When thinking about an amphibious invasion, one imagines a bitter and grueling march to advance past the hostile beachhead. It's there that heroes and slaughterers both rise to the occasion, all vying for the control of a tourist attraction.
Normally, the attacking side will have to pay the price in blood, especially in an era where nearly all battles are fought in visual range. Investing in time, money, and lives, the attacker relies on sheer firepower and number to win the day. Then there's the defending team, a party that has all the defensive advantage that the scenario has to offer: the high ground, emplacements, familiarity with the terrains... This combination, in theory, will bolster the quality of the defensive unit by at least a factor of three. Barring no extra variables, a defender can kill three attackers before being made a no-factor. Mano-el-mano, the attacking side is expected to have the corpses of their soldiers buried beneath the red sand or floating on the murky, foamy waves. To achieve victory, the attacker must either exhaust the enemy through sheer attrition, which is a painful way to go about an amphibious invasion, or level the playing field. The latter, in particular, can be achieved by means of planning or bringing up force multipliers. Both requirements are easily fulfilled by the Belkan military in their first-ever attempt at shore invasion. It's something that the Allied forces in Dunkirk learned about the hard way.
After the Belkan Marine Corps established a buffer zone to deploy the rest of their force, Army Group B under General Belladonna moved into heavy pressure Dunkirk's front. The maneuver of the wolfkin General forces Lord Gort to dedicate most of his remaining units to stem the iron tide, leaving Admiral Addison and his paled-face survivors to fend for themselves. Now relocated beyond the scorching buffer zone that the Belkan Marines created, Addison and the remnants of his makeshift force can only watch in utter helplessness as the Belkans seize and fortify their beachhead into a nigh impenetrable fortress by the sea.
Ospreys fly in and out of the beach, dropping fortification walls and construction materials for the Marine Pioneers to use. Using the abandoned or seized Erusean trenches and fighting positions as a basis, the Pioneers erected new defensive lines to protect the Marines' force deployment. Bullet-resistant walls are set up for the Marines to take cover behind and engage the enemy through the built-in firing ports. Large steel bastions are also deployed in the key avenues leading into Dunkirk's proper. The bastions are tall and tailored especially for Belkan AFVs to hide behind, thus only exposing their turrets against hostile return fire. The semi-hull down allows the Marines' Pumas to provide withering hail of covering fire while the rest of the invasion force is funneled onto the beach until they reach critical mass.
Other than sporadic small-arms fire, Addison's unit can do little else. Their attempt at setting up 2-pounder guns and mortar tubes are either met with a magical blitz from above or a Belkan high-explosive ordinance being delivered with pinpoint accuracy. In an effort to slow down the inevitable, Addison orders his men to maintain an aerial lookout for Belkan flyers, the Witches. Yet the naked eye and Lee-Enfields can only do so much in this abysmal Fog of War. What's left of the machine gun unit is indispensable in their lackluster effort to suppress the Belkan beachhead, so Addison can't order them to light up the sky in anti-air action. As a result, intercepting their aerial harassers has proven itself to be nigh impossible, especially when they're flying with fully armored suits and are somehow still able to turn themselves invisible on top of whatever voodoo they can conjure...
Then there's the constant fear that the Belkans will level the whole place against, using their devastating artillery tanks and battleships. The looming threat that they can be wiped off the map without any way to retaliate has put a damper on the Eruseans' spirit. What's left of the EEF's artillery component is busy acting as direct-fire anti-tank guns instead of shelling the enemy from afar. There's not a single 25-pounder cannon available for Addison to bring to bear against the Belkan warships off-shore. And even then, it's a coin toss whether or not the gun crew of the howitzers will survive interception or retaliation fire.
To make matters worse, Addison and his force of ill-quipped sailors and soldiers are running low on munitions. Their caches of weapons were either seized or destroyed by the Belkans before and after the buffer zone was created. Now, they're holding on by employing runners, each ferrying whatever bullets and ammo cans they can procure from Lord Gort's similarly dwindling supply base. It's from these runners as well that Addison receives words that a detachment of Matilda infantry tank will be rolling in to support their effort. Yet, even that hope is dashed when a blur comes down from the sky, a bomb large enough to destroy a tank and flip another. There goes the hope of getting any semblance of armor protection for Addison and his men... Still, even when the Matildas did arrive, their effectiveness was doubtful when all they had were diminutive machine guns.
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The cards are stacked against not just Addison's unit but also the entire Allied force in Dunkirk as well. They're losing ground by the second. Soldiers and officers alike now suddenly find it's much easier to die than surrender, owing to the ridiculous efficiency of the Belkan war machines. Tactics and communications start the spiraling descend into mindless, stubborn brawl and shouting. Nowhere to run, and no place to hide, the Eruseans and Ustian Loyalists are like cornered rats waiting to be boiled alive. The brutal smack of reality has awoken the daydreaming servicemen of the Allied forces and forced them to confront the truth:
They're obsoleted.
Weapons, doctrines, even the quality of their soldiers and officers... Addison can say for sure now that they're behind the Reich by years if not decades! That's the only explanation for why they are losing so badly, so decisively. The Belkans are riding on a neverending tidal wave poised to threaten if not consume the entire Kingdom of Ustio, before heading over to Erusea. And by the Lord, Addison is now rightfully fearing for his homeland, as does every Erusean soldier and sailor worth their salt in Dunkirk. If they're being pushed to the edge in less than a month, how long can their defenseless Kingdom last against the mighty Belkan Reich?
The Belkans must have struck a deal with the Devil to get this far... And the Kingdom of Erusea is now reaping what it deserved for the actions of the few that antagonized the Reich: A death by silence strangulation, torn limb by limb before being cooked alive from the inside.
When reports come that Belkan Marines are pushing their offensive beyond the buffer zone, Addison can only sigh in an underground shelter that is now his makeshift command post. Instead of dolling out instructions and orders, the man crosses his arms and mulls silently. Beyond the nondescript house that is his hideout, by the beach where everything starts to go wrong, the Marines march to glorious war.
First, the Belkan Marines send a detachment to secure the stranded Erusean destroyer on the beach. Though it looks to be abandoned like other Erusean positions, the beached warship still retains some of its weapons, making it a hazard to further military operations. To clear that vessel out, the Marines call in a pair of Skyraiders to rake the deck of the destroyers with multiple autocannon strafes. While not enough to cause any major damage, the attack runs are good to ensure the suppression or elimination of any hidden enemy garrison aboard the destroyer. Afterward, Belkan Marines start boarding the stranded warship using rappelling lines. They then clear and disable the weapon systems of the destroyer, just in case.
Setting out simultaneously with the boarding party are multiple Marine mechanized spearheads. Their targets? To locate and dismantle enemy command centers. Due to the Ravens and the Sea Witches severing the Allied forces' chain of command, the defenders at Dunkirk have fractured into smaller, yet dense pockets of resistance. The Marines will be a crucial instrument in the pacification of Dunkirk as they can hit the weakly defended rear of these straggler groups. To aid in their effort, low-flying Ospreys patrol over the Marines' spearheads. Using a combination of door guns, autocannons, rockets, and missiles, the Ospreys prevent unsavory elements from wandering too close to the Marines or destroying any well-hidden ambush site. Coming across anything too well-protected and the Marines feeling lazy, which they don't, a few Ospreys are also carrying thermobaric missiles. Call one of them down and the Marines can kick back and see how an apartment block collapses. With so much firepower on the go, the Marines progress at a blistering pace. This speed is further bolstered by their merging with two Raven teams prowling the battlefield. Thanks to the supersoldier teams, breaching buildings has never been made easier. In no time, one of the Marines' spearheads has reached danger close to Addison's command post.
Feeling the increasingly loud wartime commotions above, Addison ultimately sighs. "This is it, lads. I think we've bought enough time for Gort as is... Past my words, those who don't want to fight anymore are to pass on their munitions to those who will. It's time to wave the white flag over this sector and make our way to the humanitarian corridor. We already did more than what our Kingdom could ever ask of us..."
"This bloody war... No, this butcher fest, shouldn't have happened when the aftermath of the last one is still fresh in the memory."