He heaved a big sigh. “Like I said, this mission is high risk, but very high reward. If everything goes right, there’s a chance that we can damage the military in this city so badly they won’t have the resources left to secure their own base, much less the region. Hell, even if only half the squads make it into position for the fight, the damage we’ll be able to inflict should go a long way toward that leverage I was talking about, convincing the Tabs’ political overlords that even the ‘secure’ parts of their territory are anything but.” He looked around at the assembled faces. “Trust me, nobody wants a war to end more than the people losing it. Let’s help them make up their minds.”
The squad leaders looked at each other. After the briefing, the one common expression in all their faces was hope. After a decade a chance, finally, for peace, maybe even victory? Morris had been right, even though it was high risk, what they might be able to achieve….
“Even if everything goes right we’re going to lose men. Maybe a lot of men,” Hannibal said, staring down at the map. “But I think it’s worth it. Now I just have to sell it to my people.” He looked up and saw the faint confusion on Morris’ face. They all did.
“You see any uniforms out there?” Brookelynne asked the Lieutenant Colonel, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at the door. “Any rank or insignia, other than the occasional flag patch? We’re in blue jeans and Reeboks. The underwires in my bra are starting to rust it’s so old. We’re as Irregular as it gets, an honest-to-God citizen militia, a few of us still using guns we bought, back when that was legal.”
“Even if you gave us rank, we’re all volunteers. They’re all volunteers,” Ed reminded Morris. “Free to come and go. And a lot have, over the years. Some discovered that fighting was not for them after that first bullet whipped by their head, and some good brave men just tired of the thankless grind. The ones I’ve got now, they’re all fighters. And, dangerous as it is, this is a solid plan. I think you might lose a couple of our people off the top, when we lay it all out for them, maybe, but we definitely won’t be anywhere near your go/no-go of fifty.”
“Well shit, let’s hope so,” Morris said with a frown.
Julius was polite, professional, and very serious about his job as he trained the men of Theodore. “The AT5, otherwise known as a Spike, is basically an improved version of the AT4,” he told them, hoisting an inert launch tube. “More accurate, more powerful warhead, but now also modular, and scalable. What we have are the basic models, without optics or heat-seeking warheads, which is both good and bad. Good because they’re lighter and more compact, and bad because they’re harder to aim effectively, and only go where you aim, they won’t track.”
Julius was a light-skinned black man with a faint Texas accent, and at first glance appeared slender until you saw how the sleeves bunched up around his upper arms whenever he moved. “Going from having it safe and slung over your shoulder to deployed, aimed, and ready to fire is simple and shouldn’t take you much more than thirty seconds even if you’re scared shitless and fumble-fucking around.”
“How much punch does it have?” George asked, which was the important question.
Morris’ man nodded. He’d been expecting the question. “These warheads will penetrate the doors of an up-armored Growler easy. On an IMP it’ll penetrate everywhere, and so will an RPG, which is why you see that standoff slat armor on them. How many of the IMPs have that up-armoring here?”
“All of them,” George told him. “At least after the first couple years of war. All we see are grocery carts.”
Julius nodded. “That’s what we call them too. Well, with that slatting all around the sides, about all you can do is blow the shit out of the wheels if you’re aiming for the sides. And, as you know, that’s not the plan. That said, they can still move as long as they have two wheels, one on each side. If you disable all four wheels on one side, they’re kinda fucked. That takes explosives, though, bullets and Molotovs alone won’t do the job.”
“Why don’t they ever armor the underside of Growlers?” Quentin asked. “They slap all this armor on the doors and windows, but don’t do shit about the undercarriage. Roll one grenade under one and everyone inside is fucked.”
“No room with the drivetrain and everything else, I believe. It’s just meant to be a passenger vehicle that is protected against small arms fire. The thinking was if you actually need something more than that you’d head out in an IMP. Between the hull and the slat armor IMPs can handle IEDs and even some EFPs, depending.”
“What’s an EFP?” Jason asked.
“Explosively formed penetrator. IEDs are just homemade or repurposed bombs that damage or kill by an explosion, blast, and maybe shrapnel. With an EFP that explosion is contained, usually in a metal pipe, behind a circular dome of metal. The explosion turns that dome into a big powerful bullet that goes through a lot of armor. EFPs have limited use, but what they do they do very well.”
“What about Toads?” Mark said.
“You guys have been fighting probably longer than I have, so it shouldn’t surprise you that mostly what I have for you is bad news. Main battle tanks have the thickest armor of anything out there. Their job is to take the hit and keep on coming. They weigh sixty tons, which is why their treads chew up the roads, and why simple tank traps work. Dig out a paved road and it’ll last under standard traffic for quite some time, most cars and light delivery trucks don’t weigh more than five tons. Get a tank to drive over that unsupported concrete, and the bottom falls out. Of course, the work required to dig out one of those, deep enough that the tank can’t crawl out of it, is immense.”
“A Spike won’t do shit against the armor a Toad has on the front and sides of the body, or all around the turret. You’ll get a nice explosion from the reactive armor, but there won’t even be a dent. It’ll take out a tread, but even with both treads gone the tank is still somewhat mobile and, of course, fully able to fire. They aim using their ISU, Integrated Sighting Unit, which is on the front of the turret. There are armored doors which close over the top of it, but if you hit it with an RPG, or grenade, or even rifle fire when those doors are open you’ll take it out, and then they’ve got to go to their backup, and you can take out that with aimed rifle fire. You take out both the ISU and the backup sighting system and they’re blind. They can still drive and shoot, they just can’t see unless they pop a hatch and stick their heads out. But taking out both sighting systems without getting blasted is tough as shit.”
“Now, most of the time when they’re driving around the tank Commander has his head out of the top hatch because he can see so much better. They only use the ISU when they have to, or at night, because it’s got FLIR. As soon as anything pops off he’ll duck down and close the hatch, but if you’re sniping and happen to be in the right place at the right time you might not be able to touch the tank, but you can take out the CO.”