Arc of Gunfire

"Did he recruit?" Wang Zhong asked Popov who had just gotten up.

This time, he didn't waste any time meeting the prisoners and handed them over directly to "professionals".

Popov: "Okay. In fact, when he saw the judge, he told everything and even made up for it."

Wang Zhong asked curiously: "Have you made up your mind?"

"Yes, we are going to lose anyway, so there is no harm in telling us." Popov spread his hands, "Did they collude? Normally I would suspect that this is a trap by the enemy."

Wang Zhong: "Okay, so what did he explain?"

"The progress schedule of earthworks work, rotation arrangement - but because our night attack almost destroyed a company, the rotation arrangement will definitely be disrupted. In addition, there is also interesting news. Now as long as we are in our Headquarters above division level within the artillery range will change their positions every two days.”

Wang Zhong asked in confusion: "If the location changes every two days, then his phone line needs to be pulled again?"

According to Wang Zhong's experience so far, it is difficult to change the location of the division headquarters because a large number of telephone lines are pulled out from the division headquarters. If the location is changed, all the phone lines must be pulled again.

This is very troublesome. At the level of Ant Army's communication battalion, it takes almost a day to extend the telephone line to each regiment, which means that every time the location of the division headquarters is changed, a line must be extended. Before the line is pulled, orders can only be conveyed by messengers.

Popov: "The person being interrogated is a captain, a company commander. How does he know how to pull the phone line? Anyway, the location of the headquarters changes every two days. You forced me!"

Wang Zhong: "This is a good thing. When the headquarters is moved, communication will definitely be affected. It's a pity that we are not the attacker. Otherwise, it would be great to attack while the enemy moves the headquarters."

"When we attack, the enemy's headquarters should be in the concrete bunker. We don't have to worry about bombing," Popov said.

Wang Zhong was speechless: "That's right. Forget it, we'll consider this later when we attack."

Popov continued: "In addition, the captain also told the location of their regiment headquarters, which is in a temporary bunker. Here."

As soon as he finished speaking, there was an explosion from the other side.

Wang Zhong quickly stood up and looked out from the observation port. As a result, he could barely see a puff of smoke rising from the opposite side with his naked eyes. After changing the perspective, he saw a wounded man in the trench, who might be howling - Wang Zhong couldn't hear it. You can only guess based on his actions.

Then the medic cautiously came over and started resuscitation, while a lieutenant was giving orders behind him.

Immediately afterwards the engineer with a mine detector appeared.

Wang Zhong: "The booby traps are effective. It's a pity that they didn't let them bring the lid of the pickled cucumber can."

Vasily: "The note I wrote to Sergeant Major Grigory, in Prosin. It said we laid 200 booby traps."

Wang Zhong: "Is it too much?"

"What I signed was your name." Vasily said with a smile.

Wang Zhong was speechless: "Does this have any logical relationship? Will the enemy believe me if I write my name on the signature?"

Vasily: "Maybe! The enemy is famous for their rigidity. Maybe they are still looking for the remaining fifteen booby traps in Kalinovka."

Wang Zhong waved his hands repeatedly: "No, no, this is all a stereotype."

He turned to look at Popov: "You just said that the captain recruited the enemy's regiment?"

Popov picked up a pencil and drew the logo of the regiment HQ (Headquarters) on the detailed battle line map on the table: "Here. A bunker with a wooden support structure has been established. It is said that the filled soil layer is one meter thick, unless There happened to be 152 artillery shells that hit the regiment bunker, otherwise the shelling probably wouldn't be able to do anything with them.

"In addition, next to the regiment headquarters is the brigade headquarters of the engineer brigade responsible for soil work, and bunkers were also dug."

Wang Zhong looked at the regimental label and exclaimed: "Will all the enemy's headquarters dig for this kind of anti-artillery in the future? Will they be able to happily behead people in the future?"

Vasily: "Let the Air Force give it a try. If a 100-kilogram bomb is dropped on the top of a bunker, the entire bunker will definitely be flown."

Popov praised: "Okay, let's give it a try."

Wang Zhong shook his head: "No, no, they didn't throw the artillery position accurately, and they asked us to cover it with artillery fire. This bunker is definitely harder to identify in the air than the artillery position. I don't think the throw is accurate."

Vasily: "Try it. Don't worry about the loss of the aircraft. The target of this air attack is five kilometers in front of us. After dropping the bomb, just return to the protection range of the Divine Arrow at low altitude. Anyway, the pilots are idle. !”

Wang Zhong and Popov looked at each other.

Popov: "I support giving it a try."

"Okay," Wang Zhong gave in, "Let the Air Force try it after dawn."

————

"We missed it." Kharlamov's voice came from the phone. "Actually, we are not sure which one is the bunker. It is too difficult to distinguish. We can try again after the aircraft is maintained. But honestly, don’t get your hopes up.”

Wang Zhong: "I understand. You guys continue to perform combat readiness and air defense missions. Thank you for your hard work."

"We should do it."

Wang Zhong put down the receiver and looked at Pavlov, who was not present when the decision was made last night: "That's the situation. The air raid didn't work."

Pavlov was speechless: "The shelling is useless, and the air is useless. It seems that it is impossible to take out this regiment. This shows that the enemy's soil work method is working. Our night attack last night delayed the enemy's progress. , but the enemy must be on guard tonight.

"Should we consider shrinking the defense line to the east bank and abandon the original plan of using the bridgehead to bleed the enemy? If we only stick to the east bank, the enemy will have to cross the river, and the exchange ratio should be good."

Wang Zhong: "The damage caused by artillery shells falling on the water is completely incomparable to that on land. Although the shock waves in the water will injure many people, the water itself will absorb a large amount of energy and the shock waves will not travel far."

Explodes in water, the killing range becomes smaller, but the lethality increases. But the problem is that for the fragile human body, this increased lethality is meaningless.

They all beat people to death. It doesn't make much difference whether they die from bleeding of some internal organs or from bursting of all internal organs.

In addition, explosions in water will also affect the damage range of shrapnel.

In other words, there is basically no shrapnel. The underwater firearms specially designed after the war on Earth use special warheads with a killing range of only 30 meters.

Don't underestimate the almost incompressible material "water body".

Popov crossed his arms and said: "Looking at it this way, we have encountered a formidable enemy. We used trenches to advance on land to offset our artillery fire. After advancing to the shore, we relied on the water to weaken our artillery fire when crossing the river. Last time we were given What was this guy’s signature when he invented the coded telegraph?”

Wang Zhong: "Siegfried Giles."

He remembered it so clearly not because he was deeply impressed by this enemy, but because there was only one word difference between his name and the "red-haired good guy" in the legend of the galactic heroes.

Wang Zhong looked to the other side again.

The enemy began to advance again, slowly but surely.

Wang Zhong now looks at the enemy as he did when he was a child squatting next to an ant nest and watching the ants move.

But when he was tired of it when he was a child, he could bring a kettle over to create a flood, and then imagine that he was God, then choose a lucky ant to be Noah, and give him a piece of leaf fragment to be the ark.

Now he could only watch as the enemy advanced—?

Wang Zhong suddenly discovered the enemy's omission: "Wait a minute, did they drag up the anti-tank gun?"

Others also came to the observation window and observed with their own telescopes.

"Didn't see it."

"But it's probably camouflaged. Our own anti-tank guns are very well camouflaged."

Wang Zhong: "Gregory!"

Gregory came in immediately: "Here."

Wang Zhong: "Did you see an anti-tank gun yesterday?"

Gregory: "No, we used up all the flares on the enemy's side before retreating, and we didn't see the anti-tank gun emplacements."

Wang Zhong picked up the receiver: "Pick up the airport."

Soon the voice of the airport ground handler came from over there: "Who is it?"

Wang Zhong: "I am Rokosov, let Kharlamov come and listen."

"okay."

A moment later Harlamov's voice came: "Major General! What's wrong?"

"Did you see anti-tank guns when you were flying?"

"No, I'm pretty sure of this. The enemy's trenches have just been dug, and the camouflage nets haven't been put up very much. You can clearly see every section of the trench, and the enemy has not deployed anti-tank guns."

Wang Zhong: "Okay, thank you."

He hung up the phone and grinned at the others: "The enemy did not expect us to attack and did not deploy anti-tank guns on the front."

Pavlov: "Are you preparing for a tank attack? But how are you going to cross the river? The Prosin's diving tanks were all fed with fish. Then these iron lumps turned into reefs by the way, and ferries now no longer dare to go to the other side. ”

Wang Zhong: "I'll walk from the bridge. Get the KV off the flatbed truck, put two T34s on one truck, and get off at the opposite side of the railway."

Pavlov: "What if the enemy shells you while you are unloading the truck?"

Wang Zhong was speechless.

At this time Vasily said: "Let's bombard first, and then lay smoke on the bridgehead!"

Pavlov shook his head: "No, no, it's obvious that if we make trouble again, we won't be able to create a surprise. The enemy will be prepared. We can't bet victory on the enemy's negligence! If the enemy reacts and starts shelling, we will lose money." But it’s big, especially the locomotive, which is the most fragile.”

Wang Zhong suddenly slapped his thigh: "No! We won't unload the KV, and then the train will add a few tank cars behind the three flat cars of the KV, with naval infantry on them. Also, don't reverse the front of the car to get onto the bridge, come directly over. , pushing the train forward."

He excitedly walked to the map table and looked at the map carefully: "Look! The enemy's regiment headquarters and brigade headquarters are right next to the railway tracks. The enemy has no reason to dismantle the railway. Our armored train can definitely rush to the entrance of the enemy's regiment department. .

"The KV alone is not enough. After all, the tank's heading machine gun can only point forward, which is almost useless. We can add sandbag bunkers on the flatbed truck and mount the machine gun."

Pavlov: "You can even push our anti-aircraft guns onto one vehicle. The 25mm cannon's killing effect on personnel has been proven."

Wang Zhong: "Add the elite naval infantry. And then in order to prevent this raid from being caught by the enemy's dive bombers, we will send a team of divine arrows up."

Pavlov thought for a while and said: "This tactic is completely inconsistent with common sense. If I submitted such a plan to the military academy, I would definitely get zero points. But the strange thing is that now I actually think this plan is feasible."

Wang Zhong: "Of course it's feasible. The enemy doesn't have anti-tank guns, so what can they use to hit our armored train? And we can prepare artillery fire. With the speed of the train, we can rush to the enemy in one fell swoop."

"Of course, for this plan to be implemented, there must be high-quality infantry, and these infantry must have enough subjective initiative to be able to automatically disperse and control the surrounding area when the train stops.

"So we have to get help from the naval infantry."

"Let me make a call..."

Wang Zhong turned to look at Vasily: "You are at the locomotive, with the captured radio, keep in touch with me at any time."

"Okay... huh? With you?"

Wang Zhong: "Of course, I will personally command the leading KV tank."

The reason why Wang Zhong took command personally was, of course, to light up the enemy's anti-tank guns in advance. The biggest threat to this plan is the anti-tank gun.

Especially the enemy's 88-gun, if it collides with it, it will really be a sheep in the tiger's mouth.

So Wang Zhong had to take the risk himself.

Wang Zhong was very worried about Pavlov's objection, so he looked at him after speaking.

Pavlov also looked at Wang Zhong: "Will you listen if I object?"

Wang Zhong: "No."

"Then it's over." Pavlov sighed, "But compared to your previous aggressive plan, this time it's much safer. The one you're sitting on is at least KV1. Even I know a lot about the armor of that thing. Reliable.”

Wang Zhong: "Really? You won't complain, right? As soon as you pick up the receiver, you will pick up Liu Xia."

"Won't."

Popov asked: "Since Lyudmila Vasilyevna is not allowed to know, then whose group should we choose?"

Wang Zhong: "Ekaterina Andropovna Bolancheva is the little one who will continue to catch up with the enemy even if she loses her target arrow."

Nelly raised her eyebrows.

Wang Zhong continued: "Her abilities are more suitable for this mission. After all, when the train is moving at high speed, there may not be so many opportunities to look directly at the enemy."

At this time, Pavlov put down the phone receiver: "The train station said that we can add another locomotive so that we can maintain a high speed whether we go or come back."

Wang Zhong: "Okay, let them do it!"

Good night