Rumble!
Four shells landed around the raider city, kicking up waves of dust and smoke.
"Hit!"
Inside the cockpit of the Deep Blue, Wei Ran, with his sharp eyes, spotted the black smoke rising from the raider city and reported excitedly.
"Well done."
Jiang Zhixu gripped the handrail tightly, his eyes fixed intently on the battlefield.
This was his first time observing the entire process of the helmsman and gunner working together.
Almost at the same moment the gunner requested to fire, Wei Ran and Sun Cheng immediately reacted, maneuvering the city for a slight turn to create an almost exacting firing angle!
And the proficient-level gunner did not disappoint, successfully hitting one out of four shells.
Through the telescope, they could see thick smoke billowing from the hit area, igniting something and causing a fire to break out.
Repair arms carried buckets of water to douse the flames, while the slaves, looking panicked, grabbed a mishmash of tools to patch the holes.
"Tell the gunners not to spare resources! Keep firing!" Jiang Zhixu intended to strike while the iron was hot.
Immediately, two cannons on the side of the Deep Blue impatiently fired again!
But this time, the opponents had time to adjust, and these two shells failed to hit.
As long as the ammunition is sufficient, the cannons of a mobile city can fire continuously.
However, no one would be so extravagant.
Because a Level 1 iron ore resource point can only yield between one thousand to five thousand units of iron ore, with the smelting ratio of iron to steel being about 10:1, and each shell requiring 10 units of steel.
Not to mention the gunpowder, which is a strategic resource, used to make many things, and is even more scarce!
Typically, a conventional intensity battle would only prepare a quota of ten to twenty shells.
Cannons are actually used as decisive weapons.
So, aside from cannons, is combat between mobile cities just a staring contest?
Of course not!
At this moment, the raider city, having been hit by a shell, slowed down slightly, and then a huge lift platform was revealed at the bottom of the city, creaking open.
On the platform were five off-road vehicles, each mounted with a heavy machine gun!
Their tires roared and spun, then accelerated the moment they hit the ground, quickly leaving their own mobile city behind at speeds of up to a hundred kilometers per hour.
Dogfighting!
It refers to close combat when the battlefield is in a stalemate.
The convoy is the most crucial part of a dogfight.
Because the convoy usually carries the most advanced heavy weaponry from a city, such as heavy machine guns and rocket launchers!
Once they gain a positional advantage, they can easily use their agility to destroy the opponent's tires or tracks, turning them into sitting ducks!
Even if they can't gain an advantage, they can at least disrupt the enemy's attack rhythm.
For instance, now, if the Deep Blue ignores them and continues to charge straight ahead, it will surely take the full brunt of the convoy's first wave of attacks!
"Brother Jiang?" Wei Ran looked at Jiang Zhixu.
Jiang Zhixu hesitated for only a second before decisively shaking his head, "We can't dogfight with them. Have that apprentice junior gunner fire to disrupt the convoy, and Meng Guolong continue to aim at the enemy city, fire at will!"
Using cannons to target a convoy is akin to using anti-aircraft guns to shoot mosquitoes.
This operation seems extravagant in any city.
Because dogfighting itself is a product of mutual compromise under resource scarcity.
But considering their City Lord's miraculous talent, everyone present—including the two gunners below—accepted the order without any hesitation!
"Yes!"
Thus, the combat convoy, originally waiting in the mobile workshop to risk their lives, received orders to remain on standby.
"What's going on?"
The voice came from the convoy captain, Wang Haoran.
He looked bewildered.
Such an important position as the convoy captain was naturally one of Jiang Zhixu's trusted aides.
However, Wang Haoran had not yet received information about Jiang Zhixu's talent.
A team member beside him said, "Maybe Brother Jiang is worried we'll die in vain, considering we lack experience and our equipment is poor."
Wang Haoran looked around, and three dilapidated off-road vehicles came into view.
They were tattered, each topped with a light machine gun, and there wasn't much ammunition in the boxes.
The rest of the convoy were warriors who had joined the uprising, unafraid of death, but indeed lacking combat experience.
Their personnel quality and equipment were far inferior to the opponent's, making it difficult to return if they went down.
Wang Haoran gritted his teeth, turned to his nine team members, and asked loudly, "Are you afraid of dying?"
A young boy with a naive face grinned and said, "Who would join the uprising if they were afraid of dying!"
"No battles, no merits! How do we level up?"
"What's death? I just don't want to be a slave anymore!"
Others echoed.
Many had been slaves before, and now they had transformed into uprising soldiers and combat team members, even having their own small rooms in the upper city, which was already satisfying.
"Alright," Wang Haoran smiled, "I'll apply to Brother Jiang to go to the battlefield! We can't let the city we fought so hard for fall to the raiders!"
.
The news from the mobile workshop quickly reached the cockpit.
While touched, there was also a bit of helplessness. Jiang Zhixu said to Qi Honglang, "Go explain to them, tell them to be patient, it's far from the time for them to sacrifice!"
Actually, if they had superior equipment, he wouldn't mind letting his brothers go down to get some experience.
But firstly, the equipment disadvantage was too great, and secondly, the environment didn't allow it; they needed to resolve this battle quickly.
So they had to wrong everyone for now!
"Okay!" Qi Honglang walked to the side and used the communicator to contact below.
On the battlefield.
The situation of the raider city continued to deteriorate.
At this moment, they were only a thousand meters away from the Deep Blue, and with five more off-road vehicles deployed, at the convoy's speed, they should have been able to approach quickly.
Yet, what greeted them was a barrage of shells as if they cost nothing!
The shells from the Deep Blue were not solid iron balls from the old times but real bombs loaded with gunpowder!
With such an amount of explosive, even if it exploded ten meters away, it could flip a vehicle, let alone the junior gunner's fairly accurate shots!
The convoy dared not approach, only able to seek the Deep Blue's blind spots from eight hundred meters away, waiting for an opportunity.
Yet, even with such caution, they still lost a vehicle!
The raider city had already fallen into unease.
"How many shells do they have?"
In the cockpit, the burly man frowned, watching as their shells missed again.
In fact.
The shells that missed from the Deep Blue were more than five times theirs; they were only hit by one at the start, caught off guard.
The opponent's consumption was so high, yet he didn't feel happy at all!
Because the burly man couldn't determine the opponent's remaining shell count!
The helmsman took a deep drag on his cigarette, "One plus two plus four plus twelve... including the six fired at our convoy, they've already fired twenty-five shells!"
Judging by their posture, it's not over yet!
The burly man was startled.
"No, we must retreat!"
He never expected an ordinary Level 1 Mobile City to have such a stockpile of shells!
Damn that old man, telling a little lie before dying to drag them down!
At this moment, the burly man hated the former Deep Blue City Lord who broadcasted his position!
"Find a way to shake off the Deep Blue and retreat!"
The burly man said viciously.
The helmsman asked, "Do you want to contact allies for support..."
On the Wasteland, there's a well-known fact.
Once targeted by raiders, if a city doesn't have special modification parts, it's hard to escape, as all are Level 1 cities with similar speeds.
But this fact also works in reverse.
If a raider city is being hunted, they can't escape either!
This was the situation now.
The burly man immediately retorted, "We can cooperate to hunt prey together, but now that we've been hit, if other raider cities find out, we might become the prey!"
Their alliance was only formed to hunt prey, with very low binding force.
They could amicably share the spoils of a prey's carcass, but they couldn't watch each other's backs!
At this moment, asking them for support was too risky.
"But..." The helmsman pointed at the continuous rain of shells, speaking slowly, "Without support, we'll die just the same."
The deputy helmsman was skilled, but still struggled to dodge.
They had already narrowly avoided several shells.
The shockwaves from the explosions alone had caused multiple tire failures, slowing them down.
"Contact allies for support, we might not necessarily die, after all, we still have a Level 1 Cannon... Allies generally wouldn't act rashly, and even if they do, we can at least drag the Deep Blue down with us."
Hearing this, the burly man gritted his teeth, turned, and walked toward the City Lord's Chamber.