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Sledgehammer427 12-31-09 10:34 PM

Snow Panzers at War!
 
Let me explain a little, I love writing, I'll write about anything. Today, as we were dropping my step-siblings off at Laguardia Airport, I got a wonderful idea for a story involving tanks...in the (not so distant) future! This is only a few opening paragraphs, there will be more explained later if everyone takes a liking to it. :yeah:Constructive criticism is welcomed. Some of the things in here may seem far-fetched...but bear with me. The characters represent Germany...you will see.


"Zug Kodiak, report status."
"Kodiak zwei, good to go." Hissed over the radio.
"Kodiak threi, everything's good."
"Kodiak vier, all set."
A smile slowly found its way to Kodiak one's commander, Kurt Tomzak. "Okay, men. Does anyone have any contacts?" Kodiak one's gunner reported nothing and the other three responded in kind.
"Alright. Give it another two minutes on my mark and we will move out....Mark."
Kurt then decided to look outside. A massive snowstorm was tearing past the treeline in which Zug Kodiak was entrenched. To any other combat unit this would be hell on earth.
"Zug Kodiak, time's up, let's move. Wedge formation."
Only then did the high-pitched shrill of their engines match the howling winds outside. The tanks began to move, shrugging off the snow they were buried in, revealing the sharp lines of Germania's newest fighting vehicles. The Leopard 7A3 was on the cutting edge of fighting armor. Shaped like the contemporary Leopard 2A6, the additions and improvements were many, and easily noted. The 120mm smoothbore from the earlier tank was replaced with a 175mm rifled gun, the shells were far too heavy for a human to load, so machinery replaced the loader, able to carry 90 of the monstrous shells. The projectiles were capable of penetrating any type of armor thrown in it's way, even those of the Leopards it fought beside. The barrel was also longer, just a shade under the length of an artillery peice. The advantage, beyond muzzle velocity, was that the leopards, if necessary, could engage targets just beyond the horizon, accompanied by the proper satellite aiming. The tank's engines were now far smaller, but producing ten times the horsepower of the earlier models. By taking in the air from outside, the engine was able to filter the incoming air, remove the combustible particles, and turn it into a fuel the engine could run on. Other than planets with no atmosphere, the tank could be driven anywhere until there was no air to run upon. The coaxial weapon was now a gruesomely efficient 30 caliber gatling gun. Another one sat in front of the commander's hatch. The tanks were a terror on any battlefield. Usually their appearance on any fighting ground was deterrent enough to stop the fighting. Not today though.
"Sir, target spotted on thermal, dead ahead"
Kurt flicked a switch and the screen went from an outside view to a world filled with shades of purples and darker mediums. Thermal imaging hasn't changed really. Thought Kurt. Suddenly the smallest of slivers of yellow appeared among the darker shades.
"Spotted." announced Kurt loud enough for the gunner to hear him without use of the intercom. The tanks were moving at about 10mph, so there was a very slight notion of movement within the moderately cramped turret.
"Any idea of what it is?" Kurt asked Johann, his gunner.
"Definitely looks hostile, herr Tomzak, recommend armor piercing round."
"Acknowledged, I say take it, Johann."
"With pleasure." Said Johann, who went to work readying the gun. leaning into the electronic gunsights, he pressed a button on the joystick he held in his right hand. in the gunsight's view, a small HE popped up in the upper left corner. He blinked and pressed a different button. AP popped up this time, and, nodding to himself, he pressed another button on the top of the joystick with his thumb. The computerized voice of a young female came on both his and Kurt's headsets declaring "round loading." The auto loader behind and to Johann's right came to life, selecting one of the heavy Armor Piercing rounds, loading it from a magazine tucked far away from the crew into a cradle, carrying it up and into the breech of the gun, where hydraulic rammers drove the round home, automatically closing the breech.
The seductive female voice came through again, announcing "round up." From the time Kurt allowed Johann to engage to the round being loaded, only seven seconds had come to pass. While the round was loading, Johann had lazed (short for laser rangefinding) the target and set up the gun.
"Round away!" Called Johann, who smashed the trigger of the cannon with his foot.
KA-BLAM!
The breech recoiled back and at the same time a burst of nitrogen was shot through the barrel to cool it down, jokingly unnecessary, considering the weather outside.
There was no need to call a hit. The explosion was visible on the thermal and was easily heard above the sound of the tank's engine.
"Target left! 'Round 280! Engaging!" Came from one of the other tanks on the radio net. Kurt turned his head left just in time to see Kodiak 4 fire it's cannon, causing another explosion in the brush beyond. By now the Zug was traveling across snow covered prairie grassland, the grass covering the hulls, but leaving the turrets exposed. Kurt instinctively looked to his right and spotted a shape coming from a treeline. He would have cussed to himself for not seeing the bastard beforehand but...
He grabbed his turret override joystick and swung it over to the right, planting it near enough to the enemy for Johann to spot it.
"Target acquired! Armor Piercing! Fire when ready!"
"Jawohl!"
The loading computer. "Round up."
Johann: "Round away!"
The gun boomed it's response and the round penetrated the enemy's hull midpoint. Nothing happened, but Kurt knew from the smoke starting to pour from the gash in the hull that the round did it's business on the interior of the enemy. Kodiak 2 fired another shot and the turret was blown off of the enemy track.
An eerie silence followed the death throes of the last tank. Kurt reached over to his left and dialed another frequency on his radio.
"Zug Kodiak reporting, Have encountered and neutralized three, repeat, three enemy contacts. RTB if there are no further orders."
Another voice, completely unfamiliar to Kurt and Zug Kodiak responded.
"Well done and congratulations, boys, exercise over. We will send up the cleanup crews to take care of the remote targets. RTB...and.." Almost as an afterthought, "welcome to the 140th Special Arctic Warfare Division."

ajrimmer42 01-01-10 06:39 AM

That was damn good, love it! :up:

Sledgehammer427 01-01-10 11:51 PM

Thank you Ajrimmer! Considering the views this thread has gotten, I hope you are all liking it so far, please, feel free to comment!:D

The 140th Special Arctic Warfare Division was created as a result of lessons learned from the fighting on Planet 116. The fighting units of Germania were dropped into the frozen, hostile territory on the planet completely unprepared. The panzertruppe suffered heavy losses as soon as the tanks left the dropships. Cut down by the well entrenched and warm defenders of the planet, very few men survived what was to be known as "The Slaughter of 116." Kurt knew this story well, for his grandfather was a survivor. According to his grandfather, who was the gunner of one of the last tanks dropped, the enemy appeared from nowhere and sunk back into the snow after knocking out his fellow comrades. He survived by laying on the floor of the tank "like a coward," he said through tears to a young Kurt Tomzak, until the enemies decided that the platoon was wiped out. Only then did he sit up and fire off a burst transmission to an orbiting dropship above. His entire tank was collected, the hatch was forced open, and Kurt's grandfather was dug out, bloodstains from his fellow tankers covering every bit of exposed skin. A short funeral was held orbiting Planet 116, where upon the tank was released to burn up into the cold, unforgiving atmosphere. Afterwards, the supreme leader of Germania, a man by the name of Heinz Stuppe, ordered an elite division of the best tankers Germania had to be formed and trained in the art of extreme-cold-environment warfare. Of course, the division's use went far beyond the harsh, cold planets Germania was to occupy. It was also deployed in many other minor conflicts, using their tanks and reputations to deter any further fighting. Only once did the 140th have to fire their weapons in total anger. The result was a boldfaced victory for the SAWD, with only one casualty, a soldier who was hospitalized with a dangerous bug bite.
The 140th was comprised of mostly tanks, which, in the last millenia, had become the mainstay in warfare on land. Infantry was mainly obsolete, a ghost of a time when the threat of biological weapons, nuclear attack, satellite guided ballistic missiles, and large, impervious tanks were few or nonexistent. The division carried only a small group of infantry, who were mainly for guarding and parades. The Division's tanks were modified heavily for cold weather combat, the engines insulated, the gun barrels were tempered to withstand the rapid heating and cooling of fighting in beyond subzero temperatures. The outsides of the tanks were also covered in more armor, which kept heat and provided further resistance against cracking. The commander's position on the rear left hand side of the turret was bulked up, the cupola was heightened so less of the commander's body was exposed. within the heightened walls were small screens replacing the vision blocks of older tanks, with voice command or the flip of a switch, these could show the view from any one of the tanks small cameras mounted on the hull. They could also show the gunner's view, or the driver's view.
Along with the tanks was a battery of artillery, numbering three groups of five pieces each, and a battery of assault guns, whose first heyday was over 700 years ago, in World war Two on planet Earth. The designs mirrored the best of the assault gun designs, the Jagdpanther. Mainly a more mobile artillery battery, the assault guns could join the tanks in rushing assaults and were almost as fearsome as the Leopards.
Germania isn't a government. It's a clan comprised of what was left of America, Germany, Israel, and the United Kingdom on Earth. After the invention of the warp drive, and the discovery of habitable planets outside of the Solar System, The Alliance of NATO and the Warsaw Pact went to war with each other, and nuclear weapons bared their ugly teeth again. By the time the fighting calmed down, Earth was unlivable. The groups, having reached a stalemate, secretly built themselves so-called "arks" and prepared to leave Earth for good, while detonating enough weapons to destroy the planet, and, with any luck, their enemies. Of course, history has taught that there will always be a traitor, and even though NATO was prepared to leave long before the Pact was, the Pact's turncoat warned the alliance of the impending doom, and the Pact hurried the completion of their Ark and left Earth at nearly the same time as the NATO Ark. What resulted was the ultimate irony, both sides went to opposite corners of the Milky Way, having destroyed Earth, and inhabited planets familiar to the regions from which they came. That was almost 650 years before Kurt was born, and basically ancient history....


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