The Let's Play Archive

7.62mm

by Squint

Part 13: Session 011: Purge




Session 011: Purge

Day 13, 1717



Frustrated with my meeting with Caderas, I decided to move us into a more lawless area to try and scare up a bit more of the "competence" we'd need to keep up with our work.

I remembered the rather ballsy bandit honcho up in Olvidad who operated with impunity inside the city limits. I figured that the local militia wouldn't say boo to seeing a bunch of common thugs removed from their community. The fact that their equipment was the best I'd seen yet in the country had nothing to do with it. Nope, not one bit.

Day 13, 1840



"So what's the job, boss?" asked Torpedo as we parked the GAZ and dismounted.

"I'm in a charitable mood, Torpedo," I said. "I think the Robin Hood syndrome that Black is suffering from down in Ciudad de Oro rubbed off on me. We're going to take from the undeserving and give to ourselves, and do some good in the process." I looked back at my team and smiled knowingly.

"A raid, then!" cried iastudent. "It makes my blood sing!"

Deadmeat played with the bolt on her rifle. "Who's the mark?" she asked.

"Carlos Montega's gang," I said plainly. "I talked with him the last time we were here. He claimed they were anti-government militia, but the people actually patrolling the perimeter had no need for the ski masks he hand his boys were wearing, not to mention they don't have the same firepower. They're not rebels and they're not government; they're just thieves."

Scotch nodded. "It makes sense. More than likely they're bleeding this town dry through protection money. They have nicer stuff than anybody else around here."

"You all stop in the bar to stretch a bit and check your weapons," I said, "I'll scout his hut and see how best to handle his forces."



There was a younger man in the bar who was not dressed in the same khaki flak vest and dark trousers of the Olvidad town guard. He was wearing last-generation US-issue BDUs and his high-and-tight haircut was still short enough to be considered regulation.

"BDU" stands for Battle Dress Uniform and is used as a noun for the camouflage pattern used by the US military between 1981 and 2005. "High-and-tight" is a catch-all term for a military-regulation haircut, usually involving the sides of the head being shaved with the top of the head having hair kept around 1/4 of an inch long.

"How long you been out?" I asked him.

"Too long," he said, nodding to me. "I need the action. Need to get back into it. Keep my KDR up."

"KDR?" I wondered out loud.

"Kill-death ratio," he said to me as though I'd come from the moon. "It's going well so far but it could be better, you know? There's dudes out there with higher KDRs than me. Gotta beat 'em."

He seemed to have a rather maladjusted sense of reality, but with the company I'd been keeping lately I wasn't one to talk. I decided to make a note of where he was in case I needed him down the line.

"Well, D lurks around every corner, and I may need some help racking up Ks, so I'll keep in touch."

The man nodded. "Just ask for the Solo-wing Pixy," he said, adding "It's kind of my handle."

"Yeah, I uh... figured it was. Solowing it is, then." I said before excusing myself to the door, taking it upon myself to appropriate-up the nickname a bit.



While scouting, I could see that Montega's men were complacent. There were several of them, but with the weeks of boring guard duty after their boss had set up shop, they weren't exactly in a high state of alert. We'd be able to walk right up to them and chat before blowing them away, which suited me just fine. There were three abreast guarding the eastern side of the hut.






Three on the northern side. Two of them were hanging close to the steps leading onto the porch with the third lounging in the shade of a nearby tree.



On the southern side, there were two watching the porch, one with line-of-sight on the door inside. That made eight on the outside of the hut with unknown numbers on the inside, but the last time we had been in Olvidad, Montega had only had one bodyguard inside with him. I decided to listen to Murphy and figure on three people being inside the hut, including Montega.

I wanted to let the town militia know what I had planned, but the risk was too great that one or more of them would be in Montega's pocket and give us away. With the layout internalized, I returned to the bar and quietly laid out the plan to my team.



"I want Deadmeat on the southeast, near the church. Set up in a place where you can aim easily at both the southern and eastern guard elements. Your job will be to pick off the guys who just don't want to go down. Wait for the first exchange of gunfire and see who's left standing."



"Torpedo, it's time to show off those massive balls. You're going to be on the eastern side of the hut in enfilade with all three of the guards there. Make some small talk with the guard nearest you. If he gets annoyed, feign ignorance. Just keep yourself close to him until the signal. When you get the signal, dump your magazine into all three of them. If you need to reload before they're all dead, fall back around the corner. Deadmeat should be able to mop up."

"Enfilade" is a little tricky to explain, but essentially it's the direction at which outgoing fire will intersect with the greatest number of individual units in a force. It doesn't matter which direction the force is facing, just how its units are arranged. The goal of most flanking maneuvers is to achieve enfilade on an opposing firing line.





"Scotch, same deal with you, only you'll be taking care of the two hugging the northern wall of the hut. At the signal, raise your shotgun and introduce some sunlight to their insides."



"I'll be handling the two on the south, using the corner of the hospital as cover. After they've been neutralized I'll cover the door to the hut and make sure anybody who runs outside doesn't survive."



"iastudent, you'll be the one to kick us off. I want you to do what you do best: walk up to the odd man out in the northern corner and cut him down, then scream as loud as you can. Everyone, the scream will be the signal. It should only buy us a moment of confusion, but if this goes as planned that's all we'll need given our proximity. Hit them hard and fast, and don't let your guard down until they've all stopped moving. After the outside guard detail is taken care of, we'll clear the hut. The militia will be watching us, so if you hit any civilians we're going to be in a world of trouble. Any questions?"

"I know all I need to," said Torpedo. "Let's kick some ass!"

The team got into their positions and I waited by the hospital, my heart starting to beat faster. I could hear Torpedo's faint casual swearing down by the hut, and only a moment later-



-came iastudent's triumphant scream.



I heard the muffled blast of Scotch's shotgun separating a man at the waist.



Then another blast, and another bad guy down.



Torpedo opened up into his trio, the only sound the rapid clicking of the bolt of his suppressed MP5 and the wet splatting sounds of multiple 9mm rounds filling his targets.



I popped around the corner and aimed as fast as I comfortably could, putting a couple of rounds into the man to my left and then putting a couple more into the man to my right. I saw the hut door swing open. Another bandit almost stepped out into my field of fire, but he wisely decided to step back and garrison up inside.



I ran dry. With my two targets on their heels and the doorway to the hut suppressed, I ducked back behind the hospital to change magazines.



The booming report of Deadmeat's Mosin-Nagant told me that one of my targets had still been on his feet.



When I turned back out from cover again, I saw Scotch running down the eastern side of the hut. Torpedo had disappeared, probably around the northern corner to reload.


Look at the UI in the screenshot above and you'll see that Scotch has taken locational damage to his right leg. Leg damage reduces a mercenary to only being able to crawl-he cannot crouch or stand up, even if he remains stationary.

One of the wounded guards Scotch ran by still had some pluck, grabbing by him the leg as he passed. Scotch tripped and fell to the ground, dropping his Benelli and grunting loudly in pain. I tried to aim at the enemy who had tripped him, but they were both prone now and I didn't want to risk hitting Scotch.



"You fucking son of a bitch, that hurt!" shouted Scotch. It was the first time I could remember hearing the mild-mannered Dane swear. I saw iastudent sprint up from out of the shady corner and plunge his knife down into the offender's skull, laughing wildly.

"It is all right now, brother, he has the splitting headache!"

Scotch was too busy rubbing a twisted ankle to join in iastudent's laughter. With Scotch unable to walk for the time being, we would have to clear the hut without the use of a shotgun. It was a less-than-ideal situation, but doable.

I ran across the open ground to the eastern side of the hut, pausing at Scotch and patting him on the shoulder. I handed him his shotgun.

"Stay low and don't move," I said quietly. "You did good, man, we'll take care of the rest!" Scotch looked up at me and nodded, a pained grimace on his face. I looked up at iastudent.

"Get up onto the porch on the south side of the hut, and have a grenade ready."

iastudent grinned and rushed past me.


Scotch fired that shot right into the prone bandit's crotch. The three points of damage finished him off. I guess that's one per ball, and one for the dick.

I met up with Torpedo on the northern side of the hut, where I told him that Scotch was out of the fight and we'd have to clear the building without him.

"Sucks, man. He okay?"

"Twisted ankle. He can't put weight on it but he'll live."

As if to punctuate my sentence, I heard a shotgun blast around the corner followed by Scotch yelling "That's what you get, you bastard! Now you're dead and you have no balls!"

"Good to hear. Let's do him proud, man." Torpedo held out his fist and I couldn't resist. I fistbumped.



We entered the porch on the northern side. I looked around the corner and saw iastudent already in position. Things had quieted down a great deal now that nobody was shooting-I figured the last few bandits would try to cut us down in the doorway. Well, we'd just send a little round scout in ahead of us to see what was up. I nodded to iastudent.



The viking whipped around the corner and gave his cooked grenade a short underhand toss, getting back around the corner before it blew.


One neat thing about fragmentation explosives in 7.62mm is that they don't do generic splash damage. Much like real life, there is a relatively small concussive blast and a much larger dispersion of actual fragments, as seen above. We were lucky to catch this grenade as it was still scattering its fragments, which makes for an awesome screenshot.


Yellow question marks like the one here denote the approximate position of a person. Usually it's due to a mercenary (in this case, Torpedo) hearing something that gives away an enemy's general location.

I heard a muffled voice swear in Spanish inside the hut. Torpedo must have heard it even better than I did-



-because he immediately dumped half of his magazine into the wall he was standing beside.



"If he's still in there, he ain't happy," he said with a small smile. I rolled my eyes as I rushed the door, slicing my way inside.



I caught a bodyguard still reeling from the dozens of fragments lodged in his side. I helped him to forget about the grenade. The rest of the hut was empty, save for the one uncleared corner in the back which Torpedo had hosed down.



It was Carlos Montega, and he was the last one alive! Torpedo had winged him through the wall, but he still needed some persuasion to go ahead and die. He outdrew me, putting two shots square into my vest.



It felt like I was wearing a shirt with glowing rivets for buttons, but in that instant, Carlos had obviously been expecting me to go down. That was all the time I needed. I put a burst into his chest, walking the shots up his torso and into his throat, and he slumped back against the wall, quite dead.

I stumbled out of the hut, wheezing. Torpedo helped me over to the hospital while iastudent gave Scotch his shoulder.



I only had very mild blunt trauma to my chest and Scotch didn't actually have a twisted ankle, just a sprain. Some ice and a good tight taping put him good as new. While we rested in the hospital, the other three picked through the Olvidad's bandits' belongings.


Awesome haul from this little raid! First up is our first assault rifle, the M14! Designed and produced starting in the 1950s as a replacement for the M1 Garand, the M14 served briefly in Vietnam before being replaced by the M16. More recently it has gone on to become a designated marksman rifle. It fires 7.62x51mm rifle rounds in single fire or fully automatic, but controllability is low in the latter setting.


We also picked up a civilian version of the M14, the M1A, made by Springfield Armory. The main difference between the two weapons is the lack of full-auto option on the M1A. Still an outstanding rifle.


Now here's a treat, a Springfield Armory M1A Scout Squad rifle. With a barrel four inches shorter than the standard M1A, it still has the ability to make those longer shots, which is good for us, because it comes with a Picatinny rail ready to accept long-eye-relief optics. The ACOG has found a new home.


For the gangsta and the gangsta at heart, we've come across an American-made Ingram MAC-10, the last word in patented Wall-o'-Bullets™ technology. Think of it as a Mini Uzi that fires .45ACP rounds. Ouch! Of course, controllability is laughable when spraying, but if someone is up close to the merc using it, they won't have much time to laugh. Just in case it isn't compact enough, the skeleton buttstock also folds up.


Interesting! One of the bandits was toting a Thompson M1A1, the submachine gun used by US and certain other Allied forces during World War II. It fires .45ACP at full-auto, but at a slower rate than the MAC-10, making it more controllable overall. At 20 rounds per magazine, capacity is lower as well, however.


This is the full-size Uzi submachine gun. It sports a lower rate of fire than the Mini Uzi and Micro Uzi, but it is much more controllable and better balanced. Like its little brothers, this Uzi has a foldable stock.


We also found a bayonet that will fit on H&K's G3 series of rifles.

Oh, by the way: there were also four IIA vests! Better protection for all! The next order of business is to go pick up iamsmike, though we're at the mercy of when he'll randomly appear in Campesino next.

Since our arsenal has expanded quite well with this session, active mercenaries (and iamsmike) can now post with their weapon preferences. The only reservation to be made is that the Scout Squad/ACOG will go to Deadmeat, since she has the highest Sniping skill at the moment. Keep your stats in mind when considering what you want! If you want to keep using what you have already, that's fine too. We have two M14s but only one of everything else.