The Other Side

The Island: 2129

Location: Isla Numblar, Earth

Hundreds of landing craft sailed towards the island. Smoke rose from the skyline and there was flashing lights on the destroyed bridges. CAS bombers flew low over the landing craft and fighters fired missiles towards the coastline.

Captain: Attention! We the men of the 1st army are going into the worst fighting our nation has ever seen. In one week over one thousand combat troops were killed and we lost an entire island of civilians. The enemy cut off reinforcements from the INCPD and any ground units on the island by blowing the bridges, any ships were destroyed by artillery. The navy is shelling the enemy now while the bombers drop every munition we have, it is our job to land on the beach and secure a port. Every shot they fired will be paid back tenfold! 

Soldiers: Hoorah!

The ships landed on the beach and the soldiers did a final check of their equipment. A final line of bombers flew over and explosions rocked the structures along the beach. The doors to the landing craft dropped and all hell broke loose. Machine guns tore into the infantry who sprinted across the clear beaches. Isla Numblar's economy was focused on resorts and its beaches, as such the entire area was clear up until the buildings lining the beach. 

Normally NO forces would be airdropped in, but after hundreds of men died trying that they gave up. An assault would need tanks and other armored units and they can't just airdrop them in onto a city without breaking the vehicles. Instead they would assault the beach with armor support and secure a landing point, it would be costly but it was the only way anything would get done. Combat engineers had already tried making a bridge across but it was hit by enemy artillery before anything could be done.

A few tanks rolled off landing craft with APCs following, all guns firing on the defenses. The tanks escorted the CEVs which dropped their plows and created cover for the soldiers. It wasn't great but it would allow soldiers to regroup after landing. Now in 2129 NO tanks were dogshit to say the least, many were destroyed by RPG fire before they could do anything.

Half an hour of slow pushes up the beach got the soldiers up against the walls of summer resorts. Soldiers tossed grenades into the windows where enemy machine guns were set up and bomb techs set up explosives to breach walls and make more paths onto the streets. A tank turned its barrel around and rammed through the wall of a small commercial building before pulling onto the road and aiming the gun at a line of approaching enemy infantry. The tank fired and the shot obliterated the enemy.

Now that the NO soldiers were in an urban environment they had the upper hand. It isn't easy to assault a well defended beach but it is easy to just shoot down a road, especially when the enemy had no armor support. Command had planned on outfitting tanks with a large amount of AP ordinance but after drones and fighters discovered no enemy vehicles they swapped most of the shells out of HE and flechette. Of course some AP was kept for the off chance the enemy had tanks or armored vehicles but it was unlikely to be used for anything.

A tank slowly rolled down the road with infantry following on foot. An RPG flew over it and the tank turned it's gun in the general direction of the shot. The tank fired a flechette round and the hundreds of darts impacted every enemy and wrecked vehicle on the road. The enemy soldiers screamed as the New Orderians moved up and started to kill off the survivors.

Soldiers also had to worry about civilians, the entire island had been cut off and the civilians were trapped. While they moved deeper into the city they saw corpses all over, sometimes the enemy used the bodies of dead civilians as sand bags for their machine gun nests. Every block was hard fighting and gradually the soldiers retook parts of the island.

NO high command still had an issue, helicopters couldn't get in because of AA. The bombers had taken out a decent number of positions but some were to well defended and shot them down before they could do anything. It was the infantry's job do disable the anti air so reinforcements could arrive by air and bombing operations could continue.