In autumn, night falls faster than expected. The warmth that had been retained during the day was also quickly dissipating, which was a very bad sign.
Chen Xiaoxiang looked at the air pressure sensor gauge. The current air pressure showed 1034.6hpa, and the cold high pressure was heading towards its peak. Her knowledge of meteorology was very limited, but with military common sense, she also understood that the snow would fall earlier this year than in previous years. After all, it was almost November.
Today is different from the past. Due to the lingering threat of nuclear winter, winter on the surface of the Northern Hemisphere begins about 10 to 20 days earlier than before the war. Moreover, this is the northeastern region of the alliance. Even in a normal year, snow will begin to fall in mid-November. . Freeze may be a good thing for the army, because bad roads such as swamps will be frozen, which will facilitate the advancement of large troops, but it is definitely not snow. No matter how advanced the equipment is, it cannot be said to be able to withstand the cold for days. Steel is brittle at forty or fifty degrees below zero, let alone people?
Chen Xiaoxiang raised her head, and the gas mask covered her sorrow. She looked at the sky. The crystal white clouds were frozen, and the pale gray light at the end of the horizon was signaling the early arrival of the cold wave.
The fatigue after the fierce battle inevitably made people's steps stagger, and the seriously injured were sent away, while the remaining company personnel marched in silence. The exoskeleton armored infantry formed teams of two or three, serving as the vanguard of the team and guarding both wings at the same time. The remaining seven or eight cavalry were behind, but they were not preventing surprise attacks, but monitoring the movements of the marching helmeted rats across a river.
When setting off from Beiqin Fortress, the company was temporarily reorganized into armored infantry. After all, as the forward force of the infantry regiment behind it, it naturally needed to be better equipped. In order to ensure speed, in the original forest on the north bank of the Huijiang River, it is not more practical for wheeled vehicles such as trucks to drag supply boxes with engineering exoskeletons.
The company's heavy equipment uniformly wears "Kui Niu" engineering exoskeletons. The engine power is close to that of an ordinary car engine, but the latter generally weighs about 200 kilograms. However, the weight of the C-805 series engines of "Kui Niu" is generally about 30 to 50 kilograms, and the total combat weight in light armor is 70 kilograms. After the inertia mechanism unloads the force, strong men can afford to add the exoskeleton. burden on corresponding supplies.
The material limit of "Kui Niu" can carry more than 500 kilograms of materials, but humans are not ants, and they do not have the ability to lift objects hundreds of times larger than themselves. Therefore, in most cases, "Kui Niu" is used by engineering troops and auto repair troops. In a few cases, it is allocated to special operations troops or troops marching long distances under special conditions.
The company's supplies are sufficient. The unusually large baggage soldiers carry enough ammunition supplies for three fierce battles, as well as several machine guns. There are even two baggage soldiers carrying a lightweight 100mm plus howitzer. As long as the company has enough time to deploy, this cannon can completely suppress and repel a regiment-level light infantry charge of more than a thousand people.
"What's tied next to your backpack?" Chen Xiaoxiang glanced at Luo Wei's adult bag and saw something black but a little blue hanging next to it. When he walked over and took a closer look, it turned out to be the back skin of an oil spider. Those blue things The round beads are a row of compound eyes.
Chen Xiaoxiang was disgusted by the sight. He plucked off the pickled thing and cursed at Luo Weicheng: "Sick?"
"I'm not sick, monitor." Xiao Luo replied. He hesitated for a second, then turned around and picked up the numbing thing. He took off the compound eye of the oil spider, cut off the excess bandage, wrapped it up and put it away. Then he explained: "Squad leader, this is a trophy! Someone in the Yanqi family area collected this. One eye can cost a hundred dollars, and it doesn't take up much space!"
"Do you also have this idea?" Chen Xiaoxiang responded by punching Xiao Luo's helmet and scolding: "Throw it away! If I see you doing such a bad thing again, I will make you eat it alive!"
Chen Xiaoxiang usually talks in the class. When she is happy, she sings a song. When she is unhappy, it is common for her to slap people in the face with her big leather boots. Even if Luo Weicheng is unhappy, he has to throw away the compound eyes he has worked so hard to collect. If he throws one, he will get a hundred , these things are destined not to be turned into medicinal materials and enter someone's stomach, but to rot in place.
She rushed to the front of the team, and on the way she caught a glimpse of an oil spider's body being carried by a heavy soldier. Only then did she remember that this mutant beast was indeed an "economic" creature, and its breeding ground represented the possibility of shallow oil fields. , and it itself is quite valuable, after the venom and body parts are mashed.
The juice can even be used as medicine, and the material of those compound eyes is very close to the human eyeball. After special treatment, it can be used as a prosthetic eye to restore a certain degree of vision. Most importantly, special oil spider individuals can serve as parasites for strains, cultivating super bacteria to annihilate mutant strains on the surface. But this seems to be a rumor, and Chen Xiaoxiang doesn't remember where he heard it.
These things flashed through her mind. Compared to many people, she cared more about the way forward than the way back.
When night fell, they took a temporary break for half an hour to make up for their injuries. Everyone turned on the night positioning of their watches to prevent them from getting lost while traveling at night. Chen Xiaoxiang noticed that someone was whispering "xx bless you". At this time, she did not reprimand. To be honest, she almost wanted to say the same thing. Indeed, right now, everyone needs luck.
The night shrouded, and the roaring continued.
The unexpected cold wave came with a tsunami, and the instantaneous wind force approached the 20s mark, which was close to level 9 gale force. The sudden blizzard turned the sky and the earth pale, and the visibility instantly dropped to below 15 meters. In this case, do not wear any clothes. The exoskeleton may have heavy objects attached to it, making it difficult to even stand stably.
The mercury column in the thermometer dropped visibly to the naked eye, and at 7 p.m., the temperature suddenly dropped to below zero. However, judging from the experience of Chen Xiaoxiang, who has experienced the late spring cold, the temperature drop limit is still far away.
The marching speed of the team became slower, and the soldiers had to control heating and try to keep the excess heat from the exoskeleton engine to the exoskeleton itself to prevent freezing. For the standard "Phoenix" exoskeleton, its micro-turbine maintains a stable power output for a long time at a high cost. After reaching the standard output power of 3677.4 or 5hp, adjusting to a lower output power will severely wear the hydraulic cylinder and the ridge transmission line. , in other words, sudden shutdown.
Taking a sip of hot water from the water bottle, Chen Xiaoxiang's face turned slightly blue due to the cold air. She didn't want to scold those military experts because basic science has always been expensive, especially the development of high-energy materials science, which was completely stagnant after the war. I'm lucky to be able to use "Phoenix".
The more severe the wind and snow, the slower the team.
In the green field of view of the night vision goggles, a red shadow flashed past. Chen Xiaoxiang reported immediately. He raised the Type 75 and aimed with the customary sight.
She yelled in a cracked voice on the walkie-talkie: "Attention! Ten o'clock direction! Suspected rot wolf!"
