Author's Note: This is another flashback for a quick second, it's some more equipment teasers and other things. I got a few more things I need to cover before I go back to Beacon, but I kinda needed to do this at some point, sooner or later. I got a complaint earlier that my transistions are too abrupt, I tok a look back and, well it is kinda right. Also, I think Atlas can really benefit from some proper gunships, so in this chapter I am introducing one I know many hear should be able to guess without looking at the codex at the end of the chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY.
Skull Rain
"Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD out of heaven," Genesis, 19:24
18 Months After Initial Arrival:
[Compiled before you are a handful of interviews from random soldiers in the Atlas Expeditionary Force. These are their stories, these are their lives.]
A soldier is seen with a technician helping place a mic onto his uniform.
[Directed by Kenny Waters]
"Okay, so I just talk into the camera?" the soldier asks.
"Yeah, don't worry we'll ask you the questions," the interviewer reassured.
"Okay," the soldier nods.
[Cosmic Pictures Presents….]
"Okay, please state your name and rank for the camera, and tell us what your job is," the interviewer instructs.
[Terminal Boots]
"Hi um ...I am Specialist John Porter," a young, 25 year old, auburn haired man introduced.
…..zzzzz….
"I'm PFC Jaime Winters," said an 18 year old, short, female, white faired, owl fanus.
….zzzzz…..
"I am Warrant Officer Nancy Polaski," announced a blond-haired, green-eyed, mid 30s woman in a jumpsuit.
….zzzzz….
"SGT Gregory House," said a middle-aged man in a bandanna as he lit a cigarette, occasionally glancing at the camera.
…..zzzzz….
"I am Captain Bradley Osiris," said a late thirties, tall, black man in a jump-suit, and aviator sunglasses.
….zzzzz…..
Specialist Porter:
"What is it you do in the Expeditionary Force?"
"I'm a Cav-Scout, we do basic recon and Intel gathering," replies Porter, "My job specifically in my unit is to drive the APC."
"Can you tell us anything about it?" asks the interviewer.
"Well," he scratches the back of his neck, "I can tell a little bit."
He turns to the APC.
"It's called the M12 Dragoon," he explains, "Its job is to basically carry me, another guy, plus 9 other men safely into combat. It's got a 30mm Bushmaster auto-cannon and a coaxial-mounted .30 caliber machine gun. It's mine resistant and its armor can take in a fair amount of punishment."
"What do you like about it?"
"Well," he laughs, "The Bushmaster, obviously, that thing is ungodly accurate. Like, I'm talking like ...knocking car sized objects out at up to 3000 meters. I mean, it also jams like every other second ...so there's that."
Private First Class Winters:
"What can you tell us about your job?" the interview asks Winters.
"W-well," Winters stutters, "I'm a FiSTer which stands for Forward Support Team."
She then dons a big smile and says "Basically I tell the things make that go boom where to shoot."
"What can you tell us about your equipment?"
"What's there to tell?" she excitedly chatters.
"It's a fuckin-" she blushes and places a hand over her mouth, "I'm sorry, can I cuss?"
"You can cuss."
"Fuck yeah!" she pumps her fist, "Anyway ...what's there to tell? It's a pair of these…." she holds up a set of binoculars, "A map and a radio."
"See that?" she points to the artillery emplacements, "It's a self-propelled 155mm howitzer. I call her Bertha. With my equipment, I tell the arty boys exactly where to land their rounds."
"How accurate can you fire your weapon?"
"Pffff," she confidently laughs, "Give me a properly designated map and a radio and I can land the majority of my rounds well within 100 meters of the target within 60 seconds...and this is all while being at least 20 klicks back at a fraction of the cost of a cruise missile. You see the thing is-"
"Call from a fire mission!" a voice calls in the back.
She freezes and goes wide-eyed. Practically bouncing up and down now, she "Awe, hell yeah!"
She grabs the camera guy and positions him so that the howitzer is in full view, "Come on you gotta watch this!"
The camera watches an operator calls out coordinates and the gunner punches them into a computer.
"READY!" the SGT announces.
"You may want to cover your ears for this," Winters warns.
"FIRE!"
The earth shock and a thunderous clap is heard as the cannon fires. It fires with such a powerful force that the recoil kicks up a huge cloud of dust covering the entire area. As the dust clears, the SGT barks an order and the team rush in to clear the canon.
"Whoooooo!" Winter cheers. "I fuckin' love that rush!"
Warrant Officer Polaski:
"So I fly the UH-1 Iriquois," she explains, "UH stands for Utility Helicopter, it's ...uh, just means general use. We use them for basic troops and equipment movements, but there is a gunship variant which where we strap missiles and guns to to it."
"What exactly is a helicopter?"
"Well," she drawls, "They fill the same roles as Bullheads, they just have different means of propulsion."
She pints at the parked helo and explains "The Huey uses to rotor blades, the large one provides lift while the tail rotor provides direction."
"Do they have any benefits over Bullheads?"
"Well, there are a couple," she replies, "I mean it is certainly less cramped than a Bullhead cockpit, and it definitely punches well above its weight."
"What do you mean?"
Polaski ponders for a bit before answering.
"Well…." she muses, "For starters, it's smaller. For the occupying space of a Bullhead, I can fit two Hueys with their rotors folded back and still have room to spare. It also barely weighs a third of the weight, can either carry twice the capacity of passengers from a Bullhead or almost 8,000 kgs of equipment."
"What's the comparison between the two like?"
"Well, Huey's are definitely a bit noisier, especially without the sound dampeners," she laughs, "We tend to fly with the doors open when we're carrying passengers, if they didn't wear ear-protection….you could have some potential permanent hearing loss. It's also not as fast so it takes a little longer to get to places."
"Anything else?"
She places her hands under her chin before responding.
"It's not nearly as durable as a Bullhead, let me tell you that," she replies, "I've seen the Bullheads tank some serious amounts of damage, I can't say the same for the Huey, I mean it is armored against small arms, but not as much as the Bullhead, and there's a reason for that."
"And why's that?"
"It's the fuel," she replies, "The Hueys try to use as little dust as possible ...save for the sound dampeners and maybe a little anti-gravity dust. Other than that, we use this stuff made from kerosene called JP-8 or jet fuel."
"So it's safer than dust?"
"That's putting it lightly," she snorts, "I've never had to worry about sneezing next to exposed dust whereas you can drop a lit cigarette into a pool of JP-8 and it won't ignite! It's also a lot more resistance to higher temperatures than the traditional dust fuel."
"Why is that?"
She shrugs "I dunno, I don't make the shit. I just know that it's the reason I don't complain as much as other people do about these things."
SGT House:
"I'm Sergeant Gregory House," he lights a cigarette, "And I am the leader of Fire Team Alpha as well as the platoon's medic."
He glances off to the side and rolls his eyes.
"I swear the amount of stupid I have to deal with on a daily basis," he grumbles, "It's doubled now since I am both a medic and an NCO."
"Is it really that bad?"
"No," he shakes his head, "Most of the grunts usually aren't that bad, though they do get up to some rather dumb shenanigans sometimes and usually I have to deal with the aftermath. But those other guys ..."
He takes a drag from the cigarette.
"You know out here?" he asks, "The only reliable person you can rely on is yourself and the guy next to you…." he looks at some of the training soldiers, "And some of these guys….I wouldn't even trust them with my car keys."
Here turns back to the camera.
"Take that new guy for example," he points at himself saying "I didn't pick him, and yet here he is."
Chief Warrant Officer Osiris
"I'm a cargo pilot," he lifts up a helmet and jokes "As if it weren't obvious."
"What can you tell us about your job?"
"Unfairly long hours with poor service," he raises his hands defensively, "Don't get me wrong, I love the Globemasters we fly. I personally can't name another aircraft that can carry haul almost a hundred tons of cargo for over four thousand kilometers in less than five hours unrefueled."
He pauses for a moment.
"There is one thing though," he sighs, "These birds do have VTOL capabilities, but do to the weight, we can really only use it when we land. When we take off with a full load, we still need almost a kilometer of runway to get off the ground."
"These aircraft aren't armed are they?"
"Nope," he shook his head, "Not usually. I mean to do carry things like flares, decoies, and stuff like that, but otherwise no weapons."
"Aren't you worried about Grimm? Aren't your aircraft at risk to attacks."
He nods, "They definitely are a danger. You see, our cruising altitudes are between 12000 to 14000 meters. Well above all recorded sightings of Grimm, the issue is when we take off and land, because yeah we operate at heights where they can't reach us, but we still have to live long enough to get up there and back down from it."
"Are there any um ...is there anything you can do about it?"
"In known Grimm areas, we require an escort for take off and landing," he replies, "Usually Bullheads, Hueys or whatever the Air Corp has available at the time. I had a pair of Warthogs as an escort once, that was cool….unescescary….but cool."
Euphrates Plains- Southern Atlas
Over the flat, slated plains drove a vehicle platoon of up-armored humvees in a column formation. Each of them were decked in full regalia with a mounted weapon, save for the command vehicle which instead had a canvas hood on the back. The column quickly merged behind the lead vehicle forming a line as they drove across the land.
"Oscar Charlie, how copy?"
"Hitman," another replies.
The first voice says "Yeah, Misfit Two-One, Two-Two is ready for you, Nine-One."
Hitman 2-1 switches the radio to the platoon comms and says "All Hitman Two Victors, maintain speed, maintain dispersion, 50 meters."
Some more radio chatter goes off as all the guns on the humvees turn to the right at some unseen target.
In the lead vehicle, the Sergeant observers the empty plains,
"See anything, Garza?" he asks.
"Something at one o'clock," the gunner replies.
The sergeant raises his rifle and looks into the scope, quickly spotting the targets.
"Four *T-55s at one'clock-two kliks," he sharply reports.
The driver picks of the radio and says "Hitman, this is Hitman Two-One. Enemy Contact, Four T-55s, one o'clock, two kills, how copy?"
"Garza, contact right!" the sergeant shouts, "Enemy foot-mobiles, four o'clock, 300 meters, by the berm."
Garza immediately swings his .50 to the target and pulls the charging lever as more rado heater goes off.
"This is Hitman Two-One, roger that," he acknowledges.
Garza immediately lets loose with his .50, blasting at the confirmed enemy infantry. Down the line, all the other humvees armed with a mixture of Mk. 19s, mini-guns, and other .50 cal. HMGs open up as well adding to his fire. Amongst the fighting, the SAW gunners and rifleman inside the humvees open up on their targets as well.
Up in the air at 2500 meters flew a massive, straight winged, turbo-prop driven aircraft that had been providing air cover for the convoy.
"Misfit Two-One, cleared hot," the voice radioed to them.
"Copy!" the operator replies. "Cleared to engage all hostiles."
The aircraft tilts slightly and opened up with its 40 mm Bofors cannon sending several round down range. The team in the lead Humvee back on the ground watched with excitement as the entire marked area is lit up from the rounds.
"Yeah, get some!" the driver cheers.
"Watch your sectors!" the sergeant barks.
"Misfit Two-Two, cleared hot," another soldier reported.
Right as the soldier finished his sentence, a 105 mm round comes streaking down and decimates the enemy armor. It is quickly followed up by more 40mm rounds pounding what's left of the armor into dust.
"Is there any contact on the left?" a soldier in the Humvee asks.
"Contact right," the sergeant announces, "RPG team, two o'clock, 500 meters, behind the truck."
Garza swings his .50 back onto the two clock before he resumes firing.
"Shit," the previous soldier disappointingly signs, "We'll get some later."
They watch as rounds immediately start pelting the truck as the Humvees drive by, one of them lands a lucky grenade on the fuel tank and the entire truck goes up in a brilliant flame.
"This is Hitman Two. We have suppressed a Zil six by six. Request that Misfit pushes north to sweep flank to search for possible targets."
"Misfit Two-One, copy."
"We barbecued them rebels!" the driver laughs.
In the Humvee behind the lead vehicle, the driver slumps forward and the truck drifts off to the side, away from the formation.
"Oh shit!" Garza curses.
Amongst the frantic shouting, a voice over the radio wrung out, confirming the fears of everyone in the platoon.
"Bravo Two-One, man down!" the sergeant in the Humvee frantically screams.
The driver looks on in worry as the shouting continues.
"Echo Four Lima is down!"
"Lily's hit! He's hit!" Garza told the others.
He looks back at the Humvee while the sergeant reports "He's stopping."
The sergeant picks up the radio and says "Two-One Bravo, this is Two-One Alpha, interrogative."
"Push, push, push," the voice ordered, "Get out of the kill zone."
At the hit Humvee, the sergeant orders, "Grab the wheel," as they try to steer the Humvee back into formation.
"Two-Three, make a hole for Two-One Bravo," ordered the platoon leader.
A random voice could be heard shouting "Stop the vehicles!" as they all came to a stop around the hit Humvee.
"Come here! Christenson!" a voice shouts.
"Medic! MEDIC!" another screams.
"I'm on it!" he shouts.
He jumps off of his Humvee and quickly makes his way over.
"We got a man hit! Two-One Bravo's got a man hit! Come on!"
At the site, the doc sees the hit soldier with his squad around him.
"Don't waste the morphine, doc," the Sergeant sadly reported. "My boy's been smoked."
"Is anybody else hit?" another sergeant asks.
Garza at this point had dismounted, he pulled his goggles and balaclava off before bringing out a pair of glasses.
"How's it feel motherfucker?" he growls angrily, "How's it feel to be fucking dead?"
The "dead," soldier, Lily gloomily replies with his eyes still closed, "Bro, it feels sad."
Garza's sergeant walks up next to Garza.
"I feel very alone, and also…." Lily drones, his eyes blink open before he sits up, "I gotta take a shit."
Smiles and chuckles break out across the faces of the platoon.
"Damn man," another soldier jokes, "And I had dibs on your video camera."
"Lily," the platoon leader, a lieutenant walks over, "You make a nice combat casualty. Congrats."
"Yeah, you die real good," another jokes.
The platoon leader turns to the others and announces "All right, team leaders!" He takes off his helmet, "Let's do a little After-Action on this."
"Hell yeah!" one of them shouts.
"Sir, this was the first time our boys got to live-fire any Mark-19s, .50s, and mini-guns," a sergeant comments.
"Yep," the platoon leader nods and replies back "It might be the only chance we get before we step off. Be nice if it were otherwise."
The other soldiers go back to their weapons to brass-check them.
The sergeant forms the lead vehicle comments "It would also be nice if we got batteries for our PEC-Fours and PEC-Thirteens."
"Our Ops Chief assures me they're coming," the lieutenant replies. "I'm assured of this."
Back at the Humvee, Garza pulls a .50 cal round from off the belt and says "I've never seen a .50 cal fuck up a truck before. That was cool." He looks to the rest of his team, "I wonder what it would look like if it hit a person."
"At least you got to fire yours," his teammate replies, he glances at his SAW, "She didn't even shoot off round one."
The driver rolls his eyes before retorting "Trombley, if you keep talking to your weapon like it's trim, everybody's gonna know you're a total psycho."
Trombley frowns and walks off passing the lieutenant as he was demonstrating something to the sergeants and using rocks as examples.
"...Good dispersion," he comments, "We were good until Espera's team went down. You slowed your vehicles. You don't stop in a kill zone."
"You mean maneuver past the vehicles down and leave them?" a sergeant asks skeptically.
"You know the S.O.P.," the Lieutenant replies. "Assault through the ambush, if anybody's left behind, you maneuver to do support by fire."
"None of us are good to anybody if we're dead," the platoon sergeant agreed.
The sergeant from the lead Humvee raises his head and counters "Sir, not to question the S.O.P., but if we have a disabled vehicle," he pulls two rocks aside and positions them, "The nearest element could stop and evaluate the soldiers while other elements push through and provide support by fire."
The lieutenant ponders the idea for a bit before looking to his platoon sergeant who nods in agreement.
"Yeah, that works Brad," he replies, "But only if you don't let emotions take over as your asses the situation, but on principle it works. It's good." He wraps up the report and announces "All right, we got half an hour to get back to Mathilda for chow."
Later, Sergeant Espara is seen walking off to meet the medic from earlier.
"Fucking Euphrates man," he shook his head.
He stops and looks over to the medic as he watches something on the horizon before opening his pants to relieve himself.
"Doc, you see anything?" Espara asks.
"Aircraft flying by," he comments.
Espara glances at the object too, he notices the straight wings and asks "It's just the gunship returning to base."
"It's too small," Doc shook his head.
Espara squints his eyes, "Probably just the Air Corp, running some mission we didn't hear about then. They always got shit running around in the same training area" He then stops as he notices something trailing from the back of the aircraft.
Doc's eyes widen slightly, "It's also smoking…." He starts to slowly back up, "And it's also heading right for us."
The roaring from the damage craft grew even louder as it grew closer and Espara frantically screams "INCOMING!"
Everyone immediately scramble for cover as the aircraft roars past them and slams onto the ground while skidding past them.
"Come one let's go!" Espara barks, "Let's get them out of there."
The lieutenant and Brad come running up as soldiers all around worked to get the pilot out. Brad looks at the craft before him. It was similar to some of the aircraft currently used by the EF, but it was also different. Brad just couldn't place it, but it just seemed older, like it was from a previous time than their current crafts.
It was powered by a propeller but only had one on the nose, and unlike the gunship from earlier, it looked like it could only fit one pilot. It had, flat, straight wings and was painted yellow on the nose while the rest of the body was painted woodland green.
"You ever seen anything like this before, sir?" he asks.
"No," the Lieutenant breaths.
They both took note of the particular markings, first, painted towards the back of the craft on both sides was a black, cross like shape with a white outline. Second, was a red, bird like emblem painted under the right side under the glass canopy.
Author's Note: I have been meaning to put this in for a while, this is to introduce some more equipment as well as something extra for the story. The last sequence is an easter egg from an HBO miniseries, the radio chatter is what I got from the transcripts or if they seem grammatically incorrect, it's what I found. The guys from the interviews and the last scene aren't gonna be recurring characters, they're basically cameos. I hope you enjoyed reading and I'll see you later. Big Brother is watching.
Codex: I generally don't like having large codex's or author's notes, so I use these as sparingly as I can.
These are just the vehicles,. Stats are not included, but note they're different from their real world counterparts to to enhancements and modifications made with dust and technology from Remnant. The armament of the combat craft may be listed. This isn't the complete list, the rest are in the works. Those with () next to their real names are what they'll be called in Remnant.
Whether or not they are in any serious numbers is not important, we have three volumes until the Battle of Beacon, I believe that is about two years give or take, maybe one and a half. If Atlas is anything like the United States, then they should be able to mobilize a sizable force in that time frame. The First two years after the team's arrival at Remnant is the developmental phase, which places their time in Beacon as the production phase.
Helicopters:
UH-1 Iroquois
-x2 70mm Hydra rocket launchers
-x2 pintle mounts for .30 caliber machine guns or mini-guns.
CH-47 Chinook
-x3 pintle mounts, two at the shoulder window, one at the rear. X2 MK. 19s at the shoulders, and an M3 Browning at the rear door. M3 Browning is a Browning with its rate of fire raised to 1000 rpm or higher. It's a real gun.
M/AH-6 Little Bird
-x2 7-tube rocket launchers
-x2 M314 mini-guns
-They can also be armed with Mk.19s, stingers, hell-fires, and .50 cal.s.
Airplanes: All airplanes have vertical landing capabilities, they require an airfield to take off, most of them can take off from a battle-cruiser with the assistance of an electromagnetic powered catapult.
Cargo/Utility:
A400M Atlas
C17 Globemaster
C5 Galaxy
E-3 Sentry AWACS
KC-135 Stratotanker
Combat:
MQ-1 Predator
-750lbs of payload, either hellfires or stingers
MQ-9 Reaper
-3,000lbs of payload, I'll let you imagine what it can carry.
A10 Warthog
-30mm Avenger Gatling cannon
-x11 mounts for all sorts of bombs and missiles, again, use your imagination.
AC130 Ghostrider
-25mm Gatling gun
-40mm Bofors
-105mm howitzer
Armored Vehicles: [Country of origin]
[US] M1A2 Abrams MBT (Liberator)
-120mm smooth bore cannon
-.50 cal M2 Browning.
-x2 .30 cal. machine guns, one pintle mounted, the other coaxial
[Russia] Kurganets-2 IFV (Lancer)
-30mm Bushmaster
-coaxial mounted .30 cal
-x4 external launchers for either Kornet or TOW missiles
[US] M1296 Dragoon APC
-30mm Bushmaster
-coaxial mounted .30 cal
[Canada] M1128 Stryker MGS (Crusader)
-105mm rifled gun
-pintle mounted .50 cal
-coaxial mounted M240
-x2 M6 smoke grenade launchers
[Germany] Panzerhaubitze 2000 (Onager)
-155mm howitzer
-pintle mounted .30 cal.
[Russia] 9K22 Tunguska SPAAA (Pikeman)
-twin 30mm auto-cannons
-x8 9M311 missile launchers
SAM
Patriot-ready for deployment
S-400-This in testing phase
Trucks
HMMWV (Humvee or Puma)
-either an M2 Browning, Mk. 19, mini-gun, or TWO launchers. All optional.
-Can be mounted with generally whatever is needed whether it be radar or communications at the cost of having a turret.
Glossary:
T-55: training drones that can either pass off as enemy armor or Grimm, usually Death Stalkers.
PEC-Fours and PEC-Thirteens: Infrared and Thermal goggles.
S.O.P,: Standard Operating Procedure