“Tell me about it,” Adams said, locking the breach magazine system into place.
“Two gun, up,” Keren said over the communicator.
“Mortar section up, prepare for automated adjustment.”
The gun moved slightly to the side and the nose hunted upwards.
“Guns on target, closed.”
“All guns, fire three rounds, slow fire, manual, on command.”
“Three rounds, roger,” Keren said. “On command. Wait for it.”
“Fire one,” Moreland said.
“Fire!”
Adams dropped a round down the chute and took the next from Griffis.
“Fire two.”
“Fire.”
Clang, WHEET, crack.
“Fire Three. Cease fire.”
“They’re still in flight,” Keren said, popping his head up.
He was prepared to see the rounds drop on or near the track. Instead, there were lines of blue fire like bent lasers reaching upwards and twelve blossoms of fire from high overhead. The nearest they’d gotten, by his eyeball, is maybe a thousand feet above ground level. At that height, what you were going to get was a gentle patter of metal you had to brush out of your hair. A big chunk might hurt a bit. If you weren’t wearing a helmet. And it wasn’t going to fall near the target.
“Well, that is actually a surprise,” Cutprice boomed. “But I suppose if the Posleen could shoot down hyper velocity missiles, we should be able to shoot down some nice slow mortars. Mortars, I want you to fire nine rounds each just as fast as you possibly can. Let’s see if we can overwhelm the system.”
“Two Gun. Fire for effect, nine rounds, contact. On command… ”
“Two gun up.”
“Fire.”
This time all they could do was service the gun as fast as they could. Cristman took the right while Adams had the left, Griffis handing rounds to Cristman and Keren porting for Adams. The system, much like a WWII Bofors gun, permitted continuous feeding of the rounds and fired very nearly as fast. Without the heat generated by an explosive charge, the barrel could take rounds faster than they could be loaded. In no more than fifteen seconds the last round was away and they popped up to see what they’d wrought. Unfortunately, while the system cried out for a large capacity, exchangeable magazine, such a magazine would be too heavy to load.
The M576 mortar round had a small dollop of antimatter at its center and a bunch of notched wire surrounding it. With a casualty causing radius of fifty meters in contact setting, sixty on proximity, the explosion on direct contact could cut through light armor like paper.
And the puffs of smoke were getting closer. The sheer volume of fire was overloading the single anti-artillery system on the track. With 36 rounds headed its way, the system was having to hunt across the sky and the puffs came lower and lower until one finally impacted on the rear deck. The explosion was heavy enough to damage the anti-artillery gun and two of the next three rounds hit across the track, turning it into a mangled piece of very expensive metal.
“So we see the good news and the bad,” Cutprice said to the subdued company. As with any company of infantry, the mortarmen had been rooting for the artillery and the gun bunnies had been rooting for the anti-artillery system. Both groups had reasons to be happy and chastized. “The good news is that the system works. The better news is that, en masse, it will probably work even better. The bad news is that even mortars can overcome it if there’s enough incoming. The answer, gentlemen, is to make sure that all your M84 track-commander guns remain up, that commanders relinquish control to automatic at any incoming and that we maintain enough coverage that we can interlock fires. The system should also work against incoming anti-armor rockets. Keep it on auto unless you have an important target, commanders. Mortars, keep up your exercise. And keep in mind that the Hedren have a similar system.”
“Echo Two Seven, target troops in the open, grid six-five-eight-two by four-two-zero-four!”
“Mortar section, hip-shoot east!” Lieutenant Todd shouted over the communicator.
The six tracks of the Bravo Company, First Battalion, Fourteenth Regiment (Separate) had been cranking at full speed on ground-effect down the trace of former Missouri Highway Eight heading for their next firing position. The trace was covered by small saplings, mostly poplar with an admixture of beech and pine. But the armored mortar carriers snapped those in a welter of flying sticks and leaves that had the front of the otherwise invisible mortar carrier covered in a green froth.
At the command Oppenheimer spun up the tracks and slammed the vehicle to the ground, causing a screech of complaint from the drive-train and a rooster-tail of flying soil and pulverized vegetation.
“Watch the fucking tracks!” Keren shouted as the driver slid the vehicle sideways, its mortar compartment oriented to the east.
“Aligned!” was all Oppenheimer said.
Keren hit the disconnect on this safety-harness, a necessity when going at nearly seventy miles an hour, and dropped his command chair into the belly of the track.
Before he could even get out of his seat, though, Adams and Griffis had slammed open the splinter-cover over the mortar. With a grunt the gun was lifted on its automated support pod and locked into place. Cristman hit the auto-align button and waited.
“Fucking Three Gun… ” Adams muttered. “COME ON, THREE GUN!”
“Section up,” Sergeant Moreland said as Three Gun finally got its gun into action and its automated alignment system online.
In the past, to get artillery or mortars to go where you wanted it to go, it was necessary to carefully align the guns using techniques very similar to surveying. The guns would be set up on a very straight line then further aligned using a series of highly calibrated sights. It took a long time and it was a pain in the ass.
The auto-alignment system, by contrast, used laser transmitters and receptors to determine where each gun was in relationship to each other and where they were in relationship to the world. Using that information the gunnery computer could give each gun a correction necessary to get it to go where the enemy was rather than, say, on top of friendly forces or the vast areas that had neither.
Coupled with the automatic gunnery system of the mortars, what had once been a five to ten minute process even with a ‘hip-shoot’ now took about twenty seconds for a good crew. Or ninety for three gun.
“Three rounds, prox, fire for effect,” the FDC ordered.
“Three rounds prox,” Keren repeated, reaching into the ammo box on his side of the carrier. “Fire for effect.”
He tossed a round to Adams who slammed it into the tube then another then another. All three of the rounds were out before any of the other guns had started to fire.
“Cease fire,” Sergeant Moreland ordered. “I want all four gun captains at my track. Now.”
“Keren,” Moreland said. “Very impressive. You were first gun up and, by a long shot, the first to fire. Care to tell me how you got prox, which is not the default setting, outbound about a half a second after the order?”
“Two ammo compartments on the carrier, sergeant,” Keren said, shrugging. “Port side is all contact. Starboard side we’ve got the flares, smoke and a small amount of standard set to prox and delay. That way we don’t have to dick around with setting it if we get a hip-shoot.”
“Port,” Sergeant West said. The four gun squad leader was a tall, rangy brunette from West Virginia. “That’s the left as you’re facing forwards. So… Griffis jumps over there to get the round and hands it across the tube?”