(The next day, 8am)
Smoke puffed out from the simulated battlefield as the cadets carefully searched through the rubble, guns in high or low ready positions.
Walking in front of them is an AQR-6 "Jackal" quadruple robot. The 1.2m tall little guy is designed for support roles in military applications, from cargo bearing, search and rescue, to recon, and to meat grind enemies in an urban combat scenario.
A soft whirr from its head mounted optics suite scanned the path ahead, sweeping between infrared, LIDAR, and ultrasonic modes. Mounted on the mini turret in its back is a small remote weapon station, consisting of smoke dispensers and HK-416A5 with a loaded 40-round magazine strapped to it.
The cadets are travelling in 2 alternated columns: Ariel walking at the front, Louis to her Southeast direction, Eddie to his Southwest direction, and so on and so forth.
The advantage of such a formation is that it is very well suited to facing against an attack from the sides, where they are most likely to face in the current terrain conditions of massive scores of rubbles and abandoned buildings beside them. Be it from left or right, all operators have a clear line of fire towards the enemy, and should there be a contact in front, there are 2 shooters to engage too.
Sean stayed towards the back of the columns, situated somewhere in the middle; hand gripped on his HK-416A5 in high ready position.
The target objective of the group of 10 is to take over a small 3 storey building ahead of them. The simulated battle is that they are playing the role of the offensive forces, with the playbook being to grind the "enemy" in the simulated city while forces outside laid siege and shelled on "enemy" supply lines maintaining the defence, slowly squeezing the defenders and wearing them out with attrition. One portion of this fictional city is left open by the offensive forces, not because they lack the means to surround the city completely, but it was because that sector is stretches of open fields. The moment the "enemy" is forced there, what awaited them is an onslaught of artillery, missile, loitering munitions, and air to ground attacks.
Hence, the task given to Sean's group of cadets is to facilitate this process, by attacking the building in front of them.
After receiving their random groupings, the 10 cadets gathered to devise a plan to attack the building under a 10 minutes constraint before heading out, choosing to sneak in from the debris field.
Exiting the debris field, the group changed formation to 3 reverse triangle formation — robot scouting in the front, 3 in a group, 2 forward one back, with the commander of the squad in the middle. After a round of voting, they had given that role to Carl. This formation is preferred when the objective is to charge an enemy position that is expected to be armed, since there are more guns pointed ahead.
"Not bad for the first group to go," commented Jay, looking through the feed with a drone spying on the cadets.
On the ground, the team split up. Albert, Vera, Erika and Eddie moved away from their comrades heading to a small reverse slope in front of the building, while the rest continued their infiltration to the side.
Once they reached their standby positions, Carl gave Louis the signal, who then opened his radio.
"In position, pull it," said Louis.
Erika grinned, bending down on one knee, allowing a compartment on the back of her Exo-suit to face the building.
With a puff, a loitering munition is launched from Erika's Exo-suit, flying straight into an open window, into the face of an "enemy".
Erika grinned, pressing a button on her control gauntlet.
"BOOM!" the loitering munition blew up, spraying blue smoke all over the "enemies", and soon, yellow smoke rose out of their bodies, signalling that they are "KIA".
The "enemies" in the building quickly rushed to defend, only to get mowed down by machine gun fire from Eddie suppressing them with his FN Minimi machine gun. Next to him Albert raised his KAC SR-25 DMR, taking out high-value "enemy" targets – heavy weapons operators and radio operators. Erika and Vera launched more loitering munitions from their Exo-suits, while also using their HK-416A5 rifles to fire on "enemies".
Their task is to laydown as much firepower as possible, suppressing the "enemies" in the building and preventing them from looking out and engaging with their comrades heading to enter the building.
As gunfire and explosions lit up around them, the remaining 6 cadets moved to a side door.
Louis keyed in the command for the Jackal unit to change into assault mode. The Jackal robot deployed a folding shield that fully expanded, covering the point-man Ariel, while Clara, acting as the No.2 teammate, hit the door open with a battering ram before quickly moving back.
The Jackal fired its remote weapon platform, launching in flashbangs and spraying bullets as it moved in, downing an "enemy". Ariel followed behind, pieing the entrance with her HK-416A5 rifle as she stayed behind the robot, letting its shield cover her. Pieing is a technique used to safely and gradually clear a corner or doorway, especially when the combatant cannot see what's on the other side. The analogy is that the combatant peek around the corner one slice at a time, like slicing a pie.
Once Ariel made sure the entrance is safe and no booby traps, Louis quickly moved in to establish a point of control, and once it's good to move, the robot moved, Ariel and Louis moving after it. The rest of the cadets then moved in. Sean who is at the last of the column moved checked the corners again briefly.
Arriving at a flight of stairs, Giorgio raised his HK-416A5 up, pointing to the top of the stairs as the robot moved up, Ariel and Clara following after it, then the rest of the cadets, who turned around to ensure that the front is in their line of fire.
An "enemy" fired down at them, moving in. The robot emptied its magazine on the "enemy", yellow smoke coming out of him.
But things were not resolved, another "enemy" from above fired down with a shotgun, 2 more popped up with rifles, firing down.
Ariel ducked behind the shield, even though it does not stop anything more than pistol ammunition, it does over concealment.
Ariel and Clara fired up, trying to hit the 3 "enemies", but they were soon suppressed down, being forced to move back, falling back behind Sean and Carl, who replaced them as the point-men, allowing them to reload.
"Tossing grenade!" said Sean, he and Carl took a grenade each, they pulled the pins, held it in their hands for a while, then both threw their grenades up.
Two small explosions were heard, followed by a dying down of the firing. As an extra guarantee, Louis ordered the Jackal unit to pop in another flashbang, disorienting the defenders.
"GO!" yelled Carl, moving up with Sean quickly, the 2 struck, shooting the 3 "enemies", while the rest of the team followed.
They moved past the stairs into the alleyway, guns raised. Just as they entered into a hallway, a deafening burst of bullets came out.
"MACHINE GUN!!" yelled Sean as he quickly moved behind a wall, the rest of the team taking cover behind the wall. The Jackal is not so lucky, soon disabled by the machine gun fire.
"SH*T…" cursed Clara, realising what is going on. The defenders have barricaded themselves in a fortified position in the building, and is firing a general-purpose machine gun at them. Had them not slowed down their advance and just rushed in, all of them would have failed the test.
Sean grunted, extending his HK-416A5 out and using the smart aiming system in the red dot sight to aim, which is linked to the HUD system in his Exo-suit, allowing him to shoot without direct aiming. The accuracy is horrible, but it is acceptable under such close quarters fighting scenario.
His rifle soon locked empty, he moved to the back while Carl took over, keep shooting back at the machine gun nest.
"We are pinned down by a machine gun, do you have a shot?!" yelled Louis into his radio.
Outside, Albert looked into the scope of his SR-25, sighing. "Negative, I don't have a visual."
He turned to Eddie, who is still shooting automatic fire at the "enemies" at the windows, stopping to reload, assisted by Erika, while Vera kept shooting.
"Cover me, I am going to move. We need to take out that machine gun," he said, standing up from the ground.
Eddie grinned, loading in the fresh 100 round simunation chain, cocked the gun, and resumed firing. Erika fired her last loitering munition.
Amid the flying bullets, Albert sprinted, moving to another position to hopefully catch the machine gunner.
Back in the building, Carl having returned back to reload, patted the wall next to him, realising its relatively hollow and hence not a weight-bearing wall. He grinned, thinking of a plan.
"We can use a charge to blow this wall down, then we flank them," he said.
Meanwhile, Louis is the latest one keeping engagement with the "enemies". Instead of using smart aiming to "blind" shoot, he is now pieing the corner to get more precise shots, carefully controlling his exposed area behind the wall.
Unfortunately for Louis, he did not control his exposure well enough, and accidentally pivoted too much.
It did not take long for a flurry of simunation bullets to fly out, hitting Louis. Despite not being lethal, they do hurt — a lot, causing him to fall. To make things worse, Louis had not consistently applied force to his legs in direction of the wall. This is to ensure that should an operator fall, the inertia will allow him to fall forward, hence staying safely behind cover.
But because Louis did not, he ended up falling sideways, out of cover, and right into the line of fire.