Rise of the Reds Update #53: Old Dogs of War news

With the haphazard abandonment of their overseas military bases and the Europeans in disarray after the GLA insurrection of 2028, the United States found themselves in a precarious position: Years of constant warfare against the GLA including full-scale military invasions of their "host countries" across Central Asia and the Middle East had taken a massive toll on the world's formerly leading superpower. Billions upon billions of Dollars had been invested, some would say wasted, into new, state-of-the-art weapons many of which turned out to be impractical, over-engineered pet-projects like the infamous "Laser Crusader". This exponential growth of military spending put a burden on the nation's troubled economy. In the meantime, America's home infrastructure was deteriorating, the educational system was no longer competitive and the economic interconnection with China led to further "stream-lining" of the American work force. Most cynically, thousands of jobless Americans were directly forwarded into the war effort for lack of alternatives, only to disappear from unemployment statistics and reappear as casualties. In addition, the bold GLA incursion in California which led to the theft of several bio-chemical weapon samples from an outposted facility of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was further exploited by shady political figures in favour of increased government surveillance and control.

With the economy in shambles and the restless population rallying in protest, it came as no surprise that the federal government had to put a stop to the skyrocketing costs now that there was no GLA left to hunt and no noteworthy degree of geo-political influence left to be maintained. As a result, dozens of military research projects, including many "next-generation" aircraft, vehicles and weapons got axed. Only the Air Force made it through drastic budget cuts relatively unscathed by comparison, if only thanks to the clever political brokering of General Griffon, which still netted him a considerable degree of ire from the other branches. Meanwhile, the ground forces had to make cost-efficient modifications to existing weapon systems that were originally meant to be phased out altogether. Much to the chagrin of the Marine Corps which was left with no other option than to accept whatever the new doctrine-makers in Washington decided, the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, one of the Army's mainstray combat vehicles since the 1980s made a return as the M2A4: While the basic frame of the vehicle remained largely unchanged, the new version was equipped with an improved 25mm chaingun, advanced TOW missile launchers, modular composite armour and, most notably, the same point-defence anti-missile laser that was successfully introduced and field-tested by the Paladin Tank, making the "new" Bradley an ideal supplement in combined arms mechanised warfare thanks to its mobility, firepower, protection and infantry transport capabilities.

Left: The standard Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Right: The Bradley after it has been upgraded with Composite Armor. The M2A4 is armed to the teeth with its rapid-fire auto-cannon, manually targeted TOW missiles and a point-defence laser.

Bradley IFVs will later become an exclusive feature of Tank Command General Bradley, but we will give you an early opportunity to deploy them as part of the regular American tech tree in the upcoming version 1.7!