I hid plenty of refrences to many other animes and games in here alongside with the number 7, lol
find them if yuo can
THOMASPENZHORN11: Those nuclear weapons might be a little more powerful than expected...lol
Speaking of which, the fleetgirls would be, AFAIK, rebuilt to modern standards and specs like you suggested, but they'd be given custom designs and rigs to better suit their individual stances and...whatever. When it comes to manpower/resources, a damaged fleetgirl will cost around as much material as if they were a regular ship (since repairs would be done to their metal hull and not their rig), but manpower wise, it'll pretty much be free because fairies (would be faster if they got their hands on some specialized equipment tho). During surface-based combat ops, they'd be deployed as special forces supersoldiers on sabotage/infiltration missions like you'd expect of a Spartan or an irl SEAL, it'll be in space-type missions e.g. boarding where they'd deploy their rigs. Though I haven't fleshed out the exact details yet, so guess I'm as in the dark to this as you...lol (rigging won't be used, as they're much more likely to delete the city/planet they're on in the midst of fighting)
Also, related to their needs...well, they just need as much food as a normal human would, but also plenty of fuel and ammunition as well.
Related to the size of Alliance capital ships, well, as a quick baseline, I'd usually scale up a WW2 battleship by a factor of ten and increase it's mass by ten thousand (220m—2,200m, 55,000t—550,000,000t, etc.). There are exceptions to this tho
vmoneywashere: I wouldn't give away much spoilers here, but this AU starts deviating from normal history in the mid 1980s. Also, AI is counted towards the total population count as well because this is GFL humanity but with fleetgirls and I am a bigass fan of yourlocalandroid looking like a cute anime waifu, soo...
(it's a no-brainer, really, waifu androids all the way)
Sidenote: In Halo, humanity more or less got their hands on 800 colony worlds within a similar timeframe (Domus Diaspora), so I think 900 planets, while stretching things a bit, might work. Especially with the AI prescence in the population
(also: me horni bitch)
Warning. Gore. Lots.
Wir haben erst erkannt, dass dies erst der Anfang ist.
Igitur quī dēsīderat pācem, præparet bellum.
Qinghai, Shanxi, July 21st 2257 0700HRS local time
Aliance Ground Corps, Shanxi garrison (501st Division), Qinghai Defense Fortification Line, Overage Hackenburg
Private First Class John MacDougal remained hunkered down behind the sandbags that made up his cover, a thick wall of dirt laid up directly in front of it and extending out for a good dozen meters or so to form a gentle slope sloping upwards towards the tip of the sandbag. It had been three hours since word of the enemy forces having reached close to their locations had hit home and roused most of the personell manning Overage Hackenburg from their bunks and racing to man their posts, a mess of field guns and mortars getting set up while infantrymen disembarked from trains and hurried to strategically placed depots and armories to get their weapons to the frontline.
Right beside him, alongside a quick flick of the cigaratte he was holding, Private First Class Fuchida Amane simply remained alert, his eyes peering downrange through the SmartScope feed that was being projected onto his HUD, his cigaratte in his left hand while his right was wrapped around the pistol grip of his MG85 light machine gun with a 150-round belt of 7.62x40mm rounds already slotted into the reciever, ready to fire. His finger was off trigger in lieu of gun safety concerns, and so was the safety lock, but he could, at a moment's notice, thumb the ambidextrous safety from safe to fire and rain intermediate-caliber ammunition downrange at an impressive 900 rounds per minute.
The echoing thunder of a 155mm field gun opening fire on the enemy positions in the distance met his ears as the gun sent a fifty-six kilogram anti-personnel high-explosive shell downrange on an arcing trajectory towards the enemy formations a few hundred kilometers out by the way the crow flies, the fin-stabilized guided piece of ammunition destined to end it's very short life in an explosive, firey end, dragging down along with it any extraterrestrial who arrived on planet with malicious intent. Moments later, a second gun open up, followed by a third, fourth, fifth, a five-gun battery volley-firing all of it's guns at the rate of a steady two seconds to the shot. He could only wonder how much time the artillery could buy before enemy forces overran them completely, but the longer the artillery kept them at bay, the better.
He was not the only one to think of this, but then, the thought of the inevitable and what would happen afterwards had already been passed around within the 501st. They'd either be killed or captured, and they had no delusions about which fate was preferable to which. Capture meant certain death anyway, only worse. The Abyssal conflict of 2212 had taught them that the hard way.
"You see anything?" 1st Lieutenant Fujimiya Shiho asked from her position behind a row of solid titanium plates and sandbags, her SA42 assault rifle slung over her back and her right hand occupied by a pair of binoculars. A freshly lit cigaratte hung from her mouth with a lighter held in her left hand, being returned to it's pocket.
"Nothing so far," Amane responded. "Place's like a cemetery in winter. Nothing. Not a soul."
"You're sure? No movement?"
"Not a goddamn thing."
"Hmm." Shiho put her binoculars down and pulled a drag from her cigaratte, exhaling a thin line of smoke. "We've a battalion of a thousand facing down like eight times that number...guess we'll need a dammed miracle to get us out of this alive. And our three million fellow citizens and colonists of Shanxi, too. At least the folk living out all managed to get to Qinghai all safe and sound, the bunkers and shielding certainly worked wonders on that front. Certainly the engineers at Enoshima Heavy Industries wer not fooling around when they designed and manufactured the defenses for Qinghai and other Alliance colonies, and she was grateful for that.
"...welp, I've no idea what the fuck is up with the attackers, but they seem to be using some kind of tech from some otherworldly place, I guess...last I heard, they were coming all in hover-tanks and what seems to be their equivalent to an IFV." 2nd Lieutenant Kraus Lützow chimed in from his position, an SA42 slung over his back as well while an MG86 general-purpose machine gun was placed on the sandbags directly in front of him, mounted on a bipod with a belt of 7.62x64mm rounds slotted into the reciever. "Eight times our number...though we may have the home ground advantage, we'd still have to face an oppoment eight times our number with unknown capabilities and technology. We might as well pit ourselves against the entirety of the La Grande Armée but with modern weapons and equipment, and face much better odds—as the first wave out of six."
"To be fair, those fuckers won't have like four bunkers and eight casemates to make up for the imbalance anyways," Fujimiya countered, "And besides, we'll only have to buy enough time for reinforcements to arrive and counterattack, not fight it out with them. We've right now the combined defenses of Overage Hackenburg, alongside plenty of terrain advantages right now, and they aren't nothing. So let's give them the middle finger collectively, okay? Because nothing says 'fuck you' more or harder than explosive lead propelled to a little bit above escape velocity."
"Right...lead...middle finger...the fuck has this discussion turned into anways..."
"Chaos...Kraus, chaos."
"I swear to fucking god..."
"Confirmed enemy attack formations, Colonel. Current estimated enemy strength is about 24,000, split evenly into three prongs attacking across the 12, 4, and 8 o'clock positions in the maginot line on Overages Hackenburg, Anzeling, and Austerlitz." one of Colonel André Prevlov's aides read off the display on his portable datapad. "Mechanized infantry and armor, numerous walkers and open-top transports. Not about to underestimate them, but this seems kinda overwhelming. Nobody uses walkers, not even the Abyssals, and they're dammed smart at their job. These guys look like bumbling noob mercs."
"Noobs mercs or not, don't underestimate them." Prevlov ordered. "We're facing an eight times our number in enemies, a number that is not something to scoff at. And we have a garrison that is not a match in number with heavy fortifications—a few kilometers, a couple bunkers and casemates. We're in the position, so we'll use it."
"They're attacking too close for us to use our tactical nuclear weapons, too," Lieutenant General John Williams called over the battlecommunications network, something most Alliance troopers just simply referred to as 'COM' to avoid having to say a mouthful. "We got their northern LZs all right, but they posted buncha shields round their southern ones so that nukes are ineffective. This'll be a dogfight and a slugging match for us now, the boys in the overages will be having a hell of a time making out of this alive."
501st Division's 3rd Battalion, composed of 1,000 troops within Overage Hackenburg, was placed under Prevlov's command for the defense of Qinghai, with the rest of the division either posted at nine other overages within Qinghai's maginot line or held in reserve in case things went wrong or as counterattacks to reinforce the defenders, all part of the 'defense in depth' strategy implemented after the Abyssal war of over thirty years past. Now, they'd face the first time a situation where their entire doctrine would be put to the test, the situation the 501st stationed at Qinghai now found itself in.
At least, he mused, from what he can see from reconnaissance drones and scouting teams, he couldn't be too impressed at what he was facing down, despite they being nearly eight times his number.
If the alien forces had an actual sense of mechanized warfare, they were doing a very good job at hiding it.
To call the enemy's formation idiotic would be a gross understatement, in fact, even the term 'blitheringly idiotic' would be an understatement. Tanks, APCs, and what seemed to be their equivalent to an assault gun were all bunched up together right in the open as if begging for an ambush, exposed gunners and crew only present to make the picture complete. Bipedal, walking mechs, tall and imposing, marched forwards with thundering steps, their metal build seemingly intimidating with their arms loaded with weapons almost to the brim. Otherwise, however, things were a completely diffrent story entirely. Many of the hovering vehicles that weren't tank or armored personnel carrier were insufficiently armored, if at all, if the exposed crewmen and personnel riding in them were of any indication. While he could understand underarmoring (if at all) the sides of a Hellcat or something similar, when he saw a literal hovering quad bike in the mix, he hit rock bottom. Quads were for auxillary duties and scouting, not a full-on frontal assault. Doing so was probably tastamount to suicide.
And as if to promote the sheer boneheadedness of the enemy commander even further, or even perhaps that of the alien species as a whole, all of the enemy's foot infantry—not even motorized—were all out in the open, marching in god-honest infantry squares without even the most basic sense of cover. And the towering mechs, too. While the mismatched arrays of what seemed to be missile launchers and autocannon mounts looked like they could do some serious damage...except they wouldn't, mounting those things onto a Hellcat or a Puma would be a much more effective use of such weaponry. Or perhaps a Mako, or even better, some random variant of a Leopard III that Krupp & Wassau produced with the uncanny ability to be as modular as if it were lego.
The Alliance ditched mechs for a reason—they simply didn't work.
"Hottman," he asked, turning to another of his aides, "Can you get ourselves a bead on the enemy's vehicle arsenal? Perhaps we can roughly triangulate their capabilities and doctrine that way—"
"Nein, Colonel," Staff Sergeant Nicolas Hottman replied, the Dresden-originated Prussian officer's fingers all on his datapad, his eyes filtering through the masses of data being fed to it over the intercommunications network. "I'm counting at least thirteen diffrent types of vehicles within the size range of a tank alone, and almost every other vehicle class they're bringing to bear is similarly mismatched. It's almost like a mercenary group, not a proper military, if my knowledge on tactics and warfare serves me right, they're too disorganized and mismatched for one. Lack of proper tactics, too."
"Jesus," Prevlov muttered, not even bothering for manners, "Who the fuck came up with that formation?"
"Beats the shit outta me," 1st Lieutenant Ito Tsubasa replied as she eyed down the live drone feeds through her eyeglasses, "but it seems kinda...suicidal. I mean, I'd at least give 'em a little sense in mechanized warfare, but all these...those formations are straight out of a textbook on tactics of the Napoleonic era. It's as if they've never heard of covering fire before."
"We'll be taking advantage of that, and we'll be making use of what little terrain advantages we have in this engagement." Colonel Prevlov announced to his men via a COM broadcast, the signal relaying throughout Overage Hackenburg's garrison lines as everyone stood ready for the fight. "I could've done better, but as it stands, right now, you're the only ones out of three who are standing between the invaders and all three million souls of Shanxi behind. I don't care about whatever the hell they want, and so do you, either, right? We're going to give them a nice hot belly of lead and a pile of flechettes for them to impale themselves on, that's what we're giving them. Charge face first into hell, Overage Hackenburg, you're weapons free. I say again; you're weapons free!"
A grating sound made itself known as the retractable twin 100mm turrets, each laden with several meters of duraplast as armor alongside powerful shielding, rose from their mounts and swiveled the guns within at the enemy forces dead ahead, targeting data relayed to them via remote control from Hackenburg's many fire-control computers and targeting nodes. Then, after a moment of quiet, with all guns on target and weapons at the ready, Hackenburg's bitterly cold morning air rang with the sound of all 75mm, 85mm, and 100mm guns firing a coordinated volley all in unison. Nobody needed to ask anything, what they needed to know was known already. The battle had begun, and it was only now, now, that the fate of Qinghai will be decided, and to a further extent, Shanxi.
And thus humanity charged face first into hell.
If it was nighttime when the battle began, the night would be lit up as brightly as if it were day by the muzzle flashes by weapons of all calibers. Small arms, triple light and medium autocannon emplacements, machine gun casemates, and the 75mm, 85mm, and 100mm field guns mounted inside the reinforced duraplast bunkers and retractable twin or triple turrets all opened fire with a hailstorm of explosive shells and tracer ammunition, shield-and-armor-piercing high-explosive as well as anti-personnel high-explosive rounds alike being flung towards their targets at a respectable fraction of, or in the case of the former, significantly above, escape velocity. All of the projectiles traveled downrange on trajectories guided by advanced ballistics prediction software installed into the fire-control systems of Hackenburg's myriad of optics and radar emplacements, ensuring maximum accuracy.
Explosions rocked the landscape as SAPHE rounds impacted their targets, the large, slow moving tanks and assault guns being the primary target of Hackenburg's defensive guns. Explosions ripped apart the unprepared alien infantry and vehicle formations, blowing apart the poorly armored, unshielded, and generally subpar vehicles and shredding the poor infantrymen unlucky enough to find themselves in the blast radiuses of incoming shells into bloody bits of meat and bone. Exactly as Colonel Prevlov had envisioned, the 'welcoming gunfire salute', as he called it, sowed amongst the enemy ranks naught but pure chaos and destruction, just as he planned. Some went down near instantly to assault and battle rifle fire, shots of 7.62x40mm and 7.62x64mm piercing clean through whatever underpowered shielding they had as well as armor in both initial impact and detonation, their armor thankfully taking the brunt of the impact but still leaving them collapsed and bleeding with holes punched into their sides, the rounds still doing their job well enough. Others got their heads blown clean off in raw displays of alien gore, heavy-caliber shots from sniper rifles or heavy machine guns punching clean through their skulls and decapitating them, leaving them to collapse with blood spurting out of their stumps and headless bodies lying limp in pools of their own blood. Light and medium-caliber autocannons in fixed remote-controlled triple mounts nailed quite a few aliens square center mass with 25mm and 37mm high-explosive rounds propelled to escape velocity, exploding upon impact and ripping apart flesh and organs alike, creating horrid displays of alien gore that would make a veteran of the Abyssal War cringe. Riflemen, grenadiers, snipers, machine gunners, and autocannon crews alike continued to lay down suppressive fire downrange, aiming and mowing down mercilessly any aliens unlucky enough to get caught in their sights.
APHE rounds from the guns found their marks a heartbeat later and detonated, their payload of proximity-fused anti-aircraft flechette producing horrific results as the TBX filler within detonated with up to a thousand times that of an equivalent amount of TNT, sending each arrow-shaped flechette flying in every direction concieveable at well above hypersonic speeds, turning the battlefield into a slaughterhouse in an instant as flechette propelled to escape velocity met alien,sending dismembered body parts and mutilated bodies sky high and painting nearby vehicles and terrain in sickly shades of green and yellow gore. One infantryman ate an 85mm round clean in the chest, the twenty-one pounder shell propelled to a little above three kilometers a second unceremoniously and summarily deleting the alien more or less instantly given it's sheer size and velocity. The enemy's infantry square tactics only added to the chaos that reigned afterwards, grouping them close together to be little more than target practice for shots of .300 Arisaka. Autocannon crews also did their jobs well, spraying the enemy lines with 37mm and 25mm HE rounds and mowing down dozens of aliens with each passing second, their weapons being used to devastating effect. Hackenburg's bunkers, casemates, and turret mounts joined in on the action, providing much needed additional suppressive fire as well as fire support to the rest of the garrison, adding to the utter devastation wrought upon the alien forces.
The enemy began to repay the favor with dense, concentrated fire of their own, mostly from the hover-tanks and hover-APCs that were much more heavily armored and shielded than the exposed infantry and mismatched lighter vehicles, and so did the towering mechs, which opened up with a flurry of bunker-buster missiles and autocannon fire. The Alliance forces were, however, well entrenched within their fortifications and positions purpose-built and doctored specifically to repel attacks of several orders of magnitude higher than this one, with well-aimed shots from remote-controlled triple-mount light and medium autocannons laying downrange a withering hailstorm of suppressive fire of their own, machine gun crews also joining in with 12.7x100mm, 7.62x40mm, and 7.62x64mm tracer rounds downrange. Enemy hover-APCs exploded spectacularly as their exposed crews and lightly armored frames were riddled with dozens of bullets apiece, their crews being cut down to ribbons and their hulls and frames torn apart by the hail of fire laid down upon them. Hackenburg's fire control radars and optics identified the inbound missiles easily enough and sent a priority list of targets down to the overage's anti-aircraft defenses courtesy of the many AIs running the computerized defense systems and equipment. Missiles launched from their silos in order to intercept the incoming munitions just as the 85mm guns within the flak towers opened up with APHE on them, generating a dense cloud of flak that any missile would have to pass through in order to hit home, with 57mm point-defense guns remaining on stand-by to intercept any stragglers making their way through the flak cloud. The first missile barrage met the defensive missile and flak field and was summarily shredded, just as the autoloaders within the bunkers loaded up the first 75mm guns with shield-and-armor-piercing high-explosive ammunition and aimed directly at the enemy hovertanks, the remote-controlled fire-control systems lining up the smoothbore with the target in no part thanks to cameras on the gun sight, and trigonometry calculations cranked up by the targeting computers, just as said hovertank fired a mass accelerator projectile towards one of the heavily armored bunkers, the splinter of metal propelled to hypersonic speeds missing short of it's intended target and kicking up a plume of dirt in the face of the defenders, but still nevertheless coming too close for comfort.
The lead tank ate the 75mm shield-and-armor-piercing high-explosive shell to the front and was taken out of the fight almost immediately afterwards, the shell's depleted uranium ballistic cap flattening itself against the shields but also penetrating in deep enough to let the TBX filler inside do it's job, the filler detonating into an explosive jet of boiling plasma in a fashion no different from a HEAT shell. The plasma jet scorched the tank's armor plating in an instant, boiling clean through ablatives and reinforced armor alike before reaching the internals of the tank, setting anything inside the confines of the armored fighting vehicle on fire. A heartbeat later, the tank erupted into flames, a plume of flames fueled by escaping hydrogen from the tank's fuel cells as the mass effect drive core lost containment and power, sending a trail of gaseous dark matter into the air where it'll float upwards and to space. Another tank got it's hull gutted clean through by an 85mm shot before a third took a 75mm SAPHE round to the flank and burst into flames, the hovertanks falling left and right to Hackenburg's defensive guns. Other tanks followed soon thereafter, falling victim to Hackenburg's guns in droves, their drivers panicking and trying to pull back to no avail as the Alliance troops gunned them down. Assault guns tried to provide support to the tanks by firing upon Overage Hackenburg's fortifications with their artillery pieces, only to meet the same fate as their hovertank brethren as Hackenburg's guns returned fire, often scoring hits on the underarmored frontal hulls of the assault guns and gutting clean through them outright, causing explosions and fires to break out within the insides of the tanks. Alien APCs fell to the ground riddled in 37mm shots and/or 57mm anti-infantry cannons in unmanned casemates and triple mounts controlled by remote, the exposed crewmembers and passengers alike being gunned down and the APCs themselves destroyed as 75mm, 85mm, and 100mm shells blew them apart.
"Hell yeah!" MacDougal shouted over the din of machine gun and autocannon fire as another batch of twenty-one pounder 85mm guns came online, firing a volley of APHE towards the enemy APCs that had managed to disembark their troops, the muzzles aimed directly at spots behind the APCs and would therefore effectively detonate right behind whoever who just got out of the mobile metal coffin, turning all fifty who had just disembarked into flechette fodder. "You want Irish? Here's some!"
A clack and a crack later, alongside the distinct crack and thump of a rocket launcher firing, MacDougal took to one of the mechs with a pair of ATGM-48 Jackhammer anti-tank guided missiles launched from it's double-barrel launcher, two missiles each equipped with tandem-charge 85mm HEAT warheads and active-radar homing targeting sensors sent flying at the mech at a good thirteen times the speed of sound, sending sonic booms at anyone unlucky enough to be caught within the blast radiuses as the rockets homed in on the mech and struck true, gutting clean through the mech's armor and detonating with a jet of superheated plasma, boiling clean through the armor and gutting the mech in an instant and killing the pilot inside, the mech collapsing to the ground with it's innards burning as the mech's mass effect drive core lost containment. Meanwhile, another mech also shared the same explosive fate as it's brethen when a Ground Corps trooper took to it with his own rocket launcher, a pair of 85mm Jackhammers impacting square against it's shields and obliterating it to smithereens, exactly as the name indicated.
The enemy responded with a hailstorm of tank mass accelerator fire—hundreds upon hundreds of splinters of metal propelled via mass effect fields to hypervelocity lacing out and raining on the Alliance positions, tearing apart sandbags and duraplast plates alike while killing a fair few dozen Alliance troops unfortunate enough to catch a direct hit, momentarily causing the human troopers to cower while grapeshot and canister exploded overhead, raining and pelting them with splinters of electrified metal, their shields flaring and taking the brunt of the blast, but still more than enough to force them into keeping their heads low. Taking maximum advantage of the lull in fire from the Alliance infantry who were laying down the bulk of suppressive fire, leaving only automated, remote-controlled turrets to oppose them, the hover-APCs stopped en masse to disembark their complement, thousands upon thousands of infantrymen pouring out of the transports and charging forward towards Hackenburg's defenses en masse, screaming and shouting in a tongue unknown to the Alliance defenders, weapons raised and firing at the Alliance positions. The aliens might not be the smartest in terms of strategy, a fact that was clear to the beleaguered defenders, but equally clear was the fact that the aliens meant business, the warring type of business. They had closed the distance considerably by the time the defenders had regained the bearings once more and once again opened fire with a vengeance, and as five minutes rolled off the clock—five long minutes that seemed like fifty to both sides—the first of the enemy small arms fire began to unload onto the defenders, small-caliber mass effect rounds being sent flying towards Overage Hackenburg's defenders at a blistering pace.
Peering through the SmartScope of her SA42 and letting off a single shot on semi-automatic before changing targets as the feed was being projected onto her HUD, Fujimiya centered another four-eyed alien within her sights before squeezing the trigger again to shoot another round downrange, claiming another kill as a 7.62x40mm Arisaka round propelled to eight and a half kilometers a second impacted square in the chest area of some unfortunate alien and sent him collapsing in a heap with a hole .300" across poked in his armor while another group of aliens were being pinned down by suppressing fire from an MG85 light machine gun, the squad automatic weapon's distinct rat-a-tat noise being made as it let off Arisaka Mikasa's anti-son-of-a-bitch projectiles downrange at eight-point-eight kilometers a second, stopping only when it's operator stopped to replace it's overheating barrel. A trio of alien hover APCs exploded into balls of flame as they were pounded to scrap by 100mm and 85mm field guns, the hovertransports having been identified and targeted by Hackenburg's fire-control systems and subsequently eliminated by Hackenburg's guns. She herself picked off another couple aliens before switching magazines and opening fire again, her SA42's sights trained on yet another alien who met an explosive end when Fujimiya squeezed the trigger and sent a round propelled to eight and a half kilometers a second downrange to claim another kill, the alien's shields flaring and taking the brunt of the impact but still nevertheless letting the bullet pierce clean through armor and torso alike, blowing him away in a shower of gore. More aliens fell to Fujimiya's accurate and deadly aim as she continued picking off alien infantry with her SA42, taking to targets of oppoment who seemed to pose a threat with surgical precision, claiming kills left and right.
Amane slotted a new barrel into his SAW and switched barrels as he swept the bipod-mounted light machine gun in a horizontal arc, unleashing a torrent of 7.62x40mm Arisaka tracer fire downrange towards the alien forces, the tracers leaving red streaks in the air as the bullets flew downrange at eight kilometers a second, claiming kills left and right, mowing down aliens with each passing second. Amane himself could feel the recoil of his weapon reverberate in his bones as he held the weapon steady and kept the barrel pointed at the enemy forces, sweeping the weapon horizontally and left and right as the stream of tracers cut down aliens left and right, their shields unable to take the brunt of the constant rain of lethal projectiles and allowing them to fall dead, their shields flaring and failing to hold the kinetic barriers up as Amane rained death upon them. The bolt racked empty as the 150-round belt got exhausted, the belt disintegrating into a series of strips of expended five-round machine gun ammunition belts as he slotted in another 150-round belt from his nearly infinite supply of ammunition, racking the bolt to chamber a fresh round and bringing it back to bear on target. He continued gunning down aliens with the weapon until another hover-APC exploded into a ball of flames as it's occupants were turned into TBX fodder courtesy of an 85mm shot, the hovertransport having been identified and targeted by Hackenburg's fire-control systems and subsequently eliminated by Hackenburg's guns, before proceeding to sweep the bipod-mounted light machine gun in a horizontal arc once more, mowing down alien infantry left and right.
Fujimiya primed a grenade in her left hand and chucked it over towards one of the enemy's positions a few hundred meters out, using the antigravity generators built into the wrist of her BDU to give it a biotic 'push' as it sailed through the air in an arc, far faster, further, and higher than any normal human could ever feasibly throw. The grenade arced over the battlefield and landed straight and pure to the target as if it were dropped from a drone, landing in the midst of the group of hostiles as they began to move out, the machine gun keeping them at bay silent for the moment as it's barrel overheated and had to be replaced.
Gore splattered itself all over the place as the TBX filler inside the grenade detonated, doing so with enough raw concussive force to mutilate the unlucky extraterrestrials as the buckshot pellets within only added further to the chaos while the blast sent their remains sky high, body parts raining all over the place and painting the ground a sickly shade of yellow. Fujimiya then proceeded to pick off a couple more aliens with her SA42 before changing magazines and opening fire once more, the feed being projected onto her HUD courtesy of her SmartScope as she continued picking off alien infantry with her SA42, taking to targets of oppoment who seemed to pose a threat with surgical precision, claiming kills left and right.
"Fuck!" 2nd Lieutenant Harakuza Mirai cursed as another shot struck home too close for comfort, clipping the dirt in front of her and sending a shower of dirt into her face. In the meantime, the curses and swearwords of those manning the machine guns within the casemates could also be heard over the COM, their annoyance and irritation at the noise of the occasional round striking the duraplast covers and walls protecting them made clearly enough. At least the armor and shields were powerful enough that the enemy's tanks couldn't penetrate them in one hit, but if they were hit repeatedly by massed volley fire over and over again, there would be only so much the armor and shields could do. The silence from some of the casemates and firing bells was evidence clearly enough that not even the best armor and shielding could hold out forever.
Mirai ducked underneath cover as another mass accelerator round impacted home square next to her, the round embedding itself in the dirt and sending a shower of dirt into her face, again, the impacts causing the casemate's shields to flare and fail to block out the blasts, the duraplast wall shuddering violently but otherwise holding strong, despite the cracks appearing on it. The mass accelerator rounds were still very much capable of denting armor and cracking duraplast, after all, even if they couldn't penetrate the former in one shot nor punch clean through the latter. The splinters of eezo-propelled metal did their job clearly enough, judging by how many Alliance troops Mirai had seen die from these splinters cutting through their armor and flesh, puncturing vital organs such as lungs, hearts, intestines, spleens, liver, kidneys, you name it. Those unlucky enough to catch a direct hit to the chest from one of the larger mass accelerators ate the full brunt of the impact and died almost instantly, the splinters leaving them crumpled on the ground with their entire midsection looking like a Brute or a Commando had taken to them with a sledgehammer. Mirai herself could see another Alliance trooper getting struck by a mass accelerator round to the helmet, the splinters slicing clean through the duraplast helmet and puncturing his brain, the poor bastard collapsing to the ground without a word, the splash of blood painted across the interior of his visor the telltale sign of what had happened to him.
She swore mentally—it was tough seeing your buddies die in front of you, no matter what. Even if the enemies they were facing right now were rather underwhelming compared to the Abyssal war that the older generation had seen and fought in, it was still tough nonetheless. And Mirai knew it wasn't going to get any easier as the battle wore on, the sounds of machine guns and autocannon fire being exchanged between Hackenburg's defenders and the alien invaders ringing throughout Qinghai, the sounds of explosions and the screams of the dying ringing loud and clear even over the din of the battle.
She peered over cover and squeezed the trigger on her SA42, taking to another alien quadruple-eyed fucker with a shot to the torso, punching clean through his shields and armor and knocking him down, the wound likely fatal, but Mirai didn't care. The alien's shields failed to hold against the impact as the depleted uranium ballistic cap flattened itself against them but also penetrated in deep enough to let the TBX filler inside do it's job, the filler detonating into an explosive jet of boiling plasma in a fashion no different from a HEAT shell and left him a gory mess to collapse against the ground. Another alien ate a headshot courtesy of Fujimiya, the 7.62x40mm Arisaka round propelled to eight and a half kilometers a second impacting square against the helmet of another alien quadruple-eyed fucker and blowing his head clean off, sending a spray of gore all over the place as the projectile exploded within his skull, turning his head into mutilated gore. Yet another alien quadruple-eyed alien found himself meeting the maker as Amane took to him with hid MG85 as well, sending a burst of 7.62x40mm Arisaka rounds propelled to eight-point-eight kilometers a second downrange to claim another kill, the projectile exploding within his torso and leaving him collapsed on the ground with a bloody hole punched clean through him, his entrails spilling out of the hole as he collapsed.
The enemy fire, however however obsolete, was still something to be reckoned with, and it did so with a vengeance. The defenders were fanatical in their act, but so was the attackers. Even as artillery, mortar, rocket, small arms, and the occasional anti-tank or anti-personnel mine sent unlucky aliens off to meet their gods early in gory displays of yellow, blue, and green, the enemy's numerical superiority was starting to take it's toll. Hundreds of aliens poured in from the hover APCs every minute, replacing losses and pressing on despite the intense amounts of suppressive fire and the sheer amount of casualties they suffered, forcing the defenders to continue to pour fire downrange on them, the enemy's numbers only growing thicker and thicker as the battle wore on, the alien forces continuing to push on regardless of the slaughter and destruction wrought upon them by Hackenburg's guns, their tanks providing supporting fire by pounding Overage Hackenburg's defenses with mass accelerator fire, the splinters of metal propelled to hypersonic velocities denting armor and cracking duraplast casemate walls while breaking through the shields through sheer volume of fire, causing damage and putting Hackenburg's defenses under immense stress, even as the guns within said fortifications returned fire in equal measure, the 75mm, 85mm, and 100mm field guns mounted within retractable twin or triple turret mounts or reinforced duraplast casemates firing SAPHE towards the alien hovertanks and assault guns, gutting clean through the armor of the undergunned vehicles and destroying them, or alternatively blowing open their hulls and destroying their internal components and setting whatever is inside on fire. APHE rained absolute havoc amongst the infantry, with rounds from the 85mm mortars posed behind a reverse slope firing position lobbing APHE indiscriminately into enemy formations and shredding them to ribbons, with thousands of aliens having already perished to Hackenburg's guns alone, their bodies littering the landscape in pools of sickly shades of green and yellow.
A rifleman wielding an SA42 midway through the process of emptying the quad-stack 60-round box magazine of his bullpup assault rifle into the midst of the enemy ranks ate a single shot to his shoulder after constant, massed fire broke through his shields, causing him to reflexively drop his rifle and grip his shoulder where the shot hit him, cursing against the pain as a medic rushed over to tend to his wound, pulling him back from the line of fire and leaving a visible gap in the Alliance ranks that was covered by the suppressing fire. A BioGel canister's lid was promptly hurled over the trench shortly afterwards along with the accompanying metal can as the medic applied BioGel to the rifleman's injury before rushing over to tend to another soldier, his canister empty already after multiple uses. Another rifleman got his leg blown off clean below the knee courtesy of a stray splinter of metal propelled to hypersonic velocities ripping through his shields and armor, his scream of pain audible even over the din of machine gun fire, the BioGel canister being thrown over to the rifleman by the medic tending to him shortly afterwards as the rifleman clutched his stump in agony, gritting his teeth in pain as he writhed on the ground. Another rifleman collapsed into the mud after a mass accelerator round pierced his lung, his death silent and relatively quick, although painful nonetheless.
Fuchida meanwhile cursed as another shot dinged off his shields as he loaded another belt of 7.6x40mm ammunition into his MG85 light machine gun, racking the bolt to chamber the first round, letting down a three-round burst before changing directions and letting off a second burst, cursing all the while as eezo-propelled splinters of metal pelted his (and others') position, pinging off duraplast and titanium, dirt hills, kicking more than enough sparks and dirt into his face than he'd like. A grenade tossed over by Fujimiya claimed another cluster of aliens, the TBX filler within the explosive detonating in a spectacular fashion and blowing the unlucky extraterrestrials sky high, painting the surroundings in sickly shades of yellow, green, and blue as chunks of gore rained all over the place, the shrapnel pelting anything unlucky enough to find itself in it's blast radius. Fuchida himself swore as another shot struck too close for comfort, eating up the last of his shields and leaving his armor vulnerable, the splinter bouncing off harmlessly but still nevertheless denting his armor plating, thankfully enough, leaving him unharmed. Amane's MG85 let down another stream of tracers downrange towards the aliens, cutting down dozens of extraterrestriels left and right as the bipod-mounted light machine gun spewed Arisaka Mikasa's anti-son-of-a-bitch projectiles at eight kilometers a second downrange to claim kills left and right, mowing down aliens with each passing second.
"Fuck!" Mirai cursed, unloading a single shot from her rifle onto some unfortunate alien before dropping back behind cover as a splinter struck her shields, causing them to flare. "Fuck this, we need backup they're overrunning the place!"
"Same here, Second Lieutenant!" Fujimiya answered back, her hands still on her rifle as she kept taking on potshots at the enemy. "Three more companies are en route, ETA is three more minutes! Try not to die before then!"
"It's hard not to when they're coming at us by the battalion!" Mirai shot back as another shot striking ground showered their section of trench in dirt. "We'll be fixing bayonets by the time this minute is up, they're that dammed close!"
"Try not to die!" Fujimiya repeated, taking another potshot at an alien before changing targets and opening fire once more, the feed being projected onto her HUD courtesy of her SmartScope as she continued picking off alien infantry with her SA42, taking to targets who seemed to pose a threat with surgical precision, claiming kills left and right.
"Easy for you to say," Mirai muttered to herself as another shot dinged off her shields before peeking over cover and squeezing the trigger on her SA42. "We'd be dammed luckier than even the Gray Ghost if we are to survive this!"
"Yeah, very lucky chaps indeed!" Fujimiya agreed, squeezing off two more shots with her rifle before dropping back down to reload her weapon. "At least we've got heavy guns backing us up!"
"We've bigger problems to contend with than just some fuckers overrunning our position!" Fuchida shouted over the din of gunfire and handheld mass accelerator splinters striking duraplast, dirt, or titanium. "Fuckers' banging down the front doors of casemates ten through thirteen, we need to cover them before they lob 'nades into the chaps manning the guns! APHE's getting the job done well, but not well enough—shit!"
"Fuck!" Fujimiya raised her arm instinctively to cover her eyes from the sudden glare as Casemate 13 went up in flames, the casemate erupting into a massive ball of orange and blue fire as three grenades sailed in through the firing slits, detonating in a concussive blast of eezo and incendiary inside the confines of the casemate, lighting up the entire emplacement like the Chinese New Year and most likely killing the five-man fireteam inside instantly as the pellets within the grenades got to them first, peppering the interior of the duraplast structure in grapeshot and red. A second fireteam of aliens was about to do the same to Casemate 11 and send the troops inside off to meet their makers early via an explosively firey end, but Fuchida had taken to them before they could, his MG85 light machine gun barking off a steady stream of tracers and took out two before they could throw their grenades while stunning the remaining long enough for a squad designated marksman to take them out. Meanwhile, Fujimiya lobbed another grenade over towards another group of aliens attempting to repeat the trick, the TBX filler within the explosive detonating in a spectacular fashion and blowing the unlucky extraterrestrials sky high, painting the surroundings in sickly shades of yellow, green, and blue.
Another alien ate a 7.62x40mm Arisaka round propelled to eight and a half kilometers a second to the neck courtesy of Fujimiya's SA42, the round impacting square against his throat and piercing clean through his shields and armor, leaving him a gory mess as he collapsed backwards, the hole .300" across in diameter bleeding profusely, the riflewoman shifting targets immediately and picking off another target with a shot to the chest, dropping him instantly.
"Be advised: Casemate 13 has been knocked out by enemy fire, shift targets to cover remaining casemates and bunkers if possible," Fujimiya ordered over the COM as soon as she regained enough bearings to do so, popping two potshots off at the enemy while she was at it. "Bunkers, be advised: Bandits and bogies on your six, nine, and ten. We'll try to cover you the best we can, but you'll still have to deal with the bulk if them. We're getting overrun by the truckload down here."
"Bunker 12 copies, we'll do our best."
"Bunker 13 copies, we're hot and weapons free."
"Bunker 11, we're being overrun on our twelve, one, and three already, I'm afraid we've got our hands full. Wish us luck, chaps."
"Bunker 14 checking in, we've the same thing here...fuckers storming us left, right, and center. We've our hands full, chaps, wish us luck."
"Shit..." Fujimiya could only curse as another shot pinged off her cover, the solid titanium shield holding up to the impact but still nonetheless throwing up in her face a shower of sparks distinct to metal striking metal. We'll need a miracle to get out of this alive...
Clang.
Just in time, the armored doors of the sally ports were thrown open, and a heartbeat later, two full platoons of Alliance Ground Corps troopers rushed out into the open, catching the enemy forces completely by surprise and in the open, gunfire of all calibers filling up the air, aliens getting hit left, right, center and collapsing in a bloody heap by the truckload just as scores of Hellcat light multipurpose vehicles exited the ports and did more or less the same as well, their MG87 heavy machine guns spitting out 12.7x100mm shield-and-armor-piercing high-explosive ammunition at a good six hundred rounds a minute, the vehicles taking a curious resemblance to a doorless and roofless pickup truck with a roll bar and oversized suspension catching the enemy completely by surprise as they rained down a devastating storm of projectile death downrange, the aliens' positions that had been previously advantageous given that it was the best way to take out the casemates and fortifications that had rained so much death into their ranks now turning back a hundred and eighty degrees to bite them back in the face as they found them completely exposed and out in the open, Alliance troopers sniping their heads off their bodies with accurate single shots as the leapt into foxholes and behind cover, Hellcats formign a double-pincer firing line and flooding the place in a deadly crossfire.
The hovertanks surged forwards, trying their best to protect their fellow infantrymen with their armored hulls that were much more adept at resisting hits and impacts than their unarmored brethen, the infantry reeling and retreating backwards—well, what's left of them anyways—as the scores of reinforcements and relieved fortifications turned the tables back on their attackers and rained a hailstorm of fire of all calibers. The hovertanks ignored the bunkers and casemates entirely, instead forming a vanguard around the APCs and fired anti-personnel rounds into the advancing ranks of Alliance infantry that had dealt so much casualties to their own as shots from the relieved machine gun nests began to pelt off their kinetic barriers and armor.
It was then that the next trick the Alliance had up it's sleeve showed itself, having travelled from their hangars via a network of tunnels underneath Qinghai's ground level, an entire platoon of Leopard III main battle tanks joined the fight, making their prescence known with a deafening boom of 75mm/80 rapid fire smoothbores sending their eleven-pounder SAPHE rounds directly into the enemy armor reserve, the tanks' quadruple-track-pod suspension allowing them to seamlessly maneuver over rough terrain and obstacles alike as they came charging down the slope, each tank letting off a round every second to produce a devastating amount of firepower. Hovertanks went up in flames, hover-APCs were blown apart, and the mechs—what was left of them, really—were wiped completely off the map. For real this time.
The tanks themselves weren't exactly the most modernized of designs, but nevertheless proved themselves to be more than capable of dealing with the alien hovertanks and assault guns, gutting clean through their armor and blowing open their hulls with SAPHE fire, the hovertransports exploding into balls of flame and carnage as they were turned into TBX fodder. Alien infantry likewise met their demise in droves as the Leopards rolled on, their main turrets swivelling left and right as the SAPHE and APHE rounds tore through the alien ranks left, right, and center, mowing down alien infantry and vehicles left and right. One particular Leopard III main battle tank let off a pair of SAPHE rounds straight towards one of the alien hovertanks in rapid sucession, gutting clean through the armor and detonating with a jet of superheated plasma within the insides of the vehicle, boiling clean through the armor and gutting the tank in an instant and killing the pilot inside, the tank collapsing to the ground with it's innards burning as the mech's mass effect drive core lost containment.
The alien tanks paused dead in their tracks for a moment in total surprise as the charging Alliance armor claimed dozens of casualties within seconds, before finally realizing the gravity of the situation and opened fire on the Leopards with their own main guns, mass accelerator splinters of metal propelled to hypersonic velocity pelting off the Alliance armor and causing their shields to flare. Despite that, however, humanity's primary objective had already been accomplished, and with fresh reinforcements to bolster their ranks, the Alliance infantry surged forwards once more, hellbent on driving out the alien invaders off Qinghain soil with extreme prejudice. The enemy tanks paused for a moment as if to recollect themselves after the initial shock of the counterattack, but it was already more than enough. Leopards coustey of Krupp & Wassau slammed into their flanks in a classic pincer, 75mm fire flying left and right, leaving the enemy armor with exactly three paths to take: Ahead, and into the killzone of ATGMs and guns from the fortifications, sideways, and into the flanking Leopards mauling at them, or backwards, and into full retreat. It was a no-brainer as to which option they took.
One of the hovertanks fired upon the advancing Leopards with a single anti-armor mass accelerator round from it's primary mass accelerator, the splinter of electrified metal propelled to hypersonic speeds impacting square on the Leopard's frontal shield-reinforced armor and flattened itself against the outer shields hugging the armor, causing no further damage, just as the Leopard in question, a tank bearing the number 217, centered the alien hovertank within it's electronic sights and opened fire, sweeping the gun in a thirty-degree arc and letting off a burst of three 75mm SAPHE rounds propelled to fourteen-and-a-half kilometers per second in rapid sucession, elliminating three hovertanks from the fight in one go. It's shields flared brilliant gold as yet another shot struck on the frontal armor, but as always, the shot pinged off harmlessly in no part thanks to the engineers at Essen and Dresden working on the design for them, the attacker summarily executed shortly after with a single round of ammunition. The hovertank in question exploded into a ball of flames as the SAPHE round gutted clean through it's armor and set it's contents on fire, the pressurized hydrogen tanks rupturing and sending a plume of escaping compressed flammable gas right onto the flames, causing the already flaming wreck to erupt into yet more flames fueled by escaping fuel as the hovering tank's hovering equipment got destroyed to the heat and caused the vehicle to careen into the ground.
The enemy tanks, realizing that by this point any attempt to keep up the engagement would be futile, decided to start reversing at a walking pace, continuing to fire anti-personnel ammunition into the Alliance ranks to keep their heads down and at least buy some lessened pressure on their fellow infantry and cover them as they ran past them and into the waiting APCs, something that the remote-controlled batteries aimed at with a passion and rained fire into their ranks, leaving sprays of gore and flesh to be mixed with the dirt of Shanxi as autocannon rounds tore them apart into bits while the field guns aimed directly at the APCs the moment they stopped to pick up their troops, SAPHE and APHE turning armored personnel carriers and infantry alike into shredded metal and bloody gore.
"They're retreating!" MacDougal shouted the obvious over the COM, even as another APHE turned a squad of unfortunates into gore.
"I know!" Fujimiya responded as she fired upon another group of aliens attempting to board a hover-APC before they could do so, dropping two out of eight at once and causing the remaining six to duck for cover. "Just keep up the pressure, don't let them regroup!"
The reinforcing formation of Leopards, supported by the scores of Alliance Ground Corps troopers and light multirole vehicles, started tearing holes and gaps into the enemy ranks, either by sheer firepower and pressure forcing them to break ranks and flee, scattering their formations to the winds, or even outright running over them, painting their tank tracks sickly shades of gore and trampling their formations and morale to the ground. Chaos reigned over the battlefield as the attackers broke ranks completely, some trying to run away only to be mowed down by accurate gunfire while others stayed and fought in isolated, uncoordinated pockets, also getting turned into autocannon/landmine/gunfire/mortar fodder shortly after. Those lucky enough to make it to the APCs alive, however, managed to hop aboard and leave Qinghai soil in relative safety, albeit many of said transports getting turned into TBX fodder courtesy of either the guns of Hackenburg, the combined efforts of the remote-controlled batteries and the relief force, or even friendly fire as panicked drivers attempted to make their escapes, ending up hitting mines, artillery barrages, autocannons, landmines, and other hovertransports alike and getting blown apart, their passengers going sky high with them.
"All troops: cease fire," Colonel Prevlov's voice came over the COM even as the chaos unfolded across the battlefield. It was beyond her as to why he would issue such an order when they were so close to victory, but it was most likely a good one, or else he would be court-martialled for it. The colonel had a knack for surprises, though, and so she won't be questioning him. She would see for herself what the colonel had in store for herself, anyways.
"Why would he do that?" Fujimiya asked to no one in particular.
"It's a trap," Amane spoke as he complied with the order, watching the Ground Corps troopers head back from their positions and back towards the safety of Hackenburg. "A really brutal one, really. You'll see why soon enough."
"Eh?"
"He's leaving them with a way out, because by human nature, if we get ourselves cornered, we'd fight back even harder." MacDougal explained for her, lighting a fresh cigarette with a match now that he had the opportunity to do so. "If we pull back, they'd take the opportunity to retreat and regroup almost immidiately. It's a no-brainer, really. It's when they're running that we strike, and strike hard."
"Well, that makes sense..." Fujimiya nodded in understanding, eyeing the Ground Corps troopers returning back to base, her rifle held at low ready. "But wouldn't we want to finish them off while we've the chance?"
"Well, yes, but—"
MacDougal was cut off by the sudden scream of engines in the sky, the unmistakable noise of Enoshima Heavy Industries's E217 multi-purpose dropships, which bore a distinct angular shape that had so often gave it the moniker of 'Kodiak', after the bear. The dropships swooped overhead, their wings folded upwards to give them an angled look, their underbellies bristling with rocket pods and gun mounts armed with Jackhammer missiles and a whole other assorted suite of other mismatched ordinance as they flew over Hackenburg and towards the retreating alien forces, their pilots locking the enemy within their sights and thumbing the triggers to disgorge their payload. And said payload was nothing short of horrifying to behold. Missiles autocannon rounds caused the ground to erupt into explosions, rockets sent alien infantry flying sky high, and machine gun rounds raked across fleeing ranks and turned them into shredded meat and bloody gore as the dropships passed over Qinghain soil, the enemy ranks getting devastated in a matter of mere seconds.
Moments later, the ground erupted into yet more explosions and even more explosions as a barrage of standoff-range missiles hit their mark, soon followed by the distinct scream of engines in the sky and of jets breaking the sound barrier. The dropships banked upwards to allow space for the aircraft to come in, and moments later, twenty-four Mitsubishi M248 Hayabusa multirole combat fighters swooped overhead, all of them flying off a few hundred kilometers out with engines leaving bright glowing blue trails in the rising sun.
"Welp, poor aliens," Mirai remarked as she wedged a cigarette in between her lips and lit it. "Hayabusas coming 'round for a strafe now..."
Even as the 48-meter-long fighters began to make multiple passes from two different directions over the enemy forces and began to strafe them with high-explosive rounds from their 110mm rotary cannons, causing the ground to erupt into more than enough explosions to rival a warehouse of explosives going off, Fujimiya simply breathed out a sigh of relief before lowering her head within her hands.
The first attack had been sucessfully repelled; there were only 40,000 more to go.
Codex Entry — Humans — Human defensive doctrine
The wars fought between human nation states, many of them within the span of 500 years to the present day, have shaped significantly their doctrines and philosophy on almost every front, ground, air, or spatial. In fact, the wars fought between human nation states had seen the military doctrines of every Council race in at least one side. In actuality, at least one doctrine, or even a combination of several, ended up being used by all sides in many of such conflicts.
The asari doctrine relies heavily on hit and run attacks, emerging in small, scattered pockets with the ability to vanish into thin air after dealing maximum damage to the enemy and withdrawing before reinforcements arrive, forcing oppoments to deploy massive amounts of resources to guard all points and spread their forces thin, as such a deployment is completely unsustainable. Then, with massed, swift attacks, the asari deploy the vast majority of their forces to destroy these guarding units in a piecemeal fashion until the enemy either withdraws, bleeds to death from a thousand cuts, or is rendered a small enough force for the asari to defeat in a traditional formally pitched battle. This doctrine has constantly been the cornerstone of smaller nation states fighting against larger ones, often defensively, bleeding the attacking force dry and forcing them to accept concessions and fail in their strategic goals. Examples of this include the Soviet-Afgan war, the First Indochina war, and the Vietnam war, of 1979—1989, 1946—1954, and 1955—1975, respectively.
The salarian doctrine relies heavily on spies, sabotage, and advanced technology, luring oppoments into fighting each other and bleeding each other dry before moving in themselves with a single, decisive strike with their numerically smaller, but vastly superior, forces and destroy them outright. This has been repetively been used by the English during the reign of Elizabeth, circa 1588—1603 and the British Empire during the Indian Rebellion, circa 1857—1858, to name a few.
The turian military doctrine is what the humans are most familiar with—often referred to as 'blitzkrieg', literally meaning 'lighting war', and in modern contexts as 'combined arms', relying on overwhelming amounts of firepower, often quickly and decisively, to brutalize an army's way through an oppoment's defenses before they could react and counter properly. Most uses of this tactic can be seen during the Napolenic Wars of 1803—1815, the Pacific War of 1941—1945 (often regarded as part of the Second World War), and most famously, the Second World War, especially the European front, where the forces of Nazi Germany defeated, within a year, the neighborhooding state of Poland, the superpowers France and Britian, despite inferior equipment and personnel. German casualties were estimated at 163,676 dead and wounded, Allied casualties were 2,260,000 dead, wounded, and captured.
Despite that, however, the fundamental weaknesses in the blitzkrieg doctrine showed itself only a year later, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in spring 1941 and Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December of the same year. The Soviets and the Americans, with their vastly superior industries and manpower reserves, were able to sustain the staggering casualties that they were dealt and replaced each division they lost with two more. Their air force, bled completely dry from constant attrition, left them with the complete loss of their ability to assemble and maneuver detachments without getting pounded into oblivion by enemy aircraft. Unable to move without taking heavy casualties and the enemy air force now completely destroying their industrial capability, Germany eventually was forced to fight on the defensive and would surrender unconditionally in May 1945. Japan would follow and surrender unconditionally to the Allies in September of the same year.
It was the key weakness in this doctrine that caused human defense planners to reject it when planning for the defense of their colonies. Reasonning that if enemy forces had landed on a planet, then the enemy would have orbital superiority, if not supremacy, which would subject the defenders to constant air and orbital attack, conditions that has proved fatal for any nation state attempting to use combined arms in any meaningful way. As a result, humans instead opt for a combimation of doctrines for the defense of their colonies, using largely two fundamentally diffrent doctrines that compliment each other to a fault.
Thus, the concept of the human 'defense-in-depth' strategy was born.
The concept of stationary fortifications connected by underground tunnels and supported by powerful shields, heavy anti-aircraft and anti-orbital weapon emplacements, forcing enemy forces to directly assault the stationary defenses and take devastating casualties in the process was not thought of by military leaders or lower-ranking officers planning for the defense of a colony world, but rather by a Japanese light novel author, Fukuda Mirai, in her light novel series Reign of Sovereign published during the period of 2112—2122. The series was set in a fictional alien invasion during the 2180s, and follows a single squad of mixed-nationality HALO troopers. It was often praised for it's sheer amounts of detail from the largest to the smallest, and it's depiction of a defense in depth doctrine has formed the cornerstone of human army doctrine ever since.
In the series, the defense in depth could be divided into two sub-doctrines, each rather complex but could be broken down to—fight defensively to buy as much time as possible, and counteratttack with as many forces as one can bring to bear. The first part, the defensive part, is largely centered around strategic land denial, using vast minefields and killzones set up by artillery alongside more than enough anti-aircraft batteries to make life a living hell for any oppoment attempting to take the colony via conventional means, further complimented by powerful, heavy shielding and anti-orbital armanents to counter an orbiting fleet, operating off the premise that the enemy would need to have orbital superiority, if not supremacy to be able to land troops on a planet. Cities and other population centers would be protected by a maginot line, a line of fortifications, bunkers, and casemates all connnected via an underground network of tunnels to ensure that the line could not be easily breached conventially, as well as bring back to fighting status knocked out casemates and bunkers. Underground barracks, tunnels, passageways, and railroads allowed troops to man the forts and/or rush to reinforce attacked sections without fear of artillery, and dense anti-air batteries made the line nearly impossible to attack by air.
Offensively, large reserves of troops were placed at strategic locations throughout the maginot line(s), travelling through underground tunnels to counterattack the enemy forces at the walls directly with extreme speed and mobility, in effect coupling the defensive tactics with the offensive ones. Well within the defensive cover of the shields around the cities and maginot line, they would then proceed to rout the attackers—bled dry from attrition against the defenders manning the walls. There was no physical wall in the maginot line, for that was not the intention of the design, but rather, to slow down attacks to the point where reinforcing troops could arrive and counterattack, completing phase two of the defense in depth strategy. Being a purely defensive strategy and yet highly flexible, it was also nearly innume to air, artillery, and orbital attack, thus becoming the perfect hard counter to blitzkrieg-type warfare.
On the strategic scope, humans also employs the defense in depth doctrine, but with a twist—the army (Ground Corps) and the air force (Air Arm) are tasked with land and space denial, respectively, holding their ground for long enough for the navy (Naval Arm) and marines (Marine Corps) to arrive and push back the invaders, bled dry from the defending forces. If the enemy is too numerous and powerful for proper implementation of the second phase across an entire front, then the humans will instead opt for a mix of asari and salarian doctrine, constantly launching guerrila attacks and covert sabotage operations across occupied territorry while the Ground Corps and Air Arm bleeds the attackers dry across an entire galactic front, before going on the offensive with combined arms and destroy them throughly across either an entire front or several formally pitched battles.
This doctrine was put to the test for the first time during the Second Abyssal conflict of 2212, where it not only performed admirably against an enemy several times their number, but also allowed humanity a number of victories when on the defensive, such as the battle of New Alexandria, where eight Ground Corps divisions alongside local militiamen were besieged by Abyssal forces for a record-breaking five-hundred and thirty-three days before help arrived to bail them out. Despite taking over the course of the battle three-quarters casualties and the line itself nearly breaking several times, it held, allowing reinforcements to arrive despite the enemy having orbital supremacy.
A/N:
The concept of a maginot line defending against orbital attack was not mine, it belongs to Knight Vigilant Koren. I did, however, improve upon it significantly (remote controlled guns vs slaved guns). I was looking for a way for a planet's surface-bound forces to properly defend against an enemy that had space superiority without getting bombed into oblivion, lol. Given how most of the Citadel associate races fight the way we do in canon, probably (batarians would g however), and how easily combined arms just falls apart when subject to air or orbital superiority (sorry Germany) as seen when the Alliance fights the way we do in canon and gets pounded into oblivion by turian orbital fire, I decided to research for a bit and come up with my own combination. Basically Sins of a Galactic Empire: Reborn mixed with The Fourth Council Race and some other defense strategies I chanced across on the web...lol
Buy all the time possible, and mash your oppoments with a sledgehammer, that's the result I came up with in a nutshell.
