Getting Ready
We walked into our newly constructed tank sheds. It took a lot of work to build in about half a week. Kept me busy. Anyway, we finally got to open the crates. None of them were labeled on the outside for some reason so we had to open them all.
It wasn't a terrible line up of tanks. We had three M-5 Stuarts two M-24 Chaffees, two Sherman's, including a "Jumbo", two BT7s, a Cromwell, a Mk. VII Tetrarch, and an M-36 Jackson. All were very rusty, and some were missing parts.
"These tanks have definitely been through the ringer." Somebody said after a thorough inspection of the tanks, but I didn't see who it was.
"Well, we'll have to fix that." I said.
"How? Nobody here knows how to operate a tank. Let alone fix one." Kaia said.
"Yes, but all of us can learn." I said running my hand down the side of the Cromwell.
"I think you are seriously overestimating our abilities. The Jumbo is missing the tracks and anything to mount them on. The M36's gun won't fire for some reason. One of the Chaffees won't start, and the Cromwell literally has a whole the size of my face in it. How are we going to fix this?" Austin said.
"How do you know the gun doesn't fire?" asked the teacher who was present.
"Careful examination." Austin said, clearly lying through his ass, but convincingly enough for the teacher not to take notice.
"Well I can get someone to help with the engines. The road wheels are fairly easy. We just need the parts. As for the gaping whole in the Cromwell, which I call dibs on by the way, it's just a matter of welding the steel back into place. As for the rest. There are very few things you can't find on the Internet." I said.
"What about the carbon shell?" asked Johan Jones. Anther member of the robotics team who joined, and a member on the Civil Air Patrol unit at our school.
"Well I'm sure we can patch that up as well. There's bound to be somebody that can repair something like that?" I said.
"He's got a point. My dad could probably help us." Said Kandice Chafer. Her father was an industrial worker, or at least former industrial worker.
"Alright. Well, we better get started." I said and everybody went on choosing a tank.
Austin, Chris, Oliver, and myself climbed into the Cromwell. We decided that Austin would be the driver, Oliver the commander, Chris as the loader, and I would be the gunner. We'll see how well Oliver does. To be honest, he doesn't seem like leadership material, but that's what he chose, so we'll see what happens. I never was a terrific judge of character. I don't think so, anyway.
As for the friends whom I keep tabs on, Johan chose to be commander of one of the Chaffees, Kaia became the gunner on the Tetrarch, Isaac and Levi became the commander and gunner of the broken Sherman Jumbo and My friend Ethan "Lucky" Bolton was became the commander of the M36.
The students left without a tank took the remaining Chaffee, and a BT7 as their tanks of choice, otherwise they filled in any missing spaces on the other tanks.
So, immediately we got to work cleaning the tanks thoroughly, and repairing those that needed to be. Isaac had ordered a shipment of road wheels for the Jumbo that should arrive in a few days, and I reached out to an old contact of mine who was good with engines.
"What the hell are these for?" she asked.
"We got a tankery team." I replied to my ex-girlfriend.
"Well, for some reason, the fuel isn't mixing with the air. So that means that air isn't getting into the cylinders. No air, no combustion, no movement." She said.
"Can you fix it?" I asked.
"Sure. It'll take a day, tops." She replied.
"Thanks." I said as I walked away in search of a "how to fix a radiator" video on the Internet.
"Hey, Tex?" I heard Oliver call me from across the hangar.
"Yeah?" I answered back.
"Can you work a welder?" I asked.
"Yeah. Why?" I asked.
"We're going to patch up the hole in the tank!" He said.
"Alright!" I said as I headed over. Guess the radiator would have to wait.
"Do we know what to do?" I asked.
"No. We figured we would learn as we went." Austin said.
"So, first we need to weld the whole shut-" Oliver began.
"Hang on. Do we know how bad the damage on the inside is?" I asked.
"Do we know what it looks like? Yes. Do we understand how bad it is? Not really." Chris replied.
I looked at the damage inside and it was a mess. What ever hit this tank, hit it hard enough, and fast enough to slice through the tank's thin armor and shatter the carbon safety lining on the inside. The spalling must've been horrific.
"What he hell was going on when this thing got hit?" I wondered.
"No idea. But must've been illegal in the sport." Austin said.
"Well, we're going to have to strip out the interior, and probably remove the turret. It's to cramped in here to work around." I said.
"Okay. Any idea on how to fix the carbon layer?" Austin asked.
"If there's that much damage to the carbon shell, it might be easier to remove it entirely and replace it. We would have to call a team in for that." Oliver said.
"Okay. Can you talk to Rachel about that?" I asked.
"Sure." Oliver said as he hoped off the tank and off to find the head of leadership.
"Halle-fucking-lujah!" I thought to myself.
After a strait week and a half of strait repairs, many of us working into the night, we finally got most of the tanks in running order. Thankfully, this school does things weird where we only have about two or three core classes and the rest of the day we have to plan ourselves. Meaning that you could actually plan all your project work in one day then have the rest of the week free to do what ever the hell you need to do in school. With the exception of math anyway.
Most people have only three graded projects they can be on. And Tankery, technically falls under a graded project. It also happens to offer the most credits and extra curricular and what not, making it a very desirable project to make time for.
The road wheels for the Jumbo had come in and then it was a simple process of putting them on and re-tracking the tank.
Anna eventually came through with the engine, finding a whole host of other mechanical problems with the engine. The M36 had a simple problem. The firing pin was missing. Funny how a seemingly small component can render a tank, or in this case a tank destroyer, practically useless. Unless you plan on soaking up bullets.
"Aye, now we're suckin' diesel." Lucky said in a heavy half Irish accent, after we got the firing pin reinstalled.
The Cromwell was a bit of challenge. The repair crew would take half a week just to get there sow we decided to get started with the repairs.
First we had to completely remove the turret, gun, and engine. This was accomplished with the use of a wrench and the only factory crane we could afford. We loosened the bolts holding the turret to the chassis, then attached some chains around it and lifted it free then repeated the process with the engine.
Next we stripped everything we could out of the tank. By this time the crew we hired to repair the tank had arrived and took over, with our help of course. They cut of the top bit of the tank then lifted the carbon shell out. This was followed by a new carbon shell being placed into the chassis and fused into place via some technical crap that I don't remember. The new shell had to be cut apart and refused in some areas, but it turned out pretty good. I trust their handiwork. A similar process was done to the piece of the tank that was removed earlier, and the turret. Although much less cutting was involved and the shell was just lifted free from the turret.
After that, it was a simple process of welding everything back in place and plugging the massive hole left by what ever hit this thing in the first place.
I've had less than twenty hors of sleep in the past week, so I was really tired and ready to go to bed. I haven't seen my own house since we started the repairs, because I live on the other side of the ship, and the walk would've killed me. I foresee days of make up work for math ahead of me though. But, hey, I just helped fix a fucking tank! So I think I deserve some credit.
"Well that's finally done. And surprisingly quick, actually." Somebody said, but I was too tired to notice.
"Well, I fer one am fucking knackered." Lucky said.
"Me too. I think we should reconvene tomorrow." I said.
"Hang on everyone." Said the head of the leadership program, Rachel Lee.
"We need to figure out how we're going to run this team." She said.
"Maybe we should do it democratically?" Somebody said.
"What do you mean?" Rachel said.
"We all select a group of people who will lead us. Meaning planning out the tactics, and giving orders during matches." They said.
"That probably won't be a good idea." I said.
"I think it is." Everybody agreed.
"If we have a multiple people trying to give orders at the same time, organization's going to be a nightmare. Same goes for planning." I said.
"We'll work around it." They agreed. Four people were chosen. All of them were from the robotics team. They were Alex Strauss, Johan Jones, Naia West, and Kaia McTavish.
Not that I have a problem with this selection, but I do believe that this added up to a huge popularity contest. And since basically half of the team is on robotics, and the other half doesn't care. And neither half is particularly fond of me, there was no way I was going to end up on that list, and there was no way anybody but robotics people were going to be on that list either.
On the plus side, the people they selected are nice.
"Now, all we need is somebody to teach us how to do tankery. A mentor if you will." Rachel said.
"Well, I know some one." I said.
"Who?" She asked.
"An old family friend. He lives on this ship to." I said.
"What's his name?" Rachel asked.
"Uli Ferdinand." I said
"What are his qualifications?" she asked.
"Well, for starters he was a tanker in World War Two. And a former tankery instructor from Germany." I said.
"Really? I don't know. I wouldn't want to bother him. Won't it be to much to deal with?" she asked.
"I know the guy. He loves teaching kids about this stuff." I said.
"Okay. Talk to him if you can." She said.
"I will." I said.
After class, I headed over to Uli's house and knocked on the door and waited for the old veteran opened the door.
"Jackson, my boy!" He said in German.
"Guten Tag, Uli!" I said as he embraced me in a hug.
He was about 75 or so by now. His black hair has long since faded to gray. He walked with a stick due to an old injury during the war, and he stood just at about my height.
"What can I do for you?" He asked in English.
"The school has started a Tankery team, and we were wondering if you could coach us?" I asked.
"Really? A tankery team you say? I don't know, it's been a long time since I did anything like that." He said.
"C'mon Uli. We need somebody who knows what their doing. Half of these people can't tell their ass from their elbow." I said.
"Hmm...I suppose I can give it a try." Uli replied.
"So you'll do it?" I asked
"Damn right I will." He replied with a grin.
"Great! I'll go tell the others!" I said and began to leave.
"Hang on there!" Uli said, "Just to be clear. We train my way. No questions asked. Is that clear?"
I thought about my response for a moment before answering.
"Crystal." I said before exiting the house to tell everyone the good news.