The "click" came from the bolt slamming into an empty chamber. Normally, this sound was drowned out by the sound of the bullet firing, so hearing it meant the magazine was empty.
"Reloading!"
Long Zhan shouted, turning around to crouch with his back against the wall, beginning to reload.
The soft ammo pouch was compact and held 100 rounds, offering high ammo capacity for sustained, fierce suppressive fire. The downside was that reloading took more time.
It couldn't match the slick, one-handed reloading speed of a magazine.
Fortunately, Long Zhan and Sonny were operating in tandem. Sonny's three-round short bursts consumed ammo slower, leaving him with plenty left.
Hearing Long Zhan's tactical call to reload, Sonny immediately took over and intensified his shooting, switching to five-round long bursts.
This ensured sufficient firepower even with just one man suppressing, keeping the remaining soldiers pinned down inside their houses, unable to interfere with Clay's attempt at stealing the truck.
Two seconds later!
"Switch!"
Long Zhan chambered a round while calling out, propping his gun back on the railing and resuming five-round bursts to hammer General Lionheart's troops.
Sonny, who hadn't emptied out his ammo yet, heard the call and switched to full-auto sweeps.
He dumped his remaining rounds rapidly into the enemy, then quickly crouched to swap his ammo pouch, ensuring the next rotation would go smoothly.
This way of alternating firepower for reloading was one of the basics of coordinated combat, ensuring uninterrupted firepower!
Beyond this basic alternating firepower coordination, there were more complex, more coordinated and more brutal tactics suited for team operations in localized engagements. Ideal for area-wide suppressive fire.
Like the famous "Hellfire" tactics!
At the team level, Hellfire tactics suppressed not just a few enemies, but an entire area!
That kind of suppressive power was even more terrifying.
People without professional military training, facing a well-drilled, coordinated team, would only end up getting one-sidedly crushed.
Even with superior weapons, they'd be mercilessly pinned down, without a chance to even pop up and shoot.
It sounded harsh, but that was real modern warfare.
And that didn't even factor in aerial assaults from armed helicopters, or technologically superior gunship bombardments, and the three-dimensional, space-level firepower suppression.
General Lionheart's forces had forty to fifty men, plus a ferocious large-caliber heavy machine gun. They clearly held advantages in numbers and equipment, yet they'd been flipped into a position of being hammered.
It seemed utterly unbelievable, but this was the most realistic outcome.
If not for concerns that this was General Lionheart's stronghold, with endless reinforcements incoming, and that their ammo wouldn't last...
On top of that, they had to make sure they were not killing too many people to prevent a political fallout, as that would be pretty hard to handle afterwards.
After all, no matter how dictatorial General Lionheart's army was, they were still Liberia's regular forces. Too many deaths, and even the president might not be able to suppress it.
If all these factors weren’t in play, Bravo Team wouldn't need to retreat at all. They would deal with them with ease.
…
With Long Zhan and Sonny, two professional fire team machine gunners working in perfect harmony, Clay was provided with a steady stream of suppressive fire.
Clay smoothly closed in on the armed pickup truck, shooting the driver at point-blank range with ease.
He dragged the driver's corpse out, before nimbly slipping into the truck to take his place. He fired up the engine and slammed the accelerator in reverse.
Rumble~
The armed pickup truck's diesel engine roared fiercely, belching a thick plume of black smoke from the rear.
Under Clay's skilled control, the vehicle, long past its prime after having passed through countless hands, shook violently.
The rusty front hood nearly fell off.
But pickup trucks were tough, no matter how beat-up they were. It thankfully held together.
With a sharp, grinding sound, the tires, long since worn out of their tread, left two rows of black marks on the dirt road.
He drove forward, his rear end leading the charge.
General Lionheart's soldiers noticed the anomaly, realizing that someone had stolen their armed pickup truck. They wanted to reclaim it, but they lacked the ability to do so, forced to watch helplessly as their pickup truck reversed into the darkness.
In this brief skirmish that lasted less than five minutes, the balance of power had flipped dramatically.
The forty-plus Lionheart soldiers who'd rushed over had been decimated by Sonny and Long Zhan's frenzied shooting, coupled with Jason's trio that were engaged in close-quarters indoor combat, over thirty of them were either killed or wounded.
The survivors were either tied down by Jason's group or pinned by Long Zhan and Sonny, unable to show their faces.
The other incoming Lionheart forces, even those in vehicles, were still two to three hundred meters away.
Those on foot would take at least three to four more minutes, but by then, it would be too late.
"What's going on?"
Jason, Trent, and Brock, locked in a shootout with Lionheart’s soldiers inside the house, also noticed the armed pickup truck's odd behavior. Question marks popped in their heads.
If it had just stopped firing, the three of them could understand.
Sonny and Long Zhan's original orders were to destroy the armed pickup truck within five minutes, then regroup in the alleyway and continue the retreat.
But now the pickup truck was suddenly reversing away in an urgent manner. This left them scratching their heads.
Fortunately, just as Jason's trio was baffled, clueless about the situation, Sonny timely called Jason on the team channel.
"Bravo 1, this is Bravo 3. Plan's changed. I’ll give you the details later, now’s not the time. Listen up.
“Under Bravo 6’s and my fire support, Bravo 7's successfully seized the enemy's armed pickup truck. He's heading to the exit of the alleyway as originally planned to pick us all up for evac.
“Bravo 6 and I are heading down now, ETA 20 seconds to the rally point. Can you bring your team over? Need us to cover you?"
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