Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
- Location
- The Underdark
They will be integrated into future factory projects. The thing is that right now, your factories are not built to integrate them, and on their own they are not significant enough to refit your systems to use it. On the other hand, the Aurora is almost certain to use Ferro Aluminum armoring.
Not immediately. There are longer term bonuses to investing in superconductors that do involve making cheaper power infrastructure, but it is not directly a consequence of this project as a bonus.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
In the long term, our Plan Goal is to get our income to 1080 RpT. I don't think that's getting to 870 RpT is going to be much of a problem in comparison.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@Dmol8 's right.
If anything he's understating: it's closer to 890 RpT. See the 'Full Philedelphia Sheet' I just made under Dice Cost Analysis.
If anything he's understating: it's closer to 890 RpT. See the 'Full Philedelphia Sheet' I just made under Dice Cost Analysis.
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124th Special Warfare Brigade:
- Location
- The internet
124th Special Warfare Brigade:
CO: Copperhead Actual
The 124th Special Warfare Brigade is an unusual GDI military formation under the notional umbrella of the Steel Talons that focuses on unusual and novel approaches to Counter Insurgency Operations. Specifically they focus on liaising with local inhabitants, training home guard units in the area in counter insurgency tactics and precision strikes on enemy forces carried out with a mix of GDI and captured NOD equipment. Equipment that they show a surprising familiarity with, greatly surpassing most GDI soldiers.
The commander of this unit is officially classified, being known in most records by their call-sign "Copperhead Actual." Equally officially, the fact that Copperhead Actual was the call sign of Kilian Qatar is a complete coincidence as is the fact that the 124th Special Warfare Brigade's unit patch has a suspicious similarity to Qatar's personal standard. Unofficially, it is an open secret that the 124th Special Warfare Brigade is composed in large part of ex-nod defectors and that "Copperhead Actual" was once one of Kilian Qatar's senior most officers, though which one remains a hotly debated topic.
The 124th Special WarFare Brigade generally acts as a fire brigade, heading to global trouble spots to deal with flare ups of Nod Insurgent activity, or to train up home guard formations in troubled areas. They were notably effective in the Arabian Peninsula, effectively forming up and training the home guard formations while not inflaming tensions with local warlords. The 124th is also infamous for the sheer number of assassination attempts on their commanding officer, with at least a dozen attempts recorded in the last few years, the vast majority tracible to lower level warlords or Black Hand officers looking to make a name for themselves killing the mysterious Copperhead Actual.
@Ithillid A random omake idea that I had hanging around that I finally decided to put to text,
CO: Copperhead Actual
The 124th Special Warfare Brigade is an unusual GDI military formation under the notional umbrella of the Steel Talons that focuses on unusual and novel approaches to Counter Insurgency Operations. Specifically they focus on liaising with local inhabitants, training home guard units in the area in counter insurgency tactics and precision strikes on enemy forces carried out with a mix of GDI and captured NOD equipment. Equipment that they show a surprising familiarity with, greatly surpassing most GDI soldiers.
The commander of this unit is officially classified, being known in most records by their call-sign "Copperhead Actual." Equally officially, the fact that Copperhead Actual was the call sign of Kilian Qatar is a complete coincidence as is the fact that the 124th Special Warfare Brigade's unit patch has a suspicious similarity to Qatar's personal standard. Unofficially, it is an open secret that the 124th Special Warfare Brigade is composed in large part of ex-nod defectors and that "Copperhead Actual" was once one of Kilian Qatar's senior most officers, though which one remains a hotly debated topic.
The 124th Special WarFare Brigade generally acts as a fire brigade, heading to global trouble spots to deal with flare ups of Nod Insurgent activity, or to train up home guard formations in troubled areas. They were notably effective in the Arabian Peninsula, effectively forming up and training the home guard formations while not inflaming tensions with local warlords. The 124th is also infamous for the sheer number of assassination attempts on their commanding officer, with at least a dozen attempts recorded in the last few years, the vast majority tracible to lower level warlords or Black Hand officers looking to make a name for themselves killing the mysterious Copperhead Actual.
@Ithillid A random omake idea that I had hanging around that I finally decided to put to text,
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Honestly, yes. We should sort out the development projects directly in front of us, buy ourselves some more breathing room with the power armor factories, then start researching advanced weapons tech with an eye to doing a major upgrade cycle on GDI vehicles in the mid-2060s or so.
Work for the Steel Talons happening during this plan, along with Shimmer Shield development, will help lay foundations.
Battle of St. Petersburg
- Location
- The Underdark
The Northern War: Operations in the Circum Arctic
[FOR PARLIAMENT] [NON-INTERNAL] [REVISED]
[FOR PARLIAMENT] [NON-INTERNAL] [REVISED]
Authors: Brigadier General Hajji Yusuf Escoffier and Senior Analyst Attur Saileach
Editor: Head of Consumption Mary Rolvsdottir
Editor: Head of Consumption Mary Rolvsdottir
Contextual Background
To contextualize the rapid intensification of the northern war, it is the result of a general jockeying for position among the warlords of the Brotherhood of Nod. While there had been previous actions, with Stahl and Gideon being crushed and inflicting nearly no damage against the Initiative in their attempts. Bintang had been somewhat more successful. After the Battle of Natuna Sea, the unconfirmed fear was that the Brotherhood were making an attempt at a realignment strategy. In the wake of the Double Granger Administration– as it has come to be known– it had become clear that Nod's feudalist dysfunction would not be sustainable in the coming years as we marched in greater numbers and with better material into their homefront. Something had to give, and in this, there seemed to be a truce between the Major Warlords as they attempted to show why they, above the rest of their equals, are fit to rule in the absence of Kane. Bintang proved her mettle first– if one does not count Gideon's lackluster performance– by driving off the materially superior GDI Navy from her sealanes, even if none of the Governors sank. In this, the credentials of the elusive Pirate Queen has been shown to the world.
And stepping up to the plate behind her is her equally old colleague from Russia. And in many ways, it shows that if nothing else, a fusion from the normally asymmetrical irregular warfare that Nod favours with technological upper hand proved beneficial for their war effort.
On September 7 2058, General Anton Cherdenko marched out of the Ural mountains, heading north and west towards the former city of Arkhangelsk, now a fortress town on the leading edge of the Green Zone in northern Russia. With him was a brigade of armored infantry, along with a battalion of heavily modified Mark 1 Titans. A GDI mainstay through the Second Tiberium War, Krukov had managed to loot one of the factories in the early chaos of that War and transported its parts– as well as maintenance schematics– into his underground Ural facilities. Since then, he has been using the Titans throughout the third war and beyond, levying the industrial miracle of Tiberium to keep these Titans up with the necessary refits. These ones in particular had been modified with Stahl-type Binary Propellant cannons instead of their standard 120mm L7s, giving the shots enough velocity to core through a Predator, at the risk of extreme flammability inherent in such propellants . Additionally, they had added a pair of Spitfire laser systems on the port side, lending the Titans an effective anti infantry and anti aircraft laser system.
Over the course of the next few days, Cherdenko's men marched north on the old A-153, and then followed the course of the northern Dvina from where it split with the Vychegda tributary. Along this long cold march, they encountered paltry resistance, nothing more than the occasional air strike and artillery salvo meant to keep the march from advancing rapidly. Crossing the river at Voronovsky proved to be a challenging process, with the first pontoon bridge washing away and setting back the progress before Cherdenko ordered a forced march in the night– reaching the peninsula on the morning of the 10th.
Opposing him was Brigadier General Vladimir Orlovsky, commanding the battle-hardened 31st Armored Brigade, alongside five companies of the green Arkhangelsk Home Guard. An old hand in the Russian Theatre, he knew that the terrain favored him significantly. A small river east of the fortress city served as the anchoring line for his defense, putting the forward most defenses a few hundred meters short of the river, and erecting a series of defensive lines, backed by every artillery piece he could get his hands on. However, he had known Cherdenko was coming, and rather than simply defeating him in the set piece battles that are common in the Russian theater, he decided to lay a trap. Splitting his forces, Orlovsky led two regiments of armor across the river and to the west, about an hour and a half from the main theater of engagement. Additionally, about 300 kilometers away, in Kem, across the White Sea, three wings of Firehawks, and a further wing of Apollos had surged into the region, ready to lay down masses of support fire into the defensive line.
Attack on Arkhangelsk
At 0400, Cherdenko's forces arrived at Setigory, some fifty kilometers short of the closest point of GDI's defensive line. Here, he gave the order to rest and prepare for an attack at 0500, roughly twenty minutes before the apparent dawn. His forces would attack at the far southern end of the defensive line, the only part not covered by a river to the front with the Titans leading in vanguard. The Scorpions would then follow up in echelon along the line, attacking as the Initiative was forced to refuse its flank.
In the face of the front, two Majors prepared their Companies and themselves for the upcoming battle. In command of Archangelsk's Fourth and Fifth, Major Matej Miran and Caitlin Kyriaki steeled themselves behind the entrenched fortress line. Though Home Guard elements all across the world had seen combat in various forms against Brotherhood forces, this would mark the first high-intensity combat that such formations would face. Here, new citizens of the GDI from wartorn Europe who chose to serve would have their mettle tested. Here, the design concept of the Home Guard as line-holders would have its trial by fire.
On the topic of design, some attention needs to be shifted towards the defensive lines utilized by the Home Guard. Though the GDI has generally perfected the art of defense against the Brotherhood, Krukov and the Ural-supplied warlords' proclivities to match against the GDI with appropriated arsenal meant several tweaks were introduced. In particular, there's a greater ratio of MCVs allocated to the defensive lines and Fortress Town hubs. Against what amounts to a mirror match, it is reasoned that a superior defense would exhaust Krukov and his ilk's pretension for firepower. When Cherdenko's forces were spotted, Orlovsky spared no expense in deploying the entirety of his MCV formations. For those three days, the constructors poured concrete and steel into the earthenworks in a series of ramparts, decoy bunkers and emission generators. Notable additions included fallback underground hardpoints where injured GDI troopers could be stabilized and their entrances collapsed to prevent capture or execution. Thus, a battlement of two defensive lines connected via an underground rail that spanned half a kilometer was ready, with dozens of bunkers and weapons emplacement ready to blunt the assaults head-on.
As the hazy dawnlight peeked over the horizon, the Brotherhood attacked. In a move to rival the GDI's doctrine of supreme firepower, the Titans strode forth– their twenty five feet tall frame emblazoned with the trappings of the Brotherhood with several of them strapped with the banners of Kane, Krukov, and most prominently, Cherdenko himself. Within the first seconds and salvo, two decoy bunkers are blasted open by the Titans cannons. Within the next two minutes, two dozen bunkers worth of concrete and steel would scatter all over the battlement as the Titans flung high explosive shot into the complex, burying the troops in their bunkers and – in the case of the fragmentation rounds that went through the firing ports – perforated the troopers into red mist.
Yet the Home Guard held firm. With presighted targets and the light of the dawn giving clear vision, the ordinance equipped troopers retaliated. RPG-43s barked from firing slits as integrated T15 and T20 missile launchers gave their voices to the orchestra of death. As the payloads rocked the Titan frames and overwhelmed the Spitfire systems, Miran gave the order for the emplaced railguns to fire. Streaks of blue-white lanced through the air, downing Titans one after another. Multiple vehicles caught fire, two detonating in showers of toxic flames blasting out from ruined chassis and blinding the battlement temporarily.
Yet, some did not need direct vision to fire. The Guardian turrets had revealed their positions to destroy the Titans and allowed the Spectre platforms to triangulate and fire– 155mm shells crackling out of the stealthed vehicles and into the Guardians. As the railguns fell silent from falling shells and the need to retreat, Venon teams drew fire as the mark targets for cruise missiles from the Nod's base in Setigory, blowing apart all forwardmost bunkers and emplacements as the offensive encroached forward. But while Cherdenko was focused on destroying the first defensive line, the Kem air support screamed forth across the White Sea, burning boosters to greet the Nod in a hail of bombs and missiles. Additionally, an entire wing of Firehawks pushed past the scrum into Setigory, tangling into an interception squadron of Barghests. In a close ranged dogfight, five Firehawks fell in exchange of six of their oppositions before the battered interceptors broke off in tatters, giving the remaining Firehawks free reign to destroy the Setigory base.
Within the space of fifteen minutes, Orlovsky found himself at a crossroad. The defense of the Home Guard had been unexpectedly stiff and neither Major had asked for reinforcement, only that they kept the retreat avenues clear. Yet, the soldiers of the Fourth and Fifth held firm, knowing that retreat was close to impossible from the mass of firepower all around them. Even though they had been instructed to fall back if the Brotherhood looked like it was about to make a breakthrough, they had decided that they were going to hold on no matter what. In this, they were fatalistically sanguine. As the Titans pushed past the first defensive lines– and as militants bedecked in GDI-like equipment and a handful of Black Hand squads within Reckoners surged within, the retreating Guards rallied around their squad leaders and hard points of the second line. Through the internal PA system, both Majors hollered invectives at the invaders and exhorted the remaining effective forces of one and a half companies to make their stand. And to the surprise of the Nod elements, Kyriaki and the combined forces of the Guard counter-charged their assault, forcing a ruinous room-to-room skirmish within the seeming warren of the fortifications. Hallucinogen and incendiary grenades reaped their tolls here, where roomfuls of defenders either kill each other in rage-filled hallucinations or scream as they burn alive. It was clear now that the two lines would crumble, and Cherdenko's forces would surge through.
And yet again, the Home Guard held firm. Even as Miran and his entire command squad within a rear line bunker went up in flames from an errant shot of a Titan and as Kyriaki's half-dead immolated body were dragged back by what remains of the counter-charging forces into one of the collapsible bunker warrens, the platoon and squad leaders took initiatives. Some took their final stand in the CIC room and ensured the remote emplacements kept their fire. Some collapsed the roof atop their own formation with sonic grenades if it meant taking down Black Hand troopers. Some crept through the battlements Nod thought cleared, rescuing wounded into what few bunkers remain uncollapsed and taking out smaller elements piecemeal. All these amounted to the further delaying of the entire offensive for another thirty minutes, beyond the wildest expectations of Orlovsky.
As the battered battalion of Titans pushed through, the reserve regiment of the 31st pushed a company of Predators south to engage them, and stymie their advance. Sliding into hull down prepared entrenchments, the Predators unleashed a devastating barrage, cutting down mech after mech. While taken under crossfire from the first of the follow up units attacking in echelon, they took relatively few casualties, stemming what had been a threatening position into a contained toehold on the Initiative's southern flank.
At 0700, two hours after the battle was joined, General Orlovsky led two regiments, over a hundred Predators and supporting arms, into a massed attack against the Brotherhood of Nod. Slashing across the open farmland north of the city, they hit the forward elements of the Scorpions ready to lead into the echelon attack as the Initiative flank curled back towards the city, and utterly routed them. Initiative lasers shredded waves of incoming rockets, while railguns flashed forward. Each of Orlovsky's platoons had such an overwhelming superiority at the point of contact to the point that they were able to focus all of their fire directly into a single Brotherhood vehicle at a time, wiping out platoon after platoon and company after company. With his forces pinned to the river, Cherdenko began organizing his retreat, when a second wave of Firehawks and the orcas so far held back from the main engagement swooped in and turned a relatively well organized collapse into a chaotic firestorm as troops stumbled between burning tanks, and anything emitting was being hammered by repeated HARM strikes.
With escape impossible, and the army completely outmatched, Cherdenko gave the order to surrender in limited broadcast. While such surrenders are very rare in modern warfare, it is not unknown. And unlike in most fronts, where rules of engagements are barely listened suggestions for both sides due to the Brotherhood's propensity for feigned retreat, the Russian front kept to a tighter, conventional standard. Though some among Cherdenko's troops were reluctant to lay down their arms, the chance of prisoner exchange back to their territory and the certainty of three square meals a day in a GDI prison was enough to convince them. And as Cherdenko himself is disarmed and brought into Orlovsky, he bitterly remarked the following good faith reward: "At least that damned svoloch would have a harder time at it."
The Siege of St. Petersburg
At the same time, just over a thousand kilometers away, Krukov had been on the move. While still hundreds of kilometers short of the terminus city of St. Petersburg, he had taken a rough dogleg in order to approach the city directly from its south. Bypassing the ruins of Moscow, his army marched along the eastern shore of Lake Ilman as it turned north. Expecting Cherdenko to be demonstrating against the city of Arkhangelsk, drawing GDI attention and reaction forces, he had marched in a very loose formation, a common practice for the Brotherhood as it ensures that GDI ion cannon strikes are only minimally effective. Marching north, towards the GDI positions, Krukov gathered his banners.
Krukov brought with him a substantial force, a full corps of combined arms. Not only Brotherhood equipment, but two battalions of Titans and a third of wartime era Predator tanks. Beyond that, a substantial artillery train, two battalions of spectres and a further two of cruise missile platforms backed the force. Beyond the arms of the General himself, the army contained the arms of dozens of warlords. Ranging from light raiding forces to a company of Purifiers and two Chapels of the Black Hand, it was an army on a scale unseen since the Third Tiberium War.
Arriving at Veliky Novgorod on the morning of the 11th, Krukov rallied his men. Drawing them up into close order, he paraded his personal heraldry, followed by the chamfered triangles and Scorpion Tails of the Brotherhood of Nod, and the crosses of the Russian Orthodox Church, many of which had been looted from the cathedrals of Moscow in prior wars. For the sake of posterity, the following excerpt of the battle speech is transcribed here:
"Before my grandfather's grandfather was born, before the gift of Tiberium, this was all our land. Before the Initiative carved up the world into their zones, these were all our good places; our dead are buried here. The Brotherhood knows this. The Brotherhood respects this. Kane respects this. The Initiative has no regard, no respect; they come and try to take what is ours, land, people, Tiberium! They talk of how they will 'help us and protect us'. They seduce the weak and put us to sleep with golden promises: when we wake, all that we had is gone-stolen! They take our children and turn them into little GDI drones at the beck of faceless masters. So we fight to keep what is ours, what must stay ours! There can be no peace with the Initiative, men of stone, and iron, and lies! There can be only war. Today we strike another blow against GDI, and another, and another, until we drive them into the sea! Peace. Through. Power!"
The army, some hundred and fifty thousand strong, marched north, along the ruins of the old E-105, and the M-11. The roads, while ruined by decades of freeze and thaw, were still more comfortable to march along than attempting to take the army cross country. At the junction, Krukov split his force in two, a left wing under himself, and a right under Nikolai Moskvin, one of his commanders. The two would broadly parallel each other but at a distance in order to put more manpower before the city faster, rather than being limited as much by the road. The plan ran into trouble at a place called Chudovo, the point where the two forces were most separated. Two battalions of Initiative mechanized infantry made a stand in the ruins of the old town, abandoned for decades at this point. Outnumbered more than ten to one, the battalions were never going to stop Moskvin's fifty thousand men. They were enough however to delay them. Spotted by forward stealth tanks, Moskvin made the decision to go offroad, flanking to the north in order to bypass the force, and bring up his shorter ranged artillery pieces to reduce the position. This proved to be a mistake, as wings of aircraft based out of the Finnish Blue Zone began striking at the strung out forces, and GDI Ion Cannon M-272 arrived over the battle space, with the two battalions acting as forward observers for the strike punched a substantial hole in the force.
While Moskvin regrouped after the damage done to him, Krukov made a daring attack. Having bypassed the GDI forces falling upon Moskvin, he launched an assault on the fortified city of St. Petersburg stewarded by Brigadier General Rostam Tir and unveiled a new weapon, the Underminer. A rapid tunnel borer derived from the Brotherhoods previous attempts at subterranean offensives, it is effectively an underground torpedo-transport. Using a pair of screws to cut a hole in hours that would take conventional units days to get through, they drilled through to St. Petersburg's underground complex and unloaded their payload, a series of Afanc-class Gana biomechanical organisms. These mountains of meat and metal made their unstoppable gait through the lightly armed and armoured Home Guard and their attached artillery unit. Once they breach, each of the drills contains a series of Gana, in the case of Krukov's use, a squad of the Afanc type, mountains of meat and metal unleashed at close quarters against lightly armed and armored Home Guard and artillery units. At close quarters, a standard issue GD2 proved to be woefully inadequate and while the standard issue armor piercing rounds riddled the monsters, they refused to fall, and those that did still twitched and flailed, spraying laser beams and bullets as their cybernetic augments and nervous system refused to acknowledge their host's deaths. The handful of T5s issued to the Guard intended as light anti-material weapons proved effective as they spat high explosive death into the monsters, each hit turning the snarling maws and battering limbs of the monsters into rapidly dissociating pieces and smears of blood and guts. Even so, the chaos brought by the assault silenced GDI artillery as Tir made the order to retreat the mauled Home Guard, giving Krukov the minutes he needed to unleash his full might into the city. Rather than being slaughtered at range by railguns and missiles, Flame Tanks surged into the defensive lines, and breathed fire indiscriminately, punching a hole as the front line collapsed.
As Tir called upon all available resources, the GDI Air Force vectored in strikes from every air base within a thousand kilometers, turning the skies into a rapidly devolving furball as wings of Firehawks and Apollos crashed into Venoms and Barghest– the Nod crafts preferring to fire all their long range missiles towards their GDI counterparts before effectively jousting with their plasma weaponry. Wreckages after wreckages fell in great numbers, as AA emplacements from both sides caught pilots too pressed in the dogfight fatally unaware, multi-coloured streaks of hypervelocity munitions adding to the cacophony of the previously overcast skies.
Down on the ground and with the outer defensive lines south of the city proper collapsing, Tir sounded a general retreat. By squad, by platoon, and by company, Initiative forces began fighting a thousand and one battle as they conducted a bitter fighting retreat through the streets of the city, buying time for civilians to be evacuated at their own expense. Building by building, street by street, the Home Guard and the Initiative garrison bolstered by civilians armed in surplus gear and weapons– for none who lived Fortress Towns are unaware of the risks–made the advancing Brotherhood pay for each inch of ground in blood and fire. Though accurately guided cruise missiles rained down on their positions by spotting Venoms, the furball ensured that Krukov's air superiority was wrested away and made any Nod CAS a sporadic and inaccurate affair. By noon, much of the city was in ruins and the Initiative had fallen back to the north of the Neva river, having blown the bridges behind them. Rather than trying to force a river crossing in the face of heavy resistance, Krukov and Moskvin moved to lengthen the front, with Krukov extending his force to the Reka Tosna, and Moskvin conducting a sweeping advance to the shore of Lake Ladoga, leaving the force protecting a nearly one hundred kilometer long line in a rough S curve, with the Brotherhood holding a salient in St. Petersburg itself, and the Initiative holding one east of the Reka Tosna.
As night fell, both sides settled in. While this would typically be a time for routine infiltration operations and counter assaults, Krukov had always been chronically short and deprived from Shadow Teams, allowing GDI to concentrate their full attention towards the back lines. While the crack of sniper fire and salvoes of artillery continued through the night, both forces remained relatively static as the opposing sides brought up over a dozen MCVs apiece, spreading them out and establishing entrenchments. Krukov's men emplaced hundreds of hub and turret arrangements over the course of the night, although not without severe losses to the work crews as they were picked off by sniper fire. On the other hand, Tir brought up masses of artillery, and troops from the fortresses to the north marched south overnight, massing for a pitched battle the next day. On the morning of the 11th, Krukov surged forward with both chapters of the Black Hand, along with every single Purifier, Avatar, Titan, and Predator in his inventory on his far left flank. Pushing GDI back to the Neva river line, they ran headlong into a GDI position that had been fortified and hardened overnight by the 121st Super Heavy Battalion "Viktar's Finest". With 56 Mk.III Mammoths and their attendant support prepared and presighting their foes, they fired at the crossing. A total of one hundred and twelve railgun slugs and over two hundred missiles made their voices heard in a withering storm of fire, singular shots downing Titans and twinned or triplied strikes pounding Avatars and Purifiers into scrap metal. Additionally, the massed artillery park– guarded as they are with an attendant interceptor wing– pummeled down on the advance, drowning any further chance of advance in a flood of shells, washing away weeks of production times within minutes. By 1000, it was clear that GDI had won the day as reinforcement from across the theatre sweeped around the take and turned the flank into a trap, the smoking husk of the Fortress City a vice grip.
The retreat began in good order, with the Brotherhood's left flank falling back to shorten the line, and shield the axis of retreat, while the right began funneling units back towards Veliky Novgorod. However, as GDI began to sense weakness, the defending units became ever more aggressive. With the rear guard units already depleted during the offensive of the first day, many disintegrated and others found themselves increasingly isolated as their flanks came apart. Losses continued to mount as GDI fell upon the ruins of Novgorod around dusk. With Krukov unable to load many of the supplies, let alone his artillery batteries and cruise missile launchers, the city was effectively flattened in the ensuing engagement, with many losses, including the death of Moskvin.
Retrospective and Post-Mortem
As the grounds were retaken in the following weeks, the butcher bills were tallied. It was ruinous, the short campaign amounting to the greatest singular loss of life on both sides in the years since the Third Tiberium War in the region. Overall, GDI took over thirty thousand casualties over the course of the few days of action. The Brotherhood of Nod took well over twice that number in total, alongside a near total loss of equipment heavier than trucks or carryalls. Of the Arkhangelsk's Fourth and Fifth, the only surviving elements were the crews who retreated with their Guardian. Of those who fought within what is now christened as the Lines of Ruination, of the one hundred and eighty souls who fought within, only twenty– including Kyriaki– remained alive, and all in bad shape. For their sacrifice, all those within the formations were given the Eagle's Service Medallion– an unheard of honour for what amounted to defense militia– and full support to the families they left behind. Doctrinally, they have proved the mettle of the Home Guard, proving the ever increasingly few naysayers to GDI's policy of pushing forward the value of even lesser trained militia.
The value compounded more, as the most valuable Brotherhood personnel since the acquisition of the Qatari Loyalists began to speak. In exchange for partial amnesty and informant protective service, Cherdenko began to sing like a bird about the thrust of the campaign and the internal setup for Krukov's branch of the Brotherhood of Nod. He relayed that he was supposed to tie down the forces in Arkhangelsk and the surrounding regions for days– up to a week if need be– as Krukov attempted to chase his white whale, the true destruction of a Blue Zone Arcology within the Finnish Blue Zone. With the destruction of Saint Petersburg, he had accomplished the broad designs of such an offensive due to how heavily fortified it was compared to Arcologies. Even more, the recovered corpses of the Afanc-class Gana turned out to have been heavily improved with intentional disparity in shapes and sizes meant to foul target priorities– seemingly taking lessons from the Battle of Chicago to heart. More than that, the Underminers proved to be a doctrinally new trump for the GDI to contend with, though one where short fixes and workarounds are possible. At least in the seismically stable Western Russia and Baltics region, Underminers would be found out quickly and unable to function as infiltration units. But if it does connect, the walls of GDI fortifications would not suffice against such an attack, and would have to be repelled.
With regards to the Krukov's fiefdom, b speaking, his area of operations is divided into three theaters. The East, the Urals, and the West. In the East, forces were spread out and operated at the far end of thousands of kilometers of supply lines. For the most part, Krukov's decentralized operations were focused on the deep Yellow and Red Zone edge regions for harvesting operations. It is a region of paradoxes, where subordinates considered too powerful or dangerous are put to exile, battling away against ostensible peers and giving their income to Krukov in exchange for Ural-made arms. The most prominent Warlord in this theatre is Oleg Pavchenko, exiled in parts due to his tactically gifted mind and his own ambitious drive. Cherdenko confided that Pavchenko is the main sponsor for Yao Qinglian, the rising Warlord in Chinese Theatre, directing him to proxy offensives against the Korean Blue Zones and probing attacks at the Himalayan ones.
The West, however, is a region of danger. As the primary operational theatre, it was where subordinate Warlords could strike out and make a name for themselves against the GDI using anything from quick smash and grab operations via tactically superior forces to surprise bombardment from Spectre platforms. Here, success and failure differentiates whether one gets promoted or shot unceremoniously, as Krukov brooked no incompetence in such an important theatre. Here, Cherdenko and Moskvin had ruled as the main Warlords, neither ever truly powerful enough to overpower the others while fending off any vultures wanting to usurp the weakened winner. With his capture and Moskvin's demise however, Cherdenko speculates that peace would reign for the GDI in the interim as power struggles and the sustained casualties prevents any but the lightest operations against the Initiative..
Finally, the Urals. Here, Krukov ruled directly. Within dozens of smaller bases within the foot of the mountain ranges and with larger complexes located deep within valleys or carved deep into the mountain, the Urals play host to an industrial complex untouched by the GDI due to their shielded location. Here too, Krukov had cut the mountains with trails and hidden roads that allowed him to move warmachines relatively undetected throughout the breadth of the Russian regions. While Cherdenko is privy to the locations of several complexes, he made the uncharacteristic request to not strike the mountain towns, as while portions of them are shielded by the mountains, they also hosted the population centres of the Brotherhood, with over a million civilians. Lastly, he knew that Krukov had at least one major project in mind, dubbed "Project Varyag''. Though Cherdenko does not know what it entailed, it had taxed the Eastern Warlords in tributes over the past years.
On the GDI's part though, reconstruction efforts must go underway. Not only to refill the ranks, but also to ensure that Saint Petersburg can stand. As the farthest east hub of the European parts Initiative, it has been a terminus node that is the closest to the Himalayan Blue Zone. Within the following quarters, it is expected that the logistics line will be strained and free labour will be expended to take advantage of the lull as the Brotherhood committed to a power struggle.
Battles of St. Petersburg and Arkhangelsk: Nod can't GDI
Mira Hahn
With reports coming in from reporters on the northern front, it is apparent that Krukov has made a substantial move. While it is so far unclear how successful he has been, it seems that this was a noticeable defeat for him, although it was more successful than any of us would have liked.
This is what I have so far.
Battle at Arkhangelsk - New York Times
Operations in the northern theater have often been characterized by a very direct form of action, and rarely has this been more true than the most recent battle of Arkhangelsk, where a Brotherhood Brigade was crushed by valiant GDI Forces.
[l] Profiles in Courage: Vladimir Orlovsky [/l]
Orlovsky has been a successful commander on the northern front for well over a decade. During the Third Tiberium War, he held the line between the Baltic and Lake Lagoda for over two weeks as other GDI commanders broke away, only retreating when the long front on the other side of the lake collapsed. Following his retreat to Helsinki, forces under his command held until the GDI counterattack pushed the Brotherhood out of the Blue Zones. Following that however, his career was unremarkable, being bottled up in defensive actions across BZ-1. Often demonstrating little more than effective if uninspired competency, Orlovsky has tended to simple tactics that worked. In the aftermath of the Third Tiberium War, Orlovsky was one of the pioneers of modern mass artillery tactics, although in his now most famous battle he was unable to use them effectively.
Mannerheim Campaign Press Release
According to the press release on the 15th of September by GDI's Public Information Office the Nod assault began by a brigade sized force attacking Arkhangelsk in the early hours of 10th of September. Given the later attack at St. Petersburg they are presuming the Arkhangelsk attack was a distraction meant to draw support away from the main thrust of the attack. [EDIT:]This distraction was unceremoniously crushed.
The attack on St. Petersburg managed to make it through on one of the prongs of the assault, with Nod forces actually getting near the BZ defenses beyond fortress St. Petersburg before being turned back.
Given how Nod tends to hit, fade and hit again once your guard is down, PIO has refused to state unequivocally that the campaign is over, but given that the Nod force that attacked St. Petersburg appears to be in full retreat and from reports had to leave a lot of materiel behind when their rear guard got crushed this campaign looks pretty done for Nod.
FloatingWood
… Why is the subtitle 'Nod can't GDI'?
YellowZon3r
#FloatingWood Presumably because they tried the standard GDI doctrine of 'mass tanks' drive forwards. I oversimplify but for decades the war between GDI and Nod has been characterised by 'Standard' combined arms doctrine on the part of GDI which alternates between digging in for defensive engagements with heavy fortifications. And when on the offense doing so with massive amounts of heavy armour/tanks for major military operations.
Meanwhile, Nod, lacking the same tools as GDI to put it charitably, has been characterised by ambushes, stealth attacks and so on. And where possible avoiding battle with expensive tanks and materials save in very targeted attacks against critical objectives. Simply put, Nod while having a higher population to recruit for cheap militia duties, lacks the same industrial output as GDI. So Nod tends to be distinctly two speed, between the cheap and plentiful militia troopers. (now notably going out of style) And small taskforces of advanced materials. The combination of which lends themselves well to large distraction attacks with cheap troops that can be 'thrown away' while the real attacks are sent elsewhere. Especially combined with stealth.
As a rule of thumb against a greater power, of which GDI unquestionably is. (on the world war scoreboard it's 3/0 in GDI's favour so far) You don't attack head on, you attack where they're weak. Instead Krukov just took a large force of expensive armoured units and sent them head first at a dug in GDI position. Trying to beat them at their own game. And gave the world a wonderful example of just why Nod uses stealth and misdirection. Because trying to beat GDI at their own game where the odds are stacked in their favour… well. It means you're probably going to lose.
AccomplishingProvidence
And here we see the principle that, sometimes, the best counter to esoteric tactics is a calm, competent, "workmanlike" general. Much like King Theoden in the classical work Lord of the Rings, General Orlovsky shows that knowing what you can and cannot do goes a long way to winning battles.
#Floatingwood #YellowZon3r, the other thing to keep in mind is that the advanced tools that NOD traditionally employed seem to still favor a sort of asymmetric, less-direct form of warfare. But with some of their advances in recent years, that may be changing. It seems true that Krukov is moving away from that mentality as well. Perhaps calling upon historical tactics from the past of Russia?
I would say we should not celebrate this as an absolute victory. Krukov lives, and his industrial base still exists. Tiberium is often the great equalizer, so we may be in a situation where Krukov will learn and adapt from this. Time will tell.
FloatingWood
Nod's traditional doctrines may well be part of the reason why Nod can't contest GDI though. That said, yeah, Krukov's been pretty badly battered here, but I'm not so sure GDI came out that well too. Nod did break through St. Petersburg.
EvaDatabase
(First post!)
With how divided Nod is right now, I do wonder if Krukov really thinks he can beat GDI with a tank blob or if he's just working with what he has. Can't really do stealth and misdirection when you don't have enough invisi-tanks and ninjas, after all.
LastLizard
If Krukov is trying to change doctrines to something more fit for open battle… well, ideally, he just fails, but we often don't live in an ideal world here. Given some of Nod's other habits and technologies, who knows what demons in the dark he could dig out in that kind of quest?
I mean, he'll probably lose anyway because GDI's got a lot more experience in that kind of war, but he could still do more damage then anyone would like. And if he can pose even a half-real threat it only takes one partner who still has all the stealth stuff to make things even more worrying.
LaserKiwi2000
Let's hope there was enough damage on nod's side that they can't do as much next war. I would think that the birth-rates wouldn't be enough to be conducive to failed major offensives. Maybe the tanks and stuff used were ones they didn't want to refit?
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- Location
- USA
Indeed. There isn't much more protective than earth and stone.
To counter you just need to reverse engineer it's digging style, standardize seismic sensor deployment (which to be fair also helps in finding surface vehicles and to a degree foot mobiles), and make a bore-bomb as a sort of SAM equivalent using the Underminer's motive system.
- Location
- his hidden lair
I think it's honestly hilarious that as NOD deemphasizes militia and shifts to a more balanced order of battle that GDI is doing the opposite. It wants to transition it's professional army into an elite, cutting edge force with universal power armor deployments backed by a hardened militia system on the defense.
It's a real cool demonstration about how GDI's growing depth, shift from survival mode, and increasing ambition to actually unite the entire world is forcing a fundamental reevaluation of their doctrine. But that's not the sort of things I would expect civilians reading news reports to pick up immediately.
It's a real cool demonstration about how GDI's growing depth, shift from survival mode, and increasing ambition to actually unite the entire world is forcing a fundamental reevaluation of their doctrine. But that's not the sort of things I would expect civilians reading news reports to pick up immediately.
- Location
- The Underdark
Zone Armor, in the few times they have been in the same area, consistently outclasses Afancs and any of the other Gana.
- Location
- Most likely California
Annoying. While it was expected that NOD was try to find a way to counter our artillery and air support, having tunnels dug under our defensive lines is something that I'm hard pressed to think of a method to actually prevent beyond using seismic sensors to predict attacks. Also, more biomutants. While a sign that we should invest in Ground Forces Zone Armor soon, I doubt more Zone Armor factories would actually had effect here, given that the defenders were Home Guard, not front line GDI forces proper. We might see a demand for more anti-material weapons as a stop gap measure.
Well, at least the Home Guard went above and beyond. This removes some worries about how well our Green Zone can handle a large-scale NOD attack.
Great. More NOD superweapons. Any ideas what this might be? I'm torn between new long range cruise missile system, or homegrown biomutants designs.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Steel Talons is not specifically needed to fight Titans. This battle shows that conventional anti-tank weapons work perfectly fine on them.
We still want to do the Steel Talons stuff, because we have been ignoring them and we made a promise to complete all their projects, but fighting Krukov's Titans isn't a specific thing the Talons are needed for.
We still want to do the Steel Talons stuff, because we have been ignoring them and we made a promise to complete all their projects, but fighting Krukov's Titans isn't a specific thing the Talons are needed for.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hello, yes?
I'd like to order two dozen Aurora Strategic Bombers, please.
Yes, with the precision smart munitions and long range stealth sensors. Can you get them here in 6 months?
Excellent.
The home Guard sounds like they were NOD expats with their tactics so the line of what is GDI and what is NOD is getting very blurry.
The Biomonsters are getting out of hand. We really don't have a counter to them beyond more gun. Which is slightly irritating. The Zone Armor factories are gonna get more pushed it seems.
Also the air war is somewhat alarming. A 5-6 trade is not exactly what I'd want from an air battle.
Also this is still tragic. 90k+ people died. That's awful.
The Biomonsters are getting out of hand. We really don't have a counter to them beyond more gun. Which is slightly irritating. The Zone Armor factories are gonna get more pushed it seems.
Also the air war is somewhat alarming. A 5-6 trade is not exactly what I'd want from an air battle.
Also this is still tragic. 90k+ people died. That's awful.
Decim
On again, off again lurker.
- Location
- St. Louis, MO
It's a lot easier than you might think. While Seismic sensors are definitely Step 1.Step 2 is mailing Bunker Buster cruise missiles to collapse the tunnel onto the borers after they've been found. Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, to use a modern example, are very good at blowing through 50-100 feet of soil and rock to collapse a tunnel.
If you want a tactical use, issue a number of ATGM sized burrowing bombs meant to countermine the Underminers, destroying them in transit without risk of interception.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Losing 5 Firehawks (a pre-3rd Tiberium War design for a multirole fighter on the low end of the hi-lo scale) to kill 6 Barghests (a post-war design specifically meant to be an air supremacy machine that can do 15 G turns because it's got a G-Drive and cyborg implanted pilot) is an amazing trade, albeit one made under circumstances where the Firehawks had the decisive edge.
If it was losing 5 Apollos to kill 6 Barghests, then it'd be concerning, though even that might be acceptable depending on how fast we can make Apollos vs how fast NOD can make Barghests.
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- Location
- his hidden lair
Are you kidding? We're fielding TW3 airframes with refits against cutting edge NOD dogfighters loaded with cyborgs and Scrin-Tech. I'd literally set every single Firehawk we own on fire right now if we could exchange them for that many Barghests. Not that I expect NOD to have that many Barghests.
Its more losing the pilots than the frame itself. NOD can just make more cyborgs, the GDrive is the only limiting factor. There was a huge stink about losing Naval crewmen but everytime Firehawks are brought up it seems they are hemorrhaging pilots.
I still don't understand the dichotomy of NOD industrial capacity enough to say that losing some Barghests is worth losing GDI pilots.
I still don't understand the dichotomy of NOD industrial capacity enough to say that losing some Barghests is worth losing GDI pilots.
aledeth
The Flesh is Weak
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Man, it says something about Rome: Total War's faction intro videos that over 15 years later I can still recognize the Gallic one even in text.