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Operation Honed Edge

Small-Unit and Weapon-System Training Cycle

To: The Lord of War
From: Instructor Aric Grovestream, S.O.D. Leviathan
Re: Authorisation and funding for one combined training cycle
Trainees: S.O.D. Leviathan

Lord of War,

With decent numbers now in the unit, we fight as a gathering of individuals. Each soldier can kill. What they cannot yet do is fight as a tight-knit unit, move covered, break a contact on minimal communication, hold fire until it serves the squad, and run every weapon between them. This cycle closes that gap.

I will instruct every phase personally with the instructor team. The cycle is built to climb. We start with the individual soldier and his weapons, move to how the squad walks the ground, then to the fight, and only once those hold do we layer on the hard combined work and the live serials. Every exercise below carries a goal, a purpose, and a way to measure a good result, so both the trainees and you, my Lord, know what success is defined as. Each will be run as its own full exercise on the day. Costs, field bookings, and transport sit at the bottom for your authority.

PHASE ONE: THE INDIVIDUAL SOLDIER
The easy ground first. Before a man can fight in a squad he must run his own weapon and hide his own body.

1. Cover and Concealment
Goal: Use terrain and shadow to stay unseen, and know the difference between cover that stops a bolt and concealment that only hides.
Purpose: The unseen soldier wins the first shot. The soldier who confuses a bush for a wall dies behind it.
How we train it: Instructor moves trainees through a lane and calls each man out who shows a silhouette, breaks a treeline, or takes "cover" behind something a bolt passes straight through. Repeat until they read ground on instinct.
Measure of a good result: A trainee can move a hundred metres of mixed ground and be spotted by the instructor no more than once, and can name real cover from mere concealment on sight.

2. Land Navigation
Goal: Map and terrain association, finding a point unled, by day and in the dark.
Purpose: A unit that cannot navigate is a unit that walks into the wrong valley and the right ambush.
How we train it: A set course of marked points across the manoeuvre area, run individually and then as a split team, no instructor leading.
Measure of a good result: Each trainee reaches every point within tolerance and can place his own position on the map when stopped and asked.

3. Hold Fire and Fire Discipline
Goal: Restraint on command, and target identification before engaging.
Purpose: The discipline not to strike is harder and more valuable than the strike. A premature shot loses an ambush or kills a friendly.
How we train it: Pop-up targets including no-shoot targets and friendlies, with fire permitted only on the call.
Measure of a good result: No trainee fires on an unassigned or no-shoot target, and all engage cleanly on the command.

PHASE TWO: MOVING AS A SQUAD
With the individual sound, the squad learns to walk the ground together without being caught.

4. Movement and Bounding Overwatch
Goal: The squad moves through terrain in the right formation without bunching, and crosses dangerous ground by bounds.
Purpose: So the squad cannot be caught in the open and defeated in one burst. This underpins every other drill.
How we train it: Dry movement over the Vrelken foothills, switching wedge to file as the ground tightens, each soldier assigned an arc. Then bounding practice across marked danger areas, one element static and watching while the other moves.
Measure of a good result: Each trainee holds an arc, the formation fits the terrain, one element is always still and ready to fire while the other moves. No clustering, no element bounds past supporting range.

5. Hand Signals and Noise Discipline
Goal: Silent communication and movement.
Purpose: The squad that controls itself without a sound owns the night and the approach.
How we train it: A standard signal set drilled on the move, with the instructor enforcing silence and calling out kit that rattles.
Measure of a good result: The squad halts, changes formation, and signals contact entirely by hand, moving quiet enough that the instructor cannot hear them approach.

6. Danger-Area and Obstacle Crossing
Goal: Cross roads, open lanes, water, and wire without losing the squad or getting caught mid-crossing.
Purpose: The crossing is where an unprepared squad is most exposed, and the enemy knows it.
How we train it: Set-piece crossings of a road and a watercourse, near-side and far-side security posted, weapons kept up and dry, the squad flowing across in covered bounds rather than a single rush.
Measure of a good result: Security is posted both sides before anyone crosses, the crossing is covered throughout, and the squad re-forms and accounts for all on the far side.

7. Track and Sign, and Anti-Tracking
Goal: Read the enemy's sign, and deny him yours on the withdrawal.
Purpose: The fishing-hook traps a follower, but the better answer is leaving no trail to follow. The retreat route matters as much as the ambush site.
How we train it: Trainees follow a laid trail and report what it tells them, then lay their own withdrawal and have the instructor team attempt to track it, learning what gave them away.
Measure of a good result: A trainee reads numbers, direction, and freshness off a trail, and can move a withdrawal leg that the tracking team loses.

PHASE THREE: RECON AND CONTROL
A squad that moves well can now watch, report, and hold itself together when split.

8. Recon, Reporting and Patrolling
Goal: See without being seen, and report it cleanly to format.
Purpose: Information is the small unit's true weapon. A clear report is worth more than a brave one.
How we train it: Holding an observation point under concealment, the stop-observe-listen-often halt discipline on the move, and rendering a report to format.
Measure of a good result: A recce report rendered to format (Time, Location, Number, Type, Activity, Symbol, Sent-by), an OP held unseen, and the halt discipline kept on the move.

9. Comms Procedure
Goal: Send a contact report and a periodic report cleanly, know what breaks radio silence, report even when there is nothing to report.
Purpose: Command builds the picture from your reports. A garbled or missing report blinds them.
How we train it: Message drills on the squad net, contact reports and timed report summaries, including the discipline of checking in on schedule even with nothing to say, and proposing how you could do the task better.
Measure of a good result: Reports are brief, correctly formatted, sent on time, and rehearsed before transmission so there is no stumbling on the net.

10. Rally Points and the Lost Soldier
Goal: A scatter is not a loss. Trainees name rally points as they move and return to the last one if split off.
Purpose: The squad cannot afford to lose a man to simple confusion.
How we train it: Deliberate scatters sprung mid-move, with rally points named beforehand and the separated-soldier drill run.
Measure of a good result: After a scatter, every trainee reaches the correct rally point. The separated-soldier drill is run quiet, patient, rejoining rather than hunting.

11. Survival and Evasion
Goal: The lost soldier living and moving on the long walk home.
Purpose: A separated man with what he knows is worth more delivered home than spent on a doomed fight.
How we train it: Tied to the rally-point drill above, a trainee is "separated" and must navigate quiet, by night, to a home point.
Measure of a good result: The trainee moves patient and unseen, reaches the rally or home point, and arrives with his information intact.

PHASE FOUR: THE FIGHT
Now the shooting starts. The squad meets the enemy, plans the fight it chooses, and survives the one it does not.

12. Actions on Contact
Goal: The unplanned fight. First man to see the enemy fires and shouts the direction.
Purpose: The opening seconds of a chance contact decide whether the squad lives. There is no waiting for an order that has not been thought of yet.
How we train it: Pop-up contacts sprung on the squad mid-move, from front then flank, with no warning of direction.
Measure of a good result: Every trainee returns fire and calls the direction within the first seconds. The squad either wins it fast or commits to breaking, with no man standing and trading.

13. Break Contact
Goal: Get off the killing ground alive by peeling, fire and move, leapfrogging away from the enemy.
Purpose: A small unit with no reinforcement does not win a stand-up fight. It breaks clean and lives.
How we train it: Peeling drills from a contact, smoke used to break line of sight, rehearsed until the leapfrog is automatic.
Measure of a good result: One foot always shooting, one foot always moving. Fire never lifts entirely off the enemy. The squad breaks line of sight, then breaks distance.

14. Ambush
Goal: Few soldiers, many weapons, a short violent strike on a moving or weakly-guarded enemy, then a fast withdrawal.
Purpose: This is the fight we choose, and the one our doctrine is built on. Done right it costs the enemy dearly and us nothing.
How we train it: Siting the killing ground, posting flank protection as strong as the strike element, laying anti-tank and mines forward, and rehearsing the strike-and-go. Expect enemy artillery within five to ten minutes and gunships within ten to fifteen, so the withdrawal is timed and drilled, not improvised. The more guns you put on the killing ground, the longer the withdrawal, so balance firepower against the time it costs you.
Measure of a good result: Surprise achieved, flanks secured, the strike short and heavy, and the whole element off the site before the reaction window closes. Only the spotter or leader confirms effect.

15. Reaction to Ambush and Counter-Ambush
Goal: Survive being the one caught, near or far.
Purpose: Knowing how an ambush is sprung is what lets you read one being sprung on you. In a near ambush you turn and fight through, in a far one you break.
How we train it: The instructor team springs both types, and the squad drills the correct opposite response to each.
Measure of a good result: The squad reads near from far correctly and commits to the right response without hesitation.

16. Reaction to Indirect Fire
Goal: What to do when the shells or mortars land.
Purpose: Standing still under indirect fire is how a whole squad falls at once.
How we train it: Simulated impacts called on a moving squad, drilling the immediate move out of the beaten zone in the right direction.
Measure of a good result: The squad clears the impact area fast, in a controlled direction, without bunching into the next salvo.

17. Hasty Attack on a Weak Position
Goal: The controlled opposite of break-contact, fighting through a weak point by fire and manoeuvre in pairs.
Purpose: Sometimes the way out is forward, through a lighter enemy than the one behind you.
How we train it: Pairs bounding onto a marked position, one firing while one moves, clearing through.
Measure of a good result: Fire is continuous, the pairs alternate cleanly, and the position is taken without the assaulters crossing each other's fire.

PHASE FIVE: CASUALTIES
The squad can fight. Now it learns to take a hit and keep its wounded.

18. Casualty Handling and Buddy Recovery
Goal: Drag a wounded man to cover and apply basic field aid.
Purpose: A unit with no reinforcement cannot leave a man, and cannot freeze over one either.
How we train it: Carries and drags (fireman's, two-man, drag-strap) and self-aid including tourniquet, under time and noise pressure.
Measure of a good result: A casualty is moved to cover and stabilised without the recovery party stopping the squad's fight or exposing itself needlessly.

19. Casualty Extraction During a Break
Goal: The hardest version, moving a wounded man while the squad is peeling off the X.
Purpose: This is the real test, because it is where most squads either lose the casualty or lose more men trying.
How we train it: A break-contact drill with a designated casualty injected, integrating the carry into the leapfrog.
Measure of a good result: The casualty comes off the X with the squad, fire is maintained throughout, and no second man is hit recovering the first.

PHASE SIX: SABOTAGE, MINES AND ENGINEERING
The specialist work. The squad learns to break things, lay traps, and find the enemy's.

20. Field Fortification
Goal: Build a fire position and an OP fast.
Purpose: A position dug and masked before contact is worth more than twice the men standing in the open.
How we train it: Digging and siting a fire position with arcs and overhead consideration, and constructing a concealed OP.
Measure of a good result: The position covers its arc, is masked from the likely enemy approach, and the OP cannot be picked out from the front.

21. Masking and Decoys
Goal: Hide yourself, your position, and your activity, and where useful show the enemy something false.
Purpose: What the enemy cannot find he cannot hit, and what he wrongly finds he wastes his fire on.
How we train it: Masking the individual, the position, and movement signature, then siting a simple decoy to draw fire or attention off the real position.
Measure of a good result: The real position survives an instructor's search while the decoy draws the eye.

22. Mine-Laying
Goal: Lay mines to channel and stop the enemy, for the fishing-hook and the break-contact.
Purpose: A few well-sited mines turn terrain you are giving up into terrain that costs the enemy.
How we train it: Siting fragmentation and EMP mines, HUD-tagging friendly movement through them, placing tripwires and pressure triggers, and siting EMP mines to halt a vehicle column.
Measure of a good result: Mines are sited where the enemy must pass, friendlies are tagged through safely, and the layout supports the ambush or withdrawal rather than just littering the ground.

23. Mine Detection and Clearing
Goal: Find and deal with the enemy's mines and unexploded ordnance before they find your squad.
Purpose: A mined approach unspotted is a casualty list. This is the survival half of mine warfare.
How we train it: Recognising the triggers (pressure, tripwire at ankle and waist height, magnetic, heat, command-detonated), spotting anti-handling devices and unexploded ordnance, marking what is found, and the rule that unexploded ordnance is treated as a mine and left to those trained to clear it. A nominated field-works soldier per squad specialises in this.
Measure of a good result: The trainee spots a laid trip and pressure device on a marked lane, marks them, moves the squad around them, and does not touch suspected anti-handling or unexploded items.

24. Breaching
Goal: Charge and mechanical entry, the stack and the flow through.
Purpose: Getting into a building or position fast and alive, without standing in the doorway.
How we train it: Stacking either side of a breach point with directional charges, the stack kept safe, the flow through drilled.
Measure of a good result: The breach is placed with the stack protected, and the entry flows through in order without crossing fires.

25. Demolitions and Charge Placement
Goal: Drop the bridge, wreck the depot, and time the detonation against the withdrawal.
Purpose: The sabotage half of the small-unit job, the thing the recon found.
How we train it: Charge placement on target structures, det timing rehearsed against a clean withdrawal, and the standing question of whether the target needed blowing at all.
Measure of a good result: The charge is placed for effect, the detonation is timed to cover the squad clear, and the demolition serves the mission rather than the noise.

PHASE SEVEN: MOUNTED AND SPECIAL ENVIRONMENTS
The harder ground. Fighting from transport, in the open column, and inside built-up terrain.

26. Vehicle and Mounted Movement
Goal: Embark, dismount, and fight from and around transport.
Purpose: Moving between objectives by vehicle is where a squad is packed tight and most vulnerable.
How we train it: Drilled embark and dismount, fighting off the vehicle, and the reaction to a disabled transport.
Measure of a good result: The squad dismounts fast into all-round security, fights clear of the vehicle, and reacts correctly when it is disabled.

27. Convoy Drills
Goal: React to contact and to a disabled vehicle in a moving column.
Purpose: The convoy ambush is the enemy's favourite, and the response has to be reflexive.
How we train it: Contacts sprung on a moving column, drilling the push-through or the dismount-and-fight as the situation dictates.
Measure of a good result: The column reacts as one, the disabled vehicle is dealt with, and the squad neither freezes in the killing zone nor scatters uncontrolled.

28. Shuttle Insertion and Extraction
Goal: The rushed load and unload, into and out of a hot or cold zone.
Purpose: The minutes at the landing zone are the most exposed of any operation.
How we train it: Drilled boarding and debussing under time pressure, security posted on the zone, the LZ marked by smoke where comms are degraded.
Measure of a good result: The squad loads and unloads fast into security, accounts for all men, and holds the zone only as long as needed.

29. Urban and Close-Quarters
Goal: Room clearing, corners, stairs, and the breach.
Purpose: Built-up ground swallows squads and favours the defender. It must be fought methodically.
How we train it: Clearing rooms in pairs and fours, taking corners and stairs, and flowing from the breach, with the reminder that the enemy comes from the sides, behind, and above, not only the front.
Measure of a good result: Rooms are cleared in order, angles are covered, and no trainee leads with his body into an unchecked corner.

PHASE EIGHT: NIGHT, PRISONERS AND THE FINAL TESTS
Everything learned, now run in the dark, under fatigue, and stitched into one whole.

30. Night Operations
Goal: Move, navigate, fight, and hold discipline with vision and comms degraded.
Purpose: Darkness multiplies every other skill and forces reliance on the section.
How we train it: The movement, navigation, crossing, and contact drills re-run at night with light and noise discipline enforced.
Measure of a good result: The squad moves, navigates, and fights in the dark without lights, without straggling, and without sound that carries.

31. Taking and Handling Prisoners
Goal: Take a prisoner cleanly, strip him of what matters, and move him under guard.
Purpose: A captured officer is worth more than a dead one, and a mishandled prisoner is a risk and a stain on the unit.
How we train it: Drilling the capture, separating his weapons, tools, maps, and documents from what he keeps, separating officers from rank and file, and reporting a captured officer at once. Prisoners are handled firmly and correctly so they neither escape nor are abused.
Measure of a good result: The prisoner is disarmed, his intelligence taken, officers held apart and reported, and he is moved under guard without incident.

32. Combat Estimate and Orders
Goal: Can a junior actually give a clear set of orders.
Purpose: When the leader falls, the next man gives the orders or the squad stalls. Every soldier should be able to.
How we train it: Trainees rotated into the lead and made to give a short five-part set of orders for a simple task.
Measure of a good result: The orders are clear enough that the squad executes the task without going back to ask what was meant.

33. Stalk Test
Goal: The marksman fieldcraft exercise, get within range unseen and prove it with a shot.
Purpose: A marksman who cannot stay hidden is just a slow rifleman.
How we train it: Trainee stalks to within range of an instructor observer and fires a marking shot without being located.
Measure of a good result: The shot is taken from inside effective range and the observer cannot pinpoint the firer.

34. Stress Shoot
Goal: Shooting under noise, time pressure, and a deliberately injected error.
Purpose: The verdict on whether fire discipline holds when it stops being calm.
How we train it: A timed, loud course with multiple targets, no-shoot targets, and a single unexpected problem dropped in.
Measure of a good result: Hits on the right targets, no fire on no-shoots, and the error handled without the trainee losing control.

35. The Endurance Crucible
Goal: One continuous problem stitching movement, contact, casualty, recon, mines, and a sabotage task together.
Purpose: Skills pass alone and fail in combination. This proves they hold under fatigue and in sequence.
How we train it: A long final exercise running the squad through a patrol, a chance contact, a casualty, a mined approach, a recon, and a demolition, end to end.
Measure of a good result: The squad carries every individual skill through the chain under fatigue, and brings every man home.

WEAPON SYSTEMS

Note for the Lord of War: the weapon systems below are to be requested by the troops themselves. A trooper may train on any system he intends to carry or may be called to use. Grovestream has considered a distinct exercise for each and will instruct all of them personally. The list is drawn from the Imperial Quartermaster's arsenal, with the squad-support and anti-armour systems the trainees have asked after added in.

Default weapons (every trainee, no request needed):

DLA-13s Blaster Rifle - the standard rifle. Load, make ready, clear a stoppage and overheat under stress, reload from cover, fire on the target-call.
CQ-7s Blaster Pistol - the sidearm. Draw and transition when the rifle goes down mid-fight. Close work.
Fragmentation Grenade - timing, throwing from cover, clearing dead ground, and the magnetic-grapple mine use.
Smoke Grenade - screening a bound or a break, and signalling an LZ.
Combat Knife - last-ditch, and field utility.

Requested rifles and carbines:

DLA-19 Blaster Rifle - the newer stamped pattern, heavier, near unbreakable, built for volume of fire at close and medium range.
R2 Recon Carbine - the shorter support weapon, iron-sight work for tight ground.
VM-5s Blaster Marksman Rifle - precision at medium and long range, and the standing rule to carry a sidearm with it.
AN-35 Ion Rifle - against droids, electronics, and light vehicle shielding, and the powershot crystal's risk.

Requested squad-support and heavy weapons:

LRZ-2s Light Repeating Blaster (Squad Repeater) - controlled bursts, sustaining a beaten zone, bipod work, a second man cross-trained.
Medium Repeater - the heavier sustained-fire piece for holding a line or an ambush base.
WDAC-II Blaster Assault Cannon - a heavy hip-fired weapon for intense fire.
WDAC-III Heavy Repeater - heaviest direct line blaster weapon for heavy sustained fire attached to a platform.
OBF-2S Sniper Rifle - long-range overwatch and the officer-kill, range estimation, the spotter relationship, and fieldcraft.
TS-2B Scatterblaster - close-quarters spread fire for breaching and tight ground.

Requested anti-armour and anti-air:

RI-CL Rudimentary Launcher (Disposable Anti-Tank) - the cheap, dumb-fired, throwaway launcher, the natural shoot-n-scoot opener.
K2 Launcher (Advanced Rocket Launcher) - the two-shot reloadable, backblast danger area, and the one-shot-confirm-then-gone timing.
Recoilless Rifle - direct-fire anti-armour and bunker-busting at range, crew drill and backblast clearance.
Guided Anti-Tank Launcher (NLAW-pattern) - fire-and-forget against harder targets, lock procedure, top attack, and the rule on launch signature and displacement.
Anti-Air MANPAD - against gunships and low shuttles, acquisition, lock tone, engagement window, and the immediate move after launch.

Requested launchers, grenades, and pyrotechnics:

M-01 Grenade Launcher - arcing grenades onto reverse slopes and into cover, four-grenade load, and cluster-discipline.
Grenade natures - thermal detonator, ion, flashbang, EMP, gas, sonic, cryoban. When each is reached for, and when it is the wrong one.
Flares and pyrotechnics - illumination, single-use signal flares to mark a contact on patrol, and recognition signals between split elements.

Requested explosives and demolitions:

Breaching Charges - directional charges with the stack safe to either side, plus sabotage uses.
High Impact Charges - the heavy detonite charge for a structure or a medium tank, placement and det timing.
Fragmentation and EMP Mines - laying for the fishing-hook and break-contact, HUD-tagging, and stopping a vehicle column.

Requested melee and specialist:

Vibroknife and Vibrosword - for the Leviathan men at Specialist and above, closing the gap and cutting through shield and armour.
Flamethrower (M-2) - clearing caves, bunkers, and rooms, the rebreather rule, and the warning that the tanks explode if hit.
Riot Control Shield - mobile cover and holding a choke, and how much fire it eats before it breaks.
Emplaced and mounted weapons (familiarisation) - enough handling on a portable turret or captured crew weapon to use an abandoned one or take over a downed mount.

On the anti-tank work specifically: live anti-armour rounds are costly and scarce. The cycle trains the AT systems chiefly with exercise rounds, drill rockets, and inert warheads, which carry the firing drill, the backblast danger area, the lock procedure, and the displacement, at a fraction of the cost of live ordnance. A small allocation of live serials is reserved so each crewed system is fired live at least once before the cycle closes.

PASS STANDARD

Each trainee moves, takes cover, and bounds on command without bunching.
Each trainee returns fire and calls the contact direction in the opening seconds of a chance contact.
The squad breaks contact by peeling, with fire never lifting fully off the enemy.
Each trainee reaches the correct rally point after a scatter, and runs the lost-soldier drill correctly.
Each trainee spots and marks a laid mine and tripwire on a cleared lane, and leaves unexploded ordnance to those trained to clear it.
Each trainee is qualified on his default weapons. Every requested system is qualified by the trainee who requested it, with one cross-trained reserve per crewed weapon.
A recce report is rendered to format, a prisoner is taken and handled correctly, and a demolition task is placed and timed against a clean withdrawal.

LOGISTICS AND BUDGET
All figures in Imperial credits, estimated for one cycle. Planning estimates for your Lordship's authority.

Field bookings and facilities

Vrelken foothills manoeuvre area, full-cycle booking: 99,000
Live-fire range allocation, small-arms lanes: 66,000
Anti-armour and demolition range, hardened, with target hulks and structures: 82,500
Anti-air engagement range with drone targets: 49,500
Mine-warfare and breaching lane, laid and cleared: 44,000
Urban and close-quarters shoot-house hire: 38,500

Transportation

Shuttle lift, squad and cadre to Karagath and return: 88,000
Ground transport and stores haulage on-world: 38,500
Ordnance and demolition-stores secure transport: 44,000
Vehicle hire for mounted and convoy drills: 55,000

Ammunition and stores

Small-arms power packs and gas cells, all rifles, carbines, pistols, repeaters: 374,000
Marksman and sniper match cells, optics hire: 104,500
Grenade natures, frag, smoke, ion, flash, EMP, gas, sonic, cryoban: 176,000
Flares, pyrotechnics, recognition sets: 44,000
Anti-tank exercise rounds, drill rockets, inert warheads (bulk): 121,000
Anti-tank live serials, reserved minimum (RI-CL, K2, recoilless, guided): 198,000
Anti-air practice rounds and one live serial: 99,000
Demolition stores, breaching and high-impact charges, dets, timers, mines: 154,000
Inert and practice mines for detection and clearing drills: 49,500
Casualty-simulation and recovery stores: 33,000
Flamethrower fuel, melee training blades, riot shield, turret range time: 71,500

Personnel and overhead

Instructor stipend, Grovestream and cadre, full cycle: 132,000
Opposing-force role-players, blank-equipped: 77,000
Contingency, 10 percent, wastage, re-serials, weather: 259,600

Total, full programme, all systems funded: 2,855,600 credits

The core (movement, contact, rally, recon, rifle, pistol, repeater, range hire, transport) is the irreducible line at which the squad becomes a unit. The guided anti-tank, anti-air, and live anti-armour serials are the costliest items and may be deferred to a later cycle should funds be held. The cycle scales to whatever credits your Lordship releases.

For your authority,

Instructor Aric Grovestream
S.O.D. Leviathan, Training Attachment

Pentarchy of War, House Horuset Awaiting Signatures:_______________________

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