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| Work in Progress: left to right: third attempt at making Espera's recoilless rifle, next is McAdams's command variant, and though I went with a different weapon, this is a Nguyen's Ape combat armour suit (see below for more info). |
CASDA 5136, Combat Armor Suit Detachment Alpha, is my Green Beret Special Forces unit that appears in my second novel
Strike Dog. As I was writing this piece up, I realized when I described CASDA 5136 in the book, that I had created a force that was doctrinally different to my Marine Corps 1st Combat Armor Suit Reconnaissance Company.
I was just writing a cool action sequence for a character in a combat armour suit. But on reflection, it's clear to see that by describing the weapon loadouts I created a force that was functionally different to the one I described in
Bad Dog.
That is what I would call, creatively serendipitous.
Anyway, I've been looking at my Ape suits (acronym for: Autonomous Pilot Expert-system) and in particular Sgt. Espera's weapon loadout. In
Strike Dog I describe him having a recoilless rifle, but my first attempt at instantiating one was less than satisfactory, and I rebuilt it using the parts I had for the Marine gauss rifle. Comparisons of both can be seen
here.
Hence this new build. I still have to do some further work involving Milliput, but I'm liking the shape and feel.
I have parts for three more Army Apes tucked away, so my plan is to make half of CASDA 5136. The other six mechs would be identical, as in carrying the same sort of loadouts. My thoughts being that each half of the detachment was a mirror of the other. Like this.
Combat Armor Suit Detachment Alpha 5136
Captain Anthony Downey, detachment commander
Master Sergeant Campbell, operations and team sergeant
Staff Sergeant Morales, combat engineer
Sergeant Mary Lewis, communications
Sergeant Schmidt, medical
Sergeant First Class Frank Radoslovich, weapons
Chief Warrant Officer 1 Andrew McAdams, assistant detachment commander
Sergeant First Class Thomas Nguyen, assistant operations and intelligence
Staff Sergeant Julia King, combat engineer
Sergeant Miguel Sanchez, communications
Sergeant Daniel Robinson, medical
Staff Sergeant Juan Espera, weapons
So, Espera is the heavy weapons specialist, hence he carries the big recoilless rifle. Though a fat lot of good it does him, but to say more would be spoilers.
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