March 20th 1935, outskirts of Kijell
Christopher looked through his binoculars. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the usual activity, from what he could see. Smoke was coming out of a hole in the roof of one of the ruined buildings, which meant the men in there had started a fire to cook their food or heat some water. He lowered his binoculars and crawled back to his trench. This whole siege certainly could have gone better. The enemy was showing no signs of attempting to evacuate his position. So far, they had put up fierce resistance, especially in the northern sector. But to his surprise, there had been a few minor successes there regardless. When the commander of the Guard-Unit had told him, that they would definitely be the first to enter, he hadn't lied. "You'll see",he had said. "My boys and girls are so stealthy, the Imps won't even know from where we shot at them." Originally, Christopher had assumed that the Roselearean Republican Guard would be just a bunch of people who had no other experience than exercising, and marching in parades since he had heard that they mostly played a ceremonial role when important visitors arrived. But then it had turned out that they probably had a better training in urban combat environments than any other unit he had seen so far.
The siege artillery on the other hand, originally thought to be their trump card in the upcoming battle, had proven to be rather ineffective thus far. The overall commander of the siege, some brigadier from northern Sneek, who had done some heroic deeds during the first war from what he had heard, had given the order to cease fire with them due to the fact that the city was still full of civilians and collateral damage was to be avoided. Which meant that not only would the enemy continue with the production of ammunitions, they would also receive a steady supply of various weapons. And now there was no way to stop it until the factories got either captured or destroyed. Or until they ran out of steel and the other necessary resources. But unless that happens, the factories enabled the enemy to effectively resupply their units with ammunition almost on a daily basis…
After a quick look at the map, Christopher then noticed something. The sewers. Traversing them would probably pretty unsanitary, but if undertaken at night, maybe some smaller teams consisting of two to three men could sneak in and sabotage the production lines. First said plan would have to get approval of course, which might be a problem due to the possible collateral damage. Reaching the safety of the trench, Christopher rolled in and took a sip from his canteen before he made his way back to the head quarters of the 4th Infantry Battalion.
March 23rd 1935, Headquarters of the Northern Army Group, Terapol
So these were the famous men of the 12th Armoured Royal Cavalry Regiment. After hearing of their heroic deeds, Valentin had been curious about how they looked like and what their equipment was like. Skanderfjäll was one of the few nations in Europa he had not visited yet, after all. And now they stood there in front of him, clad in their light brown uniforms while they were working on one of their tanks. The tank itself was rather impressive, around the size of the Light Tank, but it sported a rather large turret on its hull. Of course Valentin wasn't the only one who was taking a look at the unfamiliar sight. There were several people who stood around and just stared at the foreign soldiers, a couple of them even had tried to engage in conversations with them, but soon a problem had emerged in form of a language barrier. From what Valentin had been able to observe, one of the non-commissioned officers was able to talk to them, though his grammar could need some work. But for a short conversation, it seemed to be enough. If Valentin had to take a guess, he would say that he probably had taken a few lessons in back school. He had experienced a similar thing during his time in the Federation. Luckily he had been able to relearn enough to not resort to the liaison officers translating for him. Except for that time in Wese. But that hadn't count in his opinion.
After a while, one of the officers seemed to notice him and gestured for him to come over to him. While he walked towards him, Valentin tried to figure out which rank he had… two stars inside the pentagon… no, not stars, Captain Witterer had told him those are flowers… probably a Lieutenant. He probably should salute first just in case though, better to be safe than sorry. Once he was a few steps away from the man, Valentin stopped, saluted and waited on his reaction. He would salute in return, just in a way Valentin hadn't seen before. He kept his elbow close to his body and had his hand angled slightly forward. After a while, he stopped, to which Valentin stopped as well and shouted something towards a group of non-commissioned officers near a fire. One of them got up and headed towards them. Probably so he translated it. The two men exchanged a few words and the NCO seemed to think for a few seconds before he turned towards Valentin. "Lieutenant Wemstedt want to know what branch. Dont know colour." "Pardon?" The man seemed to think about what to say before he pointed to his collar. "Oh. The colour of the Collar tabs. Mountain Artillery." Valentin replied. The NCO again took some minutes before he translated it for the Lieutenant, who in return looked at Valentin before he began to talk again. He would unfortunately get cut short as Valentin heard someone in the distance. "Major Martinek!" "Over here, Corporal" Valentin turned around. "What's the matter?" "Urgent business. Lieutenant Colonel Lindtmann was searching for you." Corporal Bauer replied while he tried to squeeze his way between a truck and some crates. Valentin turned towards the two men from Skanderfjäll again. "Tell the Lieutenant that i unfortunately have to go." he said before he headed towards Corporal Bauer. "Let's not keep the Lieutenant Colonel waiting." he thought to himself.