Thunder Strikes Back

Chapter 692 Encounter in the Rain
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At 4 o'clock in the morning, 15 M1A1 tanks approached a village by the railway, and a platoon commanded by an Indian commander got lost on the road and lost contact.The rain is getting heavier and heavier. The US captain has never been involved in such bad weather. He himself has rich experience in vehicles, but most of the deployment environments he has experienced are desert areas. In the main area where tanks have been put into combat for decades, he does not have much experience in such an area with relatively soft soil, complex climate, and landforms, especially at night.

Rainy days are bound to bridge the gap between the thermal imaging cameras of the two sides. Captain Fujita knows that this is not good for the US military. As the first batch of heavy ground weapons provided to India, these tanks are the first to update the thermal imaging cameras, which are a generation ahead of the Chinese army.

He confirmed on the radio that the other 14 vehicles were following him in two files.Then he opened the top cover, got out of the tank, and looked around.According to his estimation, if there is a Chinese armored force rushing along the railway, it should be under the nose at this moment. He can't continue to advance rapidly, and must carry out the necessary defenses, and the enemy must be found first.

There was continuous lightning in the sky. For a moment, he saw the outlines of several infantry fighting vehicles flickering. After the lightning disappeared, they disappeared, as if they were hidden behind a small village.There is no road on the west side of the village, but there are large plowed and continuous sugarcane fields and reclaimed farmland, which is a more suitable marching route for mechanized troops after avoiding the road.

The captain felt the heart beating in his throat, he ordered all the crew to idle, and the muzzle was pointed at 9 o'clock to 10 o'clock, and then he began to call his superiors to ask for air cover, which is the iron-clad procedure of the US military.

As a senior tank commander, he is well versed in the essence of night combat. He has many written battle examples summarized by the US military in the past. That could easily cause accidental injury.In actual combat, the opponent's reaction will be much slower than during the day.If the troops can be deployed in the shortest time, then 15 120mm main guns can wipe out several companies of enemies within 1 minute.He predicted that the enemy's advance troops may not have many tanks, and may mainly consist of wheeled combat vehicles or infantry fighting vehicles, but the conclusion can only be drawn after reconnaissance.

If he brings a few M3 cavalry fighting vehicles, he can also hand them over to conduct reconnaissance first and obtain the necessary information. The main battle tank must stay at a relatively rear position instead of attacking rashly.However, he couldn't get the position of the infantry fighting vehicle group coming from the rear from the data link, so it should have been reconciled an hour ago.

When he was in Agra, he heard some rumors about war avoidance in the Indian army, rumors that Indian troops would deliberately destroy communication equipment in order to passively resist orders from superiors; other rumors were about left-wing elements, saying that these people Hiding in the army, ready to assassinate high caste officers at any time.He hoped these were just falsified rumors.At least, the 3 Indian tankers in his crew seemed reliable, obedient and able to speak English, they had served in the Indian Armored Forces, the only problem was that they were not confident enough.The gunner said that he had hit the Chinese Type 500 tank twice at a distance of 99 meters, but failed to penetrate. Then the Chinese tank calmly turned its muzzle and destroyed his T72B. He was the only one in the original team that was safe and sound. When he saw the huge M1 in Agra, he once regained some confidence, but in the conversation, he still mentioned Chinese tanks from time to time, obviously the shadow in his heart could not be dispelled.

Soon the Agra base replied to the captain that 2 Predators were approaching, but they had to avoid low-altitude cumulonimbus clouds, which made the reconnaissance performance very unsatisfactory.

Different from the experience in the Middle East, India is also very rainy in winter and spring, and the low pressure causes the cloud base to be very low, usually no more than 1500 meters, which will seriously limit the use of drones, and strong lightning and thunder will interfere with communication Also a problem.

The captain couldn't wait any longer. He reminded himself that he had to behave like a true leader at such a moment. He ordered his platoon to move forward at a low speed, approaching the village from the east, and his tank was at the forefront.

The gas turbine also consumes fuel rapidly when idling. Its biggest advantage is that it does not make too much noise when operating, and it is definitely much lighter than the Chinese Communist Party's tank or infantry fighting vehicle engines.

The tank advanced 150 meters and was already close to the low houses in the east of the village. He got out of the tank again.

Through the sound of the rain, he could hear the roar of the rumbling diesel engine, and then the sound of someone speaking loudly. He could even understand that this was the password to move forward in Chinese.The sound of mechanical collisions behind the house suddenly became louder. This was the sound of the armored cluster restarting after idling for a short time, and the sound of motorcycles was also mixed in during the period.Judging from the movement and movement, the size of the enemy is very large, it must be larger than a company, and the nearest few vehicles are less than 150 meters away from us.

Just as he was wondering, a thick flame suddenly rose from the front, flew into the air at high speed, and got into the bloated and thick clouds in a blink of an eye.This is obviously aimed at the Predator. It seems that the enemy still has anti-aircraft vehicles, which is a very complete assault force. His previous judgment on the size of the enemy is obviously too small.

The captain began to waver, did he just rush over with 15 under-trained crews?Textbooks tell him that for a night assault, he can earn at least 4 shots before the enemy may start counterattacking from a stun, and the M1A1's armor is always solid.

He went back inside the tank and could see a Predator's comm was lost.At this moment his gunner, the Indian Mensato, was kneeling in the mouth of the gun and muttering, obviously praying, and then he stood up and kissed the rear counterweight of the gun repeatedly.Captain Fujita was in a panic, thinking, can such a guy fight a war?
The Chinese assault force in the village is at the forefront of the entire force. They paused here to wait for the communication to be restored. The thunderstorm also had a bad impact on China's reconnaissance drones and other communications, but more importantly The most important thing is that the commander must meet with the Pakistani spies who sneaked into the vicinity here according to the plan, and obtain the troop deployment information of some depots along the railway for the last 3 hours, so as to decide how to get around.

This force consists of 4 various combat vehicles including 50 tanks. The Hongqi 9 anti-aircraft combat vehicle that accompanied it just now also shot down a drone.Behind them, a machine company and a tank company were approaching.Since it was estimated that the delay would not be long, and the heavy rain was pouring, the army did not send a security force to monitor the surrounding area, and did not even let the infantry get out of the vehicle.

Two members of the Pakistani paratroopers arrived on motorcycles, dressed in civilian clothes. They climbed on an infantry fighting vehicle and pointed out a plastic map for the commander in the rain.They said that before dark, an enemy tank appeared at the transportation hub Kurja, 2 km ahead, and has now disappeared.

The Chinese company commander asked what model it was, and the other party said it was an M1A1 tank. The company commander decided to report this important situation to his superiors and asked He Fan for instructions.There is a tank company 2 kilometers behind him, followed by another tank company of the headquarters, and then there are 3 complete tank battalions. If you can go around, there is really no need to fight the enemy tanks.

The company commander was about to close the hatch when he suddenly heard a strange sound. This was the creaking and creaking of the tank's axles or tracks on rainy days, but he didn't hear the impact of the engine stroke, followed by the sound of the collapse of the house.

"There is an enemy situation." The Chinese company commander shouted, got into the turret, and closed the hatch.

Two Pakistani paratroopers jumped out of the tank and ran towards the motorcycle.

In a blink of an eye, a brick building on the side crashed down, and against the light of lightning, a huge, pale tank appeared on the side.The muzzle of the tank turned towards the nearest infantry fighting vehicle, they faced off for a while, and then fired, destroying the infantry fighting vehicle.

The Indian loader in the tank quickly began to load the shells. At this time, the machine guns outside began to fire. The Chinese army's response was much faster than the teaching plans written in the US military textbooks based on the battle cases in the Second Middle East War.

Small-caliber shells hit the armor of the tank one after another, making a terrible noise. Captain Fujita turned the scope and instructed the gunner to fire at the designated outline of a huge tank, but he felt the turret turning in the opposite direction. Panicked, he didn't pay attention to the flashing indicator mark on the large eyepiece, and turned to the tank that fired 30mm shells at him, and the unupgraded fire control of the M1A1 tank did not allow the commander to override the command.

The loader yelled to push the shell into the barrel, the gunner over there couldn't wait to fire first, the shell missed the top of the target, and to make matters worse, the Indian loader's very irregular standing position when pushing the shell with both hands, and sluggish reaction , so that he did not avoid the powerful backseat, and was directly knocked down by the recoil force Zhuang, unconscious.

Only then did Fujita realize that the other three platoons in the rear hadn't followed up. He yelled and fired at the enemy tanks, but the dizzy Indian crews were completely deaf. Their reactions were exactly the same and they all fired at the nearest target.For a while, the tank destroyed 3 tanks of various types.A 3-type anti-aircraft gun vehicle drove out from the side, and from a distance of 95 meters, it fired fiercely at the huge side projection of the M50A1.

Four dense tongues of flame sprayed towards the enemy tank, and the ammunition splashed around after hitting the armor, forming a terrifying fire net like locusts, illuminating the center of the entire village like fireworks.

The M1 tank began to turn the turret, and it seemed that these tracer armor-piercing rounds could not hurt it at all.After the seat ring was hit about 10 times, the huge turret finally got stuck, and then the tank burned from the inside. With a loud noise, the turret flew into the sky, not much different from the T72.

Captain Fujita yelled to reverse the car. He found that except for the 3 platoon vehicles commanded by the US military, the rest of the tanks did not keep up. The Indians probably saw the size of the Chinese army in the firelight, and they chose to stay where they were.

In this encounter, he had such an advantage, but the troops were so useless.He had to stare at the battlefield now and couldn't act as a loader at the same time, which made him make up his mind to retreat temporarily to avoid losses.During the retreat, his front was hit once at a very short distance by the low-pressure 100mm artillery of the infantry fighting vehicle, and he simply failed to penetrate.

The Chinese Type 99 tank and the M1 tank were only less than 100 meters apart, but there were nearly 10 chariot wrecks piled up in the middle. Neither side could get a good shooting angle, so they both chose to retreat to the rear.

A Chinese tank commander saw the last M1A1 retreating behind the house. He ordered the tank to move forward, looking for the shooting range. At the same time, he secretly calculated the speed of the enemy's backing. Every time the lightning flashed, he could Seeing enemy turret aerials moving over low houses allowed him to constantly correct enemy positions.The gunner fired a round at the house as he passed the last debris covering the front.The armor-piercing bullets pierced through the wall neatly, leaving only a small hole. He didn't have time to check whether it was concentrated or not, and hurriedly withdrew from the battle.

In the wilderness, the anti-tank missiles of the infantry fighting vehicles can fully play their role, so the commander chose to retreat. Of course, He Fan's headquarters and more than 2 tanks from two tank companies are rushing over quickly. The delay is obviously beneficial to the Chinese army.

A Chinese drone pierced through the clouds and bravely flew towards the battle area. It flew over 200 meters in the air. Against the background of the fire on the ground, He Fan could clearly see the battle zone where the fire had just been fought, but every time there was a lightning flash outside Thunder will distort the picture.

Apparently after a smooth assault for nearly 60 kilometers, he finally ran into a more decent opponent. He could see that 8 infantry fighting vehicles and the wreckage of a Red Flag 17 were left on the battlefield. The enemy's loss was 2 M1A1 tank.This was his biggest loss since he first went into combat in Assam.He didn't want to blame the reconnaissance troops for not deploying a security force near the village. It was he who demanded that everything be prioritized over speed. Of course, such an advance would be risky, and it would be the same if he was in the front.However, the emergence of the enemy's new technical weapons did bring new troubles.

He ordered the reconnaissance battalion to leave a part, and the rest continued to move forward according to the original plan, and the follow-up

The tank company sent a platoon into the village immediately, and cooperated with the follow-up troops to rescue the wounded, and looked for any survivors in the enemy's wreckage. His command company did not enter the village, but turned around from the side. No one was retreating along the enemy at this moment. He hopes to see the general situation of the opponent first, and then decide how to solve it. It will be dawn soon, and he will face the problem of fuel supply. He must make sure that there are no enemy armor and anti-aircraft forces around him for a period of time. .

The reconnaissance battalion re-entered the village to confirm that the enemy had retreated. The scouts found a damaged M1 tank behind a house.The scouts climbed in and found two corpses, none of whom were confirmed to be US military personnel. Soon someone caught the Indian vehicle commander shaking into a ball in a nearby farmland.

After quick interrogation, He Fan learned that they belonged to a newly established independent armored regiment in India, currently under the command of a US military commander. The expected size of the troop is 3 battalions with a total of 120 tanks, and the same number of M3 armored vehicles , an artillery battalion with 36 self-propelled howitzers and 140 Humvees at regimental headquarters and attached units, some of which were equipped with Stinger missiles.Except for the Air Cavalry Battalion, which is not equipped with helicopters, the book strength of this unit is close to that of the U.S. Armored Cavalry Regiment, and the number of tanks is roughly the same as He Fan's current strength.

However, due to the rapid movement of the Chinese army, it is too late to complete the above-mentioned establishment, but at least half of the equipment has arrived in India and is being trained, and the unit is not empty.At present, its advance forces are scattered along the railway extending from the Agra Air Force Base, and the first part of the departure has already fallen into the hands of the Chinese army at the Siyar Station.In the battle just now, the unit launched a total of 15 tanks to attack, and the follow-up infantry fighting vehicles did not keep up.

(End of this chapter)