It would have been pretty easy for the Enclave to take 20 Vertibirds, drop of 15 squads of troops with mind controlled deathclaws( one of the most powerful enemies in the wasteland) and just bomb the living [censored] out of the BOS. And even IF the Brotherhood had AA weapons( which i doubt) they would still have to fight 15 squads of enclave soldiers with plasma weapons, advanced power armor, and deathclaws.There is no reason the brotherhood should have been able to survive.

Plot convenience.

Because the Brotherhood fart a lot, so the Enclave doesn't want to smell that.

A few possible reasons:

Numbers. It appears that the Enclave isn't a very big operation. 15 squads of troops might have been a lot when they're still trying to control other areas of the wasteland. Also, the Brotherhood eventually had the control scrambler, meaning the Deathclaws would turn on them.

Bombing the BOS would destroy the Citadel, this would deny the Enclave access to Liberty Prime and probably a lot of other military secrets as well. This is probably the most likely reason, if they knew about Liberty Prime, or just knew in general there was a lot hidden in the Citadel, destroying it would not be a good idea.

Before Liberty Prime was completed, the Enclave did not see the Brotherhood as a primary threat, instead their objective was to establish a presence and take over locations. Also, Vertibirds aren't all that strong, one hit of a missile launcher or Fat Man, or just a few hits of a minigun, gatling laser, or turret will take it down. Plus there's never anything to indicate they have enough of them to drop in that many troops, and the Citadel is pretty hard to access from ground level.

Just a few ideas.

Because Bethesda can't write.

Because the BoS rulez so HARD FTW!!!1!!!!


I think my hate for BoS grows daily. Blowing them up felt so right in FNV.

Have to assume the Enclave not ready to perform any full on assault of a defensive position.

And while the BoS may not have 88mm AA guns, they do have Missile Launchers, Gatling lasers, which can take down a Vert. Could it have been done? Maybe, but are the casualties worth it? It a game and all, but people do want to live ya know....

Except the Enclave is both capable of carpet-bombing and providing orbital strikes.

I was gonna try and tackle this issue by saying "they probably underestimated the BoS and felt they could take the Citadel another way, thus preserving the Pentagon," but no there's problems with that. One is that Eden speaks as though the BoS is a threat to America, and yet they do nothing to act against them. Meanwhile they name the Supermutants as a threat and they regularly do fly-bys to carpet bomb them in the D.C. area. Why not hit the BoS too? They're -literally- right there. Second issue is simply that once the BoS successfully storms Project Purity, well now there's no need to underestimate them....Sooooo why aren't they carpet-bombing/orbital striking the Citadel?

Besides that, how would the BoS see it coming? In the real world, a fly-by carpet bombing mission isn't super secure because we have radars that'll pick up an aircraft, and then the area you intend to carpet-bomb will be prepared. We've been provided with no reason to believe the BoS would see it coming. The result is that the Vertibird pilot only has to worry about lone guards who see the vertibird and take shots at it on their own, without command to tell them how to coordinate or when is best to fire.

To be honest, the Citadel isn't that much of a defensive position, not when considering what the Enclave have at their disposal anyway.

The damn place is open-air. Regular vertibird bombing runs would have pulverized it.



Key word. Eventually. The control scrambler didn't come in until Broken Steel.


Neither is the Brotherhood. Indeed, from what we see in Fallout 3, the Enclave outnumber the BoS by quite a bit. And they have better armor. And they have better weapons.

And according to the GECK, better training as well (their stats are significantly higher than the BoS).


Here's the real reason.


And also this.

Especially this.

Plot convenence, no other reason.

Protip Bethesda, don't set-up or use an enemy that conflicts with your planned story, especially if - like lazy hacks - your unwilling to then alter your story.

Not to mention that the Enclave have artillery to fire on Liberty Prime during take it back, there's no reason why this couldn't have been used against the Pentagon before hand.

Enclave can just easily roll over the BOS when they first arrived. I mean they have better equioment, training etc. Its Beth's writing and trying to be the all rigteous especially the really bothced Enclave support. You support the Enclave, but they still shoot you. Really?! Then they can take over the towns, start rebuilding. In a few months, destroy the Vault 87, kill all raiders, and rebuild America.

Again, I think they could take it, but at what cost? You guys have always put Enclave numbers as small, so what would be acceptable casualties, and how would that set them back in further operations?

None of the writers in any of the games have approached military ops in a very good way. But, you have to assume it on the to-do list, but enter the LW and there goes that.

Acceptable casualties? Well after the ridiculous slaughter at the Purifier I can't imagine that the Enclave would have held back, they still had theire fleet of Vertibird's and, I'm sorry, trying to shoot-down a speeding, low-flying, aircraft with an unguided weapon not designed for anti-air defence (either the missile launcher or the tesla cannon which was based on pre-war plans and is hardly anti-air specific) is pretty [censored] impossible - especially from inside the courtyard where you'll only be able to see the birds as they go over head.

Pound the place with bombs and even the afore-mentioned artillery before sending in the boys, I can't imagine that the Brotherhood could hold on for long after that; hell just drop some Deathclaws into the place to do the work for them.

That depends. If the Enclave used a full military operation with all the resources at its disposal, the cost would be minimal as far as I'm concerned.

Now true, perhaps they didn't want to lose literally anybody in an attack on the Brotherhood (which seems ridiculous), but in that case why did they not simply use harassing techniques? IE. Bombing runs/artillery strikes/missle strikes which would have done the job damn well and caused zero casualties.

Drop a few sentry bots or deathclaws in or near the citadel as well.

Plot convenience.

Vertibirds can carpet bomb an area with mini nukes, and that alone would pretty much level the Citadel (or at least cripple the BoS defenses).

Speaking of plot convenience,.... stop me if youve heard this one.

Why did the Eclave stay off of the mainland for 200+ years?
You can fabricate any story you want to make it alright. but it makes no sense at face value.




BTW.. The better question is WHY attack BOS in the citadel? Whats the goal?
All the BOS seem to be doing until they become involved with PP is taking out muties in Downtown DC.

So. whats the point in attcking them?
They have better tech than the BOS. The BOS is also a fragmented faction in the CW, with the more true to form BOS being in another location all together.
Do the enclave have ntohing better to do than attack the BOS?

People talk about not having B&W factions in Fallout. Should they attack without a good reason? Wouldn't just fighting, for the sake of it or because they are motal enemies or some such make them B&W?

Err the Brotherhood attacking with Liberty Prime at the Purifier would make sense as a reason, plus the fact that the Enclave had already established serious defences against the Brotherhood position before Prime's attack and even had artillery support ready even would suggest serious acknowledgement of hostile intent

uhh.. they had begun atacking by the point that the relased LP to fight against their fortification at PP.
This is reasoning that i do not deny, hence me mentioning further up in my post than what you quoted "Until they become involved with PP".

The OP frames the question (to me) as to thy the BOS werent leveled by the enclave prior to them having coflicting interests in PP.

Att the time that LP was released, it was most likely a much bigger target for the Encalve, because it was kicking their collective ass.

Well we see that before LP was released the Enclave had a significant array of troops, force-field barriers and artillery arrayed against the Pentagon; I would take that as evidence that the Enclave believed that the Brotherhood would pose threat and therefore it makes sense that the Enclave might have been formulating plans against them.

The artillery especially is really something else I have to shake my head at, LP laughably rapid deployment by that rusty, old crane aside why did the artillery open up on the Pentagon instead of waiting until LP had crossed the bridge.

This is Bethesda, again, setting up what it doesn't intend to deliver, like why have Paladins complaining that their bullets might not even penetrate Enclave armour when the most bare combat mechanics of the game mean that there is no damage invunerability at-all? It just baffles me.

We dont know who they were protecting it against only that they ddint want anyone to take it over. that is a conclusion you are jumping to.

If you would like to talk about the integrity of steel structures covered in rust, I would like to ask why a 200+ year old steel stucture in the middle of the briney ocean, which clearly shows signs of rust, is still habitable.

Wait.... whats that? cause the game calls for it to be there? oh.

Really? That's your counter-point? That we don't know if the unique set of defences leading from the Pentagon to the Purifier were there to impede the Brotherhood; thus of course you are right and the Enclave had no reason to suspect the Brotherhood of any wrong-doing what-so-ever - sure.


I'm sorry but swinging that robot from under the Pentagon to outside in like 5 seconds is just ridiculous, certainly time enough for the Enclave to open up with artillery had it taken even 20 seconds longer - and providing that Bethesda hadn't stack the deck in the BoS favour too.

I thought OP meant before all that...

But, after defeat at PP Enclave then is not in position to attack.

RR is destroyed. LP can shoot down verts. The only time the Enclave had a window to take the Citadel with best chance of success and minimal casualties was prior to that. Was it a military blunder on the part of the Enclave, or were they just not ready?

Who knows, but military blunders happen... this is no where near the huh wha? scenarios created by NV and how both PA tech factions defeated by dweebs.

Helios and Navarro ridiculous. Btw, I recently looked at Helios. It is not surrounded by mountains. There is one mountain range... black mountain, and I highly doubt NCR was fighting from mutant territory. Sniper positions against Helios would svck.

But like I said, the militaries in FO games have been pretty weak. Except Tactics, which actually does some smart moves, taking out production facilities, etc.

Look, they found hope that PP would work. Were they protecting it against the BOS? probably. Were they simply attempting to protect it, regardless of if the BOS? Definately. Also, them setting up a defensive, does not mean that they would be on the offensive against he BOS. So even if it were solely to defend against BOS, it doesnt mean anyting in relation to an offenseive against them.



As someone that was in the US Navy and took plenty preventative maintenance classes, its also completely ridiculous to think that a stucture would stay at sea for 200+ years. It would be falling apart. The entirety of the antagonists existence in the fallout universe hinges on a something that is utterly impossible.

The best you can do is claim SCIENCE! saves the day, making it possible.
To which I would say, thats a SCIENTIFIC crane and we arent outside by the time the battle has begun, so we cant see what happened in the first few seconds of the battle. .