Close Calls
Recon Team
After Sam apprises the main body of the recon team's position, the recon team begins moving towards the motor pool in bounds, using a shallow, muddy depression running along the right (east) side of the northbound Armi Krajowez road as concealment. Through night vision goggles, the motor pool garage building, surrounded by various large military and civilian trucks, can be seen clearly up ahead. The complex looks more like a junkyard than a military motor pool. Most of the vehicles appear to be innoperable, with various key components like wheels or engines conspicuously absent. One vehicle, though, stands out, not only as being comparitively whole but as being potentially dangerous as well. A snub-nosed, six-wheeled GAZ 66 truck is parked just south of the fence around the motor pool, facing east. The twin ZU-23-2 cannon mounted on its flat bed point west down the main road to Radom. Oddly enough, the neither the gun nor the truck itself appears to be manned at the moment.
The garage around which the motor pool is based is a modest, one story affair, built over two decades ago to cater to a town of just over 8,000 prewar inhabitants. Sitting atop its wide, flat roof is a ring of sandbags manned by a single sentry. Through their goggles and rifle scopes, the recon team observes the soldier staring off to the west whilst enjoying a cigarrette.
Off to the team's left, about 500m down a road angling southwest away from the town, is another checkpoint. A little ahead of the team and to the right, about 200m away in an open field abutting the town proper's eastern edge, stacked crates and and a low ring of dirt suggest the presence of a large mortar emplacement. As the quartet creeps north along the road, its members can make out a stubby barrel portruding above the earth-rimmed lip of the pit, confirming their suspicions. It appears that the position is currently unmanned.
The recon team is now passing between two enemy positions, one apparently unmanned at the moment, as it makes its way to the party's main objective up the road ahead.
As Sam and Tucker provide cover, and Jan and Mariusz finish a forward bound, boisterous voices echo into the night, carrying through the darkness from several hundred meters up ahead. Two very drunk men, both with slung rifles, emerge from the fenced in yard of the garrage building and begin stumbling east arm in arm along the road into town. They sing a popular Polish song, off key and much too loudly, swinging their free arms arythmically. The roof-top guard turns towards his innebriated comrades and shouts a curse-laden farewell. The drunks return the gesture- with interest- and continue weaving down the road. After reaching down and taking a swig from his own bottle, the rooftop sentry returns to his duty, myopically watching focussing on the western approaches.
The recon team is now about 300m from the motor pool, lying in the depression on the east side of the road leading to their objective. The unmanned mortar pit is approximately 100m off to their right, a roadside checkpoint 600m or so to their left and a little behind them. Sam, the only member of the recon team with a long-range, silenced weapon, keeps his cross-hairs poised on greatest threat of detection- the rooftop sentry.
Main Body
With Anneka, Latrell, Adam, and Walter guarding the cargo-laden boats in a heavily wooded hide sight near the river/canal junction just southeast of town*, the assault group enters and moves west along the canal, following the same route taken by the recon team. They move quickly but quietly, wading through the cold and foul smelling water. Sudden sound and movement just twenty meters ahead compells them to flatten themselves against the canal walls. A portly, bald-pated man in a long night shirt and stocking cap noisily pushes through a back garden gate and waddles up to the canal. Lifting his night shirt above his surprisingly large belly, he proceeds to urinate directly into the canal. His midnight piss seems to last for minutes before the stream slows to a sputtering trickle. Giving his member one last vigorous shake, he drops his nightshirt and hurries quickly back through the gate and into his home, letting the door slam behind him.
The group waits anxiously for a couple of minutes, watching and listening for any indication that they'd been seen. Satisfied that the man is not raising the alarm, they move off again. As they pass directly behind the portly man's garden, it seems as if the canal water there is just a touch warmer.
After a quarter of an hour of wading, the assault team reaches the main, north-south road from which Sam had radioed earlier, warning of a nearby checkpoint. Halting to listen carefully, they see and hear nothing. Entering the near total darkness of the culvert beneath the road, they move on past the checkpoint as quietly as possible. Once again, there is no indication that they've been detected.
Three quarters of an hour later, the assault group arrives at the Armi Krajowez road and leaves the stinking shelter of the canal for dry land.
(They are now approx. 500m south of the motor pool, 200m or so behind the recon element.)
Actions?
OOC: *Is this correct? I can't remember if Stoner or anyone else was staying.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:59, Sat 11 Oct 2008.