Beautancus
Well-Known Member
Operation: Other Foot
Part the First
Part the First
Designed and produced simultaneously with the much larger and unmistakably deadlier Prowler submarine deployed and manned exclusively by the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Modular Special Combat Submersible had seen use no more than a dozen times outside of training exercises.
The small submersibles were just a bit more than 20 feet (6 meters) long, capable of conveying no more than 6 men (of whom 2 must also serve as crew) and their most absolutely necessary equipment at depths not to exceed 30 feet (about 9 meters), and hard pressed to cruise at 6 knots for any extended period.
Despite their rather unimpressive specifications, the MSCS's did offer the specially trained "cargo" and crews inside their mostly synthetic polymer hulls one very important advantage: as near to absolutely silent insertions directly onto (potentially) contested beaches as was possible with modern maritime engineering.
So it was that while Gallo-Germania and the rest of the world were still aghast at the hammering success of the Domain in evicting the North Burgundians from Ouistreham, the Cussian Navy was preparing to expand operations to the rest of what had been Neustria. Now that he was in-theater, and expressing more than a little of the now decades old rivalry between Air Force and Navy, Admiral Speier had opted to oversee the process of developing the plan that would become Operation: Other Foot personally. Most notably in this case, he had selected the 37th Marine Special Operations Command (known to the world more commonly as "Marine Raiders") to carry out the MSCS mission immediately, without reservation or second thoughts.
While the Air Force Airborne Service's Blue Stripes enjoyed a more fearsome reputation abroad (deserved and rightly so), Speier harbored an expectably notable difference of opinion. For Heracles Speier, neither the Pathfinders or Raiders were surpassed by "those motherf!@$ing Air Force pansies," and between the two of those the latter were clearly the more "elite" formation. He and 37th's current CO, Colonel Reginald Cynewulf Ziggley were close somehow too - once upon a time they'd roomed together "back at The Academy" and shared a Masonic fraternity and Lodge - as the scuttlebutt went.
They were the only ones with any experience using the not quite cutting edge but still pretty sharp MCSC's, besides.
a few days ago
in the shallow waters of the Engelsea a few miles south of Boulon,
SW West Burgundy
Carefully and quietly they went, gently breaking the surface of the midnight dark waters of the Thaumantic above their triangular formation of MSCS's. Boulon gleamed and glittered in the star-scattered sky to their right, just a few miles in the distance northward, marred by none of the telltale black, smoky columns of war the country's larger port now suffered under. Unseen, but casting a shadow over the whole broken country was that other port, Ouistreham lay well more than a 100 miles to their left (south) like a cancer in the back of one's mind.
There'd been no expectation of even perfunctory native patrols in the deep waters offshore of West Burgundy's second highest volume port, Boulon, and Lieutenant Aldhem Dunsford found it hard to quantify how much that pleased him. "An angry she-dolphin could queef generally in your direction and bust that fuggin' hull wide open," had been the warning they'd all received the first time they'd deployed in one, and Dunsford had not forgotten it this time.
Having only recently earned his promotion to Primary Lieutenant, Dunsford often worried he was still a bit young to be serving as the Executive Officer of the 37th's Raiders 3rd Company, despite having made it through his fortnight-long baptism of fire as a commander alive, uninjured and with his (2nd) platoon intact, all in the ever more infamous meatgrinder of Ouistreham.
That even the proper, true and legitimate "old school" combat veterans serving alongside him counted Ouistreham as a memorably tough fight, and had vocally lauded his abilities as a field commander had eased that insecurity slightly, but he would still be a decade and a half younger than most tomorrow.
Time for doubt and self reflection is 80 miles behind you, they were all out and had their gear unassed out of the MSCS's now, far from his soft bunk on their "mother ship." Securing the hatches they'd entered and exited from, as well as for those smaller compartments within which their equipment had been stowed, the narrow little tube-machines were sunk (by design feature) and anchored to conceal their presence from any West Burgundian turncoat that might come this way in daylight tomorrow, already in Pillau's employ and happy to report something out of the ordinary for even meager consideration.
Their progress checked against the pitiless face of his watch with some satisfaction once all were ashore, Dunsford ordered a quick inventory recheck and made sure to enter their trio of sunken vessels' coordinates into his command-tablet. By the time that was done, he found 17 thumbs up waiting to confirm that the inventory check was complete and all accounted for. Nodding his own confirmation, the Raiders sorted themselves into formation without requiring the order, primed and ready to move.
With a last, rather thorough look into the dark of night on either side, Dunsford waved the men of his ad hoc command off the deserted beach, wordlessly and without incident, into the summer-thick, albeit scrubby countryside around and immediately outside of Boulon.
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