The Battle for Atlanta

[Paddy]

Not to be forgotten.

[Grandpa Troll]

Golden Bear keep it up

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Marvellous stuff you certainly have a talent for story telling

I loved the screenies

[Grandpa Troll]

word to the wise..i personally thougfht screenies were great..but got jumped on and beat down for them

YOUR story though..tell it like it is

[Golden Bear]

...and this one shows the area around Atlanta where waves of invaders could easily hop over the border and cause grief.

[Golden Bear]

For the small but very special group of Carlos fans out there, I finally have screenshots!!! I expect to have some new stories soon also. I will probably start a new thread for them.

This first one shows the area where the wars began around Cincinnati. It also shows the edge of the German empire and Cologne.

[Grandpa Troll]

Looking good

Keep it up Golden One

[Golden Bear]

Thanks Paddy!

[Paddy]

party hard old chap

[Golden Bear]

A sergeant popped up and ran to the side of the tank. “They’re straight ahead about 200 yards out. We’ll follow as fast as we can.”

Klaus crept the tank up to the hedge and nudged it through. Mbutu saw movement at the edge of the woods ahead and opened fire. Carlos felt the stinging backblast from the gun and tasted acrid smoke. The shell exploded among trees at the edge of woods. As if the shell was a signal, machine gun and rifle fire poured out of the woods as a hail in the direction of the tank. Carlos ducked into the turret while bullets blistered the outside of the tank. Mbutu was inside the turret with his usual big smile on his face. The loader was closing the breech on the gun and Mbutu used the pedals to twist the turret.

“Hmm. Let me see now. You or YOU!” Mbutu pulled the trigger and the tank shook again. The breech was pulled open and smoke came into the tank. “Those guys aren’t going to like that one. They can also try this.” He fired the coaxial machinegun while the gunner loaded another shell. Carlos popped the lid and took a cautious look out. He saw tanks pulling forward from trees and hedges to the left and right. They were drawing fire now.

“Time to roll.” Klaus set the tank going. Close behind and to the tank’s left, the tail tank pulled out to watch the flanks for Carlos. Carlos saw tracers reaching from the woods to a tank to the left. He reached for his new machine gun. The mechanic had taken a tripod mount and stripped it down and welded it to the turret top. Carlos need to lean forward a little to reach it. Kind of an uncomfortable reach actually. For now, he took the safety off and pulled back the cocking lever. He pressed his fingers up under the dead man switches and pressed the trigger with his thumbs. His trail of bullets started off at the top of trees that were now close enough to distinguish branches. Leaves and pieces of trees cascaded from the flow of bullets. He stopped the burst and corrected down and fired again – aiming at an active machine gun. This time the bullets streamed toward the target, kicking up dust and stones as they rattled around the dug in crew. The enemy gun stopped firing. But whether from injury or because the crew was just laying low was impossible to tell.

Trees crept closer as the tanks covered the field. Some kind of low growing crop was green and sprouting. The treads left ugly gashes of brown and black through the area. Just before entering the woods Carlos stopped the tank and they fired the main gun and fired the machine guns into the area immediately in front. He saw movement but it was hard to focus on where. There were explosions as defenders tried to throw grenades. But most of the grenades fell short. Men were trying to stay away from the steel beasts.

Then it was time to go in. From sunlight the tanks rolled into dappled shade. There was a lot of brush and fallen trees amongst the oaks and maples. Carlos was uncomfortable with how close the terrain had gotten. He was reassured that his tail was tight behind him and other tanks were so close that they looked like they could touch each other. Around the tanks, at the edge of the woods, barbed wire had been densely spread and trenches had been dug. There were a few bodies but not many. The enemy troops had managed to pull back – or had run. Carlos hoped they had run. He looked behind again. “Where are the infantry?” he thought. “They’re taking too long!”

After a few moments with only desultory firing occurring from his left and right, troops began approaching from behind. Carlos made certain that they were friendly and then waved them forward.

“Loot says we’re supposed to push past you and call for help if we need it. I think you guys should go first. Nothin can touch you in there,” a sergeant said to Carlos. “Just stay close anyway.” He sounded envious and maybe even angry at the tankers. Carlos thought that he should be happy that he had helped save them from the need to charge across an open field into machine guns. The infantry moved through and a crackle of small arms fire began to open up as they advanced. The tanks began to creep forward, trying to keep the infantry in view. The enemy had not backed far into the woods. Very quickly the advancing infantry became pinned down. Carlos waved his tail forward and the two of them rolled up. The same sergeant ran to the tank in a crouch.

“Ahead to the right they’ve got some kind of pillbox or something. To the left in the house too,” he said with wild eyes. “It’s death for us to go out there. We’re sitting here until you do something. We don’t have to kill ourselves when you guys are sitting pretty in those tanks!”

Carlos did not even try to answer. The man’s nerve was shot. Still, he did not like going through broken terrain like this without the infantry in support. “This is going to be rough, guys. Mbutu, fire while we’re rolling. Fire at anything that moves. Watch out for a house on the left and troops holed up on the other side.”

The two tanks crunched forward. The infantry moved to the side to let them through. They were in the bottom of a small valley. A small creek ran through and across the valley. On the left, in a turn of the creek, sat a stone two story house. Immediately as the tanks cleared their own lines, gunfire came from the house. The two cannon from the tanks fired in unison and struck the house. Carlos peered to the right, where there was supposed to be a bunker. A spur of a hill came down on that side and pocket of trees stood behind it. He could not see a bunker. Still, he saw how the enemy had set up a trap for infantry. Attackers would get struck by fire from the house and would try to outflank it by going through the cover to the right. A blockhouse in the woods over there would enfilade the infantry when the were looking the other way. Carlos figured that once the tanks silenced the house, they could go that way and attack the still invisible bunker from a distance from the left side of the valley.

The tanks closed on the house, continuing with their fire. Enemy fire had all but stopped and troops had been seen running out the back. The stone house had fallen in on its front wall after several hits. Carlos yelled to the backup tank, “Stay behind me. Watch our backs. I’m going to circle behind that bunker.” He wondered why the bunker had still not fired. I decided that they were still just being coy and hoping to lure unsuspecting victims into their trap. He was going to try to turn it back on them.

Klaus turned the tank to the right and they came around the spur of the hill. Nothing, still nothing. Suddenly the woods straight ahead seemed to part as a hail of gunfire and grenades came pouring out. The bunker was straight ahead. Mbutu turned the turret, pulled the trigger, and…

The tail tank blew up with a clang and a whoosh of flame. Men scrambled from the hatches. Carlos turned to look and wished that he could pivot the gun that way. He realized that he could if he climbed out of the turret. He did that and got behind the machine gun. He saw a flash from behind the ruins of the stone house another explosion on the tail tank. Bullets rained on the crew as they tried to escape. There was a field gun hidden behind the stone house. It had struck the back of the tank where armor was thinnest. Carlos’ tank was lucky because it was screened by the corpse of the other tank. He started spraying machine gun fire in the direction of the enemy cannon. He suddenly became painfully aware that he was out in the wide open as bullets from the blockhouse side spanged around him.

“Boss, boss, boss, get back in. Please, get in.” Klaus had opened his hatch and yelled up at him. “We’re in a crossfire.” The man’s eyes looked huge in the circle of his blackened face.

Carlos crawled to the hatch and dropped in without looking. He landed on Mbutu. The gunner laughed at him and shoved him off. Mbutu was a powerful man. He fired the cannon again. “Where you takin us next? Why can’t you ever find us any targets?” Again the loader struggled with the breech and Mbutu put his foot on the lever and helped him to kick it open. A long brass casing fell on the floor. Carlos put his head out of the hatch to look at the other tank’s crew. Three of them, no two – one was motionless - huddled under the front of the now burning tank. If they moved anywhere, they would be exposed to fire. Carlos was afraid about the ammunition exploding in the fire.

“Where’s the damn infantry?” he yelled.

Klaus yelled up again. “Gotta do something, they’re coming out now!!”

Machine guns hammered. Carlos so men standing and running and then dropping into cover. Some were felled by the tank’s guns. They kept coming. He looked back and men were coming the other way.

Men to the front, men to the back. “Fire it up, we’ll run them down!” Carlos ordered the tank forward at full speed without regard to the creek or trees. Klaus steered wildly. The tank slewed into the brush where men were advancing from the damaged blockhouse. Carlos could see that it was a formidable obstacle made of logs pounded together with earth and rocks. The advancing men began to turn away and run in all directions to get away from the tank. Carlos led it in an arc and then turned back towards the stone house. He wanted to keep the survivors from the other tank safe. It seemed that the field gun may have been silenced. He hoped so.

He took the tank up to near the burning wreckage and fired into the advancing infantry from that side. But they were very close. A grenade bounced off the tank and exploded harmlessly. The enemy on this side would not run. Carlos did not want to risk getting near to the field gun again. He heard firing to his left and saw American infantry beginning to advance across the field and to take the Inca infantry under fire. But they were slow.

Carlos fired his machine gun. Klaus kept the tank moving. Inca infantry came a little closer on each circuit the tank made. Carlos felt tired. His crew was slowing down. Suddenly, several grenades came sailing at the tank at the same time.

Carlos ducked as the small bombs went off around the tank, making clinking noises on the shell.

“Uh, boss,” Klaus called, “we got a problem. I think the track’s broken.”

Carlos looked over the left side and then the right. Sure enough, the end of the track was visible at the back. Enemy troops seemed emboldened by the crippled vehicle and started running closer. Carlos fired at some and then more showed up. “Aw darn it.”

The tank’s machine guns kept up a desperate fire but it was not enough. The two survivors of the other tank were prone on the ground and firing rifles. Who knows how they got the guns. The Inca infantry stood as a body and ran to the tank, firing wildly as they came. Twenty yards, ten, they touched the tank just as the American infantry did from the other side. Carlos and the crew climbed out during the melee and fought swinging wrenches and toolbars. The American troops kept coming in and in a moment, all Carlos could see were their backs as the battle swept beyond them. The crew gathered together by the side of the tank. Klaus and Mbutu lay on the ground, each with bloody bandages applied to their bodies.

“What’s happened? How bad is it? Do we have a medic?”

“Boss, you’re gonna need another chauffeur for a while now. I don’t feel so good,” Klaus gritted out.

Mbutu joined in, “and Boss, my name’s actually Mboto. James Mboto.”

Carlos looked stricken at having called his friend by the wrong name for so long.

“But don’t worry, I like Mbutu just fine. Don’t ever change.”

Carlos tried to keep the quaver out of his voice. “We’re a team and we won’t be right until you guys are back.”

“Men, let’s evacuate these two back to safety and help. I can’t abandon the tank, though. Go without me. Leave me a rifle and return with help. That’s an order.”

The men put Klaus and Mbutu onto blankets and then picked up the blankets as makeshift stretchers. “We’ll be right back, Boss. Keep your head down.”

The men stumbled away with their loads. Mbutu was a bulky man. Carlos crept inside the quiet tank and looked for the demolition charge. They were given a charge with a timed fuse that they could use to destroy the tank in order to prevent capture. He figured that he had better be ready just in case. Sitting on the tank and listening to the now distant sounds of gunfire and tank cannon he paused to think. He did not like the feeling of being trapped that he had had when the tank broke down and the infantry came on in waves. He felt like he had done enough of this. He wanted to see Simon. He wanted to go somewhere that snipers and flames and bullets did not exist. He did not know what he wanted to do beyond that. Still, he sat on the tank and waited.

After a time, he heard a rifle’s crack and a bullet hit the tank. He ducked behind the turret and looked for it. “I could use some support right about now,” he thought to himself. He raised his rifle and fired in the general direction the shot came from. He looked again and several shots came now from the area of some trees. He saw troops moving, Inca troops. Carlos looked back to the west for help and saw none. He saw the Inca coming forward. With a quiet curse he dropped into the tank and pulled the tape that lit the fuse on the demo charge. He bailed out and ran for it, with bullets whining around him. The tank lit off with a roar as the ammunition was set off by the charge. The turret came loose and tilted with a nod over the side. The tank was dead.

The enemy infantry seemed uninterested now in the two wrecked vehicles and left the battlefield to Carlos. It seemed very very quiet now to him. He was alone on the still and smoking battlefield. He realized that he really was on his own now. He could go back to camp and be reassigned or he could go find Simon and then see what happened next. Responsibility to the army or responsibility to his friend.

Friends come first.

[Golden Bear]

Friends Come First (In two parts)

“Sorry, Carlos,” Ali said, “we need you here. We’re back on the line right away tomorrow. I know you want to see your friend at the aid station and I’ll get you leave as soon as I can. But right now I can’t risk you not finding your way back here before dawn.”

Carlos was silent, with the feeling that he did not actually know how he felt about being denied the opportunity to visit his friend Simon. Carlos had seen people, friends, killed and had dealt with that. But he never admitted the possibility that he might be injured. He and most of the others lived in denial about that aspect of their professions. Now he had to come face to face with another of the many dark faces to war.

“I’ll go see if I can sleep after I check on the mechanics.” He left Ali.

The unit had pulled back after dark into an abandoned town. Tanks were gathered in a rough circle and were being serviced by their mechanics. Electric lights hung suspended from wires over engine compartments. Carlos went to see his own machine. It was covered in dust, grime and soot from a long afternoon of fighting. The crew chief saw him coming.

“You’re gonna invalidate the warranty, you keep this up!” He pointed to an 8 inch gash in the sloping front armor of the tank. “You better not do too much of this if you want to keep coming home at night.”

Carlos remembered the shock from the strike of the field gun’s shell against the tank. He squinted and the gash and thought that it did not look too bad.

“We’ll be OK until they realize that they need naval armor piercing ammunition to fight us. They’re so far from home right now it might take them weeks to get some to the front.” Carlos replied.

“You think that, but not all the tanks came back you know.” The mechanic grimaced. “We’re lucky here in the 1st, we only had a couple unretrievables, but other units had some tanks blown up. Suicide attacks, things like that. You watch out.” He turned back to his task of checking the track links and wheels.”

Carlos stepped back to watch. Sometimes the tank seemed like a living creature but tonight it just looked ugly and cold. Small too. Not like a place where a crew of men should hide for comfort during a battle.

“Hey, one last thing.” He called. The chief looked back to him. “Can you mount a machine gun up there on top of the turret? I’m tired of getting shot at without any way to shoot back.”

The chief pushed his cap back with a grimy hand and looked at Carlos and then at the tank. Then he grinned. “Sure lieutenant, we’ll put machine guns all over this for you. It’ll be good to see some of the officers do some of the fighting for a change.” He winked and laughed.

Carlos wandered back out of the light of the motor pool and headed towards the building that his crew had taken over for the night. It was a warm summer evening and he could see a full cap of stars crowning the skies. It seemed too quiet to imagine that he would be back in the battle again tomorrow. But then the eastern horizon lit briefly and the distant report of a cannon reach his ears. The battle continued even at night, even without him.

As the tanks had pulled back earlier that evening, a shroud of cavalry had closed around them to keep enemy infantry and unwanted eyes away. The tanks growled and clunked west away from the lines while infantry units paced the opposite direction to keep the Inca from counterattacking. Their eyes were glued to the rolling metal boxes and Carlos thought he could read their minds: “What happens when the enemy starts using these against us?”

Carlos reflected on that thought and wondered what would happen next. He had already heard that engineers had started plans for a new and bigger tank. Soon tanks would be fighting other tanks and not just infantry.

He reached his bivouac and saw his crew sprawled on the ground and in hammocks around the front of a beat up plastered one story house. They slept soundly after the day’s fighting and terror. He sat on a blanket and thought about Simon. It would be only a few hours until dawn and he knew he would not sleep.

As it turned out, he did nod off but he did not get to sleep very long. In the early morning dark the commanders were all called into a conference with Ali. They reviewed their position on a map and Ali put his finger on a spot labeled as woodlands.

“This is the objective for us. Some units backed into this woods and holed up. They’ve tied it up with barbed wire and the infantry cannot get them out. We’re going to discover whether we can fight inside woods today. We’re going to learn a lot of things every day for a while now. Plus, the infantry are going to follow right in with us as we go. Hopefully we can rely on them to keep enemies off of us in the close terrain. Don’t be heroes. Don’t outrun the other tanks. Don’t outrun the infantry. Don’t get surrounded.”

“You would think that they would have headed for home after the beating their army took yesterday but they recovered and formed a new line. It looks like we are going to actually have to destroy their units one by one until they leave. Apparently new infantry units are pouring across the borders. However, we have more tanks arriving every day also. Unfortunately for us, for today we only have about half the strength we had yesterday.”

The young officers looked at Ali. “yeah, well, some of the units got pretty chewed up by the end of the day. After they pulled out the tanks were loaded onto railway cars and taken into Atlanta for rebuilding. They’ll be back tomorrow but for today it just us and a few close friends.” Ali tried to give the wicked smile that showed his confidence in himself and his men. But it looked tired just as the men looked tired.

The tank commanders went back and shook men awake. Carlos made coffee and shared it around. Mbutu, Klaus and the others painfully stretched themselves and ate some stale rations. They were silent while they had their caffeine.

They started their tanks in the dark and began funneling onto a dirt track, each tank following a tiny light on the back of the tank in front of it. The men sat on top of the tanks or with their heads projecting out hatches. The dust and the exhaust smell brought unconscious memories and tensions to the men. As they rode through the dark they changed from the silent sleeping village of men into the deadly and merciless warriors that they needed to be to survive the day. They no longer thought of family or home or about surviving the war. They thought only about their guns or their neighbor machines. They were a powerful steel projectile about to be hurled against the invaders of their homes.

With the onset of dawn’s glow they were passing through hilly orchards and were just over a ridge from the woods they were ordered to attack. Infantry was already moving all around them. Some carried the new portable machine guns. They were small and had short range but they complemented the more accurate but slower rifles. Particularly in close quarters fighting. The tanks were signaled to disperse into their attack formations and they spread out between the infantry units and headed forwards.

As usual, an artillery barrage began hitting the front enemy positions as the tanks and infantry crested the ridge and started to head into battle. Only a few enemy guns fired in return because the big guns were still days behind the enemy’s leading units. Still, there were enough small field pieces to drive the American infantry to the ground. The troops began to follow the tanks and leapfrog forward through broken ground and tumbled buildings.

Carlos rode atop the turret of his tank as they broke off from a tiny street and headed across the yard of a 2 floor white frame building. The porch had taken a shell hit and was fallen onto the lawn. A power pole stood by the street with a drooped and broken cable hanging from it. A line of tall evergreen shrubs lay ahead of the tank. Some friendly troops were on the ground behind it, waving the tank forward.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Golden Bear
Thanks, GT. It's some new medication and it leaves me queasy for a few hours in the a.m. But it has gotten better.

Now I just need a little free time for the next installment.

Get the real world straight this will wait my friend

[Golden Bear]

Thanks, GT. It's some new medication and it leaves me queasy for a few hours in the a.m. But it has gotten better.

Now I just need a little free time for the next installment.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Golden Bear
Carlos will be back soon. The real Carlos is not feeling well these days. Ugh...

Carlos

Hope its nothing serious Carlos

Get well soon

[Golden Bear]

Carlos will be back soon. The real Carlos is not feeling well these days. Ugh...

Carlos