Operation Futon Manatee

Hey Mom

Don’t tell Dad, but I broke the First Law of the military today. Let me explain.

We have a rule you see, ‘never volunteer for anything’. It’s usually a pretty sound rule to live by, but at the briefing earlier today the Colonel asked if anyone wanted to stay in camp and operate one of the big guns there to support the squad, rather than go out of the wire and defend a shrine on a hill top we can see from base. I’ll admit, I felt really guilty as everyone else left camp to hike down one steep hill, cross a river, and then back up the opposite side. I had a good line of sight on their defensive position though, so I kept an eye on them and the half of the hillside I could see so they could focus on the rest. Also keeping an eye out was Mr Scatter Sir co-ordinating operations from the air, and Transplant in a Skyraider.

The gun the Colonel let me use is called an Ontos. Weird name I know, but it’s very cool. I know I’ve mentioned a few times that the North Cheltnamese have tried to kill us with recoilless rifles, do you remember? Well, this thing is like a really small tank, but instead of a normal tank gun it’s got six of those, and then a 50cal gun so you can get ranging shots in. It also has significantly less armour than an actual tank, but I was behind the wire in camp, so that wasn’t so much of a problem. Needless to say, and I don’t mean to brag, but I owned that side of the hill all mission.

The first I knew of the squad arriving at the Shrine was a molotov going off in the woods to the north. That treeline was almost to the hill top, but to the west and south there was a lot of clear ground, and a rocky outcrop to aid the defensiveness. No idea what it was like to the east, but a lot of attacks came from there, so I guess there was more cover for hostile forces to creep up in. That or they were careful enough not to attack where we could see them.

It looked to me like a short and quickly concluded fight, but they immediately called for a medevac helicopter, so I suspect the medic went down at some point. As that helo went in, Mr Scatter started taking rounds from a hill to the south, so he marked it with smoke and I whacked a few rounds at it while the rescue helicopter did its work. This turned out to be an entire assault force, so we in the support elements went weapons free on them, and deleted or burnt a chunk of the hillside to stop it reaching the others.

They then got attacked from eastern angles I couldn’t do anything about, so I sat and listened into the air elements co-ordinate their work to try and keep up a degree of situational awareness. I also coordinated a supply drop for the squad, but as if often the way, it didn’t land where we wanted it to and caused a few problems in trying to retrieve. Then there was another attack from the south west, so air and I saturated the area with explosions until they thought better of it.

There was also a rocket artillery attack, but while I could see the rockets, and the launch smoke, I couldn’t get rounds on as it was on the other side of the hill crest and through a bunch of trees. Transplant dealt with it quickly though.

With the issues recovering the supplies, Mr Scatter crabbed a crate back at base and flew it over, but got shot down as he went in to land. The Chelt forces used that as a distraction to attack the base from the treeline to the north, the one that was within a few metres of the shrine, and while the squad was busy in frantic fighting there, another squad approached from the south. I put a few rounds into the treeline, then saw Transplant doing attack runs with presumably much greater visibility, so I switched to covering south and spotted that team. I’m very proud to say I took them all out before they got to the base and bothered any of my fellow marines.

We then got a Cobra gunship on station, which is always nice, and a huey went to collect Scatter and get him back up in the air again.

There followed a bunch of attacks from the east that I could do nothing about, including a suspected BTR40, but I can’t say for sure. My quiet didn’t last though, as another attack from the trees to the north came in, only this time from the north west, meaning I got to flatten them and take pressure off the defenders at the shrine. I also tried firing all 6 barrels at once, which was really very effective, and a lot of fun.

More precision was required when some set up some kind of launcher on a ridgeline beyond the hill we were defending, so I went back to single shots, meaning I could fire and adjust without having to wait for all the tubes to reload. I got him, and whatever it was, and the base was attacked from the east again, so my man on the hilltop might have been more of an attempted distraction than anything else.

THen came another attack from the south west. I spotted tracer, then the Chelt put a whole load of smoke out on the hillside so the squad couldn’t see them. Myself and air could though, and we cleaned out the western element before air switched to east and I smacked that treeline again for good measure. Just in case there were any hiding out still. It went mostly okay, but the cobra got hit and crashed into the river, I don’t believe there were any survivors.

At some point, on a radio channel I wasn’t on, a call came through for more supplies, which dropped out of the field of view of my guns. Marines went to get it, and the word that they were outside their defences didn’t get to me, so we think I shot one of them, but their buddy got them back to base for medical treatment and they were back on their feet quickly enough. There was also some incoming artillery rounds on the western slope of the hill, but Mr Scatter Sir was busy with air actions on another target, so I couldn’t get word to him as quickly as I would have liked. Turned out it was a whole hostile artillery park a couple of valley’s over, but it took us a while to locate before Transplant could go in and destroy it all.

More supplies were then dropped, which landed in a slightly more useful location, but as the marines went to retrieve it another push came from the southwest so I had to be really careful with my shots to make sure they didn’t go long and hit the squad. When the tracer seemed to stop I switched back to checking the base and saw a big gout of flame and multiple people on fire inside the defences. I relayed it to Mr Scatter Sir, but there was nothing else I could do to help other than go back to watching my sectors.

Things got spicy in the literal sense as a cloud of CG gas enveloped the base. I couldn’t tell what from, but air identified it as a Chelt with multiple grenades, who made life difficult for the ground troops before and armed boat arrived to have a go as well. I couldn’t see it, but air did several attack runs on it before Rumble took it out from the hilltop

While I couldn’t see anything myself, I got word that the LT wanted me to shell the treeline to the north again, so I happily obliged until that attack was blunted, and it was about this time that the artillery park was eventually destroyed. Stepping up to take it’s place was an ATGM launcher (anti-tank) that started firing down into the base. I got a couple of shots really close, but somehow it kept going. It didn’t kill they guy though, just annoyed him, but now he was annoyed at me, not the squad, so we had a brief artillery duel that ended up with both it and the Ontos damaged. Mr Scatter Sir made sure he was finished off though, so I call that a win of sorts.

From there we got word from intel that we’d held off the last attack, so the rescue helicopter that went for Mr Scatter Sir picked up a squad member in need of medical attention too. Now it was just a case of clearing up, apologising for Transplant crashing his plane into the Colonel’s hut, and waiting for everyone else to get back so we can go grab a beer or two in the mess.

Speak again soon

Morse

First hour:
- Nick: 1283
- Edain: 1271
- Theresa: 0

Remainder of Mission
- Nick: 2755
- Edain: 2743
- Theresa: 1472
- Jack: 0