The beacon of youth

The troops walked for another two days and one night and finally walked out of the big forest. Li Yong asked Zhang Jinsong to take his reconnaissance platoon to expand the search area as much as possible. After another two days, nothing happened. Neither his troops nor the enemy were encountered. , Li Yong told everyone not to relax, the reconnaissance platoon had to expand the search area, and the main force of the company moved forward in concealment. At almost noon this day, there were faint bursts of gunshots and grenade explosions ahead.

Li Yong ordered the troops to stop advancing, and Zhang Jinsong immediately went to investigate the situation. After about 20 minutes, Zhang Jinsong ran back panting with a few people and reported: "Our troops are ahead, I didn't come to ask for the number." , is launching an operation, it is estimated that it has hit a hard nail, and it has not been rushed up several times."

Li Yong hurriedly ordered the troops to run forward to prepare for the battle. The troops trotted away. After ten minutes, they came to the back of a ridge. There were soldiers in gray military uniforms lying behind the ridge. In front of the ridge, there was a large Two small and three bunkers were firing non-stop, and the bullets ejected from the holes of the three bunkers formed crossfire.

On the open ground in front of the bunker lay a pile of corpses of sacrificed soldiers in gray military uniforms. Li Yong walked up to a commander with a pistol on his back and asked, "How is it?" The reply said: "It's not that good. The terrain ahead is too flat, and there are no hidden objects that can be used. The five blasting teams that went up were all thrown halfway."

Then he shouted: "The sixth group is ready." Li Yong saw that although our army's light machine guns were still firing, they could not suppress the enemy's firepower at all, so he hurriedly said: "Comrade, wait a moment, let us try."

Only then did the commander look back up and down at Li Yong and the soldiers of the secret service company. Seeing that the weapons and equipment of the secret service company were obviously much higher and they were all wearing steel helmets, he asked strangely, "Which part are you from?" Yong replied that we belonged to the second column and the fourth brigade, and shouted to the back: "Gao Xiang, bring your platoon here."

Of course the commander was happy to hear Li Yong say that the Second Column and Fourth Brigade came to help, and he also wanted to see how the Second Column fought.

Gao Xiang's artillery platoon rushed to Li Yong's side from the back and nervously assembled the small artillery, artillery plate, barrel, bipod, and sights. The soldiers were very familiar with their weapons, and the assembly was completed in a few minutes.

The soldiers of the fraternal army saw the spies pulling up and the equipment on their bodies, and their eyes were a little red. Li Yong didn't care whether they were envious or not. Seeing the assembled 130 gun pointing at the small bunker on the left, he said: "Left front [-] meter test fire one."

As soon as the words were out of the mouth, there was a sound of "dong", and a shell hit the left rear of the small bunker. Li Yong continued: "Turn to the right and try to shoot one." As soon as the words came out, another shell hit the small bunker. Two meters to the right.

This is the first real battle with real swords and guns. The soldiers are still a little nervous. It is said that they are very accurate during training and the shells are not consumed. First, the speed was not too slow. Li Yong's order was fired as soon as the shells fired, but the accuracy was not good. Li Yong didn't blame the soldiers, and then ordered: "Try another three meters to the left."

This time a small cannonball accurately hit the roof of the small blockhouse on the left, and exploded on the top of the blockhouse with a bang. The machine gun in the small blockhouse stopped for a minute and then fired again. Li Yong knew it was The top cover of the bunker was not pierced, and the people inside were a little dizzy from the shock and recovered after a while, and then ordered: "Three quick shots."

As soon as Li Yong's words came out of his mouth, three artillery shells hit the bunker on the left. The bunker collapsed in a puff of smoke, and the firepower on the left immediately disappeared.The soldiers cheered in low voices, the power of the mortar was finally unleashed, the platoon leader Gao Xiang and Li Yong lay down together, turned around and glared at their soldiers: "Why are you shouting, what's there to be happy about? Just one slap and two shells wasted."

The soldiers curled their lips at each other without making a sound, and Li Yong ordered again: "Target, the small bunker on the right, test fire one." A shell hit one meter to the right of the right bunker, "Offset two meters to the left, Three quick shots."

Another three artillery shells accurately hit the bunker on the right, and all three bombs hit the same place, and the bunker on the right was also blown to pieces amid the explosion of the shells.

Li Yong looked at the big bunker that was still shooting desperately in the middle and said with a sneer, "140 meters straight ahead, target the enemy's mother bunker, try shooting one."

After shooting two small bunkers, the soldiers of the artillery platoon were not nervous anymore, and their accuracy was improved. In addition, the mother bunker was relatively large, so the target was much easier to find. The first shell hit the top cover of the big bunker accurately. On the way, but a puff of white smoke came out of the big bunker, and the machine guns inside were still firing.

Li Yong took a look, good guy, this is still a big reinforced concrete blockhouse. It depends on whether your cover is hard or my shells are hard. He shouted: "Ten quick shots." Ten shells all hit the top of the big blockhouse. After the top of the front part was pierced, the back part got in through the bullet holes, and the big blockhouse was blown to pieces in a burst of rumbling.

Mortars are generally composed of four parts: gun barrel, gun mount, seat plate and sight.The gun body can be selected according to the distance of the shooting range. The length of the gun body is generally between 1 and 1.5m; the gun mount is mostly a bipod or a tripod, and the height and direction can be adjusted according to the target position. It can be folded when carrying; the seat plate It is the main component to withstand the recoil, and together with the bipod, it plays the role of supporting the mortar body; most of the sights are optical sights, engraved with direction divisions and height divisions.

The main features of the mortar compared to other conventional artillery are:

(1) The trajectory is curved, suitable for overshooting targets behind concealed objects (such as hills), and direct shooting for close-range targets;

(2) Easy to load, shoot high (2o-3o points), strong firepower, good killing effect;

Let me say a few more words here. If you want to say that the maximum rate of fire of this mortar is only 6 per minute, this is already the limit. However, Zhao Zhangcheng, the artillery general of our People's Liberation Army, once used a mortar in the Hundred Regiments Battle. At a high elevation angle, twelve soldiers were used to carry the shells and press the fuzes for him, while he fired the shells himself. With a rate of fire of 240 per minute, he fired more than [-] shells in [-] minutes, defeating an infantry brigade of the Japanese army in one fell swoop. The speed is still unimaginable.

Later, according to the captured Japanese prisoners, they could only see strings of shells falling from the sky, but no one knew where they were fired from. In fact, General Zhao Zhangcheng’s battle position was only tens of meters away from the enemy. The little devils in the brigade, which was an infantry battalion, were completely stunned.

(3) Light in weight, small in size and strong in maneuverability, medium and small caliber mortars can be carried on horseback by a person, can run away after hitting, and can quickly transfer positions;

(4) Simple structure, convenient operation, easy mass production, and low cost.

The operation and use of the mortar is also very simple. After finding and aiming at the target, slide the mortar shell into the barrel from the muzzle, and rely on its own quality to make the shell hit the firing pin at the bottom of the barrel; At the bottom of the gun body, after the shooter operates and releases the firing pin, it hits the bottom fire of the shell.After the primer is hit, the basic charge tube at the tail of the shell is ignited, and then the gunpowder in the additional charge bag bundled outside the shell is also ignited.

Although there is a certain gap between the shell and the barrel to ensure that the shell slides down, the air-tight ring outside the shell can still form a huge internal pressure, pushing the shell out of the muzzle and flying to the target.The shooting principle of the mortar determines that the mortar shell cannot fit tightly with the barrel, so the rifling cannot be used to rotate the shell to stabilize its flight direction, and the tail stabilizer is used to ensure its flight attitude.

Therefore, all mortar shells have fins.In addition to the empennage, a typical mortar shell also includes parts such as a fuze, a detonator, an explosive, a projectile body, a closed gas ring, a basic cartridge, an additional cartridge, and a primer.

The so-called mortar is actually a smoothbore gun. It has no rifling. It is an infantry weapon for hitting surface targets. It is one of the most important support firepower for field infantry. Because of its light weight and simple structure, it is more convenient for infantry to carry. Until now it has been favored by the infantry, but it is not the strength of this weapon to use it to hit the target. Li Yong has no choice. If the mortar is not used, the current equipment of the special service company can only send soldiers like the brother troops. Send explosives up.

Li Yong didn't want the soldiers to suffer casualties in the first battle, so he had to let the soldiers use the mortars that hit the surface target to hit the target. The luck of the secret service company was not bad, and the enemy's bunkers were not built firmly. , also solved the problem with mortars.