5:30 AM, 15 kiloters outside Tetric City, Thunder Defense artillery position.
Twelve M777A2 155mm lightweight howitzers are lined up, barrels pointed towards the southeastern city.
The artillery provided by the US military, now operated by Thunder Defense's artilleryn.
The artillery position is located on a relatively flat sandy area, with simple fortifications built from sandbags and barbed wire.
Behind each artillery position are stacked boxes of shells, with the brass casings reflecting a dim sheen in the pre-dawn light.
"Distance to the target area, the car repair shop, eight thousand four hundred ters."
The artillery observer's voice cos through the radio, sowhat static but clearly audible, "Wind from the southwest, wind speed three ters per second, humidity twenty-one percent. Firing data has been transmitted."
The battery commander—a forr US Army artillery sergeant—looks at the data on the fire control computer screen.
Green numbers flicker on the black background, finally stabilizing.
"Battery, prepare to fire."
His voice is calm but carries a tallic hardness.
The gunners begin to move.
The loader hauls the first high-explosive shell from the ammunition box, pushing it into the breech with a dull tallic scraping sound.
Then cos the propellant bags.
The number of propellant bags is selected based on the range.
This ti, five were used, orange propellant bags packed in fiber containers, stuffed into the rear of the breech.
The breech is closed and locked tight.
The gun barrel rises slowly, adjusting the elevation. The hydraulic system emits a faint hissing sound.
"Gun One, loaded!"
"Gun Two, loaded!"
"Gun Twelve, loaded!"
The reports sound off in sequence.
The battery commander watches his watch, the second hand ticking towards the set position.
Exactly 5:45 AM.
"Battery—" he takes a deep breath, "Fire!"
Twelve gunners pull the lanyards simultaneously.
The world is torn asunder at that mont.
First, twelve barrels simultaneously spew massive fireballs, illuminating the entire artillery position as if it were daylight.
Then the deafening roar, the sound waves spread across the open desert, with even the ground in distant Tetric City fifteen kiloters away feeling the tremors.
The barrels recoil violently, the spades digging deep trenches in the sand.
The heat, smoke, and dust mix to form a murky cloud, engulfing the entire position.
First salvo.
The shells take about twenty-five seconds to fly through the air.
For the artilleryn, this is a procedure repeated thousands of tis.
But for the people in Tetric City, these twenty-five seconds are a countdown to death.
Inside the basent of the car repair shop.
Zabeer crouches in the corner, hands covering his ears.
Even though he knows the shelling won't directly threaten his life—the basent is reinforced with steel-reinforced concrete and buried four ters underground, the feeling of waiting for the shells to fall is maddening.
The explosions co quickly.
Not just one, but twelve simultaneously hitting.
Even through six ters of earth and concrete, the shockwave still strikes down like a giant hamr.
The ergency light is shaken, swaying, dust falls from the ceiling, and the air is filled with the sll of concrete powder.
"Hold steady!" the squad leader shouts in the darkness, "This is just the beginning!"
He was right.
Just ten seconds after the first salvo, the second round cos.
Then the third, fourth round.
Thunder Defense's artillery employs the "sea of fire" tactic—not seeking precise strikes, but instead maximizing firing speed to pour as many shells as possible into the target area in the shortest ti.
Every minute, twelve guns can fire forty-eight shells.
Each shell has a kill radius of over fifty ters.
Over the next fifteen minutes, more than seven hundred high-explosive shells will land on the car repair shop and surrounding area.
This is the face of modern warfare.
Using steel and explosives to completely erase an area from the map.
anwhile, at the Bayji command center over a hundred kiloters away.
Awakened by the duty officer, Song Heping arrives in the command room, staring intently at the real-ti footage returned by the drones.
Though the resolution isn't enough to see individuals, the flash of explosions and rising smoke are clearly visible.
With each explosion, a white flash point brightens the screen, then spreads into a gray cloud of smoke.
"Density of shelling, twelve shells per square kiloter per minute."
The analyst reports the data, "If sustained for fifteen minutes, the total shelling would exceed seven hundred shells. Theoretical kill rate... if personnel are exposed in the target area, it should be over ninety percent."
"If..."
Song Heping repeats the word.
He brings up the structural diagrams of the car repair shop and school complex.
Both are reinforced concrete buildings, with basents or underground facilities.
If Ahd's n retreated underground in advance, then these seven hundred shells, besides creating noise and smoke, would have much reduced actual effect.
More importantly—the shelling is too predictable.
Fifteen minutes of saturation bombardnt, five-minute gap, followed by a ground assault.
This is the standard US urban warfare process, written in field manuals, that any commander who has read the relevant materials could recite by heart.
Did Ahd read them?
He certainly did.
The 1515 Ard has a complete captured docunt library, including US military operation manuals, training materials, tactical analyses.
They even organized special seminars to study how to counter US standardized tactics.
So if Ahd knows the shelling will last fifteen minutes, knows there will be a five-minute gap, knows that ground troops will attack after the gap ends...
Then he can accurately calculate the timing and set traps.
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