1200 Hours

A gradually stiffening wind off the water drove the rain clouds inland.

The various units got organised as the morning progressed. When they were ready to roll, the convoy of vehicles left the secured perimeter a little early and traveled east, then north to Chinatown. One vehicle broke down, and another few near the end of the column took a wrong turn. The stall was left where it was and the personnel loaded into other vehicles, the lost sheep herded together by radio.

Finally, they made it to the Police station with time to spare. They got organised to go in the wide back alley of the Police station buildings, where scores of police cars had once been parked. Now the SUVs, jeeps, a couple large trucks and a news van from UBC were there.

The various teams sorted themselves out. The news crew from UBC was there, including Trish and her cameraman. There was a final few words from Clarke and Taras, if they wanted.

Lee finished up talking to the Mounties and militia that had been staying at the Police station.

She reported, "they say people have been coming in all yesterday and this morning. Seems folks knew about the deserters, but didn't know who to tell or what to do about it. They like us here, and the locals are impressed how we handled the deserters. They say that there's no one else like that around, guess we'll see."

Andy sat in the back of the jeep with his two trainees up front. He shrugged at the rain, such was life. He had his sniper rifle on his back and his carbine ready for close up action. He looked around to see where Rob was. Working with a marine scout/sniper was going to be an exciting new experience, most of his cross training had been with Commonwealth countries but he'd always wanted to see how the Americans did it.

Doctrine he knew was very similar, but the little tricks that made the US force unique would be interesting to observe.

In reply to helbent4 (msg #1):

Kelsey moves from group to group, smiles lavished upon all mixed with very serious instruction on radio procedure, and assignment of call signs.  She gives each team a small cheat sheet with their call sign and basic operation procedures.  She also ensures she has recorded exactly who has what call sign, and even get the name of every member of the team, and basic backgrounds, so she knows who she is dealing with on either end, and they know who they will be talking to and why.  Coordinating communication she expects to take upwards of an hour, even sharing some of the procedural stuff between several groups, and trying to move quickly.

Once everybody reached the old Police station in Main St. Taras decided to address one concern to the Commander and ERT members.

Today I hope that everything is going to be calm. We may have some extra report from the locals regarding some criminal element around of more or less low profile. We should be finishing soon.

While we were doing the morning briefing I realised that we forgot a very important element of control. Going through all the documentation about the city I came across some touristic brochures that advertise two lookouts in the downtown area that offer unrestricted visibility of the entire peninsula. It should be of maximum interest to control those two sites. One of them, the Harbour Centre is located right here at the border of the cordon and search area and the other is on the top of a hotel very close to Stanley Park.

If today's operation is going to move smoothly I'm planning to take advantage of the militia already deployed in order to secure the perimeter around the Harbour Centre and get you guys to recce the place.

Shevchenko noticed that the planning of operations over maps usually left behind or at least neglected the third dimension. In urban landscape that was a most crucial element to dominate due to the restricted visibility of the building cropped streets. Adding the third dimension will bring a better perspective and yet more complexity to the particular chess game of the ex-Lt.

Three-dimensional chess, or 3D chess, are examples of chess variants. Three-dimensional variants have existed since the late 19th century. One of the oldest versions is Raumschach (German for "Space chess"), invented in 1907 by Ferdinand Maack and played on a 5x5x5 board. Maack founded a Raumschach club in Hamburg in 1919, which remained active until the Second World War.

Probably the most familiar 3D chess variant to the general public in the early 21st century is the game of Tri-Dimensional Chess (Tri-D Chess), which can be seen in many Star Trek TV episodes and movies, starting with the original series and proceeding in updated forms throughout the subsequent movies and spinoff series.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...4b/StarTrekChess.jpg

Harbour Centre:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbour_Centre

Rob watched the others milling about doing their prep while he did his own, He checked every weapon for cleanliness. he then made sure every clip was fully loaded and inspected the load. He then unpacked and repacked his pack leaving out one of the spare radios. He checked over each Grenade and made sure each piece of gear was silenced. He broke out a little kit and cleaned the optics for his SVD, spotting scope and image intensifier before replacing them in their pouches. He looked over the radio sheet that was passed around as he worked. Once his normal gear was squared away he unpacked his ghilly with care. it was in great shape but a bit to dark for the area. He's have to drag it or roll it later if he needed to use it. The ground was a bit to muddy for his liking so he'd need to find a nice dusty spot somewhat sheltered from the heavy rains. Once he was satisfied with his gear he prepared his drag bag and slung it and grabbed the spare radio and went to find the comms officer that was milling about giving instructions.

"Corporal Champlain is it. Wanted you to take a look at these if you have the time. I plan on giving Sergeant McRae this spare so we can have some secure Comms beween us if we have to split up. The Freq hop is reset at each transmit so very secure and good range for a handheld. Just wanted to make you aware of them since your in charge of comms."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:04, Sun 03 May 2009.

In reply to Taras Vladimirovich Shevchenko (msg #5):

After getting the reaction team sorted out, Lee approached Taras.

"I would like to deploy the snipers plus the pair of trainees to the building that's overlooking Main St. Skytrain station. From there, they can control and observer access to the southern and eastern parts of the search area such as Terminal Ave., Main St. and the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts. Basically, our most vulnerable flanks."

"I understand that this is splitting up the reaction element, but we'll still have the LAV and snipers are best used independently in support of the main elements. and we can always redeploy them as they'll have transport."

Depending on the circumstances, they may or may not need the LAV.

Still, SGT Fox fired up the diesel and made sure all systems were functioning, including thermal and of course all the comms functions.

For his personal gear, he kept his helmet off for now and wore his maroon beret. He made sure his M203 had plenty of 40mm HE, but 40mm CS as well.

"Commander!" He addressed Clarke, when he was done. "You want to use the LAV as a command post for now, or do you not want to be bothered in case we have to move it?"

For his own part, Chris made sure the C9 SAW (M249) he was armed with was ready to go, with a fresh belt and three more spares to be carried by whomever he was going to be with.

Like Fox he wore the heavier CF body armour, but left his helmet off and instead wore a boonie hat.

When Rob addressed his friend Andy as "Sergeant", Chris gently corrected him, "sorry to mention this, Gunny, I know his rank is Sergeant, but his title is "Master McRae".

Taras addressed the concerns of the team members, starting with Rachel but conveying his thoughts in general:

The mission calls for having an emergency response team or security element ready to be dispatch as soon as possible. Deployment of snipers will take time and effort and will be unlikely to cover much area in this urban environment. It is more likely to have deployed elsewhere supporting any requirement from the militia. Better stay ready to go and that means have all the gear at hand.

Then came the issue with the LAV III:

The Command Post is this building and the armored vehicle is part of the support element that I mentioned. If the ERT needs to be dispatched it will become a command and control centre of its own reporting to this station. It is the same way with us reporting here to Mr. Belanger. It is important to keep a standard chain of command to guarantee the success of the mission.

Final words went for Rachel:

As leader of the ERT it will be necessary to organize the personnel and weaponry of your platform, the "love-tree". Please assign their respective posts, fields of fire, etc. Remember that we may have to work inside buildings and we may need night vision devices, flashlights, gas masks, etc. Make sure everybody is ready. In case something is missing we still having time to retrieve whatever is needed from UBC.

Taras glanced at the view of the old acquaintance Sniperska Vintovka Dragunova. It was somehow pleased that it was held in such respect from a member outside of the Warzaw Pact. Probably the ukrainian didn't notice the very own paradox of having a full fledge RCMP Sargeant cudling an AKSU.

Kelsey turns and grins a little, shading her eyes with her hand against the clearing sky as she looks up at Robert.  "It's Kelsey."  She squints a moment at the radio "Prick 70 series?  That'll do.  Sounds like you know how to use it.  Keep the freq off my op net, and I'm fine with it.  If you want, I can set them up, and then put one of my spare sets on the same sequence."

She adjusts her Glengary and grins wider a moment  "You might be surprised at some of the toys that I have."  A look past him at some of the people getting ready, her voice lowers, her last comment sounding almost absent minded.  "It's good to be home."