artillery arc

Chapter 380 Coffee Time Bombardment

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.

Moreover, Pavlov and his men also live in the warehouse. Popov protested against this yesterday, arguing that military No. 1 and No. 2 cannot live together. What if the enemy follows Wang Zhong's example and launches night artillery fire?

But the Prosens did not carry out any night bombardment, and the night passed peacefully.

The next day, July 7, when Wang Zhong got up, he saw Pavlov sitting in front of a map and watching his staff update the map.

Wang Zhong got up, put on his coat and pants, and walked towards the map table where Pavlov was while fastening his belt: "Did you not sleep last night?"

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

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

"That's because it's always afternoon when you get to the headquarters. I actually got plenty of rest in Yebao 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.”

Seeing Wang Zhong's expression, Pavlov quickly added: "When things are almost arranged, I will let Popov take duty 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 wonder what it has become."

"According to the prisoners," Popov said as he appeared, "Emperor Prosen's favorite general preserved the place as a whole and had the Academy of Military Sciences survey it, as if he was using it as a model for urban defense warfare."

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

As the designer and actual user, Wang Zhongke knew very well how terrible the fortifications were.

Popov nodded. "I'm afraid so."

Wang Zhong shook his head. "Oh no! As the chairman of the Equipment Review Committee, I have to quickly come up with something for urban warfare. Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Because it was just interrogated from the prisoners yesterday. We captured three thousand prisoners yesterday, and I got a lot of information by just asking a few casual questions. The interrogators behind will have a lot of work to do." Popov said with a loud yawn.

Wang Zhong: "Didn't you sleep well?"

"It's OK. I'm still a little confused, and usually at times like this I need some tea, or coffee."

Wang Zhong turned his head and saw Nelly standing beside him, ready at all times. When their eyes met, 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 the most trusted general of the emperor. He has a say in many matters that exceeds his military rank."

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

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

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

This gap is too big!
Pavlov said: "When I was in Shostka, I thought about how we could capture such a fortified city, and the only solution I thought of was to use heavy artillery to bomb it.

"In my opinion, wouldn't it be a good idea for us to put a shell on the B4 cannon and turn it into an assault gun, specifically for demolishing buildings?"

Wang Zhong shook his head: "No, the barrel of the B4 heavy gun 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.

"There is actually a better option. We can use a short barrel to launch a short-range rocket with a huge charge, specifically for demolishing buildings. This way the launcher can be very light and does not have to withstand the ultra-high chamber pressure when the shell is fired. The recoil during shooting is also very small."

Wang Zhong said and gestured.

"Rockets?" Pavlov frowned. "From a production perspective, it does seem to be much simpler than making cannons."

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

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

If a weapon does not require the production of a complex barrel, it will have a huge advantage in productivity.

Popov looked at Wang Zhong and said, "You look so confident. Do you have an idea?"

"Yes." Wang Zhong nodded.

Wang Zhong's idea was to simplify the Tiger assault gun, for example, by reducing the weight of the shells and making the shell loading speed faster, and then changing the overall structure and simplifying the traveling mechanism.

Of course, you can also adopt the plan brought by Britain on Earth, and install a 290mm mortar on the Churchill tank, turning it into a Churchill AVRE special tank, which is specifically used to demolish buildings.

In theory, the KV2 is very suitable for demolishing buildings, but this weapon is hindered by the 152mm gun. In fact, this type of armored vehicle does not need to pursue long-range shooting, and 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 gun of the Churchill AVRE brought by Britain on Earth was very simple and leaked everywhere. After all, it was not intended to fire the shells very far.

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

Wang Zhong was just thinking about it when a whistling sound came from the sky.

Someone at the door yelled, "Fire!"

Wang Zhong pounced and fell to the ground.

After he lay down, he looked up and saw Nellie also lying not far away in a standard anti-cannon posture. Then came the earth-shaking attack - huh?

Wang Zhong turned around and asked Pavlov: "Do you feel that the bombardment is not particularly fierce?"

Pavlov agreed, "Indeed, it feels similar to yesterday's bombardment. There aren't many 150mm heavy guns, only about twelve. I estimated it!"

Wang Zhong: "That is to say, only one division of artillery is firing at us now."

Pavlov: "It could be two divisions. After all, our estimate may be wrong. But the maximum number is 24 for sure."

Wang Zhong switched to a bird's-eye view. He originally wanted to estimate how many heavy artillery pieces larger than 150 mm there were by the size of the noise they made when they landed. However, he found that the shells were falling continuously, and it was difficult to distinguish whether they were from the same salvo.

So he adopted Pavlov's estimate.

The bombardment lasted for about an hour. When the sound of the bombardment gradually subsided, Wang Zhong got up and patted the dust off his body. He was used to maintaining the anti-artillery posture for a long time, and he would not feel tired at all after just one hour.

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

Wang Zhong: "The coffee and tea are all covered in dust. Let's change them."

"No, no!" Popov said, picking up the coffee and drinking it all in one gulp. "The dust will settle at the bottom. Just be careful when you drink it."

Wang Zhong: "Are you sure you still need coffee to wake you up? Isn't the enemy's bombardment enough to wake you up?"

"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 came over: "The front headquarters is calling."

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

Pavlov: "That's crazy! Giving up the west bank of the Sukhayaveli River to the Prosens is like selling out the Borsk Front."

Wang Zhong: "Obviously, some of our front commanders lack a sense of the overall situation."

Vasily: "Change him!"

Wang Zhong looked over.

Vasily spread his hands and said, "It's about calling His Majesty the Tsar!"

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

Pavlov: "Okay, I'll order the drafting of the telegram right away."

Popov said in a casual tone: "We repeatedly bypassed the front headquarters to communicate with the higher-ups. If a commander with a bad temper had started cursing long ago."

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

Popov nodded. "Didn't you hear that I was just chatting? And the High Command obviously agrees with you. We should drag this out until August, at least until August, so that the mud can help us."

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

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

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

Wang Zhong came to the map, stared at it for a few seconds, and then shook his head: "What a pity, we didn't have time to scout the enemy-occupied area, and we don't know where the enemy artillery is."

Pavlov: "We can look forward to today's reconnaissance. It is different from the Khazaria steppes. There are many forests and towns scattered around on the Khazaria steppes. There are plenty of places to hide the cannons.

"Here, there are endless grasslands. If we want to hide the cannons, we need to build a complete artillery position, dig a shelter for the cannons on the ground, and set up a camouflage net.

"The enemy's infantry division only arrived yesterday afternoon, so they didn't have much time to dig in. As long as our pilots set off early, we can take photos of the enemy's artillery positions."

Wang Zhong: "But is the accuracy of the photo sufficient for us to launch an artillery attack?"

Pavlov was silent.

All of yesterday’s photos can only correspond to the coordinate squares on the map, there are no more specific coordinates.

A coordinate square is so large beyond imagination that there is no way to use it for artillery fire.

The main reason for this is that there was no GPS and Beidou in this era, and it was very difficult for air force units to figure out their own location.

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

Unfortunately, there is currently 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 launch a surprise attack on the enemy's artillery position.

If this small team is particularly familiar with the grassland terrain and has experience in grassland life, they may be able to succeed.

Unfortunately, Wang Zhong does not have such a "special forces" at hand.

Never mind, it's just 12 150mm guns, just bear with it. And with the enemy's logistics, they might run out of ammunition after a few attacks.

(End of this chapter)