During world war two, the same battalion that I command now was cut off during the German Invasion. Outnumbered and out gunned the battalion fought till they were all dead. They paid a heavy price and the Germans suffered appalling casualties.
A few hours later and history is repeating itself.
When I order my gunner to fire, I destroy a Chinese tank. But there are thousands of these things that my battalion is fighting. And there are thousands more coming. Our reinforcements are being delayed as the Chinese throw human waves at them.
My air supports is being mauled by anti aircraft batteries.
I watch as a helicopter gunship fires a anti tank missile at a Type95, it destroys the tank instantly but it is being targeted by Chinese Surface to Air missiles.
Frantically the pilot discharges counter measures intended to lower the heat and radar signature. He is too late as a missile slams into the cockpit and decapitates him before turning the helicopter into a fireball.
I shield my eyes as it explodes, a red ball of fire in the middle of a white snowy environment.
Even in the afternoon it is still snowing.
“Colonel we are running low on Armour piercing rounds”. My gunner reports as he discharges another shot into a enemy tank.
I say nothing as I get a vision of a shell hitting the turret and penetrating. The shell is going to come from the left in six seconds.
“Driver turn left now”. I order.
Sure enough the shell hits our front armour instead of the side and bounces off.
This occurrence has been happening for a while now.
“This is tank 403, we are cut off and surrounded on highway 666, we are going down fighting”. I have been hearing stuff like this all day.
I only have twenty tanks left out of hundreds, we have enacted a heavy toll on the Chinese but we will fail our objective. The enemy will get to Shanghai unless Plan “B” is deployed.
“Gunner, 20 degrees, fire”. I order, spotting a moving target.
A second later we destroy it completely, another hulking piece of burning metal dots the horizon.
The Chinese retaliate and destroy the tank next to mine.
The shot penetrates the engine compartment and the tank sets on fire, burning the crew as they struggle to get out.
A second later the T-99 explodes. I have nineteen tanks left and exhausted crews.
“Infantry are trying to disable our tracks, keep a watch out we ARGHHHHHH!”. The radio cuts off as yet another tank explodes, this time by Chinese infantry.
I get out of the turret and man a 12.7mm machine gun.
Gripping the handle and pulling the trigger, I enact revenge and move the fuckers down.
They die quickly, I then look to the left and see a vast armada of new armoured divisions approaching us. Thousands of tanks fire on the move, most of them miss but the volley of shots reduce my remaining force to about six.
We cannot win at this rate. Grudgingly I get on the radio and call the General. My hands sweat despite the cold.
“General, I have failed”. I bluntly say as soon as he picks up.
“Roger that, Dead Mans Hand will soon be operational. You will not die in vain colonel”. He replies, I swear he relents for a moment but then the radio cuts off.
I need to say something to my men.
“This is your colonel speaking, we have failed our task. But we will win this war, remember no surrender”. I speak a short sentence.
Then we get penetrated.
The red hot shells hits the turret armour,plunges through the multiple layers of protection then explodes inside the turret.
The gunners head is pulped like a pumpkin as razor sharp fragments destroy him.
I swear the driver screamed a death scream before he was decimated by the front exploding.
Its just me now, in a wreck of a tank.
My gunners dead.
My drivers dead.
The amour is penetrated.
The autoloader has been destroyed.
There are still shells left and the gun is working fine.
I am not going down so easily.
30 seconds later I had loaded a shell in and found my first target by looking through the thermal sights. Its signature matches a Type-99.
I pull the trigger and the gun roars, the black blast deafens me as the shell casing flies out of the back of the turret and the shell hits its target. Melting the tank and roasting the crew.
My hands grip the next shell, its not heavy but the weight is enough to make me strain as I load it into the gun.
I finish quickly in fifteen seconds and swivel the turret round. Since the electrical system has been jammed I am forced to hand crank it. I find another target and destroy it with the push of a button.
“Operation Dead Mans hand is now in action, I repeat operation Dead Mans is operational. All units retreat”. The still working radio reports.
A few seconds later and the world turns black. I feel my body become a flaming torch as I fight the blackness and clamber out of the turret, my clothes on fire as the tank blows up.
“Dead Mans hand” is a electro magnetic pulse that disables anything electrical.
That’s when I realise that its not snowing.
There are no tanks or destroyed helicopters.
There’s fuckloads of Chinese.
This new place looks weird, and cartoony, where the fuck am I?