Action! Action! Action!
One of the complaints leveled against 6-Commando this year was that it was a military story without any shooting. Well, vox populi, here you go! Actually, this is where this chapter was always headed, so… Anyway. What is there to add to this? Not much. It only takes a little thing for a bad situation to get a whole lot worse.
This is going to be a hugely busy week, this one. I’ll be doing a lot of traveling for work, up and down the Eastern Seaboard, all week long. Still, as always, I’ll endeavor to find time to interact, draw the comic, update the blog, and so on and so forth. For now, Meeting in the morning, so – sleep it is.
All the best, folks!
From the last page, it looked like both sides were pretty numerically even. From this page, it looks like the UNA outnumber the CONASUR troops by quite a lot, and the boys in gold are gunna take a beating for it. Also, I’m pretty impressed by the guy carrying his buddy out on his back while one handing his rifle.
well, it is a UNA base, so it would make sense for them to be able to call for reinforcements, even if they take longer to get there, since the majority of the base is theirs to fill
he’s not one handing his rifle afaict, it’s on his back. the one who’s been shot is reflexively trying to apply direct pressure (kind of difficult in a powered armor though)
I was talking about the CONASUR soldier in the middle panel, not the UNA man on the right.
woah! missed that bit
In my ‘head soundtrack’ of music I would have in the 6 Commando movie, I’m setting this to Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber AKA the music from Platoon, with this scene just playing out in silence, aside from that mournful music.
Good choice!
That would dictate slow motion, muzzle flashes, gore, shrapnel, a few explosions, spine chills, goosebumps, a knot in the stomach, slightly wet eyes and lots of emotions. I can nearly see this in front of me now. It would be a great, though damp, scene.
Yikes.
Well, firefights are hard to depict in comics, is the lesson for this week. At least, without mass confusion.
–M
i saw the UNA and the russian have the same theme of having backpack carrying load of ammo and for the una we have gas propeller , but the conasur only have a shotgun and a rocket and something strap in there boots and belt way.
so question how many ammo did each faction sodier have ?
oh and it very impressed that the cornasur sodier in the center of the panel firing a powerful shotgun with only one hand , is the shotgun modified to firing dual or it just that he a bit strong in the arm with support from his power armor ?
does 3 faction armor have helmet with thermal reading , night vision , and looking thought wall ability and auto aiming?
and is this just a armor or does it also serve as a exosceleton and these trooper can punch and jump like super human?
is iam the only one notice this? most of these trooper do not have ability to operated alone in lone combat , they seem to lack it even thought there armor is a all meant protection for hazzard enviroment .
so mister . Inspiration would you like to presented us next time on sometime a real combat suit that reserved for recon and and commando ? that can survived out side the need of refueling and arming that most normal infantry trooper usually used?
and oh but these are medium infantry so how would a normal infantry arm and how would a heavy infantry walking mech arm?
Big questions, man! I love it. I’ll do my best, here.
The packs on their hip hold extra magazines for their rifles. A standard CONASUR rifle load is 46 rounds, and a gas cartridge will typically fire a total of four magazines. They’re propelled by a binary liquid propellant held in a compressed gas canister that loads at the top rear of the gun, just in front of the stock. They carry extras in their ankle packs.
UNA troopers have gauss rifles with 0.125cal tungsten cores jacketed in a uniform 0.25″ soft steel shroud. The full firing caliber is 0.625cal., or roughly 15mm. The power for the magnets comes from the backpack through the cable in the grip. A full load of bullets for a UNA service carbine is 60.
Both sides have grenades but explosives are very dangerous to both sides in an enclosed space, as the concussion could easily harm both sides. The CONASUR units use an underslung front-loading RPG, while the UNA use hand grenades they have strapped to the right side of their utility belt.
The soldier one-handing his rifle is being very dramatic, but is probably not hitting anything, as the recoil is throwing his aim off, even though his suit is stabilizing his arm to a certain extent. In hand to hand combat, both sides would have enhanced strength, and these light suits, being more maneuverable, would be better at that than the heavy ones. CONASUR does have heavy suits, we just haven’t seen them yet. All suits have a basic suite of visual and radiation sensors in the helmet – infrared, ther morphia, ultraviolet, electromagnetic, and, in the heavy suits, neutrino interferometers and laser illumination detection and ranging or “LIDAR” and seismic occlusion detection and ranging or “SODAR.” They do technically have highly enhanced abilities to run, jump and so forth, but stretching yourself too far is dangerous in a suit, as the suit can do things far in advance of what a person can tolerate, and you’d be likely to tear muscles or dislocate joints if you overdo it. Most suits have a governor built into the computer that has measured and recorded the wearers physical parameters during training and missions, and adapts the suit to ensure that it doesn’t injure its user by trying to do more than he’s capable of. The suit can only enhance the natural ability of the wearer, not give him superpowers.
As for “light” infantry, non-advanced countries still have them, but to the superpowers, these troopers ARE light infantry. The only small arms they produce are for self defense of base personnel and vehicle crew, and are not effective outside of very short ranges. The UNA sidearm, for example, is able to defeat powered armor at ranges of up to about twenty feet, but beyond that is not likely to be very effective. There are still unarmored infantry forces in the world – the Republic of Katanga uses them, for example, because they can’t afford to buy more than a small number of suits, let alone train the people who use them. They use small arms that were designed in the 1960s, before armored suits were inventd, and usually have disposable antitank weapons to take out armored troopers.
There are, however, “ultralight” armored suits that are designed for reconnaissance and covert operations. These are only semi-powered, and are very expensive, because they have special compact power units and stealthy systems to keep them from generating noise or heat. They’re used by special forces outfits like 5-Commando, which is a crack South African and Namibian commando force in Botswana at the time this story is set – they may or may not appear later in the story in some capacity… Maybe a sequel, down the road.
Did I cover everything? I hope so!
–M
but come on everyone , where is the GRENADE ?
Center panel is the one you’re not satisfied with, Mathieu, right?
It is now. :’
–M
so let me set this right CONASUR CLOSE RANGE AND BADASS ROCKET IN ALSO CLOSE RANGE , UNA LONGRANGE WITH POWERBULLET MACHINE THAT FIRED BULLET WITH EXTREME ABILITY TO PIERCING BY THE SUPPORT OF GAS PROPELLING IN THERE BAG , THE RUSSIAN GUY IS ALL KILLING TERMINATOR THAT SHOULD ONLY TAKING OUT AT POINT BLANK .
so is that it or i missed something , ah do the cornasur have there own heavy armor ?
Well done firefight scene there Mr Average. Took me a minute to realize the guy in the center panel was carrying another guy on his back, but still well done.
One thought kept going through my mind in after the last two panels though; I know having power-armored troops means all sides develop power-armor-piercing weapons, but damn that armor looks like it’s about as effective as Imperial Stormtrooper armor! Both sides are getting swiss-cheesed by each other’s fire.
Stormtrooper: “Wait, this stuff is supposed to protect us? I thought it was to make SURE we were dead if we got hit!”
According to Star Wars lore, Storm Trooper armour is actually pretty effective in protecting from enviromental hazards, like hostile atmosphere’s, climactic hazards and chemacle or biologial threats and it offers protection against shrapnel and explosions ect, but direct hits from blaster fire is much harder to defend against, the armour tending to ablate and reduce the harm, rather than deflect it entirely.
However, much like their famously bad marksmanship, I think the apparently useless nature of Stormtrooper armour, has more to do with making the heros unstoppably awesome, than deficiencies in the armour.
In this case, Mister Average has already commented once on the tendancy of new advances in armour, to quickly be overtaken by advances in armour piercing weapons. UVA officers, after all are issued as standard with a handgun that can kill power armour. Still, like Storm Trooper armour, it protects against a lot more than direct fire and you can be sure any soldier is going to take even the slim chance of survival if hit, over no chance of survival.
In star wars books, yes, stormtroopers seem to be a lot more effective, but come on, in the movies the stormtroopers were getting beat to death with sticks. That armor didn’t appear to be helping much against that either…
Well, consider that this is powered armor versus powered armor, not powered armor versus unarmored infantry with small arms. Also, the UNA and CONASUR are roughly on a technological level. Most of the mindset people have about weapons power is based on asymmetrical conflicts of the latter 20th century. Their World War II is much more analogous to ours, with weapons equivalency or near equivalency and consequently high casualties. Guys wearing flak vests would be practically vaporized by the impact of the powered armor weapons these guys are carrying.
–M
Well, this went downhill fast. This is now a veritable Charlie Foxtrot.
I was just wondering – what’s the technical difference between the weapons of the UNA and the CONASUR?
I can see that the ones used by the former are handheld only (the lack of stock goes against the grain of what I know about weapons, but I’m assuming they have recoil dampers in-built in the powered armour) and have an umbilical, whereas the latter uses self contained units with normal stocks and, in a single case, sling as well (I’m also assuming the trooper in the central panel is the same one we saw earlier, since he was the only one to have a sling on the weapon).
Also, the CONASUR weapons seem to have a grenade launcher of some sort under the barrel, whereas the UNA ones are single calibre.
And the armour, indeed, doesn’t seem to do much. I would have expected the weapons to be much less effective against powered suits, considering the fact there are plenty of unarmoured troops around. Standard hypervelocity rounds for use against unarmoured targets and cumulative charges or high-explosive squash head rounds for taking down armour. Maybe a round comprised of a heavy, soft slug tipped with plastic explosive so that it deforms against the armour a millisecond before it explodes, leaving the armour relatively unscathed but killing the soldier inside through the shock wave? Possibly a round that penetrates armour and bounces around, cutting the occupant to ribbons? Certainly nothing hand-held that can punch through the frontal armour and out the back, even for a knife-range fight such as this.
“Wow, that really escalated. I mean, that really got out of hand FAST!”
I basically allow the weapons to be as powerful as I need them to be for the story to advance in a properly dramatic way. But in basic terms, CONASUR uses a ceaseless, binary liquid propellant to fire a high density projectile. The UNA uses a 3mm impact-forging gauss penetrator powered from the suit’s power cell, hence the umbilical. The armor is meant to be an analogue of modern body armor for a world with common extreme-power weaponry. It protects against glances, hostile environments, and lower-powered weapons, but won’t stop a high power weapon like an assault carbine round. But it’s something they’d rather wear than not. Like, consider a “bullet proof” vest. It won’t stop an AK-47 round, but you’d still rather have it on when the bullets start flying. I know that’s a general statement and many people would prefer not to have the extra bulk and all that, but in general practice, that’s the military doctrine of the times in which the comic is set. You wear the suit, but it doesn’t make every infantryman into a super soldier versus an opponent whose weapon is designed to kill him, suit or no. However, you put a UNA trooper up against a “real world” U.S. Marine, and he’ll tear him apart. It’s just that combat is taking place at a different but level order of magnitude.
That would be an interesting page for the tactical handbook, though – relative weapons types and power of cartridge. Hmm…
–M
you know i look up to see the heavy armor in action , where normal bullet just wanked off it torso when hit even a tank , like when you play company of heroes 1,2 sometime the big tank ammo would just bounch off , and also the bullet , so look up till that
Brick killed a guy. With a trident.
Ah, I see! Thank you for clearing that technical bit out.
Caseless, liquid propellant and high density projectile vs self forming penetrator fired from a coil gun. Just one more question though – are you sure you didn’t mean 13mm for the UNA calibre, because those bores are certainly a lot larger than 3 mm. Or are we talking here about the finished penetrator which is 3mm, even thought he original round is necessarily larger?
You’re thinking of the soft ballistic vests from the late 80s and early 90s that were mainly there to protect against fragmentation from grenades and artillery or ricochets rather than direct hits by bullets.
The current generation Level III plate carrier vests will reliably stop a 7.62X39 bullet at medium range and Level IV will stop a .30-06 M2 armor-piercing round with a steel or tungsten penetrator, because they have ESAPI (Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert) ceramic plates that shatter to absorb the impact.
Even at close range, it will slow them enough so that the wound is several degrees of magnitude lower from what it would have been on an unarmoured soldier (no hydrostatic shock effects, for example).
So even if a real world US Marine would have trouble taking down these troopers with anything short of AT grenades or anti-materiel rifles, I’m quite sure their battlefield survivability is actually better than that of the UNA and CONASUR soldiers, since the latter seem to be using armour made from laminate 7017 aluminium (or similar) like that on the M2 Bradley IFV.
So, in the end it’s obvious the weapons technology in the 6 Commando world is far ahead that of body armour. Well, sucks to be them then…
Hmmmm the CONASUR trooper dead in panel 4 (top right) looks like a corporal?? or capt he has two lines on his left chest not one.
Quite so! He’s a Cabo Primero! Too sharp for me, you guys! 😉
–M
Providing first aid to a guy inside one of those suits might be a problem, especially with bleeding injuries…?
The suit will do its best to stabilize the wearer, by constricting to try to stop blood flow and injecting a limited amount of painkillers. But yes, it’s very difficult. Medics usually have to cut the suit off entirely – hence the specialized “medical” suits they wear.
–M
well thank that is very good thought all out , but does that mean , now each marine have to sign a carrier deal? i mean to be what you say about record about training and mission . That mean well he pretty much have to nearly sign his 10 year of service for a suit like that .
not to mention due to the suit ability to become better or worse base on individual skill and combat experience whose wear it , then it mean each suit will have catergory and it mean there will be sized changes , ultility changes , side note , and uplink hub for each person wouldn’t it , and come with a world languages translator and radar system and everyone have there own suit , since squeezing a person into a different suit of there own is not a good combat effective , so it pretty much like a storm trooper suit of starwar and other variant suit that we see that have tight knit on there soldier wouldn’t it?
wow the cornasur shotgun is a rifle ? and it hold about 46 round each? wait so you mean it fired like a rifle until it fired a burst of 4 bullet at a time? That would make the cornasur shotgun rifle , a heavy gun standard , it would be like you packing a small grenade launcher gun by your side , well the cornasur would be a good close combat unit then .
ok can you explain to me about the russian light suit unit? they seem to be the most baddass suit in 3 faction that we currently see.
and you say this is the light unit infantry so then the UNA heavy armor that we just see in the other panel is also medium infantry.
OH so this is what we are lacking in .
UNA = heavy armor infantry
CORNASUR= heavy and medium armor infantry and tank vehicle airplane and submarine also big tank like mike
RUSSIAN( i kept forgotted there name )= medium infantry (since the big red funny robot oh that is a worker armor ) so also heavy amor infantry then , big tank like mike
and bottom line is both side lack of commando suit and sniper suit heavy sniper , and walking plaform like the sentinel in warhammer ( can you make your own walking plaform for us here to see? they be good at walking thought harsh terrain and fallout )
so you should show us working armor like a engineer loading cargo armor , drone , normal combat hazzard nuclear radiation modified tank and jeep and truck , hovering craft , on cornasur and russian , ROBOT , android ( i don’t know if i going way off the demand here but just do what you wanted then ) troop transport , large airplane , mechanized infantry and fortress , something to replaced MIKE or against MIKE in the future .
Oh and MIKE should get a upgrade too , after the nuclear war , each faction and nation on earth would mostly developed gurelllia combat , and that make MIKE have to become a mobile fortress of his own and able to support the 5 commando who is on the run …..
hey but should there also many new faction that is gonna pop up in the future of this webcomic? you know nation and country that have been prepared for this ?
what about other country in the world like the middle east , china, singapore and ( does australia and antartica been hit? ) and underwater war , super carrier that carried ship aircraft and tank troop in the air .
i wonder that we could compared mister freeman suit in halflife too a UNA light infantry suit?
ye mister freeman have a shield, do these guy have any shield or does it still in prototype , and when do we see laser in combat?
What happen to the german and europe and the affrica ?
what happen when the citizen leaved there nuclear bunker to the world that is being plague by nuclear winter ? what happen to those left outside when the event happen and they still live , what mystery and horror would the war brought after the end of it ?…… storm , tornado , nuclear dust cloud , earth quake , dryness, vegetation died out , mutant , alien invasion( nah maybe this should reserved to another time ) ?
hey you should created a twisted too because MIKE started a war seem to be somewhat (naive for what is really happen , there should be some one or some body created this malicious plan for all of this , because the arming up of 2 biggest and most power faction in the war smell divided and conquer , what ever the faction that make both of these side goes to anihalation war to each other must be musted there power weapon to start the third war or to take control over the remain fragile nation )
So what happen to the you know UNITED NATION IN ALL OF THIS ? or america and europe , they must be a different branch don’t they , we only see a small event and scenario before something bigger .
you should also do a story about places that doesn’t being hit by the nuclear fallout
Did you read Joe Haldeman’s “Forever War”? The suits there just fix injuries in a grim, but life-saving way…
hmn never read it but i think i will , does it have pdf on the web? i don’t have money to buy a real book you know
hehehehe it does have a pdf version wooooooooo , incase you also wanted to watch it you should goes to pdf like me , and did you read starship trooper?
does the suit on 3 side have tempeture stabiliser?
Brutal action sequence!
Yeah, “6 shits going down” would be a real good name for this comic! xD