Mother of All BombsNickednamed the "Mother Of All Bombs" the MOAB was used against the Jaegers trapped in FredrickBurg.Silence had gripped the shattered city of FredrickBurg for the good part of the day now, for everybody from SENSE trooper to Prussian Jaeger knew that the end to this short-lived peace was near. For the two days since the last of the ReynardÂ’s regime had been trapped within the city center along with the ex-duke, SENSE had been moving more units to amass on the encirclement. Tension had built up to a point to which it was almost palatable, and SENSE troopers spoke in hushed voices and scurried around quietly and carefully as they suspiciously glared down the broken streets towards the city center, waiting for the moment to attack.
The early evening of winter crept in, and the ambient light lowered as the sun sank low on the horizon. FredrickBurg’s electric supply no longer existed, destroyed long ago in the bombardments. Soon it would be darker then “three inches up a goat’s butt” as their commanders had briefed them. Night would be a crucial advantage for the SENSE troops, for one of the many items the Jaegers were low on was night vision equipment. But still no order came, and the battlefield remained as it was.
Just as the blue skies were starting to give way to black, several black, airborne blobs appeared far on the horizon, and soon took the form of Xing Shianan C-130s transport aircraft as they neared. They had flown all the way in from Xing Shiana, on a mission of express delivery which was about to take a spectacular turn. The flight of Hercules loitered on the city outskirts as both sides down below eyed them, one side with anticipation, the other side with dread.
The lead Hercules broke formation and turned for the city center, flying high above the range of small arms fire that was now the Jaegers only anti-aircraft defense, dropped its rear cargo ramps open as the crew moved to get their ominous cargo overboard, a cylindrical, 30 foot long object. The crew undid the locks securing the cargo, armed it and looked at the various messages they had scrawled on it for the recipients below before they rolled it right off the aircraft.
Falling from the plane at 12,000 feet, the 9-ton Massive Ordinance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB) had been manufactured in Xing Shiana and rushed to Prussia just for this mission. There was more then ample warning for the Jaegers down below as they watched the object freefall the 4,000 meters down towards their positions. They ducked into their foxholes, scrabbled for cover, and generally hunkered down wherever they could, waiting for the inevitable.
Nothing could have prepared them for it, not all the shelling, air strikes and missiles SENSE had thrown at them so far, the XAF MOAB fell to an attitude of fifty meters and detonated the nine tons of explosive within its body, in a sudden firestorm that utterly obliterated anything within 200 meters, the massive blast cooking and crushing the Jaegers wherever they hid. Charred body parts and twisted metal that were once a company of 240 Jaegers lay smoking within the 200 meter crater, carved by the bomb into the heavily urbanized city center. What was once a street of seven-story high-rises was not nothing more then a pile of broken and burning debris.
And that was just one bomb. The rest of the XAF Hercules made bombing runs for the good part of an hour, dropping over 12 precision guided MOABs all over areas identified to have the heaviest Jaeger activity. The incredible blast could be heard and felt all the way to SENSE lines, which were holding out safely over two thousand meters away. There was no way to run, nor to hide from the MOABs, all the Jaegers who were within its effect of influence either died where they were, hunkered down and hoping for the best, or left scattered amidst the smoking debris with terrible injuries. Over 2,500 Jaegers had been blasted to oblivion by the gigantic smart bombs.
SENSE artillery started to fall now, in shell and rockets, blasting the small five kilometer square pocket of Jaeger territory with explosions and submunitions, in a combined barrage of guns and rocket launchers from four SENSE nations that rained an incredible rate of over 200 rounds a minute into the city center without pause for three hours. Air strikes dropping FAEs and cluster munitions and napalm into the area en-masse continued after the shelling stopped, dropping more death onto the trapped Jaegers as they were pinned down where they were, being blasted and blow without having a chance to fight back.
As the thirty minute air strike lifted, SENSE rockets sent in a barrage of tear/vomit gas into the city center, making sure living conditions were unbearable for those caught in there, unfortunately for the trapped Jaegers, only one in three had the possession of a gas mask. The rest lay writhing in their positions, treated to the full effects of the vile fog that sealed their eyes painfully shut and caused them to purge what little was in their empty stomachs.
In the meantime, SENSE ground units were still told to hold.