POV Guard Droon (Guardsmen/Trooper)

I am part of the regiment Hooster (3,000 strong) that is assigned to the Frigate Bath. There were 17,000 of us Guards men from the Frigates and 100,000 from the PDF. We were to fight the orks head on (so to speak), the commands that we were given was to draw the orks in to a fight and hold their attention while from the two flanks 2,000 fellow Guards men and 20,000 PDF would attack and complete the encirclement. Although I was nervous it helped to know that the Space marines were there if needed.

I was one of Troopers assigned to make sure that the drones had laid the mines correctly. It was good that we were waiting for the Orks to attack us as I found out the PDF did not have the same gear that we did so they could not see the mines highlighted on our screen. The PDF did not have the comms that we did, they did not know the plan overall and relied on their captain for every bit of info. They had no access to the feeds from the drone, no reassurance knowing heavy support was there just a message away.

Blessed am I for fighting under the Sun Spears.

Here they come big hulking green giants with crude weapons. As big as they were they moved fast and ignored wounds like they were not there. I saw a Ork get his leg blown of by the mines but still hop towards us shouting and shooting. I heard the reassuring words from the Captain to hold steady and to highlight the targets for our drones. I had loaded my drone out with Frag grenades, I could see that currently there were 100 Grenades ready to be launched. The Platoons load out was a mix of Grenades/Bolters/Flamers, for this battle due to cramped twisty space Missiles were not ideal. There were 100 Guardsmen in each platoons.

As the Orks cleared the Mine fields they were 200 meter away from us we got the orders for drones to fire. Wow, watching a waterfall fall of grenades and bolter rounds fall on the charging orks was mind boggling. I actually think we might not need to use our bolter guns at all. As I was thinking this I noticed that the waterfall seems to be moving closer towards us, this only meant that the orks were pushing through.

This just shows how tough they are, even though we were told they were tough to actually see it with my own eyes was something else. We were told weapons free at 150 meters and now it was time to kill me some Orks.

I had already marked a few targets and on my hud they were highlighted. As I swung my bolter gun I could see the cross hair overlap with the head of the ork and pulled the trigger. Wham, my bolter fired and I could see the orks head burst open. I could see similar kills being earned by my fellow Guards men while I saw the laser fire from the PDF having very little effect. It often took multiplies Laser shots on a single ork before they would be put down. Direct laser shots to the head just seem to make the orks madder rather than bringing them down. As I kept shooting I could see the pressure building among the front that the PDF forces were in charge of. I can see the commander deploying more drones too support there front. I hoped they held as otherwise things would get a lot harder.

The fight has been going on for an hour and the orks have truly proved themself to be battle hungry. The line has held but it is broken up (jagged saw tooth like) into some areas still at original place while some have been pushed back or moved forward. My squad has come out with 0 deaths so far but in my platoon there were 3 deaths and 2 sent to the rear hospital. Most of the death have been due to melee battles with the orks once they broke through. Although our Exo-suits help but they are still no match for 1 vs 1 match with the Orks although they held up well against the ork shoota attacks.

There has been some chatter about the PDF death stats being already at 10,000 or more. They have asked for reinforcement from the reserve PDF. Apparently this death toll was actually significantly less than they expected. I feel lucky and at the same time I feel sad that they are not offered the same protection that I have.

The fighting has been going on for quite a while now and the flanking attack is set to go soon. Most of the drones have been recharged and re supplied for the coming fight. We have also been resupplied and are ready. This time we will be moving forward right into the grinder. Blessed be the Emperor.

I got the orders to push in, me and the squad worked with our fellow squads to cover and move forward. we had practised this many times during the war game back when we were training. We would order the drones to fire a mix of grenades: Flash bang/Frag/Smoke and then move forward. The smoke might have been a barrier to the PDF but with our helmets and sensors from Drones we were easily able to move through complex environment. When in the open the drones would either highlight the orks or provide fire cover. The issues came from the concealed areas where orks would jump out to fight in melee mode. New tactics to combat this were being worked out while we fought. Throwing a frag nade seems to be the preferred method with some preferring to flame any suspicious area.

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During the push forward the death rate started to go up. I lost 2 of the squad members so far. I saw a whole squad get killed when they were moving forward across what they thought were dead Orks turned out a few of the orks were hiding underneath the dead ones. The fight was so quick that by the time we were able to support them they had died. As I was finding out war was a whole lot different to the battle games we ran back home.

After fighting for over 5 hours we have joined up with the flanks and now we are told to rest for 30 min and resupply as after that we will be able to fight with our lord SUn Spears. Praise the Emperor.

POV: Mine

So far the battle has gone very well. Although I am sad to see the deaths of the Guards men we raised but it is something that needs to be done. This was to be their Wheatstone making them sharper, harder and so far it has worked out.

We had left 7 squad (70 space marine) in the Fleet as back up. The rest of the 130 Sun Spears were with me. Now that the first part of Plan A had gone well, the Sun Spears were going to be at the spear tip making sure we push the orks out. There will be 100 of us deployed while we have a reserve of 30 Space marines ready for any unforseen actions.

During the last 20 years one of the doctrine/Tactical shift that I have carried out for the Sun Spears is how we fight. As the old methods go to action was to get close in and personal and win via shock and awe. While the new tactics was to First carry out as much range damage as possible, more closer interactions with teh Guardsmen and to use the disposable assets (Drones/weapons platform) as much as possible. The new tatctics effectiveness will also be tested today.

I gave the go ahead to start the push and the response was a hailstorm of munitions follwed by the charge forward. The Sun Spears were acting like spears that would thrust into the orks line and then allow the Guardsmen to follow in and create a wedge. Then the Sun Spears would move to another part and repeat the process. If there was any pile up of Orks they would get hammered with munitions or by Squads of Sun spears. It was glorious to see my men in action, just shows how much I have changed from what I was back on earth.

My personal battle were nothing much to write about as I was flanked by two guard squads so other than killing the orks via range weapons and drones I did not get to fight them at meele range. This did mean that I had pleanty of time to guide the battle and keep an eye on evrything else.

After 3 hours of fighting we had pushed most of the oks out in the open and I watched as the orbital bombardmant commened. It was awe spiring to see so much power come down at my call. We had throughly broken the Orks and there were possibly around 2,000 to 5,000 orks left. The local PDF were more than able to clean these up specially as they were broken up into various smaller bands. I was not going to waste my time chasign these orks in the hive.

Overall we were very pleased with how the battle had gone and how our equipment had performed.

The Drones were a hit as force multiplier and on hand quick support that we could throw into incoming heavy fire with worrying about loss of lives. The Exo-suits had also performed very well but we had to work out something for meele fighting and some better impact absorbation layer. Quite a few of the Guardsmen who died were due to the shock being transfered from the armour to their body. The armour would be fine but the body inside would be broken. Another aspect that we would need to work on would be to create better Communication link between local forces and us. Specially as any order sent to teh PDF had to go through multiplie layers which either delayed or grabled the orders up.

From this battle we had around 500 guards men that died or were out of action, 3 Sun Spears injured and the PDF had around 30,000 dead or out of action.

I have tasked 2,000 of the guards men to recover what drones we can and send it back to the Fleet to get them repaired. Also we will be bringing the Tropers back up to strength (17,000) by bringin in reinforcement from the ships. I am letting the Captains oversee the assault on Hive Loto and Hive Crozo as our tactis and equipment have proven themselves. Hive Lotto will have 12,000 Guards men, 80 Sunspears and the local PDF. While the Hive Crozo will get 3,000 Guards men, 30 Sunspears and the local PDF. I expect we will have this all finsihed in the next 24 hours.

My concern is now with the Hives in planet 5 as it seems like the Orks have really pushed into the hives so we will not be able to repeat the same tactics of orbital bombardment. Once this planet ork threat has been dealt with I will have to see what tactics we can use to win with the least life lost in the planet 5.