"Mother, Starstreak 1-1, we are away."
"Acknowledged, Starstreak. Good hunting."
A little known fact about the Marine and Navy special operations groups is that part of their mission set includes scouting out and marking landing zones prior to an amphibious landing. Prior to the 1980s, this was the Navy's Sea, Land and Air teams - SEAL teams for short - primary skill set. In the modern age, the majority of the public eye that knew about the SEALs would say that their primary skill set was direct action. However, the SEALs were certainly still able to carry out the forward reconnaissance role.
28 September, 2010
Bastok Peninsula
A SEAL Delivery Vehicle - SDV - departed from a dry dock shelter attached to a submarine. At its controls was Lieutenant Jason Buckham. A man of average stature, Buckham was an officer of four year's experience within SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One, the submersible vehicle operators that were most often associated with the SEAL teams. His mission for the next couple of days was to conduct forward reconnaissance on selected areas in the Bastok Peninsula area.
"Hey LT," The man sitting next to Buckham in the SDV, Petty Officer Second Class Bradley Levine, started a conversation. "What are the chances we miss the games because of this?"
Buckham chuckled. "Almost certainly."
"Fucking shame." Chief Petty Officer Ben Garham piped up from the back. "I wanted to see the Hawks dick on the Redbacks."
"Yeah." Levine agreed. Buckham kept his eyes ahead, looking out for obstacles and keeping an eye on the depth gauge. They were maintaining a depth of twenty metres, deep enough that any helicopters overhead wouldn't be able to see them. Then again, Buckham thought that it wasn't much of a concern in any case. Wind conditions were high which made the surface of the water choppy. As the submarine they were departing from was lost in the murkiness of the water, the group of six SEALs had a ten kilometre long journey ahead of them.
"Sea conditions are pushing us off course." Levine said. "Turn three degrees to port."
"Three degrees to port." Buckham corrected the SDV's course in the aforementioned direction. Such a small number in navigation didn't sound like a big deal, but even a three degree variation could result in their end destination being off by a few hundred metres.
Prior to the declaration of war, SDVT-1 had been returning from an exercise with their equivalents in the Emmerian armed forces. A third of the way back home at the time of the declaration of war, they were the closest group to the Yuktobanian mainland equipped with submersibles. Appropriately, as dusk drew in across the Ceres Ocean on the 27th, COMCERFLT had issued an order to the team and the submarine they were embarked on to make full haste to Bastok.
"Alright, we'll set anchor here." Buckham declared, slowing the SDV to a crawl a mere one hundred metres away from their landing zone. He found a suitable location and powered off the submersible. Levine departed the SDV to tie it down to a rock on the seafloor. Buckham and the other members of his team disconnected their air mains from the SDV's onboard banks, connecting to their own SCUBA tanks, grabbing their weapons and dry bags from stowage and stepping off for the landing zone.
"Looks like the hydrographs are still in date." Garham pointed out, referring to the underwater topography of the area.
"Yeah." Buckham agreed. "Follow my lead."
Kicking through the water with flippers and dry suits, the SEALs set foot on dry land for the first time in a week, stepping onto rocks leading up to a slope. Buckham found a gap in the rocks where they could stow their equipment and dive bags. Buckham ditched his drysuit, mask and air tank, and grabbed his hat, recon hood, backpack and other vital mission equipment from his drybag. Today's choice of equipment was the ever-so-ubiquitous M4A1 carbine sporting a Spectre ELCAN optic and underslung M203 grenade launcher. All six members of his team were wearing M81 Woodland uniforms, and including himself, four of them had recon hoods, a kind of half ghillie suit that slipped on over their kit.
"Red team, Blue team, let's go." Buckham ordered. He led three of his men away from their landing zones and to the areas that they had been assigned to map out. The remaining two would remain behind to guard their dive gear. Bastok was a very hilly area with trees dotted around it. However, underneath those hills were long spans of beach. Travelling in a staggered column formation, Buckham was at the rear of the formation. Levine, armed with the team's SAW, was at the front. The team were scanning the surrounding environment as they moved to the first beach they were supposed to survey, looking for any signs of Yuktobanian patrols that would almost certainly be around given the presence of a major military base some ten kilometres away.
Ten minutes and a brisk walk later, they arrived at the outskirts of the first area they were meant to mark out. It was a sandbar, surrounded on three sides by trees and hills. A narrow road formed an opening in the treeline, but the area would need a touchover by artillery fire or combat engineers to avoid potential bottlenecking.
"Ah christ, that looks like a fucking death sentence." Garham observed. He wasn't wrong. Whoever was landing on the beach would be completely exposed to enemy fire from the hills, while the enemy could easily entrench themselves within the trees to be mostly immune to return fire.
"Language, chief." Buckham put down his rifle and produced a notepad from a pouch on his platecarrier. "How wide is that beach you reckon, four hundred or five hundred yards?"
"I'd say five hundred." Levine replied. Buckham was drawing down a rough sketch of the beach area: its dimensions, the gradient of the slopes surrounding it, the environment of its surroundings. Something he couldn't gauge from their observation point in the treeline to the north of the beach however was the composition of the sand and if it was grippy or not. Once he was done with his sketch, Buckham pocketed his notepad and picked up his M4.
"Blue, stay here and watch out for us." Buckham ordered. "Hammond, with me, we're going down there."
"On you, boss." Petty Officer Second Class Jacob Hammond stuck with his team leader as the duo moved forward from the treeline, down the hill and onto the beach proper. They were completely exposed to whoever might have been watching, but the task they were performing had to be done. Buckham felt for the firmness of the sand as they walked across the beach. There was a subtle wetness to the sand under his boots, a sign that it had been raining at some point in the past day or two. Yet he wasn't sinking into the sand with all the weight of his equipment. Buckham moved towards the ocean. He left footprints in the sand, something that wasn't too much of a concern for soldiers and marines that would be disembarking via AAVs or landing craft, since the ramp would push the sand forward and compress it.
"Should be fine for AAVs and LAVs." Hammond said to Buckham.
"And for the grunts. Alright, we're getting off this fucking beach." Buckham directed Hammond back to Garham and Levine. The quadrio regrouped.
"How was it?" Levine asked once they were within earshot.
"It'll work." Buckham replied. He was in the process of shrugging his pack back onto his shoulders when the radio crackled.
"TL, Gold Team, eyes on a Yuke patrol approaching our position." Petty Officer First Class Ajay Witskin called in over the radio, his voice barely a whisper. Buckham put a finger to his radio push-to-talk.
"Ack. Do you need a hand?" Buckham enquired.
"Not yet, they're…" Witskin's voice trailed off. "Wait."
Buckham, Garham, Levine and Hammond waited in anticipation for a call back from Gold Team.
"Gold Team, troops in contact!" Witskin's voice was suddenly much louder than it had been a moment ago. Suppressed gunshots were audible through Witskin's radio.
"Move!" Buckham ordered. Red and Blue teams started hauling ass towards Gold Team's position, inconsiderate of the noise they were making as they ran through the brush, trees and grass. "Gold Team, report."
"Wait, out!" Witskin and his buddy were still in contact. A moment later, he came back on the radio. "Contacts down. Three-man patrol. Somebody fucken heard that."
"Double back to the bags, we'll be there in five." Buckham panted. He could run for ages, but having body armour, a pack and a weapon out in front of him made it hard to breathe and talk at the same time.
"Wilco, moving." Witskin replied.
"Movement front, one hundred." Levine called out from the front of the team. The SAW gunner took cover behind a fallen tree and propped his SAW on top of the log. "Three men, Yukes, twelve-o'clock."
Buckham took a knee next to Levine. He saw the men Levine was talking about. A three-man patrol of Yuktobanian riflemen, their flora uniforms and olive helmets contrasting against the brown tree trunks. The patrol was moving away from Red and Blue Teams.
"They're moving towards Gold. Light them up." Buckham ordered. He took Levine's range estimate as word and lobbed a grenade from the M203 mounted on his M4 towards the enemy. Levine's range estimate had been spot on. The grenade landed right in the middle of the three-man patrol, bowling over two of the three. Levine opened fire with his SAW, initiating the engagement.
"Hammond, on me, push left!" Buckham yelled, moving from around the log and towards the enemy. With Blue Team providing suppressing fire, Buckham and Hammond moved up halfway to where the patrol had been. Buckham saw one of the wounded Yuke soldiers attempting to crawl to cover, dragging his shrapnel-peppered legs behind him. Buckham raised his rifle to his shoulder and put three rounds in the soldier's chest, putting him even further into the dirt. Another Yuke was on his feet running to cover, and Buckham had put his reticule over him, but Levine had seen the guy first and struck him down with machine gun fire. Buckham and Hammond cleared the remaining distance with their rifles up and ready. They approached the epicentre of contact. Two of the soldiers were clearly dead, one was barely clinging onto life. Hammond put a bullet in the last soldier's head to put him out of his misery.
"Clear." Buckham declared. Blue Team packed up and pushed up to Red Team. From there, they trekked on back to Gold Team.
"Was that Blue's SAW we heard a minute ago." Witskin had heard the gunfire.
"Affirm. We walked into another patrol. Clear of contact." Buckham replied.
"Ack. We're at the stash now. Out."
From the point at which they had taken contact, a couple of minutes later Buckham and the two teams following him arrived back at the rocks where they had changed out their gear and stowed their bags. Buckham didn't see the members of Gold Team until the latter pair popped out from openings in the rock formation.
"Good morning." Witskin welcomed his commander back.
"G'day." Buckham returned the greeting. "Ditch the O2 tanks, we'll rawdog it for the pick up."
"Rog." Garham, Levine and Hammond went to go throw their oxygen tanks into the ocean. Buckham busted out a map. Witskin knelt down next to him as a consultant.
"The Greyshark'll be on station in twelve hours from now." Buckham said. "There's nowhere to hide on Hammer Beach and it's too long of a swim anyway."
"Yeah." Witskin agreed. "Wrench Beach looks like it has cover in the southern corner. We could hide there for the day and wait until the tide recedes."
"Sounds like a plan." Buckham liked the sound of that plan. Levine, Hammond and Garham formed a circle around Buckham and Witskin. Buckham stood up and put his map away. "Grab your divebags, we're moving to Wrench Beach."