Arc of Gunfire

First Mobile Army, fake artillery position.

As the bombs fell, a Stuka bomber from Proson hit the ground with a trail of smoke.

The second arrow also took off, turned in the air and chased the low-flying enemy plane.

The Stuka, whose tail was bitten by the arrow, had its machine gunner shoot at the approaching arrow desperately. It was a pity that the firepower density of the machine gun was not as good as that of a close-range weapon, and the accuracy of manual aiming could not catch up with the radar plus optoelectronic aiming of later generations.

The arrow caught up with the Stuka and exploded into a ball of orange light.

The Stuka caught fire, even its wings were on fire, and rushed to the ground.

The third arrow was launched, chasing the enemy who had disappeared on the horizon.

At the launch site, the soldiers of the Skitarii were already moving the launch racks and other things, but the prayer hands were still kneeling on the cushions, maintaining the posture of prayer.

"Katyusha, it's time for us to move."

Katyusha is Ekaterina's nickname. After fighting together for so long, the Crusaders have long been familiar with the Praying Hands, so they call her by her nickname.

And because Katyusha is very short, everyone takes care of her as a little sister.

The girl did not respond and continued to pray. It was obvious that she hoped that the arrow she had just launched would hit the target.

Deputy Knight Yetsemenko looked at his watch and patted Katyusha on the shoulder: "Okay, the rocket has already left the power stage. If it doesn't hit, it can't catch up with the enemy planes flying close to the ground."

Katyusha then breathed a sigh of relief and opened her eyes: "How many did you shoot down?"

She is different from other Praying Hands. She doesn't need to look at the target when launching a rocket, so she will take the initiative to close her eyes when praying, which makes her look more pious.

"Two." Yetsemenko held up two fingers, "For the last one, you can ask the infantry whether they have recovered the wreckage of the fallen arrow. If there are no enemy planes near the wreckage, it should not have been hit. Okay, let's move."

Yetsemenko stretched out his hand to pull Katyusha up and walked towards the truck that was already on standby.

Katyusha followed him and said as she walked: "So I have shot down 16 enemy planes, should I get a gold star?"

"It should be. You are now our best praying hand, and you should be given a gold star. I will write a report to the higher-ups." Yetsemenko replied.

Katyusha: "I got the gold star, so it should be the army commander who awarded me the medal, right?"

"It should be. What, you also secretly like Rokossov?"

"No." Katyusha answered immediately, and then said a few seconds later, "But everyone would expect the person who awarded them the gold star to be more powerful, right? When the war is over and I become an old grandmother, I can say to my grandchildren: 'The one who awarded grandma the medal was Rokossov.'"

Yetsemenko laughed: "When he led us to break out of Roniezh, we thought 'It's over, we met a bad commander this time', and I had a quarrel with him because he didn't let us set the magic arrow on the top of the bell tower."

Katyusha was shocked: "Really?"

"Really, the enemy demolished the bell tower with the first shot. If the general hadn't ordered us to change our position, the general's wife and I would have died there."

"Is that so."

Yetsemenko got on the car first, and then held out his hand to Katyusha.

Katyusha was not polite, and pulled his hand to climb onto the truck - if she relied on herself, she would probably have to climb up by the wheel.

Katyusha sat down in the truck bed and asked with concern: "So the general saved your life?"

"I guess so. But later the battle was very fierce, and I was ready to sacrifice my life for the country. The enemy tanks and infantry were less than 20 meters away from us, and we had no angle to launch the magic arrow.

"As a result, the general personally commanded a tank to go around the enemy's buttocks and rescued us."

Katyusha didn't know why, and her expression looked a little fascinated: "Is that so!"

At this time, the private soldier of the Crusaders sitting opposite Katyusha said: "Thanks to the general, the magic arrows were used for air defense, and the death rate of the praying hands dropped suddenly. Otherwise, we are still on the front line now, facing the impact of enemy tanks at any time."

Yetsemenko: "Fortunately, it didn't happen, otherwise the praying hands and magic arrows will soon become a historical term. I don't know how long it will take to gather the praying hands to form the magic arrow battalion."

"There is no magic arrow battalion now," said the Crusaders soldier, "You see, we only have five praying hands, and there are only a few people in the entire group army. "

Katyusha looked up at the blue sky and sighed: "Saint Andrew said that the more productivity develops, the larger the scale of the war, the less we will be needed. Now it has come true."

Yetsemenko said in a deep voice: "Glory to Saint Andrew, Amen."

Others followed and chanted in a low voice: "Amen."

————

"The enemy bombed our fake artillery positions." Pavlov put down the report in his hand and looked at Wang Zhong.

Wang Zhong: "General! See how you run!"

"You focus too much on attacking." Popov smiled, moved his castle, easily resolved Wang Zhong's offensive, and then reminded, "You are about to die."

Wang Zhong hurriedly looked at his king. After a long silence, he dragged out an "oh" and complained: "This chess can always move diagonally, and the soldier can transform when it reaches the bottom line. It's too complicated. Especially this soldier's transformation at the bottom line, you can understand the transformation of castles, horses and elephants, but what does it mean to become a queen? Is it a man dressed as a woman? "

Popov laughed.

Wang Zhong: "What are you laughing at? Are you right? This soldier turned into a queen, can he give birth to a prince? It's unreasonable!"

Vasily crossed his arms and said, "General, your chess skills are terrible."

Nonsense, I haven’t played chess since I was a kid!

You change the Chinese chess Chuhehanjie and let's try it?

At this time, Pavlov raised his voice: "The enemy air raided our fake artillery position!"

Wang Zhong: "I know, find another place and set up a fake position. There is also a real artillery position and it should be disguised as soon as possible. Come on, start over, I feel like I have figured out how to play chess."

Pavlov: "Can't you just stop playing chess?"

Wang Zhong: "Isn't this trust in your ability? Otherwise, how about I go to the front line to drive a small tank?"

"Didn't you think of coming here to do something that a commander should do?"

Wang Zhong: "I've finished reviewing the documents! It's such a thick stack!"

"How come your great commander is so confident when he is not doing his job properly?"

Wang Zhong sighed and said: "The enemy is not alive, no matter whether it is a frontal attack or a pincer offensive, they have not launched.

"I estimate that their supplies have also been dragged down by the grassland. After all, it is a little over 200 kilometers from their logistics center to here. Many supply trucks got stuck in the grassland. If they were bombed by our Pei-2 bombers, oh... "

While rearranging the chess pieces, Popov said: "The Prosen people probably regard the prairie of South Ant as the black land of Khazalia. They don't even think about why there are so many villages in Khazalia, but here there are It’s so vast and so sparsely populated.”

Wang Zhong: "I didn't know the situation here when I first came here. How did it turn out? The phone lines were bitten by voles all day long, there were dangerous terrains everywhere that even tanks couldn't pass, and there were grasses so high that they could wrap up trucks. Wheels – great guys.

"No wonder Xia Boyang spent so long suppressing bandits on the grassland, and was finally attacked by a sneak attack on his headquarters. If you are not familiar with the terrain of this grassland, you will be attacked by a sneak attack."

Vasily: "And we are preparing to sneak attack on the enemy!"

Wang Zhong: "That's not accurate. It's a sneak attack on the enemy's logistics. A saber can't kill a tank."

"But we are equipped with anti-tank incendiary bombs." The voice came from the door of the headquarters.

Wang Zhong turned his head and saw two officers wearing cavalry breeches coming in - now the new cavalry uniform, in order to save resources, the upper body is basically the uniform of ordinary soldiers, only the breeches remain, so the cavalry can only be identified by the breeches. .

Pavlov faithfully performed his duties as chief of staff, walked up to him and asked, "Who are you two?"

"Gorokov, commander of the 1st Cavalry Regiment of the 33rd Cavalry Division of the 20th Cavalry Corps, has arrived with the leading team of the Cavalry Corps!" The two officers saluted Wang Zhong as they spoke.

Wang Zhong stood up, straightened his clothes, and saluted back: "Hello. You're here just in time. We have just compiled the information we learned from the herdsmen on the map."

Pavlov looked sideways at Wang Zhong.

It was normal for him to have this expression. After all, Wang Zhong said as if the summary of this information had a lot to do with himself as the commander, but in fact it had no relationship at all. It was all the work of the map staff.

Wang Zhong ignored Pavlov and enthusiastically introduced to the cavalry officers: "Look at the map. If you don't understand something, ask the old herdsman. That herdsman is an officer of the Tsar's Guards and has a very high military quality."

Gorokov said: "There are also local herders in our team. They left the team to find their fellow villagers on the way here. They should bring back many fellow villagers who are familiar with the terrain."

Wang Zhong asked worriedly: "Can we mobilize them? That old herdsman is quite a die-hard."

"I asked my military priests to follow me. It should be okay. According to our soldiers, many of the herdsmen are already secular."

Wang Zhong nodded: "Okay, we also asked the old herdsmen to write a letter to the herdsmen's elders. When the main force of your cavalry army arrives, there should be enough guides. But you must pay attention to protect the masses and not let them The guides are hurt, so we would rather sacrifice ourselves to ensure their safety.”

Gorokov stared at Wang Zhong for a few seconds and said, "You are indeed as rumored."

Wang Zhong: "What do the rumors say?"

"Even if you say you are going to break through, you should bring the people with you. When defending a place, evacuate women and children first."

Wang Zhong: "I am just repaying the kindness of the people for saving me many times. This is not worth mentioning. Don't say it again in the future."

"Yes." Gorokov saluted.

Wang Zhong: "By the way, are you familiar with Kirinenko?"

"He and our military commander are good friends." Gorokov said.

"That's it." Wang Zhong nodded, "Hurry up and get familiar with the terrain. You will have a heavy task tomorrow. Whether you can break the enemy's pincer offensive depends on how well you run on the grassland!"