One faction appears to be internally focused but is actually exporting its forces abroad, while the other faction is mainly responsible for homeland defense. They look very similar to the Wehrmacht and SS under Sanders during World War II, but there are still differences in the details.
The man who was beheaded by Hellfire Blade last year was a key general of the religious export faction.
However, every action has its consequences, and many of America's soldiers have suffered "concussions." The large number of overseas bases facilitates global military deployment, but they also make the country vulnerable to being targeted.
At its peak in 2013, the US military deployed 110,000 troops to Afghanistan and built and put into use over 700 military bases and outposts.
The larger bases were Bagram, Kandahar, and Sindade; the rest were mostly similar to Japanese pillboxes.
Today, with the US military withdrawing its forces and preparing to leave Afghanistan, most of these outposts are no longer under their control.
By the end of June at the latest, the Americans will have to abandon Bagram and retreat further to Kabul.
The first task of the Firepower Defense Forces upon arriving in Afghan was to take up a position at Bagram Air Base and ensure its security.
There's an agreement between Tata and the US: withdrawing troops is fine, but they can't be attacked.
The problem is that during the more than 20 years of US military intervention, no fewer than 20 extremist groups have emerged, with more than 20,000 militants.
These guys are fine if you give them money or equipment, but if you try to do nothing and just walk away empty-handed, then sorry, we'll beat you up without hesitation.
The main targets of concentrated fire defense are these people.
American lives are both valuable and worthless. Soldiers who participate in this high-profile withdrawal operation are very lucky. Everything is done according to the strictest standards, and even if they die, it is difficult to report them as missing.
"Buzz"
An-124 landed at Bagram Air Force Base once again, and after it taxied to the runway, a fully loaded C-5 transport plane took off from the runway terminus and flew to the base in Sutter for transit.
The Galaxy's payload capacity is the same as the basic Ruslan, which is not as good as the An-124-150 variant. However, the main force of the US withdrawal this time was 32 C-17 Globemaster IIIs, which was also the last C-5 sortie.
After all, they haven't deployed Abrams in Afghanistan, so the volume of the transport compartment is more important than the payload.
"Using only transport planes would be too limited in terms of capacity; Americans can't take much with them."
Xia Yu, who had been overlooking the entire air force base from the air, stepped off the An-124 and said.
"Yes, we don't need those mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles or military forklifts anymore, let alone the civilian vehicles here."
Hans then spoke up.
"The cars are worth little, but the helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft they left behind are what truly matter."
Old Magneto purchased tens of thousands of Mrap vehicles at a unit price of $500,000 back then. After using them for so many years, they are now worth at most $100,000 on the secondhand market.
If it's damaged, it'll be halved if the damage is minor, and disassembled into parts if the damage is severe.
Xia Yu thought it wasn't worth much, but airplanes were a different story. Can you believe that an armed MD530F Little Bird, including ammunition, accessories, training, and support services, could sell for $9 million?
This is no ordinary price; the profit is likely to be over 6 million.
The Persians lack helicopters, and selling them a single modern Little Bird helicopter for $3.5 million wouldn't be a problem, considering the US paid less than $200,000 to Jihuo Defense after it was destroyed.
Upon arriving at the hangar, Xia Yu watched as they destroyed it.
They didn't pour gasoline on it and set it on fire, nor did they use forklifts or excavators to poke holes or flatten it; they simply used a hammer to smash the instrument panel and screen to pieces.
Such damage can be repaired, and of course, it can be repaired faster with some maintenance. But there's nothing that can be done when it gets to Tata. According to the US military report, the government forces can only handle 20% of the support work, and the remaining 80% of the work has to be done by the PMC.
Even though Tata accepted these elite government troops, they were helpless against this equipment.
"One, two... ten in total! I heard there's another squadron over in Kandahar."
After opening a bottle of Monster Energy, Xia Yu spoke to the supervisor in charge of the helicopters.
Mineral water, sports equipment, and MREs—these supplies, worth tens of millions of dollars, are all things the Americans can't take with them.
"Yes, there are still 12 over there, but at the beginning of the year the operational readiness rate was only 50%, and now we don't even know how many are still operational."
The broken equipment saved them the time of destruction; the Americans are truly racing against time right now.
Apart from light weapons, related ammunition does not need to be destroyed, but all equipment, heavy weapons, and ammunition must be destroyed and disposed of.
For example, the Hydra unguided rockets that sell for double the price of $2,000 each don't even need to be destroyed; you can simply unscrew the most expensive M423 fuse and destroy it.
Looking at the fuse soaking in the waste engine oil, Xia Yu couldn't help but shake his head.
The most time-consuming part of printing ammunition is the fuse. The projectile body, warhead, and propellant are not difficult to manufacture. He simply retrieves the malfunctioning fuses into the system, and leaves the projectile bodies as is.
In this way, 22 battle-damaged armed Little Birds offset $3.96 million of the $20 million.
In addition, because of its small size, the An-124 can transport the entire shipment in two sorties, but it will take some time to repair.
In addition to the AH-6, the helicopters also include the Mi-8 and Mi-171, and even the UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-46 Sea Knight. Half of these are tolls left by the Americans to Tata, and cannot all be used to pay for concentrated fire defense.
Actually, it's already pretty good to get some "junk"; being too greedy can easily lead to indigestion.
"The C-130H outside looks pretty new, are you just going to throw it away?"
After instructing the employees to load the 10 Little Birds onto the aircraft, Xia Yu walked to the hangar entrance, pointed to a limping Hercules, and asked...
"The landing gear broke down two months ago. We didn't have the time, manpower, or spare parts to fix it."
The supervisor shrugged and said.
With so much equipment to be transferred, who cares about a broken transport plane right now!
"We'll pay 1 million, and we'll repair it and drive it away before we leave Bagram."
Xia Yu instructed the supervisor to record this directly.
Even now, the Persians still operate their own double-digit Hercules fleet, but due to the years of service and accumulated flight hours, various accidents frequently occur.
They certainly wouldn't mind adding a few of the US military's own brand-new C-130Hs to their fleet.
The main aircraft of Jihuo Defense and Jihuo Aviation Transport are still the twin-engine C-160. Hercules only has one AC-130H that it modified itself. The others are acquired and then sold, and it does not operate them itself.
Unfortunately, a four-engine machine would double the workload. Only the performance-enhanced C-130J was somewhat decent, but its price was too high for most users.
"Mr. Sherlock, let's settle for $1.5 million. Sindade has two more; each has lost an engine, but they're still flyable. Three planes for a total of $4 million."
The supervisor began to bargain.
The advantages of a four-engine aircraft become apparent again; it can fly even with one or two fewer engines, and redundancy is very important for military aircraft.
“Okay, $4 million it is.”
Xia Yu agreed.
He can turn that 4 million into at least 40 million. A used Hercules (not a C-130J) in decent condition is worth 15 million dollars on the market.
Aircraft with non-original engines and damaged by a wing tilting and crashing to the ground are generally cheaper. He repaired it and sold it for 40 million, which is quite reasonable. Xia Yu immediately contacted Kidal to have two Allison T56-A-15 turboprop engines and a rear landing gear set sent over.
Over the past two years, he has accepted all kinds of airport dismantling projects, including civilian airliners, military transport planes, and fighter jets. He has accumulated a large number of spare parts, which are now coming in handy.
Therefore, it is still very necessary to plan ahead, otherwise this C-130H, which is still in good condition, will only be able to become an organ donor like those old aircraft.
While Xia Yu was conducting the transaction, the members of Ji Huo Defense were not idle either.
Because the Americans removed their air defense systems, the vast Bagram Air Base was essentially undefended, so the An-124s that flew over this time were not carrying tanks.
After starting up, three Cheetah 1a2 vehicles drove out of the transport cabin and, along with the first arriving red Cheetah, were deployed at the four corners of the airport to guard against the intrusion of consumer drones.
The air defense capabilities of Jihuo Defense are also a reason why the Americans hire them.
No other PMC company has a combined three-digit number of self-propelled anti-aircraft guns; only Jihuo Defense has this unique capability worldwide.
It's mainly because their boss is good at financial management. Seeing the potential of consumer drones for military use, he decisively invested heavily in a large number of decommissioned self-propelled anti-aircraft guns.
"Buzz"
In front of a hangar not far from Xia Yu, a power-up launcher launched a Sparrowhawk B into the air, while another Sparrowhawk B, having run out of fuel, deployed its parachute and slowly descended into the base.
Patrolling by car or piloting a helicopter is too outdated. A long-endurance reconnaissance drone can cover the entire base, and concentrated fire defense only needs to ensure that there is a mobile force that can be deployed at any time.
However, this only applies to the military bases on the outskirts. I heard that Kabul Airport is already quite congested at this time, with many people who haven't obtained their US passports still hoping that they can squeeze onto a flight leaving Afghanistan with their families.
These people are a mixed bag; there might be extremist lunatics hiding among them.
So things are fine for now, but once they retreat to Kabul, security will be very difficult to carry out.
"I need manpower. Send two more reinforced infantry platoons over."
Xia Yu shouted into the satellite phone microphone.
Anyway, the museum business is sluggish right now, so the village protection team doesn't need to keep so many people in Kongluga. They can transfer all the second-line elites they can to ensure that nothing happens to Ah Fuhan.
"Yes, boss!"
After hanging up the phone, Xia Yu picked up her daughter and fed her breakfast.
After finishing her meal, Xiaoyouzi led her younger brother to the abandoned military camp in the United States to search for treasure. With Liv with them, there was no need to worry about safety. At most, they would just have to be careful to take away the magazine.
Xia Yu had absolutely no interest in this. What good stuff could ordinary soldiers possibly have? The most valuable things in these military bases were just iron bars and aluminum cans…
Oh, and those left-behind individual soldier equipment.
It's said that American soldiers are armed to the teeth, with their head-to-toe gear worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The main problem is that the purchase price was set too high, and many products have already had their prices driven down in our hometown.
"Dad, look at this."
It was almost noon when Xia Yu, who was dressing up Barbie dolls with her daughter, heard Xiao Youzi calling out.
"Isn't this GPNVG-18?"
Turning his head, he immediately recognized the L3Harris quad-eye night vision device.
Adhering to the principle of using only the best, and considering that Jihuo Defense has a small number of formal employees, Xia Yu acquired a batch of GPNVG-18s through certain channels in the early stages of his business.
The price was exceptionally high. Argos later introduced the PNVG-18, providing a more affordable alternative. But did the Americans just throw that thing away?
"And this too!"
Charles, who was running slowly, held up a monocular night vision device.
The model number is AN/PVS-14. It is much cheaper than the four-eye type, but it can still be considered a high-quality monocular night vision device.
"Wow, you're really rich! Is there anything else?"
Xia Yu asked Liv, who was the last to come in.
He can only print vehicle-mounted night vision goggles; he has to buy the individual night vision goggles himself.
Because of their small numbers, the instructors and the digital team were all equipped with PNVG-18 night vision goggles, while the village protection team, as a second-line force, mainly used monocular and binocular night vision goggles.
Little did they know that when they came to Ah Fu Han, his two sons found these things in an abandoned camp.
A small quantity is fine, but if the quantity is large...
"Yes, these people left in a hurry. I counted them and there were about two platoons."
Liv replied.
"Their hasty departure suggests those soldiers might have been misled by their superiors. Tell them to abandon their belongings and evacuate immediately; that's the most important thing. Then, record the losses on the books and deduct them from their retirement pay when they retire."
Xia Yu said sarcastically.
He wasn't talking nonsense. Those two trillion dollars weren't a feast that soldiers like him could enjoy. At most, they would waste food and drink and bully the local people.
Only officers are qualified to sit at the table. What does it matter if they fool the soldiers for their own convenience? Anyway, this mess won't be settled for another year or two.
"This is just too immoral!"
Liv couldn't help but say.
"It can only be said that there aren't many people with morals. Apart from those short-term employees, the moral standards of Jihuo Defense are maintained by high salaries. People can only talk about morality when they are well-fed and clothed!"
Xia Yu saw things very clearly: the Mei Army was not a good thing at all, so people with high moral standards would suffer a lot.
Many of them burn their uniforms after being discharged from the military and are not proud of their service experience.
"Let's not talk about that for now. Since the soldiers have already paid for it, let's not stand on ceremony and have someone go and get everything back."
Xia Yu spoke up.
He may not claim to be particularly moral, but Xia Yu certainly has his own set of principles for doing things.
If you encounter it, you can't miss it, even if it's only a few million dollars for two platoons.
As for Yuzuru and Charles, who discovered the night vision devices, their father let each of them choose one toy, with a budget of no more than a thousand dollars.
Of course, the surprises didn't stop there; in the following days, they discovered many more good things in the abandoned camp.
However, the family treasure hunt was soon interrupted by a group of uninvited guests. Sparrowhawk B discovered a group of armed men more than ten kilometers away from the base.
Seemingly intending to avoid potential patrols, these guys didn't drive a car, but instead took a donkey along the mountain path.
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