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 Post subject: The Birth of Marines
PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 3:19 pm 
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Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2017 1:34 am
Posts: 81
There is a loud rumble with the sound of 40 samurai firing muskets from the beach. While the mish-mash of gun toting samurai was not impressive looking, with mismatched armor, gear and clan colors with a few ronin thrown into the mix, that did not detract from the sound of the volley that had just been fired in the direction of the old row boat that was anchored about 50 yards out. The many small splashes and lack of splintering wood made it clear that this was going to take work to whip them into shape. Hiraga, for his part, was not a very inspiring man with words and fancy speeches... but the warriors listened when he showed what these weapons were capable of in well trained hands. For some of them, this was their first time firing a gun and it was clear from their reactions. That had to be the first thing to go. They needed to be able to fire and fight as a unit.

While they reloaded Hiraga watched, waiting patiently and being happy with their progress. But a few dozen is too many to keep a close eye on all. On the next round of firing there was an abnormally loud cracking noise from the target boat. Hiraga stepped to the waterline to take a closer look before turning back to the group. "Who's missing their ramrod?" he asks.

After a few seconds one of the soldiers sheepishly lifts his hand.

"It looks like you're swimming out to recover it. You are fortunate that it got stuck in the side of the boat. Otherwise you would have spent all day diving for it. Everyone else gather round... We'll go over trigger discipline while Mirumoto-san is busy. And when he gets back we will do reloading drills."

Meanwhile, the other members of the unit were up shore doing landing drills, their respective nikutai leading them. They had been given explicit instructions on how they were to perform the landings and seemed to be doing well enough from a distance. The leaders of the two units of warriors that were practicing their landing skills were a pair of Lion siblings. They had not been overly excited by the prospect of being recruited into a new gunpowder unit at first, but when they learned that they'd be leading the infantry during landing parties in strange places, potentially meeting gaijin - and getting the chance to kill them - they seemed more excited. They didn't really understand the thought that perhaps the Explorers would not be killing every outsider they met but Hiraga liked their enthusiasm.

The infantry members were likewise very motley in appearance, with many different armor styles and colors, but they seemed to be doing well enough at jumping off a boat and forming up on land. For a first day at least. It would require much more drilling. And eventually with the musketmen as well.

While the units did all wear non-matching uniforms, there was one thing they all had in common. Each warrior in Hiraga's unit wore strip of grey cloth with a black musket over a white ship on their right arm securely tied but clearly visible.

Hiraga continued the drills until the dusk started, then released his men from training for the day. They would be back again tomorrow and get just a little bit better.


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