I got inspired to create this thread after seeing the DC Brotherhood vs NCR thread.

Lets say the Midwest Brotherhood (with the "Good Ending" where you sacrifice one of your squad members brain with good reputation to the Calculator) tries to reach the west to find out the fate of the Main BOS but got into conflict with the NCR because of the NCR x BOS war.

The NCR that is going to be fighting this force will be the NCR ending in New Vegas with the BOS(Mojave) destroyed.

Who will win, the BOS(midwest) with its very diverse army(humans, ghouls, super mutants, hairy deathclaws, reavers and a factory that can produce a huge number of pacification robots) or the NCR with their numbers, industry and democracy.

Win Conditions: A win would mean the other faction no longer has the means to fight (meaning they no longer have the ability to arm themselves and the will to fight).

Off Topic: Yay for my first forum topic.

Edit: Added win conditions.

i'd say the BOS, just with their "arsenal" alone (all of the members of their army). bullets from the NCR can only do so much; i feel like the deathclaws alone would wipe out an entire platoon

Sticking to just the human factors alone for now
Small engagements: let's say, 1 - 10 people the BOS might not win flawlessly but they will win
Because even one power armour suit is a another ten people in its own right.
But then we should take into account the landscapes, do they have time to set up
And most importantly WHAT UNITS are fighting

Hey, one power armour against 30 conscripts isn't even a challenge, but 1 desert rangers against one initiate? That initiate is going to hit the ground faster than a perfectly fine veitibird in fallout 4 flying in a cloudless mid summer day.

So it's a mixed bag really.
On paper, the BOS have the damage upper hand.
But they do not have the economy or structure behind them to occupy targets long term.

NCR on the other hand has a massive (wasteland) economy of cheap materials and poor troops.
BOS needs specialist materials (fusion, plasma, high density metals for repair and replacement and FUEL )

And thankfully, we have plenty of good real world examples of this match up.
The most notable and most popular one that immediately comes to mind is

Germany VS USSR in WWII
BOS - - - - - - - - NCR respectively

Not in ideals of course but in simple terms, a very well equipped and destructive force against a very poorly trained force without even basic equipment.
It all came down to supplies.

So in summation: NCR wins with a pyrrhic Victory

I am personally undecided on this because of the following points.

- Developed Nation vs Developing Nation. The Midwest BOS acquired themselves a power base after dealing with the Calculator however their lands needs to be developed because it was plagued by raiding and destroyed by pacification robots.

In contrast the NCR already developed their lands during the Fallout: Tactics timeline and has a stable source of resources and manpower.

- Troops. The Midwest BOS certainly became more powerful after taking in the ghouls, tribals, deathclaws, super mutants, reavers and robots however some of these troops are not expendable. Super Mutants are powerful and can become great heavy infantry however they cannot procreate and I doubt someone who did not live in a vault would risk becoming a 10 foot toddler for the BOS.

Ghouls can use their pre-war knowledge and nimbleness to contribute to the war however they too cannot procreate.

The tribals, deathclaws and reavers is still few in numbers to provide a steady source of troops. Pacification Robots are the only thing that will tip the balance to the BOS during engagements because  these troops are mass produced but the thing is the NCR has an abundance of fodder troops as well.

- Casualty Management. The NCR is an army of cowards. I am not saying that they are not capable of feats of bravery but their tactics usually involve retreating until they have an advantage over their enemy or have superior firepower. Retreating is also a good way of reducing casualties during engagements.

Now compare that to the BOS army who as far as I can tell are a bit fatalistic(seeing how they defended their bunkers to the death during the invasion of the pacification robots). This kind of fighting is a sure fire way to get casualties and this is a problem as they do not have a steady source of manpower yet.

The tipping point again is the Pacification Robots.

- Vault 0. This I think is the tipping point if a NCR x BOS(midwest) war would happen. All that Pacification Robot production is concentrated on this one location(from my memory) and once the NCR learns about this location and destroys it(the factories at least), the BOS would lose their edge. It would be a repeat of the first NCR x BOS war where the NCR would wage a war of attrition until the BOS numbers are depleted.

On the other hand if the NCR fails to find and destroy Vault 0, the BOS will eventually produce a good number of Pacification Robots to completely destroy the NCR army.

@loneheart9
Everything that both factions has available during the endings I mentioned. That means anything along the lines of NCR Rangers, NCR heavy troops, Mechanized Divisions(Trucks, Tanks, Humvee), Air Divisions(Vertibirds), Robots(Robobrain, Sentrybots, Protectrons, Humaniod Robots, Pacification Robots) , NCR Ranger Super Mutants, Reavers, Ghouls, Tribals, BOS Super Mutants and the like.

I might have missed a few though so as long as you cite a reference they can be used if you are going to use them in your arguments.

Never played tactics so maybe i should just stay out....Buuuuut i'm not. I think in the long run it might not even matter. Even if NCR loses the war the brotherhood can't hold the NCR's land. On top of that i think that both factions would have to worry about the legion still who would undoubtedly use the opportunity to strike.

@sgtrock31

That is true if we are talking about the West BOS. The Midwest BOS has institute level of production during the "Good" ending of Fallout: Tactics which means they will eventually mass produce enough robots to control all of California if they were given enough time.

@ahyuser001

Even so i think they would still have supply line issues they still have to conquer everything else between here and there first.

@sgtrock31

That is a fair point. Any army needs supply lines in order to achieve its objective. It is a good thing that the BOS has access to military vehicles such as tanks and humvees which could carry supplies to their staging area which in turn would supply any FOBs they would create to battle with the NCR. And this also applies to the NCR as they too have access to military vehicles.

The problem that I see for the NCR is it would take at least 16 years and 9 months to create a single trooper while the Midwest BOS, with Vault 0, could make a robot in days(just based on Fallout: Tactics). There would be a point where the NCR would be outproduced by the Midwest BOS in terms of pumping out troops, the battle of attrition will be against the NCRs favor.

This is assuming that the NCR does not find Vault 0 and destroy it of course. Damn still not decided on this.

@ahyuser001

Honestly it is a pretty interesting matchup because there are many things to consider in a fight such as this. As i mentioned before i don't know much about the midwest BOS so i know very little about their assets. However i think not mentioned enough is the possibility of how new vegas ending would affect the outcome of this battle. How other factions and Resources like the Boomers, Khans, House, Legion, Independent Vegas, the Courier, the Divide, Helios One, Enclave Remnants, Super Mutants, Etc. I should have said Etc sooner. While before i was somewhat convinced the battle might go in favor of the NCR. I'm more or less convinced the battle would just stale mate.

Definitely Brotherhood of Steel, but I think we need to think where they are going to fight. If they're fighting in New Vegas, then I think NCR will win. But in general, I think the BoS have more advantage (better weapons and armors, etc.), and if my memory serves me correctly, isn't the Midwest the strongest BoS? And they even have a Deathclaw?

@845386958

Equipment superiority is definitely an advantage on individual battles as seen in the previous BOS x NCR war where the Brotherhood had the initial advantage over the NCR and defeated them on several battles however the strategy of industrial warfare is what wins wars as seen on the same war and World War II.

IIRC the NCR simply piled more and more troops and guns over the Brotherhood until they lost the war of attrition because of mass production.

The Midwest BOS has access to unique soldiers because of the diversity of their troops but some of those cannot be replaced as easy as an NCR foot soldier.

I think the location doesn't really matter because if you think about it, both factions have access to vehicles that would make logistics easy. If they wanted to they could create a really long supply line(I would assume that there would only be one front because of the distance between the two factions).

The Midwest BOS advantage over the NCR is their ability to create Vault 0 robots but once this facility is gone, the war is pretty much on the NCRs as their "Nation" is still fairly young compared and would not have the numbers to produce the troops needed to win a war of attrition without relying on mass production of robots.

If we're assuming that the NCR has hoover dam and Vegas, their economic problems might just be over, now that they have the full economic boost from Vegas. The gun runners could supply weapons that would shred power armor. It's not even top tier weapons that will do the job, especially in the hands of a ranger. Every ranger armed with the best weapons, rockets, fat-men? The damage they'd inflict would be gigantic. There's a wiki that suggests that the NCR has something like 700,000 citizens.

NPC for NPC Locale for Locale the BoS Bunker's capability could crush NCR bases one at a time imo

I'd say definitely the NCR. Lore wise they have hundreds of thousands of citizens and that means numbers. I have a feeling that a war between the Midwestern BOS and the NCR would play out a lot like the Helios One conflict. The BOS has firepower, equipment and training, but the NCR just keeps coming. Likely both sides would experience major casualties, but the NCR would come out on top.

ahyuser001 wrote:

@845386958

Equipment superiority is definitely an advantage on individual battles as seen in the previous BOS x NCR war where the Brotherhood had the initial advantage over the NCR and defeated them on several battles however the strategy of industrial warfare is what wins wars as seen on the same war and World War II.

IIRC the NCR simply piled more and more troops and guns over the Brotherhood until they lost the war of attrition because of mass production.

The Midwest BOS has access to unique soldiers because of the diversity of their troops but some of those cannot be replaced as easy as an NCR foot soldier.

I think the location doesn't really matter because if you think about it, both factions have access to vehicles that would make logistics easy. If they wanted to they could create a really long supply line(I would assume that there would only be one front because of the distance between the two factions).

The Midwest BOS advantage over the NCR is their ability to create Vault 0 robots but once this facility is gone, the war is pretty much on the NCRs as their "Nation" is still fairly young compared and would not have the numbers to produce the troops needed to win a war of attrition without relying on mass production of robots.

Oh yeah,you right. I completely forgot about that NCR have shit tons of people lol. But I really think locations do matters. If they fight in New Vegas for examples, NCR are more familiar to the surroundings and plan ambush or easily cut their supply lines or something like that. I think home-court advantage really play a important role in a war as shown throughout the wars that happen in real life.

@Sirdanest
@Zetrax

Ah but the thing is the Midwest BOS has a big potential to have a massive army, as massive or even bigger than the NCR because of the Vault 0 Robots. These robots has terminator level capacity for destruction and can be mass produced.

Humanoid Robot

Pacification Robot

The main reason I am still undecided is because it would not be a stretch to say that the NCR could destroy Vault 0, robbing the Midwest BOS of this advantage. On the other hand, the BOS could manufacture enough robots to overwhelm the NCR if they hold on to Vault 0 long enough.

@845386958

It is definitely common sense to know the terrain as it would let someone dictate the course of a battle. The thing about industrial warfare is you can simply create more weapons and soldiers to defeat the enemy.

You could say that someone with great knowledge of a location can win a few battles however if you face an enemy that can simply throw weapons and soldiers at you regardless of the casualties then they will eventually win the location. War is like the Chinese game Go. You win when you have captured more territory than your enemy.

So TLDR; you could get a few victories against your enemy if you have knowledge of the terrain but it would be meaningless if you would eventually cede it to the enemy since they can swarm you with numbers.

An NCR victory in the Mojave means that they likely have the courier working for them. That alone is a huge advantage. My pro-NCR courier probably would have been willing to tell the NCR about big MT (although there was no mention of this in the ending slides so go figure). But that's a scary thought, if they figure out teleportation. I don't ever recall feeling quite so godlike and larger than life, in a fallout game, outside of that character, by end-game.
If the BOS actually invades California with an army of robots and deathclaws, then we really need to ask what is up with the Shi, but we really don't know. They may or may not be in one hell of a position to change things up.
Speaking of that, we haven't set a "win" condition for this war. Are the two sides literally trying to conquer each other's empires completely, or just fighting over the Mojave perhaps? Completely conquering and holding on to all the of the NCR would be quite a task even with a robot army.

@Sirdanest
You have a point. Just added the win conditions.

Win Conditions: A win would mean the other faction no longer has the means to fight (meaning they no longer have the ability to arm themselves and the will to fight).

The NCR would probably succumb to an endless stream of robots, without a hero like the courier to put a stop to that.  But if one of the courier's quests is "Stop the robot army," then I think that army gets stopped.  But then some couriers are fickle creatures (psychopaths who just like killin') and might just switch sides for reasons or random impulse, so there's no one way to answer this if it involves the Courier.

Also, WHY are they fighting the war? If the BOS attacked first, the democratic NCR's will to fight would be much higher. But if the NCR was just being greedy, the people might get tired of another drawn out war and kick Kimball out. Defenders fight much harder than aggressors in many cases.

Overall i think it may be a close battle. I still need to read up more on both sides but with the mentioning of vault 0 robots, it gives the brotherhood a huge advantage, but also its biggest weakness. Robots are tech, they are not people. If the NCR has a way to get into the robot's network either on a big or small scale, they could turn the robots on the brotherhood themselves or shut them down/self destruct them.
(And if we go by fallout 4 logic with the robotic's perk, if you can get close enough, it wont be too hard to get control)

Tech on the whole is a mixed bag and can be unpredictable and a simple malfunction could make a robot an enemy or ally and the fact that the brotherhood may rely too much upon them, if the robots turn on them, not one NCR solider would need to shoot a bullet