Brunoteixiera107: Thank you, and I shall make sure to mention your praise to them.
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UF-EDC(I)-44 "Instant Road" Dust Composition: Attempts to intermix Earth Dust into concrete are made for the purposes of rapid construction of roads as quick as possible. Initially, it seems impossible for the Earth Dust to be integrated into the substance as it keeps trying to bind to the powdered rocks utilized in concrete, but a breakthrough is made where dissolving the Dust in acid, forming a substance that seems to behave similarly to liquid crystal structures, and then mixing it and higher than normal quantities of water into the concrete will create a stable, though slow setting mixture. However, while a mix is able to be produced, no breakthroughs are made in managing to align the Earth Dust in any one direction, resulting in the mixture forming a what is best described as a tangled thorn bush of concrete over the area where it was poured that can occasionally grow to out to variable lengths, potentially up to a meter, depending on how much of the mixture was poured and how the crystals decided to align. With the added strength of the Earth Dust and the fact that it does not just grow up but into the ground, breaking or dislodging particularly bad patches of the substance after it finishes drying is very difficult, resulting in more work for road construction crews than ordinary concrete.
UF-MBT-44 'Mauler': A new tank built of medium armor formed of Mangalloy treated with Earth Dust to form some very potent armor. The main gun is a 105mm Super Hornet, that due to the less open interior has a 12 round per minute fire rate, and two Raptor autocannons are equipped, one on a pintle mounting and the other on a co-axial. It has a new version of the engine used in the AS-T33 that, when combined with the overall lighter weight, allow for the tank to have an overall higher speed.
UFN-SNR-44 'Deep Hunter': This improvement to the Sea Stalker system is able to be mounted upon a single ship and has had its complexity reduced to the point where it can be mounted on every ship possible. Research is done into make the system able to kill underwater Grimm, but it is currently uncertain as to whether it is able to as no method of capturing Grimm for such experimentation has been developed to allow for direct observation, and live testing is a bit of a miss due to the way the creatures die. The range is improved by this research, however.
UF-UGM-44 "Pilum" Bombardment Rocket : This artillery piece fires rockets with 8kg warheads from a towed carriage that has twelve rails, each mounting a single rocket. Firing after the first volley, which can go for a very long range, is near impossible the flame expelled by the rockets melts the rails to the point that the rockets launched are inaccurate past fifty meters at best, and can on occasion melt in such a way that rockets slamming into each other just as they launch and take out the whole apparatus or simply melt in such a way the rails can't be reloaded at all. Mountings are not made for aircraft as the level of danger these problems represent could very easily result in the destruction of the planes.
UF-SIR-44 'Vintovka': A modification to the Ballista rifle that replaces the prior firing mechanism with an APIB system to reduce the recoil and weight of the gun, allowing for more soldiers to be able to fire the gun and for more ammunition to be carried. The lesser recoil allows for a slightly higher fire rate for those who could use the weapon before, though the size of the magazines in both ammo count and bulk do prove to be limiting factors from keeping the increase to be higher.
UF-SB-44 "Seismic Bell Mk2": A modification to the UF-SB-41 "Seismic Bell" that adds a bell at the end of the pole for better detection abilities.
UF-DB-44 'Valiant': This latest version of the infamous Firebird line is one that actually manages to have no problems, which seems to be partially blamed on the threats that the engineers themselves would need to fly this version if pilots refused to. The aircraft is able to carry a total of 1.25 metric tons of bombs across its three mountings in this version. The first test pilot and all subsequent pilots have a tendency to bring aboard a number of lucky charms on board when they fly the plane out of concern for the luck the prior versions had displayed, but whether this has any level of effect on the excellent flight capabilities of the plane is inconclusive.
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Land is not the supreme victory for Forenia as it had been in the prior year. Before an attack, a new species known as the Griffons aid boulder carrying Nevermore and Giant Nevermore in night-based strikes to destroy the rails and roads of supply lines through either dropping the boulder payloads in the case of the latter two, or simply landing and tearing apart the rails. These strikes result in days of delays before the supply flow can return to full strength, only prevented from a complete shutdown of supply due to the Stronghold series of plans containing multiple supply routes. The airforce makes attempts to prevent as many strikes as possible, but the Grimm are largely camouflaged in the night due to their pitch skin and can only be spotted through their bone masks that can be mistaken as merely stars in the night sky at a distance. This can cause pilots to alternatively miss the Grimm or attempt to chase after stars by mistake.
After these strikes, in the opening salvos, the second new species of Grimm, Creeps, perform their strikes upon the Forenian lines now weakened by supply issues. These Grimm burrow underneath the ground underneath the Bastion defenses or below a Foxhole to perform a surprise strike upon the occupants. These attacks are partially mitigated by the Seismic Bell Mk2 system providing an early warning of the Grimm's approach, but unless one of the very rare Excessively Defending five-hundred kilogram mines are nearby, a tactic only really viable from Bastions as the size of those mines poses great risk to individuals in Foxholes, there isn't any way to strike at the buried Grimm before they surface. It is noted that UF-EDC(I)-44 are one exception if the spikes wind up burrowing into the ground a notable distance where they have been used to replace barbed wire, occasionally inflicting some damage to the Grimm, but the rarity of the material and the unpredictability does mean that this is unreliable at the current time. At any rate, once the packs surface, they manage to tear apart individuals in the foxholes with ease before moving onto the next one, or run rampant around the insides of fortresses formed of Bastions before they are put down, reducing the men and supplies available to a location.
After a couple of these strikes over the course of a few hours or sometimes days, the main bulk of the Grimm forces attempt to overrun the weakened defenders. While weakened, the new Forenian designs are able to put up strong resistance. UF-UGM-44 "Pilum" Bombardment Rocket are not used in the earlier engagements against Creeps and are able to deal significant damage in the initial volleys, with the inaccuracy providing a strange boon. Beast Maws tend to be somewhat drained, but the Pilum system is able to pick up the slack somewhat when it comes to dealing with Tiny Nevermore swarms, as the explosives can destroy a good amount and the unpredictability means the creatures can't dodge the madly flying rockets at all, giving enough damage that the greater number of UF-SIR-44 'Vintovka' armed soldiers can deal with the stragglers. Speaking of the standard infantry weapon, its ability to be utilized by a greater number of soldiers does allow for a much greater volume of fire to be brought to bear against the Grimm, and along with the Instant Roads holding off the Grimm just a small bit longer, tipping the balance further away from the Grimm. However, the monsters would have managed to push through, if not for two things that manage to push things in the Forenian's favor just enough for them to pull things to a stalemate.
The first of these is the UF-MBT-44 'Mauler'. The level of expense behind them means that they are only deployed to the most critical of fortifications, but this tank is able to do what the others cannot and engage any of the current Grimm with near impunity. The sheer strength of its armor from the dust augmented Mangalloy combined with its gun allows it to go toe to toe with a Deathstalker and come out on top, unlike prior tanks, and if a King Taijitu attempts to coil around it to crush the tank, the speed of the main gun means it can often fire off a High-Explosive Anti-Tank shot to near bisect the serpents body before the Grimm can complete its attack. While there aren't enough to allow for Forenia to push into Grimm-held territory, or even hold every fortress, it is enough to keep the critical locations from falling.
Aiding in the holding of the critical fortresses and stopping the fall of the less critical fortresses is the second design, the UF-DB-44 'Valiant'. The Firebird line is finally able to display its potential in this incarnation, and it proves to be devastating to the Grimm. Equipped with either two five hundred kilogram bombs on the wing mounts and a two hundred in the center mount, or twin two hundred on the wings and a five hundred on the center if a more equal payload detonation is desired, the planes are able to blast away large positions of the Grimm with ease before following it up with a few strafing runs of their Tyrannosaurus autocannons to continue the decimation of both the ground and airborne Grimm. The Griffons would never have had a chance to deal direct damage in these battles, as, despite their greater durability compared to the Nevermores, it still isn't strong enough to survive being repeatedly shot by thirty millimeter rounds, but the Creeps may have had an effect. That is, if the Seismic Bell Mk2s couldn't be used to pinpoint where they were below the ground for an airstrike to kill them via the shockwave of a five hundred kilogram bomb or two. Some still get through on occasion, but they can be dispatched without much difficulty. However, the combined effects mean that the Forenian military isn't able to gain more ground, but it doesn't lose any ground either.
At sea, the new Sonar system proves to be quite useful in preventing Grimm attacks. Attacks take a distinct enough drop that the capability of the system to kill Grimm from proximity is largely believed, though there is the competing theory that they are just driven away by the frequency the Sonar operates on. Either way, approach under the water is no longer something attempted by the Grimm. Some of the Sea Dragons attempt to attack through flight barely above the waves or from high up, but this is quite simple to counter compared to the surprise strikes seen in earlier years. Some Krakens do manage to occasionally get close enough they might do damage, but they are killed easily enough. All of this allows for Forenia to advance further with ease, and allow for similar ease in scanning the wreck found last year with the new sonar. Though the details are vague, it reveals that the strange blip is certainly ship of unknown manufacture. It seems Forenia is not alone in this new world, a fact that brings hope and concern to the populace in equal measure. Others may be out there, but what might they be like?
Still, the successful defense and confirmation of the discovery garners some political support for the Forenian Independence Party, but internally the political bloc is experiencing a fair amount of friction between the two competing parties of the Forenian Socialist Party and the Forenian Capitalist Party from the highly divergent opinions held by each. The government is still largely more stable than it was under previous regimes, and with the Arstotzkan and Moskurg rebels now near entirely broken apart, there is an overall more positive outlook of the nation's future. Especially as the newly settled regions at the front lines begin bringing back Dust on a major scale.
Speaking of the substance, research into the varying types of Dust continues well, with this year's primary focus upon the Fire variant. The substance is in general useful for starting fires in most weather conditions when in low quantities and is a decent explosive in higher quantities. It's capabilities are only slightly ahead of gunpowder, in the case of the latter of these situations. However, it is found that if the two are mixed properly, the two create an extremely effective propellant far greater than either individually, with bullets fired with this mixture acting as if they were around thirty-three percent larger. Shells experience a greatly diminished effect from this as while they are able to be fired faster, they cannot contain as much explosive as those of higher size, but it does overall help with increasing the range by an additional twenty percent. Mixtures with various fuels are also tested, and it is found that the mixture allows for engines to run much more powerfully or faster depending upon the ratios utilized. Sadly, the processes used to achieve this are highly complex, and all attempts to do so wind up in failure. Though this means that every soldier and position would be able to utilize guns made to use these rounds, as the effects such as recoil are greater than standard requiring special designs to handle it, those that do incorporate it would be highly effective. It is notable that the potential of these substances in rocketry highly interest the PAROI-led government, with prominent members frequently attempting their own tests and wishing for some rocket weapons using the substance to be incorporated into the military's arsenal.