Free Commando City: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 7) by Mitchell T. Jacobs Page A

main battle tank. It just has to be able to deflect small arms fire and shell fragments, things like that.”
    “And you want heavy weapons.”
    “Yeah, preferably something that can take out a building.”
    Yusuf opened up his own wrist menu and started scrolling through a list. “Hmm, it's going to have to be fixed in place if it's heavier artillery. But then there's the problem of ammunition weight. Having a big gun doesn't do you much good if we can't get you the ammunition for it.”
    “Well, what do you think is best?” Zach asked. Yet again, the lack of a secure supply route was coming into play.
    “Maybe a 30mm autocannon?” Paige suggested. “That's light enough to mount in a turret and packs a little more punch than a machine gun. It'll go through brick and normal concrete.”
    Zach had been on the receiving end of an autocannon before, and knew how devastating they could be. Granted, this wasn't in a quad mount, but it was a bigger gun, and it would add some sorely needed firepower to the mix.
    “Can we add anything else?” A grenade launcher, maybe? Or something that can deal with armor?”
    “Your best bet for that would be to have a recoilless rifle team working with the vehicle,” Yusuf told him. “I'd say that the other weapon should be a pintle mounted machine gun on top of the turret for the commander. Infantry is going to be the biggest threat, not armor.”
    “OK, I'll take that under advisement. Anything else I should know?”
    “Is this strictly an attack vehicle, or do you want transport capability?” Paige asked.
    Zach grimaced. “I'd love to have transport capability, but that's not its primary function. And that's going to add to the weight, right?”
    “Yeah.”
    “So delete it. I'd love to have it, but this is supposed to be a support vehicle.”
    Paige looked over at Yusuf. “That means we might be able to shorten the length of the vehicle.”
    “A little bit. Not too much, though, because we don't want to sacrifice ammunition capability.”
    “Is that going to do anything to the engine?” Zach asked.
    “Let me see those numbers,” Yusuf told Paige. He took a quick glance at the projection and made a few calculations in his own wrist menu. “Well, we won't know until we actually build and test the thing, but the vehicle is lighter, even with the turret and ammo added on. That means greater power to weight ratio, which means it'll move faster. And it's on wheels, so that'll increase the speed too.”
    “That's good to hear.”
    “Yeah, but it's not like you're going to be drag racing them anytime soon,” Yusuf said. “This design is interesting, though. The rest of the alliance might want to look into this as a patrol or a reconnaissance vehicle.”
    “Please don't bring this up until after you've built them for us,” Zach said. “I really don't want our heavy support to get taken away from us.”
    “Oh, don't worry. The alliance command directs us, but ultimately we're the ones that decide what we're producing and who we're producing it for.”
    Zach nodded. “Thanks. So, not to press my luck, but when would you be able to build one?”
    Paige closed out of the design and opened up another menu. “Let's see. Looks like we're through producing replacement Rams at the drive works, so we have some open space. Doubtless they'll be clamoring for more, but too bad. You guys seemed to have gotten stuck with the worst job, so we'll help you first.”
    “Glad to see someone else is on our side,” Zach said with a smile.
    “Happy we can be of service. So, this design is going to need to be fine-tuned a little bit, but that should only take a couple of hours at most. Once we take care of that it's just a matter of building the prototype.”
    Zach was surprised. “That easy?”
    “That's the benefit of working off a preexisting design as a base,” Yusuf said. “We just have to make minor adjustments and we're good to go.”
    “Provided it works correctly,” Paige