Tales of the Aztec Sultanate

[TacCovert4]

March 4th, 1915, Hidalgo Province.

The ceasefire had been in place for months, but no treaty had yet been concluded betwixt the Sultanate and the Republic....though the Warmaster was in talks with Republic representatives. 

Lieutenant Colonel Atlacoya sat astride her mount, leg neatly folded over the saddle tree, near the border, looking out over towards where the siege lines around Fort Lombard had stopped with the cease fire.  Gone were many of the girlish affectations of only a year previous, the harsh realities of modern war, even on this vast frontier, had swept them away with fire.  Merely a captain at the outset, the horrendous casualties to the cavalry vanguard had seen rapid promotions.  Too rapid for peacetime, though there weren't any officers senior to her to take her place.  Even the General had almost died when he had taken an airship tour of the front only to be attacked by Roman fighting scouts.  Watching the dawn break over the fort, she thought about her time there, about the people she had met.  The ones she had grown to respect.  The one she had loved.  Was Mattheiu still alive?  Or had he been claimed as so many others had?

Her reverie was broken by a rider approaching.  "Ma'am, second and third battalions await inspection, and I've had your breakfast prepared", her aide said as she rode up.  "Ma'am, is everything alright?"  "It will be sergeant.  Inshallah it will be."  Atlacoya says as she wheels her mount and rides back across the siege lines to her camp.

[TacCovert4]

April 20th, 1915

Hidalgo Province:

All along the newly re-established border zone, crews of soldiers now no longer needed on combat duties are busily at work.  Pads are dug and prepared, concrete is poured.  While the well-established forts of Tampico's border zone are not really in the cards, the Sultanate has found itself in need of significantly improved fortifications.  A series of battery-sized artillery forts for 100mm and 150mm guns are established, with concreted and overhead-covered infantry trenches and pillboxes ringing them in an outer perimeter.  The small forts are sited to allow for an attack on any one fort to be able to draw fire from the two neighboring forts upon it in support. 

Windward Isles:

With the cease fire and then treaty, shipping is once more freely moving.  Shiploads of artillery pieces, machine guns, concrete, wood, and iron are in motion.  It is obvious that there are plans to turn Martinique and Guadaloupe into permanent naval bases, and coastal defenses are being built in earnest to protect the islands.  Indeed the start of construction for naval gun and mortar pads and pits can be seen by casual observers coming into the harbor.

Yucatan Straits:  A convoy of Aztec shipping, bound for Martinique, is spotted moving through the straits, escorted by a full squadron of the new large torpedo boats, the fast, low-slung craft making a statement to observing eyes....Mayan eyes...that the Sultanate will protect its shipping and will not brook any aggression or depredations upon its trade.  A statement that while the battle fleet might be down, the Sultanate is not out, and won't be trifled with.

[TacCovert4]

August 1st, 1915.

Constructor Ueman had at the same moment the most enviable and unenviable job in the Sultanate.  For once his previously modest office, tasked with maintenance of homeland coastal defenses and the Oaxaca Line, had swelled.  Swelled in funding and staff until he had to move half of it to an abandoned building on Embassy Row, one abandoned rather 'hastily' by its former occupants.  His main office continued with their endless task of repairs, maintenance, and modernization.  But from his new office in the old Roman Embassy, he supervised the operations of literal armies of laborers, surveyors, engineers, gunnery officers, infantry officers, and the supply system that was straining to keep it all purring.  The Sultan, fresh off of the successful but costly defense of the Caicos, had ordered a significant and new "2nd System" of fortifications.  Trains and ships were bringing guns, concrete, steel, wood, iron, and gravel to the various projects. 

Looking over one map, that of his guest's pet project, Ueman said "As you can see, Governor-General, the first fortifications being made now are improvements to select portions of your original defenses.  These will function as coast watch stations, base range stations for the eventual batteries, and anti-landing infantry defenses."  "And what after that" Governor Abidi replies.  "After" Constructor Ueman chuckles "Mostly it's a matter of waiting for concrete to cure properly, the guns and heavier fortifications require it.  The second phase will be batteries of smaller guns at key locations, along with barracks bunkers and extended infantry defenses and machine guns.  Phase three is where things get interesting Governor, that is when we will truly fortify to throw back a naval bombardment, not just an amphibious assault.  But we have much to do before that.  As you know, we have to prepare the mortar pits for seacoast mortars, along with the pits for the disappearing carriages for naval rifles.  And build those guns and ship them out.  Additionally we have a need to improve the docking facilities at Grand Turk and develop the base concurrently with the third phase of fortification."

Governor-General Abidi and Constructor Ueman pore over the plans, making slight changes as the governor-general points out areas of concern.  The once well-ignored Caicos would not be so again.  After the full project was complete, the island chain would be a "Gibraltar on the Gulf"

[TacCovert4]

October 30th, 1915

Brigadier General Cochise looked out over the scrub desert into the new territory.  Since his people had amalgamated with the Aztecs, their tribal warriors had been formed into a full brigade, given modern arms, and now unleashed as a single force.  The Crow had long been a threat to all the tribes, but against his warriors armed with rifles and machine guns, they were being swept before him.  It was not the most honorable war, but the Crow were lesser peoples and did not engage in honorable warfare in the first place. 

Eagle feathers tied in their hair and wearing a hodgepodge of buckskins and butternut, the Chirqaua Apache advanced into the new territory, already named Geronimo for their recently passed chief and as symbolism of the amalgamation of the Apache into the Aztec Sultanate. 

[TacCovert4]

March 1st, 1916

Mexico Military Reservation


Minister Asad sits with the others in attendance of this new and experimental method to evade the horrors of trench warfare that had manifested during the Caicos War.  Of all of the dignitaries who had attended, his presence was required the least, and yet he felt like the middle of Mexico, a landlocked colony of practically nothing was where he needed to be. 

The Acapulco conference had been "Less" than a success.  Certainly the weather had been amenable.  And his accommodations and entertainments had been perfect.  He, or rather Sergeant Mohammed, had even managed to prevent an international scandal when the Roman observer was challenged to a duel on the open street by the father of a Queen Fatima's Light Cavalrywoman who had died outside Fort Lombard.  He shivered when he recalled how the grizzled veteran had calmly stepped past the confused and visibly frightened Roman and claimed the right to champion.  How close that could have come to the start of another war after a fragile peace had just been concluded.

Asad had not bothered to attend the duel the next day, though he heard that Sergeant Mohammed gave the father a chance to withdraw, and then took him apart with his flyssa.  The aide who had watched said that it was 'elegant'.   Youth.  The Roman representative had returned to the conference with the blanched look of one who had mortality viscerally explained to him.  He packed and departed the next day. 

But it was just another footnote.  The Japanese delegation were delightful, and no one dared to challenge any of their officers, for it's common knowledge that the Japanese are possibly the only ones equal to the Aztec in single combat.  The Vilnius Union delegation, and the other attendees were also perfectly cordial.  But what had been lacking were the Parthian and Byzantine delegations, or their letters approving of a serious broaching of the topic of limiting the arms race.  Without them, Rome had merely sent someone to be polite and to observe, and without the three, there was no chance that the conference would reach any desirable conclusion. The participants had all agreed that peaceful coexistence was best for all, and then had spent the rest of the time mingling as if in one oversize embassy.  So some good, maybe, but nothing like what the Sultan had charged him to achieve.

Asad knew it wasn't his failure, it was ambitious, possibly too ambitious, to seek such a boon.  And now he was on his way to meet with Parthia, something about the Western border of the Sultanate.  He had not even had time to read the materials his secretary was poring over to brief him on this afternoon when his train left for its next stop on his whirlwind diplomatic tour that seemingly never ended.  Too many high level talks, too many delicate negotiations that could not be left to lesser officials.  The Sultanate for too long had been isolationist or embroiled in wars, and there were few diplomats in the country who could do what he had to do every day.

Looking up into the sky, he sees a Zepplin.  Ah, yes, someone had told him that some Eagle Warriors had worked out a new use for the airships.  Something to do with bypassing trenches.  As it flew over the field in front of the stands, at around a thousand meters high....wait?!  Those are men?  Ten of them, ten men leap from the gondola!  But after maybe a half-dozen meters, neat mushrooms of some sort of fabric appear, and they drift towards the ground.  This must be the 'Parachute' that he had heard about in passing from someone in artillery, something about a safety device for balloon observers?  Well, ten is a lot of balloon observers.  Wait, 9.  One of the parachute things flaps like a candle, wrapping around the man who plummets to the field with a sickening thud.  A full minute later the others come down much slower, rolling on the ground as they cut their parachutes loose and come to their feet holding stocked pistols.

"Well", he thinks as he goes back towards his waiting train.  "It seems that I'm not the only one who is pushing the bleeding edge with lives at stake, and not the only one who is finding that ambition may yet be unattainable, or maybe it can be some day"

[TacCovert4]

June 4th, 1916:

Grand Turk, the Caicos

Governor-General Abidi stood on the wharf as the convoy arrived.  The dredging of North Creek was still insufficient for large transport vessels or capital ships, but he had been assured that the Naval Base would be adequately dredged by 1918.  However, destroyers, large torpedo boats, and submarines could now use the greatly expanded facilities on the island cum military installation.  In the aftermath of the devastation that had been visited upon Grand Turk, all the remaining civilian infrastructure had been removed to other islands in the chain, with only one small town dedicated to services for the Naval personnel there. 

The island itself had seen a more drastic conversion.  Gun batteries, mortar pits, and earthen bunkers and trenches reinforced with concrete in places had been constructed.  A concrete headquarters installation had been built, and piers and wharfs had been emplaced in the internal lagoon fed to the sea by North Creek.  The shell craters had been mostly bulldozed over, but enough of the landscape remained blasted that you could easily fathom the struggle that had transpired here not two years ago.  Multiple wireless aerials festooned the island, and an aerodrome complete with its own headquarters and zepplin shelters had been emplaced as well, in addition to the military-commercial zepplin facilities on Providencales. 

The Eagle Warrior brigades had been withdrawn, leaving the Seal Warriors as the island chain's defenders, but with the large and growing emplacements on Grand Turk and the more modest permanent facilities elsewhere in the chain, even the reduced garrison would be nigh impossible to dislodge.  And with the higher quality of forces arrayed at Grand Turk, the islands would be deadly to any fleet attempting to force another amphibious invasion.

But that was not what the Governor General stood here to see, the pinned empty sleeve of his linen suit, the uniform of his new office, flapping in the light breeze.  Out in the roads, transports were anchoring, and their charges, carefully husbanded from the shipyards, were arriving on their shakedown voyages.  At the head were a line of Iberian-made subs, 500 tonners capable of limited operations in the Atlantic, following their pilot launches to their anchorages in the expanded port.  But what caused him to swell with some pride were their smaller consorts, 250t submarines, but submarines made in Aztec yards, their first squadron of domestic undersea combat vessels.  The Submarine Warfare school would be in session as officers and ratings slated for service in Submarines were transferred to Grand Turk for training and instruction in the operation of their diminutive but deadly vessels.  Plans were already being laid for more extensive submarine facilities, and dredging for sand to build yet more facilities and even protected submarine shelters were underway, making Grand Turk the premier submarine base in the world.

[TacCovert4]

June 10th, 1916:

Lieutenant Colonel Atlacoya looked with not a small amount of disdain upon the vehicles her battalion were testing.  Mechanics, Engineers, ordnance officers, and factory workers swarmed over the collection of armored car prototypes being tested in her sector of Hidalgo Province.  A variety of weapons had been affixed to them, from stubby barreled 70mm guns to machine guns, and nearly everything in between.  And equally as varied were the vehicles themselves.  Four Wheeled, six wheeled on two axles, six wheeled on three axles, and even one with 10 wheels on four axles were being tested.

They had been moved into the plains bordering the region of 'Texas' for environmental testing.  And while a number of the designs were proving to be adequate in keeping up with mounted cavalry over the relatively even terrain, Atlacoya grimaced when she thought about how the crews of the vehicles must suffer, their steel plated mounts turning into ovens in the ever-present sunny and hot Hidalgo summer.  One promising design had large hatches that could be opened to scoop in additional air, though when open the vehicle was not much better protected from rifle fire than a mounted rider.  She was glad that for now she needn't worry about being forced to ride in one of the armored cars, preferring the freedom and fresh air astride her favorite pony instead.  But after the intermittent carnage that the cavalry had suffered coming up on small knots of dug-in infantry, she knew that in any future war the mobile protection and firepower of the curiousities would be vital to protect her mounted troopers, and make breaches that she could exploit with the more mobile but more vulnerable horse cavalry.

[TacCovert4]

June 15th, 1916:

Captain Acalan, commanding officer of the 1st Brigade, Seal Warriors, stood on the bridge of one of the Sultanate's shiny new Battlecruisers.  Fast and long ranged, she was aptly named for the great traveler Ibn Battuta.  His brigade, assigned to train new Seal Warriors in the post-Caicos reorganization, had been assigned to Baja Province.  But the Japanese military attache had requested a meeting with senior Marine officials, and Captain Acalan had been picked, the most veteran if not most senior actively serving Seal Warrior Officer.  Ibn Battuta had been on a shakedown cruise for her new crew and a turn at the firing range in the Baja Gulf, and so the Captain had hitched a ride to Acapulco to meet his opposite number.  "Commodore, it will be two days" the ship's captain said, giving the Seal Warrior the honorary promotion as there could only be one captain aboard one of His Majesty's Ships.  Crewmen scrubbed and painted, tirelessly cleaning away the powder stains from hundreds of rounds fired in training.  Her sister ship, Sultan Ali, was even now taking her turn on the firing line for a week of live fire gunnery practice under the watchful eyes of the Navy's best gunners.  What the Japanese wished to discuss, that was a curiousity.  And that it was he and not just diplomatic staff in the meeting, even curiouser.

Meanwhile at Camp Abidi in Baja Province, prospective Seal Warriors trained in infantry warfare and amphibious landing techniques under the watchful eyes of veterans of the Caicos campaign.  Many of the grizzled sergeants supervising their training had been bright eyed privates and lance corporals only a year ago, but war makes hard men.  The training had also been made equally hard, these prospects for the Seal Warriors were subjected to multi-day training evolutions without rest, forced marches and assault courses interspersed with manual labor such as preparing fieldworks, and even live fire training where they sheltered in trenches while under live artillery fire.  The risks and occasional injuries worth the end result, building a Corps of Seal Warriors hardened against as many of the shocks of combat as could be done without subjecting them to the risk of being shelled in the open.

In an isolated corner of the Camp was Captain Acalan's pet project.  A provisional 'Company' of Seal Warriors had been stood up, and along with a large number of civilian engineers and mechanics, worked on an alternate project to the generally officially sanctioned armored car projects of the Army.  With the most experience in trench warfare, the Seal Warriors desired something useful in more constrained environments than the open plains of North Erica, and on a shoestring budget had several prototypes in various phases of testing.

[Desertfox]

June, of the coast of Baja

Rear Admiral Tokugawa was glad to be away from that forsaken place called Seattle, he had not seen the sun for since arriving there. What had he done to deserve such a post. His fleet composed of two of the oldest armored cruisers in the Imperial Navy and a lone cruiser. The two newest ships didnt even have a single gun between them. Not like there was any enemy threat to the region. The latest intelligence briefing said the Parthians had all of two minesweepers in the bay to the south and pirates where non-existent. Well it was good to be away from all that and headed for the Aztec base in La Paz. Reports indicated the beaches there were to die for, it would do his crews a lot of good to enjoy some R&R.

His orders on the other hand where most curious. He was to join and escort an Aztec fleet for a joint training exercise near the base at Truk. Nothing out of the ordinary there, but the amount of secrecy attached to it, told him other more serious plans were afoot. That had to explain the presence of select non-naval personnel that had boarded the cruiser Chikuma back in Seattle.

[TacCovert4]

Huitzalin scowled under his broad-brimmed hat.  The Hidalgo sun had done nothing for his complexion, and it was oppressive.  Since 1913 his Model Ali (or Model A) had been the gold standard in automobiles in the Sultanate.  Over ten thousand had been sold on the civilian market, and the car was reliable.  Whether in touring or flatbed truck, the vehicle's front end had been the same.  The Army even loved them, having easily ten thousand of them in service in various guises. 

At least, until he had put armor on them.  His submission to the armored car trials was not 'unique' or 'groundbreaking'.  Some manufacturers had tried various alterations to what was quickly becoming the 'standard' automotive layout.  There were rear engine, mid-engine, and front engine vehicles.  Single axle drive to two and even three axle drive attempts.  Most of them had been plagued with breakdowns.  Huitzalin's had not.  His Model A was as stubbornly reliable as ever, even covered with 9mm of steel. 

And yet the reception had been a blow to his pride.  Queen Fatima's Light Cavalry had been the unit chosen to do field trials.  And they had found three massive faults in his design.  The first was the gun mount.  Only a single machine gun could be mounted to his design, as it stood on a pintle in the middle of the open ring, exposing the gunner from the shoulders up.  That was something he had already planned to fix, and indeed his turret design would allow him to mount either a machine gun or a cut-down 40mm gun, something that his conversations with the troopers had shown to be favorable.  The second was the protection itself.  The requirement had been for rifle fire, but only after he had built his four testbed cars had he been informed that the standard 6mm rifle cartridge of the Sultanate firing a lead projectile would not be the test medium.  Instead 6mm steel-cored projectiles as well as 8mm steel cored projectiles had been flung against his plate.  And at certain angles, 9mm was sufficient.  But he would have to increase it to at least 11, if not 13 or 14, to get the required resistance.  And that only added to his other problem.  His cars were.....slow.  The Model A was built with a rugged 20hp motor.  Had been for the last 3 years.  And on a Model A it would get even the heavier touring model to a respectable 45mph on roads.  But his armored A could barely do half that, and while they had held up well it was due to the remarkably overbuilt craftsmanship rather than brilliance. 

Huitzalin heard a droning and looked up.  A Zepplin airship glided through the afternoon sun, cruising on its gasbags with four engines driving its propellers.  Four lightweight and powerful engines.  Four, yes.  Huitzalin stalked off to the telegraph station.  He needed new engines.  New Aircraft engines.  For those were light enough to not weigh his creation down more in the off-road conditions, but had the power he needed.  He knew that some engineers had bragged about engines with near three hundred horsepower being tested for the largest Zepplins and newest aircraft being designed.  Doing some quick math, he estimated that if it was not too heavy, he could get his armored car to a steady fifty miles per hour off road with an engine of around one hundred horsepower.  He jotted down his message, for his company reps back in Veracruz to begin shopping for engines of between eighty and one hundred fifty horsepower and to work on how to fit them to the Model A.

Huitzalin smiles as he sketches, anticipating a need to lengthen the nose of the vehicle as the new engine and gearbox would need more space.  A longer, leaner armored car, with dual tires on the wheels for floatation, heavier armor to protect itself against machine gun fire, and a powerful one hundred plus horsepower engine flying across the Hidalgo plains faster than the cavalry's horses, indeed one day replacing the cavalry mounts entirely with reliable armored mobility.

[TacCovert4]

July 31st, 1916:

Captain Acalan was once more standing on the bridge of Ibn Battuta.   The big ship had just completed its firing on a test target offshore as part of the exercise.  Referees were even now determining the effectiveness of the bombardment before the next phase would begin.   Under combat conditions, however, it would be his men making landfall under fire and learning first hand if the bombardment was effective.

In the Landing ships and the transports, Seal warriors were loading onto boats.  The captains of the landing ships were also preparing to move inshore, as experimental armor was preparing to make its first simulated combat landing. 

As the boats began moving to the beach, the 100mm guns from the escorting destroyers and grossetorpedoboots opened up a brisk fire of blanks, furthering the simulation.   Sojourner would be busy later restocking charges expended,  but these were important training elements if an amphibious landing was needed in the future. 

Wake Island's defense force was waiting in their prepared positions,  referees walking about and notifying positions that they had been suppressed or destroyed. 

It might be a bloodless operation,  but it was a drill being held to high standards.  Captain Acalan knew what sorts of hell a real combat landing could turn into.   This operation was meant to train the next crop of leaders and to make adjustments to plans and doctrine so that the nightmares Rome experienced on Grand Turk wouldn't be the fate of any Aztec commander in the future. 

[TacCovert4]

August 25th, 1916:

Commodore Acalan (because there can only be one captain on a ship) sat in the wardroom of Ibn Battuta, maps and papers strewn about the large conference table.  There were other officers at the table, but the real conversation was that between Acalan and Vice Admiral Netzahualcoyotl, commander of Task Force Condor.  Only two years ago they had been a battalion commander and the executive officer of HMS Veracruz, but times had forced them to rapidly grow up, times and the loss of so many of the 'old guard' in the war.

"And so, we can see that despite the Navy's fire plan, landing operations against a well-dug in enemy should expect to receive over fifty percent casualties in the first wave, and approximately one third casualties in subsequent waves until a beachhead is established.  The only possible solution under the current plan is to provide more explosive shells to the Navy in order to increase their time on station per ship to saturate defenses with fires."

"Unfortunately, that solution is not workable as the magazines of our ships simply cannot hold so many shells, not when we must maintain over half of our shells as armor piercing or base-fused varieties to defend the fleet and landing ships."

"I agree.  I think that the fire plan should be altered though."

"How so?"

"From both experience and exercises, the fire of the capital ships has a definitive suppression effect upon even dug in troops.  If the Navy does not fire on the enemy shoreline for an extended period, but rather a concerted and rapid fire in the hour preceding the landing itself, continuing all the way until the first wave hits the beach, the enemy can be suppressed adequately for their positions to be gained."

"Without a planned gap in the fire, it will be difficult to prevent friendly fire incidents or shorts hitting our own men as they approach the beach and disembark"

"Compared to the anticipated losses with a traditional fire plan like that the Romans used on Grand Turk, I believe that the losses to accidents with a shorter and sharper bombardment centered directly on suppressing those troops covering the landing site would be acceptable."

The respective staffs got to work on making the necessary changes to the Aztec operation planning for amphibious operations.  The chance of another amphibious landing was low, but the training was invaluable both on defense and offense, and the exercises had worked the rebuilt Navy's crews up to a higher degree of proficiency.  In the aftermath of Caicos war, most surviving officers had found themselves rapidly promoted, and many of the junior officers that would normally have taken staff rotations had become captains of ships in the rapidly rebuilding and expanding Royal Aztec Navy.

Meanwhile, in the lagoon another rapidly promoted officer sat in his chair on the bridge.  "Sir, engineering reports that they have completed maintenance on the boilers"

"Excellent Ensign" Lt. Commander Tupoc says.  Only two years ago he had been a young ensign on his first command, a venerable motor torpedo boat.  One of two survivors from his boat in the battle off Grand Turk, the sacrifices his crew had made had nevertheless been decisive, their torpedoes sending the Roman flagship Sublimis to the bottom in a column of fire.  Now he had moved up in the world after a convalescence at the Naval Hospital, to captaining one of the Sultanate's large torpedo boats, really a small but fast destroyer.

The journey to Wake had stretched his command to the maximum, every ship in his squadron had lain beside their fleet tender multiple times on the journey to refuel and reprovision as their engines had turned nearly nonstop for just over a month.  His small crew had performed admirably, and had coalesced into an efficient team.  But he was grateful for the few days rest and maintenance in the lagoon, giving his men a chance to stretch their legs ashore and use the limited facilities present to perform maintenance on their ships as another long journey was undoubtedly in the offing. 

[TacCovert4]

November 1916,

Brevet Commodore Acalan and Vice Admiral Netzahualcoyot sat in the latter's private study aboard HMS Sultan Ali, named for the current monarch's line rather than Ali the 8th himself.  The fleet, Task Group Two as it had been provisionally named, was effectively the bulk of PacFlt's heavy assets and fleet tender, along with light forces and another fleet tender from Home Fleet.  And a Marine Assault Force of three brigades of Seal Warriors along with their two Landing Ships bringing up the two "Provisional Companies" of "Bisons" the nickname some wag who had been on the great plains a few years back had given to the lumbering tracked vehicles stored in the roll-on roll-off forward holds of the Landing Support Ships.  Armed with a swiveling 8mm MG and a fixed 70mm infantry gun, testing at Baja and Wake had shown promise that they could bridge across small trenches and bring useful firepower forward off a beach while under MG fire.  Could, provided that the mechanics could keep them running. 



(This but with a casemate instead of turret, single 70mm short gun fixed (only a few degrees fine traverse/elevation) and a ball-mount 8mm MG)

The fleet steamed East, radio silent aside from short-range transmissions between ships.  Transmissions that would be imperceptible over the vast distances of the Pacific.  The cruisers, transports, tenders, and battlecruisers had been built for this, a steady 8kt pace for thousands of miles.  The destroyermen stubbornly kept pace, though they regularly had to lay alongside the tenders to refuel and then steam at 10kts to rejoin the fleet, a caterpillar moving across the expanse.  Maybe one day they would master the art of refueling whilst underway and the entire fleet could steam as one continuously in the Pacific like they did in the Caribbean where they were unaffected by fuel tank size. 

The two men reviewed their secret orders, and reviewed existing plans even as they pored over charts and maps of a certain portion of the East.  Their unspoken but erstwhile allies had expressed interest in some assistance, and in a quid pro quo from one of Acalan's previous campaigns, the Sultanate would provide as it had received.

[Jefgte]

Nice, it is looking like a Whippet.

;)

[TacCovert4]

Nice, it is looking like a Whippet.

;)

My vision was a Leichtractor combined with a Stug.  My Marines experience would put them more in the market for an 'assault gun' with MGs that can swivel to provide an arc of fire support for an infantry assault.  Light enough that it's not going to instantly bog down on sand and can be transported and offloaded relatively easily, armored against machine guns, and with a gun that can break up MG nests.