Max Velocity - Patriot Dawn - The Resistance Rises

Following evening stand-to, in the dark, ponchos were put up over the scrapes. Throughout the night the sentry rotation went on. There were always two sentries at night per sentry position. Each man was woken ten minutes before his duty and he would quietly and without use of light put all his gear away in his ruck, save taking down the poncho.

All gear not in use was always stowed, in case of the need for rapid movement.

In the night it started to rain but by morning the rain had stopped. It was fall, and it was cold out there in the woods with a hint of the coming winter. The rain didn’t help, and it continued to drip down out of the trees long after the rain itself had stopped.

Prior to dawn, the sentries woke the patrol for stand to. In the cold pre-dawn the fighters crawled out of their bags and packed their gear away. They took down the ponchos and removed excessive warm clothing, donning their tactical vests arrayed with their ammunition pouches.

It was cold, and some of them shivered uncontrollably as they adjusted to the temperature outside of their sleeping bags. The worst part was putting on their cold sweat-damp helmets with wet chinstraps. Before dawn the patrol was silent, laid in their scrapes covering their sectors.

There was a light mist on the forest floor, with the rain dripping down out of the trees. Yes, they were cold wet and hungry, but that did not impact their morale. They would bitch and moan, but if they weren’t moaning, that was when you had to worry.

They were hardened fighters, with a deep motivation unaffected by the temporary hardships of their situation. Their morale was born of self-discipline, coming from a hard place deep inside, unbreakable.

The sky began to lighten but the dawn was delayed in the deep woods. The fighters shivered in their scrapes and waited for the end of stand-to.

Bravo Squad was covering the sectors to the north, where they had come from the previous day. Loud in the silence came the snap of a twig and they tensed, staring into the lightening forest. Slowly the silhouettes of a squad sized skirmish line came into view, maybe fifty meters away, as they came on through the woods.

The hunter-killer force did not know exactly where the Resistance fighters were, but they knew they were in these woods somewhere. As the enemy closed to twenty five meters the Bravo leader, Chavez, opened fire by shooting a silhouette in the chest, which was immediately followed by the rest of his squad opening fire.

The gunfire was harsh in the silence of the dawn and several of the enemy skirmish line were immediately hit.

The Regime troops were well drilled and immediately went to ground and started to return fire, the harsh orders of their squad leader competing with the screams of one of his men who had been badly wounded.

The firing increased to a crescendo and fire control orders were ringing out on both sides. The enemy managed to bring a SAW into action on the left flank and high velocity rounds went cracking through the trees in both directions.

Luckily for the patrol, they were in hard cover in their scrapes and most of the rounds were passing overhead; they were also able to take advantage of the shock effect their initial weight of fire had on the Regime skirmish line. Some of the enemy had been hit, most were well drilled veterans, but a few had frozen in cover and were not yet responding to callsfor rapid fire from the Regime squad leader.

Caleb was assessing the situation. Alpha Squad was still covering the rear, to the south, in case of an enemy flanking attack. Having been ‘bumped’ by the enemy it was now paramount for the patrol to bug out and extract to the Emergency RV. Caleb was reading the battle and listening to the sounds of the firefight.

The ground was generally flat but to the left, north west, of Bravo Squad was a small depression where the ground sloped away in the beginnings of a draw that ran down to the right flank of the Regime force. It was not a significant feature really, the very beginnings of a creek, but he could anticipate how the enemy platoon leader would see it.

Caleb could hear the shouted orders from the remainder of the enemy platoon behind the point squad that was currently engaged. He gave orders for Alpha Squad to move up to the left of Bravo Squad.

Bravo gave rapid fire and threw smoke while Alpha peeled out from their scrapes and back on to line covering the small draw.

Normally the patrol would have bugged out with their rucks but the situation was too serious, so they just grabbed their daypacks. From now on, if they got out of this fix, it would be ‘travel light, freeze at night’.

Alpha peeled in to the left of Bravo, getting on line, both squads facing north.

Caleb had Doc Oliver observe to the south, just in case. However, he was soon confirmed as correct in his assessment; the Regime commander had identified the depression and rapidly moved a second squad up to the patrols left, to try and flank and roll up the patrol.

As the enemy flanking squad moved through the trees, jogging in a squad wedge formation, they ran into a hail of fire from Alpha on the left side and rapidly took cover, returning sporadic fire from positions behind trees as they tried to regain their balance. .

The situation was now the two squads of the patrol facing two Regime squads. The patrol had taken the initiative and inflicted casualties on the enemy. The Regime platoon leader was organizing his reserve squad and relaying the situation back to his company commander to the rear.

The enemy was gaining momentum, the pressure was going to build, but they would be unable to bring down indirect fire while the two forces were so close.

Caleb gave shouted orders for his two squads to prepare to break contact. The drill was for each squad to fire and move as fire teams, keeping both squads roughly on line as they moved south back away from the enemy. If they stayed in place, the enemy would roll them up from the flank.

They threw smoke to the front, and on orders the whole patrol started a rapid weight of fire to knock the enemy back before beginning to bound back, fire and maneuvering south, away from the enemy.

The patrol only had the ammunition they carried, so they slowed the rate of fire to deliberate whenever rapid fire was not called for; they aimed at positively identified enemy or fired steadily into cover where they knew the enemy to be.

The Regime platoon leader had by now deployed one of his 240 gun teams up to his left flank and the gunner brought the 7.62mm machine-gun into action just after the patrol had completed its first couple of bounds back. The deep staccato beat of the gun rang out and the rounds cracked through the trees, tearing off chunks of wood and felling leaves and branches.

Bravo was conducting fire and movement back and as one of the guys bounded, zigzagging in a short rush, he was hit in the rear ballistic plate and thrown off balance into a face plant, winded. He rolled over and got up, adrenaline pushing him to finish the bound.

Another fighter was hit in the thigh as he ran; his leg kicked out from under him as the round smashed his femur and tore open his femoral artery. He went to the ground with bright red arterial blood pumping out of the wound. As his buddy was running back, he grabbed the downed fighters harness and dragged the wounded man with him on his rush back, the leg bouncing agonizingly on the ground, until he could get him into cover behind a tree.

The fighter grabbed the wounded man’s CAT tourniquet and whipped it onto the leg over the BDU pants, right up in the groin ‘high and tight’. He cinched the windlass down mercilessly until the bleeding stopped. The rest of his team had paused to cover this and the fighter pulled the wounded man up onto his back in a Hawes carry, running back and continuing the move north, covered by the rest of the squad as they bounded back.