I sat down and wrote this over lunch. It will be short submission for a review. Let me know what you think.
Speed Bumps
The Russian Regimental Reconnaissance Company just pulled into a security halt to do a quick map check when the fun started. The company was in the vanguard leading the attack into the flank of an American armored formation. The splash of 18 155mm artillery rounds in the center of the formation destroyed a couple of the BMP4s, but the rest had their weapons facing out, ready to defend the formation from attack. One of the commanders on a BMP4 used the vehicles 57mm automatic cannon to shoot at movement in the tree line about 800 meters to the west. Four 30mm bushmaster cannons answered the fire, destroying the BMP 4 and raking the company with direct fire.
In the confusion that followed, the four ripsaws broke from cover and used direct fire in support of maneuver to close with the Russians and wipe out most of the BMP4s and the supporting infantry. The grunts on the ground launched RPG 35s, which were backwards engineered NLAWs that were captured earlier in the war. The digital spoofing on the ripsaws confused the seekers on the RPGs causing all four to miss.
One of the new countermeasures on the M5 Ripsaw drones used laser and electronic sources to defeat targeting systems trying to engage the drones. The new image scatter technology directly defeated the electronic fire control systems causing the gunners to miss 50% of the time when shooting at the drones. It was still new technology and was being tested on the drones before mounting the countermeasure to manned vehicles.
After 30 seconds of total chaos, the four Ripsaw drone tanks broke contact and left the Russians to pick up the pieces. It was a mass casualty event for the Russians and the high command had to reconstitute a recon company on the fly.
The four vehicles pulled off the main trail down into some low ground to pull security. The tiny tanks had been going hard for the last five hours and needed to regroup for a few minuted during a shift change back at the barn. The M 813 30mm bushmaster auto cannons mounted on the M5’s turret needed a few minutes to cool off after the contact they just finished.
The ripsaws took advantage of being small and quiet to get close to the infantry company before calling for artillery to kick off the attack. The 18 rounds of 155mm high explosives caused the confusion that the four tanks needed to move into the company area and destroy the Russian armored vehicles. The four horsemen, Clint, John, Buck, and Rip moved through the Russians like greased death. Lots of fire, move, fire, move, drills to bounce in and around the fighting positions and dealing some 30mm chaos.
Specialist Five Derrick “slowball” Hanna got comfortable in his chair. The crew positions for the drone drivers were never too comfortable, didn’t want the driver going to sleep at work, do you? His work station was prepped for his shift with snacks, drinks, and current updates on his four combat drones he would be operating today. He was “jacked in”, which would involve getting into the haptics and “being” the drone. The connections at the base of the neck in the helmet connected with his haptic links and allowed him to be immersed in the first point of view when running his Ripsaws.
The four horsemen were named after cowboys from western movies to keep them separate from the others by something other than a number letter call sign. Other drivers named theirs after rock stars, actors, pets, and other names. Slowball’s favorite was the platoon named after the actors from Married With Children. The drone pilots had a lot of creativity to deal with, often showing up as discipline problems back in the unit. When the driver got into the zone, jacked in and running the tanks, it was all business.
Slowball was jacked in and checked his status on all of the horsemen. He was using video game technology to quickly read status in red/yellow/green bar graphs for each category of supply on each tank. This red/yellow/green allowed quick assimilation of combat status and kept higher leaders informed of which units needed help or resupply. The bar graph has found its way into logistics for the military, and wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
A quick search of the screens in front of his eyes in his helmet showed Slowball that the horsemen were ready to rock and roll. Russians in western Ukraine turned the country into the battleground for the last four years of World War Three in Europe. There were other battlegrounds, this was just the first one.
Slowball had the ripsaws pull out of the hide position and continue to work through the underbrush and trees to the west from the destroyed company before anyone came to check the crime scene. Slowball had an alert from a Recon Platform at high altitude that more Russians were coming his way. Checking his maps and digital terrain formation, he quickly picked a position for the horsemen to fight from. The ripsaws had small dozer blades on the back of the chassis, and they used them to dig in quickly before the enemy forces found them half-stepping.
Now dug in in hull down positions, the turrets were the only thing exposed for the enemy forces to try and see as they rushed towards the decimated infantry company. It was a small target compared to an Abrams turret, and contributed to the survivability of the small machines. AI in the drones divided up the engagement area while Slowball was coordinating for artillery strikes in and around the engagement area. The AIs took much of the boring workload off of the drone pilot, allowing them to concentrate on the stuff that mattered. The tanks were using passive sensors to scan the battleground and leaving the turrets stone still so they didn’t draw attention to the fighting positions.
The T95s from the quick reaction force were moving slowly into the engagement area. One platoon was covering another’s move forward as the four platoon company bounded towards the four horsemen. As move vehicles came into view, Slowball was able to prioritize which tanks to destroy first. The BMP72Ts were always the first to go. The combination of two 30mm cannons and anti tank guided missiles was still a dangerous foe on the battlefield, and could wipe out a ripsaw platoon if it saw them first.
Slowball fed targeting data to another drone driver to use Javelin II missiles to make the kills on the Terminators. “Double wide”, Specialist Four Cody Halverson, fed the targeting data to one of his four missile firing Ripsaws and they launched on the terminators. The four Javelin IIs struck simultaneously, killing four of the BMP72Ts to start the ambush. Next, a time on target artillery strike ripped up the dirt and couple of T95 tanks when the barrage struck a few seconds later. Now, the four horsemen started working. The Ripsaws rapidly engaged the rest of the T95s, putting most of them out of action in the first ten seconds of the fight. A second barrage with white phosphorus mixed in landed and screened the ripsaws and they bugged out to new positions further to the south.
The QRF tank company was combat ineffective and calling for help from anyone that would answer. Slowball used a technique to only eliminate 70-90% of a Russian company and let the rest tell their commanders that they were just decimated by an unknown force, further confusing the Russian command situation. This was a screen mission for the 3rd of the 84th Armor battalion operation to the north of the current engagement Slowball was mixed up in. The uncrewed drones were doing the dirty work, saving the humans from paying the price for an effective screening mission. The drones were successful because they could take risk that would be unacceptable with manned fighting vehicles.
Lieutennant Frank “Cowboy” Thigpin was in charge of Snowball and five other drone pilots in his uncrewed “company”. He had four drivers for the 30mm armed ripsaws and two for Javelin II launchers. Cowboy sent a text to Slowball to pull the horsemen off the line and hit the company resupply point, five kilometers back from the fighting. Slowball gave the haptic commands to the four and they immediately used detailed mapping from the overlay and other drones to plan a route back to the rear for services on his small tanks.
The horsemen had an uneventful trip back to the resupply point where human technicians took over. Each Ripsaw was fueled, rearmed, had its electronics tested and got ready to return to the fighting. The “Geek Squad” were the unsung heroes of the ground combat drone revolution, fixing, fueling, and arming the small tanks as close to the fighting as they dared. Running the Geek Squad was a leadership progression assignment for drone drivers to move up in the Army.
Keeping the geeks alive was the job of a platoon of M1E3E8 Abrams tanks that had the 120mm cannon removed and replaced with a 75x270mm XM 945 Bushmaster cannon. The room in the turret was used to mount the auto cannon and the hoppers for the ammunition it carried. A 75mm cannon that can shoot two to three rounds a second seemed to fix most problems that presented themselves to a tank platoon, go figure. The tank platoon leader was a drone driver too, and used their haptics to communicate with the tank and the fire control system for the E8.
Now heading back to the front, Slowball’s platoon mates were in contact with the new recon company and the first Mechinized infantry battalion in the Russian attack on the armor battalions flank. The action was touch and go as the drones sealed out mass lethality and took some damage of their own. The drone drivers could combine platoons to keep the small units at full strength as the Platoon suffered casualties. Slowball’s drones were needed in a hurry to slow down the Russians.
Slowball’s four horsemen pulled into positions behind the current battle and waited. The other drones were working berm drills and running tree lines to damage as many Russian armored vehicles as possible. While the ripsaws dug in, Slowball noted that an air defense ripsaw was scanning the heavens looking for targets. Suddenly, the ADA ripsaw started firing burst of 30mm proximity fused cannon rounds at Russian drones poking around the battlefield. After smoking three Russian drones, the ADA ripsaw found a new position, avoiding the Russian artillery that landed three minuted after the ripsaw left. Slowball wasn’t the only one calling artillery.
Now the drones up front were taking a beating from the T95s and BMP72s that were charging their positions. The BMPT72s were dangerous when they got close, and the tanks were taking the brunt of the damage allowing the Terminators to do just that. The BMPs along with massed artillery strikes on drone battle positions were taking out the ripsaws. One of the drivers shot a final protective fire at the Russians attacking his drones so he could break contact. The 36 rounds of high explosive and white phosphorus provided the destruction and concealment needed for the drones to bug out.
Screwball was one of the last full strength drone units left in the platoon. The rest had been destroyed or forced off of the battlefield with damage. All of the platoons drones passed Slowball’s positions going to the rear in a hurry. Now it was his turn to try and blunt the attack.
In the time preparing for the battle, Slowball had his drones make three hull down locations for the ripsaws to hide in. Now there were 12 holes to fight from instead of one for each drone. This would help his ripsaws survive the coming attack and slow the Russians down as they tried to break through the screen line. The graphics on his screens alerted Slowball of one BMP 4 moving out of the tree line about two kilometers distant.
That was the bait. The trap was the ten other vehicles scanning the tree line that Slowball’s drones were in. Slowball wasn’t one of the slow horses so he didn’t fall for the bait. Using his fused sensor data from air and ground drones, Screwball sent fire missions to the artillery cell at company headquarters to see what the red legs could do for him.
In two minutes, the far tree line erupted with precision artillery strikes as seven 155mm high explosive shells landed on seven BMP4s, destroying them instantly. Sensor guided artillery rounds made short work of the stationary targets. In response, Russian artillery impacted about two hundred meters to the ripsaws right flank and prep fires softened up the trees before the Russians committed to the attack. The game was ON!
T95s came out of the trees guns blazing, using all available firepower to eliminate the small pest that were slowing down the attack. Buck took a sabot round through the turret armor and the drone was explosively disassembled. Clint got some payback and moved to a new position. As Clint moved, John shot from his new position, destroying two BMPs. Buck was spotting for Clint, so all Clint had to do is slew to cue shooting and get out of there before the return fire hit home. The fused sensor data and AI allowed target engagements immediately upon pulling into position as another drone picked targets. After firing two 3 round bursts, Clint was backing out and moving to another position.
The Russian commander must had thought he was fighting 15 or more drones in the trees as the ripsaws bounced from position to position. The drones were killing tanks and BMPs but the other tanks were getting closer to the Americans. The BMPTs started firing, pushing 50 yards of trees back thirty meters and destroyed Buck. Now at half strength, Slowball had a lot of work to do to slow the Russians down. Rip was shooting T95s in the flank when a BMP4 hit the drone with five rounds of 57mm high explosive. Clint was the only friendly drone in the Russians way when two fighter bombers flew over the battlefield dropping brilliant anti armor munitions to stop the tanks cold.
Slowball got a message from Cowboy, telling him to hide and get under cover. Slowball moved to some low ground to get concealed from the Russian sensors. Clints audio sensors were picking up tanks moving to his rear and Slowball started to get really worried when Able Company, 3rd of the 84th Armor crested the hill and started firing the 75mm auto cannons from the E8s into the Russians. The large bangs of the 75mm bushmaster cannons echoed off the trees making it sound like hundreds of tanks advancing. The 14 tanks of Able Company flowed onto the battlefield using shock and maneuver to grind up the Russian tanks as they advanced further to the east.
Slowball and the rest of the drone armored force were just speed bumps for the Tank Battalion Commander. He was patient enough to let the drones do all of the dying while his fires cell set the conditions for his armored counterattack into the Russian armored regiment attacking him. The drones bled an armored and an armored infantry battalion dry as they tried to launch their assault.
If you got this far you can see I need some editorial love. I’ll rewrite the whole thing before submitting.
I knew it! I knew where he got Clint, John, Buck and Rip from! Anyway, no more comments. Carry on.
Nice and yes, needs editing, but that's why we put rough drafts up!!!