Dauntless Advance (tank warfare)

[Shroom Man 777]

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- December 10, 2567-
- Saratov Plains, Imperial Fringe world Karalovan -
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Tank Commander Helanska surveyed the scene with her tactical viewfinder. The initial push had been a disaster, the fields were littered with the burnt up hulks of Dredkaflauvisk battle tanks and Chornyb urban pacifiers. Burning Imperial armor of all kind was strewn all over, wrecked and blasted. It was a kill-zone, an ambush.

The rebel had set up a trap. IEDs, land mines, improvised plasma bombs, rocket artillery everything. Miserable shits, I’ll kill them myself! Helanska cursed mentally. The rebels had taken over Karalovan a few years ago, slaughtering its meager Imperial Militia with a full battalion of traitor Legionnaires. Between then and now, they had plenty of time to fortify the world, filling its orbit with everything from weaponized derelicts to captured Borev-class cruisers, in anticipation for the (albeit long overdue) Imperial response. The fight for Karalovan’s space was brutal, but within several hours, the Imperial Imperator-class battleships had smashed through, and now it was time for the 1021st Shock Army to take care of the rebels on the ground. So far, they were doing what humans called a banged up job. “Imperator damn those fuckers!”

Beyond the Saratov Plains, Helanska could see the capital city, Saratovia… and the bright flashes of tactical atomics obliterating large chunks of it. Forty kilometers behind them were the Shock Army’s self-propelled howitzers. A few of them were delivering the atomics to Saratovia’s heart, while the rest of them were doing a conventional bombardment of the city. Before the bombardment though, they shelled the area immediately ahead of Helanska’s tank formation. Since they could not afford to step into another minefield, they transformed the land in front of them into a slagfield of smoking craters and trenches.

After the previous attempt, which failed miserably, they had opted for a less subtle, more cautious approach. Instead of going in to engage the enemy and retake the city relatively intact, they would obliterate it with a telegraphed barrage that would last the entire day (hopefully longer) while destroying anything that had enough sense to escape the carnage the Imperial guns were wreaking on Saratovia. Of course, artillery was not precise enough to engage stragglers, so they sent the tanks to form a ring of Bragulan Steel around the city, just far enough to be below the horizon. The bombardment would encourage the enemy to come out by scaring the traitorous shits out of them, and then they would be ambushed and die. Quickly and violently. This was all Standard Imperial Doctrine, not like the harebrained strategy of going in and retaking the city intact without the slightest use of tactical atomics.

Who would be shitheaded enough not to order a day-long atomic barrage?” Helanska thought. She was both furious at the insurgents and at her superior, who was the slack-jawed effeminate who devised the previous attack, although she no longer had any reason to be angry at the latter, as the overseeing Imperial Commissar had assumed command immediately after executing him for ‘gross treacherous incompetence’.

Overhead, Helanska could hear the whining turbofans of hovercraft, everything from Stalag bombers to attack gunships to rocket-propelled recon drones. Barely, as yet another mushroom cloud erupted over the horizon, nearly deafening them with a very noticeable blast wave.

Helanska hoped the snipers and infantry they would deploy later into Saratovia’s ruins had enough sense to take their iodine pills. Tactical atomics were very dirty.

The radio suddenly crackled to life, slightly garbled by radioactive interference and insurgent jamming. “Commander Helanska, a column of armored units, including mobile artillery, is-”

In one lightning fast motion, Helanska grabbed her radio and pressed the talk button, cutting off the person on the other line. “Insurgents?” she asked. She was excited, yet sounded firm. As an Imperial female should be.

“Of course,” the voice replied sardonically as Helanska finally depressed the button. “They are six kilometers due east of you. They’re composed of several commandeered tanks, antiques, technicals, as well as rocket trucks and war walkers. Federal handouts. Your unit is closest, so intercept them and take them out.”

“Will do,” Helanska answered. Rocket trucks? Mobile artillery? These were probably the same bastards who did the ambush. I’ll kill those little fuckers and rip off their balls. “Vasyly, bring us eastwards. Zysief, load the guns. We’ve got work to do, the traitors who ambushed our brothers have finally come out of hiding!”

“We’ll show those rats what the 1021st can do!” Zysief enthusiastically said as he slammed a giant warhead into one of the tank’s 120mm guns.

Once again, Helanska grabbed her radio. This time, she told the rest of her unit what they were about to do. It was payback time.


The column of Imperial Steel rolled forward to meet the insurgents’ disorganized advance. While the Imperial armor was relatively swift, the insurgents were much slower, as they could not afford to leave their clunky war walkers behind – in fact, some of the sluggish walkers were at the lead. As the Imperial armor emerged out of the blurry horizon, the insurgents opened fire. The leading walkers, with their superior field of vision, were the first to engage, filling the air between the two walls of steel with intense yet barely-visible lasers, typical Federation weaponry. Several Imperial light tanks that led Helanska’s formation were carved open by the beams, but they were laser-fodder as suddenly, heavily armed hover gunships emerged from behind the horizon like great birds of prey, opening up with a mighty salvo of Imperial firepower. The war walkers were decimated by the initial wave of K-bolter cannons, unguided rockets and anti-tank missiles that blanketed the area with fire, but the surviving walkers diverted their attention to the Imperial aircraft and soon, the gunships found themselves bathed by laser fire. Several of the steel birds were clipped, and they spun wildly as their exposed turbofans ignited, causing them to crash to the ground and erupt into brilliant fireballs. The air was beginning to be saturated by flak fire and ack-ack from technicals.

But as the first bird fell, the Imperial armor got within firing range and unleashed upon the traitors a barrage of corrosive armor piercers and high explosives. The remaining walkers (which were very easily targeted due to their high profile) melted under the fusillade, and the tanks behind them were blown to bits before they could even fire at the Imperials, their ancient targeting mechanisms too old and too slow.


“This is for Comrade Jyagiir!” Korachonynv, Helanska’s gunner, yelled as their tank fired two 120mm K-bolts simultaneously. Their rangefinder tracked the round, and they all watched a war walker get dismembered as the acid bullets tore through it and splatter onto the tank behind it. The tank’s turret immediately began sizzling and soon it became a puddle of corrosive steel. Jyagiir was one of those who died in the previous attack. As Korachonynv cheered, the two tanks behind them disappeared under a massive explosion that nearly sent their own tank flying.

“Helanska, we’ve got a problem!” the radio crackled to life. The transmission was from a tank right next to them.

“What?!” Helanska barked at her receiver, forgetting to press the talk button. She cursed, slammed the receiver, and then pressed the button. “What?!”

“Look up!”

Helanska grabbed her viewfinder and looked up, seeing a dozen rockets arcing over the horizon, descending towards them. “Shit!” she cursed just in time as the area was again covered in explosions. The earth shook violently and then there was a giant ‘boom’ that signaled a direct hit.


The advancing insurgent tanks and walkers left the rocket trucks and mobile artillery behind in order to provide cover fire, and now they delivered. The Imperial advance was being blanketed by mortars, artillery shells and unguided rockets. Of course, the bombardment was imprecise and off-schedule, but it bought them time, and did well for a hasty on-the-spot stratagem.

It was only a short while before the Imperial gunships noticed the rockets and shells raining down on their comrades, and some of them quickly decided to take care of the insurgent artillery. They emptied the last of their rockets and missiles in a single volley that utterly destroyed over half the rocket trucks, and then began making their way for a strafing run. However, they were intercepted by several war walkers and technicals that lagged behind the insurgent formation. Lasers and ack-ack sheared through turbines and turbofans were blown up by RPGs and flak, the sky was soon dotted by midair explosions, spinning out of control airships and the streaks of burning hovercrafts crashing to the ground. The surviving aircraft fell back as a pair of SNTs screamed down from the skies and repeatedly strafed the walkers and technicals with their K-bolters, liquefying them. Then the gunships resumed their advance and tore the helpless traitors to pieces with cannon fire. Then they circled around and went back to their original formations, a few of them dropping nuclear firebombs at fleeing technicals.


“Shit! Those traitorous pigs! Capitalist consorters!” Helanska growled before barking out another series of orders to her tank crew. Directly in front of her was a spike that protruded from the interior walls of their tank’s massive turret. It was an armor piercing round that had imbedded itself into the turret’s outer layer of cement. Its tip had sliced through the slanted layer of Bragulan Steel behind the cement, but aside from that, no harm had come to the actual tank. The funny thing was that the projectile wasn’t from the traitor artillery barrage, but from one of the insurgent tanks right in front of them. The one that was about to finish them off. “Kora, what the hell are you waiting for, you moron! Fire the guns!”

In response, the entire tank shook as Korachonynv punched the dual 120mm cannons’ triggers and sent the rounds flying towards the tank that tried to kill them. The traitors didn’t share their luck and their tank’s turret was instantly vaporized by the high explosive anti-tank warhead. Korachonynv laughed, headbutted the button that expelled the spent shells from the dual breech, and then laughed again as the tank’s interior started stinking of gunpowder. “Burninated!”

“You shut up!” Zysief screamed very loudly as he reloaded another pair of HEAT rounds into the tank’s massive guns. The impact of the armor piercing round had somehow deafened him, and caused him to have a complete nervous breakdown. He slammed the breech close, forgot to twist the knob that would lock it, slammed it close again, and then finally locked the knob. As Helanska checked to see if the rest of their electronics weren’t killed by the impact (that and the massive recoil of their own guns), she made a mental note to submit Zysief to the People’s Imperial Sanatorium of the Empire, where he would be processed and made to ingest a large quantity of tranquilizers. He had been degrading for quite some time, behaving erratically and having drastic mood swings. After this mission, he would probably have to be replaced.

Helanska sniffed the air, it stank of gunpowder. And also of urine. She glared at Zysief. Then she glared at the tank’s driver, Vasyly. “Get us moving! We’re falling behind! Bring this slab of shit forward! Fuck, why isn’t that camera working?!”

One of the cameras, the one mounted on the B-NET machinegun in front of the commander’s hatch, was dead. Helanska thought it was from the impact of the armor piercing round, but it was actually because of an unexploded artillery round that landed right on top of them, crushing the B-NET, its camera, and damaging the opening mechanism of the hatch.

“Zysief, I’m going to have to use your rangeviewer,” Helanska said as she sat herself in front of Zysief’s periscope.

“But I need it to aim!” Zysief protested feebly.

“Fuck off, or I’ll shoot you myself!” Helanska roared as she activated the thermograph and the tactical display.

“This is so shit!” Zysief whined. “This is so shit!”


Vasyly finally got the tank to move - despite the fact that one of their treads was broken - and the tank rolled forward, catching up with the rest of the Imperial armor. They passed by a field of twisted metal, but unlike the last time, it was the twisted metal of the traitors that filled the Saratov Plains. They had suffered minimal casualties, and Helanska was thankful for that.

Once more, the radio garbled to life. This time, it was the voice of the Commissar. He was an old Bragulan, gray furred, grizzly and gaunt. He wore a black leather uniform adorned by both emerald cruxes and red medals in the shape of human skulls and in the color of human blood. He also had a broadsword, a Vorsratha (which was probably what he used to execute their former commander), and an eye patch. Helanska saw him only once, and he scared her. He reeked of fanaticism, and Helanska could smell the stench even through the radio. The Commissar’s voice then commanded, in a thick accent: “Brave soldiers of the 1021st Shock Army, the traitors have been brutalized by our awesome artillery, their city has been shattered, their women and children either burned by atomic fire or buried under tons of rock! Now it is time to complete your patriotic duty and advance into the city as an unstoppable wall of Imperial steel! Remember, there is no turning back. The Imperator has commanded no prisoners be taken. Now go forth and kill!”

Zysief began crying for no reason, which prompted Korachonynv to slap him silly.

“Alright, Vasyly, take us into the city,” Helanska ordered as she took up Zysief’s periscope-like viewfinder. She observed that their artillery was shelling the inner most parts of the city, which told her that they were almost out of things to bombard – which was a good thing. Hopefully, there would be no friendly fire incidents. The last time one of those happened, Helanska heard, two entire armies were nuked from orbit because it was mistaken for mutiny. And the bastard who ordered the orbital bombardment got promoted, too! “Everyone, grab your iodine pills. They’ve stopped the atomic shelling, but our hull is compromised and I don’t intend to get leukemia and grow tumors on my cunt!”

[Shroom Man 777]

Editted a bit.

[Shroom Man 777]

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- December 10, 2567-
- Saratovia, Imperial fringe world Karalovan -
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The city was smothered in acrid black smoke, a mixture of burning wreckage and poison gas. It was hyperallergenic and caustic, although unlike nerve gas, it wasn’t colorless, nor was it tasteless or odorless – it didn’t need to be in order to kill hapless civilians who did not have protective gear. It burned, it choked, it killed. Men, women and children, soldiers and civilians (the insurgents also used children as soldiers), were lying all over the streets, spasming and writhing, their flesh boiling, their lungs liquefying – their life expunged from their twitching bodies by the toxic smog.

At those same corpse-littered streets, the 1021st marched a dauntless advance. Ten thousand strong they were, clad in skull-like masks, olive-green trench coats, bayonets fixed on their rifles. The gas helped ease the process of systematic murder, but there were still pockets of resistance. The atomics, the artillery, the smoke, they didn’t cover the entire city. Someone had to sweep it; someone had to make sure everybody was dead.



Overhead, gunships hovered and circled, blinding spotlights searing through the poison fog. Some of them descended, and out came handfuls of men. They too had masks, but they did not bring K-bolter rifles or trench coats, instead they had longrifles and capes that blended with the surrounding color. The 1021st was dealing with, aside from a million-strong militia of rag-tag guerillas and child soldiers, an entire battalion of traitor Legionnaires. So to accompany the 1021st was a small detachment of the Imperial Legion’s Stormtroopers, in order to assist them on their treacherous brethren’s tactics as well as to atone for the shame the traitors brought the Legion.

There were a hundred Stormsnipers, and they went throughout the city, shooting at everything that moved, forming kill-zones and informing 1021st armor, artillery and infantry on insurgent strongpoints, formations and all other things of importance.

Ratko Kudratov was one of these Stormsnipers. As the gunship hovered, blowing dust and black smoke away with its massive turbofan turbines, he leapt out and landed on a nearby building. His cloak billowed and immediately assumed the color of his surroundings – much like the camouflage used by the Terrans – as he rushed towards the rooftop entrance of the building. Directly behind him, his two fellow snipers, Levikk and Grafsyleninn followed closely.

“We are to follow the tank formation of Commander Helanska,” Ratko said as they all entered the room. “Levikk, you spot for me. Graf, you secure. Understood?”

“Yes,” both of them acknowledged. And then Grafsyleninn asked, “Will we be meeting our former comrades? The traitors, I mean. We deserve at least something for their betrayal.”

“Graf, everyone on this planet is a traitor. And they all deserve to die,” Ratko replied steely as he bolted a round into his sniper rifle. “Now let’s move out.”



“Shit! Wear your gas masks!” Helanska shouted as she saw with her viewfinder the black smoke creeping towards them slowly and menacingly, like a cloud of black death. Before this, the streets had been clear of toxic gas (though corpses strewn all over nonetheless) and they did not bother to protect themselves, except by taking their iodine pills. Though Kora had sealed the hull’s breach, they all quickly reached for their masks, not willing to bet on the air-tightness of Kora’s epoxy and plastic cement.

Zysief, eyes red with tears and nose wet with snivel, struggled with his gas mask, whimpering before finally strapping it around his face. He forgot to remove a cap that covered his respirator (which could’ve caused suffocation), prompting Korachonynv to slap the back of his head before removing the respirator cap, fumbling and cursing out muffled curses in the process, which was lengthened by Zysief’s struggling and whining.

“You stupid effeminate cunt,” Kora muttered as he threw the cap away and threatened to Zysief with his large fist. “Maybe I should’ve left it on and watch you suffocate! Be thankful!”

“Shut up, the two of you!” Helanska barked. “And load the guns!” She activated her viewfinder’s thermograph as the smoke covered them, weary of anything waiting for them in the black. Sure, everything unprotected was probably dead, or in a state of near death, but traitor Legionnaires who had access to protective gear, as well as airtight tanks, could be waiting for them – taking advantage of their unawareness, wanting them to think that everything caught under the smoke was too dead to fight them. The Legionnaires were Imperial-trained, not like the unruly, undisciplined rabble that composed most rebellions. They would hide their tanks inside buildings, waiting for Imperials to get near before ambushing them, or have - “Crap! Three o’ clock! Sappers! RPG!”

The RPG streaked from the rubble, where a Legionnaire sapper team was lying in wait, and exploded directly in front of the tank – detonated by the tank’s defensive mini-rockets. However, the rockets did not detonate the anti-tank missile that was right behind the RPG, and it made contact with the tank, blasting a large chunk off its concrete armoring in an earth-shaking explosion.

As Zysief screamed in panic, Kora took a TV-equipped remote control and activated the B-NET emplacements on top of the tank’s turret. One of them was offline, but the others were in working condition. Before the sappers could either flee or fire another missile, he selected one of the double-barreled cannons and let loose a barrage of K-bolts, barely aiming with the remote’s unwieldy joystick. One of the sappers exploded, although Kora couldn’t see that with his tiny television screen, while another had his limb turned into goo. A the third traitor Legionnaire tried to run but was soaked in residue and ended up screaming and rolling on the floor as he was reduced to a skeleton, while the last one fired off another RPG. Again, it was intercepted, and soon enough, he was liquefied by a hail of acid-coated bullets. His friend, the one that was turned into a skeleton, was now a puddle. But Kora did not see this, and resumed firing blindly for nearly a minute before Vasyly got them moving.

Somehow, the other tanks that were supposed to be in formation with them were gone, and now they seemed alone in the smog-covered, ruined streets of Saravotia. The others probably went ahead while Kora was melting the traitors, or maybe they turned at the wrong intersection… “Boss, where are we heading?” Vasyly, the driver, asked.

“Our formation is supposed to…” Helanska wasn’t entirely sure herself, and she checked the maps. “Shit, we’re supposed to lead our formation to a bunch of troopers, push for the capital or something. Where are the other tanks?!”

“They left us…” Vasyly answered hesitantly, all the while, Zysief was becoming hysterical. He asked, with his wide-open eyes visible even through his mask, “This is bad, isn’t it?! Isn’t it?!”

Helanska sighed. “Yes, it is.” And then Korachonynv headbutted Zysief into unconsciousness.