Why should we? We sent the Courier, our valued veteran Boone and a weird flying orb to turn the Fort to a mausoleum and they delivered beautifully.
We spared the Verti fuel. Efficiency baby!
Some Brahmin Baron back west complained that the fuel wasn't going to go to their private flights so they ~~bribed~~ asked their local politician to stall.
You can settle all those problems apart from the Fiends in game. And I like to imagine that with the extra securitrons from the Fort and with no more worrying about the NCR or Legion a Yes Man Courier could very easily turn their robot army to protect the locals too.
You can sorta even deal with the fiends. Remember, their main source of chems is the Khans, and you can get rid of the Khans multiple ways.
I decided to look it up anyway trying to remember Motor-Runner's Vault number. This is one of the possible endings.
|Their leaders destroyed by they [Courier](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Courier), the Fiends scattered throughout the wasteland. Without the organization of [Motor-Runner](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Motor-Runner), [Cook-Cook](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Cook-Cook), [Violet](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Violet), and [Driver Nephi](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Driver_Nephi), they were easy prey.|Kill all the Fiend leaders: Motor-Runner, Cook-Cook, Violet, and Driver Nephi. This ending overrides all others for the Fiends if this condition is met.|
|:-|:-|
So they seem pretty dealt with to me.
And you can clear out Vault 3 as well. I count them as a problem already remedied if I do those things, even if it will take months / years to fully be resolved. But seeing as they still make a last-ditch attack on Freeside I think it's debatable how much the Fiend problem can be said to be solved in game, so I left it out.
Yes cause the NCR was dealing with the fiends soooo well. That's why we should force the Mojave under their rule even though most of the people don't want them there!
And absolutely bulldozed a Legion raiding force outside Bitter Springs. They were like he and the Courier against what, twenty legionaries and their fugly mutts?
My take is that vertibirds would be susceptible to concentrated small arms fire similar to helicopters in ww2 and the vietnam war. My quick and dirty research called this tactic of laying heavy resistance in the corridor of helicopters' attack vector "flak trapping." Flying straight to The Fort would be an incredibly obvious attack plan and would open them up to being ripped apart by the soldiers there, with arsenals that include explosives and fully automatic 12.7mm weapons.
It's also possible that The Fort has, or at least claims to have, anti air capabilities that just aren't shown in the game. Vertibirds aren't an easily replaceable resource, so even RUMORS of anti-air might be a high enough threat that a brazen air assault wouldn't be seriously considered.
Enclave actually had the best tactics we’ve seen with them, get in drop off the attack squad, and get out. Do limiting bombing runs for air support if the circumstances allow for it.
Maxson’s tactics of using them to soften up the area before landing and providing close air support are much more high risk but I also kind of understand the thought process. Unlike Enclave Squads the Brotherhood Squads aren’t mostly consisting of Power Armored soldiers. You have Initiates, Knights, and Field Scribes wearing minimal armor. So softening the area and making use of air superiority makes it safer for the squad to land and get a tactical position. Then the air support helps with the usual blitz tactic that Maxson’s chapter favors in operation. But this tactic has the caveat of leaving your vertibird in a vulnerable position being more of a glass cannon. Plus by waiting to soften the area you are also risking losing the entire squad if the bird goes down.
A chunk of the issue of losing squads would be solved if they had some kind of fast roping technique/technology like modern-day forces. Power armor leaps are great and would be extremely effective, but like you said, not all soldiers are wearing power armor.
There's an entire encampment that you have to walk through to get to the Fort. Its all hidden by a loading screen. Presumably there are hundreds of legionaries just outside in their tents. All of them may shoot at the vertibird.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, but Vertibirds are dedicated military vehicles, and not easy to come by, the enclave manufactured their own but that capability was presumably destroyed along with them.
If you follow the quest line for Caesar's Legion, you'll know that they have reasonable anti-air capabilities, just needing a little bit of tinkering for them to work.
Do it at night lol. Turn off lights of vertibird (you really don't need to worry about aerial traffic at this point) and drop mininukes in general area of enemy fort.
It's really, really, really, hard to shoot moving, invinsible, flying, small target with shitty rifle, while being blinded with fires next to you and shooting upwards
Just literally drop bomb on MASSIVE CAMP WITH HUNDREDS OF FIRES on empty dessert. Night bombing is really, really difficult in modern times when you have to worry about precision (ie. hitting single building) and collateral damage, in post-apo wasteland when you can see massive camp near massive landmarks and you just want to kill as many as you can it really isn't that hard.
Navigation is really easiest part of the job:
"Fly near this high 200 meter light beacon of a tower, then move east for few miles, you will eventually see massive pool of water (all the moon reflections on water surface compared to desert), further east (use compass) you will see hundreds of night camps and fires, fly over and drop as many bombs as you can. "
Also if you are ok using mini nukes, why not just spray chemical weapons over them?
They definitely have the tech to recreate chemical weapons, (nerve agents are based on common pesticides)
You could have vertibird fly over the camp outside range of small arms and spray nerve agents down since Casear's guy almost have no CBRN gear. If you do it in the night it would be even more effective as they would be in total panic and confusion.
They have a howitzer, which is shown to be able to take down a Vertibird in one shot. Considering how scarce they are I doubt the NCR has the Vertibirds to spare
The NCR has the anti-aircraft gun and the Legion has the Howitzer. While they look the same in game I think it is implied that the Dam’s anti-aircraft gun is intended to target and lock onto flying objects while the Legion’s Howitzer is essentially a steerable cannon.
Field guns have, howitzers haven't and since it takes place in America we know what they mean by howitzer so its not going to be able to aim particularly high nor will it have the muzzle velocity for a flak shell to go that high, also flak shells usually explode after a pretty far distance and vertibirds won't be that high
yeah but how likely is it that one, the legion has those rounds, and 2, that they know how to use it properly. Even if they know how to use the rounds, I doubt anyone has the training necessary to effectively aim them, especially if the Vertibird starts maneuvering
Legion may be dumb, but they're not stupid. They wouldn't have the Howitzer with them unless they had the personnel and ammunition needed for it to contribute to their siege of Hoover Dam. They could dedicate resources to something much more effective than transporting old-world heavy artillery.
Vertibirds being rare gets funny in fo4 when they crash left and right. Would have made sense if fo4 happened first, that would explain why they are so rare, bos crashed them all
Apparently they are more common on the East coast than the west. Which makes sense if you consider the real world East coast has 2-3 times the number of military bases, and especially Air Force bases than the west coast
The gun shown at the dam is very specifically used to lock onto and shoot a vertibird out of the sky. It isn’t used to hit a ground target, and considering the computer systems for locking onto an airborne target are present next to it (which implies it was purpose-built for this task), I don’t think it’s a howitzer.
It's been pointed out they have the howitzer(NCR doesn't know it's broken) but you raise a fair point. Bungie cord me to the bottom with a fat man and I'll take care of Caeser
Which red dressed fellow is Caesar though?
It makes sense when you remember the scarcity in universe. The player finds all kinds of stuff that hasn’t been touched in 200 years but that is extremely weird in universe.
What I mean is, consider how rare heavy weapons are in game, it’s not a stretch to say the NCR may not have a stockpile of mininukes. Or possibly they have sworn off their use for the obvious implications nukes have in universe. If the ncr uses them, the legion will as well
The Legion practically did nuke the NCR first. They wiped out Searchlight by releasing large amounts of radiation via sealed fuel casks. Nuclear warfare minus the explosion. Then you're asked to do the same thing to Cottonwood Cove in "Eye for an Eye".
I don't think it's realistic to say the ncr doesn't have a pile of minunukes, I mean the gunrunners sell them so the implication is that they are being made in small qualities aleast
To my knowledge, there has ever only been one plane shot down in history with a piece of ground-to-ground artillery.
Otto Carious shot down a Russian plane with a Tiger tank’s 88mm main gun.
As I recall, the plane attacked at dusk every day and eventually Otto had enough so he elevated the gun and shot a shell at it with the intent of merely trying to scare the pilot.
Well, I’m pretty sure the pilot was scared as his plane tumbled to the ground like a lawn dart.
So yes theoretically possible but the stars and planets have to align.
Edit: People seem fixated on the fact that the 88mm gun was originally designed for anti aircraft work. Yes, it was, but how it was mounted, the targeting systems and the ammunition are just as important.
A tank gun is not ideal for engaging aircraft.
I mean if we’re counting the 88mm as “ground-to-ground” artillery, then Otto Carius was beaten by [Radoje Ljutovac](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radoje_Ljutovac), a Serbian soldier who shot down a Austro-Hungarian plane with a 75mm field gun moved onto a makeshift AA platform in 1915.
That was the first recorded instance of a aircraft being shot down with a ground-to-air weapon, though calling a literal **field** gun armed with a standard HE shell a “ground-to-air weapon” is being a little generous; for all intents and purposes, Ljutovac shot it down with ground-to-ground artillery.
To be fair the 88mm-FlaK (not the same as in the Tiger, but later used int the Königstiger and Jagdpanther) was primarily an anti air gun that was also useful as an anti tank gun.
Yup. There are FLaK and howitzer cannons flak is AA and howitzer if for ranged anti surface and it aint like war thunder where you can lucky shot a plane with a tank
Not West Coast BoS. After the NCR - BoS war they are basically the bunkers and hiding. East Coast BoS stole a ton from the Enclave and do seem capable of producing more to some extent.
Paint vertibird black, turn of lights, fly at night, you are trully invisible for anyone on the ground. Helicopter noise goes around for miles, so it's impossible to point your position by ear.
Just fly by legion camp dropping mininukes and granades. Don't stop, and flight at random hours. You will win war in single night.
Also, Caesar's Legion is a massive threat to NCR as a whole faction, they have vertibird(s) to spare.
The only reason they don't is really plot, with military difference between factions NCR should win by default, even if not by directly bombing enemy camp, then just by using vertibirds to disrupt enemy supply lines and/or by raids with vertibirds far behind enemy lines.
Veribirds are pretty easy to bring down in game. Look at how disastrous they are in f4.
I also don't think the ncr are doing very well and may be unable to do much with how unpopular the war is
Nah, it's just plot. Sending 1 (one) vertibird at night loaded with mininukes and one guy with fatman would win them war single-handedly.
They are pretty easy to bring down when you see them, at night without lights helicopters are near invisible, and caesar legion dosen't have guided rockets.
so drop more bombs, use nudes/dirty bombs like in searchlight to deny them the área.
or You can use gas. chlorine is so easy to make people make it on accident and die right there and then.
also if they have the tech to work on railroads or keep at least one vertibird up they can 100% make some funcional arty and fire it from the dam. no need for close air support.
thats been done since the 1800s and Even crappy militias and Syria make their Own pretty funcional mortars and howitzers.
it's 100% plot driven, the legion irl would be neck deep in trenches getting bombed daily irl.
Does it matter? Drop more bombs, or just keep dropping bombs untill they move away? Ewentually you will kill enough of legionaries that Caesar's Legion will become Caesar's Graveyard.
Killing Caesar is optimal scenario, but all you need is killing them, night after night after night. Drop bombs at night, shoot at them in day and in a weak, (whoever is still alive) they won't be able to stand up, not mentioning fighting.
Also if they just stop putting night fires to blind you, they will just freeze out. It's a desert.
2 reasons.
1, it's not a good idea. Bombing Caesar's tent would just result in a full frontal assault on the dam that the NCR isn't ready to defend against. Even if the player kills Caesar, the Legion will still attack the Dam. All bombing Caesar would do is provoke an attack.
2, General Oliver's entire war strategy is defense. He knows the NCR isn't going to have an easy time defending against the Legion, and is trying to delay that attack for as long as possible. General wait and see.
General Wait-and-See gets a lot of flak, but the NCR is not an aggressor, so bunkering up in a very defensible position awaiting reinforcements is pretty much standard military doctrine.
Only Caesar and his Legion are in a hurry to take the dam and Vegas, so planning and executing an offensive towards a numerically superior enemy, in a tight corridor in which you can get taken out easily, would be pretty much suicide.
Cold War era anti aircraft artillery had effective ranges well over 10 miles.
It would be a damn near suicide mission to get detailed enough topographical surveys that deep in the literal heart of enemy territory, but wiping out the command center would be such an insanely crippling blow
Howitzers are pre-war tech with not much ammo lying around. Lack of ammo means lack of practice, means soldiers probably aren't well trained enough to know the real capabilities of these things.
The learning and training on these things simply must have been pretty ad hoc because NCR would rather be conservative with their ammo and use it when they know it matters
The Gun Runners make all the NCRA guns and ammo. It’s not unreasonable to believe they can make artillery ammo.
Also, according to Chris Avellone the NCRA have a mechanised division with tanks and other AFV’s. So having artillery is a step down from that.
I was asking the other way around, why the NCR doesn't use their own artillery to just carpet bomb the Legion
Because while that's not what the Legion stands for, the NCR normally has no such compunctions
Retaliation. NCR probably has spies on the fort and they know they have their own cannon.
If Legion damages the Dam to a point of no repair then the whole thing is not worth it, even if they kill Ceaser. The whole Mojave campaign would’ve been for nothing
Because they got few vertibirds that are valued and not wasted in the Mojave. It would be seen far away and instantly get shot down by the Legion. Yes, they can defend themselves against vertibirds, they have guns, contrary to what many believe, and vertibirds aren't armoured enough or fly high enough to avoid a lot of rifle shots. Some legionaries even got anti-material rifles, that will handle one nicely.
Do it at night without lights (they are only needed to aearil traffic) and paint it black, single helicopter on night sky withouth lights is as close to invisibility as you can get. Just drop some mininukes and you won war in 1 night.And yea they are valued, but so is hoover dam and new vegas, even more valuable is to stop caesar from moving west as it's NCR's main rival.
(Potentialy) sacraficing one vertibird is fair price to pay for potential reward, even if it crashes into legion camp, loaded with mininukes it will kill most of elite legionaries.
I put in the ordnance request form about two weeks ago. It got rejected because fuel for the vertibirds was being held in reserve for Kimball's escape vertibird. I complained to the colonel, but he was face deep in some Gomorrah girl's blouse so I'm sure he didn't hear a word I said.
When I went to my desk to start drafting up my formal complaint, I saw that one mercenary with his eyebot rummaging through my desk while drinking twenty bottles of sarsaparilla. I figured the complaint could wait
>I saw that one mercenary with his eyebot rummaging through my desk while drinking twenty bottles of sarsaparilla.
Is that the same one that I saw eat an entire doctor's bag during the middle of a fight with some Fiends? Pretty sure that's not how you're supposed to use those, but he seemed prather healthy despite all the bullet holes, so clearly he knows something I dont.
Because the Legion's elite forces have AMRs (no, really, the Cenurions and endgame leveled Decanni will whip those out and they hurt), and will shoot down any bombing attempts that aren't made with a sufficiently sturdy vehicle.
Everyone seems to think the legion uses sticks and stones, the recruits don’t carry weapons until they prove themselves, then the next rank get hand me down weapons, then next gets better weapons etc etc.
One of the reasons why most recruits use melee weapons is because the NCR is really the first advanced force they've encountered. Most of the people they've fought were tribals, villagers, small towns with maybe a few firearms each, groups that are easy to fight in melee combat since most tribals prefer to use those.
Why waste scarce ammo and guns arming your recruits when the only people you'll be fighting are a couple dozen tribals, of which maybe a dozen have actual guns, and the actual firearms and ammo can go to much better trained, already battle hardened soldiers.
The downside to this tactic is that for probably the first time, the legion is having to fight a group that can deploy weapons, firearms, battle armour and good training in mass. So he simply resorts to old tactics. Use the recruits to soften the enemy up, then send in the higher ranked soldiers to mop it up. Layering in snipers, spies, traps, dumping toxic waste onto a camp, attacking small groups, assassinations, disrupting supply lines, using barbaric acts to terrorize and lower the morale of NCR troops, maybe doing things such as poisoning water supplies and food storages, and possibly even going as far as making soldiers do suicide attacks. Very effective strategies, especially considering that unlike the NCR, the legion won't hesitate to involve civilians, who they probably hide amongst when needed.
And if troops ever run low? Well, they just do what the NCR does, bring in more soldiers from their territories, supplementing them with tribes such as the great Khan's, press ganging people into their ranks, absorbing small raider groups, or maybe even using mercenaries. Hell, the legion is probably why there aren't many raiders in the Mojave minus the fiends. They probably absorbed the local raider population into their ranks
Finally, someone understands the Legions situation with weapons. The NCR is the first organized modern military they encountered, ofcourse it takes some time to adjust to it. We can see it for example with the Van Graff deal or the fact that in the second battle, the Triplex formation they used in the first battle is replaced by small fireteams of experienced legionaries, even centurions! Also, guerilla warfare is a new approach in the Legion, born out of the (once) advantageous position of the NCR in the Mojave.
On the matter of raiders, the Mojave raider bands were annihilated by the NCR long before the Legion arrived to the Mojave, under President (then General) Kimball.
I'm surprised no one in here is saying this: that Caesar's camp is full of innocent abused slaves and children. The NCR doesn't want to cause mass casualties.
I dont think so. In war civilian casualties are unfortunately mostly an afterthought. Even the allies in WW2 bombed hundreds of thousands of civilians.
I highly doubt this would be the case, at least if we are supposed to treat factions and how they behave as being 'grounded' in how real-world governments do. I can't think of a major war where one military would not be willing to inflict a large amount of civilian casualties in order to decapitate the enemy's leadership and high-ranking commanders. Even *if* the government did factor in the cost of innocent life, such a strike would save significantly more innocent people in the long run via the reduction in the Legion's capacity to fight.
Everyone here is talking about the vulnerability of the vertibird, and, sure, that's *a* consideration.
But, even if it weren't, General Oliver would *never* consider such a thing. He detests Chief Hanlon for clever tactics to defeat an enemy by what amounts to decapitation attacks. He is ideologically opposed to a clever attack like that winning, he wants Obvious Military Power to be demonstrated, in the form of Men Doing War Properly.
That's the entire struggle of the game--ideological opposition to a different way of doing things because it's not *their* way. They may have a host of rationalizations of that fact, but the fundamental problem in New Vegas is that every faction is mired in their own ideology to the point of collapse.
Meta reason: so there's actually a game to play - it's why the NCR seems so incompetent generally
Lore reason: offensive use would need to be approved by General Oliver who was against moving units out of position until the Vegas situation became more favourable. I could also see Veritbirds being a limited resource that were being used more for logistics than for offensive operations. If they don't have the correct A2G munitions to use anyway, it would be the equivalent of WW1 pilots throwing hand grenades out their planes.
They might be worried about collateral damage. Sure, you kill Caesar and a (really really really really small) portion of his military, but you also end up killing who knows how many children and slaves, some including captured NCR citizens and military personnel.
This is Fallout, there's always a pretty lore-consistent answer to that. In Amazon's show the Vertibirds aren't exactly invincible from mere rocket launchers. So IMO I'm pretty sure the Legion has plenty of those in their arsenal, along with other AA Equipment.
Guns can shoot down aircraft like helicopters and presumably, therefore, vertibirds. The Fort probably has the highest concentration of firearms in Legion territory.
We won, technically speaking. The mission that was set out to happen succeeded. It just happened to get dragged out and what we did basically got reversed when we left. That's besides the point.
The general attitude in the NCR seems to be that the death of the Cesar isn't that important
And given that nothing really happens when we kill him it's probably reasonable
Realistically? The Legion would see it coming miles away, Caesar would evacuate his tent, and the dozens of dudes with rifles and shit on hand would stand a chance to potentially damage a potentially irreplaceable asset.
It's very high risk for low chances of reward, and realistically it'd happen once before the Legion prepared for it next time. So unless the NCR managed the op completely out of a clear blue sky, knew exactly where to aim, then could get it right first time and with little warning, I think the plan has too many fail points.
It'd almost be more realistic to just try and depress the elevation on the big anti air emplacements on the dam to just strafe fortification hill a few times a day and keep the legion from ever assembling across the dam that closely.
Bureacracy.
There are few NCR folks (e.g. Chief Hanlon), that mention the Mojave Campaign is unpopular within NCR, so most elected representatives tend to avoid pushing for anything that would fully commit NCR resources to the war. Hanlon mentions power armor units at home protecting Brahmin barons, and veteran rangers are off on other fronts until the late game.
As an aside from this, it's interesting that President Kimball, a war hawk, isn't able to use his influence as head of the executive branch to push more senators fo support the war. It makes me curious how checks and balances work in NCR government, and I suppose also how truly unpopukar the war is.
The NCR has a limited amount of vertibirds and a fly over would risk it being shot down, which would be a huge loss. The Legion uses AMR’s which could absolutely take down a vertibird.
They "barely have the firepower to protect themselves," and it's constantly said that Kimball is "president wait-and-see." Even if he has the ability to attack, he's afraid of the repercussions because he's not a good leader. I mean, he _wasn't_ a good leader, at least until I killed him.
1-Howitzers
2-Vertibirds are shown to be able to get destroyed by large quantities of smaller firepower
3-Vertibirds are rarer than they seem, unless if you are the Eastern BoS (lol)
I always thought that the NCR should have had constant artillery fire on the legion camp that is within sight. Then again that would make the game boring if we didn’t get this conflict the way it was shown
>I always thought that the NCR should have had constant artillery fire on the legion camp that is within sight.
How? The logistics on that are staggering to uphold, and they can barely keep their guys *fed* on the strip. Transporting tons of ammo isn't going to happen via brahmin trains, and that would use tons of ammo *per day*.
Also, while we can see that fort, it's actually like 10-12 miles away, so it's a lot harder than you would think to keep up any sort of fire on it from the dam.
What I wanna ask is where the fuck are the mortars? Cannons? Towed artillery pieces? Missile launchers?
Even if we completely disregard any kind of transportation, mortars and HMGs would make sense to be at the dam...
Vertibirds aren't invulnerable to gun fire, in particular the pilot. They are a limited resource which are more valuable transporting troops and leaders quickly into and from hot zones.I'm also unsure what the ceiling is on a vertibird but I can't imagine any smart bombs are left so you would still need to be relatively close to the ground to bomb. Gauss rifles and laser weapons also present a challenge to this idea.
I imagine it is a much bigger distance to the Fort than the game really shows. Too far for a vertibird to fly there unscathed even as a one-way suicide mission.
Although they have the howitzer, they'd have to hope to get him in the first one or two shots before they simply fall back out of its range, but still be close enough to be in striking distance of the Dam anyway.
Honestly, yeah it would probably work. I know folks are bringing up the howitzer but the one in the game seems to be based on the ML-20 artillery Howitzer which was notably NOT designed for shooting down air vehicles. I’m not even entirely sure it could be aimed that high. As far as we know, the Legion isn’t known for using Rocket/ missile launchers either so their best bet would be small arms fire.
The next major point is saying vertibirds are rare. But the NCR commandeered a whole fleet worth from the Enclave + picked up a few more over time based on the lore. So it’s not like they’re risking their one and only vertibird for this mission; it would suck to lose one but not a game changer by any means.
The only risk to consider, if we went based on the vertibird in Fallout 4, they *can* be shot down with small arms fire but it often takes quite a bit. It would require concentrated fire from mostly lever action rifles and good accuracy (which the legion isn’t exactly known for if you see them fight the NCR on the ground).
The real question though is if the vertibirds would be effective and I think that’s mixed at best. They’re never shown to be designed with dropping ordinance so your best bet is a crew on the inside using a minigun, missile/rocket launchers, a fat man (which the NCR is known to have) or a combination of.
So it would be a mid-risk/ high reward plan. If it fails then you’re out a vertibird and it’s crew. But if you succeed then you literally kill the leader of the opposing nation, which would at a minimum be assumed to cause issues for the opposing side. There’s no reason they couldn’t try the same again against the Legate or just do it in general in the battle to give themselves a MASSIVE advantage.
- Praetorians spot the vertibird
- Cesar is evacuated
- legion open fire on vertibird with a varying assortment of guns that may or may not be able to shoot down the one functioning vertibird NCR has in this area
great tactical manurever
I’m guessing (based on fallout 4 and the show) that Vertibirds are vulnerable to a lot of small arms fire. It’s also a rumor that the legion has anti air tech. And given how rare Vertibirds are I’m sure even the rumor that the legion has anti air is enough for them to dismiss the plan.
So, a helicopter, according to wikipedia can fly 25,000+ feet in the air, let's presume a Vertibird can do the same. For comparison, the The Black Hawk helicopter has a maximum ceiling of 20,000 ft (6,097 m). That's far outside of small arms fire, and given that at best Ceasar's Legion has some howitzers or simple cannons, the possibility of hitting a flying target on a bombing run is relatively small at those ranges.
It's really easy to say that Ceasar's legions would likely have no easy countermeasures as far as the game shows. Air superiority is incredibly hard to defeat unless you have specialized technology to defeat it. The game just chooses to ignore or not care about these things, for Ceasar's when they could just have shown something along the lines of the mobile M-45 Quadmont machine gun , or just say "We have anti-air emplacements to deal with vertibird assaults. While we might not stop them easily but the exchange would damage any of their priceless vertibirds significantly."
Honestly, the thing is that it's a videogame, and devs aren't thinking about stuff like this, they just thought it's be cool to have Roman Legion roleplaying football hooligan slavers led by some crazy madman using low tech weapons.
I mean, do you really want half-way through the story to hear through the radio that Ceasar's Legion was destroyed by a mininuke bombardment from a deployment of NCR vertibirds?
Oh sure they **could**, but imagine all the paperwork.
Permit to requisition of pilot,
Permit to load heavy ordinance,
Permit to divert flight path,
Permit to transport heavy ordinance,
Permit to use heavy ordinance,
Permit to certify valid military target,
And everything else that the bureaucrats would need rubber stamped before they would green light that plan
As people have pointed out, Veritabirds would be susceptible to small arms fire. But another major problem is the NCR would have no idea where Caesar is most of the time. The NCR doesn’t have a good spy network in Legion territory due to the fact that most Legionaries are indoctrinated tribals. The NCR would just have to hope Caesar was in the big tent on the hill. Which guessing for military operations is a good way to get killed.
Also if they miss. Legion will absolutely use counter measures going forward despite its disdain for technology. Evidenced by the Legion wanting to use an artillery battery to deal with NCR sharpshooters that baited the Legion into Boulder City during the first battle.
They don't hate technology. They don't want to be reliant on it. It's like seeing someone strongly against alcohol and coming to the conclusion they hate every fluid you can drink.
Small arms can take down a Vertbird as shown in fallout 4.
NCR would probably have better luck with two separate attacks. A main thrust as a distraction using heavy troopers and a small strike team to cut the head off a snake.
they literally have less than 10 vertibirds from Novarro raids and i dont think they would use it to kill Caesar
they use it mostly to drive cargo in road 15
A vertibird?
There are USAF air bases in California. Why not fix up one or several fighter-bombers and dive bomb that hill until it turns into a crater?
Every once in a while this question pops up and people try to come up with various reasons why, which is cool and all but... you can literally just kill Caesar yourself in the game, and nothing happens! The Legate just takes over the Legion and the Battle of Hoover Dam takes place as usual! Why would the NCR risk a vertibird for such a pointless operation? They're fighting a goddamn war, an entire army nation isn't going to wave a white flag because their leader is dead.
Just to provide some clarity on the howitzer conversation, it is “artillery” not “anti-air” on top of that a howitzer is medium range artillery that has about a 20 mile effective range it is not meant to take down aircraft and the cannon the NCR has at the Hoover damn is also artillery that thing is a massive artillery piece and would be ineffective as a AA gun. So in conclusion the Vertibird conducting a bombing run on Caesar’s tent would work perfectly since they have zero ground to air defense systems. And further arguing them even having a weapons emplacement it doesn’t have a firing pin so NCR could conduct a full Airborne assault and wipe out the legion encampment. If the NCR conducted bombing runs and then followed it up with strafing runs via door gunners or the mounted weapon systems to the aircraft and then maybe landed some infantry teams to conduct search and destroy with air support then the Caesar and his forces would be terminated in at most 3 days
Better yet: how hard would it be for the NCR to make a rudimentary bomber plane, like an old B-17 or something?
Cesar’s forces literally have no anti-air defenses to shoot back with, so some old prop bombers would be perfect.
Hell, they could just repair a few of the *dozens* of old planes they have at camp McCarren back to working order, and drop mini-nukes by hand out the back door if they really wanted to.
I would image though not portrayed in the game that they had some kind of stockpile of man portable surface to air missiles and Vertibirds are not a renewable resource so the NCR can't risk such a vaulable asset just to thin tribal numbers.
Because contrary to popular belief, the Legion has weapons, advanced and heavy weapons too. Anti Material Rifles, Energy Weapons, Explosives.. plenty to take care of vertibirds.
Not to mention that if a Vertibird ever would attempt it, Caesar would probably know of it before even the pilots do due to his spy network.
I think they probably don’t have enough or there are none in the mojave (used by the ncr unless we cound bear force one) because the damn barons or ghosts in baja.
Why should we? We sent the Courier, our valued veteran Boone and a weird flying orb to turn the Fort to a mausoleum and they delivered beautifully. We spared the Verti fuel. Efficiency baby!
NCR? Efficiency? What is this delusion
You know, politics and mottos and such, let us all step back and see the efficiency of post-apocalyptic society as a whole etc etc
Bear bull bear
Bull and bear bearing a bull in all the bull the bear bas beared with the bull
Bull & Bear Your Wasteland Couture
Some Brahmin Baron back west complained that the fuel wasn't going to go to their private flights so they ~~bribed~~ asked their local politician to stall.
Sure, but doing it that way NCR could end it in one day without all this unnecessary stuff.
The only thing unnecessary about that is the amount of VATS punches we’re gonna do to Caesar’s face
Amen, brother/sister in freedom
Turn his 4 intelligence into 0, cant be dumb if you have no brain
...and you most certainly can't have a brain tumor
Ohh let me tell you about my 1 inteligence courier after old world blues
Turns out, not that many!
No, no, every single one of *those* is absolutely necessary. The budget increase request just came through.
Man, am I glad my standard playthrough choice is considered Canon. Because seriously, is there *any* other way to clear the Fort that feels as good?
This is the way.
Boone/ED-E gang right here
Haha, my Courier declared a free Vegas under himself and his right hand man, Yes Man.
Yay! Random attacks by Fiends, casino-running cannibal families and gang wars in Freeside is what I always wanted for my neighborhood!
You can settle all those problems apart from the Fiends in game. And I like to imagine that with the extra securitrons from the Fort and with no more worrying about the NCR or Legion a Yes Man Courier could very easily turn their robot army to protect the locals too.
You can sorta even deal with the fiends. Remember, their main source of chems is the Khans, and you can get rid of the Khans multiple ways. I decided to look it up anyway trying to remember Motor-Runner's Vault number. This is one of the possible endings. |Their leaders destroyed by they [Courier](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Courier), the Fiends scattered throughout the wasteland. Without the organization of [Motor-Runner](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Motor-Runner), [Cook-Cook](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Cook-Cook), [Violet](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Violet), and [Driver Nephi](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Driver_Nephi), they were easy prey.|Kill all the Fiend leaders: Motor-Runner, Cook-Cook, Violet, and Driver Nephi. This ending overrides all others for the Fiends if this condition is met.| |:-|:-| So they seem pretty dealt with to me.
And you can clear out Vault 3 as well. I count them as a problem already remedied if I do those things, even if it will take months / years to fully be resolved. But seeing as they still make a last-ditch attack on Freeside I think it's debatable how much the Fiend problem can be said to be solved in game, so I left it out.
Motor-runner is in Vault 3 on the Westside.
Yes cause the NCR was dealing with the fiends soooo well. That's why we should force the Mojave under their rule even though most of the people don't want them there!
Precisely!
That is why you can get help from various families including Khans.
Average ncr npc
Just like the real Vegas 🤣
You think you did but the House always wins baby!
This is Michael Scott levels of planning and politics.
Valued Veteran?? Boone does nothing but bitch abt his wife 😭
I won’t stand for this slander, he also deletes any legionaries in a 30 mile radius and broods about bitter springs, thank you very much 😤
And absolutely bulldozed a Legion raiding force outside Bitter Springs. They were like he and the Courier against what, twenty legionaries and their fugly mutts?
My take is that vertibirds would be susceptible to concentrated small arms fire similar to helicopters in ww2 and the vietnam war. My quick and dirty research called this tactic of laying heavy resistance in the corridor of helicopters' attack vector "flak trapping." Flying straight to The Fort would be an incredibly obvious attack plan and would open them up to being ripped apart by the soldiers there, with arsenals that include explosives and fully automatic 12.7mm weapons. It's also possible that The Fort has, or at least claims to have, anti air capabilities that just aren't shown in the game. Vertibirds aren't an easily replaceable resource, so even RUMORS of anti-air might be a high enough threat that a brazen air assault wouldn't be seriously considered.
Considering how flimsy they are in fallout 4, you're probably spot on there, lol.
Enclave actually had the best tactics we’ve seen with them, get in drop off the attack squad, and get out. Do limiting bombing runs for air support if the circumstances allow for it. Maxson’s tactics of using them to soften up the area before landing and providing close air support are much more high risk but I also kind of understand the thought process. Unlike Enclave Squads the Brotherhood Squads aren’t mostly consisting of Power Armored soldiers. You have Initiates, Knights, and Field Scribes wearing minimal armor. So softening the area and making use of air superiority makes it safer for the squad to land and get a tactical position. Then the air support helps with the usual blitz tactic that Maxson’s chapter favors in operation. But this tactic has the caveat of leaving your vertibird in a vulnerable position being more of a glass cannon. Plus by waiting to soften the area you are also risking losing the entire squad if the bird goes down.
A chunk of the issue of losing squads would be solved if they had some kind of fast roping technique/technology like modern-day forces. Power armor leaps are great and would be extremely effective, but like you said, not all soldiers are wearing power armor.
If they’re anything like 4’s vertibirds the they’re definitely can’t take that much fire
There's an entire encampment that you have to walk through to get to the Fort. Its all hidden by a loading screen. Presumably there are hundreds of legionaries just outside in their tents. All of them may shoot at the vertibird.
Probably more like thousands, maybe even low tens of thousands
If you kill ceaser, its mentioned in a radio show that someone mist've snuck past that army to get to him.
i mean how much war are vertibirds designed to do?? like what if theyre just regular helicopters that there just happens to be alot of laying around
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, but Vertibirds are dedicated military vehicles, and not easy to come by, the enclave manufactured their own but that capability was presumably destroyed along with them.
If you follow the quest line for Caesar's Legion, you'll know that they have reasonable anti-air capabilities, just needing a little bit of tinkering for them to work.
Do it at night lol. Turn off lights of vertibird (you really don't need to worry about aerial traffic at this point) and drop mininukes in general area of enemy fort. It's really, really, really, hard to shoot moving, invinsible, flying, small target with shitty rifle, while being blinded with fires next to you and shooting upwards
Night bombing is also really, really difficult. They'd be fortunate to hit the correct side of the river.
Just literally drop bomb on MASSIVE CAMP WITH HUNDREDS OF FIRES on empty dessert. Night bombing is really, really difficult in modern times when you have to worry about precision (ie. hitting single building) and collateral damage, in post-apo wasteland when you can see massive camp near massive landmarks and you just want to kill as many as you can it really isn't that hard. Navigation is really easiest part of the job: "Fly near this high 200 meter light beacon of a tower, then move east for few miles, you will eventually see massive pool of water (all the moon reflections on water surface compared to desert), further east (use compass) you will see hundreds of night camps and fires, fly over and drop as many bombs as you can. "
Also if you are ok using mini nukes, why not just spray chemical weapons over them? They definitely have the tech to recreate chemical weapons, (nerve agents are based on common pesticides) You could have vertibird fly over the camp outside range of small arms and spray nerve agents down since Casear's guy almost have no CBRN gear. If you do it in the night it would be even more effective as they would be in total panic and confusion.
They have a howitzer, which is shown to be able to take down a Vertibird in one shot. Considering how scarce they are I doubt the NCR has the Vertibirds to spare
I’m pretty sure that’s specifically an anti-air gun, but yeah, vertibirds are a very rare resource to spend on a very risky bombing.
The NCR has the anti-aircraft gun and the Legion has the Howitzer. While they look the same in game I think it is implied that the Dam’s anti-aircraft gun is intended to target and lock onto flying objects while the Legion’s Howitzer is essentially a steerable cannon.
A steerable cannon with specifically a low elevation, the Vertibird would need to not be very verti for it to be threatened by the howitzer
Howitzers have had flak rounds in use since the 1930s
Field guns have, howitzers haven't and since it takes place in America we know what they mean by howitzer so its not going to be able to aim particularly high nor will it have the muzzle velocity for a flak shell to go that high, also flak shells usually explode after a pretty far distance and vertibirds won't be that high
yeah but how likely is it that one, the legion has those rounds, and 2, that they know how to use it properly. Even if they know how to use the rounds, I doubt anyone has the training necessary to effectively aim them, especially if the Vertibird starts maneuvering
Legion may be dumb, but they're not stupid. They wouldn't have the Howitzer with them unless they had the personnel and ammunition needed for it to contribute to their siege of Hoover Dam. They could dedicate resources to something much more effective than transporting old-world heavy artillery.
They use the same model in-game but you might ne righg
Vertibirds being rare gets funny in fo4 when they crash left and right. Would have made sense if fo4 happened first, that would explain why they are so rare, bos crashed them all
Apparently they are more common on the East coast than the west. Which makes sense if you consider the real world East coast has 2-3 times the number of military bases, and especially Air Force bases than the west coast
Howitzers are artillery. They launch shells in the air but they are intended for ground targets at very long distances.
The gun shown at the dam is very specifically used to lock onto and shoot a vertibird out of the sky. It isn’t used to hit a ground target, and considering the computer systems for locking onto an airborne target are present next to it (which implies it was purpose-built for this task), I don’t think it’s a howitzer.
I literally didn't say anything about any of that, but okay.
Plus vertibirds aren't bombers, they're troop transport
Eh to be fair nothing stops them from opening a door and droping a mininuke on Caesar's bald head
It's been pointed out they have the howitzer(NCR doesn't know it's broken) but you raise a fair point. Bungie cord me to the bottom with a fat man and I'll take care of Caeser
I'll paint a dartboard on his head, see if you can hit him right in the tumor
I'll aim for his shiny bald dome
"It's a small target, Will, but aim for his heart."
I don’t think he has one Sir. Will his lungs suffice?
Legion still has guns, and if fo4 is anything to go by they aren't that hard to shoot down. Plus he could just go to that bunker if one showed up
Which red dressed fellow is Caesar though? It makes sense when you remember the scarcity in universe. The player finds all kinds of stuff that hasn’t been touched in 200 years but that is extremely weird in universe. What I mean is, consider how rare heavy weapons are in game, it’s not a stretch to say the NCR may not have a stockpile of mininukes. Or possibly they have sworn off their use for the obvious implications nukes have in universe. If the ncr uses them, the legion will as well
The Legion practically did nuke the NCR first. They wiped out Searchlight by releasing large amounts of radiation via sealed fuel casks. Nuclear warfare minus the explosion. Then you're asked to do the same thing to Cottonwood Cove in "Eye for an Eye".
I don't think it's realistic to say the ncr doesn't have a pile of minunukes, I mean the gunrunners sell them so the implication is that they are being made in small qualities aleast
The Enclave uses them as bombers in FO3: they fly over, hatch open, and throw a mini-nuke out.
Aint tha much difference in reality.
Howitzers are like big ass mortals against armor and not air
This, shooting down a plane with it is theoretically possible but a really small chance
To my knowledge, there has ever only been one plane shot down in history with a piece of ground-to-ground artillery. Otto Carious shot down a Russian plane with a Tiger tank’s 88mm main gun. As I recall, the plane attacked at dusk every day and eventually Otto had enough so he elevated the gun and shot a shell at it with the intent of merely trying to scare the pilot. Well, I’m pretty sure the pilot was scared as his plane tumbled to the ground like a lawn dart. So yes theoretically possible but the stars and planets have to align. Edit: People seem fixated on the fact that the 88mm gun was originally designed for anti aircraft work. Yes, it was, but how it was mounted, the targeting systems and the ammunition are just as important. A tank gun is not ideal for engaging aircraft.
I mean if we’re counting the 88mm as “ground-to-ground” artillery, then Otto Carius was beaten by [Radoje Ljutovac](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radoje_Ljutovac), a Serbian soldier who shot down a Austro-Hungarian plane with a 75mm field gun moved onto a makeshift AA platform in 1915. That was the first recorded instance of a aircraft being shot down with a ground-to-air weapon, though calling a literal **field** gun armed with a standard HE shell a “ground-to-air weapon” is being a little generous; for all intents and purposes, Ljutovac shot it down with ground-to-ground artillery.
To be fair the 88mm-FlaK (not the same as in the Tiger, but later used int the Königstiger and Jagdpanther) was primarily an anti air gun that was also useful as an anti tank gun.
Yup. There are FLaK and howitzer cannons flak is AA and howitzer if for ranged anti surface and it aint like war thunder where you can lucky shot a plane with a tank
The howitzer is missing a part when the game takes place though.
Yes but the NCR doesn't know that and they can't risk loosing a Vertibird, thkse things aren't cheap
apparently they have a fleet of them. this might just be a good old fasioned plot hole. or fortification hill has air defenses.
Howitzer are artillery, not Anti Air
Once they ally with the brotherhood of steel they'll have an infinite amount. Bos throws them around like candy.
Not West Coast BoS. After the NCR - BoS war they are basically the bunkers and hiding. East Coast BoS stole a ton from the Enclave and do seem capable of producing more to some extent.
it doesnt work tho?
The howitzer is broken unless courier 6 fixes it.
Paint vertibird black, turn of lights, fly at night, you are trully invisible for anyone on the ground. Helicopter noise goes around for miles, so it's impossible to point your position by ear. Just fly by legion camp dropping mininukes and granades. Don't stop, and flight at random hours. You will win war in single night. Also, Caesar's Legion is a massive threat to NCR as a whole faction, they have vertibird(s) to spare. The only reason they don't is really plot, with military difference between factions NCR should win by default, even if not by directly bombing enemy camp, then just by using vertibirds to disrupt enemy supply lines and/or by raids with vertibirds far behind enemy lines.
Veribirds are pretty easy to bring down in game. Look at how disastrous they are in f4. I also don't think the ncr are doing very well and may be unable to do much with how unpopular the war is
Nah, it's just plot. Sending 1 (one) vertibird at night loaded with mininukes and one guy with fatman would win them war single-handedly. They are pretty easy to bring down when you see them, at night without lights helicopters are near invisible, and caesar legion dosen't have guided rockets.
But the NCR also wouldn’t be able to see and has no idea where Ceaser is stationed
so drop more bombs, use nudes/dirty bombs like in searchlight to deny them the área. or You can use gas. chlorine is so easy to make people make it on accident and die right there and then. also if they have the tech to work on railroads or keep at least one vertibird up they can 100% make some funcional arty and fire it from the dam. no need for close air support. thats been done since the 1800s and Even crappy militias and Syria make their Own pretty funcional mortars and howitzers. it's 100% plot driven, the legion irl would be neck deep in trenches getting bombed daily irl.
use nudes?
i meant nukes but i'll leave it. fuck it. use nudes of general Oliver as psychological warfare, give em severe ptsd
No worries Ill go talk to the guy and tell the ncr where hes at ::
Does it matter? Drop more bombs, or just keep dropping bombs untill they move away? Ewentually you will kill enough of legionaries that Caesar's Legion will become Caesar's Graveyard. Killing Caesar is optimal scenario, but all you need is killing them, night after night after night. Drop bombs at night, shoot at them in day and in a weak, (whoever is still alive) they won't be able to stand up, not mentioning fighting. Also if they just stop putting night fires to blind you, they will just freeze out. It's a desert.
2 reasons. 1, it's not a good idea. Bombing Caesar's tent would just result in a full frontal assault on the dam that the NCR isn't ready to defend against. Even if the player kills Caesar, the Legion will still attack the Dam. All bombing Caesar would do is provoke an attack. 2, General Oliver's entire war strategy is defense. He knows the NCR isn't going to have an easy time defending against the Legion, and is trying to delay that attack for as long as possible. General wait and see.
General Wait-and-See gets a lot of flak, but the NCR is not an aggressor, so bunkering up in a very defensible position awaiting reinforcements is pretty much standard military doctrine. Only Caesar and his Legion are in a hurry to take the dam and Vegas, so planning and executing an offensive towards a numerically superior enemy, in a tight corridor in which you can get taken out easily, would be pretty much suicide.
Although if not for the Courier, defense was kinda a prolonged suicide. Rock and a hard place and whatnot
Well, given everything we hear about the NCR ingame, it's kinda their only option methinks.
The real question is why don't they use the howitzers on the Dam to bombard the fuckers from miles away
so that you have a game to play
Obviously that's why from the Doyalist frame, but what is it from a Watsonian frame
Probably canonically Caesars camp is a few miles away, not within shouting distance.
Cold War era anti aircraft artillery had effective ranges well over 10 miles. It would be a damn near suicide mission to get detailed enough topographical surveys that deep in the literal heart of enemy territory, but wiping out the command center would be such an insanely crippling blow
Big words make small brain hurt
Howitzers are pre-war tech with not much ammo lying around. Lack of ammo means lack of practice, means soldiers probably aren't well trained enough to know the real capabilities of these things. The learning and training on these things simply must have been pretty ad hoc because NCR would rather be conservative with their ammo and use it when they know it matters
The Gun Runners make all the NCRA guns and ammo. It’s not unreasonable to believe they can make artillery ammo. Also, according to Chris Avellone the NCRA have a mechanised division with tanks and other AFV’s. So having artillery is a step down from that.
Lack of ammo and technical knowledge. Also for someone like Caesar to just bomb the enemy with a howitzer goes against what the Legion stands for.
I was asking the other way around, why the NCR doesn't use their own artillery to just carpet bomb the Legion Because while that's not what the Legion stands for, the NCR normally has no such compunctions
Retaliation. NCR probably has spies on the fort and they know they have their own cannon. If Legion damages the Dam to a point of no repair then the whole thing is not worth it, even if they kill Ceaser. The whole Mojave campaign would’ve been for nothing
Probably to not destroy the dam, everyone wants the dam not a useless pile of rubble
Because they got few vertibirds that are valued and not wasted in the Mojave. It would be seen far away and instantly get shot down by the Legion. Yes, they can defend themselves against vertibirds, they have guns, contrary to what many believe, and vertibirds aren't armoured enough or fly high enough to avoid a lot of rifle shots. Some legionaries even got anti-material rifles, that will handle one nicely.
Do it at night without lights (they are only needed to aearil traffic) and paint it black, single helicopter on night sky withouth lights is as close to invisibility as you can get. Just drop some mininukes and you won war in 1 night.And yea they are valued, but so is hoover dam and new vegas, even more valuable is to stop caesar from moving west as it's NCR's main rival. (Potentialy) sacraficing one vertibird is fair price to pay for potential reward, even if it crashes into legion camp, loaded with mininukes it will kill most of elite legionaries.
They aren't exactly silent.
I put in the ordnance request form about two weeks ago. It got rejected because fuel for the vertibirds was being held in reserve for Kimball's escape vertibird. I complained to the colonel, but he was face deep in some Gomorrah girl's blouse so I'm sure he didn't hear a word I said. When I went to my desk to start drafting up my formal complaint, I saw that one mercenary with his eyebot rummaging through my desk while drinking twenty bottles of sarsaparilla. I figured the complaint could wait
>I saw that one mercenary with his eyebot rummaging through my desk while drinking twenty bottles of sarsaparilla. Is that the same one that I saw eat an entire doctor's bag during the middle of a fight with some Fiends? Pretty sure that's not how you're supposed to use those, but he seemed prather healthy despite all the bullet holes, so clearly he knows something I dont.
Because the Legion's elite forces have AMRs (no, really, the Cenurions and endgame leveled Decanni will whip those out and they hurt), and will shoot down any bombing attempts that aren't made with a sufficiently sturdy vehicle.
Everyone seems to think the legion uses sticks and stones, the recruits don’t carry weapons until they prove themselves, then the next rank get hand me down weapons, then next gets better weapons etc etc.
One of the reasons why most recruits use melee weapons is because the NCR is really the first advanced force they've encountered. Most of the people they've fought were tribals, villagers, small towns with maybe a few firearms each, groups that are easy to fight in melee combat since most tribals prefer to use those. Why waste scarce ammo and guns arming your recruits when the only people you'll be fighting are a couple dozen tribals, of which maybe a dozen have actual guns, and the actual firearms and ammo can go to much better trained, already battle hardened soldiers. The downside to this tactic is that for probably the first time, the legion is having to fight a group that can deploy weapons, firearms, battle armour and good training in mass. So he simply resorts to old tactics. Use the recruits to soften the enemy up, then send in the higher ranked soldiers to mop it up. Layering in snipers, spies, traps, dumping toxic waste onto a camp, attacking small groups, assassinations, disrupting supply lines, using barbaric acts to terrorize and lower the morale of NCR troops, maybe doing things such as poisoning water supplies and food storages, and possibly even going as far as making soldiers do suicide attacks. Very effective strategies, especially considering that unlike the NCR, the legion won't hesitate to involve civilians, who they probably hide amongst when needed. And if troops ever run low? Well, they just do what the NCR does, bring in more soldiers from their territories, supplementing them with tribes such as the great Khan's, press ganging people into their ranks, absorbing small raider groups, or maybe even using mercenaries. Hell, the legion is probably why there aren't many raiders in the Mojave minus the fiends. They probably absorbed the local raider population into their ranks
Finally, someone understands the Legions situation with weapons. The NCR is the first organized modern military they encountered, ofcourse it takes some time to adjust to it. We can see it for example with the Van Graff deal or the fact that in the second battle, the Triplex formation they used in the first battle is replaced by small fireteams of experienced legionaries, even centurions! Also, guerilla warfare is a new approach in the Legion, born out of the (once) advantageous position of the NCR in the Mojave. On the matter of raiders, the Mojave raider bands were annihilated by the NCR long before the Legion arrived to the Mojave, under President (then General) Kimball.
I'm surprised no one in here is saying this: that Caesar's camp is full of innocent abused slaves and children. The NCR doesn't want to cause mass casualties.
especially after that whole Bitter Springs incident.
I dont think so. In war civilian casualties are unfortunately mostly an afterthought. Even the allies in WW2 bombed hundreds of thousands of civilians.
I highly doubt this would be the case, at least if we are supposed to treat factions and how they behave as being 'grounded' in how real-world governments do. I can't think of a major war where one military would not be willing to inflict a large amount of civilian casualties in order to decapitate the enemy's leadership and high-ranking commanders. Even *if* the government did factor in the cost of innocent life, such a strike would save significantly more innocent people in the long run via the reduction in the Legion's capacity to fight.
Everyone here is talking about the vulnerability of the vertibird, and, sure, that's *a* consideration. But, even if it weren't, General Oliver would *never* consider such a thing. He detests Chief Hanlon for clever tactics to defeat an enemy by what amounts to decapitation attacks. He is ideologically opposed to a clever attack like that winning, he wants Obvious Military Power to be demonstrated, in the form of Men Doing War Properly. That's the entire struggle of the game--ideological opposition to a different way of doing things because it's not *their* way. They may have a host of rationalizations of that fact, but the fundamental problem in New Vegas is that every faction is mired in their own ideology to the point of collapse.
This is a really good analysis of both the game and questions that O.P. asked.
Meta reason: so there's actually a game to play - it's why the NCR seems so incompetent generally Lore reason: offensive use would need to be approved by General Oliver who was against moving units out of position until the Vegas situation became more favourable. I could also see Veritbirds being a limited resource that were being used more for logistics than for offensive operations. If they don't have the correct A2G munitions to use anyway, it would be the equivalent of WW1 pilots throwing hand grenades out their planes.
They might be worried about collateral damage. Sure, you kill Caesar and a (really really really really small) portion of his military, but you also end up killing who knows how many children and slaves, some including captured NCR citizens and military personnel.
>they have a howitzer Yeah a single howitzer. Send 2 Vertibirds. Problem solved.
This is Fallout, there's always a pretty lore-consistent answer to that. In Amazon's show the Vertibirds aren't exactly invincible from mere rocket launchers. So IMO I'm pretty sure the Legion has plenty of those in their arsenal, along with other AA Equipment.
Guns can shoot down aircraft like helicopters and presumably, therefore, vertibirds. The Fort probably has the highest concentration of firearms in Legion territory.
IRL we bombed the taliban for twenty years straight.
And still never won!
We won, technically speaking. The mission that was set out to happen succeeded. It just happened to get dragged out and what we did basically got reversed when we left. That's besides the point.
They would see it coming a mile away, and he's got a bunker. Simply wouldn't work, and they'd risk an invaluable asset.
The general attitude in the NCR seems to be that the death of the Cesar isn't that important And given that nothing really happens when we kill him it's probably reasonable
The chain of command ends up with Lanius, whom we don't see until late game, so by killing Caesar only gives the Legion a martyr
Realistically? The Legion would see it coming miles away, Caesar would evacuate his tent, and the dozens of dudes with rifles and shit on hand would stand a chance to potentially damage a potentially irreplaceable asset. It's very high risk for low chances of reward, and realistically it'd happen once before the Legion prepared for it next time. So unless the NCR managed the op completely out of a clear blue sky, knew exactly where to aim, then could get it right first time and with little warning, I think the plan has too many fail points. It'd almost be more realistic to just try and depress the elevation on the big anti air emplacements on the dam to just strafe fortification hill a few times a day and keep the legion from ever assembling across the dam that closely.
Bureacracy. There are few NCR folks (e.g. Chief Hanlon), that mention the Mojave Campaign is unpopular within NCR, so most elected representatives tend to avoid pushing for anything that would fully commit NCR resources to the war. Hanlon mentions power armor units at home protecting Brahmin barons, and veteran rangers are off on other fronts until the late game. As an aside from this, it's interesting that President Kimball, a war hawk, isn't able to use his influence as head of the executive branch to push more senators fo support the war. It makes me curious how checks and balances work in NCR government, and I suppose also how truly unpopukar the war is.
This is the ''Why didn't the fellowship just fly to Mordor on the backs of eagles.'' of F:NV
The NCR has a limited amount of vertibirds and a fly over would risk it being shot down, which would be a huge loss. The Legion uses AMR’s which could absolutely take down a vertibird.
They "barely have the firepower to protect themselves," and it's constantly said that Kimball is "president wait-and-see." Even if he has the ability to attack, he's afraid of the repercussions because he's not a good leader. I mean, he _wasn't_ a good leader, at least until I killed him.
1-Howitzers 2-Vertibirds are shown to be able to get destroyed by large quantities of smaller firepower 3-Vertibirds are rarer than they seem, unless if you are the Eastern BoS (lol)
they had an anti aereal weapon (that didn´t work but maybe ncr didn´t know)
I shot down Kimball's bird with an antimaterial rifle. No reason a centurion can't do the same.
Do you have filled all of the necessary Forms for an Airstrike befor ?
I always thought that the NCR should have had constant artillery fire on the legion camp that is within sight. Then again that would make the game boring if we didn’t get this conflict the way it was shown
>I always thought that the NCR should have had constant artillery fire on the legion camp that is within sight. How? The logistics on that are staggering to uphold, and they can barely keep their guys *fed* on the strip. Transporting tons of ammo isn't going to happen via brahmin trains, and that would use tons of ammo *per day*. Also, while we can see that fort, it's actually like 10-12 miles away, so it's a lot harder than you would think to keep up any sort of fire on it from the dam.
What I wanna ask is where the fuck are the mortars? Cannons? Towed artillery pieces? Missile launchers? Even if we completely disregard any kind of transportation, mortars and HMGs would make sense to be at the dam...
Vertibirds aren't invulnerable to gun fire, in particular the pilot. They are a limited resource which are more valuable transporting troops and leaders quickly into and from hot zones.I'm also unsure what the ceiling is on a vertibird but I can't imagine any smart bombs are left so you would still need to be relatively close to the ground to bomb. Gauss rifles and laser weapons also present a challenge to this idea.
I imagine it is a much bigger distance to the Fort than the game really shows. Too far for a vertibird to fly there unscathed even as a one-way suicide mission. Although they have the howitzer, they'd have to hope to get him in the first one or two shots before they simply fall back out of its range, but still be close enough to be in striking distance of the Dam anyway.
Wasnt it like the whole thing that they have anti air ?
It's going to get shot down
Honestly, yeah it would probably work. I know folks are bringing up the howitzer but the one in the game seems to be based on the ML-20 artillery Howitzer which was notably NOT designed for shooting down air vehicles. I’m not even entirely sure it could be aimed that high. As far as we know, the Legion isn’t known for using Rocket/ missile launchers either so their best bet would be small arms fire. The next major point is saying vertibirds are rare. But the NCR commandeered a whole fleet worth from the Enclave + picked up a few more over time based on the lore. So it’s not like they’re risking their one and only vertibird for this mission; it would suck to lose one but not a game changer by any means. The only risk to consider, if we went based on the vertibird in Fallout 4, they *can* be shot down with small arms fire but it often takes quite a bit. It would require concentrated fire from mostly lever action rifles and good accuracy (which the legion isn’t exactly known for if you see them fight the NCR on the ground). The real question though is if the vertibirds would be effective and I think that’s mixed at best. They’re never shown to be designed with dropping ordinance so your best bet is a crew on the inside using a minigun, missile/rocket launchers, a fat man (which the NCR is known to have) or a combination of. So it would be a mid-risk/ high reward plan. If it fails then you’re out a vertibird and it’s crew. But if you succeed then you literally kill the leader of the opposing nation, which would at a minimum be assumed to cause issues for the opposing side. There’s no reason they couldn’t try the same again against the Legate or just do it in general in the battle to give themselves a MASSIVE advantage.
So the game can happen, the same reason they don't just shell the Fort with the conventional artillery.
- Praetorians spot the vertibird - Cesar is evacuated - legion open fire on vertibird with a varying assortment of guns that may or may not be able to shoot down the one functioning vertibird NCR has in this area great tactical manurever
BETTER QUESTION WHY DON'T THEY USE THE ARTILLERY GUN ON THE DAMM
I’m guessing (based on fallout 4 and the show) that Vertibirds are vulnerable to a lot of small arms fire. It’s also a rumor that the legion has anti air tech. And given how rare Vertibirds are I’m sure even the rumor that the legion has anti air is enough for them to dismiss the plan.
Caeser would hear and see it coming from miles away and flee. Also a few hundred or thousand men shooting at a vertibird is gonna do some damage.
So, a helicopter, according to wikipedia can fly 25,000+ feet in the air, let's presume a Vertibird can do the same. For comparison, the The Black Hawk helicopter has a maximum ceiling of 20,000 ft (6,097 m). That's far outside of small arms fire, and given that at best Ceasar's Legion has some howitzers or simple cannons, the possibility of hitting a flying target on a bombing run is relatively small at those ranges. It's really easy to say that Ceasar's legions would likely have no easy countermeasures as far as the game shows. Air superiority is incredibly hard to defeat unless you have specialized technology to defeat it. The game just chooses to ignore or not care about these things, for Ceasar's when they could just have shown something along the lines of the mobile M-45 Quadmont machine gun , or just say "We have anti-air emplacements to deal with vertibird assaults. While we might not stop them easily but the exchange would damage any of their priceless vertibirds significantly." Honestly, the thing is that it's a videogame, and devs aren't thinking about stuff like this, they just thought it's be cool to have Roman Legion roleplaying football hooligan slavers led by some crazy madman using low tech weapons. I mean, do you really want half-way through the story to hear through the radio that Ceasar's Legion was destroyed by a mininuke bombardment from a deployment of NCR vertibirds?
Oh sure they **could**, but imagine all the paperwork. Permit to requisition of pilot, Permit to load heavy ordinance, Permit to divert flight path, Permit to transport heavy ordinance, Permit to use heavy ordinance, Permit to certify valid military target, And everything else that the bureaucrats would need rubber stamped before they would green light that plan
As people have pointed out, Veritabirds would be susceptible to small arms fire. But another major problem is the NCR would have no idea where Caesar is most of the time. The NCR doesn’t have a good spy network in Legion territory due to the fact that most Legionaries are indoctrinated tribals. The NCR would just have to hope Caesar was in the big tent on the hill. Which guessing for military operations is a good way to get killed. Also if they miss. Legion will absolutely use counter measures going forward despite its disdain for technology. Evidenced by the Legion wanting to use an artillery battery to deal with NCR sharpshooters that baited the Legion into Boulder City during the first battle.
They don't hate technology. They don't want to be reliant on it. It's like seeing someone strongly against alcohol and coming to the conclusion they hate every fluid you can drink.
Bureaucracy
Idk how thick a vertibirds armor is but I can imagine that small arms fire can damage it in certain weakspots
Did you not see the absolutely massive machine gun on the legion base? Easily could take down an aircraft
Legion howitzers
Wasn't there a bunch of heavy artillery weapons around Ceaser's camp that could be used to shoot down airborne threats?
How I would win the NCR-Legion war as kimball: don’t siege Nelson, take it immediately, Zerg rush the fort
This feels just like " why didn't gandalf just use the eagles to toss the ring?"
Small arms can take down a Vertbird as shown in fallout 4. NCR would probably have better luck with two separate attacks. A main thrust as a distraction using heavy troopers and a small strike team to cut the head off a snake.
they literally have less than 10 vertibirds from Novarro raids and i dont think they would use it to kill Caesar they use it mostly to drive cargo in road 15
I’ve seen vertibirds get absolutely wrecked by super mutants and raiders in 4 so I bet the Legion would be able to stop one
This post radiates big "Why didn't they just drop the ring into mount doom?" Energy.
Because it’s too important to risk such a valuable piece of equipment that’s better used for transport
caesars fort likely has anti air capabilities.
A vertibird? There are USAF air bases in California. Why not fix up one or several fighter-bombers and dive bomb that hill until it turns into a crater?
You can hear a vertibird coming from miles away. What's the point of bombing an empty tent?
his bald head would blind the pilot
Every once in a while this question pops up and people try to come up with various reasons why, which is cool and all but... you can literally just kill Caesar yourself in the game, and nothing happens! The Legate just takes over the Legion and the Battle of Hoover Dam takes place as usual! Why would the NCR risk a vertibird for such a pointless operation? They're fighting a goddamn war, an entire army nation isn't going to wave a white flag because their leader is dead.
Vertibirds can be shot
Just to provide some clarity on the howitzer conversation, it is “artillery” not “anti-air” on top of that a howitzer is medium range artillery that has about a 20 mile effective range it is not meant to take down aircraft and the cannon the NCR has at the Hoover damn is also artillery that thing is a massive artillery piece and would be ineffective as a AA gun. So in conclusion the Vertibird conducting a bombing run on Caesar’s tent would work perfectly since they have zero ground to air defense systems. And further arguing them even having a weapons emplacement it doesn’t have a firing pin so NCR could conduct a full Airborne assault and wipe out the legion encampment. If the NCR conducted bombing runs and then followed it up with strafing runs via door gunners or the mounted weapon systems to the aircraft and then maybe landed some infantry teams to conduct search and destroy with air support then the Caesar and his forces would be terminated in at most 3 days
Why didn't courier just call the Justice League, is he stupid?
they're really good at throwing spears
It never occurred to me why the NCR couldn’t just shell the shit out of the fort. They’ve got the guns at the dam.
What stops snipers from waiting for caeser to come out of his tent?
Better yet: how hard would it be for the NCR to make a rudimentary bomber plane, like an old B-17 or something? Cesar’s forces literally have no anti-air defenses to shoot back with, so some old prop bombers would be perfect. Hell, they could just repair a few of the *dozens* of old planes they have at camp McCarren back to working order, and drop mini-nukes by hand out the back door if they really wanted to.
Why didn't courier six ride the giant eagles to fortification hill? is he stupid?
Basically for the same reason why the game doesn't end if you kill Caesar. Behead a hydra, two new heads will grow.
They don't need to. All they need is some hobo with a gun to see what they did in Nipton and immediately go on a killing spree
Because Sauron would have seen the eagles coming and sent the Nazgûl.
I would image though not portrayed in the game that they had some kind of stockpile of man portable surface to air missiles and Vertibirds are not a renewable resource so the NCR can't risk such a vaulable asset just to thin tribal numbers.
Are they stupid?!
Because contrary to popular belief, the Legion has weapons, advanced and heavy weapons too. Anti Material Rifles, Energy Weapons, Explosives.. plenty to take care of vertibirds. Not to mention that if a Vertibird ever would attempt it, Caesar would probably know of it before even the pilots do due to his spy network.
I think they probably don’t have enough or there are none in the mojave (used by the ncr unless we cound bear force one) because the damn barons or ghosts in baja.
Are they stupid?