Victoria Falls: A Post-Collapse American Nation Quest [Down With Victoria!]

[4WheelSword]

thread policy Discussion of politics that does not directly relate to the Quest or to Quest votes are banned from hereon out. This thread policy will be enforced by the Moderation team. Do not ignore it.

 

[Simon_Jester]

...You do realize that if the Victorians have any working ground-based air search radar to direct their fighters, and do have the capability to scramble their fighters in 5-10 minutes, we've just fucked up and killed the handful of surviving veteran pilots and working planes we have left?

This is a plan that is predicated almost entirely on the Victorians being weak. Not just complacent, weak.

I'm strongly against it.

 

[doruma1920]

Another mission straight out of Ace Combat, that is, a night strike at Victorian airstrip at Toledo.
Why it might work?

...

Thus, if our remaining planes can carry enough ordnance to make an impact, such an operation would be nice.
Otherwise too, as it might spook Victorians into maintaining aerial patrols at all times, thus lessening amount of combat sorties and maybe even attritioning some planes via crashing.

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While further draining the Victorian's resources at the end of a mauled logistics chain would be useful, the potentially foul weather would impact our aircraft as much as theirs, especially with an early morning attack which I would consider a prerequisite for the attack to have a chance of working. Combined with how we have only four planes at all, and with how they must have constant aerial patrols anyway due to fear of another Buffalo style raid, I do not think the end result would be a productive use of our remaining aircraft.

 

[Mr Tebbs]

I think the game we need to draw inspiration from is call of dooty. Elite units carrying out a daring raid and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

I'd rather have the resources of titan fall, but what can ya do

 

[Simon_Jester]

I think the game we need to draw inspiration from is call of dooty. Elite units carrying out a daring raid and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

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No, we need to draw inspiration from grand strategy simulators where factors like logistics, positioning, preparation, and doctrine make the difference between victory and defeat.

And where daring tiny actions by a handful of elite troops rarely even register on the scale of the action aside from illustrating events in a "slice of life" manner.

Because seriously, Call of Duty is not even an attempt to simulate a real war. It is an attempt to retell heroic military fantasies using the trappings of a real war as props and scenery.

...

Furthermore, any plan that involves fantasies about elite operations by units that cripple an enemy army using heroic grit, gumption, and manly balls* is going to be, uh... problematic.

In that the Victorians have units more elite-ier than ours, except for that one specialized mechanized regiment of ours. Which is, well, a mechanized regiment, not a commando unit.
_________________________

*(or other gonads or lack thereof of choice, for womanly or otherwise non-male soldiers, since we're the gender and sexual minorities inclusive side of this war, but let us not let that get in the way of a well-turned phrase)

 

[Thebigpieman]

I think the game we need to draw inspiration from is call of dooty Ace Combat. Elite units carrying out a daring raid and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

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So Ace Combat?

 

[Whachamacallit]

No, we need to draw inspiration from grand strategy simulators where factors like logistics, positioning, preparation, and doctrine make the difference between victory and defeat.

And where daring tiny actions by a handful of elite troops rarely even register on the scale of the action aside from illustrating events in a "slice of life" manner.

Because seriously, Call of Duty is not even an attempt to simulate a real war. It is an attempt to retell heroic military fantasies using the trappings of a real war as props and scenery.

...

Furthermore, any plan that involves fantasies about elite operations by units that cripple an enemy army using heroic grit, gumption, and manly balls* is going to be, uh... problematic.

In that the Victorians have units more elite-ier than ours, except for that one specialized mechanized regiment of ours. Which is, well, a mechanized regiment, not a commando unit.
_________________________

*(or other gonads or lack thereof of choice, for womanly or otherwise non-male soldiers, since we're the gender and sexual minorities inclusive side of this war, but let us not let that get in the way of a well-turned phrase)

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I think that it was a joke comment, hence Mr Tebbs spelling the game franchise "Call of dooty".

 

[Dwergar]

...You do realize that if the Victorians have any working ground-based air search radar to direct their fighters, and do have the capability to scramble their fighters in 5-10 minutes, we've just fucked up and killed the handful of surviving veteran pilots and working planes we have left?

This is a plan that is predicated almost entirely on the Victorians being weak. Not just complacent, weak.

I'm strongly against it.

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I'd rule that out as unlikely.
Reasons as follows:
a) There are ways to approach targets undetected; For example, flying low enough.
Also, there's only ~60 klicks to cover before they get from Detroit to Toledo; Strike force is unlikely to take more than 15 minutes getting to the airbase (And we can cut that time to less than half if we don't take prop planes like Skyraider. Two surviving F-16s would have more than half of payload by themselves, anyway).
15 minutes is all the time Victorians would have before the strike; In that time, they need to detect our planes, forward the info to the airbase, prepare the planes and launch them.
Not too big a window for Victorians to launch, and they're unlikely to have another airstrip nearby with planes ready to go but from where they don't launch any sorties.

There are other airbases - Buffalo, for example - but they're far away, and not only it would take too much time for them to reach Toledo, but also they wouldn't learn of the attack fast enough - as they're out of combat theater.
b) Yes, I'm predicating the plan on Victorians being complacent, since they have no reason not to be, with our airforce effectively destroyed.
And yes, I'm predicating the plan on them being weak in combat engineering and AA work, as they're explicitly described to be weak in former and they didn't have good AA to inherit from USA for the latter (And Victorians, like USA before them, have comparatively strong airforce to take care of airborne threats).
They had ideological constraints on improving the former, and they didn't have the incentive to improve the latter beyond some pretty rudimentary bits (As they didn't face credible A2G threat that couldn't be turned away by Falcons).

While further draining the Victorian's resources at the end of a mauled logistics chain would be useful, the potentially foul weather would impact our aircraft as much as theirs, especially with an early morning attack which I would consider a prerequisite for the attack to have a chance of working. Combined with how we have only four planes at all, and with how they must have constant aerial patrols anyway due to fear of another Buffalo style raid, I do not think the end result would be a productive use of our remaining aircraft.

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We don't need to launch such an attack right now; Actually it would be better if we delayed it, allowing for Victorian air superiority to settle in, so that they grow complacent with utter absence of our planes in the sky.

And to address your second point, the post you quoted explicitly required absence of any Victorian air patrols in the vicinity. If we detect those, we can delay the operation, unless the strike group already left SAM umbrella and cannot return before patrol engages them - but, assuming our SAMs to have search radar capable of 200 klicks (As stated before, we have ~1970s tech; IRL soviets had better radars by 1960s) and Victorian patrols searching the lake, that means ~7-8 minutes between detection by our SAMs and engagement. Even Skyraider in that time would be able to get from Toledo to our SAM umbrella over Detroit.



Ultimately, that plan is not infallible. By chance, Victorians might have another flight taking off just as our strike force is closing on the airbase; Or have patrol coming home, jettisoning Mavericks and pouncing on our flight; or keep flying F-16s in circles south of Toledo and low enough that our SAM's don't pick them up, just so that they can surprise anyone trying to airstrike their base of operation...
But, as long as we don't screw up the preparation - correctly identify their airbase, plot out the safe course, don't miss relevant patrol while ascertaining timetables and routes of Victorian flights - the risk is low enough to, well, risk it.

 

[Mr Tebbs]

Because seriously, Call of Duty is not even an attempt to simulate a real war.

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I can't help but feel you misspelled the name of the game

That said.. damn you and your logic spoiling my dreams of easy raids

joke comment

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To be fair, Simon got the joke. Hell he rated my comment funny. That said I was kidding on facts. We might need to either raid the vics or find a way to scout them and get info back

 

[Night_stalker]

So Ace Combat?

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Nah, no long winded mission flying down a tunnel. Or Belkan nationalists behind everything, again.

 

[Simon_Jester]

I'd rule that out as unlikely.
Reasons as follows:
a) There are ways to approach targets undetected; For example, flying low enough.
Also, there's only ~60 klicks to cover before they get from Detroit to Toledo; Strike force is unlikely to take more than 15 minutes getting to the airbase (And we can cut that time to less than half if we don't take prop planes like Skyraider. Two surviving F-16s would have more than half of payload by themselves, anyway).

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Ironically, this is one case where the surviving F-105 would probably be as good a choice as the F-16s; the F-105 Thunderchief was specifically designed to act as a low-altitude strike aircraft, from the previous generation of aircraft ultimately replaced by (among other planes) the F-16.

15 minutes is all the time Victorians would have before the strike; In that time, they need to detect our planes, forward the info to the airbase, prepare the planes and launch them.
Not too big a window for Victorians to launch...

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Militaries like the IDF and the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain managed under similar conditions. It's not impossible.

All it would take is one flight of Victorian pilots sitting by their planes through the night, ready to scramble.

b) Yes, I'm predicating the plan on Victorians being complacent, since they have no reason not to be, with our airforce effectively destroyed.
And yes, I'm predicating the plan on them being weak in combat engineering and AA work, as they're explicitly described to be weak in former and they didn't have good AA to inherit from USA for the latter (And Victorians, like USA before them, have comparatively strong airforce to take care of airborne threats).
They had ideological constraints on improving the former, and they didn't have the incentive to improve the latter beyond some pretty rudimentary bits (As they didn't face credible A2G threat that couldn't be turned away by Falcons).

Click to shrink...

The catch is that their air force IS, doctrinally, good at air to air combat. Because that is, doctrinally, one of the big things they even have an air force for. It exists primarily to shoot down enemy planes. Everything else is secondary.

As such, I wouldn't count on them being incompetent at air defense.

So far, the Victorian Air Force has been professional and competent at pretty much every turn, and would have succeeded in just about every mission assigned to them if not for extensive Californian sabotage of their munitions.

They've had a month to learn from the Buffalo raid. Maybe they'll be complacent and easily caught with their pants down, and maybe they won't. But I wouldn't want to bet our only three surviving jets and the pilots who shot down numerous enemies, on such a desperate gamble that will at most blow up a handful of enemy planes on the ground.

I'd be very pleasantly surprised to learn they aren't still ready for an airstrike. They may not be sure any of our planes got away, or that we had any in reserve. But they almost have to be prepared for the possibility.

 

[clockworkchaos]

So far, the Victorian Air Force has been professional and competent at pretty much every turn, and would have succeeded in just about every mission assigned to them if not for extensive Californian sabotage of their munitions.

They've had a month to learn from the Buffalo raid. Maybe they'll be complacent and easily caught with their pants down, and maybe they won't. But I wouldn't want to bet our only three surviving jets and the pilots who shot down numerous enemies, on such a desperate gamble that will at most blow up a handful of enemy planes on the ground.

I'd be very pleasantly surprised to learn they aren't still ready for an airstrike. They may not be sure any of our planes got away, or that we had any in reserve. But they almost have to be prepared for the possibility.

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To add to this their major doctrinal failure, namely no focus on ground and sea, was dictated to them from on high. They were the ones who lobbied to be able to carry air-to-ground missiles, which means they understand their value. Given that they did actually managed their assigned job (air superiority) they may manage to get political leverage, and I fear a force guided by the Victorian air force far more than their current leadership.

Edit: The only real use I could see for our planes is having them do a ground attack on the lines near Detroit after the Victorian airforce finishes up their run and is heading back. I doubt it would do major damage but would make the main army yell at the air force to find our planes, hopefully distracting from ground attack missions. (Also perhaps force their air force to split patrols so they can't do massed attack they are doing now.)

 

[Simon_Jester]

To add to this their major doctrinal failure, namely no focus on ground and sea, was dictated to them from on high. They were the ones who lobbied to be able to carry air-to-ground missiles, which means they understand their value. Given that they did actually managed their assigned job (air superiority) they may manage to get political leverage, and I fear a force guided by the Victorian air force far more than their current leadership.

Edit: The only real use I could see for our planes is having them do a ground attack on the lines near Detroit after the Victorian airforce finishes up their run and is heading back. I doubt it would do major damage but would make the main army yell at the air force to find our planes, hopefully distracting from ground attack missions. (Also perhaps force their air force to split patrols so they can't do massed attack they are doing now.)

Click to shrink...

We might dare something like this if the southern attack develops and it becomes clear the Victorians aren't maintaining a combat air patrol. But I'm very skeptical of the wisdom of this plan and would rather preserve our very limited supply of surviving pilots to serve as training cadre (for the training cadre) of our future air force.

 

[bdun140]

We might dare something like this if the southern attack develops and it becomes clear the Victorians aren't maintaining a combat air patrol. But I'm very skeptical of the wisdom of this plan and would rather preserve our very limited supply of surviving pilots to serve as training cadre (for the training cadre) of our future air force.

Click to shrink...

One more reason to invest in prop-driven CAS craft. If the Vicks don't maintain a CAP we get free hits on them, and if they do they're wasting jet fuel and increasing the wear-and-tear on their surviving airframes. Please note: This assumes CAS craft will remain grounded if we see that the enemy has patrols up.

 

[Dwergar]

We might dare something like this if the southern attack develops and it becomes clear the Victorians aren't maintaining a combat air patrol. But I'm very skeptical of the wisdom of this plan and would rather preserve our very limited supply of surviving pilots to serve as training cadre (for the training cadre) of our future air force.

Click to shrink...

We have pilots, as:
a) We had recovered at least some pilots from the downed planes.
b) It's quite likely that we had more pilots than planes even at the start of the campaign, as it's a solid practice - after all, you don't want to effectively lose a significant parts of your airforce just because some pilots had catched a flu.

What is very limited is our supply of planes (Though, with the numbers whittled to 3 models and 4 planes total, our logisticians and techs are probably relieved) - in comparison to that, we have a horde of pilots (Or, at the very least, we must have two digits of them).

 

[Mopman43]

We have pilots, as:
a) We had recovered at least some pilots from the downed planes.
b) It's quite likely that we had more pilots than planes even at the start of the campaign, as it's a solid practice - after all, you don't want to effectively lose a significant parts of your airforce just because some pilots had catched a flu.

What is very limited is our supply of planes (Though, with the numbers whittled to 3 models and 4 planes total, our logisticians and techs are probably relieved) - in comparison to that, we have a horde of pilots (Or, at the very least, we must have two digits of them).

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Not so many with combat experience though.

 

[Simon_Jester]

One more reason to invest in prop-driven CAS craft. If the Vicks don't maintain a CAP we get free hits on them, and if they do they're wasting jet fuel and increasing the wear-and-tear on their surviving airframes. Please note: This assumes CAS craft will remain grounded if we see that the enemy has patrols up.

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Well, I'm talking about the immediate short term of what our forces are doing in a few weeks.

You're talking about what happens years from now, so "have propeller-driven* CAS planes" is not a solution to the problem we have right now, and may or may not be a good solution to our current problem.

[I almost said 'piston engine' but we'd probably go for a turboprop]

 

[Dwergar]

Not so many with combat experience though.

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Combat experience of a single sortie is not too much.
And we can assign to this strike those pilots that were sidelined during the air battle - that way, we stand to get even more pilots with combat experience, a different one from A2A combat, to boot.

 

[Exterminatus]

I still am not seeing the point of risking complete destruction of what's left of our air force to take a chance at destroying a portion of the enemy's air force under any remaining enemy air defense assets they would've brought out of habit and in the end will still leave the enemy still flying significant number of planes because they've built up a large stockpile over the years combined with our offensive power having been decreased as a result of the last sortie.

 

[bdun140]

Well, I'm talking about the immediate short term of what our forces are doing in a few weeks.

You're talking about what happens years from now, so "have propeller-driven* CAS planes" is not a solution to the problem we have right now, and may or may not be a good solution to our current problem.

[I almost said 'piston engine' but we'd probably go for a turboprop]

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Well, thing is, I don't see very much that can be done for our problems right now, outside of what's already being discussed. So, I'm looking towards the future.

 

[clockworkchaos]

We might dare something like this if the southern attack develops and it becomes clear the Victorians aren't maintaining a combat air patrol. But I'm very skeptical of the wisdom of this plan and would rather preserve our very limited supply of surviving pilots to serve as training cadre (for the training cadre) of our future air force.

Click to shrink...

It isn't exactly my first choice, but it's the one mission I consider if the air force is pressing us hard.

 

[Dwergar]

I still am not seeing the point of risking complete destruction of what's left of our air force to take a chance at destroying a portion of the enemy's air force under any remaining enemy air defense assets they would've brought out of habit and in the end will still leave the enemy still flying significant number of planes because they've built up a large stockpile over the years combined with our offensive power having been decreased as a result of the last sortie.

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Our airforce is already effectively destroyed. Worst case of losing three planes and pilots wouldn't change much in that regard.
Honestly, the only reason I consider this plan to be workable is distance, Victorian chronic troubles with logistics and our perceived weakness.

First means that after take off the strike force can get to target in 5 minutes or less, allowing us to bypass the single greatest hurdle of Victorian Airforce (Unless they maintain 2 minute readiness flights at all times like they're Soviets awaiting Reagan's bombers. Which, while possible, is stretching it a bit).
Second means that Victorians are unlikely to have better AA than some autocannons, simply because heavier SAMs and other good AA stuff is much more situational than good artillery, and since they only have mortars for the latter, I doubt that they have much more than MANPADs and autocannons for the former.
And third means complacency on their part, thus they might not be as stringent in maintaining CAPs - particularly at night, when there's a bigger probability of accidents; As well as possible slacking on part of their AA crews, since they wouldn't have seen any our planes at all during this campaign.

Of course, if Victorians maintain their air supremacy and fly CAP at all times, such a mission is foolish - but it's goal is as much spooking Victorians into hunting for remnants of our airforce and flying lots of CAPs as is burning Victorian shit on the ground.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Our airforce is already effectively destroyed. Worst case of losing three planes and pilots wouldn't change much in that regard.

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Losing the last people who can train other people, and the last planes they can train people ON, tends to have a disproportionate effect on whether or not your military unit can regenerate from a defeat.

Honestly, the only reason I consider this plan to be workable is distance, Victorian chronic troubles with logistics and our perceived weakness.

First means that after take off the strike force can get to target in 5 minutes or less, allowing us to bypass the single greatest hurdle of Victorian Airforce (Unless they maintain 2 minute readiness flights at all times like they're Soviets awaiting Reagan's bombers. Which, while possible, is stretching it a bit).

Click to shrink...

They'd only need a few planes waiting on standby to ruin our whole day under a plan like this. And, again, air to air and air defense are what the VAF is for. This is the one thing they are likely to not fuck up.

Second means that Victorians are unlikely to have better AA than some autocannons, simply because heavier SAMs and other good AA stuff is much more situational than good artillery, and since they only have mortars for the latter, I doubt that they have much more than MANPADs and autocannons for the former.
And third means complacency on their part, thus they might not be as stringent in maintaining CAPs - particularly at night, when there's a bigger probability of accidents; As well as possible slacking on part of their AA crews, since they wouldn't have seen any our planes at all during this campaign.

Of course, if Victorians maintain their air supremacy and fly CAP at all times, such a mission is foolish - but it's goal is as much spooking Victorians into hunting for remnants of our airforce and flying lots of CAPs as is burning Victorian shit on the ground.

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Based on what we know or can reasonably project now I think this plan is a bad idea. Let's wait an update or two to see if future evidence vindicates this plan.

 

[Dwergar]

Losing the last people who can train other people, and the last planes they can train people ON, tends to have a disproportionate effect on whether or not your military unit can regenerate from a defeat.

They'd only need a few planes waiting on standby to ruin our whole day under a plan like this. And, again, air to air and air defense are what the VAF is for. This is the one thing they are likely to not fuck up.

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Except we have more than three pilots. We most likely have a double-digit number of them, if not a big one.
And of those, some pilots are likely to be certified on the planes we'd send on such a sortie yet actually don't have combat experience at all.

While losing the planes would be bad, we most likely wouldn't be able to use them to train new pilots anyway - as they might be one-seaters for one, they're not trainers, and we wouldn't have any other planes of the same models for pilots trained on them to fly.
The most we would be able to use them is OpFor, in regards to training.

And planes on standby, as opposed to those in the air doing something and being seen by our search radars, need time to take off. The shortest possible time is two minutes, and it's more likely to be bigger due to safety concerns (yay sabotage!).
That's with plane already being on the runway and pilot strapped in. Add in time for Victorians to detect our planes and get the news to that high readiness plane to start preparing, and we're looking at 3 minutes at the very least, and quite possibly more.
In that time, our planes could get all the way from Detroit to Toledo.

Were Toledo some 90 klicks away, then Victorians would have had a (relatively) comfortable time margin within which to launch high readiness flight on CAP and meet our planes.
But this is too close, and unless they're taking off every time clutter gets suspicious or we fly Skyraider menacingly around Detroit, they just wouldn't launch in time.

 

[Simon_Jester]

...OK you know what, I WILL endorse us having our propeller-driven A-1 Skyraider routinely take off and fly around in circles over Detroit just to troll the Viks, in the hopes that they'll waste time and fuel sortieing jets in case it's an air raid on their front lines.

As Sara Goldblum would put it, "Why? Because fuck you."

If nothing else this might grant us some "boy who cried wolf" insurance in case we DO decide to launch a single very small raid with our three surviving jets.

 

[SneakyWalrus]

Nah, no long winded mission flying down a tunnel. Or Belkan nationalists behind everything, again.

Click to shrink...

What if... The true Belka was us all along?

Shattered by Russian Influence, the US reconstitutes itself from disparate states and cities to be an international power once again. With a weird aerial super weapon this time, to stay within the aesthetic.