Now that is a movie I wait in line to watch!!Had to re-read a second time, thought this meant the zombies ran out of the hospital shooting 50-cal's.
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28 Days Later - Death of a Nation
- Thread starter kspence92
- Start date
Excerpt from the memoirs of Dmitry Anatolyevich Petrov "The Rage Virus in Russia: A Personal Hell and European Campaign"
26 May, 2003
At the time of those events, I was a 24-year-old lieutenant of the Russian Airborne Forces, transferred from Ryazan to Taganrog. I was chosen because I had combat experience in Chechnya, during the First Chechen War, being a simple private there. I arrived not far away, five kilometers from the city. It was 6:23 A.M. on the clock, and the sun was slowly rising above the horizon, flooding everything with the rays of dawn. Then I watched the news and roughly understood what was waiting for us. My doubts about the Rage Virus were finally dispelled by constant exercises in conjunction with parts of the NBC Defense Forces, the constant wearing of chemical and biological protection suits.
"Comrade Lieutenant, Command gave the order to move to in the city!" - shouted my senior sergeant Kondratiev, who was sitting with me in the commander's BMD-2, on which we rolled into the city, or whatever it left after artillery and airstrikes. What I saw struck me to the core: there were only cannibals there. They weren't people. Monsters that needed to be killed.
"OPEN FIRE!" - then I shouted into the radio with all my strength, after which I sat down in the gunner's place and opened fire from a 30-mm automatic cannon at the crowd. I shoot, bloodied bodies with red eyes fall on the cold asphalt, the stream of infected does not end and rushes on, mowed down by the bullets of my platoon and other units, which I covered with the fire of my BMD autocannon. We cut through the crowd of infected with red-hot lead, as if children were throwing stones into water, hoping to cut through the abyss of darkness in search of a ray of light in this pitch-black hell. If there was something worse than Grozny, it was Taganrog.
After fifteen minutes of intense shelling from everything there was, and Su-25 airstrikes that dropped bombs on the city and drove unguided missiles into the crowds of the infected, our regiment moved deeper into the city under the cover of Mi-24 helicopters. The picture of general chaos and horror, where there were dead infected and torn to pieces by them, people hiding in basements, was imprinted in my memory for many years, but then, leaning out of the hatch of my BMD, I looked at it with incredible shock and fear: my hands were shaking, and a lump was growing in my throat, threatening to turn into the urge to vomit.
The scream of one of my paratroopers brought me to my senses.
"Comrade Lieutenant, the infected crowd at nine o'clock!" - he shouted, and I turned the BMD turret towards the attackers, spraying them with a burst from an autocannon, and then a projectile from a T-80UD flew into the crowd. A high-explosive shell has blown undead crowd to pieces, turning into a bloody mash. No one was left alive. I killed one of the infected by hitting a 30-mm shell in the head: his head came off and flew away for three or five kilometers, if I'm not mistaken, like a football. The further we went, the worse it got. There was a real bloody mess in the center of the city: torn corpses, dead and living infected mixed up, whistling bullets and shells with explosions. With great difficulty, I suppressed the urge to vomit and continued to open fire, commanding the platoon: I ordered the platoon RPG squads to open fire from an RPGs at a small group of undead with shrapnel shots. Fortunately for me, it worked.
We spent the rest of the day evacuating, checking the survivors for infected people and cleaning up the city. I saw depressed people and crying children, their mothers and fathers being herded into trucks. Many things can be forgotten, but not this. It has remained in my memory forever, coming in nightmares to this day, even though ten years have passed since then, and I became a colonel-general. I still jump out of bed shouting "FIRE, OPEN FIRE!"
26 May, 2003
At the time of those events, I was a 24-year-old lieutenant of the Russian Airborne Forces, transferred from Ryazan to Taganrog. I was chosen because I had combat experience in Chechnya, during the First Chechen War, being a simple private there. I arrived not far away, five kilometers from the city. It was 6:23 A.M. on the clock, and the sun was slowly rising above the horizon, flooding everything with the rays of dawn. Then I watched the news and roughly understood what was waiting for us. My doubts about the Rage Virus were finally dispelled by constant exercises in conjunction with parts of the NBC Defense Forces, the constant wearing of chemical and biological protection suits.
"Comrade Lieutenant, Command gave the order to move to in the city!" - shouted my senior sergeant Kondratiev, who was sitting with me in the commander's BMD-2, on which we rolled into the city, or whatever it left after artillery and airstrikes. What I saw struck me to the core: there were only cannibals there. They weren't people. Monsters that needed to be killed.
"OPEN FIRE!" - then I shouted into the radio with all my strength, after which I sat down in the gunner's place and opened fire from a 30-mm automatic cannon at the crowd. I shoot, bloodied bodies with red eyes fall on the cold asphalt, the stream of infected does not end and rushes on, mowed down by the bullets of my platoon and other units, which I covered with the fire of my BMD autocannon. We cut through the crowd of infected with red-hot lead, as if children were throwing stones into water, hoping to cut through the abyss of darkness in search of a ray of light in this pitch-black hell. If there was something worse than Grozny, it was Taganrog.
After fifteen minutes of intense shelling from everything there was, and Su-25 airstrikes that dropped bombs on the city and drove unguided missiles into the crowds of the infected, our regiment moved deeper into the city under the cover of Mi-24 helicopters. The picture of general chaos and horror, where there were dead infected and torn to pieces by them, people hiding in basements, was imprinted in my memory for many years, but then, leaning out of the hatch of my BMD, I looked at it with incredible shock and fear: my hands were shaking, and a lump was growing in my throat, threatening to turn into the urge to vomit.
The scream of one of my paratroopers brought me to my senses.
"Comrade Lieutenant, the infected crowd at nine o'clock!" - he shouted, and I turned the BMD turret towards the attackers, spraying them with a burst from an autocannon, and then a projectile from a T-80UD flew into the crowd. A high-explosive shell has blown undead crowd to pieces, turning into a bloody mash. No one was left alive. I killed one of the infected by hitting a 30-mm shell in the head: his head came off and flew away for three or five kilometers, if I'm not mistaken, like a football. The further we went, the worse it got. There was a real bloody mess in the center of the city: torn corpses, dead and living infected mixed up, whistling bullets and shells with explosions. With great difficulty, I suppressed the urge to vomit and continued to open fire, commanding the platoon: I ordered the platoon RPG squads to open fire from an RPGs at a small group of undead with shrapnel shots. Fortunately for me, it worked.
We spent the rest of the day evacuating, checking the survivors for infected people and cleaning up the city. I saw depressed people and crying children, their mothers and fathers being herded into trucks. Many things can be forgotten, but not this. It has remained in my memory forever, coming in nightmares to this day, even though ten years have passed since then, and I became a colonel-general. I still jump out of bed shouting "FIRE, OPEN FIRE!"
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Good story but a slight correction: The Rage Virus reached the Russian border towns in May 2003.
then what happen in Philippines your country like you know hysteria once it hits the fan.
The Philippines is safe but like every country, it would have enacted measures to prevent the virus from reaching the borders. I'd see British nationals or tourists from Europe being quarantined. Remember the virus is fast, so hiding it is impossible so it is much easier to tell who is infected. Weeks introduced the asymptomatic carriers so that would produce a challenge on how to quarantine the carriers.
yeah unless one will slipped in been a powder keg of chaos yet of course they been on high alert filipinos will buy guns and ammo in case of happening oh Danao will get a business booming with their guns been created.
Paratroopers of the 211st Special Guards Red Banner Order of Lenin and Alexander Nevsky Special Purpose Parachute Regiment conduct a clean-up operation and neutralization of infected during an outbreak of the Rage Virus in Taganrog. May 26, 2003.
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Excerpt from the memoirs of Dmitry Anatolyevich Petrov "The Rage Virus in Russia: A Personal Hell and European Campaign"
June 5, 2003.
After the clean-up of Taganrog, the command of our regiment gave the order: the Guards 211st Parachute Regiment is advancing towards Fedorovka with the support of tanks, aviation and artillery, after which the offensive goes to Mariupol, assaults Melitopol, after which the breakthrough to Aleekseyevka eliminates the encirclement of Crimea, which was arranged by the infected, thus breaking through the humanitarian and supply corridor for our troops and civilians. It was also important that the Ukrainian government was in Crimea, which was urgently evacuated to Russia along with part of the civilian population, and the Crimea Peninsula itself came under the control of our troops and the Black Sea Fleet. Everything there has already come under the control of the military command, where martial law was imposed, and the approaches to the first cities of the Crimea were mined and wrapped with barbed wire. To be honest, the initial goal of the command was to limit itself only to the defense of the borders, and not to break deep into Ukraine, but then this would lead to the fall of the Crimea by hordes of infected. A counterattack was needed to overturn such a significant force. And we were at the tip of the spear going to help the Crimean garrison.
The order came at night: without wasting a second, I gave the command: "Everyone, get into the BMD! Go ahead!" - and our BMDs, along with tanks, BMPs and other armored vehicles, along with helicopters, moved from the spot, starting to rush to that village, sweeping away crowds infected with superior T-80UD and T-72 firepower, alongside with BMP-2 and BMD-2. When I was in Rostov-on-Don, an infection broke out in a small area of the city, which had to be suppressed by artillery and tanks with BMP and BMD, and only after that infantry marched there in the person of paratroopers. When we cleared the area, I vomit up after the fight, and all the breakfast I ate ended up on the ground. After a medical check, it turned out that I was vomiting due to a nervous breakdown, but nevertheless, at that time I thought I was infected too. Slava Bogy, I was not infected.
Breaking through the hordes of the undead, there were even more of them in the Fedorovka area. Helicopters fired at them from everything they had, I pointed out targets in the place of the commander of the BMD, artillery struck directly into the clusters of infected, infantry fired from the embrasures of the infantry fighting vehicles. Then aviation joined in - Su-25 and Tu-95, which bombed the city to such a state that Berlin in 1945 was not even close in terms of the degree of destruction. The aircraft, after artillery and MLRS of all calibers had worked through the city, which was both a terrifying and fascinating sight, dropped bombs, after which the assault aircraft launched FFARs. There was nothing left of the city, ever ruins, as well as of the infected - these hordes, which attacked us, were mowed down by the our forces, and the main forces of the infected were destroyed by our VVS, so we had the honor of finishing off what was left of them.
Under the rumble of the tracks, I watched as five infected were mowed down by the automatic cannon of my BMD. There was a good gunner on my car - Kolya was a veteran gunner, having fought in Chechnya. He just mowed down their heads, and our driver crushed the sixth infected one. The T-72s were tearing apart the remaining groups of infected guns with single shots, and as we were preparing to move on, a signal sounded on the radio:
"Осина, это Сто второй! (Osina, it's 102!) – a commanding voice said, without wasting time on introductions.
"Срочно! Код «Калина красная». Предположительно, непосредственно по Конькову или по Оболонскому, где находятся особо крупные скопления зараженных. Приказываю срочно оттянуться от поселка и принять все возможные меры предосторожности! Ракеты с Ту-160 уже выпущены, время подлета до вас минут двадцать – двадцать пять! Об исполнении доложить, потом перейти в режим полного радиомолчания, все электрооборудование отключить! Как поняли, Осина?" ("Alert! The code is "Kalina Krasnaya". Presumably, directly along Konkove or Obolonsky, where there are especially large concentrations of infected people. I order you to get away from the village immediately and take all possible precautions! The missiles from the Tu-160 have already been fired, the time of approach to you is twenty to twenty–five minutes! Report on the execution, then switch to full radio silence mode, turn off all electrical equipment! How do you understand, Osina?")
"Понял вас." (Understood.) - I replied, turning cold inwardly.
My God, it turns out that you can do so much in twenty minutes! After receiving the command about tactical nuclear strike, it was as if I turned into a living chronometer – the seconds inevitably ticked in my skull, as if I was sitting astride this very atomic bomb…
Thank God that our main forces were behind me and had not yet entered the city.
A command from Colonel Lebedev was followed – to urgently turn around and pull back along this road, as far as possible from the city outskirts and leave with the main forces to the left at maximum, along the road and leading to Nikitin. After ten minutes, armored vehicles stop, spread out and disguise themselfes, hiding in the folds of the terrain and generally wherever possible. The personnel should get into the cars and wait. No one gets out of cars without orders. Use gas masks and NBC suits when exiting. Captain Syrtsov's NBC troopers should be especially alert. After twenty minutes, we turn off the engines and switch to full radio silence by turning off the equipment. We resume communication twenty minutes after the "Kalina Krasnaya"... I almost said out loud – "If we are alive... "... now I understand why we were given anti-radiation drugs en masse back then in Taganrog.
"Complete radio silence!" – just in case, I broadcast it again and turned off the radio.
It became unbearably quiet in the semi-darkness of the combat compartment. How my heart was pounding! No wonder smart people say that waiting for death is worse than death itself. Of course, no one ever wants to die, but no one and no army in the world has had such an experience today. We're the first, damn it… For some reason, the melody "Our proud Varag does not surrender to the enemy" - sounded alternately in my head, then a funeral march, and childhood memories surfaced before my eyes, how some honored veteran was buried in our Krasnobelsky cemetery. Orders on velvet cushions, an elegant red velvet coffin and a triple volley of blanks into the air. Of course, it's great when you die like this, twenty or twenty–five years after the war, from old age. Otherwise, it may be like with my babushka's brother Grisha, who went missing in the Winter War in January 1940, leaving behind only a yellowed photo and a piece of paper with a seal – a government notice… Well, if anything, only funerals will remain from us - there will definitely be nothing to bury after such a mess. Like those people in Hiroshima, from whom only shadows remained on the concrete slabs of the bridge fence…
"Do not look into the optical devices!" -I commanded my crew. Well, an aerial nuclear explosion is not a big deal, it will spray you into atoms. If it's right above us, it's probably fast. And if they miss? Oh, my…
The roar and whistle of tactical rocket smoothly turned into a heavy blow from top to bottom, right on the ears, strong and incomparable, tangible despite the armor and tank helmet.
For a moment, the cramped world of the combat squad lost its sharpness. The BMD shook slightly, and I almost physically felt a mass of hot air passing with a hum somewhere above our tower, and some small debris was knocking on the upper armor. Then the anti-atomic protection worked, the supercharger hood, sealing the combat compartment, buzzed, and the red indicator on the radiation reconnaissance device blinked, seemingly reacting to a sharp jump in radiation. Then, when five minutes had passed and the heavy hum outside had subsided, the jittery indicator blinked and went out.
In the cramped, sealed combat compartment, a lot of smells were immediately revealed – sweat, bootstrap and belt leather, shoe polish, tobacco, gunpowder, tanning beds, gun grease and many more things that three badly overworked men can smell. Well, yes, only fools and crazy people are not afraid of death… It was probably the longest twenty minutes of my life. We sat like hapless cockroaches, swatted with a slipper in the middle of the night kitchen, where the owner unexpectedly turned on the light, and, most importantly, we did not know if we were just sitting like that or were already slowly and invisibly dying for ourselves... Although the hair did not seem to fall out yet, and the eyes did not burst…
"Dim, is everything all right in your back?" - Kondratiev asked me, looking encouragingly at his tense face.
"It's okay, I just wish I knew where the ass is today and where the front is, Comrade Senior Sergeant," - I replied and sighed heavily.
"Did you put your leaden underwear?" - Chernyaev, our driver, asked, after which he laughed mirthlessly.
I looked at my watch–it had been twenty-two minutes since the explosion. Feeling cold inside, I turned on the radio and called my eagles. A minute later, through the crackle of static, Shestakov, Egorov, and then everyone else responded. Thank God they're alive. While. It turns out that at least the harsh and sweet Homeland has taught us something… I ordered them not to get out of the cars yet and clarify the losses, and Egorov and his men should be ready to start moving.
– Sanya, let's go ahead, back to the road! - I ordered Chernyaev.
The BMD started up, and we began to slowly get out of hiding.
I immediately went to the eyepieces of the commander's sight. When my eyes got used to the light, I did not recognize the area, as if it were not at all where we had stopped twenty minutes ago. The summer morning seemed to fade into a solid blue haze. I realized almost immediately where the smoke came from – the grass on the sides of the road was lazily smoldering, and closer to the city there were also fires with tongues of flame, similar to sloppy campfires left by gouging tourists in forest clearings. Somewhat to the west of the city, a very beautiful gray-purple mushroom slowly settled and thinned, below which numerous black smokes rose to the sky.
I was amazed at how the world can change in a matter of minutes. Of course, the unfortunate Bilzen himself was poorly visible from here even before the explosion, but with strong optics, distant buildings that had previously been light were visible, but now looked like theatrical scenery cut out of black paper, below them bright red flashes, similar to a forest fire, were growing, in the form of it is usually shown in movies or on TV. Apparently, everything that could burn burned down there and continued to burn in a hellfire. The roadside sheds closest to our tank retained their light color, but they were lopsided, having lost windows and tiled roofs. The trees that instantly turned gray were askew (some even collapsed, broken in half or uprooted) and rained down dry, curled blackened foliage. Atomic leaf fall, damn it. Instant Autumn…
The road ahead of us was covered with unimaginable debris, from tiles to uprooted tree trunks and parts of some kind of equipment. I once saw as a child how a bull was thrown into a puddle of gasoline in a forest clearing. There was a flash, and then there was only scorched withered grass and dead bugs around. Very similar, in my opinion. On the road, two hundred meters away from us, the Lada car lay upside down by the shock wave. Well, it turns out they didn't get anywhere.…
As soon as my BMD turned around on the road, I turned the tower slightly to the side and saw two BRDM-2 chemical reconnaissance vehicles passing by us, to the left of the road, towards the city with white numbers 051 and 053 on the sides. After all, Syrtsov knew his business very well.
"101." – I called Syrtsov.
"This is 101, report the situation!"
"Osina, I'm 101, I see you. It seems that the epicenter of the explosion was over the western outskirts of the Konkove, the radiation background is already ten times higher than normal, as we approach the city ruins, this indicator is growing. The wind is south, that is, the decay products are carried away from us towards Black Sea and perhaps part of the Kerch Strait. Looks like we got off relatively easy, Comrade Lieutenant. I'll try to get closer to the city, make additional measurements. How did you understand me, Osina?"
"Understood, 101! Just don't take any chances and don't overdo it!"
"Copy that, Osina!"
Looking at the retreating "messes" of NBC Forces, I ordered Kutuzov to come out of hiding on the highway and wait for further orders. The T-80s and T-72s, and other vehicles roared out of their makeshift shelters.
About five minutes later, the NBC Recon Group returned. Syrtsov reported that their appliances were off the scale at the city outskirts and it was better for no one to go there yet, especially since there was a continuous high-temperature fire, which flared up more and more from the wind, which gave an influx of oxygen. I thanked him for his bravery and ordered him to withdraw to the main forces.
Before I could really digest this information, 900 and 901 appeared in my headphones again, relaying the 102, who asked to report the situation and report losses. Fortunately, we had no losses, and because of the tactical nuclear strike, we had to regroup and move along the Fedorovka-Vesely-Voznesenka-Shirokino-Mariupol route. The column moved on while I was trying to digest everything that had happened in my head, simultaneously thanking God that we were all alive, as well as the pilots who were not hit by nuclear-tipped cruise missiles a couple of meters ahead, otherwise we would not have survived. Of course, it was risky, but we all understood that without this nuclear strike we could have been swept away.
June 5, 2003.
After the clean-up of Taganrog, the command of our regiment gave the order: the Guards 211st Parachute Regiment is advancing towards Fedorovka with the support of tanks, aviation and artillery, after which the offensive goes to Mariupol, assaults Melitopol, after which the breakthrough to Aleekseyevka eliminates the encirclement of Crimea, which was arranged by the infected, thus breaking through the humanitarian and supply corridor for our troops and civilians. It was also important that the Ukrainian government was in Crimea, which was urgently evacuated to Russia along with part of the civilian population, and the Crimea Peninsula itself came under the control of our troops and the Black Sea Fleet. Everything there has already come under the control of the military command, where martial law was imposed, and the approaches to the first cities of the Crimea were mined and wrapped with barbed wire. To be honest, the initial goal of the command was to limit itself only to the defense of the borders, and not to break deep into Ukraine, but then this would lead to the fall of the Crimea by hordes of infected. A counterattack was needed to overturn such a significant force. And we were at the tip of the spear going to help the Crimean garrison.
The order came at night: without wasting a second, I gave the command: "Everyone, get into the BMD! Go ahead!" - and our BMDs, along with tanks, BMPs and other armored vehicles, along with helicopters, moved from the spot, starting to rush to that village, sweeping away crowds infected with superior T-80UD and T-72 firepower, alongside with BMP-2 and BMD-2. When I was in Rostov-on-Don, an infection broke out in a small area of the city, which had to be suppressed by artillery and tanks with BMP and BMD, and only after that infantry marched there in the person of paratroopers. When we cleared the area, I vomit up after the fight, and all the breakfast I ate ended up on the ground. After a medical check, it turned out that I was vomiting due to a nervous breakdown, but nevertheless, at that time I thought I was infected too. Slava Bogy, I was not infected.
Breaking through the hordes of the undead, there were even more of them in the Fedorovka area. Helicopters fired at them from everything they had, I pointed out targets in the place of the commander of the BMD, artillery struck directly into the clusters of infected, infantry fired from the embrasures of the infantry fighting vehicles. Then aviation joined in - Su-25 and Tu-95, which bombed the city to such a state that Berlin in 1945 was not even close in terms of the degree of destruction. The aircraft, after artillery and MLRS of all calibers had worked through the city, which was both a terrifying and fascinating sight, dropped bombs, after which the assault aircraft launched FFARs. There was nothing left of the city, ever ruins, as well as of the infected - these hordes, which attacked us, were mowed down by the our forces, and the main forces of the infected were destroyed by our VVS, so we had the honor of finishing off what was left of them.
Under the rumble of the tracks, I watched as five infected were mowed down by the automatic cannon of my BMD. There was a good gunner on my car - Kolya was a veteran gunner, having fought in Chechnya. He just mowed down their heads, and our driver crushed the sixth infected one. The T-72s were tearing apart the remaining groups of infected guns with single shots, and as we were preparing to move on, a signal sounded on the radio:
"Осина, это Сто второй! (Osina, it's 102!) – a commanding voice said, without wasting time on introductions.
"Срочно! Код «Калина красная». Предположительно, непосредственно по Конькову или по Оболонскому, где находятся особо крупные скопления зараженных. Приказываю срочно оттянуться от поселка и принять все возможные меры предосторожности! Ракеты с Ту-160 уже выпущены, время подлета до вас минут двадцать – двадцать пять! Об исполнении доложить, потом перейти в режим полного радиомолчания, все электрооборудование отключить! Как поняли, Осина?" ("Alert! The code is "Kalina Krasnaya". Presumably, directly along Konkove or Obolonsky, where there are especially large concentrations of infected people. I order you to get away from the village immediately and take all possible precautions! The missiles from the Tu-160 have already been fired, the time of approach to you is twenty to twenty–five minutes! Report on the execution, then switch to full radio silence mode, turn off all electrical equipment! How do you understand, Osina?")
"Понял вас." (Understood.) - I replied, turning cold inwardly.
My God, it turns out that you can do so much in twenty minutes! After receiving the command about tactical nuclear strike, it was as if I turned into a living chronometer – the seconds inevitably ticked in my skull, as if I was sitting astride this very atomic bomb…
Thank God that our main forces were behind me and had not yet entered the city.
A command from Colonel Lebedev was followed – to urgently turn around and pull back along this road, as far as possible from the city outskirts and leave with the main forces to the left at maximum, along the road and leading to Nikitin. After ten minutes, armored vehicles stop, spread out and disguise themselfes, hiding in the folds of the terrain and generally wherever possible. The personnel should get into the cars and wait. No one gets out of cars without orders. Use gas masks and NBC suits when exiting. Captain Syrtsov's NBC troopers should be especially alert. After twenty minutes, we turn off the engines and switch to full radio silence by turning off the equipment. We resume communication twenty minutes after the "Kalina Krasnaya"... I almost said out loud – "If we are alive... "... now I understand why we were given anti-radiation drugs en masse back then in Taganrog.
"Complete radio silence!" – just in case, I broadcast it again and turned off the radio.
It became unbearably quiet in the semi-darkness of the combat compartment. How my heart was pounding! No wonder smart people say that waiting for death is worse than death itself. Of course, no one ever wants to die, but no one and no army in the world has had such an experience today. We're the first, damn it… For some reason, the melody "Our proud Varag does not surrender to the enemy" - sounded alternately in my head, then a funeral march, and childhood memories surfaced before my eyes, how some honored veteran was buried in our Krasnobelsky cemetery. Orders on velvet cushions, an elegant red velvet coffin and a triple volley of blanks into the air. Of course, it's great when you die like this, twenty or twenty–five years after the war, from old age. Otherwise, it may be like with my babushka's brother Grisha, who went missing in the Winter War in January 1940, leaving behind only a yellowed photo and a piece of paper with a seal – a government notice… Well, if anything, only funerals will remain from us - there will definitely be nothing to bury after such a mess. Like those people in Hiroshima, from whom only shadows remained on the concrete slabs of the bridge fence…
"Do not look into the optical devices!" -I commanded my crew. Well, an aerial nuclear explosion is not a big deal, it will spray you into atoms. If it's right above us, it's probably fast. And if they miss? Oh, my…
The roar and whistle of tactical rocket smoothly turned into a heavy blow from top to bottom, right on the ears, strong and incomparable, tangible despite the armor and tank helmet.
For a moment, the cramped world of the combat squad lost its sharpness. The BMD shook slightly, and I almost physically felt a mass of hot air passing with a hum somewhere above our tower, and some small debris was knocking on the upper armor. Then the anti-atomic protection worked, the supercharger hood, sealing the combat compartment, buzzed, and the red indicator on the radiation reconnaissance device blinked, seemingly reacting to a sharp jump in radiation. Then, when five minutes had passed and the heavy hum outside had subsided, the jittery indicator blinked and went out.
In the cramped, sealed combat compartment, a lot of smells were immediately revealed – sweat, bootstrap and belt leather, shoe polish, tobacco, gunpowder, tanning beds, gun grease and many more things that three badly overworked men can smell. Well, yes, only fools and crazy people are not afraid of death… It was probably the longest twenty minutes of my life. We sat like hapless cockroaches, swatted with a slipper in the middle of the night kitchen, where the owner unexpectedly turned on the light, and, most importantly, we did not know if we were just sitting like that or were already slowly and invisibly dying for ourselves... Although the hair did not seem to fall out yet, and the eyes did not burst…
"Dim, is everything all right in your back?" - Kondratiev asked me, looking encouragingly at his tense face.
"It's okay, I just wish I knew where the ass is today and where the front is, Comrade Senior Sergeant," - I replied and sighed heavily.
"Did you put your leaden underwear?" - Chernyaev, our driver, asked, after which he laughed mirthlessly.
I looked at my watch–it had been twenty-two minutes since the explosion. Feeling cold inside, I turned on the radio and called my eagles. A minute later, through the crackle of static, Shestakov, Egorov, and then everyone else responded. Thank God they're alive. While. It turns out that at least the harsh and sweet Homeland has taught us something… I ordered them not to get out of the cars yet and clarify the losses, and Egorov and his men should be ready to start moving.
– Sanya, let's go ahead, back to the road! - I ordered Chernyaev.
The BMD started up, and we began to slowly get out of hiding.
I immediately went to the eyepieces of the commander's sight. When my eyes got used to the light, I did not recognize the area, as if it were not at all where we had stopped twenty minutes ago. The summer morning seemed to fade into a solid blue haze. I realized almost immediately where the smoke came from – the grass on the sides of the road was lazily smoldering, and closer to the city there were also fires with tongues of flame, similar to sloppy campfires left by gouging tourists in forest clearings. Somewhat to the west of the city, a very beautiful gray-purple mushroom slowly settled and thinned, below which numerous black smokes rose to the sky.
I was amazed at how the world can change in a matter of minutes. Of course, the unfortunate Bilzen himself was poorly visible from here even before the explosion, but with strong optics, distant buildings that had previously been light were visible, but now looked like theatrical scenery cut out of black paper, below them bright red flashes, similar to a forest fire, were growing, in the form of it is usually shown in movies or on TV. Apparently, everything that could burn burned down there and continued to burn in a hellfire. The roadside sheds closest to our tank retained their light color, but they were lopsided, having lost windows and tiled roofs. The trees that instantly turned gray were askew (some even collapsed, broken in half or uprooted) and rained down dry, curled blackened foliage. Atomic leaf fall, damn it. Instant Autumn…
The road ahead of us was covered with unimaginable debris, from tiles to uprooted tree trunks and parts of some kind of equipment. I once saw as a child how a bull was thrown into a puddle of gasoline in a forest clearing. There was a flash, and then there was only scorched withered grass and dead bugs around. Very similar, in my opinion. On the road, two hundred meters away from us, the Lada car lay upside down by the shock wave. Well, it turns out they didn't get anywhere.…
As soon as my BMD turned around on the road, I turned the tower slightly to the side and saw two BRDM-2 chemical reconnaissance vehicles passing by us, to the left of the road, towards the city with white numbers 051 and 053 on the sides. After all, Syrtsov knew his business very well.
"101." – I called Syrtsov.
"This is 101, report the situation!"
"Osina, I'm 101, I see you. It seems that the epicenter of the explosion was over the western outskirts of the Konkove, the radiation background is already ten times higher than normal, as we approach the city ruins, this indicator is growing. The wind is south, that is, the decay products are carried away from us towards Black Sea and perhaps part of the Kerch Strait. Looks like we got off relatively easy, Comrade Lieutenant. I'll try to get closer to the city, make additional measurements. How did you understand me, Osina?"
"Understood, 101! Just don't take any chances and don't overdo it!"
"Copy that, Osina!"
Looking at the retreating "messes" of NBC Forces, I ordered Kutuzov to come out of hiding on the highway and wait for further orders. The T-80s and T-72s, and other vehicles roared out of their makeshift shelters.
About five minutes later, the NBC Recon Group returned. Syrtsov reported that their appliances were off the scale at the city outskirts and it was better for no one to go there yet, especially since there was a continuous high-temperature fire, which flared up more and more from the wind, which gave an influx of oxygen. I thanked him for his bravery and ordered him to withdraw to the main forces.
Before I could really digest this information, 900 and 901 appeared in my headphones again, relaying the 102, who asked to report the situation and report losses. Fortunately, we had no losses, and because of the tactical nuclear strike, we had to regroup and move along the Fedorovka-Vesely-Voznesenka-Shirokino-Mariupol route. The column moved on while I was trying to digest everything that had happened in my head, simultaneously thanking God that we were all alive, as well as the pilots who were not hit by nuclear-tipped cruise missiles a couple of meters ahead, otherwise we would not have survived. Of course, it was risky, but we all understood that without this nuclear strike we could have been swept away.
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Kitiem3000
Donor
Depends how radioactive you want that moat to be. (Project Plowshare)
Canonically, can rage zombies swim? They aren't 'technically' zombies, so they should retain the ability to cross 7 meters of water fairly easily. As long as there is something on the other side to properly motivate them to swim. Perhaps making the moat radioactive has some upsides...
Crimea is where the Ukrainian government retreated with the temporary capital being placed in Sevastopol. They essentially became under the auspices of Moscow. Just to note that Ukraine of 2002-2003 isn't the same Ukraine that would be in 2013-2024 so there weren't any tensions with Russia at this period to my knowledge. From what I remember, Ukraine in 2002-2003 still has close ties with Russia. With the Euromaidan protests being butterflied away, anti-Russian sentiment wouldn't be so strong. Even though the Russians essentially have Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltics under their fold, this is more for humanitarian reasons than conquest.
Rage zombies can't swim. Number one, they aren't zombies. They are living humans who breathe and die of exposure. They somehow don't die of dehydration considering the amount of fluids they expel or they don't drink water when the average human dies in 3 days without water. It was shown in the intro of 28 Weeks Later than in they drown as they tried to chase Don in that small creek. In their rage to infect or kill a new victim, they forget to swim.
NBC Defense Company of the 211st Special Guards Red Banner Order of Lenin and Alexander Nevsky Special Purpose Parachute Regiment under the command of Captain Syrtsov are taking radiation measurements of the area near Konkovo. June 5, 2003.
ORBAT of 211st Special Guards Red Banner Order of Lenin and Alexander Nevsky Special Purpose Parachute Regiment on 2003.
We don't see the rage infected drink - I doubt they'll be opening water bottles but it's possible that the infected are drinking water from readily available sources when in a dormant state.
One plothole or something that would trigger biologists, physiologists, and doctors is how the Infected do not die of dehydration considering they vomit a lot of blood and keep on running meaning they are sweating. That would mean a loss of water and sodium-potassium imbalance.
They also have not been witnessed drinking water from nearby sources. Moreover, since they are not undead but alive so if they drink untreated water, they could die from infection from bacteria or amoeba. I have not seen the Infected urinate or defecate as well. Fecal matter staying long in the digestive system would also cause sepsis.
Excerpt from the memoirs of Dmitry Anatolyevich Petrov "The Rage Virus in Russia: A Personal Hell and European Campaign"
June 7, 2003
Our column moved on, passing through all the other villages. Fortunately, artillery and aircraft had already worked there, so we did not meet any infected people, but only concrete crumbs and the remains of what were ruins. This accelerated our way forward, which made it easier to move towards Mariupol. But already in the Shirokino area, another group of infected people was waiting for us. With overwhelming firepower, it turned into a routine. A dangerous, monotonous routine that makes you hold back vomiting. After all, some two years ago, an old friend of mine, Alexey, lived in this city, with whom we sometimes saw each other, and now he has turned into a monster, merging with a roaring mass of bloody, mindless creatures, and the only thing we could do was to give rest to these soulless undead. Anyway, a significant part of them are civilians, and although the idea of a misericord calmed me down a little, it did not save me for a second about the terrible consequences of the epidemic and news footage from France, Germany, Poland and other countries.
After I saw a lot of infected people killed, I no longer had a gag reflex for blood and so on, but the animal fear and awareness of the hell that is happening remains with you forever. Those who have lived through this nightmare understand me perfectly. The helicopters of the 52nd Guards Air Assault Battalion were the first to attack, while ground units remained only in the suburbs. Mi-24, conducting reconnaissance in combat, fired at infected people with missiles, machine guns and automatic cannons. Very often, instead of ATGMs, cannon gondolas of the GUV-8700 type were hung on the pylons, which contained two 7.62 mm GShG machine guns and one 12.7mm YakB machine gun, where instead of one 12.7mm machine gun they put a 30 mm automatic, grenade launcher, UPK-23-250 with a 23 mm GSh-23 autocannon, or blocks of unguided missiles in order to properly drill through the ranks of infected with rocket, autocannon or machine gun fire. In general, no one will be offended, except for the pilots, who add an extra considerable load, and the density of fire is simply excessive. However, in this situation it was necessary. Even now, I could hear the roar of helicopter rotors, the rolling roar of guns and rocket explosions, while the helicopters were clearing the area and giving coordinates to places with a larger number of infected.
I ordered the deployment of 2S9 Nona - those, having left for the field, on my tip, began shelling the city with 120 mm shells, along with the rest of the artillery that was here. The pilot's voice sounded in my headphones:
"An accurate hit! The volley hit the target!" - and at that moment I heard the roar of aircraft engines. Looking up into the sky, I saw a lot of planes in which, in addition to the usual Su-25, I recognized the MiG-23 and MiG-27. It was strange, because they were taken en masse to storage bases and wanted to be disposed of. Apparently, the outbreak of the Rage Virus, first in Britain and then in Europe, changed plans for these aircraft, and most likely they were put into working order, despite the unfavorable economic situation after Yeltsin, and then they were introduced to the aviation regiments. They were flown by both beginners and experienced pilots. Soon, the group of planes split up: the first group flew to carry out airstrikes on Mariupol, and the second - on Shirokino. Flames and smoke erupted from under the wings of the planes, and then explosions rang out. In addition to missiles, they also dropped bombs, destroying vast pockets of infected people. The artillery has just finished the clean-up. I recall a quote from Marshal of the Soviet Union, Kirill Semyonovich Moskalenko: "With two hundred guns per kilometer of the front, we do not ask about the enemy and do not report, but only inform what line our advancing units have reached." All this suited what had happened: with such a density of artillery fire, there were no ruins left of the city, as well as of the infected population. There was no need even to carry out a regular cleaning of the city from the infected. Only then did the columns of equipment go, but already to Mariupol.
The troops were moving towards Mariupol, which was already in a dilapidated state, and the closer we got to Crimea, the more often we could see the ships of the Black Sea Fleet. They only shelled the city itself, along with aircraft and artillery, which I could see by the smoke trails from shells with rockets, as well as the ruins of buildings. The ships also struck chemical plants and chlorine warehouses in Mariupol with missiles, and this had its effect: most of the infected literally coughing up their internal organs, dying in agony, suffocating and dying. We destroyed the remaining ones that reached us with concentrated fire. Upon entering the city, we found that everyone who was there was already dead due to chemical poisoning, and degassing was needed, not cleaning, so we hurried to leave the city as far as possible to clean equipment and personnel from chlorine. During the cleanup, we have put up guards from armored vehicles and helicopters if the infected break through to our positions. Fortunately, this did not happen, so we were already on our way to Berdyansk - to go to the designated lines for a full-scale attack.
Yes, we are winning this war. But at what cost... Cities burn and collapse, and everything that our ancestors built over the years turns to dust. It's bitter to look at, but it's necessary. It is necessary for the victory of all mankind, and we pay any revenge for it.
June 7, 2003
Our column moved on, passing through all the other villages. Fortunately, artillery and aircraft had already worked there, so we did not meet any infected people, but only concrete crumbs and the remains of what were ruins. This accelerated our way forward, which made it easier to move towards Mariupol. But already in the Shirokino area, another group of infected people was waiting for us. With overwhelming firepower, it turned into a routine. A dangerous, monotonous routine that makes you hold back vomiting. After all, some two years ago, an old friend of mine, Alexey, lived in this city, with whom we sometimes saw each other, and now he has turned into a monster, merging with a roaring mass of bloody, mindless creatures, and the only thing we could do was to give rest to these soulless undead. Anyway, a significant part of them are civilians, and although the idea of a misericord calmed me down a little, it did not save me for a second about the terrible consequences of the epidemic and news footage from France, Germany, Poland and other countries.
After I saw a lot of infected people killed, I no longer had a gag reflex for blood and so on, but the animal fear and awareness of the hell that is happening remains with you forever. Those who have lived through this nightmare understand me perfectly. The helicopters of the 52nd Guards Air Assault Battalion were the first to attack, while ground units remained only in the suburbs. Mi-24, conducting reconnaissance in combat, fired at infected people with missiles, machine guns and automatic cannons. Very often, instead of ATGMs, cannon gondolas of the GUV-8700 type were hung on the pylons, which contained two 7.62 mm GShG machine guns and one 12.7mm YakB machine gun, where instead of one 12.7mm machine gun they put a 30 mm automatic, grenade launcher, UPK-23-250 with a 23 mm GSh-23 autocannon, or blocks of unguided missiles in order to properly drill through the ranks of infected with rocket, autocannon or machine gun fire. In general, no one will be offended, except for the pilots, who add an extra considerable load, and the density of fire is simply excessive. However, in this situation it was necessary. Even now, I could hear the roar of helicopter rotors, the rolling roar of guns and rocket explosions, while the helicopters were clearing the area and giving coordinates to places with a larger number of infected.
I ordered the deployment of 2S9 Nona - those, having left for the field, on my tip, began shelling the city with 120 mm shells, along with the rest of the artillery that was here. The pilot's voice sounded in my headphones:
"An accurate hit! The volley hit the target!" - and at that moment I heard the roar of aircraft engines. Looking up into the sky, I saw a lot of planes in which, in addition to the usual Su-25, I recognized the MiG-23 and MiG-27. It was strange, because they were taken en masse to storage bases and wanted to be disposed of. Apparently, the outbreak of the Rage Virus, first in Britain and then in Europe, changed plans for these aircraft, and most likely they were put into working order, despite the unfavorable economic situation after Yeltsin, and then they were introduced to the aviation regiments. They were flown by both beginners and experienced pilots. Soon, the group of planes split up: the first group flew to carry out airstrikes on Mariupol, and the second - on Shirokino. Flames and smoke erupted from under the wings of the planes, and then explosions rang out. In addition to missiles, they also dropped bombs, destroying vast pockets of infected people. The artillery has just finished the clean-up. I recall a quote from Marshal of the Soviet Union, Kirill Semyonovich Moskalenko: "With two hundred guns per kilometer of the front, we do not ask about the enemy and do not report, but only inform what line our advancing units have reached." All this suited what had happened: with such a density of artillery fire, there were no ruins left of the city, as well as of the infected population. There was no need even to carry out a regular cleaning of the city from the infected. Only then did the columns of equipment go, but already to Mariupol.
The troops were moving towards Mariupol, which was already in a dilapidated state, and the closer we got to Crimea, the more often we could see the ships of the Black Sea Fleet. They only shelled the city itself, along with aircraft and artillery, which I could see by the smoke trails from shells with rockets, as well as the ruins of buildings. The ships also struck chemical plants and chlorine warehouses in Mariupol with missiles, and this had its effect: most of the infected literally coughing up their internal organs, dying in agony, suffocating and dying. We destroyed the remaining ones that reached us with concentrated fire. Upon entering the city, we found that everyone who was there was already dead due to chemical poisoning, and degassing was needed, not cleaning, so we hurried to leave the city as far as possible to clean equipment and personnel from chlorine. During the cleanup, we have put up guards from armored vehicles and helicopters if the infected break through to our positions. Fortunately, this did not happen, so we were already on our way to Berdyansk - to go to the designated lines for a full-scale attack.
Yes, we are winning this war. But at what cost... Cities burn and collapse, and everything that our ancestors built over the years turns to dust. It's bitter to look at, but it's necessary. It is necessary for the victory of all mankind, and we pay any revenge for it.
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Photo taken by Senior Sergeant Konstantin Kondratiev: the ruins of Mariupol after the cleansing of the city from the infected. June 7, 2003.
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