Nationalist

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*"Ten men could plant thirty mines in seconds and then learn that they have orders to pursue the enemy. How long do you think it takes them to get past a minefield?"*

- Anonymous

## Tactical Analysis

* **Guns at the Ready**: As the basic infantry of the National Revolutionary Army, the Nationalist is armed with a USM-01 carbine. While somewhat outdated when compared to more modern firearms, it is still effective against infantry. Compared to the Red Guard's bolt action rifle, they have a higher rate of fire but a shorter range.

* **Mines planted**: Nationalists are skilled at laying down mines, and can lay entire minefields in mere seconds. While mostly ineffective against tanks, they tend to be quite lethal to groups of infantry.

* **Tanks?!**: While effective against other soldiers, Nationalists are ill equipped to take on vehicles. Their carbines lack the power to penetrate armour plating, and their mines are anti personnel, meaning that the job of dealing with Communist tanks is best left to more appropriately equipped soldiers such as the National Garrison.

* **Automatic setting**: Fully automatic USM-02s were in the process of being distributed to all Nationalists across Blue China when the bombs fell. As such, those carbines that were handed out are in rare supply, granted only to those Nationalists who have earned the right to carry it before its previous owner walks into the eternal night.

## Operational History

### Before the Bombs

When the Chinese Civil War first began, the Republic of China did not have the sprawling numbers or sheer industrial output of their foes in the Communist Chinese to aid them. Instead, all the Republic had on its side in the beginning was some soldiers, a fervent belief in democracy and freedom, and the support of the Allied Nations. Out of these three things, the Republic would go on to create a force that still can more than rival whatever their nemesis could throw at them - and no more was this more evident than in the **Nationalists**.

Originally known simply as the National Revolutionary Army, the frontline soldiers of China were trained with moderately outdated equipment, drilled in moderately outdated battle tactics, and infused with a fervent and deep love and loyalty to the very concept of the Republic of China. For all that their opposites in Red China had the advantage of numbers and strength, the National Revolutionary was known to be superior when it came to maintaining a stand under fire.

Whereas other infantry would break or run, NRAs would stand firm, continually firing back even as the members around them fell. This incredible devotion to their country, juxtaposed with the outdatedness of their armaments and tactics, led to a particularly infamous photo in the late 1940s of an NRA officer raising a flag of the Republic of China, in full dress uniform, and surrounded by saluting soldiers - right in the middle of an active combat battlefield.

But as time went on, the training and devotion put into the National Revolutionary Army took a darker note. As more and more of their members died to increasingly powerful Red Chinese weaponry, and the sheer length of the war began to take its toll on morale, the soldiers of the Republic of China were ever more deeply indoctrinated, made to love and be willing to fight for China even if it meant the cost of their own lives or the soldiers around them.

Over time, this kind of teaching only became more prevalent, and more deep, and soon the NRA became known merely as Nationalists - still outfitted in weaponry from the last major war, but now held together with sheer hatred for Communist China and sheer devotion to the Republic for which they stood. They turned to mines, planting them in the ground to blast enemy infantry to pieces, or attaching them to old vehicles and driving them into the opposing sides.

By the time the bombs fell, Nationalists were considered to be one of the most feared opponents to face on the battlefield in open combat.

### After the Bombs

When China died, so did the Nationalists.

It was not that their numbers themselves were significantly reduced - while the Nationalists' numbers decreased, there was still a great number of them left fighting. But, for these men, it was something greater - death of self. For years, training and indoctrination had instilled in Nationalists that their very existence and self revolved around the Republic of China as a nation. And now that nation was dead.

Those that were left were in shock - and emptiness. Without the Republic, without China as they knew it, the Nationalists became ghosts. They barely talked, blindly obeyed orders from the surviving leaders in a haze, and then ... began simply dying. Now, the Nationalists have one of the highest mortality rates out of all soldiers in the world, behind Chinese Red Guards, NVA Regulars, Soviet Conscripts, Syndicate Auxilaries and GLA Rebels.

It is not in battle that these deaths occur, however... but after them. Even as the surviving Blue China commanders began to realise the seriousness of the problem and monitor the Nationalists under their command, the soldiers, in ones and twos, began to die. Some sat in the trenches or toilets, and when no one was around, ate their guns, blowing their brains out. Some would put out their minefields when ordered, but then instead of retreating, they would just close their eyes, smile at memories of the time before the atomic fire and walk blindly into their own mines.

Others would simply fall face-down, into the dirt, and refuse to get back up, giving up on life itself. And others merely dropped their weapons, stretched their arms out, and strolled into the night of the wastelands that was once their home, to meet an uncertain fate, be it at the hands of monsters, Communists or clones.

It is a testament to how many have died that the USM-02 carbines, once in the process of being widely implemented in the Nationalists' ranks before the bombs fell, now regularly pass from one soldier to another as the former bearer dies - and the lists of initials on the guns, written by their former owners as the one last sign of humanity they had left, grows longer every month...

The Nationalists of the former Republic of China were once the finest of their countrymen... but now they are nothing but restless spirits, pitiful creatures that were once men at the peak of physical and mental health. Without anything to live for, they are but shadows of their former selves, and while they fight in battle as fiercely as ever, there is simply no spark driving them anymore. That more and more commit suicide every day is a problem that no battle strategy, no weapon or miracle technology can fix. And while many yet live, it will not be long before the Nationalists of the Republic of China die out along with their beloved nation.

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