"Good morning, Altfordshire!"
A+ 0900 Hours.
1st/13th Armoured.
Somewhere on a "beach" in "Eastern" Altfordshire....
"Crow Command to all Crow elements. Engines on, standby for dismount."
As the order is given, the engines of the T-90 jumps to life as veils of dark, black, smoke comes choking off of it's exhaust.
As the platoon of ERA-clad T-90s creep closer to the shore aboard their amphibious landing craft. A Mi-24 swoops past above the Craft, turning it's nose towards the shoulder of a nearby hill, and lets loose a salvo of rockets. Their impacts echoing slight booms across the empty stretch of beach.
Dimmed only by the light from his display screens. Captain Anselmo Castro de-slaves his T-90's CITV, swiveling it to the tank's front.
As the Landing craft finally reaches it's destination, hitting the shore and lurching it's bow slightly upwards, before descending slowly onto the ground with a
thud, ramps slowly opening and making way for the armour waiting to dismount.
He reaches for the transmitter on the tank's radio, firmly pressing the dial button.
"Crow One-one to all Crow Elements. Dismount, dismount."
As soon as Castro gives the word, columns of T-90s and BMPs begins to stream out onto the beach, quickly breaking into lines abreast, and charging through the shoreline and kicking up plumes of dust and sand that could be seen from miles away. All the while letting loose ripples and salvos of gunfire.
"Contact, Armoured platoon at 1200 metres, traverse far east. On that hill, on that hill."
The gunner swivels the turret to face the aforementioned hill. Only to see the Line of Tanks and IFVs lying in hull-down already being plastered with belts of gunfire.
As an formation of BMPs maneuvers ever close to the end of the beach, an tracer comes speeding at the vehicle.
"shit, SHIT,
SHIT!!" The BMP's commander yells over his comms.
"ATGM, TRAVERSE LEFT.
TRAVERSE FUCKING LEFT!!"
The BMP's turret comes to face the missile screaming towards them. And, at the last moment, dispensers mounted on top of the turret releases a screen of explosive pellets, setting the entire front of the vehicle recoiling back from the explosion. When the dust clears a few moments later, the BMP moves on.
Until...
"TANK, TANK!!"
The gunner screams at the top of his lungs through his radio.
The tank in the distance turns it's gun towards the BMP, directly facing them.
"IT'S POINTING RIGHT FUCKING AT US! BACK THE FUCK UP, BACK THE FUCK U-"
The tracer can already be seen as the BMP's gunner screams to reverse. Descending upon the BMP's upper hull, it creates a massive cloud of smoke as the round makes contact.
.....
A squad of mechanized infantry rushes towards the BMP, with several men lying prone in a line abreast next to it. A rifleman climbs atop the turret, opening the commander's hatch. And revealing a lifeless body, slumped over in the gunner's seat.
The rifleman crouches down.
"How does it feel to be dead, man?"
The body moans, turning his head slightly towards the open hatch.
He murmurs...
"I gotta go take fucking shit, man."Jesus Christ."
The rifleman looks back at his squad, crouching in echelon on next to the BMP.
"Hey, Cordiero. Take a look at this guy!"
He helps the Gunner up from the turret.
"He just got shredded by a 125mm HEAT from 700 metres. He just got his
fucking face plastered by Shrapnel and Blast-wave. And what does this Son of bitch want before he dies in a ball of fire? He wants to take a fucking shit!"
The Squad's automatic rifleman looks back up.
"Good fucking lord. Get your priorities straight, man! I mean, look at us; we're training to invade a godamn country with the dumbest, most empty-brained jarheads that's ever been trusted to hold a rifle in this side of the hemisphere. And you're out here wanting to crap out whatever you ate for breakfeast before you're crammed into an LHD?"
"Yeah, what else could you ask for before you're sent out to kill your fellow man? What, you want no shitter when you're deployed? You wanna toss your shit overboard in a bucket or something"
The BMP's radio interrupts the conversation.
"Battalion Command to all Crow Elements. Exercise concluded. Hold fire and await, over."
The gunner goes back down into his position in the BMP.
"Crow to Battalion command, copy. Casualties: One Platoon of BMP-2MNAs, One T-90MS-A disabled. Two platoons of dismounted infantry combat-ineffective. End report, over."
"Copy, received."
As the exchange over the radio turns into silence. Screams of jet engines could suddenly be heard over the beach. All the men surrounding the BMP look up at the sky...
....
Present day....
Task Group "Narwal"
Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
Battalion HQ/19th Armoured.
AMLS Evora (LHD-3)
The flight of four MiG-29s booms by the ship, flares popping off their backs for all of the Task group to see. Colonel Daniel Numes shakes his head slightly at the display of air power,
Flyboys.
He lowers his head down to the Horizon. Standing in front of an Mi-24MNA on the flight deck.
With all of the battalion's Company commanders.
"Gentlemen" the Colonel begins to speak.
"Brigade have just informed me of our mission in Altfordshire."
Grabbing a nearby laser pointer, he shines it down on a large map of Altfordshire's Eastern Coast laid out over the deck.
"Take a good look at this map, people. Because it'll be our AO for a long,
long time. Our goal is to secure three major Port cities within Altfordshire's Eastern Coast within 94 hours post-landing."
"7th Marine Brigade has been assigned with the tasking of securing the City of Coleshend. The city's a port town that's vital to civilian reconstruction efforts in County. Our battalion's been handed down the task of securing the brigade's northern flank by advancing up to 50 kilometres north-west via the main road network there. And linking up with 13th Marine Brigade in their push to secure the city of Bosterham."
"The Evora's intelligence officer has just informed me a few minutes ago about some updates on our situation.
In short: At 0600 hours this morning, Task group Narwal's ELINT vessel has picked up An
wall of EWAR and Radar activity to our south-west. Pelting noise at the task group."
"In short, we're not alone. The task group just received a transmission from the Meridon Defense Forces. They're stating that they're deploying forces for humanitarian aid, and they're shutting down any air activity on the highways southwest of Bosterham. Air corridor and all."
The Colonel looks up from the map.
"In short. Don't expect an easy mission, people. High command called in armoured support for a reason, and we might have just found out why.
Standard operations brief at 1340, maintenance inspection at 1900. I want to see every vehicle under the battalion as clean as a godamn whistle. Especially when we're close to deploying by the day."
The Colonel scans the crowd of Company commanders and officers, surrounding him and the Hind. Before nodding, ever so slightly.
"Dismissed."
....
20 minutes later....
Some miles south of TG-Narwal.
'BORE' Flight (1-1/1-2)
12th Naval Fighter Squadron.
4th Naval Air Arm.
APS Omerta.
Above the clouds, two MiG-29KMs fly in echelon, slowly banking to the left.
Lieutenant Ion Nikolaev looks to his upper right at his flight lead. Before turning his attention to the MiG's Heads-down Display.
Despite the Pair's radars being turned off, the flight still receives regular updates from an nearby AEW&C flight of a Yak-44M via data link.
"AWACS 'Centre', pushing at IP Alfa. Activating package."
"Alright. Turn on the Noisemakers, wingman."
With a flick of a switch, the two electronic warfare pods that replaces the missiles on the MiGs activate. Jamming radars with noise, and shrouding the Task group in a fog of jamming.
The flight would follow And circle the fleet for the next two hours, before being relieved.
The Task group has slipped into EMCON Alpha. With most of the Task Group's radars decisively set to minimal power or shut off entirely.
Narwal begins it's approach to Altfordshire proper.