"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.