The battle of Taranto, Italy
Deployment at Taranto is unfortunately inefficient. The city is immediately on the coast, and the Kaiju emerges above-water not long after you get your units off the plane. The distance to the beach from the airport is also quite a bit longer than ideal.
What emerges is an enormous bipedal reptile. It vaguely resembles a Tyrannosaurus, but it is larger than any normal T-rex. Also, where the small forelimbs should be, it has a huge organic disc-shaped thing, like a wide, fleshy platter over the heart and lungs.
This Kaiju is significantly larger than the previous ones, and does not waste time. As it emerges, a pair of large steel shards break off of its back, and twirl around the kaiju at high speed, ripping into several nearby buildings. In addition, it spits a large glob of acidic mucus, somwhat similar to what was observed in Malaya last month.
All units hurredly move forward, trying to engage. None, however, are long ranged enough or fast enough to be able to engage in the first few minutes. The fastest units, the laser and GMG technicals, are short-ranged, and the longer-ranged units, the tanks and the artillery piece are too slow to enter range.
Because of that, several more minutes of smashing and burning occur before the first attacks are launched.. which happens to be by everyone, save for the normal infantry, since all units enter normal range at about the same time. The mechanized infantry begin the assault, but their rockets and autocannons simply bounce off.
Everyone else joins in, shells pounding away and lasers burning. All to no effect, save for a hail of scorching heat and clouds of smoke. This Kaiju seems tough.
To make matters worse, the Kaiju pays no attention to your troops, merely continuing the attack on the city, seemingly ignoring the insects attacking it from below. Some more old, stone apartments are crushed, and the piles of rubble that was once a beautiful city grow.
There is no damage to the friendly forces, although the armoured GMG technical is almost caught in a collapsing building, but manages to avoid the slide deftly.
Another round of fire erupts: This one is much more effective. A couple of tank shells hit hard, with one of the USSCI's old Russian surplus managing a solid hit to the guts of the beast, followed up by a shot from the more modern one that smashes into the pulsating flesh in the creature's chest. The last notable hit was a good burst by the Laser Technical, which manages to create some more open tears to the side of the creature, where blue blood can spill out.
Now, the creature is angry. It is also doing something new. You can see the creature's hide shudder, and start rippling, and some of its wounds seem to begin closing. It's not close to undoing the damage it's taken, but it is a very frightening prospect.
Instead of attacking the city further, the kaiju-com forces are the next targets. The twin blades strike first, swinging around at the closest obvious targets, Emerald Robin's two armoured technicals. The GMG techncal is neatly sliced in half with a massive blade, and the Laser technical is comprehensively smashed by the flat of another blade. The attack then continues, as the lizard spits out a glob of acid towards the first of the USSCI T-55 tanks. Oddly, not the one that hurt it, maybe it can't tell them apart. The tank is hit, but not solidly, and weathers the stream of acid relatively well. It is acid-eaten, and continues to bubble away, but is still operational for now.
Physically, the kaiju charges the vehicles of the mechanized infantry unit with a very swift jump. Fortunately for the Silver Hogs, the kaiju seems to have slightly misjudged the attack, and juuust overshot the target, missing.
At this point the k-com infantry have joined the fight, having finally managed to catch up with the other units. The firefight continues.
Next hit is scored by the dying T-55. The crew, knowing this shot to be their last, manages to plant a round square in the creature's face. It takes this one hard, and appears to be dazed. Perhaps, more importantly, the creature's wounds stop closing.. at least for now.
The remaining volley is withering. Several hits are scored, from the modern tank, and a surprising amount of infantry fire. None of it is crippling, but the creature is visibly weakened.
Ominously, despite taking the fire, its skin begins to crawl again, although the wounds have yet to begin closing. It strikes out with the seemingly telekinetically controlled blades at the two tanks. In both cases the blades penetrate, seemingly impossibly sharp, but in neither case do they do serious damage, shearing away portions of armour or damaging the suspension, leaving the crew and other vital components intact. It is scary just how easily said metal blades penetrated the vehicles, though.
It is followed up by another glob of acid, this one heading for the modern tank. It hits square in the turret, and within the space of a few moments, Happytime Atrocities is now the fine owner of a Dali tank.
Lastly, it continues trying to stomp the Silver Hogs out of existance. This time it is more successful, killing some members of the unit and flipping an IFV. Not enough to stop them, but they've been wounded.
More fire erupts. The Kaiju is weakened, but many of the more powerful attackers are now dead, and despite what looks to be a solid hit by the remaining USSCI T-55, no damage is dealt, and the regeneration begins anew.
With one tank dead, the floating blades begin to work on attacking the infantry units. One blade attacks the "Silver Hogs", while the other attacks Emerald Robin's 51803 Infantry unit. However, the attacks are mostly ineffective, with one blade trying to cleave through a pile of rubble to smash some emplaced infantry. It cuts through, and knocks out a mortar, but it wasn't effective enough. The Silver hogs take more damage as well, with the blades being essentially unstoppable, but they manage to limit the casulties and remain on the field.
It then fires acid at the final remaining tank, the USSCI's T-55. Most of the acid misses or falls short, but enough gets through to disable the vehicle. In melee, it is less successful at pressing the attack on the silver hogs.. their remaining vehicle manages to drive away too quickly to get stomped by the giant creature's legs.
The weakened creature isn't let off easy for that damage, however. The ADD's artillery piece finally lands a good blow, hitting it with a solid shot to the spine. Damage isn't critical, but the kaiju felt that one as it shakes around. Most of the remaining fire is ineffective, except for the Happytime platoon, in following the earlier attack by one of the T-55s, lands an anti-tank guided missile right to the snout of the creature. Similar to before, the skin stops rippling.
This time, the creature combines it's blades together. Perhaps, they cannot attack targets that are too distant from each other. Since the ADD's artillery piece has finally made itself noticed, it is the first to be paid attention by the two blades, and is shredded like a frog in a blender, the light vehicle simply not having the capability of surviving such an attack. It's acidic spit comes out to hit one of the infantry units.. with the close range, and all the movement by the creature and the humans, it certainly seems to have lost track of which unit is which. Firing randomly, the acid sprays lightly over the remaining APC from the silver hogs. This one isn't yet disabled by such a light spray, but the ominous hissing doesn't bode well for its long-term prospects. Neither does the stompy sounds as the kaiju continues to pursue, but the driver is capable of staying ahead for now.
All the remaining friendly units are infantry or armoured infantry, mostly surrounding the creature. Bullets continue to spray out, along with small explosions. Reprising their role from the last exchange of fire, that same ATGM operator scores another blow. This time it's simply to a leg, but more blue blood gushes out, and the creature slows again. Some of it's colour has left. There has been much nerve gas used today, perhaps enough of it has finally gotten into the creature to cause some damage. The rocket to the mouth seems like a solid delivery attempt.
The blades return to defend the creature, moving slower yet again, but still seemingly impossibly sharp. One blade strikes out at the APC, damaging it further, which quickly proves redundant as the vehicle melts to death in a series of horrifying screams. The other one attacks the famed kaiju-killers of the Coke Knights. This one is used more effectively, killing several members at a blow and scattering others, but isn't enough to complete the job. More unfortunately, this time the creature has noticed that ATGM team. It is promptly removed from the field with an enormous stream of acid out of the weak Kaiju, along with the entire platoon and several nearby walls.
The creature is no longer moving quickly enough to effectively attack in melee, yet it still remains dangerous so long as it has weapons. On the human side are two damaged infantry platoons, the 51803rd from Emerald Robin, and the famed veterans from the Coke Knights. They launch one more attack, this time hoping it's the last.
..and come up short. They simply aren't equipped strongly enough to reliably damage a kaiju. Their valor notwithstanding, the creature finishes the battle relatively quickly. The cleaver blades kill several, and the last survivors are hosed down by acid.
Following the battle, the severely damaged Kaiju mostly stops, slouching atop a pile of rubble. After a surprisingly long time, long minutes if it were in battle, the skin rippling effect begins, and then stops, a very brief time later. It then retreats, by choice, back into the ocean, rather than sticking around to finish demolishing the city. Military forces from Italy are quite late to arrive on the field, and some three-quarters of the city lies destroyed, but it could have been worse.
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Topic: Kaiju-com 2 (Read 55763 times)