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Expansion 14/Sanford Shuffle

Ensign Victoria Volkov was beginning to question certain tenets of her current life, namely why exactly she was so willing to go along with Holly's insane stunts, and could only conclude that it was because, being a former raider and all, she herself was already somewhat insane so Holly's ideas came off as sane rather than insane. In short, Victoria was left questioning her own sanity as she followed along with Holly on yet another insane stunt, which this time was infiltrating a raider stronghold hours before the next artillery barrage with just the two of them. Now hopefully, the two of them would be able to escape the stronghold before the barrage began, preferably in the range of a good half hour, and achieve whatever mad objective Holly had been given. Reality being what it was, Victoria found herself praying, not for the first time since she got put together with Holly, to whatever gods were listening and checked her equipment one more time. The two were going to be sneaking in through a hole in the enemy's fortifications, brought about by a previous bombardment, and it was hoped that said hole had not yet been discovered and patched, let alone guarded. Raiders being raiders, it was entirely likely that if there was a guard, they would be intoxicated and unable to raise the alarm before their throat gets cut. Of course, Holly, being right next to her, hefted a rocket launcher with glee and grinned at her, thus making Victoria realize that this would not, in fact, be a stealth mission. The scream of rage was drowned out by the rocket's explosion.

Records of Aide Daniel Smith

The Sanford Operation, part of the wider Second Inland Campaign, was thankfully unlike the Highpoint Operation in that the main enemy force was comprised of raiders rather than independence-minded settlers, the latter being notably harder to fight due to the affects on morale. These affects range from confrontation with the belief that the Protectors are helping the average wastelander to being unable to fully exercise their bloodlust upon their enemy. Thankfully, the Sanford Operation restored morale as Commissar Palmer ordered the Protectors into battle against the local raiders, a confederation of gangs who primarily raided rather than reign as petty despots over the local settlements. Contact was established with the local settlements via vanguard elements and matters arranged as to have them remain neutral in the conflict rather than assist due to the desire to reduce casualties for the population of the Province (See Salisbury Operation). However, an exchange of information did take place, as the local settlements proved to be very interested in joining the Protectorate and provided information as to the locations of various raider strongholds, acquired via tribute trains to those gangs who accepted such things. With this information in mind, the Protectors began their operation, attacking the raiders' outer forces and forcing them back into their strongholds. Much like Salisbury and Highpoint, the threat of concentrated artillery barrages was utilized to mixed results, as a number of raider gangs refused to surrender even as their strongholds came down around their ears. These strongholds would be infiltrated and cracked open from within, usually with stealth, though in the case of a certain Protector and her minder high explosives were utilized to force a breach. Though casualty heavy, such operations would spell the end of the raiders of Sanford.

[Losses: 117 Protectors, 391 Raiders]
[Gains: 2,117 Pop, 2,000 R91 Assault Rifles, 20 Hecate II Antimaterial Rifles, 400 Heavy Combat Armor Sets, 9 M45 Quadmounts, 3 M113 APCs, 2 T-51B]