RN Rubicon Motocisterne grande per Acqua

[zenrat]

Awesome.

[tigercat]

Capitano di Corvetta Paolo Baldi gazed down from the bridge or RN Rubicon as the men of Pionierkommando Becker made final checks on their charges. Today like so many days before his ship alongside the sweepings of every river , estuary and port that could float , steer and carry more than its own crew  the  Germans had been able to muster plus other various floating  monstrosities that the Germans had been able to cobble together from what seemed to be every bit of bridging equipment that the Germans had been able to beg , borrow and steal   would be practicing beach landings again.



He hoped today would be better. Germans just did not seem to do well on water. Although credit where it was due the men of the Pionierkommando seemed more efficent than most and some of their contraptions designed to help defeat the inglesi defences showed more ingenuity than he'd come to expect form the oh so logical Germans.

As one of the few specialised landing craft  his had been selected for getting the armoured vehicles of what had been dubbed Becker's Menagerie ashore in one piece. Behind him his sister ship Tiber bobbed and abreast of her the converted ferry Lorelei . These as well as some of the German's monstrosities   were what the Italian sailors had dubbed  the Zookeeper's although Paolo considered them sometimes as more of a circus and him the Ringmaster trying to keephis mismatched Flotilla in order.



Their was a cry from one of the lookouts as out of the darkness  some blue - grey shapes flitted .

"Gisueppe sound the alarm " Paolo commanded the helmsman as he strained to identify the aircraft . Seconds later the alarm bells started to ring and crewman scrambled to action stations .

It was those Porca Vacca  inglesi Skua dive bombers. But what were they doing . They were too low for dive bombing and if armed with torpedoes they would have a wasted journey as most of the craft gathered here today were too shallow draft for them to impact. If this was a torpedo raid the Inglesi would just have thrown away good pilots and working horse if obsolescent aircraft.

The  gun crews opened fire as soon as they were able .

It was only when streaks started to arrow out from the approaching craft did Paolo truly understand 

Razzo the inglesi had armed them with some kind of Razzo.

It was only then  that something  caught his eye at the bow of the ship

It was one of the German armoured vehicles. It was driving forward up the closed ramp of the ship . What were those loca Germans doing now.

[Captain Canada]

Very cool....and busy ! Love all the details and sandbags etc. Great stuff.

[NARSES2]

Fantastic