After staying with Grandpa Cheap in Naples for more than a month, during which time he paid for the old man's drinks more than 20 times, and after being encouraged by the old man to fight with sailors more than ten times at the Navy Club, Shepard always got a list of the old man's names. Shepard only needs to visit several old friends in the Navy Department one by one according to the list, and the approval of the new tank will be almost passed.
Of course, a visit must be more than just having a cup of tea and chatting. There must be no shortage of gifts. But Shepard doesn't need to worry about these. There is a professional team who will do whatever he wants for these big guys in the military. .
After returning to the United States, Shepard went to AAI's workshop again. Eugene Stoner was indeed a firearms master. Within a month of going to Italy, he had already completed the prototype design of the tank gun.
It was a weird thing that could shoot out 75mm fin-stabilized discarding sabots at a rate of fire of 0.85 seconds. It used countersunk bullets and exposed turrets. It can be said that from the beginning, the main feature of this thing was a Science fiction.
As for the power of the artillery, it is also not bad. It is obviously a 75mm gun, but it has the power to penetrate 300mm thick vertical armor steel within 500 meters. In addition, this gun can also fire into the air. Ammunition, after all, it is a bit wasteful to use it against the ground with such a high rate of fire.
When Shepard came back, he was just in time for the artillery and chassis testing. Then a group of designers discovered that Stoner seemed to be using too much force. As a last resort, Stoner could only reduce the artillery fire rate to one second and five. One round, but the automatic loader designed like a revolver cylinder can still bring a powerful burst of firepower to the tank.
Seeing that the progress was so smooth, Shepard should feel relieved. After all, tank testing is an extremely time-consuming process. The testing time of many tanks during the development process often takes several years, or even more than ten years.
Therefore, there is no need for him to continue to pay attention in the factory. That is the designer's job. He only needs to continue to pay attention.
In fact, he doesn't have much energy to pay attention to the testing of new tanks now because he has new business to do!
Naturally, this business has to start with a war!
That's the Ogaden War!
As we all know, the reason why the maps of African countries are strange is because the white colonists who carved up the land were not human beings. The straight lines on the map do not mean that the terrain is like that in reality. The mountains, rivers and rivers all have their own directions. , and animals know how to divide territories, let alone people who live in such places.
Therefore, such a rough division of national boundaries has caused a more serious problem, that is, the black uncles of the same species may be separated by a mountain, but they are people from two countries. .
This is the case in Somalia and Ethiopia. There are a large number of Somalis living in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, but they are Ethiopian nationals.
This gave the two countries a basis for conflict, and then the instigation from Western oil companies intensified the conflict, because Ethiopia and Somalia are both poor and heart-wrenching countries. Therefore, when Western oil companies made bold statements, After saying that there is a large amount of untapped oil in the Ogaden, the conflict between the two countries was directly made public.
At this time, the national strength of both sides was being turned upside down. Ethiopia continued to have civil strife and its national strength was greatly depleted, while Somalia was prospering with the support of the Soviet Union. Therefore, President Siad Barre, who was the head of state of Somalia at the time, believed that this was Somalia's takeover of the Ogaden. good opportunity.
The Somalis living there gave the country of Somalia a strong claim to the Ogaden. In addition, Ethiopia had no troops to fight due to the great purges. Therefore, in 1977, Shepard was playing big in Comoros. During the Monopoly game, an all-out war broke out between the two sides.
At this time, we must emphasize that although the war is between Ethiopia and Somalia, there are two big brothers standing behind them. Behind Ethiopia is the United States, and behind Somalia is the Soviet Union.
After the war broke out, the Ethiopian military government decisively threw itself into the arms of the Soviet Union because it could not rely on the United States. The Soviet Union also kicked Somalia away and began to help Ethiopia. However, even so, Ethiopia was still losing ground in the early days of the war.
.
Ethiopia, which has lost its territory one after another, is very disappointed with Big Brother. When I am in crisis, the first thing I think of is you. Why are you here to watch the show?
The big brother of the Soviet Union, whose strength was underestimated, knew that it would be difficult to lead the team if he did not show off at this moment, so he gave an order and a vigorous strategic airlift began. There was a loud bang in the sky, and Big Brother made his debut in a very short time. During that time, the Soviet Union sent 600 tanks, 400 rocket launchers, 300 infantry fighting vehicles, 40 MiG fighter jets, 150 military helicopters, and 17,000 Cuban volunteers to Ethiopia.
This kind of extravagant air transportation really frightened the Western allies, because transportation on this scale is only 12% of the Soviet Union's strategic projection power. In other words, if the Soviet Union is willing, it can do it at any time. Transport many times more troops to another part of the world.
With such a large investment, Somalia's failure was only a matter of time. After Somalia lost the help of the Soviet Union, it wanted the United States to help it. However, the CIA, seeing that everyone was causing trouble for the Soviet Union, provided Somalia with More than 10,000 helmets were provided.
Somalia, which was completely defeated in the war, fell into despair. The secularization that had just begun was completely interrupted. The entire country was once again split into countless factions from top to bottom, and then began a passionate self-elimination.
Without a unified government, the country's citizens will naturally be dwarfed outside. Somalia's fishery resources are quite rich, so the citizens can barely make a living by fishing. However, with more and more foreign fishing boats, the Somali government is just a decoration. , there is no way to protect the interests of fishermen.
Therefore, Somali fishermen can only organize themselves spontaneously to defend the fry in their own fish ponds and fight against foreign fishing boats.
In the process of protecting the fishery, the Somali fishermen discovered that the profit from protecting the fishery seemed to be just that, but they seemed to make much more money by robbing foreign fishing boats than protecting the fishery.
Then, there was industrial upgrading. Somali fishermen found that if the benefits brought by fishing boats were just like this, wouldn't the countless cargo ships passing through the Gulf of Aden every day be more valuable?
Of course, Shepard has no intention of going to Somalia to become a pirate, but he hopes that all Somalis will become pirates. Otherwise, he will be embarrassed to promote his own security services.
