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.

 

[Chimeraguard]

Y'know, if we completely defeat the Victorians here, they have what, 4 divisions left? 3 if we sweep up the ones on the islands, and 2 if we get the Toledo division? And we have 3 divisions capable of acting outside commonwealth territory?

Well, that's probably not enough to invade. But I wonder if it would be enough for us to offer FCNY a military alliance, in which we send over 2 divisions as military afvisors to help them train up an army, and just coincidentally be in a position to hold the maginot++ against any Victorian assault looking to stop that? Because sure, they might be able to rustle up some militias, but their skill 2 units had enough problems with our fortifications; I'd love to see their reaction to what New York has managed with decades of time and far more advanced tech.

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Well, the two divisions that aren't present for this campaign and remain back home are Christian Marine Corps mechanized divisions, with 3/5 troop quality and (early) Cold War equipment, so I don't trust our 1/5 troop quality divisions to stand up to them if we don't have the OWE-using Devil Brigade.

Of course, considering one of the FCNY's drawbacks was its bogeyman-like terror of Victoria, their reaction to these events here should be very interesting indeed.

 

[ctulhuslp]

We don't yet have power to attack them.

At the very least because we have no airforce to speak of, and they, I believe, had more than 100 planes. So they have more than 20 F-16V left. Enough to make attack painful and endanger supply ships.

But we can peel off their allies and get started on planning next war. Ideally, we could loot some F-16V from them, or order from NCR.

 

[Timewinders]

Territory we can realistically hold now includes most of the mississippi river basin. Then let's try to confederate eastward to Florida. Their navy will be key to holding off Russia.

 

[Rockeye]

Especially since with Burns so concerned about hiding his Old World tanks and vehicles from Victorian airstrikes earlier in the campaign, they haven't seen nearly so much of it as they otherwise might. He never actually deployed all that stuff until the rains and overcast would have made it hard for anyone to take satellite pictures. Some foreign nations may think we just straight-up went all Toyota War on their asses and beat them with nothing but Hilux technicals, asymmetric warfare, and sheer Chadian-level badassery.

[Everyone]

"Wait WHAT."

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Well, we let reporters and observers crawl over everything. I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually. And they'll also figure that we can't maintain the Old World tanks forever.

So, we have 3 charges of OWE remaining.

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At this point I think we ought to save it for the Russians.

 

[aceraptor]

Well, we let reporters and observers crawl over everything. I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually. And they'll also figure that we can't maintain the Old World tanks forever.

At this point I think we ought to save it for the Russians.

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Russia is going to have a far bigger problem on their hands soon enough. Hopefully.

If a Russian division shows up there's shit all we can do against it.

But thankfully despite our rather spectacular splash onto the scene Chicago is still a small fish. Russia likely won't be sending actual military forces our way. What we have to worry about are memetic spetsnaz going after our leadership in the future if we grow in threat to Russian efforts.

 

[Dwergar]

At this point I think we ought to save it for the Russians.

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Against Russians relatively ill-maintained batallion of Abramses and Strykers is dust.
Their kit is half-century more advanced, and the forces they would send would be no worse than CMC - and, most likely, much, much better.

Not to mantion their artillery advantage, that would be simply ludicrous.

 

[That-Random-Guy]

Against Russians relatively ill-maintained batallion of Abramses and Strykers is dust.
Their kit is half-century more advanced, and the forces they would send would be no worse than CMC - and, most likely, much, much better.

Not to mantion their artillery advantage, that would be simply ludicrous.

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Hmm. I recall it being said that for Russia the logistics of getting a functional force to our borders would be painful, but I can't find those words or remember the specifics.

However, looking at the map myself and considering what's been said about the state of other countries, it seems to me that the supply line for any sizable Russian force would cost enough in resources to simply not be worth it. Setting it up across North America would involve dealing with partisan action, enormous distances, wrecked infrastructure, sister Cali, and us having a rather large amount of time to get ready. Doing the big run-around down South through the Panama canal up to Victoria looks slightly more practical, but, well, think of the sheer distances involved, as well as Victoria not being able to provide most of the stuff a 2070s tank division needs.

So yeah. No need to worry about a attack force, but definitely the Spetnaz (and even then Russia has other priorities)

 

[NeonLights]

Hmm. I recall it being said that for Russia the logistics of getting a functional force to our borders would be painful, but I can't find those words or remember the specifics.

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On top of maintaining supply lines and sheer distance the Appalachians prevent large-scale foreign interference.

 

[buli-buli]

On the Chicago Riverwalk.

Interesting Navy fact.
28 subs passed through after being built in Manitowoc, Wisconsin during WWII.

 

[BoredStudent1414]

So our plan was successful in achieving its goals. We seized the cargo vessel and now the Detroit vessels will attempt to loot it as fast as they can. We delayed the main enemy force, inflicted heavy losses on the crossing, prevented the enemy from exploiting the breaches and prevented a true breakthrough, and destroyed one of the enemy's elite reserve units. It is hard to get soldiers to attack an enemy that has already defeated superior units. Technically, the Victorians did successfully push back our lines but their success in this round is likely a pyrrhic victory for them. The CMC would have likely but not certainly achieved and exploited a breakthrough against our normal units.

Now with the demoralization of their regulars and the destruction of the CMC combat force, it is possible or even likely that the enemy will chose to dig in or retreat. The Victorians have displayed good sense in the bounds of their doctrine and it would not be a good idea to attempt another river crossing against the same enemy with a weaker force although they could surprise us with a desperate attack. The enemy tank force is still out there and they still have many troops to use so it is not over yet. They have also send their militias overland to attempt to save their army. It is not likely to successful but it is something to keep in mind. At the same time, their supply malus will likely increase to -4 if they are not resupplied and I assume we will try to blockade the Victorians. The Victorians must seize Detroit to neutralize the Commonwealth navy and regain safe naval resupply but it seems unlikely that they have the strength and supplies to fight through more defense lines and Detroit itself. If the Victorians dig in or retreat to Toledo, it would only delay the inevitable as we could blockade them into submission. It seems to me that the best course of action for the Victorian army is to retreat overland back home and abandon all unnecessary equipment to save the remnants.

Barring Russian intervention, is there a plausible path to victory at Detroit for the Victorian military at this point?

 

[Chaos Blade]

So our plan was successful in achieving its goals. We seized the cargo vessel and now the Detroit vessels will attempt to loot it as fast as they can. We delayed the main enemy force, inflicted heavy losses on the crossing, prevented the enemy from exploiting the breaches and prevented a true breakthrough, and destroyed one of the enemy's elite reserve units. It is hard to get soldiers to attack an enemy that has already defeated superior units. Technically, the Victorians did successfully push back our lines but their success in this round is likely a pyrrhic victory for them. The CMC would have likely but not certainly achieved and exploited a breakthrough against our normal units.

Now with the demoralization of their regulars and the destruction of the CMC combat force, it is possible or even likely that the enemy will chose to dig in or retreat. The Victorians have displayed good sense in the bounds of their doctrine and it would not be a good idea to attempt another river crossing against the same enemy with a weaker force although they could surprise us with a desperate attack. The enemy tank force is still out there and they still have many troops to use so it is not over yet. They have also send their militias overland to attempt to save their army. It is not likely to successful but it is something to keep in mind. At the same time, their supply malus will likely increase to -4 if they are not resupplied and I assume we will try to blockade the Victorians. The Victorians must seize Detroit to neutralize the Commonwealth navy and regain safe naval resupply but it seems unlikely that they have the strength and supplies to fight through more defense lines and Detroit itself. If the Victorians dig in or retreat to Toledo, it would only delay the inevitable as we could blockade them into submission. It seems to me that the best course of action for the Victorian army is to retreat overland back home and abandon all unnecessary equipment to save the remnants.

Barring Russian intervention, is there a plausible path to victory at Detroit for the Victorian military at this point?

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Militarily? unless we bungle things something fierce I think not, but they could try something diplomatic or irregular.
I mean they still have a lot of troops and they can convince themselves that we have been hurt by our defense and retreat far more than we actually have been and that we are one short push from collapse.
Investing good money after bad is, after all, a known pastime of all forces because otherwise the cost paid thus far would have been for naught.

They might try something to obtain the patina of a victory, to negotiate with us from a position of strength, mayhaps.
It is a hard thing to predict, because while they haven't been irrational military wise, their political masters might have different standards to judge things and they might override local commanders or local commanders might fear the consequences of them retreating, personal consequences I mean, to life and limb, so they might gamble it all.
If we are lucky the more savy might start looking for ways of going to ground, but we'd need the political masters to extract a pound of flesh first, make it plainly obvious what a price "defeat" carries

Again, they do have other tools.

Hmmm.... could they try bombing Chicago? terror bombing I mean? try to force us to the table by attacking our population via terror bombing?
They do think wars are won in the mind and them trying to cow our civilian population and ledership is possible, even without nukes, do they have glide bombs or simple gravity bombs in their stores?

 

[Chimeraguard]

Hmmm.... could they try bombing Chicago? terror bombing I mean? try to force us to the table by attacking our population via terror bombing?
They do think wars are won in the mind and them trying to cow our civilian population and ledership is possible, even without nukes, do they have glide bombs or simple gravity bombs in their stores?

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No. The Victorian Air Force has no bombs whatsoever.

They do not have bombs at all. They cannot actually get away with more than the bare minimum of ground attack training, so they focus on munitions that can be dumped from stand-off range and forgotten about. Like, the level of institutional hostility the Victorian Army has for its air branch is insane. They liked them when they quietly shot down planes and peered down at hostile formations for the Army to kill, but then the VAF had to start getting uppity about, "diversified mission portfolios," and, "supporting the ground command."

They got their air-to-surface munitions, but they're on constant audits to make sure that they aren't, "wasting valuable money on high-tech boondoggles." Their entire ground attack munitions budget goes to a pitiful stock of ASMs; what little budget they can scrape for surface attack training is focused on the pilots learning how to fire those missiles.

At this point, it is possible that a few planes have an ASM on the hard points, but any others that want to do surface attack are going to have to get low and strafe, with exactly no training in evading AA fire.

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Victorian Doctrine states that the only roles of an air force are to destroy the enemy's air force and to provide some reconnaissance. Airplanes doing ground attacks is sneered at as Third Generation War nonsense.

 

[Lightwhispers]

Regarding the supply issue: remember that they have an unknown but presumably large supply stockpile in Toledo, and relatively secure (if somewhat 'splody) supply lines to keep supplied from Toledo. So it's highly unlikely that they will get more than a -2 penalty for supply any time soon. And we need to bring the navy back in order to keep their supply situation from improving.

And they may decide to break doctrine and actually use the Savior division, which would remove another penalty.

That said, they're likely to lose Fanaticism, and probably have Numbers drop to 2. We may lose a point or two for the Huron line being not as well-fortified, but there's a good chance we'll keep most of our lead.

Also, around 230 aircraft... the VAF has gotta be feeling pretty bad. Especially since pilots tend to take more training than infantry, I imagine.

 

[Chimeraguard]

Regarding the supply issue: remember that they have an unknown but presumably large supply stockpile in Toledo, and relatively secure (if somewhat 'splody) supply lines to keep supplied from Toledo. So it's highly unlikely that they will get more than a -2 penalty for supply any time soon. And we need to bring the navy back in order to keep their supply situation from improving.

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It's been said in discord that their supply/logistics penalty will worsen once they get over the Raisin.

@PoptartProdigy Random thought, but if/when the Victorians make it over the Raisin an start pushing to the Huron, will their Logistics penalty worsen? Feels like having to drag their supplies over a river (especially if we blow the bridge at Monroe) is the kind of thing that would result in lots of supplies being either delayed, in the wrong place, or lost entirely.

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100%.

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But after the slaughter here, yeah, it's best to expect them to start deploying the Savior Division from the start. It might have taken some noticeable casualties from the mines and pre-Raisin harassment (if it was the T-34s that got hit by that instead of the CMC, which I think it's likely due to there not being any note of losses among the CMC in their modifier notes), but that's still some hardened assets with big guns.

 

[Chaos Blade]

No. The Victorian Air Force has no bombs whatsoever.

Victorian Doctrine states that the only roles of an air force are to destroy the enemy's air force and to provide some reconnaissance. Airplanes doing ground attacks is sneered at as Third Generation War nonsense.

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Hmmm... a terror attack could be done with stand off munitions, it would be less damaging, but if they go for war of the mind thing, then it might happen. perhaps against some high visibility target and chicago has a few high raises, iirc...

 

[Chimeraguard]

Hmmm... a terror attack could be done with stand off munitions, it would be less damaging, but if they go for war of the mind thing, then it might happen. perhaps against some high visibility target and chicago has a few high raises, iirc...

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Well, first they'd have to buy some more, since they're all out of Air-to-Ground munitions (and some more planes, which they probably won't get from the NCR, which means more time as they have to get them from Russia.) Plus most of the budget will be going to rebuild the army first. Then they'd have to radically change their air doctrine, since, as mentioned before, the Victorians despise the concept of ground attack missions.

Even the tactical attacks with AGMs are pushing the limits of Victorian tolerance. Long-range strategic bombing as a concept is probably even more hated.

 

[Chaos Blade]

Well, first they'd have to buy some more, since they're all out of Air-to-Ground munitions (and some more planes, which they probably won't get from the NCR, which means more time as they have to get them from Russia.) Then they'd have to radically change their air doctrine, since, as mentioned before, the Victorians despise the concept of ground attack missions.

Even the tactical attacks with AGMs are pushing the limits of Victorian tolerance. Long-range strategic bombing as a concept is probably even more hated.

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that is the thing, it would be a tactical attack with AGMs against a morale target, totally different than ground support.
I am not sure if it is likely, but it doesn't sounds flat out impossible, given other tenets of the 4th generation BS war that would support it.

Thus it is the sorta thing we should be wary or we should prepare for, specially given the black eyes we've been giving them. I mean maybe not an airstrike with AGM against Sears Tower, but maybe a car bomb? or not, launching a few AGMs against said tower could be the sorta thing the Victorians might come up with and, again, something we should be prepared, specially if they start feeling they can't get a military win, that means they will try something else to cover their own "honor" and thus might come up with something we aren't expecting.
Doctrine isn't dogma, after all.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Also, around 230 aircraft... the VAF has gotta be feeling pretty bad. Especially since pilots tend to take more training than infantry, I imagine.

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How did we get 230 planes? We've been implied to have shot down about 80 Victorian fighters or seen them go down from maintenance issues or have good reason to think they're grounded. What about the other 150? Are they pressing their scout planes against us THAT aggressively? That's historically unprecedented.

 

[Chimeraguard]

How did we get 230 planes? We've been implied to have shot down about 80 Victorian fighters or seen them go down from maintenance issues or have good reason to think they're grounded. What about the other 150? Are they pressing their scout planes against us THAT aggressively? That's historically unprecedented.

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Well, it has been implied that we've been giving their air recon element quite a mauling.

The Victorians' air force failed to inflict serious damage on your ground forces. Thanks to their terrible training for the role, the ongoing and worsening Californian sabotage, and the poor weather, they lost several planes to your defenses and the poor conditions. You estimate that they have, at most, twenty jets remaining. Your AA has also reaped a bloody harvest from their Cessna observer planes, which have no means of escaping death at your hands.

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And it would be fairly IC for the Victorians to play fast and loose with the lives of their men. They've certainly been spending their infantry like water.

 

[Horologer]

It should be noted that our realistic options for pursuit are a bit limited.

Firstly, we just blew up the I-75 bridge. While that's very convenient in that it disrupts their ability to advance, it does mean that we'd have a hell of a time chasing them across the Raisin if they actually started falling back.

Secondly, that is a BIG army, and their overall casualties aren't as bad, nor (importantly) is their supply situation as bad, as the eastern army was after Essex. They could likely put up an effective rear guard action at pretty much any place they choose, unless we expend a third charge of Old World Equipment.

Our best strategy for 'pursuit' is a naval blockade of Toledo, since at this point the Victorian Army Air Force has limited ability to contest our actions, and cutting off their entire army from resupply while forcing them to exfiltrate along the south shore of Lake Erie if they want to ever get home at all would seem effective here.

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These are important caveats, yes. What pursuit will look like is entirely contingent upon what their retreat will look like. If they retreat in good order right now (which I find unlikely, but it is possible), our options are going to be sharply constrained. If they rout after taking greivous losses trying to force our lines, then our options are far more open, precisely because there's not going to be any kind of organized rear guard action.

Remember what happened to the eastern force when we bled them hard at Essex.

They stopped advancing and dug in. And they didn't even have a defended river they'd need to cross in order to continue advancing.

If we really have broken this army's fanaticism and/or the CMC's ability to enforce their will upon it, they may very well do something heretical like "entrench somewhere north of Monroe." At which point the only card we can play is a naval blockade of Toledo.

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Trying to hold out was a possible strategy for the Leamington force, since they were hoping that new supplies could relieve their situation. They weren't stalling us out so much as they were waiting to be relieved. But the southern force's real problem isn't supplies, it's that we have an army in between them and Detroit. If they sit there, they don't move any closer to victory. If anything, stalling moves us closer to victory. We can just have our army keep shelling them and send our navy off to clear Victorians out of Pelee Island.

The best case for the Victorians is nothing much happens and we're both back to square one. The worst case is that we wipe out their isolated forces and mounting casualties breaks the southern force's morale completely. Our entire plan calls for exactly this sort of drawn-out slog, and we are equipped and positioned appropriately. So If the Victorians try to dig in and beat us at our own game, I say we let them try; we came prepared for it and they didn't.

 

[Lailoken]

So, we have 3 charges of OWE remaining.
Just enough to shatter Victorian army in the field, seize the bridges and roads from Monroe to Toledo, and attack Toledo itself, seizing the Victorian airbase (hopefully with some planes still intact) and blockading the harbour.

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Save them for reverse engineering. Even if we won't have the capability soon, the NCR will pay through the nose for a chance to examine them.

Link please to such glory?

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Ah, yes, the reason I'm not allowed to roll the quest dice anymore...

Eh, there might be other ways to lance that pontoon, but yeah, i don't think our chances are good.
Still, do keep in mind that a broken army will be a problem for the Victorian state.
Yes, they could give them the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, but they can also get Russian Trainers and surpluss to make up for their loses and a last stand story can work to increase the patriotic fervor.
The broken and savaged army managing to disengage and return (and I do expect to be as savaged as possible) with talks of how (one of) the CMC divisions died like a bitch?

That is a problem for the victorian leadership, if they are too harsh with the men, that will cause morale issues, the officers might be more vanishable, then again the officers might be aware of that and plan accordingly (a smart enough officer to learn from their lessons might be smart enough to know that the victorian leadership is going to need a scapegoat or two, and while they might be able to keep the officerdom shut, the soldiery by and large will talk and probably talk shit of the CMC and their officers

So, what would the victorian leadership do in that situation? discharge all surviving divisions and replace them with new, reliable, folks? I mean, they probably can, specially since we really can't go to the offensive in the short or the medium term (I mean or troops are crap atm, and we don't have enough of them to take AND hold) so the vics have the time to rebuild and probably have the access to stockpiles, theirs or second hand russian cast offs, to do so AND they might have the manpower (at a cost, obviously)

But just by defeating them we have broken their image, their survivors could break their self image and that would be a net victory for us as well, even if some learn a bit of lessons out of this...
You know what? we need to make a propaganda war, make a Tokyo Rose of a sorts, play music the victorians like and talk crap of their state at the same time, it might even work if their morale goes south enough

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Better yet, play the music they can't admit to liking.

Y'know, if we completely defeat the Victorians here, they have what, 4 divisions left? 3 if we sweep up the ones on the islands, and 2 if we get the Toledo division? And we have 3 divisions capable of acting outside commonwealth territory?

Well, that's probably not enough to invade. But I wonder if it would be enough for us to offer FCNY a military alliance, in which we send over 2 divisions as military afvisors to help them train up an army, and just coincidentally be in a position to hold the maginot++ against any Victorian assault looking to stop that? Because sure, they might be able to rustle up some militias, but their skill 2 units had enough problems with our fortifications; I'd love to see their reaction to what New York has managed with decades of time and far more advanced tech.

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Territory we can realistically hold now includes most of the mississippi river basin. Then let's try to confederate eastward to Florida. Their navy will be key to holding off Russia.

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The next target, immediately, needs to be bringing Pittsburgh into the fold at any cost. Our greatest weakness is heavy industry, and between Detroit and Pittsburgh we gain some heavy, heavy fuel. Enough to teach the Victorians something their masters apparently didn't: the virtue of fully mechanized forces and utterly profane quantities of rocket artillery.

We don't yet have power to attack them.

At the very least because we have no airforce to speak of, and they, I believe, had more than 100 planes. So they have more than 20 F-16V left. Enough to make attack painful and endanger supply ships.

But we can peel off their allies and get started on planning next war. Ideally, we could loot some F-16V from them, or order from NCR.

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I've been meaning to ask; how many helicopters do we have?

 

[Simon_Jester]

Helicopters are pretty rough on engine parts and cargo helicopters are a pretty uneconomical way to move things, so I suspect the answer is "very few."

 

[Mr Tebbs]

immediately, needs to be bringing Pittsburgh into the fold at any cost

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Pittsburg is roughly due south of buffalo. why not cleveland or akron? hell if we secure sandusky (and said river), that more or less gives us access to the flat parts of ohio. and, if we secure upper sandusky or bucyrus another route to the ohio/mississippi rivers, as the.... scioto? maybe the olentangy rivers begin around there (both of which flow thru my home town of columbus) and on down to the ohio river.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Pittsburg is roughly due south of buffalo. why not cleveland or akron? hell if we secure sandusky (and said river), that more or less gives us access to the flat parts of ohio. and, if we secure upper sandusky or bucyrus another route to the ohio/mississippi rivers, as the.... scioto? maybe the olentangy rivers begin around there (both of which flow thru my home town of columbus) and on down to the ohio river.

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I suspect it's logistically at least as practical for us to work our way down to Cairo, Illinois and then up the Ohio. Remember, waterways are a lot easier than overland, and the canal infrastructure in Ohio will be silted up into nothingness.

I could be wrong though.

 

[Mr Tebbs]

Fair point, but that still leaves easy access to Cleveland, Sandusky and Akron from lake Erie