1. The battle of the Tanks (1)
CT Commander Duncan or his rank of Sargeant in the Rangers swore under his breath at the Colonel who took on the tank nicknamed 'Cabot' to rouse the Vampires. The Infantry Commander just climbed and took over on Tank 1. Duncan on Tank 4 nicknamed 'Poppins' called in to his Tank commander but the comms produced only static. Before even Duncan can get confirmation, Colonel Ludwig gave the order for all the tanks to move forth. Duncan wanted to confirmed the order with his own Commander but his driver was already driving the tank out.
"Driver, who gave you order to move?" The driver was a new recruit who looked up.
"Commander, it was from the Colonel." Duncan sighed as the rank of Colonel override his, and the other tanks are all moving out. He keep on looking through the viewer on the tank to see Tank 1 with the lunatic Colonel on board was already rushing headlong against five Vampires.
"Virgin" Thats the call sign for Tank 2 under Senior Tanker McKenzie. "Move your arse to support Cabot. I would take Witch onto the left and try to divert their fire."
Witch or Tank 3 responded under Senior Tanker Mashi revving its engine to move those heavy tracks across the hard ground. He can see the Tank 4 Commander was trying to get to the northern side near the mesa to provide a cross fire. There are some low slopes there with boulders there which would offer fire cover. It was a good move than ramming against five Vampires.
"Witch, hex them." That was the call to fire his guns at the vampires as they moved into position near the mesa.
The Chieftain design with a heavily sloped hull and double independent turret. The main turret sits on the hull carries a 150 mm Geronimo rifled gun. This gun's projectiles and charges are loaded separately, as opposed to a single fixed round. The charges were encased in an autoloader holding over forty rounds; ten which are high explosive squash head (HESH), and the rest armour-piercing discarding sabot (APDS). The upper turret house the shorter smaller 60mm Cochise rifled gun with its its double high explosive squash head (HESH) with half the force. Those guns carry twenty each in the turret and twenty more spare in the Hull. All the guns are fully stabilized with a fully computerized integrated control system. The secondary armament consisted of the mini rotary guns are mounted on the sponson on each side of the hull with an additional double rotary guns set in the forefront of the hull operated by the driver by thumb trigger. The cupola of the double turret is the single rotary gun mounted for the commander to use.
"Main gun to fire at the tank in the middle." Tanker Mashi gave the order as the loader hummed into motion. The distance was three kilometres. "Secondary gun to hit the next one. Choose your target and hex them now."
All three guns blasted off simultaneously pushing the tank back by two metres. The tank crews in the Witch all roared out. Its was the grand feeling when the tank lurched back from the great force it just ejected. Once they stabilized back on the suspension system, the deriver moved the tank forth on its fifty kilometer per hour maximum speed. Tanker Mashi saw the main projectile blew up the middle Vampire tank into a debris of molten metal. The secondary shots only crippled one other Vampire on the tracks but the other survived the blast.
By then the Vampires had also fired their guns. The Vampire was an extremely lightweight, at sixty five tonnes, and smaller compared to the Chieftain. It was designed for speed and not strength against heavier guns. The tank was a single turret equipped with the 120 mm main gun, with its standard main gun ammunition, including HESH and APFSDS rounds. The autoloader design is more efficient with its complement of twenty rounds of HESH and thirty rounds of APFSDS. The average rate of fire for this type of carousel automatic loader is quoted to be 15 rounds per minute. The use of the autoloader allows the elimination of the extra loader crew member, decreasing the number of the crews. The secondary guns on the tank are the two rotary guns on the fore front of the hull.
The main threat of the Vampire was its 'Fang' Surface to Air/Surface Missiles mounted at the rear of its hull. It housed four missiles which can be target locked and carries a deadly load of explosives.
"Fang incoming." Commander Mashi saw the missiles being fired and he immediately fired up the counter measures. The counter measure was the firing of the cannister that would fired up a electromagnetic field above the tank hoping to deep fried the Fang navigation and disarmed the detonator.
Its only two seconds to impact. Its was also the time to pray.
The electromagnetic worked but there were some detonators still live that slipped through. The missile landed ten metres away and blew a big hole in the ground. The CT tilted up on its left side for a few seconds before landing down again. Inside the Witch, internal fires starts to light up as the crew fought to overcome it.
"Status report." His crew called in.
"Engine stalled. Need time to re-route." "Albert dunked." Albert was the sponson gunner on the right side. His sponson was ripped off in the explosion but he was alive. "Tracks dislodged and need to repair."
Secondary gun; one operational." The Cochise Gunner called in.
Commander Mashi cursed at the attack on his tank. Those darned EM cannisters had worked before not once but twice in his earlier battles but this time it failed. He looked at the viewer and saw Poppins engaging the Vampires.
"Fire the main gun. Fire at free selection. Hex onto them." Commander Mashi gave the command.
No comments:
Post a Comment