Ted wrote:They mounted a version of the 15" naval rifile into a Tiger I chassis, called the Brummbar. Introduced after Stalingrad after they found out that destroying buildings is a hard job.
No, it was a variant of a naval DEPTH CHARGE that they mounted
onto a Tiger I chassis, and they called it "Sturmmorser Tiger" or just
"Sturmtiger"
Takes 5 minutes to reload after each shot......
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
I was not aware that "thing" could elevate sufficently to do anything but LOS direct fire.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Chapter Five was written and posted in the space of one
hour to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the 6th Army's
Third major attack on Stalingrad on October 14th, 1942. ENJOY!
CHAPTER FIVE
[124th Corellian Infantry Corps HQ Officers' Mess Hall]
"More wine, sir?" asked the servant.
"I think I shall indulge myself in that Chardonnay
of 2007 vintage you have." replied Major General
Charles Bean, who commanded the 124th Corellian
Infantry Corps, which was made up of the 999th
and 1000th Corellian Infantry Divisions.
"I must say, this meal is quite good, sir."
added Captain Ted Archbold, who was sitting next
to his superior officer, High Colonel Sonnenburg
as they both partook their superior's hospitality.
Sitting across the table was an unexpected guest
for their morning meal, General Crierie of the 51st
Starfighter Corps and his chief lieutenant, High
Colonel Nathan Yates.
It had been a surprise when Crierie showed up earlier,
asking if he could dine with his fellow Corellians.
Bean could see nothing wrong with accepting Crierie's
presence, while on the other hand, both Archbold and
Sonnenburg stared at the flamboyant starfighter
general with undisguised hatred in their eyes.
"Yes indeed, it is." said Crierie as he took another
bite of the freshly cooked imported salmon from Mytos
IV that was his breakfast.
"Was it really necessary to level the entire city, General?"
asked Sonnenburg as he sipped on his cream royale coffee.
"I have found that terror is the best method of cowing the
peoples of this galaxy to our will. If it makes life harder
for your troops, well that's too bad, Sonnenburg. War isn't
a cakewalk." shot back Crierie.
Suddenly, before anyone could reply, a dark figure walked into
the officer's mess hall. A figure everyone in the Empire lived
in fear of - the Dread Lord himself, Darth Vader.
Everyone automatically snapped to attention, trying to contain
their fear.
"My Lord, what is it you want?" asked Bean unsteadily, a million
thoughts running through his mind at that point. He hadn't done
anything bad lately, so why was Vader here?
"General Crierie," rasped Vader in that terrifying metallic voice of his.
"Why did you disobey the Emperor's orders not to carpet bomb Ikonos City?"
Crierie could feel an invisible hand constricting on his throat,
and he struggled to reply.
"My...lord...I thought it was best to cow the populace with an
overwhelming display of force rather than with ineffectual pinpricks."
He felt the grip on his throat tighten even more.
"The Emperor put the area around the Temple of Kahless off-limits from bombing."
"My lord, my bombers stayed well outside that exclusion zon..."
"Then why are the walls of the Temple scorched? You're as incompetent
as you are stupid."
Everyone winced at the sound of Crierie's vertebrae shattering
under the Dark Lord's invisible grip.
Vader turned to face down High Colonel Yates, and bored straight into
his eyes.
"*General* Yates, you are now in command of the Fifty-First."
With that, Vader released his grip on Crierie's corpse, and it fell
face-first into the expensive salmon dish, ruining it utterly.
"Yes, My Lord!" replied a shaken Yates, trying to comprehend his
sudden promotion.
Vader left the mess hall as quickly as he had arrived, like a human
whirlwind that left death in it's wake.
Slowly, the stunned officers sat down at their seats and resumed
eating their breakfasts, trying their best to ignore the corpse
of General Crierie slumped face down in his salmon meal.
"This Pasta is rather good, General, where did your chef get the
recipe?" asked Archbold as he dabbled at his lips with a napkin.
"Why, he picked it up when I was assigned to the region of Earth
known as Italy. We also picked up the fine stock of wines you're
enjoying right now," replied Bean.
An aide walked into the room, and handed a note to Sonnenburg.
"What? What is it?" asked an annoyed Sonnenburg.
"Sir, the attack has bogged down around the Ikonos Disruptor
Factory." replied the aide in a terse voice.
After taking a quick look at the dispatch, Sonnenburg put it down
and took another sip of wine from his crystal glass. "Reinforce
Lieutenant Colonel Dalton's regiment with men from Strowbridge's
regiment. Instruct them to press home the assault, no matter
what the cost."
"Yessir!" replied the aide as he spun around to relay the order
to the front.
"Now where were we..." replied Sonnenburg as he took another
sip of wine.
[Ikonos Disruptor Factory]
"MOVE IT MOVE IT YOU MAGGOTS!" shouted Sheppard as the Kling
disruptor rifle sliced across the rubble-choked streets towards
a company of troopers.
His shouted warning was too late for several of the troopers,
and they were vaporized as they screamed horrible blood-curdling
screams.
"Fuck!" cursed Sheppard as he saw them get cut down.
Last edited by MKSheppard on 2003-01-02 11:29pm, edited 2 times in total.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
He hadn't done
anything bad lately, so why was Vader here?
Not that I did not get caught for at least
However I must admit I'm attracted to Vodka than Wine
"A cult is a religion with no political power." -Tom Wolfe Pardon me for sounding like a dick, but I'm playing the tiniest violin in the world right now-Dalton
Mr Bean wrote:
However I must admit I'm attracted to Vodka than Wine
Well, I was trying to create the image of Generals sipping
wine and talking about fine culture while enjoying a five star
gourmet meal while their men die by the dozens in the ground
up rubble of Ikonos city...did I succeed?
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Well, I was trying to create the image of Generals sipping
wine and talking about fine culture while enjoying a five star
gourmet meal while their men die by the dozens in the ground
up rubble of Ikonos city...did I succeed?
Well you could have gone on about the Wine abit more but pretty much
The 07? Yes nearly as good as the 03 Vintage I heard, Realy? But I heard the 03 was terrible, No no your think of the 04' vintage, ahh yes that one was quite bad, Overley Hot summer? No acutal the Summer was quite mild and it just runined the grapes, Ahh I see.
Of course don't let me tell you how to write
"A cult is a religion with no political power." -Tom Wolfe Pardon me for sounding like a dick, but I'm playing the tiniest violin in the world right now-Dalton
It's back now......BUMP......I removed it in the furor over RayCav's
now long-gone porno fanfic.....
I never got around to putting it back up until now...
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
"Take that fucking gun nest the fuck out now!" screamed an officer
Shep couldn't identify in the din of combat, and out of the corner
of his left eye, he saw an anti-tank team rushing forward, their PLX-2M
tubes at the ready on their shoulders.
Suddenly, one of the men stepped on a land mine and disappeared in a
thunderous explosion, knocking down the other man flat on his face
as the cloud of smoke and dust that had been a trooper slowly rose into
the night sky.
"Kriff, Kriff! Why do we always have to be the fucking spearhead of the
fucking division?" bitched Falk as he huddled behind a burnt out hovercar
along with Shep and the other survivors of their squad.
"Because we're the best, or haven't you heard?" sarcastically commented
another trooper, who appeared to be from Strowbridge's regiment, according
to the markings on his helmet.
"According to who? The bastards back at headquarters who tote up all those
kriffing statistics from our battle computers on our fucking kill ratio per
shots fired?" muttered Falk as he examined their new-found cover.
It was a hovercar of the type used by the Klingons, and a horrible smell enamated
from within it. Falk didn't want to think about what was causing the smell, but
he looked anyway.
Inside, the charred corpses of a Klingon woman and a Klingon child
remained strapped to their seats, and judging by their state of decomposition,
they had been dead for a few days at least.
"A bit late for the barbecue, eh folks?" cracked Falk.
Suddenly, a hand grabbed the back of his battle vest and yanked him back down
to the ground. "You'll end up being barbecued yourself, Falk, if you don't stop
taking stupid risks. This entire fuckin' street is ranged down to the last crack
in the pavement by that disruptor nest," replied Sheppard.
"Sithspit, I don't believe this!" shouted a trooper next to Sheppard, and everyone
turned their heads to watch the sight of the sole survivor of the anti-tank squad
staggering to his feet, hefting the heavy PLX-2 launcher on his shoulder.
Suddenly, a disruptor bolt lanced the man straight through the chest, but the man
didn't drop, even as blood began to run from between his lips. A moment later, the
PLX-2 fired, and the unknown soldier stood standing long enough to see the disruptor
nest explode in a fiery thermobaric explosion that fried the Klingons manning the nest,
and then he dropped dead.
"Someone, find out who the kriff that was! I'm recommending him for the Palpatine's Cross!"
shouted Lieutenant Ford as he waved forward what was left of his platoon.
"Sir, it was PFC Robbins!" came the shout from a soldier who had reached the unknown
soldiers' corpse and had turned it over to expose the face and nameplate.
"Mark him for graves retreval! Who got vaped?" ordered Ford. A few minutes later,
they had their answer. Apparently Privates K.J. Anderson, D. Brin, D. Brown, and
T. Clancy had been vaped, and the only thing their families would get would
be an empty coffin weighted down with bricks.
"All right. All right. Let's get back on track here," muttered Ford as he pulled
out a pair of electrobinocs and scanned the facade of the factory. It appeared
to be mostly silent, now that the disruptor nest had been silenced messily.
Taking out a gold-plated container, Ford opened it and took out a death stick
and lit it.
"We ain't gonna do shit until the Assault guns get up here. Skimmer should be here
in a few minutes."
"Sir, doesn't headquarters want us to take the factory post-haste?" asked a private.
"Fuck headquarters. What they don't know won't hurt them." mumbled Ford as he smoked
the death stick.
"Aren't those things bad for you, sir?" asked Falk.
"Kriff you, Private. Five minute break, everyone. Smoke 'em if you got 'em." ordered
Ford.
A surprisingly large number of troopers took out death sticks and started puffing
on them. What was a few years off your life, considering the fact that you were
more likely to die violently and messily here, rather than live to a ripe old age
in a veterans hostel?
Five minutes later, Skimmer rumbled up in his assault gun. "What's up,
Lieutenant?" he shouted from the cupola of his vehicle.
"We need you to support us as we breach the factory. Anything looks suspicious,
blast it to shit."
Taking his stick out of his mouth, Ford threw it to the ground, where he put it out
with his bootheel. "Okay, ladies, break's over! War's back on!"
The assault gun rumbled forward a few meters before stopping. Inside "Skimmer's Pride"
the driver shouted back at Pardel. "Sir, car's blocking our way!"
"Kriff that shit, man! Run it over!"
With a low grinding of gears, 'Skimmers Pride' slowly ran over the
wrecked hovercar, crushing it into a unrecognizable mass of mangled steel
and rotting flesh.
Behind 'Skimmers Pride', the men of A Platoon, Able Company followed,
staying in the tread marks of the assault gun, where no mines would be.
[Klingon Army Group Ikonos HQ - 30 metres below Ikonos City]
General Klugoth sat at a table in his headquarters deep beneath the ruined
city as the ground shook, and dust snowed from the ceiling from the near-continuous
imperial artillery bombardment of the city.
Taking out a copy of the latest intel reports from his deployed recon teams, he tried
to figure out where the Empire was attacking at the moment.
The recon groups were a new invention of the Klingon Empire. A small group of highly
trained warriors would be sent behind enemy lines not to fight, but to gather
intelligence and send it back to friendly forces, who would then use that information
to destroy the enemy. The concept had been proven in battle against the honorless
Romulans, where the conservative hardliners were at their weakest, due to the fact
that the Romulans had no honor.
The reports from Targ Group indicated that the Empire was moving large amounts of
men and materiel towards the Ikonos Factory, which was exactly midway between the
Klanth river bridge and the Imperial frontlines.
Klugoth thought about that for a split-second. The bridge could not be
allowed to be seized. It was their only way of getting reinforcements
in from Kalogada starport after they had arrived on-planet.
After studying the map on the wall, which was constantly updated in grease
pencil with the latest reported frontlines for several minutes, Klugoth turned
to an aide and began barking out questions and orders.
"How many divisions have arrived at Kalogada?"
"Sir, three divisions, but I must warn you, they're all dangerously understrength--
the Empire has a vicious blockade on the planet. The casualty rates of our Birds of
Prey are running at around 66 percen..."
"Casualties do not concern me, Captain. What concerns me is that I get enough men to
make the Empire bleed here."
The aide nodded. "Very well, sir. The 323th Imperal Division, the 32nd Guards,
and the 9th Guards are currently at Kalogada. If we merged them all, we'd get the
equivalent of a division of troops."
"Merge them," ordered Klugoth without a second thought.
"What shall we name our new division?" asked the aide.
"The Kor Division. They shall stand and fight here at Ikonos, or they shall
perish," Klugoth ordered.
"How many guns do we have ready?"
"Three hundred around the city, sir." replied the aide.
"I want them to open up on the sectors surrounding Ikonos factory now,
and not to let up until the Kor Division reaches the frontlines."
"Sir, that will decimate our units already fighting in the area!"
protested the aide.
"So? They'll be decimated anyway. This gives us a chance to weaken this
999th Infantry Division from what is the name...Corellia, I believe,
before it meets the Kor division."
"Go now! Carry out my orders before it's too late and we have lost the factory!"
thundered Klugoth.
[The Banks of the River Klanth - 5 minutes later]
The crews of the squat 200mm mortars lounged around in their carefully prepared
firing positions, which had been built with great care as to conceal them from
roving Imperial TIE patrols over the city.
Suddenly, a officer ran up and down the firing line, shouting orders.
The artillerymen quickly moved to their tasks, the smooth-faced Klings quickly
computing the neccessary elevation and bearing to hit their targets, while the
heavily muscled Krinks moved and prepared the massive 200mm shells for loading
into the mortars breech blocks.
Several minutes later, the first mortars belched flame into the night sky, as
hundreds of other klingon artillery pieces opened up in a massive bombardment,
sending a rain of shells into the sectors around the factory.
[The Kor Division - 5 km from the Factory]
The Klingon troops marching towards the Factory across the bridge cheered as
they saw the night sky light up from all directions as the Empire struck back
at the humans. The cheering didn't last long, however, before the humans began
counterbattery fire.
On the plains around Ikonos city, Imperial gunners elevated their artillery pieces
and countered Klingon steel with Imperial steel, wiping out entire batteries
of Klingon artillery with a few well aimed rounds.
The artillery battle quickly shifted from a tremendous bombardment of the factory
area to a mathematical battle fought between both sides' counterbattery radars
and the quickness of their gun crews.
That however, wasn't any consolation to the men on both sides who had died in the
steel rain around the factory in those first terrible minutes.
[Around the factory]
When the first shells had begun landing, everyone had scattered for the nearest
cover available, while Pardel and his crew in "Skimmers' Pride" had to batten
down and hope to God that the Klings weren't using anti-armor munitions.
All around them, the ground shook and heaved from the artillery raining down
on them, and dozens of men died in an instant when the hide outs they were
cowering in were wiped out by Klingon shells.
The bombardment lasted for two terrible minutes before it slackened off as
the Klingon artillery began to fight for it's life against their opposing
Imperial counterparts and the TIEs.
All around the factory, the landscape had been turned into a moonscape,
with buildings shattered, and rubble choking the streets.
Sheppard was the first to poke his head out of the makeshift shelter he
had dove under; a partially collapsed wall that had collapsed from an earlier
bombardment.
"Hello? Anyone still alive?" asked Sheppard as he surveyed the moonscape
that the bombardment had left behind.
"I'm still here," came a voice from under the assault gun, that of Lt. Ford.
Ford had dove for the nearest cover the moment the shells had begun
landing - under the assault gun.
"Me too," chimed in Falkenhorst, who had also dove under the assault gun.
All around them, several more voices chimed in, until everyone had reported
in but a couple of men.
"Mark 'em dead. We'll let graves' registration scan for their DNA after this
mess is over," growled Ford as he lit a death stick to try and calm his nerves
down after the shelling.
Slowly, everyone began to move towards the factory again, minus the Assault Gun,
which had broken a tread during the shelling. Pardel and his crew were working
frantically to replace the tread, but they had told Ford not to expect any support
for a couple of hours. . .
[END CH 6]
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
