Chapter 144: Morale Controversy

The barefoot soldiers of the Ethiopian battalion beat the mortar at the foot of the mountain, and the shells fell on our positions in rows with roars, causing scorched earth.

The soldiers of the Ethiopian battalion were very skilled in using mortars. This can be seen from the fact that dozens of them controlled the dozens of mortars in an orderly manner, allowing the mortars to fire shells at our positions almost uninterruptedly.

I think the reason why they are skilled in using weapons is due to the same reasons as the volunteer soldiers. That is, the country is relatively poor and backward. Poverty means less ammunition, and backward means outdated weapons. Old weapons and insufficient ammunition make them have to practice their ability to kill enemies on the battlefield. Only in this way can they maximize the power of the few weapons in their hands on the battlefield.

However, the Ethiopian battalion will no longer have any shortage of ammunition and old weapons. The reason is very simple, that is, their big boss? - the United States will provide everything they need.

But even so, their mortars still cannot pose a threat to us. After all, it was their first attack on Shangganling. They were not familiar with the terrain of Shangganling and the smoke surrounding Shangganling made them unable to observe at all, and they could only rush to our position.

At the same time, I don’t have to worry that the US military will launch a large-scale shelling of the 597.9 Highland. Only five positions around the main peak are in our hands, and most of the positions are stationed with puppet troops. No matter how brave the Americans are, they dare not shoot artillery at our positions regardless of the lives of friendly forces. The consequences of doing so will not only split the United Nations forces, but will also cause the US military to be blamed by domestic anti-war figures.

So, we can now feel relaxed when we lie on the position without going into the tunnel to avoid enemy artillery fire as usual.

"Is there any movement in the puppet troops on both wings?" I asked casually.

"There is no movement yet!" Li Feng replied: "I have sent people to closely monitor the puppet army positions on the left and right, and arranged a few machine guns and mortars to prepare for blocking. If they have any movement, the soldiers will react immediately!"

"Yeah!" I nodded.

Now we are actually surrounded by the enemy on three sides. On the front is the Ethiopian camp, with more than a thousand people. On the left and right are the pseudo-second divisions that we have already experienced.

Our situation seems extremely dangerous, but I am not worried too much.

First of all, our back is safe. The enemy can indeed go around behind us to attack. It is not difficult for the puppet troops stationed on both sides of the triangle to achieve this. However, the soldiers stationed in the tunnels of our army will not ignore this. There are dozens of tunnel entrances on the backscene surface. As long as a soldier discovers the enemy who is attacking, he can quickly call for artillery fire support. At that time, the enemy's sneak attack troops will probably end in annihilation.

Our right wing is also safe, with only two insignificant positions on the right wing - No. 5 and No. 6. The puppet troops stationed on these two positions have only one platoon at best. With such a little force, it would be good that they could defend the position, so how could they dare to counterattack us? What's more, if they really do this, they have to pass through the natural danger of position No. 0, which is the ridge that is only ten meters wide when Huang Jiguang blocks the hole of the gun. We just need to arrange four or five people and two machine guns in that direction to ensure that the right wing is not lost.

Our main pressure comes from the front and left.

The frontal Ethiopian battalion was selected by guerrillas who had been fighting against the Italian army for a long time. Although they had some shortcomings in weapons and equipment, such as no heavy equipment, their combat effectiveness must not be poor. The combat effectiveness of the left-wing puppet army should not be underestimated. They fought with the volunteer army for a long time and were deeply aware of the combat habits and characteristics of our army. More importantly, the 537.7 highland is still in their hands, and they can continuously increase troops through the 537.7 highland to achieve the effect of uninterrupted impact on us.

Attacking from the left is also at a geographical disadvantage, but it is much easier than climbing from the front in any case.

But this is exactly the situation I hope to see. Because of this benefit, they will never give up the seven positions on the left. Moreover, because they have the opportunity to attack us from three sides and take back the main peak position again, they will definitely launch a strong offensive against us. At this time, it is when we kill a large number of enemies...

Just as I was thinking, a roar of motors suddenly came from the foot of the mountain.

"It's a tank!" I quickly made such a judgment.

I have been on the Korean battlefield for a while, and of course I am not unfamiliar with this kind of voice.

Sure enough, in a short while, more than a dozen tanks turned out from the foot of the opposite mountain one after another, and slowly drove into the Ethiopian battalion's position in a shape. But what surprised me was that I could clearly see in the telescope that the machine gunner on it was a US soldier.

I quickly realized that Ethiopia was relatively backward, so naturally there would be no tanks. This was the tank battalion that the Americans sent to assist.

The Ethiopian Battalion may have rarely seen such a lineup, or they rarely fought side by side with such modern equipment troops, so as soon as the tank troops arrived, the soldiers of the Ethiopian Battalion immediately burst into cheers. Some of them held their guns and shouted, some were excited to shoot, and some even climbed onto the US tanks to shake hands with the US soldiers...

The mountain was filled with joy immediately, and the morale of the soldiers in the Ethiopian camp was also shocked.

The Americans didn't think anything was there at first, but when they saw the soldiers of the Ethiopian battalion so enthusiastic and admiring them so much, they couldn't help but feel a little proud. They all stood on tanks and waved at the soldiers of the Ethiopian battalion like warriors returning from triumphant. Some even raised their machine guns and looked at our position like demonstrations. A row of bullets suddenly caused a cheer from the Ethiopian battalion. Only the volunteer soldiers were all cursing.

Damn! I feel a little reluctant to see this. These Americans are doing filming or something, and they are showing off their martial power in front of their allies. If you do not destroy your majesty, where will our volunteers put their faces?

Thinking that I didn't say much, I immediately put away the telescope and lifted the rifle up.

Li Baocheng and Li Feng beside him knew that I was going to take action when they saw this. They both raised their telescopes and observed the direction I pointed at.

In the scope, I silently observed the machine gunners showing off on the US tank and the cheering Ethiopian battalion soldiers, gently putting my index finger on the trigger waiting for the opportunity.

Although the visibility is not very good, I believe that it is not a big problem to kill a US machine gunner with the help of sniper lenses. However, this is not what I want to do. To fight, you have to shock the soldiers of the Ethiopian battalion with one shot, so that they can understand that equipment on the battlefield does not represent everything!

I did this not all for the sake of the Volunteer Army, nor for showing off my marksmanship, but for suppressing the high morale of the Ethiopian Battalion and the arrogance of the US military. By the way, I encouraged the volunteer soldiers around me, most of them were recruits and needed this very much!

Morale is hard to say. Sometimes it is just an important person who goes to the battlefield to command or good news, which can make the soldiers excited. Once the morale of the soldiers is high, they will be all consuming their lives and die when fighting. On the contrary, they will become more and more afraid and more uncomfortable as they fight, and they will feel unhappy no matter what.

This may be the reason why the weak side of the army often stands out and calls for a single fight when fighting in cold weapons! The ancients were so smart. The Yifang had a relatively small chance of winning. If the general came out and scolded, the other party responded to the battle, and it was not right. If you take the battle, you will hit the morale of the soldiers of the Yifang to a large extent. If you don’t, you will be clearly showing weakness and being a coward…

Now I am having this morale battle with the enemy.

My sight star faced at the foot of the mountain, watching tanks pass through my scope, and the Americans' heads swayed under my gun. But they never shot. They were lucky because they all wore helmets!

Time passed by minute by minute. Li Baocheng and Li Feng beside him turned their heads in confusion and looked at me, as if wondering why I didn't shoot yet. But I ignored them and still kept holding the gun and waiting quietly...

Suddenly, a US military entered my sight. Perhaps he was too excited by the Ethiopian battalion soldiers, and took off his helmet and waved hard at the soldiers cheering under the tank.

So... I gently tucked my index finger and the gunshot sounded!

The US military was hit by a bullet and hung it next to the tank, and the blood on his neck shot high like a fountain.

On the other side of the American, a soldier who was cheering just now had a big hole in his head. He even had a strange smile on his face before he fell.

One bullet hits the enemy of two troops at the same time. I think this should be rare on the battlefield!

At this moment, the foot of the mountain suddenly became quiet, the cheers disappeared, and the shouts disappeared, and the soldiers from the Ethiopian camp immediately fell down.

"sniper! (sniper)" Soon the US military realized the power of the shot, and shouted and all of them retracted back into the tank. In a hurry, some people didn't even have time to cover the hatch.

"Good fight!" Li Baocheng shouted: "Look at these turtle sons are still arrogant!"

"Everyone is a turtle shrunk!" Li Feng shouted at the enemy at the foot of the mountain: "Go back into your turtle shell! If you dare to come out, eat your grandpa's peanuts!"

With a coaxing sound, all the soldiers stationed on the position burst into laughter.

Before I could laugh for a while, I found that the US tanks turned around one by one, and then raised the barrel high, so I hurriedly ordered: "Cover! Cover!"

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard a raft of "boom..." and the shells rushed over. It seemed like a tornado was blew on the position. The entire mountain was shaking, black smoke, air waves, broken soil and gunpowders came over, choking so hard that people couldn't breathe.

But I know very well that tank guns are direct guns, and they have no choice but to use us on the top of the mountain. At best, they are just to strengthen their courage and help them.

The US tanks fired a fire, and the machine gunners then came out of the tank compartment again and fired at our position "Wow...". After a while, a shout was heard, and the soldiers from the Ethiopian battalion from Africa swept towards our position like a dark cloud.

I poked my head out and saw the benefits of Ethiopian battalion soldiers not wearing shoes.

The front slope of Shangganling is very sloppy. In the past, no matter whether it was the US or the puppet army, they had to hold their guns and run forward when attacking, and they could not maintain balance. Some people even simply put their guns on their backs and used their hands and feet to climb upwards, so the charge speed was very slow. Especially after being "censored" by countless shells several times, the soil was loose everywhere, and the enemy often had to slide back after climbing two steps...

But this Ethiopian battalion... these soldiers without shoes can easily maintain balance on such a sloping slope. They can even run fast on this sloping slope while raising their guns to aim!

This is why Van Vritte hasn't sent this army to the battlefield for more than a year, but only now has they been brought up!

I don't deny that Van Vritte did see it right on this point.

"Chief of Staff! The enemy is coming! The enemy is coming!" Several soldiers shouted in the direction of me not far away.

"What's the hurry?" Because it was Li Feng's soldier, he couldn't hold back his face and shouted at the soldier with a blushing face: "Everyone should take care of everyone, keep calm and listen to the command of the Chief of Staff!"

"Yes!" After Li Feng shouted, the soldiers raised their guns again and pointed at the enemy.

This is what the recruits look like, and they will inevitably become nervous when they see the enemy coming up.

The soldiers of the Ethiopian battalion climbed higher and higher. They seemed to be very experienced in mountain combat. They slowed down when they were about to run to the top of the mountain. They carefully used the craters and stone covers on the positions to grop and climb up.

But no matter how careful they were, from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain, the area became smaller and smaller, and the originally scattered team became tighter. By the time they grabbed a place only 30 or 40 meters away from our position, there were already a crowd of people.

"beat!"

Originally, I could have put them closer to fight on such a steep incline, but after all, it was my first time to fight against the Ethiopian Battalion, and I was not sure about their combat style. Considering that most of the soldiers were recruits, if the enemy pressed too close, they would be too nervous, so I immediately issued a battle order!

In an instant, the battlefield was lively, machine guns, rifles, submachine guns... bullets of various guns were fired down one after another. The loose soil in front of the position boiled like a oil pan exploded. There were piles of earth flowers hit by bullets everywhere, blood bursting out from the enemy everywhere, grenades everywhere, and layers of earth waves stirred by the explosion cylinder...

The soldiers of the Ethiopian battalion were stunned by a sudden rain of bullets from our army. They never expected that the volunteers would have such fierce firepower under the storm-like bombing and strafing of the US tank just now.

In fact, the puppet troops and the US troops who fought Shangganling knew that the direct cannons and anti-aircraft machine guns on the tanks did not play much role in our army on the top of the mountain. The soldiers in the Ethiopian battalion did not know that, and I suspected that the US and puppet troops were deliberately concealed in order to make them willing to come and die.

Since this is the case, then I think the enemy's main attack direction will not be the front... So I quickly thought that their main attack direction was the left wing of our army, and the Ethiopian battalion soldiers on the front were just baits they used to attract our attention and restrain our army's forces.

As soon as my mind arose, gunfire sounds came from the left and right wings of our army at the same time.

I didn't want to run towards the No. 8 position on the left wing with a gun, because I knew very well that the sound of guns and cannons on the right wing was also a feint launched by the enemy to restrain our army's forces.

Not far from the No. 8 position, just over twenty meters behind the No. 9 position, he ran over to see it, and was shocked. In just a while, more than half of the dozen volunteer soldiers stationed here were injured and killed. The positions were covered with blood, and the trenches built up in sacks were also smashed everywhere. The puppet troops wearing steel helmets and holding rifles were divided into three piles of triangular formations, and then climbed up as they bounced. The puppet troops in front reached out and pulled the grenades in their waists, and they were about to reach the distance to throw the grenades.

"Bang bang bang..." Without saying a word, I raised the rifle in my hand and there were a few bullets. The puppet troops in the rank who were about to shake the grenades were immediately knocked to the ground by me.

At this time, there was a loud bang, and a pile of sacks beside me flew up. I saw a red light at the corner of my eyes, and I hurriedly lie on the ground. With a shout, my whole body was in a hot area, and my hair was roasted.

I lay on the ground and climbed forward a few steps, looked up and realized the reason why the No. 8 position would be so difficult. On the left side of the No. 8 position, there were the No. 1 position and No. 7 position guarded by the puppet army. Although both positions were below, the gap was not large. The puppet army arranged three or four recoilless cannons on each position, and there was a burst of bombardment towards the sacks we had built...
Chapter completed!