Chapter 81: Misurata
Translated by: kevin1782
Edited by: Isalee
Misurata, Libya"s third largest city, had been surrounded by the government troops ever since she was taken by the Libyan Opposition. When the negotiations between NATO and the Opposition broke apart, Gaddafi finally made up his mind to attack.
Gao Yang and the rest of them moved out at dawn, and they had already reached the outer rim of Misurata in the morning. Gao Yang still thought that there"d be some time left before battle, but what he didn"t expect was that the 32nd Brigade had actually started their a.s.sault long ago.
The 32nd Brigade consisted of Libya"s most elite troops equipped with tanks and artillery, as well as a small amount of aircraft missiles. But these heavy weaponries weren"t significant in urban wars. Kahmis also didn"t want to use his biggest trump card and send them into the alley to their meet their demise, so the 32nd Brigade was just bombing and blockading Misurata. Almost all who were entering the city for urban warfare were mercenaries.
When Gao Yang and his corporation arrived, the mercenary troops that had formulated their plans and formations had already entered Misurata a few hours before them. However, the first mercenaries’ progress was very slow. When Gao Yang and his corp arrived, government forces’ frontlines were still at the outer rim.
There was a total of a hundred and sixteen people who had been deployed in a company-scaled configuration mainly composed of two mercenary groups. In the entire company, including Gao Yang’s corp, there were four sniper squads. Gao Yang"s numbers were few, and they also didn"t have to cooperate with the other two mercenary corps’ operations. Thus, they had the highest degree of freedom.
Commanded by a captain-ranked officer, Gao Yang and the rest were taken to a street. The captain gave them direct orders.
"This street"s our responsibility. Try your best to advance and make progress in pushing forward. You guys can discuss amongst yourselves on delegating responsibilities for this mission. I"ll come back in the afternoon and pay you all according to your progress. Alright, I wish each of you good luck."
After saying all that, the captain didn"t turn back at all as he jogged off. Watching that captain"s silhouette, Gao Yang was completely stupefied. "Indeed there"s a very high degree of freedom, but is this even called a war?"
Grolev smiled and replied, "It"s a mercenary"s war, man. It’s very normal, you won"t really be listening to his command and he also knows that, so it’s already good that our three mercenary groups are divided and are responsible for our designated scope of the area."
One of the mercenary corps that combined with theirs to become a company was called "Sandstorm"; it was slightly larger in number and had sixty-five people — all of them were Tuaregs from Mali. Their weapons were more outdated, but it’s been said that they fight fearlessly and ferociously. They were very courageous, bold, and were regarded as elite.
The name of the other mercenary corp was very interesting — it sounded really official and formal as it was called the "Coleman Security Co.". It was actually not a mercenary corp — Coleman company had sent a battle team here.
The "corp" Coleman sent had forty-seven people, although slightly few in number, their combat effectiveness was stronger than that of the Tuareg mercenaries by a little — their weapon combinations were better. Members were better quality-wise, and blacks and whites were basically one to one in ratio. The blacks were mostly from Tanzania while the whites were mostly from Belarus and Ukraine. They all were retired veterans.
As for Gao Yang and their Satan Mercenary Corp, although it was called a "mercenary corp", there were only four people. Hence, it was openly regarded as a battle group or squad.
Using the time before completely entering their respective battle grounds, the three corp leaders walked out and shook hands with each other. After that, the head of Coleman Security first said, "h.e.l.lo guys, my name"s Green Mamba, I"ll first elaborate my personal viewpoint. Because it"s the first time we"re cooperating with each other, it’ll be better for us to still act separately. I intend to take my people to take care of the left side of the street, while Sandstorm can be in charge of the right side of the street. We can support each other during the battle, and we will move forward only after the two sides are under control. Sandstorm"s and our snipers" main mission is to provide support, so the task of handling enemy snipers is mainly Satan"s job. At the same time, Satan is responsible for monitoring the situation on the road and updating us in time if anything comes up. We good?"
Coleman’s commander"s proposal was very fair, Gao Yang and Sandstorm"s leader had no objections. But after Gao Yang pondered a while, he said solemnly, "I need high ground. During your action phase, I can cooperate with you and provide suppression, but the pretext is that you let me know first. Hence I recommend you guys to set at least one walkie-talkie on the same frequency. That way it’ll also be convenient for communication."
Gao Yang had offered to help suppress the enemies, so Coleman and Sandstorm of course wouldn"t refuse. The only problem was that Sandstorm Mercenary Corp didn"t a single walkie-talkie.
Coleman Company had more than a dozen walkie-talkies, so Green Mamba lent Sandstorm one of them. After altering and tuning the frequencies of the walkie-talkies responsible for communication among the three Corps to a uniform one, the three men made their own arrangements to lead their men to prepare for the operation.
Coleman Company would be attacking first. Their goal was a six-story building that was a hundred and fifty meters away. The building was already occupied and currently seemed to have at least five firing points. Coleman Company had to first capture the building before they could execute subsequent attacks.
Sandstorm, on the other hand, had only a few flat-roofed cottages to contend with on the right side of the street with seemingly no firing points. Hence, Sandstorm only needed to cooperate a little — their a.s.sault target was some distance away, and therefore there was no need to do anything yet.
Having confirmed the a.s.sault targets, Gao Yang and the rest promptly shifted into combat mode. Gao Yang and Tribo opened their gun scope covers and began searching for shootable targets in the building they were going to attack together with the three other snipers.
Gao Yang"s sight adjustment was already tuned. He first used binoculars to search around a bit, and he immediately found a few targets he could shoot. After putting down the binoculars, Gao Yang and several other snipers discussed the targets that they were responsible for. Including the half-a.s.sed Tribo, five snipers in total quickly shifted into their shooting positions.
Despite not knowing one another, since they were fighting side-by-side, the three mercenary corps had to use their utmost efforts to support each other. Unless they were crazy, they would hurt their own comrades. So even though they were absolutely unfamiliar with one another, n.o.body doubted that they could get help with the kindest intentions from the other corps.
Gao Yang felt that in an alley battle, the field of vision wouldn"t be too far — the shooting distance should mainly be within the two hundred to four hundred meters. Hence he adjusted his scope"s main shooting distance to three hundred meters.
What Gao Yang thought proved to be the truth. His current shooting distance was less than two hundred meters. He could straightaway aim from this distance without any more adjustments.
Gao Yang aimed at an enemy who was firing a GPMG. That guy was wearing a red and white checkered Arabian head scarf and along with sungla.s.ses. He was shaking his head around while shooting, which looked really ridiculous.
Because Coleman"s people were launching the attack, Gao Yang had to cooperate with Green Mamba"s instructions so that they would open fire at the same time. After the building"s attack points were settled, it"d be a lot safer for Coleman"s men to attack then.
"Fire!"
Finally, after hearing the Green Mamba"s shouting, Gao Yang squeezed the trigger.