Chapter 859 Breaking the Attack
There is no doubt that those who can be sent to the peacekeeping force are the elites of various countries - after all, only in this way can they show their military power to other countries through international cooperation.
So not only Kolo, but also the troops from Burkina Faso and Niger who participated in the AU peacekeeping mission in Mali this time are also the most elite troops in their countries, equipped with all the equipment. They are state of the art.
For Niger, in the past, their military mainly cooperated with France, Italy and the United States and received training from them.
In terms of military equipment, Niger’s peacekeeping forces are also mainly equipped with French and South African equipment.
Needless to say, there is no need to talk about French equipment. After all, Niger was once a French colony, and France still has troops and military bases in Niger.
Therefore, their outsourcing of arms is mainly French weapons.
As for their South African-made weapons and equipment, including the PumaM26-15 armored vehicle and the Mamba Mk7 armored mine-protected vehicle, they all come from military assistance from the United States - after all, the United States has deployed the largest number of weapons in Niger, second only to Djibouti. army.
The situation of the Burkina Faso peacekeeping troops is similar to that of Niger, except that almost all of their equipment is French weapons.
Burkina Faso also has an air force of several hundred people. Its main combat mission is to assist France in attacking domestic armed forces. It has 1 attack aircraft squadron, 1 transport aircraft squadron, and 1 helicopter squadron.
This also shows France’s influence in West Africa.
However, even though the 1,300 people from Niger and Burkina Faso among the peacekeeping forces of the three countries are already their most elite troops, and their equipment is the best in their countries, when they saw the equipment of the Colo Corps, they still It's hard to conceal envy.
After all, the French equipment in both countries is from the French regular army or is from the second-line army.
Even if Niger has military aid from the United States, it is all equipment produced in South Africa...
But the equipment used by the Colo Army is all equipment currently in service by the British and American coalition forces in the Iraq War. Not only are their individual soldiers well-equipped, they even have M3 infantry fighting vehicles and M109 self-propelled howitzers.
It's not that the Colo Corps can't get the US military's M1A2 main battle tank, it's just that it's not cost-effective for them.
But what dazzled them the most was the aerial drones of the Koro Legion.
Although it is far inferior to the U.S. Predator UAV that can directly launch Hellfire ground-attack missiles, which can destroy enemy facilities and kill personnel...
But the Coyote II UAV is used in reconnaissance It is still very useful in terms of enemy movement and defense deployment.
At this time, the peacekeeping troops of the three countries have arrived at a small town about 200 kilometers northeast of Bamako, the capital of Mali. This is located in the important town of Kona, which has been occupied by the "Defenders of the Faith" organization. Going to the capital On the flanks of the road, the straight-line distance from Kona is about 400 kilometers.
A total of three battalions of 1,800 peacekeeping troops from Kolo, Niger and Burkina Faso were deployed on three sides of the town to maintain a certain range of safety zones to prevent the rebels from the "Defenders of the Faith" organization from continuing southward, and to contain and Protect civilians fleeing here from the direction of Kona.
In fact, they face little pressure from the rebels in this direction.
After all, according to the intelligence obtained, the main force of the rebels is about 10,000 people, although their number is much higher than the number of peacekeeping forces from the three countries, and even larger than the African Union peacekeeping mission deployed to Mali this time. The total strength of the army is even greater.
But at this time, the rebels have split into two forces, and they are still on guard against each other.
In addition, they have considerable strength to garrison towns and put pressure on the capital. Therefore, the number of rebels across the three countries does not pose a great threat to them. However, the peacekeeping forces of the Colo Corps are not satisfied with just maintaining their safe zone from being attacked by the other side - although the rebels have received training from terrorist organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the excellent matching mechanism of the African region, although The rebels had previously pressed Mali's government troops to the ground and rubbed them, but the Colo Legion did not pay attention to their combat effectiveness.
In fact, these armed forces in Africa are relatively fierce when fighting against the wind, but they are not very organized. Once they face a headwind, they can easily be defeated.
What's more, through the reconnaissance of the Coyote II drone during this period, the peacekeeping force of the Colo Corps has already grasped the situation on the opposite side to a great extent.
There are nearly 2,000 armed rebels stationed in Kona, and more than 400 of them have established a forward position in a village about 50 kilometers southwest of Kona.
According to drone reconnaissance, it was found that the other party often sent teams of dozens of people to harass and attack nearby small towns and villages in the front.
Recently, these small groups of harassers were less than 150 kilometers away from the safety zone where the Koro Corps peacekeeping troops were located.
Therefore, the peacekeeping force of the Koro Legion is preparing to eliminate these small groups of harassing teams with the cooperation of drone intelligence.
Their intention is not to use ground troops to occupy the opponent's stronghold, but to eliminate its effective forces.
The peacekeeping force of the Colo Corps has five armed helicopters, namely three Lynx and two Apache armed helicopters.
There are also three Chinook transport helicopters, each of which can transport 45 fully armed soldiers or 10 tons of cargo.
Therefore, three Chinook transport helicopters can easily transport a company of soldiers (about 120 people) or half a company of soldiers, together with the military vehicles and other heavy equipment they are riding in, to a designated location, allowing them to maneuver and harass the rebels. The team conducts an ambush.
These operations can also practice the information transmission and cooperation between drones and ground forces in actual combat.
It is one thing to know that the designation of tactics is one thing. This time, the Colo Corps peacekeeping force that came to Mali, except for the fifteen-person drone technical team, were all composed of black people from Colo. Composed of soldiers and officers - among them, the commander of the peacekeeping force, Malcolm Oliver, was sent to an army command college in China by the Colo military government. After graduation, he joined the Colo Corps and then led the team to perform security tasks in Iraq. .
It can be said that Malcolm Oliver is the best local black officer in the Colo Corps. His performance is very outstanding and he has an excellent style of leading troops. Therefore, he was appointed as the commander of the peacekeeping force in Mali this time. .
Malcolm admired most "The Art of War" and was an officer who liked to use changeable tactics.
This time, he personally led the team to execute the operation.
After discovering that the rebel raiding team was dispatched, using the opponent's movements provided by the Coyote II drone, Malcolm led nearly 50 elite soldiers and flew close by in a Chinook transport helicopter covertly, and then Get off the plane and take a military vehicle to ambush the enemy at the place where they must pass on their return journey.
There will also be armed helicopters providing air support.
In this way, even if they had similar numbers to the opponent, under such an ambush, the rebels were basically unable to organize an effective counterattack, and were completely wiped out in the rout.
After conducting these two ambushes and killing more than a hundred rebels, the rebels near Kona began to huddle in the town and no longer dared to go out in small groups to harass.
With such a result, the peacekeeping force of the Koro Legion ended up with almost zero casualties - the only unlucky guy was that he was too excited at the time and his arm was scratched by a stray bullet when he stood up to shoot.
(End of this chapter)