"IED!"
"Contact, Contact!"
"KIA, KIA!"
"Taking fire!"
The radio channel plunged into chaos in an instant, with various tactical communication terms interweaving and filling everyone's hearing.
As per procedure, the infantry of the lead forces were to conduct detailed searches and reconnaissance of the surrounding buildings and streets at each location they passed, ensuring safety before notifying the following troops to advance.
Previously, Major Lonnie had particularly emphasized the need for the lead Sword Company's armored platoon to shell the surrounding buildings indiscriminately to ensure no ambush was present before advancing.
However, unexpectedly, even with such caution, they couldn't avoid triggering a trap.
What utterly destroyed their armored command vehicle wasn't an RPG rocket but an IED, a roadside explosive device pre-planted nearby.
The location of this IED was particularly ingenious, neither above the road surface nor simply buried in a dug hole—such methods would have been easily noticed by patrolling soldiers.
Members of the Armed Organization within the city cleverly planted the IEDs under manhole covers and in roadside drainage ditches.
Mosul, as the second largest city in Illiguo before the war, had quite well-developed urban infrastructure.
The advantage of planting IEDs under manhole covers and in roadside drains was that it didn't require breaking the ground or digging holes to hide them, making it difficult for patrolling soldiers to find explosives hidden in those nooks and crannies.
After all, no one would lift each manhole cover to check for traps inside—that wasn't the treatment for a presidential motorcade, nor was there enough time or energy for such meticulous searches.
This move brought a great risk to the troops entering the city to clear it.
Especially today, buoyed by the good news sent back by Song Heping and his team last night, the coalition troops attacking Mosul were in high spirits, and their march from entering the city to the Crossroads Area I was remarkably smooth, with few encounters with resistance.
In the eyes of Major Lonnie and Brigadier General Yue Ke, this was due to last night's precise bombings causing severe damage to the Resistance Organization inside the city, leading to their morale collapse, hence the fleeing of armed elements in the city today.
In this, they were not wrong.
Starting last night, indeed, many armed personnel in Mosul City put down their weapons, changed into civilian clothes, and evacuated Mosul through various means.
However, this was not out of fear.
It was a strategic retreat to preserve their strength.
If they could not hold on, they would not continue to defend stubbornly.
Having defended Mosul for more than half a year, the coalition forces were worn out, and so were the members of the Armed Organization inside the city.
Today, the city's Armed Organization planned to fight for one last day.
They left a third of their forces to resist and focused them near several key traffic arteries, with only small squads sent out to make token raids in other areas.
Their ultimate goal was to make the coalition forces let down their guard and gradually move into the ambush circle they had set.
At this moment, the M4 armored command vehicle lay like an overturned giant turtle, belly up in the middle of the crossroads.
The bombs in the roadside drains began to explode one by one.
The patrolling soldiers who couldn't take cover in time were instantly blown into the air.
Several Humvees close to the roadside were torn in half by the violent explosion, as these vehicles didn't have much anti-mine capability. Their glass and armor could withstand 7.62 caliber bullets, and even attacks from individual 12.7 caliber rounds, but the chassis was their fatal weakness.
The explosion then triggered a chain reaction of the ammunition on board.
Bullets scattered like fireworks in all directions.
Several soldiers, on fire all over, struggled to climb out of the vehicle. In agony, they pleaded with their comrades, "Please end it for me!"
"Please kill me!"
The I-section intersection instantly turned into a living hell.
The unexploded Bradley Fighting Vehicles' M242 chain guns on top frantically spit out flames, their operators no longer knowing where to shoot.
All they could do was keep firing.
That's right.
The sound of gunfire gave them a semblance of safety.
They poured large-caliber fire at every building in sight chaotically.
Boom boom boom—
Boom boom boom—
However, due to panic, many shells mistook their own vanguard troops for targets ahead.
It is known that the Bradley Fighting Vehicle's turret is equipped with three weapons: Tao's Anti-Tank Missile Launcher, a 7.62mm caliber M240C machine gun, and a M242 25mm chain gun.
According to international conventions, a weapon classified as a gun usually has a caliber of no less than 25mm.
The M242 chain gun's caliber is precisely 25mm, with a maximum firing rate of 200 rounds per minute. Its depleted uranium penetrator rounds can not only pierce the main armor of BMP-1/2 infantry fighting vehicles but have also been recorded piercing the main armor of T-55 tanks during sustained fire.
Therefore, when the Bradley M2s at the rear indiscriminately opened fire in utter disregard, those armored vehicles and infantry fighting vehicles of the same unit that had crossed the intersection and pushed forward hundreds of meters suffered unwarranted misfortune.
As the troops at the intersection were being attacked, the vanguard units were also subjected to a fierce attack by militants.
The militants, who seemed to have disappeared earlier, suddenly emerged from all around, seizing the moment when coalition troops were in chaos to launch attacks from various directions.
"Take a detour! Take a detour!"