Minneapolis: The Siege (Imperium Americanus)

[Zor]

Third piece of original fiction in the Imperium Americanus Universe, for those who are too lazy to look up the previous two, here are the links

Manta's Dawn
The Dakota Offensive

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Minneapolis: The Siege
Leighton White


13:21 April 15th, 1916, 2km outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, Command bunker

Three Star General Peyton C. March sat down in his command room as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it as the air-raid sirens blared. As he took his first drag, he heard a thud, then another and then yet another, continuing for the next minute before slowing down and stopping. No doubt another squadron of Mantas turning several more buildings into burning wrecks, he hoped all it destroyed was warehouses. He had already lost over 20,000 men to air raids alone; he did not want any more to die in such a manner. As the final bombs fell, he jammed the cigarette’s incinerated end into an ashtray as Generals Granger and Hammond walked into the room and took their seats.

“Good day” He said to his fellow officers, which general Granger Echoed.

“I wish it was,” said General Hammond. The lanky grey haired figure said grimly as he took is seat. “I just got word that a massive Mexican Force has begun advancing North into Texas, with Panzer-IVs and Timberwolves leading the assault.”

A chill went down the spines of Match and Granger, the Texas boarder guard had several divisions pulled back from it in light of sheer success of the stampedes of Imperial Panzers, Artillery, aircraft and men the Shellheads had blasted into North Dakota and Alberta. In less than two months they had managed to seize Edmonton, Fargo, Winnipeg and Regina, had leveled over twenty US and Canadian divisions that stood in their path and achieved unchallenged Ariel dominance with minimal losses. The last thing the US needed at the time was a second front with forces equipped with Great American weapons and machines.

Never the less, March continued with the subject at hand “Be that as it may, a scout Hornet discovered that there is a big Imperial American Army force was launched out of Fargo had stopped about thirty miles west of here.” He tossed a file containing photographs of the base around “. Looks like we are their next target.”

General Hammond went over the photos “Looks like they had brought in a good ten legions. What should we do?”

“Easy” General March said calmly “we make our stand here, we have over two hundred thousand soldiers here and we have a good trench line protecting the city from assault. We then hold out for as long as possible and then we bring in re-enforcements. Their Panzer force may be impressive, but we still are well dug in and prepared for their assault. ”

General Granger looked at March “This could do massive damage to the city killing thousands! We should attack this Imperial army where it is!”

March did not raise his voice and remained calm “Leaving aside their armored superiority and the fact that only have enough halftracks to carry about half our men and artillery to fight this oncoming army, we would be moving away from the fixed AA positions we have in the city and face a nonstop attack from their Timberwolves and Cougars. Our best bet is to wait it out until additional forces can arrive. Remember that Stephen I won the last war he fought against us not by attacking our armies, but because his men dug in and we threw wave after wave of men against said trench lines to be slaughtered by machinegun and cannon fire. Gentlemen, It is time that we beat the Shellheads at their own game.”

---

19:32, April 15th, Imperial American Army Camp, Minnesota, 50km west of Minneapolis

Legate Fitzgerald walked around the city of winter tents and vehicles. The men enjoying themselves, sitting back, smoking both cigarettes and ganja, drinking beer, reading novels, comic books and magazines and playing card games of one sort or another. He did not draw attention to himself, but got the odd salute, to which he responded with a simple smile. He quite enjoyed the sight of his men enjoying themselves; it took his mind off of the prospect of defeat or high casualties. He was a professional to the core, he did his job and did not let his emotions get in the way, but he had no love for Death or the so called ‘glory’ of war. So far, the Empress’s suggested tactics of combined arms, Contubernium level infantry tactics and a fast moving armored spearhead had worked exquisitely, but he remembered that things could still go very badly. He had his concerns, especially with the trench line that they had put up around the city, but he had his duty and tomorrow, the forces defending that city would face the wrath of the Empire of Great America and Great America had plenty of new toys to throw around.

---

12.04, April 16th, US Trench line, 0.6 km outside Minneapolis, command bunker

General March sat at his desk while his men worked franticly to ready the base’s defenses against the oncoming assault. Everything was abuzz with activity as people prepared for the coming onslaught. Despite the mess, the defenses were largely prepared. A trench network at least three lines deep guarded with hundreds of heavy machineguns and anti panzer emplacements with 500 cannons. As he waited, a private came in, saluted and handed him a piece of paper.

“Thank you my boy” he said softy as he opened it. He expected a report on some shortage of something somewhere, a town of some military significance that was overlooked until now being attacked and seized by the EGA or word on when reinforcements can arrive, but this was not the case. Instead, he read about a large number of paper leaflets dropped by a squadron of Manta Bombers onto the city saying that the city will fall and all fighting will do is bring down death and destruction upon themselves and their families and homes. This was the third time in twenty four hours that the IAAF had done this. ‘Incredible’ he thought somewhat amused, ‘They’re even worse pamphleteers than those damned Communists!’

---

12:15, March 17th, EGA position, 25km outside Minneapolis

Legate Fitzgerald peered out of the coupola of his command panzer as his forces had assembled in preparation for the assault. Two Armored Legions, Three artillery legions, Six Panzer Grenadier legions and a Stormforce Legion were prepared for the assault. He was still well outside the range of Union Artillery, but that would change soon enough.

“General!” his Radioman blurted “We have an inbound force of approximately thirty fighters coming in from the East, ETA five minutes.”

He ducked into the vehicle’s hull and slammed the hatch closed. “Ready AA Defenses for close attack and tell the men to ready themselves.”

“Yes sir!” the Radioman said as he adjusted the frequencies “This is a direct order from Legate Fitzgerald, Incoming enemy aircraft, All vortexes prepare to fire and all forces brace for Ariel assault!” With that the vehicles spread out into a looser formation and the vortexes were prepared as the enemy aircraft flew closer. As they approached the American Hornets moved closer to the ground for their assault run. The raid would be quick; they would drop bombs on enemy armor and shoot up some ammunition trucks before returning to base. We move out

Meanwhile, in several specially modified APC-1s, ammunition was loaded and the gunners brought the guns to bear. They waited as the enemy closed in silently and prepared for them to cross the mark. Eventually the force crossed into their radii. With that, the atmosphere around the area was shaken by the blare of dozens of 20mm Motorized Gatling cannons, each unleashing a burst of bullets exiting their rapidly spinning barrels at 3000RPM set alight by their tracer rounds into the enemy aircraft. Seven fighters were downed while the others banked out and broke formation, but the guns continued to track their marks letting out sporadic bursts of ammunition into the Oncoming US aircraft as they approached the EGA line to conduct their raid. However, all too quickly their numbers shrank as one by one they fell from the sky. Within two minutes the force pulled back and ran as fast as they could from the EGA force, having suffered a total of 31 casualties while inflicting none upon the EGA.

As a good commanding officer should do, Legate Fitzgerald monitored the entire thing via radio and was relieved when the battered force broke off. When he heard about it, he had a thought, which had firmly maintained throughout the raid. This should make things easier for us.

---

12:27 US Trench line, 0.6 km outside Minneapolis, command bunker

General March jammed a depleted cigarette into his desks ash tray; he had just heard the report about how Granger’s air-raid had failed. How that overzealous fool had ever talked him into doing it was a mystery, something about hitting them before they could get fully assembled or something. Ignoring of course the Intelligence about their remarkably effective vehicle mounted Anti Aircraft guns.

“Sir!” His assistant informed him.

“Yes?” he said, slightly annoyed.

“We have just spotted an incoming force of IAAF aircraft, looks like four full wings of bombers and a wing of fighters.”

The General looked down at his desk and muttered to words. “Good Lord”

---

12:35, 8,500 meters, IAAF Bomber “A Woman Scorned”

Pilot Officer Kyle Kissinger sat back as he remained silent and externally, perfectly calm, although underneath said veneer of complacency, he was quite tense. This state had come with the job of being an Imperial American Air Force gunner on the bombers. Even though what little airpower had been whittled away, there still were plenty of AA guns down there and he had seen bombers go down on raids. Never the less, giving into blind emotional fear did him no good. He had a good view in the bomber’s aft turret, even if what was directly below the plain was out of sight and could see in the distance the city ahead, not that it made him feel much better.

“Kyle,” the voice of the plane’s pilot Group Captain Fisher by intercom said. “We have union fighters coming in from the south so keep yer eyes pealed back there!”

“Affirm on that, Group Cap.” He said, somewhat nervously as he did a quick check of the gun, turned on its engine, grabbled the handles and turned the six barreled weapon southward, seeing several incoming aircraft moving in on their location. Within half a minute, he was able to see the oncoming aircraft and watched as their fighter escort broke off towards it. He watched with fascination the ensuing dogfight between the Union’s Hornets and the Imperial Timberwolves. The Union fighters did not lack courage, but against a larger force of the faster and more heavily armed Imperial fighters, they just could not compete and one by one he saw the squat forms fall from the sky under imperial fire. His focus on the battle was only interrupted by the sounds of Pings hitting the hull of the airplane.

“Don’t worry, back there.” The Group Captain said in a calming re-assuring matter to his subjects “It’s surface anti aircraft fire, now sit tight the deed will be done soon enough.” Strangely enough, being reminded of the fact that the Blue Jackets were shooting at his plane did not help him. Even so, he kept his cool. Fleeing cowards and mindless bezerkers end up corpses; calm, cold, rational soldiers stay alive. Never the less, as the fire got more intense as time went on, more and more he briefly gave into dark temptation and took quick looks around. Because of this, after a few minutes he saw something that he never wanted to see. One of those massive six inch anti airship shells blasted right through the wing of a manta, causing its left nacelle to explode in a massive fireball which rapidly turned brilliant red and yellow to the sooty jet black. The wing was blown right off of and causing the aircraft to fall towards the ground.

Meanwhile, out of the massive hatch on the underside of the aircraft, one by one in rapid succession fell the payload of the bomber.

---

12:41, US Trench line

“We got one!” Sergeant Major Theodore Hawthorne yelled putting down his binoculars, said ecstatically as he saw the Shellhead Plane loss its wing. His gunnery team let out a weak cheer as they loaded another huge six inch shell into the cannon. “Good shootin' boys!” This was, of course a lie. The big six inchers, while incredibly powerful, had a piss poor record against the Shellhead’s bombers. They were intended for popping big slow moving airships, which everyone thought before the war would be the main tool of aerial bombardment, not fast moving airplanes. Still he had his job to do, and took to aiming the colossal gun. However, just as he was to give the order to fire, he was distracted by a monstrous roar and a burst of light and hot air to his left, causing him to turn his head towards it. What he saw made him quiver in fear at a level he never felt before.

Less than a hundred meters away, a torrent of flame burst over the ground and moved down into the trench, enveloping all it went over, he heard the explosions of ammunition and grenades as the hellish flood went over supply boxes. He saw the silhouettes of men turn and run trying to get away, only to collapse on the ground a few seconds latter. A second one then went off to his right and he saw the whole nightmare happen again. He heard one of his men start weeping, normally he would smack him for that, but this time it was more than justified and he did nothing.

Meanwhile, a steel bomb, built in a munitions factory in Oregon, shipped eastward by train and truck and flown hundreds of kilometers by air, descended from the sky onto its target. When the attack was laid out, it was calculated that a significant percentage of the bombs would land outside the trenches they were targeting and in battle this was true. Never the less, the bomb landed right in the trench, unleashing a tidal wave of napalm into it.

Over the course of the Great War, millions people would fall in battle. Many of those deaths would be a very rapid, a bullet through the head or being blown to smithereens by an artillery shell that landed a few meters away. Events that were so fast that those who experienced them would not even perceive their destruction. Sergeant Major Theodore Hawthorne was not one of those people. When the bomb went off, he was hit by a wave of burning napalm that washed over him and he felt it as the chemical reaction destroyed the cellular structure of his skin and turned his fragile lung tissues into masses of charcoal and have his internal liquids evaporate. His end was agonizing and prolonged over several seconds of the most horrific pain. The fires continued to burn well after the bombers had done there deed. By the time the fire burned itself out, all that was left of him was a twisted blackened husk, leaving no evidence of who he was from thousands of others like him which were hit in the attack.

---

13.20, US Trench lines

Adam East walked through the hellscape that was left over from the inferno. Extinguishing the fire had proven to be an extremely difficult task, the incendiary compound the EGA had deployed was remarkably hard to put out, water had little effect on it and it tended to stick to anything it touched. He had seen large groups of soldiers franticly shoveling earth into the flames to try to smother it having little effect. The only thing that it seemed was doable was to avoid the fires while they were burning and wait for them to die out. As he walked, his foot got stuck in the mud, which he quickly jerked his foot out of. The snow in the areas around the landing sites had melted and had moved gradually downwards, gathering in trenches and had made what would be a cold, but dry miserable trench into a cold, miserable mudhole. He saw cannons and machineguns ruined by the fire, the blasted craters remains of where once were ammunition stores and all about them were the men who were supposed to man them, charcoal husks and people reduced to human jerky littered the area. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, nor anything his mind dared conceive. Their anti aircraft fire that they sent up had proven worse than useless, one bomber was confirmed downed during the whole assault, and it crashed into a residential area, complete with its deadly payload. He did not want to think about that.

Despite his observations, he was in this blasted, burned remain for one reason and it was not to study the devastation. He was here to oversee the re-garrisoning of this section of trench line as soon as possible. “Sergeant/” he bellowed pointing to a Heavy Machinegun that was left “clear out that piece of junk there and get a working gun there.”

“Yes sir” he said as proceeded to repeat that order to the poor bastards who had to lug the thing around. And with that, the team began to work putting up the Springfield 0.50 caliber machinegun in its place, a weapon that directly traced its roots back to the first generation machineguns that Stephen the first introduced back in the civil war. Fortunately he did not have to wait; the team was well enough drilled to be able to remove the firebombed gun and set up its replacement in slightly more than three minutes. This was the easy part, setting up replacement artillery was going to be a bitch an a half.

As he continued to walk through the trenches, he heard something. First he dismissed it as the wind, then it became gradually louder. A set of demonic roars that continued until it ended in a long procession of thuds. Now the Imperial American Army had come in to press on and his job just got a whole lot harder.

---

14:05, 13 kilometers west of Minneapolis

Legate Fitzgerald watched as hundreds of Artillery pieces in front of him fired off salvo after salvo into the union lines. It was hardly complete and many of the guns were still being set up, never the less it was a quite impressive site, hundreds of 120mm cannons, both towed cannons brought along by steam tractor and in aboard SAP-2 Badger Self Propelled Artillery Vehicles constantly breaking the air with their firing. But even they were drowned out by the roar of Hurricane Missile launchers releasing massed salvos of missiles into the air. The fire was focused, directed against their surviving artillery batteries, which were identified and marked time and time again by aerial recon during the bombing raids, which had kept counter fire to a minimum. Never the less, their supply of ammunition was still limited. The EGA had dedicated a large amount of resources into the refitting the captured road and rail network for military needs, even so it was still hard to transport goods farther than Fargo, and even then only because of the Trans Canada railway. Still, he had his cards to play and he felt it was as good a time to even the odds a bit further.

“Radioman” he said as he ducked into his command vehicle “Tell Prior Shu to begin the first maneuver.”

He gave a quick nod “Yes sir.”

---

14:17

Centurion Primus Alex Catinni felt his new vehicle stop. His performance at the Battle of Regina had earned him the Order of the Empress, an extra bar on both his epaulettes and a massive new Panzer V Zhao. There was nothing subtle about his old Panzer IV, but his new Zhao made it look like a child’s toy in comparison, it was big, heavily armored and carried a massive 90mm gun for popping open bluejacket tanks, even if it was a temperamental beast and he was still quite new to it. He inspected the battlefield through the periscope as the armored formation prepared for its advance. His vehicle was in the first rank and would get into the heat of battle first, which was fitting for both the heavily armored and armed Panzer V and its brash commander.

“Sir!” the radioman yelled “Legate Shu has given the order to begin.”

“You heard Optio Fletcher. Driver begins the advance!”

“Yes Sir!” With that the Panzer V lurched forward, with the rest of the century moving forward behind him, spewing a stream of snow and dirt behind it’s treads as it advanced over the fields surrounding it. The rest of the armored force was moving with them within a few minutes, ready to do damage on a colossal scale on the Empire’s enemies. Within a few minutes of the advances beginning, a few shells landed nearby the dispersed armored fighting vehicles, sending stones and shrapnel crashing into the sides, but doing no damage to the oncoming force. The whole time, the Centurion kept his eyes on the periscope, monitoring what was going on. After a short wait, he saw what he knew would happen as dozens of United States Panzers rolled out from the trenches to engage the United States forces.

“Korolov, looks like the Bluejackets are coming our way. Load AP and prepare to fire on my command.”

“Yes sir!” With that, a huge shell was extracted from the vehicles’ left turret storage compartment and jammed into the cannon. The rest of the front line did so at the same time. The two forces rapidly converged on each other. Here, like in many other battles before, the Union Panzer force badly outnumbered the Imperial armored spearhead. But numbers would be far from the first and last words in the conflict.

As fast as they could, the US force made its way towards the EGA’s force while the EGA’s fleet moved towards their mark. As the force got within 3 KM of the US force, they stopped. Centurion Catinni watched closely as they moved in as close as possible, keeping a close eye on one of the lead M-10s as they approached and had the Gunner bring the cannon to bear upon it. Eventually, it rolled into it his panzer’s circle of death. With that, he bellowed the order.

“FIRE!”

Half a second latter, the Panzer’s massive 90mm cannon erupted with a massive high velocity tungsten cored shell, traveling at over two kilometers to its mark and ripped into the M-10’s fuel tanks. The Petrol powered beast stopped dead in its tracks and soon burst into flames. Over the next few seconds, the rest of his Cohort did the same and quickly many more M-10s were downed. Alex smirked; he was more than satisfied with the results. “Reload!” The loader gave a simple nod and loaded another shell into the cannon as quickly as possible. Ten seconds after the order was given, he fired a second shot against the enemy formation, which hit, but only grazed the side of the vehicles armor. He shrugged it off, one hundred percent accuracy was an impossibility, and he would not let it get to him. He demanded another shell be loaded and kept firing, by this point, the guns on the first wave of Panzer-Vs were augmented with those of a force of Panzer-IV and proceeded to rapidly cut down wave after wave of US Armor. Union Artillery continued to fall upon the Imperial Armor and a few fifty millimeter shells were fried by the United States M-10s as they advanced, but the lack of armor piercing power and accuracy made these attacks go to no avail. After about three and a half minutes and the loss of over two hundred panzers, the US armor was in full retreat.

“Centurion, Legate Shu has given us orders; the first maniple is not to pursue the Union Armor but to keep up the advance.” Optio Fletcher said.

“Very well, continue the advance and load bunker busters” Alex did want to press on against the retreating forces, but the M10s were faster than his Zhao and the Panzer IVs were more than capable of handling the retreating American Panzers. As such, the force pressed on towards the trench line, within a few minutes, they had reached their mark and parked a kilometer from the lightly defended US front lines. Despite the fact that the bombing run killed several thousand soldiers, they had been working overtime to restore what was lost in the region. He observed a bunker directly in front of him with a crew hopelessly dumping ammunition into his vehicle. “Gunner, Take out that pest”, he said calmly.

“With pleasure.” With that, the turret came to bear and fired at the bunker. A second afterwards, an explosion burst from inside the concrete structure and the gunfire stopped. Immediately afterwards, Alex then felt a thud as a US 50mm antitank gun hit the front of the vehicle, he checked the periscope and saw the perpetrator. “Target that…” He was interrupted as another Panzer took it out with a shrapnel shell. Some machinegun fire was sent into the trench line, but it did not do much more than suppressive fire, as well as some cannon fire. However, less than a minute after their arrival, the line was hit by a massive, screaming salvo of Hurricane Rockets and shells. However, behind them was coming the third wave.

---

14:35

Between the Ranks of Panzer Vs came the third wave of the Imperial military Armor, although these were not frontline Panzers. First to advance through were nine specialists TEV-I Razorbacks, a modified Panzer IV chassis most notable for its quickly rotating mineflail at the front, slowly advancing and ripping up the soil, setting off mines and ripping barbed wire to bits. Slowly but surly, they cut nine broad paths through the trenches. When they got half way, the soldiers in front of the oncoming vehicles found out about their weapons, each one carried a forty millimeter belt fed grenade launcher, and began clearing out the trenches around them. When they reached the trench line, they had cleared out much of the trenches in front of them. However, this was only the beginning.

---

14:53

Stormforce Optio Burton Templar drove his foot into the floor of the vehicle to draw the attention of his two strike groups as the APC approached its’ destination. He then spoke, as always, calmly and quietly “Men, in a few moments, we shall move out and engage in combat. You know your job, clear out the union’s forces and push them back. We are soldiers of the Empire of Great America, and what do to those who threaten our nation and our way of life?”

With that the entire force yelled out at once their response “EXTERMINATE!”

“Alright,” he said again “let’s give ‘em hell.” About thirty seconds latter, the rear hatch opened. “Iron Grenadiers, move out!” the black coated soldier said as he jumped out and landed in the trenches, followed closely by the century. As soon as the last soldier had hit the ground, his force began to move south passed fields of corpses, both charred to cinders by napalm and killed by the bombardment. For five minutes, they began their advance quietly, without engaging in combat. That was until first Legionary Shields nearly got shot in the head when he tried to pass a corner.

He quickly turned back and began firing off a few suppressive shots in their general direction “We got Bluejackets sir!” With that, Optio Templar ran over, took out a grenade, pulled the pin and tossed it down the trench from cover. With that, the firing stopped, as such he pulled out his mirror and checked. He saw no activity, so he gradually took a first step forward seeing the dead soldiers twenty meters away, still nothing. He and a fireteam advanced on them, still nothing. He the got to the pile of empty ammunition boxes they used as cover and discovered the three corpses. Two enlisted and a pistol carrying officer by the looks of it. He was quickly satisfied with the results and continued onwards; quietly advancing down the central trench line one of his men heard something, signaling it with a hand signal. They advanced forward towards the next corner, and at that point they were quite audible. There was only one thing to do here, made a few quick gestures and a few seconds latter, threw eight frag grenades over the corner and quickly began falling back facing backwards, guns in hand. They stood tightly packed in the mud for about fifteen seconds. The first soldier came through, armed with a big clunky Reynolds Squad automatic rifle. But before he could bring the giant weapon to bear, he was ripped apart by fire from the Great American’s Type Four assault rifles, which also brought down the second quickly. The third and forth managed to get off a shot each, but this simply hit the clay walls of the trench. After that, the next few simply began laying down suppressive fire from their cover, while the Imperials crouched down and continued firing. Never the less, a stray shot hit Shields in the shoulder.

“Jacobs, help me with Shields” Templar said as he grabbed him by the shoulder and began pulling him back while firing. Jacobs did not say a thing as began pulling the wonded comrade behind them. Iron Grenadiers were cold, calculating, merciless butchers but they did not leave their comrades behind.

A few seconds latter, two explosions went off in the general direction of the enemy forces and silencing the enemy’s fire and it was clear to Optio Templar what did it. A Razorback saw a big group of Union Soldiers coming up on the position of the break and silenced the opposition with a pair of grenades. He then waited and saw addition men coming his direction. He then calmly gave his orders while bandaging up Shields’ wound “You stay here and wait for medical aid, the rest of you will keep moving forward, and make sure they are all dead.”

---

18:12

General March took out a flask from his jacket pocket and took a swig of Whiskey as he looked over the latest report he was given on the situation. Another move he had made to halt the advance of Great American soldiers had failed at great cost to his forces, another battery of artillery was destroyed, an ammunition store destroyed, all of this had really tried his nerves. The defenses he had created were better than any of those the EGA had established during the US/Imperial war, which had eaten alive so many US soldiers, but even so the EGA had managed, somehow to burn, bomb, shell and break through the defensive Trench lines the US had made in a few hours. How were they able to do such a feet?

“Uh, Sir..” His assistant said.

“Yes.” He said in a most melancholy tone.

“Legate Fitzgerald has sent a message to you, he has said that they have begun reading a force of bombers to be with that incendiary compound to launch another strike against us and has given a request for surrender.”

With that, the general went into a state of deep thought. He looked over what was going on, and what was likely to happen in his mind several times. After twenty long, quiet seconds, he came to the conclusion. He could not save the city from conquest, but he could save the lives of thousands of his men. “Tell the men to stand down and tell him that I shall meet with him for terms of surrender.”

---

12:00 April 17th, Minneapolis, Outside of the Town hall

Legate Fitzgerald stood in the cold as he watched as a US Soldier handed him the stars and stripes as a squadron of Timberwolves flew overhead. He was hardly alone, a full infantry Cohort in winter dress uniform stood beside him, along with a marching band, the American Generals, Mayor, governors and a few prominent locals stood together outside. A short distance away, hundreds of angry citizens were held back by police as the ceremony went on.

The victory was a stunning one, Less than 3,000 of his own men were dead while inflicting 60,000 lethal casualties upon the US forces and the capture of the city. It was sure to earn him a few additional metals, not that he really cared about that. What he did care about was the fact that they had control of another rail hub, allowing the flow of supplies on to defend what the EGA had claimed to secure it’s conquests as well as to move onto other targets. He watched as the navy blue Compass Rose adorned banner of the Empire of Great America rose on the flagpole in front of him, a symbol of Great America’s military power over that of the United States, and ones he had plans on seeing in other locations, a prominent one on the list being Chicago.

Edit-Removed typo

[Sidewinder]

I see a lot of spelling errors, but the story's pretty good despite them. (Note: proofread your stories before posting them.)

[KlavoHunter]

Montana to Minneapolis in a single month is a pretty crazy.... no, a completely impossible rate of advance... especially considering that the average mechanized offensive typically goes about 300-400 miles before it stalls out and needs to regroup its logistics. This is true in WW2, hell, it was true in Operation Desert Storm, as well.

Seriously, after they break through the Montana Line, they still have all of the Great Plains to advance over, and THAT will strain the EGA's logistics, WW2-foresight equipment or not. It's just like Germany exhausting itself trying to push through all of the western USSR. They're going to have a hell of a time getting to the USA's main industries on the East Coast and in Michigan - which is why I don't forsee this war ending well at all for the Empire of Great America.

Can't wait to see the United States' sheer mass and industry turn stuff around and curbstomp the Walkerites.







... Also, your story stopped making sense after you posted The Dakota Offensive, as Manta's Dawn says the war starts in 1917, yet the events of TDO and M:TS seem to be happening in 1916...

[Zor]

Montana to Minneapolis in a single month is a pretty crazy.... no, a completely impossible rate of advance... especially considering that the average mechanized offensive typically goes about 300-400 miles before it stalls out and needs to regroup its logistics. This is true in WW2, hell, it was true in Operation Desert Storm, as well.

The EGA made a note to secure the Canadian transcontinental railways (Alongside Fitzgerald's eastern Campaign they also had taken southern British Colombia). However, i am willing to do some editing to fix technical details and i welcome assistance.

Can't wait to see the United States' sheer mass and industry turn stuff around and curbstomp the Walkerites.

Mind you, the United States is considerably smaller than in OTL, as well has having suffered economically because of lack of west coast ports. The EGA also has a geographic advantage in the rocky mountains. And as i have mentioned earlier the Mexicans (with EGA equipment) have launched an assault into Texas. This fact going alongside the fact that the EGA has been giving aid to help develop Mexico's econemy and improve child survival rates and as such, the population is considerably larger than it was in OTL, with about 22 million Mexicans.

... Also, your story stopped making sense after you posted The Dakota Offensive, as Manta's Dawn says the war starts in 1917, yet the events of TDO and M:TS seem to be happening in 1916...

That was a typo and has been fixed.

Zor

[KlavoHunter]

The EGA made a note to secure the Canadian transcontinental railways (Alongside Fitzgerald's eastern Campaign they also had taken southern British Colombia). However, i am willing to do some editing to fix technical details and i welcome assistance.

I'm pretty sure this still doesn't do the trick as far as making it all that way in one month.

Mind you, the United States is considerably smaller than in OTL, as well has having suffered economically because of lack of west coast ports. The EGA also has a geographic advantage in the rocky mountains.

"Considerably" being "Missing California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada, Alaska, and part of New Mexico."

At the time these places were lost to the US, they weren't especially important, well-populated areas (Save California, really).

And as i have mentioned earlier the Mexicans (with EGA equipment) have launched an assault into Texas. This fact going alongside the fact that the EGA has been giving aid to help develop Mexico's econemy and improve child survival rates and as such, the population is considerably larger than it was in OTL, with about 22 million Mexicans.

Does this go anywhere with the fundamental un-fucking of the Mexican government?

That was a typo and has been fixed.

Zor

I figured that was the case.

1880
-January 1st, Population of the Empire of Great America is 2.21 million and growing steadily thanks to post war immigration.

1890

-January 1st, Population of the Empire of Great America is at 5.37 million

1900
-January 1st Population of the Empire Great America is 10.72 million.

1910

-January 1st, Population of the Empire of Great America at 16.025 Million, population growth slows because of a slowing birth rate, although immigration still is going strong.

I feel extremely unsure of this population growth figure.





I also have serious issues with your tank development.

1862

-May 4th, Walker Industries creates a Rhombus shaped steam powered treaded armored vehicle with a top mounted turret with two side mounted 7.5mm Machine Guns and a forward mounted 30mm cannon and max speed of 8 KPH, designated by Walker as the Panzer, Type One (preferring the term Panzer over tank, especially since the reason why they got that name in OTL does not apply). 25 of them are ordered and production is at five a month. Automobile production continues.

For reference, the calibre of the 12-pounder "Napoleon" cannon of the Civil War was 4.62". A very small cannon, like the 30mm weapon the "Panzer One" is armed with, is frankly quite useless, even given the overly-optimistic supposition that the cannon technology the EGA possesses at this time is of early-WW1 level.

A 30mm cannon at that point in time is pretty much totally useless for any anti-infantry role, possessing a very minimal high-explosive charge. It's only once you start getting to the 47-57mm range that you get anything useful for anti-infantry work, and even then you probably want to go higher, to 75mm.

And on the other hand, that same 30mm cannon, while possessing a useful amount of armor penetration for anti-tank purposes... is equally useless, seeing as the Empire of Great America is the only power with anything even vaguely resembling a tank of any form.

So, what gives?

[Zor]

1862

-May 4th, Walker Industries creates a Rhombus shaped steam powered treaded armored vehicle with a top mounted turret with two side mounted 7.5mm Machine Guns and a forward mounted 30mm cannon and max speed of 8 KPH, designated by Walker as the Panzer, Type One (preferring the term Panzer over tank, especially since the reason why they got that name in OTL does not apply). 25 of them are ordered and production is at five a month. Automobile production continues.

For reference, the calibre of the 12-pounder "Napoleon" cannon of the Civil War was 4.62". A very small cannon, like the 30mm weapon the "Panzer One" is armed with, is frankly quite useless, even given the overly-optimistic supposition that the cannon technology the EGA possesses at this time is of early-WW1 level.

A 30mm cannon at that point in time is pretty much totally useless for any anti-infantry role, possessing a very minimal high-explosive charge. It's only once you start getting to the 47-57mm range that you get anything useful for anti-infantry work, and even then you probably want to go higher, to 75mm.

And on the other hand, that same 30mm cannon, while possessing a useful amount of armor penetration for anti-tank purposes... is equally useless, seeing as the Empire of Great America is the only power with anything even vaguely resembling a tank of any form.

So, what gives?

That was done early on in the development of the EGA's timeline, and i remembered reading about low caliber anti infantry cannons used during the Indian Wars. For a more up to date Panzer-One layout, History of Armored Fighting Vehicles has one.

Zor

[Battlehymn Republic]

1880
-January 1st, Population of the Empire of Great America is 2.21 million and growing steadily thanks to post war immigration.

1890

-January 1st, Population of the Empire of Great America is at 5.37 million

1900
-January 1st Population of the Empire Great America is 10.72 million.

1910

-January 1st, Population of the Empire of Great America at 16.025 Million, population growth slows because of a slowing birth rate, although immigration still is going strong.

I feel extremely unsure of this population growth figure.

It appears he's doing a story version of the Victoria Chinese cheat.

[Zor]

I have edited the date, it now happens two months after the start of the Dakota offensive.

Zor