Colonel Milos Chuatoko had no choice but to make such an arrangement. After all, the number of troops he could mobilize was very limited.
As the order was given, the soldiers began to attack the town of Manguari in batches under the command of officers at all levels. The front seemed very quiet and did not encounter any resistance.
Just when everyone thought that the enemy had abandoned their position and evacuated, the roar of a heavy machine gun suddenly came from the lower floor of a two-story building opposite the corner of the street ahead.
From the sound, it can be heard that this is an old-fashioned Maxim water-cooled heavy machine gun, not a large-caliber heavy machine gun. However, even such a heavy machine gun, occupying such a favorable position where it can see the entire street clearly, the combat effectiveness it exerts is also very terrifying.
As the rhythmic gunshots rang out, more than a dozen soldiers from the Second Battalion, who had just been crouching and groping forward, were instantly knocked down, and the soldiers behind them hurriedly hid behind the houses on both sides.
It can be said that the layout of this machine gun position is very tricky. If you want to go deeper from the main street, you will inevitably be exposed to the machine gun fire.
Fortunately, the rebels were only firing this heavy machine gun, and had no other weapons to cooperate with them to form a cross-fire point. Otherwise, there would definitely be more than a dozen people who fell just now.
In this sudden situation, the disadvantage of the Brazilian border guards' lack of experience in actual combat was immediately exposed.
When the company commander saw that his company was suppressed, he did not seek fire support from the rear, but directly ordered the soldiers to form a suicide squad and attack the machine gun position under the cover of their own firepower.
...
...
However, this is obviously just filling the gap with people, and it cannot solve any problems at all.
After two squads suffered casualties, the second battalion commander in the rear finally discovered the problem. He quickly called in a mortar and fired three grenades at the machine gun fire point before completely smashing the second-floor building into the sky.
But even so, this machine gun fire point caused more than 30 casualties to the government forces, which was equivalent to the direct loss of one-third of the combat effectiveness of the leading company.
Of course, after the positions that blocked the government army's advance were destroyed, everyone came out of the bunkers and continued to search forward. After advancing more than 500 meters, the soldiers were finally able to see their comrades from the third battalion who were surrounded.
But at this moment, the Third Battalion had obviously suffered heavy losses, and Commander Milos Chuatoko could only see some sporadic resistance through the telescope.
The enemies besieging the Third Battalion seemed to be frightened by the arrival of their reinforcements and retreated without a trace.
Seeing this, Regimental Commander Milos Chuatoko did not dare to be careless. He picked up the telescope and repeatedly observed the surrounding environment. Finding nothing unusual, he waved to the second battalion commander.
The second battalion commander, who had been waiting for orders, nodded to indicate that he understood, waved to his soldiers, and about a platoon of soldiers took the lead and vigilantly searched towards the location of the third battalion.
Surprisingly, they encountered no resistance.
The Chief of Staff came up to Colonel Miloš Chuatoko and said:
"Will these rebels escape again?"
Upon hearing this, Captain Milos Chuatoko, who was holding a telescope, frowned even more tightly. Now he was a little confused about what the enemy meant.
But he felt that things were not going that way. At least, from the current situation, the rebels had the upper hand. Logically, the other side should have taken advantage of the victory and pursued the enemy.
"I don't think so. This situation gives me a bad feeling."
After saying that, he turned to the messenger beside him and said:
"Have the battalion in charge of providing cover send out troops to the surrounding areas to test the enemy's strength and see if they can find any trace of the enemy."
The messenger heard the words and left.
The Chief of Staff was somewhat surprised and said:
"Captain, do you suspect this is an enemy trap?"
"No, this was originally a trap set by the enemy, but the prey trapped inside was the third battalion. If we hadn't led the second battalion to rescue the first battalion, perhaps all of us would have been trapped inside."
Milosh Chuatoko said with certainty, his eyes fixed on the center of the town not far away, which was obviously destroyed by the explosion. This was where the Third Battalion was struggling.
But the Chief of Staff had a different opinion. He looked at his own leader with a puzzled look and said:
"That's not right! If they really wanted to put us all in, why did they attack the First Battalion's base? If they forced us to split up to rescue the First Battalion, wouldn't their plan to eat us up in the town be thwarted?"
Pointing to the location of the third battalion, Colonel Milos Chuatoko said in a gloomy tone:
“Do you think such a large explosion, which almost included the entire town, would be just for one of our battalions?
I feel like this is more like something for both of our battalions together.
Obviously, there were not many people who attacked the first battalion's position. Their purpose was more likely to tie down the first battalion. Otherwise, they would appear in the town of Manguari in time to support the main force that was surrounded.
They probably didn't expect that the rebels who were sent to contain the first battalion would almost defeat it, forcing Bassam to lie about military intelligence, claiming that those who attacked them were the main force of the rebels, forcing us to send troops to rescue them.
This was a blessing in disguise, disrupting the rebels’ plans.”
After analyzing the situation, the Chief of Staff was also a little confused. He didn't know whether it was right or wrong. He thought for a long time before continuing:
"What about the harassment and minefields we encountered when we were heading to Manguari to reinforce? Weren't they aimed at us?"
Upon hearing this, Captain Milos Chuatoko shook his head and said uncertainly:
“I feel that the people who are harassing us are the same people who attacked the first battalion. Didn’t some of them escape?
Perhaps their mission was to stop the First Battalion outside the town or delay its movement. The mines were obviously not placed this morning on the spur of the moment, but were probably placed to stop the First Battalion from reinforcing Manguari.”
After Captain Miloš Chuatoko's analysis, the Chief of Staff couldn't help but feel that there was some truth in it.
But the situation is very complicated now. All of this is just speculation by Captain Milos Chuatoko and can only be used as a reference.
If it was true as Colonel Milos Chuatoko had expected, there must be a rebel force nearby that was strong enough to destroy their two battalions.
But the current situation is indeed that there are no rebels to be seen at all.
Either the enemy withdrew early when they saw that the tactical goal was not achieved as expected, or the enemy had a bigger trap waiting for them.
In the chief of staff's mind, he didn't quite believe that the rebels had escaped. After all, if they wanted to escape, they could either go by boat or through the land route they had just attacked.
Otherwise, you can only run into the dense Amazon jungle.
But now the enemy is clearly in the upper hand. Will the enemy hide in the Amazon jungle at this time? In the opinion of the chief of staff, this is impossible.
But now we can’t even see the shadow of the enemy. How can we not be nervous?
After thinking for a while, the Chief of Staff said to Colonel Milos Chuatoko with some hesitation:
"Captain, should we send someone to the dock to check? We can't be sure that the enemy has gone directly to the dock and driven away all our ships and fled back to Bittenkot Town?"
Originally, Colonel Miloš Chuatoko disagreed with the Chief of Staff's opinion that the enemy had escaped, but when he heard the Chief of Staff's suggestion to send someone to the dock to take a look, he was moved.
He didn't think that the enemy would seize the ship and escape. On the contrary, he had a very bad feeling now. He had a premonition that if things went wrong this time, he might suffer a serious defeat here. If something unpredictable really happened, he must leave a way to retreat.
And this escape route now seems to be realized on the ships at the dock.
Thinking of this, Colonel Milos Chuatoko no longer hesitated. Although he did not trust the chief of staff in front of him, as the two highest commanders of the army, he could not abandon the other and escape alone.
He believed that the other party would not dare to abandon him and escape alone, so he turned to the chief of staff and said:
"The Chief of Staff is right. The enemy may indeed choose to attack our fleet. If the enemy really controls our fleet, our retreat will be completely cut off.
How about this! Chief of Staff, I will assign you a platoon of soldiers. You will be responsible for going to the dock and investigating the situation there. We must not let the enemy seize or damage our ships. What do you think?"
The Chief of Staff had just arrived and had not yet reached an understanding with Captain Milosh Chuatoko, so he was somewhat puzzled by the captain's arrangement and said hesitantly:
"Ah! But we are short of manpower here. Isn't it inappropriate to divide our forces at this time?"
The border defense forces were indeed short of manpower at this time. After all, the situation of the Third Battalion was unclear, and the First Battalion was basically destroyed. Although the Second Battalion did not suffer any losses, it had also suffered considerable casualties during the attack on Manguali Town.
Therefore, the chief of staff was worried that if the main force of the rebels was still in the town, his own troops would obviously not have an advantage, and every extra person would help.
Of course, since he was worried that the rebels would seize their ships from the dock and flee Manguari, he must have been a little worried that he would only bring a platoon of soldiers to the dock. If he really encountered the main force of the rebels, he would die for his country.
After hearing his words, Captain Milos Chuatoko frowned, but without thinking too much, he just looked around through the telescope. Seeing that there were no outsiders around, he lowered his voice and said:
"Chief of Staff, to be honest, I don't feel very good. I asked you to go to the dock to leave us a way out. Please be sure to hold the dock. If things get out of hand, we may have to lead the remaining troops to evacuate by water. Do you understand what I mean?"
When the chief of staff heard this, he finally understood what Captain Milos Chuatoko was planning. Although he was worried about encountering the enemy at the dock, he couldn't express his concerns at this time.
After all, the captain had handed the retreat route to me. In this situation where my life was at stake, if I continued to make excuses, it would obviously be a bit ungrateful.
Therefore, he did not say anything more, but nodded firmly and said to Captain Milosh Chuatoko:
"I understand! We must guard the ship and ensure that the retreat is open. We will never leave unless you come."
This statement made Colonel Milos Chuatoko very satisfied, indicating that the Chief of Staff had understood what he meant.
Seeing this, he patted the chief of staff on the shoulder and said with a double meaning:
"Then get rid of it."
After saying that, he raised the telescope in his hand again and observed the situation ahead.
Upon seeing this, the chief of staff didn't say much, just saluted silently and turned to leave.
A platoon of soldiers from the Second Battalion's assault team managed to enter the Third Battalion's location without any danger. The streets there had been completely destroyed, and the houses on both sides had all collapsed.
There were many bodies of border guards lying in the middle of the road.
Judging from the wounds, many people did not die from gunshot wounds. Instead, they suffered explosion injuries without any wounds. Obviously, this was caused by the shock wave of the explosives.
Seeing this scene, the soldiers felt their scalps tingle, and many of them even vomited on the spot.
Soon, the second battalion commander also crouched and came up carefully. When he saw the situation on the battlefield, he knew that the third battalion was doomed. He could not see any soldiers from the third battalion who could stand normally.
This situation dealt a huge blow to the morale of the entire army.
However, now was obviously not the time to collect corpses from the Third Battalion, so he shouted at the soldiers around him:
"Why are you all stopping here? Everyone, keep searching and moving forward to see if you can find any brothers who are still alive. The commandos should keep moving forward. We must not let these damn rebels get away like this."
The soldiers were all shocked when they heard this. They stopped hesitating and began to move forward. The commandos even went straight past the location of the Third Battalion and searched further forward.
The second battalion commander led the other soldiers of the second battalion to search for survivors. However, there were too few survivors found, and most of them were unconscious or deaf.
I wanted to ask about the situation on the scene but couldn't find the right person.
Just as everyone was busy rescuing the wounded, deafening gunfire suddenly rang out from the periphery. Judging from the direction, it should be the first battalion responsible for covering the two wings that had engaged in a firefight with the enemy.
Captain Milos Chuatoko immediately found a commanding height and pointed the telescope toward the outskirts of the street.
I saw countless figures rushing out from the low houses on both sides of the street behind, and they were firing fiercely at the border guards who were searching and advancing in the streets.
The soldiers of the first battalion were also looking for cover while fighting back desperately.
After observing for a while, Captain Milos Chuatoko's face turned pale. The enemy obviously wanted to eat them all, because now he and his men were obviously surrounded by the enemy.
Before Milosh Chuatoko could think about it, the rebels behind the scenes began firing mortars at their position. They saw mortar shells constantly exploding in the crowd.
People kept falling down. It was obvious that the enemy had been prepared and had marked the street.
The border guards' mortars also responded quickly and began to fire back at the enemy's artillery positions.
But Colonel Milos Chuatok knew that even if the enemy's artillery was destroyed, it would be difficult to save the current situation.
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