2nd Battle of Fillydelpia

The 2nd Battle of Fillydelpia was a major battle during the second day of the Third Great War, the battle was the counter attack against the Enclave's capture of the industrial centre of the NCR.

The battle started when the Sporcy Union launched a surprise attack on the Enclave during the early hours of the morning before the sun had risen. The Union learning from it's mistake of last time sent five gunships to engage and destroy the three heavily damaged Cloudships.

With the enclave's capture of the SPP, they had complete control over the weather. This meant for the Union and NCR troops they had to fight in freezing conditions. This was a major disadvantage for the soldiers of the NCR who had never trained in cold conditions but the Union's troops used this to their advantage against the Enclave, especially the veterans of the War against the Lich King.

Surprise attack
With the Enclave controlling all the SPP towers, the Union and the NCR decided to move under the cover of night. The Sporcy Union forces quickly set up several sniper nests overlooking the city, an airstrip and a large command post. As the clock struck three, the Union and the NCR launched their attack.

Strategic Air strikes on the Cloudships
The first phase of the plan was strategic strikes on the enemy cloudships to put them out of action. Thirty Five SUIG-1's and Five Vertibucks took off from the recently built Union-NCR airstrip at 2:45 am. The Jets continued to circle the air strip waiting for their comrades to get in the air until 2:55 am.

The first shot went off at 2:59 am, this caught the Enclave off guard. With many of their troops asleep the enclave's response was sluggish. As the soldiers rose from their slumber their cloudships were hit by a barrage of missiles from the jets and vertibucks.

As the first barrage hit the cloudships, they found most of their main cannon's turrets had been destroyed or heavily damaged. Several smaller turrets began firing upon the jets as they made their second and final pass.

With the Enclave alert, the second pass was hard on the jets, several of them were heavily damaged while two were shot down. The second barrage managed to take out one of the Magpie's engine's temporarily making it loose control. Before it crashed, it stabilized and regained it's altitude.

The Great South-eastern tank rush
With the end of the air strikes the Coalition started the second phase of it's plan, a tank rush. The Tank rush began at 3:12, the Union's fifty six tanks, NCR's 4 normal and 1 Sky tanks attacked the south-eastern sector of the city. Supported by the Union's artillery pieces the tanks rushed into the city. During the charge an Enclave anti-tank turret destroyed one of the NCR's tanks and a Sporcy Union AD-5-MBT before being spotted and destroyed by the tanks.

As the Tanks breached the city, they began their mission to sow as much discord through the city as much as possible. Several Enclave outposts were destroyed as they fought their way to the city. The Plover moved to support their troops. This was expected and the Union's tank destroyers began firing upon the plover. The plover took several good hits before firing back. The sheer fire power from the plover forced the tanks to retreat.

As the tanks retreated the plover broke off and the Magpie pursued the tanks. The tanks weaved in and out of Enclave positions to keep the Magpie from firing. This was cover for a trap the Union had planned.

Ranger team insertion
As the Magpie engaged the tanks on the ground, the Union with a modified Type 12 Kaz helicopter inserted a team of ten rangers to provide intelligence and firing solutions for the artillery. The stealth helicopter approached from the south as the Magpie fired upon the tanks.

The black helicopter was not spotted by the Enclave as it approached one of Fillydelpia's skyscrapers. The skyscraper was held by the Enclave and had to be cleared out. The helicopter landed and got read to jam all signals within the building. The plan was to clear the entire building as fast as possible.

The entire plan was made easy as the majority of the Enclave was based in one area of the building. The only difficulty was taking out the entire squad before they could alert others.

As the Squad reached the 66th floor the helicopter's crew switched on the radio jamming and the Rangers began clearing out the building. The missing began without a problem. The Enclave was caught completely off guard as the Rangers began their attack. The swiftness of the rangers kept them off balance and the watch post fell to the Union.

With the watch post in Union hands the Rangers began to monitor Enclave radio signals and gave the coordinates of the Magpie to the Union's artillery crops.

The downing of the Magpie
With the Intel from the rangers and the tanks distracting the cloudships the Union decided to spring their trap. As the Magpie hovered overhead, the Union's hidden tank destroyers began firing on the Magpie.

The Magpie began to engage the tank destroyers as the Union artillery pieces began to bombard onto the cloudships. As the Magpie began to retreat the Union unveiled it's ultimate weapon against the cloud ship. The CF-1 Custer missiles.

The Magpie was hit by a CF-1 as it got out of the Artillery's kill zone. The Magpie's hull was ripped apart as the CF-1 hit and it broke into two as the crew tried in vain to keep the condemned ship afloat. The cloudship went down in a fall of flame. All hands were lost.

Artillery barrage
As the Magpie crashed the tanks retreated back to Coalition lines. As they retreated the Union began it's bombardment of the city. Bombardment of Fillydelpia began at 3:30, several parts of the city was targeted including two command posts while the sky scraper with the rangers was avoided.

Unfortunately it did not take long until the Enclave figured out the Coalition controlled the tower and sent a squad to recapture it. With their position Compromised the Rangers retreated to the roof. The stealth Kaz decloaked and the Rangers were extracted and taken back to the Coalition lines. Only one ranger suffered minor plasma burns to her leg during the attack making this one of the most successful Ranger mission ever.

The Bombardment continued until 5:13, then another CF-1 was launched at the Raptor Cloudsdale. The cloudsdale managed to destroy the largest warhead of the cluster missile but it was hit by seventy smaller missiles of varying size causing heavy damage to the already wounded cloudship.

The Battle
As the Artillery barrage stopped, the Union began it's attack. With sniper support from the sniper nests troops moved in. Several squads mounted tanks and used the age old tactic of tank desant. The remaining Union jets and NCR veribucks began their attack runs on the enemy cloudships and engaged the enemy veribucks.

Fighting in the streets
The Union and NCR troops engaged the Enclave in the streets. Due to the heavy concentration of snipers the soldiers of the Enclave were grounded.

With their main advantage taken away from them, the Enclave's resistance quickly fell. Union tanks rolled over Enclave fortifications. As the Union advanced into the city the cover fire from the snipers on the outskirts became less and less until there was none. Though the Enclave still could not fly high, they still had a high advantage on the Union and the NCR. They also had support from their cloudships which rained death upon the advancing forces.

That changed when the Union's gunships joined the battle. The air fortresses engaged in an epic battle over the city, trading blows with each other.

Battle for Factory 32
During the advance several enclave squads held up in one of Fillydelpia's remaining factories that still stood. General Regina Grimfeathers ordered a squad to clear out the factory so that it could start producing vehicles and weapons again.

The plan was to breach the factory at several points, but the squads were spotted and fired upon. This began the battle for the factory. The Enclave had fortified the factory, the battle would be long and hard as the NCR tried to capture the factory. Regina called in the remaining three tanks and sky tank for support.

With armoured support the Enclave's resistance weakened and they were forced to retreat inside after loosing several machine gun nests. As the NCR closed in on the survivors they were given the choice to surrender. Initially their commanding officer refused.

As the NCR prepared to breach the factory, the Enclave troopers surrendered after they shot their commanding officer.

Capture of the enclave command post
With the Plovers and Cloudsdale bottom turrets destroyed, the Union and the NCR began to move on the Enclave's final command post. The final command post was located at an old Fillydelpia hotel that was formerly used as a Ministry of Morale hub, later turned Red Eye's command centre.

With the wrath of the Coalition bearing down upon them the Enclave put up one final defence. The Enclave had the high ground but Union and NCR troops had ample amounts of cover and armoured support. The troops would move up while receiving covering fire from the machine gun nests set up down the street, from the tanks or the sniper teams.

During the push The Union Gunship, the Trafalgar was shot down after the two gunships concentrated their fire upon it.

Slowly and surely the Coalition advanced until they breached the building. This gave the Union the edge it needed over the Enclave and the Coalition and the Enclave engaged in deadly close quarters combat. After minutes of fighting and no way of escaping the Enclave commanders surrendered.

Enclave retreat
With the loss of their ground based command centre, Captain Midnight gave the order to retreat back to Enclave lines. The Cloudships headed out of the city. They were harassed by the Union jets and Gunships.

They were pursued as they left the city heading for joint Union-NCR lines.

Crashing of the Cloudsdale
As the Cloudsdale exited Fillydelpia, it was hit by several missiles from the perusing SUIG-1's and gunships. One lucky shot knocked out two of it's engines. Slowly the cloudsdale went down, until it crashed.

After reeling from the shock of crashing the Enclave evacuated the cloudsdale and linked up with the plover.

Limping back home
As the final load of injured from the cloudsdale were on board, the plover rushed towards the front lines. They were continually harassed Union and NCR aircraft until they reached the front line. There they were under heavy fire from anti-aircraft guns and other aircraft.

The plover managed to make it through the onslaught of the front line and limped back to New Cloudsdale where they informed high command of their defeat.

Aftermath
As the cloudships left Union and NCR forces mopped up the remaining resistance. With their commanders abandoning them most of the troops surrendered to the Union and the NCR. The Victory was a massive boost of morale to the Coalition. Several propganda images were released. These images became famous, the most famous was a picture of three Union riflemen with a cat. Lieutenant General Boris Zhdanov released a statement on that image.

With the liberation of FIllydelpia, the city quickly began producing weapons from it's two remaining factories. Other factories were repaired and rebuilt and the production of weapons went back to normal.

The Union wouldn't have such a glorious victory until the conclusion of the Line. News of the Enclave's defeat and liberation of many cats reached Azeroth and Earth. The mobilization of troops was doubled and preparations of the Titan fleet was being quickened. Chairman Sporcy and President Hà Quốc Cần commended the bravery of the troops who took part in the Battle of Fillydelpia.