Chapter 560: How Can a General-Purpose Machine Gun Be More Accurate Than a Sniper Rifle?

"Director, director!"

"What's wrong?"

At night, a lamp lit inside the directorate's tent on the outer perimeter of the training ground.

Cai Zhengbang, director of the Navy‑Marine Headquarters, acting as the chief director of the exercise, methodically checked the command site to confirm whether each department's work was in place.

The Chief of Staff of the directing team, accompanied by a data collector, rushed over in a hurry to report the situation.

"Data fluctuations detected; the fight has already broken out!"

"What?"

Cai Zhengbang, his face full of surprise, glanced at the clock: "The exercise just started, the directorate's equipment hasn't even been fully connected yet, and they're already fighting over there? Who fired first, which unit was attacked?"

The data collector reported immediately: "Report, the Red side launched the initial attack; members of the Red side's Night Tiger Reconnaissance Battalion used two armed helicopters to strike the Blue side's 1st Battalion convoy while it was on the march."

According to the frontline battlefield, the directing officer accompanying the Blue forces reported that one troop carrier had been hit, and eight or nine Blue soldiers were eliminated.

"That was fast!"

Cai Zhengbang slapped his palm with his fist, his eyes filled with excitement.

Previously, the 2nd and 3rd Brigades had constant friction, each holding a grudge against the other.

Sure enough, once on the training field the Red side chose to strike first, and it was ace versus ace from the start.

This kind of exercise is interesting; what's the point of a sluggish start with probing, only opening fully in the middle or later stages?

"Do we have live footage?"

"We've already sent a drone; there should be footage by now."

"Good, then."

The monitors were powered on, and a dozen or so screens lit up simultaneously.

The images were all a uniform gray‑white, since they were shot at night, the resolution wasn't very high.

The other screens showed only the two sides' troops marching; only the upper‑right corner displayed combat.

Through the directorate's drone footage, two Red side armed helicopters hovered in the air, aiming and locking onto their target.

The hive whirred "whoosh whoosh whoosh" as it fired, sending thick smoke billowing through the forest below; over at the data collector, casualty reports for one or two Blue soldiers arrived intermittently.

The smoke sensor, linked to a chip, transmits data directly to the computer once triggered.

The directorate learns this instantly, allowing it to gauge each team's losses and track the battle's direction.

Cai Zhengbang sat in his chair, watching the two imposing Zhi-9WA armed helicopters on the screen, and said, "It seems the incident with the beachhead being pushed completely provoked the Red side; they came in with heavy weapons right away."

The Chief of Staff of the directing team nodded: "It was supposed to be a late‑game trump card, but it surged out without reservation at the start of the exercise; I've rarely seen such a situation before."

"And they came in blasting wildly, leaving the opponent no chance at all."

"Looks like the Red side wants to cripple the Blue side's ace unit, then torment the opponent like a cat playing with a mouse."

"They have little heavy firepower to begin with, and now they're facing two armed helicopters; I doubt they can even run away."

"But I'm curious—how did the Red side precisely pinpoint the 1st Battalion's marching route?"

Faced with the cacophony of discussion, Cai Zhengbang merely smiled and said nothing.

As the director of the Marine Corps Headquarters, he knows the 2nd Brigade's background well.

The formation of the 3rd Brigade, though meant to meet the Navy's new demands, lacks certain equipment as a newly formed unit.

Especially in terms of informationization, communications, and electromagnetic‑interference resistance; these basic hardware components are currently absent from the Blue army.

Thus, Cai Zhengbang concluded that the Red side must have inserted several information‑warfare experts, otherwise it would be impossible to so easily locate the Blue army's marching route and launch a targeted assault.

"The 1st Battalion is the Blue army's ace unit; if they're crippled here, Wang Zhongxi might have nothing left to fight with later."

"Old Wang probably didn't expect the Red side to strike so hard right away; this alone could shatter morale completely."

"However, from the footage the Blue unit still shows some precautions; the convoy's spacing is wide, they deliberately take narrow paths through the forest, which should minimize damage, and if they run fast enough they might retain a third of their forces."

"Useless; even if they abandon their vehicles and scatter, their legs can't outrun a helicopter; as long as those two helicopters stay, they can keep chasing them."

At that moment, none of the staff in the directorate had confidence in Lu Yang and his team.

Everyone thought the team's fate would be either total annihilation or being crippled, completely losing combat capability.

But just then, someone noticed two tiny dots appearing on the screen, as if on an exposed hilltop.

"Look, you all."

"What's going on? Everyone's hiding in the dense forest, yet someone ran up to the hilltop—doesn't that make a perfect live target?"

"Zoom in, zoom in further..."

As the camera zoomed in, the somewhat blurry figures of Lu Yang and Kong Long appeared on the screen.

"What is this...?"

"Look at that..."

"If he reloads the belt, could he be trying... to shoot down the armed helicopter?"

"Crazy, right? If this works and brings down a helicopter, what's the point of having anti‑air missiles?"

Cai Zhengbang was also stunned; after directing so many exercises, this was the first time he'd seen anyone try to shoot a helicopter with a machine gun.

Almost everyone thought the two on the screen must be delirious, or perhaps they'd watched too many anti‑Japanese war dramas.

At that moment, the two Red helicopters in the air each noticed Lu Yang below, and one pilot let out a sneering laugh.

"A beetle trying to shake a tree—overstepping its limits!"

"If I can hit it, I'll get out of the plane and brag about a kilo of shit!"

Meanwhile, Kong Long's brain was also stunned.

When suddenly attacked, he tried to hide with the platoon leader, but Lu Yang grabbed him as a conscript.

"Brother Lu, can this work? It's so high, so far..."

"Quiet!"

Lu Yang used Kong Long as a support, letting him shoulder the gun.

Lu Yang, meanwhile, squatted in the rear, aiming the gun barrel upward at the helicopter nearer to him.

His finger lightly tapped the trigger, first firing a short burst, then a crisp, continuous machine-gun sound rang out.

The general-purpose machine gun fires 650–700 rounds per minute, with an effective range of up to 800 meters, and can still cause damage even around a kilometer away.

His aim was not to shoot them down, but to drive off the two helicopters; to prevent low-altitude flight and to strafe the ground targets they were tracking.

If left unchecked, they would merely hide and flee; just these two armed helicopters could cripple their unit.

Rat-tat!

A sound came from the fuselage.

Immediately, the screen flashed to indicate a bullet hit.

Seeing this, the pilot who had arrogantly claimed he would shoot down a jin quickly increased altitude.

Obviously, they also realized Lu Yang intended to use the general-purpose machine gun to drive them off.

"What's wrong?"

Another pilot's inquiry came through his headset.

"I've been hit, the warning light is flashing."

"Holy shit, for real?"

"I couldn't lie to you; the computer determined the aircraft was hit by a bullet, just not a vital spot."

"No wonder this guy dares to blatantly run up with a machine gun; he must be a skilled gunner. I'll circle behind, take him out first to remove the threat, then chase the fleeing Blue Force."

The two pilots quickly summed it up and prepared a strategy to eliminate Lu Yang.

To them, who held absolute advantage, Lu Yang wasn't even worth much notice.

Because a single burst from them would kill both Lu Yang and his companion on the spot, whereas shooting down their aircraft would be extremely difficult for the other side.

"Shooting stopped; probably the machine gun fired too fast and ran out of ammo—great chance!"

Noticing Lu Yang's side had ceased fire, the pilot immediately realized an opportunity had arrived.

All they saw was him operating the stick, making a circle to lower altitude and swiftly approach Lu Yang's side.

Originally, he wanted to select an anti-tank missile, with one shell directly blasting that small hill flat.

But he thought that would be truly wasteful; anti-tank missiles are few and normally used against heavily armored targets, using them on two infantrymen would be uneconomical.

So he switched to a mounted machine gun, lowered altitude to aim at the target; but Lu Yang had already loaded ammo and fired a burst at him first.

【Warning, aircraft damaged, tail fuel tank leaking!】

The extra sensor installed by the director department sounded an alarm, turning the pilot's face ashen.

At such a tricky angle, they managed to hit the fuel tank—this guy cannot be allowed to stay.

With such huge recoil from the general-purpose machine gun, he can actually shoot more accurately than a sniper rifle—what the hell kind of monster is he?

"This guy must not be left alive; someone like him on the battlefield is the Red Side's greatest threat!"

His mind racing, the pilot ignored the sensor alarm and prepared to take out Lu Yang by force.

To that end, he even switched to the pod-mounted weapon, the sole remaining anti-tank missile, preparing to blast the target hill flat.

"Goodbye!"

"Fire!"

Just as he was about to press the launch switch, Guo Yongwen and Zhou Kaidong, who had been hiding in the lower woods per Lu Yang's request, shouldered man-portable air-defense missiles and got a lock first, pulling the trigger.

With a whoosh, the Red Tassel-6 anti-air missile, like an oversized skyrocket, shot straight into the sky, racing toward that damaged Red Side helicopter...