I mean, we totally could stage such a raid IF we'd cleared out the bulk of the Vik forces between us and them, and IF the Raisin weren't an obstacle.
On the other hand, they almost certainly have a large number of planes deadlined as unflyable for maintenance reasons related to the sabotage (jet engines that only actually run for 50 hours before breaking down are a cruel mistress). Just blowing those up would be a waste.
And, hm.
...
Come to think of it, I missed the quasi-update where the Viks attempted to force the river entirely...
The ship is yours, and over the remainder of the course of this action -- that is, until we break for another vote -- civilian cargo tenders from Detroit will be descending on the Niagara like a swarm of locusts. You're...probably going to see a fair amount of stuff get, "dropped over the side," in this process, but there's not a lot that you can actually do about that. Your own merchant marine is busy running constant sprints between here and Chicago to keep supplies coming in from home. You still expect a massive take.
Besides, the stuff we don't get will probably end up in Detroit, and they can use all the war materiel they can get.
TRue, but if we can trash the pontoon bridges any retreat, well, route would be the word at that point, would be sans their remaining heavy assets (tanks) and we might destroy at least a few of their units as units. I mean setting up pontoon bridges on the retreat and crossing them? hell, trying to hit those bridges might be worth risking our remaining air assets.
With the Viks having large numbers of shoulder-fired SAMs to punish low-altitude aircraft, and us having no guided bombs that I know of to hit the bridge from above the ceiling of such missiles, I'm pretty sure three planes wouldn't be able to do the job.
With JDAMs, maybe, but we are not that.
OTOH, do we want to force them to a bitter last stand? making them retreat in disorder, with their tails between their legs might damage the Victorian cause far more than a wipeout.
EDIT: I mean last stands, even stupid last stands, do get some propaganda points, a rout? that would see the soldiers ostracised but would also worm in the doubt in their cause on other sectors, specifically those that are keeping their heads down and trying to survive and that is something desireable
It's kind of shaky.
If they lose their army almost entirely, it's going to be a lot harder for them to figure out what the hell happened, and a lot harder to train a new army and officer corps capable of doing better.
If they manage to recover a significant fraction of a routed army, then it's easier for them to build a new better army in principle, but also easier for political infighting to disrupt those efforts (some colonel who's trying to learn from the battles at Essex and Monroe is told "the CMC didn't make it back, why are
you still alive you fucking coward" and thrown in a labor camp).
If they stay south of us and we can just starve them into submission, that's a best case scenario in my book. There's no other force that can relieve them, and they can't get back through our navy.
I suspect that the Victorian army can avoid starvation for quite a while by pillaging the countryside. Of course, eventually that means we just have an unusually large bandit problem down there.
We need to take these bridges intact and advance swiftly from there.
For Toledo detachment of Victorian Army Airforce awaits, with all those sweet, sweet F-16s!
I doubt the Victorians, having just been kicked vigorously in the balls by
us blowing up our only bridge over the Raisin, will be stupid enough to let us capture
their pontoon bridge across the Raisin intact.
Though I'd love to loot the VAAF airfields at Toledo. Many of their planes are likely not in flyable condition, but could be refurbished, and the sabotage
mostly repaired or neutralized, by shipments of parts from the NCR after they rebel. Which we might actually be able to convince them to send us, since it's not like their existing production line for F-16Vs does them any good directly. They might as well continue making mildly shitty export fighters but sell them to someone they
like for a change.
