Regarding the Karachi landings, it's worth remembering that we'll have OSRCT Phase 4 online by then (unless we fail a plan goal), letting us orbital drop something in the neighborhood of a division of heavy mechanized infantry directly to the OZ, no aircraft needed. There will probably be noticeable logistical support available through that as well.
Can I please get a cite?
My recollection was that we got a reinforced battalion per phase, which would amount to a reinforced brigade for four phases.
Significant, but not a division. And lacking in both heavy AA and artillery.
Mmm...I don't think that follows. It's basically the same problems we already deal with in Tiberium abatement, we have to clean out every microfleck down at least five meters into the regolith otherwise we'd get little outbreaks everywhere we don't have a sonic emitter thrumming away. And this way we can process the aggregate centrally instead of in-place.
Tiberium harvesting crews already deal with NOD raids on such a regular basis that upgunning them to railguns produces a noticeable uptick in productivity. Aggregate mining is if anything safer, since we're not handling Tiberium crystals and we actually want the thousands of tons of overburden we'd normally discard.
1)Nah.
We can presumably straight up produce aggregate from Tiberium.
Thats why importing from Oman seems workable.
2)Tiberium crews deal with raids because they operate near the FEBA of a lot of YZs.
They dont attempt to stand up largescale mining operations in the middle of a major warzone with artillery a major threat.
Remember, this isnt Tib we're talking about mining, its aggregate.
We're talking quarries here, and centralized mining, not a large zone where independent harvesters do their thing. A single salvo of artillery rockets into a quarty and it murks the workers and most of the heavy equipment we have to import from Oman.
My understanding is that the amount of carriers in operation is basically a third of the fleet. Ie you have a third deployed, a third in maintenance and a third getting ready to deploy. You can push the ones getting ready or the ones about to come off deployment but you're eating your seed at that point.
Yep, IRL.
In this quest its 50% according to Word of GM.
Praise be to GDI's superlative logistics and training framework.
I feel like I should point out that V-35s carry one vehicle regardless of weight. So you can't carry more Guardians/Pitbulls/arty per V-35 than Predators. It's all 1:1. Also, we have hovercraft capable of carrying to shore a Mammoth Mk III, so I expect they can lift a decent number of smaller vehicles in one go.
As for a "heavy lift" air craft... That's a toughy. TW2 era Carryall could lift a Mammoth Mk II. I would think the Nod version ought to be comparable, but it can't carry Avatars or Reckoners (though is that true of Reckoners in Quest?), so either Avatars are heavier than a Mammoth Mk II (and conceivable Reckoners as well?), or the Nod version (and likely as a result the GDI version based off it) lacks the engine power of the original and thus has a lower load limit. It seems odd to consider a Carryall like that given its performance in TW2, but here we are.
Also, the Atlantis-class CVNs carry Firehawks and Orcas (and in Quest might also carry a few Hammerheads). I somewhat doubt that they have 60+ Firehawks plus a decent number of Orcas in that hull. Maybe in a sensible carrier hull design, but we get the Atlantis-class instead.
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I'll just point out on the "how can we minimize time for Nod to prepare for our invasion," the military could always use the fine art of misdirection and make them think we're actually going for Colombo. I would hope that Nod would be aware by then that GDI seems only really willing to work on two Planned City projects at a time, so Chicago's completion status could be interpreted either way it turns out on lending credence to hitting Colombo first and building that up to threaten eastern India (if we build a hydrofoil base up at Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka, we can interdict Chennai's cargo area to an extent with just hydrofoils) so hitting Karachi later would face weaker forces. And since Sri Lanka is a much smaller operational area than Pakistan/India, less GDI forces would be needed to secure the island from most threats, thus encouraging a tough and aggressive defense built up on Colombo to tie down GDI forces long enough to prevent much of them from being redeployed for Karachi for years.
As a bonus? It was first floated alongside Chicago and Karachi back after we finished the Saarland HI Plant in Q2 2054. Chicago was experimenting with Planned Cities for abatement purposes. Karachi was planned to provide a second main link to BZ-18. And Colombo? It was to be the springboard to go after the Indian subcontinent as a whole. Chicago and Karachi Planned Cities show up as options in Q3 2054. Chicago started in Q2 2055. Mecca/Jeddah Planned City shows up in Q2 2056 options (it would be started Q3 2056, completed Q3 2057 w/ Medina complete Q1 2058). In Q2 2056 (next time Colombo Planned City shows up in Quest), it's mentioned for Colombo, "The planned city will provide a nearby logistics hub and strategic entrepot."
I'd expect in the 6+ years since the concept was first floated and the 4+ years since the concept was largely finalized that Nod has gotten wind of it. So if the military makes "noise" that Nod finds out about regarding an upcoming naval invasion aimed at Colombo.... Do you think they'll shift forces to heavily contest an attempt to get that logistics hub up and going for future offensives against India, or keep (more than) decent forces covering Karachi that's aimed at BZ-18 because we still have a Karachi promise to fulfill?
1)Im assuming a certain amount of gamification in the game, because attempting to carry a vehicle in the open air while moving at jet speeds seems like asking for trouble. They cant possibly be clamping squads of infrantry to the transports after all, amd the transports only carry songle squads in the game
2)Hovercraft to handle a Mammoth do exist. We saw them in Venezuela. However, attempting to transfer a Mami from the cargo hold of a GDI landing ship to said hovercraft is not the sort of operation you undergo while a ship is either underway or within range of a shorebased missile carrying two thousand pounds of Tiberium-boosted hate.
3)TW2 era vehicles were not necessarily in the same weightclass as TW3 vehicles.
And the Carryalls are very different aircraft despite sharing the same name. Plus Avatars are both heavy and big in volume.
No way they'd fit in a Carryall.
4) Hundred kiloton plus hull. They have the volume.
Ford and Nimitz-class CVNs carry 60-70 CTOL aircraft in peacetime, and can carry up to 130 maximum, and they're only around 103 kilotons full load displacement.
5) Speakimg as a naval booster, the current force balance makes Colombo impossible.
Karachi is in range of landbased air; as long as we control the Arabian Sea, we can loiter aerial tankers around 500km offshore of Oman to extend the endurance of landbased fighters over the Karachi beachead and several hundred kilometers inland.
The carriers serve as being surge capacity and rapid response bases because they are closer, while sweeping the oceans.
Colombo is three thousand km from the closest friendly airbase(Madagascar) thats not in BZ-18, and even BZ-18 is around 1200 - 1500km away.Only Auroras will reach. Then consider precisely how many Brotherhood airbases in southern India are within 500km of Sri Lanka, even before ion disruptors began to proliferate.
Consider how many aircraft they can potentially host, compared to our entire CVN force.
We'd have to put the entire CVN force off Colombo to even attempt to approach parity.
They know this too.
So no, Colombo isnt credible.
Gonna need a lot more carriers, landing ships and the like, or a significant breakthrough in effectiveness.
