Experienced soldiers hit back after losing leader (11)
I believe the answer is:
encountered
'experienced' is the definition.
(encountering is a kind of experiencing)
'soldiers hit back after losing leader' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'soldiers' could be 're' (Royal Engineers) and 're' is found within the answer.
'leader' could be 'count' (count is a kind of leader) and 'count' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for encountered that I've seen before include "Met" , "Came across" , "Ran into" .)