After that clusterfuck of a skimish, we should probably take this offensive at a more cautious pace. We have a brand spanking new radar, but that don't mean that it won't not work proper.
[x] A steady creep to reduce the enemy.
This option will cause ISIS's presence in the town to gradually become untenable, thus forcing them to disperse after taking some casualties. Not the most imaginative path, but somewhat effective nonetheless.
Hmm wonder what the NATO reporting names are for Russian mechs?
As for UK if we were going to name our Mechs we'd probably name them after weather (thunder), birds (Kite) or maybe even dust off a few classics (Spitfire).
NATO reporting names already use B, M, & G prefixes, so it could be T as in 'Transformer' , referring to the literal swing-role capability of mechs, R for 'Robot', or W for 'Walker'.
For example, the Cy-57 could be designated as 'Truncheon', 'Raker' or 'Wendigo' depending on which nomenclature they use.
Honestly, I gotta ask: Do you guys even have space left in the FV numbers list? Can't wait to enlist as a pilot-in-training for the BAE Systems FV19250 Defiant II Mk. 5/1 DEFRP (DEFiant Replacement Powerpack).
Honestly, I gotta ask: Do you guys even have space left in the FV numbers list? Can't wait to enlist as a pilot-in-training for the BAE Systems FV19250 Defiant II Mk. 5/1 DEFRP (DEFiant Replacement Powerpack).
Probably or they will come up with a new system or steal an old one also most likely they will go to the Army, RAF and the navy will stick them with the FFA
[x] A steady creep to reduce the enemy.
This option will cause ISIS's presence in the town to gradually become untenable, thus forcing them to disperse after taking some casualties. Not the most imaginative path, but somewhat effective nonetheless.
[X] A steady creep to reduce the enemy.
This option will cause ISIS's presence in the town to gradually become untenable, thus forcing them to disperse after taking some casualties. Not the most imaginative path, but somewhat effective nonetheless.
Greetings from USA. LAX is quite possibly the slowest airport I've ever had the displeasure of disembarking at. The food nearby was pretty good, though.
Anyway, that is a clear sweep for A steady creep to reduce the enemy. Vote closed.
Update is already plotted out, so with luck, it won't take too long to finish. Fingers crossed.
After that clusterfuck of a skimish, we should probably take this offensive at a more cautious pace. We have a brand spanking new radar, but that don't mean that it won't not work proper.
NATO reporting names already use B, M, & G prefixes, so it could be T as in 'Transformer' , referring to the literal swing-role capability of mechs, R for 'Robot', or W for 'Walker'.
For example, the Cy-57 could be designated as 'Truncheon', 'Raker' or 'Wendigo' depending on which nomenclature they use.
Those are some pretty cool-sounding robot names. I'm personally partial to "Whiplash" for a W-prefix designation, but I haven't decided on this yet, so anything goes really.
Adhoc vote count started by Tayta Malikai on Jan 16, 2020 at 8:05 AM, finished with 25 posts and 23 votes.
Greetings from USA. LAX is quite possibly the slowest airport I've ever had the displeasure of disembarking at. The food nearby was pretty good, though.
Greetings from USA. LAX is quite possibly the slowest airport I've ever had the displeasure of disembarking at. The food nearby was pretty good, though.
Greetings from California! Yes, LAX is hell. Serving one of the largest cities on Earth as its main airport (and exiting basically straight into downtown) makes for hellish traffic indeed.
Checking in briefly since it's been a few days. Long story short, I'm doing fine, but the update is not. Been travelling and sleeping too much to get a lot of writing done - though I hope to be able to settle down for a week or so.
The fact that it's a battle doesn't help either: I find those are harder to write convincingly.
Surprisingly, Mexico City airport wasn't that bad. They actually let foreigners use the queues for locals once they were emptied, which is something I recall seeing at approximately zero other airports. Maybe I just got lucky.
Greetings from California! Yes, LAX is hell. Serving one of the largest cities on Earth as its main airport (and exiting basically straight into downtown) makes for hellish traffic indeed.
That would explain things. I was vaguely aware of LAX's reputation, but I didn't quite realize how much queuing it would involve. Can't wait to pass through again for the return flight...
That would explain things. I was vaguely aware of LAX's reputation, but I didn't quite realize how much queuing it would involve. Can't wait to pass through again for the return flight...
Okay, so first of all, major apologies for how long this took to write.
As you can see, this experiment in writing didn't really go as well as I'd hoped. It was always a little ambitious, but at the time I started this quest I really was confident that I could handle it. And, for a while, I did manage to keep up a pretty swift pace, proving to myself that, at some level, I could in fact do this sort of writing.
But then I went overseas, and everything promptly crashed as a result. Suffice to say my health suffered a massive downturn, and I've only recently managed to recover from it. Then I started my new job and got worn out all over again. Thus, for a month I wasn't really able to write at all. And as much as I know that real life always takes precedence over any Internet hobbies, I still felt disappointed in myself.
Still, it was a lot of fun while it lasted. It seems that people are still enthused about this quest. And it'd be nice to not have yet another unfinished work weighing down on me.
So in light of this, I hereby declare a troop surge to reinforce this quest and guide it on the path towards a decisive and definitive victory. The new deadline to finish this quest will be 30th April 2020.
Let's hope 2020 doesn't get any stupider in the meantime.
----------
TRUMP VISITS SITE OF BORDER WALL, COST EXPECTED TO RISE
US President Donald Trump paid a visit to a site in San Diego, California, where work on his campaign promise of a US-Mexico border wall began last month.
"It's an amazing project," he said to reporters at the scene. "No country has ever done anything like this before. These mechas, these big robots, they're really big machines, the biggest machines anyone's ever seen. We're gonna use them to build the wall, and it's gonna be the biggest wall in history. Believe me."
Present at the scene were an unspecified number of Q-15 mechas being operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Work on the wall continued during the president's visit, precluding him from shaking any of the pilots' hands.
Concerns have been raised by anonymous White House staffers over the large sums of funding needed to maintain and operate military-grade mechas throughout the project's lifetime. While Trump claimed that the use of mechas would save money because "one pilot does the job of dozens of workers", it is believed over US$18 billion of military funding has already been diverted so far in order to fund the wall's construction.
At a press conference held later the same day, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto reiterated his country's refusal pay for the wall.
As Trump boasted about the impenetrability of the wall's planned features, a nearby Q-15 accidentally dropped its load of hollow steel beams, nearly crushing the presidential state car and several Secret Service agents. After confirming that the car remained undamaged, Trump commented that he would "see about getting the robots some bigger hands".
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Unlike your first sortie from H-3 Air Base, this operation is pre-planned and expected to unfold at a pace of the USAF's choosing. There's still a thick humidity of tension in the air as your squadron comes to terms with the prospect of entering combat again, but things aren't so urgent that you feel the need to run anywhere.
More importantly, it means that there's enough time for some last-minute essential maintenance before you deploy; something you're very thankful for. You still aren't too sure how your changes to the fire control and sensor software will work out in the field, let alone how nicely they'll play with that sparkling new radar you had SSgt Perrier and his team install for you.
As you walk down the passage that leads from the briefing room back the hangar, you become aware of a certain presence falling in a mere few steps behind you.
You very determinedly do not turn around. Actually seeing her face feels like it would collapse some sort of universal quantum wave function, and you're not sure you could handle that right now.
The sound of her footsteps, along with a few light hums and deep sighs, follows you all the way to your Q-35A's main access hatch, at which point you face a dilemma. Should you keep your back turned while you open it, and leave yourself vulnerable while your hands are full? Or should you turn and stare her down, and risk whatever fiendish plots she has in mind?
You've never been good at resolving dilemmas like this. So you keep putting off that painful point of decision, as the moment stretches out and the hubbub of other mechas' pre-flight preparations grows louder.
"Lieutenant Johnson," 1st Lt Taylor prompts. "Is there something wrong with your main access hatch?"
Feeling a weight lift off your shoulders, you turn to face your saviour. She's standing a few metres off to the side, a position that lets her keep a wary officer's eye on both you and 2nd Lt Clarke. The latter has her hands in her pockets, her stare focused entirely on you.
"Not at all, uh, ma'am," you reply casually. "Just weighing up the risks and benefits of collapsing quantum wave functions."
"I see," Taylor says, nonplussed. "Lieutenant Clarke, the time for sortie is approaching. I suggest you attend to your pre-launch preparations."
"Mm," she replies, brushing away a loose lock of hair. You think you see an expression of interest and curiosity cross her face, but then it's gone again. "Okay then."
You and Taylor continue to observe her as she ambles away unhurriedly, until she hauls herself into her mecha with a strangely languid motion.
"Are you alright, Lieutenant?"
"I think so, ma'am."
"That's good." The two of you stand there in silence for a moment. "You should attend to your pre-launch preparations too, Johnson. I'll be depending on you once we're out there."
"Sure thing, Taylor. You can count on me."
She gives you a slight smile, the first you've seen from her, and then she's gone too.
----------
The launch sequence goes much the same as it did last time. Your suit goes on; there's a modestly painful synchronization; your Q-35A lumbers out of the hangar, builds up speed running down the runway, and takes off in a fiery conflagration of exhaust gases and scorched earth. Estimated time to al-Sukhnah: 52 seconds.
It's a little harder to maintain the icy focus needed to pilot the mecha, but you can't help it; you're just so excited by the sight of so many green status indicators and so few error messages being projected into your flight helmet right now. All those cups of coffee and loosely-documented bugfixes and begging SSgt Perrier for maintenance hours actually paid off.
As you hurtle through the air, you elect to spend the idle time playing around with your new radar. This, too, seems to have benefited from all your programming labours, as the relevant software only throws up non-critical error codes every five seconds instead of two. And so much resolution! You've never seen computer graphics so beautiful in your life. Thanks to the innovations of Raytheon's engineers, each and every radar ping gives you access to an unparalleled synthesized composite view of the endless Syrian Desert. Or at least that's what the brochure says.
Well, okay, it's not really endless. You're coming up on one of the few and far between landmarks dotting it now.
Suddenly remembering something very important, you hurriedly focus your radar pings on the coordinates you expect to land in. It is, thankfully, a completely empty patch of dirt, with not even a little tuft of grass for you to crush beneath your mighty feet or torch with a light brush of your rocket exhaust.
"You know," 2nd Lt Buck remarks, as you touch down a dozen metres away, "it occurs to me that this town just so happens to be on the highway between Palmyra and Deir-ez-Zor, which just so happen to be controlled by the Syrian government and ISIS respectively."
"Queen Five, is there a point you're trying to make?" Taylor asks, making her flawless landing right next to you. "Over."
"I'm just saying, we aren't just liberating this town from the goodness of our hearts."
"That's a relief," Clarke pipes up. "For a moment, I was worried I'd have to be nice to someone."
"… Just concentrate on the mission at hand," Taylor answers after a moment. "And you will maintain radio discipline, over."
"Yes mom, over."
The six of you form up six hundred metres south of the aforementioned highway. From here, you have a good view of al-Sukhnah on the other side: a massive sprawling suburb that's the same beige colour as the surrounding desert, seemingly comprised of nothing but two-storey square blocks adorned with sandbags and black flags. Gravel roads criss-cross between them, with the occasional tree or hedgerow running alongside.
Nothing moves along them.
As much out of curiosity as tactical prudence, you sweep your radar over the buildings. It returns a number of contacts that vaguely resemble cars. Your newfound resolution is not, sadly, capable of determining whether they qualify as technicals or not.
"That's a nice piece of equipment you've got there, Ricky," Clarke drawls on the radio, breaking your concentration. "I've seen a lot of those in my time, but yours is definitely the best."
"Uh… thanks." She's talking about your radar, and absolutely no force in the universe can convince you otherwise.
"That's only because you haven't seen mine yet, Predator," Hansen leers.
"I'd have to be able to see it first, wouldn't I," Clarke parries nonchalantly.
"Why, you–" The rest of Hansen's transmission dissolves into angry, incoherent static.
"That's enough chatter, boys and girls," Tanner admonishes. "Seeing that we're all here on time and on target, we'll proceed with the operation as planned. All Queens, advance on foot into the town."
"Roger," everyone replies in some form.
"Advance on foot," Buck snickers. "Never thought I'd hear that in the Air Force."
Hansen grumbles something indistinct that includes the words 'walking' and 'retarded'.
The squadron crosses the highway, soon walking among all those square blocks, spread out so that a single IED doesn't blow up everyone. Hansen takes point, while Buck and Tanner cover the flanks, and Clarke guards the rear. You and Taylor are in the centre of the formation.
Being three storeys tall, you're able to look out and aim your sniper rifle over the two-storey rooftops without much trouble. Figures move around furtively on some of them; they're not obviously carrying weapons, so you're not allowed to shoot them.
Before the civil war, al-Sukhnah used to be a minimally notable centre for natural gas. Now it still is, but ISIS controls it and sells off the gas to fund its reign of terror over the populace. You still don't quite get how they're selling the gas, or who they're selling it to, but Taylor's briefing emphatically assured you that they're selling it.
There's very little of that populace visible now, at least in the visible spectrum. Infrared – and isn't that a wonder, working infrared – lets you see white silhouettes huddling in their black windows, waiting to be set free into a grayscale landscape by your squadron.
It's from one of those windows that the first RPG flies, spiralling through the air a mere five metres from 2nd Lt Hansen's mecha.
"Contact!" Hansen barks, swivelling to fire a burst of 30mm into the offending building. The street instantly fills with dust and smoke as high explosive incendiary rounds break apart the brick and concrete façade, showering the road with bits of rubble.
Another RPG is fired out of a different building, almost the opposite direction. Hansen sees it and boost-jumps backwards to avoid it, landing close enough to kick up dust over your frame. Buck and Tanner both fire back in response.
Contrary to what the movies portray, there's no telltale whistling to mark their flight, so the first indication that ISIS is firing mortars at you is when they start landing nearby in scattered clusters. Fortunately, while they'd likely endanger any hypothetical infantry accompanying you, they turn out to not be very effective against your Q-35As' titanium alloy frames.
"Queen Six, take out those enemy mortars, over," Taylor orders you.
"Roger," you answer, almost relieved to have something to do. Using a standing boost-jump, you take off and soar a hundred metres into the sky. Your infrared identifies the sites easily; your freshly improved fire control software swiftly provides a solution. You fire several times in succession at the apex of your arc, and the high explosive anti-tank multi-purpose tracer rounds smite them from the Earth.
By the time you land on the ground again, your wingmen have ceased fire. The building Hansen was first attacked from is practically eviscerated, leaving only the hollowed out brick shell. The origin of the second attack meanwhile has had large chunks gouged out of it, along with several of its neighbours.
You wonder how many ISIS fighters were actually killed in the process.
"Hey, I see something in there," Hansen says, shaking you from your contemplation.
"Yeah, I think I see it too," Buck affirms. "It looks like a tunnel. A long dark tunnel that probably pops up somewhere out of town. Or in your mom."
"Well, that's fucking gay. Should've expected hajis would try and pull some sneaky shit like this."
"So…" you interject before they get too carried away, "what are we gonna do about it?"
"Well jeez, it'd sure be nice if we could send some Marines in there to flush them out," Buck replies. "That's how combined arms works, right? We do all the flashy shit, and then the infantry does the shit nobody actually likes doing."
Privately, you agree with him. It would be nice to have some Marines to sweep through the enemy's tunnel networks for you. Unfortunately, they're only going to arrive at the tail end of this mission. They apparently steadfastly refused to actively work alongside any mechas, citing an unacceptably high risk of danger close.
"Don't worry," Clarke says, sounding inappropriately cheerful. "I'll take care of this."
Her Q-35A walks up to the tunnel entrance, rifle in hand. Then it takes a few steps back. Then one forward. Then two left. Then three right. Two left. One forward. Three back.
"Predator," Tanner says after about a minute of this, "what exactly are you trying to do, over?"
"Trying to find the right angle," Clarke replies with a distracted affect. "These weren't really meant for this kind of work…"
As she says this, a quartet of smoke grenades pops out of the dispensers mounted on her Q-35A. One of them does in fact fall into the tunnel mouth, while the others bounce off the ground, all bursting into a thick cloud of infrared-blocking white phosphorus smoke.
"Oh, very nice," Hansen says approvingly. "Smoke out those haji fucks."
"Queen Three, you are aware that using incendiary weapons in populated areas is a war crime, over," Taylor admonishes.
"What do you mean?" Clarke replies all innocently. "I'm just using these to screen our movement from enemies in the tunnels. It's not my fault if they land on someone." Then she takes aim and fires a burst of 30mm at the tunnel entrance, collapsing it.
You get the feeling this doesn't impress Taylor very much, but she doesn't say anything further. Nobody does.
Eventually, Capt Tanner orders the squadron to continue the advance, and you all trudge onward.
The next few street blocks are relatively uninhabited. A couple of ISIS fighters pop out to take potshots at you, and then promptly flee as a hailstorm of 30mm tears their cover apart.
At one point, you find that some powerlines obstruct the path. Without saying anything, Hansen pulls out his sword and chops them down. Nobody else says anything either.
Occasionally, mortars arc over the town to explode nearby, and Taylor orders you to fly up and fire 120mm thunderbolts at them. The mortars are duly destroyed, but they never seem to take their operators with them.
Still, this is almost too easy.
You immediately try to squelch that thought, but it's too late, you've jinxed your entire squadron and everything that happens next is now your fault.
"Predator, you're too close to–" Tanner starts to warn.
To her credit, Clarke doesn't hesitate: her Q-35A instantly kicks off the ground with the assistance of her rocket thrusters, allowing her to escape the blast radius of a seemingly derelict car that suddenly detonates with the force of a lot of plastic explosives.
She lands on the road, a dozen metres away; and then the other IED promptly explodes, shredding her mecha's right leg with a cloud of shrapnel. The Q-35A falls to its knees, catching itself on a nearby brick wall just in time.
"Mayday!" Clarke calls out, not sounding particularly distressed. "I've fallen and I can't get up!"
"Well that just fucking sucks, Predator," Buck's the first to offer words of comfort and assurance. "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
"It isn't my leg that needs turning off and on again."
The rest of the squadron gathers around Clarke's fallen mecha. The damage to her right leg is enough to mobility-kill her, but she hasn't suffered any other damage or personal injury.
"We can't afford to lose momentum," Tanner quickly decides. "Eagle Buster, stay here and guard Predator's machine. All other Queens will continue the assault."
"Copy, Queen One." You're not really sure how to feel about this, but you suppose it makes sense.
"Queen Six, refrain from doing anything reckless until we get back. Over."
"Uh, roger?" You have absolutely no idea what your assistant squadron leader means by that.
"Lucky bastard," Hansen grumbles, as his mecha stomps along the road away from you.
"Oh, I agree," Buck says. "Predator gets to sit in the sun flashing everyone, while we get to have people shoot at us with RPGs and try to catch us on camera chopping houses into sashimi. With our swords. Hey, maybe I should try using my sword like you, White Knight. At least I might actually hit something with it."
"It'll be the only thing you hit today," Hansen retorts. "Have I ever told you how much of a pussy-ass bitch you are, Skywalker?"
"Yeah, but did I ever tell you about the time I –"
The radio chatter of your wingmen becomes so much background noise in your mind as they move out, leaving your mecha to stand there awkwardly next to Clarke's, peering over the tops of buildings in a vain effort to see whether anyone's approaching you.
"Hey, Ricky," Clarke calls, a strange feedback effect ringing in her voice. It takes you a moment to realize that she's using her loudspeaker to talk to you. It makes sense: this way, none of your fellow squadron members will be able to overhear your conversation amongst all the explosions taking place in the background.
It doesn't prevent any of the civilians sheltering within their houses nearby from hearing you, but they've got more important things to worry about.
"What is it, Clarke?" you respond after a quick glance over your radar. No contacts.
"You'd better do your best to protect me," Clarke orders with a mockingly serious tone. "Otherwise bad things might happen."
"Like what?" you ask distractedly. Keeping an eye on all the mecha's instruments takes a lot more concentration than the unreadable black bubble of your flight helmet makes it appear.
"Well, for starters, some ISIS fighters could walk up to my crippled, defenseless mecha and blowtorch their way in to get at the limp, unconscious pilot within. Then they might throw me in the back of a Toyota and drive me to some wadi in the middle of the desert, where not even the camels dare to tread. And then who knows what could happen to my luscious and alluring body in such an isolated and unaccountable place?"
Repetitive bursts of 30mm fire thud in the distance, a mere few hundred metres away. It sounds like the rest of your squadron has encountered further resistance – and, judging by Taylor's repeated exhortations to exercise due caution, has become less discriminate in their efforts to neutralize it. If you pay close attention, not an easy thing with Clarke's overactive imagination doing its best to infect your brain, you can distinguish the booms of enemy RPGs from those of 2nd Lt Buck's rocket pods.
"And it'd all be your fault, Ricky. You'd be condemned to lie restless in bed for the rest of your days, thinking of all the awful things that happened to your wingman because of your weakness. What do you think about that?"
"I don't think any of that's going to happen," you answer, as soon as your mind finishes boggling over how detailed and descriptive her scenario was.
"What makes you think that?" she presses coyly.
"All the ISIS fighters pulled out already." Your squadron's markers are nearing the edge of al-Sukhnah on your HUD's map, and the sound of gunfire is levelling off, so it seems to be a safe assessment to make.
"Oh. How disappointing."
You honestly can't tell whether she's serious or not.
----------
True to your word, the brief engagement which will likely end up on Wikipedia as the Battle of al-Sukhnah shortly comes to an end.
As the smoke clears, your squadron holds back from pursuing fleeing ISIS fighters, due to concerns that you'll run out of fuel diving too deep into enemy territory. UH-1Y and CH-53E helicopters arrive from al-Tanf, unloading a company's worth of US Marines and rebel fighters to sweep and secure the town. They enjoy an uncomfortable stare-off with the company's worth of SAA tanks, and attached militants, which arrives from the highway leading west to Palmyra.
Nobody shoots, and your squadron helps to ensure it stays that way.
"Wow," Richard Buck summarizes eloquently as his Q-35A plods through the streets of al-Sukhnah, carefully watching its footing to avoid getting caught on any of the copious rubble lying about everywhere. "We sure liberated the fuck out of this town. Along with a whole bunch of its inhabitants, too."
"The only good haji is a liberated haji," Hansen declares with satisfaction at a job well done. Dark bloodstains run down titanium alloy legs, lost in the camouflage colours of his machine. "Shame we didn't manage to get more of the headcutters, though."
"Civilian casualties are nothing anyone should get excited over," Capt Tanner speaks gravely. "They're an unfortunate yet inevitable consequence of war, and it's our duty as pilots to minimize them as much as we can. Even if they're ultimately necessary for the greater good."
"That's right," Taylor affirms, backing up her captain. "The reason we're fighting here is to prevent this sort of devastation from ever occurring. I hope all of you keep this in mind going forward."
"Oh yeah, absolutely nobody could've predicted this might happen. I mean, it's not like people live in towns or anything. All these civilians who get caught in the crossfire are probably disaster tourists or something. It's a real problem in this part of the world, all these disaster tourists who just show up at random towns to get blown up. I mean, who does that?"
As Buck continues to chatter on into the afternoon sun, you gaze around at the ruins you and your squadron have created. You've liberated al-Sukhnah from the ravages of ISIS, but at what cost?
End of Episode 3
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Select one outcome which does occur.
[] The US mechas sustained notable damage during the battle.
[] ISIS was able to flee with most of its forces intact.
[] US forces directly caused an excessive number of civilian casualties.
[] The SAA was able to occupy parts of al-Sukhnah before it was fully secured.
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Hangar Queens: Now with -100% more double anti-positives!
