619: Chapter 612 Cloud Burst Bomb 619: Chapter 612 Cloud Burst Bomb Uriyangko’s attention had been fixed on Gao Yang and his team.
After receiving ballistic instructions and confirming the most likely hiding places of the enemy, he immediately fired two rockets.
Although the enemy sniper was hidden in the fortifications and Gao Yang and his team’s bullets were unlikely to hit, the presence of the helicopter changed the situation.
The two rockets were fired directly into the engineering housing with solid walls but an unfortified roof, exploding inside the building.
With the two rockets fired, everything was settled, and Gao Yang was confident they had just taken out a Holmesny sniper, or even an entire fire point.
The reasoning was simple, if it had been a middle-caliber AK47 round, or the British 5.56 mm bullets, even if Frey was hit, he wouldn’t have fallen, because the impact was not that severe.
Now that Frey had been shot and the bullet hadn’t penetrated the bulletproof vest but still caused him to lose his footing and to experience intense pain, it must have been at least a 7.62 mm NATO round, and if it had been a 12.7 mm bullet, Frey would have been dead.
Frey’s movements had always been fast, and being hit while he was moving quickly ruled out the possibility of a stray bullet.
It was confirmed to be a sniper’s deliberate shot.
Needless to say, this sniper was skilled, so the most likely possibility was that he was British, and possibly even from the Holmesny Mercenary Corps.
Having eliminated the sniper’s firing point, the battle continued.
Gao Yang quickly got up but didn’t approach Frey, instead shouting, “Little Fly, how are you?”
Frey propped himself up on the ground with his hand, stood up, and shouted back, “I’m fine!”
Gao Yang loudly ordered, “Keep moving forward, stay alert!”
They hadn’t run more than twenty meters when Cui Bo suddenly dropped to the ground, yelling, “Sniper!”
The enemy snipers were scattered everywhere.
Taking down one firing point was just the beginning.
Next, Gao Yang and his team had to move step by step forward, taking out one firing point after another.
The assault battle was truly just getting started.
Cui Bo lay on the ground since his gun had a substantial recoil and was too heavy, making it difficult to shoot while standing.
However, Gao did not lie down; he could shoot while standing, and lying down would give the enemy more time to aim.
At the current distance, lying down wouldn’t ensure safety.
After a loud gunshot, Cui Bo stood back up.
Cui Bo’s actions indicated he had taken out his opponent and the absence of a call for heavy fire support meant he had faced a single sniper, not a fire point.
Gao Yang had no need to engage; Cui Bo had already resolved the issue, so they continued to advance.
As they moved forward again, Gao Yang and his team encountered no obstacles and smoothly reached the urban area, stopping behind a building that had been half demolished.
Upon reaching the urban area, street fighting officially began.
Next, they would proceed to clear each house and street.
Gao Yang slung the Blade of Satan on his back and held the shotgun in his hand; starting now, he was the Fire Assault Specialist.
Gao Yang, Jinfang, and Frey formed one team; Eileen, Lucica, and Rafael formed another.
The remaining four provided cover.
Gao’s team worked together in perfect harmony.
Even without speaking or signaling, they knew exactly what to do.
A mere glance at each other sufficed to understand each other’s intentions, hence, they would serve as the first assault team, undertaking the most crucial and difficult tasks.
Eileen’s team, on the other hand, wasn’t as effective.
Even though the team had two women and wasn’t lacking in combat strength, the key issue was that the three of them were newcomers.
They lacked coordination, so their role was to follow and provide cover or temporarily reinforce Gao’s team when necessary.
Gao Yang peeked at the targets in dire need of capture.
Near a complex constructed from four buildings, the Skull Gang’s advance was severely hindered.
Although the site had been bombarded several times by artillery, the fire points were not significantly damaged, and Uriyangko’s rocket strikes also failed to destroy the complex.
Uriyangko still had rockets and anti-tank missiles to use against that fire point, but because reloading the helicopter took too long, Gao didn’t want to waste all of the helicopter’s firepower at once.
Thus, he instructed Uriyangko to open fire only after receiving his orders.
The enemy’s fortifications had definitely been reinforced.
The second platoon was assaulting the complex aggressively, firing several rocket launchers to no effect.
Although the rockets were designed to combat fortifications, they were useless against these reinforced structures combining both soft and hard defenses.
The bravery of the second platoon left a deep impression on Gao.
He had never seen such fearless combat by black soldiers before.
The complex originally consisted of four houses which, from the outside, appeared as ordinary masonry buildings.
Many shooting holes had been hollowed out of the walls, sandbags were stacked high, and the rooftops were covered with sand, surely with sandbags inside too.
The rocket launchers’ tandem armor-piercing shells were effective against hard targets, but against the combination of soft and hard defenses like this, they were powerless.
The house reconstruction work incorporated machine guns, which were relentlessly spitting out tongues of fire at this time, with almost no blind spots for shooting, and the four works covering each other, forming a three-dimensional crossfire network, making them extremely difficult to conquer.
Second Company had already dropped close to twenty bodies in this zone, but they were still attempting to breach the enemy.
With just a glance, Gao Yang had an idea, then turned around and immediately gave Frey a signal.
“Second Company, halt the attack, just get ready to suppress the enemy’s firepower,” Gao ordered through the walkie-talkie.
As he did, Frey waved over a soldier from Instruction Platoon who was quite a distance away, a specialist rocket launcher operator with an RPG-7 on his shoulder, loaded with a Cloud Burst Bomb.
A Cloud Burst Bomb, also known as a thermobaric explosive, is filled with an air-fuel mixture commonly referred to as Cloud Burst Agent.
When a Cloud Burst Bomb explodes, it fully utilizes the oxygen in the air within the blast zone, with an initial explosion scattering the Cloud Burst Agent to mix with the air, followed by a secondary detonation, which then produces an aerosol explosion.
The destructive power of the blast comes from the overpressure and high temperatures generated by the detonation, and it also consumes oxygen, creating an oxygen-depleted zone within its effective range.
In short, Cloud Burst Bombs are almost useless in open areas, but for a sealed bunker, a hit from a Cloud Burst Bomb could either kill everyone inside with the explosion or cook them in an instant with the intense heat, and even if they weren’t cooked by the heat, they would die from suffocation.
All types of RPG-7 munitions are significantly affected by wind drift, and Cloud Burst Bombs, being bulkier, are even more so.
However, Frey’s main practice was with rocket launchers, so for him, compensating for wind drift when using the RPG-7 was instantaneous, not requiring much thought.
Frey took the rocket launcher and walked to a half-demolished corner of a wall, peeked out quickly, and then nodded at Gao Yang.
Gao Yang immediately roared, “Suppress the enemy’s fire, open fire!”
All light and heavy weaponry opened fire on the enemy’s fortifications; it was just a matter of aiming at the firing ports.
Just as the enemy’s fire was momentarily suppressed, Frey leapt out and, after brief aiming, launched the Cloud Burst Bomb.
The distance between Gao Yang’s position and the fortifications was roughly over forty but less than fifty meters—an exceedingly difficult range for hitting a shooting hole forty centimeters long and thirty centimeters wide with a rocket.
Tough as it was, they had to try; if they couldn’t get a Cloud Burst Bomb inside, the only remaining option to deal with the enemy fortifications would be for Rafael to go up close and destroy them one by one.
Frey didn’t disappoint Gao Yang.
The Cloud Burst Bomb hit its target accurately.
First, a minor explosion, and after about a second, fire suddenly burst from every firing hole of the work, the light and sound almost simultaneous due to the close distance.
Gao saw the flash and immediately heard a muffled explosion.
Felling the ground shake, the work hit by the Cloud Burst Bomb was now enveloped in black smoke.
Frey’s first shot was a hit.
Ignoring the cheers around him, Frey reached out, passed the used rocket launcher to someone else, and grabbed another RPG loaded with a Cloud Burst Bomb.
After giving Gao another nod, Gao shouted loudly, “Suppress!”
With the initial success, others now knew what to do.
Following the destruction of the first fortification and a temporary halt, the fire suppression resumed.
This time Frey selected a different direction.
Watching the enemy unable to return fire, he immediately jumped out and fired the second Cloud Burst Bomb.
The Cloud Burst Bomb hit the target once more.
However, after a brief wait, the expected explosion did not occur.
Only after two or three seconds did Gao react, yelling, “The Cloud Burst Bomb didn’t detonate.
Big Dog, tracer rounds!”
The Cloud Burst Bomb had definitely hit the fortification but didn’t explode.
The reasons could vary — it could be a dud, the bomb might not have detonated at all, or perhaps only the primary explosion worked, without the subsequent ignition of the air-fuel mixture.
Gao called for Glolov, hoping to ignite the fuel with tracer bullets.
If it was completely a dud, tracer bullets would be useless.
But if the Cloud Burst Agent was already dispersed, the tracer rounds might be able to detonate it.
And Gao had already seen white smoke leaking from the enemy fortification’s shooting holes, a sign that the Cloud Burst Agent had spread.
In truth, Gao didn’t know if tracer bullets could ignite the air-fuel mixture or, to be more precise, the Cloud Burst Agent, but he wanted to try.
It might just work.
Glolov only fired a few bullets, and before he could adjust his aim to fire tracer bullets into the fortification, an explosion occurred because the tracer bullets ignited the Cloud Burst Agent drifting out from the shooting holes, and the ensuing blast quickly reached inside the fortification.
Yet another muffled explosion.
Despite some twists, the result was the same.
(To be continued.
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