Chapter 131
At the Asgard Knights' Amplar Armored Division Headquarters of the Prossenian forces, Chief of Staff Keluze von Hessendale held Warrant Officer Wilhelm Dietrich's hand: "Leave it to me."
The lieutenant who carried back Major General Wilhelm said, "I believe the Major General is in a deep coma now and probably can't hear you."
"I know." Keluze von Hessendale gave the lieutenant a sharp look.
Since the Asgard Knights were the Emperor's confidants, they tended to favor officers who did not come from Junker noble backgrounds. The very founding of the Knights was one of His Majesty's ways to weaken the influence of the officer corps.
But the position of staff officer is different from that of a commanding officer. First, staff officers rarely accumulate military merit. Even if the entire battle plan is made by them, and even if they personally execute it, the credit still goes to the military commander.
Secondly, compared to battlefield instincts, staff officers are more valued for their ability to work with maps and paperwork. Their competence improves only with years of accumulated experience.
Therefore, the Emperor couldn't quickly promote staff officers without a background in the officer corps just through military merit. Most staff officers in the Prossenian forces still came from the Junker officer corps.
Keluze von Hessendale was a Junker noble himself, but he had good relationships with the non-Junker officers who quickly rose through the ranks during the Emperor's conquests. That's why he was placed in the Asgard Knights, the Prossenian version of the Imperial Guard, to assist a star general.
Now that the star general had exited the stage, Keluze had to shoulder the heavy burden.
He turned to the lieutenant who had just spoken and asked, "Why would the enemy specifically shell a tank platoon in a reserve position?"
The lieutenant shook his head. "No idea, Chief of Staff, sir."
Keluze asked again, "Did the Major General do anything that might have exposed his identity?"
"He shouldn't have."
At this moment, the deputy commander of the 1st Armored Battalion said, "A triple volley from a heavy artillery regiment covered the impact zone, and all the shells landed around the division commander's vehicle. This was clearly aimed at him."
"I know." Keluze interrupted the deputy commander. "The question is, how did the enemy identify the division commander? That White Horse General previously also had the achievement of killing Major General Randolph of the 15th Armored Division. It's hard not to suspect something."
Keluze paused. "Major General Randolph was wearing a National Defense Force general's uniform when he was killed, and he was next to his command vehicle at the time. That's understandable. The general's uniform is too conspicuous-especially that red collar tab."
In traditional Prossenian uniforms, generals wore red collar tabs, which were visible from a great distance on the battlefield. Back during the Carolingian Campaign, there were already cases of United Kingdom sharpshooters targeting generals.
Because of this, the Asgard Knights' uniforms removed the red collar tabs for generals.
Moreover, before heading to the front, Major General Wilhelm had even swapped clothes with a tank platoon leader.
Keluze paced back and forth. At this moment, someone among the staff said, "Could it be the effect of that voodoo ritual?"
Keluze sneered. "Impossible. Just injuring the division commander won't cripple our command. If the enemy wanted to take us down, the voodoo ritual should have targeted our entire command post. No, that's not it."
"But saying it's voodoo makes it easier to explain to the higher-ups," the staff officer continued.
Keluze clicked his tongue. "That's true."
After all, staff officers were civil officers; compared to battlefield command, they understood internal military politics better.
Keluze said, "Then go question the wounded soldiers who made it back. Get a clear account of how the enemy's voodoo ritual works and submit a detailed report to the armored cluster headquarters."
Just then, the communications officer ran out from inside. "Chief of Staff-acting division commander, both the Second and Third Armored Battalions are asking what to do."
The Chief of Staff waved his hand. "Didn't we already give out the battle plan? The division commander has gone back for treatment due to serious injuries-we must carry out his plan to the end! Attack."
--
Wang Zhong was currently in a staring contest with the enemy's tank group.
To be ready to fire immediately and stop the enemy, 30 T34s had already reversed up from their concealed emplacements onto the firing platforms. Just like the first ambush, Wang Zhong had also assigned each tank a focus zone.
An armored battle was clearly about to erupt.
But the enemy didn't move, just sat there burning fuel.
Since the enemy didn't move, Wang Zhong didn't dare move either. He even stayed close to the rookie holding the phone.
Wang Zhong had already counted: the enemy had 181 tanks in total. Although only 131 of them were Type 3 and Type 4 tanks, the rest were filler Type 2s and 38Ts. But even those could cripple a T34's tracks or jam the turret ring if they got close.
Besides, the Type 2s and 38Ts were already efficient enough at slaughtering infantry.
In fact, the Type 2's 20mm autocannon might be better at killing infantry than the Type 3's 50mm "candy launcher."
While Wang Zhong was pondering all this nonsense, the enemy moved.
The exhaust pipes of the Prossenian tanks lined up on the plain simultaneously spewed black smoke, and the engine roars suddenly grew louder.
Wang Zhong immediately rushed to his tank, climbed into the turret, and then shouted to the soldier crouching by the emplacement with the phone, "Get up here too! Stand on the engine cover-I might need to call the artillery regiment at any moment!"
"Oh!" The rookie immediately climbed onto the tank. He seemed a bit excited-probably had long dreamed of riding in a tank.
In his headset came the voice of the armored battalion commander: "General! Should we open fire?"
Wang Zhong: "Are you dumb? Fire only when the marker is passed!"
Over the past few days of testing, Wang Zhong had lost all faith in this batch of T34s' accuracy.
So he planned to wait until the enemy was within 700 meters before firing. Even if that wouldn't stop so many Prossenian tanks from getting into a close-quarters brawl, it was still better than wasting shells at ranges beyond their effective range.
Before the battle, Wang Zhong had emphasized the concealment of the emplacements precisely because of this.
The Prossenians had excellent gunnery, with top-tier optics and Zeiss high-magnification lenses. They often scored hits from 1,000 or even 1,500 meters.
Letting the enemy get close before firing was the best tactic against Prossenian armor.
Wang Zhong waited for the moment when the enemy tanks would cross the 700-meter marker.
But the enemy stopped! They halted at 1,200 meters!
Wang Zhong had no idea what trick the enemy was trying to pull.
The next moment, the enemy opened fire-targeting the fake tanks and fake anti-tank guns Wang Zhong had set up.
Those wooden dummies were finally going to fulfill their purpose.
The gunner of Vehicle 422, Alexander, asked, "Should I fire? I'm confident I can hit from this range!"
Wang Zhong: "Don't rush. If we open fire, the nervous crews of the other tanks-especially the new ones-will definitely start shooting indiscriminately. I don't expect them to have your skills. You're an instructor in the Armored Training Corps-the man who actually killed General Randolph!"
Alexander went silent, probably overwhelmed by Wang Zhong's over-the-top praise.
After unleashing one wave of firepower from 1,200 meters, the enemy finally began advancing.
After all, Wang Zhong hadn't given the order to fire yet, and their positions were so well camouflaged that even if the enemy wanted to engage from 1,200 meters, there were no visible targets.
Wang Zhong waited for the enemy's attack front to cross the marker.
Finally, the enemy tank numbered 313 passed right by the marker!
Wang Zhong: "Fire!"
He didn't specify a target, but Alexander just happened to choose Tank 313.
A precise shot punched a hole straight through the front upper armor of Tank 313. It immediately caught fire, and the enemy crew scrambled to abandon it.
The results of the first volley came fast-Wang Zhong counted: 30 T34s fired, and six enemy tanks were hit.
During the morning ambush, the firing range had been under 500 meters, and even then it took two armor-piercing rounds to take down one tank. So hitting six at 700 meters wasn't bad.
The second volley followed, and another five enemy tanks were abandoned.
At this point, the enemy had also figured out roughly where the shells were coming from. Fierce direct-fire attacks now rained down on the second ambush position.
But the enemy wasn't accurate either-probably because the emplacements Wang Zhong had guided the engineers and laborers to dig were too well-designed. The enemy couldn't clearly see the actual targets and had to reverse-engineer from the direction of incoming shells, then blindly fire in hopes of hitting high-value units.
Both sides continued this chaotic exchange for several rounds like a pair of incompetent rivals.
Over twenty enemy tanks were temporarily disabled, while Wang Zhong's side hadn't lost a single one.
It looked like the enemy was going to "die a slow death"!
--
At the Amplar Armored Division Headquarters, Keluze placed one hand on the walkie-talkie and activated the speaker function, allowing everyone in the command vehicle to hear the various 'screams' from the Second Armored Battalion soldiers.
"Where the hell is the enemy?"
"We've dumped seven or eight shells in the direction of incoming fire-how are they still attacking?"
"The smoke from the enemy tank fire is blocking my vision! I can't see a damn thing!"
"I saw a tank turret-they buried the tanks in the ground to fight us!"
More and more absurd statements followed.
But what struck Keluze the most was that one word-"Mama."
At last, Keluze couldn't stand it anymore and picked up the receiver: "All units, attention-initiate Plan B!"
So-called Plan B meant firing smoke grenades at the enemy positions, then calling in Stukas to drop 500-kilogram bombs over the smoke-covered area.
Keluze's order was faithfully executed!
--
The moment the enemy fired smoke at the second ambush position, Wang Zhong thought they were about to retreat.
But then he noticed the color of the smoke and immediately realized what was happening.
"Enemy bombing incoming! Release smoke-have the infantry release smoke to cover our retreat! Any infantry who can't run in time, get into the anti-bomb shelters!"
In the next moment, smoke rose from the infantry trenches in front of the ambush position.
Wang Zhong: "Move! Reverse! Move now!"
Infantry, as long as they took cover properly, wouldn't suffer much from dive-bombed explosives-napalm would be another story.
But tanks were different. Wang Zhong still remembered the lesson from Upper Peniye-if the Stuka hadn't dive-bombed and destroyed Vehicle 67, its crew would still be fighting beside him today!
Wang Zhong's Vehicle 422 reversed out of the emplacement and got onto the simple road prepared for withdrawal.
All the tanks equipped with radios began to move too, but the ones without radio were still firing in place.
Wang Zhong shouted to the nearby army troops on standby: "What are you standing around for? Go knock on their hatches and tell them we're pulling out!"
At that moment, the sound of engines came from the sky.
The Stukas had arrived.
That's five updates today-no more tonight. See you tomorrow morning.
(End of Chapter)