Molly's - Chapter 9 [Taniverse Fanfic]

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Molly’s - Chapter 9

Fanfic in the Tankiverse by Hippin_in_Hawaii

Once Molly was gone, I stomped over to the tank and got straight to work.
 
No, no I didn’t. If I’m being honest, I sulked. “Look, but see. What’s that supposed to mean?” “Stupid little man.” “Molly must be out of her mind.” These are some of the useful mutterings I occupied myself with while pretending to study the stupid tank. Probably, I wasted two hours on that, getting sulkier and sulkier as I got more and more miserable standing out in the hot sun. I decided to take my lunch break early.
 
Sitting in the air conditioned showroom, munching my pb&j as I strolled around the displays, I let  myself remember all the fun that I’d been having here, and all that I’d learned. I ran my hand over a stabilizing gimbal with a bit of love. I’d helped Frau pull this one out of a turret and now it was on the showroom floor.
 
I licked my fingers clean and sighed a deep sigh. “Let it go, Tadpole, let it go” I told myself. Funny, that’s how I thought of myself now. Tadpole. It was more my identity than the name I’d been using all my life. Well, Tadpole wasn’t going to spend any more time sulking. Tadpole was going to learn how to see. I went to my locker and loaded my toolbelt with items I thought may prove useful, then slugged down a bottle of water before returning to the sun.
 
I repeated my walkaround, this time not harrumphing or pondering, just looking. I didn’t see anything wrong with my initial assessment; medium sized tank, medium sized gun. Frowning, I stared at the muzzle of the cannon. Definitely in the 100mm range, but what was it exactly? I trotted back to the garage and grabbed a set of calipers.
 
Climbing out to the end of the barrel wasn’t terribly hard for someone as nimble as I am, but sitting there trying to get an accurate measurement of the bore took all of my balance and coordination. It was 125 mm, which is on the edge of allowable for a Classic. I shone a flashlight down the bore. It was smooth, not rifled! Ok, that was technology from post WWII, so I was clearly wrong about this tank fighting in a historical division. Smoothbore allowed for some very advanced munitions; a 125mm smoothbore was serious firepower by any standard.
 
So, why put such a gun on a medium tank? I walked around, tapping the surface with my heavy hammer. It wasn’t scientific, but I could get an idea of how thick the armor was by listening to the sound it made, and this tank had a surprisingly thin skin. It would be suicide to take a tank this soft into an arena which allowed advanced weaponry. What was the driver thinking?
 
I stepped back and let my eyes float. Was there a faint lattice pattern in the paint? Leaning closer, I could see faint rectangular mismatches in the paint, as if an extra layer of paint had been applied after the tank had been covered with dozens and dozens of rectangles, each about 50 cm long and 30 cm wide.
 
You’re probably there already, but it took me awhile to see the answer. Reactive armor! This thing had been covered in reactive armor, which would have made it more of a match for someone else’s big gun. Since there were no scorches to the paint, clearly it hadn’t been hit anywhere in the body or turret.
 
Alright, if every other part of my initial assessment had been wrong, I was now willing to bet my impression of the damage was wrong as well. I went to the left tread and peered at it very carefully. The front drive wheel was mangled; its spokes were all chewed off. And there was a hole clean through it, almost dead center. I put the calipers on that hole; it was approximately 30mm. So, not shrapnel, but a mighty good shot from a hyper-velocity weapon, probably a railgun. Jiminy Christmas! A precision shot like that would cripple this tank. Probably the drive wheel would end up welded to the chassis; at the very least, the gearing and differential inside were shredded. Either way, the drive wheel would not want to turn. Forcing the issue would damage the underside of the track, which a quick glance assured me was the case.
 
But the color of the exposed metal was wrong. I knew what hardened steel looked like, and now that I was looking, the color was wrong. I used my hammer to tap the drive wheel, road wheels, the links, everything I could reach. They all sounded wrong. So, not steel. Titanium? Not to be redundant, but Jiminy Christmas! The expense of that! But it would shave a lot of weight off the drivetrain, plus make that vulnerable area a little tougher.
 
So, small tank, light armor, titanium treads. Everything in the name of weight. At this point, I was willing to bet that the engine inside was a monster; the driver had been depending on speed and agility to win the day. Whoever put that round through his drive wheel was either incredibly lucky or amazingly skilled.
 
Walking around to the back of the tank, I decided on amazingly skilled. There was one more hole, almost perfectly centered in the engine compartment. I knew what I’d see when I opened the service hatch; a mangled mass of twisted metal. This tank was dead with a capital D!
 
I grabbed my strap wrench (Olaf was right, those things are handy for everything!) and broke loose the toggles securing the engine maintenance hatch. What was inside was heartbreaking. The engine had been magnificent. It was indeed a monster, probably had more horsepower than a standard Juggernaut. There’s no doubt that this tank would have been FAST. But it was only wreckage now, nothing but gleaming, shiny, shredded bits of metal, completely decimated by that hyper-velocity slug. Peering in, I could see that even the inner firewall had been breached, the skin of the pilot’s capsule showing through. Wow.
 
I sat down and thought about how this would have played out. That much engine on a tank so light, it would have been blazing fast in a straight line. But could it maneuver at that speed? With the hull, armor, and treads so light, the 125mm cannon would make her top-heavy. A hard turn at speed may well flip her over. Heck, firing the gun to one side may well flip her over! The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. With the reactive armor, probably this driver’s best choice would have been to charge the railgun headon. Count on taking one hit, surviving it, and closing to effective range for the Smoky before taking a second. Trying to dance around would invite the type of damage I was seeing.
 
So, unless I was missing something (and I was willing to entertain that possibility now), this was a case of a rich driver with little experience being owned by a genuinely skilled opponent.
 
And Molly was right, this tank was a good salvage. The high-tech smoothbore seemed in perfect condition and would fetch a good price with very little labor involved. The titanium drive train, although not complete, would still be very attractive to others with more money than sense.
 
I still had a couple of hours before Twee’s return. I decided to investigate a little more, see what else I could see. Climbing to the top of the turret, I opened the hatch and slid inside.

Mahalo (thank you) for reading; I hope you enjoyed! This story is part of a series. Information on the series, and links to the other stories, can be found here.

[LOLKILLERTOTHEDEATH 1,921]

Approved!

 

Another very well written piece! There was a formatting error (or a glitch) which caused all of your text to be lumped together. I might have messed up the structure compared to what you may have in mind, so my apologizes. Grammar-wise, I didn't notice anything.

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Approved!

 

Another very well written piece! There was a formatting error (or a glitch) which caused all of your text to be lumped together. I might have messed up the structure compared to what you may have in mind, so my apologizes. Grammar-wise, I didn't notice anything.

Thanks, LOL! Although I can't speak to any formatting glitch, it looks right to me! I did catch two typos after the fact, though... Looks like I am slipping  ;)

[LOLKILLERTOTHEDEATH 1,921]

Thanks, LOL! Although I can't speak to any formatting glitch, it looks right to me! I did catch two typos after the fact, though... Looks like I am slipping  ;)

I fixed it, but I'm not sure why it just turned into a massive text wall. I suppose you slipping and me not catching any minor errors is a sign of me slipping up.

[tweezers 1,034]

Loved the technical analysis!

 

 

 

 

[cryptor 589]

Nice :) 

[P.4.R.K.O.U.R 329]

Loved the technical analysis!

 

Hope that Twee likes that too.

[TankiNoob2000 231]

Very nice piece!;)

[DRAKO523 795]

Omgomg, molly's chapter 9 was amazing!! Can't wait for the next one.

[Person_Random 4,991]

Will Molly's be on the news next?

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Will Molly's be on the news next?

Shouldn't be. Molly's will continue here in the AWS. I don't think I'd survive a one-story-per-month release... I need releases much more often than that!

[Person_Random 4,991]

Shouldn't be. Molly's will continue here in the AWS. I don't think I'd survive a one-story-per-month release... I need releases much more often than that!

Good, I can't wait that long either.  But I'm kind of bad at keeping track of things meself. :P