Thunder Strikes Back

Important goals
"At 12 o'clock, the enemy is turning towards us." The commander shouted in the headset, and at the same time he began to steer the gun clockwise.It can be seen from the forward sight that the enemy in that direction found himself first.The turret was turning unhurriedly, and one armor-piercing shell was loaded.The gunner saw the green laser emitted from the front of the T72 turret flickering in front of his eyes. Obviously, it emitted a laser with a wavelength close to visible light, which is visible to the naked eye. In addition to the distance measuring function, sometimes doing so can also damage the opponent's eyes. Or destroy aiming.Tasim barely squinted his left eye to take aim, then closed his eyes and waited for the opportunity to shoot.

"Saad, reverse quickly." The driver shouted.

The car body began to shake violently back and forth, but this did not affect the work of the image stabilization system, as long as his mind was not disturbed, the target would not shake either.

At such a distance, he does not need a second range measurement at all, as long as the shooting line arrives, he can shoot.But during the long wait for the turret to rotate, the enemy took the lead in completing the turn on the spot, and now it aimed the front armor plate at 221 and turned on the infrared searchlight, which made both sides excellent targets at the same time.

"fire."

No. 221 fired first amidst the loud noise, but this time it was a little unlucky. The shell missed the hit. Obviously, the shooting was too fast, which made the angular velocity measurement wrong (the fire control computer will count the turret rotation speed as the angular velocity caused by the opponent's movement,) Experienced veterans will stop for a while before tracking the immobile target, but obviously Tasim is not a veteran. He chose to fire first when the two guns were aimed at each other.

"What's the matter, the shot missed! It's just..." Before the commander Yahini could finish his complaint, he was interrupted by the firepower fired by the enemy.

The opponent's gun accurately hit the front armor of No. 221, but I don't know why the shell it fired hit the front armor of the car body and bounced off (No. 221 happened to be on a horizontal slope with its muzzle) .During this round of confrontation between the two tanks, the other T72s behind them never fired, which made Yahini calmly retreat into the shooting blind spot of most Indian tanks on the road, as long as the tank with the searchlight turned on In front of him, the self-machine was completely exposed to the night, so he had to quickly find a geographical shield to hide the vulnerable side.

Another armor-piercing round was reloaded, and the opponent obviously hadn't finished reloading yet.

"Don't worry, take it easy." The driver shouted.Given that the loading machines of the two are very similar, Yahini judged that the opponent's loading action was at least half behind in this round of loading.He can even see the opponent's muzzle rising from the 3x viewing mirror to match the action of the ejector lever, which means he can count silently for at least 5 seconds.

Tasim turned a deaf ear to the commander's words. Just now he saw a shell accurately hit the car body, just like in slow motion. He thought he was about to die, but after a long wait, he was sure that the shell did not get into the cab.This scene made him realize a certain kind of pure fighting state in which he can forget himself in an instant, the passage of time began to become abnormally slow, and the nonsense of the driver's ears became blurred.At this moment, other than aiming, no distracting thoughts can enter his brain. He can even guess what his opponent is thinking at the moment. The Indian colleague who aimed at him is planning to raise the muzzle slightly and shoot at the turret. , but he probably won't have this chance.Tasim took a deep breath and waited for the enemy's final artillery adjustment. He rushed to fire the shell at the moment between the enemy's firing.

This shot accurately hit the cockpit under the artillery, which is the weakest position in the entire front of the tank.The shell penetrated the front armor, killing the driver instantly, and then burrowed into the automatic loading machine on the floor, detonating one of the shells before the explosion suppression system had time to activate.The huge explosion lifted the turret of the T72 completely, flew into the air, and then fell heavily on the sand.At this time, No. 221 has completed the U-turn. It circled the sand dunes in the dark and saw the Indian tanks behind them retreating. Obviously they did not understand the number of Pakistani tanks. Maybe the infrared searchlights of the T72 had the opposite effect, and they were hidden The Pakistani tanks on one side were terrified.

For the time being, Yahini has not been able to comprehend another advantage of his own, which is the deep fear in the hearts of the enemy who is alone.They are afraid of being too far away from the long-lost brigade and becoming a disposable pawn in the generals' game. They are afraid of counterattacks hidden in the dark, and they are also afraid of the scorching sun during the day; before the battle, there was a rumor among tank soldiers that they must not Being destroyed in the depths of the enemy, if that only means two things, either being roasted to death by the scorching sun during the day, or being captured alive by angry desert residents after leaving the tank, which is obviously worse than the former method of death, so The company's resolve began to crumble and it scrambled to reverse.

During a controlled charge (forward speed is approximately equal to the speed of the enemy's high-speed reversing), Yahini fired all the armor-piercing bullets at the reversing enemy tank and hit it several times, but due to the distance, he did not completely During this period, the enemy fired more than a dozen times at No. 221, none of which hit.In the end, No. 221 launched the battle secretly. It still had 290 liters of fuel and a few rounds of grenades left. It was obviously asking for trouble to continue chasing.

In this battle, Sergeant Yahini relied on his technical advantages and some luck to destroy 5 enemy tanks, which prevented the cheerful night march of the entire Indian 16th Mechanized Infantry Division. It was during the battle that he achieved an unexpected and huge result, which Pakistani intelligence agencies took a long time to figure out.

In the early hours of the morning, Lieutenant General Spanga was still staying in Ramgarh's underground headquarters to listen to the latest battle reports. He hadn't made a final decision on when he would cross the border to the Pakistani side to visit the front line in person. This had to depend on the actual progress of the troops ahead.

Eight hours into the attack, all the intended locations had been taken, and the Pakistan Army clearly did not have enough frontier forces to impede the attack.From the map, the entire battle line has been advancing from the enemy's border to Xiping for 8 to 20 kilometers. Some areas are still unstable and fierce fighting is still going on, but there is one exception, which is the northernmost 25th Infantry Division, the second-line division After advancing for as much as 16 kilometers, they seemed to have found a joint between the 45th Pakistani Division and the 16st Armored Division, which allowed the lieutenant general to see the possibility of cutting off the enemy in advance.

"How is the operation of the 2nd Army in Multan?"

"Very quickly, as expected by the staff, the main force is gathering in the south of Multan overnight. Their special forces and military police have already controlled the railway bridge on the lower reaches of the Sutlej River an hour ago. If the number of refugees during the day increase, it is likely that refugees will be prohibited from escaping to the north through these bridges. The staff thinks they have at least one brigade that can reach Baharpur by rail and road this afternoon. Heavy equipment will come later."

"The infantry brigade is not important, what is important is the movement of the [-]st Armored Division. If their tanks cannot cross the river, our battle will be much easier."

"Air force reconnaissance shows that there are only a few Pakistani tanks in this area. Mainly the two T16 battalions of the 2th Infantry Division. These tanks are scattered and do not pose a threat at present."

"You can't trust everything the Air Force says. They assured me yesterday that as long as they attack before sunset, most of the forward artillery can be wiped out. As a result... right, that's all the information you got?"

"There is also the latest information, which is also reported by the Air Force. A column battalion of the [-]st Armored Division is moving to the lower tributary of the Suttledge River overnight. However, the enemy convoy has implemented light control, and it is difficult to determine the specific equipment."

"The downstream tributary? It must be the engineering unit. Let the Air Force pay close attention to the movement of this convoy, focusing on those narrow rivers. Their M60 bridge bridge tanks can build bridges on rivers 20 meters wide at any time. In that case, they tanks could be sneaking up right under our noses."

"Also, there is a casualty report from the 16th Infantry Division."

"What's going on?" Spanga immediately became alert.

"The deputy mayor of the 16th division, Major General Nitaral, was missing during the morning assault. The tank he was riding in was seen burning and no one climbed out of the embankment."

"Where?"

"Here, next to the road from Hanger to Fort De La Voor, about 28 kilometers away from Fort De La Voor. At that time, the major general's car was among the five vehicles in front, and all five tanks were destroyed. "

Spanga stood up immediately and stood by the map, seeming more concerned with the location of the firefight than with the life or death of a major general.

"Nitaral is from my hometown and has always been competitive. I told them to wait for the infantry in Hangel, haha. What kind of troops is the opponent?"

"The assault group of the 16th Division reoccupied the area in the morning. Judging from the withdrawal and shell casings left behind, it is a kind of tank equipped with a 125mm artillery made in China. It is definitely not the T16 of the 84th Infantry Division in Pakistan (I check the information In reality, India and Pakistan each have a 16th Division confronting each other at the border, which is easy to make mistakes.)”

"Obviously, it is a Khalid tank, which means that a unit of the [-]st Armored Division has already crossed the river, so I tell you not to trust the Air Force's reconnaissance. So we have to have some special means to organize their advance."

Spanga waved everyone out, leaving only one liaison officer in sight.

"Have they passed the plan to attack the railway bridge?"

"No, sir, the Air Staff's memory of the loss of the Daba attack is still fresh. At present, the air squadrons in Jodhpur are afraid to attack deep targets, and the intelligence agency believes that they have a Chinese-made air defense system that has just been deployed here. near a bridge. Our electronic jamming doesn't seem to have much effect on this system."

"Okay then, tell Southern Air Command to get them to send someone credible to the 'Teus' plan. I need to completely jam their tanks within 72 hours."

"Understood." The liaison officer turned and walked out of the underground headquarters.

(End of this chapter)