| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <Shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Strikes |
| Date: | Sun, 5 Jul 1998 21:00:42 +0100 |
Indonesia. Someone decided to get extremely mediaeval on one of the
local pirate syndicates: so much so that they hired Rusanov's Rebels to
exterminate them last week.
Now, I can't get much out of the Rebels' PR machine beyond "we deployed
for a successful operation", but from what local news is spewing I put
some interesting odds and ends together.
Firstly, the attacks were on two well-seperated sites, one on Java and
the other a coastal base on Bali. The attacks were, as far as anyone can
tell (there aren't many survivors from the bases, and the Rebels aren't
talking) were near as damn it simultaneous despite their being several
hundred kilometres apart.
Secondly, this was not a trivial attack. Helicopters, artillery, air
power, armour, the Rebels threw a lot of force into it. Someone wanted
those pirates not just inconvenienced but exterminated.
Bali was your typical "pirate city", a coastal base. By all accounts a
good defensive position, built into some limestone caves, but it got
_plastered_ topside by air attack before an air-assault company went in
and fought through the base. The Rebels admit to six dead and thirty-one
wounded: the Indonesians say they pulled over fifty dead bodies out of
the parts of the base they could reach (some caves were collapsed by
ordnance explosions and the local cops didn't feel like risking more
rockfalls to retrieve corpses)
At the Java site, some sort of communication base... the defenders had a
nice big cave with plenty of sangars and bunkers to keep an assault at
bay. The Rebels hit it with armour, artillery and air support and rolled
over the outer defences as if they weren't there.
The defenders retreated to their cave as per SOP, and you had a recipe
for instant standoff: the defenders can't come out and the Rebels can't
get in.
Rusanov didn't bother with the standoff. He's obviously a student of
history and not overly concerned with keeping the enemy alive: so he
used the time-honoured method perfected by the US Marines a century ago.
Bring up a flamethrower vehicle, fire a "wet shot" of unignited
thickened gasoline into the cave mouth to saturate as much of the
interior as possible, then follow up with a short blast of flame to
ignite it. Some of the occupants burn to death, most die of asphyxiation
as the fire consumes the oxygen. Not pretty, but it's a good way to kill
the enemy and protecting your troops.
So, it begs interesting questions, like who's gonna take up the slack?
What did those guys do and who did they piss off to get themselves so
thoroughly waxed? And can I find any actual combat footage of the
engagements?]<<<<<
-- Bungle <21:00:31/07-05-59>
