Well, let's review the winning plan.
[] Plan Needle and Hammer (No OWE)
-[] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. Estimated two days to total force destruction.
-[] Limited assault. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
-[] Capture the freighters if it appears possible to disable them without a threat to the overall safety of the fleet.
-[] Full bombardment.
Now, what might we have overlooked?
1) We could have overlooked something involving the Victorian freighters.
2) We could have overlooked an air threat, since Victoria still has some air power, and conceivably a Russian air strike could happen at any time
3) We could have overlooked something regarding the Victorian land offensive, the spoiling attack on our lines.
4) We could have overlooked something regarding the Victorian land
defensive, something that will make us unable to crack their lines.
5) We could have overlooked something regarding the Victorian land
supplies, something that will, again, make us unable to crack their lines.
6) We could have overlooked something regarding the Victorians' rear area troops, the divisions garrisoning Toledo and the islands.
I'm honestly unable to come up with any other categories.
(3) seems iffy. The Victorian spoiling attack is pretty badly outgunned at this point and we're in an excellent position to crush it. The only way I can see it being a threat is if drawing all available forces to meet it leaves something else fatally uncovered.
But what.
(2) breaks down into "one last hurrah by surviving Victorian jets or "Russian airstrikes disguised as Victorian airstrikes." We can't really do anything about the latter possibility because Russian aircraft are absurdly higher-tech than anything we can defend ourselves with; all we can do is
endure those air attacks.
(6) breaks down into "the Toledo division does something fucky" or "the islands division does something fucky." The islands division can't do anything fucky without transportation, which means either they're on the freighters (in which case several thousand warm bodies plus their equipment
might not be visible to us on radar), wrapping back to (1), or they have some transportation we don't know anything about. And The Toledo garrison reinforcing the Victorian troops on the Raisin would be
bad but not insurmountable; it makes our existing plan less effective but not actively bad.
(4) and (5) are most obviously issues because of Russian supplies, which may make it impossible for us to exhaust the Victorians the way we wanted to once they have another week or two to start flying in "Victorian" transport planes.
...
So basically, what might the overlooked things been?
A) The freighters could be a trap designed to sink our ships directly. Unlikely to work; we've faced similar threats and overcome them, and Romano is wary of suicide bombs and other such tricks.
B) The freighters could be carrying a division or so of Victorian infantry taken from the lake islands- note that Poptart said
presumably, which means we don't know. This is a credible threat, but with the Victorian freighters headed straight for our navy, we're in close to the ideal position to counter the threat. Even if they do land troops, those troops will be landing a considerable distance from Detroit, or will have to turn and sail a considerable distance to reach Detroit, giving us more time to react and shift forces.
However, I consider this to be one of the most significant threats. If the Victorians somehow manage to land a division of troops in a place of their choosing behind our lines, it could still fuck shit up, and with almost all our forces on the Huron Line, they'd have at least a short window of opportunity to do damage before we could respond.
C) The Victorians could be planning a massed kamikaze attack with their remaining jets, probably on our navy.
This is another plausible threat. It's hard to say how many of our ships they would sink in this way, since the fleet does have air defense of its own and has managed to shoot down several jets coming in for strafing runs in the past. It also has synergy (for the Victorians) with (B) since it might pin down or neutralize our navy at the same time they're trying a last-hurrah amphibious attack.
D) The Victorian land attack could have some kind of special strength we don't know about. I'm skeptical of this one, because we've just recently been in contact with that force and know its power.
E) The Victorian defenses could hold out due to the
known prospect of Russian supplies, making it impossible for us to simply shatter them and push through by brute force. This is much more of an issue with "Limited Assault" than it would have been with "Full Assault," which I can only apologize for since I supported limited assaults too.
F) Our decision to bombard with the navy could somehow be a major mistake. Assuming the fleet doesn't abruptly turn into were-idiots or something, I'm not sure how, though. Bombardment puts them close to our army formations and permits some degree of mutual covering of one another with AA weapons, and seaborne resupply of the surviving Victorian forces that gets past our guard would,
while bad, still not put the Victorians in a position where they could easily overpower us.
G) The Russians could launch airstrikes, which we can't really do anything about if true except try to hold on as best we can. I don't think that would represent us
overlooking something in our plan, though, since it's basically "meteors start falling on us," in that we can't really stop it from happening or do much to minimize the damage if it does. Our air defense systems are not realistically capable of stopping Russian jets handled professionally by Russian pilots.
H) The Victorians could have the nuke and a plan to use it. Again, not really something we could have planned for.
...
Is there anything else anyone can think of?
Hm.
@PoptartProdigy , I do have one specific question.
The Detroit Militia forward-deploying to the Huron Line to meet the Victorian spoiling attack seems like a bit of a stretch from their original assignments, but likely possible- as noted, they can piggyback off our supply line. However, it seems very out of character for them to participate in a counterattack all the way to the Raisin Line for an extended period of time.
Will the Detroit Militia be returning to the city after we (presumably) halt the Victorian attack on the Huron Line and begin our own counterattack?
