FourtyTwo

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

@Silverwind Blade

Haha, yep I'm gonna sort out Tobias's a bit more as I feel it's a little spread all over- annoyingly this is what comes with not having a standard template!

Yeah, there's something to that extent I would argue- there is some stuff that is blaringly obvious, but it's the idea like you said that it's not really known to many. It's a "Shadow War"- while the world's geopolitics still remains and an army will always trump a PMC, they are now escalating a bit more than ever before.

Pretty much what I was thinking- Hellfires/Stingers could be more dedicated larger-scale weapons systems, the mini-missiles in my mind were more as a general-purpose, easier to carry system for when you don't know what the main threat is. A Carl Gustav would work rather wonders- I never really thought of that much but like it!

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

Somewhere over New Ireland, Papua New Guinea
0600 Hours

The grey-coloured V22 Osprey was a magnificant warbird, if your classification of magnificent was an ugly hunk of metal that flew only thanks to a pair of very powerful, variable angle turboprop rotors. And inside sat our two, the VTOL subcontracted in from a Australian-based aviation firm to support Iron Wolf's operation here, a specialist assault that needed not so much numbers but a show of firepower and direct attack. The cost of deploying this way and using very expensive but then again, the reward from this was huge. The thick foliage could be seen through the thick banks of cloud coating the rainforest, the white puffs illuminated by a pink sunrise past a distant peak sticking out of the thick cloud. It was not your usual warzone this- there was nothing here at all apart from thick rainforest, well, not apart from the mining facility they were taking back that was a distant brown scar on the landscape. An unnatural crevice in an otherwise untouched, verdantly green landscape.

Sitting across from each other, the two titans were ready to go, Tobias sitting armoured up with his helmet off and his hair left long, the black and white Cornish cross on a fabric patch on the suit's main frontal webbing reminding the Israeli across from him that he wasn't English- he was of Kernow! For this op, Tobias had gone with a fairly standard loadout- a M134 Minigun with a 12-round mini-missile pod on his left shoulder, the standard comms array and Trophy system on his right shoulder. He had a pair of modified P90s on his suit's chest, a backup for blasting rounds in quarters the minigun couldn't be wielded in- as well as a aerial insertion setup, comprised of a parachute and an airbag system mounted across the suit's legs and lower back beneath the minigun's ammunition rucksack- they were going to be dropping from above into the mine, and all the way to the ground, covering their own insertion. They weren't here to blow the entire mine apart, but take it back- and while a flamethrower in the rainforest sounded like a wet dream to clear out a squad like this, the mine had been mostly cleared of trees and vegitation from the main command area that they were assaulting. It still felt pretty surreal, the two of them taking up multiple seats in the rear of the tiltrotor and spread across.

"Lionheart, Gabby, Bluestone here, can ya give me a comms check? Reading me loud and clear?" The South African accented voice rang out in both their intercoms, Tobias acknowledging. Their boss, well, their handler really was a nice enough guy, but he hadn't been on the other end of being shto at for a very long time. Managing two multi-million pound assets was more than enough for him to concentrate on, after all.
"Gotcha loud and clear, Blue." Tobias replied, his cool, crisp voice exuding the kind of confidence that came with being used to sitting in a shell of armour with a weapon that didn't normally go as easily man-portable as this.
"Righto. Anyway, give me a moment, you two. Just gotta check the UAV feed. How's the flight?"
"Fucking textbook. It's noisy as fuck and we have the fucking cooling cranked to max." Tobias replied, sighing as he looked across to the Israeli on the other bench, giving a sigh. With the headphones from the V22 on they could talk, just about.
"Good to be back here again. I don't miss the heat..." Tobias commented to Gabby, knowing she'd likely be feeling the same, even with all the cooling the suits had in the morning sun it was still humid as hell.

The sound of "Careless Whisper" by George Michael could be heard on broadcast over the commms as Bluestone went off, Tobias looking across to Gabby with a look of disapointment, and underhandedly, some amusement.
"Oh, fuck you, Bluestone..." Tobias replied, chuckling at his terrible sense of humour. He was a cunt, but a funny one at least....the comms came back as Bluestone pitched back in.

"Anyways...welcome to the South Pacific, you two. Just to remnind you, we're heading for the Taron Range Mine, brief still stays the same as we went over earlier. It's an open cast rare earth mine that's been taken over by a local insergency group- and our client obviously wants this sorted out very quickly and cleanly. Easy pickings- they have a couple of BTR-80 vehicles on site, you're looking at around 90 or so insergents on the ground- and more to come if we don't drive them out here. From what I can see, they've got some AT and some emplaced weapons scattered about, but nothing you can't handle. Just remember the plan. We're dropping you direct half a klick north, use your chutes to guide in and clear the road, then breach the main compound. Don't fuck up and land in the trees- if you do, we are not getting the ladders out, ladies and gents! Once we have the mine under control, their security team will take it from there. It isn't gonna be pretty when you arrive- they massacred a lot of people in the mine, so they're not exactly free of blood on their hands, just focus on what's at hand here. Then we get you out, and we get paid." Bluestone reminded, Tobias knowing as easy as that sounded, there were still questions to be asked.

"Affermative. Bluestone, wth all due respect, why did the client just drop the money on our operation, not send in another PMC that would be cheaper? They know we're not exactly cheap, nor uhh...well, committed to sending a lot of operators in, right? Seems a bit more mild compared to I don't know, a few weeks back?" Tobias asked, the South African chuckling a little as he knew it did seem just that easy.
"Our contracts team just smashed it out of the park, and the client wants nobody to know this even happened. It'll hit their shareholders confidence for their next stock release, you think having a bunch of insergents moving house into your prized mine using it as a tool against the PNG government looks good for PR? Way, way easier for them to sweep it under the rug...and you two happened to be right in the area after all."
"I'll take your word for it, Bluestone- we'll give them lead. Over and out."

Looking to Gabby, Tobias sat up as he checked the M134's breach, loading the belt inside and checking the aerial insertion kit over once again. Dropping out of one of these things wasn't exactly a skydive, more like a plummet into hell's kitchen- but easier because at least you could reply with a bit of fire from the sky.
"Ten minutes out, Gabby. How you feeling?" Tobias enquired, checking over the rest of his suit's systems, the motorised synthetic muscle of the exoskeleton whirring into life, as he clawed his hands in and out, just making sure he still had the same connection going as earlier.

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

Awesome stuff- that CS of yours looks amazing! I'm gonna put the final polishing touches on my CS and kick us straight into something, straight into the thick of it. There's a little more worldbuilding I'm going to put in, but I actually want to remain specifically vague- what I love the idea of is that a lot of this just isn't known to the public, so it doesn't feel like some massively different world to ours.

As for shoulder-mounted munitions, one that Big proposed in one of our RPs (ironically, these suits in that RP were used by actual giants, so yeah, people over seven foot!) for one of his chars was the use of a mini-missile system, so something that was able to be loaded with specific or multipurpose munitions that could defeat Trophy systems and get into entrenched positions- not a huge dakka but enough of those can stop a tank or kill a bunker. Shoulder mounted ATGMs sounds about right- after all, the suit can handle the launches so it's just about having a launch tube!

Edit- Post is up, gonna usually stick to a three-paragraph limit but thought I'd introduce the first op with a bit of a leap of a literal kind! I love the idea of playing with warzones most military RPs see- so Papua New Guinea seems to me like a bit of a natural fit. It's not going to explore all the themes of our operators in this world, but begin to slowly open the lid!

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

@Silverwind Blade

Oh definitely- she's got a unique flavour and I could see her being a great femme fatale, someone you don't fuck with.

All in good time good sir- just as it might be something I want to warm up to, got a bit of a cunning plan- it'd be a bit smaller but already 8ft high :) Weapons wise I'm happy, those can work either way- it could be used for more specialist work tbh, lightening and going heavy as and when.

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

Got a lot of inspiration for this setting from a really old PS3 game called "MAG" that came out- focussing on large scale infantry fights and PMCs (though it died). It always had a bit of a unqiue identity to it, made by the guys who made SOCOM, funnily enough haha.

I do want to throw some more exotic stuff in there, but the idea is to slowly dial up the type of equipment that our two have access to- I've got some very interesting curveballs on combat scenarios and warfighting that our two will get into. I can see them meshing quite nicely- almost putting Tobias as the more assaulting, head-on type operative while Gabi is able to lay down a lot more heavy firepower. Of course, what comes with this kind of setting is a little bit of crazy- so it'll be fun to embrace a little!

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

Character sounds awesome! Gabriella I like lots. She reminds me of sort of Cat and Anna!

That said, and I really hate to be a killjoy because I really love the suit setup, but I think it's a teeny bit too far in terms of a couple of bits. Vertical/horizontal flight is a little too far (though funnily enough, on my radar for something- I really want to actually have jump/buffer jets in eventually, but not immediately to give a feeling of how the tech develops). Happy for it to have heavier weaponry at the cost of speed compared to the base (as a more modular setup), but just keep in mind the exos aren't full blown mechs...well, not yet :) I can certainly see the Stormhound being a heavier variant of the Firehound, which works very nicely- I'll have my char finished soon enough! I hope I don't sound too much like a fun destroyer just with regards to the setting/theme (though trust me, you're gonna get a chance to really flex that!)- I actually adore the detail you put in and I might even pinch some myself, as that was exactly where I wanted to go, but just wanted to not stray too far into mech territory for the moment being!

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

(HEAVILY WIP)

Lionheart

Name: Tobias Mervyn "Lionheart" Sinclair

Age: 32

Appearance:



Tobias stands at 6"5, a relatively tall operator with a prettier face than most soldiers would normally have- and probably what would make him a spy if he was in a different business! Whilst in his days as a Royal Marine he had buzzcut hair, his long flowing locks of brown-blonde hair fits that Cornish surfer vibe. He seems well muscled, with a tatooo of a trident on his back, and piercing hazel brown eyes. He has a subtle beard, but it stays put at a five o'clock shadow.

Most striking of all however, is the fact that Tobias has titanium and carbon-fibre reinforced prosthetic legs with a grey-yellow colouring, going from his knees downwards on both legs- and he makes no hiding of it. The "feet" are often bedded into a pair of trainers, though he has gotten used to a pair of carbon fibre skids that basically allow him to run with a "spring" into his step. Whilst this would stop most soldiers dead in their tracks, Tobias is suprisingly adaptive to basically being legless, being still at soldiering levels and with an incredible drive. If anything, his legs if anything allow him to run more efficiently. Whilst most armies would effectively turn him down, if not most private security firms, his track record and talent overcomes this.

Personality:
Tobias is an interesting case of a soldier- take away two legs and you end up with a character who instead of giving up has in fact, doubled down. His unrelenting nature continues, with Tobias having a naturally inquisitive way of wanting to fix things- he's got a mechanic's mindset and always wants to learn how things work, or adapt things, even extending to himself. After all, he's basically bionic- and is happy to use himself as a testbed more than ever before. This coupled to his strong detirmination to get the job done, and his charm and charisma makes him a natural leader, someone who can get men and women through combat. While he can be a bit happy go lucky and a little greedy, there's no doubting you want him on your side in a firefight.

Nationality: British (Cornish)

History:

Born in Falmouth, Cornwall, Tobias was born into an expectation that he'd join the Royal Navy eventually like his dad did, and like his older brother. Good grades, an aptitude for engineering and technology, and an affinity for the sea, it almost seemed perfect. So the shock of him joining the Marines was plenty enough to them- and for the adventurous young lad to set himself up- skipping uni and anything else to follow into war.

Tobias's talent was proven in fighting- in spite of his lack of education, Tobias was naturally adept at using drones and other equipment, fighting in the closing phases of the Afghan War. He ended up fighting in the SFSG, the UK's Special Forces supporting teams and lead fireteams in various counter-insergency operations, operating covertly. Of course, the money was never great, but serving Queen and Country for five years got him the experience and talent he needed to do his own thing.

After leaving the Marines at the rank of Staff Sergeant, he joined a small private security firm as a frontline consultant, or basically, a line soldier again. At Raven International he made his money, and went through the ranks, serving in Congo, Greenland, Indonesia and Iraq on various rotations, making fat stacks and showcasing his special forces talent. His aptitude with technology, drones and leading teams made him reliable, an operator mentality that got the more specialist jobs done in the PMC. A great time, because he did things his way and knew how to overcome any odds. Well, it was that way until he ended up in an IED attack in Baghdad and it killed most of his squad.

Tobias was left basically to die, if not for the intervention of an NGO to pull him out. Call it a rough way to quit a job, but he had both his legs amputated and was left with nothing but a military pension and a fat redundancy package- no longer useful to man or beast. Rather than slip into alcoholism and even worse, dependency on opioids and drugs to help him ease into prosthetics and a life spent moping about, Tobias decided to take a forward step and actually do something with his grades from before being in the Marines. He studied an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering and balanced it with part-time work in an engineering start-up in Plymouth, learning how to work on not only his own disability but on how to actually set up, run and operate a combat exoskeleton. Something they used him as a mule for- after all, if a legless guy can use it, so can anyone, right?

Iron Wolf hired him based on the merit of this talent, as well as through a former contact of his at Raven- someone who could be a dependable user of a prototype piece of kit and didn't need him to have all the training. He was the right jigsaw piece for the role- and still has his talent from his past. Perhaps in some ways Tobias is proof that a soldier's mind is more important than body, where the future is concerned, and his unrelenting drive and calm, decisive and friendly demeanour makes him a good soldier and a better person to work with. While his stubborn nature, and sometimes his happy-go-lucky attitude can raise sparks, he looks after those close to him and gets the job done, because he always wants to get paid. But there's more than money to the Lionheart...

Suit Spec/Desciption:

Galahad

"Galahad"

Firehound 01-004 isn't a very nice name, so "Galahad" just had to be the name of the Firehound that Tobias uses.

Galahad had originally been a smaller, more infantry-focused design, with Tobias asking for it to be scaled up and designed with heavy armour, fast fire and good mobility in mind. That design had been combined with another similar one similar one from the more original part of the programe. It seems to have more curve to it, with a sleeker, cleaner look rather than a rough-edge look. While function is key, it seems to have a more polished, cleaner look.

The suit was given a bolster in armor, up to six and a half inches of ballistic materials. On the outside, the outermost layer is a carbon-fibre and nanoweave mixture, that could resist small arms fire up to 5.56, and it was only 5cm thick, giving the suit a honeycomb and carbon-fibre look that is ideal for conserving the armor below it. It has a lusterous but dulled look, like it shines at one angle and then at another is blacker than black, the honeycomb/hexagonal carbon fibre weave looking like it was something out of some cyberpunk vision, albeit perhaps very real and much more effectual. Underneath that is about three inches of solid titanium and composite weave armor, a exoskeleton "shell" that the armor is effectively fixed upon, this going from the suit's feet to the neckbrace, which covered from the chin to the centre of the back of the helmet, giving a huge area for bomb blasts to be deflected away from. Under the three inches of hell that was the titanium and composite armor, able to stomach .50 rounds easily, was three inches of dragonskin and kevlar composite, interwoven to be the last line of defense. This was designed predominatly to stop shockwaves hitting, so much so that you could hold a grenade in your hand and not even feel it go off, with a prototype anti-blast foam and liquid armour material employed throughout to stop the shock waves puncturing lungs or damaging the internal organs. Below that, is perhaps the workings of the suit, and a soft grey satin material, Tobias's favorite choice when inside his suit with a climate control system, and a deep-buried hydrogen cell system, as well as a tungsten-titanium frame and exoskeleton that supports all 350kg of the armour.

The exo itself is a hybrid hydraulic-pnumatic type, making the suit go from over a quarter of a ton down to about 20kg, or a standard soldier's armour- and has an inertial stabilisation system to keep it upright, allowing the suit to act as an extension of Tobias's body. There are adaptions for Tobias's lack of lower limbs, the suit effectively mimicking his prosthetics through a plug-in- so yes, this thing basically makes it so he can walk as normal. The helmet is made out of polycarbonate, titanium and layered with a similar nanoweave, with a set of ballistic inserts across it's area, and even the gauntlets of the suit are about an inch thick, made of almost solid titanium and dragonskin with the hand designed to grip around a large weapon's frame. The suit has a large ammunuition rucksack, made out of kevlar an inch thick, similarly matt black and honeycomb in color. The "boots" of the suit are almost as thick as the main torso of the suit's material without compromising mobility, being elegantly designed and fitting as the base of the exo's working unit.

Inside the helmet, the visor is made of a prototype one-way transparent glass-reinforced nanofibre, that he has seen resist a direct 7.62 round to a small area, with only a tiny hairline crack appearing to it. It has a holographic HUD integrated, with the suit having an voice and blink recognition system, and an arm-mounted PDA and multipurpose system for configuring "modes" in the suit- to harness the exoskeleton for either a more charging, overdrive mode, or a more stable shooting platform. The suit is CBRN ready, and the visor features a thermal and night vision mode, as well as an electronic warfare mode and a near-ultraviolet imaging system.

Speaking of weaponry, a platform like this allows for far heavier than usual weaponry to be carried into the battlefield with a large ammunition pack and a power source in the suit. Miniguns such as the M134, or even a lightened version of the GAU-19 allow for a firepower that even an LMG can barely keep up with, while classics like the M2 .50 cal and Mark 19 GMG allow for overhwelming firepower from .50 cal rounds or 40mm projectiles, carried like a two-handed weapon. Other custom equipment, such as a heavy flamethrower, or dual-wielding automatic shotguns or LMGs are also on the cards- there's certainly plenty more options to hand. Mind you, there are some very interesting additions on the horizon that are in the pipeline- everything from a Tesla-coil based lightening gun to a suit-portable railgun are on the horizon, and can offer a very exotic, if at all specialist tool for use. Secondaries usually take the form of adapted high-ammo count SMGs, such as the P90, MP7 or modified M4A1 carbines with drum mags, as well as pistols as an absolute backup, or melee tools such as trench clubs, maces and combat axes.

As for shoulder-mounted munitions, a variety of weapons technology is also on the cards, ranging from point-lock anti-tank missiles, smoke grenades, mortar shells to anti-infantry projectiles. Hand or shoulder-fired grenades are often in the cluster variety, useful for clearing out often hordes, rather than singular enemies, as well as oversized smoke and stun grenades. The use of a shoulder-mounted suit-portable Trophy System also helps negate RPG, anti-tank and other large projectile weaponry be negated. Unlike the Stormhound, Tobias's armour relies upon carrying weapons without hardpoints, a fact that has its own advantages in swinging weaponry around, but comes with its own problems too in dexterity and weapon handling.

The Firehound is also futureproofed, and while not relying on a turbine system, could be upgraded. Future upgrades include the use of a jump-jet system to "leap" the suit, a harpoon/grapple system,

Often a Loadout comprises of:

Primary Carried Weapon (one of)
GAU-19 .50 caliber minigun
M134D 7.62mm minigun
Select-fire 20mm caliber chaingun (single-shot/3rnd burst)
Multi-feed 12 gauge automatic shotgun
Multi-feed semi-automatic 40mm grenade launcher
Flamethrower

Shoulder Mounted Munition (one of):
4-tube anti-armour missile launcher
2-tube Stinger anti-aircraft missile launcher
Mini-Missile (12) Light Anti-Air/Anti-Tank/Multi-Munition HE
4-tube APKWS-Compact launcher

Secondary Arms (one pair of):
2x P90
2x MP7A2
2x Vector KRISS
2x M4A1 (Drum Fed, 50-Round mag)

Melee Weapon:
Fire Axe (oversized)

4x V40 Cluster Grenades
4x Smoke Grenades

Personal Weaponry:

H&K MP7A2 PDW
Kimber Warrior M1911
Scout Knife

Loves:
Indie and Folk Music
Local Cider
Outdoorsy Hiking
Surfing
Fixing and Tinkering with Anything
Puns (if you can make a good one about his legs, you're a winner)

Hates:

Micromanagement
Unpractical things
People who don't like cider
People who haven't got a sense of humour
Not getting paid
Needless paperwork

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

@Silverwind Blade

Ah splendid! In honesty, the version I'd like my character to have uses that picture as a base, but it won't be as squared-off, but a little more fluid and a bit more adapted.

Edited the desc a bit more.

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

I like the story idea! I might weave something in. As for the armour, we could propose they come from different projects- I can't say I'm the same but yeah, you got the right idea!

Haha, looking to seeing what you come up with! I should finish the setup tonight and have my character nearly done

Iron Wolves (SilverwindBlade and FourtyTwo)

(Got it all set up- though heavily TBC as I'm quite tired!)

Characters (WIP)

Staff Sergeant Tobias Mervyn "Lionheart" Sinclair
Gabriella Louise "Dunner" Bat-Seraph

Character Sheet:

Name:
Age:
Nationality:
History:
Suit Spec/Desciption:
Weaponry:
Loves:
Hates:

Basic Lore

Welcome to a near future world of shadowy contracts, shady deals and tech that you didn't think was real. The Special Forces units of the world might be the scalpel in the dark that keeps evil at bay, but for the right price, nobody, nothing, and nowhere is untouchable. There are some jobs that are impossible, but need to be done. And for that, a very different kind of operator exists.

A decade and slightly more from now, the withdrawal of NATO forces from Iraq and Afghanistan has created a new security paradigm in the Middle East and beyond. Private Security Contractors, once seen as plain mercs have been bolstered as an indirect response, both by NATO, Russia, China and other vested countries to fill the void of manpower, providing better bang for buck thanks to fewer overheads. Previously mandated rules on private contractors are of course bent, made to fit the new world that understands security is best for all- well, the right people, at least. Often shadowy in nature, well equipped private soldiers can provide deniability, and and return order into places where stability is barely even a thought. Often in joint enterprise, the money from mining, natural resources and other reserves can turn war-torn shitholes into places that can certainly turn a very big buck for everyone. Usually apart from the local residents.

That is a very important point, actually. Whilst countries would never surrender their sovereignty, there are zones in the third world in which major transnational companies and private sector firms are given free reign, free of government interference and allowed to do as they please. Rapture it ain't- often in the middle of nowhere, such as the Congolese rainforest, or in the dry wastes of a Central Asian state, they serve industrial and research functions, in exchange for a lot of money, infrastructure investment, and a local office siting in their capital. It's a natural extension of what happened before- but this time, autonomy is granted. In these zones, anything goes- the company's dollar means they can test, try and do anything with labs and shadowy research facilities, be it CRISPR genetic augmentation, experimental drone use, novel drug and steroid usage and so much more- places where there are no laws and the locals, whoever left dependng from zone to zone, are going to have to go along with it. It often leaks out into their society as an extension- and has turned the third world into a fertile testing ground, a risk these countries consider needed to keep up with the west. Many people decry this, even the UN, but when it's happening thousands of miles from home and in countries that they can't reach that will not let them stop it, free rein preveils. It's not so much the military industrial complex that creates for an army, but one of its own accord. Regulated, so far mostly. But that is changing.

Just about everyone is in on this new plunder. While the continuation of the "Great Peace" continues since the early 90s thanks to the fact that barely conflict actually has arisen, espionage, spying and proxy-warfare continues between the West and East, through every mean that can be made. While tensions grow over the South China Sea, in Ukraine, West Papua, Venezuela and beyond, the world sits in a strange reality of calm, yet with a shadow war ready to burst somewhere that the news won't report. There's even talk of mercs fighting mercs- something most governments won't, or can't comment on. Concerns are being raised, but after all, it's bad for business to start causing uncertainty, or is it?

The largest PMCs certainly rake it in, but like any corporate environment, there's always room for specialists to take the contracts that even the biggest players can't reach down towards. The jobs that seem impossible- after all, sometimes there are jobs you can't just throw manpower at. And where the market misses gaps, one organisation plugs them with a unqiue force multiplier.

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The Company

Enter Iron Wolf, Ltd. You would think a small company registered in Jersey for tax purposes, with a small, quaint office in Bracknell would be the opposite of a company that is at the cutting edge of advanced warfare. No research of its own, well, not like some major multinationals have. Having only forty employees, with ten staying home in the office in Bracknell doing admin, HR and finance seems even more preposterous relative to the size of the firm's potency. Work parties are certainly easier to organise that way...

Yet this shell is what allows the company to be so successful, a dark horse that barely is known to most even in the private security game. Iron Wolf are in fact, a working part of DARPA and ARIA's cutting edge research, using advanced tech out of their process line as well as off the shelf tech to complement this. Their money from contracts goes towards equipment for a relatively limited number of operators, and their immediate support. What they lack in manppower they make up for in technology, and in return, provide a service as a deniable private military service that performs the most challenging, difficult operations that requires little to no support, and maximum firepower for secret services. This certainly means they're in the middle of it- and while fighting predominantly terrorist or other insergency groups, their prowess in this vein hasn't gone unnoticed.

One part mercenaries, another part heavy armour, another part spy-thriller. You now have a recipe for a very spicy world.

(TBC)

"Firehounds"

(Example armour)

The development of powered exoskeletons alongside advanced composite and ballistic material advances has been certainly of interest to many in the defence sector, but the foray into this avenue to really see what it can do hasn't been explored yet. Well, until the Firehound programme decided it might have a go.

A joint US-UK research project, Firehound is an exercise to see what happens when an awful lot of money is thrown at that idea- creating effectively a walking tank by blending the two together, with a dash of heavy weaponry and intelligent battlespace information overlays. Whilst ordinary defense procurement programmes would test first on the Army, or perhaps the Marines, they instead went to a private contractor that would provide a plausible deniability for it's use. Why? Because to get operational experience for such a piece of kit requires someone to get it very dirty, and thus, throw it into the hands of the evolving network of private security contractors, rather than the Army which won't give it a go. After all, they're busy sitting back at base- but Iron Wolf? They on the other hand happens to be in the worst of that- a unit that reliably works for the CIA and MI6 as a black ops, hail mary option that leaves no crumbs back to the UK, and could certainly use that tech very well. It makes the Firehound project certainly risky, but capable of being thrown straight into the lion's claw.

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The armour itself, whilst varied in appearance relevant to the operator's personal choice remains primarily the same- making the operator stand at about 7"10, an incredibly imposing sight. An inch and a half of titanium-reinforced composite forms the base of the armour on top of a tungsten-titanium frame, with three inches of Dragonskin, kevlar, liquid armour and carbon composite interweave on top of that, finalised with a titanium-carbon nanotube hexagonally-patterned "skin" on the surface- the use of a carbon nanotube making the suit's overall integrity tremeandous against blunt and burst impact. This makes the armour basically inpenetrable to small arms below 7.62mm, in fact, being rated high enough to actually sustain .50 caliber fire across most parts of the suit. Even 20mm rounds have been seen to be held back by the suit's armour and it keep integrity- showcasing just how insanely well put together the system is as an IFV on legs. The armour when coupled to a heavy weapons system, more like a suit in its totality weighs about 350kg, so is supported by a cutting edge exoskeleton unit, fuelled by a honeycomb-run hydrogen unit that provides power for over 12 hours. While still lumbering, the suit is relatively flexible all things considered- melee weapons in particular have been shown in testing to be quite vicious, particularly blunt weaponry, and the exo can be "overcharged", allowing for brief sprints and charges. The operator is effectively immersed in the suit due to this exoskeleton as it were worn by them, the elongated arms and legs working through a haptic feedback system given the operator's situation in the suit- oh, and of course can be customised with comfy, nice materials. Satin is a favourite. It has an internalised cooling and heating system, and the suit is fully sealed against CBRN when the helmet is locked in- as well as having a coating against EMP and electronic warfare. After all, this thing has to keep fighting, even in terrible environments- and while this costs a fortune, it keeps this kit going. The helmet contains a holographic visor, with a blink and voice-based AI assistant system to support combat awareness and weapons deployment, coupled to a PDA hard-wired into the forearm of the suit for advanced calibration. The visor can also shift between vision modes, including night vision, thermal infrared and near ultraviolet. The suit also comes with an intergrated sensor array and tactical module- making it possible to patch into UAVs, drones and other feeds with relative ease, as well as acting as a secure radio.

Speaking of weaponry, a platform like this allows for far heavier than usual weaponry to be carried into the battlefield with a large ammunition pack and a power source. Miniguns such as the M134, or even a lightened version of the GAU-19 allow for a firepower that even an LMG can barely keep up with, while classics like the M2 .50 cal and Mark 19 GMG allow for overhwelming firepower from .50 cal rounds or 40mm projectiles. Other custom equipment, such as a heavy flamethrower, or dual-wielding automatic shotguns or LMGs are also on the cards- there's certainly plenty more options to hand. Mind you, there are some very interesting additions on the horizon that are in the pipeline- everything from a Tesla-coil based lightening gun to a suit-portable railgun are on the horizon, and can offer a very exotic, if at all specialist tool for use. Secondaries usually take the form of adapted high-ammo count SMGs, such as the P90, MP7 or modified M4A1 carbines with drum mags, as well as pistols as an absolute backup, or melee tools such as trench clubs, maces and combat axes.

As for shoulder-mounted munitions, a variety of weapons technology is on the cards, ranging from point-lock anti-tank missiles, smoke grenades, mortar shells to anti-infantry projectiles. Hand or shoulder-fired grenades are often in the cluster variety, useful for clearing out often hordes, rather than singular enemies, as well as oversized smoke and stun grenades. The use of a shoulder-mounted suit-portable Trophy System also helps negate RPG, anti-tank and other large projectile weaponry be negated- so indeed, it's very difficult to kill an operative using one of these. Not impossible, mind. Enough focussed heavy caliber fire, heavy munitions or bigger things can kill one of these units faster than you think- so using one while taking on foes requires more than a grunt's mind.