“Good guess, Sherlock. Now turn it another click.”
The goggles went blank except for the outline of rifles and pistols in the distance. Magnetic resonance.
“And the next click?” asked Galen, turning the knob once more. Spike didn’t have to tell him. The forest around him was lit up as bright as fire, red and green and blue images merging to give full color, and depth perception seemed exaggerated.
“Full daylight reality. Now twist that knob all the way back.”
Glen did.
“By twisting the knob the other way, you change the magnification. By pressing in, you get a readout of the range, in meters, to the target, as well as a magnetic azimuth. Works by starlight, infrared and magnetic resonance combined. Also works in the daylight.”
Galen said, “Handy equipment, but over-engineered for grunt work, don’t you think?”
“Not at all. Remember, we’re an anti-armor platoon.”
Galen shrugged and started to hand the device back to Spike.
“Oh no, they’re yours. All the troops in anti-armor get them.”
“NVGs, rockets, heavy machine guns. What else do we get?”
“Three sniper rifles for each suppression team,” said Spike
“Loaded for bear. So how does all this work?”
“You mean our tactics?” asked Chief Mortinson.
“Yes.” Galen wasn’t aware the Chief was within earshot, but wasn’t startled either.
“You’re trained as a can man—I mean, a tank commander—so you know what they can and can’t do. What’s the farthest one of those things can shoot?”
“Long range missiles can mess you up at almost seventeen thousand meters.”
“And how far does a sniper rifle shoot?”
“About four thousand meters, effectively.”
“Our machine guns are effective at eleven hundred meters. Our rocket launchers are good out to almost three hundred meters. So we have a disadvantage when it comes to range. Now what’s the most devastating weapon, the one with the most one-shot punch?”
“The tank main gun, the heavy gun like the ones on the Ostrich Foreign Corps’ Hercules Heavy Tank. It can flatten most light and medium tanks out to a range of three klicks. A high explosive shell from one of them could take out our whole platoon in one shot.”
“And our heaviest weapon is the rocket, doing just enough damage to knock the tracks off a main battle tank. It would take two dozen direct and perfect hits to chip away the armor on the front of a heavy tank.”
“So we lose on firepower, range and mobility. How do we compensate?” asked Galen.
“Heat,” said Chief Mortinson.
“Heat,” said Spike.
“You mean, gelignite launchers?”
“Yes. But we call them flamers here. We use a locally-produced generic version of gelignite. Also you probably noticed we use home-grown slug throwers too.”
“Yes. Why?” said Galen.
“Open the butt of your weapon and pull out that adapter. Notice how it snaps into your rifle’s magazine well. Now work the bolt. That puts a breech adapter into your rifle’s breech. Now you can chamber and fire ten millimeter rounds from either a submachine gun or a pistol, using magazines from either. However, the reverse isn’t possible. There’s no way to shove ten millimeter rifle ammo into a submachine gun or pistol.”
“How ballistic is this rifle when using the pistol rounds?”
“Good out to two hundred meters. Great for urban combat, and a good way to conserve rifle ammo for longer shots.”
“Now back to our tactics, if you’re ready,” said Galen.
“Oh yeah, knocking out tanks. We outnumber them. Our suppression teams fire on them at extreme range, to get their attention and make them button up. Our machine gun crews do the same, firing at every opportunity. The rocket teams crack off shots as best they can, making sure the tank commander doesn’t take his victory for granted.”
“Flamers?” asked Galen, wondering if Mortinson wasn’t playing a joke on a snapper.
“Oh. Well, we preposition them. We bait the tanks, stay at extreme range and make use of concealment and cover to ensure they don’t kill us. Then, with them warmed up good from using their weapons, we nail them with flamers until they overheat and cook off.”
“It would take a stupid tank commander to fall for a trick like that.”
“You’d be surprised how over-confident they get in battle,” said the Chief.
Galen could feel the smile radiating from the Chief’s face. Some things didn’t need to been seen, they showed through the darkest dark.
“Anyway, you’ll see some tomorrow night. We hump out of here in thirty mikes, tactical all day then start setting up our ambush right after dark. In about twenty four hours, you’ll see some dumbass tanks.”
“Next question. What’s the big picture?” Galen sensed the presence of the other two squad leaders and knew it was Tad who stood closest to him.
“Slave revolt. A bunch of disenchanted factory workers on strike. They’ve declared independence and they also have about a dozen tanks. Brand new ones, right out of the factory where the strikers work. Hornets, I think.”
“Wasps, Chief. Light recon tanks,” corrected Spike.
“Oh yeah, Wasps. Anyhow, intelligence says they can’t do automatic air defense. This factory doesn’t make the control components for their air defense guns. They’re installed later at another plant, so we got half a chance against them. Also, I don’t expect their gunnery skills to be too hot either, but these workers have been maneuvering tanks around their factory for years. There are some former soldiers amongst the strikers, I’ll bet you. So we’ll respect their abilities like they were real professionals until they prove otherwise.”
“Good. About time we did something besides chase wild men around the woods,” said Haas, first squad’s leader.
“Okay, enough talking. Give your troops the march order and follow me out of here in ten minutes.”
Chapter Seven
Galen walked in the middle of his squad, five troops to his front and six to his back. First squad was in a file on his right and third squad was in a file on his left. They maintained a spacing of fifty to a hundred meters between the squads, and an interval of ten to fifteen meters between troops. When they came to a field, one troop sprinted across at a time while the rest of the platoon covered all likely sniper positions from the tree line. The actual going was slow, taking all day to travel just eight kilometers. But because the platoon had to go from on-line to column and back several times, and moved along the most concealing terrain, Galen estimated the troops had actually walked about twenty five kilometers. Anyway, he was exhausted when Mortinson finally called a halt at sunset.
“Take thirty,” said the Chief, using all channels to send the message to everyone’s personal communicator at the same time. Then Galen heard, “All Sergeants, up front for a meeting.”
Galen waited for Tad to catch up and walked alongside him. “So how do you like that? He walks us to death, and then has us walk up to him.”
“I heard that, dumbass.” Mortinson’s voice.
Galen reached up to the side of his helmet and switched off the microphone of his personal communicator. Tad did the same.
“This sucks. I just hope we actually get to trash some tanks,” said Tad.
“I want to capture one. I’m tired of walking. I got blisters on my big toes and my heels. If it weren’t for this meeting, I’d have treated them by now. But no, we got to walk some more, then walk back to our squads, then probably move out right away.”
“It’s the fault of the striking workers. If I get my hands on one, I’ll beat him senseless.”