Sovereign

“Orlish Fifth-Generation fighters have proven to be the apex predator of the skies! The last few weeks showed the first time that the newly introduced LF-20 Phantom—a stealthy, fifth generation, multirole fighter has proven itself to be capable of leading the MN war effort by single-handedly killing over five hundred confirmed air kills whilst only losing sixty-eight airframes in total. Due to its stealthy nature and its powerful electronics, the LF-20 Phantom is achieving extreme air-to-air kill ratios, with the 4th generation planes of the CFN having a hard time countering the Orlish beast. Gallia, Lorathia, United Arkelia, and Lieplatz are now placing more orders for the LF-20 Phantom, alongside the Asanaian Empire. Porter Heavy Industries and LSystems (the joint designer and producer of the LF-20 series) are now ordered to expand their production lines for this fighter. However, the costs of it are extreme. Each airframe at the moment is estimated to cost eighty million Orlish Blancs in FY2025, which is projected to go down by half at most within a year of large-scale production. Still, the performance of this multirole stealth fighter has shown itself to be a worthy successor to the LF-16 Ghost, the previous (but retired) stealth air supremacy fighter of the Orlish Air Force, which had also performed well during the final stages of the Great War, save for its extreme costs when operated.”

- Geopol Press

+++

West Orland

Eutstadt

PHI Eutstadt Plant

June 8, 2025

Well Porter, the CEO of Porter Heavy Industries (PHI), now the growing premier defense contractor of Orland (due to them straight up accepting the terms laid down by the Economic Minister), was now conversing quite jubilantly with his little brother—William.

Amelie watched from the background as the two men talked for a while, smiles clear on their faces. Quite frankly, the William and Well brothers were a hardworking bunch. William poured almost all of his time in service of the Queen, while Well, away from Eutstadt, was breaking his neck trying to meet the demands of the Ministry of the Economy, the Ministry of Defense, and of course, keeping the Rebenslof Group and the Orlish male-owned megacorporations organized and in-line with the policies and goals set forth by Minister Wittfield.

So, Amelie thought that it would be a nice break for William to have him visit his brother today as the newly converted PHI Eutstadt Plant (previously a civilian airframe manufacturer) finally finished its full conversion into a full-on military factory that would produce LF-12s and LF-20s into the future.

After all, a little family time was something he deserved.

William turned around and called for Amelie, and Amelie happily obliged, walking forward as Well slightly bowed in respect. Amelie merely laughed.

“Oh come on, Mr. Porter. Aren’t we beyond the need for those kinds of formalities?” Amelie said.

“I believe that the Queen has never been scarier,” Well grinned. “As such, I better pay respect to Her Majesty before I get my head chopped.”

“Keep making fun of me, and that might become true.”

“I’m joking, I’m joking.”

Amelie rolled her eyes and looked around the facility. There were already planes being constructed by the busy factory personnel, half of which, Amelie noticed, were already young women. Apparently, many volunteered in advance a year ago when it was announced that this factory would be converted into a militarized one.

At least four thousand young women applied for skill training to support the factory’s future operations, a program also spearheaded early on by Minister Wittfield. Anne certainly had foresight. Before the Women Mobilization Act, she had already focused on tapping into the volunteer spirit of young women by opening up training schools to convert them into productive skilled workers, all while spreading propaganda everywhere to tell them to join.

All in all, the results meant that now, as more and more assembly lines opened across West Orland after a year of factory conversions—the large manpower gaps were being slowly filled in a trickle. Then, probably next year, in large sums. Then, next year, they’d be in a fully operational state, filled with millions of young and middle-aged women with the skills necessary to operate the high-tech industries of Orland.

“So…how’s the situation here, Mr. Porter?” Amelie innocently asked, looking around the factory. She eyed many of the airframes slowly being built up. Especially two of them. No one was working on it yet, presumably since it was recess time, but the LF-20 Phantom in front of her was truly a beauty to behold.

She made note of its angular and utilitarian designs to ensure a lower “radar cross section”. The iconic single-thruster design on its rear (as she was looking at the rear of the plane). She knew that most LF-20 designs were LF-20As, the ones used from land-based airfields. Then there was the rarer LF-20C, which had VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) capabilities, meaning, it could go up in the air without the use of an airfield, mostly used by the Orlish Army and Marine Corps for CAS (close air support) operations. Then, of course, there was the slightly more common Navy variant, the LF-20C. So far, only the ONS Rebenslof, Albert’s ship, held four squadrons of it due to its still lower numbers.

As such, she mentally wondered which variant these two were.

“That, Your Majesty, is an LF-20C design. It’s the ones to be operated by the Navy,” Well said behind her. “And as for the situation here, well…conversion is again complete. That plane there is being made in low-scale production, just so we can train the girls around here how to build one. Next week…we’ll begin large-scale production on fourteen production lines. Two LF-20Cs will be produced by this factory, each day, most likely, within a month or two. Expect us to be producing at least sixty LF-20s per month in three months.”

“That’s a long time,” Amelie commented. “How long have you guys been working on these two planes?”

“Those two are now on their second week of construction,” Well said. “In two weeks’ time, it’ll be completed. Though, it’d probably be another week of quality control before it rolls off the production line.”

“That’s a long time,” Amelie said.

“It takes on average three to four weeks to produce one LF-20 from scratch, assuming all necessary parts can be sourced on time and assembled smoothly in this factory. That’s why we’ll have multiple production lines. It’s how we make sure we will produce two per day. So long as you can assure us that the necessary parts will be coming here at all times, this factory will be a major supplier of the Orlish Navy and Air Force.”

Amelie made her calculations in her mind. So far, the four major assembly sites of West Orland (all four were of course just the final place for assembly—they were supported by hundreds of smaller plants producing the parts and other things) produced four to six LF-20s per day, with the amount dependent on how much the Federalist missile attacks disrupted her supply lines.

That meant every month going forward, she’d be producing a hundred and eighty LF-20s. If Well’s assumptions of two LF-20s per day produced in this site within three months, she’d increase her production rate to eight LF-20s per day at most. That…that was, half-decent.

I guess? This means that within the next year, I should expect three thousand airframes produced in all of West Orland. She began counting using her hand. That’s…hmm…I have twenty-four squadrons of LF-20s in total, dispersed around the world. Close to four hundred planes are active at all times. Assuming I only lose two or three per day that have to be replaced, I have a chance of increasing my squadrons!

“You look quite satisfied with that,” William pointed out.

Amelie turned around with a smile on her face at the two brothers.

“Well, I mean, two per day sounds bad, but I realized it’s a massive increase regardless! So long as we tell Lewis not to waste too much in a single day in those…massive air battles…”

“Well that’s the big problem,” William said. “We can’t control when the enemy wants to intensify their air operations. There will be spikes in losses during major operations, which will take months to replace. Remember, those twenty-nine we lost during the last spike of engagements…probably took two weeks to replace.”

“I suppose that’s a long time considering the intensity of losses we’re having,” Amelie looked down a bit. “But still, this makes me elated. Mr. Porter, what really is our target of daily production overall in West Orland? Tell me!”

“Has Minister Wittfield not reported to you our targets?” Well replied, a bit awkwardly.

“Um…she doesn’t exactly strike me as the ‘promise this and that’ type,” Amelie explained. “When she reports stuff to me, it’s just general projections, not specific projections. And she mostly likes to focus on what has already been achieved rather than what we imagine we want to achieve.”

“Well…it’s not a bad idea to do that,” Well smiled. “Then again, you want fantasy projections, no?”

“I wanna feel better,” Amelie replied. “I mean, I’ve been feeling pretty pessimistic already with how the war’s turning, except in the air war. Tell me how well we will do with air production within…hmm, eight months!”

“The target in eight months…” Well looked up. “Well, first is this factory. Then there will be another one opened in Niedelheze that’s expected to produce four planes per day. Maybe we’ll reach twelve planes produced per day in the LF-20 family. Maybe…maybe not. Twelve to fourteen per day seems to be the overall goal by the end of the year.”

“William, what’s our average air losses per day?” Amelie suddenly asked.

“Around six to nine planes per day,” William answered. “But that includes LF-12, LF-8, and LF-4 platforms, and that doesn’t mean each day we lose that much. Usually, on a day-to-day basis, we mostly lose two or three. Very much a trickle. But during major air-to-air engagements, when entire squadrons are mobilized to fight, that can rise to twenty to fifty air losses in just a day. But that usually only happens once per month, and these battles usually result in decisive damage to both sides. On the Gallian front though, we are right now losing ten to twenty planes per day due to ground attack operations, and just the high-intensity nature of the campaign. But we don’t expect those numbers to remain the same once the frontlines stabilize.”

So that was why they already technically lost thousands of planes since the start of the civil war. Amelie really wasn’t sure what to say about the numbers of overall war losses when it would be presented to her. At the last briefing, the tallies said that her, the Royalist side, had lost around a thousand two hundred airframes since the first days of the hostilities. That and her side also lost almost two thousand five hundred modern main battle tanks and probably another four thousand APCs and IFVs.

Those heavy losses were a result of constant fighting and attrition with the Federalists, who lost roughly the same, just a little bit less than her side. Yet, for all of those losses, the Orlish war stockpiles managed to support her war to this day, when her production capabilities were now reaching the levels needed to both replace the losses and grow her force.

Amelie sighed.

“So I guess it’s really going to take more months before we can see any significant growth in our numbers?” Amelie asked. “Because at this point, we’re mostly just replacing what we’ve lost, and then some.”

“Exactly, Your Majesty,” Well replied. “But…the thing is, we’re now rolling off a new production line of planes. Again, these things are no LF-12s. They are LF-20s. Quite frankly, I doubt we’d lose much more of these bad boys once the Larissan Confederation buckles from their constant air losses—”

“Air losses that they’re absorbing well due to how cheap their designs are,” William reminded. “Sure, we may be shooting down four to one at the moment, but remember, Larissan designs are usually cheaper than Orlish designs…and that’s only counting conventional aircraft. The LF-20 is more expensive. We can’t ever hope to outproduce them if we’re focusing on quality.”

“But quality is what triumphs in the skies, William!” Well declared. “Look at what happened in Gallia. Our products performed well. They didn’t stand a chance. It was a massacre. Quite frankly, I believe pouring more resources into the LF-20 is the Queen’s smartest move, aside from prioritizing air defense. They can’t beat us now. Not in the air.”

“I’m not saying we’re not winning, just…we’re taking other costs here,” William said, looking back at Amelie. “Amelie, our ground forces are now being slowly outnumbered. Don’t be too jovial about the numbers that Minister Wittfield is giving. It’s impressive until you realize that Eirhow’s factories are producing eighteen Löwe tanks per day. And that’s…yes, projected to get worse.”

“Wait, where’d you get those numbers?” Well suddenly asked, as Amelie’s eyes widened.

“I’m supposed to report that later to Amelie,” William shrugged. “It’s the new report of the OPM from our infiltrators in Wuringen. Yes…they’re producing that many tanks. They’re also producing more tube artillery than we do. More rocket artillery, more APCs, everything ground-based. That, and a more massive cruise and ballistic missile production rate. While we have focused on aircraft production and air defense, they poured their resources into producing more offensive weapons.”

“So…we’re…screwed?” Amelie asked.

“Depends on whether they can leverage it to break our defenses,” William replied. “But again, hard to say. The OHC definitely knew of this for a long time already, and it’s probably why we have been generally reorienting our troops into anti-tank groups using disposable handheld ATGMs, but…yeah. Now’s the first time that we have hard data about their production figures, and it’s probably three or four months old already.”

“Then why have they not launched an attack yet?” Amelie asked.

“Building up their reserves. Training new formations. Most importantly…searching for the best time to strike.” William answered. “After all, time isn’t on their side, no? Then they have to go all in to break the stalemate. Because if they screw up the timing and the stalemate isn’t broken…I have doubts about their chances once their industrial expansion reaches its full limits. Because realistically, no matter what anyone says, there’s only so much they can do with their landlocked territory. At some point, there will just be no more room to expand production. I believe my report will change a lot of things in our strategy.”

That…certainly sounds ominous. Amelie thought. I need to look deeper into this…