What planning went into the battle? Did you have a scheme going in or was it just a "figure it out on the ground" situation?

Notorious was the first to answer this question, laying out their original strategy in full.

"Our plan was to essentially to be a delaying action. We were first fighting at Dryfeld, where we had a few other friendlies present, with our rear preparing a defence, so if and when Kulkue got attacked, we'd be prepared. Once Dryfeld fell and our defensive preparations were met, our idea was to fall back and reset ourselves. We made sure we were well stockpiled in provisions, as we knew they were going to do a lot of mammon rushes, and we also knew they outnumbered us. Against us was KRRG and another Warden regiment whose name eludes me. Our plan was, if there were a lot of enemies coming at us, we needed to max [the damage we outputted]. So, we used  push machine guns so we could put out as much firepower as we could. A lot of it was ad-hoc, and we adjusted ourselves to how KRRG was acting. They mostly used blob tactics, meaning we were able to prepare our MG’s at the main locations they were pushing. Another thing was that if we just set up trenches and barbed wire, it could serve to delay them. We also knew that if they were focused on mammoning things like the safehouse, we knew that they would strain their logistics to breaking-point."

"During the battle, a key thing was that we were looking at our losses too. If you look at Foxhole Stats it tells the whole story itself. For every man we lost during the battle, they ended up losing at least 2 or 3. A lot of the mammons they threw at our lines ended up being useless, as most of the defences got quickly repaired. KRRG and their allies intended to use ad-hoc bunker bases to be staging posts so that they could rush. Partway through, we identified this strategy, and so suppressed the bases with our push guns to keep them back." 

At this point, Max interjected with a rough count of their losses.

"We lost 2 push guns, 1 friendly, we also had our naval boys close-by destroying the Warden ones. It wasn't the best, but it was necessary to prevent the Wardens getting any reinforcements.”

Notorious continued his answer.

"If all of the different regiments hadn't worked together, we probably would've lost the hex that day. Because of our efforts we managed to force them to change their entire strategy, making them move from the South to the East."

Next, Max, the NCO during the battle, gave the logistical and naval side of the battle. 

"I was in charge of logistics and combatting the Warden presence on the water. They did have some successes blowing up bridges, but they suffered a lot of losses for doing needless suicide charges at our vessels, losing a lot of boats for us losing nothing. We also set up a few partisan bases on the edge of the rapid-decay zone to sabotage their logistics.

“Enderpenguin7”, the enlisted individual answered last.

"I joined halfway through the operation and went with the flow of what was going on. Most of the timeI found myself dealing with all the mammon rushes, due to there being so many. I was focused on helping with all the push guns and was moving around to whichever one needed the most support against the mammons. It got frightening at night time, with them coming out of the dark en masse. We managed to steal a few of their push guns. We did lose a couple of ours overnight, so it really helped having replacements."

Was there anything during the battle that stuck out to you? Any highlights or critical events that influenced how it ended?

Nine spoke up at this point.

"The thing is that this battle was in early-war, where we're really just using basic rifles, nades and push guns at most. It was a player versus player/PvP-focused battle. Very chaotic, with essentially the entire battle focused on holding the line. There were defensive fortifications going starting from the North, from the mountains to the sea. Beside the defensive wall we had the bunker base and the safehouse. Holding these bases and preventing Wardens from crossing through the holes in our defences was the main focus. They were very successful in the South, but our allies with boats managed to fight them back. It was mostly infantry holding against the mammons and trying to repair all the trenches that they destroyed. It was a bloody battle all along the line. We managed to tire them out in the end, with their pushes slowly growing smaller and smaller. Thanks to attrition, we managed to prevail.”

Notorious took over from this point onwards.

"I kinda mentioned it earlier, but it was simply the fact that when they went into the breach and flung their guys in, we were very quick in trying to plug those breaches. It got to the point where they were having burnout because they were just flinging their guys into machine guns and getting nothing out of it. They also ended up not able to push forward due to the strain it placed on logistics. We had trenches, push guns, bunkers, it got to the point where we had 20 Wardens stuck in a trench that we could just mow down with the push gun. Eventually it started to cool down. Whether it was them having to leave or just being burnt out, I don’t know.”

Enderpenguin7 spoke last.

"We couldn't have everyone focusing on one point at once, because it meant we had Wardens breaching elsewhere; we had to learn to be flexible. We ended up setting up barbed wire because they started to get so close that they almost flanked the push guns. We had to learn a lot of things on the fly."

What was it like in terms of casualties? Who sustained more? How many vehicles died or got stolen?

Notorious, again, began his answer first.

"In terms of casualties, the pictures and the videos we got kinda speak for themselves. At least from our regiment's standpoint, the only times we lost or suffered significant casualties was when we tried to push out from our defensive positions. However, a lot of the casualties the Wardens sustained were in the North when they transitioned their attacks there, because we had defenses stationed there and ready for them. In terms of overall death count, I'd say medium to small for TFV, with the Wardens getting more, which I guess they probably expected because of the mammon charges. But considering we still had shirts in the thousands at the end of the battle, I'd say they lost more than expected, with their strategy of throwing men at it being easily countered with our push guns. We lost a few guns in the first few hours, but it got to the point where their attempts at decrewing were able to be countered quickly. There was one point where they almost got one and one of our own drove a truck into their enemy push guns and killed one of theirs, which managed to buy us enough time to recover it and tow it back to our lines. I know the Wardens destroyed at least 3 of our push guns, and they captured a few, but they either were taken back or scuttled. We didn't have any AC's or anything, but the Wardens did, which they used when they attempted to flank one of our positions. Didn’t last very long. If you want a ratio, for every push gun we lost, they probably lost 4-5 of theirs."

Nine - "It was very brutal. I managed to get up to 12k infantry damage in this battle alone, I checked the other guys and they also got up to thousands of player damage. That's like, at least every defender got 50-100 kills if they stayed for the entire deployment. When they were running with the mammons, we basically couldn't miss as the groups were really dense. Usually we got our push guns to assist, but for the first few waves, it was just normal infantry with weapons. We managed to see them ahead of time as they were on the edge of our intel coverage, so we got to see when they were assembling and where they were heading ahead of time."

Maxcliper - "If you want exact stats, at peak there was a 1:6 ratio when they were charging us, with Wardens suffering the majority of the casualties, with it evening out at 1:2 when we did our own pushes. Push guns probably had similar rates against each other. On the Naval side of things, at first when they were doing their careless operations, we were trading better than on land, with at least 5 boats being lost on the Wardens. Due to our guys leaving later on, we had to reduce our boats on the water, going from 5 fully crewed boats to 3 partially crewed ones. But we did still manage to take down more of them then they did us. Overall naval losses were around 1:5, yet again the majority loss count was on the side of the Wardens. The losses they took when we had our guys partisaning is hard to estimate, because we used a lot of randoms and the bunker bases weren’t keeping tallies, so in terms of supplies destroyed, it's hard to say. They weren't the most effective, but they helped slow the advance and eventually stop it.”

Do you have any final thoughts on the battle as a whole?

Nine - "It was a glorious bloodbath, the type of battle I live for."

Enderpenguin5 - "The only battle I've seen similar to this was probably the Siege of Mercy's Wail a couple wars ago."

Notorious - "At the end of the day, I've played Foxhole for 2 years at this point. What I've seen is that the war is what it is. Battles like these, bloody and intensive battles, are almost always the most memorable. It was a good effort from the Wardens. We also had a lot of new people, who said that they had never seen anything like this before in any other games. Us being able to give players this sort of experience is great, and we hope to continue in the future.

Maxcliper - "I'm deeply a builder and I love these types of battles where they're throwing everything at them and it's a stalemate. Basically, I live for these battles, and stuff like this with both sides making a bloodbath are my bread and butter."