Chapter 59 A Military Rank of Profound Significance

"Fantastic! We go out on a run, and when we get back, we'll unlock the Trench Raider!"

"It's probably to get us ready for the upcoming urban combat. Too bad there's no Sentry kit, otherwise, with the Trench Raider combined with a heavy Sentry, I could beat those Black Eagle bastards until they crap their pants!"

The players who had just run back immediately prepared to rush to the armory to resupply. To their pleasant surprise, upon returning, they found that the elite Trench Raider kit had been unlocked.

Standing next to the armory acting as a doorman NPC while listening to the players' chatter, Andrei couldn't help but complain inwardly.

He actually wanted to make the Sentry kit available too, but he didn't have enough influence points left.

If he redeemed the Sentry now, he wouldn't have the funds left to purchase these gear sets, let's not even talk about having emergency reserves.

With this in mind, he checked his remaining balance of influence points and simply decided to continue summoning players.

After fighting for a while, he felt that summoning players was the most cost-effective option. The combat effectiveness displayed by these players was quite astonishing. As long as they coordinated properly on the battlefield, having them fight ten men each would be a breeze.

However, Andrei had originally planned to summon 50 players in one go, but the wretched system indicated that his current player summoning quota had only 20 slots left!

What the hell? Why was there a sudden limit?

Upon checking, he discovered that the number of players he could summon was actually tied to his military rank!

Who knew what metric this broken thing used for calculations? He was currently holding the rank of Captain, which meant the system showed he could summon a maximum of 60 players. If he wanted to increase the player summoning limit further, he would first have to raise his military rank.

Damn it!

Andrei couldn't help roaring internally. Since military rank had such a convenient feature, why hadn't he simply transmigrated as a general?

If he had suddenly transmigrated as a general or a marshal, wouldn't he have been able to snap his fingers and summon a true Fourth Calamity army right off the bat?

After letting out a silent complaint, Andrei realized that if he wanted to further enhance the players' combat capabilities, he would have to continuously elite-fy them.

Since their numbers were limited, he had to raise their quality further, deploying them as elite stormtrooper squads within the team.

With this thought, Andrei checked the rank settings in the system more closely and found that if he could advance to a field-grade officer rank, there would be another distinct advantage waiting for him—unlocking the micro-transaction system!

Currently, all the equipment used by these players was redeemed using influence points. But once the micro-transaction system was unlocked, Andrei could directly convert some higher-tier equipment into items that players could purchase with real money, allowing them to redeem them themselves.

Now that was a genuinely good move!

Unfortunately, the players' micro-transactions here didn't seem to convert directly into influence points; otherwise, Andrei definitely would have racked his brain to set up a pay-to-win scheme.

Having witnessed countless whale players, he knew very well how much money a whale could dump into a game once they got hooked.

To put it without exaggeration, if a whale really got addicted to spending money, the system store—which was currently almost entirely locked—couldn't be said to unlock all at once, but at least a huge portion of it would become available.

The players quickly selected their kits. A portion of the players with relatively abundant funds equipped themselves with various elite soldier sets, while those with less remaining capital chose to purchase AT rockets or mortars.

As for the armor-piercing bullets previously used by scouts, they had now surprisingly become unpopular niche items that almost no players bought.

Because the actual armor-piercing capability of these bullets was quite mediocre.

In Battlefield games, these bullets could chip away a little health from tanks. Although the damage was very low, combined with the support player's ammo pouch, they could slowly grind a tank down to death.

But here, this kind of armor-piercing bullet had become completely useless trash, unable to pierce enemy armored vehicles at all. Perhaps at most, they could be used to shoot at enemy armored infantry like Dread Knights.

To be honest, there were plenty of other ways to deal with that infantry; a bayonet charge or a string of grenades could easily solve the problem, making armor-piercing rounds completely unnecessary.

While Andrei's players were choosing their equipment, the other soldiers in his platoon were also changing their gear one after another and, under Andrei's guidance, getting a general understanding of stormtrooper tactics.

In such a short time, he couldn't come up with any brilliant tactics, let alone train these people into truly elite troops.

So he simply gave his men a few key points:

When encountering a corner or a room with unknown conditions, don't rush in blindly. Throw a grenade first, and when throwing the grenade, put some force into bouncing it off the wall—never throw it directly onto the open ground.

Throwing it hard against the wall meant the grenade would inevitably ricochet, bouncing around wildly in the confined space, making it very difficult for the enemy to pick it up and throw it back.

Of course, if you happened to run into an enemy with a baseball background, this trick might not work. Back in the Pacific War, Japanese baseball players had managed to bat away a dozen or so consecutive American grenades.

Aside from throwing grenades, there was also suppressing fire!

Once you spot an enemy, don't waste time aiming; just bring the rifle down to hip-level and let loose a full magazine. Hitting them is great, but even if you miss, it will pin the enemy down.

Not everyone is a player who can run around recklessly under heavy fire or continue trading shots even after being hit by bullets. A normal person seeing a stream of bullets kicking up dust at their feet or right beside them will find it hard to keep their composure and continue aiming; they will inevitably scramble to take cover.

Once you have the enemy pinned down, it becomes much easier to take them out, and at the very least, this guarantees your own safety.

As for whether doing this would waste too many bullets and grenades?

Andrei wasn't worried at all. He had already noticed earlier that the support player's ammo pouch skill worked on players and worked just as well on real soldiers in reality.

When the time came, he would just have the men toss a few extra ammo pouches, and the ammunition supply problem for these soldiers would naturally be resolved. So there was no need to save bullets for him—just fire away!

It wasn't just Andrei's platoon acting as a vanguard unit that was busy making preparations; the other Cambrian soldiers were also getting ready intensely.

Things like simple tripwires and small traps were still well within their capability to rig up. You could tell that these soldiers probably had plenty of childhood experience pulling pranks.

Unfortunately, time was a bit tight, and there weren't that many ladders around.

Otherwise, if there had been a sufficient number of ladders, Andrei would have seriously considered dismantling the stairs in these detached two-story buildings altogether, having all his soldiers hide on the second floor and use ladders to go up and down.

When the enemy finally attacked and realized they were facing enemies upstairs but couldn't get up to reach them, they would be utterly dumbfounded—especially since the small buildings here were mostly brick-and-stone structures, making them extremely sturdy!

The Cambrian troops in the town were frantically preparing for battle, while on the other end, a special Black Eagle force had just crossed the bridge.