Governor's Park, Tallahassee, FL - October 1990
“May I have your attention please.”
“Madame Administrator, members of the press, ladies and gentlemen. I am Captain Jeannette Harrell, acting commander of the Naval Submarine Base at Kings Bay, Georgia.” The isolated outdoor pavilion was about a quarter filled with a mixture of uniformed and civilian individuals, mostly male.
“I was ‘volunteered’ to deliver this briefing to emphasise the importance of this information, and because of the common belief that I had more ‘free time’ than the other senior military representatives. For public consumption, I am right now sailing in the Caribbean.
“I am going to put this in dramatic form, sort of the ‘good cop, bad cop’ style.
“The nice cop will let you know that we have developed functioning rifles, most in the .357 caliber, but some up to .50 caliber. These weapons have demonstrated the capability to go clean through large game such as deer and bear at a distance, and even shatter concrete blocks at close range. We are also in the process of creating functioning artillery, in up to fifteen inch bore diameters.”
She waited for the reaction to die down. Most of the guests present had been exposed to bits of this data over the past few months, and had at least an idea of what she had just summarized. Now she had to break the hard part.
“The bad cop will let you know that these weapons are just high tech air guns.”
At this point, the sound level of audience conversations rose quite a bit and continued for a while before she raised her hands.
“If you could tone it down a bit please, I have a lot to cover and not a whole lot of time to do it in. I want all of you to have an understanding of what we have achieved as well as the limitations we are operating under. At the conclusion of this session you can pick up your background papers,” she waved towards tables at the back of the pavilion stacked with manila folders, “and there will be additional subject matter experts available to provide further details at the end of this session.”
She referred to the notes in front of her. “I will start with some background. Prior to the Change, there existed a limited commercial market for high-powered air guns. These fired bullets of larger caliber, up to .50. These rifles were powered by rechargeable 3kpsi air cylinders and were lethal to large game at ranges between fifty and a hundred yards. They went by such names as ‘Quackenbush .457 Outlaw’, the ‘Rogue .357’, and so on.
What we have done is continue their development, and applied mass production techniques to these custom designs.
As for artillery, we went back to the history books on this. Turns out that the Brits had developed and used a pneumatic AAA gun during WWII, called ‘Holman Projectors’. The projectors were capable of engaging aerial targets at altitudes of up to a thousand feet, more than adequate to take on current low flying gliders. We are producing refined variants of this system now.
“In the field of field artillery (no pun intended), again we dug into the history books, a bit farther this time. Around the turn of the last century, the U.S. military experimented with systems that were more reliable than the gunpowder cannons of that era. They were called ‘dynamite guns’ though powered with steam pressure.
The USS Vesuvius, launched in 1888, was armed with three fifteen-inch pneumatic guns capable of firing a projectile one and one half miles. In 1894, the Army purchased and installed several coastal artillery batteries of fifteen-inch dynamite guns. These could throw a shell from 2000 to 5000 yards depending on the weight of the projectile, from 500 to 50 pounds. A steam-driven compressor to power the guns supplied compressed air at 2500 psi. We have taken these weapons and adapted them to late twentieth century technology.”
“While these weapon systems were present on the field during our victory in North Carolina, and did prove themselves in combat, there were too few of them to actually turn the tide of the battle. That honor goes to the men and women who fought there, the inspired leadership of those such as General Branch, and a whole lot of luck.”
“The Change may have closed some doors to us, but it left a lot more of them open. As our engineers keep telling me, ‘there is more than one way to skin a cat’. In the future, with determination, hard work, along with a lot more of these weapons and the blessings of the Lord, we will strive to reduce the luck factor.”
Captain Harrell finished with, “This concludes my portion of the briefing, thank you for your time.”
In the stands, Collen Robbins turned to his boss and asked in a low voice, “She didn’t mention the main reason we won the fight, do you think it will stay quiet that much longer?”
“No, but if it lasts for one more battle, I will be happy. Besides, with as few of the enemy that did get away, I kinda think the ‘Witchcraft’ tale will carry weight.”
Deliah Toruson continued with a slight smile, “In a way, you could say it was ‘Black Magic’. The enemy wasn’t ready for troops wearing ‘Demon masks’, they weren’t trained and practiced in their use if they did have them, and they certainly didn’t have every soldier carrying one or more CS grenades.”
“Besides, we still haven’t deployed the flame throwers to tactical units. Imagine the shock when the foe finds out we not only have ‘dragons’ on our side, but the beasts use jellied gasoline.”
Deliah turned her head away and sighed, “I can just picture a closely packed pike armed shield wall mass of troops reacting to a tower of liquid flame pouring in among them. As Captain Harrell said, there is more than one way to skin a cat. She just didn’t mention that all of those ways are unpleasant and very bloody.”
NOTE to readers: Again, for this passage I have borrowed heavily from a real author. In in this case, John Ringo, a true wordsmith.
