Hell On Tracks
Part 6

The first day of classes passed rather quickly, thankfully. Classes had started for everyone else two weeks prior to picking up the foreign exchange students at the Columbia, so I was a mite behind. Worse, people wanted to meet and make friends with the new American girl, which was a distinctly unpleasant experience. They all wanted to know about my hair (a very natural red, though I couldn't blame them for thinking it was dyed), or what they would need to do to be as tall or as beautiful as I was (their words, not mine. I'm only a bit over average for Americans). I didn't have to shove people away or anything, but I came very close to going full "loud and grumpy American" and driving people away through that.

More importantly, at least to me, I got to pick my mandatory elective, which was a list of a bunch of martial arts, sports, or more home ec style classes. Flower arrangement caught my eye at first, but then I spotted Sensha-do on the list, and that sort of made my choice for me.

Sports and such were an elective instead of a team. Such a weird concept, but honestly, it made sense the more I thought about it. It being a class meant that they couldn't reject you out of hand, and everyone would have some way of participating. Hopefully. I wasn't sure how Saunders would deal with overpopulation in their Sensha-do team, but considering they had well over 70 tanks in their garage, maybe that just wasn't an issue they faced.

I arrived at the Sensha-do garage a couple minutes before the "class" was supposed to start, and was pleasantly surprised to see things were in full swing already. The four disabled M4s from the match against Astoria were in the parking lot just outside the garage, where teams of girls were going over the vehicles, fixing damaged tracks, replacing parts where necessary, and repainting over scratch marks where they had sustained hits.

Elsewhere, girls were warming up with laps around part of the Tankery complex or pushups, or other kinds of physical exercise. One girl was even doing pullups using the main gun of the Firefly as a bar.

All of the activity was more than a little intimidating, and I tried to fade into the side of the garage, fiddling with my braid in an attempt to seem busy with something. Maybe this was a bad idea. They didn't need another newbie to train up, especially one who had only ever been in a tank twice before. I probably should have just stuck with flower arrangement. At least then I could mostly work on my own and not have-

"Konnichiwa, Tally-san." Someone said, snapping me out of my spiralling thoughts. I looked up to see Naomi approaching.

"Oh, hello Naomi." I responded in English, before quickly swapping to Japanese and repeating myself.

"Welcome to Saunders' Sensha-do team."

"I… thank you." I stuttered. "Where do things start?"

"At the beginning of meetings, Kay calls a general assembly where she tells us what we're doing. Then we get on with our assigned duties for the day." Naomi explained. "Kay asked me to help make sure you were okay and knew what was going on."

"Okay, that makes sense."

I wanted to ask more, but then Kay came over the garage's PA system and called everyone to the stage for daily assignments. Naom led the way, and after a brief argument, we settled in near the back of the large crowd.

Kay's spiel was pretty bog standard, I felt. She congratulated the team on their victory over Astoria, but also pointed out that they could all do better. Crews with damaged tanks were to repair as much as they could with the help of some members of Saunders' automotive club. Crews with undamaged tanks were to perform maintenance on their vehicles. Everyone else was supposed to warm up and do the various drills. They would end the day with a skirmish between the Training Company and the Practice Company, with dud rounds and a one-hit kill style of elimination training match.

Naomi explained that due to their size, Saunders had enough tanks to outfit three full twenty tank teams, with plenty to spare. As such, they were split into the Training, Practice, and Combat companies, which as I understood it roughly translated into C-squad, JV, and Varsity teams, respectively. She also explained that I would not be participating in the usual drills, as she would be leading me through the various roles in a tank to see which one I was best suited for.

Naomi was a harsh mistress in training, though not unfair. We took a barebones M4 out to the end of the training range, and went through the five positions in the tank. Things started with a safety briefing on the M4, then basic instruction on how each of the members of the crew did their job. Then, it was on to testing. Driver was simple enough, especially once I told Naomi that I knew how to drive stick. Steering with the tillers was weird, but I got used to it fairly quickly.

I even seemed competent at driving, even if I took things way too fast for a new learner. That lasted all of about ten minutes, when I managed to tip the Sherman onto its side by taking a corner on the test track too fast. Nobody was hurt, but I was fairly certain I could see Kay laughing at my mishap on the other end of the complex. As soon as we were back upright, Naomi kicked me out of the driver's seat and drove us back to the firing range, where I got to test my next two skills.

Being the gunner was a little more complicated than driving. On paper, it was fairly simple. Put the crosshair over the target, adjust height for range, and use the foot trigger. Adjusting for the drop of the shell wasn't the easiest thing, but it only took me a few shots (okay, more than a few) to get the hang of that, too.

While hitting stationary targets was decently easy once I got used to the sights and gun characteristics, moving targets were another story entirely. Of the ten rounds Naomi said I had for hitting the first moving target, I didn't hit it once. That was where Naomi quite bluntly told me that I was a bad gunner, and to swap with her to the loader's position.

Apparently, I wasn't very good at *that,* either. Or at least I didn't live up to Naomi's expectations for a brand new loader. At this point, I wasn't sure whether she just had a stick up her butt about how good I should be, or I really was that bad. At least my mistakes weren't as bad as tipping the tank onto its side. I doubt she would ever let me live that one down. Kay too, now that I think about it.

It wasn't until I was dropped into the TC's position that I really hit my stride. This particular drill required a full crew, so Naomi conscripted her Firefly's crew to help. We were to run a short training course relying mostly on my ability to spot targets and make callouts to the various crewmembers. I was nervous as all get out, but that faded away as we moved into the course.

"Driver, advance!" I called out, giving minor course corrections as we weaved through. It was nerve wracking, but we were also going slow enough that I had time to identify where to turn and when.

Complications began when I realized that I was also supposed to be spotting threats and targets. There were wooden and cardboard mockup targets painted in the colors of the various schools littered around the course, and it was my job to locate them, ID with reasonable accuracy, get the gunner on target, and give the order to fire all within the span of maybe a few seconds. Naomi, as gunner, would light the target up with either the co-ax machine gun or the Sherman's main cannon, and then we could move on.

"Contact!" I called through the tank's intercom. "Panzer IV, two o'clock!"

The turret traversed, and Naomi serviced the target with a brief burst of machine gun fire.

"Naomi, would you say that was four hundred yards?" I asked, giving my best estimate of the range.

"Five. You were close, though." The gunner replied, before I got the tank moving again.

This continued on for a while, with targets being both easy to spot and not. There was one really sneaky one which was an Italian assault gun hidden under some camouflage at about eight hundred yards. I didn't recognize the model, as it wasn't something that local teams had used back when I was in the States, but whoever had hidden that thing was darned good at their job.

Another fun challenge was when Naomi pointed out that the Sherman's low velocity short 75 wouldn't be able to penetrate the frontal armor of the IS-2 heavy tank, and that we would need to flank the target to disable it. As I didn't see a possibility of charging it head on and not theoretically getting our tank knocked out, I simply commanded the driver to push onwards into the course until we reached a point where we came out again on the IS-2's flank.

When we finally finished the course, Naomi congratulated me on my good commanding and spotting, and said that I would make a fine tank commander. I wasn't sure whether or not I should just melt into a puddle of good feelings or not. I got complimented! On my tankery! In what was my third time ever actually being in a tank! Haha, tanks!