Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 336 Training Drivers
Wang Gensheng readily agreed to the frontline commander's request and then led the convoy back to Xingnan Port that very night.

Despite lacking equipment and supplies, it still took a whole night to get back. There was no other way, even though visibility was better during the day and the truck could be driven at 50 or 60 kilometers per hour.

At this speed, a journey of over 200 kilometers would only take four or five hours, or half a day, and a round trip could be completed in a single day.

But no matter how fast a car goes, it can't compare to the speed of a fighter jet!

After all, visibility is good during the day, and the US Air Force also has good visibility!

It's not easy for people to spot them, since the reinforcements have now learned to simply disappear into the snow or forest on either side as soon as they hear the sound of an airplane, so marching during the day isn't a big problem.

But cars can't do that. Once a car drives off the road, it's hard to drive it back. Besides, there aren't many forests big enough for it to go through!
Of course, Wang Gensheng was leading the team to transport supplies, but he didn't need to drive the car; Li Xiu fulfilled her role as driver very well.

Indeed, Li Xiu, with his excellent night vision, took the lead in the convoy, providing scouting for the team. After all, the lead vehicle is the most dangerous when driving at night, as visibility is only about 40 or 50 meters.

Therefore, even if the car is only traveling at a speed of ten or twenty kilometers per hour, it is still very difficult to react in time.

However, Li Xiu was different; his eyes were as bright as day in the dark, so it was perfect to have him as the lead driver.

As the person in charge of the entire convoy, Wang Gensheng naturally sat in the passenger seat of the lead car.

In fact, the entire convoy was basically made up of Marines. You should know that Wang Gensheng really put his heart into training the Marines to become real special forces soldiers.

It covers everything from underwater combat, car driving, horse riding, shooting, skiing, and hand-to-hand fighting.

Wang Gensheng also received training in driving skills back then.

Of course, due to fuel shortages, each soldier only drove less than ten kilometers back then, and that was it after learning the basics of driving a car.

There's no way around it, fuel is precious. Even if each soldier only drives 10 kilometers, nearly a thousand soldiers will drive 10,000 kilometers. At 20 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers, 10,000 kilometers would take 2,000 liters of fuel.

So such a short distance is only enough for Marines to barely learn simple operations like turning, shifting gears, and parking; things like parallel parking are out of the question.

You should know that before Wang Gensheng traveled through time, he had to practice driving 260 kilometers at a driving school before he could take the driving test for the third stage!
Fortunately, modern military trucks are all manual transmission, which is very safe. Of course, while they are safe, they are also not easy to drive. For example, it is common for them to stall when shifting gears.

This is quite normal, as starting a manual transmission car with the clutch engaged in a semi-engaged manner is not so easy to master, and it's normal to stall the engine if you release the clutch too quickly.

So many people who want to learn to drive get stuck on this. In this era, especially among the troops aiding Chaozhou, there aren't actually many people who can drive.

So, Smith's Marine Corps left behind more than two thousand trucks of various kinds, but why did Wang Gensheng only bring a thousand of them?
The biggest reason for this was the lack of drivers. In the 26th Army, which had tens of thousands of soldiers, Wang Gensheng couldn't even muster a thousand truck drivers.

Helpless, Wang Gensheng had no choice but to send his own marines to take over, since there were too few people like Wu Qianli's Seventh Infiltration Company who knew how to drive trucks and tanks.

In 1950, the entire country of Hualien had only about 50,000 cars, most of which were sedans.

But the United States! The entire United States has over 40 million vehicles, and in 1950, its annual automobile production reached over 8 million vehicles. More than half of the families owned a car, so it wasn't unusual for US soldiers to know how to drive; drivers were commonplace. This transport mission also made Wang Gensheng realize the importance of training drivers. The more than 200 kilometers of driving significantly improved Wang Gensheng's Marine Corps driving skills. Plus, the truck was empty, so it only took a little over ten hours to return to Xingnan Port.

However, being a driver is just an additional skill for the Marines; combat is their primary duty. We can't let the Marines that Wang Gensheng spent nearly ten years training all become truck drivers!

So after obtaining the consent of the frontline commander, Wang Gensheng planned to select soldiers from the more than 100,000 men of the Ninth Army Corps to learn how to drive cars.

Only in this way can Wang Gensheng's Marine Corps be freed from the role of logistics transport driver.

The soldiers of the Ninth Army Corps were very happy to be truck drivers, after all, cars were still a rarity in China at that time!

So everyone was eager to sign up to be a driver. Some squad leaders and platoon leaders even gave up their jobs to become truck drivers. However, squad leaders and platoon leaders are the backbone of an army. If two thousand squad leaders and platoon leaders were suddenly transferred to be drivers, it would be a disaster. It would be paralyzed!

Therefore, Wang Gensheng had to order that only soldiers could serve as drivers, and that they must pass a night vision test before they could join.

There's no way around it; although drivers aren't required to be night-blind, they can still drive at night under the headlights.

However, things are different on this Chaozhou battlefield. Not only is it required to drive at night, but it is also required to drive without headlights, relying only on the faint light of the moon and stars.

Therefore, Wang Gensheng hoped that the truck drivers he wanted would be able to see clearly at night for 50 meters, while the night vision ability of these novice drivers would be at least 80 meters or even 100 meters.

The farther you can see at night, the faster the truck can go, and the higher its transportation efficiency will be.

Wang Gensheng's selection process was quite simple: at night, testers would raise their hands, and the soldiers being tested would have to tell whether the testers raised one hand, two hands, or no hand at all.

Those who can see clearly at 80 meters pass; those who can see clearly at 100 meters are excellent. Excellent candidates will be given priority, and those who are not enough will be selected from those who pass.

However, the soldiers in the Ninth Army Corps were all quite good at night vision, and nearly 10,000 of them became excellent at the 100-meter dash.

Therefore, Wang Gensheng had no choice but to add the 150-meter and 200-meter tests to the test.

In the end, more than 2,000 soldiers passed the 200-meter test. Of course, Wang Gensheng also discovered that some of them could actually see a distance of more than 300 meters at night.

However, there is still a considerable gap compared to Li Xiu. After all, Li Xiu can easily cover 300 meters, let alone 500 or 600 meters at night, and his eyesight has not diminished much.

Moreover, the night vision of these soldiers with excellent night vision is different from that of Li Xiu.

For example, the infrared lights on Wang Gensheng's M3 carbine were tested, and none of these could detect infrared light.

Therefore, this is the fundamental difference between his night vision ability and Li Xiu's.

(End of this chapter)