[headquarters]

The crackling screech from the Paintec ANPRC 77 copy made his hed hurt .He was making desicions on moving platoons and coordinationg vehicles simultanously in a running firefight as well as trying to report to division HQ on the other net that his radionman carried on his back.A series of uncomfortably accurate MG bursts lashed the debris at his back with tracers and lead .A spotter must have seen the antennas bobbing up and down behind the brick ruins and gathered he had found the fattest target .

The firing grew in intensity as more rifles and machineguns joined in . He yelled his cropped-short contact report on the higher net and then binned it ,waiving the radioman down and concentratingt on his company net that he carried himself in his day pack.Hurriedly he ordered the tanks and APCs of 1 and 3 platoon to give covering fire and the mortars to concentrate on the targets in front of his section. The others were to maintain holding position and provide anysupport their line of fire allowed but not to advance .He had seen the "everybody -forward!" type staff officer led attacks before.

A blue-on-blue nightmare that noone took the responsibilty to end before it was too late.

He could hardly hear himself in the radio now , and bulletimpacts around his position were splattering him with plumes of dust and little conceret shards.He ducked down in his hole behind the tattered ,collapsed dry wall and rummaged through his map case.

Typical . At least 4 maps to scour before he had the one with this area on it .The flapping throug maps and folding them over under fire seemed like an absurdity - when had they ever heard of that as an essential combat skill in the academy ?

"What do you know" he muttered bitterly .

The area was covered on two adjacent sheets.Just great .

Mortar shells started pounding the dust around 100 meters out from his position .In the brief flash from the explosion he could see contours of his own armoured vehicles.Grey upshots of dust and smoke from the grenades covered them -obscured them almost totally .Yet they were mowing in there like giant ,ugly beasts .

He tipped the waterhose stopper on his gasmask and sucke don the nipple.caffeinated drinking water slushed into his mouth. He got dry throathed from the yelling and radio chatter - or was the numbing sensation enemy fire gave him also detremential to his saliva production ? He hadnt had that problem in his younger days.But he was getting on a bit -as far as combat troops go.Some of the young bucks in the brigade could run circles around him."Why dont you run a few circles right now you pups " he muttered with a smug grin .

A highly trained body still got shredded by shrapnel same as an aging ,scarred warhorse would.

He looked the map over again .

He would hit them hard after a preparatory barrage and possibly a nice smokescreen had been laid for him to get some MGs into play.Then advance without hesitation on the possible strongpoints and blow them or burn them .If that worked the NDP swine should be falling back or if he was lucky -running for their lives - in short order.
The supporting platoons could easily mow them down and mop up whilst he reorganized his assault teams.
He peered out underthe edge of his kevlar helmet and gauged the status of the rest of the assault team .Takashi was wounded but looked out into nothing with a strange calm .Pain was idling while his trained dog of a soldier was coveringboth their sectors .Typical.

Iron Man was nowhere to be seen ,so he radioed a request for him to be sent up immideatly.QCB was imminent -the weird actor might come in handy.

The rest of them seemed ready to go .He brushed some dust of the mapcase and closed it .
Then he scampered over to the next position and inbetween explosions from the now nearby mortar impacts he said what he would repeat 8 more times down the line that morning :

"here is the plan .."