This organized pause...
He shifted his gaze, looking toward the interior of the brick factory.
Most of the Kurdish soldiers had let down their guard; so were inspecting the plant area, others were chatting, with only a few sentries keeping watch.
"Idiots," Rosenberg muttered under his breath.
He was about to call out a warning again when things took a sudden turn.
07:20, inside the brick factory.
The first to notice the anomaly was a Kurdish machine gun crew stationed at the southern raw material yard of the brick factory.
They were operating a PKM, positioned in a half-collapsed brick shed.
The young shooter was Kareem, nineteen years old.
He was idly fiddling with the scope when he suddenly saw sothing move in the direction of the old kiln across the yard.
He squinted.
The kiln had been abandoned for years, its door damaged, the inside a pitch-black cavern.
Another movent.
This ti, he saw it clearly—a gun barrel slowly extending from the shadows within the kiln.
"Lieutenant! There's sothing in the kiln—"
Kareem's words were cut short.
For at that mont, the entire brick factory sprang to life.
From the seemingly collapsed kiln interior, from behind half-buried rubble piles, from installations disguised as garbage heaps, from behind the broken workshop windows, even from beneath suddenly upturned concealed covers—more than twenty fire points simultaneously spewed fire!
Gunfire erupted, but it wasn't the familiar crisp burst of the AK series Kareem knew, instead it was...
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
A deep, continuous, deafening barrage.
It was the 14mm caliber heavy machine guns!
Those were Soviet-era anti-aircraft machine guns, ant to take down planes, now leveled at their targets.
With a firing rate of 600 rounds per minute, it shot 14.5x114mm armor-piercing incendiary rounds.
The bullet heads weighing 64 grams each, with a muzzle velocity of 1000 ters per second, could penetrate 20mm of homogeneous steel at 800 ters.
The first wave of strikes was terrifyingly precise.
Major Mahmoud's command vehicle was the primary target.
Three KPVs fired simultaneously from different directions, tearing through the air with their long tongues of fla.
The first round hit the hood, penetrated and blew up the engine. The second pierced the door, cutting the communications officer in half.
The third struck the fuel tank—a Humr with no anti-explosion design, the tank exploded instantly, engulfing the entire vehicle in a fireball.
Mahmoud jumped out just before the explosion, but was blown five ters away by the shockwave, crashing heavily against a brick wall, blood streaming from his ears and nose, temporarily deafened.
More KPV fire swept towards other vehicles.
A pickup truck parked by the warehouse was "combed" from head to tail by a burst of 14.5mm rounds.
The cab beca a beehive; the fuel tank exploded, and the three soldiers in the back were thrown out, turning into burning human silhouettes as they hit the ground.
Another ard truck trying to reverse and escape was caught in crossfire from three directions.
The 14.5mm armor-piercing rounds ripped through the thin steel of the compartnt with ease, making the soldiers inside feel as if they were in a blender.
The truck lurched into a brick pile, overturned, spilling and igniting fuel.
But that wasn't the most terrifying thing.
"It's a quad-mounted ZPU-4! Allah!" soone scread.
On top of the water tower in the center of the brick factory, camouflage nets and covering debris were suddenly lifted, revealing a ZPU-4 quad-mounted 14.5mm anti-aircraft machine gun. This weapon had four barrels, with a theoretical rate of fire of 2400 rounds per minute, creating a tal storm when fired horizontally.
The operator was two 1515 Ard n with full beards, laughing wildly as they pulled the trigger.
Four tongues of fla whipped toward the area most densely packed with Kurdish soldiers—they were gathering in front of the old warehouse, trying to organize a counterattack.
The effect was massacre-like.
The 14.5mm bullets ford a dense barrage, turning humans into ragdolls torn apart by enormous force wherever it passed.
Limbs severed, torsos burst, blood and entrails splattered on the brick walls.
A single bullet pierced through three soldiers consecutively.
In just ten seconds, the area in front of the warehouse beca an Asura field, with at least thirty deaths.
The surviving Kurdish soldiers were completely stunned.
They lay flat on the ground, hid behind wreckage, utterly terrified.
Officers shouted hoarsely, trying to organize resistance, but communications were mostly down, and the structure was in disarray.
Mahmoud struggled to his feet, found a dropped AKM, and leaned against a wall. His ears were still ringing.
"Don't panic! Find cover! Call for air support!"
He shouted, but his voice was insignificant amidst the gunfire.
Fortunately, the Kurdish troops were battle-hardened veterans of many years. After the initial panic, survivors began to counterattack on their own initiative.
PKM machine gunners found positions to return fire, but their 7.62mm bullets struggled to threaten the KPV's steel shields.
RPG gunners tried to hit the fire points, but exposing themselves ant being targeted—two RPG teams just stood up to aim when they were covered by KPV fire, shattered along with their launchers.
"This is Iron Fist-1! We're under ambush! Repeat, ambushed at the brick factory! Enemy has heavy machine guns, at least ten KPVs, and a ZPU! Request imdiate air support!" Mahmoud called using a backup radio, his voice hoarse.
The response ca quickly: "Iron Fist-1, situation received. Air support has been coordinated, Apaches are en route. Hold on."
Mahmoud looked to the sky.
In the dawn light, two black dots were rapidly approaching from the northeast.
The Apaches were coming.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
Once the ard helicopters arrived, those exposed heavy machine gun positions would be sitting ducks.
But he didn't notice that on several high points of the brick factory, soone was holding long cylindrical objects, aiming at the sky.
In the air, the Apache squad leader Brennan, with the call sign "Avenger 1-1," received the ergency call.
"Avenger formation, this is Outpost. Grid NK351215, Kurdish forces at the brick factory are under heavy fire ambush. Authorized to engage imdiately, suppress enemy heavy machine gun positions. Be advised, there may be anti-air threats."
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