Ghost of Normanedy

by jt45fan

Chapter 1: The Day of Days

Chapter 1: The Day of Days
June 6th 1944, 0600 hours
Two and a half years later…

The landing craft plowed through the choppy seas in the English Channel, staying its course. In less than a half an hour, I would by landing in Normanedy, on the northern coast of Prance. The ponies of Prance had been living under the yolk of an oppressive occupation for almost four years now, since their leaders surrendered to the invading forces from Germaney. Four years of occupation under a cruel oppressor. But if the Generals plan worked, that would all change today. At least for some of them. We were sailing towards a beach in Normanedy that the general named Omaha. My squad and the others on the craft would land and take the beach so the blockships could be sunk it form harbors.

I looked at the squad I was commanding, which was surprising given that I had seen no combat on the only active theater of war in my countries military, the Istallion peninsula. My second in command, and my best friend, Big Ben was looking over a map of the landing zone. The draftee, a whiney, playboy unicorn named Blueblood, was hollering at a career solder they put under my command, Big Mac. Razor Wind, a pegasus like myself, with a pair of scissors as a cuitemark, and Denver Bronco, an earth pony college football player, with a helmet cuitemark, were engaged in cleaning their M1 rifles. The last pony under his command was another pegasus, named Rainbow Blitz. There was something clearly different with him. He wore a short cropped rainbow colored mane and a heavy jacket, despite the sixty degree weather. He was smaller than the ponies in the squad, but was by far the most eager to get into combat. But today the cockiness that dominated his swagger was gone.

I walked over to him, to see what was troubling him. As I walk over to see him, I walked past Big Ben, who called me over to his table of maps. “What do you want?” I asked impatiently. I could not track Rainbow Blitz’s movements in the crowd I joined.

“Look at these obstacles between the beach and the cliffs.” he pointed out at the map which showed tank traps and machine gun nest littering the beach. “And then there is the artillery on top of the cliffs. We’re going to get blow apart!”

“We can do this if we believe we can.” I said trying to calm him down. “Never doubt the strength of a determined pony.”

At that point I left him to continue my walk towards the nervous pony under my command, this time passing the still arguing Big Mac and Blueblood. I could hear Blueblood saying “… but it’s so uncouth. Why do you not hire workers to do it for you?”

“Because we made what we did on hard work.” Big Mac responded trying to not get to mad. “That is something that you wouldn’t understand.” I left before Blueblood could say anymore. I knew Big Mac was intelligent from the moment he reported for duty. What I didn’t know at the time was how wealthy he was, his family owning most of the apple orchards east of the Mississippi.

As I passed Razor and Denver, both said that they were proud to be under my command. I nodded back at them and continued my walk to the nervous pony, who was now at the edge of the ship. “What’s the matter private?” I asked, catching him off guard, causing him to jump many feet into the air.

“Nothing” Rainbow Blitz responded to me after getting up from the deck of the craft.

I was about to press for more answers but the commander of the craft bellowed “Offices gather your troops and get to your designated area!”

“You better follow me.” I said to the cyan pony under my command, and I walked in the direction I came from, getting Razor Wind and Denver Bronco to follow me as well. When I got to the designated staging area, Big Ben was already there with the rest of the squad. Looked at them and said in loud voice “Now is the day that we make history!” At that point a column of water shot up next to the boat. “When the door lowers, run to a tank trap. Then provide cover so all the other ponies can get off the transport. After that regroup and charge the nearest machine gun nest.” My command the yelled in unison and readied there weapons. “Big Ben, you take Blueblood and Big Mac.” I yelled over to Big Ben. “Denver, Razor, Rainbow, your with me.” The ship began to scrap the bottom of the beach. “Get ready!” More water was being shot up around the landing craft, the fire from the eighty-eight millimeter guns on top of the cliff getting more accurate by the shell.

The door of the landing craft opened, and all hell broke loose. Five MG-42 in our sector of the beach opened fire, and several snipers began firing from on top of the bluff. I ran out of the landing craft followed by Razor, Denver, and Rainbow towards several steel girders bent into tank traps. Ben and his men did the same in another direction. We took cover behind one of the traps as a medic, a yellow pegasus, ran off the landing craft. Moments later an artillery shell plunged from the heavens into the landing craft. There we several barrels of fuel that were going to be used to power the tanks once they made it ashore later. The fuel tanks exploded instantly, demolishing the landing craft and the few tank traps next to it, leaving only twisted metal.

Rainbow Blitz turned to try and run back to the landing craft, but I stopped him. “Don’t do it. We can’t help them now. And if you break cover now, you would get killed along with them.” At that point the medic ran to a tank trap, taking cover from the copious amount of ammunition expended at him. Or at least was what I thought was a him. As the medic drew closer I saw that it was, in fact, a mare. I then yelled at her “Get over here now!” she listened to me and ran over to my already crowded tank trap and looked around towards the now burning wreckage of the landing craft. “Don’t do it. I already yelled at him about it” as I motioned towards Rainbow Blitz. “Now tell me, what’s your name.”

“I’m Fluttershy” she said in voice so quite that I could barely hear it.

“Come again darling, I couldn’t hear you.” I said back to the quite pegasus.

“My name is Fluttershy” she said again at the same volume.

Ping! Razor turned around to reload his rifle and saw the medic for the first time. “Her name is Fluttershy, Sergeant!” he yelled over the gunfire behind him “I meet her on the dock, before we embarked. She is attached to Sergeant Wings squa- What happened to the LC sir!” he yelled after seeing the wreckage of the landing craft.

“It was hit by artillery. Now reload and take out that MG nest!” I ordered him. I then turned to Fluttershy and said calmly “Do you see the other ponies down the beach?” She nodded that she did. “Can you run this note to them and tell them it’s from Bullet Speed.” She nodded that she could.

At that point Rainbow Blitz turned around and said “I’ll escort her, sir.” He turned and fired another shot. Ping! He reloaded his rifle and asked “What do you think sarge?”

“I think it’s a good idea.” I responded. “But if you get hurt I’m not rushing off to save you.” Ping! Denver turned around and reloaded. “Now get moving! I need his response now!” I yelled at them and they took off down the beach towards Ben’s troops. “Denver! Get a grenade in that emplacement now!” he pulled the pin on the grenade and threw it into the MG nest. The machine gun crew ran from the dugout and ceased firing.

Razor fired on the retreating MG crew, yelling “And don’t come back!” Suddenly a sniper’s bullet whizzed by his head. He ducked behind the tank trap again. I looked at where Big Ben had his troops and saw that Rainbow and Fluttershy had made it there, and was giving him the note.

I turned about and saw a Germane solder running down the beach to intercept them, on their way back. I shouldered my rifle and took a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger. Time slowed down. I could see the bullet traveling between my M1 and where the Germane solder would be, the Germane being at full gallop across the shell cratered beach. I could see the ejected shell, tumbling through the air. Then time once again returned to normal. The pony running down the beach suddenly keeled over, blood spurting from his chest.

At that point I saw Rainbow Blitz running full steam at us, but no Fluttershy. As he returned I asked “Where’s the medic?”

He handed me a note and said “It’s all in here sir” in between pants for breath. I opened the note, which looked like it was written rapidly, but due to the situation that was perfectly excusable. On the folded paper was the sentence ‘Good idea, see you soon.’

I looked back at Rainbow and said “That doesn’t explain where Fluttershy is.” At this point I looked down to Ben’s troops and saw her tending to Blueblood. “Men!” I yelled, the two ponies who were fighting took cover and turned to face me. “When I tell you too, run to Ben’s troops.” They nodded. I said “Good. Now run!!” and we took off down the beach, fire from MG-42s cauing little puffs of sand to pop-up around us. After three minutes of running we slid behind the tank trap Ben was using for cover. Now all that needed to be decided was our next course of action.

Comments

[Pinkie_Pie765]

[Lamms]

uh i believe its Normandy not Normanedy

[jmlop0]

237762.....Do you not get the pun?NorMANEdy?

[Lamms]

237880 ah alright that makes more sense

[Shysoldier94]

Pretty good so far!
Faved, thumbed, and tracking

[Diamond Sparkle]

Fun. How would an earth pony use a rifle without fingers?

[You Shall Not Pass]

239393
My thoughts precisely. It's a little hard to use an M1 Garand with hooves.
This leads me to my general critique for this story. Mechanically, it's fine, but the concept is lacking. It's just D-Day with ponies, and nothing else is different. All the ponies are using weapons designed for humans. The pegasi are just sitting in landing craft and getting shot with everyone else as the ramp lowers, when they could and should be taking advantage of their wings – flying troops would be an excellent distraction and allow the ground pounders to land with fewer casualties. The unicorns aren't using magic like they could be either. One thing they might be able to do is telekinetically wield steel shields as portable cover.
In short, you do not take into account how WWII with ponies would be different from WWII with humans. You could explore fascinating and creative implications of this change, but instead this story is pretty average as it currently stands.
I will neither rate up or down, as there is still room for improvement.

[jt45fan]

250569
Thank you for mentioning what I can do to improve. The two other fanfics I'm working on don't have magic or ponies, them being Pokemon. As for the pegasi flying, my reasoning is this, its easier to hit a target that is fully exposed then one behind cover. No competent commander would tell them to break cover to fly as a distraction, and Bullet Speed is, in fact, a competent commander. I do plan to use it later in the story, but not now. From the perspective of Bullet Speed, it would be to great a risk.

[You Shall Not Pass]

254625
It is also very difficult to shoot a flying target. Now, I know a pegasus isn't exactly an airplane, but the speed and maneuverability is nonetheless impressive. Picture a man-sized target that is swerving, diving, and looping around through the air at maybe 60+ miles per hour. Now imagine trying to hit that with a bolt action rifle. It's not easy. A machine gun would obviously have better chances of hitting a flying pegasus and no doubt a number of them will go down, but that's wasting time, attention, and ammo on an annoying fly, rather than the swarms of ants crowding onto the beaches. Better to force a Germane machine gunner to concentrate on taking out a single dodging pegasus than to let him focus on mowing down the ponies tightly packed in a landing craft. Yes, it sounds callous, but sometimes you have to throw one guy deliberately into harm's way to allow the other nine to get where they need to be safely.
Now, for a more specific nitpick:
Moments later an artillery shell plunged from the heavens into the landing craft. There we several barrels of fuel that were going to be used to power the tanks once they made it ashore later. The fuel tanks exploded instantly, demolishing the landing craft and the few tank traps next to it, leaving only twisted metal.
The first wave of landing craft is supposed to dump as many troops as possible onto the beach to establish a beachhead. It frankly makes no sense to waste valuable space on barrels of fuel instead of more troops. Furthermore, nobody in their right mind would land tanks on the shore without a full tank of gas! I'd recommend just omitting mention of these flammable barrels – that landing craft is screwed by that artillery shell anyway.

[jt45fan]

254728
I have but one question. Have you ever fired or even handled a Kar98, the standard German infantryman's rifle in WWI and WWII. It is accurate up to 700 to 800 yards and with a lead you can hit a target that distance away traveling at that speed. Plus as you mentioned the MG42s in combination with the rifle fire, the pegasus in the air would last no longer then 15 seconds. Also as an after thought, did you take into fact that wouldn't they have AA Guns and special training to hit them. You are falling in to the same trap as did writing it, not thinking about the differences.

[You Shall Not Pass]

254836
Yes, I have fired a K98. We have one in the family. I have also shot a 1903 Springfield, an M1 Garand, the 1911 and 1931 variants of that crazy Swiss straight-pull Schmidt-Rubin, and various other rifles and pistols that I am too lazy to mention. I've been shooting since I was six, and from clay pigeon shooting I am aware of the challenges of hitting a flying target, but I have it easy since I have a shotgun, and my target is fairly close and isn't dodging. I am also perfectly well aware that the Mauser is an incredibly accurate rifle, but that is only half of the equation. A rifle is only as accurate as the person (or in this case pony) firing it. Most soldiers are not crack marksmen. Even in the wide, open expanses of the Eastern Front, the Germans noted that most engagements occurred within 300m and that most soldiers couldn't shoot accurately beyond that distance anyway – this is why they developed the StG 44. So if it was challenging to hit a target running around in two dimensions at 300m, then hitting a target flying many times faster and in three dimensions just got a whole lot trickier. A top sniper could possibly plug a flying pegasus taking evasive maneuvers, but that kind of shooting is beyond the capabilities of the average grunt with a bolt-action.

Machine guns and flak would obviously have an easier time simply on the account of putting more rounds into the air. That is duly noted. Note however, that flak shells large enough for proximity fuzes would still have to pass quite close to a pegasus to detonate, owing to the pegasus' small radar cross-section compared to a metal-skinned prop plane. So it would still mostly be a matter of directly hitting a small, fast, and agile target.

But all of this assumes that the gunners can see what they are trying to shoot at in the first place. All pegasi canonically can manipulate clouds, and it would be a simple matter for Allied pegasi to push a big dark cloud ahead of them to offer concealment. In this situation, the defenders can only shoot into the cloud blindly. Alternatively, they could send their own pegasi up to disperse the cloud, and now you have the interesting situation of pegasi-on-pegasi combat, in which neither sides' ground forces would be eager to shoot into for fear of hitting their own troops.

We may disagree on how vulnerable a flying pegasus is to ground fire. That's fine. We can agree to disagree. But just keep in mind that the practical accuracy of any firearm used by the average soldier in the stress of combat is far less than its theoretical accuracy. Plus, what is essentially squad-level close air support offers a plethora of tactical possibilities, and it would be a waste to not use such potent assets in some manner.

[jt45fan]

255536
Now your comment carries more weight due to the fact that you have actually used the Kar98. I'm just used to people talking about guns and having their only shooting experience be COD.