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There was once a time when military commanders spoke of ravaged battlefields littered with the dead of its combatants. Now, the scene of Romanian fields of combat is equally horrifying, though for a completely different reason. The following is a report from the Boomer Bugle’s Dade Pendwyn as he surveys the scene of the battle for Romania’s Southern Great Plain.

The pungent smell of spent gunpowder overwhelms the senses. Wounded soldiers scream in agony over their various violently developed maladies. I’m currently peering over the top of the trenches into no man’s land. Panic has gripped the collective psyche of the once stoic Romanian soldier as reports of foreign invasion into Romanian lands come in from all corners of the empire. However, there is something even more terrifying to consider as one looks over the battle ravaged expanse of land that separates the Hungarians from the Romanians. A description of the scene privy to my nervous observation is much different than what you would expect. When once there might have been bodies littering the battlefield, now there are broken gun parts. When the viscous flow of man’s blood was once the indicator of a fresh battle, now it is the scattered springs of a just-fired weapon. Apparently, weapons all around the eWorld are of such shoddy quality that not a single one of them lasts past its maiden firing. They routinely fire one round and, like clockwork, explode in the process. The result is a battlefield that more closely resembles a scrapyard than anything else. One particularly robust Swedish soldier fighting for the Romanians was vocally displeased with the reliably unreliable weaponry.

“I take one shot, and it explodes in my face! Watch...” he said as he pulled out a Q2 handgun. He took careful aim over the top of the trench and fired. The gun fired projectiles in every direction, and only my instinctively hasty reactions saved me from the shrapnel. The Swede tossed what was left of the weapon away and looked at me with a gunpowder blasted face of disgust. “You see? It’s sh$@!”

The scene here is the same on all points of the front. In fact, some soldiers claim that weapons are being manufactured to explode on first firing on purpose. When their gun explodes, they’re forced to buy another, which raises demand for the gun manufacturers’ wares, or so they claim. Another soldier demonstrated his platoon's more steadfast weaponry - the classic cork-pump gun with the string on it.

"They're not very powerful," he relented, "but they don't explode at least. It'll take a few thousand shots to the eyeball with one of these before the enemy starts to get annoyed, but at least it doesn't blow up in our faces."

When contacted to explain the deplorable condition of weapons in the Romanian wars, one manufacturer had the following to say.

“We manufacture our weapons in congruence with the most stringent quality standards. Any incidences of explosion upon first firing are isolated incidents, and those who attempt to spread rumours of this nature are fear-mongers who should be hanged for treason.”

Clearly this report elucidates the disparity between what the soldiers and those who fabricate their equipment consider “stringent” quality standards. What is certain is that if you plan on fighting in a war in the New World you're going to need to stock up.

This is an official article competing in the SPAMM tournament.

Thanks for reading.