United Forces

Or do the United Force always do NOTHING in TLOK

What Organization in the LoK world would you wanne be in?

I've been thinking about posting this for a while and i've got the inspiration from @Gligo13 's post made a while back.

And i thought it was realy interesting.

Theres one rule, you are not a highly ranked member of the organization.

So what would you rather be:

Earth Empire, Dai Li, United Forces, Airnomad "army", Southern watertribe Rebels/Soldiers, Northern Watertribe Army, Police Force, White Lotus Sentry.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Legend of Korra and it still bugs me that during the Earth Empire’s invasion of the United Republic, I cant help but find the defense of the United Republic and Republic City (the (capital city of the United Republic) to be incredibly appalling and just stupidly pathetic. Let’s address the issues that I saw:

- Lack of aerial support and/or air units

BOTH the Earth Empire and United Republic are guilty of this. The Earth Empire would’ve really benefited from having airships and biplanes come in to act as air support for the invasion and to decimate the United Forces on the ground. In a war especially today, whoever controls the sky holds control the battlefield (ideally speaking anyways).

The United Forces however, are even more guilty of this. First off, they have home field advantage. Why haven’t there been military airstrips and airfields established in the mountains surrounding Republic City? So Hiroshi Sato (a corporate CEO who probably had minimal resources and was most likely working under the nose of the old UR government) was able to build an operational airfield in the mountains but the United Republic government itself, with access to the necessary funding, resources, and manpower, can’t build a couple of airfields? What gives?

We also know for damn sure that the United Forces have an Air Force component since when Unavaatu conducted a Godzilla/Pacific Rim-like attack on Republic City, UF biplanes attempted to engage him from the air. There’s absolutely no excuse as to why President Raiko or General Iroh (I’m assuming that he’s the Avatar world’s equivalent to the US’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs who is somehow in operational command of troops and military access) doesn’t have planes and military as well as commandeered RCPD and civilian airships a la Future Industries or Cabbage Corps in the skies acting in the defense of Republic City. Planes and airships could’ve easily acted at the very least within a surveillance or reconnaissance capacity. It sure would’ve been incredibly helpful to have planes that can shoot bullets and drop bombs onto the Earth Empire Army 10,000 feet in the air. No one gives a shit that you are the greatest Earthbender in the history of the universe if you get killed by a bomb getting dropped on your skull.

- Inadequate Number of Troops

There’s an incredibly inadequate number of soldiers, sailors, Marines (does the UF have a Marine Corps component?), and airmen on the side of the United Forces. It’s so bad, it’s almost insulting. So you’re telling me that an *at best* **oversized battalion** is adequate enough to defend a city (which, let me remind you, is the CAPITAL CITY OF THE UNITED REPUBLIC) that has MILLIONS of residents who were just evacuated? I don’t know who organized the defense of Republic City, but they need to lose some stars and/or retire because they’re pretty shit at organizing the necessary number of troops needed to defend your nation’s capital. Running under this logic, I guess the 69th Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard should now be solely responsible for defending all of New York City if a foreign power decides to invade the city, or the entire military saying “good luck fighting the Russian corps of 20,000 soldiers” to the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Regiment while they’re tasked with defending the entirety of Washington, DC.

I mean, come on, why aren’t there tens of thousands of troops standing by to defend their nation’s capital from an imperialistic foreign invader? There should’ve also been RCPD police officers who should’ve been put under orders to work along side with or even directly under the command of the military. Why aren’t there RC cops along side the troops or within the city acting as a last ditch defensive unit? They’re not military trained and don’t follow military doctrine, obviously, but you’re telling me that President Raiko didn’t hand out orders to Lin and say “hey, so a fascist tyrannical imperialistic Empire has just invaded our country and are hours away from our capital and due to our military ineptitude, we need to borrow a few thousand of your police officers to act as an emergency military/civil defense unit ASAP”?

At the very least, like I mentioned in my point above, there should’ve been a couple RCPD airships in the air providing intel back to General Iroh and President Raiko. But screw it right, we only need an oversized battalion to defend the nation’s capital amirite guys?

Also, why aren’t reservists or militias getting called up? There’s absolutely no way whoever’s running the entire military wouldn’t think to call upon reservists from all over the country to come and help defend Republic City. That should be one of the first things you do, not send an oversized battalion with no additional support to the battle. Speaking of which...

- Extreme and severe lack of military hardware and infantry support units

So...where are the trucks and other vehicles hauling supplies, additional troops, and military equipment around? Where are the tanks standing by to blast fire balls or metal projectiles? Where are the artillery pieces? Where the hell is everything? Yeah, sure, we get like 28-35 pathetically outdated mech suits for each company (who are all weirdly standing around in Napoleonic-esque formations, but whatever), but that’s about as much Infantry support as the guys standing by (who I’m assuming are all infantry) are going to get. Fuck ‘em right? Who needs armored, air, artillery, etc. support anyway right? Let’s make our lives harder and get 800 of our guys butchered alive.

Why aren’t there several hundred howitzers way back behind the formation ready to fire off steel or fire towards the invading forces? Why aren’t tanks, APCs, etc. roaming around ready to kill a couple Earth Empire soldiers? Sure, we get like a squadron of battleships as support but they’re not gonna do shit when they have tall buildings blocking their line of sight. And why are there only battleships? What happened to frigates, destroyers, cruisers, etc.?

- Not using your local environment to your benefit

So, like I said above, why weren’t airstrips or airfields established within the several mountains surrounding Republic City? At the very least, there should’ve been artillery units stationed within the mountains to harass the Earth Empire troops as they make their way to Republic City.

And this leads me to an important question, why didn’t Republic City become Stalingrad? Earth Empire soldiers did make their way into the city. Why weren’t United Forces troops forcibly making the incursion into Republic City a living hell for the EE soldiers? Every single street should’ve became a bloodbath with soldiers fighting it out in CQC conditions inside of stores, apartments, etc. Civilian (who defied the evacuation order) should’ve hastily formed militias to harass and make the invading forces bleed. I mean, urban warfare is crazy, just look at some of the videos of the Second Battle of Fallujah.

- That embarrassingly pathetic excuse of a “No Man’s Land” as well as a severe lack of static defense

Right, so...you call THAT (https://goo.gl/images/mMEhGW) a “No Man’s Land”? Right, sure, and cows built the Empire State Building. THIS (https://goo.gl/images/YNCGfK) and THIS (https://goo.gl/images/jpu2N7) can be classified as a proper No Man’s Land.

Further more, why didn’t troops dig foxholes and trenches, built up proper fortifications like temporary walls and barriers, set up miles of barbed wires, etc.? If that Colossus mech hadn’t showed up and this was a conventional battle between 2 opposing armies, then a proper No Man’s Land and proper defensive fortifications could’ve gone a LONG way in helping the United Forces out. They probably have Earthbending soldiers as combat engineers so come on, don’t be so stupid.

Honestly, you have to be honest with yourself, the defense of Republic City was incredibly and disgustingly poor at best, seeing as the United Forces appeared to be a rather strong and formidable military prior to the invasion of the UR. I mean, they probably are right there with the Fire Nation when it comes to military capabilities, hardware, and power projection. In Season 2, General Iroh was going to have a little “military exercise” down near the South Pole before Raiko ordered him to stop. When Kuvira was staging her forces outside of Zhaofu, Baatar Sr. asked Suyin if they should call Raiko and ask for the United Forces to come help out Zhaofu. Raiko also told Prince Wu that after his coronation, the United Forces would escort him back to Ba Sing Sae. Bumi also told tales of when he was in the United Forces and from the looks of it, he conducted operations outside of UR territory.

So you’re telling me that a strong and very capable military that’s from a very wealthy and technologically advanced nation that’s a hub for innovation and technology is able to project power outside of its region but it can’t muster enough forces to defend its capital city? Right, and I can fly. I genuinely believe that just the 1st Marine Division alone can easily single handily solo the entire United Forces with minimal casualties.

(Also, someone needs to fix the page for the United Forces page. Infantry and Ground Combat Element (GCE) battalions don’t consist of 275 Marines and/or soldiers because a regiment-sized element of 1,375 Marines or soldiers is absolutely not an “eXTenSiVE” infantry unit. Also, assuming that the mechs act in the same manner as our own tanks, no, a mech Battalion is not 7 mechs. No, just no. That’s at best an enlarged mech platoon, NOT a “bAtTaiLiOn”).