Harried by the Orcas on their way out, the remaining bombers nonetheless managed to escape without suffering further losses.
At the industrial park, a rumbling echoed from the blasts of the submunitions. While most of the industrial buildings stand, everything on and around them is far less than intact. Vehicles burned in the bombardment as surface tanks holding flammable liquids collapsed, and the cooling units and heat exchangers that dotted the surfaces of the buildings were reduced to shredded scrap metal.
In some ways, however, the Initiative was lucky. Stahl sent thirty-six aircraft to strike the location, of which twenty-six survived to release their pair of heavy cluster bombs. While not quite as effective at making concrete fly as a high explosive bomb of the same weight, cluster ordnance was chosen for its ability to shred the hundreds of softer parts of the plant. The damage is severe, with the entire plant taken offline, but it is not permanently disabled. Much of the plant can be restored immediately, while some other sections are expected to take many months to rebuild with local resources.
Elsewhere up and down the Blue Zone, similar strikes occurred, with squadrons hitting train yards, fuel centers, and other sites of military and industrial significance. Although some facilities are semi-permanent losses and require complete rebuilds, others can be brought back online in a matter of months. While the combined total tonnage of the strikes was comparatively light - less than was dropped on Germany during a single day in the Second World War - it was relatively precise and disabled several key points, which has ground many critical elements of GDI's South American industry to a halt.
The defeat of Escoffier's offensive and the coming rearrangement of Initiative command structures in the region marks the end of Operation Steel Vanguard in South America. Central command believed that further investment would be a matter of sending good resources after bad, and that any assistance granted to the South American front would result in little besides heavy losses.
Theater: Europe
In Europe, the Brotherhood of Nod has seen defeat after defeat, crushing victories won by GDI as they rolled through once-sunny fields and across ancient wine country; the twisted, sickly but persistent vines still holding on in bare patches even as armored steel beasts rolled through them.
The Warlords of Europe responded to GDI offensives slowly, baulky teams fighting their own battles rather than working together. As citadels and fortresses fell to the onrushing tide, the warlords chose to retreat, or to fortify their own holdings rather than try to come to each other's aid. While Reynaldo's men waged their war of terror and irregular guerilla action against GDI's backlines, the front surged forward, crushing towards the coast and running up against the edges of the Red Zones.
But the greatest battle was in Spain. At the ancient capital of Madrid, the self-styled Baron Ricardo Venuela called his banners forth, ready to hold the line and his city until the bitter end. From the north and west it is protected by the Sierra de Gredos mountain range, and from the south and east, by rolling hills. The city had been besieged before, most recently over a century ago during the Spanish Civil War.
As the Baron tried to rally his bannermen, only a few came to his aid. Rather than an army of tens of thousands, only a bare trickle came forth, mostly infantry – the dregs that could be spared, rather than the armored elite that he had been promised.
As he tried to summon more, the jaws of the Initiative closed on the city.
Amid the peaks of the Sierra de Gredos, the fighting had raged for weeks, with hundreds of GDI artillery pieces unleashing kilotons and kilotons of ordnance in a ruinous bombardment, and ion cannons shrieking down from the heavens, causing Nod hardpoints to vanish in flares of coruscating plasma. In the foothills below the mountains, some sixteen Initiative battalions made push after push, advancing by company and platoon, pincering individual positions as they painstakingly moved the front line forward.
The Initiative battalions were understrength formations, recovering from the last quarter's fighting. Salamanca had been used as a place to put weakened but not quite expended units into a fighting reserve. Here, the long-used beam cannon proved its worth time and again as a sniper's weapon, with long-range precision fire reaching out and blasting Initiative tanks. While the vast majority survived due to their ablative plates, it was in many cases a close-run thing. However, all of this amounted to little more than a distraction; the tanks often had layers of ablat three or four plates thick on their forward aspect, inviting fire in order to pin down Venuela's arms in the mountains.
The fighting in the mountains was ultimately a sideshow. It was in the south that the decisive battles would be fought, at the ancient walled city of Toledo. The open terrain allowed an entire Initiative armored brigade to push across the river west of the city, outflanking the defenders. However, the city itself still commanded the battlefield, and had to be reduced much like any other fortress to deny Brotherhood forces a point from which they could sally.
Held by two chapters of the Black Hand, it was a hard position, but drastically outnumbered. Rings of entrenchments – some new and some years old – had turned the curve of the river into a veritable fortress. On the southern and western sides of the city the approaches had been mined, with the side of the river nearest to Toledo fortified with concealed bunkers. Buildings had been gutted and repurposed all along the bank of the river, adding reinforced interiors, laser cannons, and plasma guns. Others had been demolished for mortar pits, or had fighting positions for tanks concealed inside them. The keystone however was an Ion Disruptor, although of a substantially smaller scale one than was found in the battle at Temple Prime. The city, its civilian population long vanished, was little more than a series of nested fighting positions.
Even with all the fire and fury raining down upon the city, it was taking too long. With a small-scale Ion Disruptor shielding the city, reduction or suppression via orbital bombardment was not viable. There was little choice but to try to take the fortress city by siege or storm, and with the pocket being reduced by the day and supply lines strained to support GDI's forces in the area, storm was the only viable option, – unless months of planning and campaigning were to go to waste.
The Ion Disruptor is a technology that has quietly proliferated, much to the Initiative's frustration. While there have been rumblings of its existence in documents and spy reports for years, it is only fairly recently that it has become a serious part of Brotherhood doctrine. While still substantially too expensive and far too large to be used everywhere, ion disruptors are a fundamental disruption to the tactical and strategic environment, one that takes GDI's greatest advantage and removes it from play. While the system does have its flaws, including a reliance on large and obvious projectors that can be destroyed from the ground or air once located, those flaws pale in comparison to the advantages it gives the Brotherhood.
Juggernaut artillery opened the battle proper shortly before dawn on the 19th of May, blasting shell after shell downrange. Shortly thereafter, batteries of Overseers began blasting away, raining 152mm shells down on the city. But even with masses of fire pouring in, the Brotherhood were giving as good as they got, counter-battery fire lashing out as gun calculators whirred – laying down deadly barrages of their own in return.
Rather than attempting a cross-river assault, one brigade was left to guard the southern approaches while the remainder of the GDI force shifted north of the river, away from the city, and then hammered back down from the north. After forty-eight hours of unceasing bombardment the city was a burning ruin – shattered buildings revealed the fighting positions within them, and then those same positions were blasted to smithereens under Initiative artillery fire. But still the defenders of the city held on, with acolytes of the Black Hand remaining hidden in tunnels and camped amid the shattered remnants of buildings, needing to be dug out of their hidden tunnels and blockhouses.
The Initiative's forces began picking their way forward, screening infantry advancing under covering fire from Guardians, Pitbulls, and Predators. And here the Brotherhood showed its cleverness once more. Nicknamed Sprinklers after the spray of grenades they created, the devices were simple iterations upon the throwing assistance found in Second Tiberium War era grenadier equipment. A simple electric motor spun an arm, catching from a vertical tube of grenades, then launched the grenade on a ballistic trajectory; and as the arm returned to retrieve a new projectile, it triggered a ratcheting mechanism to turn the launcher. While most were simple sprayers of fragmentation grenades, some were flinging magnetic devices, designed to adhere to the sides and bellies of tanks advancing forward. While these Sprinklers were many in number, each was cheap, and entire batteries could be either operated by a single observer or simply triggered by a well-placed tripwire or sensor.
Reynaldo's Confessors still carry a rotary rifle as their standard weapon; it has three rates of fire: slow, medium, and fast. Before the Third Tiberium War, most preferred to operate on the slow setting, using controlled bursts and laying down suppressive fire, allowing greater exposure to motivate the men around them. Now they had switched to the fast setting, making full use of the multiple barrels to empty their magazines in seconds, before ducking back behind cover to reload. Assuming the bursts hit, they will pound through even the improved body armor of an Initiative soldier. With the high rates of fire however, most did not, the recoil of the gun kicking the barrel up even as the erstwhile target dives for cover upon hearing the first crack.
The approach used by the Initiative to secure the city was a simple one. A Predator would advance down a road until fired upon, at which point it returned fire with its remote weapons system as the Guardians and infantry escorting it poured their own shots in or (often) called in artillery strikes rather than expose themselves. With the city already consisting largely of tossed rubble, it was a slow process, but one that limited casualties. Even so the fighting was hard and often confused, with a myriad of concealed tunnels and boltholes disgorging pockets of resistance behind the front lines, often resulting in rapidly-changing orders as the Initiative force reacted to suppress all of those same pockets.
The defenders held strong even as they were overwhelmed by fire, and refused to surrender until the Initiative destroyed the Ion Disruptor and seized one of the few remaining command posts to broadcast the news. Even then, some refused to lay down their arms and resistance continued, resulting in the ruined city being reduced to ash and cinders by orbital bombardment.
With the road to Madrid opened by the collapse of Toledo, the Initiative armies drove north, quickly surrounding the city and laying siege. Unlike Toledo, Madrid's defenders were far less motivated, and demoralized from the flashes of Ion cannon strikes over the last days. Rather than trying to hold, many surrendered, with columns of prisoners of war trickling north and west, towards Blue Zone POW camps, awaiting clarification as to their status.
Phillipe Fournier is one of the many refugees that surged forth in the progress of Steel Vanguard.
Phillipe Fournier is sick. That was what Initiative doctors said in hushed whispers, as they saw green lesions pockmarking not just his skin, but also that of his innards.
Phillipe Fournier is one of abnormally many, in this regard. He testified that he and hundreds like him had toiled at the edge of Red Zones, to mine Tiberium crystals without adequate protection or regular breaks. He needed help, for this was more than the wracking coughs of Tib Lung or searing fever of the Green Pox. It was worse.
Phillipe Fournier is rushed deeper into the Blue Zone. For the front is never safe, and the allotment of medical supplies are needed for those in dire need of them. For all that his situation was critical, it seemed stable enough to not land him in the operating table.
Phillipe Fournier and dozens more like him were carried on the backs of the Carryalls, alongside many more evacuees assigned deeper into the European Blue Zones. Their path would take them closer to Brittany, and the provincial capital of Rennes.
That medical fleet of Carryalls never made it there, its guards slain and the evacuees scattered to the winds all over the French countryside. For Phillipe Fournier and the dozens more like him were not mere evacuees. They were Reynaldo's Chosen. His Guerrilleros one and all.
And the first act of Captain Phillipe Fournier and the men under him was to crash half of that fleet of Carryalls, into the harbors and industrial sectors of Vannes on the western coast of France.
The falling aircraft were merely the most dramatic of the many actions Reynaldo's guerillas took. The term first rose to fame during the Napoleonic wars, specifically the peninsular campaign of 1808 to 1814, where Spanish and Portuguese citizenry fought against the French invaders. Now, however, they are a very different affair. GDI's Intelligence Operations division -- massively overstressed, with hundreds of refugees for every one of their officers – has struggled to maintain the panopticon. Ever more has begun to slip through.
Many of the more successful operations are relatively simple. Remotely deployed hacking attacks to play Brotherhood propaganda are common. While not directly damaging, such is a clear showing that GDI is not safe, especially as it often can take hours to track down the source and shut it off. Otherwise, spreading pamphlets and other forms of word-of-mouth propaganda are keystone elements of the approach. A single dedicated operative or a small team can spread unrest and mistrust with mere words, with less overall risk than attempting direct action against secure GDI facilities.
Of course, widespread direct action has also seen extensive use. Often a mix of Chosen inserted among the refugees and local recruits, across GDI a range of attacks have occurred, ranging from simple suicide operations, to stochastic terrorism, a range of IED systems, and complex operations using drones and precision weapons. All of them with a simple clear set of aims: sow distrust of Yellow Zone refugees among the Initiative population, increase friction between GDI and the refugees, and create push-back against the idea of long-term occupation of territories outside the Blue Zones.
The war in Europe has however been a great success, a grand victory for the Initiative, and one that has seen territories that were last in Initiative hands some fifty years ago once more returned to their rightful place. It is unfortunate that GDI is paying so high a price for victory, not only in material terms, but in cultural and social ones. Once grand cities, rebuilt in the 20th century following the Spanish Civil War once more rendered to rubble strewn streets.
Theater: South America
Unlike the other regions, the War in South America has been going poorly for GDI. While Escoffier is talented enough as a general, Stahl is one of the best in the world and has used the confusion of the refugee wave he sent to GDI lines well, preparing to win a series of major victories -- ones that have made GDI bleed heavily in the region.
With the Initiative goaded into offensives after the defeats and frustrations of the first three months of fighting, Escoffier launched an attack north, driving across the open plains of northern Argentina in an attempt to cut the neck of Stahl's position at the critical city of Rosario, the open connection between the front line spread across the continent and the Brotherhood's industrial hubs at Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo on the Brazilian coast. Stahl anticipated the offensive; it was the obvious weak point, a place where GDI had to go if it wanted to win the war in South America.
At the same time, the offensive was championed by politics. Local groups had long been frustrated by GDI's inability to secure the region, especially after the attacks on Rio over a decade ago. With Stahl's recent demonstrations of skill and ability however, that had reached a fever pitch, and even GDI's tendency to ignore local politics does have its limitations.
With the navy unable to detach anything heavier than a hydrofoil to support the invasion, GDI's air and ground forces had to do the heavy lifting on their own. Preparations began as early as the 7th of May, with additional squadrons of Firehawks and Apollos being transferred in from the West African theater, along with the vast majority of Apollo Wingman drones so far produced. These movements were part of a grand shuffle that shifted forces roughly clockwise around the Atlantic Front - moving assets away from the battlefields of North America and Europe, where the fighting had been intense but successful with GDI gaining victory after victory. Similarly, additional ground assets had been redeployed (mostly flown in from North America as well), including an armored division which left much of its equipment behind, and re-equipped from the local caches and depots.
By the end of May, the preparations were complete. With few points of contact between GDI forces and the enemy and Stahl having maintained a very mobile defensive force, GDI troops began to advance rapidly northwards on a narrow front, pushing from Green Zone positions near the Atlantic Ocean towards Buenos Aires and Rosario to strike a killing blow by cutting the critical supply chain off from the rest of the Brotherhood in South America.
Rather than try to fight GDI in a pitched battle, Stahl instead stalled for time, conducting a rapid fighting retreat using both standard Scorpions and a small number of the new plasma gun carriers. Stahl had made significant modifications to the latter compared to Gideon's initial design, opting to remove many non-critical systems in exchange for armoring the vehicle to a minimum acceptable standard.
GDI's initial advance was rapid, but with a pair of modifications to standard battle drill. A deep thrust along a narrow front comes with the risk of getting flanked on the axis of advance; so Escoffier secured his right flank with the Atlantic ocean, and every few kilometers the lead elements of the assault force peeled off to establish a secure position on the left flank. Doing so inevitably slowed down the advance, and offered Stahl valuable hours to react and concentrate his forces for a counter attack to pin Escoffier against the coast and cut GDI's own supply lines. Being no fool, Escoffier had expected this tactic, but the weight and ferocity of the assault was greater than anticipated.
The counterstroke began with a massive barrage of missiles streaking in from the north and west -- both the short range missile barrages of the stealth tanks (acting as ballistic chaff to distract missile defenses), and the cruise missiles that Stahl is growing infamous for. The response was simple: spread out, dig in, and wait for air support. Even in a massive crossfire like the one the assault force was facing, most of the missiles would not hit, and each missile has a relatively limited blast radius – especially against enemies with even a bare minimum of entrenching. Every meter of reduced threat in turn reduced the volume of the space that the defensive guns on the Predators needed to cover. And so even as tiberium-core missiles burst above and around them, GDI troops held firm, finding what cover and concealment they could as they waited both for the inevitable Nod follow-up, and for their own fighter- and bomber cover to reach them. While a combat air patrol was above the region, Stahl had waited for a low point – the existing patrol was low on both fuel and ammunition, and their replacements had not yet arrived.
With shrieking slivers of hateful green raining down upon the Initiative, Stahl's own troops made their move; orange bolts blasted into Initiative positions as his plasma tanks hit the leading edge of the advance, while along the flank up until about a hundred kilometers from the edge of the Green Zone, Stahl's troops hammered home. Hull-down binary propellant cannons sent streaks of fire forth, and at the same time, hidden pockets (passed over during the initial advance) erupted into swarms of Gana, rushing out to engage whatever unit was closest. While outnumbered, outgunned, and operating independently, they were collectively one more measure of mayhem on an already chaotic and disrupted battlefield.
Even with the Initiative troops having fallen to digging entrenchments with a will, the unexpectedly fierce shock attacks had their intended effect; they were too slow, too confused, and too disorganized to set up a proper defensive line. Rather, each of the dispersed companies – and in few cases battalions – were fragmented.. While they supported each other as best as possible, it was a piecemeal response, with the middle ranks often being unable to effectively coordinate. While Escoffier was able to order the broad strokes, and call in support from across the Blue Zone, the commanders at regiment- and brigade-level and higher were often unable to do much. A lieutenant, captain, or (to a lesser degree) major can each fight on nothing more than laser- and wideband short-range communications. A colonel or brigadier on the other hand needs larger and far more powerful communications devices, which are both relatively easily tracked and a priority for destruction by the Brotherhood as a consequence. While such tracking is far from precise enough for the equipment to be targeted from tens or hundreds of kilometers away by a missile launcher, a shadow team bold (or foolish) enough to be willing to break cover during a missile barrage to go hunting can certainly find them, and at least attempt to take them out.
With over a hundred thousand men engaged north of the Green Zone in a poor position, retrieving them was a high priority. Every remaining asset that could be spared surged north, wave after wave of aircraft surging for the combat zone at best possible speed with afterburners lit. Under normal circumstances, the Apollos would go first, sweeping the airspace before Firehawks and Orcas made their entrance. Here however, while the first wave was Apollo-heavy, the first squadrons on the scene were two of Firehawks and one of old A-15 Orcas. Scrambled from a nearby airbase and without the time to build speed and altitude they came in relatively low and slow – easy prey for the Barghests waiting for the response. A swarm of them dove in from high altitude, their plasma guns ripping green streaks across the sky. While two Barghests fell as GDI pilots snapped lucky shots with their QAAMs, they were joined by over half a dozen Firehawks in the first moments of battle, as well as four of the Orcas.
Soon enough dozens of other squadrons from across South America began to arrive on the scene, and scattered over the battlefield in dribs and drabs, hitting targets and then turning to return to base for re-armament. With hundreds of fighters behind them, rather than trying to close for better missile efficiency many GDI craft instead caracoled – closing only to long range, salvoing off a load of missiles into whatever looked threatening, and returning to base to clear the way for the squadron that had arrived seconds or minutes after them to shoot their own volley.
But as they returned home, the threat was not over. Stahl's men elsewhere had noticed the squadrons heading home and, on their own initiative, sortied interdictor and interceptor groups to harry returning squadrons as they raced for the border of the Blue Zone with the bulk of their munitions expended.
Even with the full weight of the Initiative's local air arm assisting, the battle on the ground was going poorly. Pinned down and strung out along a long front, with nothing to their rear but the sea, the only way out was a call back to a more brute-force and callous time: the line of fire. GDI's orbital assets hammered down with every weapon available as they passed over the region and unleashed indiscriminate fire into the strip of land that the Brotherhood was attacking from. Searing blue ion cannon flashes cut across the land, and kinetic impactors sprayed down like an artillery barrage from the ages before explosive fillers. The Brotherhood positions became a blasted alien moonscape, filled with craters of jagged glass, a result of the flash heating of an ion cannon strike, followed by the pummelling of orbital kinetic fires.
With the battle raging in northern Argentina, it was time for the stealth squadrons to strike. Staged out of a small airbase at the southern tip of Brazil, a full wing of Vertigo bombers took a circuitous low-and-slow route out over the Atlantic ocean, aiming for the same industrial centre that Stahl had failed to strike in an earlier engagement. With every fighter and drone GDI could send busy with the main force of Stahl's own as they tried to support Escoffier's army, the airspace above Puerto Madryn was unfortunately open, only contested by a partial squadron of A-16 Orcas which had been mauled in the previous fighting and had half their strength unavailable. When the Vertigos hit the edge of the defensive fields approximately fifty kilometers short of their target, the Orcas manoeuvered to intercept, and volleyed off air-to air missiles. While a half-dozen of the Vertigos either exploded or began falling towards the surface, the others pushed through the barrage, tail guns blazing away in arcs of screaming tracers as the Orcas closed and brought their railguns to bear. Inert bolts punched lengthwise through the bombers' hulls, but without any added payload in the penetrators each Vertigo took precious seconds to bring down as icepick after icepick raced through, searching for something vital.
While a further four Vertigos fell under the hail of railgun fire, others limped onward to the release point, launching a wave of munitions towards the industrial park, before turning and trying to break away. Harried by the Orcas on their way out, the remaining bombers nonetheless managed to escape without suffering further losses.
At the industrial park, a rumbling echoed from the blasts of the submunitions. While most of the industrial buildings stand, everything on and around them is far less than intact. Vehicles burned in the bombardment as surface tanks holding flammable liquids collapsed, and the cooling units and heat exchangers that dotted the surfaces of the buildings were reduced to shredded scrap metal.
In some ways, however, the Initiative was lucky. Stahl sent thirty-six aircraft to strike the location, of which twenty-six survived to release their pair of heavy cluster bombs. While not quite as effective at making concrete fly as a high explosive bomb of the same weight, cluster ordnance was chosen for its ability to shred the hundreds of softer parts of the plant. The damage is severe, with the entire plant taken offline, but it is not permanently disabled. Much of the plant can be restored immediately, while some other sections are expected to take many months to rebuild with local resources.
Elsewhere up and down the Blue Zone, similar strikes occurred, with squadrons hitting train yards, fuel centers, and other sites of military and industrial significance. Although some facilities are semi-permanent losses and require complete rebuilds, others can be brought back online in a matter of months. While the combined total tonnage of the strikes was comparatively light - less than was dropped on Germany during a single day in the Second World War - it was relatively precise and disabled several key points, which has ground many critical elements of GDI's South American industry to a halt.
The defeat of Escoffier's offensive and the coming rearrangement of Initiative command structures in the region marks the end of Operation Steel Vanguard in South America. Central command believed that further investment would be a matter of sending good resources after bad, and that any assistance granted to the South American front would result in little besides heavy losses.
Theater: Europe
In Europe, the Brotherhood of Nod has seen defeat after defeat, crushing victories won by GDI as they rolled through once-sunny fields and across ancient wine country; the twisted, sickly but persistent vines still holding on in bare patches even as armored steel beasts rolled through them.
The Warlords of Europe responded to GDI offensives slowly, baulky teams fighting their own battles rather than working together. As citadels and fortresses fell to the onrushing tide, the warlords chose to retreat, or to fortify their own holdings rather than try to come to each other's aid. While Reynaldo's men waged their war of terror and irregular guerilla action against GDI's backlines, the front surged forward, crushing towards the coast and running up against the edges of the Red Zones.
But the greatest battle was in Spain. At the ancient capital of Madrid, the self-styled Baron Ricardo Venuela called his banners forth, ready to hold the line and his city until the bitter end. From the north and west it is protected by the Sierra de Gredos mountain range, and from the south and east, by rolling hills. The city had been besieged before, most recently over a century ago during the Spanish Civil War.
As the Baron tried to rally his bannermen, only a few came to his aid. Rather than an army of tens of thousands, only a bare trickle came forth, mostly infantry – the dregs that could be spared, rather than the armored elite that he had been promised.
As he tried to summon more, the jaws of the Initiative closed on the city.
Amid the peaks of the Sierra de Gredos, the fighting had raged for weeks, with hundreds of GDI artillery pieces unleashing kilotons and kilotons of ordnance in a ruinous bombardment, and ion cannons shrieking down from the heavens, causing Nod hardpoints to vanish in flares of coruscating plasma. In the foothills below the mountains, some sixteen Initiative battalions made push after push, advancing by company and platoon, pincering individual positions as they painstakingly moved the front line forward.
The Initiative battalions were understrength formations, recovering from the last quarter's fighting. Salamanca had been used as a place to put weakened but not quite expended units into a fighting reserve. Here, the long-used beam cannon proved its worth time and again as a sniper's weapon, with long-range precision fire reaching out and blasting Initiative tanks. While the vast majority survived due to their ablative plates, it was in many cases a close-run thing. However, all of this amounted to little more than a distraction; the tanks often had layers of ablat three or four plates thick on their forward aspect, inviting fire in order to pin down Venuela's arms in the mountains.
The fighting in the mountains was ultimately a sideshow. It was in the south that the decisive battles would be fought, at the ancient walled city of Toledo. The open terrain allowed an entire Initiative armored brigade to push across the river west of the city, outflanking the defenders. However, the city itself still commanded the battlefield, and had to be reduced much like any other fortress to deny Brotherhood forces a point from which they could sally.
Held by two chapters of the Black Hand, it was a hard position, but drastically outnumbered. Rings of entrenchments – some new and some years old – had turned the curve of the river into a veritable fortress. On the southern and western sides of the city the approaches had been mined, with the side of the river nearest to Toledo fortified with concealed bunkers. Buildings had been gutted and repurposed all along the bank of the river, adding reinforced interiors, laser cannons, and plasma guns. Others had been demolished for mortar pits, or had fighting positions for tanks concealed inside them. The keystone however was an Ion Disruptor, although of a substantially smaller scale one than was found in the battle at Temple Prime. The city, its civilian population long vanished, was little more than a series of nested fighting positions.
Even with all the fire and fury raining down upon the city, it was taking too long. With a small-scale Ion Disruptor shielding the city, reduction or suppression via orbital bombardment was not viable. There was little choice but to try to take the fortress city by siege or storm, and with the pocket being reduced by the day and supply lines strained to support GDI's forces in the area, storm was the only viable option, – unless months of planning and campaigning were to go to waste.
The Ion Disruptor is a technology that has quietly proliferated, much to the Initiative's frustration. While there have been rumblings of its existence in documents and spy reports for years, it is only fairly recently that it has become a serious part of Brotherhood doctrine. While still substantially too expensive and far too large to be used everywhere, ion disruptors are a fundamental disruption to the tactical and strategic environment, one that takes GDI's greatest advantage and removes it from play. While the system does have its flaws, including a reliance on large and obvious projectors that can be destroyed from the ground or air once located, those flaws pale in comparison to the advantages it gives the Brotherhood.
Juggernaut artillery opened the battle proper shortly before dawn on the 19th of May, blasting shell after shell downrange. Shortly thereafter, batteries of Overseers began blasting away, raining 152mm shells down on the city. But even with masses of fire pouring in, the Brotherhood were giving as good as they got, counter-battery fire lashing out as gun calculators whirred – laying down deadly barrages of their own in return.
Rather than attempting a cross-river assault, one brigade was left to guard the southern approaches while the remainder of the GDI force shifted north of the river, away from the city, and then hammered back down from the north. After forty-eight hours of unceasing bombardment the city was a burning ruin – shattered buildings revealed the fighting positions within them, and then those same positions were blasted to smithereens under Initiative artillery fire. But still the defenders of the city held on, with acolytes of the Black Hand remaining hidden in tunnels and camped amid the shattered remnants of buildings, needing to be dug out of their hidden tunnels and blockhouses.
The Initiative's forces began picking their way forward, screening infantry advancing under covering fire from Guardians, Pitbulls, and Predators. And here the Brotherhood showed its cleverness once more. Nicknamed Sprinklers after the spray of grenades they created, the devices were simple iterations upon the throwing assistance found in Second Tiberium War era grenadier equipment. A simple electric motor spun an arm, catching from a vertical tube of grenades, then launched the grenade on a ballistic trajectory; and as the arm returned to retrieve a new projectile, it triggered a ratcheting mechanism to turn the launcher. While most were simple sprayers of fragmentation grenades, some were flinging magnetic devices, designed to adhere to the sides and bellies of tanks advancing forward. While these Sprinklers were many in number, each was cheap, and entire batteries could be either operated by a single observer or simply triggered by a well-placed tripwire or sensor.
Reynaldo's Confessors still carry a rotary rifle as their standard weapon; it has three rates of fire: slow, medium, and fast. Before the Third Tiberium War, most preferred to operate on the slow setting, using controlled bursts and laying down suppressive fire, allowing greater exposure to motivate the men around them. Now they had switched to the fast setting, making full use of the multiple barrels to empty their magazines in seconds, before ducking back behind cover to reload. Assuming the bursts hit, they will pound through even the improved body armor of an Initiative soldier. With the high rates of fire however, most did not, the recoil of the gun kicking the barrel up even as the erstwhile target dives for cover upon hearing the first crack.
The approach used by the Initiative to secure the city was a simple one. A Predator would advance down a road until fired upon, at which point it returned fire with its remote weapons system as the Guardians and infantry escorting it poured their own shots in or (often) called in artillery strikes rather than expose themselves. With the city already consisting largely of tossed rubble, it was a slow process, but one that limited casualties. Even so the fighting was hard and often confused, with a myriad of concealed tunnels and boltholes disgorging pockets of resistance behind the front lines, often resulting in rapidly-changing orders as the Initiative force reacted to suppress all of those same pockets.
The defenders held strong even as they were overwhelmed by fire, and refused to surrender until the Initiative destroyed the Ion Disruptor and seized one of the few remaining command posts to broadcast the news. Even then, some refused to lay down their arms and resistance continued, resulting in the ruined city being reduced to ash and cinders by orbital bombardment.
With the road to Madrid opened by the collapse of Toledo, the Initiative armies drove north, quickly surrounding the city and laying siege. Unlike Toledo, Madrid's defenders were far less motivated, and demoralized from the flashes of Ion cannon strikes over the last days. Rather than trying to hold, many surrendered, with columns of prisoners of war trickling north and west, towards Blue Zone POW camps, awaiting clarification as to their status.
"This will cost ya, y'know?"
"The deal is sealed and my testament is that. An oath."
"Lighten up, wouldn't ya? You're no fun."
"The situation is not. This damnable War needn't occur."
"Yet, you're fighting."
"It'd be a disservice to us if we don't."
"The deal is sealed and my testament is that. An oath."
"Lighten up, wouldn't ya? You're no fun."
"The situation is not. This damnable War needn't occur."
"Yet, you're fighting."
"It'd be a disservice to us if we don't."
Phillipe Fournier is one of the many refugees that surged forth in the progress of Steel Vanguard.
Phillipe Fournier is sick. That was what Initiative doctors said in hushed whispers, as they saw green lesions pockmarking not just his skin, but also that of his innards.
Phillipe Fournier is one of abnormally many, in this regard. He testified that he and hundreds like him had toiled at the edge of Red Zones, to mine Tiberium crystals without adequate protection or regular breaks. He needed help, for this was more than the wracking coughs of Tib Lung or searing fever of the Green Pox. It was worse.
Phillipe Fournier is rushed deeper into the Blue Zone. For the front is never safe, and the allotment of medical supplies are needed for those in dire need of them. For all that his situation was critical, it seemed stable enough to not land him in the operating table.
Phillipe Fournier and dozens more like him were carried on the backs of the Carryalls, alongside many more evacuees assigned deeper into the European Blue Zones. Their path would take them closer to Brittany, and the provincial capital of Rennes.
That medical fleet of Carryalls never made it there, its guards slain and the evacuees scattered to the winds all over the French countryside. For Phillipe Fournier and the dozens more like him were not mere evacuees. They were Reynaldo's Chosen. His Guerrilleros one and all.
And the first act of Captain Phillipe Fournier and the men under him was to crash half of that fleet of Carryalls, into the harbors and industrial sectors of Vannes on the western coast of France.
The falling aircraft were merely the most dramatic of the many actions Reynaldo's guerillas took. The term first rose to fame during the Napoleonic wars, specifically the peninsular campaign of 1808 to 1814, where Spanish and Portuguese citizenry fought against the French invaders. Now, however, they are a very different affair. GDI's Intelligence Operations division -- massively overstressed, with hundreds of refugees for every one of their officers – has struggled to maintain the panopticon. Ever more has begun to slip through.
Many of the more successful operations are relatively simple. Remotely deployed hacking attacks to play Brotherhood propaganda are common. While not directly damaging, such is a clear showing that GDI is not safe, especially as it often can take hours to track down the source and shut it off. Otherwise, spreading pamphlets and other forms of word-of-mouth propaganda are keystone elements of the approach. A single dedicated operative or a small team can spread unrest and mistrust with mere words, with less overall risk than attempting direct action against secure GDI facilities.
Of course, widespread direct action has also seen extensive use. Often a mix of Chosen inserted among the refugees and local recruits, across GDI a range of attacks have occurred, ranging from simple suicide operations, to stochastic terrorism, a range of IED systems, and complex operations using drones and precision weapons. All of them with a simple clear set of aims: sow distrust of Yellow Zone refugees among the Initiative population, increase friction between GDI and the refugees, and create push-back against the idea of long-term occupation of territories outside the Blue Zones.
The war in Europe has however been a great success, a grand victory for the Initiative, and one that has seen territories that were last in Initiative hands some fifty years ago once more returned to their rightful place. It is unfortunate that GDI is paying so high a price for victory, not only in material terms, but in cultural and social ones. Once grand cities, rebuilt in the 20th century following the Spanish Civil War once more rendered to rubble strewn streets.
- Location
- Sweden
Welp we lose some we win some. Good to see more of europe under our control.
- Location
- USA
I know we are getting some impressive victories in and are achieving a lot but these do seem to make it look like we are losing even when we're winning.
Except for South America. Stahls a madman.
Except for South America. Stahls a madman.
All in all we are doing well, one important thing to be aware of is that we already were not able to rely on ion cannons as we used to. I expect them to be even far more limited in the next war, so we need another form of ortillery asap.
Regarding the guerilleros…. Well, not much we can do directly, we can support GDI Int if they asked us to have something built. Maybe improving the computing infrastructure?
Regarding the guerilleros…. Well, not much we can do directly, we can support GDI Int if they asked us to have something built. Maybe improving the computing infrastructure?
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I really don't get that impression, the only thing that feels remotely like a loss in this past update to me is South America because... we did in fact lose there. The Spanish/European theater sounds like it's going swimmingly, what parts make you feel like we're losing, just the fact that we're not effortlessly winning unopposed? The other guy always gets to punch back but pretty tame suicide bombings and other terrorism are really nothing, they won't get him Madrid back or anything.
- Location
- USA
Please don't misunderstand. I'm fully aware we are winning there quite handily.
But there does seem to be a bit of accentuating the negative with these updates.
This.
Yes, GDI intelligence is somewhat overwhelmed, but it does not feel critical to me, they are just stretched extremely thin currently and it shows. We may get a project to support them, if so we really should take it asap. Otherwise the things are really going well, aside from South America, where we legitimately lost. Even there the loss seems to be quite manageable, in terms of us not losing actual ground, just not occupying more.
We don't, he's a genius general with a well developed population/industrial base and favorable geography. Close out a few other theaters and circle back years from now and see if the freed up forces and extra resources change the math perhaps, but nothing we can do in the short to medium term. He won, we lost, that happens in wars sometimes.
- Location
- Sweden
Stall for time in south america finish upp the other regions then drown him in forces.
Sounds like a great way to hand Stahl some more victories
We don't. We take pressure off him and instead pour resources into the fights we're winning. Sure, Nod won on one front (a victory that involved them not gaining any territory and actually losing some, albiet at the cost of a lot of GDI casualties), we're winning the others so far
I know you win some you lose some. But it's still frustrating since it seems like we haven't had any major wins down there since the Regency War began.
A Blue Zone hub/fleet if we're really terrified of a counteroffensive might be justifiable, but trying to go set up a Yellow Zone hub in his territory would probably end the same as all our other offensives against him, yeah. If we can't push mobile armored units into his territory even temporarily, we're definitely not going to be able to take and hold a Yellow Zone city for months while trying to ship in a MARV fleet piece by piece.
Well that's because we haven't, Stahl's special masterstoke power is "bullshit RTS protagonist haxx." Gideon had the big flashy Tiberium warhead doomsday stockpile, Reynaldo is doing ??? with Kane right now, Stahl is boring but practical and gets an obscene bonus to all his rolls and operational situation I believe.
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South America is something that pretty much has to wait until later. yeah. New tech, off-shore support and not being in the middle of a literally global campaign is more or less what we need IMO. Now, a few years down the line establishing MARV hubs as part of a series of limited offensives is probably a good way to test the waters for a general offensive. Untill that time though, we hold the line.
In Europe, guerillas will be a problem for a while but they will likely run out sufficiently motivated people eventually. But I concur with some of the posters above; if we can beef up InOps in the near future we should.
If I've understood our situation correctly there won't be any more offensives in SA or the NA south-east this war. In Europe our forces are getting a bit battered and it is not clear to me if they can keep going much longer. Still waiting to hear from Africa and Australia, but we are probably at the point were we need to slow down. Maybe not forever, but a quarter or two might work wonders.
In Europe, guerillas will be a problem for a while but they will likely run out sufficiently motivated people eventually. But I concur with some of the posters above; if we can beef up InOps in the near future we should.
If I've understood our situation correctly there won't be any more offensives in SA or the NA south-east this war. In Europe our forces are getting a bit battered and it is not clear to me if they can keep going much longer. Still waiting to hear from Africa and Australia, but we are probably at the point were we need to slow down. Maybe not forever, but a quarter or two might work wonders.
Hmm. The veteran cadre in South America is irratating but understandable. StahI must have quite the logistic network set up for his high tempo maneuver warfare.
We just have to keep grinding him down. As for Europe, better but also expected news. We knew that the warlords of Europe weren't unified and it shows.
The new version of the martyrs as insurgent terror units is an evolution we should have seen coming and one we really can't deal with unless we cut off humanitarian aid. Which we could but the optics look bad. This is also a war for the soul of humanity after all.
It's a shame that the ion canon network is now functionally useless. Might as well just switch over to KKV's instead. Parry that, I DARE YOU.
We just have to keep grinding him down. As for Europe, better but also expected news. We knew that the warlords of Europe weren't unified and it shows.
The new version of the martyrs as insurgent terror units is an evolution we should have seen coming and one we really can't deal with unless we cut off humanitarian aid. Which we could but the optics look bad. This is also a war for the soul of humanity after all.
It's a shame that the ion canon network is now functionally useless. Might as well just switch over to KKV's instead. Parry that, I DARE YOU.
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Europe seems to be going well. The terrorists are annoying but given we have no issue throwing luxuries into newly occupied areas we should be able to convince most people of the benefits of gdi control. After that it's just a matter of waiting for the ideologues to either get picked up by InOps or get themselves killed blowing up a replacable armored truck or whatever.
As for South America. Stahl's an rts protagonist, there's not really anything we can do against him except hope he rolls low. Best to just hope the reconstruction bill isnt to too severe and focus on other fronts.
As for South America. Stahl's an rts protagonist, there's not really anything we can do against him except hope he rolls low. Best to just hope the reconstruction bill isnt to too severe and focus on other fronts.
Ace of Scarabs
Mechanoid Pilot
- Location
- Singapore
Nah, we just need more Ion Cannons to focus fire. Their shields have a limit to their ability to mitigate beams of ionic death.