Defence of Friendship City

The Defence of Friendship City was a major battle during the Third Great War. the battle was the second bloodiest battle in Friendship City's existence, during the second great war Friendship City was levelled by the Enclave during Operation Cauterize.

The attack on Friendship City was decided after Captain Monsoon deemed Junction City too dangerous to attack. They would be shot down by the defenders before their guns even got in range of the city.

The Victory won by the defenders of Friendship City boosted the morale of the joint NCR-Union Coalition. Due to it being the only battle the Coalition won during Operation Sudden Death.

Prelude
The friendship city detachment of the NCR army had an hour of warning before the cloudship arrived. This allowed the defenders to prepare their harbour guns to engage the enemy cloudship. As the ship approached the city the commander sent out a squadron of tanks to harass the enemy. They succeeded in their mission by taking down the enemy's only sky tank and two vertibucks before loosing one of their own tanks. They were ordered to retreat back to the City.

Raptor's approach
As the Raptor approached the city, Commander Cyclone ordered several reconnaissance flights to be flown to map out as many of the harbour guns as possible. The flights managed to map out the guns on the side the eastern side of the city, the path they were approaching the city.

Opening Salvo's
As soon as both of the cannons got in range of each other they began slugging shells at each other. Initially the Enclave had the upper hand, the cloudship dodge the fire of the harbour cannons, whilst the harbour cannons could not do the same. Three cannons got in a few good shots before being destroyed and the Enclave began landing troops.

Landings in Friendship city
The NCR owned the high ground and used it to their advantage. Several sniper nests were set up in the statue of friendship. The Sniper fire and the fire from the many buildings in friendship city took it's toll on the Enclave. Two of the final six Vertibucks were shot out of the sky as they tried to clear building by building. The attempts to clear the fortified NCR positions was taking it's toll on the Enclave's force.

Captain Monsoon gave the order to retreat back to their beachhead. After analysing the situation Monsoon came up with one idea how to clear out the superior NCR positions without putting his troops at risk.

Bombardment of Friendship City
The order was given to the gunning crews to target all buildings and the statue of friendship. The gunning crews followed through with their orders and began firing upon every building in sight. This shocked many of the Enclave troops and the senior officers aboard the NES Thunderstorm.

As the Thunder storm levelled the city, it opened up several spots for the coastal cannons on the other side of the city to open fire upon the Raptor. As the raptor took it's positions in the centre of the city the two tank squadron, seven coastal guns and mortar fire from a squad began firing at the cloudship. The first salvo knocked out one of it's engines and several turrets.

The Remaining turrets began to open fire upon the coastal guns and tank squadrons. the gunning crews were able to hit several positions and slow down the rate of fire but the raptor was slowly loosing altitude.

As the second volley hit the shit a stray shell hit the bridge and exploded. The explosion killed several senior officers, the captain and the helmsman. With the ship's decaying altitude, the decision was made by the ship's first officer, Commander Cyclone to abandon ship.

Evacuation & Subsequent surrender
Commander Cyclone ordered the crew and the remaining soldiers to evacuate the ship. The Evacuation was harassed by the NCR which destroyed two vertibucks heading to the beachhead. as the final crew members were evacuated the ship crashed into the statue of friendship, destroying the statue a second time. Fortunately for the NCR, the Sniper teams got off of the statue via zip-line before the ship annihilated the statue.

With no hope of victory and many of her injured comrades unable to fight, Commander Cyclone offered to surrender to the NCR as long as the men under her command would get treatment for their injuries and treated fairly as prisoners of war. Colonel Four Leaf agreed to this and the battle was over.

Aftermath
The injured were carted off to be treated. As Union reinforcements arrived the commanding demanded for the Enclave prisoners to be transferred over to them. Four Leaf declined knowing that the prisoners would be tortured and probably sent to a gulag afterwards, and with that the two commanders went head to head. President Gawdyna was contacted by the Union's commander, the Colonel explained the situation to the president. The senate went into deliberations.

Four Leaf explained the situation to Cyclone, he was unable to keep her comrades and her safe if the president decided to hand them over to the Union. With her choices running out, she decided to offer to give the NCR the passwords encrypted radio channels of the Enclave and to work with the NCR, especially with Colonel Four Leaf at cracking the newer codes in exchange for the fair treatment of her and her comrades.

This deal was accepted by the Senate and Cyclone was put under house arrest and began helping the NCR crack the codes of the Enclave. During this time she grew closer to Four Leaf and they eventually began to date after the war ended. She was later honoured by the NCR and the Union for saving many lives after informing the Coalition of Operation Hope Breaker.

The left over Enclave equipment was repaired and put back into service. Though the two captured vertibucks were left with the Friendship City detachment.