BritishBoyStar wrote:

Old topic ik but I had to put my two cents in on this, I would say after what Fallout 4 has told us about the East Coast chapter the Brotherhood would wipe the floor with the NCR if they for some reason decided to pack the entire chapter into the airship and head to California.

I mean think about it the BOS in Falout 4 have at least a couple hundred soldiers in the Commonwealth and back in the Capital adding to those numbers the already existing chapters on the west coast (e.g Lost Hills and Mojave chapters) they continue to boost their numbers, the NCR would still have an advantage with numbers but I don't believe the advantage would be significant enough.

Sure the NCR would have slightly more numbers, but the Brotherhood would have an army of soldiers all with energy and plasma weapons as well as T-60, T-51 and T-45 power armors, adding to that things like the Brotherhood have an entire fleet of vertibirds, so many they literally have an entirely separate military branch just for the airforce alone, while the NCR have only a few aircraft limited for NCR VIPs.

The Brotherhood could simply arrive on the west coast, rally all the chapters together and use their vertibirds to hit various bases wiping out everyone in sight before the NCR could even dispatch reinforcements, sure the war wouldn't be easy and I imagine the NCR would be able to mount a strong defense at least when the battle drew closer to their capital but I just don't see them being able to hold back the Brotherhood.

Especially when you take into account they could barely hold back the Legion, a faction with no aircraft or advanced tech (energy weapons/power armor) in fact I do often wonder why the Brotherhood on the East coast is even still there either the west forces need to more east or the east chapter needs to return west as their Brothers are getting butchered.

Sure everyone knows Maxson believes the Institute was too dangerous to ignore but honestly they have held fast in their bunker for 200+ years they clearly have no plans of going anywhere the NCR on the other hand are the much larger threat, the more time they are given the more land and power they acquire, in fact the plot to Fallout 4 makes no sense at least from a Brotherhood perspective.

It is stated in Fallout 4 that Maxson has reestablished contact with the west coast so as I said above all logic would dictate that they should return to the west and win the war for their fellow brothers before the NCR grows to strong for the Brotherhood again, but no we got the less than mind blowing plot of Fallout 4, well unless something happened post FNV and the NCR are no longer a huge threat to the Brotherhood tho this seems unlikely.

I would just like to point out that:

- The Prydwen took 6 years to make using up alot of scrap from an old Aircraft Carrier and it can only hold a finite number of personnel. If the East Coast BOS wanted to bring their entire army, they would need to invest a lot of time and by then the NCR would have already setup bases all over their lands with even greater numbers.

- Power Armor has a big weakness against pulse weapons. The NCR is also constantly learning technology from before the war and I would say it would not take long before they discover pulse weapon technology.

While the NCR did not equip their troops with energy weapons, they are capable of producing it(as cited by Alexander from the Gun Runners). If the NCR gets their hands on pulse weapon technology and mass produce it, it would negate the BOS Power Armor advantage.

- The NCR already dealt the BOS and was able to defeat them simply because they outnumber them by an obscene amount. Sure a West-East coast BOS could take a number of bases from the NCR but not without taking casualties. You have to remember that while the East Coast BOS is more than willing to take in outsiders, the west doesn't and because of this they will always be in a numerical disadvantage.

The BOS would simply lose in another battle of attrition with the NCR because they do not have the numbers to wage war with a nation like faction such as the NCR.

- I would not count the Legion as "just another band of savages". The reason why they were able to take on a faction as big as the NCR is because they are masters of intelligence gathering and counter intelligence. They always have scouts and spies to gather information on their enemies so that they could use it to deal damage to their enemies. Just look at the feats of Vulpes, their victory on Nelson and their spy, Curtis.

TLDR; they will always know the best place to attack that would deal the most amount of damage.

- East Coast BOS Vertibirds are not that hard to deal with and they can only bring a handful which means they cannot just use them liberally. They could probably use it as a transport ship of a support gun ship but they would have to make sure that there is nothing in the area that could take down the aircraft.

Personally, the NCR are my favorite out of the two factions, but that won't be factored into my view of the scenario.
It would mainly depend on how well each would fight, as either could win. But, as we know, the BOS has a significant amount of armor and advanced weapons, the technological advantage definately goes towards the BOS. To combat that, the NCR has much more forces, needing multiple facilities and bases to contain thier forces, whereas the BOS only occupies a single compound in DC; edge to NCR. Another thing is the amount of area each group has dominion over, NCR occupies multiple commonwealths surrounding the Nevada, where the BOS only has DC. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage, as the NCR has more land to defend, but has the support of much more civilians; this splitting the advantage between the two factions. One thing that I have noticed is that the NCR seems more tactically adapted to the wasteland, having multiple regimens of; marksman, scouts, rangers, and grunts. All these groups filling specific roles and being used to their best possible advantage. To contrast this, despite their significant technological advancements, the BOS seems much less tactically oriented, often only rolling in single teams, all going for the same role, not seen working in tandem with other groups. Personally, this would give a significant edge to the NCR.
These things lead me to believe that the ultimate ending of the war between the NCR and the BOS depends purely on circumstance and who was attacking who. If, the NCR was encroaching on the BOS, I feel the BOS could defend themselves, but not advance on the NCR; as the NCR would have constant pressure applied to BOS fringe forces and cause thems to retreat to their single compound, where they would have to defend against the full strength of an NCR force. This most likely leading to an NCR victory. In the scenario that both met in the middle, the BOS would clearly win, due to their access to advanced tech and weapons. Lastly, an attack on the NCR could fall two ways depending on how the BOS attacks. If they focused each seperate NCR compound one at a time they could potentially win, as this would lead the NCR to have to funnel forces to protect the facility, leaving other areas more vulnerable and spreading their forces thin. This allowing the BOS to start a seperate attack on the less protected areas. But, if the BOS attempted to fight the NCR head on, sending seperate groups at the same time to multiple facilities, I feel that the NCR could pincer these smaller groups and cause the BOS to take shots from each angle.
To conclude, I feel that the BOS and NCR are surprisingly evenly matched and the victor is dependent on the situation of battle.

The NCR are like ants. As is said by the Mojave BoS. They outnumbered the brotherhood around 20 to 1. I think that the NCR has the ability to throw thousands of conscripts into battle and simply overwhelm a lesser enemy. Also people should be reminded that the US is a huge country. And getting from Nevada/California to DC on foot (marching an army) or driving (convoy) would probably take months.

The NCR would win. It might not even be a contest. Now i know what you are thinking the brotherhood this and that. How ever to get all of their equipment across the US to at least Nevada would kill them. We know it was a hassle for them to just get from DC to Boston. I think by the time they even got to the Mississippi they would have lost the air ship and most of their vertibirds. They could still have the crawler, Although i recall that being blown up at the end of FO3 broken steel. Assuming they did make it to the west coast their force would have be a hollow shell of what it used to be. Fighting thru waves of tribals, Various mutants, Some other unknown nations, the legion. They would have to just use maxson to rally support then move somewhere else to rebuild their strength.

3 words: Veteran Ranger Armor

We dont now yet the outcome of New Vegas is the only thing that changes from ncr winning to brotherhood

GenJohnWilliam wrote:

We dont now yet the outcome of New Vegas is the only thing that changes from ncr winning to brotherhood

More specifically, the ending to lonesome road. The NCR will live if the Legion takes over New Vegas because they can just produce more soldiers and weapons to counter Caesar and the Brotherhood if they ever attack.

It would be different however if California was nuked by ICBMs in lonesome road. They would lose a lot of manpower and production facilities to be able to wage war. They might even fragment into tiny city states if some of them survives the nuclear blasts.