488: Chapter Four Hundred and Eighty-Five: How on Earth Do We Fight This?
488: Chapter Four Hundred and Eighty-Five: How on Earth Do We Fight This?
Gao Yang’s legs had gone weak, scared out of his wits.
Gao Yang wasn’t afraid of being killed by the planes; he was now worried about Frey and Lucica, as well as Ivan and Sergei, who currently had no ability to act.
If they were left in the vehicle unable to move, wouldn’t they just be sitting ducks?
Nate was the commander, and unless necessary, Gao Yang was very careful not to issue orders on the joint mission’s public frequency, but now he could not care too much anymore.
He bellowed into the intercom, “Get the wounded out of the vehicle, quick.”
The first plane had already adjusted its angle and was diving towards them from a height of no more than two hundred meters.
The high-caliber anti-aircraft gun wasn’t too cumbersome, but it had to be positioned before firing.
It needed to be deployed from marching status to firing status, and at this point, it was clearly too late to deploy the anti-aircraft gun.
Watching the plane begin its dive, Nate shouted, “Leave the road, get into the woods for cover!”
Avoiding the strafing and rocket bombardment from fixed-wing aircraft was relatively simple.
You just needed to determine the trajectory of the aircraft’s machine gun strafing, and move to one side to avoid it.
Although the impact point of the rockets couldn’t be predicted, at least their flight trajectory was consistent with that of the machine gun.
Two pick-up trucks carrying the high-caliber machine guns rushed into the woods.
One of them crashed into a tree less than ten meters after entering and came to a halt, while the other went a bit further and stopped in a place where the tree canopy was dense.
However, the truck carrying the high-caliber anti-aircraft gun hadn’t even left the road before it was stuck in a mud pit; the driver floored the gas pedal, but the truck’s rear wheels just spun in the mud pit.
Nate waved his hand while yelling, “Leave, get away from that truck!”
Gao Yang had never experienced an aerial strike before.
Although he knew how to dodge, he was truly uncertain about whether he would make it, while Nate stood beside Gao Yang, eyes fixed on the plane diving towards them.
Once Nate was sure the nose of the plane was pointed at the truck carrying the high-caliber anti-aircraft gun, he shouted loudly, “Run!”
Gao Yang ran alongside Nate at full speed, and just as they got away, bullets from the plane’s machine guns created two lines on the ground and swept past four or five meters behind them.
Soon after, the machine gun bullets hit the truck bed of the truck carrying the high-caliber anti-aircraft gun, followed by two rockets that whistled towards the anti-aircraft gun.
Six vehicles were still on the dirt road, four of which were driven by Gao Yang and his team.
When the team members could not drive the vehicles into the woods, they abandoned them and fled.
The remaining two were the small trucks carrying the high-caliber anti-aircraft guns and another small truck loaded with rifle ammunition.
The pilot’s primary target was obviously the high-caliber anti-aircraft guns.
Although his machine gun hit the truck carrying the guns, the two rockets landed a fair distance away from the anti-aircraft gun, exploding one after the other, four or five meters from either side of the gun.
The first aircraft did not achieve any results, but after the second one’s dive, the curtain of bullets from its machine guns swept across the few vehicles on the road.
Eventually, when breaking away from the attack zone, it dropped an ordinary bomb that exploded near the truck loaded with rifle ammunition.
The shockwave flipped the truck over, and boxes of bullets scattered all around it.
For Gao Yang and everyone else, the silver lining within their misfortune was having a scapegoat suffer the first wave of attack from the sky.
It allowed them time and a chance to hide—although it was only a few seconds’ difference, that was the distance between life and death.
Nate stopped running and shouted loudly, “They’re using the fixed machine guns in the wings, they have neither gun pods nor ‘Laser-Guided Bombs.’
Gao Yang, gasping for breath, said, “Is that good news?”
Nate loudly replied, “Of course, if they had gun pods, they could adjust their firing line anytime, and we would be chased and shot by the cannons.
Watch out for the planes behind; let’s hope they don’t give us any more surprises.”
No sooner had Nate spoken than another two Super Tucano aircraft flew by, but these planes did not dive.
Gao Yang glanced into the forest, where everyone was running towards the deeper parts, and Ivan’s group of severely injured were being carried down, rapidly being transported further into the depths.
Standing at the edge of the path, Gao Yang looked up at the sky and muttered to himself, “I don’t like the look of this, should we start running now?”
Nate yelled, “Don’t run, wait and see.”
Since the target area was relatively small, the six Super Tucano aircraft couldn’t all attack at once, so they took turns.
The targets that had already hidden in the forest were more difficult to spot from the air, which was another piece of good news for Gao Yang and his group.
The second pair of planes didn’t dive in their attack, indicating that their primary means of attack weren’t the fixed machine guns and rockets on the wings.
Nate decided to wait and see what they would do.
Gao Yang could have run away on his own, but seeing that Nate didn’t, he nervously decided to stay with him.
The second pair of planes finally opened fire, and as expected, these aircraft could attack the enemy without having to dive because they were both equipped with gun pods, whose trajectory could be adjusted at any time.
The Super Tucano is a two-seat attack aircraft, and under the control of a dedicated weapons operator, the gun pods’ accuracy was definitely much higher than that of the fixed machine guns on the wings.
One Super Tucano accurately hit the anti-aircraft gun, causing sparks to fly, while another aircraft, flying at a slightly higher altitude, circled in the air without initiating any attack.
Just then, Gao Yang heard someone shout loudly in the headset, “Colonel, the anti-aircraft machine gun is ready to fire.”
Before Nate could give an order, the Super Tucano that had not yet fired dropped a bomb as it flew over Gao Yang and the others.
The bomb descended rapidly, making it very difficult for people on the ground to spot it with the naked eye, but Nate was lucky enough to see the falling bomb.
“Bomb, get down!”
After shouting, Nate and Gao Yang ran a few steps into the forest before throwing themselves to the ground.
Then, Gao Yang heard Nate murmuring quietly, “Not cluster bombs, please not cluster bombs.”
Immediately after came two earth-shattering explosions, and Gao Yang could clearly feel the intense shaking of the ground beneath him.
After the explosion, Nate let out a long sigh of relief, then yelled, “Anti-aircraft machine gun, fire!
Shoot down the plane!
Report casualties!”
After his shout, Nate turned to Gao Yang with a serious expression, “We need to find a way to evacuate.
The anti-aircraft machine guns are useless.
We can only leave the vehicles behind and proceed on foot now.
Luckily, the enemy only dropped conventional bombs, but if they had brought cluster bombs, we’d be dead for sure.”
Gao Yang asked anxiously, “Does the Colombian Air Force have cluster bombs?”
Nate replied with a pained expression, “Yes, the Colombian Air Force has MK82 Laser-Guided Bombs and MK-20 cluster bombs, and the Super Tucanos can carry them.
Now, let’s just hope the Colombian Air Force spared the expense and didn’t bring them along.”
(To be continued.
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