Author's Note:
George Cristian810 : A few key things to note from the start, this setting is alt-history, Britain and France succeeded in the Suez Crisis, and formed their own sphere in the Cold War after the Cuban Missile Crisis. They would go on to win both Cold Wars, ending in the USSR collapsing as they did historically, and the US collapsing into the Pacific States, Texan Republic, Southern States, and Arcadian Union. So, if your complaint was about Britain herself colonising space, for starters, she is not doing it alone, as she is allied and assisted by France primarily (Hence, Anglo-French Sphere), as well as Germany, Spain, Italy, and Japan, with a number of minor allies. This is not to mention the fact that the British Empire still exists, seeing as this third pillar in the Cold War is based upon historical plans by Britain and France to form a third, European Imperialist, pillar in the Cold War after they took back the Suez. For more details, the first chapter of A Divided Earth: Codex Britannica is a timeline which should clarify the geopolitical situation of Earth, as well as exactly how the European Empires still exist, albeit under a constant state of extreme tension, and instability in most colonies.
If your concern was not based upon that specifically, but rather the more abstract concept of a singular major nation colonising another planet, I need to point out a few things. One of the smallest nations geographically and population wise in Europe at the time, the United Kingdom, managed to set up settler colonies in Canada, America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and many, many, islands, all in a time where transport was incredibly costly, took months to years, and she was more often than not locked in active conflict with France, Spain, or a combination thereof. Of course, all these colonies would be sparsely populated even until today, apart from America, who grew mostly from consistent immigration, but that is besides the point. In the setting of Mass Effect, transport between Earth and habitable worlds takes days to weeks, months at absolute most, and can be achieved with FAR FAR larger vessels which carry FAR more people and materials. This is combined with far more advanced technology allowing for pre-fabricated structures, efficient food storage and transport, and many many other advantageous factors which make colonisation far more easy. Need I remind you of the Andromeda Initiative. Not to mention the fact that the relay network was specifically built around giving access to garden worlds, so finding a ton of them is far from unlikely, which means these worlds are already habitable without terraforming.
Hence, I would personally conclude that within the setting of Mass Effect, extra-solar colonies are entirely viable to be conducted by individual governments. This is supported by the fact that in canon Mass Effect, colonisation is often conducted by independent corporations and billionaires, which means that even smaller nations should be more than capable of setting up colonies. This is further exaggerated by the profits that would be brought in by such colonies, primarily through asteroid mining, which could be put towards further expansion. Extra-solar colonisation would effectively be a snow-ball type effect. Honestly, personally, I find this eventuality far more realistic than canon, not the Anglo-French sphere and all that, but simply a non-united Humanity expanding as nationstates through the stars. Unification is a nice dream, and one I hold myself, but it is hardly realistic, and canon shows blatantly that even minor nations can potentially create colonies if they so wished. That and I have a personal gripe with canon effectively treating the Systems Alliance as Space-America, a gripe I have with most fiction to be fair. Europe, or even simply Britain, gets far less representation as such, and as a Briton, this fiction is supposed to give far more representation to often under-represented nations in sci fi, albeit, to the best of my ability. I mean, as I just admitted, I am British, which will make representing Russia, France, Germany, China, etcetera, a tad harder. I will try to do so properly however, as this is not meant to be just a space-Britain setting, as its name states, it is supposed to be a divided Earth, and all that entails.
I would also point out that within this setting, everyone has been buffed substantially. Personally, I far prefer a situation where everyone can have substantial dreadnought fleets, rather than the pocket change amounts seen in canon, so everyone's fleets have been inflated. While the Royal Navy alone has a fleet more than three times that of the Systems Alliance in canon, not even counting other Human navies, the Turians, Asari, Salarians, Volus, Elcor, Geth, etcetera, shall all be buffed accordingly so that the power balance is still appropriate. Though, the Royal Navy will still be larger than the Systems Alliance navy if it were inflated appropriately, because the Systems Alliance was a decidedly unmilitaristic faction, with a low focus upon military funding or expansion (Hence the in-canon status as a "sleeping giant", in theory in canon, while the Turian navy could wipe the floor with the Systems Alliance's standing navy, Humanity has the potential to beef itself up to be comparable if they so wished, while the Turians are almost always operating at their full military potential with most of their economy being pumped towards their fleet.) while the Royal Navy is FAR more heavily funded by the British government, and as is the navies of other Earth governments, who all fund their navies as such because of the geopolitical situation, specifically that anyone could theoretically win an international war by attaining orbital domination over Earth, and then cutting off their foe from the resources from their extra-solar colonies, which have become VERY important to the Earth nations' economies at this point.
TL,DR: Everyone has been buffed because I much prefer navies which have far larger numbers of battleships/dreadnoughts, but if the setting was NOT buffed, the Royal Navy would still be significantly larger than the Systems Alliance navy due to a much greater societal and political focus upon its funding and growth, a situation that is mirrored in almost all other major and even minor Earth Nations.
Finally, the political situation within my setting on Earth is such that it actively incentivises such rapid expansion, as nations all seek to claim as many systems as possible, as as per the Mass Relay Exploration Agreement, whome ever explores a new system first, claims it for their nation or organisation, and as per the same Agreement, such exploration can only be conducted a certain number of Relay transits away from a colonised world with a military base. So, Nations actively seek to expand as fast as possible, and hence are force to colonise as fast as possible, to ensure they do not get locked out of further expansion by their competitors, and to try and do the same to others. This is the primary reason Humanity has expanded as rapidly as it has when compared to other Council races, who all did so while pretty much united, which means they lacked the same international competition, and is also going to be a major point of political tension as when they are forbidden from continual expansion by the Council, the political paradigm that humanity has existed in for a good while now has been disrupted.
I do apologise if I have sounded somewhat hostile, that is not the intent, but this should clarify matters a bit.
14/08/2157 - 08:50 Local Time
Looking through his binoculars, the massive dust cloud was readily apparent. Increasing the magnification, he was able to distinguish individual vehicles among the herd. Akin to a massive charging group of large animals, stirring up a swirling storm of dirt that rose high enough to be seen without magnification over vast distances. The dinosaurs had clearly began their assault. Of course, they had predicted this a while ago, but they had clearly prepared far faster than estimated, the start of their movement having been determined by a routine sacrificial MARD flyby, by the time of which they had already been moving for about an hour at a speed approximating 50kmh. Groups A and B were quickly mobilised and put into active flanking positions of the predicted route of the enemy force. His Squadron would be the first to engage, and they had just entered visual range, 7 kilometres away.
As far as could be determined they were advancing in a specific large scale formation, their super-heavies forming an arrowhead in front of their transports, with two flanking formations of super-heavy vehicles which seemed to be fulfilling a screening role. Estimating each transport to carry ten individuals, this attack should constitute almost fully 45,000 enemy combatants, transported by approximately 4500 vehicles. Of course, this was not an amalgamated horde, instead these transports advanced in small cliques which retained remarkable coherency considering the shear size of the advancing force. The coming battle for Scafell would be damned hard fought, that was for sure.
"This is Major Hayes, A Squadron, prepare for engagement. Load penetrating dart ammunition. Enemy force at bearing 100, turret to 010 degrees. Driver turn to bearing 170." By the time the enemy entered their effective firing range of 3km, they should be directly south of their position, bearing 170 allowed them to present an angled glacis, with the turret at 010 degrees to already be in position to fire at such a time. As the Centaur shifted its bulk around, slewing the turret with a low electric drone, he lowered the binoculars to observe the twelve tanks under his command. The Centaur III was a modern main battle tank, despite its age, and looked the part. Featuring an aggressively sloped upper glacis, and short lower glacis, the only aberration of the bow's optimised design was the Driver's hatch and three backup periscopes, all of which were sleekly covered by an armoured plate which rejoined the main upper glacis towards its upper most edge. Significantly cantered down, the red glass of the periscopes almost gave the impression of a set of enraged eyes. The main turret was less aggressively angled, and was almost as large in footprint as the tank itself, with a large 160mm mass-railgun mounted in a mantlet, accompanied by the Gunner's sight to one side, and a chain gun muzzle to the other. The main gun's barrel takes the form of a vertically compressed hexagon, the barrel proper being a standard round-bore with the rails existing to either side, protected by the hexagonal outer shell, which was protected by an additional cuboid shroud which extended half the length before the remaining barrel is left exposed. Atop the turret were hatches depressed within the armour for the gunner and loader to either side of the main gun, with a right mounted short and compressed commander's hatch, and a remote control machine gun turret to the left. The Engine deck was almost entirely covered by the turret's ammunition bustle, however should it have been exposed the closely interleaved engine louvres would have been visible in four distinct sections, with two main cooling fans located between the front most and rear most sections to either side. Much like most other British modern armoured vehicles, it was pitch black in colour, owing to the coating used to help counter enemy sensor equipment. Under his watch his other tanks conduct the same movements as his in close unison.
The other armoured forces assigned to support his Squadron, the SPGs, SPAAs, and Electronic Warfare vehicles, were far enough behind his formation to be safe from enemy ground forces, yet close enough to properly fulfil their roles. Nominally assigned to their own units for optimal deployment and usage, it was decided to provide them in support of Groups Alpha and Beta's constituent squadrons to provide them the best chance for success. Of particular importance were the SPAAs, raising his binoculars back to his face he was able to make out the formations of alien fighter aircraft accompanying the assaulting force in great number. While they did not know whether they could serve a CAS role, the risk was too great to ignore.
"Medusa, prepare for Hail Shell fire mission at target co-ordinates." The pieces he had were in place upon the board. B Squadron would be adopting similar preparations closer to the city, and their counterparts in Group Beta would be mirroring their actions across the enemy's path of advance. Letting the binoculars drop to rest upon his chest, he quickly lowered himself into the turret, and swung the hatch closed, sealing himself inside the armoured vehicle. The interior was well lit, with the light reflecting well due to the white internal colouring, with a properly organised set of screens, displays, and controls within easy reach. Before him, seating within the turret basket, was his Gunner, and to their collective left was the massive bulk of the main gun and its autoloader. While he could not see him due to the aforementioned gun, he knew the Loader was on the other side, a role which did not exactly do as it says on the tin in today's version of armoured combat. Instead, the Loader now effectively served as a combination of engineer, computer specialist, and sensors operator, who effectively co-ordinated the tank's various systems, repaired any faults, and operated its advanced sensor equipment, with the caveat of the obvious role of manually loading the gun should the autoloader fail for some reason.
Pulling his main periscope and controls down from the cupola, he quickly increased magnification and swung it around until the enemy formation became visible down to the individual vehicle again. Of course, he really need not use his more analogue binoculars when he can do as such from inside the protection of his tank, but he always felt that the spacial awareness he got from exiting the turret and doing it the old fashioned way was more than worth the trouble. As he watched the enemy drew ever closer to the effective range of the main gun as calculated by the onboard targeting VI, his anticipation grew. "Designate targets SHV-1 through SHV-5," he had chosen the outermost screening formation as their target, their priority would be distracting them while the Medusa did the actual work to defend the colony. "Relay to Squadron, all fire on target designated SHV-1 upon receiving the order." They had no idea just how resistant these enemy vehicles were, but he was damned sure thirteen hypersonic telescoping APFSDS would do the job, the question would be just how many would be needed to do that job. The range continued to fall, until finally they fell within 3.1km.
"Fire!"
The sabot-carried round within the barrel suddenly becomes substantially less massive as the dark energy generated by the weapon's small mass effect core reduce the effective mass within its local space-time. Microseconds later, the rails in contact with the conductive sabot become highly charged, and a massive current is passed through the silver encasing, producing an immense thrust down the barrel. Accelerating up to an absurdly high velocity over the length of the barrel, the second it leaves the sabot is discarded in a spectacular three-way separation, the white hot silver coating glowing spectacularly as the lower most segment embeds itself into the ground in front of the tank as the dart itself extends to twice its length with the inner core extending backwards with the fins. The instant it has left the confines of the barrel, the mass effect core halts its manipulations of its mass, the energy input into the core completing the law of conservation of energy as the penetrator retains its velocity, its momentary loss in mass simply a mechanism to allow for a far shorter barrel. Over little more than a second the dart covers the distance between the gun and enemy tank, by which point its previously black sacrificial nose cone has heated up from atmospheric friction to such a degree that it appears as silver as the dart body itself. By all rights it should have impacted at the seam between the turret and hull of the enemy tank However, instead of impacting the enemy vehicle's armour, it is faced with insurmountable resistance in the form of an exceptionally strong repulsive force. The round shatters as it is forced to change its velocity to a such a high degree over such a short period of time.
The turret on the targeted behemoth begins to turn in the direction from which the offending fire came from.
The next dart suffers much the same fate, shattering upon coming up to an exceedingly strong repulsive force mere centimetres from the enemy's track skirts. Shards being flung every which direction in a manner which would have no doubt been deadly to any soldier marching nearby, had the tank been escorted by infantry.
The turrets of the targeted vehicle's compatriots begin to turn towards the British forces.
The third dart finally seems to shatter the resistance felt by its two brothers, however in the process it looses almost all of its kinetic energy. Impacting the frontal upper glacis at an incredibly oblique angle, it gets deflected and flies off, leaving but a slight gouge in the brown-orange paint and outer-coating of the armour.
The turret continues to turn, its twin guns rising to pre-emptively position themselves ready to fire once it has reached its desired azimuth.
The fourth dart impacts with full velocity. The nose cone is instantly vaporised, the hollow tube of the front half of the extended rod pushing deep into the Mass Effect densified Tungsten alloy armour of the turret's flank, instantly being turned to super-heated gas alongside the armour it is gouging out. Following in its predecessor's footsteps, the sold rear half of the rod continues the work, pushing straight through the remaining ceramic layer and finally the internal densified Tungsten armour and bursting forth from the other side, splintering into a thousand shards to accompany the fragments produced from the last few millimetres of the armour which was shoved out of the way of the tungsten munition. The super-heated spalling instantly in-beds itself into the face and chest of the alien gunnery officer right beside the initial impact, shredding his entire upper body and spraying the interior with blue blood. The rest of the fragmentation continues on and visits the same deadly fate upon the vision officer and commander, behind and diagonally opposed from the gunner, respectively. The surviving loading officer just begins to take in the gruesome scene, turning his head in shock, having been protected from the wrath of the superheated shards by the bulk of the main gun. The spalling which did not expend its energy obliterating organic matter found its way into the gun breaches and autoloading mechanisms, damaging them irreparably. Then the fifth rod impacts the track skirt, obliterating the track in a violent shower of high-speed shards of armour and tungsten, resulting in the track quickly snaking its way off of the front idler with a spray of sparks, causing the tank to spin to the right, throwing the loading officer to the left, slamming hard against the side of the turret. The sixth rod impacts the frontal glacis as the tank turns, however it shatters due to the thickness and angle of the armour, leaving another deep gauge.
By this point the second tank in the formation collides with the crippled first, bringing it to a dead halt, and sliding the first multiple meters sideways, the seventh penetrator coming into contact with the second's kinetic barriers as a result, to much the same lack of effect as the initial shots aimed at SHV-1. However, the eighth shot was the end of the doomed alien giant, hitting the lower glacis at almost a perfectly flat relative angle, it penetrated with a large portion of the rear half of the rod intact, passing straight through the armour, the firewall between the turret and frontal compartment, to reach the ammunition stowage. While most the of the ammunition was inert, kinetic impactors designed for use by the tank's twin pure-mass-accelerator main guns, specialist explosive rounds were also stored for use in anti-infantry engagements, as well as bombardment against fortification and buildings. An instant later all the hatches of the turret were blown open by bright orange and red jets of fire lancing up towards the sky, before the pressure grew too great and the turret itself was blown sky high, its blackened twisted remains impacting the ground nearby as the short-lived fireworks display cooked itself off. The remaining ammunition fired by the British tanks simply embedded itself into the desiccated corpse of the alien super heavy, while its compatriot reversed from the remains.
The alien turrets had finally turned to meet the hostile fire.
14/08/2157 - 08:58 Local Time
The Medusa, based upon the exact same basic hull as the Centaur, except without the armour, APS, or infrastructure for a mass-railgun, instead opting to utilise the venerable 200mm 30-calibre Chem Propellant Gun. Featuring the same aggressively angled frontal glacis, driver's hatch and periscopes, etcetera, it simply did not feature the same armour thickness, and instead of the large, yet low and flat main battle tank turret, it featured an open top to fit the massive 200mm gun. As soon as the order to prepare for a firing mission had been given, the gun had been elevated to the requisite angle, and the whole vehicle turned to the desired direction of fire to hit the designated co-ordinates. Sitting fully 8km behind the main portion of A Squadron, that angle was fairly steep given the ammunition to be used.
Chem propellent guns paled in damage potential in comparison to railguns, much less mass-railguns or even mass accelerators, but they still were useful for certain roles where the size of projectile was the important characteristic, such as artillery. However, given how mechanised modern combat is, it was deemed necessary to give them the capacity to deal significant damage to armoured columns. This was achieved through a novel marriage of new and old technology. The Airburst Multiple Penetrating Shell, AMPS, otherwise known as a Hail Shell. Its operating principle was a large shell, launched through an old fashioned large-bore artillery cannon, which would conduct a normal trajectory until it reached an altitude above a targeted enemy formation. Its casing would eject, and a large number of tungsten penetrating rods will suddenly be revealed, with the cylindrical section holding them housing a small mass effect core. This core would immediately activate, creating a powerful short lived anti-gravity pulse before burning itself and its power supply out, said pulse would rapidly accelerate and disperse the rods to high enough velocities to penetrate the armour utilised on the top of the vast majority of armoured vehicles. While dispersion area and pattern varied from shell type to shell type, the concept was an incredibly effective one, resulting in a move to increase the effective roof armour of armoured vehicles among most nations once knowledge of the system became widespread. These aliens should not have such preparations, hopefully.
"Fire!" With the order given, their fire mission began, and the first shell was launched, the gun barrel rocketing back within its hydraulic recoil dampening sleeve, as the immense recoil shakes the ground beneath the vehicle, reinforced suspension systems barely holding under the strain. The gun crew quickly scramble to load a second shell.
14/08/2157 - 09:00 Local Time
Hayes watched through the periscope display as the Hail Shell detonated above the unfortunate troop transports. In a spectacular blue-black detonation the small mass effect drive core burnt itself out producing an exceedingly powerful pulse, and from that detonation came flying out a veritable cloud of high velocity tungsten darts. A large plume of dust was driven up as the vast majority of them impacted the ground, which was coincided by almost all the transports in the area of effect being pushed down against their suspension by the kinetic energy. After which, a not insignificant number of which detonated in small unimpressive fireballs, while the rest either rolled on under residue momentum, entirely dead to the world, or stopped and sat there, cored husks. A small number survived unscathed, seemingly entirely by blind luck, but only a very select few. Not a pretty sight, not a pretty weapon, but they brought it upon themselves by deciding they could invade Scafell. Another shell detonates above another enemy transport clique, by which point most of them had began to spread out and engage evasive movement patterns.
The important thing they had learnt was that it seemingly took between three and four shells to disable their kinetic barriers, and that while their armour was astoundingly thick, it was certainly not impervious nor impenetrable. It had taken six shots to entirely disable the enemy vehicle as far as he could tell, so, they shall go with seven shots a target, a far cry from the single shot kill that Human tank combat had been entirely designed around for a good while now. Convenient though, seeing as their Squadrons were split into two Troops, seven tanks each.
"First Troop, prioritise target SHV-2, Second, prioritise SHV-3," it was at this point the enemy finally got their guns in position and opened fire, their odd twin-gun configuration firing their barrels sequentially in rapid succession, targeting four individual tanks of A Squadron, firing two shots a tank. Small hexagonal plates in-bedded within the external armour plating of the Centaurs detonate, the explosions being specifically tailored to produce a shaped projectile out of the deformed plate, aimed via modifications to the detonation according to calculations made to respond to detected enemy inbound munitions. Their goal was to deflect the enemy munitions, reduce their penetrative potential. Despite the extreme velocity all the aliens' weapons enjoyed, seemingly all being pure Mass Accelerators, they were apparently still vulnerable to British defences. A number of the incoming kinetic penetrators were deflected or slowed by the explosion-shaped impactors of the APS panels.
A second later, one of their targeted Centaurs' blow out panels were sent flying vertically, projected by the characteristic intense flare of an ammo detonation, while another tank's gun was rendered inoperable, the barrel close to the mantlet having a savage glowing crater blown into it. Luckily both vehicles still seemed to be at least drivable, even though neither had any offensive capability left. The other two tanks that had been targeted seeming to have gotten off lucky. Even so, the amount of damage they had dealt, and with seeming ease, was cause for great concern. They could not hope to fight them in a conventional battle.
"Fire and reverse!" They had to open the distance, with two of his tanks out of the battle for only one kill, it was not a good sign, they did not have enough tanks to play this game. They just had to hold the enemy away from the Medusa- Oh bloody hell, we have kicked the hornets nest, that must be almost twenty of those oversized beasts turning to chase us. We cannot let them reach the Medusa.
The ground shook once again with the rage of a primordial god as another AMP Shell was sent thundering towards the enemy. With a meaty metallic thunk the breach block descended, and the gun crew prepared to put the next shell upon it, to be rammed into the gun by the hydraulic loading system, before they noticed a load screaming sound. Looking up with a start, they notice a number of glowing orange lines arcing gracefully through the sky, right towards them. All thoughts of loading the gun were abandoned, they had to move, now. The vehicle, and its ammunition carrying compatriots, immediately kicked up the dry earth with their tracks, beginning to move out of the way of the inbound rockets.
However, the orange arcs started shifting. The munitions were guided. As they closed rapidly, the second they entered the effective range of the anti-drone laser system it began to fire out of the adaptive lenses contained within the small turrets mounted to the sides of the vehicle's frontal glacis. Of course, being low powered weapons designed primarily to protect the tank against small suicide drone swarms, they only managed to take out a few of the enemy rockets, detonating them in the air, however each detonation was getting rapidly closer to the accelerating vehicles. Before the inevitable happened, and all of them were lost to a hail of explosions, which caused a number of secondary detonations from the non-Hail conventional artillery shells they had in storage.
The damned primitives had caught them by surprise, somehow, and one of the proud tanks of 167th Legion now lie in ruins. This was unacceptable, a mark upon the history of the Legion. That they had only managed to disable two of the offending native vehicles, which simply worsened the situation, they had to be entirely destroyed.
"Enemy mobile artillery has been neutralised."
Good, at least the Crepiti were doing their job. If she were a betting woman he would wager these native armoured vehicles were supposed to protect that artillery piece, considering what it was doing to their transport convoys. Something which could savage their transport convoys like that had to be dealt with swiftly. Though she does wonder what they plan to do with it out of the picture, they do not have the range to target the transports with what could be presumed to be their battle tanks, and she not only outnumbered them, but also out gunned and out armoured them. The fact that they had done so well so far was down to the element of surprise, something they no longer hold. The battle to regain the Legion's honour shall no doubt be swift and rewarding.
"Naxus, sir, Second Amalgam Group reports they are facing a similar assault to ourselves," her Vision Officer reported. Vision Officer, such an archaic term, hailing from the early days of Turian tank combat in which the most ergonomic set up required a Loading Officer to load the gun, a Commanding Officer to command the tank, the Gunnery Officer to aim and fire the gun, as well as a Vision Officer to keep active observation of the battlefield and report to the Commanding Officer. Of course, with the advent of radio communications the Vision Officer was quickly relegated to communications as well. Modern ergonomics instead had the Gunnery Officer aim and fire the gun, the Commanding Officer keeping active observation of the battlefield, the Loading Officer operating computational and sensor equipment, and the Vision Officer operating communications and conducting visual observation. A driver is a driver, however, and always has been.
"That confirms my suspicions. They intend to do as much damage as possible before we reach their city, provide my recommendation to the Commanding officer of the Third Amalgam Group to extend our screening range, in case they have any more similar surprises lined up for us." They had known they had tank formations located to the flanks of their advance, from observations for the fighters escorting them, the drone sweeps covering their flanks, which took significant losses from low power laser systems mounted to their vehicles, and finally orbital imaging. However, they had concluded that they would be too short ranged to pose a threat to their main advance, and assumed that their comparative size and numbers would be enough to scare off their tanks from assaulting their screening formations. Clearly, a mistaken assumption, they were anything but cowed by such shows of force it appears, otherwise they would have already surrendered.
The second they had noticed her squadron moving to attack them they began to reverse, but as she watched through the periscope they turned their vehicles around to retreat, their turrets quickly swinging rearwards to provide fire against them and present the no doubt stronger armour of their turrets' fronts. Of course, the fact that they blatantly lacked kinetic barriers and possessed far thinner armour than her Aemulators, would render such measures irrelevant. The thing is, she is no fool, she knows that kinetic barriers are not all positives, something these natives have taken advantage of. They do not simply prevent external fire from impacting their vehicle, it also prevented internal fire from exiting, requiring a specific hole for the main guns, and machine guns, to fire without facing such issues. Which rendered all forms of Active Protection Systems that had been common place among Turian vehicles millennia ago irrelevant and non-viable. The advantages Kinetic Barriers had being concluded to be far in excess of the protection offered by such systems. However, as these natives have proven, that is clearly not the only viable route one can go.
Then they fired again, the tank that had managed to disentangle itself from their lost compatriot was the first to suffer under the Natives' munitions. Kinetic barriers held for a while, failing after four shots, after which the remaining two smashed through its armour skirt and mangled its drive sprocket. Swinging around much like the compatriot it had just reversed away from, any hope of it joining the pursuit was quickly smashed. Though the crew reported no injuries, the transmission and left sprocket were entirely mutilated. The third tank in their line prior to the assault managed to survive the hail of rounds fairly well, the thick tungsten-ceramic composite armour of its turret cheeks managing to deflect the rounds that got through its kinetic barriers. Clearly, these natives were severely outclassed.
"Squadron, fire when ready."
Within the left barrel of the gun, a portion of the tank's drive core is dedicated to the creation of a microscopic gravitational gradient within the space-time geometry around the round. This results in the projectile falling from towards the point of more significantly warped space time micrometres in front of it, upon which the gradient is moved along with the munition, maintaining the same force pulling it forward. It begins to accelerate exponentially down the barrel, leaving it at a velocity that would make the weapons of these primitives blush in embarrassment, there was no need for a sabot separation, as it is simply instantly vaporised at the point of exiting the barrel by the heat and energy generated by friction with the atmosphere, exactly calibrated to only succumb to temperature the instant it exits the gun. Within an instant it reaches the enemy vehicle, only to be impacted by a far slower shaped projectile, however due to its immense kinetic energy and hence momentum, it is only slightly deflected, impacting the cheek of the turret. Passing straight through the outer layer of Tungsten carbide, and only facing slight resistance from the Titanium sponge and Graphene sheets thereafter. Entering the air gap, the Graphene sheets slight resistance was enough to marginally affect the direction of the penetrator, just before it impacts the titanium sponge-graphene-ceramic composite sandwich which forms the rest of the armour. Thundering through layer after layer, it punches straight through the aluminium inner plating, having lost substantial energy but still retaining more than enough to be extremely deadly, punching straight through the head of the gunner just prior to the spray of spalling, and continuing forward through the commander's leg, chair, and firewall, before impacting the ammunition stowage. The ensuing detonation does not pass through the blow out panels as intended, for the penetration through the firewall had compromised its integrity enough to render it the more easy path to lower pressure. Just as the second gun fires, the tank detonates, mirroring the demise of their own tank just half a minute earlier.
The Aemulator possessed twin guns for a simple purpose, maximising burst firepower. The main thing that held back the fire rate of pure mass accelerators was heat build up, which had to be radiated out from the large radiators mounted atop the rear half of the turret, however even with such systems another bottleneck arose, the surface area of the barrel. Heat had to be transferred from the barrel to the thermal transfer mechanisms and finally to the radiators, and even with the necessary fractal fins lining the barrel within the thermal transfer sleeve, the surface area was limited. A twin gun layout allowed for effectively double that surface area, allowing for a far higher rate of fire for bursts, and general sustained fire rate, particularly useful when modern armoured combat was dominated by kinetic barrier strength as opposed to armour strength. Being able to take down a barrier is one thing, being able to do so and then score a killing blow before it regenerated was another. This was rather much overkill against the primitive vehicles of the natives, which lack barriers, and can be killed in but a single well placed shot.
As she watched the enemy vehicle spew fire from every hatch and opening, she knew that this engagement would be rather one sided, and actually felt somewhat sorry for the commanding officer of the unit, who had clearly been assigned an impossible job.
14/08/2157 - 09:10 Local Time
SHIT. "Aegis is down, repeat, Aegis has been neutralised to enemy fire!" It took them but a single shot to bloody destroy one of theirs, yet it took them six to visit the same fate unto them. This was bad, really bad.
"A Squadron to Command, our Medusa is down, enemy counter battery fire," something they had hoped would be avoided by the fact that the city presented a far more juicy target than a single SPG, this threw their entire plan to the winds. "We are under heavy fire from an enemy pursuing force, two Centaurs have lost offensive capabilities, a third has been lost entirely. Will endeavour to withdraw to the city proper. Requesting air support." He doubted they would get it, but it could be a life saver if they could spare-
"This is Command, negative to air support. Enemy targeting Medusa SPGs with counter battery fire is rather poor news, can you confirm with certainty that it was counter battery fire rather than aerial or orbital strike?" Just as he was about to respond his head was slammed against the side of the cupola, luckily protected by his helmet this did not cause significant trauma, but he was nigh deafened by the incredibly loud ring that coincided this. They had been hit, apparently a deflection given the result. As he looked once more at his display, another tank had been lost, the Ajax, damn it.
"Can confirm with nigh certainty. Combat experience has informed us that it takes six shots on average to disable or kill enemy super heavy vehicles. Repeat, six shots. APS partially effective." He made a conscious effort to not shout, given his lack of hearing, and set his display to provide a speech-to-text for the period until he recovered his hearing back from the tinnitus. At least he and his tank were still alive.
"We just received conformation that C Squadron's Medusa has just faced the same fate after firing half its Hail Shells. Fall back to the city, B and D Squadron have been informed and shall fall back after their Medusas have fired a quarter of their shells in order to hopefully preserve them for urban defence. Good luck." His hearing has luckily began to return, so probably not permanent hearing damage then. They would just have to hope they can outrun these alien vehicles, which were moving far too fast for tanks of their size. Luckily, it seemed they could not match the Centaur's 70kmh top speed off road, they just had to survive long enough to avoid destruction before they exceeded the range of those mass accelerators.
"Loaded!"
"Fire!"
The entire line of retreating tanks fired, those that still could that is, and eleven shots rocketed back towards the enemy vehicles, of which only two of them had fired yet, something which was bound to change.
She watched with horror as the kinetic barrier strength fell down to zero in three consecutive drops of the status bar. Then the enemy shells began to impact the armour, fortunately, with the far stronger frontal glacis and turret cheeks presented towards the enemy most of the shots deflected almost harmlessly, sounding akin to a heavy rain impacting the tank. The last of the three to actually hit the tank though, did not. With a no doubt loud explosion deadened by the thick armour, the shot obliterated the secondary turret. Their companion besides them, however, was far less lucky, suffering a complete loss of engine power and damage to its mantlet and elevation gears, though the crew reported only slight injuries.
They did not have time for this, the natives' vehicles were just slightly faster than their own, a product of their much smaller size no doubt. "Squadron, we cannot catch them, abandon the standard accuracy limitations, fire when ready!" They had to take them down, the honour of their Legion was at stake, and Naxus was not one to let that slide.
Damn, they didn't kill it, only got their machine gun turret, at least the other front runner of theirs was down for the count. They were slowly making distance, they may just escape without taking any more losses, considering the fact that they were presumably out of range given the lack of enemy fire. However, looking at the periscope display, this presumption was swiftly proven wrong, as the entire enemy formation fired within a short time of one another. Clearly they had been simply attempting to preserve ammunition until they could guarantee a hit, something that became unlikely when they proved too slow to properly catch up. A hypothesis supported by their substandard accuracy at such a range, as the vast majority of the enemy fire simply smashed into the ground around his Squadron. However, it only took a lucky hit for them to destroy one of them, a fact made apparent when Authoritative Fist was suddenly rendered a burning blaze by a shot that hit the engine deck and ruptured the liquid hydrogen fuel tanks, whose content swiftly ignited. The unfortunate cost of using such an energy dense fuel, necessary for the running of such power hungry systems as close range laser anti-drone systems and a mass-railgun, was that if such a fuel caught light, it was almost impossible to put out. The only way to deal with it was to let it burn itself out, which would deal irreparable damage to the engine, at least with the turret facing rearward the heat would not cook off the ammunition bustle. Sure enough the Fist rapidly slowed to a halt. If its crew were still alive, they would have to play dead and hope the dinosaurs do not return to capture them.
The Authoritative Fist would not be the last, as the two tank formations continue their deadly chase, even with distance growing each second the alien forces would whittle down A Squadron with lucky hits, while with each loss the British vehicles had a harder and harder time properly answering in kind, considering that concentrated fire was needed to take out a single enemy vehicle.
14/08/2157 - 09:45 Local Time
There were only three of them left now, Legion honour had been maintained, though it would be preferable to deny the enemy these vehicles for use in their defence. They just had to land a few more hits, and it would be over, but she was no idiot, the distance over which they were firing now was as such that that was growing increasingly unlikely.
"Naxus, sir, Third Amalgam Group's Commander is ordering you to pull off the chase and return to formation. They have been rendered non-combat effective and our tanks are sorely needed." Damn it. Her duty calls however.
"Give the order, the Squadron is to return back to screening formation." At least her advice had been heeded, the formation had been expanded, that should render the future assaults by the natives far less effective, hopefully.
The Turian vehicles turned and fell back, allowing the three surviving Native vehicles to return to their city as well, heavily scared by deflected enemy fire, and with fully expended APS panels dotting their armour.
14/08/2157 - 10:30 Local Time
General Williams looked at the holographic table intently. The operations of the day were both more and less effective than he had hoped. The AMP shells had done spectacularly, however they had sorely miscalculated the enemy's priorities when it came to the usage of their artillery, luckily he had yet to order the 155mms to open fire. Not to mention the fact that his tank forces were now rather more depleted than he had hoped, their super heavy tanks proving capable of far higher speeds than they had expected, and far more aggressive in their disposition than had been predicted. A Squadron was down to three tanks, at least their command vehicle had survived, as well as all the SPAAs and other accompanying non-Centaur vehicles, which were quickly redistributed back to the defensive. C Squadron had been entirely wiped, the enemy response having been far more pro-active than in the case of A Squadron. Luckily, by the time the enemy reached B and D Squadrons, they had received the reports from Major Hayes, and could far better tailor their mission. The tanks were held further back, and the Medusas were ordered to only fire a quarter of their AMP shells before falling back to the city, which seemed to work as by the time enemy rockets had reached their position, they were already safely away. Though the cost of that was far less casualties caused to the enemy invasion, however they would be very useful in the city's defence so that was no doubt worth it.
The enemy advance was splitting into three separate formations as he watched, presumably to envelop the city, and the Trenches had already been brought to medium alert, and the second the enemy began to properly push that would be rose to high alert. They were just over a kilometre and a half from the outer most trenches. This was the opportunity they were waiting for. Rather unfortunately, the advantage of the long barrelled 155s compared to the short 200s was their far FAR greater range, an advantage they could not play to without risking them to counter battery fire before they could do their job. Of course, the 155s were more designed for usage against enemy installations as such long ranges, as their accuracy was too low at those ranges for use against enemy forces, but at close range, they could guaranty extremely good accuracy. Most importantly was that the enemy artillery had finally begun to fire on their anti-air emplacements, and fortifications. Nominally bad news, this means that they would be distracted enough for the 155s to fire and move out fast enough to avoid falling afoul of enemy counter battery fire.
"Baxter? Order the artillery to prepare to fire on my command. Right at their formation. The second fire on our positions from their MLRSes diminishes, even slightly, they are to reposition"
"Of course, sir." Baxter said with a smirk. While a much more reserved response than he would have expected from the pre-invasion Baxter, his core was still there, no doubt about that.
When the alien forces had moved into range of 100mm AAA, their aircraft had held back. Of course, they could not capitalise on this, Ward simply asserting that the enemy mobile AA would chew them up, and that they needed all their aircraft they could get to maintain air superiority within the city. Ward's reservedness was becoming an obstacle, he did not even wish to dedicate aircraft to support the defence of the Trenches. Unfortunately though, he was right. They had to hold those card close to their chest if they were to hold long enough for the Royal Navy to save them. God he hoped they would arrive in time.
14/08/2157 - 11:30 Local Time
Harry stood on the gun step. His pleasant day job was now decidedly less so, at least the trigger happy bastards had the decency to attack during the day, during his shift. Sidney was woken up midway through her sleep shift, and was bloody exhausted. Kane was silent for the first time in ages. They all stood on the gun step, their SA23s in hand, all the pillboxes were fully manned and equipped, all the while officers stalked behind them yelling encouragements, usually before being interrupted by some poor sod having to rush past to deliver something, go to the toilet, or some other inanity taken for granted prior to high alert being called.
As he looked through his scope, his apprehensiveness grew. The dust cloud was bloody massive, and while he could not yet see individual vehicles, he knew they were coming. This was it. Their artillery had been bombarding them for a while now, the orange arcs in the sky becoming a constant reminder of their coming assault. Luckily most of their fire seems to be focused on targets in the city itself, so the Trenches were left mostly unscathed, and when they targeted them plenty of warning was offered by the incredibly visible trails heading straight for them.
"Men, Women, Citizens, of Scafell," the voice boomed over the comms installed in everyone's helmets. Recognisable as that of General Williams. "Today you face your greatest challenge yet. You have survived rationing, you have survived the preparations for today, and you have survived with these alien bastards on our planet for too long. Today though, Today they have decided to show their ugly faces in person. They are preparing for an assault, an all out assault, upon our proud city. If we hold them, we defeat them, but most importantly, if we delay them long enough, we shall crush them. We simply need to hold out for the Royal Navy to relieve us, hold and we not only survive, we win. So stand ready, stand proud. Hold off these miscreants, hold them in the Trenches, hold them in the streets, hold them in the buildings. Hold them until our proud navy comes and pushes them back to whence they came! For Queen! For country! For Scafell!"
A far shorter speech than he was expecting, but it certainly had an effect. As he looked down the line, they were standing straighter, holding their rifles tighter, even Sidney looked slightly less exhausted. However, as he turned to look through the scope again, the dread set in once more. He could see individual vehicles now, and they were huge. Who the fuck needs tanks with two guns?
14/08/2157 - 12:00 Local Time
Saren could hardly wait. Finally, actual combat. For a supposed invasion it had been alot of waiting around, and preparing, far too much for his liking. Of course, his Brother explained why that is, and that actual combat deployments would always be mostly waiting, blah, blah, blah. They would finally see action soon. He was apparently not the only one excited for the prospect, the entire troop bay was filled with fellow young Armiger Legionaries brimming with excitement, except for their commanding officer, who was far more reserved. No matter, from what he had heard the natives did not even have privative hard suits, wearing instead what amounted to the cloth shite you would see from Asari high fashion! They stood no chance!
The almost five hour drive was a long one, that was for sure. Being at the centre front of the formation, as any proper Armiger Legionary should be, they had avoided the cowardly strikes from the native's mobile artillery. He did not dare imagine having been killed in such a way, before he could actually have his first taste of actual battle. By the spirits, he would never live it down. Even worse was the prospect of leaving his brother alone to deal with this suppression war.
As the light turned on, everyone in the bay put on their helmets, the signal that the assault was to begin soon, as the other thirds of the force had split off to get into position for their own pushes. He, and most everyone else, checked their Phaeston's after that. Standard procedure after all, grilled in since day one, always check your gear before combat. You don't want to find out you are missing your ammo block, or your coolant has run low, when you are face to face with a raging Krogan. It was at this point the bombardment started.
Explosions began to detonate all around them, and linking his HUD with the vehicle's cameras, he could see why. The bastards had finally decided to use their artillery, and it was coming down thick. The transport next to theirs suddenly suffered a direct hit, and was obliterated. The explosion's shockwave impacted them and almost tipped them over, only avoided by the skill of their driver which quickly countered the roll and began evasive manoeuvres throwing the troop bay's occupants around. Where the fuck was their counter-battery fire?
Being tossed to and fro, the occupants of the transports were incredibly grateful for having put on their helmets by now, most of whome had no doubt come to the same conclusion as Saren and used the cameras to observe the outside world. The bombardment seemed to lighten up, finally, as the reason became apparent through the fact that the bright orange arcs travelling through the sky had stopped being so seemingly random. The bombardment stopped totally a few seconds later, presumably due to them being forced to relocate, or even, hopefully, having been blown up. Unfortunately some of the last hits had all but destroyed the external cameras. Meaning he and his compatriots were blind, even with their helmets. Lucky that even today Turian vehicles utilised manual backups for their drivers and crew then, though not for their transported troops unfortunately.
A few minutes of driving, and seemingly random lurches signifying evasive action, before they violently swung around. They were finally at the front line, he hoped, at least. Being all but blind to the world was far less disturbing when they made that five hour trip chatting between themselves.
"All right, Green-Mandibles," their commanding officer speaks up, "this is your first battle with the 17th Armiger Legion. You all had to have exemplary performance during your training and mandatory service to make it here, you are the elite of the green. That does not mean you are not green. You will be careful, you will follow my every command, and you will make it out of there alive. You are the future of the Legion, do not besmirch its honour by dying in your first battle." He paused. "Am I clear."
"Yes, sir."
The light turned off, the assault was beginning, and the doors at the rear of the vehicle opened wide. They were met with the clatter of machine guns, echoing booms of explosions, and flanging war cries of their compatriots.