608: Chapter 601: Cold Gun, Hitting Reinforcements.
608: Chapter 601: Cold Gun, Hitting Reinforcements.
One thousand six hundred meters was a somewhat too far for a sniper.
At this distance, it wasn’t impossible to hit a person, but when the spread of the bullet was much larger than the human body, hitting became a matter of low probability.
Simply put, it was a matter of luck.
If you were lucky, you hit your target; if not, it wasn’t considered bad luck, just normal.
To change this situation, one not-so-practical solution was to increase the caliber of the rifle and enhance the firepower, allowing the bullet’s trajectory to maintain its linearity for a longer duration.
However, the large caliber sniper rifles had essentially reached the limit of what a human could withstand.
Even if one could bear the recoil when firing, making the rifles bigger would negate the ability of a soldier to carry it into combat, thus defeating the purpose of the weapon.
Hence, despite the existence of 14.5 mm caliber anti-material sniper rifles, the mainstream remained at 12.7 mm.
Another method was to customize the rifle to increase its precision, using hand-crafted assembly and other techniques to significantly enhance the accuracy of mass-produced sniper rifles.
Nevertheless, this method had its limits; as long as the physical rules remained the same and overall scientific advancements didn’t leap forward, there was no way the precision at distances beyond one thousand six hundred meters could be satisfactory.
The 12.7 mm caliber sniper rifles had a basic limit of one thousand three hundred meters.
Cui Bo’s rifle had been modified by Jack, but hitting a human target at that distance was already a stretch because the Barrett M82 was originally designed as an anti-material sniper rifle.
Jack had already achieved something impressive by managing to hit human-sized targets at one thousand three hundred meters.
For targets beyond one thousand six hundred meters, Cui Bo generally wouldn’t even attempt.
Although the longest sniper kill record in the world stood at over two thousand meters, that was established under circumstances where the enemy couldn’t return fire, allowing one to bank on luck without danger.
But that didn’t work for Cui Bo.
He didn’t have a steady supply chain, and in combat, every shot fired meant one less bullet; wasting bullets was not a good habit.
Moreover, he had to buy his own bullets, which weren’t supplied by the government, and the 12.7 mm sniper rounds were expensive.
If Cui Bo’s rifle wasn’t up to it, Gao Yang certainly didn’t even need to think about it.
His rifle wasn’t nearly as capable.
By the time the bullet would have reached one thousand six hundred meters, it would have been off to who knows where.
What the sniper rifle couldn’t achieve, a cannon could.
Artillery shells are area-damage weapons; it sufficed to hit within a general area, and one thousand six hundred meters was a cinch for a mortar, with enough accuracy guaranteed.
Of course, achieving the desired accuracy with a cannon, to meet the needs of sniper operations, wasn’t something ordinary gunners, good gunners, or even very good gunners could manage.
Only a truly god-like gunner could do it.
Clearly, Tommy was that god-like gunner, with no ambiguity—just the literal meaning of a god-like gunner.
God-like gunners had appeared in various armies, but Huaxia was unique in integrating such gunners to execute sniper tactics.
During the Korean War, the Huaxia Army had conducted extensive sniping activities with both rifles and cannons, utilizing sniper tactics.
Now, as neither Gao Yang nor Cui Bo could challenge the enemy’s sniper due to the distance, Tommy took over the task of sniping the enemy.
A sniper’s role wasn’t just about how many enemies he killed.
Eliminating valuable targets or commanding officers was certainly beneficial, but crucially, it was about inflicting psychological pressure on the enemy.
He may not have the opportunity to shoot or fire the cannon, but merely being on the battlefield could terrify the enemy.
After Tommy’s two shells had knocked down two rescuers, Glolov picked up the last shell next to him, preparing to load it into the cannon, while Tommy continued observing.
A fighting mercenary group must inherently be cohesive, which is fundamental.
The synonym for cohesion is good relationships among members.
Seeing a member injured, they would rescue him at all costs.
To rescue one person and lose several lives, even dozens or scores of lives, is not uncommon in battle.
Even to retrieve a comrade’s corpse, some are willing to pay with their lives.
Any combat team will surely have camaraderie.
This bond, unafraid of death, might involve just two people, several people, or even more, but it definitely exists.
Snipers often choose to injure rather than kill a target, allowing them to wait for the comrades of the target to attempt a rescue and then inflict more casualties—a very common tactic.
The first time Gao Yang engaged with the Angel Mercenary Corps, he used this tactic, which is why he injured Angel’s sniper instead of killing him.
Glolov once mentioned an incident during the battle of Grozny when a soldier had been hit in the stomach by a Chechnyan sniper and was crying out on the ground.
To save him, thirteen comrades fell under the enemy’s gunfire.
Thirteen deaths to save one.
Was it worth it?
From a purely mathematical perspective, no, it was not worth it, but when soldiers see their closest, most familiar people screaming on the ground, nobody considers this simple mathematical problem, assuming, of course, that their relationship is strong enough.
For the Satan Mercenary Corps, for Gao Yang and his team, if someone was injured, requiring them to risk their lives for a rescue, nobody would hesitate; in fact, they had done so many times already.
For Holmesny Mercenary Corps, they too were a formidable mercenary group, so they were united as well.
Although they were enemies of the Satan Mercenary Corps, their way of thinking and behavior had no differences.
Three men fell to the ground, one of whom was still twisting and struggling in pain on the ground.
Then, what followed was only natural.
Gao Yang suddenly heard the whistling sound of a bullet passing by, he immediately knew that the enemy sniper had fired.
The enemy intended to push back Gao Yang and his team, ideally by killing Tommy.
Unfortunately, distance was an insurmountable barrier for Gao Yang and Cui Bo, and so it was for them.
Gao Yang shouted, “Sniper has fired, take cover!”
Tommy was kneeling on one knee to aim; upon hearing Gao Yang’s shout, he lowered his body further, yet he continued observing.
At this moment, Cui Bo yelled out, “Artillery strike!
Coordinates A14E20, repeat, coordinates A14E20!
Fire for effect!”
Cui Bo had spotted the sniper’s hiding spot and thus directly called for artillery.
Although he reported the coordinates, adjusting the artillery required some response time.
The so-called fire for effect meant accurate shooting and dropping as many shells as possible simultaneously to deny the enemy any chance to react.
However, even with Zhou Zhou’s direction, the artillery of the Skull Gang could not complete the fire for effect in a short time.
The artillery of the Skull Gang was too light; one or two shells were of little use.
They needed at least eight to ten guns firing simultaneously to compensate for the lack of firepower with volume.
And by the time enough guns were aimed and ready to fire, it was already 20 seconds later.
At least a dozen mortar shells came raining down, exploding thunderously at the coordinates provided by Cui Bo.
But such a long time had passed, and if the enemy sniper wasn’t a fool, he would have surely run far away by then.
Regardless, they had to fire the artillery to at least let the enemy sniper know that as long as he dared to shoot, there would surely be shells bombarding him.
Though slow, it was accurate; that alone was a deterrent.
At the very least, it would make the enemy think twice before recklessly shooting from the same spot again.
While Cui Bo was calling in the artillery, Tommy remained motionless, observing the wounded enemy on the ground.
The enemies quickly reappeared, with two men running out from different directions.
They moved in a zigzag path, rapidly closing in on the wounded man on the ground.
Tommy would not shoot at the moving enemies.
He only needed to be ready to shoot near the wounded man.
The enemy sniper fired again, this time, at least five sniper rifles fired simultaneously, along with two heavy machine guns from previously unsuspected firing points.
Tommy was at the edge of the forest; he and Glolov kneeled in a dug-out one-man foxhole, only their heads exposed.
Although they were small targets, Gao Yang still worried the enemy’s sniper might hit them, given that both machine guns and sniper rifles were firing—it wasn’t just luck, but a very real possibility of hitting the two.
Tommy and Glolov were not naive; the moment they detected enemy fire, both immediately went prone inside the foxhole.
Yet even after going prone, Tommy’s hand remained steady on the barrel, without moving an inch.
Cui Bo continued calling for the artillery.
Meanwhile, the two men trying to rescue their comrade were still running towards the injured man.
When they were about twenty to thirty meters away, both went prone and started crawling forward.
Just then, Tommy, glancing up, suddenly shouted loudly, “Fire!”
Glolov immediately loaded the shell into the barrel.
As the shell trailed its whistling sound down, the two men immediately stopped advancing.
The shell exploded not far from the enemy casualty, but it failed to inflict damage on the two men attempting the rescue.
Had they continued to run upright, the shell would have been effective, but the enemy weren’t that foolish.
Just then, Tommy suddenly yelled into the radio, “Three Cannons!
Rocket launchers!
Coordinates A14E23!”
Tommy wasn’t calling for the artillery but Zhou Zhou, because he knew the artillery was too slow, but Zhou Zhou would respond quickly.
Sure enough, almost immediately after Tommy finished speaking, and definitely no more than two seconds later, a 107mm rocket whistled down, just as the two enemies began to move again.
Rockets couldn’t land simultaneously but exploded at extremely short intervals.
As Gao Yang counted, a total of twelve rockets came raining down.
Even though the rockets lacked accuracy and had a large dispersal area, their volume made up for it.
Watching the expanse enveloped by the explosive power of the rockets, Gao Yang immediately knew; those two trying to rescue their comrade were surely dead.
(To be continued.
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