Novel Full Chapter 55 Coffee Time Bombardment
This evening, Wang Zhong fell asleep directly in the warehouse—the place was big enough, and Wang Zhong wasn’t worried about the staff seeing his well-toned body.
Moreover, Pavlov and the others were also staying in the warehouse. Yesterday, Popov had protested about this, arguing that the military’s No. 1 and No. 2 should not be housed together, what would happen if the enemy learned from Wang Zhong’s tactics and carried out a nighttime artillery attack.
But the Prussians did not launch a night bombardment, and the night passed peacefully.
The next day, on July 16th, when Wang Zhong got up, the first thing he saw was Pavlov standing in front of the map, watching as the staff updated it.
Wang Zhong got up, put on his shirt, trousers, and such, while fastening his combat belt, and headed toward the map table where Pavlov was, “Didn’t you sleep last night?”
“I slept a bit, but then got right up. I can’t sleep that soundly on the battlefield, I’ll catch up on sleep once I’m back in the rear.”
Wang Zhong raised an eyebrow, “Catch up on sleep? Every time I went to headquarters at Ye Fort, I saw you busy.”
“That’s because you always arrived at headquarters in the afternoon. In Ye Fort, I actually got plenty of rest, even gained some weight,” Pavlov said, patting his belly, “See!”
Truth be told, given Pavlov’s physique, even if he had gained weight, it wouldn’t have been noticeable.
Wang Zhong, “Alright then.”
Seeing Wang Zhong’s expression, Pavlov hurriedly added, “When things get a bit more organized, I’ll have Popov take over the night shift every evening, just like in Shostka!”
At the mention of the familiar place name, Wang Zhong sighed, “Shostka has been occupied by Prosen for almost ten months now, I wonder what it has become.”
“The prisoners say,” Popov started, appearing as he spoke, “that the Plathen Emperor’s favorite has preserved the place in its entirety and even had the Science Academy survey it, seemingly treating it as a model for urban defense warfare.”
Wang Zhong frowned, “What the hell, you mean to say, in future urban warfare we’ll have to deal with defense works of that scale?”
As the designer and actual user, Wang Zhong knew all too well how fearsome those defenses were.
Popov nodded, “I’m afraid so.”
Wang Zhong shook his head, “That’s bad news, as the chairman of the Equipment Review Committee, I need to quickly come up with something for urban warfare. Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“Because it was only interrogated out of the prisoners yesterday. We caught three thousand prisoners yesterday, and I casually interrogated some to glean quite a bit of intelligence. The judges are going to be busy.”
Popov said this with a big yawn.
Wang Zhong, “Didn’t sleep well?”
“It was alright. I hadn’t really woken up yet, normally I need some tea at this time to become alert, coffee works too.”
Wang Zhong turned his head and sure enough, saw Nelly nearby, ready to serve at any moment, and as their eyes met, she promptly pushed her cart over.
“Coffee and tea have arrived,” Wang Zhong said, then resumed the previous topic, “What’s this about the Emperor’s favorite?”
“Don’t you know? He’s the Emperor’s childhood friend, now the most trusted general by His Majesty, and holds more influence than his military rank would suggest on many matters.”
Images of “Takami”, the plump man who said “The tactics of pigs have been repeatedly successful and must be used by others” from “The Great Battle”, immediately came to Wang Zhong’s mind.
Popov, “Also, he seems to be having an affair with the Emperor’s sister.”
In Wang Zhong’s mind, “Commander-in-Chief” suddenly became Siegfried from “Legend of the Galactic Heroes”.
What a stark contrast!
Pavlov said, “Speaking of which, at Shostka, I thought about how we would assault a city defended like that, and the only solution I came up with was to obliterate it with heavy artillery.
“In my opinion, we just put a shell around the B4 heavy cannon, turn it into an assault gun, and it’s perfect for demolishing buildings, right?”
Wang Zhong shook his head, “No, the B4 heavy cannon has too long a barrel, it’s too heavy, and in order to cope with the enormous chamber pressure during firing, the breech mechanics are too complex, too thick and heavy.
“In fact, there’s a better choice. Oh, we can use a short, thick barrel to fire a short-range rocket with a huge charge, specifically for demolishing buildings. The launcher could then be very light, without needing to withstand the ultra-high chamber pressure of firing shells, and the recoil during firing would also be very small.”
Wang Zhong explained his idea while gesturing.
“Rockets?” Pavlov furrowed his brow, “From a production standpoint, it does seem a lot simpler than making big guns.”
The production of a cannon’s barrel requires mastering a series of intricate processes, with the output of barrels severely constraining the overall production of weapons and equipment.
On Earth, Sturmtiger had to produce a massive number of anti-aircraft guns for strategic bombardment defense, and the barrels for these guns took up a huge amount of production capacity, seriously affecting the production of large-caliber, long-barreled guns like the PAK 40.
If a weapon could be created without the need for intricate barrels, its manufacturing potential would be greatly advantaged.
Popov looked at Wang Zhong, “Seeing how confident you are, I suppose you already have an idea?”
“Yes,” Wang Zhong nodded.
Wang Zhong’s idea was to simplify the Tiger Assault Gun, such as reducing the weight of the shell to speed up the loading of shells, and then making changes to the overall structure, simplifying the movement mechanism.
Alternatively, they could adopt the design from Earth, mounting a 290mm spigot mortar on the Churchill tank, creating the Churchill AVRE specialist tank designed specifically for demolishing buildings.
In theory, the KV2 was quite suitable for demolishing buildings, but this weapon was hindered by the 152mm gun. In reality, these armored vehicles didn’t need to achieve long-range firing – a range of 500 meters would suffice. Limiting the range to 500 meters would greatly simplify the design of the weapon.
The Churchill AVRE’s mortar was extremely crude, with drafts everywhere because it was never intended to fire shells very far.
Upon reflection, Wang Zhong realized that solving this problem would probably be simpler than designing a vortex gun, and they could even retrofit existing KV heavy tanks for the purpose.
As Wang Zhong pondered, a whistling sound came from the sky.
Someone at the doorway shouted, “Artillery attack!”
Wang Zhong dived to the ground in one swift motion.
After getting down, he looked up and saw Nelly too lying nearby in a standard artillery defense posture.
The ground shook violently with the onslaught of the attack—huh?
Wang Zhong turned his head and asked Pavlov, “Doesn’t the shelling feel less intense?”
Pavlov agreed, “Indeed, it feels similar to yesterday’s shelling. There aren’t many 150mm heavy cannons, maybe around twelve. Just an estimate!”
Wang Zhong: “So that means right now only one division’s artillery is firing at us.”
Pavlov: “It could also be two divisions, after all, our estimate might be off. But definitely no more than twenty-four cannons at the most.”
Wang Zhong cut into his bird’s-eye view, initially wanting to estimate the number of heavy artillery pieces over 150mm by the intensity of their landing, but then he discovered the continuous barrage of shells made it difficult to discern if they were from the same salvo or not.
Therefore, he trusted Pavlov’s estimate.
The bombardment lasted for about an hour, and as the cannon fire gradually subsided, Wang Zhong got up and patted the dust off himself. He had gotten used to maintaining the anti-bombardment posture for extended periods, and one hour was simply not enough to tire him.
Nelly also stood up, took off the peaked cap from her head, and kept slapping the dust off of it.
Wang Zhong: “Both the coffee and tea have gotten dusty, let’s change them.”
“No need, no need!” Popov said, picking up the coffee and downing it in one gulp, “The dust will settle at the bottom, just be careful when drinking.”
Wang Zhong: “Are you sure you still need coffee to stay awake? Wasn’t the enemy’s shelling invigorating enough?”
“That’s true, isn’t it.”
Pavlov, meanwhile, was giving orders to his staff to confirm the damage caused by the shelling.
At that moment, the communications officer ran over: “A cable from the Front Army headquarters.”
Wang Zhong took the cable, glanced at it, then handed it to Pavlov: “The Front Army wants us to retreat back to Yarvik and set up a defense with the city and the Suhaya Weili River.”
Pavlov: “Madness, just to let the Prussians have the west bank of the Suhaya Weili River like that, isn’t that the same as selling out the Bolsk Front Army?”
Wang Zhong: “Clearly some Front Army commanders lack a sense of the bigger picture.”
Vasily: “Replace him!”
Wang Zhong looked over.
Vasily spread his hands: “That thing about calling His Majesty the Tsar!”
Wang Zhong shook his head: “No, to handle this directly through a phone call would confirm that I’m a prince. Send a cable to the High Command expressing our dissatisfaction with the Front Army headquarters, and have the High Command press the Front Army headquarters.”
Pavlov: “Alright, I’ll order the drafting of the cable immediately.”
Popov spoke in a tone more suited to casual gossip: “We keep going over the heads of the Front Army headquarters to communicate with the higher-ups, if we had a commander with a temper, they would have started cursing a long time ago.”
Wang Zhong: “Actually, I’m quite concerned too, military command order must be maintained. But look at the situation now, rather than waiting for the foolishness of the Front Army commander to brew disaster, it’s better to disobey orders.”
Popov nodded: “You didn’t notice I was just chatting, did you? Moreover, it’s pretty clear that the High Command also agrees with your opinion, to hold out here until at least August, at least until August so that the mud can help us.”
Wang Zhong corrected: “The mud and the steppe. These steppes are no joke, they will swallow up those who underestimate them.”
“It seems you’ve had quite an experience,” Pavlov said.
Wang Zhong: “Of course, I’ve seen with my own eyes tall grass entangle the front wheels of an enemy half-track, rendering it immobile.”
As he spoke, Wang Zhong approached the map, stared at it for a few seconds, then shook his head: “It’s a pity, we haven’t had the opportunity to reconnoiter the area occupied by the enemy, so we don’t know where their artillery is positioned.”
Pavlov: “We can look forward to today’s reconnaissance. Unlike the steppes of Kazarlia with their many forests and scattered towns where cannons have plenty of places to hide,
“Here, across the endless steppes, hiding cannons requires constructing complete artillery positions, digging out emplacements for the guns, and setting up camouflage nets.
“Enemy infantry divisions only arrived yesterday afternoon; they haven’t had much time to dig in, so if our pilots set off early, they’ll be able to photograph the enemy’s artillery positions.”
Wang Zhong: “But is the resolution of the photos good enough for us to conduct artillery strikes?”
Pavlov fell silent.
The photos from yesterday could only be matched with the coordinate grid on the map, no more specific coordinates were available.
The scale of a grid coordinate was unimaginably large, making it impossible to conduct a bombardment based on it alone.
The main reason for this was that in this era, there were no GPS or Beidou systems, making it incredibly hard for Air Force units to determine their exact position.
The only way was for Wang Zhong to command the Air Force personally, establishing direct communication between him and the Air Force so as to determine their position externally, and incidentally determining where the targets they saw were located.
Unfortunately, there were currently no Air Force units under Wang Zhong’s direct command.
Wang Zhong, looking at the map, thought for a while and felt that the best way to steal a march on the enemy’s artillery would be to dispatch a small cavalry unit to raid their artillery positions.
If this small unit was very familiar with steppe terrain and had experience living on the steppes, they might succeed.
Unfortunately, Wang Zhong didn’t have such a “special forces” unit at his disposal.
Nevermind then, it’s just twelve 150mm cannons; they could bear with it. Besides, considering the enemy’s logistics, they might run out of ammunition after a few barrages.