Urban warfare—such a simple term, yet it represented the bloodiest grindstone of the entire war. Unlike the broad hell of trenches and barbed wire built in positional warfare, the ruins of buildings that had once symbolized a good life were the true graves of the dead. As recorded on ancient Terra: at the fortress of Stalingrad, our sacred and great ancestors had fallen into a small civil war, and in that war, that primitive city had drained the blood of both sides.
Every day, they advanced dozens of meters while leaving corpses strewn across the ground, then retreated dozens of meters while leaving more corpses behind. Any sturdy building could become the focus of a desperate battle, while collapsed clusters of wrecked buildings buried the wide, tidy streets and became the nightmare of all armored forces.
Close-quarters combat and hand-to-hand fighting offered no advantage to the Imperium's soldiers. Even the scrawniest Ork was far stronger than the strongest Planetary Defense Force soldier, and the muscles exposed beneath their tattered vests were enough to make any bodybuilding champion envious. But that did not mean the Imperium's soldiers were incapable of fighting. We knew the terrain. We were born and raised here. We had spent vast amounts of time reshaping this city, turning it into one vast, merciless fortress.
The industrial districts of the lower hive ran their axles without end. The great number of civilians relocated from the upper levels provided precious labor for the lower hive's industrial zones, allowing them to work alongside the machines without end. As for the nobles and their families, who made up a greater share of the upper hive, they had already paid for their greed and incompetence. But Yarrick believed the Golden Throne would never forgive the cowardice of those maggots.
War had frightened