Arc of Gunfire

That night, Wang Zhong slept directly in the warehouse - the place was big anyway, and Wang Zhong was not afraid of the staff seeing his well-trained body.

And Pavlov and his men also lived in the warehouse. Yesterday, Popov protested again because he believed that military No. 1 and No. 2 could not live together. What if the enemy learned from Wang Zhong's practice and bombarded at night?

But the Prosen people did not bombard at night, and the night passed safely.

The next day, July 16, when Wang Zhong got up, he saw Pavlov in front of the map and watched the staff update the map.

Wang Zhong got up, put on his coat and pants, and walked to the map table where Pavlov was while tying his belt: "Didn't you sleep last night?"

"I slept for a while, but got up right away. I can't sleep that well on the battlefield, so I'll make up for my sleep when I get back to the rear."

Wang Zhong raised his eyebrows: "Make up for your sleep? Every time I went to the headquarters in Yebao, I saw you busy."

"That's because every time you went to the headquarters, it was already afternoon. In Yebao, I actually rested very well and even gained weight." Pavlov patted his belly, "Look!"

To be honest, with Pavlov's physique, you can't tell even if he's fat.

Wang Zhong: "Okay."

Pavlov saw Wang Zhong's expression and quickly added: "When things are almost arranged, I will let Popov come to work every night, just like in Shostka!"

Hearing the familiar place name, Wang Zhong sighed: "Shostka has been occupied by Prosen for almost ten months. I don't know what it has become."

"I heard from the prisoners," Popov appeared as he said, "Emperor Prosen's favorite general preserved the place as a whole, and asked the Academy of Military Sciences to survey and map it, as if he used it as a model for urban defense."

Wang Zhong frowned: "What the hell, do you mean that we will have to face that level of fortifications when we attack cities in the future?"

As a designer and actual user, Wang Zhong knows how terrible those fortifications are.

Popov nodded: "I'm afraid so."

Wang Zhong shook his head: "It's bad. As the chairman of the equipment review committee, I have to quickly get some things for urban warfare. Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Because I got it from the prisoners yesterday. We captured 3,000 prisoners yesterday, and I got a lot of information by just asking. The judges behind will be busy." Popov yawned loudly.

Wang Zhong: "Didn't sleep well?"

"It's okay. I haven't woken up yet. Usually at this time I have to have some tea, or coffee."

Wang Zhong turned his head and saw Nellie standing next to him, ready at all times. After meeting her eyes, she immediately pushed the cart over.

"Coffee and tea are here." Wang Zhong said, and then continued the previous topic, "What's the matter with this emperor's favorite general?"

"Don't you know? He is the emperor's childhood friend, and now the most trusted general of the emperor. He has a say in many things beyond his military rank."

Wang Zhong's mind immediately emerged with the familiar face in "The Great Battle", the fat man who said that "the tactics of pigs have been successfully used by people again and again."

Popov: "In addition, he seems to have an affair with the emperor's sister."

The "general" in Wang Zhong's mind suddenly turned into Siegfried in "Legend of the Galactic Heroes".

This gap is too big!

Pavlov said: "Speaking of which, when we were in Shostka, I thought about what we should do if we want to capture such a fortified city ourselves, and the only way we thought of was to use heavy artillery to blow it up.

"In my opinion, wouldn't it be good if we put a shell on the B4 cannon and make it into an assault gun, which is specially used to demolish buildings? ”

Wang Zhong shook his head: "No, the barrel of the B4 heavy artillery is too long, and such a long barrel is too heavy. In order to cope with the huge chamber pressure during shooting, the structure of the breech block is too complicated, too thick and too heavy.

"In fact, there is a better choice. Oh, we can use a short barrel to launch a short-range rocket with a huge charge, which is specially used to demolish buildings. In this way, the launcher can be very light, without having to withstand the ultra-high chamber pressure when the shell is launched, and the recoil during shooting is also very small."

Wang Zhong gestured as he spoke.

"Rockets?" Pavlov frowned, "It seems to be much simpler than making cannons in terms of productivity."

The barrel of a cannon involves a series of complex public welfare, and the output of the barrel seriously restricts the total output of weapons and equipment.

On the other side of the earth, Sandezi produced a huge number of anti-aircraft guns in order to cope with strategic bombing. The barrel of the anti-aircraft gun occupied a large amount of production capacity, which seriously affected the production of long-barreled large-caliber artillery such as PAK40.

If a weapon does not need to produce complex barrels, it will have a huge advantage in productivity.

Popov looked at Wang Zhong: "You look so confident, do you have an idea?"

"Yes." Wang Zhong nodded.

Wang Zhong's idea is to simplify the Tiger assault gun, for example, reduce the weight of the shells a little, make the shells loading faster, and then change the overall structure to simplify the running mechanism.

Of course, you can also adopt the British plan on Earth, install a 290mm mortar on the Churchill tank, and turn it into a Churchill AVRE special tank, which is specially used to demolish buildings.

In fact, KV2 is theoretically very suitable for demolishing buildings, but this weapon is hindered by the 152 gun. In fact, this kind of armored vehicle does not need to pursue long range at all. The range can be reduced to 500 meters. As long as the range is reduced to 500 meters, the design of the weapon can be simplified as much as possible.

The British Churchill AVRE's cannon on the earth is very crude and leaks air everywhere. After all, it is not intended to shoot the cannon very far.

Thinking about it this way, it is probably easier to solve this problem than designing a vortex, and it can even be modified on an existing KV heavy tank.

While Wang Zhong was thinking, a whistling sound came from the sky.

Someone at the door shouted: "Shell!"

Wang Zhong flew to the ground.

After lying down, he looked up and saw Nelly lying down not far away in a standard anti-cannon posture.

Then came the earth-shaking attack - Huh?

Wang Zhong turned to ask Pavlov: "Do you feel that the shelling is not particularly violent?"

Pavlov agreed: "Indeed, the feeling is similar to yesterday's shelling. There are not many 150 heavy artillery, only twelve. I estimated!"

Wang Zhong: "In other words, only one division of artillery is shooting at us now."

Pavlov: "Maybe two divisions. After all, our estimate may be wrong. But this number can definitely support 24 gates."

Wang Zhong took a look at the bird's-eye view and originally wanted to estimate how many heavy artillery pieces with a diameter of over 150 mm were there based on the sound of landing. However, he found that the shells were falling continuously, and it was difficult to distinguish whether they were shells fired from the same salvo.

So he relied on Pavlovian estimates.

The shelling lasted for about an hour. When the sound of the gunfire gradually subsided, Wang Zhong got up and dusted himself off. He was used to maintaining the anti-cannon posture for long periods of time, but he didn't feel tired at all after an hour.

Nellie also stood up, took off the boat-shaped hat on her head, and kept patting the dust on it.

Wang Zhong: "The coffee and tea have fallen into dust. Let's change them."

"No, no, no!" Popov said, picking up the coffee and drinking it in one gulp. "The dust will sink to the bottom, just be careful when drinking."

Wang Zhong: "Are you sure you still need coffee to refresh yourself? Isn't the enemy's shelling enough to refresh you?"

"That's what I said."

Pavlov was giving orders to his staff to confirm the damage caused by the shelling.

At this time, the communications staff officer came over and said: "The front army headquarters is sending a message."

Wang Zhong took the telegram, glanced at it, and handed it to Pavlov: "The front army wants us to retreat back to Arvik and rely on the city and the Suhayaveli River for defense."

Pavlov: "You're crazy. If you give the west bank of the Suhayaveli River to the Plosen people like this, isn't it the same as selling the Bolsk Front?"

Wang Zhong: "Obviously some of our front army commanders lack the overall situation."

Vasily: "Replace him!"

Wang Zhong looked over.

Vasily spread his hands: "It's about making a phone call to His Majesty the Tsar!"

Wang Zhong shook his head: "No, if I call directly to do this kind of thing, I will be convinced that I am the prince. Send a message to the headquarters to express our dissatisfaction with the front army headquarters, and let the headquarters come to pressure the front army headquarters."

Pavlov: "Okay, I will order the drafting of the message."

Popov said in a chatty tone: "We passed the front headquarters several times to communicate with the superiors. If the commander had a temper, he would have started to curse."

Wang Zhong: "Actually, I am also quite worried. The command order of the army must be maintained. But you see, in the current situation, it is better to disobey orders than to wait for the front army commander's stupidity to cause a catastrophe."

Popov nodded: "Didn't you hear that I was just chatting? And the high command obviously agrees with your opinion. We have to wait here until August, at least August, so that the mud can help us."

Wang Zhong corrected him: "Mud and grassland. This grassland is terrible. It will swallow up those who despise it."

"It seems that you have a deep understanding." Pavlov said.

Wang Zhong: "Of course, I saw with my own eyes that the tall grass caught the front wheel of the enemy's half-track vehicle, making it unable to move."

As he spoke, Wang Zhong came to the map, stared at it for a few seconds, and then shook his head: "It's a pity that we didn't have time to conduct reconnaissance on the area occupied by the enemy. I don't know where the enemy's artillery is."

Pavlov: "You can look forward to today's reconnaissance. It is different from the grassland of Khazalia. There are many woods and dotted towns on the grassland of Khazalia. There are many places for cannons to hide.

“Here, there is grassland as far as the eye can see. If you want to hide the cannons, you need to build a complete artillery position, dig out bunkers for the cannons in the ground, and set up camouflage nets.

"The enemy's infantry division only arrived yesterday afternoon and did not have much time to dig positions. As long as our pilots set off early, they can take pictures of the enemy's artillery positions."

Wang Zhong: "But, are the photos accurate enough for our artillery fire?"

Pavlov was silent.

Yesterday's photos all can only correspond to the coordinate grid on the map, there are no more specific coordinates.

A coordinate grid is too large to be imagined, and there is no way to carry out artillery bombardment with this.

The reason for this is mainly because there is no GPS and Beidou in this era, and it is very difficult for air force units to figure out their position.

The only way is to let Wang Zhong command the Air Force, and then establish direct contact with the Air Force, so that the position of the Air Force can be determined by plug-ins, and by the way, where the targets they see are.

It’s a pity that there is no air force unit directly under Wang Zhong’s command.

Wang Zhong looked at the map and thought for a long time. He felt that the best way to steal the enemy’s artillery now was to send a cavalry squad to attack the enemy’s artillery position.

If this squad is particularly familiar with the grassland terrain and has experience in grassland life, it may succeed.

It’s a pity that Wang Zhong doesn’t have such a "special force" on hand.

Forget it, it’s just 12 150mm guns, just bear with it. And the enemy’s logistics may run out of shells after a few bombardments.