That's.... Wrong. Very wrong. Trust me. Despite experience, we once decided to just eyeball it instead of walking the measurements and our wire was fucked. We prettied it up to pass but it would be easily dislodged.
I'll take your word for it.
The real problem is IED. Still, in Iraq, Iraqi kids routinely gave away such ambushes for food and hey, this time, they speak English.
No cellphones. No wireless door openers. None of the thousand and one commercial radio transmitters used by insurgents for remote detonators.
Limited supplies of military grade explosive, and no ammonium nitrate fertilizer for ANFO, not in a city. And the CMC stripped the city of any cars and trucks that survived the disastrous supply expedition which they'd use for car bombs, as well as any other supplies of military utility..
I'm sure they will try IEDs.
I suspect that it will be much harder than they presumed.
First, to be clear as @Simon_Jester noted, any actions are contingent on making sure Buffalo is secure. It will most likely be acting as our primary logistic base unless a mass attack has our retreat across the river.
The main thing about would be all about selling fiction. With a lowered artillery usage from lower intensity fighting, we can afford more time. This is all about selling the fiction that this is actually, really an invasion with plans to stay. Towns would be taken, firmly secured, local governments replace-remodeled. Selling the idea that we are planning to remold Victorian society, and our slow advance is simply our natural machine-like plans.
The theoretical advantage is first is makes sure that the territory we take is firmly secured against insurgency. The second advantage is that when Blackwell talks about our technological prowess, he is rational. it is dangerous, it needs to be addressed, but he wants to address it rationally, take what is needed to defeat us. A problem, a dangerous one, but one that is rational. His response to our society, however.
COMMENTARY
1)That's not really a bluff we can sell.
Blackwell is well aware that if he can beat the CMC, Russia will come in fully on his side. We cant fight Blackwell with full Russian backing on Victorian soil. Especially with no sugar daddy/mommy of our own. It would be different if we had EU or Chinese heavy lifters airlifting stuff into Chicago or Detroit, and their diplomats advocating for us on the international stage.
If we attempt what you're suggesting, we're not inflicting the kind of pressure that would bring dude to the negotiating table for fear of actually losing to the CMC.
I think we get better results by sticking to the original plan.
2) Victoria practices collective punishment. Everyone knows this, most of all their own citizens. Rumors of Vic towns vanishing exist by WoG.
The CMC just drew a massive number of conscripts, unwilling or not, from Buffalo. If Blackwell wins, they are probably dead or in slave-labor camps in the far north. Worse, their families are all fucked.
And the civilians in Buffalo know this.
This is probably a threat to be considered when acting against other Victorian cities or towns.
3) The fighters in the city are not Buffalo natives.
They're probably drawn from the militia who were besieging the city when the CMC was here, and who got their shit kicked in when the CMC left with 20,000 Buffalo men in tow. They really were not going to be disposed to be kind to the city and it's inhabitants when they moved in after the CMC left. Especially given the general attitude of Vic ideology towards citydwellers.
Add to this the general unhappiness of civilians with warplans that involve torching their homes....
We can go some way to stealing their loyalties, or at least their services, with some judicious maneuvering. The more so since we probably have to feed these people; they probably have backyard gardens, but no food production. And women weren't allowed to do mens work like fishing.
Roll well, and we could steal the entire city, which would be a propaganda coup of epic proportions, with seismic effects on Vic society.
We are so dangerous that wives cannot be taken. Women, who would be single individuals with no training, isolated from everything they know, having just seen their country fall, are so dangerous as to be an existential threat.
We need to set up a 24 hour entertainment and music channel, with an emphasis on Old Country music.
Bonus points for Canadian and Quebecois programming
Blackwell is terrified of cultural contamination. Best give him something to worry about.
We'll want to see if they're willing to spill about the Inquisitors directing them, as without those coordinating the militia's attempt at bloodying us through asymmetric warfare/managing a network of whispers that no doubt would lead to reprisals on any Victorians who do give us information, the population will likely be more receptive to our efforts.
That's below the level of abstraction.
Doesn't Burns have a ton of Anti-insurgency experience from middle east fighting?
To have served in the Middle East?
He would have had to be at least 18 years old to have been an enlisted man, or at least 21 to have been a fresh West Point graduate in 2016, when the then POTUS got the US booted from foreign bases around the world.
That would make him between 77 and 80 years of age in the current year of 2075CE quest time.
That's why I think it's...unlikely that he was old enough to have any experience in the Middle East at all.
My personal estimates are that Burns is in his early to mid-60s. Think JK Simmons, who is 65.
Young enough to survive what remains a hard active life, even now.
@PoptartProdigy
QUESTION
Do we know IC which city the other CMC division was originally holed up in? We should have enough prisoners and radio transmissions to give some idea. Because that is important to assess the impact that the rebellion has had thus far on the Vic economy and military ability. And what nodes we should be aiming at hitting.
If they were both in New York State, thats one thing.
If the second CMC division was based out of Boston, biggest city in Victoria and thus necessary to keep an eye on because subversive elements, and fought their way out of there like some mutant chestburster, trashing everything in their wake.....well then.
