After exchanging messages with Zaxi and the person in charge on the shore, Shahjuan ended the communication and then picked up his M4 carbine.
In the Philippines, Abu Sayyaf militants still primarily use various M16 light weapons.
Some were procured in a centralized manner, while others were spoils of war from battles with the military and police. However, the excessively long gun barrels require effective maintenance to ensure reliability, which is not conducive to their use at sea.
So their entire pirate unit was equipped with AK-series rifles. However, as the leader, Shah Juan still had some privileges; he had his own carbine and night vision goggles.
These are perfect for boarding operations, helping them find the wealthy man on the maze-like yacht.
"Listen carefully, everyone. I'll lead the men to board the ship from the stern waterfront platform. Sabaya, you guys climb up from the bow, rush to the bridge, and take control of the captain and first mate. We can't let the shift workers call for help."
Half an hour before the operation, Shahjuan once again summoned his men to confirm the division of labor for the operation.
Only half of the people who boarded the ship carried guns; the rest carried wooden sticks and machetes. Those who cooperated were hit twice with a stick, while those who didn't were stabbed twice and thrown into the sea to feed the fish.
Time ticked by as he gave instructions, until there were only ten minutes left.
"Set off!"
Ship No. 1, which was the main force, set off first, followed closely by Ship No. 2, which launched drones. Three faster speedboats entered the anchorage first and dispersed among several merchant ships.
"They're here, they're here, they're finally going to make their move."
Watching the live broadcast of the Scan Eagle thermal imaging on the control station screen, Lao Ha's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally settled down.
"Everyone, stay alert! We absolutely cannot let them board the yacht. I'll guard the stern, you guys guard the bow and the sides."
Sitting in the weapons control room, Old Ha gave orders to his guards.
The stern of the yacht is the easiest place for people to board, but the other side had two armed fishing boats and three speedboats surrounding them. They could climb up with just a grappling hook and rope.
Unfortunately, although the YAS was converted from a Cotton-class frigate into a yacht, the number of weapons and equipment and the number of combat personnel were significantly reduced.
If Old Ha didn't want to put people on the boat to fight, then he could only have his guards use machine guns and grenade launchers to attack the enemy speedboats.
Of course, the safest approach would be Xia Yu's tactic of having FPV suicide drones board the ships, so that these suicide units could take off as soon as the battle started and attack all the marked ships.
However, our Prince Hamandan chose the hard mode, or rather, he couldn't possibly keep his dozens of guards without firing a single shot for over ten years, could he?
It was a rare opportunity to have such a real battle, so Lao Ha chose to train his troops directly. However, the pirates lacked willpower and were prone to running away. They couldn't keep all seven ships of various sizes.
Fortunately, they were surrounded by an ambush line composed of unmanned combat boats and hovercraft for defense, while the mother ship Jihuo sailed to the waters patrolled by Zaxi.
They are closer to the coastline of Malay, which avoids consuming the already limited combat radius of the sea harriers.
"Calling the yellow weasel, this is the camel, they are approaching, prepare for battle."
Old Ha's call came through the radio channel.
"Good luck to you guys. I'll treat you to juice after we wipe out these pirates."
Xia Yu finished speaking and ended the brief communication.
Only when Lao Ha makes a move can they close the net, so he must wait for good news from the other side.
Inside the yacht's weapons control room, a military radar disguised as a civilian maritime radar locked onto the No. 2 ship, which was wandering a few nautical miles away. Behind the enclosed deck on the port side, the captain of the escort team was holding an M240 general-purpose machine gun.
His strong arm muscles allowed him to control such a volatile guy, while the vice-captain on the starboard side was weaker and could only handle the M249 squad automatic weapon.
But the speedboat that Sabaya was in turned off its outboard motor and paddled all the way to the bow.
"Clang"
After the grappling hook spun around a few times to accelerate, it was skillfully thrown onto the boat by the other party. The first guy, carrying an AK, climbed up the rope onto the boat.
"Buzz"
Speedboats can be propelled by hand oars, but armed fishing boats weighing tens or hundreds of tons cannot. Shah Juan's No. 1 boat accelerated out of the darkness and quickly approached the waterfront platform at the stern of the Yas.
However, the roar of their main engine drowned out the sound of the hydraulic system. Old Sha, wearing night vision goggles at the bow, looked at the huge thing rising from the stern of the yacht with some doubt.
Luxury yachts typically have onboard swimming pools near their waterfront platforms, but because the platform was converted from a warship and was too narrow, no swimming pool was installed.
However, the designer still left this space empty. After the teak deck cracked, it folded up to both sides, and the seven dark 30mm cannon muzzles slowly rose up, then were directly aimed at the armed fishing boat dozens of meters away.
"Gurgle"
Swallowing hard, Shah Juan realized what he was facing, and the M4 he was holding fell to the ground due to his trembling hands.
"beep"
Without hesitation, Old Ha behind the screen pressed the fire button, and the goalkeeper close-range defense system, which used the same Gatling gun as the Warthog, began to roar.
The bright muzzle flash tore through the night, and in just 4 seconds of firing, 250 rounds of 30mm tracer high-explosive and small steel needles were fired.
"boom"
At least a hundred sub-caliber tungsten alloy fin-stabilized discarding sabot armor-piercing rounds pierced through the target fishing boat and disappeared on the surface of the sea. The remaining dozens of rounds, along with high-explosive rounds, detonated the target.
Old Ha in the weapons control room slumped into his chair, looking completely satisfied.
After he had his fun, his guards still had things to do. The captain of the guard, who was carrying the M240, rushed from the port side to the bow after hearing the explosion and fired a burst of bullets at the two pirates who had just climbed aboard.
"Put-put-put"
The two men fell to the ground. He then rushed to the bow and continued firing downwards, killing three more enemies as he strung them along the rope like a gourd.
The remaining guards arrived late, and they all fired downwards together.
Sabaya and his seven or eight men on the speedboat were riddled with bullets, but because of the close proximity, none of the 40mm grenades fired from their grenade launchers exploded.
This situation means the safety fuse hasn't been deactivated. Old Ha's guards certainly had the courage, but their skills were lacking. They were caught off guard by this kind of "boarding operation" and concentrated fire defense...
No, Xia Yu would not allow that to happen.
"Shurafa, how is it?"
Old Ha asked over the radio.
"Your Highness, all personnel on the small boat have been eliminated."
The head guard immediately reported this.
"Then we'd better retreat quickly, the other ship needs to escape."
"Yes, Your Highness!"
Shurafa immediately led his team to evacuate the bow deck area, which is normally off-limits.
"Buzz"
An MK-13 launcher, carrying a Harpoon anti-ship missile, rose from below the deck. *Whoosh!*
The million-dollar harpoon engine ignited and quickly disappeared into the night.
The Goalkeeper Close-In Weapon System and the Mk-13 missile launchers were originally equipped on the Cotton Ayr-class corvettes. Old Ha simply changed their deployment positions on the ship and made them more concealed during the yacht's conversion.
Previously, when they encountered pirates in the Gulf of Gineya, Old Ha only fired two harpoons. This time, he only had to use a goalkeeper after Xia Yu lured him to Southeast Asia.
The emotional value provided by that burst of fire just now far exceeded that of target practice, yet His Highness still forced himself to press the missile launch button and fired that harpoon.
The nearly 200 people on the seven or eight merchant ships anchored at the harbor were either on duty or sleeping, but they were all woken up the moment the goalkeeper opened fire.
I didn't even bother to put on clothes and shoes, I just wore shorts and ran barefoot onto the deck, and then I witnessed a scene I will never forget - an anti-ship missile soaring into the sky.
In that direction, I remember when the radio broadcast it, it was clearly a yacht or something, but suddenly it turned into a warship and was firing missiles in the middle of the night. There was no mention of this anchorage being designated as an exercise area!
Several captains and first mates couldn't help but ask in confusion.
"boom"
Having lost contact with ship number 1, they learned from a speedboat that ship number 2, whose leader had perished along with his crew, had been lost. Without the slightest hesitation, they turned back.
It only reached a top speed of 25 knots, and after seven or eight minutes it hadn't covered many nautical miles before it was harpooned and killed.
As for the remaining two speedboats, Old Ha did not continue loading missiles. Instead, he lowered the MK-13 launchers and goalkeepers back below deck and let the captain weigh anchor and run away.
His YAS was not strictly deweaponized. If ordinary people didn't know that, that would be one thing, but the ports and countries that docked at it could turn a blind eye.
But if it makes the headlines, then it's all over; many civilian ports in developed countries will be forced to shut down.
So the best course of action is to get out of there as soon as possible, and leave the remaining two speedboats to the fire support team.
"Knock knock knock"
Unmanned combat boats capable of running at 40+ knots and hovercraft capable of running at 50+ knots can easily outrun Abu Sayyaf's modified speedboats, which can only run at 35 knots.
The machine guns and triple-barreled machine guns easily sank the two speedboats, and the Mustang finally went forward to retrieve a few lucky ones who hadn't been hit.
It's better to be alive and face trial than to be beaten to a pulp and fed to the fish.
The survivors couldn't help but burst into tears, saying that as long as the hostages cooperated, they, as pirates, wouldn't kill anyone they saw.
But the enemy who ambushed them this time was too uncivilized. They didn't even see a shadow of the enemy before they were all wiped out, along with their boat.
Even when we've exchanged gunfire with the Philippine military before, this is unacceptable. These guys don't treat us like human beings at all.
To put it simply, pirates who are detained or imprisoned are protected by international human rights law and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Pirates who commit crimes naturally do not have human rights.
"Boss, what do we do?"
Hearing the chaotic distress calls on the internal radio channels and the dying screams, the crew on ships 3 and 4, who were responsible for patrolling and providing support, panicked.
With their leader Shah-huan gone, they were completely disorganized, and now the only one who could make decisions was their superior, Zaxi.
"We...we're retreating..."
"beep"
The Jihuo, disguised as a merchant ship, suddenly opened fire. Its 11-barrel close-in weapon system, firing at more than twice the rate of fire of a goalkeeper, rained down a barrage of ammunition on the radar-locked No. 3 ship, forever interrupting Zaxi's evacuation order.
However, close-in weapon systems (CIWS) only have a range of four or five kilometers, unlike large-caliber naval guns which can reach more than ten kilometers away.
"Knock knock"
The 76mm Oto Melara gun, which had been moved forward after the modification, fired two shells into the dark night sky.
After flying 14.5 kilometers in a parabolic arc, the two shells accurately struck the patrolling No. 4 ship, thus destroying all four armed fishing boats of the Abu Sayyaf expeditionary pirate gang.
From the perspective of the two ScanEagle drones deployed off the coast of Malay, two speedboats that could not be tracked by radar made a move.
On the control station screen, they all initially headed towards the shore, but one of them changed course a few minutes later and sped toward the uninhabited reef area.
"The guys on that speedboat are pretty smart; they know all the fishing boats have been smashed and can't go back to camp."
Xia Yu commented with a hint of amusement.
Indeed, we cannot go back. Going back would make it easy for them to follow the clues and wipe us all out, especially since our plans would be completely transparent to the enemy.
Using the complex terrain to shake off the pursuers is the proper course of action, but unfortunately, smart people are only a minority. The panicked speedboat only knew to hurry back, feeling safer with more people around.
But the scanning eagles in the sky followed them all the way into the territorial waters of Malay until they arrived at their temporary camp.
This is a small fishing village abandoned by the sea due to a geological disaster. Because the road connecting it to the inland was washed away, apart from a small number of adventure bloggers, no one usually comes here by boat.
However well hidden, it was still tracked down by the concentrated fire defense team.
"Calling fruit bats! This is a weasel! Attack immediately!"
"Yes, boss!"
The hangar doors of the dock landing ship opened upwards, and Sea Harriers, fully fueled and armed, slid out of the hangar.
The spacious flight deck can accommodate two Super Frelons taking off and landing at the same time, but this distance is still not enough for the Harrier to take off short distances.
"Buzz"
Large quantities of aviation kerosene were frantically injected into the combustion chamber of the Pegasus engine, and the airflow from the rotating nozzles propelled the aircraft into the air, before it sped toward the location marked by the ScanEagle.
"They're gone. All the fishing boats and speedboats are gone. Only we came back."
The members, having climbed back onto the semi-abandoned dock, said dejectedly as they returned to camp.
What should we do?
Everyone present looked at each other, completely at a loss.
"Evacuate! We must evacuate immediately. That yacht is fishing. This is a conspiracy against us. They anticipated our every move. This camp is no longer safe. We must leave here right away."
Someone in the crowd spoke up.
The fact that the Philippines has remained active from the last century to the present day is partly due to the incompetence of the Philippine military, but also because Absayev is truly capable.
It is said that a scholar's rebellion will never succeed in ten years, but highly educated people have always been very good at causing trouble.
In the underdeveloped Philippines, a university degree is required to qualify for domestic service. The country cannot provide enough jobs and is expanding its education system, resulting in a surplus of highly educated unemployed men.
It's not incomprehensible that some of them joined Absayev.
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