The Battle for Webding, SENSE side.
Webding, Malaya
SENSE sector
“Hey, you’re pretty exposed there.” The mHzen corporal observed, crouching just behind the turret.
“True enough.” Staff Sergeant Tan Xiao Yang noted, her FCS Armored Gun System was dug into the rubble of a partially destroyed building, with the gun tube just barely clearing the mound of broken concrete and twisted steel. Calm and quiet as the scene was before her, Yang knew that the enemy was coming, and soon.
Her presence in armor had risen the eyebrows of several of the foreign SENSE soldiers around, but was a sight barely worth attention to a Xing Shianan, unless some of them considered her attractive of course. Compulsory military training for both genders in Xing Shiana from the age of 15 had made sure that the gender demographics in the Xing Shianian military was pretty much 50-50, though more of the females took up non direct combatant roles in the military, Yang had been one of the minority. When she had driven in a few hours ago in the small, 9 tank force to reinforce the SENSE armor in Webding, the MLF troopers had spent quite a bit of time huddling up into groups, and talking excitedly as they view her from a distance going on her routines around her tank. Bunch of immature pigs, Yang had wanted to say then, but realized that the average age amidst them was only 19.
Nobody doubted the quality of Xing Shianan female soldiers, entry qualifications in the military were strictly based not on affirmative action or quotas or all the other stuff the politically-correct militaries of other countries were so caught up in. In the XSAF, it went strictly by ability, where only the best person for the role got the role, irregardless of race, language, religion, and in her case, gender. Combat Xing Shianan women were tough, independent, knew how to take care of themselves and every bit as respected as their male counterparts, as any person who tried to get funny with them quickly, and painfully realized. Harassment was virtually unknown. They were tough.
“You better go now, it’s gonna be Showtime soon.” Yang said, waving at the corporal as he scrabbled over the loose debris back to his foxhole. A nice guy, Yang observed, he had come over to share a hot meal with them. The first they had had for a while- almost any kind of food was better then the supposedly “improved” MRE field rations.
Yang hauled herself onto the low hull of the AGS, and dropped down the open hatch into the crew compartment. Her crewmember was already there, drumming his fingers on the control yokes on his side of the duplicated controls.
“Not a bad looking guy,” The tanker said to her in that crass style she had gotten used to. “Maybe after all this we can ask the rest to arrange a little something for you two?” He laughed as he buttoned up his hatch.
“Shut up and get to work Dill.” Yang snapped. Though he was competent tanker and teammate, Yang had never quite gotten used to Dillon’s relentless ribbing of whatever she did and endless supply of senseless jokes. They had trained together since day one and she had learned to tolerate these nuances, he was just one of the many people in the unit she considered her brothers and sisters, perhaps even much closer then her actual family. Over the years they had gone through virtually every military training hardship together and had learnt to depend on each other. She trusted him with her life, as he did hers. It was pure comradeship.
She counted almost as much on her little tank to keep her safe in battle as well. The AGS, essentially being the light tank variant of the larger FCS MBT, came in far lighter at only 15 tons, but shared almost all the features of found in its bigger brother. It was a good light tank, the most advanced in the world. More then just a mobile, protected space, it was a hotbed of advanced technology that linked it up to countless other units in the large invisible technological web of Force Integration. They fought their war as much with advanced communications and information as they did with their advanced 120mm ETC main gun.
Prussian artillery started to fall in the form of shells and rockets. Pounding the SENSE sector of the town with a man made storm of explosions and flying metal. Several rounds fell in YangÂ’s section, rocking the 15 ton tank steadily. Yang could hear and feel the shrapnel pinging off the armor. Yang knew she had it easy, the mHzen infantry must all now be huddled in their foxholes, slit trenches or whatever shelter they could find. It would be pure death to be caught in the open. The Prussian artillery bombardments never lasted, the MLF counter battery fire always found them soon enough if they stood around and cooked off too many rounds. The Prussians would shoot off a salvo or two, and then scoot before the superior MLF arty found them. Sure enough, the Prussian bombardment stopped as abruptly as it had begun. They were coming.
“Get ready, enemy contact estimated in 2 minutes, 2 minutes.” Dill glanced at the situational display. Her force of 9 AGS had been arranged mixed with the MLF conventional armor to provide overlapping zones of fire over the street to provide maximum firepower to bear on the advancing Prussians. She read the situational display again; she would be facing about 50 Prussian Aquanix amphibious light tanks and more mechanized infantry.
The Prussian Aquanix light tanks outnumbered SENSE armor, which was made up of her 9 AGS and 7 other MLF conventional MBTs, at about 3 to 1. Their infantry, some of which certainly were anti-tank units, would make things worse. Due to the need to be light because of their amphibious nature, the Aquanix tanks had weak armor, a vulnerability the Prussians tried to reduce by adding add-on modular armor. The 120mm low recoil main gun of the Aquanix would be a concern though, for it stood a fair chance of penetrating the armor of the SENSE tanks, including the level 3 protection package her tank had been fitted out with.
“Contact! Contact! Weapons free!” Came the call over the radio from armor commander in one of the MLF Challangers. The Prussians were now within visual range.
Yang had seen the Prussians from over twice as far as the MLF tank commander, thanks to the advanced sensors on her tank, and had been tracking one all along. Target information sharing through the wireless network made sure that everyone knew who was shooting at what to make sure there were no over-engagement of targets and the wasting of ammo.
“Let’s see where you can hide…” Yang whispered as she depressed the rangefinder button with both thumbs, she got the range, saw the ready to shoot light, and pulled on the trigger to send a HEAT round on its way.
At the command to shoot, the electrical electrodes in the120mm ETC cannon fed a sudden surge of power to the plasma burner installed in its breech. The resulting plasma arc generated evaporated the propellant energetic chemical liquid, transitioning it violently into a plasma whose gases have a lower molecular weight than conventional powder gases, in turn, generating higher and constant pressures possible in normal gun tubes. The reduction of gas masses to be accelerated together with the projectile allows higher muzzle velocities to be reached in any conventional weapon of similar caliber. Riding on rapidly expanding plasma gases, the HEAT round exited at over three times the speed of sound.
Though speed has little bearing on how well a HEAT warhead works, as opposed to a dart penetrator, the flatter trajectories generated by the greater speeds made gunnery computing simpler and reduced error margins. Yang saw the HEAT round as a white streak on her thermal view as it blasted its way to the target.
Eight hundred meters downrange, the 120mm HEAT round found its target, a Prussian Aquanix tank. The shaped charged warhead of the High Explosive Anti Tank shell exploded, discharging an extremely fast ever-elongating stream of stream of copper particles and gas into the armor of the tank at pressures in orders of hundreds of kilobars per square inch. Pressured far beyond its physical strength, the armor material of the tank flowed apart fluidly away from the path of the HEAT jet. A tenth of a millisecond later, the jet of warhead material entered the crew compartment, blasting copper particles and explosive gases within, exacting hellish overpressures. The hatches of the tank blew out moments before the entire thing exploded like a plastic toy.
“Good shot…” Dill said absentmindedly as the main gun was slaved over to his target while Yang acquired another target in the hunter-killer mode that allowed them to engage and destroy targets twice as fast as tanks lacking that ability. The small tank rocked back from recoil again, it was another hit, another Aquanix lay burning somewhere down the range.
YangÂ’s next victim was a Prussian IFV; she speared the crosshairs over the boxy profile of her target and fired a HEAT, which exploded it and stopped it dead in its tracks. She cringed inwardly as she saw burning Prussians start to bail of out their battle taxi that had become a sudden inferno in a very small space. The human torches stumbled out of their broken ride, swinging their arms madly until mHzen snipers and their own troops ended their misery with a few well-placed shots. Such was war.
A HEAT round impacted on the mould of rubble that was the cover for their AGS, throwing up a shower of debris that pattered their little tank. Dill had already acquired the antagonist responsible for the shot and fired, narrowly missing over the engine compartment of the enemy tank. The Prussians crewing this tank were pros, they never drove straight and bobbed and weaved their tank in and out of, in front and behind mounds of rubble. An mHzen Chieftain beside their AGS blasted a round at it, and missed again as the savvy tank commander ordered his tank to sudden turn and head for cover behind a building. Just before it disappeared behind the building however, it fired and the Chieftian burst into flames.
“Crap!” Dill swore. The Prussians were getting real close now, the infantry dismounting under suppressive fire and starting to fight. It was going to be a close-quarter, slugfest.
“Time to move.” Yang backed the tank out from behind the defilade, crunching stones with their polymer tracks as the 15 ton tank backed up. The fight was getting really intense now, with the streets alive with the cackle of rifle fire and the occasional deeper thump of a larger weapon going off. Yang moved the tank back to the second firing position, perfectly coordinated with the rest of the SENSE armor without even having to speak a word. It was just one of the advantages of fighting with information.
“Woah!” Yang flinched as a Po-1 rocket zipped by, clipping the AGS turret and sliding along in a shower of sparks before riding off into a building behind, exploding the concrete there. “Infantry AT fire getting hot, using the fifty cal.”
While driving her tank backwards, Yang thumbed the selector for the remote controlled, turret-mounted machine gun. Another reticule blinked on in her visor, and following her head movements wherever she looked. Up on the turret above, the .50cal machine gun went through the same motions, mechanically taking bead at whatever Yang was looking at. She turned her attention to some Prussian AT infantry chasing her tank down the road and trying to get a shot off with their Po-1s and sprayed a burst of .50cal as a disincentive, three of them fell and the rest dodged for cover. Yang backed her tank away and out of sight behind a building, planning her next move.
The battle for Webding was growing desperate, SENSE was fighting with itÂ’s back to the wall, giving the Prussians incredible resistence all throughout the town, fighting for every building room by room, corridor by corridor. Tanks scuttled in and out of sight of each other around and behind buildings, trying to snap in shots in the brief moments they saw their targets. As the massive street fight grew into its second hour, it became clear that SENSE troops were on the verge of breaking.
Caught up in the fierce fighting, Yang noticed a new text message blink on in her situational display it was from high command.
“WTD ALPHA”
Yang swallowed, that was the general order for all SENSE troops to retreat out of the town to phase line alpha. She could see why; on the eint, it was clearly obvious that SENSE forces in Webding were in impending danger of being encircled by the Prussians as they poured more men into the battle, so much that they were starting to flow around the SENSE forces and box them in.
“Okay, we’re gonna try to hold off them off while the infantry withdraws.” Yang radioed to the remaining SENSE armor. She drove her tank from behind the building she had taken cover down the street at full throttle, spraying the startled Prussian infantry with .50cal fire. Several rockets fired hastily in response by Prussian AT infantry all missed. Yang popped smoke, which effectively blinded the Prussians but not themselves, thanks to their electronic sensors. Dill blasted a window containing a Prussian AT team while Yang swung the .50 cal in wide arcs, firing at the Prussians on both sides of the street. The Prussians started to scramble from the street, giving SENSE infantry a chance to withdraw.
Yang saw a Prussian tank appear from behind a destroyed Challenger in front of them, with several others following behind as the smoke cleared enough for the Prussians to see them as well. Judging from the way the lead tank drove, it had to be them savvy tank crew she saw earlier. Dill managed to hit the Prussian tank this time with a sabot and the crew was no more. While all this was happening, Yang had already acquired the closest tank behind while all this was happening and fired the moment the gun controls were slaved over to her. The other Prussian exploded spectacularly as well flinging the turret 40 feet into the air.
Yang felt cold panic when she realized that they were facing off against over three more Prussian tanks down this street. She backed her tank into reverse just as a shot wanged off the turret face of the AGS.
“Shoot the jokers!” Yang shouted unnecessarily to Dill as she move the AGS back, weaving the tank like she had seen the now-dead Prussian tank crew did. A Prussian shot came crashing into the AGS and she heard the scream of metal and composite as they failed under the assault. Several areas on the graphic representing her tank on the AGS flashed red and yellow, indicating internal damage. But excellent redundancies and internal damage control systems had made sure that the AGS was still functional. Dill exploded one Prussian tank with a sabot and Yang nailed another in rapid succession. Dill killed the last Prussian tank engaging at them with a quick shot to the engine using a HEAT round.
It was time to retreat, Yang backed the tank into reverse and started down the street back to join the retreating SENSE forces when she noticed that in the heat of battle she had neglected several threat indicators on her situational display that were now going to be a large problem.
They were a Prussian AT squad that had managed to flank her tank, and were now readying a shot to her side. She hit the controls for the .50cal and swung the gun over to the side, maybe she could cut the swine down before they could get off a shot-
It was too late, the Prussians snapped off a shot with their Po-1 and retreated behind cover as Yang sprayed after them with the .50 cal. The rocket struck the rear of the hull and exploded. For a moment the AGS continued to back off, as if nothing happened, but then Yang knew the tank was disabled when she saw that the schematic representing the engine on the damage display was dark, indicating the engine was destroyed. The tank ground to a halt, powered only by auxiliary systems.
“Okay, let’s get out of here.” Yang said calmly. “Initiate non recoverable drill.”
As friendly forces could not recover the disabled AGS, all sensitive material onboard had to be destroyed to avoid such high technology falling into enemy hands. And that could be achieved by the means of self-destruct incendiary thermite charges planted in all the sensitive equipment of the tank that would burn out enough to melt steel, leaving the highly classified advanced technology nothing more then slag for the Prussians to find. Yang popped smoke to cover their escape and unbuckled the bottom emergency escape hatch. Just before they exited, she flipped the plastic cover off the button to activate the thermite charges and hit it.
Arid sparks and smoke announced the successful self-destruction of the sensitive technology as the thermite charges burned like mini flares within the tank. Yang lowered herself out of the abandoned tank and moved off with Dill to run to friendly lines, covered another AGS, which had thankfully come up to give them covering fire as they retreated. When they were clear, the AGS pumped two HEAT rounds into the rear of the knocked out AGS to demolish it further. Not much luck; it didnÂ’t catch fire or blow up much, though nobody would be using it for a long while.
Back safely in friendly lines, Yang followed the chaotic retreat back, she felt strange without the order and information the FCS provided her with. Without her technological mount, she was just another faceless and clueless SENSE trooper in the field. She watched from the back of the three toner truck on the rough ride rear as a Prussian flag was risen on the town hall. WeÂ’ll be back, she promised.
The AGS had acquitted themselves well, losing only two of their number disabled to 18 destroyed enemy tanks, with YangÂ’s tank taking seven of those kills. Besides tanks, an assortment of countless other enemy vehicles also fell to the AGS. The mHzen armor had also done well, though they were now only left with three functional tanks, from the original seven.
However, now with SENSE lines in Malaya scattered and spread perilously thin, there was no doubt about it. SENSE lines had been breached in Webding and unless the gap was plugged, the rest of Malaya will fall soon, and the doorstep of The Borderlands of 440 mHz was just a mere fifty kilometers away. Even as the situation unfolded, COMMON SENSE commanders were collapsing the lines back, trying to consolidate a serious defense to buy more time for more SENSE reinforcements to arrive.