Thunder Strikes Back

Chapter 140 Tungsten Core Armor Piercing Projectile

In the commander's surrounding mirror, the indicator that the shells have been loaded is also lit up at the same time.Yahini presciently turned off the diesel engine and waited, hoping it would help reduce the detection range of enemy night vision equipment.Sure enough, that lonely shadow appeared again. It was not a civilian vehicle but a slow-moving tank. From the appearance, the turret was a bit narrow, more like a T72 tank than a T90S, but the distance was too far. Can't confirm yet.

Yahini thought to himself, maybe what he was facing was not the vanguard of an elite armored division, but the vanguard tank unit of a certain mechanized division.He didn't rush to use the laser range finder, because the target was still far out of range.

"I saw it, an enemy tank." Tahim said eagerly.

"It's a bicycle that is performing a reconnaissance mission. Wait a minute."

Yassini asked the gunner to stare at the vehicle, and continued to search for the remaining targets by turning the surrounding sight glass.Interestingly, it was also the first time to see an enemy tank on the battlefield. The commander Yahini was not in a hurry, and he still had time to search for the enemy behind him.Gunner Tahim, like most people, was a little impatient. His artificial leather forehead pad was already soaked in sweat, and his thumb was firmly pressed on the laser rangefinder button, ready to start aiming at any time.

The T72 in the distance stopped and turned the turret on a commanding height. Under the moonlight, his narrow turret could be seen swinging back and forth, but no reactive armor was seen, and the V-shaped anti-wave plate on the front armor of the car body was clearly visible.This is obviously a T72, which is at the forefront of the entire Indian ground force.

"What are they waiting for?" The gunner and commander were thinking about this question at the same time (the driver's simple low-light night vision device can only see 200 meters away, so he didn't think about this question).

"Perhaps it was easy to break through dozens of kilometers without encountering any obstacles, which made them a little confused? Is it possible to drive all the way to Multan in this way, and plant an Indian flag on the headquarters building of the Second Army?" Ya Heaney murmured.

The Indian tankers probably did have some doubts, because the breakthrough under the moonlit night was surprisingly smooth, and there was no decent resistance at all.Although from the radio, they heard that the main breakthrough direction encountered varying degrees of resistance from the Pakistani side, but here: a secondary attack only to ensure the safety of Uncle Spanga's most elite commando group on the northern flank. area, has indeed become an exception to the hundreds of kilometers of occupied lines.

At this moment, a main force of the 21st Army is entangled with landmines 5 kilometers from the border.A Pakistani 300mm rocket artillery battalion that escaped from Sukkur fired a large number of anti-tank mines towards the possible offensive channel of the Indian Army with extremely rapid countermeasures. These mines that can blow off the tracks of tanks are exposed on the desert surface, but It is not easy to bypass these mines at night. Perhaps the 31st Armored Division will waste a whole night waiting for infantry or bypassing minefields.At midnight, the air force that took off from Jodhpur was looking for this A100 battalion all over the world, and it was fruitless, but all this was not a bad thing for the ambitious 16th Infantry Division. Now that the advantage of distance on the attack route created by the salient of the Er desert has disappeared, honor may sneak away from these arrogant armored divisions.

The 16th Mechanized Infantry Division really got lucky, because Pakistan does not have a complete defense in depth in this area. The original independent artillery unit was just transferred 2 days ago, and even the Indian intelligence department has not been able to grasp this situation.So much so that the assault forward of this division had a surprisingly smooth attack throughout the night, except when they encountered a border guard company who fired a few shots and scattered when they crossed the border, they did not encounter any resistance.The leading tank battalion passed through several enemy positions after the air strike. Without exception, the defenders had already left ahead of time, leaving only a mess.

Now the vanguard tank battalion of the 16th Mechanized Infantry Division has become the most prominent arrow on the entire front. Within 4 hours, the battalion has nearly broken through 40 kilometers of the enemy's territory. Neither Bjerrod nor Handel encountered the expected bloody battle. In fact, the first group of T72 tanks had already reached the expected advance goal set by the superior 40 hours after the start of the battle. Such a speed is in any mechanized war. , can be regarded as a miracle.

Spanga, who was commanding from the rear, had to strictly order the leading troops of the division not to break through quickly, because they could not get too far away from the 24th Rapid Response Division on the southern wing.Moreover, the rapid formation of the division's forwards has also pulled out a gap in the division's headquarters that has not yet crossed the border. In the daytime, the sober enemy may take advantage of this gap.

This order from the headquarters was interpreted by division commander Janaguri. He thought that what Lieutenant General Span really wanted might be to allow several armored divisions of his favorite Western Military Region to run ahead of him, because he There is prejudice against the commanders of several infantry divisions promoted by the old superior Pasade.However, Commander Janaguri himself did not dare to completely disobey this order. He secretly released the advance reconnaissance force and continued to test whether the enemy's defense existed.Since the infantry had not caught up in time, this reconnaissance team was composed entirely of tanks. Janaguri believed that in the desert, it would not be a big problem for tanks to follow without infantry. Moreover, the reconnaissance showed that the Pakistani First Armored Division was still far away in Pakistan in the northwest of the desert. 221 near Hwarpur (the division was indeed there, but a small group of maneuver troops reached the edge of the desert, and the No. [-] team, which lost command, was closer).

The stealthy T72 on the sand dunes decided to move forward. It did not turn on the infrared searchlight that Yahini was most worried about; the infrared searchlight on the left side of the T72 turret is a terrible design to attract enemy firepower, but it can also effectively increase detection for its companions. distance.Apparently the tank wasn't ready to sacrifice itself, and it started rumbling forward again.As expected by the driver Yahini, this vehicle attracted follow-up vehicles, and then two T2s drove out from behind the dunes, and lined up with the tanks in front. Obviously, they were carrying out a search along the highway. mission, this desert road may become a major supply route for the unit in the future.

The turrets of the latter two tanks are aimed at their 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock directions respectively.Yahini waited a while to make sure there was no fourth chariot, but he had a hunch that a fourth was nearby.

While he was observing, the turret of No. 221 kept turning clockwise, because the overstretched gunner Tasim had been overstepping his authority and following the first tank, which made the commander have to manipulate the periscope sight mirror all the time. To counteract his aiming motion by turning.

"I say hold your breath, brother. They haven't found us yet."

"Should we just keep waiting?"

"Don't worry, I want you to aim at the second one." Yahini said, he found that the turret of the tank was always facing the direction of 2 o'clock, which means that the gunner of that tank was the easiest to spot the existence of 221, although This is just a fixed formation movement during the march (the first tank is facing forward, and the rear tanks are respectively aiming at other threatening directions), and the gunner himself obviously has not seen anything, but undoubtedly this is the most important threat.

"why?"

"Don't ask so many questions, just do it."

Tasim had to obey. He gave up the first tank that he had been following for a long time, and slowly turned the turret to the second tank about 200 meters away.If No. 2 does not fire, this small group of enemies may drive along the road from an area 221 meters in front of it.

"I see, you want to wait until they all go over and shoot them from behind and spank their asses?"

"No, we have to fire right away." Yahini said, he expected that there would be more than 3 tanks in this team, and the queue would not be too wide apart. The remaining tanks should be waiting carefully behind the dunes, so he couldn't wait until The enemy in front of him is completely open.

"Listen, the first shot uses disturbance aiming, I require a 1% hit rate, the second shot hits the No. Aim and kill him. Within [-] minute, kill them all, understand."

There was a deathly silence inside the tank, and no one answered the commander's questions.

"Do you understand?" Yahini suddenly raised his voice, like a real superior, and asked again.

"Understood." The other two reluctantly replied.Their lives were tied to the reckless driver.Now he has to use one gun against the enemy's three guns.

"It's either life or death, it's up to us..." Yahini said while looking at the sight of Tasim in the scope, "The ending depends only on the speed."

The Indian tank workshop opened a distance of hundreds of meters and was slowly approaching.Captain Yahini conducted a simple visual inspection through a 3x telescope. He estimated that they were within 2 kilometers. What he was most worried about now was not aiming the muzzle at his second car. In fact, he was most worried about the last car towed, not only because the second shell was about to hit its frontal armor at an oblique angle of about 40 degrees, but also because it was the farthest away, and if the second shell could not Break it down, and the whole plan changes.He also had a backup plan in his stomach, if he missed the second shot, he would quickly reverse the car and flee behind the dunes, but he didn't say it, so as not to distract his teammates.When many people see the enemy approaching for the first time, their thinking will pause for a moment. Yahini is just the opposite. His adrenaline is also rushing to his brain, but it brings a calmer situation instead of a blank Judging, he has even thought up two plans in advance to deal with the various reactions of the enemy, and he can't do so comprehensively in normal exercises. Maybe he is born to be the kind of person who should go to the battlefield.

"This is our first time on the battlefield," said the pilot, Saad, with his hand on the start button now, trembling.

"You should think of it this way, the enemy is also a rookie on the battlefield for the first time, and they are still in the dark, so we have a huge advantage."

The commander's fallacious reasoning worked, and Saad didn't complain any more.

The cross aiming line is steadily tracking the movement of the enemy. Now the T72 is showing a little side, which makes shooting a little more complicated. In the past, there is always a vertical surface to shoot. Any gunner, even a rookie, knows that he should Avoid slopes, especially if the target is 2km away.

"Wait a little longer, wait for them to get closer." The driver said.

"Very good, aim at the joint between the turret and the chassis. Set the shooting correction parameters."

Yahini stepped on the seat and got out of the turret. It was pitch black outside and he couldn't see anything, but the wind on the desert could occasionally transmit the sound of distant engines and tracks crushing the sand. to 5 to 10 meters per second,.So he drilled back into the turret and put on the top cover.His teammates couldn't understand why he had so many problems, coming in and out so many times.

"Tracking and aiming. Temperature 15, altitude 100, muzzle velocity 1750..."

Tasim set the correction value according to the commander's number (these numbers still need to be manually set), and then moved his head to the left eyepiece of the gun console to operate the laser range finder and calculate the target angular velocity.He needs to use the crosshairs to trap the target and continue to track the target stably. The fire control computer samples the angular velocity of the target at a rate of 6 times per second (actually the turret rotation speed), and soon the laser rangefinder completes the rangefinder.The distance displayed in the scope is 1400 meters, which is obviously much closer than the rookie captain estimated.The lower left crosshair of the gunner's sight generates a drifting aiming light spot, which is the corrected aiming point calculated by the fire control computer based on the comprehensive calculation of the ballistic lead, cross wind and angular velocity.Tarsim slowly moved the scope so that this new aiming point was aimed at the underside of the enemy turret.In addition to the sound of the turret turning in the ear, the high and low machine drives the artillery to swing up and down, and there is also a running sound.The gun was adjusting its final elevation on the trunnion.

Tasim put his hand on the firing button and waited for the commander to speak, as usually he would have something to say before firing.

Adjust 0.3 to the right, I think the crosswind is a bit too big.

Tasim complied. He knew that it had nothing to do with the crosswind. The wind speed and direction in the desert are not fixed. Overriding the machine, correcting 0.3 mils can make him feel very comfortable.

"Fire." Yahini covered his ears in advance and said.

With a loud noise, the shell flew towards the unaware enemy, and accurately hit the link between the turret and the chassis.Yahini saw the tank with a speed of 20 kilometers per hour gliding for ten meters before stopping, and then the artillery drooped suddenly. Obviously the attack was successful, and the shells played a role in the narrow turret; The counterweight was destroyed, and he didn't have time to observe carefully, so he immediately turned to the next tank.

(End of this chapter)