Summoning Freedom (Rewrite) (discontinued)

Chapter 20

The Army's landing ships beached along the shore as soldiers and vehicles began to pile up in mass on the beaches ahead.

The sounds of engines running and smell of oil burning replaced the sounds of waves crashing against the sands and saltiness that was usually present along coasts with salt water.

From the ships, Abrams tanks and other light vehicles began to roll out onto the shore, along with the Army's newest addition to it's arsenal. The M14 Grizzly.

The M14 Grizzly was still technically in it's prototype phase, but was scheduled and expected to reach full time production once it's field testing was complete. Better known as Britannia's annihilation or surrender.

The new tanks were armed with the same 130mm smoothbore gun as the current fleet of Abrams tanks, but were given a barrel extension that gave the shells fired more velocity and range. Plans were made in the future to upgrade this to a brand new 140mm main gun once they were able to produce enough of the ammo for it. The tanks utilized a new revolutionary auto loader system built standard in the unmanned turret.

The tank had three coaxial guns of two 7.62mm machine guns, and a .50 caliber machine gun built into the gun mantlet. The tank took some inspiration of the M60's cupola and added a smaller secondary turret atop the main turret armed with option of dual 25mm auto cannons, a single 50mm auto cannon, or an M61 Vulcan rotary cannon for use against infantry or low altitude air hostiles.

The tank came equipped with a CROWS station for the commander to operate a remote controlled M2 Browning, MK47 Striker, or M134 Minigun with extreme accuracy, with two AT or AA missile launchers mounted on the side of the turret able to fold out when needed in combat.

The tank incorporated both a brand new composite chobham armor mesh and laser based active protection system that gave the tank a high survivability rate and weight of over fifty tons powered by a brand new turbine engine model that drove the hulking mass to a total speed of fifty six miles per hour.

The crew consisted of four personnel protected inside an armored compartment within the front of the tank where they operated it from. The driver, primary gunner, secondary gunner, and commander.

The driver was in the front center with the controls for moving the chassis, using digital cameras instead of periscopes to achieve a full one eighty view in front of the vehicle and a reverse camera.

The commander was seated at the very back behind the two gunners, where he had access to a multitude of digital cameras around the vehicle and a commander's independent viewer equipped with thermal and infrared optics, giving him a full three sixty situational awareness around the tank.

The primary and secondary gunners sat side by side in the center of the compartment, manning the two turrets of the vehicle. The primary gunner manned the main gun and missile pods, while the secondary gunner manned the smaller turret weapons. Both were trained to be efficient in both roles and could easily perform as effective with the other turret.

"Holy shit." A marine lieutenant whistled as he overlooked the fields ahead covered in craters, some that were still smoking. "Welp, Air Force has been busy these days. Bet them fly boys are happy to do some work."

He heard the sound of metal on metal powered by a turbine engine and turned around to what he almost mistook for what he thought was an M1 Abrams main battle tank. Only this vehicle was not a Abrams as it was slightly bigger, and more angular than the traditional tank everyone's been used to. "Guess DARPA had something to pull from their asses for the Army to play around with."

Army combat engineers began joining in the construction efforts as they brought vehicles with them carrying materials and tents for the construction of the base. Sandbags and hesco bastions were set up to form a perimeter for the base to develop.