Chapter 1792 - 1372: Titrick's All-Out Assault Begins (Part 3)

The area became a burning crater, with at least twenty soldiers killed and more injured.

But 1515's breakout convoy also suffered heavy losses.

Over twenty vehicles were destroyed, with at least two hundred casualties.

The remaining vehicles began to turn back, fleeing into the city.

"Count the casualties, reinforce the defenses." Naxin's voice was hoarse, "They will return."

He looked eastward, in the direction of Tikrit. The shelling on the eastern front continued, and the entire city was ablaze.

The sky was about to brighten.

North front, north bank of the Tigris River.

Abu You stood on the turret of a T-72 tank, looking at the North City District of Tikrit across the river.

The bombardment had been going on for ten minutes.

The main targets in the North City District—the government building, police station, and TV station—were all hit by shells.

Drone footage showed these buildings either collapsed or burning fiercely.

But Abu You knew the real battle hadn't begun yet.

The 1515 Armed had been operating in Titrick for over two years, turning it into a massive fortress.

Streets were blocked with barricades, trenches were dug between buildings, and snipers lurked behind every high-rise window.

More lethal were those underground passages, three known, possibly more unknown.

"First Armored Company, begin crossing the river," Abu You ordered.

Engineer units had already set up three pontoon bridges on the Tigris River.

Each bridge could only bear the weight of one tank; the crossing was slow and dangerous.

The first T-72 cautiously rolled onto the pontoon bridge.

The fifty-ton weight sank the bridge deeply into the water, but the engineers' design was solid, holding steady.

The tank slowly moved towards the opposite bank.

The commander exposed half his body from the turret, observing the streets on the opposite side with binoculars. The gunner scanned each window through the sight, finger poised on the trigger.

The crossing was disturbingly smooth.

The first tank safely reached the other side, quickly advancing into a ruin for cover.

Then came the second, third...

When the sixth tank drove onto the pontoon bridge, there was finally a reaction from the other side.

"Anti-tank missile!" the lookout shouted.

From a fourth-floor window of a five-story building in the North City District, a missile trailed white smoke as it was launched.

It was a 9M133 "Kornet," a second-generation Russian anti-tank missile, with a range of five kilometers and a penetration depth of one thousand millimeters.

The front armor of a T-72 had only four hundred eighty millimeters.

"Smoke Bomb! Evasion!" Abu You shouted.

The tank commander also noticed the threat and immediately launched the smoke bomb.

A milky white smoke burst around the tank, forming a barrier.

Meanwhile, the driver made a sharp turn, trying to maneuver the tank on the narrow pontoon bridge.

But it was too late.

The "Kornet" missile pierced through the smoke, hitting precisely on the left side of the tank's turret.

The high-temperature metal jet from the shaped charge pierced the armor, with the jet and armor fragments splattering inside the closed vehicle.

The ammunition exploded.

The turret of the T-72 was blown ten meters high, then crashed heavily into the river.

The vehicle caught fire, and a section of the pontoon bridge was also blown off.

"Sniper! Four o'clock, that gray building!" Abu You roared into the radio.

The Kurd Brigade's counter-sniper team was already in position.

Two teams, two people per team, one observing, the other shooting.

They used 12.7mm anti-materiel rifles with armor-piercing incendiary rounds.

The first shot.

A 12.7mm bullet traversed four hundred meters, shattering that window.

The "Kornet" shooter behind got his upper body blown apart, blood and organs splattering the walls.

But the opposite side's anti-tank firepower wasn't limited to that spot.

A second missile came from another direction, hitting a BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle that had just landed.

This vehicle had thinner armor, and the missile directly blew it in half, all eight soldiers inside perished.

"Suppress their firepower!" Abu You commanded.

The Kurd artillery on the north bank began to retaliate.

Six 122mm self-propelled howitzers aimed at the buildings launching missiles, firing in direct sight.

The first volley collapsed the middle portions of three buildings.

Bricks, concrete chunks, and human remains fell from the sky.

"Infantry, cross the river!" Abu You knew they couldn't wait any longer.

A beachhead had to be established, landing area expanded.

Three companies of Kurd infantry began crossing the river in assault boats.

Each boat carried twelve men, with the machine gunners at the bow vigilantly scanning the opposite side.

The 1515 defenders on the other side opened fire.

AK-47 rifles, PKM machine guns, RPG-7 rocket launchers...

Bullets and rockets rained down on the river surface.

An assault boat was hit by an RPG, blown to pieces.

The twelve soldiers on board died instantly, their limbs and equipment fragments scattered across the river.

Another boat was raked by heavy machine gun fire, 7.62mm bullets shredding the thin hull, tearing the soldiers inside to bloody shreds.

The river was stained red, bodies drifting downstream with the current.

The vanguard soldiers did not retreat.

Because retreating now would mean dying faster than pressing forward.

They braved the fire, continuing to cross the river, while the machine gunners on the boats exchanged fire with the other bank to buy time for their comrades.

The first boat reached the shore.

Twelve soldiers jumped out and rushed to the nearest cover at full speed.

It was a section of a collapsed wall.

They set up machine guns, starting to suppress the fire points on the opposite bank.

More and more boats landed.

A hundred men, two hundred, three hundred...

The beachhead gradually expanded.

"Tanks, support the infantry, clear the streets!"

Abu You saw the opportunity had come and ordered the tanks that had already crossed to advance.

Now that the infantry had crossed, joint infantry-tank operations could be conducted, reducing the risk of the tanks being isolated and overwhelmed.