Ramsgate, United Kingdom
8 September 2047, 05:12
A grey morning at the coast of England. A mild fog hung above the Channel while a lone group of four soldiers patrolled the shoreline. "Sarge?", one of them, Private Matthew Baker, asked his superior, Sergeant Shawn Finley. "What's up, Private?", the NCO asked back while taking a bite out of his breakfast sandwich. It was only a few minutes past 5 and his team was among the unlucky few that had been scheduled for patrol duty while the British Army field garrison in the nearby town of Ramsgate was still asleep. "Mind if we stop for a second? I gotta take a piss", Matthew explained, cheeky and boyish as usual. "Uuh, too much information, Matt", complained the team's medic, Private Meryl Mitchell, who had only recently been assigned to the unit and wasn't quite used to the men's casual tone yet. Finley signalled the team to halt while Baker disappeared behind the treeline. "So...", the Sergeant attempted some small-talk with his new squadmate, "What was your motivation to join the Army, Mitchell?" The young woman who was only a mere 17 years old remained pensive for a brief moment, then proceeded to explain: "Well, I've always had a thing for helping people and it's a way to pay my dues to our country. I was planning on serving a few years, then apply for the advanced education programme to study medicine." Her tone got increasingly idealistic as she went on. "I even considered signing up for a tour with the ECA; always wanted to visit the other countries on the continent, see different places..." The Sergeant nodded: "Too bad that's all out of the window now with the war going on there." Meryl agreed: "Yeah...But now I'm here and I gotta do my part!"
"GUYS!?", Matthew's voice sounded through the bushes. "Come here, you've GOT to see this!" "No, mate, we don't need to see whatever the heck yer doing over there!", Corporal Derek MacLeod, who had been too busy lugging the team's heavy grenade machine gun to take part in philosophical navel-gazing barked back, expecting another one of Baker's 'hilarious' pranks. Nonetheless, the soldiers followed his call, only to find Matthew pointing frantically at the sea: "There, Sarge, y'see those things in the water!?" Finley's face froze up in shock as he peaked through his binoculars, only to recognise the shapes of amphibious landing craft and BMP troop transports slowly emerging from the fog. The team stood above the cliff for several minutes, watching in awe as more and more Russian vessels approached the coast before the Sergeant gave the order to retreat and warn the local garrison. "This is bad...", Derek stated the obvious while the unit sprinted down the coastal road. Suddenly, the quietness of the morning was ruined by the noise of aircraft engines as several squadrons of Russian Il-76 transports, escorted by an armada of Frogfoots and PAK-FAs zoomed across the land. "Oh shite, this is REALLY bad!" Derek repeated, struggling to carry his heavy weapon. After a few minutes of running, the winded soldiers reached their garrison in Ramsgate whose population had already been evacuated in anticipation of this unlikely, but possible worst case scenario that had just become a reality. The British troops swarmed out of their quarters, grabbed their gear and took shelter in prepared defensive positions scattered along the shore, manning countless mortars, howitzers and gun emplacements.
Sergeant Finley and his fireteam holed up on the upper floor of a tavern, with only some 150 metres of open ground between them and the harbour front. As the sun slowly rose in the east, more and more vessels came out of the ghostly mist and somewhere in the far distance, the vague, threatening shapes of Russian warships manoeuvred into position. "Bloody hell, this is it, guys!" Matthew observed, his voice torn between thrilled anticipation and suppressed fear. "Our longest day, our finest hour! We will fight them on the beaches! We will fight them on the landing grounds! We..." "Shut your gob, Private! No time for fancy speeches - Focus!", Finley interrupted his tirade. "This is the moment we've been training for and we need to keep our wits about. Equipment check!" Derek worked the charging handle on his grenade launcher, which was safely mounted on the window ledge: "Ready to give 'em what-for, Sah!" "Rifle zeroed, loaded and ready, Sarge!", reported Matthew while Meryl took inventory of her elaborate collection of bandages, painkillers and surgical tools and recapitulated the standard emergency routines in her mind: "Medical equipment on-hand...God help us." Moments later, the first wave of Russian vessels came ashore and all hell broke loose...
These field physicians possess all the necessary knowledge and equipment to heal European infantry forces out in the field and evacuate wounded comrades. Since their primary job is to provide emergency medical care, Medics are protected by the Geneva Convention and must not be attacked. However, in the light of numerous atrocities reportedly committed by General Aleksandr's barbaric Shock Divisions, many Medics have resorted to arming themselves with old, surplus machine pistols such as the Skorpion vz.61 or the Austrian TMP in order to protect themselves from attacks. This has the unfortunate side effect that the now-armed Medics lose their status as non-combatants and become valid targets, a circumstance that is nevertheless prefered over the possibility of running into a Shock Trooper while unarmed.
Armed with a fully automatic 40mm grenade machine gun, these heavy weapons specialists can lay down a devastating barrage of suppressive fire, wrecking entire concentrations of light vehicles and infantry within seconds. The cumbersome weapon weights over 30 kilograms and needs to be mounted on a tripod in order to fire, which is why it takes the operator several seconds to set up or displace; an issue that should be considered when choosing a fighting position. Aside from the standard armour-piercing/high-explosive grenades, the weapon can also be loaded with a special rubber-capped anti-personnel round that is designed to bounce and detonate in the air, releasing a vicious hail of shrapnel that shreds even the most heavily entrenched enemies.
Wow! You guys sure are pressing these updates tighter and tighter! Keep up the awesome work! Now, if you don't mind; I have some questions that hit me when I read this update.
1: How come the Russians have conquered all of Europe in such a short notice?
2: Why is this not a nuclear war? Europeans and Russians have nukes!
2-Cuz China already has a nuclear weapon. It for the faction had different from each other
First: They haven't, actually. Going by general Charles' bio, I'm guessing that at least France is left.
Second: MAD ensures nobody will go for nukes unless absolutely necessary. Winning a war ain't all that fun if everybody loses.
Assuming of course, that the general nuclear arsenal hasn't been greatly reduced in the 35 years between now and then.
Current trends of liberalization and demilitarization of NATO and American nuclear arsenal indicates a policy of minimal nuclear deterrence and no first strike capability effectiveness.
Judging by this we can safely assume 35 years that if Humanity even manages to survive by then that the nuclear arsenal would have been practically reduced to nothing primarily for NATO and the US.
You're extrapolating from real life facts but ROTR is set in a future that went through a steroid version of the Global War on Terror in which Europe got eviscerated and rebuilt by paranoid militarists. What you've seen of the ECA so far is a lot more gung-ho and brutal than any current concept of a joint European army, so it'd be reasonable to assume that France and Britain still have their nuclear arsenals, likely even in expanded form to provide strategic deterrence after the US put an end to NATO in the story. Meanwhile, Russia still has thousands of nukes and the Chinese made very liberal use of theirs in the Gens/ZH story. In short, ROTR's future is a an extremely militarised crapsack world.
Hm...the smells of future grimdark...
...I like.
BossGeneral - "Judging by this we can safely assume 35 years that if Humanity even manages to survive by then that the nuclear arsenal would have been practically reduced to nothing primarily for NATO and the US."
...or so they would tell us,the Public?!
1. By this point, the war has already been going on for over 2 years and the main frontline seems to be somewhere in France. This may seem like a lot of ground that's been conquered by the Russians, but consider two things: First, there's organised guerilla resistance in the territories that are nominally controlled by the Russians. Second, the ECA fights a retreating battle, meaning they don't cling to lost ground like blood-crazed fanatics because attrition hurts them more than it hurts the Russians. But the more ground they yield to the Russians, the less ground they have to defend with their own troops while the Russians need to dedicate more of their forces to actually controlling said conquered ground.
2. See Nuttah's reply.
During the Cold War it was predicted through various military simulations that if the Fulda Gap was won by the Warsaw Pact / Soviet Union then within weeks the Soviet Union would have reached France. We can assume it is a different case scenario here.
Well by this point none of the nuclear capable European nations (England, France) have been overrun, so it is unlikely that the Europeans would have used nukes. You would expect Britain or France to use nuclear weapons once it became a "use 'em or lose 'em" situation. You don't win a total victory against a nuclear power without nukes being fired. At the same time it would be foolish for the Europeans to fire first as the Russian capabilities for retaliation are far greater as they possess a far larger nuclear arsenal
Just a question: What about radar, and about listening posts and such? Why was it a tiny squad that saw the Russian invasion force?
stealth ships are invisable to radar but not the naked eye
The Ramsgate garrison is probably too small to have its own radar facilities and even then, you can hide from radar. And we already know Russia is fully capable of that. (Blackout nodes*, if you still aren't getting it.)
And listening posts need someone to decode and interpret the data. Consider the Allied Normandy landing at Calais if you still don't get why that wouldn't necessarily work.
There would probably be a fair bit of sending messages up and down the chain of command between detection and reaction which would probably make the former a bit too late for any proper action.
*These things are actually a bit creepy, come to think of it. You can pretty much hide an entire army under enough of them. If I understand the story correctly, it's why the ECA never had time to properly prepare for the invasion.
That is correct. People keep forgetting about the Russian Blackout Nodes (probably because they don't work against the AI unfortunately), but story wise, these things are capable of masking entire armies. In fact, it's been stated years ago that the initial Russian assault hit the Euros especially hard because they barely noticed the actual build-up thanks to the use of Blackout Nodes. An invasion fleet in the Channel would probably be concealed this way as well
Heh. Didn't put that much stock in them either, before using them to mask my entire defensive line in a fight against my (younger, admittedly) brother
He. Was. Not. Amused.
That said, Fog of war in general doesn't work against the AI, from what I've gathered.
arr, im sorry to be "that bloke"....but here in england we "av a ****" or "go for a ****"
we dont"take a ****",..ever.
"take" and "****" used in the same sentence usually has a completely different meaning.
(now THAT'S how you paint a neg-karma target on your own head,eh?)
I SEE NO MENTION OF TEA OR CRUMPETS. THEY CAN'T BE BRITISH.
He could just be a pleb. Ya know...like pretty much everyone in the patrol.
God dammit, PUSH. THOSE. RUSSIANS. BACK. GO ECA!
"Russia will take all of Europe, even if it must stand upon a pile of ashes."
Mabey against the german's alone but don't forget that europe has beter arms to defeat the russaians even if it's means we need to destroy al of it and make it a 3rd world country we did it with almost al of afrika.
Dutch general plz.
I live in Ramsgate :')
so hows the shore-view from the tavern ;)
interesting, but release artilery already! prety please?
it looks like they relese it soon
Where's Captain Mainwaring when you need him?
Matthew Baker? Somebodies been playing Brothers in Arms.
I guess Operation Sealion(морской лев) is a go after all...
btw hope this is the correct translation.
The current invasion of Ramsgate, UK would project that the Russians currently have a hold on the Belgium territory and northern French coast (possibly and most likely so, as it would be needed in order to launch a safe attack against England of this size quickly). I project that the harbors at Knokke-Heist or Dunkirk and that it is a possible combined attack of Tactical Ballistics General, General Zhukov (less likely, but its been a year since his "muck up" in Netherlands and its obvious that the Baltic sea or at least the North Sea and Northward are Russian inhabited waters) and Advanced Weapons General, General Aleksandr and his Shock Divisions.
I have a theory about the Blackout Nodes. Alek's Shock Divisions and even Spetsnaz teams would likely be able to infiltrate foreign territory undetected as part of a covert operation to tamper with cellular towers, antennas, satellite dishes, whatever it may be, so long as it can send out and/or receive wave frequencies. The teams would begin installation of a device or program (which ever is more appropriate). Blackout nodes being stealth themselves, makes it even more believable as the node would blend in with its environment unless detected by technological means. The other, less effective way to theorize the "how the hell did that get in m base undected" is simply that the parent device-X was hacked from somewhere like Moscow.
Now unless MARS and/or the SWR team shut that down, please stop asking how the heck we Russians are so damn good at sneaking around with huge battalions of heavy arsenal and such... No offence ;)
...though I am curious if there will be a mobile blackout node-base unit for on of the Russian generals like Russia has in RA1, I believe it was one of the expansion games if not the original that blackout tech was used.
It'd be fun if there was at least a ship that could do it.
They're big enough to mount several and the reactions would be hilarious.
I was thinking the same thing while i was writing that monologue...hidden RF sea transports full of sentinel tanks! *__*
i think the SWR team are hinting at a mobile blackout node ship
Great little bit of backstory as ever, my only quibble is with the medic's age :P While you can join at 16, the Army won't let you serve frontline until you're 18.
I am aware, but tragically, this could easily be the kind of peacetime rule that'd be chucked out of the window in the event of World War 3 as depicted here. Of course the Brits could still adhere to the 18+ rule for the troops they'd dispatch to the continent, but this is their own homeland; it was supposed to seem uncomfortable.
Matthew Baker... sounds familiar..
Brothers in Arms???? :)
This wasn't actually intended to be a reference. I never played any of the BoA titles (assuming you mean those WW2 games) and merely picked what seemed to be a generic name for some rank-and-file English bloke.
As it goes, General charles is actually General "Michael Jackson"(Retired)Chief of the General Staff (CGS)—the professional head of, and highest post in, the British Army. - Check HIS bio. En.wikipedia.org
Gotta agree wiv guy further up
these update/General/stories are great. Got us all sucked in, and speculating upon the next developments in the war. As well as units,strategies,arsenals - leaves me gagging for next update.
I am actually enjoying reading every comment to all General/stories updates. Good Stuff Dev's
Also gotta agree wiv other guy further up
"Interesting, but release artilery already! prety please?"
I see a BTR-80/90
will one of the Russian generals have those vehicles????
Would actually be kind of nice, given that so many pictures of the things pop up in these updates.
But the only difference between it and the BMP would a slightly larger troop capacity and poorer weaponry. Well, unless they went with the BTR-90 or it's M variant which didn't go into production;
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