Specialist Team Hails Client Engagement A Success Despite Improvised Armour And Gunfire
A group of independent contractors has described a recent client engagement as a complete success, despite confirming it involved a homemade armoured vehicle, several thousand rounds of ammunition and the partial collapse of a building.
News Intro
A group of independent contractors has described a recent client engagement as "a complete success", despite confirming that the work involved a homemade armoured vehicle, several thousand rounds of ammunition, and the partial collapse of at least one commercial building.
The team, which operates without a fixed business address, was reportedly hired by a client who had been unable to resolve a dispute through conventional means.
The team's leader has insisted the matter was handled "exactly to plan".
The brief
According to those involved, the client approached the team after exhausting the usual options, including the authorities, who were said to have been "unable to help within the available timeframe".
The team does not advertise, maintains no premises, and is understood to be the subject of an ongoing search by military authorities following an earlier conviction its members maintain was wrongful. The leader has described this status as "a paperwork matter that should not distract from the client's outcome".
The engagement was accepted on a short timeline. The team relocated to a borrowed agricultural building near the client's site and began what the leader has called "the preparation phase".
The engagement
Witnesses describe a period of intensive activity at the agricultural building over approximately two days.
During this time, the team is understood to have converted a standard commercial van into an armoured vehicle using sheet metal, welding equipment and parts salvaged from nearby farm machinery. A separate device, described by one observer only as "a sort of cabbage cannon", was also assembled.
The team's pilot, who is understood to reside on a long-term basis at a psychiatric facility, was collected ahead of the engagement. A second member, who declines to travel by air under any circumstances, is reported to have been "helped onto the aircraft" after being given a beverage he had not requested.
The engagement itself involved a sustained exchange of gunfire lasting, by some accounts, several minutes. A number of vehicles were overturned. The commercial building sustained significant structural damage and partially collapsed.
No injuries were reported.
This last detail has attracted particular attention. Several thousand rounds are believed to have been discharged across the course of the engagement, and multiple vehicles left the road at speed, yet every party involved is understood to have walked away unharmed. The team has not offered an explanation, beyond the leader's observation that "everyone got up afterwards, which is the main thing".
The Team Leader's Account
AITA for escaping a military prison and becoming soldiers of fortune?
Throwaway, for reasons that will become obvious.
Some background. A while ago my unit was sent to carry out a job. We carried it out. Shortly afterwards we were convicted by a military court for a crime we did not commit. That is the central fact, and people keep treating it like a footnote.
Rather than wait for the situation to resolve itself, we left. I appreciate this is the part everyone fixates on. We escaped from a maximum-security stockade and relocated to the city, where we now take on work helping people who have nowhere else to turn.
A few points in our defence:
- We were innocent.
- The official channels were not working.
- People kept needing help, and we happen to be good at helping.
Since then we have built several armoured vehicles in borrowed barns, completed a large number of engagements, and maintained an excellent safety record across all of them.
We are pursued more or less constantly by an officer who is extremely keen to bring us in. I do not take it personally. He is doing his job and we are doing ours.
For what it's worth, my team is split. One of us thinks we should clear our names through the proper process. One enjoys the current arrangement enormously. One does not fly, and is therefore asleep. The fourth is, as I type this, welding.
So: AITA for escaping and becoming soldiers of fortune, rather than serving a sentence for something we did not do?
EDIT: To everyone saying "just hand yourselves in and explain" — we tried explaining. It did not land.
EDIT 2: Yes, the plan came together. It usually does.
Contractor Review
There is a great deal to unpack legally. Before we even reach the firearms or the structural damage, we have a team carrying out paid commercial work while subject to an active search by the authorities. Describing one's fugitive status as "a paperwork matter" is confident, but it is not a recognised legal position.
As a claim, this is genuinely unusual. We have a destroyed commercial building, an unknown number of overturned vehicles, and an armoured van built without reference to any manufacturer's specification. What we do not have, against all expectation, is a single personal-injury claim. I have adjusted quieter incidents that hurt far more people.
The leader keeps returning to the phrase "the plan came together", and I would caution against reading too much into that. A plan that requires a homemade cannon and a sedated colleague is not a repeatable process. It is an outcome that happened to land. Sound businesses do not rely on the cabbage holding.
Observers remain divided over whether the engagement should be regarded as a triumph of improvisation, a serious public-safety concern, or a statistical anomaly that warrants closer study.
Transport Objection
What nobody has addressed is that the entire engagement was conducted by road. With a functioning branch line, the team could have arrived, completed the work and withdrawn on a single timetabled service, without any of this welding. The fabrication of an armoured van strikes me as a direct consequence of poor rail provision in the area.
Mr Perkins has offered to assess the route for a future engagement, an offer the team has not returned.
Public Reaction
u/WeldedItInABarn · 38120 points · 6h ago
NTA for being innocent, but "rather than wait for the situation to resolve itself, we left" is genuinely the calmest way anyone has ever described a prison break.
u/QuietColleague_77 · 26044 points · 6h ago
"Helped onto the aircraft after being given a beverage he had not requested" is the politest possible way to admit you drugged a colleague.
u/ReluctantFlyerBA · 24881 points · 6h ago
As the colleague in question: I did not consent to the beverage and I would like that on the record.
u/PlanCameTogether · 19330 points · 6h ago
The injury record really is the wild part. Thousands of rounds, building comes down, everyone gets up and dusts themselves off. How.
u/CabbageOrdnance · 15677 points · 6h ago
I need a full technical breakdown of the cabbage cannon and I need it today.
u/MildlyConcernedAccountant · 9210 points · 6h ago
"One does not fly, and is therefore asleep" — listed like a normal staffing note, right after escaping a military prison. Incredible energy.
Community Poll
Community Poll
Latest reader breakdown
Was the engagement a success?
Update
The team's leader briefly returned with a clarification.
Thank you for the response.
A number of you have focused on the colleague and the beverage. He is fine. He is always fine. He simply prefers to learn he has flown after the fact.
Several of you asked about the cabbage device. I am not able to share the design, as we expect to use it again.
We have since accepted three further engagements, which I think answers the question of whether the work was a success.