SACQ 9/4: Tank Development II, HEAT edition

After some deliberation, you got to work outfitting your troops. Once the trial vehicles were stashed away, you got to work on ordering the assault carriers. Company C and Company D would be loosing their Yugo and Gambiste trucks respectively, but keeping their armored cars for the foreseeable future unless you decided you needed to make some magic happen to squeeze in more troops. The new Elizade assault carriers were reasonably well-liked, although mac Vaerami was mildly aggravated his unit wasn't getting upgraded despite his work in the testing. Training and working-up proved they were about as matinence-intensive as the old Yugos, which had been relegated to the battalion motor pool where they'd been promptly put up on blocks under the ten thousand tarps of your boneyard.

After about two months of the working-up process and swearing out shitty personal arms, you were finally ready to declare your unit "ready", after which you were shipped out to the theatre of operations. As was steadily becoming the norm, your men packed about a fifth over the nominal operational war load of everything, most of which was then loaded onto the old Yugo trucks which had been arranged into a rough Logistics Company made of infantrymen stolen from the other companies in a rather rag-tag fashion. Their component supplies consisted of equal parts spares for the eclectic vehicle collection, specialty off-TOE weapons and ammunition, and an extra serving of spare for the nominal war load that they were supposed to be hauling. By your rough calculations, every man jack infantryman of the battalion had two hundred rounds of 10x22mm, six magazines, two standard grenades and one oddball, and most squads had an additional heavy weapon tucked away, extra pistols, or war booty small arms littered around like confetti. While you should nominally stop this, they were the Scrap Arms Battalion according to the more prestigious units, and the scorn dripped on them mad them mad enough to embrace the kitbash identity.

When you arrived on the military frontier, you and your headquarters staff were taken to the Brigade Headquarters and briefed on the situation in a nice, comfy old manor by the town of Morisel. There, in the gigantic map room, you got the briefing.

According to reconissence elements, the 8th Brigade (Jar Tebiq) had dug in on the far side of the river down the way, and had emplaced themselves to serve as a rearguard for the Division of the Highest Mountain who were trying to get back to their winter quarters after campaigning on one of your neighbors. If the Brigade of the Holy Sepulcher could take out the 8th, then Highest Mountain would be forced to build a winter camp, wherin they'd then get bogged down, and raided to death before dissolving as a fighting formation over the winter.


For the purposes of this battle, you were going to be the southern main flanking force. The Noye river was mostly fordable, but if you needed to take the time to ford it then you'd be extrememely vulnerable to your direct opponent, a battalion of leg infantry that was, according to airborne recon flights, not reinforced with additional war materiel. They had ready access to forests and the hill, though, so it was entirely possible they had a few guns or some other nasty surprise hidden up there to put the twist on you and the boys. There was a bridge at Faloise you could theoretically use, but that meant you'd be moving through a constricted area, possibly under pre-sighted guns. There was also a bridge at Hainerville, and a hardened one at that, but to use it you'd have to move massively out of position and dance under the enemy's fast artillery to use it- and unless they were complete nitwit the entire area would be pre-sighted.

Once you were through the enemy infantry batallion, which was a reasonably safe bet, the question would be "what next". Presuming things didn't go absolutely to hell, you'd have the option to follow the river north and dislocate the enemy fast artillery, freeing up your mountain artillery to go move up the line and roll the enemy up. The other option, though, was a deep strike on the Hallivierens back road, riding hell for leather to the No16 highway to slam the enemy reserve heavy mechanized infantry in Essertaux right in the flank. That was a bridge too far to plan for, though: you needed to get through the enemy now.

It was about a week later that you'd set up your own position in Chirmont when the order came in- it was time to attack. The plan was drawn up, now all that was left was to execute it, while loosing as few people as possible.

VOTES (Yes you can make plan votes)

What kind of unit are you, anyway? (Choose any number of the following key words, and I'll design you a NATO symbol which will be used on all maps like the above.)
[] Motorized
[] Mechanized
[] Armored
[] Infantry
[] Wheeled
[] Tracked

What's your plan?
[] Ford the river, and use your artillery to buy you time to get up the hill and in their faces.
[] Go through the town, and use the road to bypass the teeth of their defensive positions to hit their flank
[] Long haul up and in to Hainerville, and scatter the enemy fast artillery as you come in from the north
[] Write-in (Must include route and preferably a version of the map with presented route)