Tyranny of Steel

Night soon descended as the sky was filled with darkness, and the stench of death permeated the small farming village where Andreas and his men had set up their line of defense. They were surrounded by an army of over a thousand Italian Soldiers, and they had less than a hundred able-bodied men at their disposal.

The Austrian Jaegers were running low on munitions, and most of them were wounded to some degree. One thing was sure; if they remained within this village, it would become their grave. Andreas was having a serious discussion with his two Lieutenants as they tried to come up with some plan to survive.

One of the men in question had his helmet in one of his hands and his rifle slung over his shoulder. His face was covered in dirt as he presented an idea to the other two officers.

”We have only one option; we must launch a night raid and kill as many of their men while they sleep. We do not have enough cartridges left to sustain ourselves against another assault. ”

However, the other officer was against this idea; it was risky and most certainly would result in the deaths of their soldiers; as such, he began to offer his own plan of action.

”That will never work, there are too many of them, all that will do is get our soldiers killed, what we need to do is flee under cover of darkness, there ’s less than a hundred of us left, I say we pick up our gear, we build some stretchers, and we get our brothers out of here before we all meet our demise! ”

Immediately the first Lieutenant argued against this point; there were too many valuable supplies they would be leaving behind for the enemy to scavenge if they left the field of battle.

”You are saying that we abandon the corpses of our brothers? What about the equipment they have, their painted breastplates and helmets, their camouflage uniforms? Their Jaeger rifles!?! If such valuable equipment falls into the Italians hands, it will be used against us in the future! ”

In response to this, the other officer snickered before commenting on the worst-case scenario.

”If we all die here, they will have 120 jaeger rifles and camouflage uniforms to use against us in the future. Do you want to give the Italians such firepower? ”

After hearing this, the officer who suggested a night raid gritted his teeth before bowing his head in defeat. A night raid against such a large force would not allow them to achieve victory. If they attempted such a suicidal move, they would be caught before they could kill even a hundred of the Italian soldiers.