Mercenary’s War
Chapter 1139 - 1139 One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Two Dress Rehearsal

1139: Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Two: Dress Rehearsal 1139: Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Two: Dress Rehearsal The attack began.

Knowing the enemy’s attack route in advance and having a clear understanding of their personnel deployment gave us quite an advantage, allowing at least a prediction of the enemy’s main attack direction and the allocation of troops in that area.

Two tanks led the way, followed by three armored vehicles, with four suicide trucks trailing behind, and then a dense crowd of people rushed towards the west gate of the prison.

The west gate of the prison was V-shaped, with the bottom open and two walls extending outwards at an angle.

The gate had been firmly blocked, and just less than twenty meters inside the prison, right next to the gate, was the star-shaped cell building, protruding a corner toward the west—a perfect firing position.

Gao Yang and his companions were on the building of the administrative and living area inside the prison, on the south side, diagonally facing the gate, which was slightly further away, but still only a little over one hundred meters from the gate.

The enemy’s assault originated from their base, which was the village to the west of the prison.

Outside the west gate of the prison lay the main north-south highway, the main road into Aleppo from the north, with a direct route from the enemy-occupied village to the prison’s west gate.

To the north of Aleppo Prison was the unfinished prison expansion area, now occupied by the Rebel Army.

The enemy’s tanks did not come directly from the village to the east but first traveled on the north-south highway from the north of the village, then advanced south from the expansion area.

This allowed them to quickly reach the prison walls, making it convenient to reach the west gate or breach the perimeter walls directly.

As for the enemy’s tactics, Gao Yang had a rough judgment: the tanks and armored vehicles would first cover the suicide trucks approaching the gate, and then the trucks would blow a hole in the wall, or clear the barricades at the gate.

One truck would create an opening, followed by another to detonate at the building’s base, killing all the people inside.

With such a close distance, a massive amount of Fake Medicine would be enough to kill or incapacitate the defenders inside the building, leaving them unable to resist for some time.

The suicide trucks would lead the way, then the tanks and armored vehicles would truly come into play, covering the infantry as they breached the prison and carried out the final sweep of any surviving defenders.

If a tactic works, the Rebel Army would keep using it, rarely making proactive tactical changes.

Frey’s position was on the north side of the gate, but after discovering that the enemy was coming from the north and not directly from the west, Frey moved from the west wall’s north end to the east end of the north wall.

In doing so, the tanks coming from the north would expose their sides under Frey’s guns.

The tanks slowly rolled out of the hiding provided by the expansion area’s buildings, then the two tanks started to move toward the prison along the road.

By the time the tanks were spotted, they were not far from the wall, at most two hundred meters away, and Frey was already able to fire the Rocket Launcher.

The two tanks moved forward a bit, but as soon as they cleared the fence of the expansion area, they stopped on the main road and began shelling the prison.

At that time, a suicide pickup truck, trailing thick smoke from its rear, started creeping toward the prison.

Frey did not fire the Rocket Launcher, as he was still waiting.

Although the distance was not far, the angle was not good – he was diagonally positioned in relation to the tanks, which meant that although he could hit the side of a tank, the angle was too steep.

The rocket might ricochet or graze off, not inflicting the most effective damage.

He could only wait for the tanks to move forward a bit more, even just twenty meters, then he could fire.

The tanks were still not within firing range, but that emerging truck could be hit.

However, targeting the truck was Glolov’s task, so Frey still did not open fire.

Glolov finally opened fire with the machine gun he was manning, handling a 12.7mm heavy machine gun, loaded exclusively with armor-piercing incendiary bullets.

The Rebel Army could only find limited materials; they couldn’t use high-grade steel to refit their vehicles.

If it were high-strength specialty steel, armor-piercing incendiary rounds might not be able to penetrate after reaching two centimeters.

However, penetrating two centimeters of regular iron plate was relatively easy.

Gao Yang didn’t know what kind of Fake Medicine was packed inside the suicide trucks; if it was something like C4, which is hard to detonate, armor-piercing incendiary rounds would be useless even if they penetrated the armor.

The Fake Medicine wouldn’t explode.

But if it was a more sensitive explosive, the machine gun could set it off.

The speed of the vehicle wasn’t slow, but certainly not faster than Glolov’s bullets.

Watching a string of bullets hitting the suicide truck without effect, as it continued to rush forward, Gao Yang couldn’t help but yell: “Little Fly, get ready!”

If the machine gun couldn’t trigger the explosion, then it would be up to Frey’s Rocket Launcher.

However, just as Gao Yang finished shouting, the advancing pickup truck suddenly exploded.

The explosion was intense, but the truck wasn’t loaded with much explosive.

Since the truck didn’t get blown to bits and the main body remained intact scattered around, it started burning fiercely on the road.

It seemed that this vehicle was merely used to clear a path, without the need to waste too much fake medicine.

Glolov’s machine gun position was set up on the top floor of the Mercedes-Benz shaped building, while Gao Yang and his team were inside a building on the south side of the prison.

If the enemy attacked from the west, his position could provide precious crossfire support.

However, if the attack came from the north, his line of fire would be blocked.

Gao Yang could only monitor the battlefield through Jansen’s display for the time being.

He saw tanks rotating their turrets, continuously bombarding the building where Glolov was located.

The tanks refused to advance and simply bombarding like this was not effective.

Gao Yang urgently shouted, “Little Fly, can you change position to neutralize the tank threat?”

“No way, I’m already at the easternmost point, but the angle is still not right, we’re already beyond the Rocket Launcher’s sighting range.”

Anxiety wasn’t going to solve any technical problems, so Gao Yang could only shout into the walkie-talkie, “Big Dog!

How’s it on your side?

If the enemy’s artillery fire is too threatening, retreat immediately.”

“I’m okay here; the Rebel Army’s fire isn’t accurate, but I’ve detached from the machine gun position.

If the enemy’s trucks come out again, inform me in time!”

The enemies’ use of tanks was outdated and conservative, but this conservative approach had its advantages.

By coincidence, it avoided being flanked by Frey, which made Gao Yang anxious and helpless.

Another truck started moving, and it was much faster than the previous one.

As soon as he saw it on the monitor, Gao Yang shouted, “Truck is in motion!”

“Understood, I’m in position!”

The second suicide truck was faster than the first one.

After breaking away from the prison expansion area’s walls, it was continuously hit by Glolov’s machine gun.

However, possibly because the bullets didn’t hit the fake medicine inside, the truck never exploded.

The second truck quickly reached the location where the first truck was destroyed.

At that moment, the machine gun Glolov had been firing finally blew up the second truck as well.

The highway was now cluttered with scrap metal, and the positions of the two truck wrecks weren’t far apart, just four or five meters.

The second truck, loaded with fake medicine, had to slow down while passing the burning wreckage, and Glolov managed to hit it at the correct spot.

At this point, one of the two tanks surprisingly started moving forward again.

After watching for a moment, Jansen suddenly shouted, “The tank is trying to remove the truck blockade; their trucks can’t leave the road!”

The road base for the highway is supposed to be solid.

Tanks can drive into the field and approach the prison from any angle, but trucks fitted with metal plates can’t do the same.

Despite the many potholes and shell craters on the road, the trucks could still pass.

But once they drove off-road, the suicide trucks would get stuck.

The remains of the two destroyed trucks were left on the highway.

While the road was wide, the wrecks were close together, effectively blocking the road.

Although it wasn’t completely impassable, it would be questionable whether the Rebel Army’s subsequent trucks could get through, besides there was a raging fire.

Any driver loaded with fake medicine would definitely hesitate, so at this time, the tanks had to act to clear the obstacles.

Just as the tank neared the burning wreckage, Frey finally fired a rocket.

A rocket flew from the side and directly hit the rear portion of the tank’s hull.

Gao Yang didn’t know if Frey had aimed there intentionally or by chance, but Frey hit exactly where the T72 tank’s ammunition was stored.

The armor-piercing shell penetrated the tank’s relatively thin side armor and caused an ammunition explosion inside the tank.

The tank, still running, continued forward for several meters before the turret was suddenly blown off, soaring six or seven meters into the air, and then falling back to the ground with the gun barrel pointing down.

Gao Yang, elated, swung his fist, then quickly pulled back his arm feeling a twinge of pain in his right arm, and shouted, “Little Fly, nicely done!”

The remaining tank, not aware that it wasn’t much of a threat, hastily retreated after witnessing its counterpart’s destruction.

Gao Yang wasn’t worried about tanks getting too close, nor about them ramming the walls.

Saidev and his men had dug trenches and reinforced barricades whenever they had time.

If tanks got close, the prison defenders, even those who don’t usually fight tanks, could engage with countless RPGs at point-blank range—firing a Rocket Launcher at a tank so close was something anyone could do.

Not to mention that tanks couldn’t get close to the base of the wall, even if they did, they were destined to be destroyed.

However, the suicide trucks were different; if they got too close, they could blast both the wall and the people on it sky-high.

The tactics adopted by the Rebel Army were to use tanks as cover, letting suicide trucks clear the path, followed by tanks and armored vehicles.

This strategy was quite effective for the Rebel Army, who were indeed adept at it.

Gao Yang truly feared this tactic of the Rebel Army, but it seemed now that the enemy’s strategy could not achieve its intended effect.

After two rounds of engagement, having known how to counter the enemy’s tactics, he felt more confident.

(To be continued.

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