Colonel Busse made a gesture, and the adjutant immediately said to Captain John, “Come with me, I’ll borrow a motorcycle for you from the motorized reconnaissance group using personal connections.”
As the two left, the tank crew, whose tracks had been damaged, had just removed the locked tracks from the tank.
Having tracks blown off was an awkward situation; you might say it was trivial, but it could indeed force a tank out of the operation it was currently engaged in.
To say it was useful, most broken tracks could be repaired later, and if the crew carried spare tracks, they could even repair them themselves––the cost was spending more than ten hours.
But that was still better than abandoning the tank after the tracks were broken.
So, more and more old tank crews of Prosen started putting spare tank tracks on the outer armor of the tanks as additional protection, so if the tracks were broken, they could quickly get out and replace the tracks to fix the problem.
Of course, sometimes the tank would break down right in front of the enemy position, under the machine guns and the piercing stares of hundreds of Ante People day and night. In that situation, you could only play dead inside the tank and wait for an opportunity to escape.
As Colonel Busse’s mind wandered aimlessly, John set off on the motorcycle.
About thirty minutes later, without artillery fire arriving, John came back on the motorcycle, “Alright, I’ve got an idea now, let’s lead the charge! The new tank has far better protection than the three and four, let me show you!”
Colonel, “Your request is approved, ride to your heart’s content.”
“Yes, sir.”
John Christopher climbed onto the tank with caution as if afraid of repeating past mistakes.
Once he was seated inside the tank, with a command, the beast roared and jolted forward slightly, then the roaring gradually stabilized, and the tank moved past Colonel Busse.
It did not look cumbersome; in fact, despite being a heavy tank, its mobility was surprisingly good. Colonel Busse’s troops had once tested captured Ante heavy tanks, and their clumsiness left a deep impression on him.
The maneuverability displayed by the boxy new tanks today was an eye-opener for Colonel Busse.
And so they rumbled forward, the other two new model tanks following behind it.
Yes, just two, as one had bogged down in the recent shelling.
Colonel Busse was still not sure whether he would be satisfied with the new tanks, but he knew that the logistics department, especially the masters in the field repair shops, were definitely fond of the new model tanks.
—-
John Christopher drove his beloved tank along the route he had just scouted out.
Soon, the tank passed a tree trunk painted with oil, and Christopher realized it was an enemy target marker; he had entered the enemy’s firing range.
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No sooner had he thought this than an armor-piercing shell came flying from a distance, leaving a trail of sparks on the new tank’s front mantlet, but the shell disappeared without a trace.
Christopher heard someone speak up in the headset and quickly asked, “Who’s hurt? Is it serious?”
“No worries, a piece of armor chipped off somewhere and left a superficial scar on my face, just bleeding a little bit.”
Without thinking much, Christopher grabbed the binoculars and searched for the enemy gun position.
To ensure a dominance in combat distance, he gave his first command after engaging, “Stop the vehicle, we’ll stay on alert right here.”
The vehicle came to an abrupt stop.
In the jolt of the sudden halt, Christopher noticed a flash of light from Hill 414 by the river.
The second shell fell next to Christopher’s own tank.
Christopher, “Turret left 30 degrees, on the hill, wait for it to fire a third time.”
The turret had just turned when the third shot hit.
Yet the new tank remained unmoved; the shell merely screeched past the hit point, leaving behind a large scratch that scraped off the tactical numbers and the insignia of the armor unit on the tank.
Christopher, “Gunner! Did you see the flash? The flash just now!”
The gunner reported, “Didn’t see it! I’m observing the enemy’s position with the highest magnification.”
“No!” Christopher decisively said, “Use the lens with the smallest magnification, that’s the only way to ensure you’ll see the flash! Seeing the flash means locating the enemy’s anti-tank gun position!”
As soon as he finished, another flash appeared.
The gunner almost immediately retaliated, and the spot from where the shell had just been fired on the hill erupted into white smoke, looking like an overweight enoki mushroom.
Christopher shouted, “Again!”
Just then, he suddenly saw flashes directly in front of him.
“Attention, there’s an enemy right in front! Fire one at the gun position on Hill 414, then immediately turn the gun barrel.”
As soon as the voice had fallen, the accompanying tank fired, targeting the very target Christopher had spotted.
The next moment, an explosion occurred, and the turret flew into the sky.
Christopher was shocked, “A tank? Is this one of those tank emplacements where the hull is buried inside?”
Another shell was fired from the front, along with tracers from machine guns.
But now, the new tank had just passed the first target and was obviously still far from their position; the machine gun’s tracer bullets described a “pissing arc,” not reaching Christopher.
Suddenly, the enemy fired again.
This time, without waiting for Christopher, the tank commander, to designate the target, the gunner fired, hitting something behind the camouflage, and thick smoke immediately rose from behind the haystacks.
Clearly, that was another enemy tank.
At this moment, Christopher heard the roaring engines coming from the opposite side; it seemed the enemy’s tanks had realized they couldn’t penetrate the new tanks and decided to close the distance.
The next moment, several KV tanks burst through the cover of the bushes.
Then more than ten T34s followed, appearing hungry for battle.
Christopher shouted excitedly, “The enemy is coming to us! If they kept hiding, we might not have found them! Fire!”
Three new tanks lined up and fired continuously.
The scene was a one-sided slaughter, with Ante tanks exploding into fireworks one after another.
Finally, the Ante tanks turned around, presenting their vulnerable rears to the three new tanks.
Then Christopher and his comrades happily sent these fleeing tanks skyward.
Christopher: “Advance! Crush the enemy’s position.”
The new tanks’ engines roared again, propelling them quickly forward with surging power.
The Ante’s other anti-tank weapons seemed to panic, firing from a great distance, only to be methodically targeted by Christopher’s crew.
As Christopher’s tank approached the Ante trenches, several Ante soldiers leaped out.
Christopher initially thought they were attacking the tank, hurriedly shouting, “Hull machine gun! Mow them down!”
However, these soldiers turned and ran.
Obviously, the god-like new tanks had terrified the Ante People!
Following the initial collapse, the Ante line crumbled like an avalanche; soon, the entire trench was full of people running backward!
————
At ten o’clock on the morning of July 10th, Wang Zhong had just arrived at the City Defense Command when the telephone rang.
Wang Zhong picked up the phone, and Belinsky’s voice came from the other end, “There seems to be a problem on the Suhayaveli front.”
Wang Zhong: “Can’t be, right? Last night, all I heard was ‘grasping the frontline situation,’ and wasn’t the aerial reconnaissance all normal?”
Belinsky: “The reason we can’t grasp the frontline situation is that several divisions near the breach have collapsed, and it’s only today that fleeing soldiers have started to run to the rear, where they were caught by the Tribunal’s troops.”
Wang Zhong: “Is the situation that bad?”
“It’s really bad. One of the fleeing officers said it’s ‘like June 22nd of last year.’ Also, the Judge gathered intelligence from different sources: they’ve found a very square Prosen Tank that looks bigger than any tank they’ve encountered before.”
Wang Zhong, who had been somewhat half-lidded and languid, opened his eyes wide upon hearing this, “Square new tanks? And they come with very wide tracks?”
“Yes.”
Wang Zhong: “They’ve finally arrived. Let’s see whose new tanks are more impressive! “
Belinsky: “Anyway, be prepared to strike. Although Tugenev still has at least six newly formed Army Groups at his disposal, I think he too would really like to verify whether your military buildup philosophy is viable. After all, with only one infantry regiment per division, there’s gossip around Ye Fort that you are collecting unearned pay.”
Wang Zhong chuckled wryly, “Collecting unearned pay?”
Vasily from the side said, “Didn’t you know? After the last publication of the mobile army’s organization table, a bunch of people have been mocking us!”
Wang Zhong: “Really?”
“Really,” Belinsky said, “Anyway, prove to them! Prove to us, to everyone! Over!”
He hung up the phone.