stonecrandall Chapter 992
Chapter 992
“”Oh, damn it! This is really terrible!”
Hearing the sharp whistling sound coming from the air, an officer wearing a green beret quickly jumped off the jeep, threw himself into the cornfield next to him without caring about his image, buried his head under his arms, and held his head with both hands, not daring to move! After waiting for a while, a violent explosion was heard not far behind him. The vibration caused by the explosion made the officer feel more and more uneasy!
“Damn, the Russians are actually using heavy artillery!”
“Mr. Lieutenant, what should we do now? Should we continue to move forward or return the same way?”
The soldier who was hiding in the cornfield with him to avoid the artillery fire was stunned for a moment when the lieutenant abandoned the car and fled. After reacting, he rushed to the cornfield. Although the explosion occurred hundreds of meters away from them, the killing range of the large-caliber howitzer was nearly 100 meters. If they had not been lying on the ground, the fragments of the explosion might have killed them long ago!
Therefore, the soldiers admired the keen sense of smell of this French lieutenant!
Everyone said that the French army was extremely sensitive to danger and was very good at escaping. Today, it was indeed well-deserved. If the French lieutenant had not reacted in time, they would have died here!
“Go forward? Are you crazy? The Soviet heavy artillery can reach us, which means that their vanguard troops must be not far from us, otherwise, how could they dare to put the heavy artillery so close to us and fire recklessly?”
The composition of the European coalition forces is very rich, and the members of the coalition forces come from various EU member states.
Among them, there are both Polish soldiers and Gaul officers.
Just like this reconnaissance team responsible for advance reconnaissance, their soldiers come from three countries.
A soldier from Poland acts as a guide, a French officer is in charge of command, a communicator from the fairy tale country is responsible for contacting the rear, and a translator from Lithuania is responsible for internal communication and spying on the Soviet army!
Hearing the words of the French officer, the members of the team nodded one after another.
Everyone is a professional soldier, and they all know how precious an artillery unit with heavy artillery is. Let alone the underdeveloped industrial bear, even the industrial powers in Western Europe are very protective of their own artillery, especially heavy artillery units.
In the heavy artillery unit When fighting, they must have a large number of their own troops to protect them in front, behind, and on both sides. Once there is any disturbance, the heavy artillery units will be notified at the first time, and then immediately move under the protection of the army.
At this time, since the Soviet heavy artillery units can bomb them, it means that they have entered the range of the Soviet heavy artillery.
In this era, the range of heavy artillery units in various countries is actually not far. Take the German SFH150mm howitzer as an example.
The original range of this howitzer was only 13.5 kilometers. After extending the caliber of the gun barrel, the range increased by five kilometers to 18 kilometers.
This range has basically exceeded 99% of heavy artillery of the same caliber, so the German heavy artillery is very advantageous in combat, because they rely on the advantage of range, often If you can be in a position where the enemy cannot threaten you, you can strike the enemy.
Even if the enemy knows the location of their heavy artillery cluster, they cannot use artillery to counterattack. The only two ways to destroy the German artillery cluster are to send bombers to bomb or send ground troops to destroy it.
However, it is not easy to do this. The German Air Force is not a vegetarian. Any country or any army’s bombers that want to bomb the German troops must first pass the interception of BF-109 from the air.
When the fighter planes of the air forces of various countries trembled under the threat of the silver wings of the BF-109 and dared not take off to fight, letting their bombers go deep into enemy territory to bomb the German heavy artillery cluster under the attack of the BF-109 is simply sending themselves to death. The pilots of the German Air Force The pilots will be very happy to accept this gift and add a few more merits of shooting down enemy planes for themselves!
If the air method cannot be used, then the only way is to send ground troops to deal with the German artillery.
However, this method is even more impractical. Compared with the swift speed of the air force, the speed of launching an attack from the ground is undoubtedly much slower, and it is difficult to escape the eyes of the German army when launching an attack from the ground.
Whether they can break through the interception of the German ground forces is not discussed for the time being.
Even if they really have a way to break through the interception of the German army, when they are fighting with the German troops, the German artillerymen who have already received the warning may have been safely transferred.
At that time, even if the enemy breaks through the obstruction and comes to the original position of the artillery, they can’t hunt down the German artillery at all, because the artillery has long been withdrawn!
Therefore, when facing the German heavy artillery cluster with an additional range of 5 kilometers, the armies of various countries are in a very embarrassing situation in the artillery battle. The difference in the range of both sides has caused them to be completely passive.
It is not that there are no artillery with a range of more than 18 kilometers in various countries, but that is a larger caliber, larger multiple-caliber fortress artillery. This kind of artillery weighs dozens of tons or even hundreds of tons, and it cannot be moved easily. In terms of land transportation conditions, this kind of artillery has extremely poor transportation capacity, and its mobility is not much faster than that of a turtle!
So it is difficult for them to keep up with the pace of the German army, and what’s more, the German army itself has this kind of artillery. As early as 1921, Krupp had developed and produced the Gustav cannon, which is a 400mm large-caliber cannon. Even if there is a real bombardment between cannons, the German army is not afraid!
What’s more, the German army also has air superiority. The slow-moving heavy artillery is almost invisible under the eyes of the German reconnaissance aircraft. If the enemy really uses this weapon, I am afraid that it will be blown up by the German bombers before it has a chance to fight with the German artillery!
The SFH, which was invincible in artillery battles, only had a range of 18 kilometers, so the Soviet heavy artillery could not be more than this number at the farthest distance from them. The general caliber of large-caliber howitzers of various countries’ armies was about 150 mm. The reason why it was limited to this range was mainly due to the dual factors of weight and power.
If the caliber was too small and the power was not enough, it would not be able to knock down the enemy’s solid targets, and it would not have the effect that heavy artillery should have.
If the caliber was too large and the weight was too heavy, it would be inconvenient to transfer and could not be transported in many places, which greatly limited its combat use and its use value plummeted.
Therefore, after comprehensive considerations, all countries made a compromise and chose heavy artillery of about 150 mm.
It was obviously heavy artillery of this caliber that had just bombed them, and according to the speculation of French officers, they would not be more than 18 kilometers away from the Soviet artillery.