Barnabas Von Blum had but a brief respite from the responsibilities of office, the multitude of plans and approvals by his family and appointed officials. Matters of maintenance, security, contingencies, just for the best case scenario. The one that ideally would pass. It was said that preparing for a disaster helped to ensure that the preparations turned out to be superfluous, and the Territorial Lord sincerely hoped such was the case. One felt the Reich breathing down one’s neck with particular predatory ambition in times like these. He knew at least a few were prodding about- the Archduchy and the Reich were on peaceable terms, but both were ready for such to change at a moment’s notice. Something so small as putting these open agents under arrest would be a bold move as of now. They’d find out little, anyways, just from rumors and walking about, as they were restricting themselves to. He was not taking his time off to relax, or entertain himself. Instead, the high noble went to an old font of spite. Once a friend- much as one of his duplicitous ilk could be considered one. After, a source of potential might. Now, a mere reminder of others whom he had affected- people Von Blum wanted more than this comatose husk he was obligated to house.Lord Barnabas Von Blum stared disdainfully at the hooded pile of rags before him- decrepit, pathetic. Once so mighty. Yet he looked no different outwardly than he had so long ago, over two score years ago. Before Barnabas had even married the first time. When Miriam had been a decade his junior, and he never would have imagined her to be the love of his life. That fateful day, when seeking ancient secrets, he had found one he had not anticipated…and been extended a deal. A relationship ending here, with this old sorcerer rusting away in a chair, not having opened an eye, spoken, or done anything at all for near three years, after having steadily deteriorated into this present state, yet no further.Despite this, Von Blum wished for a conversation. He spoke his demands, and answered them in his mind.“What a sorry end to your life you have sown. No small amount of regrets must weigh on your shoulders.””I regret naught. I only ever paid mine debts to you, and gave so generously much in doing so. Your aid through the years was ever appreciated at least in kind.”“You took her from me. You stole her away. Is that proper repayment for my own actions when you were in need?””I took nothing. I gave you all you asked for.”
Despite half the conversation taking place in his head, Von Blum heard the Hermit as he spoke- he had known him for decades, and simply knew what he would say. He moved forward, aggrieved as though he had actually been redressed, and reached to grasp the ancient man’s collar- only for the rags to shift on one side, and a spindly claw of bronze and petrified wood to snatch out and grasp Barnabas’s arm with a firm hold, arresting him utterly.Not the Hermit’s hand. Nor his golem. Simply an artifact that had become one with his person. It spoke directly into Von Blum’s mind, up through where it touched him. ”LAY NOT THOU HANDS UPON THE MAS TER, PRE SUMP TU OUS MAN.”“You are naught but a trinket I deigned to dig up,” Barnabas sniffed, unperturbed, “You speak so flippantly to a lord of the land, in days past, these lands would be a kingdom of their own. Surely the Noble Arms would know to respect their betters.””NO TRUE KING.” The claw pushed him back, keeping its grip. ”THOU PILL AGED THE TOMB OF ONE, OF MA NY. THOU ART BUT A GRAVE ROB BER, A PRE TEN DER U PON ONCE GREAT NESS.”“History has forgotten your time,” Von Blum retorted sharply, “You are shackled to an elderly tramp. Whatever happened in the past no longer matters. Unhand me, now.””ARR O GANT MAN, WHO DOTH BE LIEVE THAT THE SCRIB BLINGS AND SCRAW LINGS OF PET TY MAN KIND MAT TERS AUGHT TO THOSE A BOVE THOU.” The arm pushed him further, but loosened its grip as Barnabas was made to stand further away. ”THOU WERE ONCE STRONG. YET NOW, YOUR STRENGTH HATH FLED WITH THE PAS SAGE OF YEARS. IT MAY BE TEN YEARS, IT MAY BE TWEN TY, BUT THOU SHALT BE LAIN THIS LOW BY TIME. THE EX IL E HATH EN FEE BLED ThOU. HER PRO GEN Y HATH MADE THOU WEAK. THOU ART NOT THE HERITOR OF THE MAS TER, WHOM HE HATH CHO SEN. MERE LY THE FALSE KING OF NO THING.”Von Blum wrenched his arm out of what was left of the artifact’s grasp, and it vanished back under the blankets, settling, gripping onto one of the armchair’s arm rests beneath. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, before exhaling in a long sigh, turning on his heel and leaving. He ought not, he thought, to have invited the past to speak with him once more.-----
“Heads up, Four-Five,” Van Halm’s voice crackled in your ear, “Things have been moving fast without us, and something’s coming from the north, Four-One Actual says. Big enough to be reported. Don’t be surprised if it’s a bit before we get back to the platoon.”You are Lieutenant Richter Von Tracht- the newest (probably) recruit to the prestigious Silver Lances- the name carried by the band your ancestor fought under the first Archduke Von Strossvald with, during Strossvald’s war with the Grossreich for its independence. It had been an ambition of yours to join their ranks, yet now that you were here…perhaps you’d appreciate it more if you survived your first campaign. The one that you were in the middle of, here- an effort to aid the Republic of Mittelsosalia and the army in exile of Ellowie in defeating the Netillians, including their Northern Lord thralls here in Sosaldt, your current foes. Though, up above, what was undoubtedly the Netillian Air Force was coming to blows with their Ellowian rivals, as well. Distracting them from you- the reputation of the Ellowians couldn’t keep you from craning your head up, dreading that one of those dancing figures high above might swoop down and bring its ire down upon you. The Ellowians seemed to be occupying the Netillians well enough up there. Nobody was coming down to help or harm you, from the looks of it, but your imagination worked with your lack of knowledge, and the continuing lack of distraction, to create an unpleasant image in your mind of what lay in store for you as you tried not to stare at the remnants of former frontlines. Crimson clumps in the frosted dust. Pieces of people in places. One time, a pile. You’d seen the like before, but it felt like, now, you…hadn’t really seen them.“Four Five, you there?” A pause. “Why are you staring at that?”“I don’t know,” you said blankly as you forced yourself away. Back to the task. Slap yourself in the face if you need to, the enemy wouldn’t wait for you to be ready for the fight when it came.Presently, you were going up a road that branched off a greater highway called the Northway Road- unremarkable in name, but in practice an artery that led all the way up to the heart of Netilland. Engineers had been busily clearing the way where there had been mines, though the roads themselves had apparently been lacking. The Sosaldtian Northern Lords had been prepared to fend off an attack from the untested Republic of Mittelsosalia, not the combined strength of that, the exiled Ellowian Army and Air Force, and the elite Silver Lances Armor Division. It did say something of this foe that they did not buckle and shatter the moment a breakthrough had been achieved.Though from what little you knew of what was presently happening, for example, the plight of the Republic soldiers you’d left behind to rejoin your platoon, maybe you should have expected what was coming next.
“Hey, panzers! Hold up!” A panzergrenadier officer and his escorts stood in the road, shouting at Van Halm in front and to the right of you. As Van Halm stopped, so too did you order your driver, though it felt as though you had been preempted in that command.“What the hell do you want?” Van Halm demanded of the officer who had stopped him, “We’re getting back to our platoon on the line. Blocking up the road like that, nobody would have batted an eye if I ran you over!”“You’re not going anywhere!” the Panzergrenadier shouted back up over the engines’ growling, “There’s a situation south of the road, orders are to grab whoever I can and send them south south-east of here!”“Under whose orders? Yours?” You couldn’t see the officer’s collar marks from where you were, but from Van Halm’s tone they couldn’t have been higher than a Captain.“Oberst Weissestrasser,” the officer shot back indignantly, “If you want to send it up the chain only to be told to turn around and go back, be my guest, kliefnatz.”“Ptch.” Van Halm spat, “Fine. What’s the situation?”“Air recon said something about attacks massing up all over the line. They can see we’re trying to trap them, so they’re striking from the south with what they’ve got. Their artillery’s focused on keeping the forts, but we’re stretched thin waiting for the chocolate soldiers. There’s no tanks spotted, so if we get tanks, it’s a game of us having them and them not.”“Easy, then,” Van Halm declared, before turning and gesturing for you to listen. “Von Tracht! I can deal with this myself. You want to keep going to the platoon?”“Hey,” the infantry officer cut in, “No, both of you are-““Don’t be greedy,” Van Halm snapped back, “You ought to count yourself lucky as is. So, Von Tracht, what’ll it be? The sun’s setting- bet you anything that if we stay here we’re not catching up with the platoon until it’s dark.”>You’d rather not leave Van Halm by himself. You were assigned as partners, weren’t you? You could at least keep it that way for a day before breaking off.>If he’s so confident, he couldn’t run into problems. Accept the offer and keep going to your platoon.>Make a counteroffer- Van Halm was probably more necessary than you to the platoon. You were the rookie- you’d stay behind and do this work demanded.>Other?Pastebin for past threads- https://pastebin.com/UagT0hnhTwitter for announcements and shitposts is @scheissfunker
>>4610797>You’d rather not leave Van Halm by himself. You were assigned as partners, weren’t you? You could at least keep it that way for a day before breaking off.He stayed for us so returning the favour is only appropriate.
>>4610797>If he’s so confident, he couldn’t run into problems. Accept the offer and keep going to your platoon.
>>4610797>You’d rather not leave Van Halm by himself. You were assigned as partners, weren’t you? You could at least keep it that way for a day before breaking off.
>>4610797>>You’d rather not leave Van Halm by himself. You were assigned as partners, weren’t you? You could at least keep it that way for a day before breaking off.One more tank is double the efficiency down here and a marginal improvement with the rest of the platoon.
>>4610797>>You’d rather not leave Van Halm by himself. You were assigned as partners, weren’t you? You could at least keep it that way for a day before breaking off.
>>4610797>You’d rather not leave Van Halm by himself. You were assigned as partners, weren’t you? You could at least keep it that way for a day before breaking off.I think I figured the game out. Richter's been hurt so much lately because he doesn't have enough women orbiting him to take the hits. We need to build up a new harem, and fast.
>>4610966>build up a new haremI imagine in another timeline a wounded maiden floated gently into Richter's lap after absconding from her skybound chariot, followed by the remains of the chariot and a few bombs soon after.
>>4610797>You’d rather not leave Van Halm by himself. You were assigned as partners, weren’t you? You could at least keep it that way for a day before breaking off.Also, a technical question about the m/32. Are the entire length of the fenders just smooth sheet metal or do they have any kind of chequer marking on them to prevent slipping? I haven't managed to find any coloured scenes where the tops are clearly visible.>>4610966H-hareming Van Halm is forbidden love, anon!
Dinner eaten. >>4610808>>4610845>>4610925>>4610952>>4610966>>4611008Don't leave Van Halm by his lonesome with the grunts. You ought to return the favor. Two is twice as much as one, as well.>>4610815Later Kliefn-Writing.>>4610966As it turned out the fate points were female points all along. Or perhaps it's because the bearer of the Harem Holder title changed.>>4611006>Wrath Leader>a maiden>>4611008In some renderings of it I've had a pair of raised steel runners along the length of the upper hull until the bend at the end, theoretically for slotting crates into or for having a little bit more footing on a rainy or icy day. However, they do tend to be left out more often than not just because I am fickle when it comes to both remembering and bothering to actually draw them. Otherwise, they are smooth.
>>4611066>cant refer to her as a Lady because she is not a noble>too old to be a debutante>unwise to call her a spinster or an old hagI stand by my decision.
>>4611090she'd be a lady, just not a Lady
>>4611066By the way tanq>You couldn’t see the officer’s collar marks from where you were, but from Van Halm’s tone they couldn’t have been higher than a Captain.So how much can a noble get away with here? Can he outright tell the guy to pound sand superior rank or not?
Sorry for the massive delay, I went to sit down and think and I ended up nodding off.>>4611357>So how much can a noble get away with here? Can he outright tell the guy to pound sand superior rank or not?You haven't been in long enough for a definite conclusion on that, but probably not. The Silver Lances, because of their nature of often operating outside of actual army structure, don't have the same inherent division of class. Nobility still has quite a presence because of having more opportunity to distinguish themselves in the army and thus gain the reputation and notice to be invited in the first place, but the unit is descended from a mercenary band. Symbolically, that the commander of the Silver Lances mercenaries was elevated to nobility and the band to a place of prestige, is meant to be a symbol of the joining in hands of the nobility and common folk, as was the common line when the man who would become the first Archduke was stirring up support for his rebellion.Whether that's true of the nation or not, no, nobility has no specially granted rights or exceptions in the Silver Lances. One of their regulations even prohibits special favors based on blood and birth.
It felt a poor way to repay Van Halm sticking around for you and helping repair your tank, to leave him here, even if it was his idea. The very least you could do was stay by your assigned partner for but a day.“I’ll stay around here with you,” you said, “Besides, if I go, the platoon will only go from three to four tanks, but if I stay here, it’ll be double the effective power..?”“Why don’t you sound sure? That sounds right to me.” Van Halm seemed pleasantly surprised that you were staying.“”I’ve not been sure about many things lately,” you muttered, “It doesn’t matter. I’m staying with your tank.”“Good. Keep on my rear flank. Make sure to button up when we’re there, when all you’ve got is a rifle, the softer bits stick out more.” Van Halm said, “They might try and sneak up, but we have to trust the grenadiers to be our eyes. Speaking of. Hey, you,” he addressed the Panzergrenadier officer, “Take us over.”-----The line of defense was in the midst of a skirmish when you and Van Halm arrived, though it quieted down as soon as both of you rounded the hill which this infantry unit’s defense was arrayed around. Was it a platoon? Two platoons? They were spread out to the point where it was hard to tell among the hastily dug trenches and foxholes. In a defilade on the side of the hill you came from, by a mortar pit there was a truck of the sort the Panzergrenadier used for command and control purposes, the same as one of their transports and just as armored in its field-modified fashion, but with antennae indicating the presence of communications equipment, cables spreading out to field telephones further away. This particular hill was a good position, with difficult approaches to attack upon, besides a smaller hill directly in front that provided the only decent stepping stone towards this hill. Yet even a predictable attack made forcefully could potentially overwhelm it, hence your presence.“Well, Four-Five, kick your feet up,” Van Halm said over the radio as soon as you both moved into place on either flank, “Not much else to do if you don’t want to be picked off by a sniper.” Despite the open approaches, that latter concern was plenty relevant. There were plenty of places for a single person to creep in unnoticed. “As long as we’re here, unless we’re sent somewhere else on this line, the best we’ll be doing is playing Aufspringen.”“Huh?”“Pop-Up. It’s…never mind, ask your crew about it. We’re not using the radio to have a conversation. Four-Four out.”
You frowned, then switched to the intercom. Would Jorgen or Malachi even have heard of it if you hadn’t? Was it slang? You’d already explained the current assignment to the crew, so they were already keeping watch. Surely this small distraction wouldn’t be a critical mistake with you just arriving.“Have any of you heard of Pop-Up? A game you play?”“This really the time to be talking about fairground crap?” your gunner, Schafer, muttered sorely as he peered through his periscope.“It’s a game that uses a machine that props up targets at certain timing,” the radio operator and bow gunner Hausen said more helpfully, “you throw balls or use a slingshot or something to try and hit them all as they pop up. I saw a parlor once that had an automatic version, but it did the same pattern every time. The manual ones have variation.”“Ehh, thraen baells,” Jorgen sighed, “Naefen weth plaen wohd. Maer fahn tetoss at baers.”“It’s a game, not a suicide attempt, northman,” Hausen replied, “Nobody but Yaegirs throw rocks at bears for fun, I’m sure. Not even Kalleans.”Compelled by curiosity, you asked, “…What do they do? Do they play Pop-Up?” There was much you’d forgotten about the world- and the Silver Lances had traveled far and wide across the continent.“Weird mosshead shit, a lot of them,” Schafer said with a grunt, “Heard they like scalding themselves in springs in some sort of endurance contest. They do the same thing with winter chill. The most insane ones, the ones in the Iceforth Troop, I heard they stand out near the edge of the Maelstrom, and see how long they can stand it. No wonder they’re nuts. They’ll release a bird with a ribbon tied to it, too, and see who can get the ribbon back. Do that for goddamn weeks without giving up.”“Baerd? Raebben?” Jorgen parroted, “Ey Mal, daedn’t you dothaet thaeng?”An abrupt silence in the tank, the intercom. Malachi didn’t answer. Nobody said…anything. >…Fine, it was a stupid conversation anyways. Back to watching the dust.>Well. Did he? Could you help being interested?>Try and divert focus away from that subject. (How?)>Other?
>>4611475>Well. Did he? Could you help being interested?Curious to know, though honestly I don't expect an answer.
>>4611475>>Well. Did he? Could you help being interested?Speak, mountain munchkin
>>4611475>…Fine, it was a stupid conversation anyways. Back to watching the dust.Malachi clearly doesn't want to talk about it.
>>4611475>>…Fine, it was a stupid conversation anyways. Back to watching the dust.
>>4611475>…Fine, it was a stupid conversation anyways. Back to watching the dust.
>>4611475>>…Fine, it was a stupid conversation anyways. Back to watching the dust.Sometimes what happens between a man and a bird are best left unmentioned.
Once more I am around.>>4611477>>4611478Tell me your secrets, green headed one.>>4611482>>4611483>>4611484>>4611866This was about a fairgrounds game, wasn't it? That's a stupid subject. Let's not discuss it any further.Writing.
Inside, you were interested, in a way you couldn’t help. Much about your driver was a mystery- was this an opportunity to learn something significant? No, though, it wasn’t. Malachi clearly didn’t want to talk about it, and even if you asked, you wouldn’t get an answer.It was a stupid conversation anyways, you supposed as you let the silence become normalcy, you’d never been a fair or carnival person anyways. Back to staring at the dust, looking for shapes among the swirls made by wind, and listening to sounds near and far of conflict that were ferocious, but absent from this part of the front if only because of you and Van Halm’s presence.Familiar tense boredom set in- it was like when you were stationed all night on the line whilst the ERA fought the Twaryians, back in Ellowie. Yet, you couldn’t possibly be forced alert while unoccupied for that long- the enemy would do something- they had to, if they knew that they were being enveloped. Sosaldtian bandits and gangsters were all sorts of things, but something they weren’t was complacent and stupid.You began to actually consider kicking your feet up for how little you could properly see out the cupola lenses, instead of being out top with the binoculars. The Silver Lance panzergrenadiers were similarly keeping their heads down, though they probably hadn’t had direct experience with being the victim of Sosaldtian marksmanship like you had been. This time, you didn’t have Maddalyn to fix the consequences of a brief and potentially deadly mistake.What could they be doing, you contemplated for lack of demands for your attention. What was the Northern Lords’ plan? The attack wouldn’t be canceled because of just a pair of tanks, but Sosaldtians weren’t the sort to make suicidal mass charges. They were crafty, and wouldn’t try and take you head on without some sort of equalizer- they’d settle for that, counting on ferocity and momentum to make up any further difference. They couldn’t expect ideal superiority of men or materiel. Hopefully you weren’t loitering atop a massive bomb. You did notice that the gas mask carriers on the Panzergrenadiers’ belts lay open- would these Northern Lords have access to that? It’d be a poor idea to use it if they didn’t have chemical protection themselves, something you noted as being quite rare last you were in this place.Somewhere far off, there was a rumbling, then whistling which you initially dismissed- it seemed the same as any other, until…
“Four-Five!” Van Halm suddenly shouted, “Put the lid on, that’s incoming!”The question of ”How the hell does he know that?” was overruled by the sudden panic, the impulse to do as told when instinct failed you. With a reach over and to the side, you grasped for the hatch impotently with half a hand, before switching belatedly to the hand with a full set of fingers to pull the cupola hatch closed just before the whistling sharply increased in volume.KSHHBOOOOOOOM!!Maybe twenty meters off to your flank, the loudest sound you’d heard in a long time resonated through the tank, and bits of debris clanged off the tank, each one a sharp, tiny sting to the ear.“Aayyye, thaet’s maer lehket!” Jorgen shouted for some reason, but revelry was far from your mind as more shells came down, each just about as loud as the last- especially as the impacts began to overlap. A continuous earthquake, each shell causing every muscle in your body to spasm at once.KSHHBOOOOOOOM!!KSHHBOOOOOOOM!!KSHHBOOOOOOOM!!>Roll 3 sets of 1d100, DC roll under 80, to keep it together.
Rolled 85 (1d100)>>4612102
Rolled 56 (1d100)>>4612102
Rolled 50 (1d100)>>4612102
>1 Failure- Mild BreakWere you dead? Everything suddenly went black, and you didn’t know where you were, you didn’t feel anything, see anything…blurry shapes, muffled sounds, but the infernal pounding and shaking didn’t end…until it did, but you still remained as you were. It was finally…finally quiet. Finally peaceful, finally-Whack! There was a sharp blow on your cheek that you only felt the slightest sting of, and your vision began to clear of its blurriness, the sounds that seemed incoherent before began to coalesce into voices…that were mixing together and separating out again in a mess your ears couldn’t sort out.“Four-Five, resp-““Wake up, you!”“Bossman, what’s the-““-head, there’s-“Whack!“St-stop hitting me!” you stammered out as you shook your head and struggled up from the turret floor, “I…ugh…”“There’s no time,” Schafer grunted as he hauled you back up with Jorgen, “That last barrage was smoke, all across the front, wind’s toward us. It’s not gas, but you can bet they’re coming now.”“Ahhh…” your head still pounded, and your mouth was dry. It was too bright in here, it was too much feeling to even think. “I…”“Four-five! Respond!”Focus. Focus on something. Anything. The feeling of helplessness was too much to bear, and your crew wouldn’t let you curl up in a ball like you wanted to do more than anything else now, even though the booming of artillery had ended.>Get your bearings. You needed to look around- to see what was around, you couldn’t tell anything from in here…>Get your crew ready. Get the gun loaded, the tank moving to a better spot, if need be.>Respond to Van Halm. Clear up the situation, reassure that you’re alright and confirm what needs to be done now.>Other?
>>4612141>Respond to Van Halm. Clear up the situation, reassure that you’re alright and confirm what needs to be done now.
>>4612141>Respond to Van Halm. Clear up the situation, reassure that you’re alright and confirm what needs to be done now.But, uh, everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?
>>4612141>Respond to Van Halm. Clear up the situation, reassure that you’re alright and confirm what needs to be done now.Its perfect, he tells us what we need to do, then we just tell the crew what he said. A perfect plan that will assuredly survive contact with the enemy.
>>4612141>Respond to Van Halm. Clear up the situation, reassure that you’re alright and confirm what needs to be done nowI trust our crew to handle their jobs without us asking
>>4612142>>4612158>>4612190>>4612213Defer to superior. Trust the people who know what they're doing to pick up.Writing.
Did your crew need your help? No. You needed their help, and you could trust them to do their jobs just by seeing where they were now. If only the same was true of yourself…no, you could do at least one thing right, even in this state, and that was to collect your focus and confirm to your platoon partner that you weren’t a pile of charcoal or ground meat.“…F-four-Five,” you choked into the microphone, “Four-Five to Four-Four. I’m h-here. What’s going on..?”“What’s going on with you? Are you wounded?”“N-no, I’m fine,” All you had to do was talk. Listen and convey will. That was easy. “What do we do? What’s happening?”A pause, as though Van Halm had to consider whether or not you were actually awake. “Remain in place and shoot whatever moves. If our people get forced back, there’ll be a call to retreat. We’ll stay back and cover them, then move out ourselves. The wind’s toward us, so we can’t use Bertholite shells like I’d like to without getting everybody masked up. Have canister on the ready rack. Watch out for any shapes like anti-tank guns, they’ll have had time to shove them up with this. Don’t try and conserve ammunition, and be prepared to counterattack. We’re tankers, not Grenzwacht in bunkers. Understood?”Alright. That was easier to think about when said by somebody else.“Understood, Four-Five?”“Ah, understood.”“Four-four out.”
Back to the intercom, then. “Sorry,” you apologized to your crew, then shook your head like you needed to rattle something back into place. “We’re staying in place. Shoot whatever moves up. If a retreat is called, we go out last. Don’t load Bertholite shells, have canister on the read rack. Gunner, priority target is anti-tank guns. Driver, keep the engine on in case we have to make a sudden counterattack. Do you have a clear field of fire, Hausen?”“Clear enough,” Hausen said, “Anything on the hill’s going to be too high for me to elevate to, though.”“Same story with the main gun,” Schafer said, “Anything but the hilltop ought’a be fine, but the gun’s big ‘nough in back that it don’t go as-“Suddenly, a machine gun on the line started firing, catching you and the rest of the crew off guard. Precious moments passed as you regained your bearings…and there was a lot of enemy coming, now. They weren’t making themselves easy targets, either- their shapes flitted about as far across as you could see, in every direction to the front. You thought you saw some larger shapes moving about too- large and blocky, but faster than people on but their legs.“Lieutenant,” Schafer prompted you, “Targets? Quickly.”>Load the main gun- fire everything at this oncoming attack. (What sort of shell? Types are- AP, HE, Bertholite, Canister, Hellfire)>Allow the hull gun and coaxial to fire at will- keep the main gun from firing until you spot a target that needs it right away. (What shell?)>You can’t see shit from in here. Take the risk of popping out so you can properly identify targets. (Identifies threats right away- risks being shot)>Other?
>>4612258>Allow the hull gun and coaxial to fire at will- keep the main gun from firing until you spot a target that needs it right away. (What shell?)HE
>>4612267+1
>>4612258>Load the main gun- fire everything at this oncoming attackHE - save the canister for when they're really close.
>>4612267Swapping to this
>>4612258>Load the main gun- fire everything at this oncoming attack. (What sort of shell? Types are- AP, HE, Bertholite, Canister, Hellfire)AP, if they got the artillery for this I am willing to bet they found some tanks too.
>>4612267This works.Clearly Richter needs to do a few more stupidly brave things to bolster his will.
>>4612267>>4612269>>4612272>>4612277>>4612324High explosive, save the gun.>>4612312Suspect a tank- a tank that must be coming soon.Writing.
>>4612272Rather, this one is "shoot it away." Not the same as the others.
“L-load high explosive,” you said, “But don’t fire the main gun until I…have a target,” you cleared your throat, “Everything else, fire at will.”“Say again, fire at will?” Hausen’s voice touched your ears.“Fire at will!” you repeated. As the bow gun belched out its spite, you repeated again, “Do not fire the cannon until my say so!”The turret moved without your influence, the machine guns spat lines of glowing tracer shot across the battlefield, and you could do little but try and bring yourself back into the present as you scanned for targets from inside your cramped cupola, with only small windows of vision into the world that sometimes shoot and made sickening cracking sounds as bullets splattered against the armor glass, sharpshooters doing their best to impede the tank. Better you than the grenadiers, you thought for only a moment before you thought the armor glass might split with a direct hit just to the side of your head that nearly made you jump through the locked hatch.Nothing leaped out at you as a target in the smoke, even as it seemed to thin, only for the deployment of what must have been pots or candles obscuring everything again. The volume of enemy fire didn’t seem to decrease whatsoever, either. It only increased, the directions of engagement multiplying, stretching to the flanks- it felt impossible that there could be this many of them, but perhaps, there were in actuality just so few of you.It felt and sounded as if you were in the eye of a storm at sea- the waves roiled about, and though the Sosaldtians were very oddly refusing to charge in and smite the lot of you, it certainly felt like they could. It must have been solely because of you and Van Halm’s presence in this place on the line.It wasn’t enough, though. For each glowing spray you saw arc out and strike a shape to the ground, even the throaty blast of the bow 13mm felt impotent. The platoon transmission light on your end of the radio set glowed sharply- you switched from the intercom. “Four-Five.” You answered quickly.“Four-Four. Fuck this.” Van Halm said with an irritation you didn’t recognize, “They’re being cagey. Trying to set up for a perfect breakthrough. They don’t think we’ll come after them, because we haven’t moved. They’re only pinning us down harder and grinding down the panzergrenadier, the longer this goes on. I’m going to go to your side and reach out and touch them. Cover me, will you?”>Disagree. The fight might be long and grinding, but all you had to do was delay. Surely command recognized this threat and would send help of some sort.>Agree, so long as he doesn’t get overzealous. You can only safely support right from where you are.>Volunteer to go up with him- surely if no anti-tank weapons have been used against you yet, they don’t have any prepared. Two of you could do double the damage.>Other?
>>4612409>>Agree, so long as he doesn’t get overzealous. You can only safely support right from where you are.
>>4612409>Agree, so long as he doesn’t get overzealous. You can only safely support right from where you are.
>>4612409>Other: All of this looks like a distraction. We should check the flanks instead.
>>4612409This but mention>Other: All of this looks like a distraction. We should check the flanks instead.
>>4612409>Other: All of this looks like a distraction. We should check the flanks instead.Might be trying to suppress us while they manoeuvre around our position
>>4612414>>4612424Alright, I'll be right here.>>4612425>>4612429>>4612435>>4612437>>4612460But isn't this rather suspicious?I'll be writing after raids, I shouldn't be too tired after them.
>>4613275inb4 another 25hr raid
“I will, Four-Four, but,” there was…something else. Something that made even this rising tide seem petty by the comparison. You couldn’t notice much where you were and with the position you were in, but you could reason what wasn’t there- because you kept looking for it, waiting for the big move, but this felt just like…stalling. “I think this is a distraction. We ought to look at our flanks, I’ve seen movement and it’s not been towards us.”“Four-Five,” Van Halm said sternly, “That might be the case, but we can’t both go look at the flanks. If we both leave, I’m sure these guys’ll take the opportunity to run over the grenadiers here. As it stand they’re hanging on by a thread. We’d as well declare a retreat.““If they’re going up our flanks we won’t even be able to retreat.”“…Yeah. Alright.” Van Halm was understandably pressured, “Fine, we’ll do both. Go west and see if something’s happening. I’ll punch into their lines myself.”Westward was an understandable priority. That was where the lines of communication, the route of supply and reinforcement was. Yet Van Halm said he’d do what he had planned to do with your support, alone? “You’ll be able to do that?”“I’ll be fine, Four-Five,” Van Halm said back, “If I don’t do something we’ll get shoved out anyways. You just make sure you measure yourself. You don’t have any panzergrenadiers with you. Now get moving.”“Alright,” you said, “good luck.” To the intercom, then. “Cease fire. Driver, take us back to the road, we need to go back west down the road and check for people trying to flank around us.”“Sounds like grenadier work,” Schafer said, “This’s a tank, not a pair ‘a eyes.”“Maybe a tank’s what’s needed.” You said, “It was a command from Van Halm anyways. Let’s go.”
Rolled 1 (1d3)Malachi had already gotten the tank moving- little harassment pursued you as you went back around the hill, though you stole a glance at Van Halm pressing forth, as you departed. He surely wasn’t overconfident of his ability, yet…Well, Van Halm had been to other places, surely; if he’d only been in as long as your crewmen, then he’d have matched himself against Vitelian Revolutionaries and the apparently fearsome Kalleans both. That such a figure would fail against your current enemy seemed doubtful.The wall of wispy smoke had been fading when you left, and it didn’t take much traveling to find the end of it. The sudden lack of rounds ricocheting off the tank, the battlefield behind you not instead of around you, tempted you to open the hatch to turn out again. The moment you peeked your eyes over the top of the cupola, though…you saw something move in the corner of your eye, forcing you down again. When you looked at the same place, a little rise a good fifty meters off the road, you saw nothing. When you passed by it, you saw footprints going down and away. There were infiltrators- but how many, and how strong? You’d report it once you got a little further. Just a couple people unwilling to fight you wasn’t enough to bother Van Halm with at present- especially since you heard his m/32’s cannon barking a plenty.Then…a few minutes down the road, there was something more.
Some trailer wagons had been abandoned by the road, and dust clouds and tracks told of vehicles that had run off before you arrived. Somebody had been doing something here…“Driver, halt,” you said, and as the tank stopped, you peeked over the cupola, and looked over the scene with your binoculars. It was easy to see what was going on- the digging, the stacks on the wagons, the dust and the most incriminating materiel scattered haphazardly on the ground…mines. Of a broad variety.“Four-four?” you requested over the radio. You were still in decent range. “I’ve interrupted an enemy attempt to sabotage and mine the road to the west.”“Busy right now,” Van Halm replied after a delay, “Do what you think you should.”“Should I come back?”No response. You presumed that was just ”Don’t make me repeat myself” You did have the codes for reporting higher up the chain, if need be, but only for your company. It was sent along nevertheless, even though Hausen reported that the reception and transmission were bad.>Destroy the wagons and go back. You’d done what you could here.>Stay here in case any allies-or enemies- come around. You’d need to warn the former, and punish the latter.>Stay to try and clear out the mines. You weren’t pioneers, but you had to try, didn’t you?>Try and chase down the infiltrators. They couldn’t have gone far.>Other?
>>4613620>>Destroy the wagons and go back. You’d done what you could here.
>>4613620>Destroy the wagons and go back. You’d done what you could here.
>>4613620>>Destroy the wagons and go back. You’d done what you could here.I mean we are a tank. Our whole purpose is to drive around. Also I don't know if we can radio that there are mines in this part of our lines, but maybe the destroyed trucks are warning enough.
>>4613629>>4613645>>4613651>>4613671>>4613677>>4613679Commit wagon vandalism and leave.Writign.
Anya got into the Mittelsosalian army in exchange for amnesty for criminal charges right? Has she been pardoned already and is in a regular army unit or is in a penal unit and will be pardoned at the end of her service?
There was little more you could do- other than to deny assets to the enemy if they came back to collect them later.“Gunner,” you said to Schafer, “Destroy those wagons. We’ll head back after we destroy those things and their contents decently.”“What about the mines?” Hausen asked.“What should we do about them?” You asked back, “We aren’t pioneers. We don’t have the equipment to safely remove those mines, and we don’t have signs, either. I reported the mines to the company frequency, but I don’t know if they heard me.”“Paet affew haeles inde graend,” Jorgen proposed, “Toss abaet dirten draw thaeye.”“Northman’s right. Nobody’s of the mind t’ drive over a messed up road.” Schafeer said thoughtfully, “Rounds going out.” The cannon recoiled, and one wooden wagon burst asunder in a cloud of flame and smoke. The turret turned, and then the same fate befell another. The third wagon took two shots instead of one, but it was soon a pile of smoldering rubble as well. The road was subjected to three shots, and with that being deemed sufficient, you turned back round and started on your way back.You might have forgotten plenty about war and tactics and only made a start at relearning what you lost, and perhaps, learning in a different path, but you knew well that this was a situation that shouldn’t have been happening. The lines were overstretched- the enemy didn’t need to flank you if they could come out and lay mines on the roads. True, the ones who had done that hadn’t been prepared to fight you, a singular tank, else they wouldn’t have fled. Yet if this group could slip between, then what else could? How much further down the road would you have to go to find allies again?It wasn’t your place to know. Maybe Van Halm knew, maybe not- maybe your platoon leader, Captain Vehrlors, knew. Your company sans you and your platoon partner were still pressing forward last you’d heard. Hell, you didn’t even know if you and Van Halm were supposed to hold until relieved, or just until the local commander was demanded to return you to your company. You’d likely only find out once this current attack stopped, and who could say when that would be? When you had left, it felt as though much fire had been exchanged but little decisive effect had been had on either side.
One part of the picture was clear, though. Naught was stopping the Sosaldtians from sweeping around through the gaps in the line, if they had sufficient numbers. Maybe the numbers necessary were held up in other places? The Republic troops were supposed to be engaging them from the front, after all, whilst you were deep in their rear.Back to the battle, marching to the sound of guns. You hid back under the hatch far before you rounded the hill again, expecting to find the place as you left it. Only to be wrong.The trenches had a few panzergrenadiers in them, but most of them were gone. You deigned to radio Van Halm to ask just what was going on- though you guessed when you spotted his tank up near the flank of the hill ahead.”They’ve underestimated us, Four-Five,” Van Halm said confidently, “This won’t last, though. If we’re going to exploit this we have to do it now. These two platoons are-“ He utilized the code terminology for them being low on ammunition, though it took a moment to realize that. “So, Four-Five. Are you feeling lucky? Nothing puts somebody on the floor quite like following a jab up with a hook to the jaw.”Not an order or a command, but a request of opinion. Despite his tone, Van Halm must not have been completely certain of the odds. Only that he smelled opportunity.>You’d have to count yourself out. Who could say if this wasn’t a feint? You had a perfectly good line of defense here. There couldn’t be anything you could reach in time anyways that this offensive couldn’t stand to lose.>Anything was better than sitting in a hole and waiting to be ground down. Certainly. Who could say what you might find that the enemy would hate to lose?>Other?
>>4613978>Anything was better than sitting in a hole and waiting to be ground down. Certainly. Who could say what you might find that the enemy would hate to lose?
>>4613978Attack, if we have the initiative then its best to keep it by playing aggressive
>>4613964Mittelsosalia doesn't really have enough organization at present to have a thing like a standard penal system, at least, nationally rather than locally based. The general idea of the Republic conscripting from these locally based prisons is that the Republic government takes the criminal off the local's hand for small compensation, and then trades a pardon for service in the present conflict for its duration- with understandable accommodations for risk of desertion, ie, imprisonment or execution depending on the temperament of whoever catches them. Of course, this doesn't necessarily equate to frontline combat roles. Desertion, after all, is far less likely when ex-convicts are relegated to logistics and support roles.Suffice it to say Anya is a motorcycle courier volunteering for carrying messages to isolated frontline units because no matter how good she is at paperwork she'd rather be shot at than touch a typewriter.
>>4613978>Anything was better than sitting in a hole and waiting to be ground down. Certainly. Who could say what you might find that the enemy would hate to lose?I'll take Van Halm's fist metaphor over holes and grinding.
>>4613978>>Anything was better than sitting in a hole and waiting to be ground down. Certainly. Who could say what you might find that the enemy would hate to lose?I am willing to bet if there is equipment worth destroying, the enemy would be using it in any other place on the line than where our tanks are. Right now we are pinning ourselves down at no loss for the enemy side, and I don't think these people would be the patient kind to keep a massed attack back to wait for us to move when the rest of the line is being engaged fully.
>>4613978>>Anything was better than sitting in a hole and waiting to be ground down. Certainly. Who could say what you might find that the enemy would hate to lose?
>>4613978>>Anything was better than sitting in a hole and waiting to be ground down. Certainly. Who could say what you might find that the enemy would hate to lose?So the Panzergrenadiers pulled back for resupply?
Same situation as last night fellas, I'll say when things are done and I'm about through writing.>>4614001>>4614002>>4614013>>4614031>>4614148>>4614159>>4614193Let's get in that shit.>>4614013>I'll take Van Halm's fist Gay.>>4614193>So the Panzergrenadiers pulled back for resupply?No- a decent number are forward and the rest are holding position. The statement about ammunition was more a case of how things be. Pulling back for resupply would be very, very complicated at this juncture.
Update's almost out, just announcing my lack of death.
Rolled 3, 1 = 4 (2d6)Anything was better than sitting impotently in a hole, waiting, practically deaf and near blind. The initiative was yours again, you wouldn’t surrender it now. Besides, what surprises could you run into, that the enemy wouldn’t want to lose in this unexpected maneuver? You never got anywhere by sitting still and waiting.For better or worse.“Alright then,” you said to Van Halm, “I’ll hurry on up. Do the panzergrenadier know what’s going on?”“Well enough. Hurry, there’s not much time. If you give these wastelanders enough time to relax they’ll come back to their senses.”“Keep going, I’ll be right there.” You switched to your intercom, “Mal, take us up by Van Halm’s tank, we’re going right in there.” Malachi only rarely spoke even confirmations now, but you knew he heard you well, as the tank lurched forward. “Keep High Explosive in the cannon. How are we on machine guns?”“Fifty percent,” Hausen answered.“Seventy percent ‘r so on th’ coaxial.” Schafer said after.“…Making me look bad, eh?”“Don’ need me shootin’ straight t’ do that,” Schafer said back.The quantity of incoming fire had massively reduced- when you rolled up by the panzergrenadier, they were once again up and putting out their share of fire, rather than being forced into their holes and forced to take potshots. That they had expended so much ammunition still was concerning. The Silver Lances had a logistics unit especially for this, as they had no Battle Line to gain constant support from, but you were isolated from even them as far as you could tell. Your shell count was fine, but your machine guns could certainly do better.“Forward!” Van Halm said, as his only message for you before you both began moving. You repeated the same to your driver- it was astonishing in a way, how the seas seemed to part for you both as you went forward, panzergrenadiers in clumps around you taking advantage of the opportunity to sow some vengeance as you went on.A good two hundred meters later of what was like pushing through wet paper, no resistance offered in the face of your sudden aggression, you found some form of quarry- or perhaps, it found you. You only knew as Van Halm crested the shallow rise first, and reported it to you…>1-2- Supply Point>3-4- Close Support Position>5- Unexpected Rivals
Rolled 6 (1d100)“Crap,” Van Halm said into the radio, “There’s the guns.”Van Halm seemed awfully unperturbed by this news.>Enemy Roll DC 20 roll under
>>4614817god damn it
With a mighty BHOOOM followed by a KRACK, you saw Van Halm’s tank get knocked backwards, out of your sight, and a massive dust cloud enveloped everything. When it thinned, you couldn’t see the tank anymore- like it had been scooped up by the Judge himself. Your heart snapped into your throat, and stuck there. Did…what happened? Just…just like that? >Roll 1d100, DC 70 for Resolve
Rolled 57 (1d100)>>4614825
Fucking hell
>>4614825Rest in peace Van Halm, we hardly knew you.
The dryness in your throat was quelled. Your heart sank back again and beat normally, the dizziness making your eyes and head swim was driven away by a light of purpose. Of necessity. There was no time for this…cowardice.A quick look around, a listen. Van Halm had gone over the top of the rise before you- and it was such a shallow rise, that surely you could look over and see it, with a risky craning of the neck, before falling back down again.You did it. Quick enough to not invite any fire from over the hill. From what you saw in that glimpse, it was a pair of big, squat, wide bored artillery pieces, by a field of crates and transports that must have constituted a forward supply point. Maybe siege guns- but you noticed that of the pair, one had been knocked over, its crew scattered. Despite the surprise, Van Halm had still managed to trade a shot.Then, behind. Van Halm’s m/32 was there, its front cracked and heaved in like a giant had kicked in the front of the thing, the armor bent in like it had been but a soda can. His m/32 was plain; its armor thinner even without accounting for your special advantage, and it had been flipped. Concern. Anger. Consternation. What should you do?>Attack! This small bit of vengeance wouldn’t be denied to you. This hadn’t been done for nothing.>Get out and try to rip open Van Halm’s tank. Maybe he and his crew had merely been wounded. Maybe you could still help them.>Retreat. This was a fight beyond you, and it was time to pull out what you could.>Other?
>>4614842>>Attack! This small bit of vengeance wouldn’t be denied to you. This hadn’t been done for nothing.Get Malachi to go around slightly out of the arc of fire and hammer them; there's no way guns of this size can be shifted in time to track a moving tank.
>>4614842>Attack! This small bit of vengeance wouldn’t be denied to you. This hadn’t been done for nothing.Get the MGs firing as we crest the slope
>>4614842>>Attack! This small bit of vengeance wouldn’t be denied to you. This hadn’t been done for nothing.The whole group might also need those supplies.Hopefully the panzergrenadiers will see if there are any survivors.
>>4614842>>Attack! This small bit of vengeance wouldn’t be denied to you. This hadn’t been done for nothing.If we're behind a rise we should use it to just peak our guns out and take a shot and retreat back down when they train their guns at us. Maybe try and get the panzergrenadiers up with us too? We have flags right maybe we can signal them with those? Or just yell and wave I don't know.
>>4614902IIRC their trucks should have radios?
>>4614842>Get out and try to rip open Van Halm’s tank. Maybe he and his crew had merely been wounded. Maybe you could still help them.Time for a classic from the Von Tracht playbook, give Schafer the order to blow away that last gun, and tell Malachi he can maneuver how he sees fit to keep the hull gun firing on as many targets as possible after we ditch. Whatever is left of a hatch on Von Halm's tank is going to come loose with a cripple's strength or not at all I'd bet.
>>4614842>Attack! This small bit of vengeance wouldn’t be denied to you. This hadn’t been done for nothing.Pop up in hull down, shoot and scoot.
>>4614842>Get out and try to rip open Van Halm’s tank. Maybe he and his crew had merely been wounded. Maybe you could still help them.What would be the next step of this master plan?Fuck if I know.
>>4614842>>Get out and try to rip open Van Halm’s tank. Maybe he and his crew had merely been wounded. Maybe you could still help them.>Call the Panzergrenadiers up to attack the artillery position from the flanks while we see to van Halm. A dispersed infantry attack will be much less vulnerable to that single gun than our tank
>>4614842Seconding this >>4615377
Am here.>>4614848>>4614880>>4614897>>4614902>>4614995You have to take this- attack, and find victory!>>4614942>>4615018>>4615377>>4615625These instants are vital- sacrifice the initiative, save your ally.Close. Writing.
Jump out, you thought to yourself, go help Van Halm. Even if you couldn’t pry open the hatches by hand, there were tools to do that with. It was what you were supposed to do- hell, you were the most useless person in the tank, you could give your orders and leave, couldn’t you?Whether doubt was the decider or the need to not delay a moment on following through, you didn’t jump out. You didn’t fumble for the prybar, and instead pushed your way out the top and pointed forwards with a shout.“Panzergrenadier, forward!”Whether they’d listen or not was a gamble. You weren’t their commander, and part of you wanted them to try and rescue any survivors of the other tank, if they could. Yet you still had much to do.“Schafer,” you asked your gunner, “There’s two artillery guns on the other side of the hill. Van Halm took out one. If we pop over, can you shoot the other before it shoots us?”“There’ll be a moment where they have a chance to take the first go. This gun’s depression ain’t great. The hull gun can’t get th’ first shot either. I’d say go around. Big pieces don’t turn quick.” Noted. “Mal,” you said into the intercom, “Take us around at an angle, the arc of fire of those guns can’t be that wide and they’ll take longer to turn than we can go.”The tank pivoted, and began to hook around the edge. A last glance was spared at the overturned tank as your vehicle pressed ahead of the advancing grenadiers and towards this enemy concentration. A flat travel angle continued as you hugged the slope, and when you saw the guns from a differing angle- yes, they had expected you, but as Schafer said, they couldn’t go fast enough.“Not yet,” Schafer growled as the turret spun, aligning itself with the remaining position, “Straight on…stop.”“Driver halt! Fire at will!”>Ace Gunner-Knife Fighter- Targets at Close to Point Blank Range require no roll to hitAn explosive shell crashed into the side of the remaining artillery piece, and its barrel crashed into the ground ahead of it, something broken by the explosion and impact that rendered it useless now.The enemy crumbled after that, faster than you could even recognize it, as the black coated panzergrenadier came up over the hill, and even before the machine gun teams began to lay raking fire across the supply dump, rifle volley fire crackled in powerful, overlapping echoes- it struck awe into you, and it must have been even more impressive to the enemy, who melted away like you’d only read about happening in the face of volley fire in times a century past.
A panzergrenadier was a terrifying thing on the offensive, it turned out, as you saw a man’s hand fly so fast across his Hagen rifle’s straight pull bolt that he was firing a self-loading rifle. When many others of the same caliber did the same, it sounded as though a hailstorm had suddenly begun, punctuated with thunder in the form of your m/32’s cannon and bow gun.The enemy routed in the face of this raw power. It wouldn’t last, as cracks faded away and you looked over the captured guns and supply dump, but for now, there was a moment to breathe. Perhaps a moment for the Panzergrenadier to resupply, but…Strossvald’s rifles used 7.5mm ammunition, you had re-learned, while most other nations used 8mm ammunition. Why that was, you couldn’t recall- something to do with the Reich, but there was a possibility that unless the Panzergrenadier changed out their weapons, finding this wouldn’t do much good. Though they probably knew better than you what they were doing anyways, as they advanced for the place without any word from you on what to do. Their commander already had plans, it seemed. Denying this to the enemy was good too, you supposed.“…Wait here,” you said as you felt your presence was no longer necessary, “If anybody from the grenadiers comes around, do as they say. Where’s the pry bar?”“What are you doing?” Hausen asked.“I’m going to rip open Van Halm’s tank. I need to see if-““Don’ be daft,” Schafer said like he was speaking to a child, “You’ve less fingers than most. Driver, take us back to the other tank. We’re all doing this.”Malachi didn’t respond until you repeated the command. You didn’t know how to feel about that- you actually appreciated Schafer’s initiative, but, you were moving in time anyways. Time enough to find the tools.Yet when you returned, you saw panzergrenadier wave you away from Van Halm’s tank, covered in dust, caved in, belly up like a dead animal.“Clear away!” one of the panzergrenadier shouted up, “That thing’s smoldering. Unless you want the contents of those shells all over, you’d best keep away.”Shit. Smoke was indeed coming out of the tank- it wasn’t visibly burning, but something definitely was causing smoke.>It didn’t matter. You were already well burned- you would be a coward if you didn’t at least try to pry the thing open, no matter what was inside- and your father did not raise a coward.>The sacrifice would be worthless if you went and got yourself blown up- there was naught to be done.>Other?
>>4615857>It didn’t matter. You were already well burned- you would be a coward if you didn’t at least try to pry the thing open, no matter what was inside- and your father did not raise a coward.
>>4615863Also, our tank should have an extinguisher right? Take it out as well.
>>4615857>>It didn’t matter. You were already well burned- you would be a coward if you didn’t at least try to pry the thing open, no matter what was inside- and your father did not raise a coward.He came to check on us when the assault gun blew up in our face. Poor on us to not return the favor.
>>4615857>>It didn’t matter. You were already well burned- you would be a coward if you didn’t at least try to pry the thing open, no matter what was inside- and your father did not raise a coward.Get everyone to help, including the panzergrenadiers if they will. The more people we have the quicker we can pry it open before the fire spreads.
>>4615863>>4615870>>4615875>>4615876>>4615883Get up in the grill as it were.>>4615868Yes, that is the case.Writing.
>>4615905btw tanq, so what's the main reason for the Archduchy using the 7.5mm instead, even if Richter's forgotten it?
It’d be a poor favor to not at least try to help Van Halm when he stayed behind for you, fought alongside you. When you were already burnt as you were, the only excuse to fear the flames would be cowardice. Father raised…a man that might be many things, but not a coward. “I’m not keeping awa,” you said hotly to the panzergrenadier, “I’m saving the crew. If you aren’t going to help me, then you stay away.” You hefted the pry bar and jumped over the side of the turret, down to the ground, followed wordlessly by your own turret crew, Jorgen carrying the fire extinguisher full of pressurized fire-quelling powder.“God damn it,” one of the two panzergrenadier who had been obstructing you cursed under his breath, “Come on, then, let’s open this up. The faster we do this, the more time before we blow up.”The side turret hatch appeared undamaged, though half buried. It was excavated in short order by Panzergrenadier with trench shovels, but when you tried to open it, it refused. As you should have expected.The pry bar was jammed forcefully into the edge of the door, and even with you and two of your crew pushing, pressing, the door only wrenched away slowly. A small gap appeared, and thick, oily smoke spewed out.“Hurry!” You urged as you let another take your place at the bar and moved to wrenching upon the hatch with your hands. With a final combined effort, the doors were opened- and a burst of smoke set you choking. Without thinking, you climbed inside and grabbed onto the first person you could feel, smoke blinding and suffocating you.“Put on a mask, you madman!”There wasn’t any time, you thought as you pulled out one crewman, then reached in for the next as Jorgen tried to squeeze by your flank to spray a cloud of extinguisher solution into the heart of the glow. From the turret position, maybe it was Van Halm, but you couldn’t see until you were out again- no, another crewman. You squinted through stinging, watered eyes into the turret again. The glow of flame was apparent, and you hadn’t been able to tell with your nerves as they were, but your gloves had been charred, and you felt searing pain in your digits. The Ellowian leather jacket had guarded you from the worst, it seemed. It would have to do so one more time.
“Wait,” a grenadier grabbed your shoulder as he intuited that you were going in to try for a third rescue, but you pulled away in a dive. The hull crew had no hope, you had already accepted, but damn it if you weren’t going to try..!The far side of the turret had fire within, but you saw a shape on the other side. You’d have to crawl all the way in- all the way into the turret, all the way into the fire, the blinding and choking smoke. To think for a moment would make you balk. You went in, climbing around the detritus and upside-down architecture, the gun’s rear, the clanging shells, and grabbed about as even your bravado was beginning to fade away with the pain in your lungs and the heat all around…>Roll 3d100, averaged, DC Roll under 50
Rolled 55 (1d100)>>4615922
>>4615907Because of the Reich, who utilizes the 8mm round that is most commonly used on the continent. Some might say it's also because the round's higher velocity is effective even against the Reich's recently mass-deployed body armor, but the round's been around long before they began deployment of such and the standard grade of that is not rifle fire resistant anyways.
Rolled 13 (1d100)>>4615922
>Roll Average- 34There he was, you felt him first with the edge of your fingers, then with half a hand. You grabbed onto Van Halm as though he were about to tumble off a cliff, under his arm, around his torso, and tried desperately to wriggle back. You bumped into the edge of the turret, the gun, stumbled…yet you wouldn’t let Van Halm go, even as you felt your legs burning, your side…Then a powerful set of hands found you and wrest you out. Clean air, the light of the afternoon sun, as you were dragged out over the dust before being doused with white dust in a prolonged blast.The next words you had expected to hear had been anything but, “Fucking idiot.”“Gghh,” you gasped.“Did you forget your tanks carry Bertholite shells?” the panzergrenadier demanded, “How are you feeling?”“Igghh,” you choked, “I think it’s…just smoke…” Judge Above, your lungs burned, but it was getting better, not worse. When you pushed yourself up and looked around, you were…a good ways away from the other tank now, behind your own tank. “How is…how are the crew?”“Bad.” The Panzergrenadier sighed, “The Medical Company is way back at the town at the end of the road, and they look like they’ll need them. Even if we called the company medics here, they wouldn’t get here in time to do much with what they have.” He looked back out with a wary eye, “We need to get out of here quick. Major’s given us ten minutes to pick what we can out and destroy the rest. We’ll be back to the same soon and down a tank, I bet.” “Yae aeghta see a maedic tou, boss,” Jorgen said, “Yae caught aleght.”Well, it did hurt, but you doubted you were burned anywhere nearly as badly on your leg and hands as you were on your face. Your leather coat had managed to defend you well enough. The fire didn’t seem like it had been burning at its size long, but it had definitely not taken its time spreading over you- and the turret crew, apparently.“There’s a few trucks too,” the other panzergrenadier said idly, “At least that’ll get us mobile again.”>Demand that some Panzergrenadier be sent to take your wounded and theirs back to the Medical Company- you’d stay here to cover the difference.>You needed to get van Halm and his crew to treatment, fast, and with the lines in the state they were, that meant you had to break through with your tank.>Hope that they’d fight hard and last long. They were out of the fire, but the rest of you were still too deep in the frying pan to leave your fortifications, meager as they were.>Other?
>>4615941>You needed to get van Halm and his crew to treatment, fast, and with the lines in the state they were, that meant you had to break through with your tank.
>>4615941>Demand that some Panzergrenadier be sent to take your wounded and theirs back to the Medical Company- you’d stay here to cover the difference.figure a tank staying to defend is better than a couple of riflemen
>>4615941>>You needed to get van Halm and his crew to treatment, fast, and with the lines in the state they were, that meant you had to break through with your tank.Panzergrens are pulling out soon anyway; our tank will be better used on the offensive breaking through the line.
>>4615941>>You needed to get van Halm and his crew to treatment, fast, and with the lines in the state they were, that meant you had to break through with your tank.I don't balk at the capability of the panzergrenadiers, but down to one tank, I don't think we can offensively consider much and the defense of the line is going to be that much easier with those heavy guns taken care of. The one thing I know we can do for certain is more fast and keep our people safe, so I think we should do just that.
>You needed to get van Halm and his crew to treatment, fast, and with the lines in the state they were, that meant you had to break through with your tank.Man alive, these lines here are a complete mess. But whatever - get him and his men to the Medical Company. And maybe us too.
>>4615945>>4615950>>4615962>>4615965>>4615973>>4616070Get out with everything, and your tank.>>4615949You still have business here, but your wounded don't.Writing.
“I won’t be staying here, I’m sorry,” you said quickly, “I have to get these crew to the Medical Company, you said they’re at the town at the end of the road? I have to get there right away, and with things the way they are, that means I have to use my tank.”The Panzergrenadier who was more assertive, perhaps an NCO, opened his mouth to come up with an objection, but hung on a silent syllable, before sighing and shrugging. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best. Hold on a second, I don’t think they’ll go far on the back of a tank if you run into trouble. Let me have a quick word with the Captain, we can work out something if we pack more wounded. Come on, Corporal.” They were both off before you could object to this plan thrust upon you, but as you looked over the wounded crew and Van Halm, you felt a weakness pass over you that made you wary of turning down whatever aid you could get. Including first aid, potentially, but all the men on the ground needed that far more than you. It was hard to tell what was worse on them, the spalling, the bruising from being knocked over, or the burns on them, though they weren’t blackened like roasts, fortunately, but they were out cold and were staying out, only their breathing and incoherent groaning an indicator they might be alive, let alone cognizant.“Can we try and do something for them now?” you asked your crew, “We can take out the first aid kit, and-““Besides making sure they’re not bleeding out,” Hausen cut in, “The best we can do is hurry. First aid kit’s not meant for treating this much of this sort of thing. Maybe we can keep you in this, though. Where does it hurt?”“Errr,” you felt over yourself, “…My hands, my left leg. My ass.”“Yae weare aflame thaere,” Jorgen agreed, “Hahar, yae craeze.”This didn’t feel very funny to you, but Jorgen’s sense of humor was too strange to be upset over now. He did put you out, after all.“Coolant topical and bandage,” Hausen said as he wrapped a length around your thigh, “It’s not the best but it’ll keep it from getting worse. Can’t cut off your clothes here so this crappy application has to do.”“Thank you anyways.” It didn’t feel any better, if anything, it felt worse, with a cold stinging that made you grind your teeth together, but it was nothing compared to the feeling of flayer on your face. That sort of treatment put all sorts of pain into perspective.
Before long, a truck that looked like half of it had been put together from a machine older than you with the other half looking figuratively but also literally knocked up in a barn, came pulling up beside you. “Captain’d like you to stay but I fobbed him off with extracting our wounded,” The NCO jumped out of the other side of the truck, his corporal apparently driving, “They’ve all been gathered by the HQ truck. Can’t miss ‘em. Everybody else we already had get in. You need help getting your lot in?”“Yes please,” you said, “I don’t think I can…lift much very well right now.” You opened and closed your hands with a wince- they were definitely burnt all over. If you couldn’t hold your own in a gunfight before, you definitely couldn’t now. Hopefully it’d be better in…a few days, maybe? It wouldn’t look pretty once what was left of your gloves was taken off.“Careful, ‘think that one might have broke a bone,” Schafer pointed out a crewman.Things moved along apace, but as you were leaving for the initial trenches once more, you heard gunfire once again- it seemed like the reprieve you’d fought for would be even briefer than you had first assumed, but you could reasonably hope that the enemy wouldn’t be coming back stronger. Not after this punishment had been handed down.There were less wounded than expected- at least, wounded who were willing to be put into the back of the truck. Still though, the back ended up full, and after a word of warning to the driver that there would definitely be mines on the way back and to keep behind you, you left the combat for a second time, perhaps, the last, for this group and yourself.-----Taking the tank turned out to be a good move. The shapes were still around- you knew there were watchers about, but none of them wanted to pick a fight with your m/32. Something you and your enemy could agree on. If only more of war were so easy as acknowledging who’d win and moving on.Not that land mines had the same sense of self preservation. You avoided the first set that you already knew of, but only keen eyes and paranoia stopped you from the second set at a safe distance- a trick with an obstacle in the road with the mines off to the side of it where one would naturally want to go around. Damn well hidden too, but you remembered enough of woods technique to know the tricks of how to direct prey into a snare or a deadfall.The third set of mines you expected, never came. Where you thought they’d be there was instead a squad of panzergrenadiers on patrol, who waved you forth to the town without a name at the end of the line.
That town had become a lynchpin of the line, from how well it was defending. The self-propelled guns by themselves were plenty fearsome, without the Panzergrenadier all about, mixed in with Republic troops who frankly looked rather lost next to their circumstantial allies. The constant movement of trucks in and out indicated the logistics battalion was taking no breaks, but that was from the start of the operation to here, and from what you saw, the lines were already far past this place. It all felt a mess, but when you remarked such to your crew, they all were in agreement that the mess had a sort of normalcy to it.One procurement officer had been following you and the truck with you like a vulture- when you, with great relief, offloaded the wounded to the triage center to be processed by the Medical Company and their numerous Republic aides, they immediately began haggling for the handover of even this cruddy old fifth-hand truck. That was the panzergrenadier volunteer’s problem for now. Your own trouble was, when you were making arrangements with a triage officer, he noticed rather readily what his sort was experienced with- that you were wounded, however “lightly.”“Burns are a vector for infection, untreated,” the triage officer explained to you patiently, “We can’t keep you here by force but I’d strongly recommend staying here overnight at least, so you can get proper treatment. If you need to justify it, don’t forget this place needs to be defended too. A tank will go so way towards keeping away more troublemakers.”Technically, you didn’t have to turn yourself in to treatment. You hadn’t had direct contact with your platoon for half a day now. It was better for your health to stay and be treated, however long it took to do that with the unknown flow of wounded and your mild condition, but it was also a long time for you to be here instead of with your platoon, as you should be, on…well, your first day of battle with them.>Thank them, but no, you have to head right back out. You’re needed, surely, especially with the platoon as a whole a tank down.>It’d be stupid to go back out as you were now. Basic self-preservation was an important part of a commander’s duties. Stay here until morning, at least.>Other?
>>4616801>It’d be stupid to go back out as you were now. Basic self-preservation was an important part of a commander’s duties. Stay here until morning, at least.More speed, less haste. Be pretty stupid if we get put out of commission for the rest of the operation because of an infection.
>>4616801>Thank them, but no, you have to head right back out. You’re needed, surely, especially with the platoon as a whole a tank down.When has Richter ever exercised self-preservation unless he had Hilda to shove in front of him?
>>4616801Could we get them to bandage our wounds, but then not stay the night? If not, then my vote is for:>Thank them, but no, you have to head right back out. You’re needed, surely, especially with the platoon as a whole a tank down.
>>4616801>Thank them, but no, you have to head right back out. You’re needed, surely, especially with the platoon as a whole a tank down.Get the basic treatment if possible
>>4616825>>4616828Supporting
>>4616801>>It’d be stupid to go back out as you were now. Basic self-preservation was an important part of a commander’s duties. Stay here until morning, at least.It's not just Richter that is taking a risk going out injured, if it gets any worse and he can't command effectively it puts the rest of the crew at risk. The commander position is taxed pretty heavily so far with the terrain conditions, not to mention the presence of minefields and infiltrators making things even more troublesome.
>>4616801>It’d be stupid to go back out as you were now. Basic self-preservation was an important part of a commander’s duties. Stay here until morning, at least.
>>4616801>>It’d be stupid to go back out as you were now. Basic self-preservation was an important part of a commander’s duties. Stay here until morning, at least.With van Halm's tank knocked out even if we make it back to the platoon we'd only be adding one more tank to its strength, and if our burns become infected we'll be out of the fight anyway. In this case it's worth the extra time to make sure we're fully combat capable again, plus we'll be able to get an update on van Halm's condition. While we're here maybe we can get some intelligence or a good enough radio to contact command and get a solid location for the rest of our platoon so we can rejoin them quicker when we do depart rather than wandering around in the wastes until we find them.
>>4616801>It’d be stupid to go back out as you were now. Basic self-preservation was an important part of a commander’s duties. Stay here until morning, at least.But we have to find a radio or some kind of messenger to tell us about and in turn inform our unit so they can know the situation. If they already passed down the order that the tanks would stay behind to help defend then they won't be expecting us back anytime soon.
>>4616828After thinking over it for a while, I'll swap to>It’d be stupid to go back out as you were now. Basic self-preservation was an important part of a commander’s duties. Stay here until morning, at least.Try our damnest to get back into radio contact with the platoon though so we know what the heck's going on.
>>4616820>>4616825>>4616869Thanks but no thanks. I'll take the express option if possible. Kiss it better.>>4616819>>4616878>>4616899>>4616947>>4617045>>4617111Take the advice to be healed properly. You'd get lost on the way back anyways, probably. Also, get in contact, find out the situation while you're at a stable place.Writign.
>>4617153>Inb4 another perspective shift
>>4617181Local Quest No Longer Knows Who its Player Character Is.Next perspective shift is Von Neubaum. No, not really.
It didn’t feel good to stay back, along with your tank, but thinking about it, it’d be just stupid to go back out as you were now. Part of basic command duties was self-preservation…even if you weren’t particularly good at that, but compared to jumping out to try and rally troops or dueling snipers, succumbing to infection would just be embarrassing. At the very least, you’d stick around until morning. Whether or not you were truly better by then, you’d at least not have gone off as you were.“Alright,” you said, “Sign me up for it then. I’ll tell my crew to take a position, and stay here until morning. Is there a place I can get in touch with my company? I need to give my platoon leader an update on what’s happened to me and the crew I brought here. The line’s…a mess.”“Tell me about it,” the triage officer lamented, “Yes, there’s a detachment of the signal company here. You can have a message sent along and be pretty sure it’ll get there. Either that or you can talk to one of the Republic Couriers about it, if you can convince any, at least. Speaking of,” He wrote something on a clipboard, “There’s a few people watching over a Republic medical detail. You’re an easy enough patient. You don’t mind being sent there, do you?”“As long as their cure isn’t sawing my limbs off.”“Oh no, ha,” the triage officer found that funny, “They aren’t being trusted with amputations. They can handle cleaning and dressing wounds well enough. Takes a load off the actual doctors and surgeons.” That didn’t fill you with confidence, but you kept your mouth shut as the triage officer handed you a white cord with a tag he scribbled something on. “Go off that way holding that up,” he said, waving deeper into town, “Somebody will grab you and square you away.”“Thanks,” you said dully before you went back to your tank and explained what was going on. You set your crew free to figure out where to place themselves, as you went off looking for the Republic Medical Detachment, hoping their care wouldn’t consist of splashing you with moonshine and drugging you silly with morphine, as had been standard sometimes when you were in charge, or so you’d heard.A boy who wasn’t nearly big enough for his uniform or old enough to be serving as anything grabbed you as you walked around and dragged you off- at least he was alert and astute, despite not possibly being older than thirteen. Certainly not a child soldier, with the lack of any weaponry whatsoever- a volunteer, perhaps? It was a better fate for a stray child than resorting to brigandry, at least.Not many people were waiting to have their wounds cleaned, or whatever minor thing afflicted them, apparently- you were by yourself. Whether that was good or bad was up to interpretation. The wait was expected, but what wasn’t expected was who came out to see you.
“Hello? Do you neAAIIIEEE!” A light haired brunette in a simple, early model uniform with an apron around her stepped out, took one look at you, and screeched, jumping up like she was startled. Well. That was the first time you’d had that reaction, but it had to happen sometime, didn’t it. “Oh, I’m sorry,” the young woman cleared her throat and tried to smile slightly, “That wasn’t very nice of me, it’s just…you surprised me. That’s all. You’re not here because of, er, that, are you?”“No,” you said flatly, concerning the ugly dark blotchy burn over half your face, “That’s old. I crawled into a fire and burned myself some.” This woman was…familiar? Especially around the face. Wait, yes, she was-“That voice?” She seemed to have the same realization that you’d both met before. “Wait, you’re…that man Anya left with?”“You are Alina?” you asked right after. A rhetorical question. You just needed a better look at her to recognize her, easily, especially with those facial features that matched her sister’s.“Yes!” Alina put her hands together, “And you’re…ah, I’m sorry, I…don’t remember. It’s been a long time, mister..?”“Von Tracht. Lieutenant Richter Von Tracht.”“Yes, Richter.” Alina stepped forward with a small frown, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t recognize you because of…you know.”“It’s alright,” you said. Some brute had groped her- evidence left behind in the form of a bloody handprint on Alina’s chest. Deplorable. “Anyways,” she took the tag and white cord from you, “I see. Come along here. I…actually want to talk to you. We can do that while I help you.” She beckoned for you to follow, and you stood up to go to what turned out to be an inn room converted into a very basic infirmary bed, with a bunch of other beds crammed into the room as well, all presently vacant but stained by earlier use.“I didn’t know you were a nurse,” you said as you sat on one of the beds and waited.“I’m not.” Alina said, which was the last thing you wanted to hear, “I do have a guide to read, though!”“If you’re not a nurse, then…why are you here?” You asked next. You doubted that there was obligatory conscription going on for nurses of all things.“That’s…” Alina frowned, “…There’s people I want to help. Well, one person particularly. It’s…it’s…” Alina brushed her hair away from her face. “I want to ask you something first,” she said as she picked up a pair of scissors, hurriedly consulting a book, “Hold our your hands, I need to get your gloves off, but while I do this. How has Anya been? Has she been good? She was…how she usually is, but she didn’t bother telling me much before she…went away again.”>?
>>4617325>"Anya's been....Anya. Lots of stuff happened when we were away, some good, some bad. But the most important thing is she's alive and well."Give her a brief overview of Anya's antics in Ellowie, maybe focus more on the part with the King and Magnus rather than say the Duchess or the Hogs
>>4617325Oh fuck no, another woman who will have her life ruined because of Richter.>"Anya's been....Anya. Lots of stuff happened when we were away, some good, some bad. But the most important thing is she's alive and well.">"Wait, went away again?"
>>4617336>>4617337I agree with these but just make sure we tell her about the dress and the ball, that would be funny.
>>4617336>>4617337Supporting
>>4617336>>4617337>>4617339Yes to all three.Also, she's wearing a collar too? Maybe she copied off of Anya. Or maybe she wears it for the Mayor for other reasons...
>>4617325"Anya kinda went through some shit with us, and while she is mostly better now I think she still blames herself for not being able to help with some things that happened.""But what about you? I would take Anya as the one to run off into danger because she was bored. What brings you out into a warzone?"
“Anya’s been…” you trailed off, before settling on something you knew you’d both get. “…Anya. There’s too much to really tell, but some of what happened was good, some was bad, but the important part is that she’s alive and well. The bad things didn’t keep her down, but I think she might blame herself for a few things. But, what do you mean, she went away again?”Alina sighed as she pulled the remains of your gloves off and shoved your sleeves up, turning pages in her booklet, searching. “She…you’ve seen us. I love her, and she loves me, I know, but, we have our differences. She showed up at the door with a big bag of money, and told me to take it and leave our hometown. It’s…that’s her money, you know?” Alina’s tone turned frustrated as she dug out a basin and went to the other room to presumably get water, talking the while in a louder tone so you could hear. “I don’t need to take from her to go someplace I don’t want to go. Our home isn’t perfect, it’s not even good, I bet, but it’s home. Our mother worked hard to give us what we had, our home, our things. I’m not going to leave all that behind just because Anya hates her so much. Then she had the nerve to call me a whore!”Treading carefully was never your strong suit. “Well,” you tested as Alina came back and put some sort of powder into the water in the basin, “Are you?”“No!” Alina said sharply, “…Sorry. I know you didn’t mean that as an insult, but whenever Anya says that word, she means it with every bit of spite. She just thinks that because…” Alina shifted uncomfortably, before setting the basin before you and putting your hands in it, “Sometimes, you have to do things you don’t like. I know enough about life to accept that. Just because it happened a few times in the past, doesn’t mean it’s all that ever happens. Anya just…ugh. Anyways.”“Things you don’t like?” You looked to the bloody handprint on her.“This?” Alina suddenly smiled and put her hand on her breast, “Ohhh, no, this was…a wounded man asked if he could, and I just decided, why not? A man as wounded as he was deserved to have his day brightened, I suppose. Back to Anya, though. She called me a whore. I called her a suicidal idiot head over heels for a dead man. She picked a fight after that, and then a few troopers rushed over and locked her up for disturbing the peace.”“I suppose that’s like her. Getting arrested for disturbing the peace.” She had knocked out a gendarme in Ellowie with a single swift kick when she was drunk, or something close to it. You didn’t know if Anya had a middle name, but you’d bet anything it was Belligerent.
Alina was more regretful than resigned like you were, her frustration washing away. “I shouldn’t have fought her, but, I was mad. She just thinks everything but her damn freedom doesn’t matter in the slightest. I mean…you know, she’s beautiful, isn’t she. She’s got Mother to thank for that, at the very least. Then the first time I see her again, after who knows how many years of thinking I’d never see her again, and she’s put that hideous gouge in it, and it’s there because…” She shook her head with a huff. “I can’t do what she says. It’d be throwing away her own sacrifice, too. Did you know, she rescued me from kidnappers? Did she tell you that story?”“She did.”“How am I supposed to just throw away everything she did, that Mother did, just so…” Alina took a breath and settled down, “Sorry. She’s just…such an idiot. She got arrested, and when I went to see her, the jailer said she had taken an offer for conscription for freedom. She wouldn’t have even been in for more than a few days, but she just…wants to throw her life away.” The feeling was mutual between sisters. Whenever Anya talked about Alina, she never failed to call her stupid. “I’m distracting myself from helping you. That’s why I’m here, though. I couldn’t stand the thought of me causing her to get involved in this, and I wanted to…maybe help her. Help her like she helped me, when there wasn’t any hope.” So Anya had gotten herself in the Army of the Republic. The front was so large, though, that the chances of Alina treating Anya in case of being wounded were far-fetched. Not that you’d bring that up. Hopefully her new superiors had the sense to not put her in infantry duties. Though, if you found her again...Strossvald law did state that a retinue was only beholden to whom they served...“Maybe you should speak more on what you two did. But…” She took your hands back up and daubed at them with a clean cloth rag, “What do you think? I’m not wrong, am I? I know Anya’s been up to her usual, with you, I can infer that, but shouldn’t she just…settle down?”Oh, good. A competition between sisters you were asked to judge. Next thing, your wife would be asking you to compare herself and her sister. They were eerily identical, though, Alina and Anya were…quite different. Though they had a similar look about the face and the shape of their hair.…Anya was cuter, though. Your retinue and friend of uncomfortable attractiveness. That didn’t mean she was infalliable, but you were…biased.>Anya should settle down, but she’s not going to. Maybe she will. You think she can learn that she can be fond of living men, again.>Alina just didn’t understand. For you to criticize Anya for her lust for adventure would be hypocrisy on your part. She wouldn’t be happy any other way, and shouldn’t her sister accept that?>Other?
>>4617836>Other: how the hell can we judge others' lives when we can't get our own shit in order?
>>4617836>>Other?We were recently put in the position ourselves of having to choose whether to stay at home or go back into the fight. We're still not sure if we made the right decision, or if it's even possible to know. Ultimately maybe people just have to go with their gut and accept the consequences.
>>4617836>>OtherMy opinion doesn't really matter here, it's not like Anya would settle down even if I ordered her to. But that said, sometimes you just have to agree to disagree. There's not really a right or wrong answer to this question.Maybe draw up comparisons between Richter's dad and his uncle; afaik Papa von Tracht made his peace with his brother's lifepath.
>>4617868supporting
>>4618148That's a good comparison, supporting adding that as well.
>>4618148I like this
>>4618148+1
Alright I'm alive again.>>4617863Do I look like somebody who can judge others? No but that's literally your name :^)>>4617868>>4618211Listen to the gut. Facilitate this with an open shirt.>>4618148>>4618352>>4618959>>4618966Let me sing you a song about lawyers and exiles.Writing.
You weren’t exactly the best judge of good and poor decisions, you thought to yourself, but Alina didn’t want that sort of answer. Nor did you think siding with one person or the other was proper, either. There was something more objective beyond that- and it was actually quite close to you, in several ways. A thing of what way your ancestors went- and what path you had chosen to follow.“I had the choice to stay home or go back to fight once more, just before I came here,” you told Alina, “I don’t know if it was the right choice. I don’t think anybody can say whether or not it was, I just know that it was mine, and I was willing to accept the consequences of it.” Your present consequences were rather mild compared to what had already happened before anyways.Alina wasn’t pleased with that answer, judging by her huff. “Well. I don’t see what’s here that’s better than where you came from. Don’t you live to the west? People usually came here because they couldn’t live somewhere better, you know.”That would be too long a story to go over here, you thought as she finally got to binding up the burns on your hands, though there were others to go. “My opinion doesn’t really matter here anyways. If I did tell your sister to settle down, she wouldn’t be any less dismissive. If you’re never going to agree anyways, then maybe you shouldn’t let it drive a wedge between you. It didn’t between my father and my uncle.”“Why, was your father an idiot and your uncle not?”…Subtle. “No. My father, Geroldt Von Tracht, is a legal practitioner, while Heller Von Tracht came here and became a mercenary after he found himself disgraced from soldiering.” You couldn’t remember the whole story. Maybe you’d never heard it, but it was hard to tell with the holes in your recollection. “But despite their differences, father made his peace with his brother’s adventurousness, and so too did Heller, I think.” Not that your mother ever did. She and your uncle…didn’t get along. Not from what you remembered, and not from how she disapproved of reminiscing about him. “Father said once that his brother was trying to do what made him satisfied with his life, and that he wanted the same for him, with time. Father himself didn’t follow the usual family trade, our blood heritage.”“Which was?” Alina asked.“Dying in battle, mostly.” With exceptions that proved the rule.“Well, don’t do that,” Alina said, annoyed, “It’d make this feel pointless.” She sighed again, long and slow, “I wouldn’t mind it so much if Anya wasn’t so critical of me. Was your uncle like that? The one called Hell? She’s obsessed with him, after all.”
“No, actually,” you did remember that- things you had forgotten tended to be information rather than things experienced. As far as you figured. “Heller found out he couldn’t have children. He was…a womanizer, we’ll say. Father said Heller told him plenty how much he envied what he had, so, I suppose he didn’t think he could go down that same path in the first place.”“Hmph,” Alina sniffed, “Well, Anya doesn’t have that excuse, now does she.”“What?”“Never mind, it’s not important,” Alina muttered, “You said you were going to tell me about what you and her were up to?” More brightly, wanting to leave that subject behind.Best to leave out things like Anya losing her old friends, or being beaten into a pulp by the Duchess’s goons. As she worked, you set up the vast amount of context necessary for anything to make sense. Your (on paper) mission there, what you were doing, who was who and what they did or wanted- nothing that wasn’t public knowledge, of course. “I took Anya to a Langenachtfest party hosted by the High Protector, the King. I never thought she’d wear a dress, but she did for that. Danced with her. She foiled an assassination attempt on the King and got into his good graces.”Alina took a moment to absorb all that. What she took out of that was, “Anya wore a dress? And danced? I didn’t know she could.”“She can’t. Neither can I. It was interesting.”“But you took her?” Alina squinted into your eyes, “Are you and her…? No,” she shook her head, “You were all handsy with that red headed girl. I don’t take you for a rake, and Anya would smell that more readily than me.” Thank goodness that you didn’t have to explain that to yet another person. Thank goodness also that you weren’t going to speak on any of the times you got blackout drunk with each other, or the aftermath of such. “Purely platonic.” Purely platonic thigh biting. Judge above, you really did need to edit out a lot of things when retelling this, didn’t you. “She made friends with this Netillian officer called Edelschwert, too. I didn’t expect that. When they were first acquainted, she really, really didn’t like him, because he blamed her for mistakes she didn’t make, or at least, wasn’t responsible for. They made up later. I let him take her to the second gathering we attended.”“Let him,” Alina snorted, “Sorry, that just sounds silly to me.”You felt your ears heat up. “I was trying to watch out for her. She is my retinue.”
“Your retinue. Mm hm.” She tightened a bandage around a section of your leg. One would think it’d be awkward to be without your trousers, but she didn’t make issue of it, so it was easier to pay it no mind. “Was she good at what she did? She always tells me she’s a very talented fighter, but her head is full of hot air.”“I wouldn’t say that,” you countered, “She’s quite brave, very talented. I trust her with my life. I don’t remember her ever failing me, but sometimes she doesn’t know when she’s at her limit.”“I’d be surprised if she thought she had one,” Alina said wearily. “But she went away from you, didn’t she. I wonder if that’s good for her. If she’s left to her own devices, I’d think she’d end up dead sooner or later. Better to have somebody watching her back.”“It would have been improper to force her to stay against her wishes, even if I could possibly do that.” Or so you’d like to say, but when you thought about it, there would be ways to get her to stay, if you wanted. That was it though. If she didn’t want to be joined at the hip, then you weren’t going to insist on it.Alina remained somber the rest of your time recounting her sister’s service with you; when everything was done, she gave a little curtsy and a smile that was well practiced; perhaps genuine. She did appear to genuinely like helping people. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll change the bandages and I’ll call a doctor to look at things. Until then, don’t push yourself, alright? And, thank you for telling me about Anya. Usually we’re…fine. But when she leaves, I never know when she’ll come back. If she’ll come back.”>Anything else you wanted to ask or talk about?>Get back out to your crew. If you spend too much time with Alina she’ll surely end up more like her sister in at least one way.>Other?
>>4619852>>Get back out to your crew. If you spend too much time with Alina she’ll surely end up more like her sister in at least one way.>“Hmph,” Alina sniffed, “Well, Anya doesn’t have that excuse, now does she.” Did Anya get knocked up?
>>4619852>If Alina wishes to pass a message to Anya, we can do it if we happen upon her.
>>4619852>Get back out to your crew. If you spend too much time with Alina she’ll surely end up more like her sister in at least one way.also >>4619873>“Hmph,” Alina sniffed, “Well, Anya doesn’t have that excuse, now does she.”Very dark implications.
>>4619852>Get back out to your crew. If you spend too much time with Alina she’ll surely end up more like her sister in at least one way.
>>4619852>>Get back out to your crew. If you spend too much time with Alina she’ll surely end up more like her sister in at least one way.Time to go find the signallers
>>4619852>>Get back out to your crew. If you spend too much time with Alina she’ll surely end up more like her sister in at least one way.Who is the real Richter, the magically altered brave one? The free and fearful one? No says I, it is the insanely drunk one, who goes on adventures we can never know.
Alive once more.>>4619981>>4620010>>4620049>>4620084Back to the crew. And the signal company soon.>>4619873I'm a messenger boy.>>4619861>>4619882Something.Writinng.
“Thank you,” you started with, but there had been a particular, small thing that Alina said that disturbed you. “Though when you said, Anya doesn’t have the excuse of…being unable to have children, do you mean..?”Alina blinked. “What? No, that’s not what I meant,” Alina said hurriedly, “I meant that your uncle knew, but…you know, never mind. Again. It really isn’t important, but she thinks it is. Ask her.”“Speaking of. If I happen to run into her again soon, do you have something you want me to pass as a message?”“I want you to punch her as hard as you can and tell her that she’s an immature, ungrateful idiot that won’t accept anybody’s love except a corpse’s.” Alina said bitterly, standing up, “And that I want her to come home, or at least stop being a vagrant and find a home. Maybe then I won’t have to rely on the wind blowing her in.”“I’m not going to punch her.”“I’m sure you won’t,” Alina said as she went for the door, “Even if that’s what she really needs.”-----The crew was very briefly checked upon- they’d set themselves up by the Self Propelled Guns, and had traded something for flavored cigarettes that they were sharing. All of them except Malachi, that is, who was sitting by himself , forlornly staring a box of small, wooly white mountain flowers whose name escaped you.“From home?” you asked, striking up conversation. You had a little time you could spare for your driver before you went off to ask the signal company to give your report to your company, and by extension your platoon commander Captain Vehrlors.“Nahhh, frommemark, nopeckere.” From the market, apparently? A market, at some point. “Esforemck, Yjens.”“For…Emck?”Malachi launched into what must have been an explanation, but despite his struggling, and slowing down, you really couldn’t understand it, and weren’t sure if it was because it was a strange mountainfolk tradition or you were just hearing him wrong.“You…burn the flowers?” You tried to confirm.“MaeksmogaveYjens.””“But you can’t do it alone.”“Yah.”“Well. I could do it with you.”That elicited a hoarse laugh out of the mountain man. “Nahhnoh, hathbegerl.”“Has to be with a woman. But why?”“Yaeluuklehkwanfuck, Yjenslehkman, noohn.”“…Fuck?”Malachi stared at you tiredly and waved his hand. He didn’t want to try and bridge this language gap, it seemed. “Ehgoddet.”“If you say so,” you said, glancing back over at the other side of the tank at Jorgen smoking and joking with the others.“Ehhy.” Malachi said before you thought to leave him alone, “Yuudedguhdthere.”“Oh.” You looked back down. “Er. Thanks. I guess I just…had to do it, really.”
Malachi shrugged at that, but thinking back to it…were you braver there? Or just crazy? It didn’t feel as abnormal as it might have once…>The whispers of doubt are fading. When you tell yourself you can do something, the jeers are not so loud. You’re so close, now.When you made your way over to the Signal Company field headquarters, you found it…in a state of confusion, consternation. Not the usual sort.“Are you a courier?” You were immediately asked when you came in.“What? No.” You gave the staff officer a look like he was an idiot, but to be fair, your Ellowian jacket covered up a lot of the evidence that you were a Panzer Officer. The staff officer pushed past you without another word, but you whipped around and got back in front of him. “Wait,” you said, “I have to pass along a message, I’m separated from my company, and I need to tell my platoon officer that I’m-““Yeah, good luck with that,” the signal company staffer said harshly, without any further explanation. It took some more effort to find out who you were supposed to talk to, and a little more past that to actually clear up what was going on.“Can’t pass anything along right now,” another staff officer told you, one that was handling numerous requests like yours, from how tired his tone was, “There’s something keeping the radios from transmitting. It’s not equipment failure, everything’s working. There’s some sort of heavy interference over most of our long range frequencies. We’ve been trying to find anything that isn’t being blown up with static. Haven’t gotten reports from the air or anything, thinking it might be some sort of storm that came out of nowhere, somewhere.”“…So when will it clear up?” You asked, all this over your head, though sounding worse and worse the more you thought about it. “We’re working on it, it’s not magic, you can’t just slap the air and make the radio waves clear up,” the staff officer said heatedly, “There’ll be a long damn line. May as well come back next the sun rises.”“Fine,” you said, trying to hide frustration behind a tilt of your cap downwards, “Thank you anyways.”At least Van Halm and his remaining crew were safe, you thought, but the current situation was precarious even with proper communications. The Silver Lances were capable, stern troopers, but was all of the line so extended? Would the Republic troops stand in this? Then again, their lack of communication equipment might have meant they wouldn’t be as affected, if this problem was more widespread and not local. Hopefully it was just local misfortune.
The bad feeling wasn’t restricted to you. As the sun set, you saw the Silver Lances filling sandbags, digging trenches, the self-propelled gun crews and anti-air detachments working particularly hard to make fortresses out of what they already had. No order had been passed down- they worked on instinct, and it was setting off the Republic troops too.…Should you be doing something yourself, you wondered.>?
>>4620492Probably practicing our shooting, but that likely won't tide over well in the current environment. Nothing physical so he can heal, catching up on our reading, or composing another sappy letter or maybe actually resting. Big day tomorrow.
>>4620492Richter might only be in charge of a tank in the Silver Lances right now, but he used to be (maybe still is I don't remember) one of the ranking members of the Republic Army. I would say find a Republic trooper and climb up the chain of command to the top. Best case scenario its a person who is supposed to be there and already knows just about what we know. Worst case scenario its some junior lieutenant who is in desperate need of some authority and direction lent by the Kommandant.
>>4620492>>4620537Taking some republic troops for the journey tommorow as kommandant would be cool if we could pull it off, let's try that. If we can't just make sure to write maddy a letter and take it easy.
>>4620492>?Well this kind of screams 'massive counterattack impending' to me. Get our crew (including ourselves) to at least have a person on watch, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried a night battle or something.
>>4620492>Select a good positon ot fortify our tank in, put the crew to it then follow >>4620537
>>4620492Supporting>>4620537>>4620625>>4620656
>>4620492What he >>4620660 said
I live again.>>4620523Be a nerd.>>4620537>>4620615>>4620656Try and use some of that old clout you have with Eyebrows, dig in.>>4620625>>4620660>>4620690Especially dig in and find help because this bad feeling is contagious.Writing.
It would have been nice to pass time in a fashion that wouldn’t aggravate the building of stress. Light reading, perhaps writing a letter to your spouse- the latter was decided on anyways. Just nothing physical that might exacerbate your wounds. The thought of Maddalyn and your hands led you to forlornly clench them and open them again, feeling the mild pain still there on purpose. At least you hadn’t burned your tongue, difficult as that would have been to do.The unease of the town turned base was infectious, though, and there was more reason to prepare than to indulge in leisure. Besides the most basic steps of putting your tank into an expected direction of attack and arranging a watch (something you didn’t actually need to do, it seemed, when you checked- it very well was possible that every single one of your crewmen was more experienced than you at this), there was unique opportunity here, with the presence of Republic troops. Though you only commanded one tank and its crew in the Silver Lances, the authority of the Archduchy wasn’t the only command you’d accumulated over time. Even random troops visiting Ellowie with Signy had recognized that you were the Kommandant, and hopefully, that same repute would serve you here in drawing people to your command.Time had changed what would become Mittelsosalia’s troopers. They still lacked for helmets, mostly, but their wear was far less slapdash and hurried than it once was. Their weapons were cleaner, their posture straighter. They looked meek next to the panzergrenadier, but there was still the glint of wasteland fierceness in their expressions, but they still wore symbols of their identity upon them. In a way, the non-uniform expressions of the Silver Lances and that of the Republic troopers had a sort of harmony to it.Though, the Army of Mittelsosalia was yet untested. This would be their first time against a true enemy- not against the Northern Lords, nasty as they and their forces were, they could not hope to compare to the Netillians. The Netillians were not fiercer- a significant recent event had even been an attempt to best the Northern Lords, only to be thrown back with such embarrassment that the former Republic had been turned into a Military Government. However, Netilland was hardened by wars against Strossvald and Ellowie. You didn’t recall how or why the embarrassment for them in Sosaldt had happened, but it hadn’t been for lack of power. They didn’t lack for materiel, or men to use them- any war of attrition would be an utter defeat for the strange gathering of allies you shared a front with. The Border Zone hadn’t been representative of Netilland’s true might- their propensity for heavy artillery, their weight of attack, the things that the Archduchy troops respected of one of many regional rivals.
Yet the Archduchy had triumphed over Netilland before. So it would again, even in these small numbers here. Perhaps that might give your Republic allies hope should times turn darker than they could have anticipated.Roll 2 sets of d6 to see what you can find of Republic Troops. Infantry are squads, vehicles are singular.>1-Republic Auxiliary Scouts>2-3-Republic Troopers>4-Republic Light Armor>5-Republic Medium Armor>6- Reroll, and another roll.Also, in regards to letter writing- Additional written in details are hardly unappreciated.>Write explicitly, write dirty. Lustful thoughts of Maddalyn were not hard to summon and she’d surely appreciate it.>Write realistically, truthfully. You were in danger, and it wouldn’t do to hide your circumstances.>Try your hand at tasteful, if overbearing, affection. You were no poet, but you were writing this to make her feel warm, not you.>Other?Finally->Face your tank to the south when fortifying it. That was where the present enemy was- the one who was being entrapped, and was most eager to bust out.>Face your tank to the north. Who could say what was coming, but the enemy to the south only grew weaker, while to the north, was Netilland.
Rolled 6 (1d6)>>4621577Let's get it!
>>4621582>Reroll, and another rollSo...2d6?
Rolled 6 (1d6)>>4621577>Try your hand at tasteful, if overbearing, affection. You were no poet, but you were writing this to make her feel warm, not you.>Face your tank to the north. Who could say what was coming, but the enemy to the south only grew weaker, while to the north, was Netilland.If any of our enemies have jamming equipment I frankly doubt it's the Northern Lords.
Rolled 5, 3 = 8 (2d6)>>4621577>>4621582>>4621583Oh my bad, let me just.And also >Try your hand at tasteful, if overbearing, affection. You were no poet, but you were writing this to make her feel warm, not you.>Face your tank to the north. Who could say what was coming, but the enemy to the south only grew weaker, while to the north, was Netilland.
Rolled 1, 4 = 5 (2d6)>>4621584Re-rolling
>>4621577>Write realistically, truthfully. You were in danger, and it wouldn’t do to hide your circumstances.>Face your tank to the south when fortifying it. That was where the present enemy was- the one who was being entrapped, and was most eager to bust out.
>>4621587Do we not just get everything we rolled?
>>4621583>>4621587Basically, if you roll a six, you get two dice instead of one. So with two sixes you get four rolls. All of what's in the rolls, not picked.Rolling two sixes was, suffice it to say, incredibly lucky.
>>4621590Fucking Radical! The Republic is really showing out for us, huh?So that means we basically got one of everything available based on our rolls.Could have been better, but I'm sure we'll be able to make good use of the variety!
>>4621589>>4621590Yeah after re-reading it makes sense now. How is everyone else digging in? I assume the current defensive line is basically a circle around the town?
>>4621577>Try your hand at tasteful, if overbearing, affection. You were no poet, but you were writing this to make her feel warm, not you.>Face your tank to the north. Who could say what was coming, but the enemy to the south only grew weaker, while to the north, was Netilland.Republic armour can cover the south for now.
>>4621602>How is everyone else digging in? I assume the current defensive line is basically a circle around the town?More or less. Though not in that it's a literal circle so much as a network of strongpoints designed to cover one another. The route from the south and the road have some extension out along them as well because of their nature as supply routes.
>>4621610Alright one more thing, how do the Scouts work? Are they just worse infantry or do they provide any recon/early warning bonuses?
>>4621613>how do the Scouts work? Are they just worse infantry or do they provide any recon/early warning bonuses?If you stick them in a hole and tell them to hold? They're worse. However in a skirmishing and screening capacity they're better, basically.
>>4621584>>4621585Supporting these.
>>4621585This works.
>>4621735Shit forgot to add:>Other?Write in how strange it feels serving again with Richter's countrymen and reaffirm his pledge to defend her like a ye olde knight. I feel like he would fit perfectly as a tacky white knight considering he didn't get a chance to show off his wife to be earlier at the staging point.
>>4621577>Try your hand at tasteful, if overbearing, affection. You were no poet, but you were writing this to make her feel warm, not you.>Face your tank to the north. Who could say what was coming, but the enemy to the south only grew weaker, while to the north, was Netilland.Based six-rolling anons.
The Kommandant is back, baby!
>>4621584>>4621585>>4621608>>4621802Tastefully north.>>4621736A knight in the biggest suit of armor around, though not exactly shining and stuffed with four other men.>>4621588Realistically south.One might think you were more southernly inclined to Maddalyn but assumptions make fools of us all.Writing.>>4621884I suppose it's alright now to say for certain that this quest would have had a massively different trajectory if it was decided to stay in Sosaldt.
>>4621990Just to confirm short range radio still works right? So we can still communicate with the other defenders in town?
>>4622012Yes. With interference, but you still can. The long range frequencies are the ones most severely affected.
Your m/32 was pointed northwards when you left it to be dug in- you knew little of radio technology, but you had the feeling that this sudden communications outage wasn’t just bad weather. Plenty of other Silver Lances seemed to feel the same way, from what you overheard here and there.“I’ve heard the Ellowians have some sort of airplane that lets them tell when and where the Netillian planes are coming. Why our anti air crews are so bored and all. The Netillians sure as hell must know about it, and if they know about it,” a swarthy panzergrenadier said to another as you held a moment to listen, “Then they’d try and do something about it. If something funny’s up, it has to be the rapesons.”A twitch. Rapesons? Presumably meaning the Netillians. The nation of Netilland was descended directly from an Imperial Protectorate whose administrators declared independence, and a democratic republic, but much of the upper class and thus political class were former Imperial officers anyways, and no small share of the population were Imperial soldiers and settlers.The twitch wasn’t because of any sympathy for them, though. You’d forgotten whether you’d heard that as a slur or not. It was a reflex. The scandal your father had concocted on his own volition in order to marry your reluctant mother had well made the rounds of court in its own time, and lingered now. More than once at the academy, you’d been accused of being a bastard child born of rape. Even in this moment far away it was infuriating to recall.Though, unrelated frustrations aside, the validation of your tactical analysis gave some hope that, whatever was coming, you’d be ready for it. Further hope came when you ran across a particularly hopeless looking mob of Republic troops. Not demoralized, but most certainly confused.They were a motley collection of Mittelsosalia’s new army, almost an illustrative spread of what constituted it. A squad of ten standard Republic troops, in their chocolate and black uniforms and floppy caps. Eight much more raggedy looking sorts that you remembered being told were Republic Auxiliary Scouts, at some point. They were mercenaries, technically, but the only employer they were allowed to serve was the Republic of Mittelsosalia, if they wished to stay in their business within its borders. Their adherence to uniform was barely present, especially with their leader who was wrapped in a wolf pelt like a barbarian warrior- or perhaps, like an Old Nauk Legion Signifer. Signyfer.
Besides them, there were a pair of tanks, neither of which you remembered the designation of- assuredly foreign designs, then. One was…something you remembered seeing something like in Valsten in your brief time there. A modern variant of some old Reich armor from the Emrean war, maybe, or a copy of such, with a squat hull and a small turret with what appeared to be a large caliber machine gun in it. The other was a graceful looking tank, with smooth edges, like it had been put through a rock tumbler to wear away all its edges. There were welds to be found, but much of the hull and turret were oblong, cast pieces. It seemed far beyond Sosaldt’s capacity to make- and that was because it was, as you saw with the faded stamp of a poppy emblem on the upper front plate- the Emrean emblem. Its cannon appeared as large as the standard m/32’s, if you were to guess, it was probably a four centimeter or so.All in all, it was far more than you expected to find, and be able to exert your Kommandant influence over, potentially. You had expected a few squads, not a pair of tanks and change.“Excuse me, gentlemen.” Maybe a few of the scouts were ladies, possibly, but they’d be scrawny and scruffy ones- probably just boyish men. “Holy shit, your face is fucked.” The wolf-pelt man said.“…Thanks.”“Hey, I don’t mean nothing by it, man, but I’ve never seen nothin’ like…” The wolf man squinted at your face, “Wait a second…fuckin’, Holy Hell, are you the Kommandant?”“I am.” You said, “Well. Formerly.”“Formerly nothing. God damn. Sorry that I said that your face was fucked.” The wolf man wasn’t groveling- his tone remained that same conversational air, like you were sitting at a bar instead of at a forward operating base.“That’s fine.” It was fucked, after all. “I’m a part of the Silver Lances now, but, I wanted to ask you all a favor. I’ll put in a particular word with the Minister of the People, even. I’d like you to accompany me for a short time, maybe for a day or two. I need escort back to my unit, and support in this present place.”Wolf man brightened immensely, all of a sudden. “Sure.”“Hey, hold on a moment,” the light tank sprang a person from its turret, “Wolfgang, you’re not the boss of all of us, don’t go agreeing to anything in our names if you’re talking to the Kommandant. Not all of us want to fire off a double helping of baby batter in Cyclops’s arse as much as you.”
“Piss off.” Wolf man said sorely. “If you don’t want to, I ain’t tellin’ you to.”The light tank commander hauled himself out of his tank and vaulted off it with an acrobatic flip, and slouched on beside the wolf man. “God damn, Kommandant, did you try and go down on brandhuldr?” He immediately read off the silent What? on your face. “Literal fire crotch.”“Yes.” You said flatly. No question as to how this man knew you. The First Republic Armored Regiment was no small number of people, and you were sure every single one of them had become acquainted with your look then, if not immediately after. Any man trusted with a tank was probably a veteran of such, and the threadbare red scarf around the man’s neck suggested that he was once a member of that gang that called itself the Guillotines, whose members had formed the core of crews of that formation you’d led into battle.“You have to watch out for girls with tails, you know.”“Anyways,” you rolled your eyes, “I’d like to ask for all of your help. Would the other tank commander and the infantry squad leader be interested? I’ll note you all down as having done me a personal favor, when I share it with the Minister of the People.”“So long as I get top score, Kommandant, and direct recommendation for a promotion,” the light tanker said, “Everybody should be happy falling in line. Well, maybe Vive La Revolution won’t be as hot on it, but not like he wasn’t the one looking for an audience anyways. Framboise is a pushover and’ll agree to whatever.”“You’re certain?” You squinted skeptically at the man, “You were critical of this man for speaking for you just now.”“Trust me,” the tankman said tiredly, “You don’t need to hear Mr. Revolution. He won’t care what you’re actually doing, he’ll just regale you with how many reasons you’re now comrades in the struggle to topple the world order or whatever.”“And this…Framboise?” You asked next, because that tank was certainly the most powerful asset of everything assembled, “What about them?”“She wants to fuck you, Kommanant,” Wolf Man said, “You’ve got fans, see. If you try an’ talk to her she’ll probably die of dehydration in two minutes flat.”“I’m a married man.” Not technically true but you thought that was more effective dissuasion than being engaged.“I said she wants to, not that she’s going to,” Wolf Man said in his relaxed way, “Narr’s right, best she keep locked up in there.”Narr was presumably the skinny tank commander standing with the much larger and brawnier wolf man, who was appropriately named Wolfgang, but you just…kept wanting to call him Wolf Man.
“So will I have to inform your superiors that I’m taking command of you all?” You asked, presuming that with a promise of promotion, everybody else was tided over with the prestige of having direct reference to the leader of the Republic. “You were going somewhere, weren’t you?”“No,” Wolf Man said, “We banded together after the mess down south, and after it got fixed up by your people coming through. Anybody not in need of fixing their shit was told to assemble up here.”“Basically, we’re to find somebody to take orders from,” Narr said, “Thanks for volunteering, Kommandant.”Funny how that worked out. Funnier still was how you were suddenly practically a platoon commander again. Would Captain Verhlors let you keep this band, you wondered. How long would you need them for? You hadn’t expected to need them longer than it took to get back up to your unit. If this night passed without incident that was, which practically nobody around believed it would.“So then.” Wolfgang scratched his head, and his men blinked blearily at him, then you, “If that’s out of the way, what now?”>Stick them south and tell them to dig in. That’d be the easier front, you’d bet, and you wanted to keep this bunch for later.>Get them with your tank. Little point in using them if you weren’t going to start using them right now.>Send them down the road, with a fair warning for the mines. The panzergrenadier would appreciate it, and you could pick them up there later.>Other?Letter writing to come after this.
>>4622129>Send them down the road, with a fair warning for the mines. The panzergrenadier would appreciate it, and you could pick them up there later.This is just for the scouts right, they would probably serve best as a screening / patrol / flanking force
>>4622129>Stick them south and tell them to dig in. That’d be the easier front, you’d bet, and you wanted to keep this bunch for later."Remember the battle in the dust storm outside Todesfelsen? It's probably going to end up like that except the pepperheads and their Northern friends have way more firepower than the Death Heads did. So make sure you're dug in deep and get some rest, might be a long night ahead of us."
>>4622129>>Send them down the road, with a fair warning for the mines. The panzergrenadier would appreciate it, and you could pick them up there later.We should join them
>>4622129>>Stick them south and tell them to dig in. That’d be the easier front, you’d bet, and you wanted to keep this bunch for later.Attracted to Richter and a tank commander? She's a goner.
>>4622137It's for all of them, unless more specific commands are given.
>>4622129>>Stick them south and tell them to dig in>Send the scouts down the road to watch for further infiltrators or enemy troops building up for an attack. If they run into the panzergrenadiers warn them of the suspicious activity and suggest that they might want to fall back to the town for safety.
>>4622129Supporting >>4622197
>Stick them south and tell them to dig in. That’d be the easier front, you’d bet, and you wanted to keep this bunch for later.These guys were milling about because they didn't have an officer equivelant leading them, sending them too far off right now would be counterproductive. They can defend the South with minimal oversight, but sending them down the road without us seems silly, since if the situation turns dynamic we won't be able to command them.
>>4622129>Stick them south and tell them to dig in. That’d be the easier front, you’d bet, and you wanted to keep this bunch for later.Whole point of them is to make the return journey easier.
>>4622129Actually, supporting this >>4622197Remember to warn them about the mines so they don't step on any by accident.
>>4622129>>4622197Supporting
>>4622197This
>>4622197I'll support this write-in for the scouts as well, though honestly getting the panzergrenadiers to pull back to the town for the night if possible may not be a bad idea, considering they could get cut off pretty easily.
>>4622145>>4622158>>4622197>>4622220>>4622241>>4622463>>4622483Go south, out of the way. Wolfman goes traveling.>>4622148>>4622137Aid the fellows, they'll need it.Writing.Spoiler alert this might take a bit to set up, but I'll have it good to go by tomorrow hopefully.
>>4623214how's it going?
>>4624423Apologies, today was a bit messy. It'll be tomorrow for sure. I'll post when I'm getting close.
>>4624467>It'll be tomorrow for sure
:^(
>>4625984>first time?
>>4625984It sure seems like a lot of hoopla for quiet night that everyone is being paranoid about for no reason right guys? Right?
Sorry, sleep deprivation catchup has been chopping off hours where I really don't want them to. I've still got some stuff to finish up, but just so I'm not leaving you sitting around for two days straight, I'll cut the update in two. There's a decent break point in it anyways.>>4626088Yeah it's actually just going to be a short VN about going on a date with Alina, nothing bad will happen.
If something was happening tonight, it was surely coming from the north with the most force. For that reason though, you thought to put your new charges to the south- where they’d be safe for later. It was what the strategy was here anyways. Republic troops were useful so that the Ellowians could be elsewhere, for the most part. They were by no means elite, and expecting them to do the work of elite troops was folly. That, and it’d be foolish to throw people you’d sought out to help you work your way back to your platoon, into a battle where you could lose them before you’d even taken one step outside the forward operating base. Dig in, you told them, and dig deep, while the scouts led by the Wolf Man were told to head down the road and inform the panzergrenadier you’d left about what was coming- along with a healthy warning about the location of mines along the way. The tanks were given a channel to communicate with you on, if need be. You’d set out in the morning, after the scouts returned. Ideally. Entertaining the idea that something would happen that would either lock you in here or make your journey far more arduous than you expected did no benefits for your focus, so you didn’t think about that. You could do that after you helped the crew finish digging in the tank, but even then, you’d rather write a letter to your fiancée. Digging the tank in was hard work to do in a short time with just mattocks and shovels, and as it got dark, you couldn’t get it to what was supposed to be the ideal where the tank could pivot its hull while still being hull down- in order to bring its bow gun to bear. No lanterns were permitted on the defense line, of course, but the tank was at least able to get its more vulnerable lower hull down, with embankments at the flanks defending the side armor while allowing the turret to aim. It wasn’t bad by your measure, but the Silver Lance veteran crews weren’t so easily impressed. They certainly weren’t as elaborate as the nearby infantry’s, or the pair of anti-tank guns in their trenches. The powerful 4.7 cm gun looked so much bigger outside the tank than in, but you knew they were the same. You were merely accustomed to how much space it took up in the tank.Oh well. With no natural or artificial light to favor you, you clambered into the tank’s lit interior with a borrowed pen and paper with clipboard that you’d surely never return, and set to continuing correspondence with Maddalyn. One sided correspondence but nevertheless. It hadn’t been very long at all, but there was no excuse to not be frequent anyways. Not with no Intelligence Office blocking off your mail. Upon the Commander’s seat, you tried to write something…sweet, maybe overbearing. Something that’d be nice to read, rather than I nearly burned my hands off and I want to impregnate you.
Dearest Maddalyn, you started off, naturally. You’d begin with a pet name but…you hadn’t really settled on one yet. Writing with your left hand was also proving much more difficult than expected. Your calligraphy was mediocre at the best of times, and right now, it looked…bad. It has only been several days now, but I feel as though we are forced apart by-“Forced?”“Geh!” you jumped and snatched at the pen after it flew out of your hand, as it tumbled down into the hull. A glare was shot to the side where Hausen was peering at your letter, the door not having even creaked or squeaked a bit when it was opened. “Nobody’s forced into this unit, you know.” Hausen said flatly, “You just can’t leave while on a tour.”“It’s not like that, it’s more, duty,” you said as you climbed down and fished around the turret floor, grumbling, “I’d prefer not to have my private letters with my spouse read over my shoulder.”Hausen shrugged. “Just don’t see people writing letters much around here is all.”That gave you pause, as you looked back up to Hausen. “No?”“Nope. At least, not when things are like this. This isn’t a band you stay with if you want to be close to home. It’s not one a lot of people get old in either. Either people decide they want to leave, or they die far away. Just how it is.”“I will be different, then.”“Just saying why it’s weird to see.”“You don’t have anybody to write to?” you asked, forgetting your own letter for a moment.“Used to. Got divorced some years back.” Hausen assumed you’d ask why. “It was complicated. Too much so. I’ll leave you alone.”Your new radioman left from the turret- whatever business he had with you suddenly set aside. Spying on you didn’t seem to be his intention, but…Anyways. I feel as though we are forced apart by my duties, but I only have utmost confidence that I will return to you. As much as it saddens me to leave you behind again, to shirk this duty would be a poor show of a proper knight, and my darling only deserves the ultimate guardian, the best of what I can be. I fight amongst the brave and the fierce, and if I cannot at least be the equal of such men, I could not marry the most lovely woman I know of with anything but guilt in my heart for not being worthy of her. I will be worthy of you, of your love, and if the Judge Above has the sense of right then you will have that.
Was Maddalyn a strict enough believer to accept a little bit of blasphemy? You didn’t know. You…didn’t know rather a few things about her. When she had confided in something that was quite secret, in fact, you had disapproved, warned her of what you saw as flaws in her intentions. She hadn’t liked that at all. Would she be working on that puzzling project now, you wondered. What would you see of it when you returned?Would Maddalyn prefer you put in as much soft flirting in as possible, you wondered as you tried to recall the smell of her hair, her perfume- which had faded from the scarf- the feeling of her lips, her firm, round butt- no, she wouldn’t like that in the middle of this sort of thing. Damn if that wasn’t stuck in your head now, though.You wrote it in anyways. It wouldn’t leave your mind until you did. Soft, but firm. High Art in flesh. Sorcery more powerful than any magic she could think of. To say you didn’t want to touch her would be to deny her a part of her beauty, after all. Besides, it wasn’t like you went into detail about what you wanted to do to it. Jorgen may or may not have been being literal when mocking you about what you didn’t do, but…would she be alright with it, you couldn’t help but wonder. If she was uncomfortable with the idea of trying for children, at least at first, maybe..? It wasn’t weird to think about, was it?Stop thinking that way about her when you’re trying for this sort of feeling. Well, how were you supposed to think of your wife of all people? Surely nobody else was deserving of overpowering lust?No, time to close it off before you overthought things. I will return to protect you. Forever yours. Then you utterly destroyed your signature as you tried to replicate it with your off hand. It’d…get better.The letter was folded and put into your jacket pocket. In the morning, you’d have it sent off, if you could. The Silver Lances did have infrastructure for that- a luxury afforded to the Archduchy’s most elite. All you had to do was fulfill what you promised in that writing. Out and over the top, you put yourself, trying to relax in the cold, winter night, frost sparkling in starlight.
What Hausen said kept on your mind. Either people decide they want to leave, or they die far away. Just how it is. It wasn’t as though you hadn’t known this to some level. What drew you to them besides the familial legacy, the prestige, was that brand of adventure. It was simply that…perhaps that dream hadn’t ever considered you getting married. Not even a little bit. The lone consideration was perhaps marrying a retinue like some Von Trachts had done in the past, so you could live a fantasy together.…Another seemingly small thing to never tell Maddalyn, Judge Above. The question remained. Now that you were here…would you stay? The Von Trachts had a valiant history, a tragic history, but one that had never defied fate ever since the first ennobled of your name defeated the seemingly invincible Reich in the field alongside the first Archduke. Were you so special that you’d tempt death? Did you actually have all you wanted, even without the Silver Lances once more being the glory of the house Von Tracht?>Reaching this point was enough, lowly though it might seem. Your life’s role wasn’t to be the blazing beacon any longer. Not yet, at least. Maybe after three or four children. Five?...Six? Not like there was any rule about leaving the Silver Lances and then coming back to them.>It wasn’t arrogant to think you were special, was it? Look at all you’d done. Look at all that had happened to you, and you were still standing. There was no reason to turn away from this when you were still standing strong.>Other?
>>4626156>Reaching this point was enough, lowly though it might seem. Your life’s role wasn’t to be the blazing beacon any longer. Not yet, at least. Maybe after three or four children. Five?...Six? Not like there was any rule about leaving the Silver Lances and then coming back to them.As it says we can always come back. Until we get a bunch of kids we can serve in the Blumlands forces or whatever the closest regiment is to Richter's home.
>>4626156>Reaching this point was enough, lowly though it might seem. Your life’s role wasn’t to be the blazing beacon any longer. Not yet, at least. Maybe after three or four children. Five?...Six? Not like there was any rule about leaving the Silver Lances and then coming back to them.We're running out of body parts to lose, and we still haven't married Maddy.
>>4626156>Reaching this point was enough, lowly though it might seem. Your life’s role wasn’t to be the blazing beacon any longer. Not yet, at least. Maybe after three or four children. Five?...Six? Not like there was any rule about leaving the Silver Lances and then coming back to them.Maybe go travelling with Maddy for the honeymoon or something.
>>4626156>>Reaching this point was enough, lowly though it might seem. Your life’s role wasn’t to be the blazing beacon any longer. Not yet, at least. Maybe after three or four children. Five?...Six? Not like there was any rule about leaving the Silver Lances and then coming back to them.At least 12. This is just Richter's first tour, who says there can't be more. Considering he's the first one to come back in who knows how long, he also has more responsibilities than just the Lances. Although if this is one of the only ways to permanently stay out of the IO...
>>4626156>>Reaching this point was enough, lowly though it might seem. Your life’s role wasn’t to be the blazing beacon any longer. Not yet, at least. Maybe after three or four children. Five?...Six? Not like there was any rule about leaving the Silver Lances and then coming back to them.I mean on the face of it I like being nearer Maddy because the spooky shenanigans she attracts are some of my favorite parts of this quest. It's not like the Blumlands are lacking in tanks either. Also the more interactions we have with Maddy will help me refine my theory that she is actually a Hermit possessed homunculus clone of her "sister".
>>4626206Considering how Von Blum doted on Maddy then suddenly stopped, and how Mathilda looks like her twin despite being years younger, and how they both look like their mother, I'm absolutely expecting Maddy to be a failed clone of her mom, and Mathilda a second attempt.
>>4626156>Reaching this point was enough, lowly though it might seem. Your life’s role wasn’t to be the blazing beacon any longer. Not yet, at least. Maybe after three or four children. Five?...Six? Not like there was any rule about leaving the Silver Lances and then coming back to them.Still feel like we should have thrown this whole thing back in the Major's face and sent Richter off to spend time with his wife, You know, get some quality time in there before the start of the Great War we all know is coming, but better late than never. Can't deny this experience has been pretty great for him though. Let's hope that lasts.
>>4626156>>Reaching this point was enough, lowly though it might seem. Your life’s role wasn’t to be the blazing beacon any longer. Not yet, at least. Maybe after three or four children. Five?...Six? Not like there was any rule about leaving the Silver Lances and then coming back to them.It would be nice if Richter could achieve greater military roles in the future, but at this rate he's running out of intact body parts and needs to balance things a little better. Maybe he can get appointed as a high ranking military officer after he's become an important noble through politics.
>>4626163>>4626171>>4626173>>4626187>>4626206>>4626266>>4626460Funny how losing chunks of yourself puts your life in perspective. Have to work a particular chunk before that gets blown off too. Here's hoping you keep attached to everything! Writing and things.>>4626206>>4626217What curious theories.
Apologies for the delays- got stuck and had to rest for a bit rather than updating within the hour as planned, but things are in order now.
Recent events had made you feel far less immortal than you might have once felt. Standing back from it all and viewing things how they were, reaching where you were now, lowly as it might seem, was…quite enough. Your life’s role wasn’t to be the blazing beacon any longer. That could wait. Maybe after you’d married Maddalyn and had a few children. Maybe four. Five. Six?...At least twelve. Calm down there, you animal. It wasn’t as though there were any rules on leaving the Silver Lances and then rejoining. If you felt the need for adventure again, you could indulge in it on your honeymoon holiday, perhaps. For once, to go traveling without being in uniform and under threat of being under fire. Call it a reward if you come back from all of this- it’d be further than many of your relatives got in a while, and hopefully, not dying would set a good example for your planned descendants.Though. Your even being here was a result of you perhaps not being as free as you thought. You remembered what the Major had said- that at some point, there would be another assignment. You would be serving the Intelligence Office’s schemes once more, for better or worse. The Silver Lances represented a potential escape from all that, and if you left them, you’d be right back in the IO’s hands.It wouldn’t be so bad if they at least had the courtesy to let you have some quality time with Maddalyn. At least enough to get married, for goodness’ sakes.The night grew quiet. Oddly so. In this country now a battlefield, a conflict was never out of earshot, yet the gunfire and booms faded away, until there was…no sounds of war at all. Only the whisper of the wind over the wastes.Welcome, but unsettling silence.-----The Netillian Military Government was in a state of utter disarray. The wily High Protector, underestimated by men enchanted by a desire to become the old blood nobility, indulging in the fanciful trend of aspiring to be barons, dukes, kings, had found themselves deceived and outplayed by what they sought to emulate yet also assumed themselves superior over. After all, they had conquered the Republic of Ellowie, did that not mean they conquered those who had been driven out by said Republic?Evidently not. The supreme leader of the council, army, and by extension all of Netilland, the air forces commander and the General of the Kommissariat had all been captured. As had the Public Welfare general, but his absence was not such a cause for clamoring in the ranks of those who now had to deal with this new war.
The capture of the Supreme Commander-Militant hadn’t frozen affairs so much as sent them going in many different directions. The Vice Commander in Chief was meant to take command of things, but he had ever been the milder backing to the more charismatic and gregarious Supreme Commander-Militant. A man of low ambition, ideal to have as a second, but not ideal for a crisis. It was taking him too long to establish authority, which allowed others to try and posture for power. After all, the army to the south was made up of an upstart republic of nobodies, and a band of unsupplied and beaten exiles, while the rebellious King was not strong enough to throw Netilland out of most of his country, let alone match himself against the Twaryians to the east. What was there to be concerned about? Now was a time of internal opportunity, not external threat.With the General of the Kommissariat locked up, though, despite the disunity, there were plenty of political officers eager to take the reins once again. Divisional Kommissar Kampt had seen an opportunity, a chance to utilize every connection and favor he had, to ensure that he’d find himself at least at the top of the Kommissariat, if not all of Netilland, should he accomplish this most vital plot.The salvation of the nation.Not that he got the support he needed. Too many generals were concerned with matters besides the south. Without the forceful personality of the highest office, and without the arguable true second in command of the Kommissariat General, the forces on the border of Baou and Strossvald remained entrenched in masses for a conflict that surely would not come, those near the High Protector’s uprising had deemed that forgettable threat the highest priority, whilst still others moved to secure positions against those they believed to be taking more advantage of the situation than them. The Luftmeister General’s capture made the air forces as disunited as the Kommissariat, and most certainly not cooperative to singular adventures rather than scattershot counters done at the whim of squadron commanders and their superiors than any interservice cooperation. Those combined factors led to disappointing attendance. At the same time, it would lend Kampt even more credit.
Every other place was a petty nuisance compared to this army storming up from the south. The road through their Sosaldtian allies made a direct line to Netilland’s capital of Berkesseburg- like a lance pointed at the nation’s very heart. A highly ranked political officer knew well that Netilland may have been victorious, but it was still divided. Many remembered the Republic, despite its incompetence. Many held spite because their friends or family were kept in UGZs. Not to mention the denizens of the work camps and specially administered mines and farms. Netilland’s rulers kept power through their show of strength. If they were made to look weaker than they presented themselves to their people, it could mean disaster.So all the stops had to be pulled out. Seizure of secret weapons. Risky night attacks. Most importantly of all, extreme brutality would be mandated, encouraged. The brutality wouldn’t frighten the Ellowians. They had fought for many years against an enemy that despised them so much that spiteful brutality came naturally. It would, however, affect their actual target- the hapless Sosaldtian allies. Without them, the odds would be more even, and the Ellowians, stranded again. When they were crushed, there would be no comparable threat to have to deal with. Not with the Twaryians miserably countering a weakening, but ongoing, uprising.The time to do it was now. The Ellowians and their allies were making themselves vulnerable with risky tactics meant to do incredible damage in a brief amount of time. With anything less than the inexplicably excellent troops that they had to form the tips of their spear, it wouldn’t have worked. Yet they underestimated personal initiative. Kampt may have only been a divisional Kommissar once, but with a single focus, the hammer he sought to bring down was beyond what could be expected.-----
The night going quiet should have been the first confirmation that something was wrong, but you soaked in the bliss of it rather too readily. When the first crashes of artillery impact rang out, muffled by the hills forward, you nearly jumped out of the turret in spite of being nowhere near the front.“Shit!” Hausen cried as the crew outside the tank piled in fast as men could, and the men in the trenches huddled deep into the earth. Following their example, you pulled the steel hatch of the cupola down, making the m/32 your fortress once more.From the flashes and sounds, it looked as though the forward outposts were being bombarded first, but you wouldn’t be long in sharing such, if this attack was of the scale suggested by the amount of explosions going off. The defense line you were part of was a good two hundred meters from the town itself, but no mistake- you were the last line before the medical and signal companies, before the lines of communication of reinforcement and supply. If the outposts were being shelled, then the target of the coming attack was quite obviously not them. It was you.If only whoever was attacking…whoever, hell, there wasn’t any mystery to it. The Northern Lords couldn’t have this amount of ordinance. This was the Netillians, far earlier than expected, just like the bombardment that began just after the first seemed to quiet.The crashes began, the whistling, the distant booms, but most eerie were the screeching things, that came in with a howling roar before they blew up with force that shook the earth. It was imprecise- this barrage was actually landing in front of you, and not on top of you, but as it continued, and crept forward, it dawned upon you that even if no spotting could guide the artillery precisely, the intent was to throw what they could at everything that might be in the area, merely as preparation. Over and over again. Even if they didn’t land near you, you weren’t watching before you knew it. The howl, then the shaking, the explosion. Howling. Abominable howling.>Roll 3 1d100, each DC roll under 75.
Rolled 41 (1d100)>>4626981
Rolled 15 (1d100)>>4626981
Rolled 17 (1d100)>>4626981Going for the hundo!
>>4626979>So all the stops had to be pulled out. Seizure of secret weapons. Risky night attacks. Most importantly of all, extreme brutality would be mandated, encouraged.Sounds ominous as hell, considering what secret Kommissariat projects we've dug up in the past....
>>4626981>Roll 3 1d100, each DC roll under 75.>Roll 3 1d100, each DC roll>Roll 3 1d100, each>EACHGood God what the hell are we rolling for?
>>4627135Arty probably, they *are* supposedly throwing a ton of ordnance at us.
Update coming soon. This might be a bit much for what this ends up being, but oh well.>>4627135>Good God what the hell are we rolling for?Richter's present state of mind is somewhat vulnerable to this rather new experience. The rolls were to avoid falling into catatonia for extended periods of time, like earlier.
>0 FailuresIt was sickening, tiring, but when it finally ended, you opened your eyes immediately. No falling away, no fainting, you swayed in your seat, but you were of your own mind.Just to make sure though. “Crew,” you said over the intercom, “We’re still good?” A round of varied affirmatives. “Alright, good.” You sighed. Too early to declare that, but things wouldn’t be better anytime soon. Not after that.A look around the cupola glasses, as you expected to see terrible things done to the line, but…no. The barrage had been too imprecise. Clearly made without guidance, as you saw from the craters about now. Some had been wounded by the size of the ordinance nevertheless, and were being carried out along the communication trenches back towards the town. You couldn’t help but wonder if the trenches out here would be safer, since the town was undoubtedly, being on a map, a far easier and bigger target for indirect fire than you were. Far more wounded than any man was the landscape, though. There was now an impressive amount of craters and piles of debris.Most importantly, the two anti-tank guns to your flanks were intact. 4.7 centimeter cannons, twins to your m/32’s gun…in a way. Their barrels may have been longer. It wouldn’t have surprised you if the Silver Lances had a newer version of the cannon. Some assumption had been made of your sectors of fire- Schafer had said earlier that each gun covered a flank angle, and the m/32 was meant to cover the frontmost. Not that the turret couldn’t turn to the other sectors if need be.>As the lone tank on this line of defense, the turret may be turned to aid other sectors or search for targets. If an anti-tank gun gets knocked out, this may prove a necessity.Judge Above, it was dark, though. In its holster by the commander’s seat was your flare pistol, and thankfully, your loss of marksmanship mattered little for shooting illumination up into the sky. So long as you illuminated the enemy and not yourself. Mortars and the self-propelled guns were plenty capable of firing up parachute flares as well, much more effective than your own flares, but they weren’t going to respond to your demands, nor could you make them, not unless there was an emergency you didn’t want to think about. You weren’t an authority here.>In the dark, it is more difficult for your gunner to spot and shoot targets, and you may not spot targets at all without it. Your reserves presently have five flares.
A panzergrenadier came up and knocked on the side of the turret- you popped out the top to respond to him.“Yes?” you said down to the man, barely visible in this night.“We got a message from our people up on that hill outpost,” the panzergrenadier pointed to the tall hill to your front right, “Firstly, it’s Netillians for certain. Second, they’ve taken way too much heat, no chance of holding their positions. They’re going to retreat while they still can. Be real careful shooting that way, alright?”“Of course.”“Good.”You relayed that message to your crew, in case their judgment turned out better than yours. With that, you crept out the top…and looked out towards the rises, trying and failing to find shapes in the dark. The Netillians were not night fighters, not like the Twaryians- they were out of their element, but so were you. It was very much possible that they could get very close to you without you seeing. Considering your raised stature and being the largest target around, that would be an unacceptable tactical failure.In the front, there was the remnants of a small tank battle- a cluster of Sosaldtian tanks destroyed. To the front left, some small hills of little note. There’d been signage of mines there, but since they weren’t on the route of advance, they were ignored. The front right had the large hill with a dilapidated, mostly destroyed outpost up top, ravaged more by time than the recent artillery barrage. Together, they formed a shallow valley that went straight towards the forward base. It wouldn’t be long now. There wasn’t anybody yet, but there was a ferocious torrent of fire following the artillery barrage. Including cannon fire, and what you recognized as…Munitions Casters. Great. You’d gotten well used to having those on your side instead of against you.>What direction do you face the turret first?>What shell to load first?>Other preparations?
>>4627192>>What direction do you face the turret first?Front, since the AT guns are already covering other sectors and any Netillians going through might try using it for cover.>>What shell to load first?HE>>Other preparations?Make sure gas masks are on hand, whether for we need to use it or it gets used against us.
>>4627192>What direction do you face the turret first?Front>What shell to load first?AP. Infantry is a danger for sure, but I am willing to bet that there is going to be armor support with them and I want to shoot them first.>Other preparations?Don't be shy, if anyone on a gun needs a flare to shoot straight then pipe up.
>>4627192>>What direction do you face the turret first?Front>What shell to load first?AP. If infantry get close enough that we don't have time to switch ammo then we probably also won't have time to lay the gun on them. Speed is more likely to be important in tank battles.
>>4627192>What direction do you face the turret first?Front>What shell to load first?AP>Other preparations?Supporting>>4627219>>4627202
>>4627192>What direction do you face the turret first?Towards the hill outpost,>What shell to load first?HE>Other preparations?Send a message to have them evacuate faster and lure in the enemy onto their former position
>>4627202I'll swap to AP, don't really mind as internally it was either that or HE.
>>4627192>Turret forward>AP>Prepare gas mask and warn everyone who can hear us to prepare them as well.
>>4627202>>4627219>>4627233>>4627237>>4627409Guns Front>>4627242Guns Hill>>4627242HE>>4627219>>4627219>>4627233>>4627237>>4627243>>4627409AP>>4627202>>4627237>>4627237>>4627409Put a mask on that nasty face.>>4627219>>4627237Fire flares on request.>>4627242Run faster, you people. Though the chances of successfully bossing any Silver Lances not presently in your tank are small at best. Especially when infantry use wire telephones and not wireless radio sets.I'm sure everybody's sick of waiting by now but I'll kick this thing off in the evening, and give a heads up when I'm going in. I'll make up for the delays in some vague unspecified way at some point. Maybe.
>>4627869>I'll make up for the delays in some vague unspecified way at some point. Maybe.Give Mal some nice mosshead girl so he isn't forever alone without anyone who understands him :p
>>4627869>I'll kick this thing off in the evening
>>4629017Guess tanq has to make it up even more then
>>4629017Good things come to those who wait. In time an update will come, and who knows, maybe we will get a free token we can redeem to get an exact translation of what Malarkey failing to communicate with us sometime.
Damn niggas I wanna shoot shit...
>>4629541Make Ritcher shoot his goo inside is midget wife.
>>4629017I plead raving insanity. And not predicting that the time budget I initially assigned was insufficient by about half.>>4628780>Give Mal some nice mosshead girl so he isn't forever alone without anyone who understands him :pPeople understand him well enough. Don't you?>>4629057>Good things come to those who wait. >Good thingsLol.>maybe we will get a free token we can redeem to get an exact translation of what Malarkey failing to communicate with us sometime.It'd lose a bit of the magic then, wouldn't it? We'll see.Anyways it's now the day after the evening I said I would start things so it's time to get going.
“We’re keeping front for now,” you told your gunner as the m/32’s turret remained still. A look behind you to the town- mist built up behind the tank, as the engine idled to power the turret drive. So long as logistical lines stayed open, one thing in no shortage was fuel, after all. “Keep armor piercing loaded. Have gas masks at the ready.” As far as you recalled, there were treaties between Netilland and the Archduchy about the use of chemical weapons, but you couldn’t be too careful.“They already are.” Schafer said gruffly. “…I suppose you have a bad feeling about this too.”“Not a bad feelin’. Just how it is. There’s treaties between countries, and the Silver Lances ain’t a country. Mercenaries prepare for the worst. Everybody outside’s prob’ly ready for it too.”You looked over and, yes, gas masks hung loosely from necks, but they weren’t on any faces. It was hard to see out of one in normal conditions, in nighttime, it may as well be blinding. Better to be hard of sight for a small time however than for one’s life.Much as you’d like to try and urge the panzergrenadier retreating to hurry it up, such a request would be jeered at even if they did hear. Which they couldn’t, because the only people you could even speak to was the signal company hq behind you, and the Republic troops you’d assigned south. As far as your tank was concerned, you were in your own world.“If you need illumination by the by…” you brought up with your crew over the intercom, “Don’t be shy about asking for it. I’m not going to be stingy.”“Save it for when they’re close,” Hausen said, “That piece you have can’t go out that far. Unless something’s less than half a klick away, I’d save it. So about where those knocked out hulls are.”“Underst-“ you cut yourself off sharply as you squinted through your binoculars and saw…dark shapes. Advancing upwards, three of them, two bigger than the other. Shit, it was impossible to tell what they were for sure. “Gunner, on each of the hill’s rises, targets. Can you see what they are?”“Negative.” Schafer said, “About six to seven hundred meters out. Shoddy range. They’re stopping there, looks like.”>It was dark and they were out of ideal range, but they were going to receive a proper welcome anyways. Open fire. (Which target?)>Hold fire. It wasn’t like you could be harmed at this range either. Not by whatever those were, not effectively. They might want to waste ammunition, but you wouldn’t.>Other?
>>4629765>>Hold fire. It wasn’t like you could be harmed at this range either. Not by whatever those were, not effectively. They might want to waste ammunition, but you wouldn’t.I'd rather hold fire for now, hoping they havnt spotted us yet. We can open up when their closer in range so we can maximize their time in the kill zone.We should be fine unless those are same assault gun tanks we encountered earlier, and they do look like them from here, but I'd still rather hold for now.
>>4629765>Hold fire. It wasn’t like you could be harmed at this range either. Not by whatever those were, not effectively. They might want to waste ammunition, but you wouldn’t.
>>4629765>OtherRelay the information over the comms to verify sighting and ask if anyone else has a visual.
>>4629765>>Hold fire. It wasn’t like you could be harmed at this range either. Not by whatever those were, not effectively. They might want to waste ammunition, but you wouldn’t.If we're going to expose our position with our muzzle flash it'll have to be for a better reason than this.
>>4629772>>4629778>>4629780>>4629797>>4629847Keep the guns quiet.>>4629814Try to verify what you see. Bear in mind though that you do not have direct radio communication with other troops beside you through wireless communications. By and large the infantry use field telephones, with wireless sets relegated to command vehicles, none of which are on this line, though which are connected to wired sets.
>>4629864So the short range radio only goes to the people in the town?
>>4629874Yes. They are the only people within short range, non-interfered radio with wireless sets. Infantry portable radio sets are not standard.
>>4629880So even telling them what's going on won't help? I thought it might have been a Stonewall Jackson situation you were going for.
>>4629885I don't follow. I'm not sure what you mean by "won't help," it's just that coordination that doesn't involve getting out and walking over will be delayed. In any case, you have absolutely no command authority over these people anyways, this isn't really a Stonewall situation.
>>4629905Gotcha.
“Hold fire,” you advised over the vehicle intercom, “If they’ve spotted us we’ll know quickly. If we don’t have good shots, we won’t draw attention to ourselves. Just keep an eye on them.” Since you were waiting anyways…you switched to wireless. The troops on the line wouldn’t be able to hear you, but you could ask their headquarters vehicle to relay messages back and forth. “I-Two,” you used their local designation here, “I’ve spotted a trio of contacts to our direct north. Can you verify?”“One moment.” A minute passed. A minute suddenly broken by the flash of cannons far off, followed by the crashing of explosions short of your position. “That answers that,” Schafer grumbled.“I-Two confirms sighting of vehicles. Likely self-propelled guns and a spotter vehicle.” Their binoculars weren’t any better than yours, and you’d be willing to bet, neither were their eyes, but it was a second opinion nevertheless. “Hold.” Another minute as another round of ranging fire went out- getting closer. “Request that your vehicle engages the spotting vehicle. Your vehicle is armored, and the anti-tank positions ought to be kept low until necessary.”“…Which is the spotting vehicle?” If one was there, and if that was what it was instead of merely an escort.“The smallest one.”It was a request, not an order. Authority was strict in this unit. Without clearance from your company commander, not even somebody a step higher on the ladder than you like was likely to be in the trenches to your flanks could tell you what to do. The lack of influence was mutual, of course. Not something you were used to, admittedly.>Affirmative. You’d be making yourself a priority target, but, you could take it. It’d stall enemy preparations.>You’d have to decline. Your entrenchments were hard enough and the visibility poor enough that even a spotter would have a hard time guiding fire. There wasn’t even illumination up yet.>Other?
>>4629930>HOLD PLEASESchafer, can you make the shot?
>>4629930>>Affirmative. You’d be making yourself a priority target, but, you could take it. It’d stall enemy preparations.It would've been better if we could've waited for their main attack but it'll be worse if we let those guns range in on us. At least the AT guns will still be left as a surprise for them if/when they send tanks to come take care of us.
>>4629930>>Affirmative. You’d be making yourself a priority target, but, you could take it. It’d stall enemy preparations.
>>4629930>Affirmative. You’d be making yourself a priority target, but, you could take it. It’d stall enemy preparations.
>>4629930>>Affirmative. You’d be making yourself a priority target, but, you could take it. It’d stall enemy preparations.I was wondering if we had any spicy smoke we could throw in their face but I don't think we have anything that makes much meaningful obfuscation. Just shoot the bastards.
>>4629946>>4629952>>4629958>>4629989>>4630064>>4630072Take the shot.>>4629938But can you make the shot?Writing.
You paused on that, and switched to the intercom for a moment. “Gunner, the smaller vehicle, right of the leftmost one. Can you make that shot?”Schafer sighed and sagged his shoulders. “Their silhouette ‘s low, can barely see ‘em in this dark, they’re over five hundred. That’s not a good shot. Least a four point seven means if it hits it it’ll go through. Fuckin’ sights blend in with the night.”“Try to dial it in then.” You switched sets again. “Affirmative. We’ll try for it.” Even though it meant making yourself a potential priority target, it would stall enemy preparations and keep the anti-tank guns low profile. Something that would be a nasty surprise to the Netillians- the 4.7 cm cannon was made to pierce the armor of Grossreich Landship class tanks, though experience in Valsten had told you that it was anything but unstoppable…You wondered briefly if the smoke shell that the X-80 had would have benefited you here. Would a Bertholite shell be effective as smoke? Maybe it was best to keep those in reserve for now.The gunner was given the go-ahead. “Fire at will.” >Roll 2d2 and up to two sets 2d100, averaged; minus a roll for night fighting. Margin of error under DC 70 will be applied to scatter.
Rolled 2, 1 = 3 (2d2)>>4630192
Rolled 78, 98 = 176 (2d100)>>4630192
>>4630192
Rolled 87, 91 = 178 (2d100)>>4630192>>4630225Blast
>>4630218>>4630226Dead-eye. That should be his callsign.
>>4630232Remember that one time we missed so bad we hit a totally different tank?I do. It was great.
>>4630248Who could forget?
>>4630248that was a trip for sure.
>Tanq pls, don't just leave us hanging like this
Passing out wasn't intended. Getting back on track.
The m/32 kicked back with the recoil of the main gun being fired, and right away, Schafer didn’t have faith in his shot.“Shiiitt,” he growled, “That’s definitely high.”The glow of the tracer compound on the shell let you watch it skirt just above the light vehicle, ever so briefly illuminated by the glow. The smaller vehicle vanished back down the other side of the hill- the chance was gone.“Might want t’ duck in th’ hatch soon, Lieutenant,” Schafer said as he made adjustments, searching, “We’re number one on the shit list now, ‘bet.”“You think they’ll be that accurate?” You squinted through your binoculars. The spotter vehicle didn’t even seem present anymore.“No.” Schafer said, “Sayin’ they’ll call in somebody t’ set out shit straight.”“Laettem comm,” Jorgen challenged in a mocking tone, “Thae haevenott faeght thaessorta theng.”There wasn’t a better person on the line to be the subject of particular ire at least. Depending on the true scale of this attack.The self-propelled guns only lobbed a couple more shots, before they switched to…different projectile, landing in the same place they were before, still rather forward of you. When they landed, they burst into thick, white plumes that quickly formed a wall to the north. A wall that wouldn’t be blown away soon by high explosive fire.Your crew noted this too. “Well,” hausen sighed, “Seems they didn’t like that, or us, for sure.”What was the aim of this, though? The actual danger of this was that you couldn’t see through it, and if the Netillians knew what they were doing, you wouldn’t be hearing through it either, not well enough to be certain, at least.>Your allies still held your flank. Face forward. The range disadvantage was probably felt as badly by the Netillians, and they were surely working to close the gap.>Your frontal armor was plenty strong. Hardly any reason to be concerned with anybody getting closer up front. The real danger was obscuring potential movement towards the flanks. Aim towards one. (Which?)>Other?Again, I'm sorry for the intermittency, I'm pretty annoyed at myself for it.
>>4630663>Other?Use the vision slits to check our flanks, without rotating the turret.Does the Gunner have a periscope or are they stuck with the main optics on low magnification?
>>4630663>>Your allies still held your flank. Face forward. The range disadvantage was probably felt as badly by the Netillians, and they were surely working to close the gap.They might be flanking around the sides because they don't know about the guns, but if we aren't watching the front then no one is.
>>4630670The gunner has a rotating periscope, yes. Their gun has better magnification though. The 4.7 actually has rather good magnification, with a scope using very new Reich patten optics (or at least a duplication of them) but it lacks good provisions for night fighting. Which to be fair is the case in most places anyways.
>>4630663>Your allies still held your flank. Face forward. The range disadvantage was probably felt as badly by the Netillians, and they were surely working to close the gap.
>>4630663>OtherProbably have to keep the gun forward for this, but do we like the idea of slinging some Bertholite into that smoke? I don't want infantry massing up that close and it probably wouldn't do any favors for tanks moving up behind it either.
>>4630663>Your allies still held your flank. Face forward. The range disadvantage was probably felt as badly by the Netillians, and they were surely working to close the gap.We can't really know where they'll come from. We'll just have to react.
>>4630703I support this as well.
>>4630670Check the scopes.>>4630673>>4630702>>4630735>>4630760>>4630774Face forward. Keep on sector.>>4630703>>4630778>>4630781Unleash a stinking cloud.I'll hold for a bit just to make sure you're in on the Bertholite shells. The wind isn't strong right now- the smoke for example is sitting rather well, but it's good to keep in mind that Bertholite Shell Compound, despite being a blended gas and not purely Chlorine, doesn't contain vesicant so its particular harm comes from breathing it though nobody likes hydrochloric acid in their eyes either..
>>4630785Yeah I changed my mind on the gas.
>>4630785We can hold off on Bert for now, always time to shoot more if the Nets come charging through the smoke
For a moment you considered whether, for the first time, to use Bertholite shells, to deny the smoke cover to any advancing Netillians. It was a brief thought. It depended on too much to waste now, let alone to provoke potential response. You hardly wanted to find out if the Netillians were interested in using worse than asphyxiants. “Keep the guns forward,” you said to your crew, “I’ll keep an eye out. Be ready to shoot anything that comes out of the smoke.” If the panzergrenadiers’ anti-tank guns had remained hidden, they’d be a nasty surprise to any attempt to flank. Unless the coming offensive was…larger. Nevertheless, best to keep one 4.7 cm in each direction.With the threat of the self-propelled guns mitigated by smoke that hid you as much as it hid your enemy, you went over top again and looked out with your binoculars to the flanks. It’d have been safer to use the cupola viewports, but, the threat of being struck by debris from a shell seemed low when there weren’t any coming in, let alone zeroed near you. A minute passed, and you heard sounds. The sounds of more vehicles than you’d like, on the way. To the left…shapes.“Oh, hell…” you swore as you saw them multiply from one, to four. Type unclear, but…turreted at least. To the right, nothing yet. You kept watching- only to be pulled down very soon from below by Jorgen, who must have responded to something Schafer said.“Two, front,” Schafer repeated, “Looks like the self-propelled guns, we can get the first shot as they come out moving. Give me illumination if you want them shot good.”You pulled yourself back up to the cupola viewports and watched the shapes emerging from the smoke. They weren’t close still- about four hundred meters away. Within range of lighting them up with a shot from the flare pistol. Yet their cannons didn’t seem as tremendous as the one of similar make you dispatched earlier- would these be able to harm you? Probably. Moreover, would you be able to harm them, without the clearer route of detonating them from inside out…>Light things up and open fire. You’d have to deal with these now. (Say which and where to target)>Keep it dark. Deal with them. (Say which and where to target)>The armor moving to the left was a greater threat than these lumbering heaps. Focus on them first.>Other?
>>4630839>>Light things up and open fire. You’d have to deal with these now. (Say which and where to target)Rightmost SPG, lower plate.
>>4630839>Keep it dark. Deal with them. (Left most tank center mass.)
>>4630839>Light things up and open fire. You’d have to deal with these now. Rightmost SPG, gun mantle. Hopefully this will jam the gun even if it doesn't pierce the armor.The left SPG will need time to turn on us so we'll leave it for later.
>>4630839>Light things up and open fire. You’d have to deal with these now. Right SPG, centre.
>>4630839>Light things up and open fire. You’d have to deal with these now. (Say which and where to target)Right Target, Gun Barrel.Do we have a count of our remaining stocks of ammunition?
>>4630839>Light things up and open fire. You’d have to deal with these now. (Say which and where to target)If we are lighting things up I would say shoot vehicle on the right to the left of its gun. It seems like it is angled there but I think the chances are better than risking shooting at a thick gun mantle.
Will the flare illuminate the tanks to the left as well? And will the AT guns be able to traverse to engage these targets or are they fixed in their respective directions?
>>4631079>Will the flare illuminate the tanks to the left as well?No. It only lights to a certain range in each "firing sector." The left tanks are in a different firing sector, and also further away. You'd see the angle if you turned the turret left, basically.>And will the AT guns be able to traverse to engage these targets or are they fixed in their respective directions?They are dug in in a fashion that allows them to pivot, yes.
>>4630839>>Light things up and open fire. You’d have to deal with these now. (Say which and where to target)Rightmost vehicle, aim center lower armor.
>>4630839>>Light things up and open fire. You’d have to deal with these now. (Say which and where to target)Right vehicle, lower hull/glacis plate
Rolled 1 (1d2)>>4630843>>4631125>>4631179Right, lower plate>>4630855>>4630861>>4630956Right Center, about the gun.>>4630845Left Center.>>4630880>Do we have a count of our remaining stocks of ammunition?The coaxial machine gun and bow gun are about half depleted in total, but in the battle earlier the main gun was hardly used, so the cannon has plenty of ammunition. Actual numerical counts would require me to properly estimate how much hull storage the thing has.Lighting things up, but rolling off on precise targeting. One is former, two is latter. Then getting started for the day.
“Hit the right one on its lower front plate,” you said, “I’ll light it up. Fire when ready.”Immediately after, as the smoke thinned further and the vehicles drew closer, you cocked your arm out of the cupola. It’d take an incredible idiot to miss the sky, though, maybe Anya would say that you were capable of doing such a thing. Thankfully, this time, you didn’t. The space in front of you was lit by a bright white illumination- it wouldn’t last for long, but it’d last for long enough to take these two things out, or at least, knock them out, or weaken them.All there was to do was to trust your gunner’s aim and the weapon’s power now. The last time you’d shot at the lower front plate of a durable enemy, you’d been disappointed, but you tried to have hope as the m/32’s cannon cracked.>Roll 2d2 and 3d100, DC Roll under 80, above will apply to Scatter.
Rolled 1, 1 = 2 (2d2)>>4631362
>>4631362Up to 3 sets of 2d100 averaged, I meant.
Rolled 60, 12 = 72 (2d100)>>4631362
>>4631362
>>4631362Do we need another roll or are we waiting because that one roll is good enough? I forget the exact way scatter is calculated.
>>4631398Good shot.Writing.>>4631534You don't need another one, when it's up to three averaged, you can stop rolling whenever. I like averages better because it's a gamble to make it better- or worse, depending on if you want it. Temptation and all.
>>4631539Nice, I am all for doing my sacred duty and rolling the dice, but the specter of Von Neubaum's miserable, no good, very bad tank engagement hangs over me and tempers my bloodlust.
As soon as the shell soared out, you heard another clink into place, the smell of powder wafting up as the shell was replaced in the blink of an eye.>Ace Loader- Once per engagement, a reload is practically instantaneousYou watched the shell go, and strike the right self-propelled gun true on its lower front plate. Your expectations of a deflection were defied as a flash of sparks and a far off sound of wrenching metal sounded. The right vehicle came to a sudden, shuddering halt. Not ideal, as its gun was still pointed at you and you doubted that a shot through the transmission properly disabled the vehicle, but it was something.No time for second thoughts. As soon as the breach closed again you declared your second target.>Take a second shot at the right vehicle. It had its gun right on you, and was an active if immobile threat. (Where?)(The initial target has been ranged. You can hit anywhere you wish on it, if you want.)>Fire at the left vehicle- before it turns to hit you. The other gun surely was reeling from getting hit. (Where on it?)>Other? (This would include for example declaring what round you want if you want to change it)It may be worth noting of course, for those who might not know- even armored vehicles tend to not have enclosed or filtered air exchange. Thus being inside armor is no protection for chemical weapons- hence why crews do have gas masks.
>>4631565>Fire at the left vehicle- before it turns to hit you. The other gun surely was reeling from getting hit. (Where on it?)Right hand idler / guide sprocketAssuming that they don't have Differential steering this will force them to shift into reverse and pivot around the busted track giving us more time to aim, if they recognize that the track is busted, or give us a side shot to follow up on as their current momentum pivots them around the jammed / thrown track.Also there is a good chance that the Right tanks transmission is either broken, burning or their driver and anyone behind him is dead / wounded thanks to shrapnel.
>>4631598I'll support this>>4631565How close are the unknowns on the left?
>>4631565>Fire at the left vehicle- before it turns to hit you. The other gun surely was reeling from getting hit. (Where on it?)Fire to the left of the gun on the left vehicle. The armor is at a flat angle to us and we will hopefully take out some crew manning the gun.
>>4631565Supporting>>4631598
>>4631565Backing this >>4631598
>>4631565Supporting >>4631598It's better to surely disable the left gun than try to disable the right one and risk them both be turned on us.
>>4631598>>4631643>>4631687>>4631721>>4632125Left mobility kill.>>4631677Try for the left hook to the cheek.Going on.>>4631643>How close are the unknowns on the left?Approximately four to five hundred meters and closing. Getting to left AT gun's ideal engagement range.
Rolled 41 (1d100)“Take out the right tread on the left vehicle, quickly!” You shouted, “Keep it from turning to face us!”“Roger.” Schafer said as his hand raced in a circle around the manual traverse. It wouldn’t be the easiest target with the enemy in motion, but they were slowing to try and pivot. A pivot that needed to be foiled to keep there from being two guns on you instead of one.As the tank kicked back with the force of the gun firing, a bright flash from the front sent you back into the tank. Just because you were trying to keep there from being two guns shooting at you didn’t mean the first would stand by and let you do it- the damage to them was apparently not convincing them to cooperate with your plans for your welfare.>Roll 2d2 and up to 3 sets of 2d100 averaged, DC 65 roll under against a moving target precisely. Meanwhile, enemy DC is 40 roll under here.Hoping this is what was meant by the right sprocket- your right and not their right.
You felt yourself lifted out of your seat for a moment as the heavy shell of the enemy spg buried itself into the embankment in front of you and sent up a spout of dirt and dust that turned the view forward into a cloud, then a rain of debris on your head from above. Yet, your tank was unharmed, and the crater was only uncomfortably close to your front, rather than in your hull.A mistake the enemy would regret, you thought as you waited to see the results of your shot made shortly before.
Rolled 2, 1 = 3 (2d2)>>4632179Yes, the target was correct.
Rolled 10, 5 = 15 (2d100)>>4632179
>>4632185Alright tanq, lock that in. Also that 41, Judge above.
>>4632185Not rolling again.
>>4632185Yeah I don't think anybody wants to contest that.Locking it.
Rolled 46, 82 = 128 (2d100)>>4632179
>>4632190Well good thing it was locked :^)
The other armored vehicle wasn’t where you had last looked for it- it had spun on its single track, turning its flank to you in what its commander must have recognized as a disaster, but they had adjusted far too late. Their flank stood helpless to a second shot, if you were to take it.Yet the other vehicle remained, surely loading a second shot to try and capitalize on the first one that it had quite nearly hit. Depending on how astute their gunner was, it wouldn’t be long before they’d fire a second time, and you didn’t want to test if the m/32B’s armor was enough to withstand whatever these things fired before it had to challenge the golden armor beneath the steel.>Finish off the helpless left vehicle. No point in letting it try and recover while you had a second shot straightaway on it. >Lob a second shot on the right vehicle. If the people in the left SPG were at all smart, they’d be bailing right now instead of trying to turn.>Other?Will have picture in targeting roll so we can get to the vote here faster instead of having to wait for me, we all know how bad I can be about making you wait.
>>4632194>Lob a second shot on the right vehicle. If the people in the left SPG were at all smart, they’d be bailing right now instead of trying to turn.
>>4632197>4632197>>4632200>>4632204>>4632205Left SPG. I should have included where to shoot in this, since it's not like it's gone anywhere, but oh well. Update very soon.
“Gunner, that’s enough on that one,” you said, “Load Armor Piercing, we need to finish that right vehicle.” You added where to target on it- an immobile and well lit target that had been hit before, no more smoke shielding it, you could count on your elite crew striking it wherever needed, you were sure.The turret turned back around, and the new shell slid into the breach, a metallic locking clunk as the turret’s mechanism slowed and minute adjustments were made to your spoken specification.A flash as the cannon fired for the third time.>Where on the right vehicle to target?
>>4632218>Lower plate againHoping we can injure more crew or start a fire
>>4632218Lower plate
>>4632223Addendum: lower plate but NOT the same spot we'd shot. That one is clearly not vital.
>>4632231I'll just swap to this to consolidate the votes.
I would suggest that after this next shot we should a load smoke round or two, in order to block line of sight to the new targets to the far right, and ignore the now tracked SPG until it start turning back towards us, we could then use the time until the next wave to check how the AT guns are going.
>>4632244Smoke will be more advantageous to the tanks on the right than to us. They have to cross open ground, and we're dug in.
>>4632244>>4632251Better to kill the other SPG as well, don't want the Netillians towing it back with them.
>>4632255Or maybe we could capture it.
>>4632251I have a feeling that 's another forward observer, that is going to attempt to walk shells onto our position, now that we have revealed ourselves.>>4632255Unless we give up the position we're in, they're going to have extreme trouble fixing the track or getting an engineering / maintenance group to it safely.
>>4632256We're not in command this time, so even if we did it's unlikely it'd be turned over to us anyway even if they could find a crew.
>>4632260>it's unlikely it'd be turned over to usSo what? We're not in this war to collect personal armor vehicles (we only collect waifus)
>>4632259If there's another artillery bombardment, then we can smoke them.
>>4632260If only we were sky pirates. Then we could claim whatever spoils we want
>>4632218By the way what's the situation on the southern side? Are the Mittlesosalians engaged as well?
>>4632218>Where on the right vehicle to target?Left of the gunI feel like a broken record lolI feel like we have a big enough gun and are at a close enough range to get a penetration pretty much anywhere. I don't think there is much more to hit behind the lower plate unless they have a weirdly place fuel tank or ammo stowage. I think we need to take shots to disable their gun decisively because they got really close with their shot and I don't think we are going to convince them to bail out with a lower plate shot before they at least try to hit us again.
>>4632226>>4632231>>4632237Lower plate- different place.>>4632757Left of gun.>>4632279>By the way what's the situation on the southern side? Are the Mittlesosalians engaged as well?I will interpret this as a decision to check on them. They haven't called in anything, at least.Writing. Also, the m/32 doesn't carry smoke shells. Well, not purpose built smoke shells, at least. Bertholite is relatively dense and opaque but it's not designed for actual concealment.
The next shot arced out with a sharp blast, puncturing the front enemy to the right of the previous penetration- the brother of that shot apparently not harming this foe sufficiently. If there was much effect, it was slow to observe- too slow.“Another!” You said sharply, and flinched as the enemy’s cannon fired again- but there was no glow of approaching shot, no explosion, only a sudden blooming flower of dense white smoke before the stricken vehicle, that spread out over the two self-propelled guns.“Seems like they’re done,” Hausen said not with a tone of relief, but of wariness. He was right- or you hoped it wasn’t some absurd trick. With both vehicles immobile, and smoke directly in front of them no aid to any movement, it could only be to facilitate bailing out and retreating. Not that either vehicle seemed badly hurt beyond such, but they must not have trusted their chances.Malachi remained eerily silent as ever- you half wanted to see if he was still awake, but you had faith in that he was responsive, though not communicative. For whatever reason. “Mmrgh.” Jorgen made a noise, “Naetellensaent sae yaellou. Caembekk waef maer soon.”Maybe not so soon, you thought as you checked to the left and didn’t see the contacts from earlier. Had they drawn back, or had they dipped into the depression in front of the hill they climbed over, waiting? It didn’t appear as though the Netillians expected you, from how brazenly the SPGs had come forward, nor had they expected to have been dealt with. If that attitude was still among the other elements of the assault…who could say how many were still coming. The Netillians surely hadn’t expected to bowl you over with a mere two armored support vehicles. Would you need help? Maybe. It would be for the best to check on the others you wrangled into accompanying you later during this breath the Netillians were giving you, before the moment might unexpectedly end.“Radioman, put me on the channel with the Republic people,” you said, and once such was done, you announced yourself. “This is the Kommandant. Are you there? How’s the south looking?”“…”Silence?
“Respond, over.” Names weren’t supposed to be used over the radio in case the enemy tried to exploit such, but you doubted the Netillians were even capable of doing that for people who probably had false names anyways. “Narr? Framboise?”“…Nahh, why aren’ yoo sayeeng annyzing, damn yoo?” A female voice with an utterly outrageous Emrean accent.“Eh heheheheh,” Narr snickered.You were in no joking mood. “Next I call you respond immediately. Is there activity to the south?”“Nope,” Narr answered, “Nothing.”That didn’t necessarily mean there would not be an attack at some point, not if the point of this new assault was to relieve the encircled Sosaldtians, which, why wouldn’t it be? You knew little of the present bigger picture of the operation, but the Netillians attacking now indicated to you that they were trying to save their allies. Or maybe exploit the stretched lines to try and crush you. If you knew where your unit was there’d be a firmer idea of what was going on, but the passing of time had only lengthened a gap that was only going to grow longer between you and your unit. “’Ou ‘ave yoo been?” the female voice asked nervously. “There’s a major attack to the north,” you relayed, “Get ready to move.”“Ah ahm comeeng.”“I bet you are,” Narr interjected, “Hold your horses, he said be ready to, not do it now.”>No, you did mean right now. If they had time to screw around on the radio they had time to reinforce you.>Yes, they could sit right where they were for now. You’d want an update as soon as possible if their situation changed, though.>Other?
>>4633118>>Yes, they could sit right where they were for now. You’d want an update as soon as possible if their situation changed, though.Seems like their only probing us right now.
>>4633118>>Yes, they could sit right where they were for now. You’d want an update as soon as possible if their situation changed, though.I kind of want to call the Emrean tank to help reinforce our flank, but I also don't want this Emrean homewrecker any closer than needed.
>>4633118>Yes, they could sit right where they were for now. You’d want an update as soon as possible if their situation changed, though.
>>4633118>>Yes, they could sit right where they were for now. You’d want an update as soon as possible if their situation changed, though.They'll be more useful as a surprise QRF when the Netillians decide how to attack us the second time.
>>4633131>>4633249>>4633253>>4633316>>4633435>>4633983>>4634320You all stay right there.Besides an Emrean woman isn't very threatening to Richter when his fiancee is already fluent in Emrean. Update soon.
“Yes,” you confirmed over the radio, tone heavy with new fatigue, “Sit right where you are. Update me if the situation changes, but otherwise, don’t move from that spot without my orders. Out.” You switched the set away before you could hear whatever response there would be. All that was necessary was compliance. No need to listen to a northwestern hussy further from home than you were, if you could help it. Perhaps you were being presumptuous, but you were in no mood for whatever that was.The continued lookout, though you expected immediate follow-up or attempts to sneak forward, bore…no fruit. There were sounds, yes, of movement, of far off battle the was quite violent, but the sector around you was eerily still. There had been tanks. Yet now they were merely waiting. It’d have been to your advantage if they tried to brazenly charge forth to break this line, but they were loitering out of your gun sights in who knows where.The Panzergrenadier were getting just as irritable waiting. After half of an hour of nothing, you saw a small team of them come up from their trenches and start slinking northwards, towards the hill to the right again. Expecting to be left in the dark, you were pleasantly surprised when a Panzergrenadier came up beside your tank.“Panzer.” The stout rifleman said up to you, “Captain’s got a message for you. 2nd platoon’s sent off some scouts to see what’s going on up there. He’s thinking of sending our reserve 3rd platoon to try and retake the fort on the hill, keep the Netillians on their toes if they won’t do nothing. Shouldn’t need your help, he’d just appreciate it if you kept holding here.”“That’s the plan,” you said back, “You won’t need help?”“Getting support from the big guns back in town. The eleven centimeters.” He referred to the medium self-propelled guns, converted chassis of m/28s to form squat, boxy, thin walled but highly mobile artillery systems. “If they have more than we can handle we’ll fade back, and if we manage to take it we’ll just take what we can and blow the rest. If the scouts don’t find enough to stop a quick attack.”“Alright. Good luck with that, then, if you don’t need me for it.”“Mm. Captain wants to send his thanks for taking care of those,” the grenadier tilted his head to the knocked out SPGs, “And the gun crew over there wanted you to have this too. Catch.” He threw up a small, cylindrical shape, that you barely managed to hook onto when you made the mistake of trying to catch it with the halved hand. It had a paper label on it, that you dipped into the tank to read. Some brand of candied chocolate buttons.
“Thanks. It’s what I do.” You said. The panzergrenadier shrugged and walked back, “Hey. Schafer.” You said to your gunner as you held out the roll, “the gun to the right sent a present.”Schafer took one look at the candy tube and made a growling noise. “Rrgh. Nah, no thanks.”“Suit yourself. Jorgen?”“Ae’ll tekk haelf.”The candy was passed, and Jorgen rattled out a bunch before popping them all in his mouth. Candy wasn’t like to sate anybody’s hunger, but you did wonder if you’d have to finally break open the iron rations in the-KHBOOOOOOOMMM!!!You were knocked off of your seat by a massive force to the left, and candied chocolate buttons spilled everywhere, ricocheting about and scattering on the floor. At the same time, from behind, the artillery the panzergrenadier had been referring to getting help from started booming as well, and as you pulled the cupola hatch down once again as another shell came down behind. This artillery was far more on target- and you soon realized, in greater quantity than before. Much greater, as you were rocked back and forth, everything inside the tank rattling like you were in some Langenachtfest box being rattled by a child.May the Judge Above damn artillery crewmen, you thought before the booms and rattling, the thumps of earth from above and the cracks and pings of shrapnel from all around, threatened to unravel your senses, the interior light fading and winking with each shake of the ground.>Artillery rolls, DC roll under 50, degrees of success apply.>Also, give me 3 sets of 1d100, roll under 70
Rolled 22 (1d100)>>4634568
Rolled 46 (1d100)>>4634568Deep breaths....and roll!
Rolled 54 (1d100)>>4634568
>>4634568Fuck, they ruined our candy! We have to FUCK THEM UP.
Rolled 67, 53, 71 = 191 (3d100)Forgot my part but hey, you're getting accustomed to being blown up. Well, accustomed to not passing out in the presence of them.Writing.
>>4634588Nice, I was wondering what was going on with that.
Rolled 39, 22 = 61 (2d100)It was over before you knew it- or maybe that period of being lightheaded and in a constant state of motion was a sudden onset fever dream. When the barrage fell off, you looked around the cupola again for evidence that it wasn’t some waking nightmare of the senses, you found everything around you torn to pieces, dug up, turned over, and dumped back down, a pair of craters next to the m/32 on one side and a pile of earth on the other partially burying the hull, a lingering cloud of dust in the air, but to your left and right you still saw the stalwart trenches of the Panzergrenadier- though many were being taken back now, in time for what must have been the aforementioned attack platoon to be marching forward, now replacements. Would they be going on ahead anyways?No, as it turned out, “Targets front, armor,” Schafer reported dully, “Coming up out of the ditch.”You looked to the left and right- armor approaching there, too. “Two more platoons.” Any energy was gone from your voice, which had reduced to a pale rattle from being thrown about for…ten minutes? Fifteen minutes? It might have even been five minutes, but time had vanished and you were in no place to find what the present was now.Right, the present right now was the tanks in front of you, and the ones rolling up the flanks. More coming up behind that. Shit. At least you had artillery support, but it didn’t sound like it was going off now.One of the pairs in front had stopped further back, and slung out a pair of shells that both crunched against the face of the turret, ringing it like a bell and rattling your teeth.“Fuck off,” you whispered hoarsely. There wasn’t a chance they thought that would do something besides aggravate everybody in the tank.To both the left and right, you heard the anti-tank guns fire out rounds. It was a lucky thing that neither of them had been damaged in that withering artillery barrage, your collective fortune still respectable, evidently. >Allies rolling to hit, DC 60 roll under, degrees of success apply.
From the left a metallic crunch, from the other, a popping whoosh, and you looked to the right to see a tank brewing up into flame, a new torch in the dark lighting up its surroundings- and its comrades. No doubt the anti-tank guns would now have their attackers’ full attention.“Targets, Lieutenant,” Schafer urged you. He was making adjustments already, but he seemed to want your confirmation. Three tanks on the left, three on the right, one aflame, four coming from the center. They all appeared to be of identical medium type, but you couldn’t be sure precisely what they were yet…though their cannons had failed to impress.>Keep the gun front. You’d send this bunch packing soon enough, but if you neglected them, they might prove dedicated enough to pick for weak points in the armor they couldn’t harm…>Direct the gun to the right. If you could destroy that threat, maybe the panzergrenadiers could move forward right after.>Point your gun to the left. The tanks moving up there had been in motion and preparing for longer- they could prove a greater threat to you than the tanks in front, who would be foiled by frontal armor.>Other?
>>4634762>Keep the gun front. You’d send this bunch packing soon enough, but if you neglected them, they might prove dedicated enough to pick for weak points in the armor they couldn’t harm…
>>4634762>Keep the gun front. You’d send this bunch packing soon enough, but if you neglected them, they might prove dedicated enough to pick for weak points in the armor they couldn’t harm…Finish your plate
>>4634762>Keep the gun front. You’d send this bunch packing soon enough, but if you neglected them, they might prove dedicated enough to pick for weak points in the armor they couldn’t harm…How kind of them, sending the larger group to face us.
>>4634762>Point your gun to the left. The tanks moving up there had been in motion and preparing for longer- they could prove a greater threat to you than the tanks in front, who would be foiled by frontal armor.
>>4634762>>Keep the gun front. You’d send this bunch packing soon enough, but if you neglected them, they might prove dedicated enough to pick for weak points in the armor they couldn’t harm…>OtherCall up the Republic tanks to strike the right flank since the enemy already lost a tank there so it should be weaker. Fire a flare over the center tanks if it will help improve our gunnery.
>>4634813>>4634885If I'm reading it correctly, isn't it four on each side originally, with the AT guns taking out one each? Just that the results for the one on the right was better ergo the thing going up in flames.
>>4634891That would make sense.>>4634885I support this. This is a fair number of tanks already, if they have reserves to strike our other flanks like this its probably better to pool our assets and win decisively on one side then turn to face the next threat. Debon probably said something like the tank is an offensive weapon or whatever, better to not keep them sitting around if they could be fighting.
>>4634891You might be right; in that case I suppose it would just be a toss-up of which side to send the QRF to if we want to do that.
>>4634768>>4634791Gun Fronto.>>4634885>>4634960>>4634965And call the gang up.>>4634855There's a song about this I think.Setting things up.
“Keep that cannon front,” you told Schafer as a shell whistled in and crunched on the front armor, “Rrgh. Hold on, I need to send a message. Hausen, I need the short wave we had those others on!” A click. “You lot!” You said irritably, “Get over here up north, now! Just the tanks, there’s a mess developing up here.”“Ah! Right away!”Thankfully, Narr didn’t feel the need to give any sass. He only gave a grunting confirmation. It’d be enough. So long as they were on their way. They wouldn’t be here right away, but if this was what the Netillians were opening with, you needed their help just to maintain balance up here.Back to the intercom. “Help’s on the way. Gunner, target…” You looked over the vehicles ahead- two were further away, stationary, slinging shells at you merely to bother you and your crew. Maybe it could spoil Schafer’s focus, and aim. Another two were weaving towards you, closing the distance. >Select your target and the location on it to shoot at. Unless you fire another flare off, there will be a penalty on hit rolling.
>>4635347Send up another flare, towards those three trees to the right, or thereabouts.I want the tank on the right, behind the pen'd SPG. Aiming for the broad side of it's hull, between the upper track run and the turret ring.Also, I feel like there's low key worldbuilding going on in the background here. Does this little yella fella have a name?
>>4635347Rightmost tank, directly on the front, on the upper part of the hull where the armor looks the most vertical just under the turret. And fire a flare.
>>4635347Tank on the far right, middle of the plate just below the turret. Fire another flare, we can worry about saving them when we have two left.
>>4635512I'll support this
>>4635374On the broad side.>>4635449>>4635512>>4635734Front hull, just below turret.Flare in both cases, coming right up.>>4635374>Does this little yella fella have a name?I was wondering if anybody would notice. Or, I suppose, care to bring it up.That would be Hvrgull, whose significance as a celestial body depends on who you ask. As far as Richter is concerned, his culture being descended from Nauk Imperial who dubbed it Hvrgull in the first place, there's the mythological tale, and the present, modern study of it.According to folk tales, there was once a malicious, incredibly greedy giant king who amassed a pile of wealth so immense that the Judge of All Things noticed it, and when he was told to return what was taken, the giant king, so enamored with his ill gotten wealth, instead threw a tantrum, crushed his gold hoard into a ball, and flung it up into the sky where nobody could have it.The modern take is that Hvrgull is, in fact, a planet, roughly the size of Velekam and possessing of an atmosphere, that is adjacent in orbit, and close enough to have discernible variation of size in the sky depending on where it is in its orbit compared to Velekam. Some cultures take times as being good or bad depending on how large it is in the sky. Some theories also claim that Hvrgull's distance from the Velekam determines how the Maelstroms appear and disappear, but this theory has little concrete proof.Velekam is the World, yes, but nobody actually calls it that in casual conversation instead of "the world," or some variant of "the ground." Totally not yanked out of my asshole.
“One moment,” you said as you cocked the hammer on your loaded flare pistol, stretched your arm out of the cupola, and fired off the new illumination into the sky over the enemy. “There. The rightmost tank, hit it in the center of its upper hull.”“Roger,” Schafer said as the turret swayed to the right. Another shot clanked off of it, and you saw Schafer flinch despite himself and mutter a curse. “On the way.”>Roll 2d2 and up to 3 sets of 2d100 for potential scatter- DC roll under 70, overage will apply to scatter.
Rolled 2, 1 = 3 (2d2)>>4635771
Rolled 96, 22 = 118 (2d100)>>4635771
Rolled 15, 42 = 57 (2d100)>>4635771Let's see if I can make this worse!
>>4635755So eventually we can have space Panzer Commander a few centuries later fighting the Hvgrull invasion of Velekam? :^)
>>4635784>>4635805Maybe lock this in tanq? It's a decent result imo.
>>4635895Yea, I'm not rolling
It is morning now, updating.>>4635854If I actually get to that point and am still making interactive stories for a vietnamese cooking forum everybody has my permission to find me and put me out of my misery.
Rolled 76, 94, 25, 33 = 228 (4d100)The round flew out and struck the enemy right in the center- the placing was impeccable, and so would the mess it would make inside, undoubtedly. A shot solid enough that you felt no hesitation in ordering the next target to be taken.As the turret turned, though, you heard the battle developing- to your flanks, as well as to your front. The pair of tanks to the rear seemed to be trying to find a target, since you were most certainly ranged.>First two are tanks shooting against you- the next two are to the left and right respectively. DC roll under 25 for against you, DC roll under 40 for the others.
A pair of crunching slams against the turret- low down on it. They seemed to be trying to jam the means by which you’d been paring down the Netillian armor. To the flanks was disconcerting bangs and shouts- but there was little time to account for that. It was time to fire again. The sooner you took care of this threat, the sooner you could help elsewhere.>Select your target and the location on it to shoot at.
>>4636164Take out the other tank advancing towards us, same general area as the first shot.
>>4636170Supporting
>>4636170+1
>>4636170>>4636182>>4636188The same treatment as the first, I see. very well then. Give the same thing as before- 2d2 and up to 3 2d100, DC 70
Rolled 1, 1 = 2 (2d2)>>4636212
Rolled 5, 13 = 18 (2d100)>>4636212
>>4636212Nope, not rolling after that
>>4636226Alright next target
>>4636226Pff. Alright then.
The white glow of your outgoing round flashed for but a moment before sinking straight into the center of the upper hull plate of the coming tank- not a particularly large vulnerable spot, but one that Schafer was exploiting with ease. The stricken vehicle belched smoke, continued rolling forward into a large crater made by the initial artillery barrage, and stopped. It would have had a decent hull-down position there, but the doors on its side popped open, and crew tumbled out of the thing, staying down in the crater. Already, you had more than doubled the count of knocked out vehicles on this stretch of dusty plain.The light from the flare petered out, and Schafer sighed gruffly. A look at the clip of spare flares- three left. You slotted one into the flare gun, but Schafer cleared his throat.“Don’t bother. They’re on the run.”“No reason to let them get away with their tanks.” You said as you popped out and looked to the side. On both sides, the situation wasn’t ideal. A pair of tanks on the left, advancing, a single one behind laying down fire. On the right, there was a line of three lit up still by their burning compatriot, seemingly trying to reduce the trenches. Both anti-tank guns had been hit, damaged or knocked out of position, and spare crew were trying their best to set them back in order. “Hausen, the short wave to the Republic troopers.” The Silver Lances had taken to calling them Chocos, but these chocolate soldiers were yours, in some way. You’d worked hard to see them come this far, and a part of you wanted to see them prove themselves. “This is the Kommandant. How long until you’re up here?”“Are yoo alrigh’? We ah going as fas’ as we can!”“Just past the town. We’ll be there soon.” Narr dispensed with any presumptuous chatter, thank God.“Hurry up,” you urged them, unsure of what more incentive you could offer than necessity. It’d have to be enough. “Schafer,” you said off the line, “The other sides are having trouble.”“Just give me a side.”“Right, er,” you paused. You’d send your other tanks to the side you weren’t supporting, presumably. Unless you decided to do something crazy…>Shift your turret to the left. That bunch would be a direct threat to you quite quickly.>Focus on the right. If you didn’t support that side, with the concentrated fire on it, it would surely weaken, if not falter under the weight, with their AT gun temporarily out of action.>Do something crazy, leave the defenses. (And do what, going where?)>Other?
>>4636282>Shift your turret to the left. That bunch would be a direct threat to you quite quickly.Advancing tanks first. Hopefully the burning one on the right means our Republican friends should have pretty nice illumination.Also really tanq, what are the SPG crews even doing right now? :P
>>4636297Supporting
>>4636282>Shift your turret to the left. That bunch would be a direct threat to you quite quickly.
>>4636282>>Shift your turret to the left. That bunch would be a direct threat to you quite quickly.I would kind of like to sally forth, but I don't know how fast that baguette launcher of a tank can go and it wouldn't be wise to have to slow down for it.
Alright that was an entire day of being dead I have no time to be kill anymore.>>4636297>>4636305>>4636316>>4636321>>4636357>>4636388Shift left, towards the advance on your flank.Getting back on.>>4636297>Also really tanq, what are the SPG crews even doing right now?They are busy. They haven't stopped shooting, but if you wanted privileged access to heavy ballistics you shouldn't have stuck with the arranged marriage :^)
“Turn the turret to the left,” you said with a second look, “Those tanks are moving on our flank. Our front armor’s too tough for these guys, but our flanks sure aren’t.” You’d never been shot in the side, but you knew for a fact that the m/32 did not have thick side armor- and the Von Blum version had no reinforcement to it either, as far as you knew. Whether the Armor of Fate covered all parts of the tank was another unknown, like most of its traits. Better not to take the chance of finding out whether or not it would protect you from the side.“Aye, Lieutenant.” The power turn shifted, and the turret veered left as you switched back to the short range with the Republic people. “Northman, get me some more AP in the ready rack.”“When you get up here,” you told the other tanks, “Move to my right. There’s a ruin of an outpost on a hill, it’ll have three tanks on its slope, that’s the place that needs support. Out.” No need to make a conversation out of that.“No infantry,” Hausen said from the bow gun, “I get the feeling we’re mucking something up by being here.”“No shit.” Schafer muttered.“Gaenna keep mukkin’ aep, ha ha,” Jorgen chortled as he fished shells from the hull.Two advancing tanks- one on the hill, supporting their advance. They were…getting close. The center tank group had failed to do much to you, but their efforts hadn’t lacked for fruit on this side. Especially if the panzergrenadiers’ anti-tank gun didn’t get back in the fight. They were working on it, but being under fire from a tank was hardly an ideal situation to try and mend a position and gun laying with.>Each gun is disrupted- another hit from a tank will destroy it. It may be advisable to prevent this.The flanking tanks had noticed your turret turning, clearly- one had stopped and was laying its gun on you, though the one to its left had its gun laid on you too- clearly preparing for a flanking shot when it came. Meanwhile, the remaining tank in the rear fired a shot- a shot that went over, but one that required little correction to get right a second time.“Target, Lieuteant.”>Shoot the stationary tank aiming at you. They might not be able to penetrate your armor, but a good shot could still interfere greatly.>Take out the tank on the move. A harder shot, but that was a greater threat to you.>Destroy the remaining tank on the hill. If the anti-tank gun got back into action, this would be cleaned up quickly indeed, but at risk to yourself…>Other?Obviously, if you want to aim somewhere besides the old reliable, then state so. Also, state if you want to use that flare. You’re down to three.
>>4637993>Take out the tank on the move. A harder shot, but that was a greater threat to you.>Radio the arty, request a smoke barrage on our right to give the AT gun some time to repair.
>>4637993>Shoot the stationary tank aiming at you. They might not be able to penetrate your armor, but a good shot could still interfere greatly.Shooting a moving target is a bad idea id say
>>4637993>>Destroy the remaining tank on the hill. If the anti-tank gun got back into action, this would be cleaned up quickly indeed, but at risk to yourself…These Netillians suck so far so I'm not too concerned about them hitting us; better to get the AT gun back into action. Also thought I'd keep the vote tied to make things difficult.Also fire a flare.
>>4637993>>Destroy the remaining tank on the hill. If the anti-tank gun got back into action, this would be cleaned up quickly indeed, but at risk to yourself…It might be good in this engagement to go after the threats to minimize the threats to ourselves, but there could be another wave of attackers and I think saving the AT gun to only have to focus on one sector is a better long term plan.Also fire the flare. Hopefully there are not too many more moments in the future where are on such a knifes edge.
>>4637993>Destroy the remaining tank on the hill. If the anti-tank gun got back into action, this would be cleaned up quickly indeed, but at risk to yourself…
>>4638334Also use the flare yeah
>>4638012The moving one.>>4638229The still one.>>4638245>>4638296>>4638334I fight for my friends. And shoot a light.Writing. Well, laying down the target. You do have to shoot at the thing, after all.
Rolled 70 (1d100)“One moment,” You bent your arm out of the cupola and squeezed the trigger on the flare gun once again- your hand was getting sore from gripping that thing, yanking on the cupola lid…you hoped you weren’t wounding your burns too much. “There,” you said as the flare ignited above and turned night into day, in a smallish place. “Get that one in the back shooting at the panzergrenadier, through the center.”“On the way.” Schafer said, as he made adjustments.“Hausen, put me on with Signals. I want to ask for support with something.” Your idea was to request smoke cover for the right- to at least keep the panzergrenadier from being shelled.“They won’t listen, Lieutenant,” Hausen warned you, “Every other commanding officer on this line outranks you. Either they ask for it or they don’t think they need it, or they asked for it and it’s delayed.”“Do it anyways,” you said irritably. What could they think to not need it, you thought, or more likely, what could be happening on the line where it couldn’t be given? The Panzergrenadier did have mortars in their company structure, after all. Had something happened to them? Or was there some other part of the line deemed to be in greater need…perhaps because of your presence.The cannon fired, and you tried to resist the temptation to watch the shot rather than keep right on the tactical situation. As the m/32 kicked back, however, you saw a flash ahead of you…one of the tanks ahead firing.>Enemy DC Roll of roll under 30, degrees of success apply, first is on you, the other two are on your ally to the right.>Also, give the same shooting rolls as before- 2d2, and up to 3 2d100, DC roll under 70This took much longer because the garlic bread came out underdone and I had to watch it broil.
Rolled 77, 38 = 115 (2d100)>>4638398*The other two
Rolled 2, 2 = 4 (2d2)>>4638398
Rolled 24, 95 = 119 (2d100)>>4638398
Rolled 40, 27 = 67 (2d100)>>4638398
>>4638409>>4638424Lock it I'd say.
>>4638409>>4638424Certainly pulled that one from the fire huh.Writing.
The enemy’s shot splattered off the front of your turret with a loud and meaty ring, but your tank and the crew within remained unharmed. Let them keep trying, you thought with a small rise in confidence. Not too much, though. The noise of it was startling no matter how much and how predictably it occurred.Meanwhile, your own shell arced out and buried itself into the enemy tank. With a gout of black smoke, it was silenced immediately. The panzergrenadiers’ gun was defended, That just left these two close to you, and very much focused upon your demise, or your disarmament at least.…Two, so why was there one? Shit. You looked further left- how had that bugger gone over so fast? “Schafer, the moving one’s gone much further.”“Distance?”“…Maybe two hundred meters?”“Not going to flank us if we go for him,” Schafer concluded with a hand on the power traverse, but he hesitated. After all- turning your turret might expose your turret’s flank to the remaining tank. That might have been true of the enemies on the hill to the right, but their attention sounded well focused on your allies rather than you. A blessing, but that didn’t make this less a problem.The panzergrenadier still hadn’t gotten their gun up and running again, yet. This would be all on you, it seemed.>Take the risk and finish off the panzer in front first. A moving panzer wouldn’t be able to hit anything without coming to a stop, after all.>Turn the turret and eliminate the closing flanker. He wasn’t a problem now, but if he was gunning it, he might have an angle that was bad for you sooner than expected.>Other?
>>4638450>Take the risk and finish off the panzer in front first. A moving panzer wouldn’t be able to hit anything without coming to a stop, after all.*Technically* there was a break from the last round of fighting so can we proc Jorgen's loading skill here?
>>4638456>*Technically* there was a break from the last round of fighting so can we proc Jorgen's loading skill here?No :^)Half because it'd be too strong and half because that ability's """""mechanical""""" usage is to plug the same target twice or to retry a missed shot. The amount of "time" it takes to reaquire a target that isn't close by would make it not actually useful for hitting one thing, changing targets, then the other.The """"""""""""mechanics""""""""""""""" of this quest are poorly defined at best I know but hopefully that makes sense.
>>4638465Alright then>Turn the turret and eliminate the closing flanker. He wasn’t a problem now, but if he was gunning it, he might have an angle that was bad for you sooner than expected.Just have to chance it then.
>>4638450>>Turn the turret and eliminate the closing flanker. He wasn’t a problem now, but if he was gunning it, he might have an angle that was bad for you sooner than expected.We take out the moving tank, the AT gun takes out the front tank after they flub their shot. Greedy? Maybe, but we have an ace up our sleeve so its not like this will bite us in the ass too hard.
>>4638450>Turn the turret and eliminate the closing flanker. He wasn’t a problem now, but if he was gunning it, he might have an angle that was bad for you sooner than expected.Either way we'll be exposing our side armour this round. IMO we probably have better odds with a shell that's coming from further away and hitting the turret and not the hull.
>>4638467>>4638479>>4638502Protect against the fast mover.Alrighty then, update soon.
“Hit the leftmost one,” you ordered your gunner, “Make it quick, our flank to that pest ahead isn’t as vulnerable as that to the mover.”“Aye.” Schafer grunted as he shifted a lever and the power traverse traveled left, settling harshly as Schafer prepared to make the shot. “Damn, going in the dark.” He was right- that tank coming on the flank had fled the light like a beetle found under a stone. He didn’t complain further, though. “On the way.”Though the turret was turned to the moving enemy on the flank, you kept a watchful eye on that tank ahead. You were giving it an opportunity to strike you, potentially badly, if it hit the right place. An invitation, practically an affront. You kept low in the cupola, too. That hull machine gun wasn’t pointed in your direction, but you were also by far the least armored part of the tank. Never could be too careful.>Roll up to 2 sets of 1d100, averaged, DC 60 roll under for darkness and moving target. Degrees of success apply.
Rolled 8 (1d100)>>4638569
>>4638574Alright then. Saving those rolls, I see. Writing.
Rolled 7 (1d100)A wrenching of steel in the distance, followed by a muffled popping sound.“Hm, that didn’t end well for them,” Schafer said with a hint of pity. Not something you could spare, as the turret only barely began to turn when a star appeared in your last foe’s barrel.>Enemy rolling to hit- DC 45 roll under.
>>4638580Our luck had to run out some time, hopefully that was at us not the AT guns.
Rolled 72 (1d100)CRRRNCH.You flinched as a horrible noise quite unlike previous deflections came out. A penetration? Judge above, were you going to look about and see…what had happened last time?No. Your panicked snapping about of the head yielded naught in terms of wounded or dead, but that relief melted away when Schafer pulled on the power traverse…then pulled again. No movement. Only despondent jerking and grinding.“That shit,” Schafer swore, and you could only assume the worse scenario next to a penetration- your turret had been jammed with one well placed shot. What would you do, you thought, trying to think as a sound from the left barked out…>Ally roll to hit, DC 70 roll under
There was a nasty, scouring screech as a shell from the left scraped a line down the edge of the enemy tank’s hull. The panzergrenadier had gotten their gun working, then- but their shot had been rushed. It hadn’t taken out the enemy, and they could potentially fire again…>Order the driver to angle the tank to reduce the chances of a shot towards a weak area. They might get lucky again, but it wouldn’t be in a potentially fatal way. The panzergrenadier could take it out that way.>Try to rotate the tank to point the gun properly at the enemy. It’d be an awkward way to aim and could expose your hull’s flank, small a target as that was in a hull down position, but you had to try.>Point the hull towards it and spray it down with the bow gun. Unlikely to harm it, but it could surely distract them or throw off their aim.>Other?
>>4638598>Point the hull towards it and spray it down with the bow gun. Unlikely to harm it, but it could surely distract them or throw off their aim.Button them up for the AT gun crew
>>4638598>Point the hull towards it and spray it down with the bow gun. Unlikely to harm it, but it could surely distract them or throw off their aim.Making it easier for the grenadier gunner is probably our best bet, and it still at least shows our most armored side.
>>4638598>Point the hull towards it and spray it down with the bow gun. Unlikely to harm it, but it could surely distract them or throw off their aim.
>>4638598>>Try to rotate the tank to point the gun properly at the enemy. It’d be an awkward way to aim and could expose your hull’s flank, small a target as that was in a hull down position, but you had to try.If anyone can do it, Malachi can.
>>4638598>Point the hull towards it and spray it down with the bow gun. Unlikely to harm it, but it could surely distract them or throw off their aim.And here I was wondering when trouble would start piling up.
>>4638598>Try to rotate the tank to point the gun properly at the enemy. It’d be an awkward way to aim and could expose your hull’s flank, small a target as that was in a hull down position, but you had to try.
I am up again.>>4638610>>4638626>>4638619>>4638664Use that 13mm!>>4638660>>4638752>>4638984Rota te.Writing.
“Mal,” you said sharply into the intercom, “turn our hull to them! Hausen, give them a taste of the bow gun!” The range was well within the bow gun’s capabilities to reach, though certainly not to cause damage. Any distraction would serve you well, though. All that was necessary was for you to give the Panzergrenadier a second shot. They were on target, but in the dark, they didn’t necessarily know how much they were. Showering the enemy in tracer fire might, in a small way, help that too.The risk was that you’d reveal how badly you’d been damaged, while also pointing the gun that could harm that tank away from it, endangering you both as you would both be unable to fire the cannon at the foe, and also be turning your turret even more to the flank- inviting a shot right through the side doors, despite being armored as they were. For now you had to pin your hopes on the Panzergrenadier, though.You felt your blood thicken and chill as your fears proved correct. When the hull turned and the turret went, illogically to any observer, further from the threat, the enemy began to turn its turret in the direction of the 4.7 centimeter anti-tank gun.“Hey, hold on,” Hausen muttered into the intercom, “Look over here, bastard!”>Roll up to 2 1d100, DC 25. The averaged roll under will be the amount taken away from the enemy’s roll in counter-fire.
Rolled 17 (1d100)>>4639075
>>4639076Well that works
>>4639076Good shot.
Rolled 9, 14 = 23 (2d100)The 13mm fire went slightly up, then down, and showered in a glowing rain over the enemy’s turret. Heartening- but this was all you could do.The sound of two cannons firing at once. Two cracking bangs from two places, reaching your ears simultaneously.>First roll is allies, second is enemy’s. DC are respectively roll under 70 and 55. Enemy's roll is penalized by 8.
>>4639087They are really gunning for us.
Rolled 3, 9, 86 = 98 (3d100)The tank before you popped open in a burst of fire and smoke like a firework, with an echoing KRCHKRAAACHK!!!” Your spirits soared, until you looked left and saw the wreckage of the anti-tank gun falling back down to the dust.A similar and familiar pair of sounds to your right.>Same rolls, but enemy has 45 to their latter two
>>4639091Phew! What the %@$&*!? Auto-locking sonuvabitches.
The near exact same sounds, in some encore of what had just happened on the left. A look to the right revealed the source of the loud explosion being an enemy, as well as the other anti-tank gun being sundered. Yet now, there were two more tanks standing, even after the rest of the line was done.With a hand either trembling out of frustration or dread, you switched sets to the Republic channel. “Where the hell are you!?” you demanded.“Chill. Fram’s right there.”They were? You looked further back, and saw that rounded tank roll up, and stop. “[iC’est mon Plaisir, Kommandant! Fire!” The Emrean tank flashed up with the light of its cannon’s blast- for a moment you saw many faces of panzergrenadier in the trenches with expressions mixed of relief, and complete confusion, apprehension. You’d hope the former would be what they ended with.…It wasn’t a good shot, as you saw dust fly up in front of one of the enemy rather than seeing another one burst apart, but their confidence was shaken- they were now the lone attackers, and they must not have trusted their chances, as they retreated back behind the hill.The attack had been fended off. Yet you had a feeling this was far from over, despite the casualties caused.-----”What the hell do you mean there’s a complication? Do you understand how vital it is that we recapture Ganzenacht?”“Y-yes, sir. But there’s stiffer resistance than we expected.”“Stiff resistance? Stiff resistance does not stall an armored assault battalion. Intelligence said that none of their armored formations are even present at that place. They should have nothing capable of standing in your way.”“Well, they’re…wrong.”“How many.”“One.”“Bullshit. Your company is being stopped by a single tank? What manner of fool are you?”“…A couple of others came up at the end. It was some new model of m/32, that could pierce our armor far before we could get in effective range of it. It pierced the armor of the assault guns, even.”“Just our fucking luck. Are you sure? What is a tank even doing here? Damn it all.”“My company’s taken over fifty per cent casualties. Shouldn’t we just go around at this point? Who knows what else is there? The other two tanks that came up were Republic ones, what if this is a trap?”“Quit fucking around. I’ll send up our reserve company to help your next attempt. Don’t embarrass me again.”-----
A moment of local quiet resumed- the SPGs still boomed from behind, but the war was not ahead of you, for now. Not your war, at least. The panzergrenadier were exchanging potshots with skirmishers and scouts, from the sound of the cracks near and far. The defense line was up a medium tank and a light tank, Narr’s tank equipped with a large caliber machine gun in its turret and Framboise’s possessing a proper cannon, but both the 4.7cm guns had been trashed fending off this attack, and your m/32 had had its traverse disabled.It was a worse hit than you initially thought. There had been the hope that the round had merely stuck in the ring, but a very brief inspection from outside revealed that the shot was well dug in- enough for its very tip to be nosing through into the crew space like a rat, where some viscous black substance was leaking around it.“Fuck is this?” Schafer reached out and touched the black fluid, bringing his finger back for a sniff. “…This ain’t oil, not hydraulic fluid…th’ fuck? Smells like blood…”This m/32’s special quirks gave it more than special armor, you recalled. Armor that had been shattered was stitched back together before, as though steel were flesh being healed. Would this “heal,” or did you need to extract the shell first? In any case, it didn’t seem like the m/32 would be fighting fit in time for the next wave of foes, if it could even be “treated” in a timely manner at all.>It was worth a try. Before, it had repaired much worse in not that much time. You had to get your crew to help you dislodge that round. (How?) (Also, will you try and explain how a tank can heal itself? If so, elaborate.)>There was little you could do now. Try and dig the tank in deeper with what little time you had- then you could at least turn the hull without fear, even if it was a sloppy and poor replacement for having a properly working turret.>Nothing to do for this. Inform the panzergrenadier on the line and higher command that your tank’s been disabled- and lodge a request that you be replaced on the line. Surely somebody else was available. At the very least, perhaps spare anti-guns could be placed here. (What to do after, though?)>Other?
>>4639122Is it dangerous to hit the head of an AP shell with a spanner?
>>4639122>It was worth a try. Before, it had repaired much worse in not that much time. You had to get your crew to help you dislodge that round. (How?) (Also, will you try and explain how a tank can heal itself? If so, elaborate.)Just push and pull the round out. Tell them the tank will fix itself. How?It's magic, I ain't gotta explain shit.
>>4639137You don't necessarily know if it's an armor piercing explosive shell rather than just an armor piercing shot, but given that it's been stuck in there a while without blowing up and any bursting charge would be behind the penetrating cap...you can try your luck.
>>4639140This, also ask command for those AA guns.Can we get Framboise's tank to tow that tracked assault gun back to the line? Maybe use it as an improvised AT gun.
>>4639144OK then, maybe just get a guy to tug while another guy pushes and one tries to wiggle the turret back and forth a bit. Also try and get high command on the line and tell them you need more AT guns or something because shit is getting dire.
>>4639148Oh yeah also ask the panzergrenadiers/command if there's any extra flares anyone can spare
>>4639122>It was worth a try. Before, it had repaired much worse in not that much time. You had to get your crew to help you dislodge that round. (How?) (Also, will you try and explain how a tank can heal itself? If so, elaborate.)Also supporting >>4639148
>>4639122>Try and dig the tank in deeper with what little time you had- then you could at least turn the hull without fear, even if it was a sloppy and poor replacement for having a properly working turret.> Inform the panzergrenadier on the line and higher command that your tank’s been disabled- and lodge a request that you be replaced on the line. Surely somebody else was available. At the very least, perhaps spare anti-guns could be placed here.We don't know for sure that we can extract the round or that the armor will heal, so it's safer to dig in further so we at least know we can aim by traversing the tank. Also even if we're staying we should still inform command that we're essentially combat ineffective and their AT guns are out so we need reinforcements badly. Also restock on flares.
>>4639164Would also support the digging in, except instead we call in the Republican infantry squad to help do that while the crew focuses on extraction.
>>4639122>It was worth a try. Before, it had repaired much worse in not that much time. You had to get your crew to help you dislodge that round. (How?) (Also, will you try and explain how a tank can heal itself? If so, elaborate.)>How?See if we can't give somebody a hand HA HA jacking the turret up with a tanker bar while someone brave tries persuading the round free, maybe at length with an entrenching tool in case it has a bursting charge.>Also, will you try and explain how a tank can heal itself? If so, elaborateThe five of us just blunted an entire armoured assault and we're surrounded by dead men, don't let the stress of the situation run away with your heads. Things are only going to get stranger in Ellowie anyway.>OtherDo our AT guns share ammunition with our 4.7? If so, send a fifth crewman or a panzergrenadier to check if any of their ammunition is salvagable for us to restock.I like >>4639148's idea of towing the SPG closer, if there's time. I honestly don't think we could convince the panzergrenadiere to crew it but having it nearby, pointing at the enemy might at least create a little confusion and draw their fire briefly>>4635755>I was wondering if anybody would notice. Or, I suppose, care to bring it up.Can't have bossman go to the trouble of sneaking in a little background lore and without letting him sperg out on it afterwards :^)
>>4639195If any of the AT crew survived we can use them for that or heck even take Narr's crew out for it considering his vehicle only has an MG.
>>4639122>It was worth a try. Before, it had repaired much worse in not that much time. You had to get your crew to help you dislodge that round. (How?) (Also, will you try and explain how a tank can heal itself? If so, elaborate.)Whoever knows how tank shells best take the lead and push it out. Hopefully the 'natural' motions or it's 'muscles' perhaps of the tank turret moving at the same time will encourage the pushing out.As to explain? The stress of the day is getting to them, we just barely survived that attack, better to focus on surviving the night. It could be some kind of new round the Nets are using.I'd also support the towing one of the SPGs but only if our section of the line is quiet, don't need snipers picking off the crew to bring it back.
>>4639213Even the Kommandant's orders might not be enough to convince them inside an integrally compromised, stationary vehicle full of hot metal fragments, but I suppose you never know what lengths these wasteland hicks will go to.
>>4639217Sorry meant, Netillian assault guns dead in the field.
>>4639220Well it's the other one that's full of holes but we'll see what happens. Honestly if we get through this I'm really curious to know where the heck the rest of the company managed to push to.
>>4639227Ah, I forgot about the one on the left. My bad.
>>4639122>There was little you could do now. Try and dig the tank in deeper with what little time you had- then you could at least turn the hull without fear, even if it was a sloppy and poor replacement for having a properly working turret.We didn't get a care manual for this thing, hopefully it doesn't heal over the shell. Also there is the idea to get Narr and his people to check out the SPG that had it's track blown off. To my knowledge the tank has to be out of the fighting hole to dig in deeper, so maybe Mal can take the M32 to see if it can tow the SPG, if it can be towed at all, while the rest of the crew dig in further.>Other stuffAT guns might be shot but they can probably get something to cover any holes and maybe they can draw some fire. Maybe talk to the panzergrenadiers to see if we can coordinate anything, they had the AT guns they would know if they have anything else they could bring up. Maybe ask Fram if she wants to come poke around in our hole, wiggle our thing a bit. The shell, the shell in the hole in our tank.
>>4639140>>4639148>>4639156>>4639195>>4639217Try and wrench that son of a bitch out. Meanwhile, try and bum more flares and other junk, including the possibility of towing guns and getting AA guns out here.>>4639164>>4639176>>4639327Dig a deeper hole. For your tank, not your life.Righto then. Hefty chunk of stuff here- a few things might have their own thing going off.>>4639195>Do our AT guns share ammunition with our 4.7?They do, yes. They're the same gun, actually, but one is adapted to be crammed into the m/32's turret. They don't have any different ammunition types from you though.
>>4639999Is it too late for me to add on how they can try to pull it out? I was gonna suggest they tie some rope around it and have one of the other tanks tow it out.
>>4640020No, you can go ahead.
>>4640024Thanks, tanq. You're a true-blue tried and true man amongst men.
Considering the circumstances, you had to at least try and facilitate your war machine’s mending. Without a functioning turret and with it stuck angled off to the side, your vehicle would be practically useless outside of a stationary position. That just wouldn’t do. Yet, how to do it? That thing was well lodged in.Firstly though you had to address your gunner giving you a queer eye, and your loader surely dying to make some sarcastic statement about how the tank was possessed by an eldritch creature. Which it was, but you hoped things wouldn’t get that weird anytime soon. For now, your excuse was…poor, but not illogical.“Don’t worry about it. The stress is probably just fooling your nose. We did just hold off an armored offensive in the middle of…” you checked your pocket watch and nearly dropped it in surprise. One thirty in the morning? “Anyways. It’s probably nothing.”“Probably nothing?” Schafer repeated, as he wrung the black substance between his fingers, “This ain’t nothing and you damn well know it. There ain’t no blood in any tank I know of.”“Maybe it’s a part of the shell the Netillians are using?”That explanation satisfied even less, but Schafer could tell he was running up against a wall as he narrowed his eyes at you and the lines on his face deepened. “Fine. We don’t got time for this now, but it’ll come up.”A look out to your other side to Jorgen, who was also giving you a skeptical squint. He knew of the stranger things this tank was capable of, but not much beyond that. It’d been something that had never needed to be explained before- would that change in these coming days? You hoped not. “We have more important things right now,” you went off that track, “Like getting that shell out of the turret ring. As soon as possible.”“Naetels use saeled shaet,” Jorgen piped up, flicking the tip of the shell irreverently, “Laeks laedgeden tightaer thaen hyell’s, praeblem.”A knocking on the hull, and you opened the turret door rather than going out the top- though it was dark, tempting any sharpshooters among the skirmishers would be a poor move. You popped out on the safer side to see the same Panzergrenadier from earlier that had carried a message over- though looking wearier if no less stout. “Lieutenant Von Tracht,” he said with a salute, “Captain Sehtz needs to talk to you. Needs to discuss the situation. Can you come on over? You’ll have to crawl, but the picket trenches aren’t far.” Above, a light observation plane passed over from the south. You and the panzergrenadier stared up at it for a moment, but couldn’t tell who it belonged to. If it wasn’t being shot at by the anti-air battery in town, at least, it wasn’t an enemy.
“I should be right back,” you told your crew. They knew your will- though that shell didn’t seem like it was coming out without thorough convincing with a variety of tools, if you weren’t so unlucky that mending it would require a visit to the maintenance company’s cranes. They were close, but their work wasn’t as quick as it’d need to be. You dropped down from the tank into its fighting hole, then crawled out over the dust, following the shape of the panzergrenadier up front as you did your best to keep your scarf over your face. Maddalyn’s scarf was getting…filthy, rather quickly. A silken scarf really wasn’t made to be abused in this manner, but it was well enough made to not be falling apart. A wool replacement might be necessary soon though, if you didn’t want to return the pale blue scarf to Maddalyn as scraps.It wasn’t a long crawl, at least. Some quick mind had gotten about three quarters of the way to connecting the infantry’s trenches with your own fighting pit, and it was right past that end point that an officer who was presumably Captain Sehtz was waiting for you.“Lieutenant.” He saluted, “The situation here is unenviable, but you’ve kept us from having to tangle with tanks with bundled grenades. The men and I appreciate that.” His tone had some wear to it, but of the sort that was ground into a person over time. His eyes and posture lacked that tiredness.“It’s what I do.”“To that point,” the Captain beckoned you closer, deeper into the trenchworks, “How is your tank doing?”“It’s been damaged,” you reported, “A hit to the turret ring’s keeping the traverse from turning. We’re seeing what we can do about it.”“Tch,” the Captain clicked his tongue in frustration, “That’s not good. That last attack didn’t seem like it was expecting the fight we put up, but now that they lost so much, I’ll bet their next attack’s going to make the last one look like a mere probe. I mentioned as such to the headquarters in town, but all our armor’s busy too. The pocket’s been encircled, but we’re spread thin as hell and all we can do is wait for the Ellowians and Mittelsosalia to fill up gaps to free up our people.”“So what do we do?” You asked, “Are your anti-tank guns salvageable?” At least one of them you’d seen fly up in pieces, but you held out hope that the other wasn’t scrap metal yet.“Nope,” Captain Sehtz said with a forlorn bitterness, “I called base to see if we could get the eighties over here.”“…Eighties..?” You took the risk of embarrassing yourself to confirm that they weren’t mortars.
“The anti-air artillery,” the Captain explained, not looking annoyed or irritated, “Eighty millimeter. They’re supposed to help the other parts of the anti-air battery protect the mobile base, but if we don’t get backup then airplanes’ll be the least of HQ’s worries. This town’s where everything’s passing through up to the frontlines even now.”“They can shoot at tanks?” You asked, unsure if this was common or if you’d forgotten.“Most flak cannons can’t too easy, they don’t have depression, but these have special mounting so they can be like the rest of us. From before the self-propelled guns were in the division. The unit wanted big guns capable of blasting bunkers. Heavy anti air guns have big bores. Anyways.” The captain waved the thought away, “They can, they’re good at it, and they can do it from further away than the guns we lost. They won’t have a good position is the problem, so I’m getting pushback. We might still have to pull back to the town.”He didn’t sound like he supported that plan though. After all, the whole point of being out here was to keep fighting away from that place.“Are those yours?” the captain pointed to Narr and Framboise’s vehicles.“Er, yes,” you said, “In a manner of speaking. They’re supposed to get me back to my unit when they can.”“Alright, just making sure they didn’t just…wander in.” The captain said with an uncertain glance. “If your cannons aren’t useable anymore, can I have their spare ammunition?” you asked.“They’re four point seven, not five or three point seven.”“That’s mine too.”A skeptical squint. “If you say so.”“I have a plan too,” you continued, “I might need some of your panzergrenadier for it. I want to get that assault gun on the left,” you pointed to the one that had been abandoned due to being rendered immobile, but without its hull being compromised, “And tow it back here. It doesn’t look like it traverses too far, but, if you had any ideas I’d be willing to hear them. You’d have to crew them, though.” Yes, you could have Narr crew it too, but if the next attack included anything besides armor, you’d need even his tanks lighter weapons.“Hmm.” The captain frowned, “I’ll send a team to help once you go and do it.”“Thank you. Was there anything else?”“No.” The captain saluted and turned to leave, “You should get started with what you need to get up to. We won’t have much time. At the very least, they’ll let us know full well when they’re coming. We get lucky and our artillery might hold them up, but you just know they want this place.”-----
Getting the shell out proved…troublesome. An idea you had was to use the power of another tank to pull the shell out, but that required knocking it out far enough to get a good tie around it, or the like. The turret was jerked back and forth, and the aperture was beaten at with the tank bar, but every bit of progress was grueling and slow. It was getting out, but you didn’t have time to waste doing things as slow and steady as possible, especially when it turned out that Framboise’s and Narr’s tanks couldn’t drag over the SPG on their own. They needed your help.Their tanks required identification- a little asking had Framboise proudly proclaiming that it was an “Atelier de Jumelles, Lapin.” Haussen suggested that it be dubbed something less a mouthful.“Baguette Launcher don’t sound shorter,” Schafer grumbled as he struck at the end of the shell with a mallet and a spare track pin. It turned out to be an inert shell- a pure penetrative projectile. It very well could have gone all the way through, but it had struck at an odd angle. Which didn’t help getting it out at all.“I haeva naeme faeret.” Jorgen offered.“One that nobody will be able to pronounce,” Hausen said as he held the pin in place with a spanner, “Wonder what the mute would call it. Hasn’t said anything.”“Like he don’t want us t’ hear what he sounds like,” Schafer said with sudden suspicion. “Can’t remember his accent, but I’ve heard that somewhere before.”“Mountainfolk aren’t that uncommon,” you sniffed.“They don’t sound all the same either,” Schafer said back. “My wife’s one, if they’re out of the peaks long enough they talk just fine..”“Even if they don’t have grass for hair, you can check the hips,” Hausen said reverently.“Knock that off.” Schafer apparently didn’t take kindly to that comment. “Quit thinking about broads and hold th’ fuckin’ pin straight. When th’ Netillians come they won’t be wanting t’ have a chat about no hips.”>Unjamming the turret will take some work. You have roughly three time blocks to work with- it might take longer, or shorter than expected to take things out. For each time block, you can roll 1d100. The first time the DC is 40, the next it’s 50, the third it’ll be 60, all roll under. If you don’t want to use all your time, you can stop- and not have your turret functional.
Rolled 56 (1d100)>>4641546
Rolled 8 (1d100)>>4641546One more try!
>>4641565nice
The first attempts were fruitless, as the thing just wouldn’t move, but as you took over holding onto the spanner after a solid fifteen minutes, and Schafer did his best to grind the turret back and forth, you noticed something…shift.“Finally,” Hausen gasped through clenched teeth, “That was a big one. Keep it up.”After a bit longer, you felt comfortable enough with the progress to check from outside. The thing hadn’t broken up, thank goodness, which allowed you to do your best to put a cable around the other end of it. It was a messy solution, but the only way to get something much stronger than any of the crew or you involved in the process.“Ready?” Narr called out from his tank. Even a small, light one had a great amount of power and torque in it.“Yes!” you called back out, “Go!”The first few times the cable slipped off, or was otherwise lacking enough a grip. The fourth time, it snagged, but a crunch and a shift told that it was just nearly out. The fifth time, the shell was yanked out fully, and your sigh of relief was interrupted by an a sharp expletive as the black gunk from within the armor spilled all over the place- not onto you, but it was an amount that was surprising- and hard to explain.Schafer was kind enough to continue ignoring it, having already stated his expectation of an explanation later, and the stuff turned gummy and stopped rather quickly, thankfully. “Let’s see the damage,” he muttered as he clicked the electric torch on and scraped at the gunk with a screwdriver. “…Hm. Could be worse. But we’ll have to avoid traversing over that bit. The turret’ll get jammed up again or just stop. I’ll test out the turret some.”“It’ll have to do,” you said, “Better than before at least.”Schafer leaned on the power traverse, frowning at the odd noise that came. “…Feh. Maybe better t’ use the manual when I can.” He tested the manual turning wheel. There was still an odd grinding, but less pronounced. “Fuck it.”The plane from earlier floated on back south at this time- and it flew low over the town, circling, before going south again. A scout, assuredly, but what had it seen?Then it was time to drag over the disabled self-propelled gun. It was still potentially useful as a bunker, even if its gun traverse was very limited. A cursory inspection by the panzergrenadier revealed no traps, and a driver was installed to try and help guide the vehicle on its journey. The coordination of dragging, correcting course, and turning it was an experience in testing how taut and hot your veins could tolerate being, but it was eventually dragged over just in front of the trenchwork, gun facing out towards the hill outpost on the Captain’s request.
“This thing has a wireless set in it,” Captain Sehtz said when you reconvened, “They took their books and codes with them and that set wasn’t receiving anything on the frequency it was on. Still seems to work. We can communicate properly, now.” That was good news for the proper coordination that had been impossible earlier. “Still want to take that hill. Damn it all.” He looked out over to the hill outpost like it was game that had slipped out of his grasp. Hm?”The crashing and booming of your self-propelled guns, now firing out over in your direction north.“Sounds like it’s about to get started,” you said with sullen anticipation, “Good luck.”“You too.”A final, late update was the addition of a singular eight centimeter flak gun behind the line, pulled out of its place in the flak battery. It was a healthy distance away from the trenches, practically more than halfway back to the town itself, but that kept it out of reach of the enemy. Unless they broke through you, they wouldn’t be able to get any easy shots on that anti-aircraft gun, made to shoot targets much further away than where it’d be looking. An admirable gun, from the sounds of it. Maybe someday you could find one in a tank, preferably before you had to fight another T-15.The wrecked anti-tank guns had been moved into places where they might be distractions, but the darkness that obscured their state of disrepair also served to obscure them in general. It was better than letting them take up space in the fortifications at least. Unfortunately, no replacements were available to send forward, though you did see a long crate of anti-tank rifles carried forward, its contents distributed. Better than nothing, though the enemy would have to come rather close before those proved effective.You’d tried to bum off some more flares, as well, but were refused. The illumination that the panzergrenadier used was from their mortars, and though a request was send backwards, nothing came of it whether it was because there weren’t any to be found, or because of the red tape of dealing with this new situation. It was worth a try- though generosity had already been extended with cannon ammunition anyways.>4.7 cm gun’s ammunition reserves fully replenished.The m/32 had been guided into its fighting hole, though your Republic allies had no similar fighting holes to take advantage of, they were close by anyways. You hadn’t decided whether to move them yet, but as your artillery support thundered behind you, the last minutes where you could make preparation closed in. Surely soon, there would be a furious reply from the foe.>Where to station your tank support? Options are with you in the “center,” or to the right or left.>Any other preparation in the calm before the storm?
>>4641724>Where to station your tank support? Options are with you in the “centre,” or to the right or left.Both in the centre, I think our best shot is concentrating on repelling one flank first then mopping up the rest.>Any other preparation in the calm before the storm?Short prayer to the Judge to smile upon us tonight for this final desperate defence.Also what's the captured assault gun's calibre?
>>4641764>Also what's the captured assault gun's calibre?105mm, but it's also clearly a different sort of gun from the other one you encountered, since you've gotten the chance to observe it more closely now.
>>4641768Not the same chassis either correct? Or just armed differently?
>>4641773Just armed differently, though there might be superficial differences.
>>4641724>Any other preparation in the calm before the storm?Take a swig from our flask and pass it around. Dear God, please tell me we have a flask full of whisky in our pocket!
>>4641724>Where to station your tank support? Options are with you in the “center,” or to the right or left.Center, AA gun can cover the left while the assault gun covers the right.>Any other preparation in the calm before the storm?Get Narr and Framboise to pull back slightly to try to avoid the next barrage then race back into position once its over, since they don't have fighting holes to hide in.Also hopefully that scout plane is a bearer of good news.
>>4641724>>Where to station your tank support? Options are with you in the “center,” or to the right or left.Center. I am afraid we might have to do something drastic this next attack and we will want our armor concentrated.
>>4641815I'll support this, it's too bad we didn't have a another hour or so to prepare, we could've laid down obstacles on the flanks or center.
>>4641724>Put the Republican tanks on the left to counterflank.
>>4641815Support
>>4641815sounds good to me
>>4641764>>4641815>>4641828>>4642136>>4642204>>4642239The wine and cheese to the center- yank back your support so they don't get his by the inevitable artillery.>>4642171To the left, to the left.>>4641791Hope that you've become an alcoholic.I hope you're ready for round two.
>>4643290>Hope that you've become an alcoholic.I looked up some warning signs for alcoholism and two out of the five were:>the inability to control drinking once it has begun>a variety of social and/or legal problems arising from alcohol use.I think Richter is well on his way.
Framboise and Narr were arranged a good hundred and fifty meters behind you- without fighting positions, you didn’t trust their tanks to withstand another savage artillery barrage. They’d roll up, you planned, after the Netillians finished tilling the dusty soil here as hard as that of the Isle of Prophecy’s stones when it boiled up from the sea. The wireless was a greater boon than the tank itself, the captain wasn’t shy in telling you. He’d been lucky enough to avoid having his telephone cables cut by the other barrages, but that luck streak wouldn’t continue. Especially since the victims of the exchange of luck had been the primary means of defense against armored vehicles.The furious hammering of the self-propelled guns to the rear continued, sounding like they were firing north. That you were now the top priority wasn’t a relief. It was…very concerning. Concern soon supported by news.“Victor One.” The Captain raised you on the wireless.“Responding.”“Just got news from an Ellowian scout flight. Good news first. Seems the Netillians didn’t send their whole force along the line, or they’re holding back way more than they should. If we send this bunch, packing, we should catch a break. The bad news is that the buildup is big. Infantry support and everything. If during the thing coming up, I stop responding to you, retreat to the town, because that’s what everybody else will be doing.”“Understood.” Though if you were pushed back to the town…Anya’s sister, Alina, was there. If the fighting went to the town, there’d be artillery on it. If something happened to Anya’s sister…could you ever look your retinue in the eye again? Maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t fall back. Or if you did, you’d be sure to be quick about something…You needed a drink, you thought suddenly. Was your flask still around? Yes. Yes it was. “Gonna shaere, kommaenderrr?”“Maybe,” you told Jorgen as you unscrewed the cap and tilted it back towards your lips. What was in this? You didn’t care. Actually, you did care, as it turned out. Since what was in there was nothing.
Not much time for anything but a prayer now. Some said the Judge wasn’t said to be one who was much one for prayers. Pleading for the arbiter of fate to give one special treatment wasn’t said to work at all, or so the Cathedra said. Only pleas to better oneself, or to help one mend one’s own wrongs, as one was only judged when their life was over, and not before. The Kaiser claimed to the Cathedra’s bemusement that his victory was because he was favored, because he was of such character that he smote down the corrupt and weak hearted. The dozens of individualistic sects in Strossvald tended towards the Judge of All Things smiling upon those who did their utmost to be upright towards their family, their fellows, and the needy. In times of need, you remembered being told by your mother, an adherent to the sect of Valiance like much of your family, the good hearted whom struggled in the name of justice would never be alone on the battlefield.Yet your family’s fate had ill been affected by such. Perhaps they had not all been morally upright as they should have been, or perhaps it was because they thought more like Heller Von Tracht, whose writings had but a singular, small and pessimistic sentence on that matter. Murder’s bad for the soul. Could you truly plead to the Judge to smile upon you tonight? To grace you and your crew, your allies, with victory? Any beginning to a prayer caught upon that. The Judge owed naught to a sinful man no matter who you asked. …Were you a good person? >?
>>4643560What is good? Is it good to help the needy and downtrodden? Is it still good if you do so by killing their oppressors? Is it just to send others to fight and bleed and die in your stead, so you do not have to? Richter has done evil. He has looked men in the face and spoken with them, expecting to have them perish in the near future in part by his actions. Richter has done good. He has leapt into fire to save men he barely knows. It may be folly to hope blindly that Richter ends up on the right side of a godly scale, but there is some hope for justice. Richter has had a great enemy at his mercy, an enemy that caused him and others no small amount of pain and grief, and that enemy was spared. If the Judge is just, then maybe, just maybe, Richter too can be spared at the end of the coming trial.
>>4643560>>?We pray not just for ourselves, but for all the men and woman risking their lives on the line tonight. The Republic, so that Sosaldt can break free of the brutish cycle of warlordism.The Ellowians, so that what was divided will be whole again, and families reunited in their own homes.And for the rest of the Lances, doing their duty for Archduke and Strossvald, hundreds of miles away from home and loved ones.Though Humanity maybe be sinful and fallible, let the Judge smile upon all of us against the Netillian foe tonight.
>>4643560We tried as much as we could.
Unrelated, but remember that time we hosed down a group of kids in Sosaldt and then drove off? Good times.
>>4643560Ritcher is doing what he can, in accordance to who he feels he should be.There is nothing more noble than that.
>>4643933I think it was really great of Richter to help reduce Sosaldt's serious problem with orphaned children, even if just a little.
>>4643933>>4644197Don't remember the exact situation, but weren't they armed and threatening us iirc?
>>4643696What is good, anyways?>>4643720It's not just ourselves on the line here.>>4643747>>4643988Doing your best.Writing, update soon.
>>4644203I don't see how that's relevant; alleviating child poverty is always a moral good regardless of the circumstances or details. Especially if you kill two birds with one stone by using them to feed the hungry.
Well. You tried, didn’t you? Wasn’t that good enough? You knew you were far from perfect, maybe far from being good, there was plenty that you’d forgotten that you’d not like to remember, you were sure, but you’d surely made up for that some, hadn’t you? Any plea tonight wouldn’t be to just save your own skin, but that of your allies- that of the people you fought for, the reconquest of lost homes and the future of not only Ellowie but Mittelsosalia. The Silver Lances whom were now your comrades and not just your lost legacy. They were all in need of the aid you promised, worthy causes to put one’s life on the line for, duties to want to survive to fulfill. Surely all of that put together was worth a little favor?All you could do, was what you were doing.Are you sure you couldn’t be doing more?No, you weren’t, but when you looked at your right hand, and touched the numb black crackle on your face, you couldn’t help but think that past sins had been paid for, by now.A now familiar whistling sent you ducking back into the turret, flask clattering to the floor as you tried to ready yourself for another nightmarish, ceaseless quaking of the earth and air alike. Yet when the impact occurred, it was…not a colossal crash, an ear splitting boom, but instead…BOOMF.Boomf? You dared to peek over at a blossoming plume of pale-“Gaetter maesk on!” Jorgen shouted at you as he yanked you back down and shoved your gas mask into your hands. Funny, really, he was a lot more concerned than you were. In a way, you were even relieved that it wasn’t normal artillery. Why, though? They couldn’t do it now if it was gas, you observed as more thick clouds began appearing up and down the line, the night now even darker somehow behind the lenses of the mask, your breath already hot and clammy. Good thing your Sosaldtian allies were far back. You’d heard they had little if any protection from chemicals. “The hell is all that?” Narr’s voice crackled on the radio- which you shared with Captain Sehtz now.“Gas,” you replied, struggling to shout through the natural muffling of the mask- its vent hole was a poor conductor of sound. “Keep back, unless you have masks.” The silence that answered you told much of Narr’s equipment situation. However, the same couldn’t be said for the other.“Ze fumes are of no problem to us!” Framboise declared energetically, “But ze concern shown for yoo people, ce’st inspirant!”“Clear comms unless it’s important.”“Ah, ze stern discipline-““Shut up.” Narr said in a stained tone. Nothing further came.
More shells came down with muffled boomfs, and soon everything around you and in front was shrouded in a ghostly fog. What sort of gas was this? From what you remembered, the paler, whiter stuff could be either tear gas or, something else that was properly deadly. Funnily enough, the Netillians hadn’t been in the habit of using deadlier gases against their Ellowian enemy even after their conquest. Either way, why would they start with this? Any high explosive would blow it all away. They’d have to attack……Right away.The shells hadn’t stopped coming when you heard the grinding of track and the skidding of wheels, the growling of engines that sounded like trucks, rather than tanks, though there were the latter as well. They were much, much more serious about this this time.Mortar fire began to rain down from behind, as well as blasts from your artillery, but it seemed to be falling quite a bit forward. With the darkness as it was combined with the white clouds, you were practically blind. Terrifyingly, helplessly blind.Whatever you did next, you’d have to do without the benefit of a clear view of the enemy. By the time everything began to fade, they’d surely be close.>Fire your weapons to whatever sounds you heard and hope for the best. There wasn’t much else you could do right now. (Which ammunition for the main gun, and target priority?)>Back out of your fighting hole and out of the gas. It’d be foolish to stay sitting in there in this situation.>This wasn’t just concealment for the enemy, it was concealment for you. What if you tried something unorthodox..? (Such as what?)>Other?
>>4644518>This wasn’t just concealment for the enemy, it was concealment for you. What if you tried something unorthodox..? (Such as what?)Move forward and blend in with the disabled tanks on the field. When the enemy closes in, suprise them from the flank.
>>4644518>>This wasn’t just concealment for the enemy, it was concealment for you. What if you tried something unorthodox..? (Such as what?)I don't know how far the tank can be expected to go, especially in this smoke in the dark. I would support moving onto the slope of the hill to the east as any tanks at the top of the hill will probably have trouble hitting us and we can take easy shots at whatever attacks the center.If that is not possible, then I support the center idea. The tank wrecks should give us some cover. If we are moving though someone should take up our fighting hole. I would say Narr because this attack sounds like it will have infantry and his tank is the more vulnerable.
>>4644518>>Back out of your fighting hole and out of the gas. It’d be foolish to stay sitting in there in this situation.Close combat against infantry in zero visibility is suicide for a tank. All it takes is a single infantryman to jam something in our tracks or throw a satchel charge at us and we're dead, let alone if they have actual AT assets. Plus if they've been briefed for the attack they know exactly where we are right now and will be swarming to come kill us. We should back away so we can fire into the gas and gun them down while they wander around blindly searching for targets.
>>4644518>Back out of your fighting hole and out of the gas. It’d be foolish to stay sitting in there in this situation.
>>4644518If the Panzergrenadiers are staying in their trenches then:>Fire your weapons with HE once towards the truck noises, the Nets will be speeding as quick as they can.After that proceed to immediately:>Back out of your fighting hole and out of the gas. It’d be foolish to stay sitting in there in this situation.If we had better support then I'd say the camouflage idea would work great, but we can only really depend on our tank.They and any fire from here will be like a lightning rod to their attack.>Other?Tell that anti air flak gun to get ready to fuck up anything coming out of the gas.
>>4644518>Back out of your fighting hole and out of the gas. It’d be foolish to stay sitting in there in this situation.What >>4644660 says.
Hey guys, update will be delayed a while because the car battery died while I was out and it won't start, so I'm stranded until roadside assistance gets here.Shoot the shit in the meantime I guess.
>>4646022Make sure you have your alternator checked.
>>4646022Winter-chan claims another battery.