SACQ 9/4: Tank Development II, HEAT edition

[7734]

Your name is Zematoña mac Carnhill, Maor-Ceannfort of the new Experimental Weapons and Armor Motor Rifle Battalion of the Army of Galaceia, and what you're looking at is a hot mess to rival all other hot messes in the long and storied history of Galaceia. After the national humiliation that was the Margethean Wars, in which you most recently went 2-5-1 with the damn Bulganians, the Parliament and President both came to an agreement on reforming the (treaty limited) Army of Galaceia into the most deadly fighting weapon in the continent of Abruzzi.

The problem was, though, you had a continent's worth of enemies and a hell of a smaller army than that. Neighbored by the Grand Dutchy of Bulgan (consummate horse-fuckers they were), the Democratic People's Republic of Berry & Lemins (stabbed you in the back when they descended into civil war over Anyism), the People's Confederated State of Zcherblinka (not actually bad people when they weren't raiding your boarder, which was never), and the Kingdom of the Holy Lamp (scriveners and useless usurers the lot of them), there were a lot of people on your national shit-list and only one hundred thousand people in which to kick them in with. There was also the Peninsular de Diablo, home to the only real blue-water port you had, but that wasn't worth mentioning to a ground pounder like you.

Your poor adjunct said you should probably watch your language, but eh. Your unit, bless their coal-black hearts, was not in a good shape. After the first few Margethean Wars, the domestic arms industry had gotten hideously clapped out, so a lot of heavier items like artillery and tanks had been imported. Fortunately, post-wars and the treaty an army standardization law was passed to try and get everyone onto the same general trucks and tractors. Unfortunately, though, everything else got passed on to you and yours. On the plus side, this made you massively overstrength for your TOE listing. On the minus side, it meant you had a ridiculous number of subdivisions to keep track of, explaining why you had six captaens and eighteen leifteanats to ride heard on.

As it stood right now, you were responsible for, along with keeping your unit from falling apart as it tried to tape itself together with outdated and off-order Werser, Irromic, Nyassander, Kubachi, Carragian, and Balchivian equipment, designing and testing new vehicles for your unit to use and evaluate. The good news was High Command understood this was going to be slow going, and more importantly had money for more than one research unit on this.

Which was why you were going to kick the asses of the New Model Armor Battalion and that bastard Maor-Ceannfort Joannes Finean O'Janissarian and make up the blood feud between your families you weren't supposed to tell anyone about. Either way, you had a first order of business: picking what project to go with first. O'Janissarian would take one of the others, and once this batch of three was done, your collective vehicles would be compared by an "impartial board" and evaluated for mass adoption.

The first project was simple- an anti-tank vehicle. After the rather infamous Battle of Renevideo, in which horse-mounted cavalry managed to outmaneuver and engage the anti-tank company of the Sixth Division leading to the armor elements basically running over the rest of the division, the decision was made to have a self-propelled AT unit that could serve as infantry support and perform as a counter to armor.

The second project was less simple, and involved designing an assault carrier for stormtrooper squads. In the battle of Meztclapa, losses among the forlorn hope were as high as sixty percent over the course of the assault due to inability to get covering fire from support units that were tied up in the counterbattery doctrine. The design needed a level of machine-gun proofing, the ability to carry a full twelve-man infantry section, and it's own automatic weapon.

The last project was a new scout tank. After the massive victory that was the Encirclement of Al-Zeriah, the infamous (and now dead) Briogáidire-Ghinearál Joan Cu Cuthlain credited his victory on the reliability of his armored scouts, whose work doubling as forward observers allowed him to use the naval artillery captured off a grounded cruiser to its best effect since his standard artillery park was badly supplied. As such, the new tank had to be a light, moderately protected, and be equipped with a ten-channel radio and reasonably powerful anti-tank weapon.

Cracking your knuckles in your headquarters barrack, you grinned and got down to work.

VOTES (no plans please)

Project choice?
[] Project 1: Tank Destroyer
[] Project 2: Assault Carrier
[] Project 3: Scout Tank

Allow foreign entrants?
[] Yes; it's not like we're not starting from scratch here anyway
[] No, it's more important to develop this from the ground up

 

[7734]

Welcome to SACQ 9/4th, which is going to cover armored fighting vehicle design through the postwar era to some unidentifiable point in the future where my research material runs out. The catch is, you aren't the designer, you're the poor sucker who has to wrangle the designers, pay the bills, and in the end steals all the credit for the invention. To this end, you will be designing tests, hiring people for your test board, and trying to balance pre-existing doctrine and reactionaries against the force of progress you will inevitably spearhead as you prove that cold iron is the master of them all. This quest is coterminal with the main body of SACQ (1, 3/2, and 2) so if foreign design items are brought up, expect to see items and callbacks to those quests.

One important item to note is my stance on omakes and fan material. Art, stories, or other bonus material will make votes count for double as my way of saying thank you to people who contribute valuable side material. Likewise, on theoretical votes where you get to influence doctrine, anyone who submits a white paper (defined as a 1k+ word essay explaining their ideas) automatically wins the vote on the very valid grounds that you did a short version of what the character was going to do. For white papers of significant quality or with other items that go doubly above the bar for participation, added bonuses may be added at my discretion.

Good luck, have fun, and whatever you do remember: this isn't Earth. Physics doesn't lie, but people do.

 

[7734]

TOE of the Expirimental Weapons and Motor Rifle Batallion (10.3.46d9th)

Format
Lead Example Unit
-Example Subunit: Main Equipment 1 (country of manufacture), Main Equipment 2 (country of manufacture)
-Example Subunit 2: Main Equipment 1 (country of manufacture), Main Equipment 2 (country of manufacture)

Headquarters Company
-Command Platoon: 2x Gabriel Command Trucks W (KB), 1x Gabriel Radio Truck (KB)
-Signals Platoon: 3x Gabriel Communications Trucks WL (KB)
-Courier Section: 12x Volga Motorcycles (CR)
-Repair Section: 4x Gabriel Trucks (KB)
-Medical Platoon: 4x Gabriel Hospital Trucks (KB)

Artillery Battery (rump)
-Command Section: 1x Yugo Truck (BC)
-Supply Section: 3x Yugo Truck (BC)
-Gun Section 1: 2x Memova 85mm guns (BC), 2x Vescaro tractors (BC), 1x Volga Motorcycle w/ sidecar (CR)
-Gun Section 2: 3x Mle. 845 60mm guns (BC), 3x Montecarn tractors (BC), 1x Volga Motorcycle w/ sidecar (CR)

Anti-Aircraft Battery (rump)
-Command Section: 1x Opelwagon (WR)
-Supply Section: 2x Oppelwagon (WR)
-Gun Section 1: 3x Flak 2cm Flakvierling (WR), 3x Kettenkrad Wersermuster (WR)
-Gun Section 2: 1x Flak 5,5cm Flakkannone (WR), 1x Kettenkrad Wersermuster (WR)

Anti-Tank Battery (rump)
-Command Section: 2x Kettenkrad (IE)
-Supply Section: 5x Kettenkrad (IE)
-Gun Section: 3x 5cm/60 (IE), 3x Kettenkrad (IE)
-Quick Response Force Section: 3x Kettenkrad mit Slk.69 machinenkannone (IE)

Company A, Armor
-Command Section: 1x Oppelwagon Command WL (IE/WR), 2x Kettenkrad Wersermuster (WR)
-1 Platoon: 1x SkW-1 (IE), 4x W7 (IE)
-2 Platoon: 2x Np-2 (IE), 3x GBA-16 (IE)
-3 Platoon: 6x W-5 (IE)

Company B, Motor Rifle
-Command Section: 1x Yugo Command Truck WL (BC)
-1 Platoon: 3x Yugo Truck (BC), 1x Prt 16g (CR)
-2 Platoon: 3x Yugo Truck (BC), 1x Prt 16d (CR)
-3 Platoon: 3x Yugo Truck (BC), 1x Prt 16f (CR)

Company C, Motor Rifle
-Command Section: 1x Yugo Command Truck WL (BC)
-1 Platoon: 3x Yugo Truck (BC), 1x Pordo 6 (TX)
-2 Platoon: 3x Yugo Truck (BC), 1x Pordo 9 (TX)
-3 Platoon: 3x Yugo Truck (BC), 1x Pasce 4 (TX)

Company D, Motor Rifle
-Command Section: 1x Gambiste Command Truck (TX)
-1 Platoon: 3x Gambiste Truck (TX), 1x Pordo 2 (TX)
-2 Platoon: 3x Gambiste Truck (TX), 1x Pordo 11 (TX)
-3 Platoon: 3x Gambiste Truck (TX)), 1x Parrie 3(TX)

Example Infantry Squad for Motor Rifle Company
Squad X
1x Sáirsint [E-4](Ntja carbine (NY), 2x stalgrenaden (IE/WR), Bayard pistol (GL), shrapnel jacket)
2x Ceannaire [E-3] (Jackal submachine gun (GL), 4x stalgrenaden (IE/WR))
4x Grenado [E-2] (Jackal submachine gun (GL), 2x stalgrenaden (IE/WR))
4x Saighdiúr [E-2] (Inkunzi autorifle (NY), Bayard pistol (GL))

Country Tags
TX: Taelexi
WR: Werser Crownlands
IE: Irromic Empire
BC: Bahlkchivian
KB: Kubachin
NY: Nyassaland
GL: Galaceia

Note: Anything not replaced with a piece of war material in continual production is subject to change at a moment's notice, due to lack of spares and a large supply of obsolete materiel and war booty.
Note 2: Due to confusing non-English ranks, NATO serial codes are added as an indicator in case of confusion.

 

[7734]

After getting down to the task of claiming the assault carrier concept and preemptively refusing foreign entrants, you got right down to work on making sure your unit wouldn't fall apart. Feeding them was a pain in the ass, but you managed to deal with the farmers enough to get the food coming into the camp area. You also set down people to recording your supply of war loot, outdated equipment, and the ten thousand miscelanious pieces of kit your batallion would have and would need to have before it was fully operational.

You weren't kidding about the ten thousand pieces of equipment, either. You had shovels from nearly twenty different countries, re-badged uniforms, small arms from the last sixty years, and vehicles that boggled the mind- and more were coming in every day. Each and every unit that got standardized shipped it's old crap to you, and any unit that needed something that wasn't standard got shipped out from you. When you weren't busy doing work with the battalion, the rest of your time was spent taking in and shipping out gear.

While that was happening, though, you had to get down to the business of selecting your design goals and your board of advisors. Since you had thrown out the foreigners as a matter of first principles, most of them were from the Army, Navy, Air Corps, or the guys at Irizar or Elizalde. Not exactly your top picks, but you'd take what you could get.

Aside from design team, though, you also had to figure out both what sort of doctrine you were going to use with these assault carriers, and more importantly how you were going to deploy the new vehicles in your ranks. Right now it was just a pecadillio to go on the problem sundae that was your life and command, but it was also one you'd need to look into carefully. Maybe you could get advice if you picked up a theory guy? Eh, who knew. Time to pick a board.

SELECT THREE, NO PLAN VOTES

[] Captaen Lucio mac Vaemari, Army
Your captain in charge of the B Company of the batallion, and a decent commander of motorized task elements. He might drink too much in garrison, but in the field he understood his men's limitations. You've served with him for two years and a war previous to this, and trust his skill in using these vehicles.
[] Leifteanant-Cheannasaí Mahri Siemprevidas, Navy
A ship commander left berfit his torpedo ram, and more importantly a well-known commander of naval landing forces. While he's Navy, and therefore totally irrelivant on how to design, not many people alive today can claim his experiance at breaking into armed and armored strongholds.
[] Ceannfort Johan Muller Santiago y Portezon, Air Corps
One of the darling boys of the ground attack portion of the air force, and more importantly one who's not got his head so far up his ass he's turned into Oruboros, Johan's big item he's bringing to the table is the ability to turn anyone standing against you politically into wet paste.
[] Manuel Fabricio O'Sylvester, Irizar Bus Works
A corporate flunky like none other, Manuel works for one of the two major vehicle manufacturers in Galaceia and is totally up to date on everything you can do with them. More importantly, he also has contacts over at Ghermain Brothers Automotive over in the Irromes in case you need to order some parts from out of the country.
[] Felix Austorias van Doragio, Elizalde Automotive
A corporate flunky who is also a girl, because after the manpower shortages in '43d9 women's rights have basically got shot into bloody orbit, and a negotiator from one of the two major heavy industries left in Galaceia. More importantly, if you want to contract the armor out, she's also got contacts over in Skoda Panzerschiffenwerke, who've been working hand in hand with the tank guys forever.

 

[7734]

Join the N.Now's server of self-doubt Discord Server!

Check out the N.Now's server of self-doubt community on Discord - hang out with 59 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

discord.gg

There's a SACQ discord! Go join it to talk about your favorite designs and such, along with other fun activities like paleolithic anthropology and language construction. More importantly, listen to the QM yell in the distance!

 

[7734]

You managed to rope mac Vaemari, a maniac of a Naval Officer, and some auto representative together for your impromptu board of affairs. The meetingplace was a table at the local tavern that had popped up outside the battalion camp, and the discussion was done over tapas and a cheap red sangria that honestly wasn't worth the twenty dollars real you'd paid for it.

Starting with mac Vaemari, you got to work. His objective in this was to make sure you had a vehicle that could charge up into the thick of it, spraying suppressing fire all the way. The problem was, he explained using a china marker and a stolen napkin, if they did that with any of his existing trucks the mounting for the gun (tentatively a Bahlk Portative) would loose out on space. Armor-wise, it would need to be proof against rifle caliber machine guns, and after that everything would be gravy. If you needed to, the equipment existed and you had the freedom to reorganize your infantry squads, which would then force a reorganization of your platoon and company structure.

The maniacal naval officer, Siemprevidas, was a bit more opinionated. According to the strategic doctrine, the Motor Rifle Batallion was supposed to be a relative outrider unit, assigned to operating at the extent of an advancing column or fighting in skirmishing retreats. Therefore, the end platform needed reasonable cross-country ability and speed first and foremost, with the next priority being keeping the full-size squad. This quickly proved to be a bone of contention, since mac Vaemari was of the opinion that in a field engagement the extra manpower in the squad would be worthless since the majority of the squad was armed with the Jackal SMG, which was hard pressed to deliver anything near accurate fire at more than fifty yards. The problem was, unless or until the small arms commission could sort out a domestic production of the far-superior Ntja carbines, or develop a knockoff, there needed to be a way to engage at long range aside from the two autoriflemen. While that doctrinal disaster spiraled out, you turned to the car rep and got ready to talk turkey.

van Doragio was a young woman with bright black hair, blue-green eyes, and a slight stammer when she spoke. The main problem that Elizade Auto would have with any of your orders was going to be a chassis- everything else could be rolled out without any major issues to get a good base model, and then getting it all armed up. Due to legal issues, though, a state armory would need to partner with them to mount any weapons, and the only place they'd be able to get armor was from the contacts at Skoda unless you were willing to guarantee a several thousand unit order.

With that done, and after rescuing Sr. van Doragio from the ensuring brawl when Siemprevidas said the Jackal was a decent gun, you got back to your command area and started pounding paper on how to get the new system integrated into your scrap iron battalion. Testing for different systems would have to be split off across existing battalions, but once you started getting the new assault carrier how would you issue it? Would you re-equip the companies one platoon at a time, or would you evenly distribute the new system everywhere to maximize the likelihood it saw use? Questions rattled through your head as you finished up notorizing the results of the meeting in officialesse, as well as a clean copy in your private journals.

///

OPEN PLAN VOTE: Write your RFQ

Spoiler: What's an RFQ?

An RFQ is a Request For Quotes, where you lay out a list of specifics you want in vehicles you're going to test soon. Whether you want wheels or treads, certain engine sizes, armor or guns, and any other thoughts all go into the RFQ. This isn't a Christmas list, though: the larger your RFQ, the more expensive the resultant entrants will be, and the more time and energy it will cost you as the players to see through. Likewise, being overly specific will be equally painful as manufacturers have compromises they need to make to deliver your project. An example RFQ from SACQ 3/2s will be provided below as an example. I will not say whether or not it is a good plan; just that this is the general format anyone wondering about making their own plan should use.

[X] Plan Sanity
-[X] Turreted-mounted main armament consisting of at minimum one 5.5cm gun or rapid fire cannon.
--[X] Between one and three machine guns as secondary weapons encouraged but not required.
-[X] Armor sufficient to withstand sustained rifle and machine gun fire
-[X] Sufficient tactical speed and endurance to keep up with infantry for 8 hours.
-[X] Able to be transported without disassembly using existing portable bridges, landing craft and rail cars.
-[X] Able to cross an unbridged river two meters deep and ten wide under its own power.

Click to shrink...

 

[7734]

After pounding out the RFQ, you sat back on your heels, smiled, and spent the rest of the day in as close as a state of relaxation as you could before having dinner, getting a drink, screwing a whore, and getting a nice eight hours of sleep. When you woke up, though, you realized you had to pay for your sins against the military hierarchy. The other shoe dropped shortly after breakfast, though, when a Confessor of the Order of Santiago came up to you with a pile of ecclesiarchial documents and a sealed order from the government. Cracking it open, you winced.

You had four months to conduct testing and initial outfitting, before your unit was seconded to the Order of Santiago so that they could continue crusading against the heathens, heretics, and pagans in Outreamer and continue their now three hundred year long war against the State of Al-Memphis. The reason this was anywhere near legal was because the Order of Santiago had, technically, been a state without land after some dodgy land appropriation deals and the unification of Peresciova, which the Galaceian government handled by letting the Order take partial suzerainty of the city of Bocha. It wasn't a one-way street, though: Galaceia legally couldn't have a navy, but the Order of Santiago had no such restriction. Everyone protested, but considering the third largest city in Galaceia was effectively a naval-bound March it wasn't too untenable.

You still had to go out there eventually though. What was worse was you were also the batallion headquarters closest to Bocha, which was why you got this shitty job. Oh well.

It was about a month into your four month window that you got your response to the RFQ, and you had to groan. Each company had sent in two prototypes, and what was worse was that since the government had actually bought the damn things you were stuck with them for it.

The first entrant was by Elizade Automotive, and you had to hold your head in your hand. It was a standard three axle truck with an eight cylinder three liter v-block engine, and was up-armored with eight millimeter rolled steel on a ten millimeter spacer set in the frontal arc and four millimeter steel in the rest. A snorkel exited the top opposite the behind-cab smokestack, and between the two was a small gun nest equipped with an Irromine Smg.62 heavy machine gun on top with a good arc of fire over the frontal forty degrees. The vehicle possessed no chemical warfare resistance for the troops in the rear or the gunner, but the cab was protected by a chemical filter based around countering the big three war gasses through activated charcoal filters. The end design clocked in at about eight and a half tons, held the entire standard infantry squad with room to spare, and had rear exit. mac Vaermi loved it to bits at first sight, and firmly believed it would save the battalion's immortal souls.

The second design was the Irizar Bus Work's deign, which was a lot more capable in exchange for also being terribly heavy. A tracked design with a five cylinder flat opposed four liter engine, it was most notable for it's twenty millimeter front rolled plate and all-around twelve millimeter protection. Amphibious capability was done by raising a crew snorkel and a set of jumper cables to allow a second unit to provide power to the electric transmission while standing offboard as an auxillery power unit, and the entire vehicle was proof against chemical warfare and had air filtration done by a mechanical draw-through filtration system often used in mines. Weapons-wise, it had a pair of Slk.82 2cm autocannons, a long-barrel and high energy version of the venerable Slk.69 gun, as well as a pintle mounted autorifle. The end design clocked about thirteen and three quarters tons dry, held the infantry squad in acceptable discomfort, and had a set of rear barn doors to exit from. Siemprevides liked the design a lot, but was sad it didn't have a shell-firing gun to work with.

The third design was produced by L'Osseau, Galaceia division. Designed around a very basic four-wheel chassis and overbuilt suspension, this design was powered by a six-cylinder inline four liter engine that had the traditional Balhk reliance on air cooling and a large oil reservoir. For protection, it had a six millimeter sheet steel cladding over the engine and driver's compartment, while the back had only three millimeters. Over the engine itself was an additional six millimeter plate, and the driver and cab passenger also had armored drop-down shutters. Fording was done by finding a bridge, since the design only had about forty centimeters of water it could clear before the engine bay flooded and the thing stalled out. Chemical protection was likewise scarce, since the crew compartment was only sealed, not provided with a filtration system, and the passenger compartment was totally open. What made the design excel, though, was the degree of armament options afforded. The 'base' model carried a Kubachin Warrl heavy machine gun in 12.7mm set on a ring and pintel mount, but the open topped back let the vehicle be easily customized. The two extra demonstrated versions were equipped with a low velocity 75mm gun and an 88mm mortar, respectively, sacrificing their troop carrying capacity to do so. Their troop carrying capacity was their weakest suit, really, since they could only move six guys around at anything approaching safety, which meant if you adopted it you'd need to re-draw your ToE for any unit equipped with them. On the plus side, though, they were the cheapest by a massive margin, and only weighed five tons soaking wet and full of dudes.

The last design was the Ghermain Brothers Auto Galaceia group's submission, and it was a fucking box with treads. There was no other way to describe it. If it was any more of a box you'd need to compare it to a cardboard box, and watch the storage container loose. Powered by a four cylinder boxer with five liters of displacement, the Metal Box as everyone called it had the most impressive protection: twenty millimeters of armor plate in the front, albiet flat, with eight millimeters of armor everywhere else. The provided weapon was a single pintel mount for a machine-gun of your choice, which meant knowing your budget an autorifle was probably getting stuck up there. Fording was handled via a long snorkel and the crew getting told to hold their breaths, and chemical protection was via the same filtration system that was used on the Elizade- literally both made by the same company. The design actually fit twelve dudes, so your current squads would probably either get expanded or find shit to fill all that empty space with. As long as they didn't try cooking in them, they'd be fine.

Now all you had to do was find out how to determine which one was best, ideally without destroying them. Much. This was going to be tricky.

PLAN VOTE: Come up with a test vote to determine which is best. It's suggested you test armor and endurance at the very least.

(AN: you have two of each vehicle, plus one additional unit of the L'Osseau of the mortar and gun carrier versions)

 

[Winged_One²]

Entrant	Propulsion	Powertrain	Armor Front	Other Armor	Amphibious	Weapons	CBRN	Weight	Dismounts
Elizade Automotive	3 axle truck	3l V8	8mm rolled steel, 10mm spacer	4mm rolled	Snorkel	Smg.62 (HMG) (40° arc)	Crew cab, charcoal filters	8.5t	11 (rear exit)
Irizar Bus Works	Tracked	4l 5cyl opposed-piston electric transmission	20mm	12mm	Snorkel, buddy-power	Slk.82 (2cm) x2, Slk.69, pintle machine gun	Entire vehicle, overpressurization	13.75	11, rear exit
L'Osseau, Galaceia division	2 axle truck	4l I6	6mm (+6mm engine)	3mm	No	Kubachin Warrl HMG 88mm mortar or 75mm gun in exchange for dismounts	Sealed, no measures	5t	6
Ghermain Brothers Auto Galaceia group	Tracks	5l Boxer-4	20mm	8mm	Snorkel and pray	Pintle mount machine gun (not included)	Charcoal filters	6.5	12

 

[7734]

After rounding up a bunch of board guys from B Company, you got down to work testing the new fun wagons. Obviously, you needed to make sure they could in fact be driven. To do this, you planned a nice little two-day road march around your Garrison Area, and managed to snag a seat in one of the nice Kubachi trucks being used to tail the operation. Your route would go about ninety kilometers down a decent straightaway with only two or three big hills in it, hang a left down the last big hill and take a dirt road for about twenty kilometers, and then cross-country across a small section of the Cordon Sanitaire around the Cork Woods, before fording Damien's Creek and coming back home. Total trip length, about two hundred and thirty kilometers, and it covered most of the local terrains you'd be likely to fight in. After throwing in some sandbags to simulate the weight of the dudes being carried, you all got off to a rolling start at about ten AM.

Naturally, your first actual stoppage was at 10:15 when the Irizar broke down, with a quick examination being a blown breaker at the bus bar. A little quality time with a fan running, though, got it back rolling. After that, the macademized road didn't present you with any issues, until you got to the last hill.

Breakdown two was the GBA entrant at about noon, which wasn't so much a breakdown as a driver failure. Going up switchbacks at 13% grade wasn't very kind to it, causing one of the tracks to slip loose. What made the issue noteworthy, though, was the fact that driver error also resulted in him somehow managing to overgas the throttle in the preceding turn and start overrevving the engine, which naturally made issues when the engine was turned off in the track repair. This then resulted in issue three ten minutes later, where the radiator blew out due to overheating.

After repairs had been made and a covert offering to Saint MacAnnaly, Creator of hurricane tape and God's secret wingman, were completed, things went pretty well until about twelve thirty and you discovered during refueling the L'Osseau entrant's panier tanks took a positive pressure pump, which you didn't have in the back of the Gabriel you'd packed to the gills with jerry cans full of gasoline and diesel. As such, instead of filling all 120 liters of gas tank, you could only fill up the main 60 liter tank. It was quite frustrating, and you hoped things went well from there.

Things did not go well from there. While the trip up the hill was made over 13% grade switchbacks, the way down was a continuous 16% grade spiral slope with a hairpin turn at the bottom. Normally, not that bad. Normally, it also didn't have a six strong convoy going down it with an aggressive rookie driving the L'Osseau entry and a paranoid rookie in the Elizade, who was then passed by the rookey in the L'osseau as he went barreling down the hill. Giving credit where credit was due, he didn't roll the thing at the hairpin turn at the bottom either.

Taking out the front corner of the Elizade, though, and sending it plummeting down the side of the hill, though, was a much less forgivable crime. Instead, it barreled off the side of the road, down the much steeper slope for about ten meters, hit a tree, and then sorta sagged sideways until it came to a stop. The driver was safely recovered, and the vehicle was taken back up to the road with about an hour's time with the winch on the back of the Gabriel. Surprisingly, it still ran reasonably well with the bonnet completely broken, and the radiator damage was fixed with some spackle and more duct tape. Since it was, oh, about twelve-forty when the idiot tried passing, and the patch job was done by two, you'd say that was a pretty decent recovery time.

The rest of the hill wasn't bad, but things got harry when you hit the Cordon Sanitaire. Apparently, the burrowing beetles and rootworms had started trying to spread again, so the Sanitation Corps was out with the flamethrowers to beat it all back. On the downside, it added about ten kilometers to your trip, but you did get to drive through some better-than-average simulated battlefield!

Better than average simulated battlefield that apparently played havoc with your assault carriers, it seemed. Both the GBA and Irizar threw their tracks multiple times (three and five respectively) and the L'Osseau got stuck badly enough to need a winch out of a blasting ditch. The Elizade had it the worst, though, getting dug in badly and needing to use unditching logs to get out of the frequent scorch puddles it was trapped in. What should have taken, at most, three-quarters of an hour was dragged out to one and a half due to the intermittent jamming. You did make a friend with the Sanitation Corps commander, though, Postmaster-General Luiz Mordred de Montaña, who was curious about the topic of a vehicle-mounted bomb projector, though.

The last stretch home was rather mediocre, with no unexpected breakdowns, losses of vehicle control, or hilarious mishaps until the very end at about sixteen o'clock, in which the poor abused Elizade cracked a suspension arm going over a downed tree that had sunken into the trailbed. It could still limp home, though, as long as they didn't put power down that axle.

Damage testing was next, and you sighed. Destructive testing was going to need to be used, which meant you'd be out four perfectly, or at least mostly, good vehicles. Using a good backstop, you arranged for a couple of weapons to be arranged at a hundred meter distance, which would then fire on the vehicles in question.

The Elizade was up first, with old corn sacks stuffed full of rags to serve as your test dummies inside for crew damage. A wooden board was stuck in to serve as a stiffener, and some old Taelexi helmets were scrounged up to accent the faces drawn up with grease pencils. Weapons-wise, you'd start with the Jackal SMGs, then move up to some captured gew.51 rifles or Arbetescus, since both were pretty common and in your (illegal) stockpile. After that would be an anti-armor rifle, and then you'd drag it out to the artillery range and do a few shrapnel tests.

As expected, the Elizade was totally impervious to the Jackal's 10x22mm SMG round, although to be fair this was entirely likely none of the soldiers tried to hit it. Nobody liked the Jackal, which was partially why the only reason anyone carried it was because it was the only thing the ammo trucks would carry. The gew.51 didn't really hurt it either, the 6.5mm rounds being deflected by the spaced armor or tumbling so much they couldn't get through the lower layer. The anti-armor rifle finally chosen was the Werser 14.5mm Arbetescu model, which is a bit of a pain to work with since you only have about forty rounds for it and need to keep some spare to hunt mimmoths with. You'll have to move down to a smaller one with worse penetration for the next test, but honestly speaking the 14.5 is the worst of the batch in terms of actual utility due to it's man-eating recoil. The oversized tank-hunting bullet makes short work of the armor, though, cutting clean through the armor, spacing, and underlayer to embed itself in the engine and radiator. After ten hits, though, the vehicle is still running strong, even though it's actively leaking oil and has a bullet fetched up on the inner cab firewall. The glass windows prove to be a weak point, though, with easily-destroyed vision blocks, and both driver and commander are killed in short order.

The Irizad was up next, and withstood the SMG blasting without any concerns. The older infantry rifles didn't do much either, and when the AT rifle came up the gun pulled was a crotchety old PzJGew.69 chambered in 13.2mm. This one, you had bullets for at least since you had a couple Slk.69s floating around. The armor penetration was a fair bit worse than the 14.5mm Arbetescu, but made up for it by being for most purposes a semi-automatic: once the clip was in and the full bolt motion was made, all the operator needed to do was slam the bolt handle cum charging lever down to lock the breach and cock the gun. The first two clips of three shots didn't have any appreciable effect on the bow of the assault carrier, but on the third clip the shooter managed to whip a shot through the armored bow grill that hit something in the engine, judging by the massive plume of black smoke that came from the hood. Since a fourth clip was sitting around loaded, he shot that off too, managing to get one through a vision block and another into the drive wheel, cracking it. At the end of the test, the vehicle had all its occupants alive, but the vehicle was immobile due to a hydraulic reservoir that had been hit by a bullet or by shrapnel leaking into the bus bar assembly, causing a fire.

The L'Osseau was up next, and after mandatory expenditure of old-ass Jackal rounds, you got on to the service rifles. For this test, someone had managed to dig a few Kubachi 11mm trapdoors and ammo out from the armory, and you jokingly let them join the firing line. This joke turned into a serious problem, though, when one of them managed to get a shot through the side of the wheel well, cracking one of the suspension's hydrosprings. For anti-tank testing, the PzJGew.69 was pulled up, and started blapping away. Unsurprisingly, the armor didn't do much for the front end: bullets went through the spaced armor without any real difficulty, into the engine compartment, and in two cases out the firewall and into the cockpit. The engine still ran fine, though, and when it came time to get it off the range the only minor fix needed was using a coat hanger to fix the clutch after it got hit by one of the shots.

Finally came the GBA entrant. With SMGs out of the picture since you were by now solidly convinced the things were even more useless against vehicles than they were against people, you got on to the rifle fire. As expected, it was totally ineffective, so you moved on to the AT rifle. Going with the PzJGew.69, you watched the gunner start sniping away with a bored stare, until he loaded a tracer round in the box mag and the resulting hiss caused the front glacis of the GBA to start smoking heavily. Inspection proved that there appeared to have been a partial penetration through the glacis, where the bullet collapsed behind a weld line, and then the phosphate tracer had done something to the backing material which most certainly wasn't steel. The standard slugs hadn't done much of note, though, but the last clip using steel-core armor penetrating rounds (usually saved for actual tanks) managed to dig through the front armor twice: one through the engine maintenance bolt-on panel, and once through the main glacis in front of the driver. Both actual penetrations were pretty traumatic, with destruction of the driving station on one and a complete engine stoppage on the other.

For the artillery fragment testing, the assault carriers were put on the howitzer range, where they would be four meters away from the aim point of the gun battery of the two 85mm guns, which would fire three rounds apiece. Post-shoot examination would then happen, and depending on how the gunners were feeling you might do some shoots with the 60mm guns. Post-shoot inspection went fairly quickly, and you determined right off the bat that getting good information would be tricky, since the shell hit pattern had been terribly uneven. That was the point of the long fire, though, so it would average out.

The Elizade was first to get examined, and it did fairly well. The passenger compartment had suffered about twenty-odd penetrations, mostly on the lower slope of the bed armor, but rough inspection told you that none of the dummies was terribly hurt. More importantly, the engine was still operational, and none of the hits had caused spalling into the troop compartment.

The Irizad was up next, and somehow did worse. The passenger compartment didn't have any active punctures, but the fragments that did hit the armor spalled terribly, sending shrapnel into the compartment and resulting in one critically wounded sandbag and about half the rest with deliberating injuries. More importantly, some shrapnel from a ground blast managed to get under the chassis, cutting a fluid line, as shown by the giant pool of unknown fluid underneath.

The L'Osseau was the closest to being hit directly, so it wasn't suprising when the bed of the vehicle was littered with shrapnel penetrations. Surprisingly, most of the dummies were still combat-effective, if barely, and the provisioned first-aid box you hadn't noticed earlier would handle most of it. The vehicle commander was certainly dead, though, as a shell hit from about half a meter away had turned his side window into a crater and his head into a straw-filled meat patty. The gunner was probably a goner too, considering how little protection he had and the number of through-and-through shrapnel wounds he had.

Finally, there was the GBA, which dear god did it have problems. The entire left track assembly had ended up totaled, and since all the impacts were to the vehicle's left the armor there was pretty much shredded to pieces. The 8mm plate had done its job as long as it could, but in places it had been completely cored out by the shrapnel and the entire left side of the vehicle was ruled as being combat ineffective or dead- including its dismounts. A lot of the damage had also gotten to the engine compartment, which was pretty well ruined, and the fuel supply was leaking onto the floor from the moment the last shell landed.

Once the wrecks were hauled off, you had to do mounting and dismounting tests. For this, your chosen infantry would be told to mount up, the vehicle would drive about three hundred kilometers with the clock stopped, and then everyone would dismount.

The Elizade went first, and loading was done quickly in about eight seconds due to the double wide barn door back and large bumper that made a good step. Unloading took about ten seconds, mostly because everyone needed to take off their seatbelts and there was a little confusion about the door opening mechanism. The troopers liked it on the grounds there was plenty of room for their kit and guns, but didn't like the pitch blackness of the gas-poof back.

The Irizad was next, with fourteen seconds to load due to the single wide back door, and unloading took about sixteen seconds due to a traffic jam at the door. The troopers disliked the tighter internals, complaining about lack of maneuvering room for their rucksacks, and more importantly the fact they were bounced around on the open benches.

The L'Osseau managed to set the speed records in loading and unloading, with eight seconds to load and six to unload as soldiers used every part of the back as a step to get in and likewise jumped out the open top. The view and ability to use their weapons was deeply appreciated, but the bumpy ride and lack of handholds on the wooden benches was not.

The GBA's performance, meanwhile, was resoundingly mediocre. It was ten seconds to load due to the plus of a wide ramp and the minus of a incredibly low ceiling that made it hard to move around in. Unloading was also ten seconds, thanks to said ramp and a wide isle. The dark and cramped internals were universally reviled, but the ramp was considered a small plus.

With testing thus concluded, you went back to your office to ponder what you were going to do. This was going to be a tricky choice to make: they all had their pros and cons as vehicles, and your advisers were still backing their favored horses. That's why you were in charge, you suppose.

VOTES

Select one Assault Vehicle for purchase, and what unit to equip with them. You may choose three options in total: either one vehicle for two companies, or two vehicles for one company (and support roles in that case). No write-ins.

[] Elizade
[] Irizad
[] L'Osseau
[] Ghermain Brothers' Auto

[] B Company
[] C Company
[] D Company

 

[Winged_One²]

Right, table time

Manufacturer	Rifle	Artillery resistance	Loading/Unloading
Elizade	Defeats rifle, is defeated by 14.5 AT rifle	~20 penetrations, but no major wounds or damage	8 in, 10 out
Irizade	Resistant but not impervious to 13.2 AT rifle	Major spalling resulting in major wounds and damage	14 in, 16 out
L'Osseau	Resistant to rifle, defeated by AT rifle (engine runs still)	Major damage and wounds (very close hit)	8 in, 6 out
GBA	Defeats AT ball, defeated by AT rifle steel core	Major damage, half the dismounts dead	10 in, 10 out

OK, we need spall liners.