593: Chapter 588 This Problem Has No Solution 593: Chapter 588 This Problem Has No Solution Landing five kilometers west of Gesale and then immediately launching an attack on Gesale was an extremely risky decision because five kilometers wasn’t a safe enough distance.
The British had tanks, and for tanks and armored vehicles, a five-kilometer distance could be covered in just ten minutes.
If they discovered the movements of the Skull Gang and launched an attack with tanks and armored vehicles before the Skull Gang had completed its landing, Gao Yang and his men would be in a very uncomfortable situation.
The massive mobilization of the Skull Gang couldn’t be kept secret from those who were watching closely.
Gao Yang could only hope that Justin hadn’t yet sold the news of the Skull Gang’s deployment to the British and even more that the British, even if they had received the intelligence, were unable to prevent his landing.
Upon reaching the designated location, the bare beach offered no cover, and after confirming that there were no traces of anyone on the beach, the landing began.
Fishing boats weren’t suitable for making beach landings, so the Satan Mercenary Corps approached the shore in a speedboat.
When Gao Yang was the first to jump into knee-deep seawater, he immediately shouted, “Advance five hundred meters, establish an observation post!”
The battle officially began.
Following the prearranged formation, the Satan Mercenary Corps quickly charged out, with the two assault teams in front and the support team with Bruce behind.
After forming three battle groups in an inverted triangle formation, they advanced five hundred meters into the deeper inland areas.
After confirming there was no one nearby, Gao Yang couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief and spoke loudly on the radio, “Instruction Platoon, land and establish a defensive position, everyone else prepare.”
One after another, speedboats began transferring personnel from the fishing boat to the shore.
A section of the Instruction Platoon was equipped with an anti-tank missile system and one spare missile.
After they landed, the anti-tank missiles were quickly set up.
After establishing a defensive position that was two kilometers wide, the large-scale landing finally began.
The fishing boats moved as close to the shore as possible, and the tugging speedboats and boats began to move towards land.
Gao Yang kneeled on the sand, watching the east.
When he received reports from the commanders of the first and sixth platoons confirming that the three platoons acting as the advance forces had all completed landing and deployment, Gao Yang then said, “Land the artillery.”
The landing of the artillery was slightly more troublesome.
Gao Yang occasionally checked his watch, and finally, after forty minutes, Zhou Zhou brought news that the artillery had completed landing and deployment.
By then, the forces of the Skull Gang ashore could be said to have secured their position.
With artillery support, even if the British suddenly attacked, they wouldn’t be driven back into the sea.
Gao Yang stood up, waved his hand to the east, and said, “Advance!”
The Satan Mercenary Corps began to move forward, with the Instruction Platoon right behind them, maintaining a distance of three hundred meters, also moving forward, and the first and sixth platoons, guarding the landed artillery, followed behind the Instruction Platoon, advancing towards the east.
Gao Yang didn’t even wait for all the personnel to land because he didn’t know whether the British were ready and waiting for them or if they were completely unaware of their arrival.
If the British were prepared, Gao Yang’s move for speed would be meaningless.
However, if the British were unaware, then a full-speed attack would be meaningful.
The British did not launch an attack during the Skull Gang’s landing.
From this, Gao Yang deduced that the British were unaware of their presence, so he took the risk and immediately began the attack while not all the personnel had completed landing.
Gao Yang and his men moved quickly, covering almost two kilometers in half an hour.
Considering they couldn’t stray too far from the artillery, this speed was quite fast.
Suddenly, Li Jinfang, who was at the very front, raised his arm, and the Satan Mercenary Corps immediately halted.
Following their stop, the units behind also came to a stop one after another.
Li Jinfang shouted, “Enemy tanks spotted ahead, on that small sand dune!”
Gao Yang picked up his binoculars.
Around one and a half kilometers ahead in the flat yellow sand, a small patch of green appeared.
It was a gentle sand dune, only four to five meters higher than the surrounding terrain, sparsely covered with some low shrubs, and on both sides of the dune, four tanks were stationed.
Seeing the tanks appearing here made it clear to Gao Yang: the British were not unprepared; on the contrary, they were ready, they just hadn’t countered the landing.
Attacking during a landing was a good choice for those preparing a counter-landing.
Since the British didn’t seize the opportunity to attack, the reason was not difficult to guess.
If the Skull Gang was attacked during the landing, they could only abandon the landing and leave by boat.
The British didn’t want to repel the Skull Gang; they wanted to annihilate the living forces of the Skull Gang, so they gave up the opportunity to strike mid-crossing and chose to wait for the Skull Gang to attack because once on land, it would be difficult for the Skull Gang to return to their boats and escape.
As for escaping across the land, the members of the Skull Gang could only flee into the desert.
The British merely needed to hold the locations with water supplies and wait for them to die of thirst.
The tank barrels were already rotating as Gao Yang yelled into the intercom, “The enemy is prepared, everyone, disperse and take cover, artillery, concentrate your fire!”
The British were prepared, and they had a plan for such a situation.
As soon as Gao Yang gave the order, the Instruction Platoon dispersed, and the artillery began to deploy.
A blast sounded, and the enemy fired first.
The high-explosive shells fired by the tank exploded in the Instruction Platoon’s position, but no one was foolish enough to cluster together and take the shelling; the soldiers were spaced far apart and were lying on the ground, using entrenching shovels to dig holes.
Gao Yang and his men quickly lay down on the ground, and each one took out an entrenching shovel to start digging holes in the sandy soil.
The reason commandos seem formidable is that they are placed in special environments for special operations warfare.
There isn’t a person in the world who isn’t scared of artillery; whether they are commandos or any other soldiers, the best reaction to direct enemy artillery fire, besides running away, is to take cover in a shelter.
As infantry, if you don’t dig temporary shelters during combat, you’re definitely not fit for duty.
You’d deserve to be cannon fodder.
Gao Yang’s men could all dig trenches, except for Lucica.
Lucica excels in jungle warfare; the jungle is her home turf.
Upon arriving at the desert, her strengths could not be utilized, but her weaknesses were magnified.
Although everyone was lying down and digging holes, Lucica’s speed was several times slower than the others.
In the Skull Gang, all soldiers carry an entrenching shovel.
Originally, only Cui Bo among Gao Yang’s men had one, but having discovered the shovel had become standard issue in the Skull Gang, everyone in his group also carried one.
The shovel was not very useful during special operations, but now, it was proving invaluable.
The sandy soil was easy to dig, and although lying down to dig was uncomfortable, Gao Yang quickly excavated a small pit.
It was then he heard the swishing sound of rocket launches.
The artillery opened fire; they just needed to turn their marching rocket launchers around, and they could fire quickly.
Gao Yang had instructed that if the artillery was to fire, they must concentrate their fire for a wide area of bombardment.
The artillery had pulled in all their rocket launchers for a volley, launching at least two hundred rockets.
The explosion sounded intensely, the booming noise was continuous; although it was only the first volley, more than eighty percent of the rockets hit the main target area.
Gao Yang looked up and saw a small sand dune instantly thrown up into a cloud of dust by the blasts, and the nearby enemy tanks were continuously exploding.
Just then, the enemy’s tank artillery ceased firing.
Had Somalia experienced such large-scale concentrated artillery fire in the past ten years?
The answer was no, definitely not!
Once the artillery made their presence felt, even if it couldn’t damage the enemy’s tanks, the dust raised was enough to completely block the enemy tanks’ line of sight, and under such firepower, it was impossible for the enemy infantry to mount an effective counterattack.
Gao Yang yelled into the intercom again, “Now is the chance, Instruction Platoon!
Third squad, hurry up and prepare the anti-tank missiles.
First and second squads, maneuver to the left side and destroy the enemy’s tanks!”
AT-14 anti-tank missiles are heavy, and although they can accompany infantry in battle, they need to be disassembled during movement because one person cannot carry it alone, and reassembling takes time, especially during offensive operations, which proves to be quite cumbersome.
The concentrated bombardment of rocket launchers had just ended, and finally, the mortars also began firing.
Although the mortars did not have the high rate of fire of rocket launchers, which could unleash shells all at once in a short period, the continuing firepower of mortars was much better.
As dozens of mortars began firing one after another, continuing to suppress the enemy, Gao Yang hurried to continue digging his shelter.
“Report, third squad, anti-tank missiles are ready!”
Finally, taking advantage of the effective suppression of the enemy by artillery fire, the anti-tank missiles were set up.
At a distance of only about one thousand five hundred meters, within the optimal effective range of the anti-tank missiles, Gao Yang shouted loudly, “Fire!”
As he yelled, Gao Yang continued to dig his shelter, but after a moment, when he had dug a small pit deep enough for him to crouch in, the anti-tank missiles still had not been fired.
Before Gao Yang could ask, he looked up and saw the problem.
Their artillery fire was too dense, raising dust around the tanks, and since the AT-14 anti-tank missile used semi-automatic laser guidance, the high concentration of dust meant that the laser emitter’s beam could not penetrate the dust to lock onto the target.
Gao Yang felt a mix of amusement and frustration at once; the same issue had been encountered by the Americans in Iraq.
Although laser guidance technology had matured a lot now, with laser beams having more ability to penetrate smoke or cloud layers compared to the first-generation guidance lasers, penetrating dense sand dust was still challenging, especially when the dust concentration was high, making the guidance laser beams virtually useless.
Their artillery had successfully suppressed the enemy but also inadvertently provided protection for the enemy’s tanks.
With their current equipment, this was an unavoidable problem for Gao Yang’s team; to continue targeting tanks, they would have to pause the artillery fire and wait for the dust concentration to decrease before using anti-tank missiles again (To be continued.
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