The Ol' Administratum Heartland

14th November, 2011 , 02:13 (Central Mean Time) / Challenger 2 Sigma-Seven, Currently assigned to border duty at Outpost 24, Aldham Line, Administratum, Fells Point

There were worse places to be assigned, that was certain in Sergeant Grenwich’s opinion at least. Outpost 24 wasn’t exactly a little slice of heaven, being little more than a series of trenches and dugouts surrounding a solitary reinforced concrete observation post. Of course, it was a rather sturdy little thing, dug into the hillside itself but that didn’t make being stuck on the Buutan border in the middle of winter anymore appealing a prospect.

That was one of the benefits of being stuck inside a Dorchester lined box with a roaring V-12 far too close for comfort at least. You certainly weren’t going to freeze when the poor ol’ infantry in the fox holes were huddling around their burner kits. Heck, you didn’t even have to leave the turret to get a cuppa, yet another notch for the armoured units.

Thunder crackled across the sky, yet no flash of lightning followed, only the high pitched screaming of inbound ordnance which ended with tremors large enough to make sixty-two tonnes of armour shiver in their wake. It wasn’t only inert armour that quivered either as Brough cracked her head on the roof of the turret as she suddenly straightened up from her slaving over the bolling vessel, the call of the radio as sudden and unexpected as the shells had been, yet far, far closer.

“All sigma units, this is Sigma Zero. Hunker down for the moment, for the time being we are reading this as an offensive action from the Buutan military. As such we should be seeing some movement across the border soon, be prepared for whatever may come across. Sigma Zero out.”

All the while Captain Vermire spoke out over the net, we were settling into crew positions. I had the Com, Brough had loadie, Nells had gunner and Chiffen had driver. This meant that only me and Nells really had any decent view of what was going on out there seeing as the emplacements the dozers on the AVREs had dug last week were so deep the drivers could barely see out them.

Either side of us sat vehicles almost identical to our own, the dull white and gray finish upon them helping blend the tank into the once green and brown landscape, yet the cold winter months had created a deceiving shell over the land. That shell was now being cracked open by the repeated hammer blows of heavy artillery, revealing the brown earth once again.

In order to break the relentess pounding of the guns, Chiffen decided to shout up our way with a little nugget of her own style of wishful thinking from below.

“It’s gonna be a lot rougher on the infantry out there, at least they’re got trenches, right? Beats losing your ‘ead too a Buutie and his four buddies armed with Kalashnikovs, doesn’t it?”

Chiffen wasn’t exactly in much of a position to complain where she was, protected by both hull and earth, better than what the lads outside had really and yet she’s saying that she’d rather be in a trench, what sort of gob is that?

It’s the kind you speak right up about and give them a nice large piece of your mind, which is what bothers me. I didn’t even get a chance to give her that piece of cake, instead all I got was more work and in the end a headache for the rest of the day.
Why? Because at that moment, some twat of an artillery shell decided to plant it’s highly explosive arse in a rather expensive main battle tank close by.

Add to that a good twenty or thirty high explosive rounds going off, both squashhead and anti-tank, and you have quite a loud racket. If anything gets the radio squawking, it’s explosions far too close for comfort which could only have been either ammo or a tank going up, and seeing as all ammo stores for our Challys were loaded it didn’t look good.

“Sigma units, report status!”

“Sigma-One, green!”

“Sigma-Two, all good.”

“Sigma-Three, shaken but not stirred!”

And so on the reports went, all that colourful mixture of blue and yellow aside from a single callsign. It seemed like that lucky for some but not for others number had struck again, Sigma-Thirteen failed to report in after one, two, three requests from the Captain. Sigma-Fourteen took up the chain of reports again, rattling on with rather less chirp in them than before. But it didn’t Number Six take long to fix that...

“Perk up chaps, armoured vehicles twelve’o’clock! Four thousand metres and closing!”

Now that was news, the tremors were dieing down now, they couldn’t risk hitting their own units with their shells that fell short, so they were cutting it off early, that was if it was Buutan units advancing on us, or maybe the Vengarnens had decided to lead the attack themselves, starting yet another war with their arrogance. A quick look through the vision blocks revealed little more than the shapes of armour in the distance, although the miniature radar equipment and turret mounted autocannons were unique to a certain class of Buutan tank.

“Sigma-Seven here, I’m seeing Buutan T-100s in company strength at least, and there’s yet more coming up behind them… Looks like we’re the unlucky bastards this time.”

Just below and beside me, the sound of metal clinking against metal as Brough loaded a CHARM-3 APFSDS round home. The CHARM-3 was a depleted uranium dart capable of going through over half a metre of glacis plate from over two kilometres away, a tad less effective than the L28 but it’d still do the job against Buutan vehicles… Although maybe not at this range.
“Load HESH and hold for target.”

Once again the sounds of metal on metal, the silver dart swapped for the squashhead. This time it was interspersed with the grumbling of one annoyed with their superior’s decision, but that was normal after being told to swap out what you’d just done. There was logic behind this madness though, and not just any half-baked scone either.

“Sigma Company, this is Sigma Zero. Little friendlies are contacting ARAF for some air support and Central is assessing the severity of this attack, the Kiwi division up by Aldham is being mobilised and Protectorate units are being brought up to date. For now we hold what we’ve got until ground support gets here. Sigma Zero out.”

And with the Captain’s rosy little message informing us that we were to stand out ground against forces which we edging ever closer to outnumbering us two-to one or even above that. It was funny, we’d been told to settle in for a week until we were relieved or at the very least reinforced by the Plainsferians, now they’re delayed a weekend and we get dropped in it neck deep, that’s life. And brilliant, the form of a command vehicle, distinguished from its comrades by the large aerials protruding from the rear of the turret.

“Target, Command tank at eleven-thirty, engage and reload with CHARM-3.”

The turret motors whirred as Nells sighted then placed the L30 120mm main gun on target, tracking and adjusting for a few seconds before he finally slammed down on the trigger-button. The hillside lit up and the muzzle-break jerked back as the L31 HESH round flew free from the barrel, soaring majestically for a mere five seconds before it impacted with the T-100. Still travelling at a reasonable 667 metres per second the round made a nice pancake of itself upon the tank’s reactive armour and incinerated both itself and the surrounding panels of ERA in a flash of white.

“Confirmed hit! Re-engage with CHARM-3, same spot same target!”

In what seemed like an instant Brough had the CHARM-3 locked into the breach and virtually screamed ‘LOADED!’ into poor Nell’s ear, a gesture which he replied in kind as he sent his second round of the battle slicing through the atmosphere. As such, Brough’s left eardrum was suddenly and violently assaulted by a single word. ‘SHOT!’

Once again the L30 roared, the rifled barrel setting the casing spinning before the sabot fell away and all that was left was a single dart, knifing its way through the smoke and sound of battle in the snowy landscape. The armoured turret of the T-100 proving rather tougher prey, yet the depleted uranium dart sliced through and into a HESH round sitting in the autoloader. With a rather hollow whump and a burst of light, one T-100 threw its turret several metres into the air, vomiting chainfiring munitions all the way.

The air was thick with the roars of main guns and exploding shells, the 152mm rounds from the Buutan tanks mainly soaring over the emplaced Challengers or digging their own explosive graves in the hillside while the Administratum tanks were free to rain down death from their own slight elevation. This one sided arrangement didn’t last long though, and although the Challengers swiftly destroyed five more of the Buutan tanks, the earthwork positions wouldn’t last as the T-100s closed in and engaged, tearing into Sigma’s Two and Twenty with their 152mm guns.

It was the turn of the ‘little friendlies’ to shine this time though, as the Buutan tanks closed within two and a half kilometres they came under fire from the four Javelins carried by the supporting Administratum infantry. This alone claimed six of the heavy tanks before the Buutan vehicles were able to bring their anti-aircraft autocannons to bear upon the infantry, scattering their number and swiftly forcing a retreat into the observation post.

Blood and oil stained the snow into an unholy slick as the two forces pounded away, the only break coming rather suddenly when the smoke grenade dischargers upon Sigma-One fired, the smoke screen bursting into life as though it were simply a magic trick used as a prelude to Captain Vermire’s orders.

“This is Sigma Zero, Charlie go for the BMDs. Able, hold with me, Daring, move into combat with the T-100s. Baker, bring the Strykers up to pull out the infantry, ARAF is minutes away, but we can’t hold here.”

This little disappearing trick provided the necessary distraction for the four remaining Challengers of Charlie Platoon under Lieutenant Norman to pull free from their earthworks and flank around the supporting Buutan BMDs, this left Able Platoon under Captain Vermire to hold the defences so that Daring could live upto their name with a full-speed sprint across the Buutan line of fire. The purpose of such a daring manuever was to allow Baker under Lieutenant Grissom to escort the Strykers up from the rear and pull the survivors and equipment out of the observation post. With this done Baker’s aim would be to cover the retreat, holding until the trident formed by the other three platoons could steadily work it’s way back to their position.

“Sigma-Six confirms, Baker elements are moving to support Strykes.”

Grissom wasn’t that bad a leader, but he didn’t exactly have the willingness to drive right into harms way like Dremmel in charge of Daring was. What a sight, Sigmas Fifteen through Nineteen, all using the cover of smoke to reverse out of their emplacements and then send themselves roaring full throttle past the OP with L30s blazing away…

I’d swear they took out at least four T-100s doing that, just speeding out past around their flank while Charlie took the other side and started racking up quite a number of BMDs downed. You could see their missiles glancing off Charlie’s tanks as they kept the APCs back from hitting the Strykers. And we had the rear guard… Think about that, Able just covered them from the emplacements before they incapacitated the last of Daring, once the T-100s had recovered there was… I dunno, eight of them burning while I saw all but one of Daring’s Challys wrecked, only Thompkin’s Sigma-Nineteen looked any good and she’d already taken a beating, but she was going down kicking out CHARM-3.

What could we do? Chiffen was asking me If she could bring us up to at least drop some aid in on Charlie, but Grissom wouldn’t have any of it. We were there to make sure the poor buggers holed up in the OP got out before the T-100s finished off Charlie. And that’s what we did, there was only Sigma-One and Three from Able left by the time we were pulling out, Vermire stayed back with Seymour to keep ‘em from taking potshots at us.

I saw the three Typhoons scream overhead on the way out, Brimstone racks in place under each wing… Still too bloody late for Sigma Company to get out in one piece, twenty Challenger twos reduced to a mere five. We could’ve gotten out with at least double that if Vermire hadn’t been so focused on the bloody infantry, but then I didn’t know that Outpost 24 had Firefly codes for artillery spotting. If the Buutans had those when they hit Firestorm casement… Things might’ve been a lot worse.