Chapter 31: Chapter 29: Fierce Battle in the City
The Divine Arrow team proved to be clever this time, with the firing group at the first window on the west side of the ground floor, while Ludmila, responsible for guiding the missiles, and Monk Yeca Neiko, who indicated the targets, were at the window of the kitchen next door.
After firing the rockets, the launch team immediately left for another position, leaving only Ludmila to guide the missiles.
At least eight mortar shells hit the firing window, collapsing half of the house, but Ludmila and Monk Yeca Neiko made it out in one piece!
It seemed that the Divine Arrow team was still capable of destroying quite a few tanks!
Before Wang Zhong could celebrate, artillery fire rained down from the sky.
Judging by where the shells landed, it was hurried mortar fire without precise aiming; some even fell into Peniye village itself.
None of the shells exploded violently; they simply burst into clouds of smoke with a sound akin to firecrackers.
Mortar smoke bombs! It looked like this was also a standard Prussian Army tactic when facing the Divine Arrow.
Wang Zhong shifted his gaze toward the edge of his entire field of vision, staring at the cyclopean commanding officer on the mountain top, wishing he could psychically snipe him and plunge the enemy into chaos.
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Major Shrifen observed the dispersal of the smoke.
The artillery observer’s ranging binoculars were set up right next to his vehicle, with firing data constantly being transmitted directly to the vehicle-mounted mortar units on the hillside through verbal commands.
The second bombardment was much more accurate; a smoke wall formed in front of the village, and even Shrifen could not see clearly what was happening inside.
He raised his right hand, “Alright, cease fire!”
The commands to stop firing came from the mortar platoon leader behind him.
When the artillery fire ceased, the chief of staff said, “The enemy has deployed two Divine Arrow units in such a small village? There must be a significant force. Should we wait for the heavy artillery…”
Shrifen responded, “What two Divine Arrows? Haven’t you noticed that our attacks did not trigger any Divine Arrow sympathetic detonations? Considering the intervals between launches, this is the same Divine Arrow unit constantly changing positions.
“Each position probably has only one Divine Arrow, allowing them to move quickly by carrying just the launcher frame. We’ve seen this tactic in Carolingian; Chief of Staff, you did not participate in the Carolingian campaign, did you?”
The chief of staff fell silent.
Shrifen continued, “The enemy commander is quite excellent, surely having studied many reports from the Carolingian campaign; he knows our tactics.
“If it was also him who stole our truck and ordered it to advance with its headlights on, then today we must eliminate a great future threat to the empire.”
Chief of staff: “Then we should all the more wait for the heavy artillery…”
“If we wait for the heavy artillery, he will have fled! The enemy is still not well-established; look, there are no sandbags, no barbed wire and anti-tank stakes in the village, probably no minefields either. Now, relying on our advantage in troops and firepower to grind them down and seize an opportunity to capture him is the best strategy!
“If we wait for the heavy artillery to arrive, the enemy will be ready, and we will only suffer even more severe casualties!”
Shrifen stopped and watched the assault troops enter the smokescreen created by the mortars.
He looked up at the sky, “With the sun this bright, the west wind will be blowing soon. The smoke will disperse and everything will settle.”
As soon as the words fell, the sound of machine gun fire came from within the smoke. The sound, tearing like ripping canvas, was that of the empire’s standard model 34 general-purpose machine gun.
It was clear that the attacking units were using machine guns to suppress the windows on the edge of the village.
Then, the sound of cannons followed; Shrifen immediately recognized them as the No. 4’s 75mm guns.
“It’s started, just wait and see,” Shrifen said confidently.
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Wang Zhong discovered that his bird’s-eye view could see through smoke—he couldn’t make out what was inside the smoke, but he could clearly see everything before and beyond it.
Ordinary people couldn’t see past the smoke, but Wang Zhong’s perspective could.
He wasn’t sure whether this was just how strong Golden Finger was, or if it was a bug.
However, this was of little use since Wang Zhong couldn’t mentally control his troops and had to rely on the radio beside him. As it turned out, the radio could only call Captain Lubokov’s vehicle—only that car had a radio.
This feeling was a bit like playing auto chess; once the deployment was set, it was up to the pieces to fight it out themselves.
After the enemy tanks crossed the smoke line, they immediately began firing at the windows of the buildings.
Wang Zhong had a habit in various military games of doing the same: regardless of whether there were enemies in the buildings, firing first and asking questions later, depleting supplies rather than manpower.
The Prussians’ firepower was fierce; with dozens of machine guns firing, many wooden window frames were simply blasted to pieces.
As for the wooden houses, entire walls were dismantled.
Then, a tank with the tactical number 185 fired its cannon at the westernmost red-roofed building, collapsing the corner of the house and sending tiles flying halfway into the sky.
As they approached the village, the enemy tanks slowed down, and the infantry, spread out in skirmish lines, overtook the tanks and charged towards the village.
On the very outskirts of the village was a stone wall where the villagers had fenced off several small courtyards to keep some livestock. Now this stone wall had become the first line of defense against the enemy.
Apparently, the Prussians weren’t used to carrying explosives, so they had to construct human ladders to scale the wall.
In the blink of an eye, Amur Group submachine gunners hidden on the ground floor opened fire.
Because of the cover provided by the stone wall, the earlier enemy machine gun fire had not reached the windows on the ground floor.
As the submachine gunners shot down the enemies climbing the wall, riflemen hiding by the wall quickly lobbed grenades over it.
These grenades were clearly thrown by veterans, who had held them for a moment before releasing; they exploded as soon as they hit the ground, wounding and killing many Prussians outside the wall instantaneously.
The next moment, the tanks fired, blasting an opening in the stone wall.
Immediately, the enemy’s grenades were thrown through the gap into the courtyard.
Wang Zhong clearly saw one of the veteran defenders catch one of the grenades, intending to throw it back when it exploded in his hand.
The veteran’s upper body was shredded by the blast, covering the face of a recruit with blood and viscera.
The recruit screamed in terror, only to be impaled in the stomach by an enemy’s bayonet that rushed in.
A brutal melee battle was underway.
Meanwhile, the enemy tanks continued to fire as they advanced toward the village.
Tank number 185 decided to enter the village from the southwest road, and Lubokov’s tank was exactly ambushed next to the mill at the end of this road.
Wang Zhong quickly switched back to the naked eye view and grabbed the radio on the table, “Lubokov, the enemy is about to come into your sight!”
“What?” Lubokov exclaimed, “How can you see them? I can’t see a thing!”
Wang Zhong, “Watch the front, tell your gunner to be alert!”
While shouting, he switched back to the bird’s-eye view; indeed, he saw tank number 185 enter the village, appearing right within Lubokov’s firing range.
“Good Lord!” Lubokov muttered, “Fire, fire now!”
A puff of white smoke came out of Lubokov’s tank’s gun barrel.
Wang Zhong clearly saw a stream of sparks coming out of tank number 185.
But the tank didn’t explode; it just came to a stop.
Lubokov’s anxious voice shouted over the radio, “Reload quickly, we didn’t hit them!”
From Lubokov’s perspective, it was impossible to tell if the enemy had been hit or not.
But Wang Zhong could see, thanks to his view, as the highlighted enemies inside the tank suddenly reduced by three, leaving only two who couldn’t possibly drive the vehicle.
After all, this wasn’t “War Thunder.” If only two crew members remained, they would continue to fight, but in reality, morale wasn’t that high, and crews would usually abandon the tank after losing one or two key members.
Wang Zhong saw the highlighted two climbing out of the tank from the bottom hatch.
That’s when the third machine gun from the Amur Group finally rang out—unlike the enemy’s sharp tearing sound, the Ante Army’s heavy machine gun sounded solid, matching its bulky appearance.
As Wang Zhong was distracted, Lubokov fired a second armor-piercing shell, hitting the now-empty tank number 185 again.
“Lubokov! That tank has been destroyed! Watch out for the next one!”
“How do you know it’s destroyed? Where are you watching the battlefield from? Count, you can’t direct blindly! Reload!”
Wang Zhong adjusted his view, wanting to see Lubokov’s condition, only to find out that he had gone inside the tank.
Tanks actually have a very poor field of view, which is why tank commanders in World War II liked to poke their heads out to observe the situation.
For someone like Lubokov to retreat inside the tank without infantry cover in urban combat was essentially offering victory to the enemy infantry.
Just then, tank number 186 of the Prosen Army moved forward.
Wang Zhong heard Lubokov screaming over the radio, “Retreat when facing two enemy tanks! Retreat now!”
Wang Zhong: ?????
Since Lubokov had already moved, and the tanks of this era had no stabilizers, the shot went wild, and the armor-piercing shell struck the second floor of a building on the street, blowing a hole in the wall.
The enemy tank stopped, fired a shot at Lubokov who was retreating.
The shot was clearly a high-explosive shell that exploded on the front armor of Lubokov’s tank, shattering all the mill’s windows.
Lubokov’s cries suddenly disappeared from the radio.
But his tank neither caught fire nor stopped; it continued to reverse past the cover of the mill until it crashed into the exterior wall of the distillery and stopped, though the engine still roared as if trying to knock down the wall.
Wang Zhong was astounded, thinking, was it a high-pressure shock from a high-explosive shell that knocked them out?
The next moment, he didn’t need to ponder that anymore because tank number 187, which had come in from the northern road, hit Lubokov’s tank with an armor-piercing shell.
The T28, already lightly armored with a large silhouette, now exposed its broadside and exploded into a towering fireball.
The explosion happened right beside the distillery Wang Zhong had chosen as his command post, shattering the windows around him.
It was over, he could no longer count on it. Let’s see the other tanks; there were two more set up in ambush positions—
But then Wang Zhong saw another tank heroically charge out of its ambush position.
It fired a shot, but as it didn’t stop to shoot, the shot flew wide, and then the tank, while firing its machine gun, rammed into enemy tank number 187.
What the hell?
No matter, there was one more tank in ambush. After the infantry used Molotov cocktails to wear down the enemy tank, the final blow from this tank would surely turn the tide!
Then, the last tank in ambush also broke cover, with the tank commander poking his head out and manually operating the anti-aircraft machine gun on top of the tank.
While firing, he shouted, “The captain has nobly met his end! Let’s fight to the last moment like true Cossacks!”
Turns out this tank had seen what happened to Lubokov.
The enemy tank number 186, upon seeing this, immediately fired an armor-piercing shell.
Despite the short 75mm gun being primarily for anti-infantry use, with lower chamber pressure and initial velocity of the shells, it was still a 75mm caliber!
One shot created a hole on the front twin machine gun turrets large enough for Wang Zhong to see from the air, followed by the tank catching fire and gradually coming to a stop.
Wang Zhong couldn’t help but facepalm. What was that all about?
Let the infantry deal with those tanks entering the city!
While thinking this, enemy tank number 186 began to advance, but the machine gun hidden in the basement opened fire, mowing down a swath of infantry following the tank.
Taking advantage of this opening, two infantrymen on the second floor by the road popped their heads out and lobbed Molotov cocktails at the tank.
The first Molotov cocktail precisely hit the tank’s rear radiator grille, immediately engulfing it in flames.
The second hit the turret.
Wang Zhong guessed that some of the fuel might have seeped through the commander’s observation hatch into the turret.
The next moment, the hatch cover was jacked open by two-meter-high flames.
The loader opened the side hatch, attempting to exit from the side of the turret, only to run into the barrel of the machine gun.
That’s more like it! Well done, third Amur Group!