Rise of the Reds Update: Onslaught news

"New target: Infantry fighting vehicle, two o' clock, seven-hundred metres!", tank commander Jennifer Wagner relayed to her crew as she peeked out of the open top hatch of her Leopard 3A2 battle tank after her optics had been damaged by a barrage of 30mm rounds. They had come from a Russian BTR combat vehicle down the boulevard. The loader prepared a high-explosive anti-tank shell while the gunner brought the Leopard's mighty 125mm smoothbore cannon to bear on the target. "Now, blast that fuckin' thing!", Wagner exclaimed into her headset as she slammed her fist on the roof of the tank while shielding herself behind the armoured hatch, before the deafening report of the gun shook the entire vehicle.

Seconds later, General Orlov and his men hit the ground and covered their heads as the shell found its mark: The BTR fighting vehicle behind them was smashed open by the impact and jets of flame burst out of the vehicle's hatches as they got blown off. The sound of cooking ammunition was accompanied by the brief, horrifying screams of the three crewmen inside, who had not managed to evacuate their vehicle from its fortified position in time when the German tanks swung into the main street ahead.

"This is useless, General! They're chewing us up!", said Captain Sasha Dimitriyev while he picked himself up from the pavement and clapped the dirt off his battle dress. Four days earlier, the European Continental Army had initiated its much anticipated offensive on Berlin, where General Aleksandr rallied his troops for a final stand. With the city's outskirts surrounded by several divisions of German, French, British and other Western troops and American fighter-bombers dominating the skies, it would only be a matter of hours until the German capital would be liberated. Three years ago, the Europeans had held onto the vital city for over a week and even after high command had given the order to retreat, a crack detachment of German troops put up a fanatical last stand in the government district that lasted for more than sixty hours before their positions were overwhelmed. Now, their defiant resistance provided a vital moral boost to the Europeans, who were determined to retake Berlin before General Aleksandr and his forces would have the chance to beat that record, no matter the cost.

"This is Oryol to Chernobog, please come in", General Orlov spoke into the radio while the opponents continued to converge on his field command post on the Ernst Reuter Square in in the west of the city. "Come in, Chernobog...For fuck's sake! Aleksandr! Do - you - read!?"
"The lunatic isn't answering our calls", noted Sasha while he stocked up on magazines and grenades. The Germans were making a relentless advance on the Russian line and their assets were numerous: Leopard tanks, Panther IFVs and Panzergrenadiers - it seemed as if the entire hardened remnant of the Bundeswehr was bearing down on Orlov and his men. But the seasoned General remained calm even under this onslaught, for he had seen worse during his ill-fated journey to Africa - and unlike the GLA, surrendering to European regulars was at least an alternative. He peeked through his binoculars to assess the situation when a disturbing sight caught his eye: Amidst the rubble of bombed out buildings and black clouds of smoke, he could see a company of young Russian infantrymen running straight towards the tanks with little more than AKs and RPGs.

"What are these boys doing out there? Who is in charge of that unit?", the General wondered in shock as he failed to recognise the soldiers as proper regulars; they looked untrained, disoriented and much too young; frightened. Many of them were probably just a mere 18 years old at most.
"Must be another batch of rookies that came with the reinforcements this morning", Sasha replied. "Look, Sir, that man in their middle - it's a Shock Trooper!"
"This is insanity! That bastard Aleksandr is herding them straight into the meat grinder! Someone tell them to get the hell out of our line of fire immediately!"

The conscripts ran out onto the boulevard under a hail of gunfire from both sides while the Shock Trooper kept pushing them: "This is your opportunity to prove your worth to the glorious General Aleksandr! You came here today as boys but you will return from this field of honour as men!"
One of these regrettable soldiers in name only took up position in a crater and shouldered his rocket launcher, an old surplus RPG-7 with a single-stage HEAT warhead, while the advancing tanks and Panzergrenadiers drew near. He aimed for the turret ring of the menacing Leopard and fired. The rocket sped towards the tank, but went off course and demolished an abandoned café instead.

Meanwhile, Wagner signalled one of the foot soldiers over to her. "What are your orders, Frau Hauptmann?", the sergeant asked anxiously as he hitched a brief ride on top the tank which moved forward at a slow, cautious pace.
"Be advised, we're gonna cut a breech through that infantry up ahead. Have your men push forward immediately afterwards and leave the rest of your platoon to cover us as we roll on!"
"Will do, Frau Hauptmann!", the sergeant confirmed before he jumped off and rejoined his men in the attack. "Weber and Demir, move up to the leading Leopard and close the flanks! Seidel, Brunner and Peters, rally your groups on me and prepare for assault!"
"Driver, halt! New target: Infantry with AT weapons, out in the open, eleven o' clock, one hundred meters!", Wagner instructed her crew. "Load canister - Feuer frei!"

The tank returned fire and a wave of steel balls swept across the street. Half of the conscripts out in front went down bleeding and screaming in pain while some of the survivors panicked and tried to run, only to get picked off by the Shock Trooper. "Deserters and traitors will be executed! Your weakness is a disgrace to the leader! You can die a coward, or die a hero with your hands around the throats of these Western bandits!", he yelled out in a vain attempt at inspiring his hapless subordinates through sheer intimidation. As their enemies drew closer, the conscripts opened up with their assault rifles. Some of them burned through the entire magazine out of pure desperation while others simply froze up in fear, unable to even disengage the safety. The soldier with the rocket launcher fired another round directly at the advancing tank, whose reinforced nanofoam/composite armour absorbed the impact with seemingly no effect. Realising the hopelessness of the situation, the young man dropped his weapon and curled up in the crater weeping until he simply disappeared underneath the massive steel collossus.

One after another, the conscripts got picked off by the advancing infantry or surrendered before them. It was at this point when the Shock Trooper quietly abandoned the unit and ran towards Orlov's position, waving his arms to identify himself as a friendly.
Without comment, Orlov handed the binoculars over to Sasha as he set eyes upon this cowardly sham of a man. He walked straight towards the Trooper and knocked him to the ground with his own rocket rifle, grabbed his right leg and stomped on his knee, producing an audible crack.
"You got these kids into this mess - You wasted their lives for your 'leader' and now you're gonna stay here and die as well, you disgusting pig!"
The older soldiers of Orlov's unit observed the morbid scene in a collective spirit of silent agreement. After four years of brutal atrocities and countless instances of Shock Divisions snatching victories from the Russian Army to claim them as their own, the regular rank-and-file troops of the Federation had come to despise Aleksandr and his murdering horde of savages as much as the Europeans did - perhaps even more so. They all remembered the pyrrhic victory over the Be-Ne-Lux countries, the blood-soaked failure of the invasion of England and the haunting memories of ECA Operation Pandora; now, the second battle of Berlin marked the point at which many Russian soldiers decided to no longer tolerate the leadership of the masked psychopath. By now, they all just fought for their own survival and hoped for something, anything, to finally put an end to this fight which had lost its purpose long ago.

Orlov stood above the wounded man and quietly watched him roll on the ground in agony, clutching at the fractured bone that protruded out of his trouser leg in a rather grotesque manner. He knew that the Europeans would either shoot him on the spot or go out of their way hang him from the nearest lamp post the instant they recognised him as a Shock Trooper. After a long moment of tense silence amidst the carnage of war, Sasha slowly approached his long-known superior and put his hand on his shoulder.
"Sir......The men and I will not begrudge you for what you just did, but you have to make a decision. This position will be overrun within the next few minutes. What shall we do?"
"I want you to fall back to the bridge at the Charlottenburg Gate and demolish it to delay their advance", Orlov ordered in a thoughtful tone as if he was improvising a new plan on the fly. "Once you are done, I want you to take the men to safety. Fall back behind the Polish border or surrender to a European patrol, it's your call. Tell everyone on your way to either follow you or make their own decision. If any of Aleksandr's people try to stop you, kill them. They will not keep us from ending this bloodshed here and now, is that understood, Captain Dimitriyev?"
"Understood, Comrade General...But, with due respect, what'll become of you?"
"I will confront him", the General replied stoically and walked off to the east, towards the Spreebogen, where General Aleksandr's supreme headquarters was located. The hour of truth had come.

There are not many things that produce such profound feelings of terror and fear as the sight of a comrade's face exploding into a mass of red mist, followed by the delayed sound of a high-calibre rifle shot from far, far away. The ECA Heavy Snipers are long-range marksmanship experts and masters at this particularly insidious combat style. Armed with a high-powered AW50 anti-materiel rifle, these elite sharpshooters can cause catastrophic damage to personnel and light armoured vehicles alike once set up. Due to their costly equipment and extensive training, skilled sharpshooters have become a rare asset for the Europeans during the war. The UK Special Forces command still has the capacities for large scale sniper operations and lends its services extensively to General Charles Cutting of the British Army in support of the war effort.

The Recycler Truck is a rugged, heavy duty engineering vehicle that is typically used by GLA salvage parties, informally known as 'scrap vultures' in the African territories, who scour the battlefield at night after the fighting has moved on in search for anything valuable that might be extracted from vehicle wreckages such as armour plates, weapons, munitions or machine parts. The GLA is known to inspect these components with great curiosity and reconfigure them for their own use against their previous owners. As of v1.85, Tier 1 and Tier 2 units of all factions will leave a special type of salvage crate for GLA players to recover using the Recycler Truck, which is available at the Hideout at Tier 1. It should be noted that these trucks also have a manually triggered repair ability which allows them to maintain friendly vehicles in the field. Reverse engineering a special salvage crate will grant the GLA access to upgrades which can then be individually applied to a Recycler Truck or a certain unit. We will show you the various upgrades to the Recycler and other GLA vehicles over the coming weeks.

And as always I would like to remind all of you out there that there will be another livestream on this Sunday (November 16th) on Hechthor Doomhammers Twitch Channel
Also incase you missed the stream of last week its now availible on our youtube channel: Part 1 Part 2
Countdown untill the stream starts: Goo.gl