The radio crackled with the incoming transmission. Dawid took down the information, then passed it on to MAJ Soleblum.

"Another change in plans... this time a proposal for a night attack. We could use the time to reposition the Queen. Anyways, CPT Bayer is waiting for your reply, yes?"

Quyen, watching the shore pass by, overhears Dawid report to the doctor. She gives an unfriendly grunt and mutters with obvious displeasure - "CIA."

"I would, but I'm not really capable at the moment of handling such a heavy weapon. Besides, this has less of a kick."
She would have selected one of the pistols in the armoury however all the magazines had already dissappeared into other peoples kit.

"You're the expert on that Dawid. I'll bring it up with Hauptman Bayer."
She had a vague understanding of what Dawid was saying, but artillery wasn't something she'd had a lot to do with, except for treating the after effects or that one time a while back she'd called in a strike almost in a panic. Good thing the artillery officer had managed to decypher her ramblings before her small unit had been overrun.

"Sunray this is Starlight. Suggest link with friendlies as a priority."
That would allow them to properly plan the attack with full knowledge of the partisans abilities and weapons. It would also allow them to familiarise themselves with the other unit so that mistakes during the attack could be minimised.
"Shelldrake advises optimium range to be two K. Suggest relocation."
It was difficult communicating between nationalities by radio. Each seemed to have a different set of callsigns with little regard for the conventions used by others.
Anneka hoped that everyone had enough experience to understand that she was refering to herself as Starlight, Konrad as Sunray and Dawid as Shelldrake. It was an old system, but one she was confident most had at least passing familiarity with.

Bayer depresses the radio, "Roger. Acknowledged on distance to target. Will keep tug within two thousand meters of potential targets*. Vait, over."

*OOC - Along the way Bayer will routinely radio to the tug to move up in increments of set distances... keeping the tug around the said distance of around 2000m.

He whispers over to Milk as he pulls his map out of his webbing, "Tell them if the original meet point is too far, we can meet closer to them... east of the bridge, instead of north of it... ah... grid 223 624. But as said... no separate attack at this point, we must linkup first."

"Sunray. Message continues. Adjusting meet point closer to them. Relayed must meet first... no seperate attack. Out."

Bayer watches and listens as Milk relays the team's response to the partisans suggestion.

OOC - I just made up the grid obviously, but without us actually having to completely pass the bridge means meeting east of it. Between it and Szczucin.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:27, Wed 19 Dec 2007.

"Really? I would think by looking at them the Uzi has better balance, and is more easy to control with one hand. Well, set it to single-shot and I guess it won't matter either way."



Dawid was puzzled. "Shelldrake? Sunray? Starlight? I guess these are call signs. In my old unit, the signaller would decide on what these would be, but I guess this works."



"Excellent!" He grinned, looking boyish.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:46, Wed 19 Dec 2007.

Snowy, still quiet after Bluey's and Max's death, stares out into the flat ground of the riverbanks deep in his thoughts. He struggles to stay focussed, but in the aftermath of the latest ambush he's just starting to get time to think about the reality of what's happened. Clearing his thoughts, he resumes watching his arc.
He's happy with the big PKM. It's a good weapon in his estimation, and he's rightly come to fear it in the hands of the enemy. He'd prefer the MAG58 that he trained with all those years ago and used right across Europe, mainly because he's not sure how fast he can change barrels with this make and model, but the heft of the big gun feels reassuring. He's starting to regret bringing his shotgun, but he's not ruling close quarters combat out. Unlike British soldiers, Snowy is carrying his weapon horizontal with the ground which marks him out as a machine gunner to a distant observer, but it's a habit he never got out of.
He feels a bit burdened, he has his entry gear in it's back rig with the shotgun slung vertically as well, along with the extra machinegun ammo he feels heavy and not overly mobile. He settles his flash goggles on his helmet and swings the NVG pouch back and out of the way.
He quietly listens to the radio calls on his earpiece, letting the Hauptman run the show and wondering how Yazssie's getting on by himself.

Bridge Assault Team:

Milk relays the Hauptman's instructions to the partisan team, coordinating a link-up approximately 2000 meters east of the bridge on the road to Szczucin proper. Hefting his borrowed L86A2, Clarence gives the tumbs-up to Konrad and the team moves out, away from the river. Sacrificing time for stealth and safety, their course will take them in a wide arc intended to avoid detection by any hostile elements holding the north side of the damaged bridge.

OOC: Clarence has arranged visual and audible recognition signals for the meeting with the partisans. The visual is a rifle held away from the body in the left hand, perpendicular to the ground. The audible is a call of "Potato" answered by the response, "Pancake".

Tug Team

Meanwhile, Walter moves the tug forward in increments, as directed by Bayer via Anneka. The medic is beginning to feel extremely fatigued. Her plucky determination to continue contributing as a member of the security force is admirable, to be sure, but she seems to be deliberately overlooking the physical limitations imposed by the serious gunshot wound she received not quite four hours earlier.

The Vasilek is primed and ready to fire. Dawid and Minh scan the banks for signs of an early ambush while they await orders for a fire mission. Parks continues to provide overwatch, with extra attention devoted to the south bank (from which you were ambushed earlier).

Recon "Team"

[As the assault team approaches to within a kilometer of the Sczcucin road...]

Yazzie settles into his hide, roughly 400 meters from the north end of the bridge. The road mounts the bridge after running up along a raised causeway, about ten meters above the surrounding terrain at its highest point. The causeway's sides slope gently upward, several holes gouged in its grassy sides by past shellfire. Through his scope he sees a large sandbagged checkpoint atop the apex of the causeway. It does not appear occupied. Strewn about below are several rusted out husks of Soviet Military vehicles, trucks mostly. A burned out MTLB AFV sits silently at the causeway's lowest point. Shreds of concertina wire lay tangled about as well. It is all very untidy.

For several long minutes, Yazzie does not see any signs of life. A blur of movement out of the corner of his left eye catches his attention. He looks just in time to see two men go to ground, about 400m to his front-left. A few seconds later, a stream of tracers pass over his head, 5 meters too high and a few meters to his right. Another burst follows, still high, but this time to his left. The flankers make another dash, covering another 20 meters or so before disappearing behind a slight fold in the ground. It seems the hunter's become the hunted...

[Private to John Yazzie: OK, now... please don't PM me saying John would never be seen ya-da-ya-da. I rolled his stealth verses the enemy's observation and the dice came up in their favor. The stage is set and it's not going to change. Your move...]

OOC: The river is on Yazzie's right. The North end of the bridge dead ahead. The flankers are moving around Yazzie's left.

Actions?
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:49, Thu 20 Dec 2007.

"Tug this is Knife contact at bridge 2 flankers and 1 MG team. I will E and E at this time. Fire five rounds of WP on north side of the bridge to cover me tug.Wide spread I will not be able to adjust. Knife out"


John smiles as the rounds fly over his head. Well I had to get caught sometime he thinks to himself. Well fuck them, I have some moves yet. John staying close to the groud pulls out his HC smoke grenade. Thank god for this he thinks. 4 miniutes of the most concentrated smoke ever made. White thick and full of life. John pulls the pin and puts the grenade 2 feet in front of his face and hears the small pop as the grenade cooks off and starts to billow out. Thick white smoke.Once the cloud covers him he moves on his belly at the low crawl as fast as his body will take him. He will move back into the heavy trees covering his rear.  He will move direct to his rear for 100 meters on his belly or until he hits heavy cover and concealment. Then he will get to his feet and start to run/recon shuffle for the next mile or so . He will then do a 90 degree offset with his compass and move back to the river, make a hide and then make a communications check with higher.


John
E and E
G3/1911
This message was last edited by the player at 00:27, Fri 21 Dec 2007.

Leaving Anneka and the radio Dawid returned from the bridge. He manned the mortar again as they moved up into position.

Dawid looked around, making sure his rifle was handy and the spare ammo was out of the way but accessible. "There is so little left, we must make every shot count!"

There was a clip of 5 HE loaded in the mortar's magazine, and the last 3 rounds of HE were in the hold. Also, the last 5 rounds of WP were in their clip on the deck, ready to go.


Dawid Waldus Piotrowski
82mm Vasilek (5/5 HE, + 5 WP)
Waiting for a Fire Mission
This message was last edited by the player at 12:39, Thu 20 Dec 2007.

When gunfire is heard the shore team halts and quickly adopts an all around defense. Moments later Bayer hears Yazzie's voice explaining the situation.

"Yazzie is compromised." Bayer whispers harshly to the those without a radio.

Keying the send button, Bayer speaks quickly "Knife, Sunray. Watch for friendlies ons your extraction route. Out."

"Ok, he is withdrawing under pursuit. If we are quick enough we can use surprise to eliminate some of our enemy. Milk, lead us to intercept. I want to set up a hasty ambush against the enemies moving. Even a long distance ambush will be  sufficient if thats all we can do in time."

OOC - I am going to leave this to Milk since I don't really know the locations in relation to each other or the details of the ground layout.

Minh continues to scan the right side riverbank.

"Starlight to Knife. Fire-mission denied. Withdraw using own resources. Sunray moving to assist. Out"

She knew he wouldn't be happy but did three reported enemy warrant using up all of their rarest ammunition just to provide smoke coverage for one person? Hand thrown smoke grenades could do that and possible with better effect.

Slumping down against the front of what was left of the bridge, she rested he head for a moment on her good hand. The activity she'd driven herself to do since her injury was taking it's toll. She hoped fervently that the bridge could be secured quickly, and the enemy dealt with permanently. Only then could she finally take the rest she desperately needed.

"Parks!" her voice barked upwards after a few moments.
"Can you see what's happening?" With luck, the sniper might be able to make out any enemy moving near the bridge through his scope. Although with their luck so far, they'd probably stopped the tug with a tree or something in the way...
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:49, Fri 21 Dec 2007.

Tucker nods to Bayer from his kneeling postion covering the rear of the group.  "Let's go get 'em!"

Tucker
M-16A2 [27/30]/M-203 [1] HE
Covering rear of group and waiting to move out

Assault Team:

Looking to your right you can make out a cloud of thick, white smoke blooming from about 1000m distant. From the same general direction, you can hear bursts of what sounds like PKM fire. You are only about 500m from the road and your rendezvous with the partisan team. Based on Yazzie's description of the situation, setting a hasty ambush for his pursuers will require moving to contact across relatively open terrain. If the PKM gunner spots you on your approach...

Milk responds to Konrad's instructions with a clarifying question,

"You want me to tell the partisans to hold in place?"

Recon "Team":

You shuffle backwards, behind the opaque cloud generated by your smoke grenade. The thick smoke prevents the machine gunner from seeing you, but the smoke also presents him with a target, and a reference point that the flankers can use to manouver. MG bullets start tearing up the wet turf around you. A blur of movement to your left indicates the flankers are using the cover fire to continue to try and get between Yazzie and the boat. There is little concealment other than the long grass and a few clumps of bushes scattered hither and yon, and no real cover save for a few folds in the relatively flat ground. The only true cover is offered by the steep riverbank, two hundred meters or so to Yazzie's right.

Tug:

You can hear the distant crackle of automatic weapon's fire, probably a light machine gun of some kind, over the low thrum of tug's engines. The Krolowa is now approaching to within 2000m of the bridge and you can all see the sagging span straddling the river up ahead. From the roof, Parks shouts,

"I've got eyes on the bridge. Can't see much. Maybe an occasional muzzle flash and some tracers from the north end. They're way outside my range, though."

From the tug's current position, the mortar crew could adjust it's own high angle fire against the suspected enemy position.

Actions?

John smiles as his fire mission is denied. He is to busy to radio back so he continues to move. In keeping the smoke between himself and the machinegun his movement is now masked. He's happy that they waste there rounds on the smoke pile while he moves away. With the motion to the left he knows his prey are still there. He thinks "Now I devide and destroy". He will move into one of the folds in the earth.He will do his imeadate action drill of placing his pack in front of himself and use it as a rest for his rifle to make a more stable platform and provide some cover from incoming rounds.He knows being in the prone makes a smaller target. Once there he will sight in with his rifle and take an aimed shot at the first Man. He will shot center mass so he has the most impact media for the easiest shot. Once he takes the shot if the man drops he will take another aimed shot at the next man. If he does not drop he will take another at the same target.



John
Hunting
G3/1911

"Halt! Extended line." Bayer calls quietly as they team reaches the edge of the large open space ahead of them. He gives a quick scan of the area ahead, but despite the sporadic small arms fire, cannot see anybody.

"Milk, nien. Tell them to continue to the meet point. Have them watch and harass anyone coming from the town." It crossed Bayer's mind that the bridge defenders may be only a small part of a larger garrison. The town would be the most suitable, or comfortable place for the main body.

He scans the open ground ahead of him. In days past his company could cover the distance easily in their Marders. Toggling the send button he calls Yazzie, "Knife, Sunray. Cannot give immediate support. Send SITREP. Over." He looks at the faces of the other three men. Surely they didn't want to cross the ground towards a machinegun armed enemy.

"Options?" he says as he waits for a response from Yazzie. "I want to continue moving to the meet. But not without knowing if Yazzie is alright. He may not be in a position to respond though."

OOC - Heading south we might put Yazzie in our fire as well.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:38, Fri 21 Dec 2007.

Snowy nods and opens the bipod on the machinegun, gratefully lowering himself to the ground with a soft grunt. He snuggles into a bit of cover to make the job easier on his bunnycams and brings up his binoculars to look for targets.
"Perhaps we'd best set up a rounded defence boss, even though there's only a few of us. If anyone's looking after that bridge they'll have OPs out and possibly a patrol. If you want to help out Yaz, we could set up a blocking position for him to fall back on, so anyone following him up gets eaten by this beastie." He pats the PKM. "We could do a lazy-L ambush position."

"Sunray, this is Starlight. MG located at west end of bridge. Suggest staying in dead ground to location or neutralisation with mortar once you have visual. Over."
There, a definate target. According to her recent interviews, Konrad certainly had the skill to call in a strike on the machinegun and with Dawid's talent on the mortar it might only take the one round. Still, if it had been at all possible, she'd have much prefered to use the AGS simply due to the available ammo.
"Thanks Parks. Keep watch in that arc please and inform us if anything "Interesting" shows up." All they needed now was for a tank to appear from over the built up roadway!
"Minh, I need you to assist Griet onto the rear deck. I know she's wounded, but she's all we've got to watch behind us."
"Dawid, can you manage for a few minutes without her?"
Anneka knew she should have thought of it before and mentally kicked herself. Of course Parks would be needed to watch over the battlefield! He was the only one of them with the elevation and the optics to see so far.
"Tell her just to yell if she sees anything. I don't expect her to fight." Unless her life was in danger...

Dawid gave a "thumb's up". "Of course, Major!" He looked at the other woman. "Minh, I shall be all right."


Dawid Piotrowski
82mm Vasilek (5/5 HE loaded, + 5 WP on deck) Tantal (30/30 + 6 mags)
Waiting for fire mission

Quyen reaches over and grabs her rifle - "Ok. What weapons do you want me to operate?" Whatever the doctor replies, Minh will go to and man.



"Alright, good luck. I'll just be at the back of the boat in case you need me to protect you or you get scared or anything." she joked as she's leaving.

On her way to her new battle station, Quyen walks up to Griet. She pauses for a moment to size up the Pole's wounds. "Err... Doctor said I should come back and help watch behind us. I can handle the weapons, and you can spot for me, if you want. No reason why you can't take a break and sit for a while either."

Minh
Ak-74 (Slung)
Aft Weapons Station
Watching rear
This message was last edited by the player at 08:37, Fri 21 Dec 2007.

"Just help her back there and come back to the mortar for now thanks," she said to Minh.
"You and Dawid will both need to be ready to run to whatever weapon's needed if we're attacked though."
At the moment every weapon was unmanned except for the mortar. If somebody was to attack them now, they'd have little real chance to fight them off, not with only two soldiers and two barely trained crew fit and able. Sure Griet might manage to squeeze of a shot or two, and Anneka herself might get lucky, but if it came to it, they might just be better off simply surrendering...
"Better grab the RPK-74 for yourself before you head back too."

"Roger that, sir. They got a look at the town on the way in and they say it looks empty." Milk adds before relaying Konrad's instructions.

OO: Please note that the enemy flankers are between Yazzie and the assault party. Consequently, Yazzie's probably not going to be able to move to them.

"You want me to stay on the six Konrad?" Tucker asks bayer as he moves up with the rest of the group.

"Ja Tucker. For the moment." Bayer replies, waiting for any word from Yazzie.

"Not sure he can move or communicate Snowy. With the open ground between us and him, I'm hoping he can withdraw on his own."

As incoming rounds continue to search for Yazzie, now prone and using a fold in the ground as cover, the two flankers pop up and break at an angle, trying to rush closer to, and further behind the Marine scout, cutting him off from any escape to the north or west.

Yazzie's ready for them. He quickly sights on the right-most flanker and fires a single shot. The man takes two more loping strides before dropping down into the long grass. His comrade does likewise. Yazzie realizes that he probably didn't hit his target, but he probably made the two flankers think twice about making any more upright runs. The smoke to Yazzie's right is starting to dissipate (it's been about 4 minutes since he first popped it). That, combined with his shot, has probably given the enemy a better idea of his current location.

OOC: Miss! Yazzie's single shot fails to hit its intended target.

Meanwhile, the assault team continue to await word from the sniper. Those on the tug watch the distant span, Parks continuing to report machine gun fire originating from the west end of the bridge.

Actions?