The time soon came to 3 o'clock in the afternoon. In Zhou Wen's sight, the Japanese artillery was already ready, and the artillerymen of each artillery were in their positions. Outside a tent in the center of the entire position, several Japanese officers were facing The map is studying something.
Suddenly, a Japanese soldier rushed out of the tent holding a piece of paper and handed it to the young major officer.
Then I saw the major officer waving and shouting something, and the artillerymen on the gun position began to shake the barrels. Several trucks drove to the middle of the position, and a large group of Japanese soldiers quickly ran over and unloaded long boxes from the trucks. , carried it and ran to each gun emplacement.
"Here they come, the Japanese are preparing for a bombardment." Zhou Wen said in his heart.
"Dacheng, the Japanese are about to launch an artillery attack, and the artillery shells have been sent to the artillery positions."
Who is Zhou Wen talking to?
Of course it was Xu Dacheng, who was lurking in a relatively safe place a few kilometers away.
This is the advantage and convenience brought by Zhou Wen's possession of the advanced communication device of later generations.
In the war years before portable walkie-talkies were born, there were only three ways of communication between armies. One was the most primitive human contact, the other was wired telephone contact, and the third was telegraph contact.
For scouts who go deep behind enemy lines, manpower and telephones are definitely not practical. The most widely used method is low-power radio communication.
However, this also has a big drawback. The radio is bulky and difficult to carry and hide. The most important thing is that it is easy to be discovered by the enemy.
You must know that when all radio stations are turned on, theoretically speaking, they can receive electronic waves emitted by other radio stations. It is just that different contact methods use different channels.
And this area is all controlled by the Japanese army. If the Japanese army's radio station suddenly receives a signal from an unfamiliar radio station, and the source of the signal is nearby, what do you think they will think?
Therefore, in war, it often happens that a certain unit maintains radio silence, because it is unwilling to let the enemy know its general location, let alone allow the enemy to intercept its own radio signals and decipher them. Once the radio signals are deciphered, then This can basically declare this operation a complete failure.
For example, in the subsequent sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese army maintained the full radio frequency throughout the task force's 3,500-nautical-mile-long voyage for more than ten days. In the end, it achieved the surprise and concealment of the sneak attack, destroying the huge U.S. Pacific Fleet. Almost all of them were bombed and sunk in the harbor.
However, the communicator carried by Zhou Wen does not have these drawbacks. The only drawback is that the calling distance is limited, but Zhou Wen perfectly solved this problem by using relay.
Moreover, he had a lot of time to transfer the layout, orientation and coordinates of the Japanese artillery positions to Xu Dacheng, who was holding the same map. After Xu Dacheng calculated and verified it again, he transferred it to Xu Dacheng behind Phoenix Mountain. Li Han once again used the experience and knowledge of a professional artillery commander to make calculations and adjustments, and had accurately determined the bombardment target parameters to the position of each Japanese artillery.
The reason why they did not fire in advance was because Li Han knew the routine operation procedures of heavy artillery.
Unless encountering an emergency situation of close combat, the artillery of all countries in the world follows one principle: artillery shells cannot be stacked directly on the artillery position before firing is determined.
This is not only to prevent enemy sneak attacks, but also to prevent improper management of one's own personnel from detonating artillery shells due to fire or other reasons.
For the artillery unit, although the detonation of artillery shells stacked in a distance is a major accident, it will not cause any damage. However, if the artillery shells detonate on the artillery position, it will be a real disaster.
What Li Han was waiting for was the moment when the Japanese delivered the shells to the gun emplacement.
You know, although the accuracy of the German-made howitzer is very high, it still does not reach the accuracy of later missiles. Relying on the data from Zhou Wen's reconnaissance report only ensures that the shells can land on the Japanese artillery positions. If you want to directly Hitting emplacements and cannons requires a little bit of luck.
Moreover, each Japanese artillery position is about ten to twenty meters apart. The artillery positions are all set under the ground. The gun barrel only needs to be exposed on the surface. Sandbags are used for protection around it. It is not a close-range explosion. It is harmful to the cannon. The damage is very limited.
Generally speaking, the most common tactic to counter enemy artillery is to cover the enemy's position with more than a dozen howitzers. The dense rain of shells makes it useless even if you bury the cannon in the ground. So-called This is why he beat the old master to death with random punches.
But as I said before, the mercenary group now only has two German 105mm Le.FH18M howitzers, which cannot meet the minimum requirements for coverage shooting, so they can only try to detonate Japanese artillery shells.
If you think about it, once the Japanese heavy howitzer shell weighing 60 kilograms is detonated, it will trigger a series of chain reactions. The Japanese's artillery shells will not be placed on the artillery position. If more than a dozen or even dozens of artillery shells are detonated, hey, then there will really be no grass and no rubble left.
At this moment, a buzzing sound came from the sky. Zhou Wen had good eyesight and instantly noticed several black spots flying from the north.
"No, the Japanese planes are also dispatched." Zhou Wen was shocked.
He was not worried that he would be discovered by the Japanese, but was worried about the artillery position on Phoenix Mountain.
When air superiority is lost, the biggest nemesis of artillery is not the enemy's artillery, but the enemy's aircraft.
Now, two machine gun companies with air defense capabilities have followed the mercenary regiment to fight outside. Li Han's howitzer position only has nine Maxim heavy machine guns from a machine gun company of the Model Brigade deployed by Zhao Changshu as anti-aircraft firepower. The officers and soldiers of the model brigade received limited air defense shooting training, and they did not have professional air defense commanders like Wang Zhili and Mo Dahai to command them. It is unclear whether they can be effective.
If the artillery was bombed, Zhou Wen wouldn't be too heartbroken. After all, the consumption of weapons is also a part of war. He can just make money to buy them in the future.
But the loss of artillery was something Zhou Wen couldn't bear.
You know, the training of technical arms such as artillery cannot be achieved by just spending money. Zhou Wen knew very well how much effort and energy these artillery commanders under his command had put in in the past six months.
This is the only howitzer platoon in the mercenary group, and these soldiers are veterans with excellent skills and battlefield experience drawn from two artillery companies.
Platoon leader Li Han spent time training day and night, pulling several artillery commanders together to interpret various data parameters and train his men to be proficient in various operations. In less than half a year, he lost more than ten pounds. , and finally trained these subordinates to a level worthy of fighting.
