Summoning The Union

Chapter 16: Battle of Fort Santiago

August 26, 1632
10:00 AM

A column of USEAN military Tanks, AFVs and both supply and infantry Trucks were seen moving towards Fort Santiago. Despite reporting previously of having a 40,000 Filipino contingents, high command wants to allocate others to an auxiliary unit at the town of Arkvann after being captured by the Recon Team and the QRF. Now there were only 30,000 of them in this operation

Now, most of them were now either sleeping, reading a book or smoking, especially with Lt. Ramon Gutierrez. The current Commander for this Tank Platoon from the 33rd Armored Brigade, he was smoking a cigarette while looking at his niece's hand-stitched doll. He looked at it with amusement while playing with it

"Sir...? Sir, please put down the doll we're already 2km from the Fort..." The muffled voice from his sergeant through the radio pulled him back in to his senses. Ramon shook his head and radioed him back

"Sorry about that... Sergeant, what's our current ETA?", "30 minutes until our arrival to the target, sir! Our birds in the air surveyed the area an hour ago. We're all clear for a "hunt"!" His sergeant relayed back, he nodded and sat back down to his command seat

He flipped and pushed some buttons and switches, an image was then displayed in his monitor. He saw nothing but open fields of grass on this part of the kingdom, after a few minutes later, he saw the fort itself

"This is Rhino 3-1, "Stonehenge" is in visual range, we are mission launch on Operation "Jenga" advance and report, over" One of the tank commanders in the platoon radioed him

"This is Rhino actual, copy that, advance and report..." Gutierrez radioed back at the other tank, "All callsigns this is Rhino Actual, all weapons ready, we're now entering enemy territory"

The defenders of Fort Santiago saw the speeding tanks charging towards them, they immediately load their 75mm field cannons. But Gutierrez saw them through his commander's sight, he then relayed to his loader

"HE, One round on my command!..."

His loader picked up the shell and rammed into the gun

"HE up!" The loader shouted as he flips the cannon's safety

As they entered the 900 meter range, the cannons fired in staccato-like fashion. Several whips and cracks were heard throughout the coming battlefield as rounds were fired, some hit the tanks were either ricochet or didn't penetrate at all

USEAN tanks slowed down and rotated their barrels towards the cannons, with a loud boom high velocity HE rounds screams towards the enemy. A cannon was destroyed...and another, and then another...

The defenders were sent into a panic as they hid or regrouped to another side of the wall. One unlucky group was blown away when an HE round from an Abrams that hit a loaded cannon, shrapnel added to the carnage as it creates a domino effect as one of the still hot pieces of metal pierced through one of the Fort's ammo storage

The explosion was so powerful that the Tank Platoon stopped briefly and looked at it in awe, after a moment they then continue their assault. The tanks then stopped near the gate as disoriented defenders were hubling about at the city's gate, some had severe burns but they still kept firing, the tanks then answered with their coax machine gun to end their suffering

Gutierrez then radioed his platoon, "All Rhino call signs, this is Rhino-Actual. Halt advance and let our boys sweep up the area..." A round of agreements was heard in the channel, then the infantry and AFVs and Trucks full of soldiers, rolled up at the entrance and displaced them. They were bringing out automatic rifles, mortars and Rocket Propelled Grenades out of the boxes, they were now entering the fortress itself