Hohenstaufen's Hammer

[Baron von Lexus]

Heres some artillery fluff about the Death Korps since my Artillery men always seem to have great games. Thought I'd give my Gun Captain some background.

Enjoy,
BvL

***** Valdenheim, Day 143 of the Siege of Graz*****

Gun Captain Heinrich Vorst dropped his raised arm and the gun fired. “Fired” was an understatement as to Vorst it seemed as though the noise would rip a hole in the warp and obliterate whatever foul chaos spawn dwelled there. The blast was so loud if it weren’t for the special noise dampening units in his helmet he had no doubt the force of the sound would have blown his brain right out of his head. He felt the noise reverberate through his body and it made him take a step back to brace himself. He was surprised he was not deaf after almost 20 years of operating the big guns of Krieg, and offered a quick prayer to the Emperor for his audio dampening grace.

The other 5 members of his gun crew quickly began the process of reloading with a skill that would only have been developed from years of training and practice. Vorst was busy already getting the next set of coordinates from his vox-operater Wilhelm Jünger and barely noticed thunderous sounds of the impact of the shell that came about 20 seconds after it had been fired. Vorst had served with Jünger since they were children back on Krieg training for the Artillery companies.

Vorst was an exceptional gunner and came from one of the lesser noble families with quite a long distinguished history in the Artillery. Heinrich’s father, Helmut Vorst had served with the 678th Field Artillery as a Colonel throughout most of his adult life but was returned home to Hive Ferrograd to become an instructor at the Departmento Munitorum artillery school. Heinrich and his brother Hans had both carried on the family tradition and joined the Death Korps as artillerymen. Taught by their father they had gone on to join the 501st “Isenblut.” Hans was a Gunnery Sergeant in charge of a Heavy Mortar battery supporting 48th ‘Isenherz’ Kompanie “Kaiserschlacht.” Heinrich was in charge of the 85th Große Battery “Kaiser Urteil” and operated one of the 3 “Gustav” Pattern Super Heavy Self Propelled Siege Mortars.

Jünger listed off the coordinates and the process of reloading the 4000lb shell began. Reinhold Hetzau, Julius Ranke, Werner Falzer, and Konrad Faust made up the rest of the gun crew. Faust and Hetzau began operating the crane to bring up the next shell. The loading apparatus groaned under the weight of the massive shell. Faust opened the breech and Hetzau began to ratchet up the system to load the shell. Ranke began the minor adjustments in elevation of the gun while Falzer made the rotation adjustments according to Vorst’s orders. The gun ran with an efficiency that would make Adeptus Mechanicus techpreists that typically in other regiments operated such weapons, jealous. Vorst was in his element and already today frontline troops had reported over 200 estimated kills credited to his gun. The breech slammed shut, locked and “Höhenstaufen’s Hammer” was ready to fire. Gun Captain Vorst raised his arm yet again yelling “Prepare to fire, Emperor have mercy on their souls!” Yes this was a good day in the Korps.