Side Show by Rick Shelley

Author:Rick Shelley [Shelley, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, War stories, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780441001231
Publisher: Ace Books
Published: 1994-12-01T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

There were many differences between the Accord Havoc and the Schlinal Nova. The most basic was that the Havoc was a self-propelled howitzer and the Nova was a tank. Though they might look similar to an observer, their basic missions were quite different. Artillery stood off and lobbed its shells in from as far as twenty kilometers from the target. The maximum range of the 135mm main gun on a Nova was slightly under ten kilometers, and even with that it was used primarily for line-of-sight attack as a direct infantry support vehicle or to attack enemy strong points and armor or artillery. The Havoc was lightly armored and depended exclusively on speed and mobility for defense. Its armor was only thick enough to stop small arms fire. The Nova was much more heavily armored. The Havoc carried a crew of four. The Nova relied on two men and more extensive automation. In the Nova, the gun commander minded everything but the driving. The main gun was loaded automatically. The two splat guns could also be operated remotely by the gun commander. In the Havoc, three men did the work that one did in a Nova. A loader ran the machinery that moved the heavy shells from magazine to breech and locked the barrel when it was loaded. The shell casing was, however, ejected automatically through a port that sent the spent brass out of the turret. A gunner oversaw the computerized targeting and could, at need, override the automatics. In a Nova, the gun commander had no choice but to accept what the TA system told him, except on line-of-sight shots.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the Havoc could maintain a higher rate of accurate fire for much longer than the Nova. And as long as the Havoc could maintain its distance, it was out of reach of those tanks.

It wasn't always possible to keep away. But this was one time when the gunners of Basset and Dingo batteries certainly intended to stay more than ten kilometers from the enemy.

Karl Mennem and Jimmy Ysinde were one of the best loader-gunner combinations in the 13th, fast and accurate. Their positions low in the rear of the gun's long turret kept them well separated from the others, at the front of the turret. The howitzer's breech was between Karl and Jimmy. Karl's seat at the targeting controls was a little higher than Jimmy's. They did their work without talking. When the Fat Turtle was speaking, they couldn't have heard each other—not even over helmet radios—anyway.

In the front compartment, Eustace took care of navigation. He gave Simon a course and gave Karl his target priorities. All four men kept busy. Eustace also kept track of the number of shots that went out, a silent roll call, a habit he had never been able—(or really tried)—to break.

This wasn't a perfect mission. There weren't enough Accord spyeyes available to give them pinpoint targeting data for each shot. With adequate data, it would have been one target, one round, with a high degree of certainty that each target would be destroyed in turn.

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