Munitions Empire

Chapter 596: 555 Qi Army Tank

This time, Qin Xiong finally witnessed the strange aircraft with inverted seagull wings, named the Stuka Dive Bomber.

In fact, very few within the Tang Army understood this name, and generally, they just thought it was the designers at the Great Tang Aviation Group’s idea of a bad joke.

In reality, these designers were merely continuing with the naming convention set by the chief designer, Tang Mo. When Tang Mo presented the design concept for this aircraft, he had scribbled the odd word “Stuka” in a corner of the blueprint.

After the project was green-lighted, the engineers of the Great Tang Group simply started calling this type of aircraft Stuka, just as they would call the FW-190 fighter butcher.

It’s unlikely that Tang Mo would ever name his own fighter FW-190, nor did he wish to carry on with the name butcher bird—so he decided to simply drop a character, renaming it to Butcher.

The imposing force of the Stuka Dive Bomber swooping down from the sky was much more powerful than that of the Butcher, watching the Stuka plunging down sharply from afar, Qin Xiong felt the muscles in his body tense up.

That kind of disheartening noise left such a deep impression on him; he slightly understood why the Western Front troops hated these enemy planes so much.

"Can’t we just shoot that damn plane down from the sky?” Qin Xiong, annoyed, asked from within the trench while watching the Stuka dropping its bombs.

The Qi Army lacked an officer specifically in charge of anti-aircraft defense, and the man in charge, while wiping the sweat from his forehead, explained with equal frustration, “General… we don’t have the appropriate weapons

It’s hopeless to rely on Maxim guns raised for anti-air defense; they are truly not very effective. Not to mention, the Stuka itself has steel armor protection, and when it dives and pulls up, its machine guns and cannons suppress anti-aircraft fire. Relying on not-so-professional machine guns for anti-air defense is simply inadequate.

Moreover, the anti-balloon guns purchased from Shireck couldn’t rotate fast enough to keep up with the Stuka, and were nearly as good as decorations.

Qin Xiong fell silent, he just stared at the enemy aircraft climbing back up, his eyes filled with envy.

If he had such weapons at his disposal, wouldn’t breaking through the defense line in front of him be much more likely? Of course, he didn’t know that on the second line of defense of the Tang Army, there were already four Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft guns set up per company…

After preparing all morning, and being harassed by planes all morning, the tank forces of Qi Country that followed the 1st Army of Qi to the front lines of Luo Town, were finally ready to launch their attack and appeared before the battle formation of both armies.

After a long wait of several days, the Tang Army grenadiers, who were dozing in the trenches, faced some new changes.

A soldier on guard duty rubbed his eyes, took another look at the distant enemy position, then shrank back and started calling out with joy, “They’re coming! The enemy is coming again!”

"So what if they’re coming, why the hell are you so happy?” An old soldier, sleepy amid the booming cannon fire, retorted with his eyes closed.

"Tanks! Their tanks are advancing!” The sentry explained eagerly. Hearing his explanation, the surrounding Tang Army soldiers immediately perked up.

Not as a joke at all, they lay full of anticipation at the edge of their position, gazing towards the distant enemy.

Indeed, they saw the enemy tanks, looking like large ships, slowly moving their massive bodies closer to the Tang Army’s defensive line.

"What the hell is that?” The Tang Army soldiers, accustomed to their own tanks, couldn’t help but frown. To them, the tanks from Qi Country were… well, quite ugly.

"Go back to sleep.” After being excited for a while, the Tang Army soldiers stationed on the position once again withdrew into the trenches, looking listless and drained.

Because they knew this time it probably wouldn’t be their turn to take action again—the commanders wouldn’t let these tanks come close enough to harm them, the infantry without anti-tank weapons. The Armored Corps would surely take action.

It would almost certainly not be their turn, the grenadiers, to go up and fight the enemy’s tanks as soon as the flank tank forces engaged.

Indeed, upon sighting the Qi Army’s tanks, the Tang Army commanders immediately informed the 1st Armored Division.

Following that, the tanks of the 1st Armored Division were ordered to engage, with the experienced 1st Armored Battalion once again taking the lead in this counter-assault.

Liu Guozhu was ordered to mobilize the tanks, then once again moved with his forces to the depression near the reverse slope where they had started the last time.

"Testing! Testing!” The radio operator tested the recently repaired radio and then heard the irritating static of radio interference.

As more units were equipped with radios, the interference became more pronounced. Previously during combat, the issue went unnoticed due to quick dispersion, but now with large-scale assembly of the Tang Army tanks, such radio interference became more frequent.

"I…can…hear…you Barely discerning his company commander’s voice amidst the static, Liu Guozhu was still somewhat nervous.

In these past few days, he had not been idle—he had written two reports, one on the Armored Corps’ experiences in piercing through the enemy’s rear, and another on analyzing encounters with enemy anti-tank gun attacks.

To be honest, both reports were of great significance, perhaps even more important than the fact that he had killed a third prince.

The higher-ups also highly valued these two reports, ordering them to be promoted throughout the army and distributed as tactical manuals as soon as possible.

"Keep adjusting! If there’s another issue, our crew will become a negative example for the entire army!” Liu Guozhu complained to his radio operator.

"I’m trying my hardest! These damn workers, every batch of equipment is different!” The voice of the electromechanical operator came through the intercom inside the tank, clear and frustrated.

The radio, another piece of equipment continuously improved during mass production, had many different functions added to meet the needs of actual combat.

After learning from experience, the first improvement the Great Tang Group made was to the communication antennas that the soldiers most often complained about.

The antennas on tanks were frequently broken when crashing through woods or could be cut off by stray bullets, seriously affecting communication.

Therefore, subsequent communication antennas could be folded down, and all had spring buffers at the base, which affected communication quality to some extent due to the immature technology at the time.

"Check the ammunition! The enemy tanks are approaching our front defense position! We’ll enter the battlefield from the side! Cut off their retreat and sweep across The company commander’s voice was clearer this time, indicating that the adjustments were effective.

"Check the ammunition!” Liu Guozhu reminded the loader, then heard the command to attack: “Advance! Follow tank number 1! Keep the communication clear!”

"Speed up! Speed up!” Excited shouts of tank commanders came over the radio. Following these orders, Tang Army tanks entered the battlefield, officially beginning the clash with the enemy’s armored corps.

"Stop the tank!” Less than two minutes after advancing and cresting the small rise ahead, Liu Guozhu shouted in shock upon seeing the dense Qi Country tank forces ahead.

He really hadn’t expected the enemy to have so many tanks, and these tanks… they looked extraordinarily ugly…

After spotting these tanks, he ordered a halt, then continued to give orders to his gunner: “Open fire once you have a target! No need to ask for my permission!”

Following his command, the gunner didn’t hesitate to press the pedal, and the 75mm short-barreled cannon of tank number 4 fired, sending a shell directly at a Shireck Type 1 tank, which was engulfed in flames.

With a gasoline engine, thousands of rounds of bullets, dozens of shells, and more than a dozen men crowded together above a massive fuel tank, the likelihood of an explosive demise for Shireck tanks was astonishingly high.

"Ha!” After blowing up a tank with a single shot, Liu Guozhu had no intention of ordering his tank to advance any further.

In this situation, firing from the high ground seemed a better way to achieve results than charging forward.

Next to Liu Guozhu’s tank, the platoon leader’s vehicle seemed to have the same idea. Both tanks did not continue to advance but kept firing from their position.

The loader, sweating profusely, once again pulled a shell from the ammunition rack, pushed it into the breech, and closed the breech block.

Almost immediately, the cannon in the turret recoiled violently backward, and a spent shell casing was ejected.

An odious smell of burning hung in the air of the tank once more, making every breath Liu Guozhu took an urge to cough.

He opened the hatch above his head, allowing more air to circulate into the vehicle. Just then, his gunner fired the third shell.

"Missed!” the gunner complained sullenly. There was no helping it; with the current level of technology, even the best gunner could hardly guarantee a 50% hit rate.

"Get us closer!” Liu Guozhu felt they should improve their hit rate, otherwise, if they ran out of ammunition too soon, it would be very awkward.

"Fire the high-explosive! No worries! I think the HE rounds can take them out too.” As they moved forward, Liu Guozhu suggested ideas to his gunner and loader despite the jolting of the tank.

At this time, the Qi Army tank commanders, who were attacking the Tang Army positions, seemed to have noticed the Tang tanks flanking them.

After a moment of panic, many small turrets on Qi tanks began to rotate, and countless side-mounted machine guns on their hulls started to fire at the approaching Tang tanks.

But Liu Guozhu and his men had closed the distance between them to the extreme! Just now, the number 4 tank that was ahead of them had charged past the blazing wreck of a Shireck Type 1 tank!

Soon, Liu Guozhu’s own tank also burst through the rolling smoke and passed the iron coffin glowing red from the fire.

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