long-range that the typical engagement will require only a small angle of turret movement. On the other hand, if the boys start believing their tanks aren't up to it here, they're likely to carry that attitude over to the desert. This is definitely not good.
Carrera reached a decision and it didn't take him long to do so. He told his driver to call on the radio for Brown, Sitnikov and Kennison.
Brown was the first to arrive, having been the nearest. 'Sancho Panzer reports, sir.'
When the other two showed up, a few minutes later, Carrera told them, point blank, 'This range sucks. Not your fault; still your problem. The troops aren't getting the chance to engage targets at a realistic distance and they're getting their clocks cleaned by the targets because they can't traverse quickly enough to engage. Here's what I want done by tomorrow morning. Carl, you go get your hands on a dozen small boats with outboards and a dozen, no better make it two, without. Get five hundred feet of tow cable for each powerboat. Brown, find some ballsy fuckers from among your tankers to man the powerboats. Offer a bonus if you have to. Don't be overgenerous… say, no more than daily combat pay would be. Fit out the others with tank-sized plywood targets. We'll tow the targets behind the powerboats out in the ocean north of the FS Army's old drop zone at Vera Cruz. Sitnikov, move half the Jaguars you've dedicated to gunnery to Vera Cruz. We'll do long-range firing from there.'
With a moment's reflection, Carrera added, 'Carl, better get the word to the merchant freighters anchored out there to move. And find me a place to do a tank platoon attack where they can shoot at some distance.'
Kennison thought briefly. 'No place near the Transitway, Pat. Rio Sombrero, maybe? I'll look tomorrow after we get the Vera Cruz affair set up.'
'Fair enough.'
Santa Clara Schoolhouse,
Balboa, 14/5/460 AC
The training schedule for Cruz's unit-now reorganized as Second Century, 1st Cohort-called for exercises in city fighting. That put them in this paint-chipped and abandoned, multistory and multilevel building. The building had once been a school. Of the two major sections one stood atop a hill, another at its base. A long, covered and enclosed walkway ran up the side of the hill, connecting the two.
No Volgans, except the five that were attached to the cohort for their equipment training, were present. City fighting was an area in which the BDC had been reasonably well trained prior to the 447 invasion. The cohort's own NCOs, therefore, trained their own troops in the tactics and techniques of defending and attacking buildings. Those NCOs had, themselves, spent the previous three evenings in refresher training run by Abogado's organization while their troops rested.
Cruz's section leader, del Valle, took his men from station to station within the building. He showed them how to clear a room, to watch for booby traps, to use a rope to climb up the side of a blank wall, and all the other usual techniques employed in combat in builtup areas.
The upper part of the school was used to practice offensive operations. In the lower part were set up a number of demonstration areas showing how to prepare to defend a building, from making fighting positions to blocking normal passages to making new passages to setting traps. Cruz's section leader explained each, pretty much as it had been explained to him by FMTG. By supper time the company was finished with the schoolhouse. Eating his supper, a heavy stew over rice, Cruz and his friends had to admit that today's training had been the most fun so far. And it hadn't really been very hard work.
After supper Cruz's squad leader rejoined the rest of the squad. He marched them over to one of the abandoned houses the Federated States military forces had kept for the families of its soldiers once stationed in Balboa. The house was on stilts. It was also in very poor shape, which explained why it was abandoned. Underneath the house were several piles of fortification material, barbed wire, lumber, sandbags, shovels, axes and picks. Just outside the area under the house was a huge pile of dirt.
Del Valle gave a half evil smile just before saying, 'Fun's over. Tomorrow morning we will be attacked. We will work all night to prepare this house for defense. You can use those two shovels and that dirt for filling sandbags. Sanchez, you are the acting section leader. The rest of you stay here. Sanchez come with me.'
Fort Cameron, 17/5/460 AC
Artillery was a mixed bag. The artillery cohort was organized into five firing centuries of six guns each, though in one case instead of guns the century had multiple rocket launchers. Of the other four, two had Volgan- built 122mm howitzers and two had 160mm Suomi- manufactured mortars. The Volgans, too, had manufactured mortars in the 160mm range but those had been one of the rare cases where Carrera had opted for something besides Volgan equipment. The Suomi guns were lighter, more maneuverable, easier to get into and out of action, had greater range and a more effective shell on target. Nor was the price terribly bad, though it was more than the Volgan guns cost. Still, mortars were so cheap, generally, that the price differential for a mere twelve systems was small change, even for a force trying to squeeze out the last bit of value from every drachma.
Carrera had ordered several hundred Volgan 'Daredevil' laser guidance systems to be modified for the Suomi shells. These had actually cost more than the other mortars would have. The Volgans were happy enough with the deal.
While only just enough tanks and other armored vehicles to train on had been delivered, the guns and mortars were light enough to fit on just a portion of a single large cargo aircraft. The Balboans had the full complement of what they would take to war with them.
Under their Volgan and Zion artillery instructors (for Zion made the same mortar as Suomi and had a fair number of Spanish speakers to boot-for that matter, the Arabic instructors for the intelligence and Civil Affairs/Psychological Operations troops were Zioni), the drivers were learning to operate prime movers for the artillery cohort while the cannoneers drilled on deflection and elevation changes, fuse setting and charge setting. Under a large tent, with the sides raised to let in the breeze, two more Volgan instructors were working with those twenty-two Balboans who had been selected to be FDCs, fire direction computers. The subject for today was setting up an artillery plotting board.
Nearby, another Volgan, along with Carrera's man Mitchell, was showing ten more Balboans how to use a Global Locating System, or GLS. This was a hand-held device that took coordinates on the ground directly from satellites in geosynchronous orbit. The UE Peace Fleet took very careful notice of any Terra Novan ventures into space, but had allowed these satellites without too much fuss.
Gamboa River, Republica de Balboa, 18/5/460 AC
A large black- and red-painted freighter moved northwest on its way through the Transitway. About a half a mile west of the freighter was the site chosen for the legion's engineers to practice river crossing and some other combat engineer operations.
Like nearly everyone else in the legion, the engineers had only a partial set of equipment with which to work. This was unfortunate but, in an armed force expanding radically and rapidly, it was perhaps unavoidable.
Carrera took it philosophically; other armies in the past had expanded to a greater degree, faster, with less- qualified cadre personnel and less equipment. What the legion had would do.
Touring the place, he thought, with a certain grim satisfaction, Fortunately the area is nearly perfect. The Gamboa River is enough like the one in Sumer at this point, broad and slow, to make a good simulation in case we end up having to force a river crossing.
Even as he watched, some of the engineers, the bridge and ferry troops, practiced ferrying men and equipment across the river to the other side and back again. On the other side was a marginally maintained golf course. The shouts and curses of the engineers reached his ears but faintly. He smiled.
A simulated minefield had been laid out across the golf course itself. Naturally, the greens of the golf course had been chewed up by heavy vehicle treads. Some of the locals were less than pleased at losing their recreation facility. When they had complained, however, Carrera had told the civilians to 'go piss up a rope.'
From his vantage point Carrera watched as the pioneer century and the pioneer sections of the combat support centuries practiced clearing lanes through the simulated minefields. They showed no more concern for the civilians' feelings than Carrera had.
It will be a long time before the golf course even has a fairway again. Tsk. How very unfortunate.
Once, when the Federated States had maintained a large force in Balboa, the place had been dotted with military facilities. One such was the Cerro Peligroso ammunition dump, located very near the golf course. This consisted of some open areas, a ring road, a fence in absolutely terrible shape, and thirty-three ammunition bunkers
