Chapter 1503 - 1232: Homemade "Self-Propelled Artillery

"It must be large-caliber artillery, otherwise, it couldn't reach that far..."

Jiang Feng stared at the targeted positions on the map and quickly came to a conclusion, but then froze.

Looking at the scattered shelling points, he felt bewildered.

"As for what kind of artillery... it's hard to say..."

Song Heping looked at the others.

No one could answer this question.

The command center fell into silence, the air as sticky as if mixed with glue.

The electric noise from the radio mingled with the desperate pleas and battle reports from the frontline positions, combined with the distant, rhythmic booms of explosions, pounding on everyone's nerves.

"A3 sector requesting artillery support! Repeat, A3 sector can't hold much longer!"

"B7 sector has heavy casualties, enemy artillery is too accurate! We need counteractions!"

"C1 sector command post has been hit! The company commander is dead!"

Each voice was like a heavy hammer, striking the hearts of Song Heping and Jiang Feng.

What they faced was an invisible enemy — the artillery positions of the 1515 Armed. The Liberation Forces' shells blindly counterattacked but sank like stones in the sea, forced to endure passively.

In the "Liberation Forces" frontline positions, the situation worsened.

After just repelling an infantry charge, the militias had barely caught their breath when the sharp whistles split the sky again.

"Artillery strike—! Take cover—!"

Veteran Shaban's voice was hoarse, nearly yelling with his life.

In an instant, the world changed color.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Dense 122mm shells rained down on the positions like hailstones.

Massive fireballs mixed with black smoke shot into the air, the searing heat wave sweeping in all directions, the shockwaves mixed with dirt, rubble, and metal fragments mercilessly destroying everything.

A half-completed machine gun nest was directly hit, sandbags, weapons, and the soldiers operating it vanished in an instant, leaving only a smoldering crater.

A section of the trench caved in, burying the wounded who didn't have time to evacuate, leaving only a feebly struggling hand exposed.

A young militiaman, with blood streaming from his ears and nose, cowered in a crater, feeling the ground shake violently as if the whole world was being torn apart by endless artillery fire.

He watched helplessly as a familiar figure fell in the firelight, a companion he shared a piece of flatbread with just yesterday.

Fear and despair gnawed at his heart like a poison snake.

The enemy's infantry, under the cover of artillery fire, surged forward like a tidal wave again, while the organized resistance on the positions was continuously weakened by the shelling.

"Command post! Command post! We need to suppress their artillery! Otherwise, we'll all die here!"

Shaban roared in despair into the almost destroyed radio microphone.

In the command post, Jiang Feng slammed his headset onto the table.

"Old Master Sergeant! We can't wait any longer! We must contact the Americans in Baghdad and have them send the 'Grim Reaper' drones over! Find these bastards and smash them with JDAMs!"

Song Heping stood rigidly in front of the huge situation map.

He shook his head, his voice low and hoarse: "It's too late. The application, coordination, flight path planning... by the time their planes arrive, our defenses will have already been torn to pieces."

He was shaken to his core.

The 1515 Armed's artillery proficiency far exceeded his estimates.

The firing rate was fast, and the shots were extremely accurate.

This couldn't possibly be the tactics of a ragtag bunch.

"There's a reason they're holding the Northwest Illiguo..."

He pondered silently, indeed underestimating his opponent before, and this time he was thoroughly taught a lesson.

They had to immediately find a way to break through, or else six thousand against twenty-five thousand would result in a one-sided massacre if the defense line was breached.

Suddenly, a gleam flashed in his eyes, and he grabbed the radio handset, switching to a relatively clear channel: "All positions, attention! This is Song Heping! Report the approximate power of the shells you're under attack with, estimate the caliber! Repeat, estimate the shell caliber!"

Soon, fragmented information came back.

"The explosion power is huge, the craters are very deep, seems like 122mm shells!"

"Similar to the effect of our own shelling, should be 122mm!"

It's likely to be Soviet-made D-30 type 122mm howitzers!

Because in Illiguo, this type of artillery is the most common.

Song Heping immediately walked to the map, picked up a red pen, and quickly marked the positions that had just suffered precise shelling one by one.

His actions were swift and accurate, reminiscent of a high-speed computer.

Then, using each of the shelled positions as a center, he drew several overlapping large circles based on the D-30's maximum and typical range.

"Order the drone unit!"

Without turning his head, he told Jiang Feng, "All reconnaissance drones, immediately conduct carpet reconnaissance on these key areas I've marked! Hurry!"

Though Jiang Feng was puzzled, he immediately conveyed the order.

When he returned to the map, looking at the densely packed circles and focal areas, he asked in confusion, "Old Squad Leader, what is this?"

Song Heping pointed at the map with his pen tip, explaining rapidly, "This is reverse artillery position operations. The D-30 is the most left-over equipment from the Sadam era, significantly lost after the US Army came, but the 1515 Armed certainly has quite a few. Based on the point of impact, the D-30's trajectory parameters, and range, we can roughly frame the areas where they might be hiding. Then eliminate these unsuitable mountain and dense forest areas for artillery positioning; what's left is where they're most likely hiding!"

Jiang Feng suddenly understood, this is the typical artillery detection and countermeasure thinking, requiring extremely strong professional knowledge and spatial imagination.

Indeed, top-tier special soldiers once in the 203 unit.

Every non-commissioned officer in such units needs to be multifaceted, dabbling in all infantry specialties with a certain degree of proficiency.

A few minutes later, a dense "buzzing" sound rang out from the drone unit's position, over thirty reconnaissance drones swarmed into the sky like bees leaving the hive, rushing towards the predetermined reconnaissance airspace.

Time ticked by, second by second.

Song Heping stood motionless like a clay sculpture in front of the screen, occasionally glancing at the time on his watch.

Ten minutes...

No news...

Twenty minutes...

No news...

Thirty minutes...

As long as a century.

The drone unit still had no findings...

Urgent calls from the front line grew increasingly frequent, with increasingly desperate tones.

Worse news came — Basmo, the leader of the 1515 Armed inside Hulmatu City, seeing the flank offensive progressing smoothly, had pushed the remaining twenty thousand people in the city, except for five thousand in the garrison, over fifteen thousand, like floodwaters bursting a dam, towards Song Heping's front line.

Six thousand against twenty-five thousand!

The air in the command center seemed about to combust.

At this suffocating moment, the radio finally conveyed the drone unit's excited voices: "Report! Target spotted! In area S-4! They... they're using self-propelled artillery!"

"What?!"

Song Heping and Jiang Feng almost exclaimed simultaneously.

1515 Armed has self-propelled artillery?

How is that possible?

Isn't this nonsense?!

An extremist organization having such high-tech stuff?

Self-propelled artillery?

What an international joke!

"The image! I want the image! Send back immediately!"

Song Heping almost blurted out the order.

When the drone footage was transmitted back to the command center's big screen, everyone was stunned.

It was indeed "self-propelled artillery!"

But not the regular self-propelled artillery they imagined, rather a peculiar "hybrid" creation — the rear of an old American M35 military truck, fixed with a D-30 type 122 mm howitzer, its wheels removed and directly welded to the truck bed!

Crude, brutal, yet filled with the wisdom of practical battlefield use.

Just one such "homemade truck cannon" braked abruptly in a dry riverbed, several artillerymen jumped off, quickly lowered the support legs, simply aimed, and fired a rapid round.

As the shells just left the chamber, these men quickly gathered their equipment, jumped into the cabin, and the truck, spewing black smoke, swiftly fled the scene. The entire process took less than five minutes.

Soon, it appeared at another preset position several kilometers away, repeating the same process.

"Damn it! It turns out to be mobile artillery positions! And truck cannons!"

Jiang Feng cursed, but with a hint of understanding in his tone, "No wonder it's so hard to find!"

More drones have discovered similar targets and sent back footage.

Across the battlefield, spanning tens of kilometers, at least fifty such "homemade truck cannons" were active, moving and firing like ghosts on the vast battlefield, disappearing, then reappearing.

Now, a more severe problem lies before them.

How to deal with these highly mobile artillery positions?

Traditional artillery cover is practically ineffective against them.

Your shell is still in flight, and they've long fled.

Song Heping recalled the "quick attack, quick withdrawal" emphasized during mortar training in the military; it seems the 1515 Armed indeed has "experts" who are adept at artillery tactics.

In the command center, the slight hope just raised by finding the target was instantly replaced by deeper helplessness.

Silence again enveloped the entire space.