South Scotland, Karenbridge Town.

In a woodland northwest of the town, a reconnaissance squad was lurking in the reconnaissance company of the Scottish Army's 209th Infantry Regiment. They have been holding on for a whole day since the coalition forces captured Karenbridge and the 209th Regiment and friendly forces retreated. Their mission was to closely monitor the opponent's every move and try to send intelligence back to the regiment headquarters, but due to the poor radio communications, their contacts with the rear were intermittent.

The commander of this reconnaissance squad was Edren Loy, the burly squad commander. He had served in the Scottish Army for 11 years. He was impeccable in both military skills and professional ethics. He was just because his education was too low and he did not know how to flatter, so he became a typical "hard-core squad commander" - meaning those old squads who could not advance to the ranks of officers until they retired.

At noon, he saw that the coalition forces inside and outside the town were still busy building fortifications. Roy was lying in the bushes, covering his face with a military cap. He wanted to take a nap, but he didn't want to sleep very heavily. He woke up suddenly until someone slapped his shoulder hard.

Seeing the faces of the soldiers of the subordinates and hearing the faint sound of gunfire, Roy hurriedly asked: "What's wrong? What's going on? Is the enemy coming?"

"No, no, from the direction of the sound, it seems that our people are breaking out!" replied the soldier who woke him.

"Breakthrough? The order is to hold on for three days, it's only the next day!" Roy's eyes widened.

"Yes, I can't figure out what's going on!"

Roy frowned and thought for a while: "Well, it may be because the supply was cut off by the enemy, so he really couldn't hold on! However, the enemy occupied the traffic and consolidated the position. It was very difficult for our troops to break out!"

After saying that, Roy got up carefully, bent down to the edge of the woods, and observed the situation outside with a telescope.

This time, Dumfries is about 30 kilometers, and you can hear gunshots, and the firefighting position will not be too far away.

"It seems like it's just a fire reconnaissance, or a small army that lacks organization breaks through." Roy said to himself.

The town of Karenbridge, which has more than 200 buildings of all sizes, is only three or four kilometers away from the woods. The reason why Roy's reconnaissance team was able to lurk here for a day is inevitable to the clear combat deployment of the coalition forces: after occupying Karenbridge, the coalition armored mechanized troops advanced westward along the road, probably to play the essence of "blitzkrieg" and cut off the retreat of the Scottish front-line defenders at the fastest speed, thereby eliminating the vitality of the Scottish army and avoiding the war of attrition in positions.

The coalition forces left behind in Karenbridge Town used the fortifications abandoned by the defenders to rebuild the circular defense system and deployed traction artillery and wheeled rocket launchers. Within the range of the artillery, the coalition forces built multiple defensive positions based on the terrain. With relatively concentrated troops, they did not conduct a dragnet search on the surrounding villages and woods, but set up fixed guard sentinels and mobile patrol troops, and together with the aviation troops dispatched day and night, surveillance the battlefield in real time, and firmly grasped the initiative on the battlefield.

From this point of view, before the situation changes, as long as Roy and his soldiers remain "quiet", the coalition forces controlling this area are unlikely to come here to find their "trouble".

According to Roy's observation, the coalition forces in Karenbridge Town had only two or three battalions at the beginning, and after being reinforced, they increased to three or four thousand people, and had fifty or sixty artillery pieces, combat vehicles, and more than one hundred armored vehicles. Considering that the coalition aviation forces basically have the ability to support the battlefield all-weather, even if Dumfries's guards concentrated their forces to break through in this direction, their chances of victory would not exceed 20%.

Thinking of this, Roy hurriedly picked up his pen and wrote and drew the page of paper, then called a privateer, and ordered: "Steven, you and John ride a bicycle together, try every means to find the regiment headquarters and hand it over to them. If the leaders of the regiment headquarters do not have any special instructions, after completing the task, you will stay in the regiment headquarters and wait for us, and there is no need to come back here."

The Sgt. took on the task without hesitation and saluted: "Good luck to everyone!"

Roy replied, "I wish you good luck too!"

After the two soldiers left, Roy continued to observe the situation outside in a hidden position on the edge of the woods in a posture of kneeling on one knee. Not long after, gunfire sounds in the direction of Dumfries fell until they were completely calmed down.

"The breakout failed." Roy said to himself, "Did they be captured or retreating voluntarily?"

Here, no one can answer his doubts.

After four o'clock in the afternoon, the sound of fighting came from Dumfries. This time, there were not only gunfires, but also quite dense explosions. The fire and smoke from the explosion appeared in the sight. It was far away at the beginning. As the sky gradually became dim, the fierce firefighting between the two sides continued to move westward. In some relatively open places, Roy even saw combat vehicles and soldiers on both sides.

Just as he was praying for his troops secretly, the nearby town of Karenbridge suddenly sounded the rumbling of guns like war drums. After the magnification of the four-fold telescope, the artillery positions in the east of the town, the entire row of howitzers sprayed orange flames and gray-white smoke, and the self-propelled artillery parked under the camouflage net also tilted the inclined artillery forward at a higher rate of fire.

While observing, Loy was recording on the yellowed notebook. Although his marking method was somewhat different from the officers from the Military Academy, this purely hand-painted enemy situation diagram was sent to the regiment headquarters, and the old staff members could accurately identify the information content.

"Boss, I just received half a telegram, signed by Dumfries Operations Command!" The communications soldier came to Roy with a tired and heavy face.

The so-called "half-copy telegram" usually refers to telegrams with incomplete content or ambiguity in important content.

Roy turned his head and glanced at the messenger: "Bad news?"

The correspondent responded with his expression.

Roy took a deep breath, took the handwritten draft paper from the communications soldier, and swept it quickly.

"All break through at 10 o'clock tonight?"

"Yes, ten o'clock, I can be sure of this, but..." The communications soldier paused, "We are so close to them that we can't get the complete telegram content yet. The situation of the command center located in the rear must be even worse. If they hadn't received the telegram at all..."

Loy also thought of this possibility. He turned around and glanced into the woods and ordered, "Go and call Kim over for me!"

After a while, a tall and thin corporal came to Roy with an SM-44 submachine gun made by imitation Brida.

Loy handed the draft paper with half a telegram to the corporal, then lowered his head and added some content on his notebook, tearing off the page for the second time that day.

"Go and bring the news and intelligence back to the regiment headquarters - if you meet friendly forces, if they can contact their superiors, you can leave it to them." After that, Roy lowered his head and thought, "Take Neil, Greg, ride a bicycle, and be careful to avoid the enemy's patrol! It's getting dark, you have to hurry up!"

"I understand!" The corporal folded two pieces of paper and put them in his pocket on his chest, looked in the direction of Dumfries, and turned around and left decisively.

Watching the reconnaissance team's most capable general leave with two brave soldiers, Roy turned his attention to Karenbridge Town again. The coalition artillery troops were still firing unscrupulously in the distance, not worrying about being counterattacked by opponents or air strikes. The situation was not only so bad. Roy saw the rolling dust and smoke on the road east of Karenbridge Town. He carefully identified it as an enemy armored column, the vanguard of the vanguard. He had seen in the technical drawing album, the "Irish leopard" developed by the new United Kingdom. Except for another new chariot developed by the country, the "Irish Tiger" and the "Germanic Soldiers" who served the Germans at the same time, no chariot can match it, and even few chariots can threaten its safety, which shows the advancedness of this chariot!

15 Irish leopards, 22 "mule" armored personnel carriers, 9 "shield" self-propelled anti-aircraft artillery vehicles, 6 "Rhino" heavy self-propelled artillery, 20 six-wheeled trucks (half of them are suspected to be equipped with multiple rocket launchers). Loy recorded the enemy situation he had detected in his notebook. Just one day ago, the coalition raided the town of Karenbridge with armored troops of similar size, and defeated the two Scottish infantry regiments stationed here with one charge. Such armored forces are not only good at attacking quickly, interspersing at high speed, and attacking and grabbing points, but also far higher than ordinary troops mainly in infantry. No matter where they appear, they can give the opponent a great psychological shock.

In view of this, Loy marked a very sloppy line at the bottom of this page: Karenbridge Town - an absolute penalty area to avoid when breaking through!

After hesitating for a long time, Roy called the correspondent: "Can you find a way to send a message to Dumfries Operations Command?"

The communications soldier answered frankly: "The enemy's radio interference is very powerful. We need to try multiple backup frequencies to contact them - as long as their radio equipment is still operating normally. The biggest problem is... we are almost under the enemy's nose. Once we send a report to the outside world, the enemy will immediately detect our position and then gather in all directions. If it is dark, we will evacuate immediately after sending the report, and maybe we can get rid of the enemy's pursuit, but now..."

Dusk is approaching and night is not coming. There are only three ways to put in front of Roy: send a newspaper at night, don’t send a newspaper, or send a newspaper immediately.

Roy gritted his teeth and said, "It is related to the survival of tens of thousands of soldiers on our side, we must take a chance."

The communication soldier thought for a while and said freely: "Although the enemy may not even give us the chance to surrender, and will send us to heaven with just one shot, but for those brothers who have been holding on with the enemy's artillery fire for two days and one night, and for the slim final victory, I am willing to take a chance with you!"
Chapter completed!