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[Mulch Diggums]

I wrote this short story a little while ago and have decided to take time from my busy schedule of TF2 and Gmod and write some more of it. Tell me what you think.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

                               (mini) Chapter One

It was a bitter cold Winter night in Stalingrad, 1942. The sky was filled with clouds, or it
might have been smoke. Amraava couldn't tell, the air reaked of burning oil. He was marching
with hundreds of other Red army soldiers towards Stalingrad. They had long heard the explosions
and heavy gunfire coming from the city, but now they could hear it in full force. Before the
men marched briskly, hearts full of patriotism, wanting to make their familys back home proud,
they talked and joked, a few men even had music instruments and were playing before. But since
they first heard those far off muffled explosions the mood turned much more somber. Amraava
took his revolver out of his pocket and started rubbing his thumb up and down the cold barrel
of the gun. He hoped it wouldn't get coated in frost as the night grew on, it hurt his bare
skin to touch it already.

 He hoped he could obtain a better weapon once he got into the city, all he had was his
revolver. There was a weapons shortage when he was to be issued his rifle and he never got
his hands on one. Even before he was supposed to be issued one there we're shortages. The
officers in the military training grounds mostly taught the basic troops hand to hand
fighting. Only the men who already had experience using guns, or had a very keen eye were
given any time to fire a weapon, what little ammunition the rural training camps had was used
to train these soldiers. The normal soldiers were at least taught how to hold a rifle
properly using a wooden rifle stock. "At least" the officers were known to think, "if one
soldier with a rifle dies there will be three more to pick it up and hold it right."

Amraava put his revolver back into his pocket and counted his extra bullets. He'd be able to
reload only three times after he emptied his revolver. After hearing symphony of death coming
from the front he wished he had bought more. He looked over to his friend Josiph, a tall
mountain of a man. The 19 year old soldier was 6"6 and built like an ammunition truck. He had
on a mismatch of ill fitting Red army issue uniform and plain citizen's clothes. Due to his
unusual size he rarely found any clothes that fit so he wore what ever he could find. Josiph
hadn't been lucky enough or a good enough shot to be issued a rifle, luckily his father owned
a shop in Nevograd and bought a shotgun for him. The shotgun had been his prized possession
in training camp, but he soon discovered that the army had no ammo for his type of shotgun so
he had to use the 100 rounds he had sparingly. This didn't deter him from brining it along,
and rightly so, to Stalingrad.

A covered flatbed truck drove past them as they came over a small hill. At the foot of the
hill were numerous tents and trucks full of supplies, further on were ammunition boxes stacked
neatly and officers handing out some type of ammunition, Amraava couldn't tell from this far
away. Further on from that the soldiers were loading onto transport boats headed to the other
side of a wide river. The sound of gunfire was impossible to ignore now. Most of the men in
Amraava's group were frozen in a mix of awe and fear. Amraava's commanding officer stood up
on a large wooden crate and yelled "Quiet! Time to receive orders!" even though most of the
men were deathly silent.

 "You are to rest from the martch here, in two hours time you must gather together there" he
pointed to an area another group of soldiers were standing in, being directed by their own
commander. "In the mean time service your equipment and get ready for battle, the enemy is
only four kilometers to the west. Beware, death can come from anywhere." It was as if god was
listening and thought it a good time to reinforce the officer's point, because right after
the officer said those words a troop transport boat half way across the river exploded in a
huge ball of fire. The men jumped at this, the officer looked to the boat then looked back.
He cursed under his breath and said much more quietly "They took out mortar squad 4.." he
straightened his back and bellowed "Dismissed!"

[JohnieRWilkins]

It was a bitter cold Winter night in Stalingrad, 1942.

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT. Most awful intro ever.

F-

I liked the part about the tall guy built like an ammunition truck. Other than that, stop playing CoD.

[Jackrabbit]

Wow man, no need to be an asshole about it.

[Little]

Is this a joke or serious?

[Phantom]

Eh, fine. Nice character description.

Would any of you mind if I post a sort of related story here?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

                      Starting paragraphs of  Chapter One: Soldiers of the Motherland
     Pvt. Amarov Kasitzki was one of the first troops to come to stalingrad since the start of the battle on July 17, 1941. Despite just being the son of a lowly factory worker like the others, he was ready to fight for the motherland, the words Not one step back! and There is no land behind the Volga! engraved into his mind, he was part of the 24th Soviet Army ordered to attack XIV Panzerkorps. It ended extremely badly, with a small amount of comrades, they were able to hunker down in a bombed out building, where they stay during the night. Luckily, the fighting in Julys summer hardened him and made him use to a war zone before the unbearable cold.

     Pvt. Alexander Urikov, speaks to the group. "Do you think any of us will survive?" Amarov looks at him with a blank face "Im not sure, if we make it back im sure we will." "Hah, yeah right Kasitzki, you've been saying how badly we might get maimed all the time on the train." "Well, that changed ever since I killed a few of those fascist with my rifle, I only got one clip if you want to fight it out." "Thats the only thing we can do Amarov, fight it out and hope we get back." "We have to survive the night first comrade."

    The next morning they head out, hoping to find the soviet lines soon, barely dodging Wehrmacht patrols and panzers. They manage to reach the soviet lines where they get some food and rest, fighting several more days into the battle. "Have you seen that commisar alexander? They say he fought the finnish at mannerhim line, if he survived that long I think we can survive!" "Amarov, that guy was trained and not cannon fodder like us, you are extremly cheerful but also ignorant."

Just research a bit, like the start of the battle, Stalingrad wasn't just a cold bitter war hole.

[Mulch Diggums]

I spent a bit of time researching, but I haven't found any information on equipment standards of the time, training standards, or general moral. So, what should I change, or what should I try and do better, besides researching the scene? I'd rather rather keep it inaccurate to reality any way.

[Phantom]

Well, the soviets lost most of their tanks, so you should use tanks in your story rarely, infantry, they were just mere cannon fodder with Mosin Nagants and PPSHs. The PPSH I think also has a magazine, not a 71 nullet drum. Try to keep equipment standards depending on rank, the higher ranks I believe get SMGs and the other stuff, while the lowly guys (The Conscripts.) get the rifles. Also, you can never go wrong with more Commisars.

[Jackrabbit]

And make the house to house fighting ridiculously fucking brutal.

Make them run up to the Nazis and try to over run them, make them fight for a bit of broken roofing.

And include that house that they turned into a fortress and held out in for like a month before reinforcements.

I know you're probably going for that anyway but ramp it up to 2011.

[Phantom]

And include that house that they turned into a fortress and held out in for like a month before reinforcements.

I introduce yo the ancestor of all defence games

[JohnieRWilkins]

I spent a bit of time researching, but I haven't found any information on equipment standards of the time, training standards, or general moral. So, what should I change, or what should I try and do better, besides researching the scene? I'd rather rather keep it inaccurate to reality any way.

CoD is not a very good source of historically accurate information.

[Mulch Diggums]

What the hell are you talking about?

[Jackrabbit]

I spent a bit of time researching, but I haven't found any information on equipment standards of the time, training standards, or general moral. So, what should I change, or what should I try and do better, besides researching the scene? I'd rather rather keep it inaccurate to reality any way.

CoD is not a very good source of historically accurate information.

I think you're assuming a bit much here.

[Killas[SiN]]

The only thing CoD is good for is taking footage for your homemade documentary that you had a month to do for Social Studies but because you're a lazy bastard you left it till the last 12 hours and so instead of getting pictures you just FRAP'd 20 minutes worth of crappy ingame shots and ripping music off Fallout and other assorted games and when presenting your docco the next day you get full marks because all the other guys couldn't tell a camera from their buttcrack.

Oh, and yeah, and shooting Nazis.

[Jackrabbit]

Love shootin' dem Nazis.

Seriously though, I did play the Stalingrad mission. I know it was

a) freezing
b) dark
c) on a boat (like where the story is headed)

but

a) It's frigging Russia, of course it's cold.
b) Most of the river crossings were made at night and even if they weren't, some were.
c) THEY USED BOATS.

So if this story is set on a cold, dark night and has someone crossing the river on a boat to enter Stalingrad and witness insurmountable casualties and only get a few bullets instead of a rifle, that's what actually happened.

Although if he takes several bullets to the body and fixes himself up quickly or shrugs them off, somethings up. And if he has a health bar, something's really up.

[Killas[SiN]]

So if this story is set on a cold, dark night and has someone crossing the river on a boat to enter Stalingrad and witness insurmountable casualties and only get a few bullets instead of a rifle, that's what actually happened.

Woah, what the hell were they supposed to do?
Stab 'em with a bullet?