afterglow

Chapter 15 Night Raid on the Cable Bridge
At this time, the convoy of the First Battalion had already driven westward for more than ten miles, and naturally no gunshots could be heard, but the signal flares flying up to [-] meters into the air with gorgeous tail flames could be observed.

In a truck full of soldiers at the rear of the convoy, several soldiers held flashlights and played cards, and accidentally saw bright yellow spots in the night sky in the distance.

"Huh? That's..."

"Is it a signal flare?"

"Oh Shi! Really!"

Several people turned their heads to watch, and then witnessed another bright yellow light point slowly rising into the sky, so they immediately shouted.

The squad leader sitting in the co-pilot's seat took a look, and immediately ordered the driver to honk the whistle continuously. At the same time, he also found a disposable signal tube, unpacked it, stretched it out of the car window and pointed it at the sky, and pulled the ignition on the rear. Huan, a signal bomb went straight into the sky with a "poof".

"There is a situation in the rear team, stop!"

A few minutes later, Zhou Changfeng became vigilant when he learned that someone from the rear team had fired two signal flares from the Nu River steel cable suspension bridge when they arrived.

"It's unlikely to be a joke. The three teams immediately turned around, and the rest of the departments stood by." He immediately ordered.

It is obviously inconvenient to make a normal U-turn in such a place with bad road conditions, so the soldiers immediately got out of the car, placed jacks under the truck, lifted the whole car up into the air, and then a dozen people worked together to make it rotate half a circle on the spot.

Soon, more than a dozen trucks headed straight towards the direction they came from, and Zhou Changfeng also changed to a motorcycle and followed closely behind.

The captain of the third team is named Xue Can. Just by hearing his name, one would think he is a sunny and tough boy, but he is actually a medium-sized, smooth-talking guy, especially good at flirting with women. Wait, Zhou Changfeng must ask this guy to leave.

The distance of more than ten miles may be reached on a flat and straight road with two steps on the accelerator, but it took nearly a quarter of an hour here.

The dense gunfire was getting closer and closer, and Xue Can on the off-road vehicle picked up the binoculars to observe, and it happened that a flare was raised in the distance, and the situation of the firefight was clear at a glance.

"Two machine gun firepower, rifle firepower is no more than a dozen, and there are no more than a dozen people in total." Xue Can guessed without thinking that the defenders there suffered from the night attack.

The convoy stopped about [-] paces behind the West Bank defenders, and the soldiers jumped out of the vehicle one by one.

Zhou Changfeng walked to Xue Can's side, talked for a few words, and then directly ordered: "The machine gun platoon is deployed on the spot, and flares are fired continuously. The heavy machine guns are arranged on the roof of the car, and the rest of the platoons start in tiers!"

In recent years, the Ming army has become more and more dissatisfied with the Type [-] heavy machine guns equipped with spring plates, and believes that they are outdated, so they have been openly bidding for air-cooled heavy machine guns fed by metal chains. Determine who goes to the end.

For example, the VZ.35 (ZB-53) heavy machine gun produced by the Brno Arsenal in the Czech Republic was highly valued by the Ming army. Quite, after all, doing it thousands of times on the proving ground is not as valuable as doing it once on the battlefield.

[ZB-53 is the number of the Brno Arsenal, and VZ.35 is the number given to it by the Czech Ministry of Defense, which is the predecessor of the well-known VZ.37 heavy machine gun. 】

The flares fired by two-inch, 64mm mortars are much brighter than the gadgets fired by the suspension bridge defenders using grenades or flare guns. The latter can only last for seven or eight seconds, and the luminous intensity is only more than 1 candela.

The leader of the platoon put on his helmet and waved his pistol, "Get ready to fight! Let's go!"

With a "bang", a flare flew over the Nujiang Cable Suspension Bridge. The luminescent tube hanging from the parachute was several times more dazzling than the bright moon.

Shuling and her men were fighting fiercely with the Ming army on the west bank, and the empty shell casings and blanks fell to the ground; while the Hoffmans and others arranged explosives amidst the hail of bullets.

They were shocked when they returned to the first battalion for reinforcements, and Mrs. Hoffman said in panic: "They are back, we must retreat!"

"Relax, relax...it's ready." Mr. Hoffman said easy a few times in a row, and then took a detonating cord and hid behind the battered sentry box.

He pressed the detonator, and the long detonating cord instantly detonated, and 24 one-pound packages of ballato explosives arranged on the steel cable also exploded.

On the two steel pillars on both sides of the bridgehead, several packs of explosives arranged around them were also successfully detonated.

[Balato explosives are commonly used explosives by the British army, and are made of a mixture of barium nitrate, TNT, and aluminum powder. 】

"Boom—"

The smoke cleared, and before the Hoffmans and their party had time to cheer, they were surprised to find that the suspension bridge was not broken? ? ?
The two steel columns were seriously deformed, but they stood upright; most of the eighteen steel cables were blown off, but there were still a few broken wires left.

Mr. Hoffman called god damn, and began to take explosives from his backpack for secondary blasting.

"Are you crazy? Here they come!" someone exclaimed.

At this time, the muzzle flashes of the convoy on the other side flickered, and a series of heavy machine gun bullets rained down. The mixed tracer bullets pierced the darkest environment before dawn.

The ear-piercing whizzing sound of shells also followed, and several mortar shells "boom boom boom" accurately covered where they were.

In an instant, everything was silent, and the dozen or so people who had been firing non-stop just now fell silent.

"The target is silent, hurry up! Get close to the bridgehead, keep the fire suppressing to prevent the secondary blasting!" Zhou Changfeng shouted.

Before, when the flash and roar of the explosion came from the other side, he thought the bridge must be broken, but unexpectedly it didn't?Overjoyed.

Thirty or so soldiers quickly jumped to the bridge, and then relied on the bunker to fight side by side with the defenders here.One of the squads rushed onto the bridge to try and see if they could get across.

Then they found that there were only a few steel cables left on the deck of the suspension bridge, and the entire right half had collapsed, and the steel plates laid as the bridge deck were also tilted. When they looked down, they saw the rushing Nu River below!

"Smoke! Fire the smoke to the opposite side!" The squad leader who led the team turned around and shouted.

After speaking, they put the rifles behind their backs, then stretched out their hands to build the ropes on the side as "guardrails", stepped on the swaying steel cables, and moved sideways like crabs to the opposite bank.

Under the fire net of heavy machine guns, Shuling's party, who had just been blasted to pieces by the mortar shells, had no room to fight back. With the pale flare light, she could see that most of her subordinates had turned into corpses. Mrs. Hoffman was badly wounded and dying, and Mr. Hoffman was likewise covered in bruises.

A few minutes later, a dozen soldiers who finally crossed the bridge rushed out from the smoke that was about to dissipate. Mr. Hoffman, who was trying to resist, was shot to death as soon as he drew his pistol.

Immediately afterwards, the black muzzle of the gun almost hit Shuling's forehead.

The matter has come to this point, she is dead anyway, she feels that it is a day to live one more day, so she hugs her head and falls to the ground obediently.

"There's a lot of panting here."

"You guys go rescue the wounded!"

The soldiers found several surviving wounded defenders at the bridgehead station on the east bank in a mess, and immediately began to bandage them; the few captured alive were also beaten and kicked to the bridgehead.

(End of this chapter)