Chapter 1625: Chapter 1542: Battle Between Two Eras
No matter how, the vanguard troops of the Tang Army have already charged into the outskirts of Ben’s city. Suddenly, a Type 96 main battle tank entered the battlefield in the suburbs, followed by the Tang Army Paratroopers beginning to enter the city.
Xiang Ziyu gripped his brand-new rifle, running hunched over along a road filled with rubble. He could feel someone aiming at him, so he tried his best to lower his body.
The weapons equipped by the Tang Army Paratroopers were very different from those of the army troops. Their equipment was more sophisticated, and they obviously carried more weight.
Carrying so much weaponry, ammunition, and items like food required a more rational weight distribution, so the paratroopers’ gear was more precise and more expensive.
Their canteens were made from a special material, crafted to form a vest, worn inside the gear, allowing them to carry more than two liters of drinking water at critical moments.
The rifles of the Tang Army Paratroopers were designed with short barrels and folding stocks. In a critical situation, they could sacrifice stability and fire without shoulder support—making their weapons more compact and reliable in complex parachuting environments.
"Machine gun crew! Flanks! Flanks!" A Dwarf Officer hysterially yelled from within the ruins upon spotting the advancing Tang Army Paratroopers.
Across the street, Xiang Ziyu agilely flipped into a low wall and saw his comrade loading a gun grenade there.
"Nearby! The Dwarfs are on the other side of the street! They have machine guns!" Xiang Ziyu touched the monocular night vision device on his head, worrying about losing this not-so-cheap item.
"I see it!" The soldier who had just loaded the gun grenade saw the "officer" and replied, raising his gun.
"Cover!" Xiang Ziyu raised his assault rifle and ordered others. Then seven or eight people peeked their heads out from behind the low wall and fired wildly at the other end of the street.
"Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!" The dense bullets stunned the Dwarfs setting up machine guns, who were experiencing such ferocious firepower for the first time, unable to adapt.
Their combat against the Elves, although brutal, didn’t reach such intensity: Both Elves and Dwarfs used bolt-action rifles as their main infantry weapons because these could save ammunition and quickly boost troop numbers.
As not so precise infantry weapons, bolt-action rifles were easier to maintain and train on, so many countries were not in a rush to eliminate them.
But the weaknesses of such weapons became evident against the Tang Army: Not enough density of firepower, overly reliant on machine gun support, making soldiers equipped with bolt-action rifles suffer significantly.
Their previous opponents had not so many ways to quickly destroy their fire support points, meaning those machine guns and light machine guns. Therefore, both sides could fight back and forth, not immediately exposing the issue.
Relocating the machine gun position before the enemy’s mortar unit could react could very well organize defense or offense.
Upon encountering the Tang Army, their heavy weapons were far too advanced, with tanks and armored vehicle ratios so high that they could easily eliminate these machine gun points and cover troop advances.
Meanwhile, the Tang Army Soldiers had gun grenades, rocket launchers, and more portable mortars, easily taking out these machine gun fire points, making such machine guns less reliable.
Without automatic weapon support, and with only semi-massive light weapons, the unit’s firepower density was clearly insufficient: This is one major reason why the German Army developed assault rifles during World War II: the American and Soviet Armies increasingly easily crushed MG machine gun positions, whose survival time was too short, already unable to provide adequate fire support for the infantry.
Without the fire support from machine guns, and unable to increase heavy fire ratios, they could only hope to supplement the firepower gap through infantry firepower enhancement.
Bullets hitting the ruins where the Dwarfs hid raised a cloud of white smoke, while dirt and debris splintered, preventing the Dwarf Soldiers in the ruins from even raising their heads.
With effective cover fire received, the Tang Army Paratrooper who loaded the grenade stood up and fired at the Dwarf positions across the street, with the grenade directly hitting the ruins, causing a violent explosion.
It was as if a shell hit the target, scattering the Dwarfs with brutal firepower. The sound of explosions rang in their ears, and injured soldiers appeared before their eyes, while that crucial machine gun was damaged, lying on its side and ignored.
"Charge!" Having ducked back behind the low wall to avoid the explosion, Xiang Ziyu flipped over the low wall and issued the attack order.
The Paratroopers around him followed their officer out of the cover, with heavy footsteps, charging at the Dwarf Soldiers, who had not yet realized the danger was right in front of them.
The custom Paratrooper boots crunched on the rubble, producing cracking sounds, and as the dust from the single-soldier grenade explosion had not yet settled, Xiang Ziyu led the charge with his assault rifle onto the small high ground held by the Dwarfs.
A bloodied Dwarf Soldier saw the approaching human and instinctively reached for his rifle, but the incoming bullet directly smashed into his skull, causing blood to splatter everywhere.
Xiang Ziyu aimed down the mechanical sight with one eye, cheek pressed against the cold folding stock, making rapid bursts at every visible silhouette.
He fired rhythmically, squeezing the trigger once each time to fire two bullets, while his surroundings gradually cleared up, the previous faint moans and cries suddenly stopped at some point.
"Clear!" A soldier next to him raised a fist and shouted to his comrades behind: "Watch for distant threats! Watch out for snipers!"
Xiang Ziyu removed the empty magazine, placing it in the magazine pouch on his side, and drew a new magazine from the pouch next to it, inserting it into his rifle.
He didn’t rush to pull the gun bolt but cautiously observed the surrounding environment. Only about three to four meters away lay the Dwarf Soldier he had just taken down.
The blood on the opponent’s beard hadn’t dried, still flowing along the beard, the steel helmet rolled to the side, with its troop number already very old.
At this point, a Type 96 main battle tank quickly passed through the street behind the Paratroopers, followed one by one by armored vehicles.