Max chuckled, nodding as he agreed with what had been said. Getting a DPV dropped in was a boon, so long as they could recover it of course....an issue that the lion knew the team would be able to get sorted even deep in enemy territory. "Sounds good, Captain. That all works for me, my team is competent in using the wingpacks- they'll keep pace with a GFDS pack-equipped GEAR....depending on how hard the operator pushes. Don't ask how I know that." Max heard Anna giggling, sighing as he took the briefing notes he had and nodded back to Silverwind once more. "I'll get us armed up first, then we'll get our work sorted out. There's also a few things I wanted to review as well...see ya later on, Captain." Max said, tailing off as he headed out with the team, aware that there was a seemingly long time to do a seemingly growing list of tasks in. --- The armoury was teeming with Viper's activity, as they slowly but surely got their gear prepared for the operation ahead. A deep-recon mission in a civil-war torn country to find a HVT was always going to be an entertaining prosepct, so their loadouts would reflect that aspect of what they were going into. The lion, the jaguar, the squirrel and the rabbit all seemed at home with their work, Anna leaving for a moment to grab something of her own personal interest. In a couple of minutes she came back, Max casually chuckling as Anna walked back in with her wingpack, gently laying it on the main armoury table alongside the others that were there. "I'm so fucking jealous. I have to fly a GEAR into a warzone, and you guys all get those Corvids. Seriously, I was tempted to just lose the GEAR and go on foot. Only reason I'm not is because we need the firepower." Max commented, Anna looking across it's surfaces, whistling to herself. A Viper classic indeed, the team one of the few RSDF Special Forces units that had clearnace to using such a specialist, freaky piece of kit. The wingpack was nicknamed the "Corvid", after the crow and raven family of birds, a worthy name for the large-surface area carbon-fiber delta wing that turned an Arvaran temporarily into a gliding bird, the wing at roughly three-quarters the size of the team's resident jaguar, Anna. That made it fairly sizable, and even in spite of the carbon, weighty to the hold. It seemed to be an more advanced model compared to the primative basics that had come before it, likely benefitting from the advancement in military technology in the GEARS-specific GDFS unit, making it lighter, easier to carry and much more efficient as a wing surface as an unpowered Arvaran glider. In the hands of Anna, it almost made her look pixie-like with it's long tail-wing that went down to Anna's lower legs, given the fact this thing was not like many would expect a standard mllitary-looking wingpack to look like. That was as the wing itself almost folded out in a butterfly mechanism into the delta-shape, making it remarkably small to carry on an operator's back when not in flight yet incredibly rigid in its individual components in fixed-flight, combining with a clever computer interface to stabilise and control rolls and movement. Like the GDFS which had a similar extraction mechanism, the Corvid was therefore a tool for low-weight, zero-detection insertions that required distance to be covered. A parachute setup and was mounted on the spine of the wingpack that was the final handbrake-like stop for any flight, and had room for mounting other equipment in the near-hardpoints of the wings- with a specialist oxygen-feeding, tinted-visored helmet paired up with a wingpack. No weapons systems, but hey, it wasn't like the team were going to be engaging hostile air.....yet. The engineers were telling him they were still running tests on powered flight, and Anna certainly had some skin in the game on that one. Low-level, high speed infiltration with virtually no radar signal and relative ease of putting on the brakes, coupled to a wing that weighed hardly anything and took up hardly any room on an infiltrator's valuable kit-list? You just knew an infiltrator of her skills would kill, probably quite literally, for something like that. But alas, Anna wasn't daydreaming, as she checked over the flaps and winglets, as well as the condition of the parachute system attached, before flinging it on, the suit's wing opening up as she checked over one of the actuators on it. "You bet. Holy shit, we haven't done this since what, that time we were in Galantria? Corvids are fun, but we're gonna need more than just falling out of the sky to actually last in a shithole like Arbrentia. So you've got our backs I guess." Anna commented back to the lion, Max nodding as he took his own M23 ISS and gently cleaned out the magazine well and lower reciever, nodding. "Fair enough. We're gonna be in a real hotzone when we're in there. Tool up appropriately, guys." Max added, the team going back to quiet as he watched over at them kit up. It had to be said, the team's resident squirrel was probably the most exited he'd been in a while about using the Corvids, and somehow, Max wasn't at all shocked. What was it about squirrels that seemed to think gliding was the shit? With one final sweep Max brought up his pad and reviewed the team's final loadouts: [i][b]Warrant Officer Maxwell Fitzroy "Actual" Bastion[/b] "Team Lead/Marksman" M23 ISS, Magnified Thermal Optic/Holographic M57-2 Shotgun M8A PDS [b]Corporal Anna-Marina "Spectre" Caldeira[/b] "Grenadier" M23 Rifle w/4x Optic/Red Dot Sight MT-A1 Thumper MGL w/ Box Magazine 2x M8 PDS [b]Specialist Maxine "Hopper" Pavard[/b] "Assault Medic/Anti-Tank" M23 Special Operations Carbine with Holographic+Magnifier M84 Infantry Rocket System (loaded in GEAR) M8 PDS [b]Private First Class Logan "Kestrel" Vickers[/b] "Explosives Specialist/JTAC" M23 Battle Rifle with 4x Optic/Holographic M8 PDS Laser Designator C4[/i] ------- In terms of other tasks to do, once the birds were done pruning their fine wings Viper had gone their seperate ways to crack on with their own individaul tasks. Max was on his own going through his maintainance log for his Lion Rampant, Anna and Maxine were checking the landing site over and their DPV's drop-point, whilst Logan was working away on getting the team's uniforms sorted out and then had moved onto helping load up the oversized munition's into the Lion Rampant's extra gear stores. The rookie of the team had the worst jobs, but then again, everyone went through that in their induction to the team. Even Max wasn't alone in that when he first got into the 501st- it was a rite of passage, a thing that everyone did, like it or not. Max in particular had finally gotten his manifest log, and looked up the sizable GEAR before him, with a wry grin on his face. A heavier arsenal than usual, not an ideal loadout for exactly flying in with a GFDS pack, but a necessity given how long they might be out in the field without any equipment- and the fact that he was de-facto the thing that would bring firepower for the fireteam. On their own, Viper was not a heavy unit- they had the basics but needed a GEAR to amp up their firepower when hitting a base or a precise target, especially when going into a more "hot" warzone that required more information live on the battlefield. Information was key to have when fighting with a GEAR, especially when you were deep behind enemy lines and recon was more difficult- so the Lion Rampant in the Long Range Recon setup formed a cornerstone to that, connecting Viper Team's specialities with a GEAR unit that gave hard-hitting long range firepower and close-range 40mm fire, coupled to enhanced warzone information gathering capabilities and additional ammunition. Ordinarily if it was part of a larger unit it would rely on a different member of the team being responsible being responsible for ELINT in a wider GEARS unit, but given Max and his team could be on their own, he had to take responsibility for that side of information gathering here. [u][i][b]Manifest Tab [/b][/i][/u] Request: Warrant Officer Bastion, Maxwell Fitzroy [b]GEAR Designation: XO-1514 User Name: "Lion Rampant"[/b] [i]All standard GEAR weaponry and features have been inspected/maintaned as per SOP [/i] [b] [u]Requesitioned Loadout: Package Designation: Long Range Recon[/u] -30mm Sniper Rifle, Handheld/Rear Hardpoint -Head-Mounted 2x LMG -10x5 30mm Box Magazines, 4x5 30mm AP Box Magazines, 2x Fragmentation Grenades, 4x Smoke Grenades, Left and Right Hip Hardpoints -Combat Claw and Ratchet for Rocket Anchor Lift, Left Forearm -Automatic HE Grenade Launcher, Right Forearm -Overwatch Advanced C3i Suite, Left Shoulder Hardpoint -Rocket Anchor, Right Shoulder Hardpoint -UAV charging and Quadrotor mount point, Back -3x Limpet Mines stowed on Inside Left Shoulder (Shield) Glider/Flight Deployment System Other Stores: -Personal Weaponry Container, Inside Rear Left Leg (Expanded) -Basic Field Repair Kit, Inside Rear Right Leg -Extra Equipment Container, Hip/Chest -SERE Kit checked, inspected and mounted under cockpit seat[/b]