Munitions Empire

Chapter 598: 557 Awkward Retreat

Liu Guozhu was in a shabby state, and as he had his tank turn around, another shell dropped, nearly flipping his tank over.

The massive explosion made him feel the vibration inside the tank, a mix of relief from a narrow escape and terror.

"Speed up! Full speed! Quick!” Liu Guozhu, wanting to leave this wretched place as soon as possible, didn’t want to stay here for another minute.

Not far from his side, a No. 4 tank that had been hit directly by a shell had its hull torn apart, a horrible sight to behold.

The shell had smashed the No. 4 tank’s turret directly, the deformed turret flew far away, and the remaining body immediately caught fire, with the tracks ceasing amidst the flames. Due to the intense heat, the road wheels were detached from the body and rolled away to the side.

The road wheels of the No. 4 tank were surrounded by rubber rims, and these flammable materials were all consumed in the raging fire.

Everything from the tank’s headlights to the paint riddled with bullet holes was peeling off and breaking apart in the fire and then gradually disappearing.

When everything finally came to a stop, only the rusty armor of the tank remained, barely showing the original contours of the body, nothing more.

As for the crew members inside, they had long been burned to ashes, leaving nothing behind. They would turn into charred remains, and over time crumble into dust.

"There are our trenches up ahead!” The driver, while steering the tank forward in a mad rush, shouted to Liu Guozhu.

"I know! Don’t mind it! Just go over it!” Liu Guozhu figured that as long as the soldiers weren’t blind, they’d definitely notice them barreling towards them.

Sure enough, in the trenches, the grenade-throwing soldiers of the Tang Army, who had seen the artillery hitting their own tank units, also saw their tanks swiftly turn and charge towards them.

"Tanks! Tanks are coming! Bend down! Get down! Get down!” An infantry platoon leader, seeing his own tanks frantically approaching, immediately turned and shouted to his soldiers.

Upon hearing his cry, the soldiers of the Tang Army in the position immediately started to dodge, some bending down, some simply running off to the distance.

In no time, the first approaching No. 4 tank rolled over their own trench, as if it was charging at them.

The tracks crushed the edges of the trench, continuing to move with the soil, then flung the mud clinging to it onto the steel helmets of the Tang Army soldiers, clanging noisily.

After the first tank rumbled past their own trench, the second tank charged over recklessly, rushing past everything.

Without the time to look back at the tanks that had passed, the grenade-throwing soldiers of the Tang Army, who had not yet encountered the Qi Army tanks, were once again rolled over by their own.

"Hey! You bunch of cowards! You only know how to pick on your own kind, eh?” One of the soldiers, discontented, knocked the mud off his helmet, turned back, and cursed at the passing tank loudly.

Before he could finish his curse, a veteran soldier next to him reached out, grabbed his neck, and pushed him back into the trench.

The next second, the No. 4 tank of Liu Guozhu, with its not-so-wide tracks, collided over. It almost hit the back of the reckless soldier’s head.

The colossal body of the No. 4 tank swept past over the soldier’s head. If he had looked up, he could have seen the maintenance hatch reserved on the bottom of the tank.

The roar of the engine and the screeching metal friction were deafening, accompanied by the sound of exploding shells landing far away, like a heavy metal concert.

"Are you out of your mind?” The veteran soldier, holding down the recruit’s neck, felt the falling mud roll into his collar.

He cursed, thinking that the tankers of the 1st Armored Division were all bastards born of whores, “Damn it! These family-damned bastards!”

"Thank you, thank you The young soldier, whose view of the sky was blocked by the tank’s body above him, turned his head with a frightened thanks.

But before he could finish, his mouth was filled with falling dirt. He cursed quietly, cursing Liu Guozhu’s entire family.

At this very moment, he really wanted to climb onto that damned tank, open the hatch on top, then take out his grenade, pull the pin, and ask the bastard inside, “You know what this is? Do you recognize this?”

However, those were friendly tanks; he couldn’t do that. All he could do was to mock them for their cowardice and timidity the next time he ran into these guys.

Soon, the battlefield became quiet again. The Qi Army, having realized that their shelling was ineffective, stopped firing and the retreating armored corps of the Tang Army passed by Luo Town and began to tally their losses.

In the recent shelling, they had lost six tanks, two of which had been disabled by near misses and were paralyzed in between the two armies’ fronts, and four were completely destroyed, still burning.

The tank losses of Qi Country were even more severe. During their attack, they had committed 70 tanks, only to have 67 tanks destroyed by the Tang Army and by themselves!

Indeed, it was almost a total annihilation: 70 tanks had set out grandly, and only 3 riddled with bullet holes were left when they returned.

Of these, more than 50 were destroyed by Tang Army tanks at distances of less than one hundred meters; others were paralyzed by malfunctions and abandoned halfway, and a few were destroyed by their own artillery fire during retreat.

After this battle, it could almost be said that Qi Army’s Armored Corps commander was out of a job: he barely had any troops left to use.

Originally, the 1st Army of Qi Country only had 110 Shireck 1 model tanks available to use, and 40 were damaged along the way due to malfunctions and other issues.

With great difficulty, they managed to preserve 70 tanks by cannibalizing parts from each other, only to lose 67 of them in the recent battle.

The three tanks that made it back were also unable to participate in combat, as their power transmission systems, having been used once on the brutal battlefield, were 80% likely to be faulty. Forcing them back into battle would easily lead to their paralysis on the battlefield.

If it had not been for Qin Xiong’s subsequent relentless shelling, carrying out indiscriminate attacks, the Tang Army might not have lost a single tank.

The gap between them was so clear that even laymen could see it clearly: Qi Army’s Armored Corps was simply not in the same league as the Tang Army’s Armored Corps.

Whales are not fish! Little Jap… they’re not human! Although both are called Armored Corps, theirs in Qi Country isn’t a real Armored Corps!

While the Qi Country Armored Corps commander was incessantly complaining inwardly, the Tang Army’s 1st Armored Division was also assessing the damage.

Liu Guozhu only realized when he climbed down from his tank that its mudguard seemed to have been blown off by a shell fragment.

The hinge that could flip upward was hanging there, lonely, while the mudguard had vanished without a trace. The paint on his tank, already full of bullet marks, was further ravaged beyond recognition.

Actually, he was very lucky, because some returned home with problems in their clutches, and the engines of some tanks were not working steadily.

Tanks, after all, are a new type of weapon and equipment, and it’s more than common for them to have some issues on the battlefield. For an Armored Division with several hundred tanks, being able to maintain two-thirds of them in battle-ready condition was already a very high level of combat readiness.

"They’re really ruthless, beginning the indiscriminate bombardment while their own men were still out there,” a tank commander, who had a bandage wrapped around his head, complained to Liu Guozhu while leaning against a tank.

"What happened?” Liu Guozhu pointed at his own head and asked the other party.

"The tank shook violently, and I hit the handrail The tank commander was too embarrassed to admit that he was running too eagerly, and gave a vague reply.

"You’re actually lucky,” said the platoon leader as he came over, carrying a map and some documents, and said after looking in the direction of the third platoon, “One of the tanks from the third platoon was destroyed… later on… all the tank commanders will have to go there for a memorial service.”

"Yes!” The tank commander, still leaning on the tank with a bandage on his forehead, stood at attention and saluted.

Liu Guozhu also stood at attention and saluted, “Understood!”

"Oh, right, Liu Guozhu, the regimental commander has read your report, and he’s very satisfied! The matter of you killing the third prince of Qi Country has been confirmed, and the division will send someone to commend you, so don’t worry,” the platoon leader seemed to remember something and said to Liu Guozhu, “The second platoon leader specifically asked me to thank you

"Thank me for what?” Liu Guozhu looked genuinely puzzled.

The platoon leader showed a smile and pointed in the direction where Liu Guozhu was, “At such a young age, where did you learn so much about the ways of the world? Get out of here!”

Although it was a rebuke, there was no dissatisfaction to be heard, and it seemed that the platoon leader was very pleased with Liu Guozhu, his subordinate.

The Tang Army’s retaliation was swift and decisive. In the afternoon, countless bombers visited the area where Qi troops were stationed.

This time it was not just three or five planes carrying out bombing missions as a matter of routine, but an all-out deployment of 50 Stukas, plus 60 FW-190 “Butcher” fighters.

Qin Xiong had never seen so many aircraft deployed by the Tang Army before. He hid in his command post and watched helplessly as his troops were bombed to the point of screaming for their fathers and mothers.

With more than a hundred planes dropping bombs in rotation, Qi Country’s ground troops failed to organize a single attack until darkness fell.

The unique sound of the Stukas echoed in the sky all afternoon, their continuous howling sapping the fighting spirit of the Qi Army. No matter how much the commanders urged, the troops were unwilling to leave their hiding places to assemble and launch an attack on the Tang Army defenses.

As the chief commander of Qi Country, Qin Xiong had no good solution either. Although he was seen as a rather professional senior commander in the Qi military, he was indeed helpless against the Tang Army of another caliber.

After witnessing the power of the Tang Army, what occupied Qin Xiong’s mind now was how to get away from the cursed place of Luo Town.

At this time, the news of the loss of Nanye also reached Qin Xiong’s ears. Clearly, recapturing Luo Town had become undisputedly superfluous for the Qi Army.

Because their plan to open a line of transport between Luo Town and Nanye had utterly failed with the fall of Nanye.

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