Mariusz moved to his newly assigned position in the barge's bunker, it was certainly safer now than it had been when the AA gun had been there. He set the M240 on the deck and looked at the weaponry they had to play with. There was a Russian grenade launcher, the funny Austrailian gun and grenade launcher and now, the M240. That would be plenty, he thought.

He caressed the AGS almost lovingly, a new big gun to try out, he'd been meeting lots of lovely new weapons to play with recently. He looked at Kasparov, the last companion he had from the old days and said, "We should set the AGS up to cover the right bank as we see it, that's where most of the troops are, if we set it up in the forward slit we can engage the bunker on the bridge with it too. The M240 can be used to cover the left bank and that," he pointed to the funny gun, "can be saved as backup. Does that make sense? What gun do you want to fire?"
Kasparov was the older, more experienced man, he got first dibs on the toys.

Griet finished her work with Dawid and then returned to her more common position on the PKMG. After the last big fight, she'd burned through a lot of ammo and so went to the weapon's locker to reload. She took five of the remaining fifty round belts and linled them together in the ammo hopper before loading the PKMG and getting ready for further battle.

Quyen drops her stash of looted AKs and ammunition on the deck. She silently leaves upon the order to join the rest of the team at stand to. Reporting to the mortar she asks, "I'm back. Everything ok and ready here?"

After settling into her position she says, "It was pretty intense. Lasted only 20 seconds maybe. Good ambush, they saw us but didn't get a shot off. A dozen."
This message was last edited by the player at 11:50, Fri 25 July 2008.

0600 hrs.

The light of false dawn creates a cold palor low over the eastern horizon. The sky is still mostly clowdy, but no precipitation falls.

The Odd Couple

While Stoner, feeling returning to his limbs, and his multilingual savior try to find a common tongue without giving too much about their own respective identities away, each hears the odd grinding sound of oars twisting in their oar locks. A rowboat is nearby. The pair are only about a dozen meters or so away from the riverbank in a small copse of bare-limbed, dying trees.

The Queen of Battle

After the ambush team dumps their haul of captured weapons and ammo, each member returns to his or her previously assigned battle station. Sanjay, clearly not a fighter, returns to the Krolowa's engine room. In a very short time, the quiet Indian has somehow managed to earn the trust Krolowa's chief Engineer who, several days previously, had chased Tucker out of the boiler room with a large wrench. Chopper too, himself a sailor, had failed even to gain entrance to the Polish engineman's inner sanctum.

The Krolowa pushes forward towards the bridge, now visible as a dark line in the distance, stretching across the broad surface of the Vistula.

The tug is moving faster than Old Adam would like. Just a few hours earlier, she'd gotten stuck on a submerged mudbank. Now, he's throwing caution to the wind. He understands, however, that a slow tug is an easy target so he grudgingly pushes her harder than he would otherwise.

As the bridge looms closer, those with vision enhancement devices anxiously focus their attention on the tank. Its gun is pointed upriver, but it's not quite lined up on the tug, nor is it moving to become so. Perhaps, against the odds, Stoner was able to knock it out.

At about 500 meters from the bridge, a tower of water taller than the tug errupts about 50m from the Krolowa's starboard bow. River water rains down on the barge, but the crude bunker keeps out the shrapnel. The explosion does not appear to have been caused by the tank, its gun still motionless and now aimed past the oncoming tug. Seconds later, a second geyser of water races skyward about 50 meters behind the tug.

The bridge blinks to life. Tracers reach out to the Krolowa from the sandbagged bunkers at either end. Muzzle flashes wink at her from the middle of the span. Soon, muzzle flashes light almost its entire length. It looks like the defenders are prepared to put up a stiff fight.

Actions?
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:06, Fri 25 July 2008.

Mariusz flinched reflexively as the shell landed in front of him, he saw the twinkling of muzzle flashes light up the bridge like a Christmas Tree and grinned wolfishly as he stroked the trigger of the AGS. He yelled to Kasparov, "Use the intercom, advise the bridge it's probably a mortar."

The big wigs at the bridge were clever enough to have worked it out for themselves he knew, but it never hurt to state the obvious when the shells were falling. He hunkered behind the gun and settled the sights on the centre of the fire from the bridge, he squeezed the trigger gently, the way he'd imagined caressing a lover and sent the 30mm grenades arcing towards the enemy.


Mariusz
AGS 17/29 3?x 29 round drums left
M1911
Firing on full automatic at the bridge.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:15, Fri 25 July 2008.

Jason's eyes twinkled as he saw Mariusz longingly, lovingly caress the Russian grenade launcher.  Let the kid have his fun.  I can use this bad boy, he thinks as he views the M-240.

As the tug approaches the span, the fountain of water and the rattle of shrapnel on the bunker announce that the enemy has them in sight, as do the tracers and muzzle flashes from the bridge and its guarding bunkers.



"Aye-aye, little brother," Jason replies, then turns to the old field telephone.  "Bridge, barge.  Probable mortar firing on us.  Location unknown.  Out."  He then rolls back to position behind the M-240, clicks off the safety and opens fire.  Short bursts walk along the span, from directly in front of the barge to just short of the bunker on the west end.

Jason K.
Barge bunker
M-240
Firing at western half of bridge

As griet saw hell unleashed before her, she ducked lower behind the gunshield and waited for the targets to get closer. She gulped suddenly as she thought of something and turned to yell at the bridge, "Was the guy with the funny sniper rifle among the dead? If not, beware snipers!"


Griet
PKMG 250/250
Tantal
Waiting to close the distance

Dave looks at the man working on him. Englits? Joo spik Englits? he asks in his best San Diego barrio accent.

Looking up when the man finaly says something slightly intellegable Jan looks him in the eye for a second and answers.
"Yes I speak 'Englits'. I am Jan, you almost died out there. Swimming in such cold water is very foolish. You could do yourself an injury."
While his english is good his accent is very odd as if he learned it from someone who was not a native speaker.

When the noise of the oars becomes clear he looks over towards the water.
speaking in a low voice so as to keep it from carrying he asks.
"You are expecting comrads, yes?"

As Jan and Stoner start to get acquainted, a flashlight illuminates the the trunks of the dead trees just a dozen meters away (to their left, as they face the river) and starts sweeping slowly towards them. Its point of origin is a row-boat on the River, about 20m or so off the bank. It appears to searching for them, specifically.

OOC: Sorry guys, I meant to post this in the original GM turn but I forgot. Feel free to post another action, if you wish. Oh, and chronologically, this takes place a bit before the bridge garrison sees and opens fire on the Krolowa.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:27, Fri 25 July 2008.

As the light sweeps the bank, Dave raises his finger to his lips in a "be quiet" sign, and slightly shakes his head. He raises his eyebrows and shrugs. He leans over to the stranger and with his lips almost touching the other man's ear whispers "Not in a rowboat, and not with a flashlight. Be a tugboat coming downriver."

Sam will open up with 9 to 12 round bursts onto the bridge and any other muzzle flashes he can see with the gun. He will fire until the weapon is out of ammo.

Sam
Contact
Heavy Machinegun
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:53, Sat 26 July 2008.

Setteling into a prone position Jan readys his rifle and slips his NVG inplace. Laying low to the ground in what underbrush there is he prepairs to open fire on the people in the boat. Taking a deep breath and letting it he tried to get a good look at the men in the rowboat.


Jan
Prone in the underbrush
AK74 30/30
Ready to open up

Bayer yells into the intercom, "Mortar! Five hundred! Bridge left bunker! Conserve ammo!" He is peering over the front of the smashed bridge keeping as low as possible. Everyone seemed to be engaging the enemy and didn't require fire control or target indications at this point. The mortar, the group's most important weapon was however in a totally different category he felt. Bayer kept his eyes on the left bunker, waiting for Dawid's shot.

Bayer
G36/HK69
Bridge
Observing/Communicating

Quyen stays low behind the mortar position's defensive cover. Dawid already had the mortar loaded so she waited until she was needed. Hearing the fire indication, she repeated just in case, "Left side bunker on the bridge... range 500."

Minh Quyen
AK74 (23)
Mortar Pos.
Waiting

Dawid thought, Bunker, left side of bridge. Mortar? In the Bunker? No matter. First things first.

"Griet, hold onto a fragmentation shell. When we get a target I want you to drop it down the barrel. Wait until I say."

"Firing Anti-Armour!"

He fired an HEAT round from the clip-fed magazine. When they were given an indirect target, the Vasilek could be fired by dropping a shell down the tube like a regular mortar. Until then, he would fire off the HEAT in the magazine.


82mm Vasilek 5/5 HEAT
Firing 2 shots at the left bunker

Griet heard Dawid's call from behind the gun shield, in the heat of the moment, he'd forgotten she'd been moved, she yelled herself, "Mihn, you got the frag shell covered?"

Tucker moves into cover as he makes sure that the mortar is firing as it should and when they come under heavy small arms fire from the bridge.

Tucker
Slung M-16A2/M-203
Taking cover

Realising that Griet wasn't near, he swore.

"Ah, Minh, I meant Minh, please fetch a round of fragmentation!"

With Stoner currently MIA, Milk takes charge of the starboard Dushka. He sights on the eastern bunker and pulls the twin butterfly triggers in 10-round bursts, trying to smother it with fire. If and when the bunker is silenced, he'll walk his fire from left to right, trying to knock out or at least suppress the other shooters firing from the bridge itself.

Clarence Milk
Firing bursts at the enemy

The Wisla Krolowa

The tug speeds towards the bridge. To those on board, it can't get there fast enough. Enemy bullets ping off the tug's superstructure and churn the water on either side of her in a terrible hailstorm of hot metal.

Mariusz sends a burst of 30mm HE grenades at the bridge's center LMG bunker. All of the grenades miss his intended target, exploding on the river beneath and behind the bridge. A magic bullet passes through the bridge bunker's firing aperture, punching a hole in Jason's left sleeze and grazing his arm. He hardly notices the minor wound as he continues to sweep the bridge's western half with GPMG fire.

Dawid carefully gets the western bunker in his sights and triggers a two round burst of HEDP. The first round nails the bunker dead-on, blasting sandbags, timber, and Polish conscripts in all directions. The second round detonates on the other side of the road.

Sam and Milk rake the bridge from either end. Blazing green tracers from the tug's heavy machine guns carrom every which way off of the bridge's steel beams. Enemy small arms fire begins to slacken but the bridge still resembles a garrishly lit Christmas tree with muzzle flashes, explosions, ricochets, and sparkling bullet impacts.

A particularly large and vivid orange flash backlights the bridge about 100m from its eastern end. A glowing orb races towards the Krolowa, detonating just beneath the surface of the river on her port bow in an earie underwater explosion.

The tug is now about 200m from the Annopol bridge and closing the gap quickly.

Stoner and Cerny

The flashlight beam from the rowboat reaches the prone pair of new acquaintances lying still in the leaf litter. The beam passes over the two men and continues on for another couple of meters before jerking back and fixing firmly on them. The powerful, direct beam causes Jan's night vision goggles to flare out, temporarily blinding him. Automatic fire from the tugboat rips overhead, tearing up the trees and raining bits of dead wood down on Stoner and Cerny.

Actions?
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:03, Sun 27 July 2008.

Being on the port side Sam will continue to fire at anything that moves or any muzzel flash on the west side of the bridge.




Sam
Getting some
Heavy MG

Hmmm. Actions? Unarmed, half nekkid, and verging on hypothermia. Daves going to lay in the mud and grass and attempt to supress his shivering.

Bayer waits for the mortar to engage the target. He's comfortable with the outgoing fire from the machinegunners and the "relative lack" of effective incoming fire.

The ?missile/rocket? fire from the bridge is an exception. "Griet, 200 meters, bridge... go 100 meters from right side. Rocket. Rapid fire."

Bayer
Watching/Directing Griet's Fire
Bridge

Preying the sudden renewal of fire from the river is not coming his direction Jan claws off the NVG and tries to catch his bearings. Blinking aside the spots in front of his eyes he tries to locate the rowboat and see how many people are in it.
After a second of that he points his rifle at the spotlight and lets loose with a burst.


OOC   Jan Cerny
Lying prone and half blind
Firing a burst at the spotlight and whoever is holding it
AK-74/BG-15  30/30 1/1HE