I came up with the same theory so I'm in agreement with you. And I'll have to check that out, I haven't used Preston as a companion yet. My first playthrough was played completely solo.

They don't win a fight, because of game play reasons. So the player feels like he is turning the battle when he helps them in a fight. And taking down a Vertibirds is cool, so they made it easy.

Fighting the BoS wouldn't be fun if the game were realistic. A single volley from their machine guns would kill you and it would shred through most cover. They would burn down your settlements while you are somewhere else without giving you any chance to defend them.

Or you'd just level their base until they're all dead because....again, footsoldiers vs. Howitzers.

Albeit, if the Minutemen were ever attacked by the BoS outside the Castle, they'd be finished.

Ditto their settlements.

But I have no problem believing the BoS is screwed once the Prydwen falls and the Minutemen survive the Castle assault.

I also have the firm belief that the minutemen would only continue to expand, not unlike the NCR. By the time the BoS would launch any real counterattack, they'd be a force to be reckoned with.

In a Hybrid ending, the Synths who escaped the Institute are going to want to help the Minutemen.

You may also suddenly have a [censored] TON of scientists who will either have to work for the Commonwealth's greater good or starve.

The Institute's survivors in an evacuation may not like you but they're also not exactly prepared to survive the Wasteland.

That's what I mean, the Minutemen are basically saved by a plot hole or several. The BoS would not fly their vertibirds to the Castle, where most of the enemies are, and let them wobble their belies until you take them down.

Please tell me, if you were the BoS, what would you do when the Minutemen destroy your airship and would it work?

Am I me or a member of the BoS?

The thing is that the BoS just lost their Immortal God King Leader (look at all the crap on the terminals about him), members of their families (there were children onboard), and may have been betrayed by one of their own.

If you're going to tell me they're thinking clearly, we have a serious issue.

The BoS is going to throw everything they have at the Castle RIGHT THEN.

Ill-thought out revenge offensives are some of the most single common sources of military blunders in history.

Also, is there a remaining chain of command?

If the BoS had a leader to guide them right, yes, they could wage a campaign of scorched Earth warfare on the Minutemen and ruin them but they would want the Minutemen over their allied settlements anyway.

The BoS isn't unfamiliar with loss and retreat. And they would know what to do.

In which case, whoever attacked the Castle would probably be those who defied orders.

The others would retreat back to the Capital Wasteland.

But your premise depends on them acting in a rational militaristically sound manner.

Which is hard to believe in a Neo-Feudalist Cult of Personality defined by Religious Fundamentalism and Xenophobia.

A few mortars isn't exactly comparable to flak batteries and howitzers and is also severely underestimating the capabilities of the air superiority and power armour the BoS have.

This is the stuff that the chinese army were broken by. A militia is not going to stand up to it.

Air superiority they don't have.

And they're assaulting a fortified position with (canonical) laser turrents and laser-based weaponry designed to fight against power armor.

The problem with Vertibirds is they can't just fly over and drop bombs. The Minutemen have rocket launchers, long-range weapons, and laser-based weapons.

The Power Armor is neutralized because the Minutemen have weapons which can damage it plus weapons which can strike them at it from a further distance than the BoS can.

Just sayin.

They do have air superiority, the only thing in the skies is BoS vertiberds.

And where are you getting the laser is designed to fight against power armour thing anyways? Power armour was always more resistant to lasers than bullets.

It's like the BoS Armor being crappy in Fallout 3, it's Gameplay and Story Segregation. Laser weapons and Plasma weapons are designed for the "futuristic war" which the Power Armored Soldiers were fighting.

It's why Veronica is HORRIFIED to find the Van Gaffs selling energy weapons and you can use that as evidence the BoS is screwed.

Even in the background material for T-51b it describes it being able to reflect laser emissions.

Veronica is horrified due to the fact that the BoS had essentially failed their mission and were pretty much pointlessly killing themselves by following the codex, not because the weapons themselves could be used against the brotherhood.

He meant after the Prydwen falls, their air superiority, at least 99% of it, falls with it.

Also, the Minutemen recover all of the surviving Vertibirds so the attackers clearly didn't have them.

They are the only ones in the air, but they can't do much from up there due to the paper nature of vertibirds. The best they can do is land some knights nearby and hope the knights can survive artillery and high powered snipers. A good portion of the vertibirds will be lost to raider pipe rifles and super mutant hunting rifles. It makes no sense... but yet... it is the way the game is. The few surviving knights that close into the minimum artillery range have to contend with minutemen using 50 cal and plasma sniper rifles, along with heavy laser and rocket turrets... not to mention a cadre of elite minutemen that are in superior power armor.

The Commenwealth BoS are outgunned and outnumbered compared to my minutemen... the BoS just wasn't put in as a strong force.

They could have had the vertibirds not fly out of control randomly or be taken down by pipe rifles.... I'd much rather have a badass BoS in the sky taking on wasteland baddies and winning at least as much as they lose. Ideally vertibirds would only go down when a legendary supermutant spawns with a rocket launcher or fat man... or when the vertibird runs into one of the gunner's well defended strongholds. The BoS would be much more fun to me if vertibirds weren't falling like a rain that never ends, exploding all around me so much that I can only laugh. Yeah... i get that explosions are cool... but there are plenty of those already between all the mines, frags, cars, and enemies that randomly spawn with fat mans. A vertibird going down once in a long while would be fun to, but I don't need to see it happen two or three times every time I leave town.

Of course, there is no point going for a 'realistically' argument... the BoS is a creation of the game. Realistically, they wouldn't even exist and they aren't a believable force to begin with. But that is really getting away from the game itself. I have to approach my game decisions based on what happens in the game. Right now the BoS is just failing at everything, miserably. They can only win a battle when I'm there to lead them. The minutemen are pulling it together (because I control them to do so). I'm hoping some mods can fix up the BoS, but for this playthrough, I've written them off as pretenders and comedians. At least I can properly equip the minutemen and watch them win fights. I was excited to join the BoS at first, but now I despise them. Given their history and tech, they should be doing a lot better... hopefully a DLC adds a plotline to change out the leadership.

That's actually kind of weird, ArchGaden because that's not how it goes in my game at all. I've encountered the Brotherhood Vertibirds three times and each time, they've kicked the ass of everything behind them with one gigantic Super Mutant home they had being wiped out and its boss as well while I just stood and watched. Something similar happened with a group of Raiders. There was a shot down Vertibird but its survivors then killed everyone.

Same. The Knights do not screw around. They demolish everything they encounter in my game.

Same for me, Vertibirds will occasionally explode from extensive ground fire, but that is just due to the gameplay. Whenever the Brotherhood drops down or something they pretty much wipe the floor with them. The post seems like a pretty extreme exaggeration.

The power armor soldiers seem to survive the crash too, and usually clean up the rabble.

I'm actually feeling for the Super Mutants because they should be about equal but the Brotherhood spanks them like nobody's business.

I thought the same thing, maybe the strain of FEV the institutes uses just isn't as good.

The fact so many want to commit suicide by nuke certainly points to some morale issues as well.

the only time I have seen a supermutant win was when a suicider got close enough, that said virtibirds are way to damn fragile for how they get used.