~~~The European Freedom Fighters!~~~ A Shifted-Reality Second World-War Role-Play Thread!

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Dirk cocked an eyebrow upon hearing Kenny's comments. "I like the way you think, you know that? German armor is one of the biggest threats to the Allied forces and us alike, probably onlh being matched by their airforce in power and skill. About the sea and rail plans, I'm not sure if Antione said anything about this or not, but this far inland with the size of thr rivers in the area, nearly 80% of German supplies and equipment move via rail or boat. If you take a closer look here," he said as he pointed to a couple of spots on the map, "there are several major production centers and airbases in this area, but there are really only two ways to get materials back and forth between them and Germany and those are the Moselle river and the rail line that runs alongside it. There are other routes that the wartrains could take, but even the shortest possible detour could add an extra 12 hours to a train's route time on a good day, and almost double that on any other day. It might not seem like much at first, but in a war, Every Little Thing adds up. However, your taking into account things like the complexity of the execution needed and the expected skill of the opposition are some of the things that could make you into a half-way decent tactician like Ant back there." He pointed a finger towards de Landry then continued. "Although, now that you mention it, we probably won't actually have ANY resistance from the factory workers at all. The Nazis mostly use slave labor and POW's kept under constant guard for jobs like building tanks, so if we can overpower the German troops stationed there, we may eve get some help from the workers if we can free them."
"That may be true, Dirk, but I say that the airbase is our best option," Connie spoke up. "The airplane is the dominant force in any modern military, and I think that any opportunity we get where we could even have a chance to take out some of those G******** 229's we should go for. Those flying wing fighters are some of the most potent weapons in the Nazi arsenal, and you know this better than anyone else. Each and every one of those planes is a high-value target in and of itself. They only have, what, seven squadrons of those planes so far?"
"Six, now; remember? Grey Squaron was wiped out when the 8th air force carpet-bombed their airbase into a pulp last week."
"Right, but setting that aside, the main jet fuel tanks are actually still located above ground, its the conventional aviation fuel that's burried underground. There's a small hill near the airport, and we have a couple of mortars and rocket luanchers. We could easily get upon that rise and shoot explosive ordinance at the fuel tanks or the fuel trucks when they have the jets parked next to them to refuel. Also, if I remember correctly, there's an armor platoon in town right near here that has one of the new model Jagdtiger tank destroyers that we could easily... 'borrow' if we needed to." A slightly evil smirk spread across Connie's face as Dirk responded.
"You really just want one of those new Jagdtigers, don't you Connie?"
"With up to six inches of armor, an MG-42, and a 128mm cannon with a range of over 2000 yards? H*** yeah, I want one! Besides, something like that in our habds could become a real pain in Hitler's @$$, am I right?"
"That's definitely true, a Jagdtiger would be a huge score for us, and would definitely help out with whatever target we choose for tonight, if we can snatch it up on the way there." He turned back to the map, scanning for anything that might be useful information. "Anybody else got an idea or opinion or anything?"
 
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Kenny examined the map. All this thinking, it was starting to give him quite a headache. He never seemed to have any of his own opinions, but right now he was thinking it would be very nice to give the airfield a wide berth.
He thought Anton was looking pleased about the American man's comments about tacticians. Kenny would be pleased too, but as it was he wasn't that great at coming up with fantastic ideas.
However, there was something he could say, something he'd heard his father talk about grandly back when he was still living at home and Britain was yet to see its greatest successes on the battlefield...

"Britain's air force has already crushed Germany's in the skies over Britain," he said suddenly. "I think they can do it again. If there's one thing the old country might be managing all right at, it's keeping their planes in top shape. But the German tanks is where we've been seeing problems on the western front. We simply just can't get past them with what we've got. Hitler might well be 'wasting his money' on the development of his new model - the Russians are reproducing theirs at a far higher rate, I'll give them that - but we're yet to see any evidence of the allies taking advantage of the... how shall we say, slow speed of production.

I think it would be much more profitable in the end to take out the factory - purely because the tanks are the one thing we can't cough up a decent opposition force to. But I agree, the fuel stockpile at the airbase does sound... appealing" He didn't look convinced when he said that. "A big target, we'd have a clear goal from the start and I don't doubt that we have the weapons to pull it off. It would be a great achievement and really put Germany back a step! All the planes won't be refuelling at once though - and the airport is a huge place. At best we could hope to take out only... you know, a plane or five. But not all of them."

He looked back at the map. He could clearly see the transport routes the American was talking about. "I see what you're saying," he admitted. "It would cost them a lot of time to have to take an alternate route - but that's the point. They'd have an alternate route. If we took out the factory, or the airbase at that, it would take them a lot longer than 12 hours - perhaps even 12 months - to restore a functioning operation. There'd be no way to bypass losing a factory that important!"

Kenny was wondering if what he'd said made any sense. He was quite a fan of talking, come to think of it. He might just take Fierlin's advice and become a politician, if the chance ever arose...
 
"Though I'm not trying to prove you wrong," a tall Frenchman said towards Kenny, "there is a small detail about the Metz airport option that you may be unaware of or missinformed about. The airbase there actually has eight individual spots where jet aircraft can be re-fueled directly from the large, fixed fuel tanks, as well as numberous fuel trucks that can be used to re-fuel aircraft anywhere on the tarac or runway, though at a slower rate. Because those Hortons are on a tight scedule, it would be reasonable to assume that all four planes will get hooked up to the main tanks at the same time, and all refueled simultaneously. I agree with Miss Hodges over there," he pointed to Connie as he spoke, "those Hortons are very difficult, time-consuming, and costly for the Germans to manufacture, and a single Ho-229C model is worth a nearly full squadron of those new Fockewulf 190G-4 'Gerald's', and we've got a chance to eliminate four of them, plus the pilots as well! That's not even considering what damage we could also manage to do to the base facilities and other parked aircraft. I think it would be foolhardy to not at least try to destroy those Hortons, especially if we can get our hands on that Jagdtiger II. They'll only be there for a few hours tonight, that vehicle plant isn't going anywhere any time soon."

"I don't know what the rest of you think," remarked a short man who looked to be Belgian, "but that merchant ship looks to me like the best option. Not only would we be able to destroy an expensive naval vessel and block the Moselle, but we would also be robbing the Germans of a lot of supplies and providing them to other parts of the E.F.F. I think a wreck of that size sunk in the right place could completely block the Moselle to any boat larger than 30-40 feet for at least a week, which is a long time for the Germans in Lorraine to lose close to half of their supply lines. Plus, the execution wouldn't really need to be very complex at all. The first team would rush in on jeeps or motorcycles and race onto the ship while attracting the Nazis' attention. Then, once they've taken the stolen ship a reasonable distance down river, dragging the focus of the Germans with them, the second team can act at their own discretion. Once the ship is in place, our men would drop the anchor and open the sea valves, then get to safety. Once or team is clear of the ship, just for good measure, we could have somebody operate that stolen Tank-Destroyer on the shore and blast the ship full of holes to send her under quickly, as well as provide cover fire for the retret and escape. There won't even need to be any communication between the hi-jack team and the equipment-theft team at all if we make sure everyone knows just what they need to do."

"Well whatever we end up deciding on," Dirk added, "we should at least have some intel on that tank platoon so we can plan out how to steal that Jagdtiger if we need it. Antione, send a runner to go investigate that group of armoured cavalry units and report back ASAP." De Landry nodded and quickly strode from the room as Dirk and the others continued brainstorming and re-scanning the map.
 
Kenny was listening carefully. They seemed to be no closer to making any decisions. Perhaps this is the true consequence of democracy, he thought suddenly, but dismissed the idea. Democracy was nice, right?

He was actually getting pretty convinced by all the other arguments, but a lot of things tended to convince Kenny. He didn't seem to have many (perhaps any) convictions of his own.
Anton was poking him again. A fresh sheet of paper had been covered with intelligent-sounding things.

Kenny cleared his throat. "Well, even your outline of the plan of attack against the ships sounded immensely complicated - everything seems like it has to be timed perfectly and there are just too many things that could go wrong, even if just one team fell a little out of step. So we don't think that's the best idea. But it's a very valid point about the narrow window of opportunity at the airbase - perhaps we could even use that attack to our advantage. If we blow up the fuel tanks and get out of there quickly, perhaps they will call for reinforcements from the factory and let us go on to attack that easier... or it might go the other way," Kenny thought of something that wasn't on Anton's list. "And prompt them to ramp up security at the factory. Who knows what kind of response there's going to be. Is there any way we could co-ordinate the two attacks accordingly? With the right caution and good weapons we might not need so many people at the airbase to shoot the shells around - and at the factory we might well be given help by the labourers."

Stealing a tank sounded like a good contribution to the effort either way, Kenny thought.
 
(Where are Zinnia and Polish? They're going to start missing out on all the fun soon. Love the level of detail in the posts, btw!)

"Hmm," Dirk said, scratching his chin, "you might be on to something there." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small notepad, then started flipping through it, apparently searching for something. After a few minutes he appeared to have found what he had been looking for, and started speaking again.
"Alright, so there's currently a small company of German Panser Mark V's stationed at the factory that have recently reached the end of their production and are combat-ready. It is believed that the local Nazi leadership is keeping these 'Panther' tanks at the factory to protect it until further defenses can be set up. reports also show that these tanks are Panser Mark V, Model H's, which are the Panther's high-speed, quick-response varient. Now, a major German airfield under attack, especially one with four Horton fighters stuck at it, would have a much higher priority than an armoured vehicle factory which is currently not under threat of attack. So if my hunch is correct, we just may be able to hit two major German military targets tonight and still do serious damage to both of them. Here's what I'm thinking we would do..." He pulled out a pencil and began marking spots and paths on the map as he spoke.
"So our first target would be to snatch up that Jagdtiger tank-destroyer that's here in town. I think the best strategy for pulling off that part is a two part distraction/stealth approach. Someone would create a disturbance, maybe setting a smaller military vehicle on fire or faking a car crash or fake somebody recieving a major injury or something that would draw a lot of attention to itself. Then, while the soldiers are distracted, we have a few other people sneak up to the TD and quickly move it somewhere the Germans wouldn't be able to see it. Once that is done, we just high-ball it out of the area before someone starts searching and finds it missing. We would need to come up with the final plan for this part on-site, once we have a good, full picture of the situation. Now, we have a stash of equipment, including an American 3-ton army transport truck and some other small vehicles, hidden in an old barn in the forest about a half-mile outside of town." He marked the location of the barn as he spoke. "The truck has been re-painted with German army colors to make it more inconspicous, like it was captured and is being used by the occupation. We'll head there, pick up the truck and some other equipment, plus a four-man jeep, then make for the airfield. We'll hide on top of this small hill when we get there," he said, drawing an X on the top of the rise, "and wait until the Hortons arrive and start refueling. Once they've been pumping fuel into the jets for about fifteen minutes and have the planes locked-down on the tarmac, we'll start shelling the airfield. We'll take out the Hortons first, along with the jet fuel tanks and any other tempting targets, then just keep lobbing ordinance at anything remotely important and try to instill continual chaos. We'll need to avoid hurting their communications so they can try to call for help. Those Panther-H's at the factory would be able to reach the airfield within about 30 minutes of the first call, so they'll almost certainly be the first ones to respond. We'll continue to bombard the airstrip for about fifteen minutes, then the Jagdtiger and the truck will leave and make tracks towards Verdun. We'll need four people to stay behind with two mortars and the jeep to make sure the Germans don't start to think that the attack has stopped. They'll be in the most danger of anyone on the mission, because they'll need to stay right near the airbase they're shelling while a company of Panther tanks heads right their way. Once they catch any sign of the tanks or an enemy search party, they'll pack up the mortars into the jeep and make a break for the forest."
Dirk wiped some sweat off his forehead and continued. "Now the second part of the plan is much more straight-foreward. Once the rest of the team reaches the factory, they'll just need to go inside, subdue the remaining Nazis, free the laborers, then get everyone out of the immediate area and blast the h*** out of the building. With any luck, by tomorrow morning, we'll have knocked out two major German military targets, and obtained a very powerful new weapon to use against those facists in the future."
Dirk then straightened up, finishing with "Well, what does everyone think? What do you guys want to do?"

(I've just discovered that for some reason I can't edit anything on this thread that I posted more than about fifteen days ago, including the front page. I don't know what happened but I've seen people edit the front pages of RP threads several months after they were initially posted or even longer than that, so... umm... wuhappund?)
 
( Sorry I haven't been able to get in on this - these pre-Christmas days have been really busy. )
 
In response to your question about editing, I think it's a relatively new thing that's been introduced to the forum, so these days posts can't be edited indefinitely. It is a bit of a pain when it comes to character lists, perhaps you should see if any of the regular RPers have something else they use. I certainly am not the most knowlegeable person on this topic right now. :p
 
Kenny was trying to make a list of all the main points in his head, but more often than not found himself distracted by something ridiculous, such as how he wouldn't mind an apple pie right about then. That, he thought hungrily, was the problem with thinking about things.

The plan aside, he thought prospects were looking good for them - it sounded like the attack could potentially be a blazing success and deal the 'other side' a crushing blow. Kenny thought he'd like to be a part of that: although he was not at all patriotic or a man of action, preferring to think of himself as a citizen of the world, the notion of what was "good" or at least "better" liked to appeal to his analytic and weirdly political side from time to time.

"My friends are decent at using weapons. I'm quite useless in that regard though," he admitted. "I can drive, but again not very well. However, I think even I should be able to set something on fire - a few gallons of petrol, we all know the chemistry. The issue would be from where we were to obtain this fortunate vehicle - I'm assuming we don't have that many to spare. If it's got fuel in its tank, we can go from there. If this were what it were to come down to, I can prepare fuses and gunpowder from... well, things one can buy at the right grocery stores." Okay, perhaps Kenny didn't know absolutely nothing. "But detonators are a bit harder. Those are very specialised chemicals..."

Anton and the others didn't look quite so keen to stay out of the main action, but they felt a certain loyalty to Kenny, the guy things always ended up getting quite spirited around. Perhaps there would be a chance to get involved after they were done being pyros at the depot.

Kenny was looking wisely at Anton. He wasn't sure just when he had seemed to adopt this curious role as team leader, but he thought he might as well wear an expression to fit the part. "I know what you're thinking," he said. "But look at it this way... it all starts with the distraction - everything is set into motion and falls in place after that. It's kind of still a useful step of the grand plan to be a part of. Not to mention the first one."
Kenny hoped that made it sound a little more, how shall we say, noble.
 
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(I am glad to be back on my computer. Typing on mobile phone screens is just great, it seems the more I practise, the higher the frequency it is with which I accidentally hit the "Submit" button. :p I don't think the day will ever come when I am found to be using my mobile phone preferentially for anything other than, you know, making telephone calls.)
 
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