Miho once again, with the commanders of each of her teams and Yukari, found herself being led through the corridors by Lucius. Once all the tanks have been put away in garages to be fixed inside-a blizzard was starting to brew up- Lucius's phone rang, and after a short…response, really, consisting of a "Yes, ma'am" by Lucius to whoever was calling him, he relayed what he was told to her and her friends; "The Executive wishes to see you."
They stopped in front of a dark wooden door, a luxury compared to the solid metal and glass fire doors of most rooms, and knocked. On it was some sort of a bronze handle, and a plaque above the handle written, "Academy Chief Executive". He grabbed the handle and knocked at the door with it twice.
"Enter," a cold feminine voice answered in English. Miho shuddered; it reminded her of her former tormentor Erika the way it made her hair on her neck stand on its ends, differing only in this voice's apparent lack of malice. Nevertheless, she stepped through the door like everyone else.
This room was clearly meant to awe, especially compared to the rest of the complex. It wasn't large, but luxurious furnished with expensive-looking wooden and leather furniture. "Please, sit," ordered the girl. Lucius had already, during Miho's captivation with the room, unfurled some folding stools; they had a backrest, but the small seat and the rest clearly showed this was a stool, not a proper chair. In fact, the only proper seat in the entire room seemed to be the plush office chair that a girl in light brown formal wear was sitting on.
Once everyone was seated save for Lucius, who stood behind the girl, the girl behind the desk started, "With a day already having passed since your arrival, this is quite belated, but welcome to Vimy Ridge Academy. My name is Mary Hillson, and I am the student leader of the academy, serving as the Academy Chief Executive. On behalf of the Academy, I thank your accepting of the invitation."
"It was a difficult choice, but in the end we decided that we could not pass up on such a generous offer." Momo maintained her indifferent face, unfazed by Mary's dominating presence, even sneaking in a tone of defiance. Miho supposed Momo's own personality clashed with Mary's presence. Yukari thought she almost saw a one or two sparks flash between the two.
"Besides, an academy crossing an Ocean just to do some practise matches in Senshado is completely unheard of; gaining a little publicity can't hurt…considering our situation, "Anzu added with a grin. Her boisterous voice however muted to an almost inaudible level as she finished. Mary raised an eyebrow, but did not press the issue.
Instead she asked, "So, did you have any problems entering Canada? Coming to the academy? Our location must have been a surprise, coming from Japan."
"We did have a little problem with a warship when our academy was trying to enter Vancouver harbour, but there wasn't anything serious." Miho downplayed the encounter with the Canadian warship; she was afraid anything that could potentially step on anyone's toes would insult this girl, no, woman. "And yes, it was surprising to learn your academy was land-bound, but it was a learning experience. One of my friends, who likes to shop, was ecstatic about the idea." Indeed, Saori was almost jumping up and down with excitement that her wish was fulfilled; that she was going to a school that was on land, like the old days, up until the point she learned that the academy was cut off from almost all civilization, including shopping malls, save for a highway.
Mary's corner of her mouth rose in one of the smallest smirk Miho had ever seen. "I saw the battle from here. Quite the fight you gave to our team over there…what did you think of the team's performance? I have to say, Euphrates did especially well, covering that much ground so quickly, considering they had to fight through well-concealed tank destroyers."
"I was certainly surprised by how coordinated all the tanks were, even though they were spread out in three positions. How was it possible to track all the movements and give orders to every tank at the same time?" Miho was curious what exactly "Euphrates" was, but she didn't pry.
Mary turned her face to Lucius, who up until this point had been translating all the conversations as best as he could, as quickly as he could. He stepped forward to reply. "The short answer is, I do not."
Miho was puzzled, as was everyone else except Mary. "Then how do everyone know what to do, if you don't tell them?"
"Hmm….to give a proper answer, I guess I should tell you how this academy's Tankery team is organized. Our 20 tanks are organized in a decentralized fashion, into five "troops" of four tanks-three Cromwells and one Comet- each, named Rhine, Danube, Euphrates, Africa, and Britannia." Caesar's ears perked up at Lucius; mentioning of the five main defense lines of the Roman Empire. But before she could open her mouth Lucius continued, "Each troop has a leader, and one of those leaders commands the entire force. As that commander, I merely give general instructions on what a troop should do. Troop commanders take those general orders and tell each tank in their troops to what to accomplish. I do the same with the troop directly under my control. Each tank commander then works to fulfill that order as best as they can."
Miho was definitely fascinated by how this system worked. "How do your tanks talk back to you, then? Does everyone report what they see to you?
"Oh, no. Status reports flow the other way around; each troop commander filters all the information so only information that I need to make team-wide decisions are sent. The last thing I need as the team's commander is being swamped with needless information; for example, why would I need to know an enemy tank is moving in and out of cover taking snap shots, when all I need to know is that the enemy is defending that position? Having said that, if someone sees something critical, such as a major enemy force hiding ambushing a troop, and the troop commander is too busy, they may report directly to me. We call this system the Downstream System, or DSS."
Miho could see the benefit of this way of communication. She certainly had times when she felt there was too much information to process in a split second. But she could see ways it could pose problems. What if something seen as trivial was overlooked by a troop commander turned out to be vital information needing the team commander's attention until it was too late? What if a troop commander was not trusted enough to make good decisions?
Yukari was also intrigued by Vimy Ridge's system. Is sounded very efficient, since smaller tasks were farmed out to troop commanders to take care of, leaving Lucius free to tackle with bigger tasks without having to waste time giving specific orders to every tank. Not only that, having set numbers per unit made determining who was where and who should be where easier. But this system required people skilled at tactics and recognizing important information at all levels of command, and those skills were not easy to train into everyone's minds, especially if the skills are meant to be used in the heat of battle. It also needed disciplined people who were willing to follow the chain of orders and not broadcast every little data they come upon to the commander.
Yukari tried to imagine how this troop system might work out for Ooarai. The Hetzer and the StuG III, and maybe even the M3 could be grouped into a tank destroyer group. Other than that, she found herself unable to match all the tanks into groups of similar types; Ooarai's Senshado team was simply made up of too much of a motley collection of whatever was available. Not a single battle group would have a uniform capability within itself. Perhaps this was why Vimy Ridge's, and maybe Saunders' forces were made up of more or less the same tanks. Less types of tanks were easier to control.
Yukari briefly wondered if Saunders worked along similar lines, but dismissed the idea. Her intelligence gathering operations showed that their leader, Kay, was a bit too cavalier to use such precise clockwork of management anyway. Maybe Black Forest? They were certainly obsessed enough with victory to be dabble with such an efficient method of command and control.
Yukari's thoughts were interrupted by a chuckle from Lucius. "Ah, I have seem to have forgotten your friend…Saori's surprise at boys taking part in Tankery." He shook his head as he continued to smile. The Student Council President – Yukari was not yet used to the term Academy Chief Executive", and she guessed she never will be – raised her eyebrow once again, and spoke.
"Ahh, right. You come from Japan. In most places, Tankery has been a mixed-gender sports ever since the end of the Second World War. The massive casualty rate of the armed force of every nation in every branch, including tank forces, led to the idea that anybody was needed. Males were perfectly fine, since they were as capable of physically operating tanks. Besides, the whole reason for prohibiting men from taking part in Tankery – to prevent world wars – was moot by that point. After the war, the attitude remained, and the area naturally opened up to them. Only Asia, and Japan in particular really clung onto the notion that 'tanks are womanly'. My guess is since the Japanese tank force never had the same demand for crews as the massive tank units in Europe, it could afford to maintain its attitude and still get enough people to enlist. Koreans abandoned that idea quite quickly as well after the Korean War, for the military at least, since they share a border with an enemy.
An uncomfortable silence descended upon the office. Yukari, and just about everyone from Ooarai was unnerved. According to this Student Council President's words, Tankery was not just a noble sport. It reminded them the tanks they were riding had at one point had been killing machines made for wars of total devastation.
Lucius spoke, breaking the dead silence. "Well, now that some explanations have been made, we must go about making a training schedule. We usually practise during the afternoon after all our classes finish. We would appreciate if you participated in them with us."
And so they did. The Ooarai students, to their mixed feelings, found the training to be the most grueling they had in a while, almost like back in the first day of their school's resurrected team when one would have been considered an export to know how to start the tanks. Now, with the…"officers", as the history club avidly called the Vimy Ridge crews and especially their troop commanders who issued training instructions either by radio or by claiming a seat in already cramped vehicles –though many Ooarai tanks were undercrewed and could hold one more person –teaching them how Vimy Ridge conducted their battles. Some of their training, although making sense, went directly against a human's instincts.
"Do NOT ever! Fire on the move! You're better off putting guns at maximum elevation and hoping they fall down on top of the enemy a 100m away. Save the shell for a better moment" To that end, everyone was drilled to the ground on decreasing the length of time of brief halts to make accurate shots as short as possible. The only exceptions were the Turtle and Hippo teams, who as tank destroyers were expected to stay away from anything that was not an ambush, but even they had to become familiar with this skill, albeit on less Spartan standards.
"Maintain formations until ordered otherwise! Doing so without order will only cause chaos in the ranks once under fire that will easily cause mass panic and rout!"
"Those machine guns aren't toys, they can be used even for armored battles. If you think there's something hidden somewhere, shoot a few bursts and see if any sparks fly off. Sound of metal bouncing off the hull also tends to put people on edge, even if they know they can't hurt them."
Many of the training involved pre-determined maneuvers to be executed on order. While some were defensive, such as the "fighting retreat", in which a group of tanks leapfrogged backwards, with the tanks to the rear providing cover, but most were undoubtedly aggressive. "fire and advance" – the exact opposite of the fighting retreat – "flank speed", and "swarm", in which they charged in an unpredictable pattern, swerving all the time to avoid fire, were always the most practised, and all the girls could see the Vimy Ridge performing them with uncanny precision while maintaining the troops' cohesion.
In turn, every one of Vimy Ridge's tankers, up to and including Lucius –apparently Mary was not part of the team – were impressed by the unconventional ingenuity of Miho and a few other Ooarai girls, and the team's ability to absorb training. Ooarai was able to pick up skills and tactics devised by Vimy Ridge within a week of intense training, where Vimy Ridge itself had taken a month to master, and sometimes modify them into superior forms or forms better fitted to Ooarai's situation.
Returning to the hangars after a particular practise session, Yukari found herself riding in the Pz. IV with only Lucius himself as the other passenger, and every time she remembered that, Yukari's face flushed just a shade redder. She didn't mean to be alone with him in a tank, of course. The day's slated training involved gunner-loader cooperation for maximum rate of accurate fire while stationary. Naturally Hana would have joined her, but for a cold she caught. It was nothing serious, but enough to keep her from the main gun's controls. Lucius had mentioned something about a cold-infected gunner, a loaded main gun, and a house, and decided he would accompany her to the exercise as the substitute gunner.
Now he was driving the tank back, and Yukari felt she had to say something to break the silence, her anxiety of the situation and the gravity of the silence clamping down on her compelled her to do so.
It turned out she didn't need to: Lucius did the work for her. "So, what do you think of my team so far?"
"I like the tactics and the people. Most of them."
Lucius gave a soft chuckle. "It seems like you learned more than just Tankery while staying with us." Yukari raised an eyebrow, and raised the other one in surprise a moment later. Lucius spoke to her in English, and she replied in the same language without realizing it. Simple sentences, but spoken without pause and active effort. While it filled her mind with pride at her new knowledge, it also filled her with more red in her face.
"Everything is so organized. You can probably take on two of the stronger teams we fought and become a victor because of how your system work. Who came up with it?" Yukari winced a bit as she said those words; quite clunky compared to what she heard the Canadians say, but at least she was getting somewhere.
"Someone who used to lead us. He's now at the Royal Military College. In fact, he's the one who pretty much wrote the book on how we fight." Lucius' eyes drifted somewhere as he said so, reflecting on pleasant memories. "Good times. He made us what we are, and gave all us juniors the same attention as the main team. 'No point in us winning if we don't train up the juniors to carry the record' he used to say."
"He sounds like he would be welcomed into Black Forest Peak Academy, maybe even the Nishizumi House." Yukari mused. This man who planted the seeds of the current Vimy Ridge certainly would have that privilege if he was really responsible for everything Lucius said he was responsible for. Maybe even-
Her train of thought was mercilessly thrown out the window as the Pz. IV screeched to a halt on the icy road. Her body almost followed suit, and her head barely missed the turret wall. She moved to ask Lucius what happened, but her question died in her throat one she saw him.
His face was that of a tightly controlled anger, with tight, thin lips, bulging eyes, and a lack of breathing. His hands were gripping the controls so hard the controls might as well have been fused to his hands. His foot was firmly crushing the brake pedal. A single tortured sentence escaped his mouth. "What. Did. You. Just. Say?"
AN: That was waaay to many "commander"s .