Arc of Fire

The staff at the forward command post immediately rushed to the window and observed with binoculars.

What came wasn’t just a No. 1 tank modified into an engineering vehicle for breaking through barriers, but also a range of other Prussian engineering vehicles.

It seemed that the commander of the sapper battalion was communicating with the commander of the reconnaissance unit that had already deployed outside the minefield.

Wang Zhong was just about to call for another artillery barrage when the gathered sapper battalion began to spread out, likely told by the armor reconnaissance commander that they could be targeted by artillery fire.

Although the enemy scattered, they clearly underestimated the caliber of the artillery barrage and didn’t disperse enough—perhaps the Prussian Army’s advance had been too smooth, making them careless.

No matter what, Wang Zhong was ready to hit them with another round; position B’s B4 hadn’t fired yet. Each gun there had one more shell in reserve than those at position A, so it was time to fire a salvo and balance out the ammunition.

Wang Zhong himself picked up the phone, “Connect me to position B.”

“One moment,” the male switchboard operator answered, “Okay, General.”

“This is position B!”

Wang Zhong, “This is Rocossov, fire a salvo immediately, with a one-second interval between shots, coordinates…”

These heavy guns created a muzzle blast when firing; when the firing positions were cramped, firing all at once could affect the trajectory of the shells, so even with a salvo, it was one shot after another.

Of course, if the position was more open, there wouldn’t be this problem, and they could fire at once, but it was impossible to find such a concealed and open terrain within Lokotov City.

After performing his mental calculation of the coordinates again, Wang Zhong stood by the window with the phone and observed.

The sound of shells tearing through the air reached them.

Perhaps because of the aftereffects of being “repaired” by a 381mm heavy cannon, Wang Zhong’s nape went numb at the whistling sound, and he instinctively wanted to duck.

The enemies simply lay flat on the ground, everyone adopting the standard artillery avoidance position.

The first shell landed, clearly hitting too close to the “minefield,” even triggering an actual mine.

From his bird’s-eye view, Wang Zhong saw lids from pickle cans flying everywhere within the fake minefield.

He hoped the next shell would be on target! No, the next shell must hit the mark!

The next one landed farther away, right at the edge of Wang Zhong’s field of vision, but it was much better than the first one—he clearly saw at least ten enemies lose their highlights, though he didn’t know if they were dead or merely knocked unconscious.

At that moment, Wang Zhong felt like he was gacha gaming, silently chanting, “Hit it, let me hit it!”

The third shell fell right between two engineering vehicles.

The blast wave instantly overturned both vehicles.

From Wang Zhong’s perspective, a whole patch of enemies lost their highlights around the impact point.

He couldn’t help but clench his fist and silently nod, “Good!”

One more shot, just one more! Hit it!

Then, something embarrassing happened.

A silo far from the first three impact points suddenly exploded; its stone walls shattered to pieces, and the stored grain gushed out like floodwaters, bizarrely spreading a patch of yellow onto the green field.

What the hell? How could it land so far off?

Even if they wanted to hit a granary, they should have targeted the silo near the shelling area, since there was an enemy observation team on it—dispersing the observation team would have been worthwhile!

As Wang Zhong puzzled over why the last shell had “gone astray,” Dmitry reported loudly, “The last gun either got the aiming solutions wrong or there’s a malfunction in the gun mount or sighting equipment.”

Wang Zhong immediately picked up the receiver that had been resting on his shoulder, “B position! The last fired gun either got the aiming solutions wrong or there’s a malfunction! Check it quickly!”

“Yes,” came the answer from the other side, “Checking now!”

A moment later, they responded, “Report, General, the aiming solutions are correct, it must be a malfunction with the gun, the blacksmith and the mechanic are inspecting it now!”

“Fix the malfunction as soon as possible!” There wasn’t much else Wang Zhong could order beyond that.

He put down the receiver and continued to observe the enemy.

Yegorov clicked his tongue in amazement, “This cannon has always been prone to malfunctions since the Winter War, and when it first entered the battle, it sometimes took six to seven shots to destroy a Manahaim bunker.”

Wang Zhong, “So you mean having just one malfunction is already not bad?”

“I mean the Empire’s Ordnance Department is indeed working hard, the rate of malfunctions has been significantly reduced,” Yegorov shrugged.

Then the enemy realized the shelling was over, stood up, began rescuing the wounded, and started gathering the scattered equipment and weapons.

Wang Zhong, “Have your machine gunners open fire, add some fuel to the enemy’s fire!”

“Understood!”

Yegorov turned to give the orders.

A minute later, two heavy machine guns began firing, the arcing trajectories of tracer bullets landing on the enemy’s positions, like urinating.

At this distance, hitting the target truly depended on faith, but as long as the intensity of fire was enough, they could always “pee” a few to death.

The most important thing was the catastrophic effect on the enemy’s morale—like a whip of death moving back and forth above your head, how could you not panic? It made it impossible to work properly.

Before Wang Zhong could rejoice, a Type 2 tank on the enemy’s side began to retaliate, firing its machine guns in the same manner towards the courtyard of the fertilizer plant.

Thus, a spectacle of both sides “peeing” tracer rounds at each other ensued!

But the Prussians had a 20mm cannon, and regardless of how fragile the Type 2 tank was, it was still a tank! The DShK heavy machine gun could indeed penetrate a Type 2 tank, but here the gunners had no protection, making them obviously more vulnerable under the strike of the 20mm cannon.

“`

However, Yegorov didn’t place the machine gun on open ground; instead, he positioned it inside the factory building, firing through the windows.

Both sides were sloppily shooting, neither with accuracy, which made it difficult for the enemy’s machine guns to target such small windows to penetrate the room.

Yet the machine gun could continuously inflict casualties on the enemy out in the open.

This was arcing fire, so even if the enemy lay on the ground, they could still be hit in the back.

When Wang Zhong saw that the enemy had been forced to seek cover in the shadow of armored vehicles and still occasionally lost one or two unlucky souls, he felt frustrated by the low kill efficiency of the machine guns. If only he had the sort of autocannon that the enemy’s mark II tanks were equipped with.

In various war games on Earth, Wang Zhong had always favored decimating infantry with autocannons; the Skeld River, in his hands, became an infantry slaughterer.

If only his cheat was more powerful, being able to summon an anti-air gun like the Skeld River out of thin air, then he could use a quad 23mm cannon to massacre the enemy infantry…

Hmm?

Wang Zhong turned his head to ask Yegorov, “The 72K anti-aircraft gun of the air defense regiment, it’s a 25mm autocannon, isn’t it?”

Though Wang Zhong had operated the GAZ truck that transported this in War Thunder, he still asked just to be sure.

Yegorov replied, “Yes, what about it?”

“Quick, call the air defense regiment! Ask them for two 72K anti-aircraft guns, to be towed over here by truck! And bring 2000 rounds of ammunition as well!”

Why hadn’t he thought of this before! Wang Zhong thought to himself that if the enemy could use their anti-aircraft guns in direct fire, then so could they!

Twenty minutes later, two 72K anti-aircraft guns, usually reserved as spare parts by the artillery regiment, were dragged into the factory building of the fertilizer plant.

After four test shots, the shells landed among the enemy, so Wang Zhong gave the order, “Begin barrage fire!”

The two anti-aircraft guns fired tracer rounds steadily falling among the enemy.

Although they were only 25mm high-explosive shells, their killing efficiency was much higher than that of a heavy machine gun.

All the enemy’s mark II tanks engaged in shooting, yet they were unable to penetrate the concrete walls of the factory building.

Yegorov joked, “Wow, they’re trying so hard they might see the first layer of rebar in the factory soon.”

Meanwhile, the Ante Army paid no attention to those few tanks, instead focusing all their efforts on reaping the enemy infantry.

Finally, a truck carrying explosives for the engineers exploded, turning into a soaring fireball.

This, seemingly the last straw that broke the camel’s back, caused the Prussian Army to release smoke and start retreating backwards.

All the armored vehicles began reversing, and the soldiers, as if they had had enough, quickly withdrew.

Dmitri shouted, “The enemy is deploying smoke! I can’t see them!”

Wang Zhong: “The enemy is retreating. Alright, ceasefire!”

In fact, Wang Zhong could have continued to direct the autocannon fire using his cheat that wasn’t bothered by the smoke, but as the distance increased, the spread of the shells would be too great, wasting them unnecessarily.

He had no idea how long Lokotov’s supplies would last, or how long he would need to hold this position, so he had to improve the ammunition efficiency.

Following the order, the shooting stopped.

Immediately after, from various places in the fertilizer factory, soldiers who had just been driven back to their shelters by the mark II’s machine guns now poked their heads out.

“Is it over?”

“Why did the firing stop?”

“Are they using smoke to attack?”

“Doesn’t seem like it; the smoke screen is so far away, and the fake minefield hasn’t been cleared yet. They must be running, right?”

The soldiers questioned each other, not daring to believe they had won.

Wang Zhong stuck his head out of a window and shouted outside, “The enemy is retreating! We have repelled the enemy’s first attack!”

The crowd exchanged glances.

Then cheers erupted.

“Hurrah!”

“It wasn’t that big a deal!”

The young men in the command post also cheered, their faces filled with joy.

Vasily couldn’t resist a bit of flattery, “Is victory that easy? General, you truly command like a deity!”

Wang Zhong frowned and turned to Yegorov, saying, “We can’t allow our troops to develop an attitude of underestimating the enemy! Immediately conduct ideological work with the soldiers, despise the enemy strategically, but take them seriously tactically! The enemy was well-trained, as evident by their immediate counterfire with tank machine guns!”

As they were speaking, Popov came in, sighing, “Why are you always taking my job?”

Wang Zhong: “What brought you to the command post?”

“A train just arrived at the station, on it were Priests assigned to us, so I brought them over. According to the rules, each company should have a Military Chaplain, and we have actually been in violation of that.” Popov shrugged, “The Priests have already gone to the companies, I came to see if there’s anything I could help with.”

Wang Zhong: “Go to the church immediately and request capable Monks, as well as the Divine Arrow! I almost used the 76mm gun to hit the enemy’s mark II at such long range. But in the end, I didn’t want to reveal the gun position, so I didn’t fire.”

Popov shook his head, “The church has responded; they said the prayer masters of the Divine Arrow suffered heavy losses in the previous ten plus days of fighting, and now they’re planning to let kids in grade ten of the monasteries graduate early to fill in the front lines, but they need to undergo military training.”

Wang Zhong was taken aback, “Forget it then, let’s just fight with the equipment and personnel we have now.”

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