Mercenary I am the king

Chapter 1232 Homemade "Self-Propelled Artillery"

"It must be a large-caliber artillery piece, otherwise it wouldn't be able to shoot that far..."

Jiang Feng stared at the attacked location on the map and quickly came to a conclusion, but then got stuck.

Looking at the artillery positions that were so scattered, he became confused.

"As for what kind of cannon it is... it's hard to say..."

Song Heping looked at the others.

No one can answer this question.

A silence fell over the command post; the air felt thick and sticky, as if it were mixed with glue.

The static from the radio, mixed with desperate cries for help and battle reports from various positions on the front lines, mingled with the muffled, rhythmic explosions in the distance, relentlessly assaulting everyone's senses.

"Sector A3 requests artillery support! Repeat, Sector A3 is about to collapse!"

"Sector B7 has suffered heavy casualties; the enemy's artillery fire is too accurate! We need to retaliate!"

"The C1 command post has been hit! The company commander has been killed!"

Every sound was like a heavy hammer, striking Song Heping and Jiang Feng's hearts.

They faced an invisible enemy—the artillery positions of the 1515 Armed Forces. The Liberation Forces' shells returned fire blindly, but it was like stones sinking into the sea; they could only passively take hits.

On the front lines of the "Liberation Forces," the situation is getting worse and worse.

The militia had just repelled an infantry charge and hadn't even had time to catch their breath when a sharp whistling sound pierced the sky once again.

"Fire! Take cover!"

Veteran Shaban's voice was hoarse, as if he were shouting with his life on the line.

In an instant, the sky and the earth changed color.

boom!
boom!
boom!
boom!
A barrage of 122mm grenades rained down on the position like hail.

A massive fireball, billowing with black smoke, shot into the sky, its scorching heatwave sweeping in all directions. The shockwave, mixed with mud, gravel, and metal fragments, relentlessly destroyed everything in its path.

A machine gun emplacement that was only half-built was hit directly. Sandbags, weapons and the soldier operating it disappeared instantly, leaving only a crater with smoke rising from it.

A section of the trench collapsed, burying the wounded who couldn't evacuate in time, with only one helpless hand visible.

A young militiaman, his ears and nose bleeding from the shockwave, huddled in a crater, feeling the earth tremble violently, as if the whole world was about to be torn apart by the endless barrage of artillery fire.

He watched helplessly as a familiar figure fell in the firelight not far away; it was the companion who had shared a piece of naan with him just yesterday.

Fear and despair gnawed at his heart like venomous snakes.

Enemy infantry surged forward again under artillery cover, while the effective resistance that could be organized on the positions was constantly weakened by the artillery fire.

"Command! Command! We need to suppress their artillery! Otherwise, we'll all die here!"

Shaban roared desperately into the nearly destroyed radio microphone.

In the command center, Jiang Feng slammed his headset onto the table.

"Sergeant! We can't wait any longer! We must contact the Americans in Bakda and have them send 'Reaper' drones! Find these sons of bitches and blow them to bits with the JDAM!"

Song Heping stood stiffly in front of the huge situation map.

He shook his head, his voice low and hoarse: "It's too late. Applications, coordination, flight planning... by the time their planes arrive, our defenses will have been torn to shreds."

He was deeply shocked.

The quality of the artillerymen armed with 1515 was far higher than he had anticipated.

The shooting pace is fast, and the accuracy is extremely high.

This is definitely not a tactic that a mob can master.

"It seems there's a reason why they were able to occupy northwestern Iriego..."

He thought to himself that he had indeed underestimated his opponent in the past, and this time he had learned a real lesson.

We must find a way to break this immediately, otherwise, with 6,000 against 25,000, once the defense line is breached, it will be a one-sided massacre.

Suddenly, a glint flashed in his eyes, and he grabbed the radio walkie-talkie, switching to a clearer channel: "Attention all positions! This is Song Heping! Report the approximate power of the shells you have been hit by, and determine their caliber! Repeat, determine the caliber of the shells!"

Soon, fragmented information returned.

"The explosion was very powerful, and the crater was very deep, like a 122mm grenade!"

"It's about the same effect as our own artillery fire, it should be 122mm!"

It should be a Soviet-made D-30 122mm howitzer!
Because this type of cannon is most common in Iligo.

Song Heping immediately went to the map, picked up a red pen, and quickly marked the positions that had just been hit by precise artillery fire.

His movements were swift and precise, like a high-speed computer.

Then, using each shelled position as the center, he drew several overlapping and intersecting large circles based on the maximum and common range of the D-30.

"Order the drone company!" He said to Jiang Feng without turning his head, "All reconnaissance drones, immediately conduct a thorough reconnaissance of these key areas I have marked! Quickly!"

Although Jiang Feng didn't understand why, he immediately relayed the order.

When he returned to the map, looking at the densely packed circles and the focal area, he asked in confusion, "Old squad leader, what's this?"

Song Heping pointed at the map with the tip of his pen, explaining rapidly: "This is a reverse-push artillery position operation. The D-30 is the most common equipment left over from the Saddam era. It was lost in large numbers after the arrival of the US military, and the 1515 militia certainly has quite a few. Based on the impact point and the ballistic parameters and range of the D-30, we can roughly define the areas where they might hide. After eliminating the mountains and dense forests that are not suitable for setting up artillery positions, what remains are their most likely hiding places!"

Jiang Feng suddenly realized that this was a typical artillery detection and countermeasure strategy, which required extremely strong professional knowledge and spatial imagination.

As expected, he is a top-notch special forces soldier from Unit 203.

Non-commissioned officers in such units need to be multi-skilled, and must have a certain level of expertise in all infantry specialties.

A few minutes later, a dense buzzing sound rang out from the drone company's position. More than 30 reconnaissance drones, like a swarm of bees leaving their hive, roared into the air and rushed toward the designated reconnaissance airspace.

Time passes minute by minute.

Song Heping stood in front of the screen like a clay sculpture, glancing down at his watch every now and then.

ten minutes……

No news...

twenty minutes……

No news...

thirty minutes……

It felt like an eternity.

The drone team still found nothing...

The urgent calls from the front lines became more frequent, and the tone grew increasingly desperate.

Even worse news came – Basmu, the leader of the 1515 armed forces in Hurmatu, seeing that the flank attack was going well, sent all of the remaining 20,000-plus people in the city, except for the 5,000 garrison troops, and the remaining 15,000 people, like a flood bursting its banks, to rush towards Song Heping's front line.

Six thousand against twenty-five thousand!
The air in the command center was almost burning.

At this suffocating moment, the excited voice of the drone company finally came through the radio: "Report! Target spotted! In area S-4! They...they're using self-propelled artillery!"

"what?!"

Song Heping and Jiang Feng exclaimed almost simultaneously.

Does the 1515 have self-propelled artillery?
How can this be?

Isn't this utter nonsense?!
How could an extremist group have such high-tech gadgets in its armed forces?
Self-propelled artillery?

What kind of international joke is this?!

"The footage! I need the footage! Send it back immediately!"

Song Heping gave the order almost without thinking.

When the drone footage was transmitted back to the command center's large screen, everyone was stunned.

It really is a "self-propelled artillery"!
But it wasn't the regular self-propelled artillery they imagined; instead, it was a peculiar "hybrid" product—a D-30 122mm howitzer with its wheels removed and welded directly to the back of an old American M35 military truck!
Simple and crude, yet full of the wisdom of battlefield pragmatism.

A homemade truck-mounted cannon came to an abrupt stop on a dry riverbed. Several gunners jumped off the truck, quickly put down their shovels, took a quick aim, and then unleashed a rapid burst of fire.

The moment the shell left the barrel, these men packed up their equipment with astonishing speed, jumped into the cab, and the truck, billowing black smoke, sped away from the scene in less than five minutes.

Soon, it appeared at another pre-arranged position a few kilometers away and repeated the same process.

"Damn it! It's a mobile artillery position! And a truck-mounted one at that!"

Jiang Feng cursed, but his tone carried a hint of helpless understanding, "No wonder it's so hard to find!"

More drones spotted similar targets and transmitted images back to the drones.

On the battlefield, which spans dozens of kilometers, at least fifty of these "homemade truck-mounted artillery pieces" are active. Like ghosts, they move across the vast battlefield, fire, disappear, and reappear.

Now, an even more serious problem lies ahead.

How do we deal with these highly mobile artillery positions?

Traditional artillery fire was almost ineffective against them.

While your shell is still in flight, the enemy has already vanished.

Song Heping recalled the emphasis on "quick attack and quick retreat" when he was learning mortars in the army. It seems that there are indeed "experts" in the 1515 armed forces who are proficient in artillery tactics.

In the command center, the glimmer of hope that had just risen because the target had been found was instantly replaced by a deeper sense of powerlessness.

Silence once again enveloped the entire space.

　Asking for a monthly ticket!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)