Chapter 1090: 1012 no one can beat the future self
Preparing for a wedding does not require the Tang Empire’s military to do anything, so various exercises continue to take place as usual.
New weapons are constantly erging in the Tang Empire, so soldiers need to keep up with the tis, mastering the thods of using these new weapons and understanding their performance characteristics.
As weapons evolve, the demands on soldiers also increase. Old model tanks in the past had no rangefinders or infrared night vision searchlights. All these devices require human operation, and with more and more precision instrunts, illiterate people simply cannot use them.
However, this practice of acquainting themselves with new tactics and new weapons through exercises also leads to much grumbling among many commanders.
In the past, they had never fought such frustrating battles, recently they decisively and thoroughly lost when competing with their own people.
At the headquarters of the recently ford 9th Group Army, a staff officer just back from a business trip threw the docunt bag he brought back onto the table and complained tiredly as he massaged his shoulders: “There’s no training effect at all… It’s just a waste of ti, fuel, morale, and everyone’s effort.”
His trip was to study new tactics at the Staff Departnt, and the newly ford 9th Group Army also sent personnel to participate in two exercises, where the performance of two infantry regints in urban warfare could simply be described as miserably inept.
General Feng Kezhi, the commander of the 9th Group Army, also felt disgraced, as the troops he commanded suffered heavy losses in the exercises and were completely outmaneuvered by the simulated enemy forces.
The only consolation is that the other troops didn’t perform well either, with only the troops that were sent to Fengjiang to “learn” achieving so results.
“It’s not entirely without effect; at least it serves to heighten our vigilance,” an officer who had been recently promoting urban combat training ca over, opened the brown docunt bag on the table, took out the docunts brought back by the complaining staff officer, and began to read.
The only tank regint in the 9th Group Army’s commander was also very dissatisfied with the exercises he participated in: “Sending the crew of Tank No. 4, or the Panther Tank, to fight against Type 59 is like a clueless performance. What’s the point of that?”
The group army, newly established after the war, had not yet seen combat, so they had no battle honors, not to ntion that most of their soldiers were also new. According to the equipnt distribution thods of the Great Tang Empire, the 9th Group Army really didn’t get anything decent.
To this day, the armored regint is still equipped with the old Tank No. 4, and sending such tanks to fight against the simulated enemy forces’ Type 59 tanks is practically akin to courting death.
“Neither the range nor the penetration of the cannons can compare; the most outrageous part is night combat, the Panther Tank might stand a chance, but for us still equipped with Tank No. 4, without proper night vision gear, how can we even fight?” This regint commander, originally a cavalry officer from Qi Country, studied in the military academy for more than a year, and finally beca a regint commander, only to be utterly defeated in the exercises.
The enemy forces made no rational engagent and directly resorted to night raids, and on the very first day of the exercises, the 9th Group Army’s armored regint was sent packing ho.
Soone in the headquarters who knew the inside scoop laughed and continued: “Consider yourself lucky. You don’t know about the Air Force, where the J-6 unit from Dragon Island bullied a bunch of Butcher Fighter pilots. Isn’t that like beating up kindergarten kids?”
“You know what their commander said? ‘It’s because we didn’t use afterburners’! An afterburner is basically a function to temporarily increase engine output, allowing planes to fly faster. Listen to this! Does that sound like any sort of justification?” added the well-inford officer, fearing that a group of country bumpkins from the Army might not understand, and even explained what an afterburner was.
In fact, he himself didn’t know how fast a J-6 could really fly, as the specifications of supersonic jet fighters were still classified, with even the upper echelons of the military having only a rough idea.
The armored regint’s commander added a story about a brother unit’s ordeal: “The 1st Armored Division was directly dumbfounded when they engaged in an exercise battle against the Blue Army. They started with a barrage of rock-precision rocket artillery, using the latest technology… Goddamnit, rocket artillery with a range of 300 kiloters, more accurate than Scud missiles…”
This was indeed a bit too advanced, but the Great Tang Empire was indeed studying large-caliber rocket artillery and planned to outfit this type of artillery with gyroscopes and other equipnt to improve its accuracy.
However, the entire equipnt program had not yet started, so even the Tang Army themselves hadn’t equipped themselves with this sort of ga-changing “new weapon.”
As a result, in order to improve the troops’ alertness on the battlefield, the Tang Empire’s simulated enemy forces directly used the data, tornting so participating units to abject misery.
An officer nearby sneered and comnted, feeling indignant: “Be thankful! The 1st Armored Division bit the bullet and continued to advance despite losing half their forces, only to be struck by bombers! The whole armored division was unprepared for air defense and hadn’t even reached the enemy’s frontline before they packed up and headed ho to write a self-criticism review.”
The news has already spread through the military: the renowned 1st Armored Division has been thoroughly defeated, a truly unexpected outco.
The 1st Armored Division is unable to save face and, I’ve heard, has started a series of intensified trainings, intent on seeking revenge in the next exercise.
On hearing this, the commander of the armored regint that was eliminated from the exercise without even facing an air attack imdiately expressed his dissatisfaction: “Isn’t this exercise a joke? Isn’t our air defense the responsibility of the Air Force? The Armored Division only has one Anti-Aircraft Gun battalion; where do we get the air defense firepower from?”
In the past, the ground forces of the Great Tang Empire never worried about air defense; wasn’t it always the Imperial Air Force that chased down the enemy?
They used to worry about friendly fire, even emphasizing the need to cover the tops of tanks with the national flag or paint them bright yellow to increase identification and avoid being mistakenly bombed by the Air Force.
And now they want us to learn how to disguise our tanks with camouflage nets and branches and to reduce identifiable features? Are they out of their minds?
The officer spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness and said, “The Staff Departnt won’t accept any excuses; they say figure it out yourself, use camouflage, position air defense early… Basically, the 1st Division did not pay enough attention to air defense and needs to improve.”
The regint commander thought this was absurd: “What a joke, the ground forces going back to train for air defense combat, isn’t this slapping the Air Force in the face? When has the Imperial Air Force ever had an issue? When have we ever lost air superiority?”
The staff officer who went to the Staff Departnt eting hurriedly replied: “Well, we have lost it before; facing the ‘enemy’s J-6′, we did suffer heavy losses.”
His sarcastic remark left people torn between laughter and tears, and the officer, not lifting his head from the docunt he was reading, comnted dryly: “Alright, your joke isn’t funny at all. In theory, we indeed cannot defeat a stronger future version of ourselves.”
The past few confrontational exercises seed reasonable, though challenging, they were still within everyone’s understanding.
But now, with the ergence of so new military equipnt, the mock enemy data for the exercises is becoming increasingly unbelievable. Even as the highest-vision commanders on this planet, the commanders of the Great Tang Empire still cannot imagine what a scene it would be to see tactical missiles used in vast numbers like artillery shells.
The staff officer who had returned from a business trip reflected and found that the most useful exercise was still the recent landing maneuver on Dongwan Island: “Actually, with such frequent exercises lately, I think the most useful one was the landing exercise, the one conducted on Dongwan Island.”
“Indeed, the issues exposed by that exercise are truly alarming. We wouldn’t know how bad it was without testing; our previous landing operations can be said to have been completely inadequate,” chuckled a seasoned officer.
He had participated in the landing operation on Dongwan Island back then, which was practically child’s play; the troops had voyaged across the sea, and the soldiers were almost vomiting out their guts mid-journey.
Disembarking troops was also very amateurish, with too few ships and too few n; if not for the Mirage Country’s military on Dongwan Island being truly incompetent, they might not have won that landing battle.
Later, he was wounded in battle and transferred out of the Navy Marine Corps to take up a position in the Staff Departnt. When the 9th Group Army was ford, he was promoted as part of the core staff to serve in the headquarters of the 9th Group Army.
This veteran’s words imdiately resonated with many: “Exactly, compared to the past, that sampan-style landing was practically a joke played with the soldiers’ lives.”
They are not experts, though—a bunch of Army commanders discussing the level of landing equipnt can only be deed amateurs. But since they were idle and griping anyway, they could generally speak based on internal analysis materials they had already received.
Moreover, landing operations really aren’t irrelevant to them: compared to the limited numbers of the Navy Marine Corps, expanding the battle results still relies on the regular Infantry of the Army coming ashore.
As the 9th Group Army, which has less heavy equipnt and mainly relies on Infantry, there is indeed a good chance they will be chosen as the follow-up landing force, landing in the wake of the Navy Marine Corps.
So these headquarters officers really have started examining the details of landing, and encouraged by General Feng Kezhi, the commander of the Corps, they have even made so headway.
At least, they speak with authority. Just listen to one of the officers who spoke as if he were an expert on landing operations: “Also, the fleet arrangent for landing support, the distance from the enemy coast, control of air superiority, the use of airborne troops… there are really too many considerations.”
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