“`
The battlefield in January of 915 was relatively calm — meaning that casualties had dropped to around 10,000 per day.
At noon on January 15th, Wang Zhong had just finished approving documents at the Equipment Review Committee on No. 10 He Ping Road, showed his face at the City Defense Command in the city, and was about to go to the school to continue working on his textbook when the phone rang directly.
“General Rokossovsky,” the voice on the other end of the phone was Federation Officer John Wick, his Ante language had a bit of an accent, which was particularly recognizable, “in another hour, a military train loaded with heavy equipment aid is set to arrive at the station, won’t you come and take a look?”
Wang Zhong knew his troops would certainly get replenishments first, but he was unclear on the specifics — in fact, no one knew what would be replenished, since it was unknown which transport ship would reach shore.
It was the height of Prussian submarine strangling warfare, and Prussian propaganda was boasting on the radio every day about how many tens of thousands of tons they had sunk.
The Allied Forces’ own statistics were not optimistic, the Prussians just exaggerated by threefold. Even without exaggeration, the Allied Forces’ losses were staggering.
Previous convoys had failed to break through the blockade, so only items like trucks and radios were delivered, and not a single tank.
This time it seemed that tanks had finally made it ashore, which was why Lieutenant Colonel John Wick was so anxious to call.
Wang Zhong: “Alright, I will go to the station and enjoy the scene.”
Actually, by just asking General Chekhov on the phone, Wang Zhong could have known what kind of aid tanks were on the train before its arrival, but it was like opening a mystery box, the excitement lay in the moment of unveiling.
Therefore, Wang Zhong asked the staff who came to meet him at the command, “How is the situation in the city?”
The staff immediately answered, “The Air Force has shot down a Prussian reconnaissance plane. Its wreckage fell into a park three kilometers from the Summer Palace, and there was no body of the pilot on it. We are organizing forces to hunt for the parachuted aviator.
“Other than that, there are no major events.”
Wang Zhong: “What about the situation with the surrender propagandists?”
“Counterfeit currency with surrender slogans has been discovered, and we have already recalled those banknotes.”
Wang Zhong raised an eyebrow; encountering propaganda written on currency was something he had actually seen before transmigration. He had personally taken such a banknote to the bank, where they immediately exchanged it for a new one with the same face value.
The unexpected behavior reminded Wang Zhong of his homeland.
“General?” the staff asked.
Wang Zhong: “Assist the Tribunal in tracing the origin of the banknotes, and if there’s nothing else, I’ll head to the train station.”
The staff nodded, “Nothing else for now. After all, the enemy has been driven away from the edges of the city by you, so we’ve had some respite. But everyone is worried whether there will be another attempt in the future…”
Wang Zhong: “There won’t be, I believe next year — I mean this year, Prussians will not try to attack Ye Fort again. The most dangerous time for our capital has passed, but we can still lose this war.
“That’s the reason I’m constantly on the go these days.”
With that, he flexed his shoulders. In fact, he was busier at the rear than fighting at the front: there were always textbooks to write, documents to approve, and classes to conduct.
He quite enjoyed it, wishing he could write out as much as possible of both the experiences summed up by the post-war Soviet Union and those of our military, to feed them to the Ante army like practical life hacks.
Wang Zhong: “Then I will leave now, see you at the station.”
Telling the staff where he was heading was in case of an emergency, so they could find him.
In the event the surrender faction launched a political coup, it would be up to Wang Zhong, the City Defense Commander, to suppress the rebellion, which was why his core troops were stationed at Kubinka, based on such considerations.
After making arrangements, Wang Zhong went straight to the train station.
As he reached the platform, a train was just arriving, and Wang Zhong asked the traffic controller directly, “Is this the train from the Ice-free Port?”
“Yes,” the dispatcher replied, while Wang Zhong had already spotted the Sherman tanks secured on the train.
They had arrived!
However, the enemy’s Panzer IVs with their long barrels had appeared on the battlefield earlier than expected, so Shermans in this timeline probably couldn’t be as effective as they were on Earth.
Wang Zhong thought for a moment and then rejected the idea; there had been only a few sightings of the Panzer IV on the front lines to date, and both the Tribunal’s intelligence department and Ante’s Army intelligence suspected that they might be test production models brought to the front for trials.
That is to say, most of the time, the Sherman would still be facing the short-barreled Panzer III and Panzer IV.
Shermans completely overpowered these two types of tanks.
It’s just that on Earth, the Sherman entered the war on a large scale too late, meeting only Tigers and Panthers in Italy, hence the unflattering nickname “zippos.”
Actually, the Sherman was quite an excellent tank, especially at the time of its service entry.
This is like playing a real-time strategy game, where timing is everything; you have to know how many troops to have at your enemy’s door in a few minutes with a double barracks rush, just as the stimpack upgrade is completed, all set, and just a little delay could mean missing the peak strength.
“`
Wang Zhong was now ready to take advantage of the Sherman’s period of dominance.
As for the Tigers and Leopards that might arrive ahead of schedule, he would leave them to the whirlwinds to deal with.
While Wang Zhong was admiring his dream tank, the Sherman, suddenly another thing so ugly it was shocking entered his field of vision.
On a flatbed car, there were two Crusader self-propelled anti-aircraft guns from the United Kingdom.
The gun turret of this contraption looked as if a Mayan pyramid had been mounted on a vehicle—it was that ugly. However, the 40mm Bofors autocannon it sported was an excellent piece of hardware.
This thing was the world’s best large-caliber autocannon, and its performance was still not completely obsolete even when the Americans fought in the Gulf.
When used in direct fire, it could spoil infantry and lightly armored vehicles, even tanks.
It might not be able to penetrate tank armor, but it could wash out everything on the tank’s surface, like shooting the base of a radio antenna and damaging the radio, for instance.
When Wang Zhong had participated in aid negotiations with the Federation, he had paid special attention to securing the production license for the Bofors and had managed to get the Federation’s help to establish a production line within Ante’s territory.
However, this production line would not be fully operational and start production at half speed until the spring of 916. Full-speed production might not start until July or August of 916.
By that time, Wang Zhong planned to build an anti-aircraft vehicle armed with twin Bofors autocannons, with armor capable of resisting light enemy fire. He had already thought of a name for it—”Apocalypse.”
When that time came, this anti-aircraft vehicle would undoubtedly be the infantry’s wild godfather.
For now, having the Crusader with a single Bofors was still something he could make do with—it was better than nothing. This solved the problem of anti-aircraft vehicles. Previously, the best self-propelled anti-aircraft gun Wang Zhong could get his hands on was a GAZ truck with a 25mm autocannon mounted on the back.
Wang Zhong decisively turned around and said to Vasily, “See that ugly fellow? That self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, keep a lookout on it! Our anti-aircraft battalion was just worrying about lacking self-propelled anti-aircraft guns to accompany tanks!”
Vasily: “Alright! But are you sure you want to use something so ugly? Won’t it affect the morale?”
Wang Zhong: “What nonsense, drop your artistic qualms. Looks don’t matter, functionality does!”
Vasily: “You sure it’s functional?”
Wang Zhong: “I don’t know, so we have to bring it back and try it out!”
————
The next day, eight Crusader self-propelled anti-aircraft guns were delivered to Kubinka.
And with them came 30 Shermans.
At this point, Major General Tadeusz of the Melania People’s Army First Division found Wang Zhong: “General Davarish, we have compatriots from the United Kingdom who have used Shermans in the Melania First Armored Brigade. They could serve as instructors to help us master this tank quickly.”
Wang Zhong: “Then, have you used the Crusader Anti-aircraft Guns?”
Tadeusz, clearly not very interested in the ugly appearance of the anti-aircraft gun, replied, “Perhaps some have used them. Is it important?”
Wang Zhong: “Of course it’s important. The existence of anti-aircraft guns can interfere with enemy Air Force targeting, forcing them to bomb from very high altitudes. From my combat experience, this is quite significant.”
Yes, after being tested in actual combat, Wang Zhong’s understanding of battlefield air defense had undergone a revolutionary change. Previously, he thought that air defense only made sense if it shot down enemy aircraft.
After seeing the data on the number of enemy aircraft shot down by anti-air defense forces in World War II, he naturally joined the ranks of those ignorant folks who criticized air defense for being proportionately ineffective.
Now Wang Zhong knew that air defense should not be judged by how many aircraft were shot down. As long as it interfered with the enemy’s attack, causing the attack to become inaccurate, or even intimidating the enemy pilots from attacking recklessly, then the air defense operations were successful.
In other words, the rooftop antiaircraft machine guns that Wang Zhong had always thought were mainly for firing at infantry actually could provide air defense. With such a machine gun, the enemy might drop bombs from 500 meters instead of 800 meters.
These extra 300 meters were the “significance” of that machine gun.
Wang Zhong explained all of this, and the Melanian major general showed an expression of admiration: “I’ve never thought of it this way before. I thought rooftop machine guns were mainly for shooting at infantry.”
Wang Zhong felt a little blush because before his transmigration, he thought the same.
But he couldn’t say that; he had to keep a straight face and maintain his image.
Major General Tadeusz continued, “When I served in the Melanian army, the higher-ups did not pay attention to the latest military advancements, and they also had a very shallow understanding of the Air Force. They still believed the Air Force was just about low-altitude flyovers and dropping hand grenades.
“So, our troops’ air defense was basically to cluster several machine guns together, thinking that was enough.”
Wang Zhong turned to look at the GAZ truck with the mounted quad machine guns not far away.
Major General Tadeusz looked as well: “Yes, that kind. But according to you, this actually also has a certain effect, right?”
Wang Zhong: “Yes, but the protective range of a machine gun is too small, and a truck is not suitable to accompany armored units.”
As he said this, he turned to look at the recently acquired eight Crusaders: “Besides, we are about to carry out tests to show you the efficiency of the 40mm Bofors autocannon against infantry.”