“Thus always to tyrants”

-Scipio Aemilianus or Marcus Junius Brutus (Disputed)

 

Yet again Edward’s eyes were now seeing Prophet’s Founding. Which now that he thought about it, sounded like a name that the prophet came up with when a song of ice and fire came into their head. Though it was a functional name for a capital, if a little arrogant.

He wasn’t all that close to it however, given that most of the land surrounding the capital was farmland, and the only decent bit of concealed terrain they could find for a little outpost was a small, wooded hill surrounded by sheep pastures. And it sure smelt of them. So, in actuality, they were a few kilometres away.

It was therefore a little hard to keep a straight face with the smell of sheep shit. Though he and Victor were managing so far.

From their position they could tell that an approach up would be rather exposed, given the only cover was given by farmhouses and bocages. And soldiers on the walls and towers could see over a fair amount of the bocage, minimising their effectiveness.

Though if they still only had muzzle loading cannons and flintlock rifles it would be fine.

But Edward felt like they might have something else, and that was why he was up with the general in the advance position. To see if there was anything to indicate another rank up in technology.

The day was overcast with a light drizzle of rain peppering the ground, but it was soon to turn to bright sun if the weather reports were right. Either way they’d attack. A little rain wasn’t going to stop a mechanised assault.

He levelled his long-ranged binoculars to his eyes and scanned the walls. Looking for anything out of the ordinary.

There seemed to be an increased number of people on them, and they were carrying weapons, but he needed a closer look. He increased the zoom and focused in one guard on the walls who was standing still.

Right there in their hands was a rifle. Not exactly a proper one though, it did look like it was made of scrap. But it looked like a Gustloff VG, a last ditch Nazi semi-automatic rifle. Though it looked even scrappier than one of them.

But a rifle non the less it was, with a stocky body and wide barrel. The main question would be though if it was a semi-auto gun, or a proper assault rifle. And how many there were.

Beside him, the general chuckled as he looked through his own binoculars, “Well, it seems like you might have been right. These shits have something that can cause us quite a bit of trouble now, ey...”

“Whatever workshop they have is now fully operational and has given them scrap rifles. Great.”

“You think they’re battle rifles or assault rifles?”

“It’s hard to tell from that distance… They look like they could be either.”

Victor grunted, looking across the outer walls and at the inner walls before then spotting something new.

“Edward. They seem to have some proper machine guns in some AA mounts as well. Right at the inner walls on top of the towers.”

Edward refocused his binoculars onto them, “And so they fucking do. Four of them strapped together… God knows how the streets will be and I bet they have some proper artillery now.”

“Yeah, and I’m the fucker who has to make a plan around this shit. I don’t suppose you have precision orbital bombardment options? I hope I have something more than my missile artillery and some ATGMs.”

“Nope. We have the Hercules bombers and the Raptors with PGMs that I can get scrambled for you, but that’s about it.”

“Wonderful… Well, its time to tell madame about the change of plans.”

Edward looked at the general, eyebrows furrowed, “You’ve already got new plans then?”

“Not quite yet but I’ll have them soon.”

 

---

 

When they had gotten back, they had found Laurence in the pop-up command centre, leering over a map, and explained the current situation they had just uncovered. She was not especially pleased to say the least. “And this I suppose is meaning I’m not doing the planned air assault?”

Victor sniffed, “Of course, not until we have those guns taken out.”

“And “those guns” are four fucking quad mounted MG turrets. It’s trivial! We’re not facing Tunguskas!”

Edward turned to Laurence, keeping his tone calm as he spoke “There may be more, and we need the Valkyries to bring supplies down. Losing any of them is significant.”

She huffed, “Not that significant.”

“Oh, it would be. So, a small delay on the aerial assault is perfectly reasonable. We just need Pila ATGMs on some close and elevated terrain, and we can blow them to pieces before we can call in the air support.”

“I don’t think you need to worry Colonel; my men are perfectly able to do despite what you think. I have a plan ready to be marked out and dispatched.”

Laurence snorted, “So you don’t have it written down?”

“I have it mostly written down! It just needs the finer details sorted…”

“And is that why you are losing so many people lately? Are you losing your touch? Is-”

“And,” Edward interrupted, “I want both of you to both calm yourselves before this gets out of hand. I don’t want this campaign to be the start of a fucking inter-service rivalry to rival the IJN vs IJA rivalry! So hence, it would be nice if both of you could therefore, keep. It. Civil.”

She sniffed, “So you’re agreeing with him?”

“Right now, yes. You don’t need to worry about his attack using up the element of surprise, as your assault would be visible for long enough that their defences could be readied. With this, most of their forces will be brought into combat with Victor’s and you can then close the noose around them. With all their reserves committed and unable to counter your forces.”

Laurence relented with a sigh, “I understand sir.”

“So, the general will be laying out his plan then. And after it we can bring our issues up with it.”

The all nodded, with victor finally handed the white board pens for the laminated map on the table In-front of them.

The map was something like an ordnance survey style map with their new defences and earth works added in pen. On it the city could be seen, sat on the bend in the river with two gate houses on the southern end of the city with the palace, and three on the north side of the city. Several bridges inside of the city connected them up but with no crossings left outside the city of course.

The earth works outside of the city mainly consisted of various ditches that served to funnel forces into various designated kill zones where who knows what could be lurking. Though mostly likely it’d be those improvised “mines” that could rip swathes of land up.

And that was just what was outside of the city. Inside were various improvised barricades and even a few demolished buildings who’s rubble now closed off various alley ways and rat runs.

Making an attack against this place wouldn’t be pleasant, especially with the new weapons the kingdom wielded. But it certainly was possible, and a quick assault could be made.

Especially with Victor Lavr Vasilievich. Well, hopefully with him.

The general cleared his throat, pens lined up and green one in hand.

“Now, everyone. I’m sure you’ve had time to stew and come up with your own ideas on what should be done, but I’m going to tell you how to actually do it. First of all, we’re going to start very old fashioned with an artillery bombardment of the gates on the northern side of the city. Then a lighter one on all these obvious choke points.”

He sketched various X marks onto all of those points, Laurence’s eyebrows raising as she asked, “Why on the north side? Are you trying to make them think we’re going to make an attack from that side?”

“Exactly that. The bombardment on them will go on for a few minutes before we start hitting the choke points on our side to clear out any mines, at the same time as the main event. A PrSM strike from some HIMARS on the gatehouses on the south side, to blast them to pieces that will hopefully be alright for our IFVs to get over. Also, let’s throw in one on a bit of the wall as well. Can’t hurt to do some more remodelling…”

Two more marks were drawn onto those southern gate houses and a section of all between them, as he then drew circles over the bridges with the same green pen.

“And we will also have some guns with anti-personnel fuses aimed on those bridges so if anyone tries a big crossing with reinforcements, we can hit them. Like in our first little battle with em. Keeping the crossings intact in the process as well hopefully.”

He then switched pens, grabbing the blue one and cracking his knuckles, a grin on his face as he looked at the other two officers.

“Then comes the fun bit. A platoon of our light tanks rolls up onto that grass hill there and put down direct fire against the towers, then anything else that shoots at us. Hopefully I can get some ATGM teams onto that forested one as well. But either way the bridge layer vehicles can give some extra paths towards the breaches other than the ones that the enemy wants us to use.”

More lines were drawn, showing two main lines. One pushing through the east side and another pushing through the middle and west side gate.

“The east will be second battalion and west will be first battalion with the Blacksuits reinforcing the first battalion. Both of them should be able to get shots off to the AA guns and then we can bring in air support and the first air assault to capture the riverbank and the bridges. Then it just a matter of pushing up and encircling the palace ready for part two. Any questions?”

He finished drawing his arrows across the various streets of the capital, pushing the red pen over to the other two as he looked at them.

They both stared at the map for a moment, studying the various landmarks around their push. The plan, even if only rudimentary at this point seemed solid.

Laurence however picked up the red pen, circling the terrace on the second walls that the palace sat on. “If they have machine guns, I’m sure they’d have some breach loaded artillery and that’s the most likely spot for them. They could spot the shell impacts from up there and get a bit of extra range out of them.”

“And what would you suggest we do about that then?”

“I’ll put six of my mortars onto getting ready for counter battery fire. Though you’ll need to organise a proper communication link up with your troops so we can get that information passed along.”

Victor nodded, “We’ll get that sorted then and I’ll call up third battalion’s commander for it if you bring up your guy.”

“Right.”

Edward couldn’t help however but let a small smile go across his face. “I’ll leave you two to wargame then. I have to get the fleet’s aircraft ready for this assault.”

 

---

 

William should have expected for this war to turn out like this but somehow, he didn’t think of it. Maybe he was just caught up in the panic of the moment, or maybe it was just his age getting to him. Either way the enemy was at the gates of Prophet’s Founding, something that had not happened in a hundred years.

And it had happened on his watch.

But- Well- Not fully on his watch.

The duke Nathaniel was partly to blame and had apparently taken defence of the capital. Though even if William wanted to, he could command in his state, given how his health had taken a little turn for the worse. So he had let the duke take it.

Though the new weapons they had gave him some sort of hope for victory. While they may look like the creations of an amateur blacksmith, he had been able to see some of his king’s guard training with them and they were terrifying weapons. No wonder why they had been losing given that their enemy had much more refined versions of these weapons. Any army with these could cut a pike formation into chaff with them.

Now the duke was having him bless a troop of his own reformed hand gunners before they went to defend the city.

The duke had seemingly decided on an odd, and somewhat desperate idea to raise moral of gathering priests together to place holy seals onto the troop’s armour and weapons en mass.

Well. All the priests other than the ones who were currently running doomsday services in the grand cathedral of the holy founding. A sign of the terror currently gripping the city as it faced the world’s ultimate enemy just outside of its walls. Some murmurings had also been made of a heretical presence of the city but from what the king could tell that was just superstition.

But soon it would be his turn to bless the soldiers as the priests finished with their incantations and spreading of holy water. Giving blessings from Ifcan to them.

The troops all had a seal on their breastplates over their hearts and on their weapon’s grips. Their helmets also had red holy bands wrapped around them, but other than those two pieces of armour they had nothing else in terms of protection. Though they had been reassured that’s all they would need, given the power of the weapons they would be facing and the weight of the extra armour.

They then all knelt before him, both priests and soldiers and the duke at his side.

William swallowed, raising a hand and giving his incantation, “I bless all thee with my noble prestige and royal spirt so you may go forth and crush the daemons. Rise.”

And with that they rose, all the soldiers standing to attention and thumping their breast plates, calling as one, “Long live The First Kingdom! Death to the unholy!”

The duke beside him seemed to smile. It was odd given the chance of them all dying today but still the man smiled as he said, “And let the sound of your unit call out and march forth to the southern plaza!”

“Yes my lord!”

Then the calls came as their unit commander yelled, the wailing of bagpipes filling the air and the beat of a marching drum.

It was the music of the dammed the king thought, as he watched the soldiers all march out of the throne room and out of the palace. Down to the streets bellow where victory would be won or lost.

But still the duke kept his smile as they walked to the war room and a troop of independent knight walked in for the same ceremony.

With only swords at their belts.