Chapter 151, Death Tin Can
Aiaro Lacroxia, a private of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, had never imagined in his entire life, even if he counted the time in his dreams, that such a horrifying scene would appear before him.
It can be said to destroy heaven and earth!
As a soldier, he had no idea what orbital strike plan was being planned. He only knew that a meteor shower streaked across the sky and hit the core area of the tower ruins in the distance. Then, the mountains collapsed and the ground cracked!
Not to mention the hot wind, the shock wave, and the huge noise... at the very least, what he saw before his eyes was enough to surprise him.
It was as if there were two large and many small suns rising in the depths of the tower ruins. Then, the tower ruins that he had been very familiar with in the past few years changed their appearance.
Although it is a ruin, there are still "iconic buildings" here. Many of the tall buildings in the city have collapsed, but a considerable number of them have remained in place. It is natural that the buildings in Takamatsu, which were built with pre-war technology, have stood for a hundred years. No matter how dilapidated they look from the outside, they just can't fall down. Many battles took place around these tall buildings from the pre-war era, and the bullets and artillery fire could not do anything to these buildings.
Even if it was a 155mm howitzer, when it hit the buildings that didn't collapse, it would only scratch the surface or mess up the already messy structure inside, but it had never caused the building to collapse completely.
But this huge bombing from the sky not only did it, but also went 'overboard'.
Not only did the ruins of the high-rise buildings before the war collapse, but even the jungle of high-rise buildings could no longer be seen in the central area. From Lacroxia's perspective, looking deep into the ruins, it was as if a monster had taken a bite out of the steel jungle, and a large piece was missing.
Before he could recover from his shock, a series of whistling sounds came from above his head.
He was familiar with this voice, as he had heard it frequently over the past month.
But I have never heard it so intensively.
Before he could think about it any more, the company commander's orders were passed down layer by layer. When the squad leader ordered to set off, he quickly put his thoughts aside and followed the team.
As he advanced toward the front, he felt himself getting hot, and he couldn't tell whether it was due to the rapid march or the excitement that welled up in his heart.
A series of rumbling explosions came from the direction he was heading to. It was the sound of artillery hitting the green-skinned orc positions.
As he advanced, he was still nervous, fearing that a round from a metal barrel cannon or a green-skinned armed pickup truck would appear in front of him. These things had been their nightmare for some time.
But none of that happened.
When he followed his comrades and came to a place only one or two hundred meters away from the green-skinned orcs' position, he clearly knew why there was no obstruction on the road ahead:
Those greenskins were blown up, how could they have any energy left to stop them? Those iron barrel artillery and armed pickup trucks must have been blown to pieces long ago.
He had only waited here for five or six minutes, but he had already seen hundreds of artillery shells hitting the position in front of them.
Such intensive bombing made his head numb.
To be honest, Lacroxia was still very scared staying in this position.
If the shell had deviated a little bit, it would have hit his head; even if it hadn't hit him, he could still clearly feel the power of the shell even though it was only a hundred or two hundred meters away.
Even the officers were still tirelessly warning the soldiers below that when they were lying down on standby, they were not allowed to let their chests and abdomens touch the ground, and they had to hold up their bodies even if it would be uncomfortable, in order to avoid the shock waves from the ground from damaging the soldiers' internal organs.
They waited for seven minutes. According to the squad leader, they arrived a little earlier than the scheduled time. Lacroxia didn't understand this, he didn't even have a clock.
He only knew that the time had come and it was time to charge.
Actually, I'm still a little scared.
It's not that I'm afraid of the greenskins. How many of them can survive after being bombed like this? Even if there are many alive, it's nothing more than fighting against them. I have a gun in my hand. If they are too close, I will use the bayonet and fight them.
What he was afraid of was that the artillery brothers behind him would shake their hands, and that would be the end of him.
But he still rushed after them. After crossing a distance of 200 meters, they rushed into the greenskin position and quickly looked for possible greenskin defense points.
There were sporadic resistance fire.
Apparently, not all the greenskins were really dead.
In the collapsed houses and in the narrow holes formed by the collapse of multiple layers of reinforced concrete, there are still some green-skinned orcs who survived the bombardment.
After the human soldiers launched an attack, they emerged from everywhere, howling and counterattacking.
But there are too few of them.
Three green monsters appeared in front of Lacroxia. He and his comrades immediately started shooting. The three squads in their platoon were not far from each other. More than 30 guns were aimed at the three green monsters, and they fired intensively.
The greenskins also fought back with guns, but they only had time to fire two shots each before being hit by nearly a hundred bullets and killed. The only thing they achieved before their death was breaking a soldier's leg.
The soldier with a broken leg will be dragged back by his comrades, and the people from the subsequent logistics support company will take over and relay him back to the field hospital in the rear.
The rest of the people continued to move forward.
The artillery fire from the rear continued, and the firepower was weaker than before, but the bombing area also changed from the original full coverage of the greenskin positions to a smaller range, covering only the area about two hundred meters in front of the infantry.
The infantry and artillery will coordinate, and after they have completed the clearing of the current area, the artillery fire will continue to move forward two hundred meters, and they will continue to explore the vacant area.
This process will be repeated four times until the position with a width of about 800 meters is penetrated.
To be honest, during the whole process, the only thing Lacroxia was afraid of was the shaking of his artillerymen. The heavy artillery was always bombarding about 200 meters in front of him, which was really scary.
As for the greenskins?
He did see green-skinned corpses all over the ground, and they were so rotten that it was hard to find a complete corpse. Occasionally, there were living people, but they were just a few, and at the same time they were being shot at by dozens of guns, so they were not a threat at all.
To be honest, apart from the fear brought by his own artillery, Lacroxia's biggest feeling was... a little bored?
Of course, he knew that his feeling was a little ridiculous.
Going forward, he and his comrades entered a ruin with four walls. The top of the house was covered by a concrete slab. There must have been a shell that had hit it before, and there was smoke coming out.
There is a 50% chance that it is empty; the other 50% chance that there are dead greenskins who are no longer human, or greenskins who are no longer human but still alive. If you encounter the latter, just shoot them a few times to end their lives.
But despite this, according to tactical ethics, they still had to go in and make sure it was clear.
This time, they encountered a low-probability event.
With a bang, the first brother who entered had half of his face exploded, his helmet was blown away by the large-caliber greenskin gun, and his whole body suddenly fell backwards.
La Croix is second.
He subconsciously took a step back, moving away so that he could raise his gun. The G9A assault rifle began to sweep wildly into the dark space.
He couldn't see the target, so he could only shoot like this.
His brothers from the same team also rushed over and poured bullets into the room like him.
Lacroxia was the first to empty his magazine. He skillfully straightened his bayonet, and then waited until the other brothers ceased firing before rushing in first.
In the darkness, he vaguely saw a humanoid monster much taller than him coming towards him, with a strong stench.
His mind was blank, but his hand thrust the bayonet forward in the most standard posture.
Then there was a great resistance and he stabbed something.
He pushed the bayonet forward and twisted the gun handle with all his might. The resistance pushed his body back a few steps, but he soon lost his strength and was pushed down violently.
Lacroxia himself fell down as well.
He felt his clothes were wet, stained with smelly blood.
Immediately, several of his classmates rushed in. Some reached out and pulled him up, while others stabbed the body under him with bayonets.
The greenskin was indeed dead.
After leaving the narrow bomb shelter in the ruins, Lacroxia saw in the light that he was in a very miserable state, with blood all over his body.
But they should all be green-skinned. He didn't feel he was injured, but he used too much force on his arms and felt a little weak now.
Gradually coming to his senses, he was surprised that he had actually killed a greenskin with a bayonet!
Even though that guy was probably hit by a lot of bullets in the previous shooting and was seriously injured, he was stabbed to death after all.
Looking around, he found that there were only six people left, including himself.
The person who just entered in front of him and was shot in the head was the fourth person to die in their class.
Only two people died today, and the other two died in the past half month. Their class has not received any new recruits.
He became a little more sober, and the previous 'boring' thought had long gone away.
The squad leader came up, patted him on the shoulder, and shouted in his ear: "Well done! But private! We don't have time to rest now! Keep going!"
War is still cruel.
…
Li Kexi also felt that war was cruel.
The heavy artillery had helped them clear out a wave of enemies, especially with such dense artillery fire. The number of remaining enemies was not large, but in the close-range clearing, his soldiers still paid a heavy price.
Of course, it wasn't as exaggerated as the ratio of six dead and two dead in Lacroxia's infantry squad. Lacroxia's squad was mainly the vanguard, so it was a bit miserable.
The overall casualty rate of the entire regiment was about 2%. They sacrificed about a hundred soldiers and wiped out more than two hundred sporadic greenskins.
As for the total number of greenskin deaths on this position, it is difficult to calculate. The heavy artillery in front has been firing for more than an hour, and at least 5,000 shells have landed here. 500 greenskin deaths is the minimum.
Of course, this is an estimated number. Many of the corpses were rotten or buried under the rubble, so it is difficult to count. All we can say is that it is much more than 500.
The shelling has basically stopped now. I guess the artillerymen have almost used up all their shells.
However, the target area that their 3rd Infantry Regiment needed to capture had already been cleared by them.
The two combined battalions of the 1st Xifeng Brigade quickly penetrated through the gap they opened, and then began to encircle the greenskins from the south and the north respectively.
Friendly forces in other directions have also begun to attack on all fronts.
Two battalions were left to hold this position and cut off the connection between the greenskins at the north and south ends of the front line, while most of the rest followed Major Pobov, the commander of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Brigade, and moved northward.
However, it was the southern part where the greenskin positions were separated that ended the battle first. There were not many greenskins surviving there, especially in the southernmost part, which had been captured once by the 4th Regiment of the 7th Garrison Division, and the positions and fortifications were mostly destroyed. Later, after they retreated, the greenskins reoccupied the place, but the rebuilt fortifications were obviously rubbish, and the artillery bombardment almost killed all the greenskins there.
Compared with the southern position, the north theoretically deployed more troops, and the 3rd Independent Regiment also joined the siege of the northern enemy.
But there are a lot of greenskins living there, and more importantly, there is a greenskin boss.
…
The performance of the green-skinned orcs will be completely different depending on whether there is a powerful leader or not.
When there is no boss, they will fight among themselves, cannot form a team, and act recklessly and brainlessly; when there is a boss, although they are still reckless and brainless most of the time, at least they can act in a unified manner.
Roast Axe is such a charismatic orc boss. He is the second most important character in the clan, second only to the Flesh Tearer. He has many strong followers who obey his orders.
He knew that according to the elders and the plan of the meat-tearing boss, they were about to launch a full-scale attack on those shrimps. Many large booms, many large trucks, and large cans were already prepared. The meat-tearing boss even sent the second largest one to him in advance to appease his mind.
That thing is bigger than the killing can. The elders call it the Big Iron Can of Fear.
Even though to drive this thing, you have to saw off your legs and feet and connect them to the machine, and insert many tubes into your head and spinal cord, you cannot leave it for the rest of your life.
But...so what?
With such a powerful thing, you can chop and chop more happily, shoot and shoot more happily, and also use multiple barrels to bombard... No greenskin would want to come out of such a thing, right?
After getting into the big iron tank, Roast Axe was in pain and torture every moment, and could only relieve it by killing people. He wanted to lead his boys to kill all those shrimps immediately.
But the Meat Tearer kept asking him to be patient, patient, and patient.
After enduring for a long time, they finally faced the earth-shattering bombing.
More support from large machines?
All gone!
What should he do now? So far, there are shrimps everywhere. If this continues, no matter how powerful he is or how brave his boys are, they will be doomed.
At his call, at least four hundred green-skinned orcs gathered around him.
He led this group of greenskins and began to break out to the east.
Along the way, there was a feeling of killing gods if gods stood in my way and killing Buddhas if Buddhas stood in my way.
The Roast Axe, who stuffed himself into the big iron can of fear, is four meters tall, much taller and stronger than the ordinary killing can. The strength of this suit of armor even exceeds that of the Space Marine's power armor.
The bullets had very little effect and could not break the defense at all; a battalion commander organized more than a dozen rocket launchers and fired intensively in one breath, killing several greenskins, but Roast Axe, who was regarded as the main target, was hit head-on by these bombardments, but the damage he suffered was not serious at all.
The guy even targeted the battalion commander and charged forward, chopping any soldiers who blocked his way. He strafed with multiple machine guns and swept with wheeled saws, killing dozens of infantrymen along the way.
Seeing that the situation was not good, the battalion commander wanted to retreat, but he failed. The instructor was killed by a machine gun, and the battalion commander was cut in half.
The entire battalion was destroyed, and even this gap could not be filled by other troops for a while.
Fortunately, Perbov's battalion was in place. But even so, the interception process was extremely difficult.
Whether it is the Cruiser V or the locally produced "Challenger" tank, they will be in danger of being dismantled in front of the terrifying big iron can!
The machine guns on the armored vehicles were not good at hitting the big iron cans. Despite its wild shape and huge size, it was actually quite flexible, and the turret's hit rate was not so perfect. Even if a considerable number of machine gun bullets hit it, they would only make small dents on its metal armor plate, but would not break through the defense.
To put it bluntly, the caliber is still not enough.
Even the 76mm tank gun of the Challenger tank is not good enough. The main reason is the local artillery technology. The initial velocity of the shells is not good enough. The caliber alone is not enough to penetrate armor.
Of course, overall the effect is still better than that of a machine gun.
Unless there are hundreds of machine guns firing at it in a very dense manner, or dozens of 76mm tank guns successfully hit it, then under the effect of metal fatigue, the armor of this terrifying iron can will be broken, otherwise it will not be able to do anything to the Roast Axe.
On the contrary, he was able to get close to the armored vehicle. The huge iron clamp could even clamp the front of the armored vehicle and even deform it; the multi-barreled machine guns could break through the defense and kill the driver inside by firing directly for a few seconds; the wheel saw teeth would spark sparks when cutting through the armor plate...
In this way, he used various methods to destroy two armored vehicles and two tanks.
Some infantrymen came up and tried to attack with rocket launchers again, but they could only achieve relatively weak effects and could not decisively defeat the enemy.
To destroy this big iron tank of fear, one must either pay enough sacrifices and then use enough firepower to blow it up. A drop of water can wear away a stone, let alone thousands of various bullets and artillery fire hitting it.
But the sacrifice was too heavy. Before Roast Axe was killed, our side had no idea how many people would die and how many chariots would be destroyed.
Another option is to use a 155mm howitzer to bomb it.
This is reliable enough. If it is hit by two or three shots, or even just one shot hits the target, it may be able to complete the destruction mission directly.
However, this plan would also be accompanied by huge casualties - mainly from accidental injuries.
But there is no way.
If they don't find a solution, the human army will never be able to destroy this steel behemoth before they can break through and allow these orcs to break out.
Perbov gritted his teeth, ordered part of the troops to surround the enemy, and at the same time called for artillery strikes to the rear.
Within the coverage area, there were many soldiers from the First Battalion of his Xifeng Brigade.
When the artillery fire came down, many of his brothers would be killed in it.
His heart was bleeding, but not only could he not let his soldiers retreat, he had to strictly order them not to retreat.
This means exchanging the lives of the soldiers for victory.
"Let our soldiers withdraw."
At this moment, these words appeared in Perbov's mind.
This is the Governor's voice.
Perbov was stunned for a moment, but he reacted immediately and changed the order, ordering the soldiers to retreat.
As the armored vehicles and infantry began to retreat and hide in the bunkers, the big iron can of fear immediately gave chase.
However, suddenly a mysterious force fixed it in place.
It was not completely still, but its body stopped as if it had lost control.
This is Gu Hang taking action!
The Governor-General himself followed the attacking troops and arrived at the battlefield.
He was not too worried about his own safety. This was a battle that he had to win, and as a psychic, he had the ability to protect himself. In this battle, as long as he didn't want to die, he shouldn't be able to die.
At the same time, his arrival can not only boost the morale of the troops, but also solve some special problems.
Just like the green-skinned leader we are facing now.
His psychic abilities played an important role!
Gu Hang certainly had no interest in simply wrestling with this big iron can, as that was a very stupid thing to do. Although his psychic power was not low, it was unwise to fight against such a mechanical monster with a steel body.
What he controlled was the green-skinned leader himself inside the tin.
Obviously, the green-skinned big iron can is powerful, but it does not have the certain degree of psychic resistance that the Space Marine power armor has. This big thing has no protection against psychic energy.
However, the 'waaagh' force field of this green-skinned leader was quite strong. Gu Hang almost used all his strength to attack the part of his soul that represented the central nervous system through the ability of soul cutting.
This is difficult, but only slightly easier than killing the soul. Gu Hang can only make it temporarily lose its ability to move. After about one or two minutes, he will return to normal.
However, this period of time was enough for the 155mm howitzers in the artillery positions in the rear to fly over.
————
6k! Three days left and 19,000 words left.
A bit challenging.
(End of this chapter)
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