FRONT TOWARD ENEMY

Forgotten Ruin War Journal

Not all Ranger Operations involve kicking down doors or swinging a Carl G round into a hill giant’s grill. Sometimes, they have to create a killing ground for their enemies, and that’s where all the fun of the scouts comes along with the lethality of a honey badger on crack. 

While traps, snares, and deadfalls are easily constructed, they take immense amounts of time to fabricate correctly, so they’re not spotted and the target falls prey to them. And when a ranger doesn’t have that kind of time to put to task, he can improvise with more than his share of High-Ex!

One of the best ways to cover a back trail against an advancing force of Orcs and Ogres looking to do the Rangers dirty is to set explosive munitions as traps in their path. Methods for emplacement will differ because of time, terrain, and tactical factors, but one thing can be sure, anyone coming after them who hits the switch ain’t gonna have a lot of time to regret their poor life choices.

Chief, and easiest among these methods, is the M-18 Claymore mine. Originally fielded during the Vietnam War, the Claymore is a directional explosive munition that fires 100, 3.2 millimeter steel balls at a speed of close to 4,000 feet per second. The balls are cast into a resin and packed over packed C-4 explosive.

For the rangers, tagging their back trails for Orc hatchet forces to run afoul of the Claymore, the standard remote firing device (RFD) is really substandard. That would require a ranger to be on overwatch on the path and trigger RFD, setting off the implanted blasting cap to trigger the mine. Instead, running low visibility tripwire across the most probable path of pursuit will ensure a good number of casualties among the Orcs, Ogres, and gobs running after them.

When the mine detonates, it spreads the now deformed steel balls and the resin packing as flack to shred targets in its cone shaped blast, up to a distance of 50 meters. The explosion also spreads the fragmentation at a height of 2 meters (over six and a half feet), so those taller gobs such as Ogres and Trolls are getting cut out at the knees.

Gobs are just plain toast. 

Modern innovations such as radio remote detonators, laser trips, and trail cams to watch the lane of approach on armor mounted battle boards are all kit the Forge techs can print for Rangers on the ground. But as most places the rangers go are massively underdeveloped, a good ol’ tripwire should do the trick and cut down on the amount of kit each Ranger has to carry.