The Regency War: Part 3 — Operation Steel Vanguard
March of the Vargr
Krukov had not been quiet since his first offensive in the run up to the Regency War. Instead, after putting down the rebellions against his regime, he once more turned his attention towards the Initiative. Rather than driving on Helsinki once again, and risking yet more of his men on those old battlefields, he turned his attention to another route, north, over the Arctic circle. A massive air wing, anchored in the center by Varyag itself, and on its left and right by Bogatyr and Askel respectively, flew over the Kara Sea, Novaya Zemlya, and the Barents Sea, before falling on Murmansk, the old home port for many of the convoys that had fed the Soviet Union. Now a Blue Zone city, Murmansk played home to one of GDI's then under refit surface action groups, resting and refitting after a long six month stint protecting convoys along the African coast.
The defenders were slow to react as the gargantuan air fleet appeared on the early warning radar of the picket ship GDIS Soya, a Zumwalt derivative built in the immediate aftermath of the Second Tiberium War, and positioned along the northern coast. Its radar only picked up the bare edge of the southern wing, and while it began passing that information along to the defenders at Murmansk, response took time that was not there. The Surface Action Group, a battleship, two Governors, and six obsolete destroyers, were little more than floating anti aircraft batteries, far out of range, and most importantly, low on ammunition. Between the Governors and the Battleships, there were fewer than four hundred anti aircraft missiles remaining in the tubes, and they were still waiting on resupplies for filling their VLS sections. While those missiles had been delivered the night before, work had not yet begun on moving them into position. What could engage were two squadrons of Firehawks, and a squadron of Apollos, a tiny force compared to the vast aerial armada bearing down upon them. On the ground, the primary defenders were the Home Guard, but within hours were two armored companies of the Steel Talons, formed as defenders for the Irvan Institute, and as a quick reaction force elsewhere. Additionally, the naval infantry of the surface action group, although few in number and relatively lightly equipped, were being formed to fight the invaders.
Launching from their airbase southwest of the city, they formed up for a first attack run over the Barents Sea, salvoing a barrage of air to air missiles from maximum range before retreating, rather than holding to engage. The missiles did minimal damage to the fleet, with their onboard seekers unable to hold a lock, and the Barghests they were launched at easily avoided the incoming fire. As they rearmed back at their base, the outer perimeter of antiaircraft emplacements north of the city began to salvo forth barrages of Thunderbolt missiles, contrails and exhaust streaking the skies, and some fired so fast that they blinded themselves in the smoke and fumes. It was not nearly enough. In return, lasers lanced forth from the sky cruisers, each blast obliterating a site, killing radar sites and spotters. Ordered to set their batteries to automatic fire, the Home Guard troops manning the defenses fell back to the city itself, to buy time for reinforcements to arrive. Adding to the incoming fire were the two Governors and the battleship, all three acting as spotters to feed targeting data to the destroyers, unleashing volley after volley of missile fire into the fleet. As missiles burst into screaming fragments among the Barghests and Venoms, they twisted and rolled, avoiding the worst of the incoming fire. But even so, aircraft after aircraft fell from the skies against such an outpouring of wrath.
From the south, every asset that could be spared swarmed forth from air bases across Scandinavia and Finland, forming up into big wings, even stripping air support from the attacks driving into the Russian Steppe to destroy the invaders. As the fighters formed up, transports brought with the aerial armada began to land troops. Many were Gana, but many more were Krukov's Streltsy, light infantry that Krukov had equipped as his personal airmobile guard,many armed with lasers. The Streltsy were one of the few arrows in Krukov's quiver that he had held back in the intense urban fighting at St. Petersburg, an arrow that he now committed to battle in the frozen North. Moving in small teams as they moved through the now abandoned city of Severomorsk, each with Gana support as well as batteries of artillery-flying and otherwise-acting in support, the men quickly routed the handful of Home Guard outposts holding the city, and marched on the primary defensive line for Murmansk itself. A series of bunkers and outposts surrounding the city, it had never been planned for an assault of this size, and especially not from this direction. In prewar planning, this section of the line was simply meant to hold off Brotherhood probes, not receive the full force of a Brotherhood invasion. Bunker after bunker exploded, and the vehicles of the Home Guard fought a desperate retreat, falling back into the apartment complexes of the city itself as they were overrun.
But all was not lost. As Krukov's troops advanced into the city, the men and women of the OSRCT fell through the skies, leaving wakes of flame to their rear. Ordered to land south of the city, and march through it to reinforce the battered and exhausted defenders, the first company instead aimed their pods directly at one of Krukov's flying ships, and made landing upon it, with their pods having been rapidly fitted with electromagnetic grapnels in hopes of being able to stick to the ship upon impact. Manually guiding their pods into contact with the ship, they proceeded to breach as infantrymen, Zone Armour suits serving to provide a comprehensive advantage against the massively outgunned defenders.
Krukov's ships consisted of five decks, A through E, three of which were through decks, and two, the top and bottom, partial decks. Of the landing pods, six impacted the cruiser, two on the A deck, and four more on the B deck. The rest landed on the ground, where they found time to run rampant through the Streltsy's rear, including disabling more than a few batteries of airlifted artillery that they had brought with them. On the ship itself, the men and women of the OSRCT found their bulky armor to be protective, but difficult to move and fight in as they moved through tight corridors towards the bridge and engineering sections. As the Brotherhood crew scrambled to contain them, and later to attempt to destroy the ship rather than allow it to fall into Initiative hands, it was often a war at extremely close quarters, with pistols being used from as little as a centimeter away from the target, and most of the casualties carried off the ships were blunt trauma, rather than gunshots or bladed weapons, a result of the close combat rendering fists and feet the best weapons the OSRCT had with them.
On the ground, they were a desperately needed aid, with railgun rounds and sonic grenades reaping a devastating toll among the Streltsy, and an even more devastating one among the Gana supporting them. Moving in squads, the orbital strike turned the tide of battle, pushing Krukov's infantry back into the hills, and using their vastly superior jetpack mobility to pincer and crush retreating groups with brutal efficiency.
At the same time, in the air, the first wave of reinforcements began to arrive, fed piecemeal into the battle. Rushing in at high speed, the first pass was at long range, with missiles swarming in by the hundreds. Dozens of Barghests and Barghest-bis's dropped from the sky, joined by a somewhat greater number of Firehawks and Apollos. Many were able to punch out, new design wraparound chutes deploying as they fell to the ground, but others were not so lucky, as their cockpits engulfed them in flames, or simply vaporized by direct plasma hits. Autocannon fire and missiles raked the flanks of the Vargyrs, giving cover to the Bogatyr as it tried to escape.
As the air battle raged, the Streltsy found their courage once more, and began a counterattack, pushing back the defenders once more, even with Zone Armor from the OSRCT, the defenders were still outnumbered, and severely outgunned. Sprinting north however, were two companies of mechs from the Steel Talons, eight Havocs and sixteen Titan Mark IIIs in urban combat configurations, weighted heavily with remote weapons systems and point defense. Circling around the city, they impacted the right flank of the battlespace.
A decade ago, this kind of offensive would be buried under salvo after salvo of RPG-43s, as the Brotherhood of Nod retreated in the center while enveloping the unit on both flanks. But today GDI has learned to respect the capabilities of the humble militant, and built technologies to defeat their weapons. While a small force, and a light blow, their arrival signaled the beginning of the end of the battle. While their Gana fought a rear guard, the Streltsy broke for the rear, loading once more into their carryalls, and began to take off, unharried aside from a last few salvoes from the obsolescent destroyers still in their berths, the missile tubes having been nearly emptied towards the air fleet still over the city. It was only as the last of the Streltsy took off, and began the long flight towards their home base, that Krukov's fleet disengaged, and began the long limp home.
To Master Astrotechnician First Class Catharine Hlabisa:
For service above and beyond the call of duty:
RECOGNIZING THAT:
-She boarded a drop pod to join a technical team, despite not being part of the normal drop-forces.
-She performed admirably both under drop conditions and in the scramble to board the Nod Airship Bogatyr.
-She joined Captain Nagasae to storm the bridge of the Bogatyr, dispatching no less than 1 Nod officer and 3 soldiers in the process.
-She brought the Bogatyr under control and disabled the attempts of the engineering crew to self-destruct the ship, and brought it under control to a GDI facility.
THEREFORE: The Golden Eagle is hereby awarded with full distinctions and honors.
War to the Knife
The war in North America had not been going well for the Brotherhood. The American South had been the site of repeated defeats, and the construction of a pair of MARV hubs rendered the region difficult for the Brotherhood of Nod to operate within. The strategic situation had also gone from bad to worse, as the final tranches of Governor class cruisers have increasingly presented a coast that is at risk from GDI bombardment with missiles, and sometimes naval gunfire. With the region's heavy assets almost entirely expended by repeated failed offensives, Gideon decided that it was time to fall back, and reposition to a less damaged region. However, geography made that difficult.
The growth of the American Red Zone had created a great neck by the Great Lakes. On one side, there is GDI, and on the other side, there is Tiberium. One of the closest places between GDI and the Red Zone, this passage is generally thought of as a no man's land. While neither side can really lay claim to the territory, it is also a link to the tribes of American Forgotten, a place where GDI can resupply its Red Zone outposts, and the one remaining link between the Brotherhood of Nod in the American South, and its cousins elsewhere. A link that was in the process of closing. With his usual flair for the dramatic, and the pressure of time upon him, Gideon chose a means of war that would, in his eyes, terrify the Initiative into allowing him free passage. He misjudged that drastically.
Rather than attempting to bypass Chicago, he decided to attempt to reduce the city by bombardment, using a new weapon - the Tiberium shard bomb. Derived from the Tiberium shard launchers used by the Scrin, these are unguided bombs, designed to airburst high above their targets, and rain down a storm of Tiberium onto the target area, inflicting massive damage on a vast area, and more importantly contaminating everything, meaning that extensive and expensive repairs are a requirement for any area targeted by these devices. Fortunately, he never got the chance to deploy them.
In preparation for the use of Tiberium shard bombs, he had begun to assemble rocket batteries and air groups to unleash a bombardment that could have utterly destroyed Chicago. However, he was far, far too slow. The leading edge of Steel Vanguard, launched on January 7th, 2060, landed on the rocket batteries within hours after jumping off. Blasting through nearly everything in Gideon's arsenal, the door to the north slammed shut, with GDI seizing nearly a hundred kilometer long stretch of the Red Zone Border.
The offensive was rapid, slamming into Brotherhood positions that had been there since the first battle of Chicago. One of the closest to the city proper was at Clinton, a mere two hundred kilometers from Chicago itself. Once a small outpost simply there to monitor GDI activities and as a lynchpin on the supply line after GDI secured the territories east of the Great Lakes, Gideon had prepared it as the site of one of the major rocket batteries to reduce Chicago and drive GDI back to open his positions. Assigned to the role was the 11th Battalion of the Steel Talons, veterans of the battle of Chicago, who had spent the last years on repeated descents and raids against the Brotherhood supply lines. Familiar with the terrain, and with Gideon's tactics, the battalion was formed from two mech and one mechanized infantry company. The force, supported on both flanks by regular ground forces troops, drove at top speed towards Freeport, covered by near total Initiative air superiority as part of Operation Steel Vanguard.
As they crossed the open flatlands, they came upon the first of the surprises. The Plasma Scorpion. Orange bolts flashed across a field, blowing craters in the ground. While the first shot missed, the second one hammered home into one of the battalion's Havocs, its shield flexing as it decohered upon impact, ablative armor shattering under the bombardment, and sending the Havoc tumbling to the ground. More fire poured forth as a company of the tank destroyers added their bolts, hammering into the Talons as they scrambled to bring their guns around. Moments after the first shots were fired, railgun shot snapped across the distance, slamming into a Scorpion, and coring it through lengthways. As the Scorpions fell back, each provided covering fire for the others, reaping a toll of damaged equipment with every meter, but it proved to be dramatically insufficient as railgun rounds claimed tank after tank, with even the Havocs claiming a single kill as they flanked around the sides.
As the Steel Talons closed on Freeport, they came upon the first battery of rockets. These were large, single stage, dumbfire solid rockets, spin stabilized with a Tiberium warhead. A modern Hale, little more than a piece of pipe stuffed with explosives, and about as cheap. These were mounted in simple field batteries, four tubes mounted on the back of a standard truck, aimed via pointing the truck in the general direction of Chicago. While accuracy was almost certain to be utterly abysmal, these weapons did not need to be accurate. Rather, saturating an area with high altitude burst weapons, and overwhelming any attempt at point defense with the sheer number of launches made this a weapon of brute simplicity and random terror. Four such batteries were found in the vicinity of Freeport, for a total of ninety six missiles. Elsewhere, another five hundred munitions were found, enough, even assuming a generous failure rate, to wipe Chicago off the face of the planet for all intents and purposes.
To the north, a series of naval landings added to the chaos that Gideon's supply line was thrown into. Driving the Brotherhood into the Red Zone, or cutting them off on the upper peninsula, GDI has secured the region, and significantly better protected Chicago.
In the months since, Gideon has thrown every asset he could into the region from both sides, driving forces south from the north across Lake Superior, and from the south, in a desperate attempt to force the issue. Repeated air attacks have been made, at great cost to Gideon's forces, against Chicago, but any attempt to deploy the Tiberium shard bombs was stopped short of the city, by forward operating bases, by air power, and by the full force of the Initiative's ground armies. Many of these attacks came from the south, and GDI's greatest aid in this has been the Illinois River, a tributary of the Mississippi that still flowed south. While crossing a river is certainly not a severe problem in the mid twenty first century, it is still one of the defining geographic features. Any tank in the modern day can be, and usually is, fully sealed against NCBT threats, often including an internal compressed air tank to keep the engine running even if submerged. The problem is that the air tank is, inherently, small, and incapable of holding enough air for both the engine and the crew, especially for longer operations. However, it does typically carry enough to cross a river, even on a particularly small hulled tank, such as the Scorpion.
The biggest of Gideon's assaults came in late February, driving north, across the Illinois River, into the line of still incomplete fortress towns. With most of their gun batteries still empty, it was the duty of GDI's ground and air forces to stop them. The battle began near dawn, as Gideon's troops surged over the river, mostly armor, with a number of Reckoner APCs to support them. Under the cover of an artillery barrage, rolling over the forward lines of Initiative trops, they drove a salient deep into GDI lines, punching to within fifty kilometers of Chicago itself. However the progress was illusory, as GDI forces concentrated on his flanks, nearly pocketing an armored infantry brigade in the process. While Gideon was once more able to retreat across the river, the battle was conclusive enough for him to stop attempting further offensives against Chicago, and instead to try and regroup his forces that had faced defeat once again.
The Southern Cross
I didn't want to record this, but apparently some among my men – ones whose hearts belonged to me rather than Kane – wished otherwise. They mentioned that no one would believe me if I didn't make these memoirs. That otherwise naysayers would claim my records are embellished and I am just puffing hot air.
Honestly.
Fuck them. Then I dedicate this battle report in the name of Kane first, and the destroyed ego of the unbelievers second. On both sides. So let us start at how yet again, David toppled Goliath.
But a digression, perhaps. My men mentioned that it's best to amble onto certain metaphors. Here, I agree. The problem with the imagery is that in the days of old, ones like David were more than shepherds. They survived the wild, to keep their flock tended despite the wolves. And the sling, ever humble and overlooked, is a tool most powerful. I had a Gamma lad with me, to research how powerful slings are– after all, Kane said the men of yore are larger than the ones today! – and with a piece of strong fabric, a large rock, and a good arm, his shot cracked the concrete and embedded deep. In this then, the diminutive David is not as hopeless as the popular predicament painted him as.
Much like Goliath then, the Globalists never stood a chance.
— Excerpt from The Southern Cross
Stahl had always been a canny operator, throwing massive weight towards what were particular, potentially decisive points. While this has not brought him success in the last decade, that competency has begun to pay off.
The mobilization for major offensives, even in the context of an ongoing war are hard to miss. Stockpiles of critical supplies grow, units held in reserve are pushed forward, civilian supplies are rerouted to provide priority for military needs. Every offensive the Initiative has ever launched can be assumed to have been compromised at some point before it was put into motion. This is not considered a problem due to the three chains on the causation. First, not everyone who notices is a Nod sympathizer. In fact, the majority are anything but– and know more than well enough to keep their mouths shut. Here, the absence of information brings with it a certain 'tell' for Brotherhood apparatus to notice and would lead to talented infiltrators or burnable assets to prod. Second, is the speed of operations. The Brotherhood's decentralized command structure gives it great freedom to operate on the small and immediate scale. However, it is often slow to respond appropriately on the grand scale. This can be seen in the Egyptian Campaign of the Third Tiberium War, where GDI was able to conduct a rapid offensive against a strategic target at Casabad, open a supply line through Alexandria, and then strike against Cairo, without the Brotherhood being able to concentrate its forces against an overall smaller Initiative force. Finally, there is the problem of moving enough weight of metal to actually stop an Initiative army, or at least inflict serious damage.
I had promised to be truthful in this accounting, so I will not deny that it stung. Plans in motion for years upended by an enemy in a manner that is unusually canny of them. Any other one of my compatriots, the grand leaders of this Brotherhood of ours, would cry at the injustice and I wouldn't blame them. That Northern Git probably did. But most of us remembered the teachings of the Legendary Martyr well enough. The Zeroth Lesson.
Adapt. Always
Adapt.
It had been frustrating
to adjust but then flexibility in planning had always been key. In many cases, a plan, ill prepared but executed with great vigor and rapidity is greater than a perfect preparation that is too late. This could be said to be the Essence of the Legendary Martyr. He had fought against the metal of the Initiative and the vileness of the Scrin against unfavorable circumstances every single time and came out on top. And of this, there are many stratagems that could be gleaned forth, each one worth a treatise to pore over. To expedite for the readers, I can tell what I, personally, found to be the most desired stratagem:
To foil a prepared ambush, and crush enemies under the weight of their own momentum.
— Excerpt from The Southern Cross
For Stahl however, the stars aligned this quarter. Learning of the planned offensives all along the front, he launched an offensive before GDI could. Having obtained a large number of
Afanc-class Gana, he threw them out as shock troops throughout the South American front. Heavy metal and flesh fused in an amalgamation that would be considered unholy, hundreds of them swarm at a time towards GDI positions, being able to endure the attrition of the Amazonian Red Zones and march without much heat signature to surprise the Initiative piecemeal. Despite not expecting spoiling attacks in the first place, the local commanders struck back with vigor. Yet, they had expected this to be a prelude to a large-scale counter offensive and for a vital week, had waited for an grand attack that never truly materialized. The leading commander, Brigadier General Yusuf Escoffier – who had faced Stahl's subordinate years ago – was cannier. He knew that Stahl would not have the manpower to face the Initiative head on. Though the Gana blitz had taken the wind out of the GDI's sails and operational tempo, none were particularly successful in denting the frontage. Correctly, he had estimated that Stahl would have to focus on one area to commit to a breakthrough and in this, Escoffier had started selectively hardening key positions along the Rio de la Plata and up the crossing of Salado river, gearing up for a counter offensive after Stahl's own.
Knowing, however, is not the same as experiencing it.
We have been at war for the span of generations. One either musters an unending hatred for the opposition, to the extent of having that hatred blind at times inopportune or to consider them wayward. That under better circumstances, in another time, we could have been comrades. Some considered this to be heresy. Not me. If those who would consider me apostate for thinking thus and happen to read this: This is how I won and why you lost. The Hajji is venerable and an old frontline general in a time where the young die in droves. Come to think of it, it is not entirely an uncommon causation that older Mohammedans found themselves high on the generalship of both armies. But with the case of Old Escoffier, he is a force to be reckoned with. Not in a peer-to-peer fight. Most Brotherhood Warlords worth their salt would always beat him there but he had the skill to counter our predilections for subterfuge and breakthrough strikes.
He is, however, old. Wizened as he is, he is inflexible in certain matters. He breaks the mold compared to most Initiative generals, but he still thinks with the logic of heavy metal. Of relatively riskless warfare where generals don't lead in front. About the ways of how warfare should
be.
But not how warfare is
.
Once more to those who would call me apostate: Here is how I won.
— Excerpt from The Southern Cross
On a crisp late January day, Stahl made his true strike of the war. Taking his elite retinue of irregulars and Black Hand Chapters – ones trained for Red Zone border combat – with him, he repeated Hannibal's feat in miniature. Parceling company sized formations, he set them loose up and down the Andes Mountains. Fighting from positions more than two thousand meters above sea level, they leapfrogged from one peak to another. Here, they were at a major advantage. With laser weaponry not needing to adjust sights from every change in elevation and range, they reaped a significant toll on the Initiative mountaineer defenders. Sudden laser fire might lance out from beyond conventional range, presighted by skirmishing scouts and taking out individual targets before melting into the cover of the peaks. Attacks might come from above, or from other adjacent peaks. All this while a more conventional distraction force roved up and down the Rio de la Plata defensive lines. Commanded by the remote instruction of the still mountain-ranging Stahl, the harassment force engaged their own hit and run taunting strikes. Stealthed artillery platforms striking and vanishing just as quickly, Banshee formations dancing within GDI sensor ranges before fleeing back, all that and more were done. While the quality of the local commanders faltered at times trying to follow Stahl's punishing tempo demands, they had done enough to let Stahl commit to his main objective.
Passing through Aconcagua – the tallest of the American peaks – his increasingly smaller strikeforce headed deeper into Santiago, now a Green Zone Terminus Hub. Here, he split off half his force to serve as distraction and struck Santiago de Chile. Fully fanatical, this remaining force split off into even smaller fireteams and sections, fully ready to die in order to project the appearance of a seemingly larger force. Leading the other half carefully, Stahl pushed onward into the Blue Zone proper, at the small town of Curico. Barely considered a stop point and one supposedly far from any fighting, it had not much worth, barely a mustering half-strength garrison due to the attack on Santiago de Chile.
Against eight Black Hand Chapters and thrice their number in regular fighters kitted with laser weaponry, they were chaff barely able to make distress hails, and served as the first black mark to the GDI, the first strike at a Blue Zone since the Third Tiberium War by an active strike force rather than subterfuge. More than that, Stahl had taken the occasion to unfurl a Brotherhood flag, recorded by his troops and plant it next to the bodies of the dead before leaving the angry pursuit of GDI forces.
Why? Why risk it all?
Well, I would not be a Warlord if I could not lead by example. But more importantly, it was the only thing that I
could do. To plant a flag such as this is not a privilege, it's a responsibility. Only I
could rile the GDI to a frenzied fervor, and though Old Escoffier is patient, the constituents are not. Seeing the red gore of their soldiers on blue grounds is one thing. But to see that with my face smiling at the camera? That is another. He had no choice but to retaliate. To send men to death. To wash blood with blood, rather than to wait for it to crust and use his metal implements to scrub them clean.
Here, I have won. But that would not be enough.
— Excerpt from The Southern Cross
However, he did not try to hold this position. Rather, he used it as a provocation, a red cape waved before the bull. GDI had to respond, to retaliate and make its strength and power clear. At Cerro Payun, GDI armored forces drove north, attempting to cut off Stah's line of retreat. However, rather than catching a retreating army, it walked into a crossfire of cruise missiles raining in from all sides. While their laser systems flailed at the incoming projectiles, it proved insufficient, and losses were heavy as they retreated.
But these fights were not sustainable. GDI had too many men, too much materiel. Stahl needed to find some way to stall them once more by means other than expending Gana. Rather, after his retreat, he began funneling the old, the sick, the weak and the infirm to the front. Any GDI offensive would be over the corpses of a wave of refugees sent to GDI.
Steel Vanguard, overall, was not particularly successful. Unfortunately, GDI's military has been, across nearly every front, unable to convert substantial material superiority, including a nearly unlimited supply of shells and replacement parts, into battlefield victories. Much of the blame can be laid at the feet of the Brotherhood of Nod, which has used its time unharried by GDI offenses well, laying in trap after trap, defensive line after defensive line. While GDI has certainly gained tens of thousands of square kilometers of territory, little of it is of any real worth, aside from its use as Tiberium harvesting areas. Factories, populations, anything that GDI could have used, had been stripped from the land, and so too were the formations. Rather than standing and fighting to the bitter end, Brotherhood forces have maintained a mobile defense, holding a position for hours, maybe days, and then falling back for new ground.
However, for all of this land, there were broader strategic aims. Red Zones have left the Brotherhood with long sections of very narrow territory. The first drives of Steel Vanguard were meant to cut these sections, and they have. Around the world, sections of Yellow Zone have been bisected by GDI thrusts, serving two key purposes. On one side, GDI can now use these to begin offensives into the Red Zones proper, connecting directly to logistical networks, and without nearly as much threat from the Brotherhood of Nod. On the other, it has left significant parts of the Brotherhood separated and vulnerable. While only some warlords are vulnerable to this kind of offensive, they have been some of the most prominent. Offensives have separated Reynaldo and Krukov, and split Gideon's territory into three.
