Second Squad, Third Platoon, E Company
Copyright© 2011 by aubie56
Chapter 13
Voice, Sgt. Ferber has come up with an idea that we should consider immediately. He wants to mount an arrangement on the back of a small vehicle that would consist of four PIATs slaved together and fired by a single trigger. We think that there are no monsters who could withstand that level of firepower. How quickly can we start working on this?
That sounds like the kind of heavy weapon that we need, Capt. James Haggerty. On some planets, the monsters have been attacking in heavy waves that have simply overwhelmed the defenders. This new weapon sounds like an answer to that. We will start working on it immediately. What sort of vehicle do you recommend?
Sgt. Ferber had recommended a jeep, but it occurs to me that we might do better with a light truck. I'm thinking of something on the order of a half ton truck. That would give us more maneuvering room on the truck bed, and allow for the infantry men to ride and save a lot of tiring walking.
Very well, Capt. James Haggerty. If you, Sgt. Curt Ferber, and Sgt. Mason Bennett would walk through the door you see in front of you, we can start work immediately.
They walked through the door which suddenly appeared in the wall and entered a garage-like work area. They found a half-ton Studebaker truck waiting for them. This truck had a flatbed made of a single thin steel plate. On the center of this plate was mounted a standard gun-mount for four .50 caliber machine guns. This was way too heavy for the truck. It was already sagging on the springs and it looked like one more straw would break the camels back.
Voice, that's the idea all right, but that gun-mount is way too large and heavy for what we need. We want to mount four PIATs on the gun-mount, and they must weigh no more than 1/10th what a Ma Deuce weighs. Please trim most of the weight off the gun-mount and put four PIATs where the machine guns would go.
The truck and its load seem to vanish for a moment and to reappear with the suggested changes. The three humans climbed up onto the back of the truck and examined the gun-mount and the associated weapons. Capt. James Haggerty, you may test the weapon by shooting at that large black spot against the far wall.
This looks good so far, Voice. "Kurt, since it was originally your idea, it seems only fair that you be the first one to test it."
Ferber sat down in the gunner's seat and quickly found the controls. The main control was a joystick with a button on top. There were also three buttons on a panel just above the joystick which were labeled as ammunition selectors. Ferber rotated the mount to face the target. He pressed the button calling for solid slugs. He looked through the sights and used his thumb to press the button on top of the joystick. A rain of bullets came from the four barrels and chopped a very satisfactory hole in the target.
He pressed the button to select fragmentation rounds, and a screen popped up to allow him to choose the radius for the explosion. Ferber selected 5 m and fired again. The bullets went flying down the range and exploded short of the target, spraying the target with hundreds of bits of shrapnel from each bullet.
Now he pressed the third button to select pisspots. It was only necessary to fire a couple of rounds to prove the point, so Kurt stopped there. He climbed out of the saddle to give one of us a chance to try it out. I waved Mason into the seat, and Mason went through the same routine. When Mason finished, I took his place and enjoyed making a mess of that far wall.
We all agreed that this was a powerful weapon and could hardly wait to try it out against monsters. Voice told us that we did not have to worry about engine maintenance or fuel. Any maintenance would be handled overnight and the power source was a fusion engine (none of us knew what that meant). We were satisfied that we would never have to add fuel to the vehicle. Voice promised to have a working prototype waiting for us when we woke up tomorrow morning. Mason asked if we could have two of the prototypes so that nobody would have to walk tomorrow. Voice agreed to that, and we adjourned to the recreation room to discuss how we were going to reorganize our forces to accommodate the new weapon.
Mason said that it looked to him like it would take a crew of three to operate the new weapon. One man would drive, one man would act as a spotter, and one man would be the gunner. With two trucks, we didn't have many men left over to act as infantry.
We decided to divide the men so that 1st squad rode in the first truck and that 2nd squad rode in the second truck. The two squad leaders would ride in the seat next to the driver. Nobody had a good idea about where I should be positioned, so I decided to move around from place to place until I found the best place to be.
The next morning, we found two trucks parked at the mouth of the cave and equipped with the gun-mounts in the proper places. The men had already been told of what was going on, but this was their first chance to see that weapon. Everybody, both Germans and Americans, were very pleased with what they saw. The men climbed around the vehicles and got acquainted with where the various items were stowed.
I said that we would drive a safe distance from the cave, around 200 to 300 yards, and practice with the weapons. I told Mason and Kurt to select the driver and the gun crew and have them get into position before the rest of the squads climbed aboard. There was quite a bit of laughing and joking among the men as they drove to a place where they could practice shooting.
There was not much to learn about driving the trucks. There were no gears to shift, and there was only a brake pedal and accelerator pedal. The steering mechanism was a conventional truck steering wheel, so there was nothing special to learn about that.
The squad leaders explained to the gun crews how the spotter was responsible for finding a target, and the gunner was responsible for blowing it to hell. Normally, the gunner would select the type of ammunition to be used, but sometimes the squad leader or I would order a specific type of ammunition.
we drove only a short distance, it seemed, before we came to an open field with some large rocks and boulders scattered about. I assumed that Voice had set this up as our practice field, so I called a halt to let the crews practice. They spent about half an hour practicing traversing and firing various types of ammunition. The operation of the gun was so intuitive to the men who were acting as gunners that, really, very little practice was necessary.
We did make one useful discovery. Somehow, the guns were guarded internally so that they would not fire at either truck or at the humans. We found this out accidentally when the trigger was bumped as the gun was traversing past the other truck. The gun fired as it was expected to until it lined up with the truck. At that point, it ceased to fire, and would not fire again until it was pointing away from the truck. It was nice to know that that safety feature was included, because it was easy to get carried away during the excitement of a firefight.
My map showed that we had about a mile and a half to go to come to our first objective. All I could tell from the map was that the first objective was a cliff with a cave. we drove to the cave and set up with truck #1 attacking the cave, and truck #2 acting as back up and protecting our rear. My intent was to swap that order when we came to the next objective.
The ground in front of the cave was so smooth that we were sure that there was a monster lying in wait just under the sand. Therefore, I ordered that the area be sprayed with fragmentation bullets. The first shot was enough to stir a Rug Monster into action, but a few seconds of blast from the quad gun-mount was enough to kill it.
The noise was enough to stir some action from the cave. Two King Kongs came running out of the cave, but the combined blast from the quad gun-mount and the independent shots from the various members of the squad quickly reduced them to mincemeat. Soon after that, six Rabbits showed up and began eating the shredded flesh of the King Kongs.
