Smike

Shattered Steel - An Ace Combat/Project Wingman/etc inspired aircraft-based RP

Ximena Huang

It was more or less what she expected. Shattered didn't play for keeps, at least not in the way she was used to. Call it barbaric or unsporting, but she didn't consider an enemy neutralized until they were on the ground with their hands up or falling out of the sky in a blackened wreck. She wasn't so berserk that she'd chase someone to the ends of the earth in neglect of the mission itself, but not pursuing when possible? That struck her as odd; imprudent even.

But she had jumped ship from the outfit she was used to, so she had to learn the new rules.

"Understood, boss." she nodded, adjusting her glasses. "I'll prove my worth."

That's why she was here.

Someone interrupted them, a pilot Jefe recognized from the files but had yet to meet.

"A pleasure, Stingray. I thought I spied a fellow seabird. It'll be fun to fly with you."

She was curious to see how the Seahawk handled in combat. She had never flown the thing, but as far as she knew the Nighthawk was no knife-fighter. Upgrades were all well and good, but until Ximena watched it work she would be skeptical.

The same could be said for Stingray herself. She wasn't the youngest in the squadron (Mykhalio was a story XImena simply did not understand) but she was allegedly another whiz kid, which meant Ximena was-skeptical was too strong a word. It was more that she was waiting to be impressed.

Hell, with her natural prodigy vibe and her rich-kid-politician's-daughter background, Ayvee was a miniature Fuka. At least one of them didn't have a pole up their ass.

-------

Soon enough she was taxiing out onto the runway, sunglasses replaced by her helmet visor. She followed along with the others, taking off and falling into formation just above her flightmates.

"Jefe signing in. Unless you've got other plans for me, Captain, I'm going to ride nice and high in the cloud cover away from the group as we get close to target. They'll pick up on you guys before me, I'll rush in and hit their radar before turning around to help with the actual fight."

Fuka Nakano

Fuka wasted no time suiting up, as ready and willing as ever to get airborne. This time she wasn't playing around with SLAM-ERs and stationary targets, oh no. Scott had seen fit to use her properly, sticking the Black Bunny with a bunch of air-to-air missiles and wishing her happy hunting.

Perfect. Any other role was, while perhaps important in the moment, ultimately a waste. Recon, surgical strikes, the destruction of enemy assets and supply lines, all key components of warfare but Fuka was first and foremost a Ranger. She did Direct Action: raid camps and kill people. They said that when all you had was a hammer everything looked like a nail, and that was true. They didn't mention that a lot of problems could be solved by hammering.

She had swapped the M4 for laser-guided explosives, but at the end of the day she was still a hammer.

"Cobalt 3, comms good." she called out as she followed Jefe in taking off. "I'm ready and waiting. Sticking close to you for the time being, flight lead."

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

It's called "being autistic" and it's why we're all here.

@Massasauga

I'm not quite at that level lol

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

I hope Rhona's not expecting that level of detail from me lmfao

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

Idiot Tiger

Name: K2 Black Panther "Idiot Tiger"
Type/Role: Main Battle Tank/Mobile Raiding Platform-A great deal of time and effort was spent making the Idiot Tiger capable of functioning almost independently for long periods of time (if only as a machine gun platform), modified and repaired to the point that it's almost a different tank entirely.
Reference Link: Wikipedia Link
Modifications/Upgrades:

• Added docking station/surveillance drone that interfaces with native Automatic Target Detection and Tracking System and battlefield management systems
• Attached HOT guided missile launcher
• Original gun replaced with XM291 Advanced Tank Cannon, typically in 140mm although it can be swapped to 120 if required.
• Original .50 cal was damaged and replaced with Type 85 12.7 mm machine gun, augmented with Mk 47 Striker automatic grenade launcher
• KAPS APS installed
• BV installed
• Slat armor added to engine compartment
• Powerplant upgraded to hybrid electric drive, can run off hydrogen fuel cells or traditional diesel.
• Smoke grenade launchers added to exterior
• Expanded storage baskets containing variety of personal weapons and ammo as well as spare rations, medical supplies, communications equipment, one Saiga 12 and one Benelli M4 shotgun for foraging and anti-drone purposes, and a Starstreak MANPADS with additional missiles.
• Speaker system modified to connect to standard phones and other electronics, for the purpose of playing music.

Colour Scheme: Decked out in Berlin Brigade camo in honor of the Berlin Infantry Brigade. Has image of namesake Idiot Tiger painted on turret.

My Hider

Crew Position: Commander
Name: Tigran Kalpakian, aka Tiger (Idiot Tiger, to his daughter)
Age: 44
Gender/Sex: Male
Appearance: Middle-aged and weather-beaten, his skin toughened by years spent in the sun or boiling inside cramped cabins. His haggard features bely his physical strength, his body lean and almost fox-like in its ranginess. Despite his long service, he lacks military bearing, often slouching with his hands in his pockets. Still wears his old Afghanka jacket, although it's tattered and patched. Instead of the standard issue trousers he wears blue jeans and his hair is slicked back with pomade as opposed to being policed into a crew cut.
Nationality: Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
Personal Outlook: Once upon a time Tigran had been a stickler for rules and regulations, but having spent the last ten years among outfits ranging from the informal to the outright anarchic, he's gone native in a sense. While uniform standards and protocol for saluting have a purpose in training, none of it matters in the field. He's good enough, and more importantly experienced enough, to relax. Always somewhat fascinated by Western culture he's adopted both music and clothing from the years he spent staring down NATO forces in Berlin. He developed a grim sense of humor during his time as a wandering cannon-for-hire, and he ultimately sees his work for Shattered as a job he has fun at as opposed any sort of higher calling,
History:

• Joined the Red Army because his father and grandfather had been soldiers before him; had basically no thought of being anything else.
• Served through the last couple of decades of the Cold War, stationed primarily in East Berlin but was deployed against NATO forces in Gulf War and late alongside them during Yugoslavian peacekeeping efforts.
• Happened to be deployed to the Republic of Korea as part of cross-training exercises when Heavenfall hit, was left stranded with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A soldier without an army, he essentially fought his way across Asia for one outfit or another, sometimes working with official PMCs and others ad hoc mercenaries or simple bandits to provide for his crew and their hanger-on.
• Made it back to Armenia but had nothing waiting for him there, so he joined Shattered Steel

Personal Weapons: AKS-74U carbine with bayonet and PMM pistol, issued during his time with the Red Army.

Crew Position: Gunner
Name: Park Mi-jeong, aka Agi Horangi (Little Tiger)
Age: 21
Gender/Sex: Female
Appearance: Mi-jeong is somewhat on the shorter side, standing at only five feet tall, and is notably underweight due to a poor diet in childhood and periods of hunger post-Heavenfall. She's missing a tooth and a chunk of her upper lip from an incident where she was attacked by an older boy in line for supplies, which gives her face something of a crooked appearance. Her smile is equally lopsided and off-kilter, almost predatory. As a girl, she haphazardly chopped her hair short so as not to need to worry about lice or other parasites, a habit she's continued to this day. In place of an official uniform she usually wears cold-weather gear in the Korean Granite pattern camo, regardless of temperature. She tends to wear a vintage M1 helmet over a M1938 tanker headset.
Nationality: Republic of Korea
Personal Outlook: Tigran did the best with the hand he was dealt, but Mi-jeong is fundamentally traumatized. Growing up neglected before losing a chunk of her family and then being pawned off to a stranger, only to then spend her adolescence trundling around conflict zones and taking part in fighting has done a number to her. This manifests itself as an almost gleeful aggressiveness, a strike-first mentality that serves her well in combat. She gets a near-manic sense of enjoyment out of fighting and works hard to be good at it, and she's loyal to fault to her adoptive father. When she (lovingly) named him after the Idiot Tiger of Korean folk art he retialited by describing her as a half-rabid dog; she's taken it as a badge of honor.
History:

• Born to a relatively well-off family, but didn't see parents very often due to them being extremely career-driven. Raised by grandparents and older siblings, had a very strained relationship with the former.
• Much of her family died in the Heavenfall, and her surviving relatives simply could not afford to care for her. Given up to soldiers passing through in hopes she'd be taken somewhere better.
• Traveled with Tigran and his commandeered K2, watching as crew came and went. Managed to receive a solid education despite the circumstances of her life, and grew attached to her adoptive father. As she got older and the Idiot Tiger got into scrapes she became accustomed to the battlefield. First manned the coaxial gun at 15, sometimes stood in as main gunner by 16.
• Tigran had hoped to settle her somewhere with a functioning education system so she could make something of her life, but having been exposed to such loss and war so early, she was set on being a tanker like him.

Personal Weapons: CAR-15 carbine with flash suppressor and K14-VN pistol, M9 bayonet. All looted from rival mercenaries operating along the Vietnamese-Cambodian border.

Crew Position: Driver
Name: Dîlan Jahani, aka
Age: 34
Gender/Sex: Female
Appearance: Dark-skinned and dark-countenanced, with black hair she keeps pulled into an easy-to-manage bun. She's on the taller side, having an inch or two in height on the 5'9 Tigran, and still wears the Gulf War-era "chocolate chip" BDU she had been given after joining the Peshmerga. As serious as she is, she allows herself some ornamentation in the form of an Omega watch and a pair of platinum rings she found in the aftermath of a raid.
Nationality: Islamic Republic of Iran/Kurdistan
Personal Outlook: Dîlan is, above all, a professional soldier. She takes her work seriously, devoting herself to whichever cause has hired her for the time being, and has little space for considerations outside the current mission. That said, her time with the rather relaxed crew of the Idiot Tiger has rubbed off on her, giving her a dry sense of humor and a willingness to tolerate eccentricity. She considers Tigran and Mi-jeong her family, her uncle and little sister respectively, and this familial bond gives them a level of cohesion she did not have with previous crews.
History:

• Part of Iran's Kurdish community, the family consistently allied itself with the Islamic Republic against Ba'athist Iraq. Father was a junior officer in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps martyred himself collapsing a tunnel on an armored column, uncle later fought as in the Peshmerga during the Gulf War.
• Despite exemption from conscription, she joined the military due to the example set by her relatives. Originally was going to serve as military police investigating moral crimes, but her aptitude for mechanics and Iran's rebuilding from the previous decades of conflict meant that she was made a tank driver.
• When the Heavenfall struck she initially fought for Iran against internal dissidents and foreign forces struggling for power, but she quickly found herself deserting with her tank to help liberate her people. Was involved in heavy fighting in what would become independent Kurdistan, serving with distinction.
• This second career was brief however. During a battle with ISL dissidents operating on the border between Kurdistan and Iraq, a misidentified artillery strike killed dozens of civilians. While not her fault, she was made a scapegoat and threatened with punishment. Instead she left and became a pilot for hire.
• Was picked up by Tigran after his original driver was killed by spalling, and has been part of the Idiot Tiger's crew ever since.

Personal Weapons: Knights Armaments Light Assault Machine Gun and PC-9 Zoaf pistol, jambiya knife. The machine gun was requisitioned after an encounter with Western commandos operating in Dagestan, while the pistol and dagger were hers from her in the Iranian Army.

Shattered Steel - An Ace Combat/Project Wingman/etc inspired aircraft-based RP

Loadout for mission

Jefe

• Full load for main gun EMPTY
• Two AIM-120 AMRAAMs
• Two One AIM-9 Sidewinders
• Two One FT-2 guided bomb

Peacenik

• Full load for main gun EMPTY
• 9 AIM-120 AMRAAMs
• AIM-9 Sidewinders
• Fuel tank

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

Tank done, working on crew

Idiot Tiger

Name: K2 Black Panther "Idiot Tiger"
Type/Role: Main Battle Tank/Mobile Raiding Platform-A great deal of time and effort was spent making the Idiot Tiger capable of functioning almost independently for long periods of time (if only as a machine gun platform), modified and repaired to the point that it's almost a different tank entirely.
Reference Link: Wikipedia Link
Modifications/Upgrades:

• Added docking station/surveillance drone that interfaces with native Automatic Target Detection and Tracking System and battlefield management systems
• Attached HOT guided missile launcher
• Original gun replaced with XM291 Advanced Tank Cannon, typically in 140mm although it can be swapped to 120 if required.
• Original .50 cal was damaged and replaced with Type 85 12.7 mm machine gun, augmented with Mk 47 Striker automatic grenade launcher
• KAPS APS installed
• BV installed
• Slat armor added to engine compartment
• Powerplant upgraded to hybrid electric drive, can run off hydrogen fuel cells or traditional diesel.
• Smoke grenade launchers added to exterior
• Expanded storage baskets containing variety of personal weapons and ammo as well as spare rations, medical supplies, communications equipment, one Saiga 12 and one Benelli M4 shotgun for foraging and anti-drone purposes, and a Starstreak MANPADS with additional missiles.
• Speaker system modified to connect to standard phones and other electronics, for the purpose of playing music.

Colour Scheme: Decked out in Berlin Brigade camo in honor of the Berlin Infantry Brigade. Has image of namesake Idiot Tiger painted on turret.

My Hider

Crew Position: Commander
Name: Tigran Kalpakian, aka Tiger (Idiot Tiger, to his daughter)
Age: 44
Gender/Sex: Male
Appearance: Middle-aged and weather-beaten, his skin toughened by years spent in the sun or boiling inside cramped cabins. His haggard features bely his physical strength, his body lean and almost fox-like in its ranginess. Despite his long service, he lacks military bearing, often slouching with his hands in his pockets. Still wears his old Afghanka jacket, although it's tattered and patched. Instead of the standard issue trousers he wears blue jeans and his hair is slicked back with pomade as opposed to being policed into a crew cut.
Nationality: Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
Personal Outlook: Once upon a time Tigran had been a stickler for rules and regulations, but having spent the last ten years among outfits ranging from the informal to the outright anarchic, he's gone native in a sense. While uniform standards and protocol for saluting have a purpose in training, none of it matters in the field. He's good enough, and more importantly experienced enough, to relax. Always somewhat fascinated by Western culture he's adopted both music and clothing from the years he spent staring down NATO forces in Berlin. He developed a grim sense of humor during his time as a wandering cannon-for-hire, and he ultimately sees his work for Shattered as a job he has fun at as opposed any sort of higher calling,
History:

• Joined the Red Army because his father and grandfather had been soldiers before him; had basically no thought of being anything else.
• Served through the last couple of decades of the Cold War, stationed primarily in East Berlin but was deployed against NATO forces in Gulf War and late alongside them during Yugoslavian peacekeeping efforts.
• Happened to be deployed to the Republic of Korea as part of cross-training exercises when Heavenfall hit, was left stranded with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A soldier without an army, he essentially fought his way across Asia for one outfit or another, sometimes working with official PMCs and others ad hoc mercenaries or simple bandits to provide for his crew and their hanger-on.
• Made it back to Armenia but had nothing waiting for him there, so he joined Shattered Steel

Personal Weapons: AKS-74U carbine with bayonet and PMM pistol, issued during his time with the Red Army.

Crew Position: Gunner
Name: Park Mi-jeong, aka Agi Horangi (Little Tiger)
Age: 21
Gender/Sex: Female
Appearance: Mi-jeong is somewhat on the shorter side, standing at only five feet tall, and is notably underweight due to a poor diet in childhood and periods of hunger post-Heavenfall. She's missing a tooth and a chunk of her upper lip from an incident where she was attacked by an older boy in line for supplies, which gives her face something of a crooked appearance. Her smile is equally lopsided and off-kilter, almost predatory. As a girl, she haphazardly chopped her hair short so as not to need to worry about lice or other parasites, a habit she's continued to this day. In place of an official uniform she usually wears cold-weather gear in the Korean Granite pattern camo, regardless of temperature. She tends to wear a vintage M1 helmet over a M1938 tanker headset.
Nationality: Republic of Korea
Personal Outlook: Tigran did the best with the hand he was dealt, but Mi-jeong is fundamentally traumatized. Growing up neglected before losing a chunk of her family and then being pawned off to a stranger, only to then spend her adolescence trundling around conflict zones and taking part in fighting has done a number to her. This manifests itself as an almost gleeful aggressiveness, a strike-first mentality that serves her well in combat. She gets a near-manic sense of enjoyment out of fighting and works hard to be good at it, and she's loyal to fault to her adoptive father. When she (lovingly) named him after the Idiot Tiger of Korean folk art he retialited by describing her as a half-rabid dog; she's taken it as a badge of honor.
History:

• Born to a relatively well-off family, but didn't see parents very often due to them being extremely career-driven. Raised by grandparents and older siblings, had a very strained relationship with the former.
• Much of her family died in the Heavenfall, and her surviving relatives simply could not afford to care for her. Given up to soldiers passing through in hopes she'd be taken somewhere better.
• Traveled with Tigran and his commandeered K2, watching as crew came and went. Managed to receive a solid education despite the circumstances of her life, and grew attached to her adoptive father. As she got older and the Idiot Tiger got into scrapes she became accustomed to the battlefield. First manned the coaxial gun at 15, sometimes stood in as main gunner by 16.
• Tigran had hoped to settle her somewhere with a functioning education system so she could make something of her life, but having been exposed to such loss and war so early, she was set on being a tanker like him.

Personal Weapons: CAR-15 carbine with flash suppressor and K14-VN pistol, M9 bayonet. All looted from rival mercenaries operating along the Vietnamese-Cambodian border.

Crew Position: Driver
Name: Dîlan Jahani, aka
Age: 34
Gender/Sex: Female
Appearance: Dark-skinned and dark-countenanced, with black hair she keeps pulled into an easy-to-manage bun. She's on the taller side, having an inch or two in height on the 5'9 Tigran, and still wears the Gulf War-era "chocolate chip" BDU she had been given after joining the Peshmerga. As serious as she is, she allows herself some ornamentation in the form of an Omega watch and a pair of platinum rings she found in the aftermath of a raid.
Nationality: Islamic Republic of Iran/Kurdistan
Personal Outlook: Dîlan is, above all, a professional soldier. She takes her work seriously, devoting herself to whichever cause has hired her for the time being, and has little space for considerations outside the current mission. That said, her time with the rather relaxed crew of the Idiot Tiger has rubbed off on her, giving her a dry sense of humor and a willingness to tolerate eccentricity. She considers Tigran and Mi-jeong her family, her uncle and little sister respectively, and this familial bond gives them a level of cohesion she did not have with previous crews.
History:

• Part of Iran's Kurdish community, the family consistently allied itself with the Islamic Republic against Ba'athist Iraq. Father was a junior officer in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps martyred himself collapsing a tunnel on an armored column, uncle later fought as in the Peshmerga during the Gulf War.
• Despite exemption from conscription, she joined the military due to the example set by her relatives. Originally was going to serve as military police investigating moral crimes, but her aptitude for mechanics and Iran's rebuilding from the previous decades of conflict meant that she was made a tank driver.
• When the Heavenfall struck she initially fought for Iran against internal dissidents and foreign forces struggling for power, but she quickly found herself deserting with her tank to help liberate her people. Was involved in heavy fighting in what would become independent Kurdistan, serving with distinction.
• This second career was brief however. During a battle with ISL dissidents operating on the border between Kurdistan and Iraq, a misidentified artillery strike killed dozens of civilians. While not her fault, she was made a scapegoat and threatened with punishment. Instead she left and became a pilot for hire.
• Was picked up by Tigran after his original driver was killed by spalling, and has been part of the Idiot Tiger's crew ever since.

Personal Weapons: Knights Armaments Light Assault Machine Gun and PC-9 Zoaf pistol, jambiya knife. The machine gun was requisitioned after an encounter with Western commandos operating in Dagestan, while the pistol and dagger were issued to her by the Iranian Army.

@Smike

Should be done, barring minor changes I might make/grammar edits

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

I'm thinking our first theater of operations might be in Central Asia, against Soviet remnants.

@Rhona W

Ex-Red Army tank tugs his collar awkwardly

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

Tank done, working on crew

Idiot Tiger

Name: K2 Black Panther "Idiot Tiger"
Type/Role: Main Battle Tank/Mobile Raiding Platform-A great deal of time and effort was spent making the Idiot Tiger capable of functioning almost independently for long periods of time (if only as a machine gun platform), modified and repaired to the point that it's almost a different tank entirely.
Reference Link: Wikipedia Link
Modifications/Upgrades:

• Added docking station/surveillance drone that interfaces with native Automatic Target Detection and Tracking System and battlefield management systems
• Attached HOT guided missile launcher
• Original gun replaced with XM291 Advanced Tank Cannon, typically in 140mm although it can be swapped to 120 if required.
• Original .50 cal was damaged and replaced with Type 85 12.7 mm machine gun, augmented with Mk 47 Striker automatic grenade launcher
• KAPS APS installed
• Slat armor added to engine compartment
• Powerplant upgraded to hybrid electric drive, can run off hydrogen fuel cells or traditional diesel.
• Smoke grenade launchers added to exterior
• Expanded storage baskets containing variety of personal weapons and ammo as well as spare rations, medical supplies, communications equipment, one Saiga 12 and one Benelli M4 shotgun for foraging and anti-drone purposes, and a Starstreak MANPADS with additional missiles.
• Speaker system modified to connect to standard phones and other electronics, for the purpose of playing music.

Colour Scheme: Decked out in Berlin Brigade camo in honor of the Berlin Infantry Brigade. Has image of namesake Idiot Tiger painted on turret.

My Hider

Crew Position: Commander
Name: Tigran Kalpakian, aka Tiger (Idiot Tiger, to his daughter)
Age: 44
Gender/Sex: Male
Appearance: Middle-aged and weather-beaten, his skin toughened by years spent in the sun or boiling inside cramped cabins. His haggard features bely his physical strength, his body lean and almost fox-like in its ranginess. Despite his long service, he lacks military bearing, often slouching with his hands in his pockets. Still wears his old Afghanka jacket, although it's tattered and patched. Instead of the standard issue trousers he wears blue jeans and his hair is slicked back with pomade as opposed to being policed into a crew cut.
Nationality: Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
Personal Outlook: Once upon a time Tigran had been a stickler for rules and regulations, but having spent the last ten years among outfits ranging from the informal to the outright anarchic, he's gone native in a sense. While uniform standards and protocol for saluting have a purpose in training, none of it matters in the field. He's good enough, and more importantly experienced enough, to relax. Always somewhat fascinated by Western culture he's adopted both music and clothing from the years he spent staring down NATO forces in Berlin. He developed a grim sense of humor during his time as a wandering cannon-for-hire, and he ultimately sees his work for Shattered as a job he has fun at as opposed any sort of higher calling,
History:

• Joined the Red Army because his father and grandfather had been soldiers before him; had basically no thought of being anything else.
• Served through the last couple of decades of the Cold War, stationed primarily in East Berlin but was deployed against NATO forces in Gulf War and late alongside them during Yugoslavian peacekeeping efforts.
• Happened to be deployed to the Republic of Korea as part of cross-training exercises when Heavenfall hit, was left stranded with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A soldier without an army, he essentially fought his way across Asia for one outfit or another, sometimes working with official PMCs and others ad hoc mercenaries or simple bandits to provide for his crew and their hanger-on.
• Made it back to Armenia but had nothing waiting for him there, so he joined Shattered Steel

Personal Weapons: AKS-74U carbine with bayonet and PMM pistol, issued during his time with the Red Army.

Crew Position: Gunner
Name: Park Mi-jeong, aka Agi Horangi (Little Tiger)
Age: 21
Gender/Sex: Female
Appearance: Mi-jeong is somewhat on the shorter side, standing at only five feet tall, and is notably underweight due to a poor diet in childhood and periods of hunger post-Heavenfall. She's missing a tooth and a chunk of her upper lip from an incident where she was attacked by an older boy in line for supplies, which gives her face something of a crooked appearance. Her smile is equally lopsided and off-kilter, almost predatory. As a girl, she haphazardly chopped her hair short so as not to need to worry about lice or other parasites, a habit she's continued to this day. In place of an official uniform she usually wears cold-weather gear in the Korean Granite pattern camo, regardless of temperature. She tends to wear a vintage M1 helmet over a M1938 tanker headset.
Nationality: Republic of Korea
Personal Outlook: Tigran did the best with the hand he was dealt, but Mi-jeong is fundamentally traumatized. Growing up neglected before losing a chunk of her family and then being pawned off to a stranger, only to then spend her adolescence trundling around conflict zones and taking part in fighting has done a number to her. This manifests itself as an almost gleeful aggressiveness, a strike-first mentality that serves her well in combat. She gets a near-manic sense of enjoyment out of fighting and works hard to be good at it, and she's loyal to fault to her adoptive father. When she (lovingly) named him after the Idiot Tiger of Korean folk art he retialited by describing her as a half-rabid dog; she's taken it as a badge of honor.
History:

• Born to a relatively well-off family, but didn't see parents very often due to them being extremely career-driven. Raised by grandparents and older siblings, had a very strained relationship with the former.
• Much of her family died in the Heavenfall, and her surviving relatives simply could not afford to care for her. Given up to soldiers passing through in hopes she'd be taken somewhere better.
• Traveled with Tigran and his commandeered K2, watching as crew came and went. Managed to receive a solid education despite the circumstances of her life, and grew attached to her adoptive father. As she got older and the Idiot Tiger got into scrapes she became accustomed to the battlefield. First manned the coaxial gun at 15, sometimes stood in as main gunner by 16.
• Tigran had hoped to settle her somewhere with a functioning education system so she could make something of her life, but having been exposed to such loss and war so early, she was set on being a tanker like him.

Personal Weapons: CAR-15 carbine with flash suppressor and K14-VN pistol, M9 bayonet. All looted from rival mercenaries operating along the Vietnamese-Cambodian border.

Crew Position: Driver
Name: Dîlan Jahani, aka
Age: 34
Gender/Sex: Female
Appearance: Dark-skinned and dark-countenanced, with black hair she keeps pulled into an easy-to-manage bun. She's on the taller side, having an inch or two in height on the 5'9 Tigran, and still wears the Gulf War-era "chocolate chip" BDU she had been given after joining the Peshmerga. As serious as she is, she allows herself some ornamentation in the form of an Omega watch and a pair of platinum rings she found in the aftermath of a raid.
Nationality: Islamic Republic of Iran/Kurdistan
Personal Outlook: Dîlan is, above all, a professional soldier. She takes her work seriously, devoting herself to whichever cause has hired her for the time being, and has little space for considerations outside the current mission. That said, her time with the rather relaxed crew of the Idiot Tiger has rubbed off on her, giving her a dry sense of humor and a willingness to tolerate eccentricity. She considers Tigran and Mi-jeong her family, her uncle and little sister respectively, and this familial bond gives them a level of cohesion she did not have with previous crews.
History:

• Part of Iran's Kurdish community, the family consistently allied itself with the Islamic Republic against Ba'athist Iraq. Father was a junior officer in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps martyred himself collapsing a tunnel on an armored column, uncle later fought as in the Peshmerga during the Gulf War.
• Despite exemption from conscription, she joined the military due to the example set by her relatives. Originally was going to serve as military police investigating moral crimes, but her aptitude for mechanics and Iran's rebuilding from the previous decades of conflict meant that she was made a tank driver.
• When the Heavenfall struck she initially fought for Iran against internal dissidents and foreign forces struggling for power, but she quickly found herself deserting with her tank to help liberate her people. Was involved in heavy fighting in what would become independent Kurdistan, serving with distinction.
• This second career was brief however. During a battle with ISL dissidents operating on the border between Kurdistan and Iraq, a misidentified artillery strike killed dozens of civilians. While not her fault, she was made a scapegoat and threatened with punishment. Instead she left and became a pilot for hire.
• Was picked up by Tigran after his original driver was killed by spalling, and has been part of the Idiot Tiger's crew ever since.

Personal Weapons: Knights Armaments Light Assault Machine Gun and PC-9 Zoaf pistol, jambiya knife. The machine gun was requisitioned after an encounter with Western commandos operating in Dagestan, while the pistol and dagger were issued to her by the Iranian Army.

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

I’ll get working on the K2 crew soon

Shattered Steel - An Ace Combat/Project Wingman/etc inspired aircraft-based RP

Ximena Huang

Ximena didn't like the ground plan at all, but unfortunately she didn't have a good argument against it. Any operation that involved her loitering while some jerk with a Strela searched for her signal was a bad one...but that's just how things went. If the ground crew got cut to pieces, the operation was a bust, and stopping the ground crew from getting cut to pieces meant waiting for targets of opportunity to rear their big, ugly heads.

There was something nagging at her about the setup, but unfortunately there was no planning around it. It was probably nothing anyway and yet-

It nagged at her because everything nagged at her, all the small details presenting themselves as glaring risks. That's what being a spy did; it taught you how to catastrophize. She hated living things undone, every hanging thread a potential problem down the line. She needed them tied down or snipped off, accounted for in some way.

------
She figured it was best to bring the question to Heartbreak privately as opposed to weighing everyone down with heavy details. Instead she caught him on the way out of the locker room, her own helmet tucked under her arm.

"Lieutenant-Colonel, not to make mountains out of molehills, but-"

She shrugged apologetically, well-aware she was doing just that.

"I've never seen flown a combat mission with this outfit. I don't have the regulations down pat, and it occurred to me that once we start knocking out their SAMs and blowing up their planes, the OpFor might panic. If they do turn and start beating a hasty retreat to Libya or wherever they came from, how should we handle it-?

It had been against protocol in Lucky Dog to let the enemy escape if doing so didn't interfere with the safety of the pilot or the wider flight. If you were scrambled against bandits you returned only once you were out of ammo or targets, whichever came last. Shattered Steel seemed nicer, for lack of a better word. Not pushovers or anything, but she wasn't sure if they adhered to her 'it flies, it dies' mentality or if they still held onto some of that old knights of the air chivalry. Seeing Scott's reaction to Brightspark last night, she thought it wise to check with him before she started chasing retreating targets.

@Rhona W