Re: Near Czestochowa
The past two days since the meeting with the merchants has been harrowing to say the least. First, you were almost ambushed by a group of ragged men in Soviet uniforms. Fortunately they were only armed with rifles and a couple of machineguns. It did however cause Dettinger to dive inside the BTR-80 and nearly break his neck. Who knows why such poorly armed people attacked armoured vehicles? Starvation, desperation, suicide? Whatever their reasons, Major Smythe made the decision to keep on driving, no need to stop admidst a hail of hot lead after all.
Another concern was the sudden appearence of a helicopter! Admittedly it was far off in the distance and couldn't even be recognised as Pact of Nato, but the general stir it caused....
Nobody had seen a helicopter in one peice for over a year, and even those few had been grounded either due to lack of fuel, lack of spare parts, lack of pilots, too high a risk to fly in combat (even if it wasn't shot out of the air, it'd attract just about everybody within a 100km radius) or all of the above. Whoever owned this one had some serious balls and fuel to burn!
The past weeks slow progress (only about 100km) has been mainly due to the need to stop and brew alcohol every day or two. The BTR-80 running on Gasoline has made it doubly frustrating as it's fuel gauge has barely moved - still about 3/4 of a tank left (210 litres left, max cap 290 litres) and theres another 270 litres still in jerrycans!
The morning has dawned with it's usual inevitable slowness over the battered and scarred landscape that is modern day Poland. Anybody who could has been instucting the others in Language skills - specifically English. Camilla is begining to pick up a few words and can even carry on a simple conversation with some people.
The still has been working all night as usual and (since a guard was posted to stop Don syphoning off some for his own collection), another couple of litres produced. Not much, but it may make the difference between escape and reinprisonment (for some).
As usual, Dave leads out in the BRDM as scout vehicle while the BTR hangs back ready to react in case of trouble. Within an hour of slow and cautious travel, Dave calls a halt. [Private to Aaron Winters; Staff Sgt Dave Guido; WO2 Andrew (Andy) Corrigan; WO1 Gary Irwin Herbert Kett: He's spotted some vehicle tracks crossing the dirt path you are presently following. While not unusual in itself, it's the shape and age of them that has attracted his attention. It appears that they were made in the last day or so by a LAV-25 or similar 8 wheeled NATO vehicle. 1st to read this PM please respond.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:43, Mon 20 Dec 2004.