Day in the life of a Tankman

It's 4:00 am, our coffee rations ran out three weeks ago, and I'm in a tank.

To be specific, my 128th tank. You'd think this would earn me some sort of punishment, how quick I go through the damn things. But funny thing, of all the random, inane things they dock my pay and demote me back to private for, exploding tanks isn't one of them.

Hell, verbatim from the faceless goons at high command: "If you haven't gone through five tanks in one week, you're either a god or coward, and I'm an atheist."

Yet they'll dock pay because my idea of using a weapon to hit two targets at once wasn't flashy enough for the boys at r&d.

Let me explain something about the tank, and you'll understand why I, as a soldier, am perpetually perturbed.

There are standard shells. Shoot them, they explode when they hit. Standard fare.

Then some genius gave Research and Development an unlimited budget and upper pills on the government's tab, and now we have rounds that look like cats.

Don't get me wrong. There's some stuff that is absolutely devastating in the right hands. The digger weapons- heavy damage and you put someone in a hole to hamper mobility. The sniper and sub sniper rounds are a godsend if you can aim. I'm not sure how they managed to make a weapon that shoots asteroids, but it works. Needlers, rollers, grenades, earthquake generators, R&D has undoubtedly produced some terrifying work. Even the cat rounds are effective.

But then there are the wackjob weapons. I cannot fathom for the life of me the tactical use of an explosive pinata that doesn't detonate in a reliable spread. Nor do I understand the reasoning behind the dual shell splitter and breaker. With the multi-shell versions, you're doing a mirv strike. With the others, you're trying to do William Tell shenanigans, and that gets you killed.

There's also the "Ball" weapons. Useless if fired directly. Can be devastating if you arc them right.

A tank rolls into view. It's not ours. That means I have to shoot it until it's a flaming heap of metal. Shields are up.

My weapon load out looks like some sort of demented Batman tank arsenal. A pinata. A mega shot. A bullseye.

I take the latter, lock, load and fire.

A direct hit with the bullseye is the only really efficient way to use it. The gravity field it creates gets stronger on a single point, meaning you can do serious damage with a direct strike, or only minor if you're off.

Sensors indicate he's still functional. Of course he sprung for the extra shielding.

Something plows into the hill behind my tank loud enough for me to hear it inside. A subsniper round. Meant to hit tanks that use the brilliant strategy that foils normal sniper rounds- get behind cover. He was off a few inches. He won't make that mistake again.

A stream weapon. Fires multiple weak pellets, but in pinpoint fashion. A regular sniper round. Someone at r&d likes me.

I start with the stream weapon and let fly. Even at this distance the percussion of bullets ripping through armor plating is audible. Sensors show he's damaged.

My world becomes a cacophony of sound and pain as I'm thrown about. The bastard hit me with an area strike. The weapon was designed, as the name implies, to hit multiple targets in a small area with several explosions. Shields are nearly gone, but armor isn't scratched.

The firing systems allow us to adjust trajectory and even shell velocity, but no one bothered to input a targeting system. There's aids called tracers that will show you were you will hit assuming a direct shot, but they're expensive. I back up a few feet. His tank is already smoking.

The sniper rounds explosion is tiny. Very tiny. But the shell is made of a new prototype material meant solely for punching through everything else, and the explosion occurs nanoseconds after penetration. Meaning most likely it goes through plating and explodes in the engine, in the cockpit, or God help you the ammo reserves. This all being said, even being off half an inch means no damage, and we don't have any calculating systems to tell us the optimal shot position.

However, I'm not exactly new to using these things.

I aim a little up over the target and fire. There's the report of metal ripping through metal.

It takes me a split second to realize I hit his cockpit. The poor bastard was either cut in two or had the shell blow up in his face. The tank is on fire now, immobile and blazing hot. I don't see anyone exit the tank, and eventually it explodes, leaving the rocky earth beneath it a charred mass of rock and scrap metal.

I didn't know the man, or woman, piloting the tank. I don't even know why we're fighting. There's rumors, of course: "They" attacked us first. There's a resource shortage and we're getting the last of the last of something. Someone called someone else a dirty name. The generals were bored.

All I know is that one day I was pulled out of elementary school and put through 8 years of hell, followed by eight more years of hell, followed by this hell, all to learn how to drive a tank that shoots cats at people I don't know because I was told to do so.

My report for the battle comes in on my military issued smartphone. "Mostly satisfactory".

Because HQ and R&D don't want surgical removal of enemies. They want mountains leveled. They want cooling lakes of lava where towns were. They want glass parking lots where deserts lay. I tested the theory with a nuke, once, firing it not at the two tanks I was going to eliminate, but the largest mountain I could find. That act got me off probation for "Continuous Unsatisfactory Performance."

I'll take what I can get nowadays.

Radioman mentions, half asleep, there's three more of Them and two of Us waiting for me on the other side of the hill I just set on fire. Supplies are on their way. If this last little 'battle' was any indicator, if we try to meet R&D's expectations of damage, we'll reduce this entire countryside to
a flat, smoldering wasteland by noon.

It's 4:10 am, and I really need some coffee.

 

Lol.. a research and development section would actually be a damn funny feature in this game lol