Arc of Fire

Chapter 72

Next, Wang Zhong gained a deeper understanding of the role of heavy artillery.

Clearly, it was just one salvo, with four shells fired and two missing the mark, meaning only the last one actually landed right in the middle of the enemy.

But even so, this armored reconnaissance battalion of the enemy couldn't do a damn thing for the next hour, busy as hell with rescuing the wounded, collecting equipment from the injured and the dead, and pushing destroyed vehicles to the roadside-these three tasks alone kept them completely occupied.

At first, Wang Zhong closely monitored the enemy's next moves, but after watching for a while, he lost interest, pulled over a chair, and sat by the window to stare at the sky.

On the surface, he was looking at the sky, but in reality, he was still observing the enemy from an overhead perspective.

His mindset had changed; now he felt like a child squatting on a schoolyard, having just destroyed an ant nest with a bottle of mineral water, and now watching with keen interest as the ants tried to save themselves.

Truth be told, an armored reconnaissance battalion posed little threat to Loktov's defenses to begin with, and after being hit by heavy artillery like this, they were even less of a threat.

At eleven in the morning, the enemy seemed to finally regroup and spread out across the field.

Then, they encountered the first big surprise Wang Zhong had prepared: a fake minefield.

Wait, no-the minefield near the highway was real, planted by the local garrison.

Vasily also reported that they had buried two crates of real landmines in the fake minefield, mixed in with a bunch of lids from canned pickled cucumbers to confuse things.

This was more than enough to give the Prossenians a hard time.

As Wang Zhong was thinking about this, the enemy infantry searching and advancing on both sides of the highway stepped on the landmines planted by the local garrison.

One of them was blown directly into the air, three meters high, while his leg flew even farther, crossing the highway and landing on the other side.

Wang Zhong clicked his tongue: "You're telling me that's a landmine?"

Observing through the artillery theodolite, Dimitri said: "Normal. That thing's got 300 grams of explosive charge. It's underperforming if it didn't kill the guy next to him."

Wang Zhong was stunned: "Is this an anti-tank mine?"

"Anti-infantry mine!" Vasily said, "I buried two crates of them myself. They're definitely anti-infantry mines."

What kind of infantry needs 300 grams of explosives to be killed?

Could it be that the Prossenians have Asgardian warriors? Valkyries? Do they need this much explosive to be taken down?

No, it might just be the usual Russian style of overkill.

Wang Zhong continued observing the enemy. After one soldier was blown up, the rest silently retreated from the minefield. Just then, the scattered enemy troops noticed the signs Vasily had planted.

The soldier who found the sign called over an officer, probably asking how to handle it.

After a brief exchange, the soldier grabbed the sign, seemingly intending to pull it out and take it to a higher-ranking officer for inspection.

In the blink of an eye, the ground bulged up! Then it burst open like a balloon that had been popped!

A "fountain" of dirt sprayed this group of Prossenian soldiers into the sky.

Vasily, hearing the sound, got excited: "That noise! Did one of my big ones go off? I buried a whole block of TNT underneath, over two kilograms!"

Wang Zhong's sweat started dripping; man, you're ruthless.

"Do you know how far the enemy flew?" he asked.

Vasily: "How far?"

Dimitri interjected: "I saw one land on the roof of a barn ten meters away."

"Hahaha!" Vasily slapped his thigh, laughing hysterically.

Wang Zhong: "Pay attention to the radio, you bastard. I'm starting to think you're planning to carry manure for the rest of your life!"

Vasily quickly adjusted his headset properly.

The recent explosion made all the Prossenian troops hit the ground, apparently thinking another heavy artillery barrage was coming.

An officer was shouting something, and the soldiers began getting up in twos and threes.

A messenger ran along the line of troops, shouting new orders.

Wang Zhong guessed it was probably an order for all soldiers to stay away from the minefield warning signs.

The enemy started retreating, pulling back until they were two hundred meters away from the minefield, almost out of Wang Zhong's field of vision.

Dimitri said happily: "The enemy's retreating! Looks like they don't have any engineers attached, so they can't deal with the mines!"

At this moment, Yegorov, who had been manning the phone, also came to the window, raised his binoculars to observe the enemy, and clicked his tongue: "If it were me, I'd send a reconnaissance team to move along the minefield, see how wide it is, and find out where it ends."

As soon as he finished speaking, two half-tracks loaded with soldiers drove off toward the northwest and southeast, clearly showing that the enemy's current commander had the same idea as Yegorov.

Wang Zhong clicked his tongue: "If we had more Divine Arrows, we could take out these two reconnaissance teams, or at least destroy their vehicles to slow down their scouting."

Yegorov: "But we don't have any Divine Arrows."

Vasily suddenly shouted: "I'm hearing the enemy on the front line talking to their superiors. He's reporting... let me check!"

As he spoke, he flipped through the notebook Wang Zhong had personally led a team to seize the day before, checking the recorded radio call signs and location codes.

"The armored reconnaissance battalion is reporting to the 15th Armored Division headquarters that Loktov has army-group-level artillery firepower and a large number of landmines! The intelligence on the number of defenders here might be wrong!"

After translating, Vasily looked at Wang Zhong excitedly: "General, they're treating us like an entire army group!"

Wang Zhong smiled faintly: "That's mainly thanks to the B4 heavy howitzer."

Yegorov clicked his tongue: "They'd never guess that the heavy artillery is here just because the commander is the Crown Prince's useless brother."

Vasily was about to chime in, but suddenly pressed his headset to listen closely, clearly hearing someone speaking again.

While listening, he frantically flipped through the notebook, and after a moment, said: "The 15th Armored Division headquarters says engineers will arrive around three in the afternoon!"

The officers in the room collectively checked their watches.

Yegorov: "Three o'clock, huh. That leaves only five hours until dark. They probably won't be able to clear all these minefields. Looks like the first day of combat ends here."

Wang Zhong: "Do we have any firepower that can reach the engineers while they're clearing mines?"

Yegorov: "Our heavy machine guns have a maximum range of 1000 meters, but experienced veterans can arc their shots to 1500 meters, though... the accuracy is completely unreliable."

Wang Zhong: "Doesn't matter. Don't expose the firepower points we really plan to use. Set up the machine guns at temporary positions and arc shots to harass the enemy engineers."

"If it's just to harass," Yegorov blinked, "we can fire from behind obstacles so the enemy can't see the shooter or the machine gun. Of course, rookies can't pull this off, but a few machine gunners who survived from my old unit can do it. It's all about probability anyway-just getting bullets near the enemy is enough. Leave the rest to Saint Andrew."

Saint Andrew, the founder of the secular faction of the Eastern Holy Church, and currently the only one canonized by the secular faction.

Wang Zhong: "Good, arrange it immediately!"

Yegorov promptly went to issue the orders.

At this point, Vasily asked: "So, what do we do before the enemy engineers arrive? Just sit around waiting?"

Wang Zhong: "Yeah... I guess?"

Vasily: "What was it like between the two enemy offensives at Upper Peniye?"

Wang Zhong: "I was running a fever back then. When the enemy retreated, I just went to sleep, so don't ask me."

Vasily was shocked: "A fever? The kind of fever I'm thinking of?"

"Yes!"

"And you still won under those conditions? Then with you not having a fever now, the enemy's in for a rough time," even Dimitri, who had been focused on observing the enemy, couldn't help but turn his head to say.

Vasily: "No, maybe you fight better when you've got a fever."

Wang Zhong glared at Vasily, thinking to himself, damn, this guy's mouth really needs a filter. If it were any other general, he might've been shot by now.

At this moment, Yegorov returned, and Wang Zhong took the opportunity to toss the earlier question to him: "Yegorov, the rookies are asking how to pass the time between battles."

Yegorov answered immediately: "Clean your guns. The first time I fought, that's what the veterans taught me. Back then, during the Civil War, we were part of the secular faction army, defending a place called Tsaritsyn.

"The enemy launched a total of seven attacks in one day, each lasting about 20 minutes before being repelled, and then they'd need an hour and a half to organize a new assault.

"That's how it went from four in the morning until nine at night when it got dark. After repelling the first attack, I asked a veteran why the enemy didn't attack immediately. The veteran said the enemy needed time to regroup the troops that had scattered, get them back in formation-that took an hour-then replenish ammo and arrange a new attack formation, which took another half hour.

"And for us defenders during that time, the first thing we needed to do was clean our guns. In the recent fight, a lot of sand and dust must've gotten into the gun. If you don't clean it properly, it might jam during the next firefight, and then you're dead."

Vasily listened, counted on his fingers, then asked: "From four in the morning to nine at night is seventeen hours. Each attack cycle takes two hours, and there were seven attacks, so what about the remaining three hours?"

The brigade headquarters fell silent.

Wang Zhong was starting to regret choosing to focus on grooming this troublemaker.

Well, just a little bit.

Yegorov: "The enemy needs to eat, you idiot! Tonight, you're on manure duty to teach you a lesson!"

Vasily looked miserable, and so the smile shifted to Wang Zhong's face.

At this moment, the walkie-talkie crackled again. Vasily hurriedly put on his headset to listen, flipping through the notebook as he did: "This is... the 15th Armored Division requesting air force... to destroy something, I'm not sure what. I'm guessing it's our howitzers."

Wang Zhong: "What's the air force's response?"

"No response yet... wait, here it comes. The air force is asking the 15th Armored Division to provide the location."

Wang Zhong: "Looks like our anti-reconnaissance tactics are working."

Around Loktov, there really isn't any spot where you can see the two positions of the B4, so they can only rely on aerial reconnaissance.

Vasily: "The 15th Armored Division counters, saying aerial reconnaissance should be the air force's responsibility. Are the Prossenian army and air force not on good terms?"

They're definitely not on good terms. Interservice rivalry seems to be a thing in most countries during World War II.

Vasily listened for a while longer, then said: "No more info. Both sides have gone silent."

Wang Zhong: "Tell Monk Petro to double down on watching for enemy reconnaissance planes. Also, set up as many fake artillery positions as possible."

Yegorov immediately relayed the orders.

Vasily: "Besides cleaning guns, what else do we do to pass the time?"

Seriously, you're still on this topic?

Yegorov: "Play cards."

"Play cards?" Vasily exclaimed.

"Yeah, it's better than drinking. It's all just killing time anyway, so it doesn't matter what you do. War is like this-most of the time you're doing nothing, and the moments where you're risking your life are just one percent of it. But you never know when that one percent will hit, so you're on edge all the time."

Wang Zhong: "So, did you bring a deck of cards?"

Yegorov pulled a deck of playing cards from his jacket pocket.

"On the front line, we usually gamble with cigarettes," he said.

----

In the afternoon, Yegorov gleefully tucked the cigarettes he had just won into his document bag: "I've even beaten a legendary general-a future legendary general, that is."

Wang Zhong tossed the playing cards in his hand onto the table, clicking his tongue: "Anyway, I don't really smoke. I let you win on purpose!"

"Oh, is that so?" Yegorov said smugly, "With your card-playing skills, you'll soon become a total pushover."

At that moment, Dimitri, who had been observing through the artillery theodolite, shouted: "Tank Number One! A modified breaching vehicle from Tank Number One! The engineers are coming up!"

(End of Chapter)