Thunder Strikes Back

Chapter 592 The Beginning of a Large-Scale Air Raid

About 1700 meters apart, the two sides started an artillery battle with a disparity in numbers.

The Indian platoon leader destroyed many Pakistani vehicles during the Battle of Karachi, and he was quite calm.He used the image stabilization equipment to observe the target first, and then pointed out the nearest target to the gunner.

The Chinese tanks don't travel very fast, so he doesn't have a hard time aiming.His hands were already sweating as he clenched the grip of the Zhou Vision equipment.I only heard the sound of Peng, and the huge kinetic energy of the long pole projectile hitting the outer armor was transmitted through the rigidly connected turret. Even if the head rested on the soft forehead pad, you could feel the impact of this force, and the image in the eyepiece jitter.He quickly checked his surroundings. There were no flames or smoke, so he could be sure that the tank hadn't been pierced.With a bit of confidence in his heart, he continued to stick his head on the image stabilization director, waiting to fire.

"shooting."

This challenged the returned shells and accurately detonated the reactive armor of the second Type 99, but could not penetrate the front wedge armor.At the same time, he found that the number of enemies was not 8, but more than 10.And those infantry fighting vehicles hiding behind also began to shoot here, and even mortar shells fell continuously. The size of the combined army opposite the enemy is obviously much larger than the Indian army here.He didn't want to release the smoke to retreat, which would block his sight. It was time to destroy the rumors that the Type 99 tank could not penetrate from the front.There are 2 recorders in the entire hunting system of the Challenger II, which are respectively in the observation equipment of the commander and the gunner. These equipment can record the imaging of the thermal imager. If it catches fire, then such a video obviously has certain publicity value.

While the Indian platoon leader forced himself to settle down, the loader in the tank was bursting out with amazing strength, quickly loading the next shell.

At this time, the Indian platoon leader surpassed the gunner to measure the distance.The enemy was still approaching, and the set distance was 1640 meters. He decisively moved the front sight and aimed at the lower part of the turret of the tank. He knew that he had hit the thick wedge-shaped armor, where there was a nest area, and then opened fire.

The heavy Challenger is much more stable than the T72 when firing. He can still track its direction through the tracer tube at the tail of the shell in the eyepiece of the image stabilization director. The shell follows a straight trajectory and penetrates into the lower wedge armor. , but the stubby armor-piercing projectile was bounced away again.He even saw two groups of dazzling rays of light burst out from the left and right bottom of the armor, which looked like the core of the bullet was shattered.

"what happened?"

"Perhaps it's still too far away."

Obviously, the kinetic energy of the armor-piercing projectiles used by rifled guns decays quickly, which is clearly seen in the charts provided by the British, probably because of the aspect ratio.

The Chinese tank continued to advance, but the speed slowed down a little.During the period, another Type 99 tank fired back while it was moving. It passed the turret and there were some noises outside, as if it had hit the top machine gun. Fortunately, the external surrounding mirror was not damaged.

If the enemy tanks continue to approach, the problem of the lack of power of the Challenger II rifled gun at long distances may be alleviated, but the problem of the enemy's slightly poor accuracy during the march will also be reduced.And the numerical advantage is still unshakable 3 to 1.

It seems that it is not time to fight recklessly. The Indian platoon leader began to contact his superiors and asked to retreat.In fact, other vehicles of the reconnaissance battalion have retreated towards the Indian border by themselves under the pressure of enemy fire.The so-called fire reconnaissance is nothing more than using part of the troops to test the enemy's counterattack. Now that it has been done, it seems impossible to continue to maintain its presence on the west side of the border.

The loader was still desperately loading the third shell, but his movement was not in place, which caused some bumping sounds, and the speed was a little slower than before. Obviously, automatic loading is more suitable for Indian soldiers who are malnourished all the year round.

"Shoot there. Hit hard," he told the gunner, hoping the shells would penetrate the armor and knock the turret off.

The shells still hit accurately amidst the bang, but at that distance it proved difficult to penetrate an opponent, with or without reactive armor.

Huang Dexing was also unable to penetrate the opponent's exposed turret at a distance of 1600 meters. He saw with his own eyes that a Challenger was hit 3 times in a row, but it was unscathed. If the information is reliable, the Challenger II is equivalent to a homogeneous The defensive ability of the steel plate must be around 1200 meters before it can be penetrated with confidence.But he couldn't wait that dangerous distance.Fortunately, he had a second plan, and immediately ordered the gunner to replace it with a fin-stabilized fragmentation grenade.At a distance of about 1550 meters, the accuracy of the 125mm smoothbore gun is enough for him to play some tricks.Since the enemy only showed an impenetrable hard head, thinking that he would be invincible, it was necessary to hit the various sighting sensors on it hard.

"Stop. Hit the left side of the upper half of the turret."

"Understood." The gunner replied.

The front armor of the Challenger's turret has a large slope, which looks like a hill piled up on the chassis. Compared with the wedge-shaped armor, it lacks a nest area under the gun mantle, but its disadvantages are pride and Once the grenade hits any position on the front of the turret, the shock wave and fragments of the explosion will go upward along the flat sloped armor, which is bound to destroy the sensor.

The driver slammed on the brakes as instructed.The tank nodded slightly forward, then steadied itself.During this period, the gun stabilization system always compensates for the barrel pointing to the target.

No matter what kind of tank, the sighting equipment of the commander and gunner is the most vulnerable part of the tank, and you can't cover them with armor.At the same time, these optical equipment are also things that cannot be repaired by the field tank repair shop (unless the east wall is demolished to make up for the west wall). In fact, India itself cannot produce these equipment.

The gunner was unable to turn around and back to withdraw the shells. According to the needs of the battlefield, he randomly aimed at a BMP-2 that was running away in reverse, and pierced it with armor-piercing shells in the barrel.

Then, he chose to load new ammunition on the automatic loading machine on the right hand side. During the automatic loading process, he quickly selected the grenade working condition on the fire control system. Distinctly different ammunition.Only by using the disturbing shooting method after parking, can the target be hit.This ammunition, whose main purpose is to kill infantry, has a charge of 3 kilograms and 2000 sword-shaped fragments. Even if it cannot penetrate tanks, it has a strong ability to destroy tanks.

Huang Dexing asked the rest of the tanks to stop together through the radio and not to continue to take risks.At this distance, the thermal imager worked fine, beyond 1500 meters, he didn't know which side would have the upper hand first.

In order to get as close as possible to the upper sensor of the turret, the gunner made some corrections upwards. With the change of the cross wind data, the sight has been fluttering indefinitely. This kind of low-speed ammunition is not very accurate.Then he pressed the launch button, and amidst the roar, the shell flew towards the target in a shallow arc trajectory, but unfortunately it missed and exploded far behind the tank.He then waited patiently for the second round of ammunition to be pushed into place.This time he knew it well, and corrected the reference sight to move to a slightly lower position.

The second shot accurately hit the opponent's turret, and the special charge mixed with granular aluminum powder formed a very high temperature orange fireball that lasted for a long time, and then the fireball quickly extinguished.I can't see the effect for the time being, and I don't know how it will affect Chobham's armor. If it's just steel armor, such an explosion is enough to transfer kinetic energy and heat to kill members.But Huang Dexing observed that the enemy's gun barrel was still turning.It appears that at least the commander is still alive.

Five seconds later, the enemy tank began to emit smoke, which quickly blocked the vision of both the enemy and us. Obviously, it deliberately withdrew from the battle and was going to run away.

The smoke from the explosion in the sky still has a considerable hindrance to the thermal imager, otherwise the Chinese tanks can wait until the opponent turns or reverses uphill and leaks a flaw, and then continue to chase and kill.

Lin Huaisheng crossed Wang Zhenbei and directly appeared on the company commander's radio station to intervene in command. He asked the tank troops not to go too deep at night, so the tank company gave up the opportunity to pursue.In this fight, what he wanted was to test the fighting spirit of the enemy's new troops and the effectiveness of the new weapons, not to cross the border.

The task of extending the strike was originally assigned to the artillery, but due to the fact that the Pakistani troops behind were still unable to independently annihilate several regiments of the disbanded Indian 9th Division, Lin Huaisheng had no choice but to send the artillery to the rear before midnight. Now it must be too late coming.

On the battlefield, all the Indian chariots were releasing smoke. They covered themselves and retreated slowly, and some infantry chariots collided together.

During this period, the two sides were still firing at each other. One Type 1 tank was like a tiger like a flock of sheep, struggling to chase and kill the infantry fighting vehicle, but the enemy's walking device was damaged by the 99mm cannon of the BMP-2. The rounds were damaged after being hit continuously by this kind of small-caliber firepower. Obviously, there are some very intelligent guys in the enemy formation.Such slight damage made the tank unable to maintain normal driving, and finally the track was hit by a shell, and the tank stopped on the battlefield.

India's tank platoon suffered even more serious losses. There were 2 Challengers, the hull of which was severely damaged by grenades, and only maintained the ability to walk.Under the cover of smoke and friendly vehicles, they slowly retreated across the border.The chariots of other Indian reconnaissance battalions also fled back through the smoke.It's a pity that no one was able to completely destroy one. The defensive capabilities of this tank still left a deep impression on Chinese commanders at all levels.Of course, Wang Zhenbei felt a little regretful. This kind of stupid tactics of face-to-face, artillery against artillery, and not allowed to cross the boundary was imposed on him by Lin Huaisheng. Through observation, he has already thought about the future strategy of focusing on the use of mobility. combat strategy.

At 3 a.m., the firefight ceased completely, leaving only about 20 burning chariots parked near the Indian border.

At dawn, the smoke on the battlefield still hasn't dissipated.The tank rescue vehicle sent by Wang Zhenbei began to recover step by step.At this time, the 122mm howitzer in the direction of India began to carry out violent shelling in an attempt to obstruct the rescue work.Judging from the intelligence collected on the battlefield, the Indian army is indeed coming fiercely. Towed artillery has been deployed this night, but it is too weak to block the attack.

The front of the Indian 4th Armored Division kept launching small drones in an attempt to correct the harassing artillery fire, but several wheeled single-tube self-propelled anti-aircraft guns from the Chinese army arrived in time and shot down the large and small drones .These 8 rounds of 35mm anti-aircraft guns were quickly put in place overnight along the road, and then under the command of a Type 95 air defense command vehicle equipped with a battlefield surveillance radar, they filled some gaps in the front air defense line, completely blocking the Indians. The attack path of the machine.

Eventually, the damaged tank was towed back to the rear, and it was only a matter of replacing the damaged inducer and tracks.The losses on the Indian side were much greater. The tanks with destroyed optical equipment were destined to be unable to continue to participate in the battle.

Lin Huaisheng didn't care much about the battle ahead. He knew that there was a brief confrontation now, but this was not the result of the ebb and flow of strength. If the enemy thought that the front line could be stabilized along the border, that was what Lin Huaisheng wished for.There are 12 fresh troops coming behind him. Although it is messy, there are many people.He hoped that these troops could find confidence in the battle to encircle and annihilate the remnants of the Indian 9th Division, which was divided and surrounded. Unfortunately, tens of thousands of shells of various calibers were destroyed overnight. Swallow offensive.

In desperation, he had to transfer the artillery directly under Wang Zhenbei to support it, and now it is finally resolved.

Only now can Lin Huaisheng free up his hands and start sorting out new battles. The first step is to use the air force to attack the enemy's radar and artillery positions deployed in shallow and deep depths. Most of these targets are on the move, and fighters need to wait, so they are very suitable for new deployments. The J-10C fighter jets on this battlefield have a much longer range than the previous J-10 fighter jets, and their ammunition load has also increased.

A new round of negotiations between China and India will start at noon today, BJ time, and there are still a few hours left.The ground battle in Punjab would start around the same time.The Chinese army firmly grasped the initiative of the war and chose to stop at the border, not to let the enemy take a breather, but to pass on the enemy's discomfort with the rhythm of the war.Of course, politically, this move is also enough to deal a severe blow to Kahan's regime.

A large number of fighter planes took off continuously. The first wave of attacks was mainly satellite-guided bombs. After Wang Zhenbei's assault, the target was some fleeing enemy troops who were not in a hurry, and towns that were still heavily guarded.

Fighter planes use nearly ten airports behind Pakistan to take off and land, and the NATO troops in India and Afghanistan cannot monitor most of the planes.

Song Ning demarcated the assembly area and refueling area in the air, and the cover aircraft group made feints from time to time to lure the enemy's radar to follow him, and tried to keep those aircraft carrying bombs on standby at a later position. He tried his best to make them This unprecedented large-scale aerial battle has become orderly.

The high-altitude electronic reconnaissance plane monitors and records every abnormal air-to-air start-up at the front at any time. Song Ning's command plane assigns tasks. He has never commanded such a large battle, but the Indian Air Force dare not fight. Makes the command fairly orderly.

(End of this chapter)