On the search radar's display screen, in addition to the hacked Inspire-2 that had already been tracked, six more targets suddenly appeared.
They weren't going very fast, but they were all flying in their direction.
This time, Lu Xianglin did not report to his superiors because he had just obtained Xia Yu's permission to fire.
"beep"
A long beep followed, signaling that the tracking radar had taken over the task, and the turret smoothly turned to the right, raising the two 35mm double-layered gun barrels high.
This series of operations was all completed automatically by the fire control computer. Seeing the indicator light turn green, Lu Xianglin pressed the artillery firing button.
"Knock knock knock knock"
A long burst of 40 programmable airburst rounds was unleashed from the two gun barrels, traveling a distance of 1 kilometer to reach the airspace near the six missile-carrying drones, where the activated fuse detonated the propellant.
"Boom boom boom"
Of course, in military confrontations at the national level, loitering munitions and military drones are the spears that extend outwards, while self-propelled anti-aircraft guns and laser jamming are the shields that stand in front of them. Both offense and defense must be prepared.
But things are different now. Every drone he shoots down is deadly, and he enjoys that feeling.
He didn't want his heavily invested armored vehicle fleet to be destroyed by a small consumer drone, and private military contracting is all about asymmetric warfare.
The powerful kinetic energy shattered the plastic propeller blades, pierced the lithium batteries that were bound with tape and had only been cycled a few dozen times, and detonated the badminton shuttlecock bombs that should have exploded upon impact, completely destroying the bombs and the vehicle together.
The leader of the group of pilots volunteered to fight for Hosseini.
"Yes, boss!"
Yes, he can still use that.
Amidst the deafening explosions, over 6,000 tungsten alloy submunitions swept in all directions, engulfing the drones in a metallic storm.
The monitors of the six pilots around Hussein simultaneously lost all display.
"Yes, Commander!"
That thing is a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun.
His memory of self-propelled anti-aircraft guns was still stuck on the Shilka River with four barrels!
The Cheetah is a very old aircraft, but when it first came out, it was extremely expensive and was never deployed on the Middle Eastern battlefield. It was retired and Yodzan bought a batch of them, so it's normal that Hussein doesn't recognize it.
In order to achieve absolute dominance over targets, Concentrated Firepower must maintain a greater advantage than other PMC companies.
With the red cheetahs and snow leopards protecting them, they didn't need to worry about threats from the sky; they only needed to eliminate threats within a hundred meters of the convoy.
Funding for field air defense is absolutely essential. Currently, drone attacks still involve dropping shuttlecock-shaped bombs; what if someone later adopts this method and uses agricultural drones to drop mortar shells?
Xia Yu stated that the company is serious about fire prevention and control, given its small size and limited workforce, which necessitates careful budgeting.
"Knock knock"
Only the Inspire-2, whose battery was almost depleted, remained in the sky, dutifully transmitting images. However, the strange "infantry fighting vehicle" with two cannons in the images began to rotate until it was aimed at them.
"Commander, we still have drones!"
Xia Yu said excitedly over the radio.
"Calling Snow Leopard, well done! If you come again, we'll fight again. The skies over Balmira can only hold our drones."
As a regional commander of several thousand people, Hosseini is quite perceptive; he has figured out the role of the Snow Leopard crew.
Yes, high accuracy means less ammunition consumption, which translates to longer combat endurance.
Hussein fell into deep thought for a moment, and then soon had an inspiration.
This is also pointless. If you use mortars, the enemy will call in artillery support directly. Even if you use anti-tank missiles or rocket launchers at close range, it won't work. Those dozen or so men are more capable than his strongest subordinates. They will basically die as soon as they show their heads.
But what kind of company did they encounter? It was one thing for tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to work together, but to be equipped with a highly accurate self-propelled anti-aircraft gun was another.
Meanwhile, the armored convoy continued its advance.
Judging from today's performance, the money was well spent. Xia Yu will need to modify another car after the teams are divided.
Alternatively, drones could be converted into disposable loitering munitions, which would then target armored vehicles instead of mechanized infantry.
This is what effective teamwork looks like; you can always trust your team with your back to the table.
One vehicle can deal with hundreds of drones. A single wave might overload the radar, but Hussein doesn't have hundreds of drone pilots. No matter how many drones he has, he can only attack in batches.
Why should you erase the advantages I've painstakingly built up with just civilian products? Today, Red Cheetah will teach you a lesson.
Hussein quickly found the subordinate in charge of this weapon and whispered a long message in his ear.
He paid the factory price of a Lion main battle car for the modified Red Cheetah at a friendly price.
Lu Xianglin, who was in the car, was also very happy. In the past, he had only shot at target drones, which didn't feel very real. After being discharged from the army, he was assigned to artificial rainmaking, but he didn't even have any targets to shoot at. He didn't feel the same sense of accomplishment as when he was carrying a gun.
After firing only two shots, the Inspire-2 turned into a ball of fire in the sky.
The other party immediately accepted the order and began preparations.
"It's no use. Use drones. It would take hundreds of them to exhaust their ammunition. I was wondering why this vehicle wasn't firing. Turns out it's specifically designed to deal with our drones and won't waste ammunition on other targets."
What should he do then?
The current situation only exists when it is limited to the level of companies and regional armed forces.
The two digital teams glanced at the sky from outside the vehicle before turning their attention back to their assigned areas.
Ace completely lost his sense of the battlefield situation, and Hosseini suddenly felt like he was being left behind by the times.
Just now, all crews reported their remaining ammunition, with a total consumption of 30%.
Xia Yu planned to fight and retreat after using up another 30% of his ammunition. It would be too late to retreat when the firepower could no longer be sustained, so 40% ammunition was the red line.
“Calling the boss, calling the boss, this is Lynx, something's wrong, there are two four-wheeled trucks coming from the north towards your location.”
Luo Bu suddenly called Xia Yu and reported the anomaly he had discovered in the drone's image transmission footage.
"Both of these trucks had tarpaulins covering their cargo beds, so we couldn't see what they were carrying."
Visible weapons can be used to assess threats, while invisible ones are immediately prioritized.
"Can we call in artillery to shoot them down?"
Xia Yu inquired.
"No, they're too close to the convoy; you'll be within their attack range too."
The current straight-line distance is 835.5 meters. Once artillery support is ready, the convoy will definitely be covered.
"Then deploy drones, 01 to carry out the strike."
Xia Yu issued new combat orders.
Their self-propelled anti-aircraft guns can sweep away enemy drones, but Ace's portable air defense missiles, even the new models equipped with proximity warheads and sensitive seekers, can only lock onto agricultural drones weighing over 20 kilograms with obvious infrared signatures.
That kind of convoy is not easy to manage, so it would be better to replace it with two Inspire-2s.
This drone has a certain amount of spare capacity, enough to carry one or two hand grenades.
If you're willing to sacrifice battery life, you can also extend the lifespan of the motor and achieve a higher load capacity.
For example, the one Sergei took off the vehicle was forcibly modified by 04 into a "loitering munition" with a 3-minute endurance, and it was designed to self-destruct upon takeoff.
This is going against the grain. Xia Yu isn't afraid of Ace Ace learning it. He directly iterates the technology because as long as it's low, slow, and small, it can't break through the Red Cheetah's defense circle.
It could easily harm friendly forces that are not equipped with self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, which would, to some extent, cause internal competition within the industry!
"Woo"
Under Sergei's control, the self-destructing Inspire-2 took off urgently and flew towards the direction from which the two trucks were attacking.
"Wait, boss! They've stopped! Oh no, it's a gas cylinder cannon!"
Rob shouted frantically over the radio.
The gas cylinder cannon, a heartless weapon of modern warfare, uses discarded gas cylinders to make the projectile body and welded steel pipes and angle iron to make the tail fins for balance.
The projectile was filled with homemade explosives and metal objects such as nails to act as fragments, making it extremely powerful.
It was initially created by opposition armed groups and used against government forces. They found it to be very effective and it quickly became popular. There are cases of both government forces and the Ace Ace using it.
If you were to ask what the only drawback of this homemade weapon is, it would be that its range is too short.
Without reinforcement of the launching mechanism, it can only fire at a distance of 50 to 300 meters, far less than the range of a mortar.
However, being close also has an advantage: the target cannot call for artillery support.
That seems a bit inaccurate; it means it's impossible to call in coverage strikes outside of precision strikes.
Air support requires precision-guided munitions with minimal warheads, but you can't guarantee there will always be fighter jets in the sky. A more practical approach is to use howitzers to fire guided artillery shells.
However, the concentrated fire defense had no guided artillery shells, and the fighter jets didn't have time to take off. Fortunately, when the Sparrowhawk A was monitoring the battlefield, it spotted the enemy, and they still had time to use self-destructing drones.
After flying at high speed for half a minute (5m/s), a small truck finally appeared on Sergei's screen, and under the lifted canvas was a fixed wheeled launcher.
A blue gas cylinder shell had already been installed, and an Ace member was making final angle adjustments using a tablet.
Shooting a curved trajectory from more than 200 meters away requires more than just instinct; it involves a certain level of skill.
Unfortunately, Jihuo Defense's self-destructing drones arrived before them.
Without the slightest hesitation, Sergei maneuvered the Inspire-2 into the three spare rounds in the truck bed.
"boom"
The explosion, equivalent to that of a GBU-16, shook the earth, and the entire truck, along with the gas cylinder and cannon launcher, was instantly reduced to ashes.
A beat too slow, another truck more than 50 meters away was also hit hard. The two men in the cab were taken away on the spot by the shrapnel, but the two gunners who climbed into the back of the truck escaped unharmed.
The two men exchanged a glance, then quickly put their hands to work. One patted the walkie-talkie that had fallen onto the vehicle and continued to contact friendly forces to report the convoy's real-time location, while the other checked the condition of the artillery launcher.
Their faith is too strong; they can still launch an attack even at this level. The concentrated fire defenses didn't have time to launch a second suicide drone.
However, for a straight-line distance of just over 200 meters, taking a detour and climbing 400 meters is only a matter of a minute for an armored convoy moving at high speed.
"squeak"
After breaking away from the convoy, the Leclerc UAE, with its active defense activated, performed a heavy tank drift, its tracks sparking as it rounded the street corner.
"Target spotted, 132.4 meters directly ahead, fire one grenade!"
Looking at the numbers displayed by the laser rangefinder, Hans gave Xia Yu his orders.
"Thump"
"Boom!"
A 120mm grenade pierced the front of the truck, and then the exploding gas cylinder sent the entire truck flying into the air.
"Operation objective achieved. All personnel evacuate the main urban area. Let's go back."
After emptying the 22 grenades in the automatic loader, Xia Yu manually loaded one more grenade before giving the order to evacuate.
Today's attack is a probing one; he has already figured out a lot of things along the way.
Subsequent formal battles to capture the city will be more targeted.
"Yes, boss!"
The Leclerc UAE made a U-turn on the spot, changing from the lead car to the tail car in the convoy, and accelerated to retreat out of the city.
"Thump"
"boom"
The Panda vehicle crew suddenly fired a shot, and a 125mm high-explosive fragmentation round directly blew up a modified Hummer at the intersection.
In the last frame Xia Yu saw, it looked like a short trumpet was mounted on the roof of the Hummer.
The cornets come from the government forces, and Ace basically uses whatever they have. However, the concentrated fire defense only likes to use cornets to infiltrate others, but doesn't like to be infiltrated by others.
One high-explosive fragmentation grenade saves you one interceptor grenade; this deal is pretty good.
After all, they couldn't possibly shell the Barmilla Castle, so it was better to conserve the interceptor missiles on the right side of each vehicle.
"Jamir, use all the missiles and leave them here."
Hussein arrived at the site where the two trucks had been blown up and witnessed the devastation. He immediately contacted Jamil.
At a distance of over one kilometer, only anti-tank missiles can be used. If the enemy can intercept them, then they will launch a saturation attack.
"By the way, shoot at their self-propelled anti-aircraft gun. It doesn't seem like that vehicle is equipped with anything that can intercept missiles."
Despite not reading books or newspapers, Hosseini's eyesight was exceptionally good. He spotted the differences between the armored vehicles in his convoy and discovered that the Red Cheetah did not have two sets of three interceptor missiles on each side.
Therefore, this vehicle is the easiest to deal with. If other vehicles were to launch a saturation attack, the investment required to deplete those defensive devices would be staggering.
Each vehicle can be loaded with 7 anti-tank missiles, which is 28 missiles. Even if he has that many missiles, he can't find that many gunners. It would be better to concentrate fire on that self-propelled anti-aircraft gun.
"Yes, Commander!"
Jamil set up three TOW-2A launchers at several bastions.
There are 15 missiles in the stockpile castle, but only 3 launchers, so as Hussein said, it is most appropriate to strike one vehicle at a time.
Moreover, he personally trained the other two shooters, so the success rate this time should be very high.
"Commander, the target has been spotted."
The member who had been keeping his binoculars pointed towards the main urban area immediately shouted.
Soon, the armored convoy, traveling in a long, single-file formation, arrived at the closest point to the castle.
"shooting!"
Jamil shouted to the two archers beside him.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com