134: Chapter 134 Street Fighting and You're Driving a Tank? If you don't break down, who will?

"Boom!"

The roar of a cannon shattered the desert's silence, signaling the start of the exercise.

Fatah's "Red Army" units, led by a standard armored company, moved in a wedge formation, grinding over the sand and charging toward the simulated urban area.

Eight T-72 main battle tanks kicked up clouds of yellow sand, the roar of their engines merging into a torrential flood of sound.

"Boss, they're coming up! Looking at this posture, they want to flatten us in one wave!" In the command center, Mark Smith whistled as he watched the real-time footage sent back by the drones.

"Let them in." He Jun's gaze never left the screen as he issued orders in a steady voice, "Sector A, Sector B, all units maintain radio silence. Let them into the first block."

The tank cluster met no resistance, crashing through the simple perimeter roadblocks at high speed and driving straight onto the city's main thoroughfare.

The "Red Army" company commander leading the charge was a confidant of Fatah named Omar. Sitting in the command tank, he snorted with disdain at the silent city.

"What elite police? They look like a bunch of show-offs to me! Full speed ahead, target the 'Ministry of Defense Building'!" he ordered over the radio.

Just as his tank turned the first corner, the hull shuddered violently!

"Boom!"

With a thunderous bang, Omar's command tank jerked violently, throwing him hard against the cabin wall. Immediately after, a piercing sound of metal snapping came from beneath the tracks.

"What happened!" Omar roared.

"Reporting, sir! We... we hit a mine! The left track has been blown off!" the driver's voice cracked, reporting with a tremor.

These weren't real mines, of course, but "exercise-specific anti-tank booby traps" that He Jun had the engineers plant. Filled with high-pressure dye and smoke generators, they were powerful enough to "judge" a tank as disabled.

A thick plume of red smoke, representing "destroyed," billowed from the hull of the command tank.

"Damn it!" Omar punched the cabin wall.

Before his curses could fade, intense gunfire suddenly erupted from the windows of buildings on both sides of the street!

*Rat-tat-tat-tat!*

Countless exercise dye rounds wove a web of fire, blanketing the following tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. Although these bullets weren't lethal, being hit would still leave a conspicuous blue mark, representing "Killed in Action."

Accompanying the gunfire were several sharp shrieks.

"Swoosh!"

"Swoosh!"

Two rockets trailed fire as they streaked from different angles, directly hitting the two T-72s following the command tank.

"Boom!" "Boom!"

Two more clouds of red smoke rose.

In less than a minute, an entire armored platoon was pathetically paralyzed in the street, unable to move.

"We've been ambushed! The enemy is in the buildings on both sides!"

"Requesting fire support! Requesting fire support!"

The Red Army's communication channel was a mess of noise.

On the street, the infantry following the tanks became sitting ducks. They didn't even see a shadow of the enemy before being hit by bullets from every corner, leaving the ground "strewn with corpses" covered in blue and purple marks.

In the Red Army command center several kilometers away, Fatah watched this scene—which could only be described as a massacre—through a drone. Instead of getting angry, he whispered in praise.

"Well played... very well played..." he murmured to himself.

This was exactly the effect he wanted!

Only by letting his "recruits" personally experience the cruelty and bloodiness of modern urban warfare, and by letting them learn lessons from repeated "deaths," could they survive in real combat in the future.

"Order Omar to abandon the vehicles. All infantry transition to urban combat! Companies A and B will flank from both sides. Flush them out of those buildings for me!" Fatah ordered, his voice devoid of emotion.

The battlefield immediately transitioned into an even more brutal phase.

The Red Army soldiers, having abandoned their heavy equipment, began to rush into the buildings on both sides of the street in squads, engaging in room-by-room struggles with He Jun's "Blue Army."

In narrow hallways, around corners, and inside rooms, the sounds of gunfire, explosions, and the roars of soldiers using training knives in "hand-to-hand combat" rose and fell in succession.

Mark Smith, the former Delta Force elite, led a three-man team through an abandoned mall. Utilizing the complex terrain, they ambushed and flanked, continuously harvesting the "heads" of Red Army soldiers.

"Hey, Egyptian kid, didn't your mother tell you to knock before entering?" He leaned out from a ceiling ventilation duct and pulled the trigger on a Red Army squad searching below.

*Rat-tat-tat!*

A burst of dye rounds swept through, and the group below "collapsed" accordingly.

On the other side, "Falcon," the former SAS ace sniper, occupied the highest building in the urban area—the top of a clock tower.

His sniper rifle dominated the battlefield. Any Red Army soldier who dared to expose themselves in the open for more than three seconds would be "headshotted" by him.

The battle lasted from dawn until dusk.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, the Red Army's first general offensive ended in a crushing defeat.

They had suffered over sixty percent "casualties" without even managing to break through the first line of defense of the simulated urban area.

At nightfall, Fatah ordered the offensive to be suspended for the entire army to rest and reorganize.

In the temporary field hospital, the atmosphere was oppressive. Red Army soldiers silently cleaned the various colored dyes off themselves, many moving slowly with numb expressions.

Many of them were veterans of the Egyptian army who had participated in real combat. But they had never experienced such a frustrating defeat.

Their opponents were elusive, and their fighting methods were unheard of. Their tactics, marksmanship, and teamwork were far beyond the Egyptian army's understanding.

The commander, Omar, was utterly devastated. He found Fatah and lowered his head in shame.

"Colonel, I... I request to be disciplined. I underestimated the enemy."

"It's not your fault, Omar." Fatah patted his shoulder, pulled him aside, and said in a low voice, "I told you long ago to treat them as real enemies. Now, do you believe me?"

Omar nodded vigorously, his jaw tightening.

"Tonight, reflect and summarize well. Tomorrow, I need you to come up with a completely new approach." Fatah's gaze shifted toward the brightly lit simulated urban area in the distance, his tone carrying undisguised sternness.

"Tell the brothers that this was just the appetizer. The real battle has only just begun."