Time Travel 04: I Fight the US in the Middle East

The entire city of Sadr is rife with looting!

American soldiers have field rations, so they don't have to worry about food. As for drinks... they can't get chilled beverages, but they do have regular fresh water.

What they lack most is fuel!

So when the division commander’s order came down, Lieutenant Colonel Gary Wallersky immediately ordered a citywide search: find the Mahdi Army and kill them; if they couldn’t be found, at least find the stolen fuel!

As for whether it was stolen or stored by the residents themselves... nobody cares!

Maxwell, who was the first to succeed, led his men back to the M2 infantry fighting vehicles that their infantry squad was riding in.

Glug glug... Pour all the fuel into the tank, fill it up!

Idling consumes a lot of fuel, but the engine gets too hot if it's not running. This damn place...

Just as they were about to pour in the second bucket, someone walked over and said, "Hey, hey, give us a few buckets!"

Maxwell frowned as he looked at the burly man. This man was Bradley, the M1 tank commander who was traveling with them!

Tank crews won't go out to loot; after all, they're responsible for guarding the most powerful weapons, but... their tanks are the most fuel-guzzling! Now... they'll have to get it from someone else!

At this moment, there was a threatening look in the other person's eyes. What, kid, you dare not give it to me?

If you don't give it to us, don't blame us for stabbing you in the back during the later battles!

Misfires on the battlefield are not isolated incidents!

The M1 tank is not afraid of the M2 armored vehicle's autocannon, but the M2 armored vehicle cannot withstand the bombardment of the M1 tank's gun!

"Okay, of course, no problem!" Maxwell reluctantly gestured to share a bucket with the other party.

Looking at the 15-liter oil drum handed to him, Bradley shook his head: "No, no, this isn't enough! I want all the rest!"

Luckily, I just added the 30-liter oil can, now...

Looking at the remaining few oil drums, Maxwell hesitated, "Can you leave us one more?"

"No way! The fuel you have isn't even enough for our tanks to run for an hour! Give it all to me, and go find some more! What? You won't?"

"No, no, of course not..."

Maxwell had no choice but to hand over all the remaining fuel to the other side, watching the diesel gushing into the M1 tank's fuel tank, his heart aching!

Next... let's go out and find diesel!

Back in his own tank, Bradley looked relaxed and content.

When facing the constant threat of attack, their tank engines cannot be shut down; they must remain on standby at all times! Those infantrymen should give us their fuel!

This damn weather!

With this amount of oil, we should be able to last until sunset, when the outside temperature should drop a bit...

Will the Mahdi army launch a night attack? If so... our tanks' advanced infrared imaging devices can see them clearly...

Ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour...

Without realizing it, the engine was turning weaker and weaker. At first, I didn't feel it, but when I noticed, the engine could only groan listlessly, the speed getting lower and lower, until finally...

It huffed and puffed a few times, then stopped moving completely!

"What's going on?" Bradley exclaimed angrily. "George, what are you doing?!"

"Don't worry, I'll restart it right away." Driver George wondered to himself as he pressed the start button.

Buzz, buzz...

Black smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe, but... the engine didn't restart; instead... the starter motor seemed weak and powerless!

What's going on?

It's like fighting in the desert, where too much sand gets in, causing the air filter to clog?

"Wait a minute, I'm going to blow out the air filter..." George said, leaving the tank. Before he even got to the back, he looked curiously at the M2 infantry fighting vehicle next to him.

The diesel engine in this vehicle also began to gradually reduce its speed, becoming increasingly powerless...

Tanks use gas turbines, which have a large air intake, making them prone to clogging the air intake system under harsh conditions. However, the diesel engine used in the M2 infantry fighting vehicle is an exception, and it also encountered problems.

No, no, this isn't a problem with the air intake; it's a problem with the fuel supply system!

"Oh no, there's something wrong with the fuel we added!" He finally realized.

Inside the courtyard of the Mahdi Army Command.

The US military search team had left more than ten minutes ago, leaving Mariam alone outside to handle the situation. After finding a few barrels of oil, the US military left without searching anywhere else.

After the American troops left, everyone gathered together again.

"Brother Azam, your method works really well! Now, most of those American military vehicles outside have stalled!"

"That's right! I never imagined that sprinkling a handful of sugar into the fuel could damage an engine!"

Everyone was excited.

Date palms are found all over the Middle East. Dates have a high sugar content and can be eaten directly or used to make sugar, so there is no shortage of sugar here.

Pouring sugar into the fuel tank will cause irreversible damage to the engine!

If sugar gets mixed into fuel, it will enter the fuel injector and carbonize at high temperatures, directly clogging the fuel injector!

The fuel injectors in the gas turbine won't work either!

If it gets into the engine oil, it will make the oil thick and unable to lubricate effectively, thus causing problems such as cylinder scoring and bearing seizure.

Moreover, it won't break down immediately after being mixed in; it will run for a while!

During this period, people kept grabbing fuel and adding it to the fuel tanks, so... this move deprived the 1st Cavalry Division's troops entering the city of their mounts, turning them into pure infantry!

"Alas, it's a pity that these tanks and armored vehicles were damaged and we can't use them." Some people also felt regretful.

"Can we use it?" Azam glanced at the sky. "Do you believe that as soon as we take over the tanks, those things overhead will immediately swoop down and blow them to smithereens?"

What happened to all those tanks that the regular army had during Saddam Hussein's time?

They couldn't stop the American bombing at all!

So from the very beginning, he never imagined having tanks. Tanks are useless except as targets for the enemy. What we are doing now is guerrilla warfare!

"Then...doesn't that mean we got nothing at all?"

"Of course not, we can move the shells out!"

In the early days of conventional ground warfare, most of the shells inside American tanks were armor-piercing rounds. However, in the later counterinsurgency operations, when there were no hard targets to deal with, most of their tanks were filled with high-explosive shells, which were the best material for roadside bombs!

The early M1 tanks were equipped with a 105mm tank gun with 55 rounds of ammunition. Later, after being replaced with a 120mm smoothbore gun, the barrel became thicker, and the number of shells was reduced to 42. Forty of these were high-explosive shells. Now, excluding the one that exploded, there are still 13 tanks left, which is more than 500 120mm high-explosive shells, enough to make more than 500 roadside bombs!

Not to mention the even larger number of M2 infantry fighting vehicles, whose 25mm autocannon shells can also be used!

Although the Humvees don't have cannons, they do have machine guns. Those old-fashioned chili sauces, taken apart, would be the heavy firepower of the Mahdi Army!

After listening to Azam's introduction, everyone's previous emotions vanished, and they gained a lot!