Brazil - not your average banana republic - population = 3.5 million and an army of 1.1 million!
Their capital of Brazilia is lodged deep inside 700 km of rain-forest with very few roads.
viewtopic.php?f=43&t=15078&p=89557#p89557The capital is a complex of 4x4 hexes in size, festooned with AA, heavy armor and artillery - 30 SS-80 MRLS and as many EE-T-1
Osorio tanks.
There are no roads approaching from the North. An amphibious landing to the East would have a 700 km supply line and would
have to battle past the city of Sabara. Sabara would undoubtedly receive heavy support from the Megacities in three
directions.
An air drop into this military hell-hole would be suicide.
The country is vast - nearly empty in the North but resembling industrial Texas in the South. Two MegaCities guard the
Southern approach - Rio De Janeriro and Sao Paulo. This leaves the Western approach the most viable alternative - thru Ecuador, Peru or Bolivia.
The year is 2030 in the World 2020 campaign. I am playing as the United States in Capitals mode with no Moving Capitals. All I need to do is to capture and hold a capital city past midnight and that country surrenders to me.
I had brought a huge army from the homeland. Originally these units were cast-offs from the US Army - "obsolete" tech level 78 units that I did not want to scrap without getting some use out of them. So I formed a huge army of para-droppable M60A3 tanks, M113A3 APCs, M2A3 IFVs, Engineers, M1129 mortars, supply trucks, F-16 and F-15 fighter/bombers and most importantly -
long range XM2001 artillery. I aquired surprisingly few foreign units along the way (except for ships), although I would gladly add a stray Engineer or M113A3 when I captured it.
Although these were cast-off units, I had taken good care of them. I pull them off the line before they can be destroyed and diligently send them for repair. I had about 80 battle groups altogether.
My forces are approaching southward from Columbia in the North. Ecuador was kind enough to declare war on me, so after its fall, Ecuador became my indirect door to Brazil. Once inside Ecuador I quickly discovered how convienient it was to conquer Boliva since its capital is just a stone's throw from Ecudor's Southern border.
Once I owned Bolivia's Eastern border, I was 1/3 of the way to Brazilia! And to make it even more convienient, Brazil placed an airfield right across the Bolivian border for my use.
Brazil had declared war on me while I was busy taking Columbia, so I had had a few Northern border skirmishes with them before.
Crossing their Western border and taking this first air-field was a no-brainer. Now began the tedious task of taking the baby steps towards Brazilia, building war facilities such as air-fields and supply depots along the way.
Surprisingly Brazil seemed to present no particular challange to them. Since we were approaching on the road thru the rain-forest, about the only opposition that we encountered (aside from garrisons) were a few Recs and Engineers that would occasionally wander up and shoot at us.
As I surveyed the battlefield from my foothold air-base I decided to exert my control over Northern Brazil by taking all of their isolated air-bases. I had tried air-drops using only my M113A3 APCs previously. Eventually I discovered that their little machine guns were really no match for entrenched garrisons. So it was time to phone home for some high-tech aid from home. I went to Fort Bragg, home of my West coast airborne force and ordered up some Leap and Warrior para-troops, Airborne Engineers and some of their air-dropable M1118 anti-tank units and ASV-AX supply trucks.
With these I formed airborne assault groups of four each of M113A3s, Engineers, para-troopers, AT and Supply. I started to drop the whole bunch on the Brazilian villages with the target air-fields. At first it didn't work out - the Engineers and supply trucks got in the way of the combat units and everyone ran out of supplies before neutralizing the garrisons. So after a while I got smart and just dropped in the shock troops and then followed up with the support staff. To keep up the supply during the attack I used C-17A transports that patrolled between their base and the target. Later I started doing without the suppport units altogether, since I did not really need to use these air-bases myself - I just wanted to take them from the enemy.
It turned out that this was just a feel-good exercise on my part, except for the several air-fields what really were between me and Brazillia. However the Brazillian border did start to move Southward. The real work was moving on down the road East - fighting garrisons to take villages so that I could extend my supply line and air-cover East towards Brazilia. There is really only one relevent road to the Capital - the one to its South. But there are two roads leading to this road so I used a two-pronged approach and created two parallel lines of attack.
As I advanced and built more air-fields I was able to bring up my F-15/15 fighter bombers. A good thing too since Brazilian tanks began approaching my positions. They stood no chance against battle groups of my fighter planes. At first I used missiles, but after a while I just let the fighters maul the tanks with their default armorment.
Eventually I determined that I was actually bleeding these tanks off of Brazilia's city defenses. The more tanks that they sent, the more I destroyed - all the fewer that I would have to face at the final battle for the Capital. I never let any get away to be repaired. To assure that additional no enemy land support arrived from their Southern cities, I had my fighter/bombers cut all bridges leading South.
Things started to get more exciting when I realized that I was nearly within missile range of the Capital. I thought that I could decimate the city's armor with land missile fire. I had a four BGM-109 Gryphon GLCM missile launchers air-lifted from the U.S. and loaded them up with Tomahawk missiles. I started targeting the Brazillian SS-80 MLRS unit, which I judged to be the greatest threat, at a range of about 750 km. What a disappointment - it took over 70 TLAMS just to kill one SS-80 and there were 80 of them guarding the capital. To make things worse, whenever a TLAM salvo passed near a hex containing an enemy Engineering batallion, their Engineers would score a hit on my missile salvo. Un-believable - you would think that I was firing helicopters, not high-speed missiles.
I decided to get closer and use cheaper missiles. I advanced on the Southern prong so that I could bring my M270A1 MLRS units 350 km South of the Capital. As I advanced in the South, Brazillia launched a desperate tank attack, committing all of their city's tank reserve. I brought up two battle groups of fighter planes and easily dispatched every one of them.
I eagerly brought up a dozen MLRS units and loaded them with ATACMS missiles designed to attack enemy armored units. At 400 hit points per missile I was sure that I could decimate Barzillia's SS-80 force. It turned out that these missiles were no more effective than the TLAMs. I don't think that I destroyed a single SS-80. To make any impact I would have needed to commit my entire arsenal of ATACMS missiles and I was un-willing to do that.
So I brought in the B-52s. Wow! They were so much more effective. They fly high above the enemy AA. At first one strike by 10 of these Strategic Bombers created a parking lot where there was once a hex full of armor. For some reason after a while their effectiveness seemed to taper off, but not before effectively decimating the Capital's armor defenses.
At about this time I received a diplomatic offer of peace from Brazil. All they wanted was 1 billion dollars. I politely declined.
Now I was in position and ready to bring up my main army. I had been gradually moving the main assault group of tanks and artillery Eastward from Ecuidor. Now I brought the long range XM2000 artillery up and began reducing the last town complex blocking my forces from traveling up the final road North to their objective. I was patient because I have learned that simply trying to over-run garrisoned towns can be costly to my forces. A slow reduction of enemy enclaves with long-range artillery is much more effective. And I have a LOT of artillery.
Eventually when the garrisons of the five enemy towns and villages folded and I was able to move my artillery Northward and place it West of the Capital. Now was the time to bring up the armor. I brought up my seven battle groups of tanks, along with the rest of my attack armor. They drove East to the missile emplacement, then I sent them off-road towards the North-East to finally group South of Brazillia.
This was the final moment. I had nothing to fear. Resistance had been quelled to nothing and all I had left to do was to start reducing the garrisons in the cities and towns immediately surrounding Brazilia.
This was the final moment. I had nothing to fear. Resistance had been quelled to nothing and all I had left to do was to start reducing the garrisons in the cities and towns immediately surrounding Brazillia. The minute that I started to close in or earnest, an amazing thing happened - dozens of Brazillian A-4KU/M/N fighter planes came streaming from the South in defense of their Capital.
I was caught completely off-guard and I had set no CAP to protect my forces. Previously I had encountered no Brazillian resistance in the form of air support so I just did not forsee the need. Nor had I dragged along my own AA protection. Fortunately I still had my battle groups of fighters nearby and I quickly had them patrol the battle-field before the enemy aircraft had a chance to eacape. Over the rest of the battle my fighters were very effective against the enemy planes. As I check my current inventory, I can only find three surviving Brazillian A-4KU/M/N fighter planes.
With the CAP set I continued the B-52 attacks while I closed my artillery and armor in from the West and South respectively. I slowly tightened the noose in order to avoid a costly rush of my forces into what by now had been reduced to a complex of enemy batallions. The nooses grew tighter and tighter. My forces encircled Brazillia and squeezed the life out of her surrounding protective cities. One by one they fell in a burst of fire and my units triumphently rolled in.
At last there was only Brazilia remaining. I excitedly waited for that fateful radio message and at last it came - "We took their capital".
I immediately had the forces inside the city entrench. I don't know why - there weren't any defenders left. At midnight the gong sounded and all of Brazil joined the US of A. I won 1.5$ trillion, 105 Engineers, several CV Converted carriers, a whole army of Brazillian armor and an entire Navy. Along with 1/2 million garrison troops. My 3 million man defense force now consists of over 4 million.
And I have run short of electrical power.
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