bookrandom Chapter 359: Battle for Chittagong (11) The 50th Armoured Brigade was defeated (Part 1)
Chapter 359: Battle for Chittagong (11) The 50th Armoured Brigade was defeated (Part 1)
This crew is the first generation of armored troops who have been fighting with Zhang Chi since 42. They have driven the LVT-A1 amphibious tanks, M3A1 Stuart light tanks, and M4 Sherman medium tanks equipped by the People's Army and are very experienced.
Therefore, they cooperated perfectly. As soon as a capped armor-piercing shell was stuffed into the breech, the gunner immediately turned the handwheel to drive the steering gear to rotate the turret.
The long gun barrel immediately locked onto the M3 General Grant that was reversing and firing. The vehicle was painted in a yellow desert paint, which was particularly conspicuous against the green of the Sindhu plains.
The 1300-meter scale was quickly set, and the next second, the gunner stepped on the firing pedal.
"Bang!" The shell ejected with heat and fell on the floor inside the turret.
Violent flames spurted out from the muzzle, and the powerful shock wave caused the vehicle body to lean back slightly.
The shell tore through the air, drawing a deadly trajectory and flying towards the target accurately.
However, the trajectory was slightly higher, and the shell passed over the small 37mm turret on the roof of the M3 Grant and flew straight into the rainforest behind, raising a cloud of dust and broken branches and leaves.
The driver stared at the distance intently and immediately reminded in a deep voice: "It's too high, try reducing the scale by 20 meters!"
In the gunner's sight, the M3 was slowly reversing, and the 37mm cannon was firing wildly, but the shells were all fired into the sky, posing no threat.
"Hehe, these Ansar guys are scared." The gunner smiled slightly, quickly turned the elevation handwheel, and adjusted the scale to ensure that it would not deviate again this time.
"One armor-piercing shell, loaded!" The loader skillfully pushed the new armor-piercing shell into the barrel and closed the breech block with a bang.
This time, the gunner deliberately aimed lower.
"boom!"
A stream of scorching hot air spurted out of the muzzle, and the second shell rushed towards the M3 Grant with thunderous force.
The 76mm armor-piercing shell quickly crossed a distance of more than 1 meters, hit the target accurately, penetrated the upper armor of the M3 Grant, and drilled in.
"boom!"
In an instant, the ammunition exploded, and the powerful shock wave instantly broke open all the hatches on the tank, and violent flames mixed with black smoke gushed out.
"Hit it!"
More than 40 Sherman tanks repeated the mechanical process of stopping briefly, firing, moving forward a short distance, stopping briefly, and firing again.
Some more skilled crews even fired 3 or 4 shots within a minute.
The 7.62mm machine guns on the turret coaxial and the hull also opened fire, with tracer bullets helping to calibrate the trajectory. The John armored soldiers running around on the ground could not avoid the machine gun fire at all and were knocked to the ground by the dense bullets.
In less than ten minutes, all the M3 Grants on the assembly ground were reduced to ruins.
This multi-turret tank, nicknamed "Seven Brothers' Iron Coffin" by the White Eagle tank soldiers, has long been despised by the People's Army, so there is no scene of trying to capture the tank.
Those who dared to fight back were directly hit by multiple Sherman tanks and the fire only stopped when they caught fire.
Li Mingcheng in the command vehicle raised the telescope again. In his field of vision, the ground was covered with burning debris, John's soldiers were running around like headless flies, and there were corpses all over the ground.
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"Damn! Their armored soldiers are so accurate!"
Captain John's eyes twitched as he looked at the burning wreckage of the Crusader tank not far away. Half of the charred body was hanging on the turret, looking extremely miserable.
Another armor-piercing bullet accurately hit an M3 Grant next to it.
"boom--"
The armor plate was torn apart directly, a big hole was torn in the cockpit in an instant, and the scorching flames instantly engulfed the interior of the vehicle.
Before the mechanic on the tank could react, he turned into a burning human figure, opened the hatch of the vehicle, jumped out, and rolled wildly on the ground.
"Retreat! Retreat! We can't hold this thing!"
The tank commander decisively chose to give up, pushed open the hatch, jumped directly from the turret, and ran away.
His action was like a fuse on the battlefield, and more tank soldiers began to abandon their vehicles and flee for their lives.
However, inside the empty M3 tank, the silent radio finally responded, and the brigade headquarters finally issued an order:
"Keep fighting, hold your ground, the Royal Heavy Tank Battalion is assembling!"
It's just that the communication seems to be disturbed and intermittent.
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Five kilometers behind the front line, more than a dozen Prime Minister Qiu III infantry tanks (pictured) of the Royal Heavy Tank Battalion finally completed their assembly.
"Let's get on top!"
The commanders of the Qiu Xiang III tanks knew very well that their tanks were heavy and slow, with a maximum off-road speed of only 13 kilometers per hour, about the same as the speed of an infantry trot, making it almost impossible to maneuver quickly.
The 89mm hull and turret frontal armor could be considered a wall of sighs when facing the 75mm short gun of the early Sherman M4.
But facing the 76mm long gun, which can penetrate 105mm homogeneous steel armor at a distance of 1500M, the Prime Minister III will also end up being canned.
As for the 57mm anti-tank gun, when using MK9 APCBC ammunition, its penetration at a distance of 1500m was only 75mm, which was completely incapable of penetrating the Sherman's sloped frontal armor.
Major Nong Yuanming, commander of the 138th Armored Battalion, who was at the forefront, soon saw those slow-moving John Iron Turtles.
His battalion was a light armored battalion, equipped with M24 Chaffee tanks. The main gun was a 75mm short gun of the same type as the early Sherman, with thinner armor.
Therefore, Commander Major Nong did not intend to confront these mobile fortresses head-on.
"Prime Minister Qiu? Ha, do you really think we would be so stupid as to attack them head-on?" He quickly determined the enemy's tank model by referring to the identification manual.
Over the radio, the major sneered and gave orders: "First, fire smoke bombs to block their vision. Then, detach the team to go around and surprise them on the flank!"
The M24 Chaffees opened fire first, firing one smoke bomb after another at the slowly moving Iron Turtles. After the shells exploded, the white phosphorus smoke agent burned rapidly, producing a large amount of smoke.
A large cloud of white smoke soon filled the plain, and Nong Yuanming noticed that the John heavy tanks had apparently lost their sight and stopped firing.
"Come on!"
The light tanks took the lead and began to move around the side.
However, faster than them were the Bobcats.
They bravely charged towards the John heavy tanks.
The infantrymen quickly got off the vehicles, carrying PRGs and began to approach the enemy's iron turtle under the cover of smoke.
"The ammunition racks are usually placed on the side of the vehicle below the turret!"
The hastily assembled Royal Heavy Tank Battalion lacked infantry protection, and the An Min Army infantry hidden in the smoke quickly came into the PRG's firing range.
Although the armor-piercing warhead using shaped charge has a static armor penetration depth of 230mm, the aftereffect of the metal jet is not as good as that of a loaded artillery shell.
Therefore, the training manual requires users to prioritize hitting the ammunition racks and personnel compartments, rather than relying on high penetration to fire randomly at the front of the vehicle.
"Attention, fire!"
The security soldier who touched the gun quickly looked back, made sure that no one was standing behind the RPG barrel, and then pulled the trigger.
The current from the 5V dry battery was quickly connected, the bullet ignited, and flew towards the iron turtle with a whistling sound.
The bullet drew a graceful arc and accurately hit the side of Qiu Xiang III.
"boom--"
This 40-ton steel behemoth took off its hat and saluted amid a deafening explosion, and its turret suddenly rushed into the sky.
The armor plates on the side of the vehicle were blown to pieces, and a large amount of gas from the explosion of ammunition gushed out.