From the 7th Steel Company to the Synthetic Division

"What happened today? I think it's great," Team Leader Tan blurted out.

"good?"

Deputy Commander Qian frowned, unsure of Team Leader Tan's intentions.

"Because someone has come out to cause trouble, and that's exactly what I want." Team Leader Tan said bluntly and directly.

"Disrupt the situation?"

The officers from both the red and blue sides looked at each other, completely baffled as to what Team Leader Tan meant.

"Brigade Commander Xiahou has already determined that another unit has been included. This unit is the 7th Steel Brigade of the Capital Theater Army. They were the ones who carried out the surprise attack on your Red and Blue Army."

Team Leader Tan didn't keep them in suspense and directly revealed the mystery, then chuckled and said, "I know you're all here. What are they after?"
The answer is that, as a professional and highly information-based adversary force, their profession and mission is to be the bad guys.

"The goal is to make your lives miserable, to make you feel uneasy and uneasy, to make you feel that the enemy is right in front of you, to keep you constantly in a state of crisis. This is the purpose of a professional adversary force."

Team Leader Tan emphasized his words at the end, and slammed his hand heavily on the table.

This is essentially a wake-up call for everyone.

If they don't adjust their mindset and continue to treat exercises as a performance, thinking they can just go through the motions and get by, then...

What awaits you is a devastating blow, a crushing defeat that you cannot accept.

"The 7th Steel Brigade?"

Xiahou Yuan immediately remembered: "I've heard of this unit. It's very strong and is a truly professional combined arms unit."

Xiahou Yuan identified the 7th Steel Brigade as the opposing force, but this was actually somewhat different from the true nature of the 7th Steel Brigade.

The Blue Army's current role is to purely imitate foreign military forces, simply playing the role of the enemy and engaging in exercises against domestic troops.

This fake battle with foreign troops is used to fill the gap in our army's lack of experience in foreign wars.

The new combined arms brigade structure created by Chen Jun, combined with the goals that the leaders of the Capital Theater Command wanted to achieve, ultimately gave birth to the model of a professionalized hypothetical enemy.

Specialized adversaries and specialized blue teams may sound similar, but there are actually significant differences.

The latter not only plays the role of a foreign army, which is equivalent to encompassing the role of the Blue Army, but also undertakes a deeper, more sacred mission that transcends the scope of the Blue Army.

This includes, but is not limited to, exploring information-based reforms, developing new tactics and methods, and expanding more advanced military equipment.

To put it bluntly...

That is, the Blue Team is only the Blue Team, while the opposing force is not limited to the Blue Team. It can also be the Red Team, the Yellow Team, the Green Team, etc.

They are not only fighting conventional troops, but also targeting professional opposing forces.

To sum it up in one sentence—

They will strike anything within sight!

"The Army's 7th Steel Brigade?"

Navy Brigade Commander Wang had obviously heard about it too, and laughed, "That's great, now the army, navy and air force are all gathered together, and the three opposing forces are going head-to-head here."

"What? The Tsunami Assault Brigade is also a professional adversary unit?" Chief of Staff Shen asked in surprise.

It should be noted that in Chief of Staff Shen's understanding, although the Steel Seventh Brigade was not the first professional opposing force brigade, the earliest professional opposing force brigade was Zhurihe.

However, the only professional adversary unit in the entire army is the 7th Steel Brigade.

And currently only the 7th Steel Brigade is involved.

The brigade commander of the Tsunami Assault Brigade suddenly said that they were also a professional opposing force, which naturally surprised Chief of Staff Shen.

Little did they know that this was due to a difference in their positioning.

The professionalized adversary force that Chief of Staff Shen envisioned, and the professionalized adversary force that Brigade Commander Wang spoke of, appeared the same on the surface, but were very different in reality.

"Yes, Chief."

When Chief of Staff Shen came out to question, Brigade Commander Wang immediately explained: "Our brigade has served as the opposing force many times, and in recent years, we have also intended to develop into a professional opposing force."

We've long admired the 7th Steel Brigade. Back when it was the 7th Steel Battalion, it was already renowned. I never imagined we'd be facing them today.

The most impressive achievement of the 7th Steel Battalion was during an exercise in Russia, where the battalion wiped out an entire reinforced regiment without suffering any casualties.

This achievement is so exaggerated that it has spread widely around the world, making it difficult for domestic troops not to know about it.

Commander Wang's expression of great honor and pleasure at being able to fight the Steel Seventh Brigade on the battlefield was a perfectly reasonable reaction.

"Now let me introduce it."

Team Leader Tan looked at Chief of Staff Shen and said, "This is Comrade Shen Fei, Chief of Staff of the Capital Theater Command."

Chief of Staff Shen stood up and saluted according to procedure.

The officers from the red and blue brigades below immediately stood up to return the salute and shouted in loud voices, "Greetings, Commander!"

"All sit down."

Team Leader Tan stretched out his hands and pressed down, and after everyone sat down, he continued, "Chief of Staff Shen has been engaged in professional blue force research for many years and is also the leading founder of the Steel Seventh Brigade."

As for how to proceed with this exercise, let's first discuss your plans.

“Team Leader Tan, I still think we should fight the Mountain Eagle Brigade first, and whoever wins can then fight the Steel Seventh Brigade,” Brigade Commander Wang suggested first.

“I want to fight the Steel Seventh Brigade first, and the winner will then fight the Tsunami Assault Brigade,” Xiahou Yuan said immediately.

"What I mean is..."

Team Leader Tan paused mid-sentence, glanced around the room, and uttered three words—

Let’s fight together!

"Won't this kind of fighting cause chaos?" Brigade Commander Wang found it hard to accept.

"The main characteristic of modern warfare is chaos, so you must know how to win in chaos."

Team Leader Tan said firmly and in a deep voice, "Now that all three units have entered the field and the exercise has already begun, it would be bad to ask any of them to withdraw."

The Wufeng Mountain training ground is only so big; the winner takes all and the loser is nothing.

"You have three days. How you fight is up to you. We won't set rules or contingency plans. We'll just watch the show. After three days, whoever suffers the least losses and occupies the most territory will be the winner."

Team Leader Tan made the final decision, which both the Red and Blue teams had to accept, whether they agreed or not.

They could only helplessly accept this outcome.

"Team Leader Tan, is this... will this work? We've never done a three-way confrontation before. How exactly should we do it? How should we make the judgments and rulings? How should we organize the observation activities?"

Deputy Commander-in-Chief Qian asked several questions in a row, clearly showing that he was a traditional conservative.

He instinctively resisted this new playing style. "I don't see anything that's impossible, and there's no need to have so many concerns."

Team Leader Tan's face darkened with displeasure. He frowned and said, "Deputy Commander Qian, I'm asking you seriously now, have you ever fought in a future war?"

"This..." Deputy Commander Qian was speechless after being rebuked.

"You haven't fought in future wars, neither have I, and none of us here have."

Team Leader Tan turned his gaze to everyone present and said, "What will you do if war breaks out tomorrow? Are you going to raise a truce sign and tell the enemy, 'This isn't in the plan, I haven't fought in a future war yet, so don't fire yet?'"

Team Leader Tan's words were highly sarcastic, and even Deputy Commander-in-Chief Qian couldn't bear it.

But just as he was about to retort again, Team Leader Tan interrupted him mercilessly, saying, "Alright, that's enough. Tomorrow, I'll be waiting to watch Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Go back and prepare well, don't disappoint me."

After saying that, Team Leader Tan got up and walked out, and the others could only keep their thoughts to themselves.

After all, Team Leader Tan was the overall commander of the exercise.

With Team Leader Tan single-handedly finalizing the main theme of this confrontation exercise at the meeting, the grand battle of the three armed forces was thus launched.

The relevant meeting content and exercise arrangements were quickly relayed to the headquarters of the 7th Steel Brigade.

Upon learning that they would be participating in the competition as official members and that the exercise directorate had designated them as the Gray Army, Chen Jun and Brigade Commander Wang immediately convened a meeting overnight.

The exercise terrain map sent by the directing department was projected onto the main screen in the command center.

Chen Jun, Wang Qingrui, Gao Cheng, Hong Yi, and others can clearly see the areas currently occupied by both sides on the exercise field through this map.

The Blue Army's Mountain Eagle Brigade and the Red Army's Tsunami Assault Brigade arrived as early as half a month ago.

After two weeks of exercises and confrontations, the entire Wufeng Mountain training ground has been thoroughly explored, inside and out.

Even key locations at the Wufeng Mountain training ground have been taken over by their troops.

The red and blue colors marked on the huge topographic map cover almost 80 percent of the Earth, with about 10 percent remaining blank and uncontrolled areas.

The territory allocated to the last arriving Gray Army Steel Seventh Brigade was only about 10 percent of the total area.

The final victory or defeat in this exercise was determined by the territory occupied; whoever occupied more territory was the ultimate winner.

In other words, the 7th Steel Brigade was already at a significant disadvantage from the very beginning of the exercise.

Despite having a total of nine battalions, the 7th Steel Brigade is one battalion larger than the four battalions currently revealed by both the Red and Blue Armies.

In reality, the organizational structure of the three battalions is not significantly different; the only difference lies in their composition.

Just like when the Air Force captured Song Ping, he only reported three paratrooper battalions and one helicopter squadron. The actual number of troops was definitely more than four.

Even by the most basic organizational structure, the Mountain Eagle Brigade exists as a blue force unit.

There will definitely be units for information warfare, units for logistical support, and units for long-range fire support. There might even be the Air Force's "trump card"—

The bombing force!
All these factors combined mean that the actual strength of the Mountain Eagle Brigade is definitely no less than seven battalions, not much different from that of the Steel Seventh Brigade.

In addition, the Tsunami Commando Unit, as the Navy's ace unit, is built with the full strength of the entire Navy branch, and its organizational structure is definitely no worse than that of the Mountain Eagle Brigade.

Needless to say, their equipment and facilities are absolutely on par with the 7th Steel Brigade.

The military spending of the navy and air force is incomparable to that of the army.

Therefore, even though the 7th Steel Brigade is indeed stronger on paper because it has two armored battalions and two mechanized infantry battalions.

However, even if all these advantages are combined, they can at most only offset the biggest disadvantages in terms of territory, and will not have the strength to crush each other.

Whether or not both sides can achieve final victory in the exercise depends on their tactics and strategies.

Furthermore, the Seventh Steel Brigade faces even greater pressure.

After all, defense has an inherent advantage. The Seventh Steel Brigade currently occupies too little territory, so they must keep attacking in order to have any chance of winning.

Three days may seem like a long time, but once the fighting starts, it will pass in the blink of an eye.

Everyone at the 7th Steel Brigade headquarters, including Chen Jun, was basically aware of these circumstances, so they were all under a lot of pressure.

"Judging from this situation, the commander wants us to carve out a piece of meat from the Red and Blue Army's territory, which means we have actually become the attackers."

Gao Cheng studied the map for a long time, then broke the silence with a frown.

"Indeed."

Wang Qingrui followed up, saying, "We need to at least establish a three-way competition; otherwise, with our limited territory, we won't even have the right to compete."

"It's going to be tough, very difficult." Hong Yi frowned deeply, his expression grave.

"Deputy Chief of Staff Hong, what are your thoughts?" Chen Jun already had an answer in mind, but he still used the same old approach: to develop the talents of others as much as possible.

“If it were within our own theater of operations, we would be familiar with the territory and our troops, and in most cases, we would be in the shadows while the Red and Blue forces would be in the open, so we would often have the upper hand in a fight. But things are different now.”

Hong Yi paused for a moment, then continued, "First of all, on the surface they are the Red and Blue Army, and we are the Gray Army. In reality, it is three Blue Army units fighting against each other."

Secondly, we entered the area far too late. All the advantageous terrain had already been occupied by them, making it very difficult for us to snatch food from their jaws.

Third, both of these forces are quite formidable; their equipment, facilities, and personnel quality are in no way inferior to ours. Deciding which to attack first and which to attack later is currently a difficult decision.

Finally, our biggest challenge right now is that we have too little intelligence on both units, making it difficult to find their weaknesses to exploit.

Hong Yi's analysis was spot on, pointing out all the key points.

The expressions on everyone's faces grew increasingly solemn.

Besides.

There is also the most important point.

No one knows what Team Leader Tan's true intentions are.

The purpose of building a professional blue force is to confront the red army, to wake them up by defeating them, and to force the red army to grow and improve through defeat.

Now it has become a battle between two Blue teams, and three Blue teams are fighting against each other.

Is this just infighting, or is there something else going on?

It's really hard to figure out.

After all, Team Leader Tan's position is what it is; his decisions are enough to determine the life or death of the Steel Seventh Brigade, and his opinions are equally crucial to the Steel Seventh Brigade.

How to make this exercise a success and win it is certainly important.

But how can we ensure that Team Leader Tan is satisfied with the results of the exercise?

This is also a point that the 7th Steel Brigade needs to consider! (End of Chapter)