If You Want Peace, Prepare For War

by tranhdxrbntd

The More You Sweat in Peace, the Less You Bleed in War.

We all returned to Ponyville. The three of us, with heavy hearts, brought Logan's body back to be buried. Even though we were leaving the battlefield, every pony understood the sentiment. We decided to bury him at the edge of the Everfree Forest, where he and the rest of us hunted and personally trained. It was a private affair, just the three of us, as we gave Logan the honors he earned from paying the ultimate price. He went into the ground in his combat uniform and gear, along with his Mosin sniper rifle.

From there, we got ready for the takeover of Fillydelphia. Fillydelphia was left in the hands of the REA and they had started to harass the city. While we had stopped the griffon advance dead in its tracks, that didn't mean it would be an easy victory. The griffons were dug in deep in the city with defenses that had been built up and continuously reinforced over years of war. They easily had the manpower and firepower to continue holding it if they wanted. Currently, the REA was just making sure the griffons didn't expand where they were. Any attempts to move forward would be met with artillery strikes and machine gun fire. Unfortunately, between the defenses there and the griffon's holdings in Manehattan, any damage done would be quickly undone. The Equestrians blockaded the entire eastern coast of Equestria but the griffons were still able to occasionally get through with their airships or naval ships to bring in fresh reinforcements or supplies.

We needed to recuperate. While Tran had miraculously recovered from his wounds, that didn't mean everyone else was. Rainbow Dash's had broken her wing fighting with Gilda, Gilda had a nasty neck wound from being hit with bullet splash when she was shot by Tran, Prince Blueblood had a broken horn and lots of minor battle damage, and so on and so on. Wilson and Eric, while they weren't shot, all had gashes from running around in the field or had shrapnel injuries from explosions, along with many other ponies.

Since Tran was in perfect health, he worked on rebuilding their supplies. He made a copy of his bazooka and several dozen high explosive rockets for him and the second rocketeer to use. While the ideal scenario would be to get Equestria to adopt the bazooka as a weapon, it would be too much of a hassle, as getting the production and tooling of it started would be too much of a drain on Equestria's war effort and economy. Since they were now down a man in terms of firepower, Tran decided to significantly modify Eric's primary rifle. Eric's AK74 was a good rifle and all but it could be better. Tran changed out the barrel to one with a much heavier profile so that it could be fired more before overheating. Since this AK74 was Eric's personal civilian rifle from their original life, it was semi auto. That was easily changed. Now, being full auto, with a heavier profile barrel, the other natural step to take was to give it larger magazines. Tran made several dozen 100 round drums for Eric to use though he'd realistically carry three or four in the field.

Since Eric now held the team's primary machine gunner position, he was the source of the most mobile firepower. Everyone else's role was to support him. In infantry combat, the machine gun is the highest casualty producing weapon of a fire team. Eric and the other two knew this so they would have to practice their new roles. Luckily, they had the time.

Tran, Eric, and Wilson had to train, and train they did. They didn't just have to train their own roles, they had to train others for their future roles. Once they were settled back in Ponyville, they found themselves amongst the company of a lot of new faces. It was decided that a battalion of soldiers were to be led by the humans, as decided by several of the royal rulers of Equestria. Spitfire was reassigned to the humans to help them lead the battalion, with assistance from Soarin, who was recommissioned into the REA despite his physical handicaps. Gilda was also commissioned into the REA despite the fact that she was a former Jaeger of the Imperial Griffon Air Force. Rainbow Dash was a big proponents of Gilda's commissioning and no pony could do anything against the Elements of Harmony.

The leaders and officers that led and ran the battalion that were assigned to the humans were familiar faces. Many of them were the former crewmembers of the Dauntless. Since they no longer had the Dauntless, they had to do something else and after what they went through, they were happy to work with the humans again. Now, this was a secret to the rest of the REA, half of the soldiers of that battalion were secretly changelings. The other portion were normal REA soldiers but they weren't let in on the secret. Mixed in with the ponies and changelings were zebras, who's population did not have much of a negative view towards changelings because of a lack of many interactions with them, and several dozen yaks, freshly brought in from Yakyakistan. Also, coming from the north, Prince Shining Armor tried to include crystal pony guards but the offer was refused, as they weren't very experienced in modern combat and training as they were still recovering from the Crystal Empire's return from being sealed for 1000 years. Realistically speaking, actual ponies only made up somewhere from a quarter to half the battalion.

This battalion that the humans ran was very much an experimental venture. It was an attempt to see if the changelings could be trusted or if the yak's warriors could properly fight with the REA. The humans weren't going to train them in how the REA normally fought or performed, they would be trained in the true modern combat that the humans were experienced with. Each of the humans trained their own sections. Wilson was training a significant number of the changelings in how to be proper combat medics. Eric was training the yaks, the earth ponies of the battalion, and many of the unicorns in how to be infantry fire teams, squads that would be centered around the machine gun. Tran was training changelings (disguised as pegasi), actual REA pegasi, and REA zebras in how to be scouts and the battalion's air support.

From the human world, in final moments of WWI, every country figured out the best way to fight battles instead of just shelling each other and then sending waves of infantry to their deaths. Modern wars was best fought with combined arms, which was the idea of integrating infantry with air support, artillery, and armor backing the infantry. Unfortunately, the REA didn't have real armor (IE tanks), but the closest they could get were yaks covered in enough steel to stop small arms rifle and carrying a cannon and or a machine gun. Fortunately, that meant that the ad hoc "tanks" was much more mobile and could hide and move much better than a slow lumbering tank. Painfully, the IGAF had the REA beat in terms of armor. They had allied themselves with dragons which were completely immune to small arms fire when they were in a full sized form. Fortunately, the yaks carried small cannons which were likely to be able to injure the dragons and the humans now had anti tank bazookas which both the REA and IGAF had never experienced before.

With the humans, they had their cadre of ponies of help train their soldiers. Eric had Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Blueblood to help him train his infantry and armor. Wilson had the assistance of Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pharynx to help train his medics. Tran had Rainbow Dash, Gilda, Spitfire, and Soarin to help train his scouts and air support. The battalion had two months before they would be put in their trial by fire, a battle. They would partake in the next major offensive, when the REA would attempt to retake Fillydelphia back. Until then, Fillydelphia and Manehattan would be continuously watched and all of the forces and defenses built around them would just carry out a holding action. The REA was slowly building up forces and supplies to replace previously loss ones from the past months.

For now, only a week had passed and things had barely been setup.

-X-X-X-

Gilda flew through the air, acting as the OPFOR (the opposing force in a training scenario). Somewhere else, two pegasi (actually one changeling and one pegasus) flew through the air, acting as scouts. Both sides did not know the locations of each other. Griffons were natural predators and ponies were natural prey. Because of this, griffons sported larger eagle's wings and could turn better. Unlike them, pegasi had smaller wings but could fly much faster.

The two airborne pegasi spotted Gilda in the air and sped up to apprehend the enemy. One of the pegasi (the actual pegasus) shot forward and passed by Gilda. Gilda, smiled, and started flapping her wings faster to get ready to attack, readying her submachine gun with bayonet attached. As she chased after her target, she heard a gunshot from behind her. She groaned as she realized what had happened. The other pegasus (a changeling) had a shotgun in his hooves and he pumped it, ejecting the spent blank.

From the ground, Tran and Rainbow Dash was watching them. "Exercise end!" Tran yelled out with a megaphone.

All three airborne fliers flew down to the ground over to their two coaches. Gilda frowned and slung her submachine gun over her shoulder. "BOOR-ing. Didn't even merge with me," Gilda grumbled out. The two pegasi hi-fived each to celebrate their victory.

Rainbow Dash trotted over to the two pegasus and joined in on the high fiving. "NNN-ICE. You two just managed to beat a Jaeger at dogfighting," she declared.

Gilda threw her hands into the air. "That wasn't a dog fight! That was just a bait N switch!" she complained.

Tran set the megaphone down and wrote something down on a clipboard. "Safety over glory. Doesn't matter," Tran stated.

Gilda continued her grumbling. "Still wasn't a dogfight," she said again.

Tran looked at the two pegasi who were in full combat gear. Both were wielding pump action shotguns. That was gonna be their standard combat weapon. Instead of having to setup a new supply line that would cost lots of money to equip these fliers, the air support troops that Tran were using 12 gauge pump action shotguns that were commercially bought. The shotguns fired standard 12 gauge #4 buckshot to deal with griffons. They didn't have to kill a griffon, they just had to knock them out of the air and just being hit by any of the #4 pellets could do that.

As for air support, they also carried bombs that were meant to bombard ground based targets. These bombs were just standard mortar shells that they would drop, so the REA didn't have to start a factory building a new weapon to use. There were two sizes of bombs to use, a standard weight and then a heavy bomb. The standard weight bomb was a 60mm mortar shell that weighed 2.5 kilograms and had a possible lethal blast radius of 12 meters. It was a respectable bomb. As for the heavy bomb, it was a 81mm mortar shell that weighed 5 kilograms and had a possible lethal blast radius of 35 meters.

There were 3 standard bomb loadouts that these scout bombers would carry. There was a bombardment loadout where they're carry 14 light shells in order to bomb multiple light targets. Then, there was the most common loadout, where they're carry 8 light shells and 2 heavy shells which let them bomb targets as needed with choice of bomb. Then, there was the heavy loadout, where they'd carry 6 heavy bombs, if there was a many hardened or large targets. When bombs were dropped, the fliers would always drop two bombs at a time, as the bombs were evenly split carried half on each side of their body. If they dropped a single bomb at a time, the weight difference from being offset could affect their ability to fly. To clarify, not all scouts carried bombs, only scout bombers. These scout bombers would always be protected by a pair of fliers because they couldn't fly as fast or bank as well as a non-scout bomber.

Tran dismissed the two scouts and got things ready for a fresh exercise. Gilda shot into the air and flew a good distance as the next two scouts (also a pegasus and a disguised changeling) stood in front of Tran. "This exercise. We will practice break-off. Approach the enemy and let her engage you. On the spot, both of you will have to decide which one of you will be the lead and which one will be the pursuit," Tran explained. This time, they were to practice disengaging with the enemy before reengaging. It was basically a exercise in how to effectively leave the enemy alive so that both could survive to actually win the fight.

As the next two fliers shot into the air, an unknown pegasus touched down in the present of Tran and Rainbow Dash. Tran immediately recognized the new pegasus as a disguised changeling while Rainbow Dash was none the wiser. This pegasus did not look like he was here to shoot the shit. This changeling was wearing the standard REA uniform so Tran guessed that this changeling was a messenger from the changelings. "I have been ordered to let you know that your headquarters has been broken into," the messenger told the two. "It is to be believed that rogue changelings, Chrysalis's, was the culprit. The Equestrian Secret Service is already on site."

Rainbow Dash shot into the air in anger. "Celestia-damned spies!" she exclaimed.

Tran looked at the blue mare. "Take charge here," Tran said before he walked off in the direction of his home.

-X-X-X-

The human's headquarters was the home where the four (three now) humans lived. It was also where Tran's personal workshop and lab was. It had been where Tran had made/modified his and the other's weapons. It had Tran's personal notes and thoughts on their weapons and new weapons and ideas to be made in the future. It was also where the other humans had their plans for the Equestrian military, in terms of training and war strategy. There was a lot of possible intel that could be gathered from it.

Upon arriving to the headquarters, Tran found many REA guards protecting it and many Equestrian Secret Service personnel roaming about. He went to the entrance where two REA unicorns were guarding the door and they did indeed stop the human. The REA guards guarding it looked up and down at the human. Tran recognized both as disguised changelings and they lit their horns and a magical wave went across Tran. After the scan, one of the guards opened up the door for Tran. "Sir," the other guard said while saluting.

Tran ignored the soldier and walked inside. There were more Equestrian Secret Service personnel running about and most of them froze when the human stepped inside. Tran ignored them and made his way to his workshop, where all of his tools, and bits of metal scraps and projects were lying about in various states of mess. This very room had even more Equestrian Secret Service personnel roaming about along with a single REA officer. All of them were either scanning things with magical tools or with their horns.

The one REA officer in the room walked up to Tran to greet him. This officer was a major, one that Tran had met before. "It was definitely changelings that did this," the officer reported. The officer walked closer to Tran. "Don't let them know," the officer whispered.

"Pharynx," Tran greeted. He stepped away from the officer and looked around at his room. Nothing was missing but some stuff had been moved. "Found anything?" Tran asked.

The officer fished something out of a uniform pocket and handed it to Tran. It was a crystal, one that was dull in color. "Some listening devices. Nothing else. We're scanning every inch of this room." The centerpiece to this room was a large workbench, one that had many papers, notebooks, and drafts of prototypes for weapons or other ideas for the humans to use. Tran looked through his papers to make sure everything was there. Nothing was missing, but some of the papers definitely had been flipped through, some pages of notebooks having been marred from being touched by a hoof. Pharynx trotted up next to Tran and look at the papers and scrunched up his nose in confusion.

Luckily, when the humans arrived, the Equestrian language was identical to English, both in its spoken and written form. For personal things, Eric, Logan, and Wilson had written letters, entries in journals, and missives in English/Equestrian. However, for anything that was important to the human's assistance to the war effort, Tran was in charge of taking notes, no matter what level of importance. This was done so that no one (pony, griffon, changeling, etc.) could look at them and gather any intel.

When Tran wrote, it wasn't that he had encoded all of their important information. Tran had written very plainly and everything was obviously written down exactly as it was. However, Tran didn't write in English/Equestrian. Instead, Tran had written in his native language... And in four other languages, including two different types of foreign short hand. There weren't even standard numeral characters, Tran had written numbers in Chinese Kanji or Arabic symbols. Tran looked at Pharynx. "I doubt they were able to gather any info," Tran said, flipping through his papers.

Author's Note:

I still havent died yet so I'll keep on writing. Here's another chapter for all y'all. Please leave a comment, I love reading them all! If its about the story, go ahead and ask. If you want to ask something about me, go right on ahead. If you spot an error, please let me know.

Also, Make sure you vote on the poll that I mentioned last week. Should I go with a pony or a griffon character? I still won't say what this character is but its important so make sure you vote in the comments!

Comments

[Eroraf86]

Sometimes the best code is a language you know your enemy doesn't know. Unless Chrysalis has a linguist…

[Jmunoz13]

pony.

[Starcat5]

The first third of this chapter gave me a headache. It is clearly done from the perspective of one of the humans but which one is never stated. Through trial and elimination, I think it was Eric. But I can't be sure, because of the aforementioned headache being real and not an exaggeration for effect. No, seriously, please fix that.

[Hillbe]

Eris Discords sister comes to visit A Shecord?

So how's it going? Precious Scales!

Spies always spies

Spy VS spy Are you mad? MAD as a magazine

Another human? Rambo? John Rambo?

[JadeDaUnicorn]

Using different languages to throw off any potential thieves? Smart move, Tran.

[SuperSaiyanDiclonius]

Imagine if he had wrote his notes in Klingon?

[SuperSaiyanDiclonius]

I'd like to shoot an idea your way. The Pegasai can manipulate the whether to a degree, and while I'm sure Griffins wouldn't allow them to place storm clouds over their fortifications, the could use this to bog down troop movements or supply lines.

They could also use dark clouds to conceal troop movement under the cover of night to obscure the moon and stars which would make night bombings extremely effective.

[tranhdxrbntd]

11817831

the version of equestria where its involved in a world war and when most of the paperwork is about people dying or sending people to there deaths, i'd say so

[tranhdxrbntd]

11817626

images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/1b01de2c-52b9-40c2-8e77-2aab08642b29/d5fnhfl-d985aebb-82c6-47b0-b3c5-a2788f5a848e.png/v1/fill/w_200,h_88,q_80,strp/custer_revolver___10x18mm_pony_express_by_dreamlander4chan_d5fnhfl-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9ODgiLCJwYXRoIjoiXC9mXC8xYjAxZGUyYy01MmI5LTQwYzItOGU3Ny0yYWFiMDg2NDJiMjlcL2Q1Zm5oZmwtZDk4NWFlYmItODJjNi00N2IwLWIzYzUtYTI3ODhmNWE4NDhlLnBuZyIsIndpZHRoIjoiPD0yMDAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.a9RSzz6TrqV_bVG_eD9hy5-PJUkCpQP5fVEyVpsnNm0

i'm imagining the guns look like this but with a big trigger guard around the whole grip

and held like so

derpicdn.net/img/2022/7/7/2902587/full.png

[tranhdxrbntd]

11826033
Would you like to be an editor?

[AgentKorpsman]

A red spy is in the base?!

[Wartank55]

Eric's AK74 was a good rifle and all but it could be better.

Nyet Rifle is Fine