1st Lieutenant Bryce stood next to the CUCV. It's V-8 diesel idling. He could still smell the faint odor of the missiles' propellant. It was an acrid, acidic scent that clung in the air like the strong medicinal-antiseptic scent of a hospital ward. It was real wonder, too. What, with the smoke, burning wood and tires, scorched metal, and the stench of the corpses in the air as well.

He had only left the meeting with S2 shop liaison, 1st Lieutenant St. Claire and her fabulous body, three hours before. He was amusing himself by trying to keep the scent of her on his skin. But, now?

The last radio contact he had with the depot had been an hour ago, a scheduled check in. The Soviets must have detected the depot's radio transmissions and diligently tracked the them. No small feat owing to the new generation of frequency-hopping radios and scramblers. Yet, the evidence was in front of him.

Someone had erected a sign on the side of the farm collective warehouse that was, in fact, Forward Area Resupply Depot Bravo-Kilo-Six of the US 5th Infantry Division. The sign was simple and simply stated;

Attacked by Mi-28s. The havoc's gutted us. Only eleven left. Seven of us are walking wounded. We are headed west to a NATO re-organizational push to flee Europe. Follow us.

What the Fuck! Bryce's thoughts screamed.

Turning back to the truck, the Lieutenant made a call to Regimental HQ. First to resupply control, then to regimental S2, then Regimental communications control, Division comms, Division resupply, and so on. Twenty one radio attempts, eighteen preset frequencies, and not one response.

Well, there was one response.

"Hello, Ragnarok six." It never occurred to Bryce how typically over-macho that call sign sounded until he heard it in a thick Russian accent. "Please affirm your location at the B-K-six resupply depot. Over."

That was as unexpected as loosing the fight at Kalizs. That would be the only explanation. His mind worked frantically. Who and what was left? He needed to do a roll call, casualty search, and a spot inspection. This morning was not going as he had planned.

Fuck you, you godless communist borscht-eating bastard... Bryce thought to himself as the Russian accented voice asked him to confirm his location.  He turned the radio back to resupply control, stowed the handset without responding, and strode toward warehouse.

BHB studied the sign briefly, then took it, heading into the building with the hastily made placard.  By his account, those Russian helos would take a bit of time to rearm and refuel at their depot, before they could head back this way.  BHB thought about combat in terms of logistics - knew he was on the clock - and he had a good idea of how much time he'd have before those Soviet choppers could make it back... presuming they didn't get tasked to a higher priority target than re-attacking an already damaged supply depot.

"SITREP!" 1st Lieutenant Bryce shouted loudly as he entered the collective warehouse.  He tossed the sign aside for the moment and looked around for someone's ass to chew for not having some semblance of security outside.  For a moment, Bryce considered that the sign might not be a joke.  That perhaps the Captain had ordered them to abandon this depot.  Or perhaps the Captain was one of the bodies outside and that numb-nut Staff Sergeant, fucking Alvarez, had led everyone to abandon their post.

Bryce grabbed a clipboard, the most effective tool in the supply officers arsenal, and started a roll call, to search for casualties, and to take stock of what classes of material* still survived.

*https://www.globalsecurity.org.../intro/supclass.htm#:
This message was last edited by the player at 19:50, Tue 09 Nov 2021.

(OOC: thanks for the link, but in this post I will use the actual supply classes of the US Army. Not all classes will be represented in the post since not all items will be needed in a temporary depot implemented to support forward area operations within 25 kilometers of the near edge of battle.)

Bryce was rapidly feeling like he had missed the bus, literally. Everywhere he went there was either no one left or no one alive. He found thirteen dead. No wounded. Though he did find the Captain. In the back of his mind it did occur to him that he was now the commanding officer.

Grabbing the goat sheet, the GTIS or Go-to-Inventory-Sheet, Bryce realized that the vast majority of the inventory was still intact. He noted the OPL, or on paper loss, of around ten percent of the Class III and Class V items; fuel and ammunition. And a single Class 7, a Major End Item; in this case a single M998 HMMWV, had been taken.

Grabbing a handheld spotlight, keys to the Conex containers, and an RFID scanner Bryce set about doing a quick run down of goods. After a while he had confirmed what the goat sheet presented, well, mostly.

There was a lot of still in the depot. Luckily the rocket attacks had only destroyed the conexes containing the Class 2 inventory of replacement fatigues, boots, cold weather jackets, etc. Several rocket hits had set the other four M998's on fire. But there was still a lot left. It was impressive considering the damage to the building, the 'tent city' set up in the parking lot, and the area at large.

Class I Food, Rations, Water
100 cases of MREs
(these are the second generation meals, each case contains on of each of the following meals; Pork w/ rice in BBQ sauce, Corned beef hash, Chicken stew, Omelet w/ ham, Spaghetti w/ meat sauce, Chicken a la king, Beef stew, Ham slice, Meatballs w/ tomato sauce, Tuna w/ noodles, Chicken w/ rice, Escalloped potatoes w/ ham)
50 cases of bottled water
(each case contains 24 one liter bottles of water (Neslte) wrapped in plastic)
10 barrels of Bulk water
(each blue plastic barrel holds 55 gallons (54.8 actually) of potable water for bulk use like filling canteens, radiators, heating B rations, etc.)
10 cases of Charms Blow Pops
(each case holds 10 bags of 10 lollypops, w bags in each of the basic flavors)
10 cases of Hershey's Chocolate Bars
(each case holds 10 boxes of 10 candy bars, half chocolate, half with almonds)
10 cases of Bubba-licious Bubble Gum
(each case holds 10 packages of 10 pieces of gum, strawberry or grape only)

Class II Clothing
the only thing salvageable was box containing women's panties, though there are 100 pairs across the full range of sizes, all are cotton bikini brief cut, and white.

Class III Petroleum, Oil, Lubricants
30 barrels of gasoline
(each black metal barrel holds 52.5 gallons of gasoline)
10 barrels of diesel
(each black metal barrel holds 53.8 gallons of diesel)
Replacement fluids
100 plastic 1 gallon bottles of motor oil
40 plastic 1 gallon bottles of transmission fluid
200 plastic 4 oz. bottles of Breakfree CLP (cleaner, lubricant, preservative)
2 black plastic 50 gallon drum of anti-freeze

Class IV Fortifications and Barrier Materials
none in stores, all that was available was used around the depot

Class V Ammunition
60 x loaded M9 magazines
50 x loaded M1911A1 magazines
300 x loaded M16 magazines
120 x loaded M14 magazines
120 x loaded MP5 magazines
300 x 200 round ammunition packs for M247 SAW
600 x 100 rounds ammunition packs for M60 and M240 GPMG
30 x preloaded bandoliers of 40 x 46mm rounds
5 x cases 9 x 19mm NATO (Parabellum), 500 rounds each
3 x cases of 11.43 x 21mm (.45 ACP), 400 rounds each
5 x cases 5.56 x 45mm NATO, 550 rounds each
10 x cases of 7.62 x 51mm NATO, 200 rounds each
40 x cases of 12.7 x 108mm (.50 BMG), 50 rounds each
5 x cases of 12 gauge .00 Buckshot, 100 rounds each
5 x cases of 40 x 46mm HE rounds, 24 each
30 x cases of 40 x 53mm HE rounds, 24 each for Mark 19
120 x 60mm HE mortar rounds
80 x 60mm WP mortar rounds
240 x 60mm Smoke mortar rounds
80 x 60mm Illum mortar rounds
24 x M136 Disposable Anti-Armor Weapons
18 x M72A2 LAW (Light Anti-tank Weapon)
12 x M47 Dragon guided missile reloads (missiles only)

Class VI Personal Items
there are no allotted resupply for personal items

Class VII Major End Items
all that is left are two M939 5 ton trucks with some battle damage

Class VIII Medical Supplies, Minimal Amounts
100 x personal medical kits
1 x Doctor's Medical Kit
1 x Surgical Tools
100 x units of Antibiotics
100 x units of Painkillers

Class IX Repair Parts
120 x radio batteries (large battery)
24 x spare tires
Vehicle Parts-30 EP
Weapon Parts-24 EP
Electronics Parts-12 EP
General Parts-24 EP

Class X Miscellaneous Supplies
there are no allotted resupply for miscellaneous items.

Being the only person at the depot made Bryce nervous.

After the inventory, he quickly decided that having a bug out plan was his best bet, in case those attack helos came back.  He brought the CUCV around, fueled it up, then started loading it up.  BHB would stash under the tent, as a GTFO vehicle.

Afterward, he gathered up dog tags from any U.S. personnel, including the Captain, along with weapons, LBE, and packs. He cherry picked the gear to turn his pack into a bug out bag as well.

Once he'd readied his preps, Bryce settled in.  There was still enough material at the depot to load out a what passed for an infantry company these days... which was not more than a couple of pre-war platoons.  Still, the Quartermaster Officer's best chance to make a difference in this war, was do to his job - supply Army or NATO combat units with the material he had here, at what was left of this forward resupply depot.

Once he had a chance to calm down after the frantic inventory and planning, Bryce took a moment to survey the battle damage. The attacks were scattered barrages of rocket attacks. Judging by the number of impact points and the lack of tight clustering they rockets were probably fired at long range. Keeping out of the reach of the depots heavy machine guns no less.

The Mi-28s appeared to have the usual mix of two 122 mm S-13 five-round B-13 rocket pods  and two of the 80 mm S-8 twenty-round B8V-20 rocket pods. The attacks were a mix of white phosphorus, anti-armor, and high explosive warheads. The mostly high explosive judging by the cratering and lack of fire damage. There was a lot of shrapnel in the walls, tents, sandbags, etc. The Soviets must have used some sort of anti-personnel warhead as well.

The majority of the impacts were on the northeastern side of the depot. The rockets that hit the tent city and the motorpool merely overshot the warehouse to land in those areas. The nearby farmhouses where already abandoned. The livestock, such as it had been, was gone too. Either run off or carted away.

He sighed. It was going to be a long war like this.

Bryce was busy shoving ammo, food, fuel, and H2O in the CUCV when he came across a stencil set.  He paused long enough to grab a can of black spray paint and write:

Bradley's Ark across the CUCV's driver's door.

He snorted after it was done.  Then he started to laugh, then stoically, stifled back a sob.  Life in Poland was a far cry from his former job selling financial products.  BHB was well on his way to getting the yacht he always wanted when the war broke out and the Army recalled him to duty.  Even his expensive lawyer couldn't get him out of the inactive ready reserve.

Now his material wealth, at best, was everything he had stuffed in the CUCV.  Presuming he was willing to desert.

More than these poor bastards.. he thought to himself, looking out over the collective farm whose warehouse they had taken over.  These Poles were poor.  Dirt poor.

Communism.  Man, what a way to get fuxored.  The state controls the means of production.  Which meant there was no need to raise capital.  No IPOs.  No... stocks.  No stocks!  Just think about that.

Hell, the only stocks these Soviets knew about were AK-47/74 stocks.  They didn't divide ownership of companies among shareholders.  What didn't they get about the need to raise capital?  Well... everything.

No blue chips, no mid caps, no small cap, no growth, no value.  Just everything owned and run by the government.

It was no wonder that everything past the west German boarder was just gray, drab, and sad.  And that was exactly how Bradley Holden Bryce felt right now.  Gray, drab, and sad.  Also very alone.  He longed for a stock certificate to hold.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:27, Sat 13 Nov 2021.

There was crackling, static riddled radio message. Or part of one.

"...two klicks due east of Slawin. The last helos will be pulling out at twenty-three hundred hours." A deep, and tired, woman's voice was saying. "All NATO district.." Static drowned out the voice, "are to proceed south along route..." her voice cracked, modulation differential during a frequency hop, " are advised to avoid conflicts with local forces that are also fleeing the advancing Soviet units..."

There was a whip-crack of static and squelch and the voice disappeared as suddenly as it had came over the radio. All that was left was faint whistle of the wind across the ground. There was the faint sound of insects in the distance.

Bryce was just about to reply to the cryptic message, but then remembered that Soviet RDF capabilities were likely why there were 13 dead lying about.  Dead that he hadn't yet buried.

He thought about what he'd heard for a moment, then committed to what might pass for a plan of action.

"Hold down the fort.  I'll be back of this doesn't work out," he said to the dead and the wind.

B. Holden Bryce consulted his map, opened the driver's door of the CUCV, took the wheel, and drove out out the depot, headed toward Sławin.

Bryce was about to get into the CUCV when a vehicle came around a bend in a distant dirt road along the fields to the north. His heart leapt. People, reinforcements, salvation from solitude, but no. As it drew closer, to within three hundred meters, his heart sank. It was a camouflage painted Soviet scout car. Bryce wasn't completely sure of the model, but he thought it to be a UAZ 469. The vehicle stopped along the road in a low spot where just the top of the vehicle was visible. He was pretty sure that the lump on top was a man weapon of some type.

"Scheisse," Bryce said under his breath in German, after spotting the Soviet jeep.  Slinking while moving slowly and carefully he grabbed his rucksack then crept away from the CUCV.  Crouching low and now dragging his pack, he opened range with the UAZ 469, moving away, shifting between covered and concealed positions as he tried to make his way to the edge of the depot.

Going prone, he checked the AN/PRC-119 SINCGARS radio in his pack to make sure it was on and ready to receive.  He then took up a prone firing position, resting on his pack.  He wouldn't be able to engage the UAZ effectively at this range, but that wasn't his goal.  He'd only fire if someone tried to jack his ride.  Instead he pulled out his map and keyed his radio on the last known fire support channel.

"Ragnarok six to any available NATO mortar or artillery battery.  Immediate suppression, Grid 697751, Soviet motorized rifle company in the open...

Sure, BHB had jacked the Captain's callsign, but he was technically in command now.  Also, one commie jeep was probably not worthy of an immediate suppression fire mission*, nor was there any indication that it was the lead element of a Soviet motorized rifle company... but... they could be.  And Bryce wasn't taking any chance when it came to the depot's most important asset:

Himself.

*"The last-ditch mission is "immediate suppression": Every gun in any concerned battery immediately fires whatever round and fuse is loaded, possibly from someone else's, or more than one callsign's mission. The FO may end up getting parachute flares, white phosphorus illumination, DPICM, and VT-HE rounds on the target in the same shot."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:26, Tue 16 Nov 2021.

Nothing.

Bryce watched the UAZ. It was sitting there in the low spot along the dirt road.

Still nothing. No radio transmissions. No screeching in the sky. No explosions.

The UAZ finally moved forward. It rolled up over the edge of the road, into a field, and spun tires in a quick u-turn and accelerated in a straight line for the nearest tree line.

It occurred to Bryce that he  may be on a party line.

"Eavesdropping may be ok against your people, but we don't take kindly to it where I come from," Bryce whispered.  He checked his M4, left his pack where it was, then started to move into the nearest part of the tree line.  He was try to flank these Soviet bastards, using the trees to conceal his approach.

Bryce moved through the forest with considerable stealth, given that he mostly worked in a warehouse all day.  Perhaps all that time he'd spent running around the woods of Virginia during ROTC had been worth it.

05:56, Today: Bradley Holden Bryce rolled 12 using 1d10+1d8 ((9,3)).

Bryce moved through the forest keeping to the ground swells, deep shadows, and avoiding the dense foliage for fear making himself obvious. He wanted to believe he was moving along like Snake Eyes sneaking up on a Cobra compound in the deep jungle. In reality he was pretty sure he simply hadn't gotten close enough to the Soviets yet to be noticed. Then he heard a man speak.

The voice was thick, deep chested reminding Bryce of his grandfather. Baritone and booming, his grandfather could out sing the entire church choir when Bryce was a teen. The speaker was an older man! Most likely some communist senior enlisted who had spent a lifetime in the Army. A man of experience and intent.

But who was he talking to in such a commanding tone?

Bryce slipped onto his stomach and crawled forward. He found a particularly spectacular stand of ferns and tried his best to become part of the bushy patch of vegetation. Moving forward like he was taught he was surprised when he peeked over a low rise to see the speaker. He was terrified by what was beyond.

The man speaking was easily two meters tall, if not a tad more. He looked a meter wide in the shoulders. To say that the man was well muscled was an understatement. The statue of Atlas holding the Earth on his shoulders came to Bryce's mind. The man was shirtless, wearing only camouflaged fatigue pants, combat boots, and a blue beret. His arms and chest were covered in a series of military themed tattoos. There was a Avtomaticheskiy Pistolet Stechkina or APS machine pistol on his right hip. A Kizlyar DV-2 combat knife, famous among Spetsnaz units, stuck out from he small of his back. There were three APS magazines on his left hip. As he spoke to an assemblage of junior officers and non-commissioned officers his hand flexed into fists, knife hands, and stabbing fingers that pointed out individuals with the alacrity of a guided missile.

This guy was delivering one hell of an ass chewing. Even Bryce was beginning to feel the weight of this guys disappointment in him. And, hell, Bryce wasn't even in the dude's army! The Bryce looked beyond the assembled leaders getting their collective ass chewed off. Fading away into the trees were lines of vehicles; T72 tanks, BTR80 APCs, BMP 2 IFVs, ZSU-23-4 ADA, 2S1 SPs.....and troops. Thousands of troops judging by the number of trucks, and bobbing helmets. Bryce was suddenly wishing that he had gotten a call back on his artillery mission.

Then it struck him. Could he fake that? Would the Soviets recognize his voice on the radio? Do they record his transmissions? Are they tracking the signals? What would he respond in order to spook them?

Bryce was busily counting two things; Soviet troops and his prayers. Looking back he was about to plan his exfiltration when there was an unexpected transmission over his radio.

"Ragnarok Six this is Hotel Five, SITREP please." The voice belonged to a Brit. Of that he was sure. So, more NATO troops, allies, and oh, thank you God!

Bryce looked towards the Soviets. While the call came through his handset, it had been fairly loud. The muscular man and about half of the men around him were peering in Bryce's direction. They were searching for he noise, of course. After several heartbeats that felt like approximately the remainder of Bryce's life the huge man yanked the knife from the small of his back and began walking towards the sound of the broadcast. Bryce's realization that the man was walking blindly through the forest to his right by some ten meters didn't do a lot to settle his nerves.

The man called back over his shoulders and the assembled men began to stand and unsling their rifles.

Bryce's ROTC FTX skills had gotten him into this situation, now he would see if they could get him out of it.  He keyed the handset twice, then hoped to muffle it by shoving into his pocket.  The logistics officer then started to move purposely back the way he came.  He pulled his only frag grenade off his webbing.  He'd use is to try to break contact if it came to that.  Hopefully it wouldn't.

---

I just typed all that.. so let's see if the die roller screws me.

---

12:47, Today: Bradley Holden Bryce rolled 5 using 1d10+1d8 with rolls of 1,4.  Recon to di di mau!

<sigh>Yes, of course the RPOL die roller fscks me right when I need some good rolls!

---

Ok, based on Panie Wojcik's suggestion, I'll push the roll!

14:37, Today: Bradley Holden Bryce rolled 8 using 1d10+1d8.  Recon PUSH!! (ok, that was a 7 and 1, but since I didn't have record dice on, then...)

14:37, Today: Bradley Holden Bryce rolled 14 using 1d10+1d8 with rolls of 10,4.

This message was last edited by the player at 19:42, Fri 19 Nov 2021.

Bryce began slithering backwards. It dawned on him that slithering was apt when his foot went into a narrow opening, splashed, and then the earth gave way a little bit too much and Bryce found himself in an underground spring. The line of curses going through Bryce's thoughts was long, multi-syllable, and virulent. Reaching up, he pulled  limb down several inches just as footsteps approached. He couldn't see who was nearby, nor could he tell how many there were, but Bryce knew they were damned close.

"FRAG OUT!" Bryce yelled shortly after he pulled the pin and threw the baseball shaped fragmentation hand grenade.  "SAY HI TO MARX... IN HELL!" he followed, as he readied his carbine to send these bastards to lick Stalin's boots in the underworld.


20:13, Today: Bradley Holden Bryce rolled 4 using 1d8.  Grenade!

20:24, Today: Bradley Holden Bryce rolled 1 using 1d8.  PUSH THROW!

haha
This message was last edited by the player at 01:24, Sat 20 Nov 2021.

There was a loud boom, a wave of over pressure, Bryce's hearing went all hollow ringing, and his eyes closed reflexively. There was a sensation of floating for a moment and a pang of nausea shot through him. The momentary effects of the grenade blast passed and Bryce realized he was lying in water. Something was dragging at his helmet then he realized he was moving.

Opening his eyes Bryce was surprised by two things, both were equally frightening. The first was that it was dark, he was underground in the stream! The thing he realized was that the spring was moving with enough force to carry him along faster than he could walk, but underground.

Feeling around with hands and feet, Bryce sought to find a way to control his movement. It was getting cold, stone cold. And then as suddenly as Bryce had found himself trapped to what was feeling like a watery death he was unceremoniously dumped into warm sunlight and a cold, muddy pool. Looking about he realized he was in sump pool where the stream entered into the local irrigation ditches.

He perked up. That meant he was only about two hundred meters from the depot, and his CUCV. Maybe it was getting to be about the right time to bug out.

In that cold dark stream, Bradley Holden Bryce's life passed before his eyes.  The small town Blue Ridge town he'd grown up in... his MBA graduation from UVA... the McMansion... his BMW... Karen, his trophy wife... prison... his whole life appeared before him.

Then suddenly and unceremoniously, he was dumped into the sump pool.  Much like he had been dumped into this war.

The recap was over.  Now it was time to live what little life he might have left.

The cut-vee isn't far, he thought.  BHB collected himself*, as best he could and then through great effort, started slogging his way out of the draining ditch.

Go you piece of shit, GO! he yelled to himself.  Moving through the waist-high, then knee deep water seemed to take an eternity.  He needed momentum.  He needed speed.  He needed to move his ass and get the CUCV RFN!  Bradley Holden Bryce had always pushed himself to be the best - at taking care of Bradley Holden Bryce.  He did so again, forcing himself to dash towards Bradley's Ark once clear of the sump pool and drainage ditch.

"Get off the X and out of the kill zone," he muttered as he pulled open the vehicle door, took his position behind the wheel, and reached down to start the ersatz-jeep.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:40, Sun 21 Nov 2021.

The GMC's V8 roared to life. Bryce threw the truck into gear and took off with a screech of rubber on concrete. He was wheeling his way out of the lot next to the warehouse when tracers began passing through the tents to strike the side of the warehouse. There was the air-cracking pops of the hyper velocity rounds passing close to the CUCV that was immediately followed by the loud popping of high explosive rounds against the crumbling concrete wall.

Chancing a glance to his left, curiosity got the better of Bryce. How could they be firing on him as he fled the from the opposite side of the building from him. He spotted the trouble immediately. There was a single BRT-90 rumbling across a field about seven hundred meters away. They were flanking the depot!

"Son of a..." Bryce said, seeing the Soviet APC.  The feeling of dread took the wind out of his sails - he couldn't even finish his thought.  He'd survived that damned irrigation ditch, just to bow get murdered by heavy weapons fire.

I'm gonna make you work for it, he thought to himself.  He floored the CUCV and pulled an HC smoke off his webbing and after opening the window, he pulled the pin and tossed the smoke.  Any distraction at this point might help.

By now the CUCV was moving at good clip.  Diesel didn't accelerate like gas, but it had good torque and hauling capacity, which the Lieutenant was putting to the test.  Pushing the CUCV as hard as he could, Bryce tried to put as much distance between himself and the flanking Soviet vehicle as possible.