Would you use it for every surface? Most definitely not. But GDI's ZA is definitely going to use in some places. Including, most likely, protecting vital spots, because being able to bounce a laser with your helmet is really valuable even if you then need to toss the helmet when the alternative is twice as heavy. It's actually pretty rare for people to be hit multiple times in rapid succession even in modern warfare, and what you need most is the ability to bounce the few shots that do hit.
Infantry rarely get hit because almost the entirety of modern infantry tactics revolves around minimizing the squishy infantry's exposure to enemy fire, even at the cost of vastly diminishing their own firepower.
You can retain that 'advantage' if your power armor troops continue to fight pretty much exactly like normal infantry, avoiding situations where they might be exposed to fragmentation weapons or bursts of light antipersonnel fire. Which... well, you can, but it partially defeats the purpose of the power armor.
That went relatively well, all things considered. No major territorial losses, severe Nod losses, valuable battle experience for our troops.
... wonder how this'll affect political priorities.
Militarists are happy that we kicked Nod's teeth in.
Everyone else is slightly less happy that we kicked Nod's teeth in, but still happy.
We are under heavy political pressure to rebuild the damaged areas and probably to expand fortification efforts. Demand for better infantry weapons in rear areas may be an immediate political demand in response to the threat of Nod biomonsters literally springing up out of the earth.
...
Initiative Firster claims that Green Zone recruited Home Guard formations would be unreliable in combat or turn their guns on GDI's own forces are proven invalid. The strategy of securing the Blue Zone with a Green Zone territorial buffer is proven successful, as without our forward deployment in the Green Zone, Krukov's tank units would have driven straight into the Blue Zones behind them.
Much like puny Nod armored battalions challenging our Mammoth tank rush, IF claims get their teeth kicked in. Ozawa is humiliated.
Initiative First may be unhappy on net; it would be to their advantage if Nod had been more successful.
The OSRTCs on the other hand...
Plenty of stuff we could have done but overlooked in favor of what we thought more vital. So far it has worked out. Only time will tell if it stays so.
If orbital strike regiments had been deployed to this battlezone, they would likely have been put on the front lines, or deployed to take the Nod forces in the rear (e.g. to trash their cruise missile launchers) or something like that.
They almost certainly would NOT have been dispersed on rear area security duty to guard our artillery.
Well, not
this time. Maybe in a future battle more cautious commanders will try to do that.
About that...
We've already grabbed the low hanging fruit on making Zone Armor cheaper. No JJs, no heavy rail gun, minimal bells and whistles. We'll need a wholly new design and some major innovations to cut costs further.
Ah. A pity.
Nod just threw that entire fight.
They're an insurgency, and they fought like a conventional army. The only possible outcome was crushing defeat.
They lost their best equipment and they lost their elites and one of their generals surrendered his army to GDI. Then defected with valuable intelligence.
I suspect that Krukov is the spiritual heir to Braxton Bragg, a spy of incomparable skill who heroically sacrificed his cover to deliver victory to his true friends. Launching this offensive has effectively taken the Russian branch of NOD out of service, creating a priceless opportunity to win over Yellow Zones with the help of NOD defectors. My only regret is that Kurkov has laid down his life for the cause.
I think you should listen to the in-setting AccomplishingProvidence take on this situation. This offensive hasn't destroyed Krukov's forces. The most valuable units he sacrificed were Black Hand formations and Titan formations.
The thing is... the Black Hand are always a mixed blessing for Nod warlords because they're fanatics about Nod ideology, and have a history of turning their guns on other Nod forces if they don't like their style. And those Titans are an extensively upgraded Tib War II unit; it is very likely that Krukov is running into the same problems we are with inability to repeatedly refit an aging platform with newer weaponry.
So the most valuable forces he lost were arguably expendable, and it's quite possible that he can replenish his
material losses easily enough.
Cherdenko surrendering rather than having all the high-ranking Nod officers die in the fighting?
That was a serious loss for Krukov. The rest? Not so much. I think you overestimate the scope of their losses.
Also, as a practical matter, Nod
does escalate to full-scale pitched battle warfare against GDI in each major Tiberium War. For a man like Krukov, who is planning for Tib War Four, it is
essential to know how his heavy units will actually perform in combat, and how well his own version of combined forces doctrine is working against GDI's defenses.
