One of the Coolest Units I ever fielded in a game was a small civilian rifle squad. A village Defense unit that was on patrol in a thick pine Forrest. At the base of a small mountain that concealed and fortified village.
The unit was an 8 man sqaud all of which were armed with Yugoslavian SKS 59/66 carbines. Every man carried a typical Chi-com chest pouch that contained 100 rounds of ammunition on charger clips. They wore brown mechanics coveralls and commercial sneakers. They carried nothing more than a canteen and a small ruck sack.
(Apparently their ruck sacks were full of home made rifle grenades!!!)
Which party of PCs and NPC's soon found out.
The Party was riding in an old dodge power wagon that they discovered abandoned in a junk yard. Sadly it blew a head gasket and no one in the party new how to fix it.
So they walk down old narrow logging roads into a large pine forest. As they snaked up the hill sides and switch backs they passed through the forest and saw old ruins which were the collapsed cellars holes of 19th century farms. They also saw old tumbled down stone walls.
The next thing the party heard was the an enormous bang in the distance and a thump as a rifle grenade landed at the feet of there point man and blew both of his legs off!!!
From there a volley of semi automatic gun fire erupted from the thick brush. The PC hastily returned fire and dove into the cellar holes for cover. They felt somewhat safe until more rifle grenades started to drop in onto their ad hoc positions and they were basically pinned down. They managed to get a Machine gun firing in the direction that the rifle fire was coming from. They ended up firing an awful lot of rounds into big pine tree trunks and into the dirt.
Eventually the rifle fire began to taper off and seemed to grow more distant and soon completely stopped. The point man was grievously wounded but was not dead. The Sergeant in command immediately shot him. The machine gunner had been shot in the hand and someone else in the party has been grazed but wasn't really hurt.
The PC's were very angry and wanted revenge. So they decided to wait for night fall and move slowly up the hill into the darkness but they encounter no one.
They came to the edge of a clearing like a grown up hay field and in the moon light. One of the PC's spotted 3 or 4 men standing in the clearing. So dropped down into prone position took careful aim. He fired upon them and struck two of them immediately. The rest of the party fired into the darkness at the escaping figures. After a mad minute it was dead silent again. The party decided to circumnavigate the field and worked there way around it. They had two volunteers go investigate the field and they found 2 young men who where dead. They could hear the sound of some one whimpering and in some tall grass they found a teen age woman. She has been shot in the calf and was in shock. When they approached her one of the pc's tried to give her first aid but the other PC pulled out an entrenchment tool and wanted to beat her to death. She pulled out a a knife and attempted to defend herself from the E-tool wielding PC.
The rest of the party came quick when they heard the commotion and the e tool was removed from the vengeful PC. The injured woman surrendered her knife to the man who had started bandaging her Leg. She told them there where mines and booby traps all over the field. And there were 4 more small rifle squads that would be on patrol. So they bandaged her leg gave her some water and left her in the tall grass. They left the bodies and the arms in the field where the dead men laid for fear of these traps.
It proved to be quite a shocking encounter for the PC's. So much so they didn't bother looking for the village.
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